#end seclusion

[where-the-water-flows]

hey like ok but. terrible awful au sparked by seeing a killer gifset of the aborted return to sigu sect

li xiangyi who staggers back to the sigu sect and hears all the complaints, all the things no one told him, all the ways he failed and was blind and caused this, hears how even his allies, his closest companions except his Shixiong who he drove away to his death who he got killed who he failed blame him for being arrogant, for being willful, for not being enough

and who is dying, who knows he's dying, walking fatally wounded, spitting blood, poison in his veins, the fury burnt out to smoldering embers eating him alive and Li Xiangyi died in the east sea and this corpse is just waiting to catch up; Li Xiangyi was always known for his speed so it's not a surprise he outran his own death (for a moment, for long enough to register the fatal blow, for long enough to hear the truth he was too blind to see in life)

and then someone actually sees him, and--

Sect Leader's miraculous return. Sect Leader's wondrous victory. Sect Leader's unyielding strength, Sect Leader who slew the demon lord, who walked into the east sea battle alone and came back bloodied but alive, and he'd already all but brought peace to the Jianghu, no one would ever have doubted him, how dare anyone say they did, never, not them--

(no one notices he's dying even when they're told, a decade after his first death; why would anyone look for it now, not even yet a corpse except to himself?)

Sect Leader Li is never the quite same, after the battle, after the loss of his Shixiong; pale and quiet and almost a ghost of his former self, slow to rouse and far more prone to just watching, to listening, to wandering in the quiet hours, staring at the moon like he's looking for answers he doesn't expect to find.

dies not even a year later, alone in the dark, his body found well past dawn in one of the pavilions, covered in dew gone pink at the corner of his mouth, like the last traces of blood washing out into the ocean, and--

well. the sect's already been all but lead by a ghost for a year. what's a few more?

[twilit-tragedy]

Shoutout to the MDZS donghua for giving Wangxian their secluded home in the middle of nowhere, with a donkey and two bunnies. You dropped this, king 👑

[itsladyliv]

This is The Art of Seclusion series on AO3 by @asirensrage 💗

[whatkindofnameisella]

me when there's 15 pages left of assassin's quest and fitz hasn't reunited with patience in a sobbing embrace yet

[goldfishpudding]

modern au in which wwx picks up a translation of watership down at the market because oh! lan zhan would enjoy a novel about rabbits, and the blurb carries insufficient warning of what lies within

[smartzelda]

Everyone can rip the theory/prediction for season 3 that Nine brought Chaos Sonic back and he's just chilling in Nine's crystal fortress during the robot battle in the teaser out of my cold. Dead. Hands.

[grewlikefancyflowers]

i find it funny when jc stans get mad at jc's donghua ending (the seclusion thing) because this is clearly more positive character development than what he gets in the novel? he's taking responsibility for his actions and reflecting?? novel jc is defined by his stagnancy and his refusal to improve himself, post-canon he's 'the same as ever, waving his whip around'. you guys should be happy that donghua jc is actively making choices that can lead to growth instead of remaining stagnant and still lashing out at everything he can.

[qourmet]

aaahm idk i blacked out & suddenly this was on my canvas. wen qing has finally graced my presence tho 🎉

yuan cut it, qing tried to fix it & made it worse, ning came home to a Mess & actually fixed it

[fragmentedblade]

Also, Ruan Mei was the one who lent the Phase Flame to Ratio, wasn't she?

[layzeal]

if i think abt the tragedy of 3zun for too long i go insane, because by all means all 3 of them should have died in that coffin. it'd be TOO fitting. sworn brothers, promising their lives and deaths to each other, stuck together in their cycle for 100 years until there's nothing left of them, until they've merged into one

just for, at the last second, one of them says no, and pushes the final piece away. his life spared, one of us will live to pick up the shards, forever separated from the others

[bellaroles]

Yeah, Quality over quantity. I've never ever read about a Sect consisting of one leader and 2 disciples before this. And not only that, this demonic sect is obviously quite rich and powerful.

Don't know how he did it but of course he's Yan Wushi. That one man against the whole of Jianghu.

Also after reading Peerless, I'm craving an extra showing Feng Xiao and Yan Wushi having a friendly(?) duel. Who's gonna win lol? Good old cunning YWS or young blooded peacock no.1 martial artist FX.

[shoechoe]

I forgot this line was a thing. TBH the Purple Haze Feedback explanation of the drug routes (or lack thereof) stuck in my head so much I forgot it was a retcon lol

[leatherbookmark]

ooh an interesting discussion! lemme gather my thoughts.

i do happen to (sort of) have a fic about it, and my thinking is as follows:

IT’S A DIFFICULT QUESTION.

if we assume that jgy is alone... he has to obtain: food, a roof over his head, money, information (where is he, how long has passed since his death, the current political climate, is there some Event, ie. a blight of stray demonic cultivators, that would make it easy for him to accidentally captured), a believable backstory, and i guess a handful of people who wouldn’t immediately blab that oh yeah, the dude you’re describing right now stayed at my inn just yesterday and he left for uhhhh this direction i think! thanks for the money.

if he’s on his own, then his options are really, really limited. even if he wants to at least check if jl and lxc are alive and okay, he’d have to resort to eavesdropping at the inns at first, if not in general, as both are, to his knowledge, sect leaders and not food sellers you can find on every street. the business gets extra complicated if he wants to get revenge on nhs or find his mother’s remains, because this requires a spy net, and those don’t just materialize from thin air, he needs to pay those people or make them promises he can later fulfill. hell, even -- it’s different in cql (because lxc stays, which says something, but also jgy does end up hurting jl’s neck) than in the novel (where lxc is just ????, but jgy doesn’t hurt jl at all), but i feel that freshly resurrected jgy can’t really afford the confidence that either lxc or jl would accept him with open arms or even just help him. it’s the same as with qs -- technically... but what if..., and while i do believe he’d wish he could at least explain himself, say what he couldn’t say before he died... if he wants to live, he has to be very, very careful.

if someone’s helping him (say, lxc), things still are difficult because now we’re playing Connect The Dots. if the secluded lxc vanishes one day, and then jgy’s body magically vanishes from the guanyin temple... that’s a whole Case, for wgxn at least, most probably for more people.

in terms of revenge... i don’t see why he’d do it, tbh. it’s more dangerous than anything. in terms of finding meng shi’s body -- he’s sait it in the temple, iirc, that if it’s not there now, then they probably won’t ever find it again, and while he was still hoping to run away, it doesn’t magically become easier to find something nhs has chosen to destroy and hide (scatter around?). and jgy is determined and ambitious, but he also wants to live. i’m not quite sure if these two options are even possible.

as for his ambition and the fact he’d probably go crazy from boredom if all he had was a cottagecore fantasy: yeah, probably! but i don’t think he’s necessarily coming back to the jianghu. as in, like hell he is, everyone hates him there and i think he has enough of that knowledge. if he could settle down -- either in the country or dongying -- and organize help for people on a smaller scale, i think it would be something he’d happily settle for. but if we’re talking, idk, even something as small as secretly letting jl know he’s alive and helping him be a sect leader via letters... they’d still have to watch out, because letters can be intercepted and jl probably shouldn’t jump into continuing his uncle’s legacy too soon.

in conclusion: i think he would get something to eat first :(

[amynchan]

I really do dislike the one ending that shoves Jiang Cheng into seclusion.

Like, no. The dude is too bitter, too angry, and too much of a control freak to delegate long enough for that to be even remotely in a possibility. He wouldn't leave Jin Ling to fend for himself, and he wouldn't leave his Sect behind like that.

Say what you want about the grumpy guy, but he cares a lot and shows it through aggressive actions (even if you don't like it, that's how he's written). Seclusion would be no where near in his vocabulary.

[thoroughlycollected]

i’mmm thinkin bout lan wangji. in the donghua and cql specifically, from the events of the wen indoctrination through the sunshot campaign even more specifically. [spoilers below]

like. dad-he-never-really-met’s dead, brother’s in charge now  but also missing with all the sect’s books, home’s burned down, fellow disciples dead maimed in disarray, leg broken – in his fanciest white robes and a big ass guan like war regalia marching his way to and through the indoctrination refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing the last lan heir (and possibly acting sect leader???) crack.

and then like, cool: false xuanwu is dead, the other hostages made it out, jin zixuan and jiang wanyin came back, wei ying is safe with his family, cool cool cool time to leg it back to gusu – no sword (leg still broken?) – to help rebuild cloud recesses and hold it down til lan xichen comes back. and lotus pier falls! war is coming! and he’s like. coordinating search parties looking for the missing yunmeng children  and the elders don’t like it. that one elder (donghua) comes to him to ask him to chill lest he brings the wrath of the wen back down on them; lwj’s like “but righteousness? not bowing to tyranny?” (v nice lan qiren comes in with the assist and say’s he’s correct). lan wangji doesn’t have much success with finding the yunmeng children in either adaption but he has major success visiting the leaders of smaller clans and sects and rallying them to the cause; lxc comes back with a force of 200+ men ready to fight because lwj went and met them and asked nicely. and now he’s got more free time because his brother’s back and in charge but not a ton of free time because there’s still a war on; what’s he do with all his extra hours? he’s night hunting for the civilians who can’t rely on cultivators anymore because they’re all at war he’s earning a title about it. he’s helping jiang wanyin take out supervisory offices like he’s supposed to he’s also sneaking around with jiang wanyin looking for wei ying.

just a busy busy lad so busy. so responsible! he sees something needs to be done, he goes and he does it. he’s just there ready to work all the time ready, willing, capable, doing his best and it happens that his best is often very good.

[mqfx]

im still thinking about it.

if jiang cheng doesn't put it together that nie huaisang manipulated things and then finds out later for whatever contrived reason (and once again jc ends up yelling in tears in front of everyone's salad--and perhaps this time it is actively manipulated to be so? especially if nie huaisang actually didn't intend for jin ling to be involved at all, although he certainly didn't care where his revenge would leave the baby sect leader... poor jin ling) that he'd been left in the dark about something Important, that would have affected his choices, AGAIN, wow! i think that would be the final straw and jiang cheng would just become a hermit. goodbye, everyone, only jin ling can visit! sandu shengshou shrimply cannot be bothered. only fish to nibble on his toes for companionship these days and maybe one of them is... hiding something too?

ACK i should've included this in the previous ask SKJDHFKSJDHF the abovementioned case is worst case scenario but at the same time, of all the people that deserves a little meditative seclusion as a treat it would be jc. and lxc too i guess but idc about him rn. i don't think fish can hide anything from anyone (look into their beady eyes) but at this rate he'll never trust anyone again. and for good reason

but yeah it would definitely be better for nhs to tell him directly, and sooner rather than later. i'd like to imagine that talk happening at the same time as jc/wwx reconciliation regarding the golden cores because 1) they did surgery on a grape 2) he did NOT sign any release forms! if my brother donated his liver to me without my consent or knowledge i'd be Pyissed! and 3) i love Stacking situations on him