#jin guangyao i am coming for you too

[monabee-draws]

Me, obsessed with Jiang Cheng's particular brand of inferiority complex: Okay but what if he'd met someone who put him first and made it known? How would this break him? Would his issues with Wei Wuxian be dulled by knowing that he isn't actually 'last' at everything in others' eyes? That someone sees beyond the temper he inherited from his mother. Competes with him at his level in a way that doesn't result in him failing more in his parents' eyes.

Also what if Jiang Yanli was actually allowed to be a competent cultivator and participated more heavily in all the events leading up to and during the Sunshot campaign? Would WWX and JC's fates at the Lotus Pier massacre been different? What if we knew Lan Jingyi's parents and they had roles in the story? What if some of the sect members Xueyang killed over the years survived to get revenge?

I have a simple solution to all of these questions and I've been writing headcanons for days/canon divergence but I'm too scared to actually dip my toes into writing these characters yet. Maybe one day.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

We could have had it all...

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Sorry if I'm misremembering something you said, (or if I alr sent this ask, I am Forgetful), but why do you think novel!LXC recovers post canon but CQL!LXC commits suicide?

big mood re: the forgetfulness, anon, my memory is a tea sieve!

quickly just to give credit where credit is due, i first started thinking about this possibility after reading some meta on the subject first by @xiyao-feels and then through some follow-up discussion with @confusion-and-more so i am certainly not the first blogger in the jgy stan corner of the fandom to have this thought! the tl;dr version of why some of us think novel canon lxc survives (not recovers--i do not think he ever recovers from jgy's death, and yes, i am being very specific about saying it IS jgy's death that destroys him, but i can come back to that in another post) is because he does remain in that position in the post-canon extras, even if he is definitely aboard the struggle bus (e.g., his body language and detachment from what is going on during the banquet extra).

to enter Speculation Station™️ however, as long as there is a possibility of jgy (and nmj, too, to some extent, but i truly believe jgy would be his priority) either regaining his spiritual cognition, or some other means of helping his soul pass on peacefully, i think lxc would be committed to making one of those two possibilities happen. but also, strictly in terms of what we are given in the text, lxc remains sect leader, even if he's a ghost of his former self in terms of his ability to function normally. if he was no longer sect leader for whatever reason, lwj would have to contend with that, and i think mxtx would have written about it because wangxian are her special little guys. ....(derogatory)

in cql, however, here's what we know about the state of the jianghu after the guanyin temple sequence:

nie huaisang is not the new chief cultivator--lan wangji is, which is... certainly a choice;

there is no precedent in the canon for a chief cultivator to assume leadership of the jianghu without also being the leader of their own sect;

sect leaders remain in charge of their sects until their deaths. there's no abdication or retirement;

it follows, then, that for lan wangji to become sect leader, lan xichen has to be dead.

like... i suppose there are some assumptions at work here; e.g. would his death have to come about as suicide? couldn't it have happened through other means? but i think they are assumptions grounded in what we actually see in the show: lan xichen was willing to die with jin guangyao, and then is not seen or mentioned again after that last devastating glimpse we see of his face while the junior quartet talk around him, right after jin guangyao's death. i can't track down my screenshots now because my collection is such a disorganized mess T_T but if i can find them i'll reblog this post with them included, because it's... it's bleak.

anyway, there you go: my thoughts about why i think novel canon lxc survives, but cql canon lxc does not.

[acequinz]

I think mdzs would be a very unsatisfying novel if you don't actually end up loving wangxian at least a little.

Cause see at first I did not care much for wangxian.

I liked Wei Wuxian a lot(god bless xiao Zhan, he was too fucking good in that role). But not wangxian so the untamed felt very unsatisfying but not bad, I had too many questions about the side characters, from nie huisang to jin ling.

I kept digging for more and more info because I needed the answers.

Also ended up learning more about Wei Wuxian, I think I prefer the novel version because I do enjoy the more colourful space it gives him so everything that happens is not just him being a victim to one big scam.

And it's not until that colour comes in that LWJ begins to seem more interesting too, in this I end up preferring the untamed LWJ, because well I liked how they showed the development of wangxian and got an appreciation for it that I didn't have before.

So once wangxian settled for me the untamed did not seem so dissatisfying.

Now do not get me wrong I am still very obsessed with Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao that I need more and more of them but the story just does not feel as hmm.... Boring is not the word I am looking for but like... It just wasn't as stimulating to me until I truly began to love Wei Wuxian as a flawed character rather than just one big victim to everyone except Jiang Yanli.

[wifiwuxians]

Nie Huaisang :))

First impression: "Oh my god somebody with short hair, that's wild. Is he like the baby of the group or something?"

Impression now: Grrrr. It's. It's complicated, okay? Because on one hand I admire the commitment to the bit, right, and I do love me a good mastermind, and what he pulled off was admirable. But also he's a fucking snake and I can't stand how he faced ZERO CONSEQUENCE for his shit I'm sorry I can't help it. And yet I still love him anywhere other than canon because he's fun and funny and he's really pretty and Sangyao is easily like top 5 MDZS ships for me right now so WHO knows. But his position in fandom frustrates me and I think part of why is because I haven't really seen a whole lot of people acknowledge him as sinister and sneaky, but keep in mind I don't actively engage in fandom either or seek out character takes so it might be out there more than I think

Favorite moment: When he runs towards Jin Guangyao in the manhua while making kissy lips lmao despite all I've said above I really do just want them to run off into the woods together (conversely, when he keeps the hat. That makes me go insane. FERAL)

Idea for a story: I'm so boring at this point but him visiting a brothel For Inspiration for his art and ending up seeing someone with a somewhat androgynous, very fine, beautiful face, and asking him if he'd perhaps consider modeling for him for a hefty sum and the person being rather shy and averting his gaze and it's Meng Yao. Of course it's Meng Yao I tricked you into walking into my Sangyao Palace

Unpopular opinion: I think his whole grand plan was, though unquestionably, only really partially about Nie Mingjue being killed. I think it was also for himself. For his personal betrayal. I need to see him sitting at the antagonist table more often or I am going to lose it. (Don't come for me, he might not be a villain because he's on the 'good guy's' side and he brought down the 'bad guys', but his methods are antagonistic! He keeps putting people in danger and even gets some of them killed LOL)

Favorite relationship: With Jin Guangyao! Surprise! Their dynamic makes me crazy. When I think about how much Nie Huaisang must have loved Jin Guangyao and looked so forward to his visits, even going so far as to see him as the only one truly in his corner, it makes that betrayal and all that comes after feel so much more poignant. This is why I feel Nie Huaisang is a lot darker than he's really given credit for; he had to ruin Jin Guangyao so thoroughly that only ashes remained to his name. The other characters seeking revenge in this story, even against loved ones, never thought to take it that far. Don't fuck with this dude, not ever. But back to the actual relationship, I feel Jin Guangyao truly cared for him, too, which is why he never suspected of him and stayed beside him to help all those years (he also probably felt guilty). That must have brought out a lot of incredibly complicated feelings in Nie Huaisang, making his hatred grow tenfold while still somehow feeding whatever love he once had for him. Ough. For daring to make him feel that way, he really had to be blown to smithereens

Favorite headcanon: I like thinking that he no longer really knows how to feel things due to spending so much time faking. I imagine he's a very numb person inside, or at least one who struggles with genuine emotion

[korpikorppi]

Some thoughts on the origins of Jin Guangyao's sword, Hensheng, in the Untamed

Saw this excellent set of gifs from ep23 by @zelkam and went "Wait! Wait wait wait. That's a soft sword!"

So I went to check ep23 and indeed, Meng Yao kills Wen Ruohan with a soft sword:

Then I recalled (been a while too long since I last rewatched these episodes 😅) that this is actually confirmed by Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao's discussion during the victory banquet (in ep23):

JGY: You seemed to want to say something to me as we were greeting rach other.

WWX: It's nothing. Just that the weapon you used to kill Wen Ruohan on that day of the Sunshot Campaign seemed to be a flexible blade. Why doesn't Young Master Jin carry it today?

JGY: Young Master Wei, sorry to have made (it) a show. It was just a random blade I picked up. Later, as I found out it had dark energy, I threw it away.

(As a side note, how observant Wei Wuxian is! He was exhausted from using the Tiger Seal, choked by Wen Ruohan, about to lose consciousness, and yet he noticed that!)

Yeah, right. We all believe you, Jin Guangyao 🙄. Soft swords (rare as they are) just tend to lie around. And that soft sword looks very - very - similar to Hensheng:

In ep23, the blade has fittings that are clearly Wen, with dark-tarnished metal parts and a dark-red handle:

And as we see in ep41, for example, Hensheng has white, gold and green fittings that are very clearly Jin, as befitting Jin Guangyao's status.

But fittings can easily be changed, and the overall similarity is so great that it is quite clear (or at least I am convinced) that it is the same blade (and as already mentioned, soft swords are not that common). I am also quite convinced that it was not "just a random blade" he picked up.

If that is so, when did Meng Yao acquire the sword? Did he acquire it at some point after his banishment from Unclean Realm? Or did he acquire it during his time in Nightless City, a hidden sword for a last line of defence in an enemy stronghold? Or, was it a gift from Wen Ruohan?

As I mentioned, soft swords are not that common and high-class spiritual swords do not come cheap, so it is unlikely that Meng Yao would have been able to acquire one after his banisment, when his means must have been quite limited. It is more feasible that he could have acquired one sometime during his stay in the Nightless City, but I think I am most intriqued by the last possibility. Meng Yao seemed to have gained a high status and a position as some kind of advisor or right-hand man to Wen Ruohan, so it is feasible that he gifted the sword to his servant. This would be supported, firstly, by the custom made Wen fittings (no standard fittings for that type of blade!) and, secondly, by Jin Guangyao's mention that the sword had "dark energy" (translated sometimes as the sword being sinister) and by his eagerness to downplay the whole thing as "just a random sword I threw away" (can you just imagine Nie Mingjue's reaction to that piece of information in the aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign...).

Also, I have always found Hensheng (恨生, Hènshēng), to hate/regret life, to be a bit peculiar name for a cultivator's blade (even for Jin Guangyao's blade), but if the origin of the blade would indeed lie here, it would add an entire new dimension to why Jin Guangyao chose to name it so. Or was the blade named for him?

So in the end, if what I am speculating here is right, Wen Ruohan had his own weapons turned against him, in more ways than one.

And as an end note, there is no mention about the origin of the blade in the MDZS wiki, so it is not mentioned in the novel? Anyone remember if there is anything implied? Also, Hensheng definitely is a soft sword in The Untamed, contrary to what is written in the wiki.

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

i know you crossed out First Time, but would you be opposed to writing sangyao's first kiss? No worries if not!!!

It wasn't as though he'd never imagined what it would be like to kiss Nie Huaisang.

After all, his young master wasn't shy about lavishing attention and affection on him, and that sweetness was as addicting as the cakes and pastries that had become a frequent gift.

He imagines that Nie Huaisang's kisses would taste much the same, heavy with honey and warm.

But while on one hand, he enjoyed the waves of earnest compliments and the sour expressions from others that he -lowly, unworthy Meng Yao- was the one to receive him, he had to be careful not to let himself swim out too far.

All it would take was one rumor that he was leveraging Nie Huaisang's affection to further improve his station -or that Nie Huaisang was taking advantage of him, however less likely to get started that rumor would be- and all of his hard work building his reputation would be destroyed.

So when Nie Huaisang, blushing and nervous, finally took the leap and leaned in, Meng Yao gently stopped him with fingertips pressed to his lips.

"I like you," he murmured, while Nie Huaisang was still caught off guard by the rejection, before the hurt could seep in. "I do. But we can't. Not now."

Nie Huaisang pulled back, mouth pressed thin and eyes shiny as if he were holding back tears, then he blinked several times and forced himself to nod. "Maybe... some time in the future?" he asked hopefully.

Meng Yao smiled. "When my father acknowledges me."

When I am no longer a servant, he doesn't say.

When we are closer to being equals, he doesn't say.

But whether Nie Huaisang hears any of that or not, he nods again, more decisively. "Okay," he says. "I'll wait."

---

His mouth tasted of blood as he slowly made his way out of the gates of the Unclean Realms, the sound of Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue arguing over his fate fading in the background behind him.

In the years that followed -as he hid Lan-zongzhu, as he worked his way into Wen Ruohan's confidence, as he helped end the war- the metallic tang in the back of his throat never truly went away.

In a way, he was glad it hadn't. With that taste coloring everything he ate or drank, he thought less of sweet things, of a sweet boy, of something he'd lost before he'd ever even gotten to try it.

After all, surely his former young master had found someone else to lavish all his attention and affection on in the past three years. Surely Nie Huaisang hadn't waited for him -lowly, unworthy, cast out Meng Yao- when there were other, more acceptable options closer at hand.

His father had finally acknowledged him.

That was all he needed.

That was all he needed.

And yet it sat sour and heavy in his stomach at the victory banquet, weighed down by the insults that had come with it.

"Yao-ge?"

When he turned and found a soft, worried gaze that was altogether alien -the face wearing it was older, sharper, losing the childish roundness he had carried later than his cohorts- and painfully familiar -he had last seen it as he stumbled from the meeting hall, wounded and damned to exile- his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Nie Huaisang had waited; it was written on his face in the depths of affection and concern in his gaze, and the realization robbed Jin Guangyao of the pretty words he had once imagined years ago that he would say in this moment.

Instead, he simply reached out, letting his fingertips brush along the other young man's jaw as he drew him in.

Nie Huaisang sank into him, warm and pliant and giving him complete control, and his mouth was as soft and sweet as he'd ever imagined.

And yet still, on the back of his tongue, lingered the tinge of blood.

[rayan12sworld]

💠💙By Any Other Name

by:ShanaStoryteller

Summary:

Wei Wuxian wakes up in Mo Xuanyu's body and heads straight for Lotus Pier. Wu Yingtai is the newest member of the Jiang Clan and rumored to be the future wife of Jiang Wanyin.

Lan Wangji is not in love with her.

Chapter:4/4

Words:31,828

Status:completed (crossdress wei ying)

“He likes her,” he says helplessly. Wangji enjoys the company of so few people that even that would be remarkable, but this is something he hadn’t thought he’d ever see again, something he hasn’t seen even a hint of in the past thirteen years.

But it’s there again, like Wangji is fifteen years old again and just discovering what want is. It’s desire and protectiveness and affection too overwhelming to be anything but painful.

Sizhui likes her too. It’s almost perfect.

Uncle’s lips press together. “She is not his to like.”

Lan Xichen has no response to that, because of course Uncle is right. Wu Yingtai is obviously if not publicly engaged to Jiang Wanyin. There’s nothing to be done about it.

~~

He’d killed his brother once. He’d killed Wei Wuxian after A-jie had died to save him, dishonoring her sacrifice. What sin could be worse than that? Whose life could be more precious than that of his brother who their sister had died for? What wouldn’t he be willing to do in order to ensure one of his worst mistakes remains undone? Very little.

~~

He’d been prepared to die and join Wei Ying and instead he’d woken up in Wu Yingtai’s arms

~

She sways and both Wangji and Sizhui reach out to steady her, but Jin Ling wraps an arm around her waist and glares at them. “Come on, Aunt Ying.” Does that glare seem worse than before? More possessive? Does Jin Ling know that Wangji is in love with his uncle’s fiancé? Lan Xichen can’t tell.

~

If only she weren’t engaged to Jiang Wanyin. ~

“I AM NOT ENGAGED TO A-YING!” Jiang Cheng roars, facing rapidly going from grey to red. “THERE WILL BE NO MARITAL DUTIES!” He reaches for his sword, seemingly barely restraining himself from unsheathing it. The rest of the hall has gone quiet, everyone’s attention on them.

~~😂😂

“You knew I was Jin Guangshan’s daughter and you married me anyway?” Lan Xichen’s eyes widen. Jiang Cheng frowns and pinches the skin of his wrist. If he’s in the middle of a dream right now, that would explain several things. The doors burst open. A scarred woman stumbles into the banquet hall and announces, “I was there the night Sect Leader Jin killed his father!” “Darling, please,” Jin Guangyao starts, but is cut off by a dark figure bursting in through the window and heading straight for Qin Su. It’s, somehow, impossibly, Wen Ning. “Oh, I see,” Jiang Cheng says, reaching for Sandu. “This is a nightmare.”

~😂😂 now this is a nightmare that nie Huaisang have made,nie "i cause problems not solutions" huaisang

It’s impossible. It’s impossible. It’s the only thing that makes sense. “Wei Ying,” he breathes, soft enough that no one else can hear him. She flinches. He tugs her forward, so she’s pressed against him like that day she ran into him, and curls his other arm around her waist. He lowers his head so he can speak directly into her ear. “Wei Ying.” She breathes out, shuddering in his arms, then mutters, “Lan Zhan. Not here.” He turns his face to bury it in Wei Ying’s hair, attempting to hide his smile from everyone else. Explanations can come later. For now, Wei Ying is alive, and in his arms, and that’s enough

~~

Jin Guangyao has his sword pressed against Wu Yintai’s throat, enough that it’s broken skin, if only barely. Additionally, in the ten minutes since he’s left his brother’s side, it appears that he’s proposed, if his ribbon in Wu Yingtai’s hair is any indication. Jin Guangyao is holding a sword to throat of the woman Wangji loves. He barely survived losing Wei Wuxian, and now there’s no child to give his brother a will to live. He doesn’t know what losing Wu Yingtai would to do Wangji. He doesn’t want to find out.

[zombubble]

From In Memory; In Truth Chapter 13:

“It’s my job to help make running the sect easier, right?” Mo Xuanyu asks. “Not your job, anymore,” Jin Guangyao says, “but a favor that Gege would appreciate greatly. Do you think you can keep a secret for me?” A jolt of something in Mo Xuanyu’s core, the words familiar in all the wrong ways. Oh, he feels sick. Really fucking sick. “Of course,” he says, closing his eyes. Breathing. “A-Yu? Have I upset you?” Jin Guangyao stops him, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Gege is sorry, he didn’t mean—” “I’m just… seeing things,” Mo Xuanyu says. “Sorry, I—I didn’t want to appear weak, but I…” “Oh. That’s… It’s okay. Gege doesn’t think less of you. Why don’t you rest? I’ll come see you later about everything; there’s no rush.” Nodding, Mo Xuanyu bows his thanks to his brother. Lets a-Zhen lead him away. Tries not to get sick while they walk because his mind is reeling and everything is cold and hot and he doesn’t—doesn’t know what—why—when this happened but something happened. Something that started with words much like those. Not for the first time, he fears the full, unknown extent of what he’s gotten himself into. Not for the last time, he tells himself to stay strong, that he needs to help, that he can do this.

Got this snippet in the post in time, but then I realized this was the perfect moment to go into how Mo Xuanyu is characterized/portrayed in this fic, and it ended up taking me some time to write that up.

Given how little we know of Mo Xuanyu's particular brand of neurodivergence in MDZS, I've decided to put him on the schizophrenia spectrum, he has psychotic episodes, but does not have paranoia, (and believe me, I'm doing literally everything in my power to do this with respect to schizophrenic and psychotic buds out there, I don't want to do any of you dirty with this, you deserve better). He does have auditory, olfactory, and visual hallucinations throughout the fic, which get worse over time as he is under more and more stress.

In this scene, however, he's also lying to his brother and playing it up so Jin Guangyao underestimates him for his own reasons.

CW for nonspecific mentions of sanism, ableism, and various forms of abuse and discussions of consent following this, as I am going into a little bit of detail about how I've chosen to portray Mo Xuanyu, so people know what to expect from this fic with him being such a major character.

The tl;dr is Mo Xuanyu is treated with dignity and respect by those working alongside him, and is given adult levels of agency throughout the fic's present timeline. His mental illness is acknowledged and described, but not made fun of within or by the narrative. It is not considered a character flaw, but a disability, and I've tried to portray it respectfully. While some characters are sanist/ableist both to and about him, they are not major characters, nor are they in control of him. There are mentions of past abuse, but he gets good medical care throughout the fic. He is an important character with major positive contributions, could not be removed or switched out for another without drastic changes, and gets the happy ending he deserves (without a magic cure).

More on how I'm handling Mo Xuanyu after the cut (a little spoilery, but I've kept it as vague as possible. See above content warnings):

I don't want to spoil the plot too much in public, though I'm happy to answer questions privately via message or ask, but I will say up front that Mo Xuanyu is, very intentionally on my part, given adult levels of agency throughout the fic in decisions both big and small.

There are (brief) mentions of him being treated badly in the past, including not giving consent (informed or otherwise) to medicine/medical procedures and other instances of abuse similar to canon, including being relocated and restrained against his will, but within the present timeline of the fic he is under the purview of the Nie Sect and working with a doctor with whom he has a good, mutually respectful relationship.

He makes his own decisions (and has established plans for what he wants done when he's unable to do so safely), gives informed consent to all instances of medication and relocation that happen during the present timeline of the fic itself, and is treated respectfully by the people he's working with. Like Jin Guangyao above, some people make ableist (and sanist) assumptions (and commentary) both to and about him, and he does personally lean into those assumptions for the purposes of making people underestimate him.

Those who are working with him and care about him only play up his mental illness with his prior input, consent and at his behest, and these instances are few, far between, for the purposes of the mission they're on, and never used as the butt of a joke, or done in a mocking way.

Mo Xuanyu has a solid, well-developed personality outside of his mental illness, though does talk casually and frankly about the symptoms he experiences, including hallucinations and his disconnect from reality. He doesn't enjoy having symptoms, but he does not have a self-pitying or self-loathing inner monologue. Though sometimes he tries to hide his symptoms from others (and, at times, fails), he does not make a habit of minimizing them (or exaggerating them) when he's describing them seriously.

When he does speak lightly of them, it's not mocking, and I intentionally avoided anything that sounded like it might come across as "LoL so random omg!" types of humor. Overall, though, he typically refuses to go into details with others, though his inner narration in his pov does, on occasion, describe what he's seeing, hearing, or smelling, without lingering too long on the descriptions.

His visual hallucinations edge more towards abject horror (monsters, things moving that shouldn't be moving in the ways they're moving, people looking dead/like ghosts with unnatural features (pure black, bleeding eyes, far too many sharp, non-human teeth, as a few examples)) instead of utilizing potentially-real facial/muscular/skeletal differences or movement disorders for shock value.

I do not portray him as someone bloodthirsty or irrational when it comes to killing. He wanted his family dead for the abuse they caused, he wants his brother dead (and wishes he didn't) for various shitty actions at various times. With everyone else, he's kind of just trying to keep to himself (or, when he can, be helpful to the people he gets along well with) and not get involved with any more conflict than he has to. He does not kill anyone in the course of the fic.

Jin Ling has a bit of trouble understanding at first, but does make efforts to be respectful and he improves over time. They end up growing close, and Jin Ling is not distrustful of Mo Xuanyu by the end of the story. The other juniors are similarly respectful.

The help Mo Xuanyu offers everyone is a) help only he could give, utilizing his skills and/or achievements specifically (e.g. making arrays/talismans a certain way, other forms of espionage that rely on his ability to lie and/or memorize information) and b) crucial to many of the successes they have. He is an essential member of the core cast of this fic, and it would be markedly changed if I were to remove him or switch him for someone else.

Mo Xuanyu does not die, nor does he get cured at the end of the fic. He ends up in a loving, mutually respectful relationship where his agency is respected, with a man who understands full well that loving Mo Xuanyu includes accepting his schizophrenia, psychosis, and the symptoms thereof. While Mo Xuanyu is doing better at the end than he was just before the end, it's because he's in a stable home and being treated by medical staff, rather than a magical cure.

[veliseraptor]

For the ask game, I feel like someone will probably beat me to xuexiao, haha, so I'll go with xiyao ♡

not quite as intensely as I did at one point but yeah that's a ship it (funnily enough nobody has asked xuexiao! I figure people assumed it was too obvious.)

What made you ship it? truly I am a sucker for "tragic and ultimately doomed" ships, is what it really comes down to.

What are your favorite things about the ship? as much as I want both lan xichen and jin guangyao to have nice things, what draws me to this ship is, as above, the tragic and doomed-ness of it. the ways that it could work, in another universe, in another life; they vibe really well and on a lot of levels do genuinely get each other, are in a lot of real ways in sync with each other! but also, but also, there's a fundamental gap between them that just can't quite be bridged, partly Because Society and partly Because Society has shaped them both in particular ways that ultimately become incompatible. the betrayal that lan xichen feels, and at the same time that the betrayal doesn't totally overwhelm or overcome the care that he clearly does feel; the way that jin guangyao sets lan xichen aside as special, in his own category, you're a person I would never want to harm. it's beautiful and very sad and I'm into that.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I feel like there's a tendency in some xiyao circles to minimize the ways in which they are missing each other in order to justify the ship as nontoxic, as it were. I think that xiyao is most compelling to me when they have a simultaneous understanding and also when there are blind spots/asynchronicities between them - I don't mean in terms of lan xichen not knowing about jin guangyao's crimes, but in terms of the way that they approach and see the world, in terms of perspective. I like them to be in sync most of the time but also then when they're not they're really not. and that gap, mostly invisible until it really isn't, is part of what dooms them.

[kanene-yaaay]

The Collection (Second Chapter)

2. Hunger

Kanene's Notes: This was supposed to be posted MUCH earlier but guess who decided to add more 2k of words? :DDD Someone save from myself please uhygfdefghjk anyways it's growing increasedly harder to find pictures for the chapter so wish me luck tomorrow because I am FUC-

I offer this little humble meal for @squeaky-n-blushy, who was an amazing support for me during the entire fic but the main reason why I am crazy for those characters specifically. Hope you get crazy about them as well <3

Warnings: Suggestive Themes, nothing explicit but they are a bit deranged in some parts jhgfdfgh, Mouth Tickles, Rough and Light Tickles. None of them are the smallest bit normal about each other. Ler!Lan Xichen + Ticklish!Mingjue + Ticklish!JIn Guangyao/Meng Yao. Around 8.000 words.

[~*~]

It wasn’t only about the smiles and rarity of reactions Xichen got that fulfilled his demeanor. Sometimes, Xichen was thrilled by the adrenaline of discovery, the selfishness of holding a new kind of knowledge that would be forever his and only his, kind of necessity of seeing someone vulnerable under his care, it all mixed with his already known fondness and playfulness and created something he felt addicted to. It was followed by a different kind of hunger that filled his senses and took over his thoughts, creating strong and rare bolts of smugness and fire that graced his usual smiling face every single time he discovered another spot, another technique that would, unannounced, pry a new brand of laughter from his “victim”, something that would make them look at him with wide, half afraid, half expectant eyes.

And all Xichen could was to drink those reactions.

(...)

The blade came so close it cut a couple of strands off his hair before Lan Xichen could dodge from it, which was a completely unsatisfactory reflex and a shame to shufu’s teaching. Xichen at this point would be soon old enough to lead a night hunt of his own and he should at least be able to prevent an attack before it was close enough to deadly harm him, his distraction and confidence in being one of the very few cultivators awake in that moment was what blinded him from accurately interpreting the distinct sounds of leaves moving differently that morning since the he passed nearby the guest quarters as he followed the path to the younger juniors’ classroom with his brother.

Lan Xichen, however, couldn’t hoard all the reasons of the success of that sneaking attack, not even having time to dwell on it, quick to dodge another swipe, now aiming for his legs, before changing course to his torso, passing too close to his ribs and forcing him to jump away. The attack also gave him the perfect view of those grey, determined and excited eyes.

Nie Mingjue was really a wonderful opponent.

“Excuse me, Wangji!” Lan Xichen couldn’t even hide the smile on his lips from his voice, even though a part of him was sad for losing half of an incense's stick of quietness that always took the mountains in the early morning, sometimes he more than loved to share with his little brother before class. “For a distraction has crossed my path and is too insistent to let me get away from it.”

Quietness has been a rare thing since the arrival of the guest cultivators from all the others Four Great Sects, although, even with all the strictness and reinforced rules of the Cloud Recesses.

He heard his brother coming before he saw him, too overwhelmed by the sheer brute force (and much more agility that one would expect from his particular…muscular form) of Mingjue’s attack to stop him. The movement obligated him to stop dodging and pull out his scabbard (but not his sword, of course), meeting the next powerful strike head on, using his taller height (his growing spur appeared just last spring for his absolute delight and Lan Zhan’s contrite despair) and pull it higher and higher. Just in time, Wangji positioned himself defensively right in front of him, hand on Bichen and posture straight and coldly threatening, much to Mingjue’s confusion for the way the other blinked at the younger one and his attack faltered (but never relented).

“Lower your sword. Fighting is prohibited in Cloud Recesses.”

“I apologize, Second Young Master Lan,” Mingjue grunted, trying to make Lan Xichen stumble with a sudden change of his footwork, the Lan was quick to stabilize himself, but the movement made the younger one look even more distasteful at him. The boy was really protective. “Still, I am sure an exception can be applied when a promise has been made and not fulfilled, or at least I hope. I’ve heard only good things about Lan’s cultivators and their honor, afterall.”

Being overzealous of your own character and abilities was below a Lan (also prohibited by their rules), yet Xichen couldn’t help the spark of pride exploding on his chest for both how much adamant the Nie has been in getting them to spar together and the current tightness showing on Mingjue’s voice, his muscles straining where he continued pressing forward. It was very helpful that the older Nie master allowed his arm to be twisted into an uncomfortable position to keep the blow out of Wangji’s range. If Wangji realized that, it only served to make him even more displeased, setting himself even straighter, face unmoving.

“Xiongzhang owes Sect Heir Nie nothing.”

Mingjue quirked his eyebrow in what could be only a mix of amusement and bewilderment. Xichen felt a light heat on his ears and quickly jumped into the conversation before it could escalate even more.

(It felt good to feel pursued, however it came with the effect of Xichen finding himself wanting to impress the other more and more, lately.)

“It’s fine, Wangji.” Perhaps, when Lan Zhan got into the age of guest students, he would learn to let go a little more of their thousands of rules, it would do him good to relax a bit and have more friends. “I have truly promised Mingjue-xiong a friendly spar and unfairly postponed it several times. He is being fair in trusting my word.”

Actually, he had more or less froze when Mingjue came striding purposefully in his direction after Elder Zhang used him for a demonstration of the Gusu Lan forms with a simple sparring match, his hand locking on his shoulder with a strong grip and a wide (beautiful) smile that made him lose himself into warm for long kes until he came back to his own traitorous mouth agreeing with a smile to everything the other said.

“A spar must only be held under the supervision of a senior.”

“A spar with swords.” he countered, quickly setting his eyes on those grey ones. “And Mingjue-shixiong will be very kind to sheathe his saber again, won’t he?”

Mingjue narrowed his eyes and weakened his blow just enough to see if Xichen would keep pressing on, which he didn’t, both ending the attack until Baxia was resting on its usual place on Mingjue’s back. His voice came out gruffy, the now free hand creeping to scratch at his neck, as if he was embarrassed. It was a funny thought, to imagine someone so outspoken and sure of himself get flustered by his younger brother. “Of course, I apologize for interrupting your walk. I only now realized how rude my actions has come off to be. They do not represent the education and precepts of the Nie Sect.”

Before Xichen could smile and assure his apology was unnecessary, Wangji quickly answered for him, voice still serious and completely unmerciful at his words. “Shufu will be informed and your punishment delivered after your classes.” He bowed the exact necessary high, perfectly polite, and it took every single willpower of the older one to not snicker or, even worse, laugh out loud at the expression on Mingjue’s face.

Lan Zhan turned and stared at him with the corner of his eyes expectantly. Lan Xichen huffed and stepped to his side combing a strand of hair back to its place, much to the younger’s mortification, for the way he frowned at him and started walking away with slight pink ears.

Lan Xichen smiled and smiled, turning back to Mingjue, who crossed his arms and kept looking at him with that funny combination of terribly annoyed and astonishedly amused, the corner of his eyes crinkling his eyes as he saw, once more, the Sect Heir Lan escaping from his clutches once again. 

“Hope we manage to spar soon, Jue-shixiong.” He then turned away, a levity appearing on his step at knowing that he would keep running and dodging his next attempts for as long as Nie Mingjue kept being so kind as to chase him.

…

A hand grabbed his arm and pushed. A trill of adrenaline caught up in his throat as he twirled, using the overflowing robes and long sleeves to confuse his opponent and give him enough space to plant his feet on the other’s chest and kick with enough force to make Mingjue stagger. It didn’t make him buckle, though, and his grip only locked on his arm even tighter, refusing to let go of his advantage. At this point, both heirs were gasping breathless from the long chase that led them to this isolated camp and the following even longer spar. There were spots of dirt and blades of grass all over Mingjue’s face and robes, which kept making Xichen’s fingers twitch closer to pat them clean. Not even the heat of the battle kept the Lan from noticing how the other’s eyes kept jumping across his own askew robes and crooked forehead ribbon. Each blow, each grip, kick and touch left a bruning kind of feeling behind, pulsing from each point of contact.

When two more of his strongest blows didn’t succeed to let Mingjue go (it was no wonder that the Nie heir would be so skilled at close-range combat, his general strength was definitely not overestimated on the few humors Xichen had caught up on), Lan Xichen threw himself on the ground, using the momentum to drag the other with him, kicking both of his legs on his stomach to lift him momentarily in the air and then throw him away. 

Just as he jumped back to a standing position and fell on the other’s legs, ready to pin the Nie to the ground, Mingjue quickly began lifting his torso in an attempts to unbalance him, ready to throw him away and turn their luck in the first opportunity. In a momentarily act of effort, Lan Xichen’s hands shoot behind him, gripping the muscle to hold him down and-

And Mingjue, larger and stronger than anyone from his generation, known for his sheer force, for his direct words and unmovable opinions, he… squeaked.

Both of them froze and Lan Xichen felt his eyes fixate on the light path of color appearing on the other’s cheeks like a hawk. Something clicked right in his mind, and he turned the slight bit around to see how his hands were digging on Mingjue’s thighs, almost close to his knee, he looked forward again and took notice of the hint of a startled smile on his face.

His gruffy (embarrassed) voice cut the silence. “You just tickled me, no need to stop the sparring when I was so close to win.” The teasy remark was accompanied by another attempt of getting up again, only to fall right back to the ground when Xichen massaged circles on the ticklish spot, squeezing his thighs more purposefully and watching the uncontrollable, loud snickers that began flowing at that, following the pace of his tickles, growing louder and louder when he moved upwards to drum on the corner of his inner thighs and then growing higher and quicker as he stretched a little and spidered tickled all over it. “Xi-i-CHEN!”

Lan Xichen didn’t reply, he looked with fascination at the beginning of giant smile adorning his face, so different from his previously challenging ones calling him for combat or his smug grins after meeting one more of his blows with his own. Xicjen followed dazedly as that path of color began to grow stronger and his laughter to flow more easily, body squirming under his ministrations, trying to lift his legs and only making him dig harder on the ticklish spot or quick fruitlessly as the playful touched followed him no matter what he did, each breathtaking reaction loud and lovely as if unsashament of gathering all the attention that it deserved.

Two hands flew to hold his shoulders and Xichen moved quicker than he ever did before. In less than a ke he gathered both wrists on one hand and pulled them back to his chest with a low, growling warning of “Don’t you dare.”

He blinked and faltered, astonished with his own reaction a moment, worriedly looking into Mingjue’s expression, who simply looked back at him just as before, smile growing and the surprise on his eyes starting to be taken over by challenge. Then, his fingers brushed across a particularly bad spot when he wormed his other hand under his thigh, making Mingjue suddenly buckle and squawk, which, of course, only made him latch on it with even more scribbling and scratching.

“Tickling-” He squealed and pulled his hands, a funny kind of scoff leaving his mouth as Xichen’s grip kept unrelenting, his strength vanishing at the tickling (how much time has it been since someone dared to be this playful with him?). “-is not fair!”

“I apologize, but I don’t remember this as one of the rules we set for this sparring match, unfortunately.” The challenging tune now laid on Xichen’s voice, his playful attack not relenting for a single moment,  Mingjue only seemed to snicker and laugh even more at that, staring at his expression with nothing more than a fire spreading in his eyes, stronger as ever even as his face got more and more colored by the kes. Xichen poked a little bit of fun. “Perhaps Sect Heir Nie can add his new rule as soon as this match ends and you admit my victory?”

“In your dreams!” 

Before Xichen could reply, two knees hit his back and almost made him fall completely on Mingjue’s chest, throwing him out of balance and forcefully ceasing his tickles. For a maddening moment, Lan Xichen saw himself burying his face on his neck to listen more closely to all the remaining laughter that painted his smug, amused voice. 

However, he couldn’t unfortunately let such an attack pass.

Letting go of his wrists, Lan Xichen was quick to turn around, taking advantage of how close his knees were to latch on the spot right above them, first spidering and scratching lightly the place until high giggles were floating on the air, before unleashing a full squeezing attack on them, digging and clawing at the ticklish skin. An unusual, playful smirk opened on his face when that made the other shriek and kick his legs away, unfortunately too much late as the Lan simply used the move to pull himself straight again, following his movement with ease. It didn’t take long before Mingjue was aching his back, shrieking and throwing his head back with belly laughter

“Once more, I offer my deepest apologies, such a delightful spot should never be neglected. It’s good that it, quite literally, jumped to my attention as quick as they, allowing me to right my wrongs.” When one leg tried to pull up again, Xichen simply tormented the soft underside with prodding and scratches, which made it slam right back at the ground and let him focus again in squeezing the kneecap, which made him lift his leg again and restart the cycle again and again. “Thank you for showing me the best place to take you apart and tickle you just where you wanted, your kindness and support will not be forgotten and be rewarded with your well deserved prize.”

Mingjue was too busy losing his mind to answer, squirming and kicking every time Xichen jumped from one leg to another watching with an amused kind of fascination as his laughter went higher then lower as he switched from his upper leg to his calves, kneading on the muscle and receiving a shrieking crackle in answer. He almost threw him off a few times with his trashing, gasps, yelps and squeals kept following his tickles every time he found a new extra ticklish spot, circling it teasingly before scratching and making him descend into more laughter. Lan Xichen was more than happy to keep exploring, if only to keep listening to those sounds.

Testingly, Lan Xichen locked his legs even stronger, tipping forward boldly to spider and trace the tip of his fingers across the entirety of his calf, listening how quicker and uncontrollable his snickers changed to crackles only to go back to uncontrollable titters the closer he slipped to his ankle, drawing teasing circles around the bone only to hear those tittering giggles growing slower momentarily only to jump in a squeak when he experimentally gave a poke to the sole of his feet. 

“Is Jue-xiong already convinced of my victory?” 

“You are cheating!” It was more than endearing to hear how those words were overcome by even more snickers.

“Then I believe a little more convincing might be in order.”

Xichen sneakily taking off one of his boots to tickle the spot lightly, receiving more wheezy guffaws at this. A clear, even if laughing, voice stopped him right as he was to attack

“If you put any of your offending fingers on my feet I will no longer hold back.” Mingjue warned. Lan Xichen blinked two big and innocent eyes at him, a single finger escaping to wiggle on his sole draw a quick tickle at the place. Mingjue clamped his mouth shut in what seemed like a snort. 

“Did I just find your most ticklish spot, Jue-ge?”

The red spread quickly from his cheeks to the entire face at that and Xichen congratulated himself and kept the new acquired information in a special place in his mind, sure to use more of it in the future. 

“You did.” At the gruffy (flushed) admission, Xichen felt fireworks dancing on his soul, more than delighted to know just what kind of reactions he would pry from such a special spot. “If you attack me there, Xichen, mark my words:” 

(Xichen, Xichen, Xichen)

“Next time I will be the one to not stop until I find your most ticklish spot, and then I won’t give you any time to chat and offer mercy when I finally get to it.”

Xichen wondered if those shining eyes could see how much he was floating, how the adrenaline at the promise set every single one of his nerves on fire, how it brought a different kind of smirk into his face, how it alight a new sensation of challenge and playfulness guarded on his soul.

“This lowly one thanks his senior for such a precious warning.” His eyes crinkled and Mingjue’s furrowed in a protest that he was that old, but the Lan gave him no time to reply. “I shall not show Jue-ge any mercy, then.”

Just as the words finally setted, he attacked.

(...)

It was dangerous to be with Lan Xichen, for all the good and the bad reasons. He was wanted by the Wen Sect, a sect heir on the run and his simple existence put all the little things he worked so hard to have, his life in danger, but those were things that Meng Yao had already reached peace with himself about. However, he was also sweet, trusting, lovely in a way he thought only fictional characters of a foolish book could be, the only one besides his mother who tried to know him. 

At first, all of this had helped to keep his guards up on the first days, but as the time passed, it made Meng Yao too comfortable, too at ease and no matter how much he analyzed his smiles, his attentive gaze that made him want talk until his heart was pried wide open, he couldn’t find any hint of deceit. The more he looked, the more he investigated, the more he pried, the more he was drawn close, as if Lan Xichen was a bright candle in the middle of the night and Meng Yao was nothing more than a dark month hopelessly attracted to the flame, to the brightness, the warmth, the care, the affection. 

Lan Xichen gave it all too easily, much before he could even do anything to earn it. It made Meng Yao want to do embarrassing things, like buy poetry books so he could listen to Xichen read them out loud (even knowing he was already way too tight on budget as he could), to comb his lustrous hair and decorate with the most beautiful hairpins (what an embarrassing thought to have), to cradle him close, to always have him in his field vision and follow him like a puppy who wishes for nothing more than to lay down, bask on the attention and show the soft of his belly.

Although he had not expected to be that literally.

“A-Yao,” there were two pecks softly, so carefully, laid on his eyelids that they had Meng Yao floating. He drifted and soared high in the sky as his mind kept repeating that soft tune as if he could get drunk on it. A spark of warmth blossomed from where he touched and spread across his face, the feeling of those soft lips lingering. 

A-Yao, A-Yao, A-Yao.

“Will you look at me?”

He was hopeless to such a tiny request from someone who could ask, could demand much more from this lowly one. Meng Yao opened his eyes and watched those golden hues above him, mouth almost betraying its master and answering without his command, saying that yes, he would, he would do anything for him, he would kill and slay and spend the rest of his life prying open, cutting out and hiding his rotten parts from him if that meant never losing Lan Xichen. He would keep on hating the world, collecting every pebble of love and trust he was able to create and hoard them all into those caring, trusting hands of the Lan, giving it all to him and only him over and over again.

“Are you still comfortable?” He was floating and Xichen was worried. It was clear for the way his eyes dropped and averted away for a moment, how they travelled across his body looking for hints of discomfort, hand twitching away from him, shoulders were layered tight with tension. There was this kind of frown he did when he was preoccupied, when his eyebrows would go the slight bit downwards while his jaw set a tad straighter in doubt. 

So lost in his thoughts Meng Yao was that he didn’t even notice it before, an unforgiven mistake on his part, but he would berate himself for his negligence later. Instead, Meng Yao immediately set himself on the work to cut any doubt or fear that began assaulting Xichen’s still healing confidence. 

Meng Yao lift his arms and held Xichen’s hands on a light, soothing grip as he brought them to his own face, resting them on his bare forehead and not quite kissing those skilled, long and graceful fingers, so above from him in every sense and form (but not for long, not for long) but, since he was still a weak man, letting his lips graze them reverently. They stayed a moment like this, before Meng Yao directed them to lay on his stomach, an amused grin blossoming on his face at how such a simple action made color explode across the other’s cheekbones.

“Tickle me, please, Xichen-gege.” He said, proud how his words only made the blushing worse. 

He very pointedly refused to complete the sentence with the thoughts that haunted his mind every day and night since the moment he realized the nature of his not so pure nor controlled feelings about Lan Xichen. Ever since then, all the words about his true desire and wishes have been hanging on the tip of his tongue as he swallowed them over and over again. 

Meng Yao did not say “If you don’t make me lose myself in laughter right now, I will completely lose my mind.”

He did not point out how he wanted to “slam you on the ground and find each one of your reactions, to explore and analyze every weak part of yours until I have all of them safe and sound in my hands, until I can cradle them as close as I can.” 

He didn’t even consider expressing how he dreamed in “taking your face in my hands and swallowing your sound every sound, memorizing your every expression until I can burn in my mind all your favorite spots and favorite words.”

He did not say how if he could, he would “spend the rest of my life taking care of them, of you. I will discover your every want, your every small or big desire and take pride in giving you them again and again. Until there’s nothing I could do to make you happier.”

“So, please, pry that control away from me before I discover the best way to take away yours.” 

(The worst thing is that Lan Xichen would let him, he would let him-) 

Instead, he let each one of those words die in his lips and then, with his most calm, serene smile, he stared Lan Xichen back.

Those fingers began scribbling over his stomach, quickly chasing all of those thoughts until they were out of his grasp and far away from his mind, a gasp being fished from his mouth as he forced his eyes to stay open as per the others request, keeping them open and trusting when Xichen was fast to look over and search for any hint of discomfort, not bothering to hide or control the wobbly line of his smile.

As Lan Xichen relaxed with what he saw, he began exploring a little more, dancing fingers spidering softly up and down his belly as if he was personally tormenting each one of his nerves with tickles, circling his blunt nails around his belly button and chuckling lowly when that made him huff and his grin grow wider. Those skilled and careful hands continued to draw various and uncessant lines and forms on his stomach, prying airy, quiet sounds for the next kes they continued like this. Lan Xichen didn’t stop looking at him adorably the entire time and Meng Yao tried to not melt too much so soon, titters coming faster and faster out of his mouth, especially as Xichen began poking and prodding the sensitive spot of lower belly, scratching and digging at his hips, clawing at the bones and attacking his waist with no mercy.

“Is my A-Yao very ticklish here?”

His giggles grew stronger and flooded the entire space, shoulders trembling, chest bouncing and nerves alight with the electricity that each touch brought, Meng Yao almost jolted in surprise at the sudden mischievous tune of the other’s voice and his change of spot, only noticing then that his eyes had automatically closed again at it.

“N-not the most ticklish, I am afraid.” He snorted and held his robes in a tight grip to not cover his face away, only allowing himself to later kneel at the urge after Xichen got more absorbed in turning him into a laughing mess and stopped worrying and trying to gauge his level of comfort. “Hohohope Xichen-ge doehehesn’t mind reheceiving a few giggles fohor his efforts?”

“Any reaction, if it comes from you, then I will always cherish it, for as long as you’re willing to give me each one of them.” Meng Yao’s neck prickled with heat and words scrambled across his mind when Xichen began scrapping and running his wiggly fingers widly around his sides, sending tingles and shivers across his entire torso, pulling a quiet gasp and more strident snickers. 

He was a smooth and soft type of a tormentor, then. His soft teases and playful voice were very effective in making him feel even more ticklish than any other time before, tiny squirms coming from one side to another even as Meng Yao tried to make his own body lay as still as possible for Lan Xichen to not understand his wiggling around as something that was not.

“A-Yao, still thinking so much?” His hands were pried from where they were clued on his robes and pulled upwards until they were interlocking behind the Lan’s neck, getting too so, so close to the ends of his forehead ribbon that Meng Yao could almost feel it burning next to his skin. The very sensation of Xichen’s hands now crawling and spidering up his defenseless torso quickly vanished with that distraction. “Let me take care of this, let your brilliant mind rest for a moment in my care.”

“This lowly one-” He squeaky loudly when Lan Xichen refuted his choice of words with a poke on his belly button, wiggling and scratching the ticklish skins of its walls over and over again until more squeaks were falling from his lips and Meng Yao remembered how Xichen asked him to say referring himself as such after what he did. “I was only-” He jolted and buckled when those hands went to his ribs, touch forgiving and yet equally maddening. Xichen began scribbling and lightly clawing the bones, giving an especial attention even to the space in between each one. Tittering melting with puffs of laughter from his lips. “Only wondering if thihis talking is frohohom experiehence. Is still Xic-xichehen-ge ihihis too tickilihihish?”

Lan Xichen hummed non actually answering (which was already an answer on itself) and continued changing from each ticklish spots on his torso already explored before he could grow used to the sensation, taking his sweet time to tease each one, pressing and vibrating on them until there was much more squeaks and guffaws mixing with his giggles and his mind loosened its grasp of thoughts, leaving him relaxed enough to almost not process Xidhen’s next words.

“Maybe A-Yao will have the opportunity to find out later?” 

Out of his control, flashes of memories passed on his mind, Lan Xichen laughing with a sleeve covering his smile when Meng Yao showed him that absurd and slanderous book that promised to teach you how to grow a golden core without any cultivation, Lan Xichen stuttering and blushing when he realized only after winning their light discussion that his point meant that both of them would have to share his tiny, thin bed for no one sleep on the ground, Lan Xichen fiercely staring back, a challenging fire in his eyes, one moment before Meng Yao was flipped and lost their sparring match, Lan Xichen laughing out loud the first time since he decided to trust him enough and hide in his house. 

(Lan Xichen under him, writhing, gasping and pilant-)

“Xichehen-ge is such a teahahase.” He whined, watching as something flashed across Lan Xichen’s eyes for a moment before disappearing. 

(He would investigate that interesting detail later.)

“My life was the one who asked for it.” Before Meng Yao even had the time to properly process the words (his what-), Lan Xichen quickly lowered his head and began peppering his neck and that awfully, newly discovered (and the one that started this whole thing) weak spot behind his ears with small raspberries and tickly kisses, making silly noises and joyful humming every time a garbled sound or a bubbly protest escaped Meng Yao’s mouth, his entire body now shaking with the squeal of surprise at the sudden action elected, before his laughter was taken over by the absolute onslaught of crackling snickers and high pitched titters that jumped across the air uncontrollably and unashamed.

It only grew quicker and louder as those creeping hands got close to his armpits, drumming each finger on the hollows and making his giggles disappear with a snort. Rare jolts of tiny squeaks and airy yelps made their own appearance at every particularly mean nibble or evil tickle that assaulted his poor sensitive spots, face smushed on his own shoulder in an attempt to both bare part of his neck to the other and to hide at least a bit of his flustered state. 

As the time passed and the tickling continued, his nerves were set more and more alight with every buzzing sensation and his mind only became a puddle of mirth and joy, too busy laughing and being happy to even bother with any thoughts or problems. Meng Yao gave nothing but his pure and honest reactions, his every protest, every smile, every snickered ‘Xichen-ge’ and every squirm saying the same one thing, over and over again, eternally on repeat

I trust you, I trust you, I love you.

(...)

It had taken the two of them. 

Both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen sandwiched A-Yao in between them during their cuddling time, each moment filled with soft cares, quiet words and light bickering that had made each second of Lan Xichen speeding through his work until he was free to enjoy his leisure time with both of them. It took a little more coaching and attention until A-Yao was finally melting in their embrace, staring at Nie Mingjue with half lidded eyes and a relaxed hum as the other pulled him closer to his chest, which resulted in him receiving a pout and an unforgiving pinch on his thigh by Xichen, who scooted closer as well. 

Only a few moments after that, as Lan Xichen was caressing Jin Guangyao’s arm with a light traces and rubs, he heard a small giggle and saw the arm twitch in a reaction that he could recognize and paint with blindfolded eyes. It didn’t took more than half a ke for the Lan start to add a couple of purposeful and playful touches, “accidentally” brushing the tip of his fingers over and over again his wrist and palm (which so far brought the best reactions) as tittering snickers started to escape from his smiling lips. 

As the tickles began exploring his already very known ticklish spots, Mingjue, with a barely-there scuffle, set Guangyao’s back against the mattress, both taking over the opportunity to hold his arms above his head in a simple illusion of restrain, since that only made Guangyao become ven more boneless at their administrations, each giggle, each titter and huff being pried from his lips resulted in him melting more and more against them, more than comfortable to indulge both in the trap that had been so careful calculated.

Nie Mingjue complained gruffly about how he couldn’t find any spot that would truly make A-Yao go mad with laughter and finally get his revenge for how much the Jin had done that exact thing with them (always full of mischievous taunts and teases about it, as well) time and time again in the past and would very much likely to continue to do so in the future. 

“Perhaps da-ge should simply try harder, then.” Jin Guangyao’s melodious and teasingly condescending tune cut his complaint, giggles filling the room even stronger than before as Mingjue stopped his tickle attack to stare at him astonished at the audacity. Xichen was more than happy to let them bicker and distract themselves and he kept exploring with light scribbles his new information. That was when the fatidic moment happened.

One of Lan Xichen’s fingers danced quickly and distractedly at the inner part of his elbow, which, for the loud squeal that immediately followed the light, curious caress of the tip of his fingers, was incredibly sensitive, and promptly made all of them freeze stunned at that reaction.

Lan Xichen pushed himself up the bedding until he moved from the cozy, comfortable place on A-Yao’s side (perfect to pepper his neck and ears with tiny, fluttering kisses that would make both spots quickly be painted in a lovely shade of red when he whispered teases upon teases on them) to look at the other, who was staring with wide eyes right back at him, face still carrying the hint of his lovely smile, now locked in place with his surprise.

Oh.

What a delightful day.

The more Xichen looked, the more A-Yao kept himself still, as if moving a single muscle would remind both of them what they had been previously doing, as if the knowledge would simply escape from his mind and the lovely discovery was never made.

The more Lan Xichen stared, the more he felt his smirk grow and grow.

It was Nie Mingjue who broke them out of it.

“Do that again.” And, between Mingjue’s dangerous light in his eyes and Xichen absolutely glee clear on his face, both painted in the same shade of hunger, Jin Guangyao seemed to be left without words. He shivered when Xichen’s warm touch found his elbow again, fingertips only resting there. The Lan watched with fascination as goosebumps sprouted freely across his arms at his action. A-Yao’s lips twitched in a wonderful, excited way and his dimples became more pronounced.

His tickles then escalated slowly, peppering the ticklish skin with the tiniest, barely there scratches that pulled another high, poorly concealed screech from his mouth before it was firmly clamped shut as the Jin tried to pry his wrists out of their hold fervently, eyes wide in a mix of adrenaline and alarm.

“Is that your death spot, A-Yao? How could you not share them with us until today?” Xichen let his face fall in the same way he did when one of the sect leaders in conferences tried to demand absurd deals or let out insulting commentaries, a sad kind of disapproval that would leave them scrambling to correct themselves and explain how they never meant any offense. Jin Guangyao, however, continued to look at him with no honey words or distracting teases falling freely from his lips and Xichen was helpless at the way his heart melted as he saw the corner of Guangyao’s warm eyes crinkle and gaze hold a playful glint, not being fooled one bit by Xichen’s theatrics and insteading pulling one of his own. Gulping down his persistent titters, he shook his head.

“Er-ge knows I am not-” His voice wavered and he narrowed his eyes at Xichen in a light annoyment as he digged just the slight bit on the spot, his scratches picking up a fastest pace for a blink and obliging him to press his lips together and squirm for maddening moments before Guangyao managed to take a hold of himself again. He coughed, a disguise for another wheezing giggle. “Excuse me. As I was saying before the unfortunate interruption: I am not that ticklish.” He tilted his head, a light hint of what could be called a pitiful pout in his face and Xichen instinctively mirrored him.

“I understand it might be…” His voice started to falter the more Xichen continued to tease and tickle that spot. “C-complicated for er-ge to understand, with how sensitive your body is, but I-HIHIHI!”

As it seems Nie Mingjue jumped to save the Lan from his provocation, like the heroic cultivator he was known and acted as. Or maybe he got tired of their playing around, not being one as fond of the entertainment of teasing competitions or tiny pokes of fun made specifically to increase one’s anticipation as both Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen were. Besides, he was internally familiar with how long they could take in their game, being or the victim or the observer of those occasions. 

Therefore, it was no surprise when he decided enough was enough and put his hands to a good use. Or mouth, since his most effective way to distract them was to start carefully nibbling the new discovered ticklish spot, resting nips here and there on the trapped arm in his reach. 

“Da-ge!” There was a hysterical tune in his words and there was a shakiness in his arms. Lan Xichen could empathize, Mingjue’s beard was something to be truly feared during his tickle attacks. Still, they weren’t hearing any laughter in the air, which, in Lan Xichen’s humble opinion, was an insulting oversight of their part that should be corrected immediately.

Lan Xichen smiled, sighing happily and lowering his head until he could nuzzle freely on hi inner elbow, intertwining his care with soft kisses, humming (of course with his lips resting on the skin so his A-yao could feel perfectly each vibration) and trailing the trembling skin with one or two small raspberries that would leave the other jolting on the same place, each touch and tickle making it increasingly difficult to keep his crackles concealed.

“Er-ge-eeh!” A snort escaped, quickly followed by an squeak and Lan Xichen nodded in lieu of an answer, huffing softly in amusement. His now free fingers crawled up, one step at a time and stopped right under his wrist. He moved his hand that had been clutching Guangyao’s one in a restringing hold until they were intertwining their fingers instead, leaving the soft, slightly sensitive skin of his wrist free for him to attack with the lightest, softest scribbling tickles.

There was a barely aborted snortle and then guffaws were chasing each other freely in the air, louder than his usual snickers and much quicker than his giggles and a little less composed. 

“There we go.” Lan Xichen exhaled in relief, leaving a peck on his hand and closing his eyes in satisfaction, bathing in the melodious tune of the Jin’s laughter. “Feels so much better to let go, don’t you think, A-Yao?”

“Your wrists too?” Nie Mingjue may sound irritated to anyone else, but only a bit more attention to the gleam in his eyes and the teasing curve of his grin and then it would be clear just how much fun he was having with this. He and A-yao, especially, had a strong delight in breaking each other into pieces and taking their time to push each other closer and closer to their breaking point. Even if it was not really his type to engage in this kind of affection as well, it was good that they held a special thing in between themselves and Lan Xichen was happy to see each other being so carefree. As if to consolidate his thought, a bark of bright crackle escaped Jin Guangyao and left him lost in even more uncontrollable reactions. “You don’t do more than simply smile when we tickle your sides or armpits only for the reason of your fall to be your wrists and elbows?!” 

A-Yao snorted before falling back into crackles, if it was a result of Mingjue’s tease or the fact that there was a booming laughter now hiding his, it really didn’t matter when Lan Xichen ended being blessed by both of them either way. Nie Mingjue didn’t take long before following the exact contrary of his example, his touches becoming energetic and full of prodding and spidering to torment both spots, the sheer contrast of sensations pulling snorts and more hysterical laughter from him.

Lan Xichen tried to burn in his mind the cadence of his reactions, the fluctuations of his chuckles that followed delightfully the pace of each stroke of his fingers, the tittering tune it got with his playful, adoring teases and how free and quicker it sounder with each of his nibbles. When the Lan opened his eyes, he watched how Jin Guangyao’s eyes closed tightly, how big it was his smile and how his arms rested still on their grip, hand tightly gripping theirs. There was now a red hue painting his face and clear joy in each one of his  reactions were, how tight he was holding his hands. Mingjue almost wasn’t able to torment him with taunts and teases with the volume of his chortles, instead deciding to go back to lay tickly kisses and nibbles on every ticklish spot he could find. Two different kind of laughter filled the space and Lan Xichen couldn’t help but follow with his own snickers, creating the truly most melodious song.

Every and any details were collected and placed carefully in his mind so Xichen could rewatch the moment over and over again,  later, when they were back to lead their own sects and Gusu Lan nights got too quiet and his thoughts too loud to endure.

Before the melancholy could take a hold over his mind, however, Xichen decided to bask in the sunlight of both of the most trusted people.

“I want to paint this.” A-Yao’s eyes turned to him, shining in a rare mix of shyness and excitement. “You think you could continue smiling like this for me, A-Yao?”

“We could keep him like this for a few hours alright.” Nie Mingjue chuckled darkly, suddenly changing to dig and drum his tickling fingers on his armpits until a squeal escaped Guangyao’s lips. Slower snickers and giggles took over the uncontrollable laughter from before, allowing him into a giggly kind of break. “Keeping him laughing, squirming and squealing just like he is so eager to do with us. I say, one painting won’t be enough. I personally will want to commission one for my own chambers and I bet Gusu Lan would appreciate such a fine scene as well.”

Jin Guangyao wasn't even trying to fight anymore, becoming a tittering puddle in his bed, rich brown eyes watching them fondly, sharp and attentive, and yet so trusting. There was no point in trying to conceal his reactions any further, letting himself instead let go of his control in a way that only the two of them would be witness to. The strong color on his face began to spread to his ears and neck and Lan Xichen was helpless for the way that it made him want to follow its trail with tiny, teasing raspberries and fluttering kisses. So he did.

“Beautiful. So beautiful, my A-Yao.”

Said one took a deep breath and pressed in between his titters and chuckles. “Not as beautiful as my er-ge and da-ge, when they get in my position.”

His tune made it sound like a simple observation, but they were no fool. Jin Guangyao’s revenge would be ruthless and inevitable. Still, Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen were not afraid, instead doubling their efforts until the warmth and the tickling sensation were the only things A-Yao could focus on.

[~*~]

EXTRAS:

The universe put me in this world to write Xichen and Guangyao being the most deranged about each other actually. Pls image that Lan Xichen was also having the craziest thoughts while reducing Jin Guangyao to a giggle puddle <3

If you ever wonder about the relationship of Xichen with idk anyone from 2º and 3º chapter (besides the special guest appearance that will appear <3) only remember that I have no idea what is actually happening in this fic at all and those words are not bound to real life and flesh limitations

Lan Xichen tickling A-Yao for the first time: <3 <3 <3 silly time!!! so happy that Meng Yao let me do that! I Am Completely Normal About This Outcome And Am Not Having Lots of (Rule Breaking) Thoughts About All Of This :) 

Me about Meng Yao: This one can fit so much gays awakenings moments right now you have no idea

Me writing Mingjue and Xichen’s moment: and then Mingjue attacks him from behind-

Lan Zhan: And I am there

Me: What. No you’re not

Lan Zhan: *sits in the middle of the scenario and refuses to move*

Me: Please I would’ve to rewrite like 10 whole paragraphs PLEASE move. You had like half of the first chapter to enjoy with your bro, go AWAY

Lan Zhan: Hm (no)

Mingjue by mistake, while Lan Xichen is tickling him: Fuck, Xichen!Xichen, starting to undo his outer robes: Well, since you asked…

[symphonyofsilence]

Here’s an AU that’s been stuck in my head for a long while (it entirely fucks up the magic system of MDZS, and borrows two elements from SVSSS):

the instructions for the summoning ritual, from Jin Guangyao’s room to Mo Xuanyu’s hand, get mixed up. He completes the rituals. He’s sure he did everything right. Step by step. By all evidence, it must’ve worked. So why was he still alive & well?

Miles away, in an inn in Dafan Mountain, Wei Wuxian wakes up in a body that’s wearing all purple. And has Zidian on his right hand. Panicked, WWX calls: “Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!” and jumps up to find a mirror. He knows he hasn’t possessed Jiang Cheng. So why would he be in his body? all the while he keeps frantically calling Jiang Cheng’s name.

It takes several moments for JC to come to himself...as much as he COULD come to himself when he's lost control of his own body, & hears WWX’s panicked voice in his mind. All of this could have just been a sleep paralysis or something (except that he knows he wasn't sleeping. He was doing paperwork)...but then he hears his own voice calling his own name as his body takes the liberty to jump up & start searching the room.

Then comes the answer to WWX’s frantic calling from inside of his mind: “Wei Wuxian?!”

WWX lets out a breath of relief: “Ah...thank fuck! Jiang Cheng! You’re alive!”

JC answers furiously: “AND YOU COULDN’T STAY DEAD WHILE THERE WAS A MEMBER OF THIS FAMILY STILL ALIVE! YOU HAVE TO PERSONALLY COME BACK FROM THE DEAD TO CHANGE THAT!”

“If you’re still alive, then why am I here?!”

“WEI WUXIAN! YOU DARE TO POSSESS ME AND THEN ASK ME WHY I’M NOT DEAD ENOUGH?!”

“FFS! I didn’t possess you, Jiang Cheng! Would I be like THIS if I had possessed you?!”

“well then, use Zidian!”

“Use Zidi-Jiang Cheng! WTF! Don’t be so rash! beating ME with Zidian would be beating YOU with Zidian!”

“HANG ME with Zidian if it would get you out of me!”

“get me out of-...?OH! Ooooh! You’re right! Zidian does do that!...wait...how do you use this thing?”

WWX finally gets Zidian going (and is lucky that JC stops him before he fries them both with too much voltage within his first few seconds in JC’s body). and it doesn’t work. they’re still stuck.

WWX can’t think of any reason why this would have happened.

at the Mo Manor, MXY comes to the conclusion that perhaps he has summoned the Yiling Patriarch, but not into his own body. He has let him lose and now Yiling Laozu is seeking revenge for himself! MXY thinks that the person Yiling Laozu would most likely want to seek revenge upon would be his murderer and brother, Young Sect Leader Jiang. He has to inform him that his life is in danger. But with what he hears of Jiang-Zongzhu’s attitude toward demonic Cultivators, and people who even utter Yiling Laozu’s name, he doesn’t dare to approach him with the information that he not only has performed a demonic ritual specifically to summon the Yiling Patriarch, but he has put Jiang-Zongzhu’s life in danger, too! But on the other hand, if WWX doesn’t fulfill MXY’s wish. MXY’s soul might be forever destroyed, never to get reincarnated! Finally, after giving it much thought, MXY decides that he can try approaching his nephew, Jin Ling, and tell him that his Jiujiu might be in grave danger, and if they see WWX, tell him to come to Mo Village, and then MXY will run before JL comes for his life & JC even sees him, and he won’t be there for when JL tells these to his uncle. So, taking Lil’ Apple, he gets on his way to Dafan Mountain.

WWX is convinced that he can do a very good JC impression. But the problem is that at all times, it seems like Jiang-Zongzhu is doing a Jiang-Zongzhu impression. And also he’s holding back laughter. JC keeps nagging him in his head. when they’re not fighting (which is rarely. But fighting 24/7 in your own head, even for them, gets exhausting), back into the habit, WWX finds ways to tease and annoy JC. In his first life, he was exactly one (1) cm taller than JC, and he never lets it go. He takes any opportunity to say that “If I was in my previous tall body...” “If I had my 0.03125 chi...” “Life from down here...”.

JC’s head disciple, whoever they are, is WWX’s new nemesis. they’re his new JZX. Poor thing has no idea why they’re suddenly so out of favor with Jiang-Zongzhu. They were fine an hour ago. they think that Jiang-Zongzhu might just be in a bad mood. But no, they’re the only one getting this treatment. Others even say that Jiang-Zongzhu behaves lighter than usual. Occasionally, WWX snaps back at others with one of JC’s zingers™️ & then they temporarily forget the angst & drama between them as JC is like “You know what would have been better?” and WWX either agrees & is like “Oh, you should have said it back then!” or insists that his comeback was better. either way, they keep coming up with better and better comebacks for the next hour. When they’re trying to sleep suddenly one of them comes up with a very good one.

It doesn’t take 3 seconds for JL to realize that that’s not his Jiujiu. WWX explains to him that he too has no idea wtf he’s doing here (while JC in WWX's mind sneers that this would imply that he has any idea what he’s doing at other times) & he’s really trying to find a way out of his uncle’s body. He wisely withholds information about who he is. And also acts as a messenger between JC & JL. Who first and foremost, tells the brat to get a grip! Everything is under control. (It’s not)

During the night- hunt, When one of the sect leaders was going on about something that didn't interest LWJ, he thinks he saw Jiang Wanyin rubbing his nose in thought. Which is something that he has never seen him do. BUT YOU KNOW WHO DID?! It does happen that 2 people who are close to each other would occasionally pick each other’s habit. But 13/16 years after Wei Wuxian’s death?! Unlikely! The next weird thing he noticed is that when Sect Leader Yao was talking, he’s sure he saw Jiang Wanyin trying to hold back laughter in the exact same way that WWX used to do. Then, when he turns to sneak a peek at this peculiar behavior again, he catches Jiang Wanyin already looking at him, but not in the way that a Jiang Wanyin would ever look at LWJ. And! For a second it looks like he’s going to break into a smile but then he immediately looks away. And it doesn’t just end there. When one of the sect leaders that LWJ has seen talking to JWY hundreds of times before goes to talk to him, for a second there is a blank, confused look on his face as though he doesn’t recognize him. So, when LWJ catches him sneaking out of his room at the inn at night, suspiciously holding a flute in hand, he follows him. (it’s optional whether the flute is Chenqing or not. ‘cause, on one hand, I don’t know if JC would carry Chenqing with him at all times, so I think it would be in the Lotus Pier, but on the other hand, he did carry WQ’s comb with him everywhere. so...)

he didn’t know JWY could play the flute. or would if he could. he follows him to the depth of the woods, where there’s no one else but them. then, JWY starts playing the flute. it’s two or three songs that LWJ doesn’t know but have familiar compositions. And then, he plays a familiar one. Suddenly the leaves rattle and there comes a sound of chains and a man with the pale face of the dead, disheveled hair & wearing all black approaches. it’s the ghost general! a few moments of astonishment on JWY’s face pass and then he examines the ghost general and pulls something out from behind his head. But what’s more, is that he starts arguing with someone that is not Wen Ning who stands silently. LWJ catches sight of Zidian crackling for a short second on his hand. and then he hears clearly:” Jiang Cheng! CALM DOWN FOR A SECOND WOULD YOU?! Don’t you think it’s strange that Wen Ning is ALIVE when he should have been dead over a decade ago?! Don’t you want to get to the bottom of this?!”

LWJ thinks he knows what’s happened. he’s so overcome with the newfound knowledge that he slightly moves and straightens himself. his guan touches some leaves and the noise catches WWX & WN’s attention. WWX quickly sends WN off and then he turns to go, too. As he goes he erases any doubts that might have been about Jiang Wanyin being possessed by starting to sing in a quiet voice. he reasons “Well, Jiang Cheng, it’s either pretending that you were singing OR looking like you were talking to yourself AND the ghost general! Which is it gonna be?” and “Jiang Cheng! You’ve got such a nice voice! why do you never sing? I’m not gonna stop singing!”

WHY WAS THE UNIVERSE TESTING LAN WANGJI!! IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANYONE! ANY RANDOM PERSON! WHY WOULD HE COME BACK IN JIANG WANYIN'S BODY?! LWJ would see JWY & his blood would boil! He who had never had a single problem with his own brother in his life had the Cain instinct toward his brother-in-law. He would see WWX's expressions on JWY's face and he could SEE WWX behind JWY's face & his heart would miss a bit & the sun would shine brighter for a second before it registered that the expression is on JWY's face. It looks wrong and weird & it would give LWJ cognitive dissonance.

At Dafan Mountain, the Juniors think that Jiang-Zongzhu has had a qi deviation when he takes the time to explain to them how he figured out what the dancing maiden is, even engaging them in the conversation, while frantically searching for the young mistress. 

when he finally gets to Jin Ling and has to save him, WWX of course goes to hastily make a bamboo flute, but then he suddenly sees Zidian on his hand. JC yells inside his head to use it. But it’s only after he turns it into the lightning whip that he realizes he doesn’t really know how to use it. That spinning around and exactly hitting the target or using it as a lasso without wiping out everyone else in a close radius or even hitting yourself and controlling the voltage really needs practice, “Wrap it around her and pull. Wei Wuxian! what are you waiting for!” “How do you use this thing!”. Panic is creeping inside when he suddenly blacks out. and when he comes to himself, he’s standing over the shattered statue on the ground, Zidian in hand and around the statue, as the dust slowly settles. except that HE’s not the one standing! Jiang Cheng is! WWX is not the one controlling the body! JC has taken over by sheer protective Jiujiu power.

For the very first time, Jin Ling lights up when he gets a scolding from his uncle. ‘cause yeah that’s definitely his uncle!

And it’s here that they realize that JC can take over the body, too. And new war wages on.

Both of them know that WWX needs to take over the body to do his investigations and dark magic stuff on what's gone wrong that they’ve ended up like this, and what can they do to fix it. And that JC needs to take over in political and overall sect leader situations. And because demonic cultivation is harmful to body and mind, and WWX, JYL & JZX have all already died because of WWX’s demonic cultivation, WWX would really rather not risk Shidi’s life, too. So as much as WWX enjoys finally being able to fight with a sword again if the situation gets too serious, he agrees that JC would better be able to fight, both because he can use Zidian and, WWX is out of practice with the sword (But he starts to practice with both sword and Zidian. and he's LIVING! Even though JC would greatly amuse himself with WWX’s fails at wielding Zidian, he would give him helpful tips, too.) But both of them would say that “Once you take over, you’d never give control back to me! I’m not giving it to you!”

LWJ unnecessarily rushes to protect the Yunmeng bros thrice. 2/3 time he meets JC’s incredulous rage. One time it’s a very impressed and grateful WWX, LWJ just quietly follows them around to help in any way he can anytime he can. JC is super annoyed, and suspicious that LWJ knows. and WWX is stressed ‘cause LWJ knows both of them. How long can he fool him? Until LWJ finally calls “Wei Ying” and everything makes sense.

Since WWX is currently residing in his Shidi’s body, LWJ is spared the emotional torment of thinking that WWX is abusing and making fun of his love and devotion by harassing him.

On the other hand, WWX is made bluntly aware of LWJ’s feelings for him from the very first moment their eyes linger on each other for 0.05 seconds via JC’s very helpful gross-out, screaming, scolding, furious, outraged, and indignant commentary. “STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!” “STOP GIVING HIM SMILES AND HEART EYES LIKE AN IDIOT, WEI WUXIAN!” “OKAY, THAT’S ENOUGH LOOKING INTO PEOPLE’S EYES! TIME-OUT!” “I SWEAR IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP TOWARDS HIM!” “I SWEAR IF HE GETS ONE CHI CLOSER!”

things like jumping down a tree in Yunmeng to see if LWJ would catch him are definitely out of the question, but not even making heart eyes at each other is without its obstacles with JC screaming in his head. (while WWX insists that they’re NOT making heart eyes. They're just making eye contact. Shut up, JC!)

Soon, MXY arrives at Dafan Mountain and finds JL, who is arguing with the Lan Juniors and Ouyang Zizhen and wants to talk to him privately. JL snaps that he doesn’t have anything with MXY to talk about privately. If he has something to say, say it here. And MXY thinks that it’s better actually. The Lan kids are good kids. If JL wants to eradicate him after hearing what’s happened, they’d stop him. So he tells his tale. when it’s finished, all of the Juniors just gape at him. MXY turns his head and freezes when he sees Sect Leader Jiang staring aghast at him with Hanguang-Jun by his side. all the wide eyes of the Juniors turn from MXY to Jiang-Zongzhu. As expected, Zidian starts to crackle on his right hand. But then, very unexpectedly, his left hand holds his right hand and tries to stop him. Not the way Jiang-Zongzhu usually stops touching Zidian and calms himself down. But he looks like he’s actually fighting himself! Then, JL who finally knows WWX is inside his uncle’s body jumps up and says: “You,,,!” but he can’t do anything to WWX without hurting his Jiujiu. But all the Juniors know that JL would never shout at his Jiujiu like that, they think they finally know what’s with Sect Leader Jiang’s “qi deviation”. that...actually...explains a lot.

MXY pales and starts to run, but is caught by WWX. WWX asks him what he’s exactly done. MXY explains the ritual step by step. WWX can say what drafts have mixed up to result in this. But he has no idea what to do now. because those drafts were never supposed to mix up. he guesses that the reason he’s in JC’s body must be related to his golden core that is inside JC. But he can’t say that to him. He instead tells JC that it must be due to...some unfinished business between them, to which JC replies that his unfinished business with WWX is that he hasn’t finished WWX. MXY then starts to beg WWX to take revenge for him because otherwise both MXY and WWX’s souls would be forever destroyed. Never to get reincarnated. Hearing this, JC panics. And immediately decides that they’re gonna get that goddamn revenge. At worst, they’ll get stuck together in his body until one of them dies and the other gets the body for himself. Of course, he would bring up a thousand excuses for why he agrees with this revenge plot, instead of telling WWX that he’s scared for his soul. It’s here that the Lan Juniors ask if MXY is talking about his aunt and uncle and cousin. Upon his affirmation, they tell him that they’re already dead. And explain what’s happened in the Mo Manor with the cursed hand. WWX is curious about that hand thing. But JC says that the GusuLan Sect gotta be able to handle one angry hand. It’s none of their business. He’s got a sect to run. The Lans say it’ll be good if they can visit and take a look. JL is kinda curious, too. But he’d never agree with WWX on any matter. So, he feigns extreme disinterest. “What about Young Master Mo?” Lan Sizhui asks. “What about him? Doesn’t the lunatic inherit the leadership of the Mo clan?” JC thinks. But doesn’t say anything, because he’s very, VERY crossed with MXY. To his surprise, nobody else points this out. The Lans decide that they’re taking MXY to Gusu to give him another chance at cultivation.

Days later, WWX bullies JC every second of every day to the point that he decides to let him have a look at the accursed angry hand. He’s extra bitter because he knows that WWX’s excitement has less to do with the hand, and more to do with seeing Hanguang-Jun.

They get there with JL and some of the Jiang Disciples. After that, when the hand points in a direction, and WWX guesses that’s where we should go, JC says that that’s where “the Lans” should go. “we” are going to Qinghe to night hunt. Here was your fucking angry hand! you had your look! we’re going now!

and so they do, they depart at the same time as LWJ. Awkwardly for JC & LWJ, & To WWX’s delight (AND LWJ’s), it turns out that they’re going the same way for the first few miles. And the next few miles. then it turns out that the hand was pointing to Qinghe. Of course, JC thinks that even if they were crossing the narrowest road in the world only two could pass, and there was no other way, and all around them was on fire, no contact with Hanguang-Jun would still be necessary. But WWX & LWJ beg to differ. WWX annoys LWJ every chance he gets (or creates. these moments annoy both JC & LWJ, and LWJ might not be as fun as he used to be, but JC doesn’t disappoint. So WWX doubly enjoys himself), while JC avoids him like the plague. So one-moment LWJ is definitely-not-getting-hit-on-by-WWX-shut-up-JC! while another moment he comes face to face with a very disgusted and annoyed JC who immediately takes his leave. And those moments when JC & LWJ suddenly find themselves gazing into each other’s eyes are THE MOST AWKWARD and cringe-inducing moments ever. LWJ wonders if the universe is testing his love by making WWX come back inside JWY’s body. And thus, the poor YMJ head disciple is not the only one who gets whiplashes from seemingly one purple man.

LWJ only gains some face with JC when he helps them save JL from inside the wall of the soul-eating stone castle. and then immediately loses that face when he takes the liberty to examine the curse mark on his leg. JC decides that WWX has disgraced him enough for a day- or a lifetime, and starts fighting with him over controlling the body. once the fight starts, it doesn’t stop until they reach NHS’ inn, when they pause to see exactly where they are WWX seizes the moment to take control of the body. But after the door opens for him to see NHS, he realizes that it was really better if JC had control of the body because NHS knows both him & JC. He might doubt things. But WWX has some specific questions to ask NHS and has his own interrogation method. It won’t work if JC has to pause every second for WWX to dictate to him what to ask. NHS wouldn’t be scared. Well, that and WWX can’t just now hand the body to JC after such a hard-won victory.

NHS already finds it strange that MXY who was supposed to be WWX left the Mo Manor without even seeing the cursed hand. Could it be that MXY in his letter wasn’t clear enough about who are exactly the targets of his revenge? but he read MXY’s journal and it seemed clear. NHS doesn’t remember Wei-Xiong to be so dense. could it be that he was so uninterested in returning to life that he wanted to destroy his own soul? MXY going to Lotus Pier and the CR was expected, but what wasn’t expected was him not being on the mission to Qinghe with HGJ. Likewise, Jiang-Xiong following JL to the stone castle wasn’t unexpected, and his meeting with HGJ there wasn’t out of the realm of possibility either, but what was strange was that, since when had HGJ and Jiang-Xiong grown so close? Jiang-Xiong has visited the CR! he came with HGJ to Qinghe from the CR! NHS was sure that before, neither of the two would piss on the other if the other was on fire. But now they were sitting here, talking in complete harmony. strangely. Jiang-Xiong helps himself to a drink in the middle of the conversation and HGJ gives him another drink when that's finished?! Very odd. Also, Jiang-Xiong’s scowl looks forced. As if he has to remind himself to scowl when previously scowling came as naturally to Jiang-Xiong as breathing. He's pretty sure he saw the slightest shadow of a cold smirk once, which was not something that Jiang-Xiong would do. He felt like he saw him stopping himself from doing that again. And he looks more cold than furious as Jiang-Xiong would have been. And the interrogation method and the way of talking are familiar, but not Jiang-Xiong’s. He also shows interest in NHS’s fans, which Jiang-Xiong would never do. Most people assume that Jiang-Xoing is very confident, not NHS though, he knows that is a mask for his extreme insecurity, but even people who believed that he’s confident, seeing him now, would understand what confidence really looked like. And it didn’t look like Jiang-Xiong. After leaving them, NHS eavesdrops for a few seconds, and as expected hears HGJ arguing with WWX over letting him examine a curse mark apparently. What he doesn’t expect to hear is HGJ also arguing with JWY!-with a very different tone- over the same thing! He then hears Flute-playing from the room, and he knows he's fucked. His plan would never fall into motion with Jiang-Xiong & Wei-Xiong occupying the same body! If WWX said let’s go right, JC would say no we’re going left even if his destination was at the right and there was no road on the left! NHS has to do some quick thinking. During his research on how to bring back Wei-Xiong, he had read something about a certain “The Sun and Moon Dew Flower Seed” which would grow a body for a homeless soul. NHS doesn’t know how WWX is going to extract his soul from his shidi’s body while making sure that he won’t hurt JC or it won’t be JC’s soul, or both of them transferring to the new body. But he trusts he will find a way. Growing the body will take time. But NHS thinks that either by that time, they have trapped JGY, or if they haven’t, well at least they will then. in the meantime, Huaisang will do what he can to speed them up. So, NHS will visit Er-ge crying that a vicious ghost has appeared in Qinghe and NHS remembers that he has previously read about the way to deal with it in a book in the CR’s library. and when he made it to the library, he will slip in the book about “The Sun and Moon Dew Flower Seed” among the other books. If all goes according to plan, soon WWX and LWJ will have to visit the library to find the method that JGY has used to kill Da-ge. They’ll find the book then. NHS is pretty sure that HGJ is even more eager than WWX to separate him from JC.

JC already has to get on board with the goddamn wanker hand investigations since WWX claimed that the only way to remove the curse mark was to find all the pieces of the corpse, and if the curse mark wasn’t removed it would kill once it reached the heart, but things get really personal for JC when one night, they can’t sleep with Fairy’s constant barking, and on the morning, they hear a scream, and turns out that somebody has nailed a dead cat at the top of JL’s door. Somebody is deliberately messing with JL, and all JC knows is that he now has a corpse to nail at the top of some door. 

So the group of WWX/JC, LWJ, WN, the Juniors but now with the addition of some mouthy YMJ disciples to cause even more pointless arguments with LJY and JL, and MXY who now has made some small progress at cultivation and made some friends with the Lans embarked on their investigations. JC and WWX have to split time between JC’s sect leader things and WWX’s detective things, but WWX would be damned to cut his sleep short. So, no matter how late into the night JC wants to stay awake and how soon he gets up and starts screaming at WWX, WWX is going to get his 9 hours of sleep, and like it or not, so is JC. And they don’t always fight. Mostly they fight, but sometimes they just bicker. And reminisce, and help each other make fashion choices. Sometimes it’s just “Oh, that bakery is still there?” “Yeah. It’s that kind baker’s son now.” “Oh, that kid grew up!” Or “What happened to that water ghoul that that grumpy farmer preferred to us?” or “You know eating what would be just perfect now?”(whether WWX finds a mahogany woman comb in JC’s things and never stops pestering him is optional)

At Jinlintai, with the information JGY got from Yi City via Su Minshan, this whole new bestie situation between WangJi and Sect Leader Jiang, and rumors about Sect Leader Jiang’s recent strange behavior, he would probably guess what’s happened. And things wouldn’t have been so easy for JGY with JC being WWX instead of MXY. He can’t just accuse Jiang-Zongzhu of conspiring against him and go for an attack, hoping that WWX would go on the defensive and without a weapon would pick up Suibian and unsheathe it, so JGY can pull an uno reverse card. Because he and Jiang-Zongzhu don't have any previous grievances or any problems at all. In fact, they have a very good relationship. Jiang-Zongzhu supports LanlingJin Clan’s interests because that would guarantee JL’s future. And he's usually careful not to cause diplomatic incidents with other sects. He doesn't have many enemies. And JGY can’t just attack Jiang-Zongzhu without causing a full-blown war among the sects. And JGY’s heir, JL would get a lot of unnecessary burns here. And anyway, that would be a really pointless attack, because JGY’s pretty sure that Sect Leader Jiang doesn’t even go to bed without Zidian and Sandu on him. Why would he draw Suibian? (and that’s if anyone even gets to the sect leader before being torn to shreds by his disciples). and asking the others to hand in their weapons before entering his room would look too much like an ambush. The crowd would turn against him without even getting into the room. JGY could still frame some other sect leader that he’s had problems with, but fabricating evidence would take the time that he isn’t sure he has on his hands, and without evidence, a war among sects would begin. So. JGY instead of attacking JC, explains to the audience that he’s been shocked to have recently heard of Sect Leader Jiang doing some unorthodox method of cultivation that is way beneath him and is especially far from the righteous, venerable Jiang-Zongzhu who so openly despises these abhorrent methods and has opposed them for years and that JGY had some manuscripts of a spirit summoning rituals that he’s noticed are now missing. He remembers that his brother MXY has caught sight of them. But the thing is that different pages of different copies are missing. So if MXY has indeed done the ritual to summon WWX, it must have gone wrong. JGY then explains that he’s been holding his tongue and waiting for further evidence because he would never want to jump to conclusions and tarnish the honorable Sect Leader Jiang’s impeccable reputation. But now, with someone clearly plotting against the Chief Cultivator and the Jin Sect in general, the honorable Sect leader Jiang must understand that the safety of Jianghu is at stake. There’s a simple way to find out if Yiling Laozu has committed yet another crime against the great YMJ Clan and has possessed the brother he’s betrayed. If Jiang-Zongzhu can’t pull Yiling Laozu’s sealed sword out of its sheath, then JGY wholeheartedly apologizes for his insolence and puts an immediate stop to the outrageous rumors going around about the noble Jiang-Zongzhu’s involvement in Demonic Cultivation. Cornered like this, whether JC unsheathes the sword, or refuses to do so, both would give them away. The YMJ sect, JL, LWJ, and JC act very offended and put up resistance. In the end, LXC intervenes by saying that if Jiang-Zongzhu will honor them with a visit to the CR, the GusuLan Sect has methods of checking for possession and for exorcism by music and all. both SMS and JGY strongly suspect him of bullshitting. JGY does his “looking from under his eyelashes at Er-ge and batting his eyelashes like a Disney princess” thing and tells him “But Er-ge, how is this necessary when such an easy method is right here to put our minds at ease once and for all right here?” But JC continues to be offended and says that there is no way he’d do this demeaning thing. So, off to the CR, it is.

Luckily for them, they find the book NHS has planted there and WWX thinks he can find a way to transfer his soul to the new body without hurting JC. Unluckily for everyone else, Jiang-Zongzhu is really pissed and is giving everyone a hard time. Unluckily for JC, LWJ & WWX are really hitting it and LXC is wingmanning.  

The Burial Mounds happen pretty much the same. except that JC will still have his meridians at max power (This time, JGY visits the CR to ask about the progress of the Lans investigations and claims that WWX has already put his evil plan in motion when he got caught), and when WWX does his spirit-attracting flag thing both he and JC can kick ass with Zidian and Sandu, and let’s say they Dual wield with Suibian that LWJ brought with him. and also lots and lots of confusing switches between JC and WWX happen in the middle of the conversations. some might have lots of “who exactly am I talking to RN?” moments but those who even once had talked to JC know that the one who is permanently scowling and is in constant bitch mode, is Jiang-Zongzhu.

JC is definitely still very hostile with WN and MXY. Especially WN. But now that he had to constantly put up with them for a long while because of WWX, he’s used to them being around. He’s still hostile and they know to avoid him when he’s in control of the body, but it’s toned down. Like, it’s less “hostile towards a nemesis” situation and more “hostile towards a loathed neighbour” one. But on the night of the Guanyin Temple, when he feels things starting to get heated between LWJ and WWX, JC wrestles with WWX and can take control from him for a few moments enough to call WN and MXY to their room. then the four of them sit awkwardly in silence in a row staring at the wall in front of them. There’s a lot of tension between LWJ & WWX, any attempts at conversation by MXY are met with complete and embarrassing failure and he ceases trying, and JC and WWX fight in their minds. In the end, the atmosphere is so thick that they decide they might as well go to raid the temple right now.

JGY and LXC clearly don’t expect WWX to have been sleeping with LWJ while he resides in his brother’s body, and furthermore, he arrives with LWJ, so that conversation doesn’t happen. the fight with JC also doesn’t happen since he’s already there. Also, when Fairy comes and WWX hides behind LWJ, he does the thing that he usually does when Fairy is nearby, or he hears dogs barking, which is to leave the body to JC, and when JC sees LWJ protecting him from Fairy he's like “what do you think you’re doing?” and they start fighting and so, too busy fighting among themselves they don’t really talk that much with JGY. with that time saved when JGY tells SMS that they’re leaving after he’s done mentally scarring WWX and JC, he doesn’t have to go back to seal LXC’s powers again. He just says bye-bye to LXC and JL, and then to MXY- who was really worried for JGY when he got infected by poison and is very sad about what's happening to JGY, and still clearly hero-worships him but doesn’t look obsessed like before- he says: “Xuanyu, I’m glad you’re still here.” and leaves. MXY smiles. Upon hearing this, Jiang Cheng really wishes that he could look at Wei Wuxian.

LXC, LJ, and NHS didn’t get the closure they wanted. LXC needed answers. NHS needed San-ge dead. But both of them know that it's impossible to find one small man who's excellent at hiding in Dongying. But just in case, they both start quietly learning Japanese.

When all the shitstorm is behind JGY and he has time to think, he puts the puzzle pieces together. Inside the coffin was Da-ge’s sewed-together body. Who would have the most motivation to want to bring down JGY AND put Da-ge’s body in place of his mother’s? Who had the power and resources to get this much information about his past and bribe people? Who was the one who distracted him in the discussion conference so Qin Su could get that letter? Who was the one who was at Guanyin Temple that night without any reason?

So, a while later, LXC receives a letter that tells him to beware of Nie Huaisang. He’s not who he pretends to be. The letter also contains a list of people who may cause trouble for Jin Ling’s position as the Sect Leader of LanlingJin, inside and outside of the sect. It also has instructions for how to deal with them. and some general instructions for JL.

This kind of letter is nostalgic for LXC. With a now very bittersweet feeling, it reminds him of the Sunshot campaign. He really needs to see A-Yao. there are so many things left unanswered. After LXC does something about this information, he decides that the Sender’s address on this letter is his best lead. He decides that he’s going to Dongying.

NHS had guessed that if San-ge wanted to get in touch with anyone it would have been LXC. So he had LXC under watch. When he realizes that Er-ge wants to travel to Dongying, he says that he too, could really use a vacation, so why not go together? And before LXC can object, he invites himself and gets on board. And every step of the day he follows LXC like a shadow. LXC’s pretty sure that NHS doesn’t wake up at 4 A.M. So, one day he goes to visit the address on the letter as soon as he wakes up. As he had guessed, JGY isn’t there. LXC starts asking after JGY every day before NHS wakes up. Or at moments when he thinks NHS is momentarily distracted. But to no avail. LXC has to keep up the appearance that he’s really enjoying a vacation in Dongying. and no one is as adept at enjoying a vacation as NHS. Their hobbies are really different, but they’re able to compromise and meet each other in the middle. And it isn’t...not fun. Annoying or boring sometimes. But overall nice. With their search for JGY going nowhere, It’s truly turning into just a nice vacation. On the other hand, JGY hears from his sources that a cultivator in white, with a forehead ribbon, who looks like he’s ascended from heaven, who is with a dandy with impeccable fashion sense is searching for him. JGY doesn’t know why LXC would come to look for him with NHS. Could it be that he also wanted to kick his ass? As long as they’re together he can’t show himself to LXC. So he keeps them under watch closely via his sources. And eventually sees that LXC is really trying to shake NHS off himself, and only asks after him when NHS isn’t nearby, and his efforts seem sincere. But JGY still can’t risk going to see LXC since he’s sure that even when it seems like NHS is looking the other way, he’s watching LXC. He’s sure that he even has put means to eavesdrop in LXC’s room, and some people at the inn they’re staying at must spy for NHS so JGY can’t meet LXC when he’s having his morning routine while NHS is sleeping. One day, they finally give up on finding JGY and decide that they’ll go back home after the festival they’ve heard will soon be held. At the festival, NHS sees some fans that he deems exquisite works of art. LXC says that while NHS is looking at the fans, he’ll go to see the concert since he's greatly interested in the folk music of this new country and what kinds of instruments they play. After the performance, LXC talks to one of the musicians, and they invite him backstage to see the instruments up close if he wants. LXC goes and hears a yamatogoto playing. It’s a familiar tune. He approaches the sheer screen curtain behind which a figure is playing the yamatogoto. He pushes the curtain aside, and the person turns around. And smiles, as he always does “Hello, Er-ge. You wanted to see me?”

LXC gets explanations & some sort of closure. A-Yao tells him that as much as not seeing LXC will pain him, their visits will endanger JGY. Because NHS will now never be off JGY’s, and so by extension, LXC’s tail. Even now he must be already growing suspicious of LXC’s prolonged absence. And Lan Xichen’s first impulse is to say “What if I stay with you and we hide together? We’re good at this. It’s good. Remember?” But with all the things he’s learned recently, he’s not really sure. On the one hand, he realized that the A-Yao he knew and loved never existed, on the other hand, today when he finally saw him again, his heart pounding, he thought HE DID! HE’S HERE! RIGHT HERE! There was nothing they couldn’t work through. There was nothing that could diminish the joy of just hiding away somewhere from the world with A-Yao. As long as A-Yao was here, they could solve everything else. He might not have been the A-Yao he knew, but he was the A-Yao he loved. All versions of A-Yao, known and unknown, are A-Yaos LXC loves. It scares and assures him both at once. It didn’t matter if a part of LXC couldn't forgive him. Even that part preferred his company to most this world had to offer. But then again...no. He doesn’t know how much he can trust his own judgment anymore. He knows he needs time to think. But if he really gives it thought, he knows that he won’t arrive at the same conclusion once he takes his duty to his sect, and the burden he would place on Wangji who is now finally happy and carefree with WWX into consideration. When A-Yao asks: “Er-ge…you haven’t said anything.” He answers: “I don’t know, A-Yao. I’m not sure about anything anymore…nothing but one.” “And what’s that?” “It was...it was good to see you.” And so, LXC takes A-Yao’s yamatogoto, and to NHS he pretends that he’s been talking to a master of the art and is now going to start playing the yamatogoto. If NHS catches him deep in thought, it’s because he’s trying to get the hang of the new instrument. And maybe find a way to cultivate with it. Still, NHS is suspicious. In the end, just before NHS and LXC leave for China, NHS carries a murder attempt at JGY. It fails. An encounter between them is inevitable. But they just drink tea together and are very passive-aggressive. threatening each other with polite smiles and humor. Even complementing each other.

As long as they both live, they’ll always play cat and mouse. both of them are always going to attempt to murder each other and bring the other’s downfall. Both of them will continue to fail now that the element of surprise is gone. Sometimes they will just have tea and a nice, intelligent, dangerous passive-aggressive conversation. Neither of them will ever win but after a certain point, neither of them will want to. It won’t be so much about the eventual victory as it is about the game. If the other is gone, who will be so clever, so strategic, so familiar, so adept at the game and so wholeheartedly into it to play with them? and after all this time, if they’re not playing, then what are they going to do? What will they do with so much peace on their hands?

When LXC returns, he’ll tell others what they need to hear. (’Cause unlike SOME people he doesn’t withhold necessary information from people who have relevance to the subject), and he’ll have the “WWX GET A GRIP MY BROTHER LOVES YOU!” talk with the aforementioned WWX, too.

Finally, the body that has grown from “The Sun and Moon Dew Flower Seed” in the likeness of WWX’s previous body is ready for WWX’s spirit to attach to it. But by this time, JC, unfortunately for him, has already acquired: 1)an extra group of ducklings that consist of Lan Jingyi who takes any chance to roast him but is the only worthy opponent in JC’s league of sass game, one Ouyang Zizhen the poet, and Lan Sizhui who is really a good kid but with the minor bug of being the son of Hanguang-Jun and also a Wen, and WN's beloved cousin at that, and 2)three frienemies in the forms of one Hanguang-Jun, a fierce corpse that has killed his BIL, and a clinically insane former Demonic Cultivator. The aforementioned former Demonic cultivator has now made some progress in cultivation under the teachings of Lan Qiren and with huge effort and helps from the Juniors and with enough motivation in such a healthy environment. He also bagged himself a nice, good-looking, loyal, supportive, totally smitten Lan boy. And JC finally brought himself to remind him that he’s actually the leader of the Mo Clan now and by now somebody has most definitely usurped him. If he wants to take back his clan. now is already late. (But not impossible)

It will take a few years for WWX to wake up in his new body. He decides not to say goodbye to the Juniors, Wen Ning, and Lan Wangji. But Lan Wangji doesn’t need to be told anything. He knows Wei Ying. He’s lost him before for 13/16 years, and now he’s going to lose him again for another 5 years. It’s a painful goodbye that even Jiang Cheng doesn’t interrupt. Lan Wangji stays with Wei Wuxian and helps him with his guqin through tears that block his eyes as Wei Wuxian plays a strangely soothing tune on his flute until one last breath of Wei Wuxian in Jiang Cheng’s body leaves him and the melody stops. The flute almost falls from his hands but even as he collapses Jiang Cheng grasps it, and Lan Wangji catches him before he falls and puts him on a bed, then he quickly gets himself to the Sun And Moon Dew body in the soil. It takes a short while for Jiang Cheng to wake up. and he’s still dizzy and weak from feeling Wei Wuxian’s soul leaving his body, it was like a death by proxy, but it doesn’t stop him from getting up and dragging himself to where the new body in the soil is. Lan Wangji & Jiang Cheng keep vigil in that garden for 5 years. Lan Wangji almost all the time but Jiang Cheng as much as he can. When Wei Wuxian wakes up, he opens his eyes to Lan Wangji. And for the first time, that beautiful, beautiful face is full of emotions. Upon seeing him, Lan Wangji is sure that he can never look away. They can finally kiss. Lan Wangji has tears in his eyes. 

It doesn’t take long until WWX sees JC. He beams at him. One of his sweet, familiar, bright smiles. And the smile in return comes so naturally to JC that he doesn’t even notice to stop it, and trying to stop it would have been trying to stop the breeze from going its way. JC’s eyes shine in a way nobody has seen in years. With every fiber of their being, both brothers want to hug each other. But both of them assume the other doesn’t want them to. So they just stand staring and smiling at each other in suspense. Until WWX ruins the mood with a “life from up here” joke. JC gives Chenqing back to him.

In a moment of carelessness, WN upon seeing WWX’s new body happily exclaims: “And with a new golden core, too!”

and JC is like: “...wh-?”

***

Now that we took “The Sun and Moon Dew Flower Seed” from SVSSS, let’s take the Dream Demon, too.

The Yunmeng siblings had already reconciled without officially reconciling the way all siblings always do. By having to put up with each other 24/7. But the Golden Core reveal fucked things up severely again. WWX didn’t know where he stood with JC anymore. After JC’s mental breakdown, WWX didn’t know what to say to him or do when he sees him again. so he avoided seeing him after that.

The Dream Demon shows the worst moments of one’s life from a third-person perspective.

So, seeing the day WWX and JC were on the run after the fall of the Lotus Pier, and a teenage WWX went shopping, from a third-person perspective, the Current Wei Ying can see that a Wen Patrol marched into the street, Jiang Cheng caught sight of them, and quickly hid somewhere. Even knowing that these events belong to the past, WWX lets out a breath of relief. But then, the Wens saw WWX, and they started to slowly close in on him. WWX thinks “How on earth did I survive this?!” it was then that a violet shadow darted past them. All the wens ran after him.

WWX watches in horror. He's so shocked and horrified that his brain is slow to catch up. “Jiang Cheng you Moron you hid in such a good place nobody saw you why would you come out and run in the open you freaking idiot?!” But then it clicks for him. WHY WOULD HE RUN IN THE OPEN, INDEED?!

WWX has a complete meltdown. He drops to his knees in the middle of a street that is now empty of people who had faces, wide-eyed and shivering, while his mind whirls. He spent all these years thinking that JC had left him behind, but he had put him before himself! Before their sect! But…Jiang Cheng’s sacrifice was completely in vain! Wei Wuxian made it so! Jiang Cheng got tortured in his fallen home swarmed with enemies next to the hanged corpses of his freshly murdered parents, hearing tales of how they died from Wen Chao, only for Wei Wuxian to lose his golden core and die a short while after anyway! But of course, Wei Wuxian would give up his golden core for Jiang Cheng. Even now, he would do that. That’s something he mourned, but never regretted. But even though he never blamed Jiang Cheng for what he did in extreme grief, he would be lying if he said that he never thought how things would have gone had Jiang Cheng not gone back for his parents’ corpses. But just now WWX found out that he would lose his golden core anyway! Either at the hands of Wen Zhuliu, probably along with his life, or for Jiang Cheng. At least now it rests inside his shidi, used to rebuild their sect and protect their nephew! But Jiang Cheng is the shidi! He’s younger! His parents had explicitly asked WWX to protect & take care of him! How dare that brat decide to protect Wei Wuxian?!

WWX sits there going through the five stages of grief as he cries, shouts, and curses. The more he gets entangled in his emotions, the more he gets drowned in the dream. Just when it reaches critical levels and the risk of him dying there gets high, he suddenly notices current time Jiang Cheng standing there looking in bewilderment at the faceless people walking in the familiar street in front of him. “What brand new fuckery is this, Wei Wuxian?” He looks at WWX kneeling there with wide, red-rimmed eyes and tears on his face as if he sees nothing out of the ordinary with him. WWX has summoned JC into his dream with how strongly he’s thought about him.

Of course, JC knows the street, and by how devastated WWX looks, and how he’s dragged him into this, he thinks he knows the scene, too. He itches to repeat WWX’s own words to him “It’s all in the past. Don’t think about it anymore.” But he holds his tongue. He hates seeing WWX like that. He wants it to stop. But doesn’t know what to say. Until he realizes that there is nothing to say, really.

So he just goes to where WWX is fallen on the ground, holds out his hand to him, and says: “Wei Wuxian, Get up!”

He says it with a casual, easy reproachful tone as if Wei Wuxian is being lazy and sleepy on an early morning when they’re supposed to get to their classes. Or they have to clean their room before Madam Yu shows up. He says it as if it’s all as simple as that…and maybe, maybe it is. Maybe it is all as simple as that. They just loved each other to ruins. As simple as that.

So they both finally realize “I loved you completely. And you loved me the same. That’s all. The rest is confetti.” And Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng’s hand and gets up with his help. (mirroring that scene in the meadows when WWX tries to pull JC up and JC disagrees.)

Hand in each other’s hand, they look at each other. As Wei Wuxian’s feelings untangle, all around them the scene shatters. Wei Wuxian finally knows that Jiang Cheng wants him to hug him. He did back then when Wei Wuxian came back in his original body, too. And even before that. So. Wei Wuxian pulls Jiang Cheng into his embrace. At first, he doesn’t get any response, but then, tentatively, Jiang Cheng’s hands wrap around him, too. And then, he hangs on to Wei Wuxian fiercely as if his life depends on it. Wei Wuxian knows that soon, they, too will disappear and he will wake up. So he clings on to Jiang Cheng tighter, and Jiang Cheng clings to him tighter in return. Wei Wuxian whispers: “I’m sorry, and thank you.” But before Jiang Cheng can say anything, he disappears in Wei Wuxian’s arms. And Wei Wuxian wakes up. He wakes up to a world in which he’s more loved than he thought he was. To a world where somewhere out there, he has a brother who cherishes him more than dear life. But then again, he’s always had.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i fell in love with jin guangyao when he threw his hands up (metaphorically) at nie mingjue during the stair debacle and went "wow you really Cannot understand me. fine. i tried. skill issue"!! i thought it was so cool how neatly he dual-wielded justified terror, justified snark, and a sincere attempt at making himself understood. i guess that's triple-wielding, actually, but you get it

you’re right, i do get it, i get it so much. 🤝🤝🤝 that moment turned me into the unhinged jgy stan i am today.

Jin GuangYao sighed, “Brother, it really was my father’s orders. I couldn’t refuse. Now, if you want me to take care of Xue Yang, what would I say to him?”

Nie MingJue, “There’s no need for explanations. Come back to me with Xue Yang’s head in your hand.”

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 a second, a few degrees of unease flashed over Jin GuangYao’s face, as though someone with an unmentionable illness was suddenly exposed in the public. There was nowhere for him to hide.

He spoke, “My whole thing? Which whole thing? Brother, you’ve always yelled at me for calculating people and being too dishonorable. You say that you’re a proud, righteous person, that you aren’t afraid of anything, that propen men shouldn’t need to play with schemes. That’s fine. Your background is noble and your cultivation is high. But what about me? Am I the same as you? First, my cultivation isn’t as firm as yours. Ever since I was born, has anyone taught me? And second, I have no prominent background. Do you think that I’m in a steady position, here at the LanlingJin Sect? Do you think that 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! He whose stomach is full believes not him who is starving.”

EXR translation, pg 498 & 499

then comes the part of the text where imo jgy is 100% aware of the fact that nmj is going to hear his words and choose the worst faith interpretation of them. this feels like one last moment to give nmj a chance to prove him wrong about what he knows inevitably is about to happen, and it has been quoted and discussed so many times that i don’t think i need to do so again. but i will add this moment too, because i don’t think jgy gets enough credit for the brutal, savage humour in this line, after he gets kicked down the stairs:

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.”

EXR translation, pg 500

rating: siiiiiiiiick

[mdzs-fics]

Shattered Path by meyari

Series, AU 3 works

I have read a number of stories that begin with Lan Wangji attempting to rescue Wen Yuan in the Burial Mounds and ending up in Lotus Pier with Jiang Wanyin. This series has one such tale, and a broad realignment of what comes after throughout the three stories. Overall, the series is a fun read, with the third story ending on a hopeful note.

Here's a brief overview of stories in the Shattered Path series.

The Price of Freedom 10 chapters (complete) 32k words

"Fuck, yeah, he's really sick," Jiang Wanyin said. "I'm surprised you didn't take him to the Cloud Recesses. They'd have helped him."

"They do not help," Lan Zhan said, swaying as the last of his strength drained away and the room began to retreat down a long, echoing tunnel of grey. "They only crush children into their mold. I could not do that to Wei Ying's son."

"What?" Jiang Wanyin's so distant face asked. "The hell? Are you all right…?"

"No," Lan Zhan replied honestly because the habit of perfect honesty wasn't one he could shed even when he was dying. "I'm not."

The distant vision of Jiang Wanyin's face contorted in a startled shout as darkness rushed in at Lan Zhan. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. A-Yuan was safe. He would be healed.

And Lan Zhan was free to follow Wei Ying at last.

In which a former Lan survives, a child is rescued, the Jin are received, the Lan are received, and advice is given to Jin Guangyao.

There are reflections on the past, and action in the present.

The Cost of Power 10 chapters (complete) 28k words

"I am not a boy," Jin Guangyao said in a quiet, threatening tone. "I am Sect Leader Jin. What did you want?"

"I want my grandson back," Madame Jin said in an angry rush even though her hands clenched fearfully, and her eyes were wide and desperate.

"It will not happen," Jin Guangyao said. He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to fight him. "I have this place because Jiang Wanyin gave it to me. Chifeng-Jun and Zewu-Jun both approved. They accepted. It was Jiang Wanyin who decided it. I will not oppose him, especially since his instant response to seeing Jin Ling in distress was to take Jin Ling into his arms to tend to him. Despite the messy diaper. Despite the fever. Despite everything."

He had never seen Madame Jin hold Jin Ling. Smile down at his crib as Jin Ling fretted, yes, but never touch him. Never hold him. Never comfort him.

When he was Meng Yao, he had seen far too many babies. Some had been loved. Most had not. He knew how babies thrived or did not based on their mother's love.

"You won't—"

"No." Jin Guangyao cut her off. "I will not. I would appreciate your advice on a bride who will not kill me as soon as she has a baby in her belly, preferably one who doesn't cringe to speak to me. I would greatly appreciate your help as Jin-Furen. I would be delighted to recommend any young or old lover you would prefer, should you desire male companionship. I certainly know more of their habits and desires than any one man should after… serving my father. However, I will not anger the Jiang Sect when you could not be bothered to so much as hold your grandson when he cried."

She flinched at the snap of fury in his voice.

In which many things happen, including the theft of Wei Wuxian's works. There are misunderstandings about relationships at Lotus Pier, Wen Ning recovers, and Xue Yang becomes a Problem. Also, Jin Guangyao is the Sect Leader required for these times.

The Toll of Change 10 chapters (complete) 26 k words

"Can't you just leave me alone? I was having a nice nap and you had to go and poke at me."

Wen Ning jerked, standing straight, and turning towards the northwest. That was Wei Wuxian. Not his physical voice, but his spiritual one. It had been so long since he heard it…

Wind drifted across Wen Ning's cheek. There was the faint scent of flowers, though his nose no longer picked up scents properly. If it was faint to him, the smell of the lotuses and iris must be overwhelming around him and A-Yuan. He'd come out onto the pier with A-Yuan to officially check on the giant catfish. A-Yuan was very, very eager to start to learn swimming, even though the water wasn't warm enough yet.

Wen Ning cocked his head.

He had the faint sense of cursing so far off that it was all intonation, no meaning, but it wasn't something he heard with his ears.

It was something that he heard through the bonds Wei Wuxian had crafted to bind his soul back to his body. Which was… not good. At all.

"A-Ning," A-Yuan asked with a tug on Wen Ning's cold hands. "What's wrong?"

"I… thought I heard… something," Wen Ning managed to say.

In which Xue Yang attempts to bring back Wei Wuxian, Wen Ning hears one-sided conversations, and the "misbegotten idiot" (Xue Yang, in the thoughts of Wei Wuxian) attempts to "try something stupid, half-assed, and incredibly unlikely to succeed eventually". He fails.

Wei Wuxian does impossible things, Jin Guangyao gains a family, and Wen Ning and Mo Xuanyu capture a giant catfish. Sort of.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Soldier, Poet, King

Part 15

[Beginning] [Previous]

[AO3] [Masterpost]

Almost a year after the last update, have a new chapter 😅 We're actually in the homestretch of it now and maybe that's why I'm slowing down so much (plus like...life, other projects, you know how it goes)

--//--

“Get this fucking brat off me, I said I’m fine!”

Jin Guangyao continues tapping away at his tablet without a twitch; there are still so many meetings to schedule, so many questions to answer in the wake of their ‘press’ junket, such as it was. Just this morning he’d been contacted directly by the most prominent black market Kaiju parts dealer in Shanghai demanding amnesty lest Jin Guangyao find himself dead in a ditch the next time he steps foot outside the shatterdome, so quite frankly he’s got bigger things to worry about than the wet-cat-protesting-his-bath that is Xue Yang.

“You promised, love,” is all Xiao Xingchen has to say for Xue Yang to settle down with only a little more biting, and considering Nie Huaisang has just taken over the task of poking and prodding him from Mo Xuanyu the biting isn’t really much of a threat, save for the vague potential for infection. Who knows where that mouth has been.

“You’re almost single-handedly responsible for the worst turn this war has taken since it began, so I’d say you’ve lost the right to make demands from us ummmm..indefinitely,” Wei Wuxian replies from his makeshift work area in the back corner of the lab, feet up on his desk and also tapping a mile a minute at his own tablet (though whether he’s doing groundbreaking Kaiju research that could also change the entire course of the war or playing a rhythm game is really anyone’s guess; both are equally likely).

“I used your notes so you’re on the hook for it just as much as I am! You’re basically the Grandmaster of fringe Kaiju research and shit, this is all your fault too!!”

“Wow, that’s a boring argument to have heard for the 30th time today. When are you going to get sick of repeating it?” Wei Wuxian yawns. Jin Guangyao refuses to smile at the rather blatant riling-up that Xue Yang so loves to do to everyone else and yet can’t seem to handle when it’s turned right back on him.

“Take it easy,” he calls without looking up from his work; in his peripheral vision he watches Xue Yang attempt another lunge off the slapdash examination table (comprised mostly of a filing cabinet laid on its side and Nie Huaisang’s emergency cot resting on top of it) set up in the middle of the lab, but of course Nie Huaisang hadn’t even needed to be told to tie him down as soon as they’d gotten him on it (“Buy me dinner first, Sangsang!”) so there’s really nothing for him to do but thrash against his restraints.

“Told you he’s feral,” young A-Qing mutters under her breath, sounding mutinous around the chak-chak-chak of chomping on her ever-present bubblegum.

“Yes dear we know he is, and something tells me that cracking open the brain of an interdimensional Lovecraftian nightmare so he could try slurping the contents out like a slushee hasn’t improved things very much,” he replies and feels oddly vindicated when she snorts a laugh into the back of her hand.

A-Qing is…unexpected. He’d heard her calling for Xue Yang to come upstairs that night he and Nie Huaisang had gone to see him at The Cockpit, though of course that evening he hadn’t known precisely who she was or why she felt she had the right to boss Xue Yang around. Finding out that she’s the once-wayward-child-turned-protegé of the Immortals (and that her ethics are significantly more dubious than her benefactors’) had been..a surprise, to put it mildly. Not that he thinks that Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen aren’t perfectly capable guardians, of course, but rather he’s surprised that two distinguished gentlemen such as themselves seem very fond of collecting people who could be reasonably compared to scrungly alley cats and ignoring all their mange and fleas in favor of cooing over how sweet and brilliant they are.

And they are (brilliant, at least, though not any given definition of sweet to anyone except their ‘daozhangs’), but the contrasts at play in their little fucked up family of four are still a bit of a mystery to Jin Guangyao.

It had been A-Qing, apparently, who had hacked the CCTV and the ‘dome’s video feeds long enough to broadcast Jin Guangshan and Jin Zixun’s deaths straight to the communications tower (and the entire city), and as such Nie Mingjue has instructed that she give their security team an extremely thorough rundown of every breach in their defenses that she had exploited. Jin Guangyao still desperately wishes someone had thought to record Nie Mingjue’s reaction when the girl, standing no taller than his abs and thoroughly uncaring of the danger she was putting herself in, had laughed in his face, popped her gum, and told him that it had taken no longer than an hour the afternoon of the Kaiju’s arrival to get her hands on everything digital in the ‘dome, not just their camera feeds. He hasn’t seen his lover turn that shade of red in a very long time, nor ever seen him so sorely tempted to shout at someone less than half his age and height.

Anyway — she’d taken a shine to Jin Guangyao within minutes of Lan Xichen ushering everyone into the ‘dome to avoid further scrutiny by the press, easily picking him out as one of the adults in the room most likely to indulge her quasi-legal and morally gray brand of ethics outside of her beloved daozhangs. So now here she sits, tinkering around with something Wei Wuxian had given her to turn into a signal jammer for anyone outside the ‘dome attempting to access anything on their network or frequencies, and Jin Guangyao has found himself on ersatz babysitting duty.

(She is also, according to Xiao Xingchen, worried about Xue Yang’s health and wouldn’t be able to focus well working somewhere she can’t keep an eye on his condition; an assessment which Jin Guangyao very politely and very secretly thinks is a load of horseshit.)

“Stop biting, Yangyang, or I’m going to have to knock you out,” Nie Huaisang scolds, and Jin Guangyao is genuinely surprised when it works. Xue Yang quiets down and seems resigned to his fate of being hooked up to various machinery to monitor just about every measurable aspect of human life.

“He has nightmares when he’s unconscious,” A-Qing whispers conspiratorially. Jin Guangyao leans over a bit to hear better and keeps his eyes on Xue Yang, wary of his sudden acquiescence proving itself to be a fake-out. “Really bad ones. I think he’s still in their heads a little.”

“Heads? Plural?” Jin Guangyao asks.

“Uh-huh. He Drifted with one but he says it was all of them, all at the same time. Like the Borg.”

Jin Guangyao frowns and feels like he’s missing something, namely whatever the hell the ‘Borg’ are, but Wei Wuxian makes somewhat aggressive eye contact and puts a finger to his lips to shush him and then makes a sort of ‘keep going’ gesture.

Jin Guangyao glares at him for the contradictory instructions but decides he must mean to just keep her talking about the Kaiju specifically, not to get sidetracked on whatever ‘Borg’ is.

“He knew that the last Kaiju would follow him.”

“Of course he did,” A-Qing snorts, shrugging like she can’t be bothered as she returns to her tinkering, “That was the whole point of the plan to kill your dad, but he knew he could do it because they’re all trying to get at him now. All the time. He says they’re calling for him but it’s more like shrieking he can't ever stop listening to.”

Well. Xue Yang is an obnoxious and genuinely dangerous menace, but being relentlessly pursued by an unknown number of Kaijus who can get in his head any hour of the day or night is not a fate Jin Guangyao would wish on anyone. Another glance at Wei Wuxian proves that he’s turned pale and seems to understand precisely what Jin Guangyao does about what that must be doing to Xue Yang’s already tenuous grip on sanity.

“He’s about to overload.”

Jin Guangyao does not jump at Song Zichen’s sudden comment from behind him, his voice is too quiet for that, but it’s certainly a little disconcerting. He doesn’t have time to ruminate on the slightly eldritch creepiness of the Immortals, though, as he looks over at Xue Yang again and is alarmed (to put it mildly) to find that his neck has turned…blue? There’s an entire network of veins standing out under his skin as he strains against his cuffs but they’re the same neon blue of fresh Kaiju blood rather than anything human, and Nie Huaisang seems to realize in the same moment that the new way Xue Yang is straining against his cuffs has absolutely nothing to do with his hatred for being confined.

“Go get the Wens,” Jin Guangyao orders Wei Wuxian, who promptly jumps to his feet in a flurry of papers to tear out of the lab. Xue Yang thrashes around a guttural scream that only barely manages to escape the tightening confines of his throat and Mo Xuanyu lunges forward from where he’d backed off at Xue Yang’s protest in order to take over the various sensors and instruments hooked to him again.

“His readings are all over the place,” Mo Xuanyu reports over the sound of Xue Yang’s screaming. “It’s a miracle he’s not dead, the Kaiju seem to have completely rewired his brain!”

Jin Guangyao takes note of that in a distant sort of way as he stands in front of A-Qing in a futile attempt to shield her from watching Xue Yang’s shockingly rapid deterioration. The Immortals are standing at his head, Xiao Xingchen attempting to keep him from thrashing so much he injures himself and Song Zichen pressed up behind his husband to hold Xue Yang’s shoulders down with a grip so firm his knuckles and fingertips have gone white.

Whatever it is that’s happening to the veins in Xue Yang’s neck is spreading, the same spidery blue veins standing in stark relief in his temples and across his forehead, and he can only assume it’s spreading downwards as well. (With a detached sort of interest he wonders what’ll happen if it reaches his heart, but it’s highly likely that they don’t want to find that out if they also want Xue Yang to survive. Which he does.)

The Wen siblings arrive just as Xue Yang’s screaming is choked off, quite literally, by a profusion of foamy blood, and as Jin Guangyao turns to usher A-Qing fully out of the room he hears Wen Qing calling out orders to her brother and everyone else in the room, taking charge of the emergency with her usual deft authority.

“Wait — is he dying? For real?” A-Qing asks, suddenly sounding every bit her very young age. “Wait stop, Yao-ge, stop! He’s not allowed to die unless I kill him!!”

“He won’t die,” Jin Guangyao says smoothly, though he and A-Qing both know that’s not something he’s actually capable of guaranteeing. “I promised him I’d send him away from all of this, somewhere nice in the countryside where no one would ever bother you or him or the daozhangs again. I’ll keep my promise but you must calm down.”

A-Qing is small but she’s ferociously strong for someone her age; Jin Guangyao grapples with her in an attempt to keep her from running back into the lab, their heights and strength almost evenly matched. For a long moment they stand there locked in a struggling stalemate until A-Qing bites his shoulder and Jin Guangyao manages to get a foot hooked around the back of one of her ankles to kick her feet out from under her and bear her to the ground with the loud clang! of bone on metal.

Jin Guangyao winces for the bruises that maneuver definitely left on his knuckles, but that’s preferable to giving poor A-Qing a concussion simply because she’s afraid for Xue Yang’s life. He grits his teeth against a pained shout as A-Qing throws her head back to grind his bruised hand hard enough into the floor that he feels the slight texturing of it for grip start to grate the skin off his knuckles, but still he refuses to let her up.

“Alright come here pipsqueak, up you get.”

Jin Guangyao doesn’t even entertain the thought that Wei Wuxian would dare talk to him like that, so he simply rolls to the side to let A-Qing pop up off the floor — and barrel straight into a much more secure hold in Wei Wuxian’s arms, where she struggles hard against his superior height and strength, and instantly loses.

“Qing-jiejie’s got him under pretty heavy sedation, Xuanyu’s trying to figure out what the fuck that was but he’s stable for now,” Wei Wuxian reports around the ruckus of A-Qing struggling to kick him in the shins. 

“No! You’re gonna make him even crazier, I just told you!” A-Qing practically screeches. “Do you want all the kaijus to know where you are? You just locked him in there with them!!”

Jin Guangyao stands and dusts himself off as Wei Wuxian uses his grip on A-Qing’s arms to spin her around to face him, suddenly as intense and serious as he only gets in the midst of battle.

“His nightmares, you said. The Kaiju are actually trying to talk with him? In real time? They’re actively communicating with him?”

“They’re in his brain, Xian-laoshi!” A-Qing wails, “And you just stuck him in there with them and he can’t get out!”

“Okay, I hear you,” Wei Wuxian soothes, though Jin Guangyao notes that he still hasn’t released his death grip on A-Qing’s scrawny biceps, holding her rooted to the spot in front of him. “We’ll wake him up as soon as we can, you have my word. But he’s a danger to himself right now until we can figure out what’s going on with him, physically, and we don’t want him to hurt himself any more than he already has. Do you hear me?”

A-Qing wavers for a long moment, glancing back at the door to the lab like she wants to make a break for it, but in the end she just sags in Wei Wuxian’s grip and nods, clearly miserable.

Jin Guangyao is suddenly very aware that for all her genius and her scrappy alley-cat bluster she’s still only a teenager, and a young one at that.

“I understand.”

“Do you want one of the daozhangs to come take you back to your quarters?”

“...Bai-daozhang.”

“Alright, we’ll get him. You’re okay, sweetheart, it’s going to be fine.”

Jin Guangyao doesn’t even wait for Wei Wuxian to realize that — in this one singular instance! — Jin Guangyao is prepared to do whatever he thinks best without question. He turns back to the lab and steps into the controlled chaos that is the Wen siblings dancing around each other with hardly a word needed as they attempt to save Xue Yang’s body while Mo Xuanyu and Nie Huaisang frantically get all the data on his mental state that they can possibly scan for in the interim.

The Immortals are, thankfully, simply standing to the side to watch the proceedings with eerie stillness, not even seeming to blink as they stare at Xue Yang lying motionless under a soft cage of wires and IV drips, acupuncture needles sticking out of him in the few places where nothing is stuck to him.

“Xiao Xingchen?”

Xiao Xingchen’s gaze is intense when he turns it on him, his perpetually-smiling lips set into a grim line for the first time since Jin Guangyao has met him. The effect is startling, to see someone so gentle pushed so far, but Jin Guangyao is not a man easily cowed.

“A-Qing is asking for you; she’s…distressed by the current situation.”

“Ah.” Xiao Xingchen’s icy expression softens ever so slightly. “Of course, just give me one moment and I’ll take her somewhere less fraught.”

Jin Guangyao nods and tucks his hands behind his back to hide the way he’s clutching at one thumb in the curl of the opposite palm, squeezing it to ground himself. He watches, curious, as Xiao Xingchen turns to step directly in front of his husband and the pair of them lock eyes for a moment, right hands on each others’ temples and thumbs pressed to the curves of their cheekbones just below the eye. They stand in perfect stillness for a long moment and then break apart at some signal only they can understand.

His confusion must be too obvious, as Xiao Xingchen offers him a crookedly sly smile as he approaches.

“Our cybernetics are capable of linking to one another,” he explains and gently shepherds Jin Guangyao back out into the hallway by the strength of his magnetic presence alone. “What he sees I will see and vice versa, until we break the connection again. It takes some getting used to, but it’s quite handy.”

“I can imagine so,” is all Jin Guangyao can think to reply. They step into the hallway again and find that A-Qing is at least no longer being restrained, merely standing miserably at Wei Wuxian’s side though she perks up a little at the sight of Xiao Xingchen at his side.

“Come here, sweeting,” Xiao Xingchen soothes and A-Qing runs to his side, tucking up under his arm like a duckling to drape his over-long, trailing sleeve over her own shoulders like a blanket. “A-Yang will be fine, he’s in the best place possible for this to happen, hm?”

A-Qing nods but says nothing as Xiao Xingchen starts to lead her away, still murmuring warm, gentle reassurances that calm even Jin Guangyao, though naturally they aren’t aimed at him. When they turn the corner and he’s alone in the corridor with Wei Wuxian, he glances at his companion and pauses at the look on his face.

He’s seen that contemplative expression often since the Wens arrived and Wei Wuxian began helping Mo Xuanyu with his research in earnest. That’s the look of a man barely more sane than the evil genius strapped to the examination table a mere 20 feet away who has an idea that no one is going to like very much, save for himself.

“What are you thinking?” Jin Guangyao prods, despite his self-preservation instincts screaming at him not to encourage whatever new madness has grabbed hold of Wei Wuxian.

“The scans can’t really tell us much,” he muses, thinking out loud, “because his brain has become…different, let’s say. He has new synapses, new types of signals firing between neural pathways that we don’t know how to read or understand what they do because they’re not human signals. And we can’t keep him sedated much longer or I think the Kaiju hivemind or whatever it is really will just turn his brains into porridge; we’re barely holding off a total overload as it is.”

Jin Guangyao is following so far, but he can’t fathom the conclusion, whatever it is that Wei Wuxian has thought of that’s put that manic gleam in his eye.

“So what do you propose we do instead?”

The grim smile that slashes across Wei Wuxian’s boyishly charming face is chilling, and Jin Guangyao has to put conscious effort into not letting his shoulders creep up around his ears.

“He Drifted with a Kaiju brain, ah? I think it’s time somebody tried Drifting with him.”

Jin Guangyao can’t help but wrinkle his nose at the thought of being privy to any more of Xue Yang’s thought processes than he already is. That just doesn’t sound like a good time at all and he certainly wouldn’t have volunteered for such a job even before his brain became part-Kaiju soup.

By the time it hits him a mere moment later that Wei Wuxian means to do it himself — to Drift with Xue Yang now, while he’s being bombarded with signals from the Kaijus no matter the fact that they’ve seen how much damage it’s done to Xue Yang — the man has already brushed past him to hurry back into the lab.

“A-Sang stop scanning, plan B – bring that rig over here, hook me up.”

Jin Guangyao needs to stop this, they’re already down two highly experienced, infinitely valuable pilots and they cannot afford to lose another, especially not one as good as Wei Wuxian and not for something so stupid—

He’s off like a shot down the corridor in an instant, feet pounding on metal grates and concrete floors as he flies through the Shatterdome with grim purpose, ignoring every twinge and ache in his old injuries; he can worry about them later, for now he darts between startled denizens of the ‘dome without apology until he can burst into Nie Mingjue’s office. He slams the door open without knocking and is thankful to whatever miracle of genetics gave him his eidetic memory that remembers precisely what his partners are (meant to be) doing at all hours of the day and where.

The Twin Jades look up from the data tablets and report readouts spread on the table between the three of them, equally startled looks in their wide eyes.

Xichen recovers first and asks, frowning, “A-Yao? What is it, love, what’s wrong?”

He can’t breathe past a stitch in his ribs but he forces himself to gasp anyway, “Wuxian is about to Drift with Xue Yang — he’s going to try to understand what he’s done with the Kaijus from the inside.”

Jin Guangyao stumbles to the side just in time to avoid being bowled over by Lan Wangji bolting from the room swift as an arrow, Lan Xichen barely sparing a moment to glance first at Nie Mingjue and then him before he follows on his brother’s heels at a dead run.

Jin Guangyao bends over to try to catch his breath until he feels large, hot hands pull him straight again and keep lifting until his feet are dangling a few inches off the floor, his arms slung over Nie Mingjue’s shoulders so he can stretch out properly and take all the pressure off his ribs and back.

He sucks in a deep, unobstructed breath and then another, and after the third Nie Mingjue carefully sets him back down on his feet.

“Where are Xingchen and Zichen?” he asks, eyebrows pinched like he’s got a headache coming on.

“Zichen’s in the lab, Xingchen took A-Qing away, I don’t know where. They won’t leave the ‘dome though, I’m sure.”

“I want them in here ASAP, Zixuan and Yanli too if they can make it — I’ve got questions and I’m fucking sick of waiting for the answers.”

–//–

Lan Xichen runs through the shatterdome as fast as he can, chasing little more than glimpses of his brother’s white jumpsuit and the dark ends of his hair whipping around corners as people scatter out of their way with a sort of organized efficiency. He can only hope that they don’t leave panic in their wake — they’re at least running away from the communications tower and the Kaiju sirens are, of course, silent. He doesn’t have time to worry too much about that, though; his priority now has to be Lan Wangji, because Lan Wangji’s will be Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian past the point of rationality. This has been true for years, long before the pair of them were given the opportunity to work in proximity and let their youthful infatuation mature into something well-rooted in mutual respect and regard for each other. Lan Xichen has been Drifting with his brother since they were teenagers, and though they don’t share their thoughts whilst in the Drift in the same way the other Pilots do, that doesn’t mean Lan Xichen hadn’t known. That kind of devotion isn’t something one can tuck conveniently away in the silence of meditation, and Xichen had done what he could to help his brother nurture that love through obstacles many people could never imagine.

He knows precisely what it will do to his brother if Wei Wuxian loses himself in the way that Xue Yang has. He also knows that if Wei Wuxian must lose himself then Lan Wangji would rather be lost with him than be left behind again to wonder if there was anything he could have done differently to help Wei Wuxian avoid this in the first place.

Wei Wuxian’s inexplicable disappearance to Yiling so many years ago had been difficult for everyone, really.

Lan Xichen practically skids into the research bay mere moments after Lan Wangji and stops himself from careening into it headlong with one hand braced on the doorframe. Lan Wangji, a mere two steps ahead of him, has not stopped voluntarily, that much is clear. He isn’t struggling, but Song Lan and Wen Ning both have death grips on his arms and apologetic looks on their faces when they glance up at Lan Xichen’s arrival. He can see in the next moment why they’ve stopped Lan Wangji with some force; Wei Wuxian is already deep in the Drift, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands in white-knuckled fists on the arms of the chair pulled up next to the exam table Xue Yang is strapped to, the latter thrashing weakly enough that he isn’t dislodging any of the dozen or so tubes and wires stuck into him.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lan Xichen asks Wen Qing, standing calmly behind Wei Wuxian’s seat with her hands cupped carefully around either side of his neck.

“If Hanguang-Jun interrupts them now Wei Wuxian may never come back.”

“His brain activity is only slightly abnormal, no more than if he were at risk of chasing the rabbit,” Nie Huaisang pipes up from behind the bank of computers, Mo Xuanyu typing furiously at his side. “Xue Yang was slipping but he stabilized fully once they started Drifting — it’s actually helping I swear!”

“How is this even possible?” Lan Xichen can’t help but ask, feeling helpless in a way he absolutely does not care for. “Xue Yang is hardly sane, let alone Drift Compatible with-”

Lan Wangji is utterly blank, cold as ice, when he interrupts, bleakly, with, “Wei Ying is a true universal Drifter.”

Wen Qing doesn’t do them the disservice of pretending to be surprised, though Lan Xichen vaguely wishes that she would. But of course, if there’s anything abnormal in Wei Wuxian’s medical history, she would be the first to know it. And his siblings would hardly ever betray such a lucrative secret, not when Wen Ruohan would’ve used him the same way he’d used Xue Yang — destroyed him, the way he’d done to Xue Yang.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the sound of monitors beeping and the ragged, uneven breathing of so many people on edge in the same room.

“The ability to establish a successful Drift with a partner is no guarantee that one will not be injured in the process, even in standard procedure. What are the odds that this connection will destroy his neural pathways beyond repair?”

Wen Qing glares at him first and then Lan Wangji, though whatever she’s thinking she doesn’t let it stop her from answering a curt, “50/50.”

Lan Xichen takes a deep breath in and stands to his full height, doing his best to compose himself and draw an air of authority around himself, no less a suit of armor than his flight suit. “Song-daozhang. Wen Ning. Please release Wangji.”

They do so after a moment’s hesitation and Lan Wangji snaps his sleeves straight again with sharp tugs on the cuffs, his back ramrod straight in a mirror of Lan Xichen’s. Lan Xichen steps further into the room to stand at his brother’s side, a united front, and curls his hand carefully, unsure of his welcome, around Lan Wangji’s wrist in silent comfort. Lan Wangji naturally doesn’t return the gesture, but he doesn’t pull away either so Lan Xichen leaves his hand where it is, the thick canvas of Lan Wangji’s jumpsuit a comfortable barrier between his grip and his brother’s distaste for physical touch.

Lan Xichen counts to a hundred and thirty-seven before something changes; the steady, muted beeping of one of the monitors abruptly ratchets higher, faster, and Mo Xuanyu’s face goes grim as he begins tapping away at his keyboard, his eyes flying from side to side as he reads whatever strings of data are lighting his face up green.

“It’s okay,” he has the good sense to caution, though he doesn’t look away from his monitor for even long enough to glance at them, “they’re fine, whatever it is they’re experiencing they’re doing it together, still aligned.”

Song Lan shifts his weight suddenly, nothing more than a redistributing of his weight from one foot to the other, but it grabs Lan Xichen’s heightened attention before he’s even completed the motion. He spares the man a glance just as he cocks his head and turns to look at the door behind them.

“What is it?” Lan Xichen asks, his grip tightening unconsciously on Lan Wangji’s wrist.

“Xingchen just told me Chifeng-Zun has sent a runner asking for us. A-Qing doesn’t want to let him go, but we can no longer delay the inevitable. Nor do I wish to.”

Lan Xichen takes a deep breath, consciously forces himself to release his grip on Wangji’s wrist one aching finger at a time, and both asks for and receives his brother’s forgiveness for the bruising restraint in a pair of glances and a slight nod that he returns.

Honestly Nie Mingjue has been unusually patient waiting even this long to have his questions answered. He has waited without complaint through the recovery period following the battle, through all the planning and soothing of the press, and now through the thoroughly unexpected arrival of Xue Yang and the Immortals. But time is up now, his partner’s patience is wearing thin, and Lan Xichen can admit at least to himself that his own near-infinite patience is depleted as well.

He finds himself torn between a desire to stay here in the lab to support his brother in fretting over the question of Wei Wuxian’s survival against such unique odds and returning to Nie Mingjue’s office to learn the truth from the Immortals. Just as much as he wants to support his brother, he wants to support his partner in his efforts to clean up the mess Xue Yang has dropped on their doorstep, and the desire to do both simultaneously has him at something of a loss-

“Bring them out of it!”

Wen Qing’s sharp order cuts through the tension of the entire room; before Lan Xichen (or Wen Ning) can stop them, Song Lan and Lan Wangji have crossed the room to their respective partners. In the split second before Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu manage to do as she’s said, both Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang scream loudly enough that blood flecks their colorless lips, and by the time they both slump forward, unconscious and eerily silent, they’re being unhooked from the rig as quickly as Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu can work.

In the sudden silence, Lan Wangji’s soft, “Wei Ying,” is unbearably loud.

–//–

“It’s not as bad as we thought, but it’s also worse,” Wei Wuxian rasps; the fact that he’s hunched in his seat and only able to sit upright with Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin bracing him on either side is quite nearly the only thing stopping Nie Mingjue from wringing his neck, his talent and genius be damned. Jin Guangyao rests a restraining hand on his wrist below the table as if he can sense how close he is to losing control. (He supposes it’s entirely possible that he can.)

Xue Yang looks even worse than Wei Wuxian, ashen-faced and a stray drop of blood or two like black freckles on his chin. He’s braced on either side by the Immortals, of course, whose character judgment Nie Mingjue is beginning to question. Deeply.

“Explain.” Really, he should be applauded for his restraint.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat with a little cough that looks like it hurts. “They know what he knows about the pilots, the Jaeger program, our research, everything, but-”

“I didn’t know much-”

“Only what Wen Ruohan wanted him to know and pass along for his own purposes-”

“Not that they understood it much more than we understand them-”

“But obviously they know enough to start mimicking the Jaegers and this is the really interesting bit-”

“They’re built like an assembly-line churning out giant evil monsters that want to beat your ass flat-”

“Well yes but you know, without any sort of personal desire to murder anyone in particular because they’re not necessarily individuals. We keep using the word hivemind-”

“And it is a hive, like really giant freaky bees-”

Nie Mingjue slams his free hand on the tabletop and the back-and-forth between Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang mercifully comes to an abrupt halt.

(“Ooo we made Daddy angry,” Xue Yang mutters, snickering weakly, which Nie Mingjue is electing not to hear.)

“How is this better than we expected, A-Xian?” Jiang Yanli asks, her hands twitching on the tabletop like she wants to reach for her brother even though she’s sitting too far away to reach him.

“The information Wen Ruohan gave them through Xue Yang wasn’t as thorough as we thought; it was designed to manipulate their behavior, not give them blanket information about everything and everyone in the Pilot program,” Wei Wuxian explains, thankfully alone. “If he knows what fighting style they’re going to use next then he can counter it, and if he can tell them when it’s best to attack Tokyo and when to attack Shanghai or Manila or Sydney or San Francisco then it’s all to his benefit. He can control not only his spoils and his money but also his image. He just did it for the first time when he sent the last kaiju to us and instructed Eternal Sun to swoop in to save the day.”

Jin Zixuan rests a hand over Jiang Yanli’s as he asks, “And how is it worse?”

“The connection with Xue Yang has been open every minute since the first time it was initiated several years ago.”

There are no words that Nie Mingjue knows to describe the wave of revulsion that sweeps through him at such a thought, but judging by the expressions he can see around the table on the faces of the rest of those to whom this is news, they’re all feeling the same.

Personal feelings aside, that isn’t a fate he would wish on anyone, not even Xue Yang. To have every moment, waking and sleeping, for years subject to the incomprehensible, violent minds of intergalactic monsters? It’s harsh but someone should’ve done Xue Yang the kindness of putting him out of his misery a long time ago.

“But not anymore,” Xue Yang rasps, bringing Nie Mingjue’s attention back to him. He’s grinning in a way that doesn’t look at all like a smile, sharp and flat with pink-stained teeth.

“That’s temporary,” Wei Wuxian says and he looks distinctly cagey, “I just tried something theoretical-”

“Oohhh it’s not theoretical Wei-gege,” Xue Yang cackles, hacking and coughing like a cat with a hairball, “you’ve done it plenty of times before! Just turned a nice little switch in my brain and made it all go quiet, I saw it!! Saw it in your head, saw it in mine-”

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Jiang Wanyin cuts in, jaw clenched and eyes flashing.

Jin Guangyao clears his throat, a pointed reminder to stay on topic that Nie Mingjue’s temper certainly appreciates. Crisply, he says, “You will have plenty of time to discuss it between yourselves later. What I would like to know is what we do next with the information we have. You have now seen the structure of the Kaiju homeworld — we should use this to determine the best way to eliminate their threat to humanity.”

As much as Nie Mingjue would like to feel like they’re coming to some sort of productive conclusion, the fact of the matter is that of the eleven people in the room, four of them are far too injured to sit through a lengthy strategy meeting and they are, unfortunately, the four most important voices. (He supposes it’s really seven injured, if he includes himself and his partners in the list considering they’ve fulfilled the duties Wen Qing gave them medical leave to complete and are due to submit themselves to her care in the medical bay the moment they leave this imromptu meeting.)

He makes no effort to hide his displeasure about all of this as he sighs a heavy, “No,” and fixes a steady stare on his old friends (and Xue Yang). “That will have to come later. All I want to know for now is what you three want from me. You came here for some purpose, and as much as I would like it to be so, I don’t think you’re here to reforge old ties.”

It is, unsurprisingly, Xiao Xingchen who smiles ever so slightly, unashamed of being caught, and nods, his shoulders curving by an inch or two to turn the gesture into a small hint of a bow.

“It was partially driven by a desire to see you, Mingjue, under much better circumstances than when we parted. It was equally a desire to seek out Wei Wuxian, who A-Yang felt certain would be able to help with his condition. The state of things could not be allowed to continue with the danger posed to humanity, but my Shifu could do nothing for him. She has abstained from worldly concerns and is not as knowledgeable on the issue of fringe Kaiju research as Wei-gongzi; she defers to his expertise.”

Wei Wuxian looks rightly poleaxed by such praise, though Nie Mingjue thinks his deathly pallor and the deep bruises under his eyes (the whites of which have turned the violent red of ruptured blood vessels) contributes, rather gruesomely, to the look of shock.

“And then what?” Nie Mingjue can’t help but ask, glad for Jin Guangyao’s hand still on his wrist below the table, and thankful for Lan Xichen’s hand creeping onto his knee on the other side in silent solidarity. “Xue Yang has put all of mankind in the gravest danger imaginable. He’s a threat to humanity because he exists. Even if we can help, what do you expect me to do when it’s over? Let him go?”

“Yes.” Song Lan’s computerized voice is cool and neutral, of course, but his expression belays some sort of strong emotion beneath the calm surface he always maintains. “He has delivered the tool for humanity’s salvation into the hands of your resident genius, and what Wei Wuxian knows soon you will, too. The gift of knowledge and his cooperation in neutralizing the threat he poses, combined with the protection Jin Guangyao has offered him in exchange for his assistance, will repay his debts and leave him free.”

Nie Mingjue does not glare at his partner beside him, who doesn’t even twitch at the mention of whatever it is he’s promised Xue Yang this time. Of course Nie Mingjue knows that Jin Guangyao has always had a vested interest in keeping Xue Yang alive for his own purposes, but what he would have thought was the most important of those purposes has been accomplished; Xue Yang killed Jin Guangshan, what further use could Jin Guangyao have for him?

They can argue about it later. Jin Guangyao has apparently promised Xue Yang his protection, which means Nie Mingjue must once again let go of his fantasy of separating the man’s head from his shoulders. He grits his teeth but manages to push his anger aside for the moment to get back to the matter at hand.

“Fine.”

“The world is changing, old friend,” Xiao Xingchen says, soothing and understanding in equal measure, “and our time is ending. The war must be won soon, you know this. The Jaeger program is limping along, rotting from the inside as it falls prey to greed and complacency. We had no doubt that your righteousness-” Xue Yang snorts; he goes ignored by everyone in the room “-and sense of justice will not allow you to step down while there’s still a fight to be had, and you are one of the few Shatterdome leaders we felt we could trust with the truth of Xue Yang’s misdeeds. Many others would treat it the same as Wen Ruohan has done and attempt to use it for their own personal gain, but we know you will only use it to end this once and for all. That’s why we came here, and when Xue Yang is no longer a danger to himself or others we’ll leave again to go where no one else can find us.”

Silence reigns after such a pronouncement for a few long moments, broken only when Lan Xichen sits up straighter with the faint rustling of his canvas jumpsuit.

“This temporary solution that you’ve employed, Wuxian — is it enough to buy us time to rest before we begin attempting more permanent methods of severing the connection?”

“It should be — if it fails, Wen Qing or Wen Ning will know how to create the same effect.”

There’s some history here that Nie Mingjue is missing, but now doesn’t seem like the time to push it. Those who have been injured are fading quickly (Jiang Yanli has already had to shake her husband awake once), and he’s aware suddenly of how the steady worsening of his temper is likely the result of his neural pathways continuing to weaken as Wen Qing warned they would. As much as he would like to see this resolved now, he can’t ask so much of his partners or his pilots (or, he begrudgingly adds, Xue Yang).

“Fine,” he huffs, slapping his open palm once on the table in punctuation, “everyone is ordered to rest. Barring any emergencies we’ll meet again tomorrow at 1100 hours to strategize. Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian will return to research for monitoring. Dismissed.”

There’s a flurry of movement as most everyone stands either under their own power or assisted by those around them. Jin Zixuan spares him a tight nod before he leans his weight heavily on the handles of Jiang Yanli’s wheelchair and the pair of them leave, held up in the doorway for a moment as the two pairs of three attempt to navigate their exit without letting Wei Wuxian or Xue Yang crumple to the ground.

Nie Mingjue is left alone with his partners, and Lan Xichen wisely stands to shut the door so softly the metal doesn’t even clank against its frame.

“What the fuck have you promised him?” Nie Mingjue asks with no preamble, his gaze fixed on the handle of the door as Lan Xichen sits down in the seat across from them that his brother has just vacated. “A-Yao what have you done?!”

“I did what I had to, and there’s no use being angry at me. I’d do it again in a heartbeat even knowing what we know now, and no amount of yelling will change it.”

Nie Mingjue hates that he’s right; he at least slams the side of his fist down against the table, the boom of it startling Lan Xichen enough to make him visibly jump but he waves off Nie Mingjue’s apologetic grimace immediately.

“I should have killed him years ago when I had the chance,” he growls. “When this is over I never want to see him again. Ever.”

“That won’t be a problem; I’m sending them overseas to the States, or perhaps Canada — somewhere far enough inland that the kaiju are little more than a horror story, where the only impact of an attack is a week’s delay in imports. Whatever intervention Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing will devise to sever his mind from the kaijus’ won’t cure the damage already done, nor will it prolong his life for more than five years, at most. He should live out his remaining years enduring the trials of being loved inexplicably by two of the most righteous men the world has ever seen. He’ll be miserable enough to sate even your desire for revenge within six months.”

Nie Mingjue takes a deep breath in, holds it for a count of five, and exhales again slowly. Jin Guangyao’s hand is still on his wrist and he rubs small circles into it with his thumb — it’s as much of an apology as he’s going to get, and he’s just going to have to accept that.

“We should report to Wen Qing. I’m sure she’s going to scold us no matter when we go but we shouldn’t worry her more than necessary, hm?” Lan Xichen murmurs, smiling softly when Nie Mingjue catches his eye. “We’ve gotten our answers and there’s not much more we can do until Wei Wuxian has recovered anyway. I’d like to see you take care of yourself for once, Mingjue.”

“Don’t single me out, we’re all shit at it,” Nie Mingjue grumps, but he stands up anyway and pulls Jin Guangyao with him, watching him closely for any signs that his headlong run from research had aggravated any of his old injuries. Jin Guangyao wrinkles his nose at him when he notices him watching, but Nie Mingjue just ducks in to press a firm kiss to his forehead (offering the same to Lan Xichen holding the door open for them when they pass) and leads his partners out of his office and into the labyrinth of the ‘dome.

They traipse in silence down to the medical bay, Nie Mingjue’s mind churning over the new problems that Wei Wuxian’s Drift with Xue Yang has created, but when they reach their destination he forces himself to put the matter aside for the time being.

“Chifeng-zun,” Wen Qing greets, unimpressed, when they step into the main triage room. “Zewu-Jun, Lianfang-zun. Finally.”

“You told us we could delay until the press had been soothed and the metaphorical fires put out,” Lan Xichen reminds his friend. “We came as soon as we could.”

It’s clear she doesn’t agree but she just jerks her chin towards one of the private examination rooms, and when they troop along behind her Nie Mingjue finds it’s already set up for them, the Drift rig moved over from research and three cots already made up with crisp linens fresh from the laundry. She’s even done them the courtesy of pushing the cots close enough together that they can comfortably touch each other while lying down if need be (though he can’t help but notice that she’s left a conspicuous enough gap between them that it’s clear anything more acrobatic is strictly off-limits). 

“I’ll take you through a Drift myself first, a simple connection test like the first to establish the neural link and ensure it’ll stay stable for longer than a few minutes. You’ll then rest under observation until 0600, and if I decide you’re ready for more then Wen Ning will be in after breakfast to run you through a proper simulation to see how you fare in drop conditions. Questions?”

“Many,” Jin Guangyao dimples. “None about our treatment, but I would like a chat this evening while we’re resting, if you would be so kind.”

“My time is in high demand, Lianfang-zun.”

“As is mine, so I thank you for accommodating me.”

Nie Mingjue ignores the urge to smile as Wen Qing visibly bites down on what has to be a retort that she hasn’t actually agreed to do so, but he knows firsthand how useless it feels to go against Jin Guangyao when he’s decided to be stubborn like this. She folds with a nod and a sour little twist to her mouth, and Jin Guangyao at least has the good sense not to gloat over his victory (though his partner does wink up at him when he turns to approach the Drift rig). Nie Mingjue follows his partners over to the rig and he could swear he can already feel himself relaxing, the promise of the comfort of their minds slowing his heart rate and narrowing his focus to the immediate present in a way he almost never gets to appreciate.

He sits still through the familiar process of being hooked up and settles automatically into an almost meditative circuit of breathing and calming his mind further as Wen Qing gets Jin Guangyao connected next and finishes with Lan Xichen, her hands working deftly over the tangle of wires and sticky pads to connect them to his skin-

“WEI WUXIAN!!!”

Nie Mingjue is too calm to jump — but only just. The door to the medical bay slams open with a deafening clang and he and Wen Qing shout a reprimand in chorus, “JIANG WANYIN!”

She continues, “I have patients!! Get out of my med bay if you’re not dying!”

Wei Wuxian comes barreling into the room first and Nie Mingjue thinks, at a glance, that actually he might be dying. He has to clutch at the door frame to stay upright, his face is pale as bone and his eyes are, of course, still blood-red from his Drift with Xue Yang, and he’s panting like he’s just run a marathon.

“Wuxian,” Lan Xichen breathes and, as he’s only half-wired in, quickly divests himself of the various nodes in favor of getting to his feet and hauling Wei Wuxian upright just as twin lines of dark red blood begin to drip from his nostrils.

Wen Qing hurries past them to stop Jiang Wanyin, just barely visible over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder; he’s clearly distraught, his teeth bared and his eyes red-rimmed and glittering with furious tears.

“Don’t you dare protect that bastard-” he grits out, straining against Wen Qing standing in his way to block him from his brother.

Nie Mingjue sighs heavily and starts unsticking all the wires Wen Qing had just placed on him, Jin Guangyao doing the same beside him with an equal air of resignation.

“Your idea to push them all to their limits,” he mutters to his partner under the sound of Jiang Wanyin continuing to hurl abuse at his brother barely staying conscious in Lan Xichen’s arms.

“Your idea to support the Pilot exchange project in the first place,” Jin Guangyao retorts — a weaker argument than he’d usually make, but Nie Mingjue isn’t in the mood to press his advantage.

“Wen-daifu, Wuxian needs attention. Where’s Wangji?” Lan Xichen asks, his question answered in the next moment when Lan Wangji sweeps into the medical bay looking icy enough that Nie Mingjue would swear the temperature drops at least a degree or two from the force of his fury alone. It’s a wonder that Jiang Wanyin doesn’t seem at all intimidated at his entrance — instead he looks somehow even angrier. In fact, he looks damn near apoplectic when Lan Wangji steps up behind Wen Qing to further block Jiang Wanyin’s access to Wei Wuxian.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Nie Mingjue finally snaps, his voice carrying over and cutting through the rest of the panicked, angry chatter like a cleaver. Jiang Wanyin opens his mouth, and Nie Mingjue fixes him with the hardest glare he can. “Do not start shouting at me, Jiang Wanyin, or nothing Wen-daifu can do will save you.” The audible snap of the man shutting his mouth does less to assuage Nie Mingjue’s temper than Jin Guangyao resting his hand on the small of his back.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji calls, low and intense, and all attention in the room zeroes in on them as Lan Xichen transfers Wei Wuxian’s weight into his brother’s arms.

“Get him over to a cot, Wangji. Wanyin, get out.” Wen Qing steps smartly away, clearly expecting to be obeyed. Wangji carefully lifts an unprotesting Wei Wuxian into his arms and lays him down carefully on the nearest bed and Nie Mingjue realizes he’d looked like he was awake but he’s not conscious, or at least he’s not aware. His eyes are darting back and forth, flickering between things that aren’t there, and his mouth is moving in constant soundless muttering that puts the hair up on the back of Nie Mingjue’s neck.

“Come on, Wanyin,” Lan Xichen murmurs; he’s tugging gently on Jiang Wanyin’s arm, trying to get him to move in the direction of the door, but the man is standing, unmoving, staring in dawning horror at his brother being carefully held down by Lan Wangji and prodded at by Wen Qing’s acupuncture needles.

“You idiot,” he finally whispers, his expression twisting from horror to anguish, “You goddamn idiot!!”

Wen Qing doesn’t even look up from her work to snap, “Wanyin get out!! I’ll talk to you later!”

This time Jiang Wanyin allows himself to be towed out of the room, and Lan Xichen shuts the door quietly behind them, cutting off whatever Jiang Wanyin starts shouting as they go.

“What happened?”

“Wanyin demanded to know what Wei Ying did to Xue Yang.” Lan Wangji’s voice is quiet but his disdain for his partner’s brother is clear enough. “Wei Ying did not wish to answer, but when Wanyin’s continued insistence triggered this episode, your brother revealed the truth.”

Wen Qing sighs, her lips thinning with obvious displeasure, but she doesn’t pause in her work.

“I’m assuming these are the questions you would like answered as well, Lianfang-zun?”

“An astute observation.”

Wen Qing sighs again and stands up straight as before, her hands resting lightly on either side of Wei Wuxian’s neck, her thumbs pressed carefully against his jaw as he slips into true unconsciousness. His eyelids don’t even flicker with the movement of his eyes anymore; he looks far too like a corpse for comfort like this, but at least he doesn’t look like a man possessed.

“It was a secret I promised to take to my grave, but if A-Ning has told Wanyin already then I can’t keep it from you. You need to Drift first as soon as Zewu-Jun comes back, but after I’ve stabilized all of you, including Wuxian, then I swear I will tell you everything.”

“Everything,” Nie Mingjue emphasizes, catching Wen Qing’s glare with one of his own. “You’re not in Tokyo anymore, Wen-daifu, and anyone who wanted to profit off of secrets in this Shatterdome is dead.”

Wen Qing’s eyes flicker to Jin Guangyao at his side, but Nie Mingjue isn’t sure whether she wants to argue that that isn’t true, with Jin Guangyao for her example, or if she’s checking to see if he’ll react strongly again to the reminder that Jin Guangshan is gone. Either way, Jin Guangyao doesn’t even so much as twitch at his side.

She hesitates for a few beats longer before she nods with obvious reluctance. “Fine. Everything. We’ll need Mo Xuanyu to bring us Wei Wuxian’s research.”

“There are horrors in Wei Ying’s past that he has kept from his siblings for many years,” Lan Wangji speaks up, too quiet to startle even though Nie Mingjue had nearly forgotten he was there, so still and silent he’s been while he sits at Wei Wuxian’s side. “He has developed a way to carve up his mind and isolate sections of memory and thought; there are things he does not wish for them to ever know.”

Nie Mingjue is glad for the practice of navigating Lan Xichen’s polite roundabout phrasings to help him understand the heart of what Lan Wangji is getting at now.

“Anything we learn will remain completely confidential, Wangji. You have my word.”

“And mine,” Jin Guangyao adds, and though Nie Mingjue doesn’t quite understand why he deemed it necessary, Wangji’s shoulders only relax ever so slightly after the second promise is made.

“Mn.”

“Go back to your treatment,” Wen Qing instructs them in her ever-professional brusque tone. “I’ll be in with Zewu-Jun to start the Drift in a moment, this changes nothing.”

Nie Mingjue levels her with a final significant look before he turns to do as instructed — he’s long since learned not to test a doctor’s temper — but as he ushers Jin Guangyao out of the room ahead of him he can’t help but overhear Lan Wangji’s quiet but firm reply,

“No, Wen-daifu. This will change everything.”

[youhideastar]

Fit for Purpose Deleted Scenes II: Alternate Version, Second Half

Yesterday I posted the first batch of deleted scenes from Fit for Purpose: the first half of a backstory chapter that I ultimately deep-sixed as a distraction. For more explanation, please read that first-half post! Today I'm sharing the second half of that backstory chapter. Again, I'm going to try to keep my commentary on the scenes to a minimum so as not to make this post longer. Other deleted scenes posts are linked in the masterpost. I hope you enjoy!

We pick up during the Sunshot Campaign, with a scene that I've always found perplexing in canon - WWX promising to let LWJ help him with the demonic cultivation. It's not clear in canon whether he ever actually does that. Here, I decided he would.

On another rooftop in the moonlight, eyes dark and urgent, Lan Zhan says, “Wei Ying. You are trying to snatch grain from a roaring fire.”

Because without that grain, I’ll starve, thinks Wei Wuxian. For a moment, he imagines telling Lan Zhan about his core. It’s a wild thought, quickly smothered.

“Wei Ying. Let me help.”

Wei Wuxian knows what he should do: call him “Lan Wangji” again. Smile like a knife. Shove him away.

But the end of the war is coming, and Wei Wuxian knows he’s unlikely to survive it. A few months doesn’t seem like too long a time to pretend that he can be fixed—that what he’s missing is something Lan Zhan can give him.

He says yes. Lets Lan Zhan play pretty songs for him. Spiritually, they do nothing for him.

But the lie makes Lan Zhan feel better.

They’re at war. Lan Zhan could be hurt or killed at any time. Wei Wuxian doesn’t want the last thing he said to him to be cruel. That’s all.

*

In the end, they win. He wins.

The other sects make the omega Meng Yao—Jin Guangyao, now—the hero. What he did, they understand. One short, sharp thrust.

It makes A-Cheng and Lan Zhan angry on Wei Wuxian’s behalf; for his part, Wei Wuxian couldn’t care less. He did what he needed to do. He fulfilled his purpose. He didn’t do it for the glory.

They go back to Lotus Pier.

A-Cheng and Jiejie want everything to go back to the way it used to be. They treat him like Yunmeng Jiang’s head disciple.

So he tries to act like it.

But there’s a hole inside of him. And so, there are things he can’t do. Things he can’t give, because he gave them already, and there’s no getting them back.

He can’t teach sword cultivation—can’t even draw his sword. And no one wants to hear about his talismans; the ones he writes in blood. The ones that draw evil in, rather than repelling it. Any of a half-dozen others would be a better head disciple than he would.

There’s only one part of his job he can really do anymore. And even that is… harder than it used to be. They want to touch and be touched, but his skin still crawls with the touch of the dead. And he doesn’t want to put his mouth on them. He never wants human flesh in his mouth again.

He’d thought he’d be dead for this part.

He was supposed to be dead for this part.

Maybe he is.

A-Cheng lays into him for failing in his duty. For not giving enough. Wei Wuxian places his hand over his incision scar and keeps his silence. He knows it’s true. No matter how much he gives, it could never be enough.

That previous scene is probably the one that hurt the most to cut. I really liked it. But DAMN did it bring down the vibe of the fic. It's so bleak in tone that it really could not coexist with the cute banter in the Jingshi.

Next is my first crack at the Baifeng Mountain scene.

Come to Gusu with me, he says. Let me play for you, let me help you, he says. I am the one who knows you, he says. Better than you know yourself.

For a moment, he imagines it. Going to Gusu with Lan Zhan. Letting Lan Zhan take care of him, letting Lan Zhan imprison him—he can’t tell anymore what it is that Lan Zhan wants to do with him, but he’s not sure he cares. At least he’d be with Lan Zhan. At least Lan Zhan understands that he’s changed. At least Lan Zhan isn’t expecting him to pretend he’s still the laughing boy on the rooftop.

Ah, but it’s a selfish, selfish thought.

Yu-furen saw it in him all along.

For him to cling to Lan Zhan—brilliant, perfect, unparalleled Lan Zhan, who has never needed or wanted anything from Wei Wuxian, not even his body—is just another symptom of his weakness.

No. Wei Wuxian knows what he is. What he is meant for. He is meant to be of use. That is what he was made for. That is why he was saved from starvation on the streets – so he could be of use. To Jiang Cheng, and to Jiejie.

He ignores the voice murmuring in his head, But what use are you to them, really? Except as a mascot, and a whore.

But that didn't really address what I consider the main point of the Baifeng Mountain sequence in this AU, and an incredibly overlooked moment in canon, imo: Jin-furen's assertion that people are starting to believe that WWX and JYL are sexually involved. To me, this is THE turning point of this arc for WWX. The only way he'd ever leave Lotus Pier is if he thought it was better for JC and JYL if he did. I think by this point in canon, he's long ago decided JC would be better off with a different head disciple, but JYL is keeping him hanging on. He doesn't feel like he's failing her. Until this moment, when Jin-furen supplies him with a reason to believe that his presence is hurting JYL, too. At that point, he feels he has to leave. I think if he hadn't found Wen Qing in the street, he might have just wandered out of Lanling and noped out of the whole cultivation world at that point.

None of Yu-furen’s lectures or Jiang-shushu’s stories or A-Cheng’s threats taught him what to do when the very people he’s supposed to live for are better off without him.

He’s a useless head disciple to Yunmeng Jiang Sect. Everything he does makes A-Cheng angry. Whenever Jiejie sees him, she looks worried. Even Lan Zhan—according to Lan Xichen—is working himself to the bone in a futile quest to purify Wei Wuxian’s nonexistent core and bring him back to the sword path.

Then, on Baifeng Mountain, he learns that it’s so much worse than he thought.

“You shouldn’t be alone with him, A-Li,” Jin-furen says firmly.

Jiejie flinches. “A-Xian is my didi. There’s nothing improper—”

“With your mother gone, there is no one who will tell you what you need to hear,” Jin-furen interrupts. When she looks at Jiejie, her face is kind; the look she flicks at Wei Wuxian is like a knife. “But I will. A-Li, didi or no, people are talking. An unmarried omega who turned down an advantageous match to a powerful alpha to stay with her brother…”

“Yes,” Jiejie says, cheeks pale. “My brother, Jin-furen. Will you tell me to stay away from A-Cheng, too?”

Jin-furen waves her fan. “Of course not. That’s different. A-Li.” She barely bothers to drop her voice when she says, “You know what betas do. You know what they’re for.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what Jiejie says to that. He doesn’t stay to find out. And he doesn’t plan to come back.

If he drinks himself to death, it’ll reflect poorly on Yunmeng Jiang. But if he flashes enough gold in the right parts of Lanling City, he thinks he can probably get himself knifed pretty easily, and bleed out fast enough that no one will wonder why his core didn’t save him.

Then A-Cheng can find a better head disciple, and Jiejie’s reputation will be safe.

And Lan Zhan—

Well. Lan Zhan will be fine. He won’t have to try to save Wei Wuxian anymore. Once the first shock is past, it’ll probably be a relief.

*

But in Lanling City, Wei Wuxian doesn’t find a knife in the dark.

He finds a woman in a red cloak, starving and bruised, searching for her beloved brother.

And some part of him that he thought was dead roars back to life, like a new-fed flame.

He remembers standing side-by-side with Lan Zhan, remembers the vows they made. He can’t be a good brother or a good beta. He can’t be head disciple, or cultivate the sword path.

But he can stand with justice. He can defend the weak. He can live with a clear conscience.

For the first time since his body was shattered against the death-soaked earth of the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian feels alive.

*

Lan Zhan doesn’t see it that way. Lan Zhan, sheltered under his pretty umbrella, tries to call Wei Wuxian back to the path of orthodoxy.

But Wei Wuxian has just walked away from a valley of corpses. He has seen what the path of orthodoxy is paved with. His hands are shaking. Behind him are those few he managed to save – cold, dirty, half-drowned, frightened, sick. He cannot walk away from them. He cannot believe Lan Zhan would ask him to.

PISSED-OFF AND INCREDULOUS. “We promised we would devote our lives to fighting the wicked and defending the weak!” he shouts, while the thunder rolls. His eyes sting as rain drips down his face. “You tell me, Lan Zhan: who is strong, and who is weak? Who is right, and who is wrong?”

Lan Zhan has no answer.

It rises in Wei Wuxian, then: the same smooth-polished calm that came upon him in the Xuanwu Cave, when he thought the moment had come for him to die for A-Cheng. A quiet but powerful peace.

Yes. He could die here. Now. Not knifed in an alley by some thief, trying to slip unnoticed from a world where he was no longer needed, but in battle against the mighty Hanguang-jun, defending the innocent. That would be worthy. That would be right.

As he raises Chenqing between them, Wei Wuxian can feel himself smiling. His belly churns with joy and sorrow, fear and anticipation.

“If there has to be a fight,” he says, very steady, “then let me fight to the death with you. If I have to die, then let it be at the hands of Hanguang-jun. It would be no injustice.”

But in the end, Lan Zhan steps away.

So Wei Wuxian rides forward. To Yiling, where Jiang-shushu rescued him all those years ago. To Yiling, where he dragged his body back from broken death.

He’s been reborn in Yiling twice. Maybe he can do it one more time. He can only try.

Here is an alternate version of WWX's decision to go with Wen Qing. I'm ultimately not sure which one I like better.

It would be monstrous of him to follow her. To turn his back on his family. His purpose.

You live for them. Die for them, if you have to. Don’t you dare keep anything for yourself that could go to them.

A perversion; a rebellion against nature, from which there could be no return and no redemption.

He thinks about the prisoners shuffled out in chains before the targets. Thinks about the screaming of the women, at Nightless City, as the blood ran from under the doors. Of the old men shot down from behind by golden arrows as they fled on the road, sobbing.

*

Three.

Two.

*

He swore, once, to live with a clean conscience.

He should never have made that vow—his conscience, like the rest of him, belonged to Yunmeng Jiang. It was not his to dispose of.

But he did. He did make that promise.

And even though it makes him ungrateful, and unfilial—even though he knows there will be no coming back from this—he finds he can’t break it.

This one thing, in the end, is his.

Either way, we pick up with this bit covering WWX's second stay in the Burial Mounds. Honestly, this is mostly me getting high on my own worldbuilding.

In the Burial Mounds, every moment reminds him of his time in hell. Resentful energy courses through his veins. His stomach growls with hunger. He wakes every morning with the knowledge that he has turned his back on the whole reason for his existence; that he is an ungrateful, unfilial disgrace.

And still, it is easier to breathe here than it was in Lotus Pier.

The things the Wen refugees need from him are things he can actually give: protection, and they don’t care that he uses methods other than the sword; labor, and for the first time since Wen Qing cut him open, he is not the weakest of the group; and money.

Most prostitutes are claimed omegas; safe enough, since a person can only be claimed once, but clients complain about the smell of a foreign claim, vinegary-sharp and off-putting.

A beta, then, can command a high price – even a skinny, dirty one, who can only ply his trade in alleys and teahouses, rather than silk-sheeted brothel beds.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t mind it. After all, it’s not like it’s so different.

This is what he was made for. People have always told him that. It’s just that, now, they give him money when they say it.

Then there's the "LWJ visits Yiling" section, which made it into the finished fic. We pick up with:

After Lan Zhan leaves, Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect to see anyone from his old life ever again, unless it’s at swordpoint.

But he’s always been loved too well – loved more than he deserves.

“Jiejie,” he whispers, eyes full of tears, as she stands before him resplendent in red.

“I wanted you to see me in my wedding clothes,” she says gently. “Do you like them?”

“You look magnificent,” he tells her, throat tight.

It’s almost more than he can bear, to sit around a table with Jiejie and A-Cheng eating pork rib and lotus root soup, being asked—at A-Cheng’s urging, how?—to give a courtesy name to Jiejie’s firstborn. He thought this was gone for good, and now, it’s—

It isn’t like he never left. It doesn’t feel that way. Wen Ning is waiting outside; the rest of the Wens up on the mountain; his stomach is growling despite the soup, because it’s all he’s eaten all day; black curls of resentful energy fill the ugly hole where his core used to be.

But it feels like, maybe, he could find a new way of belonging. Like, maybe, he could have both: be true to his family and his sect and be true to the vow he made with Lan Zhan.

*

He’s so stupid. He never learns.

And every time he falls into the delusion, people die.

*

But when he gets Lan Zhan’s invitation to Jin Rulan’s 100-days celebration, it seems like a sign from the heavens. Confirmation. He can have both, and the proof is right here, in his nephew’s name written in Lan Zhan’s perfect calligraphy.

He works in a frenzy on his gift for the baby. Night and day, applying new protections, refining those that are already there. Every mo, yao, gui and guai he can think of will be repelled. Curses, too – every curse he ever learned about, and some he invented himself.

This is how he’ll make up for it – how he’ll pay the Jiangs back for what he owes them. Every disappointment, every time he wasn’t there for Jiang Cheng or Jiejie when they needed him, will be made right. He pours his time, his ingenuity, his expertise, and his literal blood into these beads.

They’re not fine jade or lustrous gold. Probably a kid raised as the heir to Lanling Jin won’t want to wear it. But Jiejie can make him, when he’s little. And when he’s older, he can carry it with him in a bag or in his sleeve – that will be enough. Wei Wuxian takes care to make the protections strong enough for that. He doesn’t want to overlook anything. It has to be perfect. This is his chance.

You do anything your jie needs, Yu-furen’s voice echoes, every time Wei Wuxian’s eyes start to close under the weight of his exhaustion. And her children, someday.

I will, Yu-furen, he promises silently, rubbing his eyes and returning to his work. I swear it. I will.

*

And then, there is the ambush.

The box falls from his sleeve.

Jin Zixun closes his hand and—

Wei Wuxian doesn’t completely remember what happens after that.

The dust that used to be lotus-seed beads, pouring from Jin Zixun’s fist like sand through an hourglass – he remembers that very well. It replays in his mind, again and again.

But afterward. That’s when he loses the thread. Loses control.

Loses—

*

Jin Zixuan.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

A-Yuan.

Wen-popo. Fourth Uncle. All of the Wens he fought so hard and gave so much to save.

Lan Zhan – his enemy now.

Jiejie, widowed and grieving. Jiejie, wounded. Then—

*

“Jiejie!”

*

There’s no point, after that.

Lan Zhan takes his hand, holds on, won’t let go when Wei Wuxian tells him to. He looks at Wei Wuxian like he sees something worth saving.

But then A-Cheng is there; Wei Wuxian smiles. Good. This is how it should be. His life is A-Cheng’s to take. It always has been.

Everything happens very quickly, then.

And then there’s nothing at all.

Okay, that's all very depressing... future deleted scenes posts won't be so bleak, I promise! Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.