#fang duobing x li lianhua x di feisheng

[larinaliel]

The meeting with his fiancee is to blame for everything.

-

Во всём виновата встреча с его невестой.

-

FeiLianDuo, first kiss

[eirenical]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook | Episode 3

A few hours later...

I legit forgot this moment happened until I rewatched this episode and I'm going fucking feral about it now.

So, a few facts laid out:

Li Lianhua is in possession of a very expensive and rare piece of silk armor that Di Feisheng was known to wear.

He uses it as a pot holder.

He picked it up on "the beach" a "few" years ago.

Reading between the lines of this set of exchanges, he either picked it up on the beach after their fight or he had it in his possession already. And either way, I'm losing my mind because this is what Di Feisheng's armor looks like:

His outer armor is usually dark or bright red. So this silk armor has to be an underlayer like the one you can see here peaking out from underneath his collar. Which means that no matter HOW Li Lianhua got it, Di Feisheng must have been at least partially disrobed at some point for it to have come off his body.

I'll uh... leave that to your imagination how that happened. ;D

But what really gets me is the use of the shirt. It's in kind of sorry condition because he's been using it as a potholder/trivot for (presumably) ten years. So that could be a sign of disrespect.

Or it could be a sign of exactly the opposite.

Because what's the one thing that Li Lianhua is quickest to brag about from the last ten years? He learned to cook. He learned to grow things and feed himself. And this is one of the few pieces of his old life he has left. He has the sachet from Qiao Wanmian. He has the soft sword that was a gift from Shan Gudao, his shixiong. He has the drinking gourd from his Master. All three of these things he keeps on him at all times.

And the one last thing he has is this silk armor from his arch rival. It's too conspicuous to wear or to carry with him. But he keeps it in his home, and he uses it every time he cooks. This thing he's most proud of. As if to carry Di Feisheng into this new life with him in whatever way he can.

And I'm just... going a bit feral about that. TT^TT

[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

[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.

[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

[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]

#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

[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

[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.

[eirenical]

For the WIP game, laugh??

Well, you just gave me an excuse to post a very belated...

WiP Wednesday

...so, thank you, @thehumantrampoline! ;D

[If anyone else wants to send words for the WiP game, please do! And if you want to try specifying a fandom, you can do so. If it's a fandom I've been in, odds are I have a WiP for it. XD]

Set about 6-12 months after Li Lianhua visits Tianji Hall to impart a little Yangzhouman-healing to Fang Duobing...

[Earlier snippets of this fic in no particular order.]

Li Lianhua put the latest of Xiaobao's letters into the box with the rest and tucked it away.  Most of his letters were much the same: effusive thanks, admonishments to take care of himself, threats against Wuyan's imaginary thieving impulses, offers of hospitality… and now this.

Li Lianhua lifted the box that had come with this latest letter.  He'd ignored Xiaobao's offer of gifts and assistance, because such things hadn't been necessary.  They had their garden, they had his doctoring skills, and Lao Di had numerous accounts that no one in Jinyuanmeng was even aware of, much less would notice if they were utilized.  They didn't want for anything… at least not anything money could buy.

It seemed, however, that Xiaobao was determined to send gifts, regardless of their need or lack thereof.  Li Lianhua slowly opened the box, then sucked in a breath.

The hairpin was delicate silver in the shape of a branch, with little fans of needle-like leaves sprouting from the forked end.  It was delicately made, but had a comforting heft to it, sturdy enough to take some rough handling.  It wasn't the quite the lotus theme he had been thus far drawn to in the hair ornaments he'd worn in this new life, but it was close kin.  Li Lianhua rans his fingers over it, a smile twitching onto his lips in spite of himself.

It was beautiful.

It also wasn't an entirely appropriate gift for a child to give an adult.  The craftsmanship was masterful, the detailing exquisite; it must have cost a small fortune.  And if Li Lianhua wished to spend that kind of money on his hair ornaments, then he would have done.  He didn't need a child picking out his accessories.

…then again, the money was already spent.  So what was the harm?

Later on, as he was making dinner, gentle fingers ran themselves along the new hairpin, where it was threaded through his hair, before drifting down his neck in a gentle caress.  Li Lianhua shivered as those hands were replaced by lips and a hint of teeth.  Just as Li Lianhua was about to put down his knife and forget about dinner for a while, those hands and those lips disappeared, replaced by a low grumble of a voice.

"The hairpin is new."

A pause.

"Fang Duobing?"

Li Lianhua returned to chopping up the vegetables for dinner.  "How did you know?"

"He might have mentioned it one or two letters ago.  Sent a drawing.  Asked if I thought you'd like it."

Li Lianhua snorted out a brief laugh.  "Did he, now.  And you neglected to warn me about this, why?"

Those hands returned, this time wrapping around his middle, A-Fei's body pressed all along his back.  There was still enough of a chill in the air from the last vestiges of winter that Li Lianhua appreciated the heat that came with the cuddling, but it was going to be far more difficult to cook with A-Fei hanging off of him like an octopus.  "That isn't an answer, Lao Di."

A-Fei buried his smile into the crook of Li Lianhua's neck, along with a few scattered kisses.  When he eventually lifted his head, Li Lianhua's own head was spinning just a little, and he'd almost forgotten his own question by the time Lao Di answered it.

"I wanted it to be a surprise."

Li Lianhua took a moment to regather his widely scattered thoughts before responding.  "…why?"

Lao Di stepped back, taking all that lovely warmth with him, as he slowly slid the hair ornament out of his own hair and began to strip off his outer layers.  Li Lianhua found himself shivering again… and not altogether from the cold.  By the time A-Fei had reached the bed and stretched out on it, he was completely, gloriously nude.  He crooked a finger in Li Lianhua's direction, and for just a moment, Li Lianhua had no idea how he was supposed to respond to all of that on display in his bed.

Then A-Fei smiled.  "Don't you want the rest of your present?"

…maybe he could get used to surprises.

[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.

[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)

[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

[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!