#canon nie mingjue

[canon-blorbo-facts]

jiang cheng initially tried to explain that wen qing and wen ning helped him and wei wuxian after the fall of lotus pier; however, he was immediately overriden by nie mingjue.

[the-wind-sings-quietly]

[bunbunbunbunnybnuuy-bunbun]

[mdzs-is-rotting-my-brain]

Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue

In this post, I want to discuss what I find to be one of the most misunderstood scenes in the entire novel: the altercation between Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao near the end of the empathy session during which Nie Mingjue kicks Jin Guangyao down the stairs and threatens to kill him. In particular, it is commonly believed that Nie Mingjue was expecting Jin Guangyao to condemn Xue Yang to death (even though Jin Guangshan was the only one with that power) and that the reason he approached Jin Guangyao in the first place was because he blamed him for Jin Guangshan's failure to condemn Xue Yang to death (even though Jin Guangyao had no way of preventing this). As the argument usually proceeds, Nie Mingjue's threat to kill Jin Guangyao made >!Jin Guangyao's subsequent murder of him!< justifiable self-defense.

Both of these claims are false. When Nie Mingjue confronted Jin Guangyao at the stairs of Jinlintai, he knew perfectly well that the latter did not have the authority to change Xue Yang's verdict. Instead, what he expected Jin Guangyao to do was to kill Xue Yang on his own, and this was something that was very much within Jin Guangyao's power. If Jin Guangyao could get away with >!the murder of the most powerful man in the Jianghu!<, he would certainly be capable of killing a prisoner without being caught—and even if he were, he would have two clan leaders for sworn brothers who would be willing to protect him. What he stood to lose, as he explicitly tells Nie Mingjue, was not his life but his position in the Lanling Jin Clan, and his insistence on prioritizing his ambitions over morality was precisely the problem.

Likewise, Nie Mingjue did not blame Jin Guangyao for the fact that Jin Guangshan had commuted Xue Yang's verdict to life imprisonment. He knew that Jin Guangyao had no say in that decision, though he did blame Jin Guangyao for complying with his father's orders to imprison Xue Yang. However, the main reason that he confronted Jin Guangyao was because he believed him to be complicit in the Chang Clan massacre and Xue Yang's many other atrocities, and because he believed that he should take responsibility for his actions and remove the scourge that he himself had brought into the world—and rightly so.

To understand why this was, we must begin, years prior, with Xue Yang's initial enlistment by the Lanling Jin Clan. As we know, Jin Guangyao was the one who recruited Xue Yang, who recommended him to his father, and who entrusted him with the reconstruction of the Yin Tiger Tally. Nie Mingjue knows this too, and states so explicitly during the staircase incident. All this was entirely Jin Guangyao's initiative, and he cannot blame his father, as he is wont to do. Yes, Jin Guangshan was searching for demonic cultivators at the time, but nothing other than his uncontrollable ambitions forced Jin Guangyao to intentionally recruit a dangerous criminal and hand him a weapon of mass destruction.

And Jin Guangyao was certainly aware, even back then, of who exactly Xue Yang was. In Chapter 30, Lan Wangji describes him as follows: "Ever since the age of fifteen, he had been a delinquent in the area of Kuizhou, known far and wide for his radiant smile, inhumane means, and merciless personality. Everyone's expressions changed whenever he was brought up in a conversation." This description refers to Xue Yang when he lived in Kuizhou, before Jin Guangyao recruited him and he was taken to Lanling. Even more telling is the following exchange from Chapter 49, which occurs immediately after Xue Yang becomes a guest cultivator of the Jin Clan:

Jin Guangyao walked over and spoke with a tone of respect, "Brother."

Nie Mingjue, "Who was that?"

After a moment of hesitation, Jin Guangyao answered carefully, "Xue Yang."

Nie Mingjue frowned, "Xue Yang of Kuizhou?"

Jin Guangyao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei Wuxian clearly felt Nie Mingjue's brows knit even tighter. He spoke, "Why are you wasting your time with such a person."

Jin Guangyao, "The Lanling Jin Sect recruited him.

He didn't dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side.

Qinghe, where Nie Mingjue resides, is over fifteen hundred kilometers from Kuizhou. The fact that Xue Yang's infamy has spread across China to the point that Nie Mingjue can recognize him by name indicates that he is not a mere petty criminal, but something much worse. While Jin Guangyao may never have heard the saying "When Xue Yang attacks, he leaves behind not even the chicken or the dog," I am confident that this was common currency in Kuizhou. Giving such a man any sort of official position, not to mention providing him with a dangerous weapon, is at best gross negligence and at worst outright murder.

Next, we must consider the atrocities that Xue Yang committed under Jin Guangyao's supervision. As an example, we can take the slaughter of the Tingshan He Clan, which occurs in the "Villainous Friends" extra. As I see it, Jin Guangyao's guilt in the massacre is indisputable (though I am sure that certain Jin Guangyao enthusiasts will disagree); the question is how much Nie Mingjue knew about it. Needless to say, an entire clan could not have disappeared without anyone noticing. Everyone knew that their was a massacre, and they knew that the Lanling Jin Clan had done it. Even if no one saw the Jin cultivators arriving in Tingshan and dragging the members of the He Clan out of their homes, who else would have the motive besides the man whom He Su had just compared to Wen Ruohan?

This is of course why Jin Guangshan goes through the charade of accusing He Su of murdering a Jin Clan member, trying him in a kangaroo court, and convicting his entire clan on trumped-up charges of treason. He knows that there is no way of keeping the massacre a secret, so he instead goes for the next-best option of persuading everyone that it was justified. This is the reason that Nie Mingjue does not confront Jin Guangshan or Jin Guangyao about the massacre of the He Clan: he has no way of proving that the charges were false, even if he suspects this to be the case (and I think he knows the Jins too well to be entirely swayed by their claims).

It is also important to recognize that the massacre of the He Clan was by no means a unique occurrence. MXTX's summary for the "Villainous Friends" extra reads, "The daily lives of the evil duo, committing crimes and wiping evidence." Given that these summaries can be found in the web version of MDZS along with the main text, they can be considered part of the novel canon. While this is not meant to imply that Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang literally massacred another clan every day, it is equally clear that the He Su and his family were not their first victims. Just before He Su arrives, we see Xue Yang experimenting on a sizeable crowd of corpses in his impromptu laboratory, corpses that must have come from somewhere (and, being a practitioner of modao, he would not simply take them from the nearest graveyard as is Wei Wuxian's usual practice).

In any case, we now come to the massacre of the Yueyang Chang Clan. Unlike with the He Clan massacre, we are not privy to the perspectives of Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan, so we cannot say for certain that they ordered the massacre. However, we know that this was the first test of the newly reconstructed Yin Tiger Tally, and that the Lanling Jin Clan had never hesitated to slaughter entire clans for Xue Yang's human experiments, so there is good reason to think that the circumstances of the Chang Clan massacre were quite similar to those of the He Clan Massacre. Wei Wuxian's suspicions, as usual, seem to be quite on point

Chapter 30:

Perhaps, Xue Yang destroying the Chang Clan wasn't entirely to avenge what they did to him when he was young. He might have been testing on this clan of live humans what exactly was the extent of the restored Stygian Tiger Seal's powers!

The particular choice of the Chang Clan was of course due to Xue Yang's personal grudge against Chang Ci'an, and one could imagine that Jin Guangyao had granted Xue Yang the privilege of choosing the next clan that would be eliminated as a reward for his success—but, at any rate, none of this excludes the Jin Clan's full approval of and participation in the massacre.

How exactly the Jins were planning to justify the massacre to the other clans is unclear. Possibly, they were hoping to have Xue Yang finish off the entire clan at once and leave no witnesses. They may have intended to come up with yet another false charge to levy against the Chang Clan *post facto*, as they did with the He Clan. Whatever the case, their plans were foiled by Xiao Xingchen, who managed to catch Xue Yang immediately after the massacre and made his crimes public before the Jins could come up with any excuses. At this point, Nie Mingjue finally has solid evidence that Jin Guangyao allowed his subordinate to slaughter an entire innocent clan, and it would hardly be a stretch to conclude that the other clans massacred on Jin Guangyao's orders were no more guilty of the crimes of which they had been accused. It is no surprise, then, that Nie Mingjue immediately storms into Jinlintai to confront Jin Guang … shan.

I cannot count the number of times I have seen the claim that Nie Mingjue should have taken up his grievance with Jin Guangshan rather than Jin Guangyao; as the argument usually proceeds, Nie Mingjue was too afraid to confront a fellow clan leader, so he instead went after the much less powerful Jin Guangyao. If this were really the case, Nie Mingjue would never have dared to confront Jin Guangshan in the first place, nor would he have so strenuously opposed his efforts to establish the position of Xiandu, nor, back before the Sunshot Campaign, would he have been so outspoken against Wen Ruohan's tyranny. Nie Mingjue can be called many things, but he was never a coward, and his decision to confront Jin Guangyao was in no way motivated by fear.

When Nie Mingjue arrives and threatens to execute Xue Yang on the spot, even Jin Guangshan does not dare to protest, having been cowed into silence by Nie Mingjue's rebuke. The only member of the Lanling Jin Clan who attempts to stop Nie Mingjue and save Xue Yang's life is none other than Jin Guangyao. Until this point, I think, Nie Mingjue was willing to ignore Jin Guangyao's role in the massacre and focus on Jin Guangshan (who, after all, was the clan leader), but he could no longer do so when Jin Guangyao went out of his way to obstruct justice and get his subordinate out of trouble.

What is more, unlike before when Jin Guangyao could have excused himself by insisting that he was simply following his father's orders, this claim is not tenable here—there was no way that Jin Guangshan would have expected him to defend Xue Yang when he did not do so himself. The only reason that Jin Guangyao defended Xue Yang was because he knew that finding a demonic cultivator who could reconstruct the Yin Tiger Tally was the surest way of winning his father's favor, and keeping Xue Yang alive would ensure that he stayed in his good graces. Not for the first time and not for the last, Jin Guangyao showed himself willing to sacrifice justice for power, and this was precisely what Nie Mingjue could never tolerate.

While Jin Guangyao did not succeed in persuading Nie Mingjue to relent, the Lanling Jin Clan was nevertheless able to worm their way out of the situation by promising Nie Mingjue that Xue Yang would be executed. It seems, from Nie Mingjue's words during the staircase incident, that Jin Guangyao himself was the one who made this promise \[Chapter 49\]:

Jin Guangyao, "He's already been locked inside the dungeon, imprisoned for life..."

Nie Mingjue, "What did you say to me back then?"

Jin Guangyao was silent. Nie Mingjue continued, "I wanted him to pay blood with blood, yet you have him imprisoned for life?"

Nie Mingjue was presumably given this assurance by someone in the Lanling Jin Clan whom he could reasonably trust, which would obviously not include Jin Guangshan, so it is not such a stretch to think that Jin Guangyao had promised Nie Mingjue that Xue Yang would not be executed. And note that after the Jin Clan goes back on their promise and imprisons Xue Yang after executing him, Jin Guangyao does not even attempt to deny that he intentionally lied; his silence at that juncture, coming from the silver-tongued Lianfang-zun, is quite telling.

Thus, by the time of the staircase incident, Nie Mingjue knew that Jin Guangyao had intentionally recruited a mass murderer, given him a prominent position in the Jin Clan, provided him with a weapon of mass destruction and instructions for how to repair it, sent him on a killing spree with that weapon, and then attempted to protect him when Nie Mingjue demanded justice. Both in universe and out of universe, Nie Mingjue is characterized a man who sees violence as his first option and does not think twice before drawing his saber, but as we see so often in MDZS, this perception is not a true estimation of his character. We see him again and again restraining himself against his better judgement, keeping silent and not voicing his (well-founded) suspicions, and only confronting the Jin Clan when the evidence is so clear that ignoring it would be a crime in itself. If, at this point, he refused to take up the issue with Jin Guangyao because of his personal debts, he would be placing himself firmly on the side of injustice.

I have given my arguments on why I believe that Nie Mingjue was right to confront Jin Guangyao over the Chang Clan massacre; now, I wish to address Nie Mingjue's behavior during the confrontation itself. As usual, Jin Guangyao begins with excuses. He claims that giving Xue Yang a life sentence is tantamount to executing him, as though Nie Mingjue had not yet figured out that Jin Guangshan was planning to let him out of prison as soon as he turned his back. Jin Guangyao denies having known about the massacre in advance and claims to have been "shocked." One might imagine that he was just as shocked at what Xue Yang did to the He Clan.

Finally, Jin Guangyao attempts to push all the blame onto his father. To be sure, Jin Guangshan was guilty of the Chang Clan massacre and of protecting Xue Yang after the fact, and he richly deserved to be kicked down the stairs by Nie Mingjue, but that does not absolve Jin Guangyao of his own role. He chose to work for his father. He chose not to leave the Jin Clan even after he found out what sorts of things were expected of him. He chose to hire Xue Yang. He chose to help Xue Yang slaughter so many innocent clans. He chose to protect Xue Yang after the Chang Clan massacre. Jin Guangyao likes to say, "I had no choice," but he always had choices, and he always chose what would serve his ambitions over what was right.

At this point, we have a very interesting exchange:

Jin Guangyao still wanted to speak, but Nie Mingjue had already lost all patience. "Meng Yao, don't speak such pretentious words in front of me. Your whole thing stopped working on me since a long time ago!"

Within seconds, a few degrees of unease flashed over Jin Guangyao's face, as though someone with an unmentionable illness was suddenly exposed in public. There was nowhere for him to hide.

Why, immediately afterwards, does Jin Guangyao drop the servile, conciliatory façade that he always wears in front of others and adopt a much more aggressive tone towards Nie Mingjue? Lan Xichen believes this to be a consequence of Jin Guangyao's frustration over the watchtowers, but MXTX rather unsubtly tells us the truth: Jin Guangyao is insecure because Nie Mingjue has seen him for exactly what he is: a man who is willing to do anything for the sake of power, a man in whose eyes the lives of others are worthless. He responds to these insecurities by becoming angry and lashing out at Nie Mingjue—but he knows perfectly well that they are the truth, something that many readers still do not.

Jin Guangyao then goes on a long rant about how Nie Mingjue, speaking from his privileged position, could never understand his situation and has no right to criticize him. Of course, it is true that Nie Mingjue is a clan leader with powerful cultivation, neither of which traits Jin Guangyao possesses, but he has never hesitated to help those less fortunate than him (unless they happen to be Wens). I would dare say it is the foundation of his sense of justice. During the Sunshot Campaign, when the Nie forces were already stretched thin, Nie Mingjue further depleted his manpower by assigning some of his cultivators to evacuate civilians from the battlefields. And during those same battles, let us recall who was it who took pity on a young soldier who was being bullied by his comrades, appointed him as his second-in-command, and gave him the best possible recommendation to a fellow clan leader. Even Lan Xichen seems to have treated Jin Guangyao so well only because he was repaying a life debt, but Nie Mingjue helped him purely out of kindness.

And what of Jin Guangyao? Does he, in consideration of his (formerly) lowly position, show kindness to those who are now below him? I think that the answer can be found quite clearly in the "Villainous Friends" extra. Jin Guangyao takes sadistic pleasure in taunting He Su over his fate and the fate of his clan, reveling in the power, or rather the illusion of power, granted to him by his father. Shortly afterwards, he burns down the brothel in which he grew up, and later on >!forces more than twenty prostitutes to rape his father. Does he care that these women are in precisely the same situation that his mother was, and that he is treating them even worse than Jin Guangshan treated Meng Shi? The irony of what Jin Guangyao does to the woman who protected his mother for years is quite intentional on MXTX's part.!<

In any case, what Jin Guangyao wants from Nie Mingjue is not sympathy for his situation, and certainly not help. He wants Nie Mingjue to condone his crimes and allow a mass murderer to go free, and that is something Nie Mingjue would never be willing to do—nor should he be. Even if Jin Guangyao would have to put himself in genuine personal danger to go against his father's wishes, he would still be in the wrong. There are certain crimes that cannot be excused by any extenuating circumstances, and what Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang did was among them. In any case, Jin Guangyao is quite clear about why he felt that he had "no choice":

Do you think that I'm in a steady position, here at the Lanling Jin Sect? Do you think I can rise into power the moment Jin Zixuan dies? Jin Guangshan would rather bring another illegitimate child back than want me to succeed him! You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well, I'm afraid of everything, even other people!

The meaning is clear: Jin Guangyao is refusing to kill Xue Yang because he wants to succeed his father as the Jin clan leader, and he knows that disobeying him will considerably reduce his chances of doing so. And it is interesting that Jin Guangyao happens to bring up the death of Jin Zixuan, which, as we know (though Nie Mingjue does not) >!was arranged by Jin Guangyao when he lured him to the ambush at Qiongqi Path. It is rather galling of him to justify murder by citing yet another murder that he committed.!<

Jin Guangyao then abruptly switches tack and begins to complain about Nie Mingjue persecuting him over his murder of the Nie cultivators during the Sunshot Campaign. Why exactly is unclear, since this has nothing to do with the situation at hand, though I suspect that he recognized that he was losing the argument and simply began trying to antagonize Nie Mingjue at this point. In any case, he claims to have been justified in killing them, because it was the necessary price of serving as a spy inside the Nightless City, which saved many lives by shortening the war. Nie Mingjue points out the obvious hypocrisy in Jin Guangyao's willingness to sacrifice others' lives for the greater good while refusing to compromise on his own ambitions to do what is right.

Jin Guangyao's response is "Of course we are different!" For the reader, this statement lays bare Jin Guangyao's psychopathic mode of thought and the complete apathy with which he regards the lives of others. For Nie Mingjue, however, it is something more. The incident that their conversation is now referencing was the single worst moment of Nie Mingjue's life. He was beaten, tortured, and humiliated, made to kowtow to the man who killed his father. He was forced to watch as his family and comrades and arms were murdered by a man he once trusted, a man he might even have called a friend. And now, Jin Guangyao is telling him that the reason he killed Nie Mingjue's comrades was not because he "had no choice," but simply because he did not care. Is it any surprise, then, that Nie Mingjue's response is to replicate Jin Guangyao's worst memory, when he was kicked down the stairs of Jinlintai on his father's orders?

Nie Mingjue then draws his saber on Jin Guangyao. Whether he would have actually gone through with his threat and attempted to kill Jin Guangyao is its own question. Personally, I think that he would most likely not have done so, judging from Jin Guangyao's reaction. The two times that Nie Mingjue genuinely tried to kill Jin Guangyao—after Wen Ruohan's assassination, and just before his death—Jin Guangyao was completely terrified and running for his life. His reaction here is rather more low-key:

Jin Guangyao only landed after rolling down more than fifty steps. He didn't even stay on the ground for long before crawling up. With a wave of his hand, he sent away the servants and disciples who surrounded him. Dusting off his robes, he slowly raised his head to look at Nie Mingjue. His eyes were quite calm, almost indifferent. Just as Nie Mingjue unsheathed his saber, Lan Xichen happened to leave the palace to see what was going on, concerned after having waited for long. Seeing the situation before him, he unsheathed Shuoyue as well, "What happened, this time?"

Jin Guangyao, "Nothing. Brother, thank you for your advice."

Clearly, Jin Guangyao does not think he is in any real danger. Even if he were, however—even if Nie Mingjue truly intended to kill him—he would not be wrong to do so. Let us recall that when the San Zun took their oath of sworn brotherhood after the Sunshot Campaign, one component of the oath was that, if any party should "think otherwise," his punishment would be to "face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb." In other words, Jin Guangyao agreed that if he violated the terms of the oath—which presumably excluded abetting mass murder—Nie Mingjue would have the right, or rather the obligation, to execute him.

Unfortunately, Lan Xichen intervenes to remind Nie Mingjue that Jin Guangyao has "constantly been rushing to and fro between Lanling and Qinghe" to play the Cleansing music that helps mitigate the effects of the saber spirit. The irony that the reader can only appreciate later is that, according to Wei Wuxian's explicit statement, >!Jin Guangyao has been playing a corrupted version of the music designed to make Nie Mingjue gradually lose his mind and qi deviate for at least a month prior (see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/MoDaoZuShi/comments/1fhmt4f/spirit_turmoil_music/) for an elaboration).!<

Nie Mingjue, unfortunately, is unaware of this, and it is for this reason that he relents and eventually makes the fatal mistake of trusting Jin Guangyao one last time.

A few days later, when Jin Guangyao returns to Qinghe to murder Nie Mingjue, he is not doing because his life is in any danger. If that were the case, he would never have dared set foot in the Impure Realm. The reason that he murders Nie Mingjue is because he knows that Nie Mingjue has finally seen through him and will not tolerate any more of his evil deeds. He knows that if he wants to continue to rise in the ranks, and eventually to succeed his father as the leader of the Lanling Jin Clan, he must continue to execute his father's murderous schemes. It is thus that Nie Mingjue becomes yet another victim of Jin Guangyao's ambitions, and it is fitting that he should be the one to rise from the dead and serve justice upon his murderer, and the murderer of so many others.

(Not my Meta. Shamelessly stolen(?) From reddit. I put a link back to the source.)

[nightsongofriverclan]

[the-roaring-of-the-gale]

[modao-enjoyer]

[domjiangcheng]

The definitive, color-coded flowchart guide to Jin Ling's many uncles.

[bishy437]

"Don't talk to me or my child ever again"

[randomness-is-my-order]

since i’m on my third mdzs brainrot of the year, let me just say: it’s enlightening how this story, spread over multiple volumes, goes over the simple but undeniably true reality that even while doing almost everything “right” you can still be horribly “wrong” in the eyes of society. how wei wuxian would bend over backwards to follow his morals (which have been narratively shown to be somewhat the standard) but still be condemned at large because he didn’t go about it the way that was perfectly compliant with what his social superiors and other authority figures expected of him. how “good” deeds in the mdzs world (and ours) will only be accepted and praised, coming from someone of lower social standing, if they are packaged in an unobstrusive manner–and sometimes, not even then. and it’s funny how some people miss that, how they wonder what would have happened if wei wuxian had been just a bit more tempered, a bit more subservient, a bit more polite. how the expectation of delivering his kindnesses in the most unhindering manner possible is somehow an acceptable train of thought–how the burden to do better is not unequivocally placed on people like JGS, Jiang Cheng, Nie Mingjue, the Lans, etc.

some people think that wei wuxian using demonic cultivation in the eyes of the cultivation world is his downfall. nevermind the fact that he literally isn’t practicing mo dao–this whole issue is NOT about what he’s doing, but about who he is. mxtx has made that clear at multiple points in the novels but the most glaring example is, ofcourse, how the nie sect is allowed to mess with resentful energy all they like and since they are a powerful enough sect, they face no social or political backlash for it–not in the way that wei wuxian does. even then, during the war, those people had no qualms against weaponising wei wuxian’s powers for their benefit. if it truly was about the dubious morality of using mo dao for them then wei wuxian should have been condemned from the get-go. but it’s not. it’s about the son of a servant wielding enough power to change the tides of a war and then surviving to tell the tale and continue to live with the kind of power that shouldn’t be held by someone of his station. it’s about people quaking in their boots because wei wuxian has shown himself as someone who won’t conform, who won’t become a dancing monkey for their tunes.

yes, wei wuxian is not some perfect angel saint but then, why the fuck should he be??? this expectation from some readers and the members of his world alike, that wei wuxian should have been the one to give it his all and more to avoid conflict is blasphemous. in the end, wei wuxian chose his path, stuck to his ideals, and went down throwing a big fuck you at the larger cultivation world’s back, while the rest failed to break the cycle of power abuse. the fact that it took them more than a year to see him to death is just a testament to how well wei wuxian handled things than some grace given by the cultivation world. the whole “wei wuxian’s first death was inevitable” is, for me, not about wei wuxian slowly spiralling and things getting out of hand. his death was inevitable because corrupt people with power will always choose to exploit and silence, will always choose to exert their will, will always choose to hurt those lower in the chain. and that is exactly what happened with the ambush and everything that led upto it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

We could have had it all...

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[canon-blorbo-facts]

nie mingjue repeatedly threatened to set nie huaisang's possessions on fire; however, it is implied that this was an empty threat, and that nie mingjue only actually did so after his cognition began to deteriorate.

[the-wind-sings-quietly]

[bunbunbunbunnybnuuy-bunbun]

[lgbtlunaverse]

Most annoying NMJ or JC take is when someone that dislikes them is like "oh you're a fan of him? *scoff* Well obviously you've only seen cql, where he was super watered down. In the novel he's a dislikable asshole and that's the objectively superior canon I'm working from instead of your woobified fanfic." Meanwhile your main canon is novel canon and you genuinely find novel Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue complex sympathetic characters.

[nightsongofriverclan]