#di feisheng x fang duobing x li lianhua

[eirenical]

Hey, MLCB fandom. We've been bombarded with some amazing photoshoots today, and I've been losing my entire mind over them all day, so GUESS WHAT. You all get to suffer with me.

For reference, the photoshoots and edits that inspired this post: [Cheng Yi in white] [BTS video of Cheng Yi in white, starring the photographer arm that sent this whole thing down a difanghua path instead of just a fanghua path] [@difeisheng 's edit/compilation of Cheng Yi and Zeng Shunxi's parallel photoshoots] [@la-muerta's edit of the photographer arm that made that vision a reality]

I don't have extensive context for all of this, but Di Feisheng, Fang Duobing, and Li LIanhua have gone to an event of some kind.  Maybe it's Di Feisheng' gallery opening.  Maybe it's Fang Duobing unveiling a new invention at a huge conference.  It doesn't matter.  What matters is that they all go, and they all have to get dressed up, and the event lasts all evening and long into the night and they don't make it home until well after dawn.

They get home and Fang Duobing has been in these clothes for far too long now and he desperately needs to get out of them and shower off the excitement of the night.  There's too much of a buzz under his skin and he's been talking everyone's ears off the entire ride home and he's losing patience with himself, so surely the others must be losing patience with him as well.  He needs a chance to let the buzz of energy die down a little bit before he irritates the others past the point of being able to deal with it, so he heads off to the giant bathroom to do just that.

Li Lianhua is quiet.  Mellow.  He didn't get drunk, per se, but he's somewhere in the slightly buzzed vicinity; enough that he's floppy and tired and half in love with the world and just wants to be petted and held, something he'd gotten plenty of on the drive home, but he still wants more.

(If pushed, he might admit that he doesn't handle crowds well, that he hasn't done since his days as a child prodigy fell far behind him.  Crowds do nothing but intimidate him now, bring back memories he'd rather leave far in the past, but he wants to support his partners, even if he has to blur the world a little to get through doing it.)

Di Feisheng has been rigidly well-behaved and contained all night and remains so even after they get home.  He has his own childhood traumas and handles crowds as well as Li Lianhua does.  He doesn't appreciate being touched by strangers, even accidentally, but crowds are a necessity in his line of work, sometimes, and there's nothing to be done for it. Now that he's home, he should be able to relax, but he can't.  He won't be able to until the hypervigilance fades.  So, he doesn't really want to be alone, but his choices… he could join Fang Duobing, let that inane chatter wash over him along with the water from a hot shower, to take the edge off his nerves.  But he doesn't want to be naked right now, doesn't want to be that vulnerable until his he's no longer twitching at every errant sound. So he stays with Li Lianhua.  To make sure he doesn't do something stupid while impaired.  It wouldn't be the first time.

But Li Lianhua is just... wandering around the room.  He's wandering around the room and slowly undoing the buttons at his cuffs… his neck… all the way down his chest to reveal the half-sheer singlet underneath.  He's wandering the room, undoing his clothes and gently touching things like it's the first time he's ever seen them, in spite of having lived in this room already for nearly three years.

And something about that soft wonder on his face relaxes something in Di Feisheng, finally releases him from the coil of tension he's been wound around all night.  So he does what he always does when a moment means something more than it should.  He pulls out his camera and begins taking pictures.

Li Lianhua notices, of course, and his gentle meanderings start to become a little bit of a performance.  Not a true dance, he hasn't done that in years, not since—  Di Feisheng cuts off the thought before he can dwell on it for too long.  They'd both lost too much in the accident that had ended Li Xiangyi's career and turned Di Feisheng into a fugitive for a decade.  Tonight isn't about them.  It isn't about that.  It was about their Xiaobao's accomplishments, about realizing the dream they'd helped him bring to fruition together.  And right now, it's about Li Lianhua, and a dance that isn't a dance.  Here in this room is the one place Li Lianhua allows a spectre of his former self to rise, allows himself to enjoy being noticed, being watched.  Because it's them.  Because he enjoys when the two of them watch him, focus on him, blocking out everything else but the safety of the space they've carved out here together.

And so, Di Feisheng takes picture after picture: Li Lianhua at the window, staring out into the garden, Li Lianhua in the hallway, hand settled gracefully on the railing as though at a barre, Li Lianhua in bed, rolling around and rumpling up the sheets, half asleep already the moment he's supine among the blankets and pillows. 

And he sends each one of those pictures to Fang Duobing.

Even Li Lianhua manages to take one very shaky selfie of himself sprawled in their bed, rumpled and bleary-eyed and barely awake.  Di Feisheng sends that one, too.

It isn't more than a minute later when Fang Duobing comes sprinting down the hall, clad in nothing but his boxers, wet hair half in his face, as droplets of water drip down his chest.  He's holding his phone in front of himself like a talisman, eyes narrowed accusingly at Di Feisheng.

Di Feisheng simply smiles and slides onto the bed to pull Li Lianhua into his arms for a kiss.  By the time it's over, Li Lianhua is draped half in his lap and whimpering, pulling at the sleeves of his shirt as he tries to peel it off and mold himself around Di Feisheng's body at the same time.

Di Feishing looks back up… and smiles wider.  "I didn't want to you miss the show."

Moments later, he has a armful of very wet Fang Doubing toppling them all over into the blankets.

It's undignified.  It's clumsy.  It's ridiculous in so many ways—more giggling fits of laughter than moans of pleasure.  And Di Feisheng wouldn't trade it for anything.

[evolutionsbedingt]

New Fic!

Ascend the Lotus Tower (2.1k words) Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV) Rating: T Warnings: None Relationships: Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua Additional Tags: Post-Canon Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Blind Li Lianhua, Terminal Illness, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng find Li Lianhua on the beach, but this is only the first step to saving the man.

[eirenical]

#GOD.#the way di feisheng could anchor li lianhua to the past and fang duobing could tether him to the future#but li lianhua was supposed to exist for nothing other than the present moment and then disappear like smoke#ghosts are left frozen as they were at their point of death and are unable to change beyond it.#mysterious lotus casebook#li xiangyi#di feisheng#fang duobing#li lianhua (via @difeisheng)

no but the THING IS!! Li Lianhua thought he knew the past. He thought he understood where he'd gone wrong, why everything had fallen apart. He'd made his own morbid peace with it by deciding that finding and putting Shan Gudao to rest would be the end to their sorry tale, and then he would die. He'd made his peace with never showing kindness to his past self. He'd made his peace with being a lonely ghost.

And then Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng elbow their way into his life, more stubbornly than he can resist. Their very existence is a threat to Li Lianhua's entire person. Di Feisheng is living proof that what happened 10 years ago was so much more complicated, and ending it is going to take much more than finding and burying his shixiong. Fang Duobing is there, his love for Li Lianhua a stubborn reminder that he is a whole person with a possible future that need not be a ticking clock. No wonder Li Lianhua was lost by the end. No wonder he felt adrift and stuck between life and death and a future and a past. No wonder he was too tired to keep trying, especially after the only cure had to be given away to ensure Fang Duobing's safety. No wonder he fell back on the pattern of making himself alone with the belief that he was letting others move on, when what he was really doing was running from the terrifying realisation that maybe he did deserve a future

[solariene]

►Li Lianhua & Di Feisheng | Sacrifice

My contribution to this fandom!

[tarsusingkirk]

fang duobing made one (1) friend (llh) and then was absolutely ecstatic to find out his new best friend Also had a friend (dfs) because that automatically meant he now had Two (2) friends! after he got over his jealousy ofc

[lilianhuas]

For science I took a poll on my yt channel regarding Li Lianhua’s hectic love life and well.

[potahun]

Fang Duobing being marked by the Spiral (aka the Fear in charge of gaslighting) would be so hilariously mean, just saying

[larinaliel]

The meeting with his fiancee is to blame for everything.

-

Во всём виновата встреча с его невестой.

-

FeiLianDuo, first kiss

[polyamships]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua/Fang Duobing Characters: Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi, Fang Duobing, Di Feisheng Additional Tags: Post-Canon Fix-It, wherein the canon ending was yet another one of Li Lianhua's schemes, Li Lianhua lives, Happy cottage-core ending, also canon compliant Summary:

Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng find Li Lianhua at the edge of the sea. He finally gives them an explanation for everything, and much more.

[eirenical]

I hope you don't mind, but I have to add your tags here, @difeisheng. TT^TT

#AND MY HEART ACHES FOR FANG DUOBING TOO#BECAUSE LI LIANHUA WAS SO WRAPPED UP IN GIVING AN EPILOGUE TO THE MOURNING OF LI XIANGYI#THAT HE DIDN'T THINK ABOUT HOW THIS BOY WOULD MOURN LI LIANHUA#LI LIANHUA WAS A MASK TO EVERYONE INCLUDING HIMSELF. TO FANG DUOBING HE WAS A PERSON.#ahem anyways. im so fucking sad#mysterious lotus casebook#mysterious lotus casebook spoilers#feihua#li xiangyi#di feisheng#mlc meta#ashton originals

Because YES. It's true. And it honestly breaks my heart more than a little because A-Fei was starting to build that connection too. And I agree that in this story told in this way, it had to end with Li XIangyi exiting the narrative. And I LOVE the ending as it stands, and I think you're right about how it did. But there is no small part of me that wishes that he could have exited the narrative by committing to being Li Lianhua in truth and starting a different story.

That's not THIS story.

But sometimes I wish. TT^TT

right then, i know i've already discussed this with several people in bits and pieces, but i'm going to attempt to organize my thoughts about the intersection of di feisheng and li lianhua's endings in one post.

i've already touched before on how i think li lianhua moves through the story as a restless ghost. his aim is to tie up the loose ends of the life li xiangyi exited, before his time runs out, and that's why so many interactions with characters from his old life are about either mending relationships or ensuring they've both moved on with finality. by the end of the show, there's just one person who knew li xiangyi who hasn't gotten either of those, and that's di feisheng, waiting by the sea. he's still fixated on the duel, fixated on the competition between himself and li xiangyi, whether it's as foes or friends.

di feisheng's arc throughout the show sees him as someone who goes back and breaks cycles of his past. but li xiangyi is the part he can't shake off, the part he's still obsessed with. he's still insistent on defining himself and his worth by where he stands in relation to a man li lianhua has told him is dead.

the point where we don't see him do this is when his memory is lost, and that's why di feisheng's time as a-fei is so important to the story. we see him begin to define himself as a person in a world where the name of li xiangyi means nothing to him. we watch him start to figure out who he is free of ten years of agonizing over winning/losing to this man, and all the baggage of the past carried with him. it's something di feisheng didn't get a chance at before, and as it stands, maybe it's not too late for him to continue on that path. li lianhua, at least, doesn't think it's too late.

and so this is what li lianhua has to do to attain this last bit of closure, end this last relationship: he has to force di feisheng to let him go.

this is why it stands out so much to me that the goodbye letter li lianhua signs as li xiangyi is addressed to di feisheng. li lianhua is concerned with resolving li xiangyi's troubles, and so with the goodbye to di feisheng, his work is done. the fact that we watch di feisheng accept li xiangyi's death in the epilogue with "the bright moon has already sunk into the western sea, to where does the grieving wind urge the eight directions" is an important follow-up to this last action, because it means that it worked. di feisheng is mourning, yes, but with more certainty than he was at the beginning of the show, frozen in place emotionally for a full decade. his explicit acknowledgment that li xiangyi is dead now must push him forward in some direction to search for meaning in this world, and his life, outside of li xiangyi, rather than standing still. this way, their story truly comes to a close.

all this is also why it makes sense in my opinion that whatever image of li xiangyi is standing by the sea in the end isn't really there. he might be a ghost, or imagined by di feisheng and/or fang duobing, but that's not the real, living li xiangyi. because if he hasn't died or fully, completely exited the narrative, then it means that none of this effort succeeded. "it's hard to be a dead person", li lianhua said. for him to settle everything between li xiangyi and di feisheng— the conflict this story begins and ends with— and to free these two people of each other, li xiangyi must be dead to di feisheng. in the story this show chose to tell, when it came these characters, this is how it had to end.

[junemermaid]

[fic] the long winds of autumn

Fandom: Mysterious Lotus Casebook Pairing: Di Feisheng x Fang Duobing x Li Lianhua (established and still exasperatedly devoted, with shades of the secret third thing) Rating: M Word Count: 8,700 (complete one-shot) Summary:

Fang Duobing has a most excellent idea. It sends Li Lianhua into a bit of a spiral, and Di Feisheng to consider where and how he can belong. They work through it together.

-> read on ao3.

hi fandom, I come bearing dubious gifts (yet again). the point of this one is mostly:

post-canon difanghua roaming the jianghu, a few years on

Fang Xiaobao accidentally on purpose proposes marriage

Li Lianhua has to subsequently haunt the narrative about it (he is very much alive and involved tho)

Di Feisheng is very vexed by this whole attachment thing

[eirenical]

Once again it's long past WiP Wednesday, but I started work on a new fic that was supposed to be short and is looking like it will be... not that. 😅 So, have a snippet of a belated birthday fic for Li Lianhua. Enjoy? ^_^

*

The package was clumsily wrapped, brightly-colored paper folded about it in ways that let the wind pass through as easily as Lianhualou's walls once had.  Before Fang Duobing with his endlessly clever mechanic's hands and Di Feisheing and his boundless strength and stubborn good will had inexorably mended what had once been so haphazardly done.  This package showed none of that care, none of that attention to detail, left sitting on the kitchen table for Li LIanhua to find as if its giver couldn't be done with the thing quickly enough.

A warm hand landed on the small of his back, the bright staccato of an excited voice breathless in his ear belied that impression almost immediately thereafter.  "Aren't you going to open it?"

Li Lianhua rolled his eyes sideways to find Fang Duobing's gaze fixed on him, a wide smile on his face as he all but bounced in place beside him.  Li Lianhua turned his eyes back to the gift, sighing softly as he said, "What on Earth is it for?"

The warm hand left his back as Fang Duobing reached out to grab the package and dump it in his hands.  Half the wrapping paper fell to the floor.  "Happy birthday!"

Shaking his head, Li Lianhua shifted the package between his hands, the weight and warmth of it comforting, though he had no idea what it was.  "Xiabao, it isn't my birthday."

Fang Duobing gave him a nudge until he sat down at the table, package in hand and motioned him to open it.  "Well, it could be, for all you know.  So stop fussing and open your gift."  As Li Lianhua finally started pulling the paper apart, Fang Duobing loomed over him, watching him like a hawk waiting for the right moment to strike.  Sure enough, the moment the last of the paper fell away, Fang Duobing reached forward and pulled the gift from Li LIanhua's hands to hold it up to its full size.

A blanket.

A warm, thick blanket, the likes of which were common in Tianji Hall and had been at Sigumen but that Li LIanhua had never been able to afford for Lianhualou.  It was easily large enough to cover three.  He rose and reached out a hand to run down the front of it.  It was even softer than it looked.

Another hand came to rest at the hollow of his waist, its owner's warmth pressing lightly along his entire back.  With Di Feisheng behind him and Fang Duobing waiting eagerly in front of him, a flutter started in his stomach, then moved to beat against the inside of his ribs in a way that left him shaking. Fang Duobing stepped closer, half wrapping the blanket around him as he pressed their foreheads together.  Smiling, he said simply, "I'm glad you like it."

[olderthannetfic]

if i'm posting a fic about a poly pairing, is it good practice to tag all the sub ships (x/y, y/z, x/z) in addition to the poly pairing x/y/z?

--

No. It is extremely bad practice.

The only time you should tag the two-person ships is if the fic has a heavy focus on one or more of them by itself and not in the context of the OT3. For example, if X and Y spend a bunch of the fic getting together and then Z shows up late in the game and it ends in OT3, you might want to tag both X/Y and X/Y/Z.

I've done that on some fics when I wanted to really emphasize that a lot of the content focused on X/Y, especially if it's the least common of the three 2-person options in the fandom.

However, I didn't bother in my latest fic of this type because the whole Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing part is them both being in mourning for Li Lianhua, so the specter of his presence is hovering over their interactions the whole time. The overall intent is very OT3. The part of the fandom that is going to be interested in this fic is, for the most part, people who ship the OT3.

[mx-myth]

Mlc au where li lianhua just. Doesn't re-enter the jianghu. He has a couple of Big Realisations and disassociates so hard that li xiangyi is permanently dead now and he's not touching that shit with a ten foot pole.

He still meets fang duobing except they meet during on of fdb's probationary cases because he's like, sprained his wrist. He's also bleeding a lil' bit everywhere so when he sits down at the booth where llh has set up shop llh is like who is this yucky boy. Fdb is like daifu I'll pay you x amount of money to heal me. Llh ups his first impression to yucky rich boy.

Anyway it turns about when llh isn't there to guide him fdb is really reckless. But guess what! He always meets li-daifu wherever his case is! Isn't it a miracle? (Llh is long-suffering. Why does this (his, unfortunately) yucky little rich boy keep coming back to him)

Very soon fdb starts giving him gifts instead of money (because he has no money management skills). He starts off small like flowers and little soaps then desserts and then suddenly he's showing up with a set of fancy robes for llh (who had seen fdb looking at him all intently when he was estimating his measurements and thought he was checking him out. It was the start of a minor - soon to be major and ongoing - crisis) (but it turns out he likes the fucking robes).

At some point fdb runs into A Spot during one of his cases and declares, to everyone in the vicinity, that he's li xiangyi's disciple. This is overheard by di feisheng's spymaster (I CANNOT remember what his name is) who reports it back to dfs, who is like hmm, interesting.

And obviously, the most logical response here is to kidnap him and announce that he has li xiangyi's disciple held hostage.

Llh hears of this, scoffs because xiaobao can take care of himself, paces for ten minutes, and then grumbles to himself while grabbing his sword and booking it. He bursts onto the scene and it's all like:

Dfs: ...li xiangyi? You're alive?

Fdb: li lianhua-daifu!!! ...why do you have a sword.

Dfs: oh, i get it, you went into hiding. *shaking fdb* is this your new boytoy

Llh: di feisheng! Unhand him, he's a paying customer!

Dfs, nodding: I see. Boyfriend then. But you haven't had the balls to court him properly, huh

They have an argument that is actually just them exchanging small talk. Fdb is slowly dying because this is dfs, villain of the jianghu, so why is he having a reaction to him scruffing him like a kitten? Also, is li-daifu actually li xiangyi???

Long story short about three weeks later dfs arrives for dinner. And then he just. Keeps showing up. The third time he shows up fdb is there also having dinner with llh. They bristle at each other like street cats but eventually it becomes a Thing That They Do.

(In the background dfs is picking up the fucking slack and destroying the whole nanyin revival plot. Fdb keeps unintentionally and accidentally foiling related plots as he takes cases)

(Fdb: I found this in my latest case and I don't know what it is. *holds up the Rama heavenly ice shard or whatever it is*

Dfs: ...it's a screwdriver.

Fdb, who has never seen a screwdriver in his life*: oh, okay *sticks in a drawer of the lotus tower and immediately forgets about it*)

(Dfs thinks it's amusing bordering on ridiculous because fdb just keeps bringing these artifacts back. But he doesn't know what they are and neither does llh so the lotus tower is turning out to be a really safe place to put them)

Also because this version of llh actually knows from the start that he wants to live. He just never actively looked for a cure because he didn't have much to live for in his little life. But now he does so he accepts the Styx flower or whatever dfs finds for him and they all live happily ever after.

(*Edit: oh I'm an idiot. Of COURSE fdb knows what a screwdriver is. He lives with the Queen of Inventing Clever Things (master he my beloved) for god's sake. I think if he knew dfs was lying to him he wouldn't be able to let it go, since we all know how he is. So I don't know what dfs would actually tell him lmao)

[la-muerta]

Writing Patterns

rules: share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns!

Thank you for the tag @yeliuxi! <3

1. one hand on the trigger (the other hand in mine) // 暗线, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

Li Xiangyi turned the collar of his leather jacket up and quickened his pace, trying not to look around too obviously as he checked if he was being followed.

2. again and again we look up to the moon // 细算浮生千万绪, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the ship tipped forward with a gut-heaving lurch as the huge wave it was riding crested and fell.

3. Lightwood After Dark, Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood (Shadowhunters), Rated T

The party at The Institute is in full swing now, with everything going according to plan — the food and drinks that had been catered presented exactly as he instructed, no tech issues with any of the screens and photobooths, the music list more or less bearable thanks to Simon, and every part of the theme perfectly executed.

4. no sweeter taste // 特别甜, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated G

"We don't need a recipe, of course your Lao Ba knows what goes in a cake," Li Lianhua says distractedly while digging in the depths of the kitchen cabinets for a bowl big enough to mix the batter in.

5. the moon in the water // 镜中花，水中月, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

The man that Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing find on the beach is Li Xiangyi, but isn't.

6. can't read my poker face*, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

Alone in his dark apartment, Li Lianhua is hunched over his laptop, the video that is playing on his screen reflected in the lenses of his glasses.

*this is a collaborative work but I happened to be the one who wrote the first line

7. being a teenager sucks, platonic junior quartet + Lan Sizhui x Jin Ling (MDZS), Rated T

"Why are we even here?" Jin Ling complained as he frowned at the rundown building looming in front of them.

8. now I've got you in my sights // 你眼里的一首情歌, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

The light this morning is perfect, the first proper sun they've had after days of gloom and rain, coming in soft and warm when it filters through the gauzy curtains.

9. this is the nonsense of love // 只想跟你说些温暖的废话, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

Friday afternoons just after lunch, Li Xiangyi decides, were not meant for sitting in Di Feisheng's office trying to make his brain concentrate on Fang Duobing's weekly department reports.

10. it ends or it doesn't // 奈何吟, Di Feisheng x Li Lianhua (MLC), Rated E

Li Lianhua can feel the bird's frantic heartbeat under his fingertips when he picks it up, life caged in fragile bone and soft feathers.

--

Looks like my first lines usually have some sensory description. I remember that the last time I did this tag game, most of them started with dialogue, so it's interesting that I seem to have changed that habit.

No-pressure tagging: @peridot-tears @howdaretrashships @exitvelocities @junemermaid @omgpurplefattie and anyone else who feels like playing!

[tarsusingkirk]

hello yes i still need li lianhua alive and well and having the best and/or worst sex of his life with fang duobing and di feisheng