#nielan bodysharing au

[stiltonbasket]

NHS would absolutely consider asking lxc to ghost-marry nmj? Thoughts?

After Lan Wangji’s sentencing and Nie Mingjue’s death, the obligations of filial duty—namely, those to do with marriage—were very far from Lan Xichen’s mind.

He had no desire to hear about anything related to marriage, much less when the prospective union being spoken of was his own. Lan Xichen’s blood ran quiet and still, untouched by the maidens people insisted on putting before him at banquets and conferences, and the man who held his heart was dead; so what could one such as him have to do with marriage, when no part of it would bring him happiness?

"Marriage?" Lan Xichen said coolly, when the elder he most disliked dared to mention the subject during a sect meeting. "What need do I have of marriage? Wangji has an heir of his own blood, and we have no shortage of children born to the disciples from my generation.”

“You know nothing of Lan Yuan’s mother. If she were even remotely suited to marry the heir of a great sect, Wangji would have brought her home and wed her decently,” Lan Yanjian returned. “And you must marry. Should you not be the one to set the example for those who follow you?”

Lan Xichen smiled. It was not a false smile, because false smiles were forbidden; but because it was not false, it was not very pleasant, either.

“I will consider it,” he said: which did break the sect precepts, because it was a lie.

He spent the rest of the day wandering around the Cloud Recesses, trying to find a comfortable place to meditate; but the elders and a couple of his distant uncles kept following him, and entreating him to meet with some lady or other to see if he might like one of them, so he sent himself a message talisman emblazoned with the crest of the Nie sect and used it as an excuse to run away to Qinghe.

“I hear you’re having marriage troubles,” was the first thing Nie Huaisang said, when Lan Xichen went into his office to greet him. “Er-ge, you know I don’t really understand these things, but I might be able to help you this time.”

“Thank you, A-Sang, but I’ll manage on my own. I won’t give in, no matter what they say, so why don’t we have some t—”

“I will be able to help you,” Huaisang persisted, “because I’m having the same trouble myself.”

Lan Xichen blinked. “Why?”

"The trouble is that I can’t get married. It would be unfilial for a younger brother to wed before his xiongzhang, and da-ge never got married,” Nie Huaisang muttered, mopping his temples with a handkerchief. “My aunts are afraid that if I marry now, without ever having paid my respects to a sister-in-law, my married life will be full of tribulations. My wife might even die early, they said, and then what would I do!?”

He sounded truly sorrowful. “You know I don’t need a wife, Er-ge, but that won’t stop my clan from worrying about it. Every day, it’s nothing but if only our Nie-zongzhu was married before he died, and won’t poor Er-gongzi be too frightened to marry even if he likes someone, and then Second Young Master Nie has no business getting married anyway, because he’s such a coward...but I think that was the time Jin Zixing came here to discuss the Moling trade route with San-ge. He’s as horrible as his brother, Xichen-ge, really.”

Jin Zixing had died that very week of some kind of disfiguring pox, so Lan Xichen reminded himself that it was a sin to speak ill of the dead and tried to focus on the matter at hand.

“But you and I are trapped in different mires this time,” he pointed out. “You’re not trying to avoid marriage at all. ”

“Not so! Not so,” Nie Huaisang cried, opening his fan so forcefully that it blew a lock of Lan Xichen’s hair back over his shoulders. “You are as close as my own blood brother, so I’ll get straight to the point. If I arranged a minghun for you and Da-ge, it would put an end to both our troubles at once. Will you do it?”

Lan Xichen nodded, stricken nearly dumb. “But Huaisang, you—”

“You’ll have to marry into the Nie sect, though,” Huaisang mused, “because you are the living party, and you can’t marry again. If Da-ge marries into your family, you’ll be at liberty to take a second spouse, and that won’t solve anything.”

“A-Sang—”

“And, if you married Da-ge, you could have children of your own without disinheriting Lan Yuan,” Nie Huaisang said triumphantly. “There! What do you think of that?”

“How could I have children of my own?” Lan Xichen asked. “I don’t want to.”

Nie Huaisang looked at him over the top of his white fan. “Da-ge told me what you two were planning before he died. If you still want to—to go ahead without him, I will consider your children my brother’s sons and daughters, and they will be his in the eyes of our clan laws. You wouldn’t need to break your wedding vows, and I wouldn’t need to raise my own child or wear myself out by educating an adopted one.”

“You want my children as your heirs?” Lan Xichen demanded. “I—you would take a child born to the master of another sect as the heir to yours?”

Huaisang smiled. It was a small, sad smile, more pitiful than any tantrum or hunger strike he ever had in the past, and Lan Xichen nearly began to weep at the sight of it.

“I always thought my nieces and nephews would be your children,” he whispered, “and I would rather have them than not. Because if Da-ge had lived, and you married someone else, he would have spent the rest of his life wishing your children were his, too.”

And just like that, the thing was settled. Lan Xichen was married the next time he journeyed to Qinghe, before the elders noticed that his parents’ tablets were missing from the ancestral hall; but when he bowed to the rooster that was meant to stand in for his bridegroom, the bird choked, paralyzed with what seemed like fear, and gaped at him in disbelief before crumpling onto the floor.

“It’s just stunned,” Huaisang announced, when he came over to inspect it. “Oh, look! It’s coming around. You can take it back to the kitchens now, Zonghui—but make sure to paint the tips of its wings, so the cooks know to leave it alone. We can’t make the poor creature into soup now that he’s been part of the wedding.”

Suddenly, Lan Xichen felt incredibly heavy. He could scarcely move, for his limbs felt like lead, and it was all he could do to straighten up and go change his clothes for the wedding banquet.

He awoke in a stupor much later that night, unable to make any sense of where he was; and when he staggered over to the nearest mirror, he was certain that someone else was looking back at him.

The face in the mirror seemed confused, too. It was his, without a doubt, but the will that walked him across the room to the dressing table was not.

That will took command of his lips, making them tremble and gasp with yearning; and then his hand crept up his side, unbidden, and cupped the soft curve of his own white cheek.

“What’s going on?” his lips cry, bewildered. “Xichen, why am I you?”

[stiltonbasket]

so the chicken from the nielan ghost wedding. What happens to it after? Does LXC take it back to Gusu with him and keep an eye on it? Does it become a special pet/ward since it was a substitute groom? Is LXC feeding and grooming that chicken and bringing it inside the Hanshi on rainy days?

Yes! All the chickens in the kitchen flock were going to be cooked eventually...so LXC takes the rooster back to be cared for at the cloud recesses. Given the circumstances, it hardly counts as a pet.