#the Jin sect made a terrible mistake

[quotablefanfiction]

It’s really annoying that there wasn’t more overlap between the evil and terrible people of his sect. It would have made things a lot easier.

Jin Ling is having some issues with personnel management (chp. 1)

Rotten Work by ShanaStoryteller (AO3) Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed – General/Teen – Lan Zhan/Wei Ying #Post-Canon #Protective Wei Ying #Protective Jin Ling #POV Jin Ling #Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying Reconciliation #Eventually #Reluctant Matchmaker Jin Ling #Pre-Jin Ling/Lan Jingyi

Jin Ling hadn’t thought to keep track of Wei Wuxian.

Clearly that had been a mistake.

[runespoor7]

Talking about it some more with a friend, a variation of what happens when JC realizes she's pregnant early (before WWX rescues the Wens) and they get married--

WWX brings back the Wens to LP, yeah? Yeah. What's the instigating incident? Oh it's Wen-guniang going to him and asking him, and him protecting her and rescuing her brother because she asked, and they're all staying in Lotus Pier

do you see what this looks like? the optics are horrendous.

Meanwhile JC, whose husband won't sleep in the same room as her: 😶

luckily (lol) JC learned from terrible familial PR that you should nip this shit in the bud! When the gossip gets reported back to her, she counterattacks with a convo in public about how she's the one who had WQ brought here. WQ is her doctor. She wants the best for her health and that of her child, and who better than Wen-guniang?

Privately she's still fucking furious that WWX would dare put her in this situation, and horribly convinced that he's in love with WQ (this is why he's grown distant from JC, he's realized he made a mistake, and now it's too late. how much more can JC be her mother's daughter?), and also horribly ashamed of herself for letting him get away with it. Her mother would never have stood for allowing a rival under her roof, much less a concubine. And she wasn't even the Sect Leader. JC has to pretend WQ being here is her idea or completely lose face, but in private she's walking over red-hot embers about it.

It's a lot of pressure, especially for WQ, who's shouldering all these suspicions and who does have a secret with WWX.

Luckily WQ has not a drop of loyalty in her body so she swiftly comes to prostrate herself at Sect Leader Jiang's feet and sell WWX out: WQ knows WWX has no golden core! Luckily - she hastens to say - she knows it is possible for a sufficiently talented healer to transfer the golden core of a third party into the body of a cultivator!

This has the merit to make her go from "Sect Leader Jiang might have me Zidian'd to death on any given day because her husband's interest in me is a threat to her power" to "I am now Sect Leader Jiang's new indispensable person that she definitely will not throw out".

(I'm thinking WN is alive in this one, coming to find WWX in LP was easier that stumbling upon him in Jinlintai, so WWX got there in time. WQ steps on WN's foot to keep him from volunteering to give WWX his core.

This is for several reasons but the main one is that she's going to make sure that whoever provides WWX's golden core doesn't survive. She does. not. need. JC working out the resemblance between this operation and the one that "restored" JC's core.)

There's a perfectly awful confrontation between WWX and JC - @green-ray-blog1's depiction - where WWX 1)refuses to entertain JC's suspicions, 2)tries to distract her (maybe throws her trust in WQ's word back in her face), 3)insists that of course he has a golden core, Jiang Cheng! 4)attempts to fake plausible cultivation with demonic cultivation.

Meanwhile, JC slowly, horribly trickles to the realization that WWX is a lying liar who lies.

(The friendship between WWX and WQ gets strained as much as JC and WWX's marriage here. How could you, WQ.)

WWX's new core comes from some poor cultivator who was coming to LP to make trouble/try to kill WWX/something, possibly Jin Zixun. JC stands over the procedure with her fists clenched on her robes. If it's worse than what she and WWX did to Wen Chao back then she doesn't care. (WWX does consent to the procedure after a late night whispered convo with WQ. But I think JC would have given WQ the go-ahead even without it.)

If WWX knocked up cis girl!JC, what do you think would happen if JC didn't abort/the baby was carried to full term? How would that change things?

Two thoughts. One, “that depends when.” Two, “oh, this is bad.”

cut for length

the start:

The version that’s most different from canon is this: what I mean by “this is bad” is that if JC gets pregnant before WWX breaks away from the sect and she keeps it, she tells him. And then they get married. WWX is super duper unwell! It shows! It’s constant whiplash between WWX being all over her + whispering promises to her belly and WWX seemingly barely standing to be in the same room as her, much less look at her or sleep in her bed. Not to mention he’s still doing exactly as little as before they got married and is if possible getting even drunker. 

And then shit goes down - and there’s absolutely no way JYL and JZX got married in this timeline, not with JC marrying WWX, so here shit 100% does not involve WWX being thought not to be part of YMJ anymore. The chances of WWX getting killed in a Jin ambush because he’s made himself an issue to them are pretty high. If that happens, no way YMJ gets away from WWX’s death without at least being painted as accomplices; at best they’d have to pay reparations. Depending on how JGS makes his move, maybe YMJ gets straight up cornered with demands that they give up the Seal/the Wens WWX might have broken out, and there’s a war. Basically it’s a very bad time all around.

The least-bad possibility is the most-like-canon-one, which is that WWX and JC hooked up miserably when WWX was in the Burial Mounds, after WWX had dumped JC– I mean after WWX left Lotus Pier.

JC learns she’s pregnant only around/after Zixuan’s death, maybe even after JYL’s death! Not a good time to tell WWX about it! Ideally she only realizes she’s pregnant after WWX’s death. Denial of pregnancy doing us a solid amidst the months of trauma and getting us to the end point of JC having a kid. This is the ideal time for JC to be pregnant with WWX’s child because the outer conflict is minimal. All the conflict is internal, it’s about her feelings. 

In this scenario, she hides the pregnancy for a few months, secludes herself for a few months more - maybe she has to use her grief for her sister’s death as an excuse. I think in this case Madam Jin probably comes over to Lotus Pier with baby Jin Ling, to take care of JC. I don’t think JC can successfully hide from Madam Jin that she’s pregnant, despite her disciples and her doctors doing their best. I also think it’s *pretty damn unavoidable* that Madam Jin guesses who the father is.

JC is proud, so proud; but she’s not proud enough not to beg when the truth would ruin her sect. There’s probably JL asleep in someone’s arms. Madam Jin agrees to keep the secret.

JC won’t marry but she also cannot be having a child on her own, so her child is introduced as an orphan taken in by the sect; probably the child of a disciple killed during the Siege. YunmengJiang ends up taking in roughly half a dozen children, from newborn to children almost old enough to start training as disciples, in the aftermath, their mothers insisting the fathers were disciples of the Jiang. It might even be true. It’s not such a light cost that the sect’s budget doesn’t need to be reworked to accommodate for these new expenses, but it’s such a good cover for JC’s child that she shoulders the rumors of her soft heart gladly.

A consequence of this choice: JGY is, in fact, very well-disposed toward JC, personally. JC still faces shades of rebuke and ridicule at the first conference after she starts taking in “disciple orphans”, but she bites out that she’s honoring her disciples’ debts and making certain her disciples will be honored by their children. That gets NMJ pretty firmly looking at her with new eyes. That *is* an honorable, brave decision from Sect Leader Jiang. So the Jiang Sect is less isolated shortly after WWX’s death than in canon. 

I don’t think this changes anything to NMJ’s death, and JGY himself is careful not to seem overly close to an unmarried woman for fear of any hint of scandal, but in the longer term YMJ probably enjoys more cordial bonds with GusuLan. (LXC too looks kindly upon taking in war orphans! and he does have a brother, at home, who brought one back…)*

*(you could seamlessly weave in timeskip zhancheng through the honored means of LWJ hating on JC for daring to parade around as though she was an honorable sect leader, when she turned her back on her shixiong, and the equally honored means of bonding over children. LXC would totally be up to meddling by organizing playdates between A-Yuan and the YMJ kids. LWJ would be scaldingly angry at him once he finds out, though, so it would be up to A-Yuan to ask to see JL and the others again. LWJ would insist on being there; JC would look at LWJ as though judging him for his anger. I’m not saying they’d have to fuck but they might. Even if they don't, bonding over being left with children by WWX’s death. No way LWJ would get to know whose kid JC’s heir apparent is, though.

But I don't think I want to bring in LWJ for this one.)

the timeskip:

What I want to do is focus on JC and how complicated the situation wrt the kids would be for her. And while I'm at it, I'm tired of playing hide the gender with the kid, so let's say she has a daughter, because mdzs “male by default” stance on the juniors was really annoying to me.

JC’s daughter is almost the same age as JC’s nephew, so it makes sense for JC to single that one child out; people think it’s so the Jins won’t hope for JL to also inherit the Jiang, or that it’s so JL will have a friend among the Jiang. She lets those rumors run, as well. For once, let gossip work for her.

It's complicated, for JC, handling her daughter, in a way handling JL isn't. Her daughter isn't quite hers in the eyes of the world (JC didn't adopt her so soon, afraid someone would work the truth out). And she’s not merely hers; she’s WWX’s.

JC isn’t really more okay with WWX’s legacy than in canon because WWX orphaned JL. She’s still sharp-tongued and sharp-tempered. 

here’s a handful of facts:

She tells JL to think of JC’s foster daughter as the sister his parents would have given him. 

JC's daughter hates WWX because she knows he killed her father at the Siege. That's as hard on JC as hearing her daughter cackle WWX’s childhood laughter.

Sometimes it's hard for JC to look at her daughter.

There are scenes of heart wrenching conflict between her kid and her. “You're not even my real mother!” gets yelled once at the apex of a horrible fight, JC's face changes, the kid bursts into tears and runs to her room. The scene is only settled with JC entering the kid’s room (her daughter is hugging herself as hard as if JC had taken puppies away) and telling her stories about her parents. The kid goes from hugging herself to clinging to JC and sobbing. (JC cries when she returns to her room.)

It's also hard because as her daughter grows up sometimes JC thinks her daughter wants to leave. That she'd rather be a rogue cultivator, not the heir to the Jiang. Too much of her father on her, perhaps.

All this to say that JC isn't a perfect foster mom to her child.

the kids are very close. nobody is scared of JC in this household. JC’s daughter giggled and squealed as a baby/toddler when she heard JC shouting at other people. (Mama being shouty was very funny to the baby.) 

JC formally adopts her daughter at some point between Rusong’s birth and JL getting his sword, I’m not sure when exactly. 

JC develops a longstanding grudge against JGY for giving JL Fairy, for the following reasons: 1)like in canon, she can’t be the one giving JL a dog. 2)her daughter wants a dog. so JC is cast in the position of refusing, and she does refuse, because - when her daughter shouts and laugh, when her daughter cackles after JC’s shouted from afar at both children to be careful in the water, it’s like WWX never quite left. She can’t close that door. She can’t pretend she thinks he’s never going to return. She can’t choose not to be haunted. 

In place of a dog, she gets her daughter a pony. 

(Her daughter is prompt to decide this is much cooler than a dog. Later JC will dourly regret gifting her adventurous child the means with which to gallop all over the place. The pony’s saving grace is that you can’t put a pony on a flying sword, at least.) 

The children bicker endlessly about the merits of their respective animals. JC’s daughter calls her pony Thunder Vengeance. Everybody but her calls her Thunder for short. (because she makes a lot of comparisons to Leigong and Dianmu and her mother, and she casts herself as the little boy driving Leigong’s cart.) 

Daughter’s name contains a reference to Yanli because JC was not done feeling guilty for not being able to hate WWX even after he caused JYL’s death.

changes after WWX’s resurrection:

When WWX gets resurrected in this timeline, both kids are on Phoenix Mountain. I’m not sure how exactly close to canon WWX’s meeting with JL (and JC’s daughter) is, I want to say very close - maybe JL says “my aunt” and WWX goes “your *aunt*?” and JC’s daughter stands as tall as she can and says “yeah, my *mother*” - anyway I want JC’s daughter here and identified as soon as possible. 

This changes two things:

WWX’s brain is running blank because what JC kid. JC had a kid. JC. a CHILD??? it cannot go uninvestigated.

JC does not shout about WWX when she arrives, because her child is there and that's her other parent. She’ll be angry at herself later for trying to preserve something that isn't, but it's incredibly important for her that her child doesn't fight her father. It would be awful and wrong. JC’s lie about her daughter’s dead father was always going to have consequences but it shouldn't have this one. JL was orphaned by WWX.

So JC is more controlled, and WWX isn’t immediately convinced that he's been recognized and needs to gtfo before his ex murders him, and he very badly wants/needs to know what's up with JC and her kid.

When JC claims “MXY” must be dragged back to YMJ, he goes very willingly. This is what he wanted! He's still a bit apprehensive, but he's too curious not to go.

He chats with the kids, mostly, on the way back. JC isn't very talkative. It's enough for him to get the piece of information that JC’s daughter is her adoptive daughter, and the heir to YMJ. (It's weirdly reassuring to hear for some reason. It's JC taking a decision for the sect but there’s not, like, an entire husband and family and moving-on, it's still JC. And at the same time, he feels unmoored. JC adopted a child? Just like that. YMJ’s heir is adopted. She and JL are bickering and talking over one another and calling each other brother and sister.)

In LP, JC sends the kids swiftly to bed (there are protests), and WWX is starting to remember that oh yeah he'll have to do some quick thinking probably, when JC reveals she knows who he is. He denies. She pulls out Zidian - did you really think you could fool her, WWX? How dare you! Why did you return now? What do you want?

(I think they fuck. Or, at least: he very much feels like going to her like he once did, his hand wants to cup her cheek, he wants to smooth away the furrow on her brow.)

“Is it so hard to believe I just wanted to see more about the children?”

JC’s lips twist.

She doesn't throw him out or in a torture dungeon. Might drag him to the altars and make him apologize.

Most likely, they get to cogitate about The Plot. 

The pattern of the story is public lies and secret truths, so that's how it happens here too. WWX stays incognito in LP, and they fall into bed - like when they were younger, they have to be discreet. The vibe here is very much they're having a affair and they have to hide it.

The affair vibe includes the plot-relevant investigation. There's a little less JC and WWX travelling together than LWJ and WWX in canon, but there’s WWX sneaking back into LP in order to keep JC aware of his latest findings (and to have a fight about WWX inviting WN into LP) and Sect Leader Jiang stopping back from a night-hunt at an inn to meet an informant (WWX). 

This features things like WWX walking off the road because he’s daydreaming about the intimacy of seeing JC before bed, with a damp lock of her hair sticking to her neck and snaking down between her tits, and the ancient xianxia equivalent of a negligee that might be a little see-through. 

Also featured: WWX rolling his shoulders trying to feel the bruises she left (she still scratches but MXY’s core is only good for getting rid of those, which seems the worst of both worlds to WWX! He liked feeling the scratches a couple days down the line!!!). WWX is down bad for milf JC. (Also features JC staring at the strewn papers that fell on the ground last night when she and WWX started making out before she could put them away. She’s determinedly Not Thinking about it, especially when her daughter is raising her eyebrows at her.)

I think JC’s tempted to tell him the truth about their daughter right after Yi City/the Yi City equivalent, but she can't break the habit of keeping it a secret. And she can't know for sure if WWX will–she can't just tell WWX on a whim just because some stuck-in-the-past part of her wants to tell him!

WWX-investigating-Jinlintai this time involves WWX wondering how to infiltrate Jinlintai, and running into JC in Jinlintai. JC has good access to Jinlintai, so if he pretends to be part of her retinue it’ll hold out for all of two minutes until people recognize MXY. JC is not delighted with the idea but she likes JGY pulling shady stuff which endangers JL even less. 

The investigation does not result in WWX being uncovered in front of the entire Jianghu (Qin Su doesn't kill herself), but possibly only because JC and WWX end up pulling the oldest undercover move in the book: making out against a door. Afterwards JC is pissed because that's her reputation. WWX is a little flippant when he says that he knows how important her reputation is to her, but– do you, WWX? JC retorts. Do you?? Do you think I would have the raising of my nephew if the cultivation world didn’t think me above personal desires, above feelings and manipulation?

So the truth about the kid comes out when they confront JGY (how does that happen, given that there’s no Guanyin Temple scene? not my problem! all I know is that JGY’s gotta be the one to say it. Amidst the sea of bullshit JGY spouts as he tries to distract them/drive a wedge between them, like in canon, the one true thing he chances on is that JC’s daughter is WWX’s and she never told him. (JGY isn't an idiot. He worked it out. There was no reason for him to do anything about it, but now there is!)

I think WWX makes a run for it. WN finds him basically brooding in the dark in the cave in Yiling, and (gently) pokes him in the direction of returning to LP. At least for an explanation. WWX should get one, WN says. WWX kind of laughs hysterically. What’s JC going to explain? How babies are made? WWX knows how, he was there for it, WN!

(for maximum drama, the kids were there when JGY pulled out that tidbit, so another reason JC isn’t here herself is also because she’s busy with that.)

I’m also thinking that given WN finding WWX and convincing him to return must have taken at least a few hours, WWX finds his daughter out of LP and on her way to look for WWX (on her pony; she didn’t want to be alone for this - and she didn’t want to take JL because JL really did have both his parents dead because of WWX), so he brings her back (and saves JC a heart attack).

They work it out.

[robininthelabyrinth]

An AU where NHS is the one JGY kills? How would NMJ react to this? Would he care about his morals in the wake of his little brother murder? Would he take JGY life as enough “justice” for his brother bc if u think about it the last time a sect killed one member of his family (the Wen) he was down to go to war and kill them all and that wasn’t someone he had swore to protect :)

Something, once shattered, could never be put together quite the same way as before; it was a truism as applicable to the soul and the heart as it was to objects. And when his brother was killed over a matter of politics, a stupid disagreement between sect leaders over a question of principle, Nie Mingjue’s heart shattered – and his convictions with it.

Wei Wuxian had once heard it said that one should fear most of all the patient man, a gentleman waiting ten years for vengeance; whoever had said that, he thought, had never met Nie Mingjue after he’d blackened. The man wasn’t patient in the slightest.

It hadn’t seemed so bad in the beginning. The man had brought his brother’s body to the Burial Mounds, the corpse curled in his arms like a child, and he had knelt before Wei Wuxian could stop him.

“You revived Wen Ning, even though he was a child of a Sect,” he said, and his eyes were like black coals, the fierce light that had once shined within them utterly extinguished. “Can you revive him, too?”

Wei Wuxian hesitated.

���I will not hold it against you if you can’t,” Nie Mingjue said. He should have been angry, Wei Wuxian would later remember thinking; Nie Mingjue was known for his anger, his rage – why wasn’t he angry? Why wasn’t he raging? It was only later that he realized that Nie Mingjue’s grief was so complete, so all-consuming, that it had pushed him somewhere beyond rage. “But I would ask that you try. In return, I will help you defend those you protect, now and going forward.”

That was a tempting offer. Wei Wuxian had been forced to split from the Jiang sect because they could not protect him; the Nie, on the other hand, were more established, stronger. If they survived this loss, they would be very good protection.

Still, Wei Wuxian wouldn’t sell a false bid of goods.

“He won’t come back to life,” Wei Wuxian said, coming forward to put a hand on Nie Huaisang’s chest. There was resentment there, not as much as Wen Ning, who had suffered so much and kept it all to himself, no, but enough. Whoever had killed him had been someone he had trusted, and he had died angry and betrayed – and no one did anger better than the Nie. It would probably be enough. “He’d still only be a corpse. You know that, right? Your sect above all others abhors the existence of evil –”

“I don’t care,” Nie Mingjue said. “It was my righteousness that failed him; I will not let it stop me again.”

“He wouldn’t be evil,” Wei Wuxian tried to explain. “Wen Ning isn’t evil. But he’d still be a corpse.”

“Even if he is evil, it doesn’t matter,” Nie Mingjue said. “I won’t be able to stop until I see him again.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t know what Nie Mingjue meant, and he was so uncomfortable with having the unbending, unyielding sect leader kneeling before him, begging him the way Wen Ruohan could have only dreamed of, that he doesn’t ask any more questions, merely agreed to give it his best effort.

He should have asked.

He should have –

He didn’t know what he should have done. At any rate, he would later learn that Nie Mingjue spoke the truth: he would not stop. He couldn’t stop.

He left his brother in Wei Wuxian’s care, and he returned to the Unclean Realm, and from there he set for to Lanling, to Koi Tower, where the people who had killed his brother lived. Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure what happened there, isolated from gossip as he was; by the time one of the Wens dared go down to the village and heard about it, everyone had universally started to refuse to talk about the entire event, naming it taboo.

Still, they heard enough.

Perhaps Jin Guangshan had hoped that his younger brother’s death would drive Nie Mingjue into a qi deviation, or perhaps he’d thought that Nie Mingjue would be so bound up in his belief in justice, his respect for etiquette and law, that he would not be able to respond in force. Perhaps he simply didn’t think it through at all.

He certainly didn’t think that Nie Mingjue would come to Lanling in the middle of the night, without warning nor declaration of war, and raze Koi Tower to the ground before half the cultivators of the Jin even knew what was happened. Who knew what salt was used to sow the fields, what monsters were willingly unleashed, but the entire city died almost overnight, the ground turned to ash, flames hot enough to melt gold rising up to the heavens with a roar like a dragon, the people was put to the sword – some people believed the children had been spared, others denied it. Nobody knew anything for sure.

They said Nie Mingjue was like a martial god, eyes indifferent even as he reaped life after life – Wen Ruohan had carefully cultivated his inner sect disciples from the most powerful he could find, and they almost all fell before Nie Mingjue’s blade; Jin Guangshan’s cultivators, who were selected on the basis of other considerations, didn’t stand a chance. There was no mercy, no humanity left; Nie Mingjue had left that all behind along with his righteousness, disregarded as useless and unimportant because it couldn’t even keep his brother safe – and Wei Wuxian thought of Jiang Cheng, thought of Jiang Yanli, and couldn’t say that he’d do it any differently.

Some people even said Nie Mingjue wielded demonic cultivation in his anger.

Wei Wuxian didn’t know if that was true.

He didn’t know how he’d feel if it was.

He didn’t know what to feel, when Jiang Cheng came to him – they’d broken all ties, not so long before, and so it was a surprise to see him.

“Did anyone see you –” he began.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jiang Cheng said. His clothing was disorderly, his face unclean; he did not seem to be well. “Nothing does – the Jin sect is gone.”

Wei Wuxian felt fear for the first time. “But – shijie?”

“She’s safe,” Jiang Cheng said. “Jiang Ling, too; they’re at the Lotus Pier.”

“Jiang Ling?” Wei Wuxian echoed, eyebrows arching.

Jiang Cheng shrugged. “A surname is a small price to pay for life,” he said shortly, and that really said it all, didn’t it? “I don’t know what happened to the peacock, but I’m not holding my breath; rescuing shijie was already more than I expected…I’ve agreed not to interfere, in the future.”

“The future?” Wei Wuxian echoed. “What – what more is there? I thought the scheme was Jin Guangshan’s –”

“It was, but he wasn’t the only one who would benefit from it,” Jiang Cheng said. He ran his hands over his face. “The Jin were second only to the Wen when it came to the number of allied clans – anyone who had anything to do with it, even under suspicion, is considered guilty…I’ve all but given up our Jiang sect’s independence. If Nie Mingjue wants to wipe out one of the sects that answers to us, I won’t be able to stop him. My ancestors will be ashamed of me.”

“You did it for shijie.”

“I did it for all of us,” Jiang Cheng said. “I heard during the Sunshot Campaign that Wen Ruohan once sought an alliance with Nie Mingjue to dominate the rest of the world, which was rejected on account of what happened to the former Sect Leader – I believe it. I never thought it was true back then, but I believe it now. The masterless sabers –”

He shook his head, sealing his lips, and no matter what Wei Wuxian did, he couldn’t get another word out of him, just that ominous final phrase – the masterless sabers – how could a saber not have a master? A sword was only a spiritual weapon, guided by the cultivator that wielded it – even the Stygian Tiger Seal was only a tool.

“Why are you here, then?” Wei Wuxian finally asked.

Jiang Cheng looked at him as if he were stupid. “If I die, the Jiang Sect dies with me – where else would I be?” He saw that Wei Wuxian didn’t understand and snorted, shaking his head. “Didn’t Nie Mingjue promise you that those you protected would be kept safe? Well, here I am.”

Wei Wuxian licked suddenly dry lips. “Why would he kill you?”

“Because I would benefit,” Jiang Cheng said simply. “Whether or not I support what happened, I would benefit, a fellow sect leader…out of recognition for our former relationship, he told me that if I were here, I would live. The Lotus Pier won’t be touched. Besides, I’m here for another reason, on behalf of the cultivation world.”

“Oh? For what?”

“To get you to hurry up and bring Nie Huaisang back, of course. I don’t think anything short of that will make Nie Mingjue stop.”

I won’t be able to stop until I see him again.

“The process takes time,” Wei Wuxian protested. “Even though I have an idea of what to do, it’s not easy, it’s tricky –”

“I brought you help,” Jiang Cheng said shortly. He nodded down the mountain, where he’d left –

“That’s a small child,” Wei Wuxian said blankly.

“Somewhat undernourished,” Jiang Cheng conceded. “His name is Xue Yang; he’s a delinquent from Kuizhou, rather famous – well, infamous – for being pretty handy with demonic cultivation –”

“Jiang Cheng. That is a small child.”

“The Jin Sect took him in as a guest disciple –”

“Small! Child! How old is he, eight?”

“Twelve.”

“Jiang Cheng!”

“He’s pretty annoying, but he’ll shut up if you give him candy,” Jiang Cheng said. “I brought a bag. Now get back to fucking work before more people die.”

At first meeting, Xue Yang was a nasty little gremlin, full of spite and not a little bit of brilliance; it was extremely annoying how much it felt like looking into a slightly off-kilter mirror. He’d lost a finger, somewhere along the way, and while there was a sword buckled onto his belt he never used it – it took a while before Wei Wuxian noticed it, given that he himself didn’t use a sword and he’d assumed Xue Yang was following his example, but in fact the boy was terrified of swords.

More specifically, of sabers.

Even Nie Huaisang’s, which was – to be frank – the daintiest, frilliest saber Wei Wuxian had ever seen.

“You were a guest disciple of the Jin sect before,” Wei Wuxian said. “You saw what happened? The masterless sabers?”

Xue Yang averted his eyes and didn’t answer, which meant yes; he would otherwise have had a snappy answer of some sort.

“Was it that bad?”

“It was worse,” Xue Yang said, uncharacteristically solemn. “The masterless sabers - they hate evil. Who told them that people were evil?”

“I did,” a low voice said from behind him, and Xue Yang froze, the whites of his eyes showing; he resembled a small rabbit that had tried to demonstrate its toughness being suddenly faced with the teeth of a tiger.

“Sect Leader Nie,” Wei Wuxian said, much more respectfully than he might have otherwise, before the rumors. Nie Mingjue looked much the same as he had the first time: back straight, wearing his clan’s colors, his eyes dead inside. Even Baxia looked the same.

But he felt – wrong.

Maybe he really was using demonic cultivation, but if he was, it wasn’t anything like what Wei Wuxian had invented.

“How is my brother?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“The process is going very well so far,” Wei Wuxian hedged. “I should have a result for you within a week.”

Nie Mingjue nodded and turned to go.

“What are you going to do when he wakes?” Wei Wuxian asked, and Nie Mingjue stopped. “You said you couldn’t stop until he was back – what does it mean, that you’ll stop? Stop the killing? What will happen next?”

“Bring my brother back,” Nie Mingjue said. He didn’t turn back. “And we’ll see.”

That wasn’t reassuring. “Where are you going next?”

“The Cloud Recesses.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened. “You can’t possibly believe that the Gusu Lan sect had anything to do with it – that’s your sworn brother’s home!”

“We made an oath together,” Nie Mingjue said. “I will uphold my end of it.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand; he simply stood there, helpless, watching the other man leave.

There was a tug on his sleeve.

He looked down at Xue Yang.

“The one who killed his brother, on behalf of the Jin sect,” Xue Yang whispered. “It was Jin Guangyao.”

Wei Wuxian thought about what he’d heard about the contents of the oath that the three war heroes had sworn and cursed, torn between chasing Nie Mingjue and stopping him and realizing that that would be futile. Even if he could raise an army of corpses to stop him, a man with an army that could defeat the Jin sect wouldn’t be afraid of him – and he didn’t dare use the Tiger Seal now.

“Let’s do what we can,” he told Xue Yang, who nodded furiously, all reluctance and moodiness gone. “If we can get Nie Huaisang back before Nie Mingjue reaches the Cloud Recesses, that’ll – that’d be good.”

“I don’t know if it’ll help.”

Neither did Wei Wuxian.

part 2

[hattedhedgehog]

In MDZS there’s a main character of humble beginnings who was accepted into a major sect, and was scorned by the cultivation world for his unconventional and underhanded methods. Despite playing a big part in ending the Sunshot Campaign, he ended up scapegoated all the same by his so-called allies. It is undeniable that he committed atrocities with collateral damage, out of both survival and revenge, and made terrible mistakes and lashed out when trapped. All the same, his devoted Lan boyfriend unwaveringly stood by him no matter the cost, and went into seclusion after his beloved’s brutal death.

Anyway enough about Jin Guangyao, let’s talk about Wei Wuxian-

[ibijau]

Prompt: Nie Huaisang finds out by accident that Wei Wuxian really was Jiang Fengmian's illegitimate child with Cangse Sanren. It's up to you what you want Huaisang to do with that information.

Nie Huaisang looks like his mother, and at age sixteen is about the same height as she was.

It's probably why Sect Leader Jiang, who made the mistake of drinking with Jin Guangshan at this banquet, had now grabbed Nie Huaisang and is talking to him as if he's an old friend. After all, his mother is from Yunmeng. She was the illegitimate daughter of a former Jiang disciple and the daughter of an official stationed in the area for a few years. A Jiang disciple who already had a wife, and a son who, upon learning he had a half-sister, had invited her to visit sometimes. She'd become friendly with her half-brother, and with the lady he would someday marry, and then because he was always around she'd also become friendly with Sect Leader Jiang, who had eventually introduced her to Nie Huaisang's father, eventually leading to the birth of Nie Huaisang himself and then her marriage to Sect Leader Nie, in that order.

Technically, this all means that Nie Huaisang is actually Wei Wuxian's cousin.

Or so he thought until tonight. Because tonight, Sect Leader Jiang is drunk enough to think he's talking to an old friend, and the things he's confiding to poor Nie Huaisang are...

Well, first of all it's making him a little sad, if he's honest, because he doesn't particularly like his Nie cousins, so it was a comfort to think that he secretly had a real cool cousin who is fun to hang out with.

But mostly those confidences are making Nie Huaisang impossibly uncomfortable. It's not something he should know. It's not something he wants to know. And although he's not exactly the brightest person in the world, there's a little voice in a corner of his mind telling him that this is information that could cause a lot of chaos if he repeated it to the wrong person. It certainly would hurt Wei Wuxian a lot, who takes great pride in the people he believes to be his parents. It would also ruin Sect Leader Jiang's marriage. And it would destroy Jiang Cheng.

Nie Huaisang, at age sixteen, hates the thought of hurting people who haven't deserved it.

He announces loudly that Sect Leader Jiang needs to rest, and with the help of a Nie disciple takes the man to his room, where he won't force unwanted confession onto unwilling boys who didn't even want to be at this stupid banquet in the first place.

In the morning, Sect Leader Jiang has a terrible hangover, as expected. But when Nie Huaisang greets him, the older man shows no fear, no regret. He must have forgotten what the wine made him say.

Nie Huaisang pretends he's forgotten too, and doesn't share this secret with anyone, not even his brother.

Nie Huaisang, at age sixteen, would rather not bother with anything more complicated than matching patterns for his next outfit.

-

Nie Huaisang, at age eighteen, is cheerfully ignoring all the complexities of the world around him, happy to know that with the Wen sect gone, everything is now at peace.

He's aware that things aren't so simple, but he's happy to pretend otherwise. The Jins don't bother him, personally, so he doesn't care that they're clearly trying to grab power for themselves in the aftermath of the war. Jin Guangshan is very unpleasant and dresses like a nouveau-rich who thinks gold goes with everything, so of course nobody is going to fall for whatever it is he's trying to do.

It is vaguely concerning to see Wei Wuxian be the target of much Jin ire. Even knowing what he knows, Nie Huaisang still somewhat considers him to be family. He should have been family, if not for some old people being complete idiots when they were young (unlike Nie Huaisang, who is also young and an idiot, but in a very cool and fashionable manner that he will never, ever regret). Sometimes, Nie Huaisang feels like he should try to help, only to invariably remember that there's not really anything he could do. It's such a messy situation, and there's just a lot about it that he doesn't understand.

Even this damn secret he's been carrying for an entire two year probably wouldn't do any good. It might make the Jiangs hold on even more dearly to Wei Wuxian, or it might upset Jiang Cheng so much that he'll kick out his first disciple on the spot, and won't that be a mess.

Nie Huaisang, at age eighteen, just doesn't feel like getting involved in anything political, because ultimately none of it concerns him.

-

Nie Huaisang, at age twenty-five, is wondering if there's anything to be gained from destroying Jiang Cheng.

It'd be a very easy thing to do, and he sometimes think it might be a useful one, too. If he could make it seem like the rumour is coming from Lanling... Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng have a tolerably good relationship in general, but the recent death of Jin Rusong has disturbed their careful balance. All of a sudden, they find themselves both needing little Jin Ling as an heir, and while it doesn't seem likely that they would normally get in a fight over that, perhaps with the right encouragement, perhaps if Jiang Cheng were already angry about something else...

In the end, Nie Huaisang decides against it. Not out of kindness, he doesn't have an ounce of that left in his bones, but out of fear. That plan is too risky. Jiang Cheng could surprise him by taking the news better than expected. Or else, Jin Guangyao might well turn the reveal that Wei Wuxian was Sect Leader Jiang's true first-born to his advantage, robbing Jiang Cheng of his hard earning reputation until Yunmeng Jiang loses the power it fought so hard to regain after the war.

Nie Huaisang, at age twenty-five, discards yet another plan and resumes his patient watch, waiting for his enemy to show a weakness he can exploit.

-

Nie Huaisang, at age thirty four, doesn't know if he'll ever share that secret revealed to him almost two decades ago.

He doesn't need that to keep Jiang Cheng on his best behaviour now that he's risen to being Chief Cultivator, and he doesn't think that it's something he could use against Wei Wuxian, who apparently doesn't care about anything except whatever fun is to be had in Lan Wangji's bed.

It is frustrating sometimes to have such a weapon in his possession and be unable to use it. After all Nie Huaisang has far more than Jiang Fengmian's drunken confession to prove the truth. He's found letters to his mother from Wei Changze and his wife which mention 'a certain incident' before they left, and how 'they will still raise the child away from Yunmeng' because 'it was a mistake, never to be repeated, and if Fengmian knew, he'd try to take their child to replace the one from that woman he was forced to marry'.

Nie Huaisang, at age thirty-four, almost wishes that Nie Huaisang, at age sixteen, had just accidentally revealed the truth one day, so he wouldn't still be burdened with yet another secret he cannot share with anyone.

And of course he could just say it, just tell Wei Wuxian the truth and be done with it, but...

But a secret is a weapon, and Nie Huaisang hasn't survived this long by wasting the weapons life threw his way.

Nie Huaisang, at age thirty-four, continues to wait for the right time to strike.

[sentienceisoverrated]

Before I go on, I would like to reiterate that this is neither an attack, nor a praise of any of the characters in mdzs. I stand by that they all have their own reasons for the way they acted and this is precisely the reason why I’m writing this.

First things first, every single character was stuck in impossible conditions. I have read people blame Jiang Cheng for not helping Wei Wuxian, and I have read people blame Wei Wuxian for not approaching the matter better. However, both characters had loyalties they weren’t willing to give up, for WWX that was his debt to the Wens, and for JC that was his parents’ legacy, his cultivation sect. For JC to help WWX, it would have meant abandoning everything he had worked for for literal years - the Jiang reputation, the Jiang power, and above all, it would put his sister in a terrible position since she was engaged to Jin Zixuan, who was a member of the sect that opposed WWX the most.

On the contrary, while WWX could have handled it better, he was, as stated by himself later in the books, an arrogant ass with a bad temper due to the Stygian tiger amulet. He was out of control, and he was angry, and he did needlessly create conflict, but you have to remember that he was terrified at the time. He was hiding the fact he had no golden core, under scrutiny from everyone, including JC, about the lack of a sword and about his unorthodox cultivation. There was no good way to approach the situation. Rescuing the Wens was just the last straw for the other cultivation sects, and if it had been Nie Mingjue, or Lan Xichen, or even Lan Wangji asking those questions, they’d probably have been answered immediately.

I mean, looking back, even WWX felt himself cringe at his own behaviour. It was appalling, and it did not help his position, but he had been to hell and back, and after all that, he was praised one moment then labelled a war criminal the next.

(Also I’m fairly certain that Jin Guangyao admitted to influencing the negative opinion of WWX before he even left for the burial mounds, though I may be incorrect)

As stated in the original post, Lan Xichen didn’t want to believe JGY would do the things he did, because why would he? He was his sworn brother, and he had lost NMJ, and he only knew JGY for what he wanted him to believe him to be.

Post resurrection, WWX was back to (almost) normal, and Jiang Cheng was stuck, again, between his duty as sect leader and the past grudges he still held. It is stated so many times that that it is just his character, that he is so much like his mother, that he keeps grudges and stays angry and doesn’t know what to do with it and that is just who he is. After Guanyin temple (pls tell me I spelt that right), JC and WWX don’t reconcile not because neither are willing to, but because there is too much between them to make it possible. Think about it, to JC, WWX abandoned him, to WWX, JC betrayed him by allying with the other sects. It’s not that neither of them are unwilling to reconcile, it’s that they can’t. However much they may mourn their past relationship, too much had happened for it to be worth going through the pain of reconciling.

(Fanfic writers, this isn’t me telling you not to let them make up. I adore those fics and want just as much as anyone for them to be brothers again, just that it isn’t canon)

I can’t remember anything else I might have to say, but the final point still stands. The situation is a lot more complicated than what I have seen people make it out to be. All characters made bad mistakes, but in their situation, there weren’t a lot of chances for good choices. And this, paired with their personality and emotions, meant they made mistakes. Anyone under pressure (and they were under a lot of pressure) would make bad choices.

I never wanted to get involved in fandom politics but I’ve seen so many posts blaming different characters and putting others on a pedestal that I feel the need to say something.

If you think that jc or wwx or any other characters are better than the rest, undeserving of what happened to them, and that they did no wrong and everyone else is to blame, then you’ve misunderstood the fundamental point of the entire story.

We all know that mdzs is a story about class, but there’s more to that than just Jin Guangyao and Mianmian. It doesn’t just stop at them, it applies to ever character in the entire novel, and applies to every situation they find themselves in. Mdzs is a novel about how situations shape people and affect their decisions, and by saying that one character is released from that blame while others are not is wrong.

As a reader, we know information that other characters do not, and since the novel is focused around wwx pov, then we know more information about his situation than the other characters do. We know he was tossed into the burial mounds, we know that he wanted to protect his family, we know that he loved Jiang Yanli as a sister and would never hurt her. But above all, we know everything Wen Qing and Wen Ning did to help him.

Except, the other characters don’t.

(And before I say the next bit, I would like to say I am not glorifying wwx’s actions or Jiang Cheng’s. They both did horrible things to each other)

In the novel, Jiang Cheng was pretty much unconscious for the entire time after he was rescued by Wen Qing and Wen Ning. The only time he did wake up was for mere seconds before he saw the Wen uniforms and was so afraid he was literally screaming before Wen Qing stabbed him with her needle and put him to sleep. By the time wwx woke him up, they were already travelling on a boat away from Yiling, and the Wen were nowhere in sight. In addition, Jiang Cheng didn’t know they brought back his cultivation. Jiang Cheng was unconscious, and could not remember much of what happened to him. All he remembers is waking up in a Wen stronghold, and then waking up outside of it. What reason did he have to believe that the Wen Qing and Wen Ning helped him at all?

On the contrary, wwx could not tell him any of this, because that would mean admitting to the golden core transfer. Wwx did not accept help, did not ask for help, but he was at a point in his life where he went to hell and back and was being blamed for it. To tell people he lost his core would 1) alert Jiang Cheng of the transfer and 2) would actually make him more of a target of the cultivation world. Unorthodox methods x2?? Absolutely not.

Lan Xichen did not see Jin Guangyao for what he was because he wanted to see someone better. That, and he was mourning one sworn brother and he did not want to mourn the other, or to even blame him for his death. Sure, he didn’t see any of the clues, but he didn’t want to see them, and that doesn’t make him a bad person.

I could go on and on about every single aspect of each characters situations and how that affected their actions (and I might in a reblog) but this post is getting long.

The point is this: Do not rise your favourite characters to pedestals and do not incessantly blame others for their mistakes. Each character has their own motivations, fear, and was each stuck in a situation that forced them to make bad decisions.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that Jiang Cheng was, in fact, aware of what Wen Qing and Wen Ning did for him prior to wwx’s death. So, I was incorrect in that regard.

However, Jiang Cheng was under great scrutiny by the cultivation sects, had just rebuilt Lotus Pier and its reputation, and then suffered the blow of wwx leaving. I do believe that his actions were a result of all that pressure being put on him.

[weiwanyin]

I'm sorry for the terrible screencraps, but I for once wish I could go into the Jiang Cheng tag without coming across another person taking whatever headcanon they read that week out of whatever fanfiction they were reading and passing it as canon. This week we of course have the hot new take that Jiang Cheng is a "very terrible person who kicked WWX out". Please I beg log out of AO3 for 10 minutes and at least rewatch the CQL episode 28, around the 6 minute mark to even make it easier for you, where you can be reminded that WEI WUXIAN WAS THE ONE WHO DECIDED TO LEAVE THE CLAN.

In fact a choice he made because he knew his position to protect the Wens would likely end up making his sect a target of the cultivation world and it was only a matter of time before the Jins used that against him (with the passive approval of the Lans and the Nies let's be real even though fandom never acknowledges their own involvement).

Also as an extra bonus...for those who love yo say this was Jiang Cheng's plan all along because he's obviously jealous and bitter...he's literally crying when Wei Wuxian tells him he's defecting from the sect.

If you're going to go on to hate Jiang Cheng...at least do it for stuff that actually happened. Also as an extra bonus, you guys aren’t LWJ, you can stop acting like WWX didn’t commit his own mistakes and has his own things to apologize for, even if you argue he did them for selfless reasons. 

[plan-d-to-i]

hi! I was wondering what are your thoughts on jfm & yzy's relationship qualifying as emotional abuse? IMO jfm's way of dealing with yzy is scarily similar to how wwx later on deals with jc (resigned to take whatever she dishes on him until it's directed at wcz and cssr for example) and the rumored circumstances of their marriage hint that she also felt a sense of entitlement towards him.

Ofc the circumstances are very different between jfm and wwx regarding their social standing and level of agency in their relationship according to that, but it's still an interesting parallel I think.

also english isn't my native language so sorry for any mistakes!

I wrote more at length about it here and here

But basically yes I do agree that she was emotionally abusive. I mean this encompasses exactly what she brought to the table in the YunmengJiang household:

There was resentment within her heart. She simply wanted to let out the rage, even if it made no sense. All the rest were quiet as they endured her temper. (Chapter 51)

There are some interesting parallels between Lady Mo and YZY to be honest :

On the other hand, Lady Mo wasn’t trying to avenge her son. She was only trying to find someone upon whom she could vent hateful fury. (Chapter 4)

Jiang Fengmian was pressured by YZY's Clan into an arranged marriage with her although he repeatedly tried to refuse and then she made him pay for the rest of his days. For all intents and purposes he treated his wife very well unlike other people *cough* Jin Guangshan *cough*. He did not cheat on her, and she got to do precisely as she pleased.

Even after she married Jiang FengMian, she had always been out on night-hunts, not overly fond of staying at the Jiang Sect’s Lotus Pier. On top of that, where she lived at Lotus Pier was different from where Jiang FengMian did. She had her own area, where only she and a few of the family members she’d brought from the Yu Sect lived. The two young women, JinZhu and YinZhu, were both her trusted maids. They never left her side. (Chapter 51)

Meanwhile she acted like a viper and constantly ranted at him about his dead friends, accused him of infidelity, and did everything in her power to sow discord between him and his son. Like?! This was an arranged marriage! Love is not a guarantee in an arranged marriage. Mutual respect is ideal and JFM held up his side of the bargain. No, bringing in the orphaned child of his dead friends- not even adopting him!- is not "disrespecting" her except in her own delusional, heartless version of events. There's also not an imbalance of power between them:

Madam Yu, “What am I doing here? What a joke that I am asked of such a thing! Sect Leader Jiang, do you still remember that I’m also the leader of Lotus Pier? Do you still remember that every inch of the earth here is my territory? (Chapter 56)

She also chases him down repeatedly to spark or continue conflict. And then follows after him when he attempts to disengage. This is not normal behavior. If someone wants to deescalate and leave an argument you've started, chasing them down to berate them more is not it.

The two took their argument outside. Lady Yu’s angered voice got louder as they walked away, while Jiang FengMian tried to suppress his own temper as they argued. (Chapter 56)

When they're in Wei Wuxian's room after the Xuanwu of Slaughter. JFM gave WWX the most barebones of compliments, and is trying to teach his son that he shouldn't let their allies die, and she storms in and goes on a rant about how he doesn't care about his son. WHILE HE'S TEACHING HIS SON?!! Just a terrible woman and terrible human being and jiang cheng is a chip off the old block. He exhibits the same behavior at the ancestral hall. WWX offers to leave immediately but it's clearly jiang cheng's intention to be as offensive as possible and start a fight. Then when WWX wants to deescalate and leave he still follows after them until Wen Ning intervenes.

[ultfreakme]

"the sword thing IS fairly inconsequential (morally meaningless)"- is it though? I mentioned how thematically speaking, the swords are very important in identifying an individual. Sandu, Subian and Bichen's names are that for a reason. Metatextually and through social implications, swords are important. DC doesn't require a sword or any conventional form of cultivation so WWX rejecting the sword isgiving the implication that he's rejecting conventional and 'correct' cultivation means.

We have pretty solid evidence of exactly what DC does to a person through seeing WWX and it's pretty explicitly shown during his time in Burial Mound. He's talks different, he spends way too much time in his Demon Slaughter Cave, everyone around him keeps asking "hey are you okay?" This is taking a very serious physical and mental toll on him and the fact that he slipped up that bad wrt JZX is evidence of that.

"The only other Ghostly Path practitioner we've seen is XY. We know that the Jin's hired some, but they all had poor results (we don't actually know how involved MXY was with actual practice of the Ghostly Path, only cultivation thing he did in the story was casting an array that predate WWX by centuries). We don't have a representative sample."- we do. the people you listed are the representative sample. People the Jin hired, Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao on some level since he was the one working with XY, MXY who did it specifically for murder revenge.

If no soldier is innocent, WQ who was posted in a watchtower and WN who was also there are not innocents. We don't know exactly how many of those people among the Wen remnants were soldiers mixed with civilians. And again. JC did not want to actively kill them. He defended them, he did the best he could. Jiang Cheng being a sect leader does NOT give him power, that's like a crucial part of Jiang Cheng's story because the Jiang sect was destroyed. He has the name, he has social standing, he does not have resources or any actual power. No elders, nothing. It was JC who ahs no idea wtf is going on in WWX's mind vs the Jin, Nie and Lan Sects.

NMJ wanted the Wen remnants dead and actively told JC he shouldn't be defending them. NMJ's justice is also extremely biased. I don't understand why the same grace is not extended to JC. NMJ's vitriol for the Wen is seen as fine in fandom but JC's isn't.

"However, JC was the one who led the offensive during the Second Siege - he went there in order to kill WWX."- WWX caused a considerable amount of death in Nightless City followed by killing JYL and before that JZX. WWX is a threat. You had spoken about how innocence and guilt doesn't matter when the destruction of your home is involved. WWX just killed the last of JC's family and then some. JC was wrong in the scale of retaliation but what JC knows is this;

WWX is spiraling

He killed JZX

He's lost enough control to not even be able to discern his sister from actual attackers.

JC let WWX be up until this point. The Yunmeng trio are extremely close-knit and WWX adores JYL, if WWX has lost so much control that its led to her death, how much of WWX is actually left, how much control does he have? JC isn't privy to details the way readers are so ofc he's going to have to stop WWX at all costs.

"That's a terrible idea that would put WWX and Jiang as long as WWX was associated with them in more danger"- they didn't do ANYTHING to Burial Mounds for close to a year or more. Things only began to stir up when JZX and JYL invited WWX. JC in-text had no involvement in this so yes keeping WWX away worked to keep him safe and WWX himself proclaimed he's super strong and projected himself as a threat which made people back off.

"he literally proclaimed WWX the enemy of the Cultivation World. Being seen as a potential treat is good, being seen as an enemy not so much. Politically, cutting WWX was explicitly a mistake brought by his own insecurities. He weakened his own position by doing that."- it was mutually agreed.

They staged the entire thing, WWX himself is saying they hurt each other on purpose for the sake of realism. JC didn't kick him out with zero regard for him.

Politically speaking. WWX's the outcast now and he's been openly defiant of JC. JC's got two options; get wwx under his control or kick him out/ Obviously the only way to control WWX is making him leave the Wen remnants. He doesn't go further with that and they come to the one way where they can both do what they want.

"He shut up on the fist signs of opposition"- JGS was the one who was looking to mainly antagonize WWX. JC needs to maintain at least decent relations with Lanling Jin because of JYL's engagement. He's the youngest sect leader whose SIC has gone rogue defending the people who attacked his home(that's what it looks like) fighting against 3 of the remaining sects. If he did more, JYL and JZX's marriage would be affected and they actually liked e/o atp, YMJ would be on JGS's shit list and he has all the power in the world to take away JC's authority. That's as far as he could go.

Btw, LWJ saw all this, he's LXC's brother, he's got political power too. Maybe not as much as a sect leader but he could've said something while all these discussions were going down(not saying LWJ's a bad person for not doing this, just saying why are the standards for JC so sky high in comparison to the rest of the cast?).

Assuming that the Lan clan would be fair about WWX is a huge reach because the entire point of that clan is they seem like they'd be totally just and fair but even they have their own toxic biases and internal issues. The Lan Clan punished LWJ severely for siding with WWX. Not even doing anything tangibly bad, he just sided with WWX and they gave the man life-long scars with the worst punishment tool. What's their impression of WWX here? Would they actually give him a 'fair trial'? LXC, sect heir, couldn't stop the elders from doing that to his brother. They could give less of a shit about giving WWX a fair trail and his situation would be a million times worse if WWX killed people like LQR and LXC. LWJ won't have a choice. Even if they found out that Jin Zixun was not cursed by WWX-

There's a reason why only LWJ bears his title, why he's considered so morally upright. It's not a Lan clan thing, it's a Lan Wangji thing and he would not be able to be like that if he's caught up in political turmoil. NO ONE can. Even Lan Xichen who's arguably as good as LWJ morally couldn't do shit.

"JC is particularly short-sighted as a result of his refusal to consider wellbeing of people he doesn't share a significant relation with. WWX is the bigger picture guy, but the problem is JC's perspective is so incredibly truncated he's not able to recognise it."- Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's priorities are different, that's why they go on the paths they do. Jiang Cheng has an obligation to his sect. If he decides to side with WWX after he killed JZX and JYL, he's screwed himself and whatever he's made of Yunmeng Jiang over. WWX acknowledges that it's fair that JC feels nothing for WN and WQ, he's the one who tells us JC was passed out the entire time. In JC's eyes, these Wen remnants were chill with destroying Lotus Pier. Even THEN, he was sitting by WN and wasn't crying bloody murder when he visited him.

JC does have principles, perhaps not as squeaky clean as LWJ but he has one. Except he can't go around playing hero because he's a Sect Leader. Even someone like LXC who's considered a morally good person(WWX says it all the time), the best he could do was watch. Idk where you got "JC is politically incompetent" from when his sect is rich enough to spend an obscene amount on Jin Ling's hunting trips and everyone's terrified of the man. It's been like a decade since total destruction of a sect that's probably been around for decades, it's going to take time to rebuild anyways. Playing at politics means unfortunately you compromise. LWJ won't, that's a bad thing. In JC's position he'd either cause huge trouble to his sect or do nothing for WWX.

"Moreover, WWX doesn't really have self-sacrifacial tendencies lol. He merely understands that taking risk and making sacrifices are necessary when it comes to surviving and ensure the safety of others."- the man sunk himself deeper and deeper into DC to bring back WN because he was so guilt-ridden about his death. He CUT HIMSELF OPEN and risked death to give JC his golden core because he felt obligated. He got himself burned and gained a permanent scar to rescue a girl he had one conversation with. The entire conflict and theme of JC and WWX's relationship is the idea of self-sacrifice and how not giving consideration to yourself would end up hurting your loved ones. JC gave himself up to the Wens to let WWX escape without realizing WWX would do anything to save him. WWX sacrificed his core for JC not knowing that JC valued WWX more than his sect. In the chapter where LWJ visits, WN gets loose and the Wen remnants are in very real danger- it's a really good demonstration of WWX's self-sacrifical martyr complex and how it affects others. WN's back! WQ's happy! Except WN is a ticking time bomb and controlling him is chipping away at WWX.

"Additionally, we've been presented credible testimony (second hand, but detailed and referencing the actual source) that JC tortured at least one for simply being named Wen way after WWX's death."- A second hand one that references an original source.....that's not credible. Like we constantly see how facts get twisted all time how is a second hand source considered credible?

JC thinks he'll use any means possible and what did he ACTUALLY do in-text when he did figure out MXY is WWX? Shouted at him a bunch and kicked him out of the ancestral hall. They don't reconcile or even talk but that's because Wei Wuxian doesn't want to do anything with him while JC is trying to ask him about why he did what he did, what this "repayment" via golden core means in terms of his family.

i feel like we're never going to agree though so I really don't want to continue this. block me if you'd like.

Any time JC antis start coming for him and his reaction to what WWX did, I always want to ask them to do the "Lan Clan Test". Basically, replace the Jiang family deaths with Lan family deaths. Instead of Jin Zixuan dying by Wen Ning's hand, say it's Lan Qiren. At Nightless City, imagine it's Lan Xichen who's mourning his uncle that's searching for Lan Wangji, and WWX accidentally kills LXC.

Like really picture Lan Xichen dying in Lan Wangji's arms, telling him heartfelt words assured of his death and Lan Wangji's like "Hey please fix this, please stop this" to Wei Wuxian and WWX is like "wait wait I can fix this I swear I swear!".

Okay how would you expect Lan Wangji to react to that? Ngl if he still somehow thinks of Wei Wuxian as entirely blameless and holds zero resentment towards WWX after that, I would lose my respect for LWJ and I don't think LWJ would react like that anyways. The person you love whom you warned against taking this path has chosen to disregard anything you say(pr even his closest people like Jiang Cheng say) and has now lost all control and has killed all that's left of your family. Who WOULDN'T lose it at least a little? Who wouldn't hold resentment or anger or frustration?

Jiang Cheng made mistakes but he's not uniquely evil. He was right to have felt anger towards Wei Wuxian because bro in his eyes, Wei Wuxian COULD control that. Only we as audience know the extent of loss of control. And even if JC realized WWX can't control it, he begged WWX time and time again to stop Demonic Cultivation. Trying to flatten this situation into a "he's wrong, he's right, case closed" is the worst thing you can do in MDZS.

[deistarr]

Tags I honestly appreciated on AO3 (various fandoms):

The Canon Did Not Spark Joy | So I Made It My Bitch

If The Canon Does Not Spark Joy Throw It Out

Scott McCall Can Have A Braincell. As A Treat.

Relationship Pairing: Albus Dumbledore/His Ginormous Ego

Lan Wangji's Canonical Inability To Tell The Difference Between Instant Hatred & Instant Attraction

LWJ Gets Sexually Aroused For The First Time | He Mistakes The Feeling For Murderous Rage | It's A Very Confusing Time For Him

Fix-It Via Accidental World Domination

Accidental Overlord Tony Stark

LWJ Can Punch JC In The Face. As A Treat.

JC's Canonical Torture Habit

Gender: Tired - Sexually Attracted To: Beds

Everyone Deserves Better | Except For JC | He Can Suffer

Fluffy Vore-Adjacent Behaviour

Please note that this list is by no means comprehensive. It just contains the ones I remember off the top of my head at this moment.

Some of my favourite tags that I have used:

(Not So) Secretly A Virgin

Tiny Time-Travel Hell-Child

LXC Has The Braincell | Oops | No He Doesn't

Now With A Hundred Percent More WangXian!

Albus Dumbledore Is Not Actually Evil | He's Just Very Bad At Being A Decent Person

OC Was Not Expecting Reincarnation | Again | She Wants To Know Why Fate Keeps On Giving Her A Penis

The Genitalia That Must Not Be Named

If You Didn't Want To Be Blackmailed | You Shouldn't Have Done It | Sounds Legit

Hello Alcoholism | My Old Friend

LWJ Tries To Be Good | He Fails | To Be Fair | WWX Is Terribly Tempting

For A Fic Without Any Sexual Content Some Of These Tags Sound Incredibly Inappropriate

Mostly Canon Compliant | Except That Lan Xichen Actually Got Laid

Lans Gone Wild(TM) | Featuring Nie Mingjue As: The Voice Of Reason

Body-Swap Gone Wrong | AKA | That Fic Where Wei Wuxian Pees Lan Zhan's Pants

It Doesn't Have To Be Biologically Possible They're Hybrids Karen

Lan Xichen Can Have A Little Harem. As A Treat.

Jin Zixuan The Beautiful Lan/Jiang Sect Concubine

Nie Huaisang Saves The Day | He's As Surprised As Anyone

I Wrote This Instead Of Sleeping | Then Fell Asleep Instead Of Posting It

LWJ Stabs His Father | Non-Lethally But Still | It's Surprisingly Cathartic

The Mortifying Ordeal Of Discussing Your Sex Life With Your Family

Trip To The ER With Something Stuck Inside Your Dick | Somehow Everyone You Know Shows Up | Thanks Huaisang | That Was Not Actually Helpful

That Moment When Everyone Learns TMI About Your Sex Life

Lan Xichen Accidentally Starts A Revolution In The Lan Sect | This Was Not Supposed To Happen | Rebel Leader!LWJ

Lan Wangji Needs Friends | Xichen Just Never Expected Him To Make Them This Way | This Is Not Going As Planned

Asexual Relationship | Where Neither Of Them Are Actually Asexual | This Is What We Call A Lack Of Communication

BAMF Nie Mingjue | Why Is That Not Already A Tag? | That's Basically His Entire Personality | I'm Feeling Very Insulted On His Behalf

Nie Mingjue Pretty Much Lives To Kick Ass & Take Names | If He Disapproves He Won't Hesitate To Let You Know | Loudly & At Length | He Practically Exists To Smite Evil-Doers & Fuck Their Shit Up | Anyone Who Says Nie Mingjue Is Not BAMF Is Lying | Or Else Really Not Paying Attention

NMJ Is Basically The Chinese Version Of A Spartan Warrior | Charging Onto The Battlefield With Baxia Held Aloft | Wearing The Blood Of His Enemies | "This! Is! Qinghe!!!" | When I Read The Novel My Brain Dubbed Him "Chinese Leonidas" | CQL Did Nothing To Dispell That Impression TBH

BAMF Uchiha Shisui | WTF Is That Not Already A Tag? | Danzou Only Beat Him Because Of Izanagi | With The Stolen Sharingan Shisui Didn't Know He Had | He Kicked Danzou's Ass | While Poisoned | And Fending Off ROOT As Well | He Won Until Danzou Got An Unexpected Do-Over | And Even Then He Still Got Away | He Might Have Been Dying But He Still Escaped | Uchiha Shisui Is A Total BAMF | This Is A Hill I Will Die On

Severus Snape Has Asperger's | No One's Ever Handled It Well | At All | Especially Not Dumbledore | It's Why He's So Bitter | Snape's Just So Done With Humanity | And With Human Interaction In General | He'd Like To Go Live Alone In A Nice Cave Somewhere | And Never Speak To Anyone Else Ever Again | Dumbledore Insists On Keeping Him In A School | Where He Was Bullied And Traumatized | Surrounded By Screaming Adolescents | Who He Can't Just Ignore | He Has To Teach | Interact With The Hellspawn | Be A Role Model | Severus Snape Regrets Everything

[crossdressingdeath]

Twin Treasures ch. 2 v. 1

So that's chapter two edited and updated here; here's the original for you all.

Madame Jin stares at the two boys in front of her, ignoring her husband’s sputtering. “It’s only been a month.”

Wei Ying fists his hands in his filthy golden robes. “I-I’m really sorry!”

“You set the kitchen on fire,” Madame Jin says.

“I didn’t mean to,” Wei Ying says quickly. “I was just trying to get some rice! …And then I knocked it over. And it landed in the fire…”

“Nearly burning down Koi Tower in the process!” Jin Guangshan interjects.

Wei Ying flinches. It really was an accident! The rice had just been a little out of reach, and he’d dropped it trying to get it off the shelf. “I… I…”

“It was my fault,” Jin Rong says suddenly.

“Your fault?” Madame Jin asks. Jin Guangshan’s eyes slide from Wei Ying to Jin Rong.

Jin Rong nods. “Wei Ying asked me to get the rice for him, since I’m taller,” he explains. “But I… dropped it. It fell in the fire. Sorry.”

There’s a smile beginning to creep onto Madame Jin’s face. “In that case, why did A-Ying say he was the one who started the fire?”

Wei Ying twists his fingers together. “I… It wasn’t…”

“He didn’t want me to get in trouble,” Jin Rong says. “He said… He said it was his fault, since he’s the one who asked me to get the rice.”

“I see.” Madame Jin looks pleased, for some reason. Has she been looking for an excuse to punish her son? “Well, Sect Leader Jin, it seems to be a simple mistake. I see no need to cause a fuss. After all, it would be terribly embarrassing if the other sects heard you had tried your own son for arson.”

“I… Well.” Jin Guangshan coughs, very carefully not looking at his wife. “I see no reason to make a fuss over such a… minor incident. Although I would hope my son would not allow himself to be dragged into such nonsense by an orphaned street rat again. His reputation would suffer if he were to…” He trails off at Madame Jin’s glare.

Beyond her furious look, Madame Jin doesn’t bother to respond. She turns to the children. “Boys, come with me. I need to talk to you both.”

“Yes, Mother.” Jin Rong bows, then grabs Wei Ying’s wrist and tugs. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Um… okay.” Wei Ying allows himself to be pulled out of the room after Madame Jin and Jin Rong, leaving Jin Guangshan alone in the throne room.

Madame Jin leads them back to Jin Rong’s room in silence. She doesn’t speak until the door closes behind them. “Well? Would you two like to tell me the truth now?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jin Rong says.

Madame Jin chuckles. “Come here.” She rests a hand on Jin Rong’s head. “A-Rong. Do you think I can’t tell when my own son is lying to me?”

Wei Ying flinches. “I’m sorry!” he squeaks, feeling dread creep along his spine. “It was all my fault, I made him!”

“No he didn’t!” Jin Rong says quickly. “It was my idea!”

“Boys, boys!” Madame Jin laughs. “I’m not angry. I just want to know what happened. The truth, please.”

Wei Ying sniffs. “I… I just wanted to make something for you…”

“For me?” Madame Jin asks gently.

Wei Ying nods. “You’ve been so nice to me, and you gave me a home and clean clothes and lots of food, and I wanted to do something nice for you, too!”

“I see.” Madame Jin reaches out and pats him on the head. “That’s very sweet of you, A-Ying.”

Wei Ying smiles shakily. “But… But I couldn’t reach the rice, and it fell over… and then it spilled into the fire…”

“That’s when I came in,” Jin Rong adds. “I heard him shouting for help and came to see what was happening.”

“He put the fire out!” Wei Ying says. “…Eventually.”

“Knocking all the spices onto yourselves in the process?” Madame Jin raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, Mother.”

“Sorry, Madame Jin!”

Madame Jin sighs. “Honestly, you two. Such a mess. I’ll have the servants bring you water to bathe with. Clean up and change, alright?”

“We will,” Jin Rong says.

“And the two of you will stay in this room until tomorrow morning,” Madame Jin adds. At their complaints she says, “You did set fire to the kitchen. There has to be some punishment.”

“Yes, Mother,” Jin Rong sighs. Wei Ying just nods, not sure what to say.

Madame Jin smiles and pats them both on the head. “I’m very proud of you both,” she says gently. “A-Ying, it was very kind of you to try to cook for me, although I want to be clear that it isn’t necessary. I will make sure you’re taken care of no matter what you do, do you understand?”

“Yes, Madame Jin,” Wei Ying says quietly.

Madame Jin hugs him quickly and turns to her son. “A-Rong, it was very brave of you to lie to your father to protect A-Ying. You’re older, so it’s your job to look after him; I’m glad I didn’t need to tell you that.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Jin Rong says, a proud smile appearing on his face.

Madame Jin hugs him too, then stands. “Very good. I’ll have the servants bring you both dinner later, alright?”

Both boys nod and she smiles again, then makes her way to the door, where she pauses. “Tomorrow I’ll begin teaching both of you how to cook. We don’t need any more kitchen fires.”

Jin Rong looks like he wants to groan. “Yes, Mother…”

“Thank you, Madame Jin!” Wei Ying chirps.

“You’re very welcome, A-Ying.” Then she’s gone.

The two boys sit in silence until the servants come with water for their baths. Wei Ying grabs Jin Rong’s sleeve before the older boy can step behind the screen to bathe. “I’m sorry!”

“Sorry?” Jin Rong echoes. “Why?”

“I… I got you in trouble,” Wei Ying says. “Sect Leader Jin was mad. I’m really sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Jin Rong says. “Mother didn’t mind, and if she doesn’t mind she won’t let Father do anything.”

“But…”

“It’s fine,” Jin Rong insists. “It was an accident! If Father’s going to blame you for the rice being too high up, then…” He cuts himself off with a cough. “Go take a bath, you’re filthy.”

Wei Ying giggles. Jin Rong grabs a clean robe and throws it at him. “Okay, okay! I’m going! But Ge- Um, but Jin-gongzi needs to bathe too!”

“Shut up!” Jin Rong snaps, stepping behind the screen. “Why are you calling me ‘Jin-gongzi’ all of a sudden?”

“Well, Jin-gongzi is the heir to the sect,” Wei Ying says lightly. “And I’m just an orphaned street rat, after all! Your reputation would suffer if I was too familiar with you!”

Jin Rong’s spice-covered outer robes come flying over the screen and land on his head with remarkable accuracy. “Shut up!” he says again. “…Just call me Gege. It’s fine.”

Wei Ying stares silently for a moment, then smiles to himself as he peels off his dirty clothes and hops into his own bath. “Yes, Gege!”

“Um,” Jin Rong says. There’s a silence broken only by the splashing of water. “Can I call you Didi?” he blurts out.

Wei Ying’s smile stretches even wider across his cheeks. “Yes!”

He hears Jin Rong laugh. “Okay… Didi!”

Wei Ying giggles. “Okay, Gege!” he chirps.

…

After cooking lessons (a disastrous idea, Jin Rong thinks; Wei Ying is small and clumsy and keeps knocking things over, but Madame Jin just laughs and picks them up again), Madame Jin insists on teaching Wei Ying cultivation.

Jin Rong can’t deny being happy about that. He’s older than Wei Ying so he gets to be his shixiong, and he’s stronger and faster so he gets to show him how to do everything! And Wei Ying watches him practice with wide, awed eyes and shouts praise across the field like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. And he learns fast! Within just a few months he’s already excelling at the basics. Every time he figures something new out, he always comes running to show Jin Rong before anyone else, even Mother.

His little brother is so cute. He bets none of the other sect heirs have such cute siblings.

(He’s definitely better than Jiang Cheng’s sister.)

“Gege, Gege!” Wei Ying looks over and grins at him, waving his practice sword (not even seeming to notice the weight, Jin Rong notes with some pride) and forcing the nearest disciples to duck out of the way.

“Didi.” Jin Rong has to drop his own sword as Wei Ying bounds across the training field and throws himself into Jin Rong’s arms. “Shouldn’t you be training?”

“I’ve been training all morning,” Wei Ying whines, leaning his full weight against Jin Rong. “Gege, we should do something fun!”

“Like what?” Jin Rong picks up his sword, ignoring the way Wei Ying flails to maintain his balance. “We still have work to do.”

“But, Gege!” Wei Ying says. He grins. “I know a secret!”

“Do you?” Jin Rong asks, interested despite himself. Wei Ying has quickly ingratiated himself to most of the servants who don’t directly serve Jin Guangshan, so he gets all the best gossip. “What is it?”

Wei Ying is bouncing up and down on the spot. “Not telling!”

“Yes you are,” Jin Rong says. “You always tell me, you’re terrible at secrets.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!” Wei Ying pouts at him. “I’m not bad at secrets! Just for that I’m not going to tell you, so there!”

“Tell me,” Jin Rong says. “You know you want to.”

“No I don’t!” Wei Ying insists. “I’m not going to!”

“Tell me.”

“No!” Wei Ying folds his hands over his chest. “…Unless…”

Aha! “Unless what?”

…He’s never claimed to be above bribing his brother.

Wei Ying lights up. “I want spicy food!” he demands. “Really, really spicy food!”

“Fine, fine,” Jin Rong says. “We can go down to the kitchen and I’ll talk to the cooks.”

But Wei Ying shakes his head. “I want Gege to make it!” he insists.

“What?!” Jin Rong scoffs. “Sect heirs don’t cook, there are people who do that for them!” At least, that’s what Jin Guangshan had said.

“But Madame Jin said that cooking is an important skill,” Wei Ying says. “And Gege’s cooking is the best…”

“Well… That… Of course my cooking is the best!” Jin Rong says quickly. “I’m the heir to the Jin Sect! I’m good at everything!”

Wei Ying nods emphatically. “Gege is the best!”

“And don’t forget it!” Jin Rong glances over at Wei Ying’s instructor. The woman looks amused, but also a little impatient. “Finish your training for today, then I’ll take you to the kitchen. Okay?”

“Okay!” Wei Ying scoops up his sword again and begins to run back, then turns. “You promise?”

“Yes, yes, I promise.” Jin Rong shoos him away. “Hurry up!”

“Yes, Gege!” Wei Ying chirps. Then he whirls around and scurries back to his instructor.

…

Jin Rong isn’t actually very good at cooking. He isn’t going to admit that to Wei Ying, though. He promised! A good sect heir always keeps his promises!

So here he is in the kitchen, scowling at a bowl of what’s supposed to be congee. “It’s…”

“It looks good!” Wei Ying chirps.

It looks bright red and a little gross. Is Wei Ying just making fun of him? “Are you going to eat it, then?”

“Mhm!” And he actually does. Jin Rong watches in horrified awe as Wei Ying gulps down the entire bowl of congee without a single complaint. “It’s good, Gege!”

“…Really?” Jin Rong asks. “I mean- Of course! Because your big brother is good at everything!”

Wei Ying nods agreeably. “Mhm! I have the best big brother!”

Jin Rong is not flattered by that. He isn’t! “Now it’s your turn.”

Wei Ying tilts his head to the side. “My turn?” he echoes.

Jin Rong sighs. “You promised that if I made you spicy food you’d tell me a secret,” he reminds his brother.

“Oh, right!” Wei Ying grins and beckons him closer, even though the cooks seem entirely uninterested (and probably already know; Jin Rong wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been the ones to tell Wei Ying this little secret in the first place). “I heard Madame Yu is bringing her daughter here from Yunmeng to visit!”

Jin Rong groans, all his curiosity replaced by annoyance. “Again?”

Wei Ying blinks at him, confused. “Again?”

“I guess Mother wouldn’t have mentioned it to you,” Jin Rong says dully. “I’m engaged to Jiang Yanli. Have been since I was born.”

“That’s… bad?” Wei Ying asks.

“Of course it’s bad!” Jin Rong complains. “I don’t like her. She’s boring, and she’s no good at cultivation! But Mother and Madame Yu decided we were going to get married, so I don’t have a choice.”

“But if you don’t like her then why don’t you just tell Madame Jin?” Wei Ying asks. “If she knew you don’t want to marry Jiang Yanli…”

“You think I haven’t tried that?!” Jin Rong snaps. There’s a brief clatter as the cooks scurry off to look busy. “You think I’ve got a choice? Are you stupid?!”

Wei Ying flinches. “S-sorry!”

“Of course Mother knows I don’t want to!” Jin Rong continues, ignoring him. “She just wants me to marry her best friend’s daughter! What I want doesn’t matter! And Jiang Yanli isn’t helping, she actually wants to get married!”

“But… that’s not fair,” Wei Ying says quietly. “Mama said that marriage is supposed to make people happy.”

“Well, it doesn’t work like that!” Jin Rong snaps. “Don’t be such a kid!”

“So what if I’m a kid?” Wei Ying whines. “You’re a kid, too!”

“Yeah, well…” Jin Rong shoves the younger boy, hard enough to knock him back a step. “I’m older, so I know better!”

“Gege knows lots of things,” Wei Ying agrees far too quickly, steadying himself against the counter. He’s staring at Jin Rong, eyes wide.

Jin Rong sighs and forces himself to relax, reaching out to pat his brother on the head. “…Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.” Mother always says a good sect leader should know when to apologize.

“It’s okay!” Wei Ying insists. “I don’t mind!” And he smiles, bright as the sun.

His little brother is just so cute. “Jiang Yanli’s going to be so jealous,” he says proudly.

Wei Ying tilts his head to the side. “Why?”

Jin Rong scoffs and pokes Wei Ying’s forehead playfully. “You’re so dumb, Didi,” he teases. “Obviously because my little brother’s way better than hers!” All Jiang Cheng does is whine and yell at Jin Rong. He bets Wei Ying will be way better at cultivation than that kid, too, once he’s had more practice!

Wei Ying blushes bright red, a delighted grin spreading over his face. “Gege’s the best brother, though!”

Jin Rong tries to stop himself from smiling. In the end he has to turn away so Wei Ying can’t see. “Obviously I’m the best,” he says. “I’m the heir to the Jin Sect of Lanling! I’m the best at everything!”

“Except cooking,” Wei Ying points out with a mischievous little giggle and a smile in the direction of the cooks.

“What- You said it was good!” Jin Rong complains. “You liar!” He lunges playfully at his little brother, all remaining annoyance forgotten.

“It was good, it was good!” Wei Ying yelps, scrambling away from Jin Rong’s hands.

“Too late! I don’t believe you!” Jin Rong grabs him and sets about his brutal vengeance.

“Gege!” Wei Ying shrieks with laughter as Jin Rong’s fingers dig into his ribs. “Stop it, stop it!”

“Never!” He tightens his grip. Wei Ying howls. “If you lie to your brother you have to face the consequences!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Wei Ying tears himself loose and runs to hide behind one of the cooks. “I won’t do it again!”

“Hey, get back here!” Jin Rong can’t stop himself from laughing. “Cultivators should never run from a fight!”

“It’s important to avoid fights you know you can’t win!” Wei Ying retorts, peering around the woman.

“So you admit I’m better!” Jin Rong crows, ducking around the cook. Wei Ying circles the other way.

“Only until I get more practice!” Wei Ying insists. “I’m going to beat you one day!”

The cook laughs. “Boys- Ah, Jin-gongzi, Wei-gongzi,” she corrects herself. “If you’re going to run around, don’t do it in the kitchen.”

“Sorry, Auntie!” Wei Ying chimes.

“Sorry,” Jin Rong echoes. He grabs Wei Ying’s wrist. “Come on, Didi, let’s go!”

They run from the kitchen, leaving the laughter of the cooks behind them.

“So,” Jin Rong asks, “you’re going to be better than me, huh?”

“Mhm!” Wei Ying nods. “I’m going to be the best cultivator ever, and then I’m going to stay by your side and protect you forever!”

…His little brother is the absolute best. “You can’t do that,” Jin Rong says, mostly to keep himself from doing something embarrassing.

“I can’t?” Wei Ying asks, eyes wide and sad.

Jin Rong nods. “Mother said, remember? I’m your big brother. It’s my job to protect you!”

Wei Ying’s face lights up and he bounces over to wrap his arms around Jin Rong’s neck. “We can protect each other!”

Jin Rong returns the hug. “Yeah. It’s a promise!”

(And sect leaders should always keep their promises.)

[coaxionunlimited]

Moderately Rare Untamed/MDZS Fic Recs

For when you find fic from sorting by kudos, but you’ve got tag fatigue and you want to read something new. Or, hey, maybe you just want some MDZS fic recs. I’m not here to judge. * means it’s incomplete, for those of you that care.

Obligatory WangXian Category:

crack in the mirror by the_pretzel*: The premise of this one is that Wei Wuxian gets transported from the modern world into a mystery novel series, set in ancient China. But he’s in the body of a character that’s about to get married, and then murdered by his husband. So he breaks the engagement by starting a new one with Lan Wangji and then the first chapter ends. This one is a rollercoaster. WWX soon discovers that his character’s been keeping secrets, and he’s got to figure them out if he wants to get out of this alive. If there was a best drama award for fics, this one would get it. Every chapter has me on the edge of my seat in a different way, as WWX gets out of one mess only to find himself in a bigger one. And that doesn’t even touch on the romance - this is one of the ones where you can just about feel all the pining LWJ is doing, even though it’s WWX pov and he’s oblivious to all of it. Honestly, this fic is the reason this rec list exists.

set your old heart free series by words-writ-in-starlight: Do you like crying? I like crying. That’s why I’m recommending this series to you, so you can cry too! I’m putting this under WangXian, because it’s a story about Lan Wangji and you can’t really have LWJ without the pining, but the real core of the story is the family LWJ has built in Cloud Recesses. Lan Shizui and Lan Xichen, and eventually (because this series starts just after WWX dies - what, I did say I liked crying) Wei Wuxian joins in. There’s even a little Wen Ning! If you like having feelings and also any of the characters I’ve mentioned, like, at all, this series is worth checking out.

The Terminus of Gravity by sealdog: Every fandom needs a space opera au, and sealdog delivers. This is pretty much a strait transportation of the plot of canon to the future and also space, with a side of epistolary and Wen remnants family time, and I’ll stop there because I don’t really want to spoil it. I’m a huge sucker for melancholy and pining and also well written space operas, because even if the premise isn’t your game, it is well written, and it’s worth a read.

Tales from Bunny Mountain by telarna: Lan sect turns into bunnies because of an excess of yin ener- look, we get Lan Zhan as a bunny with bonus Lan Shizui as a bunny. Do you really care why? This is another one of those fics that’s in the WangXian section because if LWJ and WWX are in a fic together, some things just come naturally, but the real draw for me is- well, I’m not going to lie, most of the draw was LWJ as a bunny, but I stayed with the fic for Jin Ling. Good Jin Ling characterization and a lovely, mischievous WWX, who also happens to be a very good uncle. And we have Lan sect as bunnies. Terrible, troublesome bunnies. 11/10, a must read.

through a window softly by impossibletruths: Okay, finally, we finish off the WangXian section with a fic that is actually about WangXian, not just featuring it prominently. through a window softly is a college au where LWJ and WWX are two different types of music major and also neighbors. WWX plays flute and LWJ plays violin and sometimes they stand outside their apartments and play together and pine for the mystery person that’s playing music with them. Look, they fall in love through playing music together, I’ve been looking for a fic like this since WWX first pulled out his flute in canon. There’s misunderstandings and identity porn, if you need some excellent bonus reasons to click this one, and I enjoyed both of those immensely. But what I really, truly loved was WangXian and love and music, and the intersection of all three.

Nie Huaisang: gen edition. Because I have a favorite character and that’s your problem now.

Mistakes We Made by Rachel3*: Nie Huaisang travels back in time and decides to prevent his brother’s death. This is the Nie Huaisang fic for me. I love love love his characterization here. Rachel3 strikes the delicate balance between the sweet kid he once was and the mastermind he grows up to be, making him competent but not an OP genius and sympathetic but not, like, a very good person. The plot is complex and realistic, tackling the sort of complex struggles (both interpersonal and large scale) that time travel fics very rarely bother with. If you've ever been curious about NHS, if you’ve ever even wanted to know him slightly better, this is the fic for you.

The Lost Cause by KouriArashi: AU in which Nie Huaisang and Jin Guangyao work together to take down Jin Guangshan from the beginning. I recommended the last fic for good characterization. I can’t in good conscience say the same for this fic, but that’s kind of the point. If you’re tired of moderation and realism and just want someone to take the hammer and fix canon already, this is the story for you. It’s hilarious and cathartic, and manages to be totally lighthearted even though it’s 100% about murder and manipulation. 

say those words (it’s not forgotten) by paranoid_fridge: This is edging on too well known for this list, but hey! My recs, my rules. And this is an absolute must read for everyone ever. If you haven’t read it, you should, and if you have read it, you can probably stand to do it again. This is a story about Nie Huaisang’s birthday. It’s a slice of life story, and a character study, and a little bit of a feel good hurt comfort fic, and it does all of those things magnificently. The author tags every relationship in this fic except the one braincell trio, which is a shame because it really is a NHS & WWX & JC fic, and if you weren’t craving one of those then why are you in this fandom? Why are you on my reclist? 

SangCheng is my OTP and that is also your problem: 

best behavior by inberin: I might as well take this space to recommend the whole sangcheng revenge au (dancing ashes under the sun (will cast their shadow when the winds rise) by paranoid_fridge really is the fic for it, but it’s too well known to make this list). The premise is simple, Jiang Cheng lost his golden core, the Wens won, and Nie Huaisang is taking them down from the inside with JC as his right hand man. best behavior makes the list for JC and NHS trolling each other (my favorite part of any sangcheng fic), and the lovely angst of two teenagers who grew up much too fast. The writing style of this one is lovely and poetic, the imagery is on point, and the sangcheng chemistry is the best.

Of Trespassing and Table Slams by LiteralistSin: I’ve put a fluffy fic in every category so far, and it’s SangCheng’s turn. There’s not much plot to this one, just SangCheng trying to outmaneuver each other and NHS being a little shit, and JC getting to win for once. Oh, yeah, and NHS gets kissed on a table. Everything my SangCheng loving heart needs.

everything rynleaf has ever written:  I’m putting this one under sangcheng because rynleaf has three sangcheng fics, and I couldn’t pick just one. Really though, you should at least check out What Remains of Meng Yao too, if you like crying. The sangcheng fics all strike the lovely balance between sangcheng tension and trolling each other and really truly sincerely caring about each other beneath all of it. Rynleaf writes some of the sweetest Jiang Cheng you ever did see, even when you’re looking through NHS’ jaded eyes. NHS is great here too, in all his secrets and his magnificent bastardry, you can just feel the smug smile he’s got on in every scene.

our footsteps sing a reckless serenade by ThirtySixSaveFiles: Because I cannot believe this one has so few kudos. Seriously, it’s a 46,000 word long modern with magic au where Jiang Cheng and NHS have an arranged marriage and fall in love. And that’s not even getting into the intrigue and the secrets NHS is keeping, and the murder mystery- There’s a lot of reasons to love this fic, and you definitely want to read it and discover all of them.

[amedetoiles]

In another installment of things I should absolutely not be adding to my already large collection of unfinished google docs, I once more have absolutely no self control, so about that post on wedding planner!WWX.....

Set in the same verse as this. Very on brand of me to start writing a sequel for a fic I have yet to finish. Post-canon, post-reconciliation, and WQ is alive because I say so.

---

In retrospect, Jiang Cheng probably should have predicted this.

Jiang Cheng has grown up with Wei Wuxian. He knows exactly the level of ridiculousness his brother can reach. Nearly all of his childhood was dedicated to learning this exact fact. Compounded with that is how fully Wei Wuxian always throws himself into any project that catches his brother’s attention. For a long time, that had been a-jie’s wedding.

All those late nights he and Wei Wuxian had spent planning together, mapping out detailed seating charts, and designing elaborate challenges for the groom. Wei Wuxian, practically delirious with childish excitement, had proposed and demanded in equal measure extravagance after extravagance because their sister only deserved the very best in the world.

Even still, Jiang Cheng can’t say that he had expected exactly... this.

Three days after Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing tell their family about their betrothal, Wei Wuxian bursts into Jiang Cheng’s office mid-morning, his hair still uncombed and sticking out in multiple directions. His arms are full of scrolls, which he proceeds to unceremoniously dump across Jiang Cheng’s desk.

Wei Wuxian ignores Jiang Cheng’s indignant squawking and speaks rapidly, all of his words running together, and practically vibrating on his feet with a frenzy that brings Jiang Cheng abruptly back to their childhood, laying on the floor of their shared room with scrolls strewn all around them and listening while Wei Wuxian raves enthusiastically about his latest idea for a challenge.

Lan Wangji stands at the doorway, alternating between looking worried that Wei Wuxian might asphyxiate with how fast he is speaking and giving Jiang Cheng a look that says this is under no uncertain terms completely Jiang Cheng’s fault as usual.

(In the three years since his brother married Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji have formed an extremely respectful and productive relationship of tolerating each other’s presence for the exact minimum duration it takes to make Wei Wuxian happy. It is still too long for either of them.)

“The Mao and Guo sects are still feuding so they need to be seated as far apart as possible,” Wei Wuxian is saying, barely pausing for breath as he flits from topic to topic with a speed that leaves Jiang Cheng feeling faintly dizzy. “Fan shushu says he will share his recipe for Qing-jie’s xi bing. The head of the lotus harvesters will arrange to have water lilies transported from the southern borders. I have some designs for the invitations that you and Qing-jie can take a look at. And – Oh!”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes light up suddenly with an unholy fervor that has never, ever boded well for Jiang Cheng, and then Wei Wuxian turns, calls I have to go! over his shoulder, and leaves as quickly as he came. Lan Wangji makes sure to shoot Jiang Cheng one final accusatory glare before following after his husband because Wei Wuxian couldn’t have married someone that wasn’t a huge petty bitch.

Jiang Cheng sits, shocked still, his desk looking like a storm had blown by, and stares at the empty space where his brother was just standing.

He may have slightly miscalculated.

---

A month later, Jiang Cheng contemplates taking Wen Qing and running away to a deserted mountain. (Who says Wei Wuxian is the only one allowed to do that anyway? At least his mountain won’t be prone to murder.)

He won’t of course. He is the Jiang sect leader, and since his birth, his wedding has always been expected to have the pomp and circumstance befitting that of a leader of a great sect. He would never run out on that responsibility no matter how fucking crazy Wei Wuxian is driving him.

But Jiang Cheng does think about it, very wistfully.

He even brings it up half-seriously with Wen Qing one morning after a disciple comes to inform him that Wei Wuxian had had his schedule completely cleared without Jiang Cheng’s knowledge or permission. Jiang Cheng is now expected to meet his brother at the gate in a quarter shichen’s time for who knows what because his brother is as obnoxiously forthcoming as he has always been.

Wen Qing laughs at him because she is terrible, and he has clearly made a huge mistake.

She also presses a light kiss to his cheek and promises to threaten Wei Wuxian with needles later if he doesn’t sit the fuck down and rest before leaving to have tea with Luo Qingyang because she’s also pretty fantastic, and Jiang Cheng has made the best decision of his life.

Even if it means standing in the middle of the tailor shop while Wei Wuxian darts around him like a deranged bird, dangling various fabric samples in front of Jiang Cheng, frowning for some obscure reason he doesn’t deign to tell Jiang Cheng because who cares what Jiang Cheng thinks about his own wedding, tossing the piece of fabric onto the growing no pile, and then picking up yet another.

On the eleventh turn of this, Jiang Cheng feels a sharp throb against his temple and takes a deep slow breath, then another, and another, so he doesn’t scream, or strangle his brother with the fabrics.

“You do realize that this is my fucking wedding?” Jiang Cheng growls with frustration.

“Of course,” Wei Wuxian says immediately, nodding in a way that feels like he’s actually taking Jiang Cheng seriously even as he picks up yet another fabric sample. Jiang Cheng bites his tongue to keep himself from shouting and glares.

Wei Wuxian continues before Jiang Cheng can speak (yell), moving to hold the fabric against Jiang Cheng’s face, “But you’re my little brother.”

Jiang Cheng blinks, opens his mouth and then closes it. His throat feels suddenly inexplicably tight. An embarrassing warmth expands rapidly beneath his rib cage, and he thinks he might actually choke on it.

He looks at the fabric instead of his brother’s face because he will not cry. The red silk is a shade lighter than Wei Wuxian’s customary color and of exceptionally high quality. (That Wei Wuxian has been choosing from the most expensive of silks has not escaped Jiang Cheng’s attention. He has been trying and failing to not have feelings about this.) The patterning is beautiful, the soft, gentle swirls reminiscent of the lakes surrounding Yunmeng.

It isn’t something Jiang Cheng would have chosen on his first glance through. It is, he realizes with a swoop in his stomach, something a-jie might have picked out.

Jiang Cheng has, until now, avoided thinking too hard about all the empty spaces at his wedding, still riding the steady wonder that fills him every time he looks at the comb tucked neatly against Wen Qing’s hair. And after these last few years of having his brother beside him again, of their misshapen family relearning to fit together with all its new pieces, it is almost, almost, unfamiliar to feel that old aching loss rise within him.

He wonders how much of Wei Wuxian’s frenzied insanity is because he is feeling it too.

After all, Jiang Cheng remembers the months of spreading himself thin between sect obligations and wedding preparations, of tracking down the finest fabrics and jewelry that Jiang and Jin gold could buy in between meetings and conferences, of trying and trying and trying to make up for an absence that creased the edges of a-jie’s eyes in sorrow, even when she stood, radiant in red and gold on her wedding day.

“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian asks, his voice and gaze softening with concern.

Jiang Cheng swallows several times, his eyes prickling along with his nose, and he stares at the spot above Wei Wuxian’s head. You don’t have to do this, he wants to say. You don’t need to do this. “It isn’t atrocious I guess,” is what comes out.

Even in his periphery, he can see Wei Wuxian’s eyes crinkle with a familiar fondness. His brother nods and lays the fabric gently down on what Jiang Cheng supposes is now the yes pile.

“As expected of Jiang zongzhu,” Wei Wuxian says in a teasing tone that he only uses when he wants to piss off Jiang Cheng.

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng says swiftly, without any heat. Then, adds, “Yiling Laozu.”

Wei Wuxian laughs and shoves him. “Fuck off,” he says, but he’s smiling as he turns and picks up the next sample, and Jiang Cheng feels his own lips curve in an answering smile.

Okay, he thinks. Okay. He can do this.

He can let his brother have this. Maybe they can both have this.

[robininthelabyrinth]

do you think jgs would have reacted differently to meng yao showing up wanting acknowledgement if meng yao had been a girl? a girl bastard is less of a threat to the legitimate heir than a boy bastard, and jgs is an ENORMOUS creep

Pyrite - ao3

When Meng Yao was thrown down the stairs in Jinlin Tower, no one had looked twice at her.

It was only later, when one of the servants came to collect her at the bottom of the stairs, to pick her up and brush off the dirt and blood and explain with a smile that it was only a matter of saving face – that it was the legitimate young master’s birthday that day – that her father’s wife was jealous and required pacification – that of course she was welcome, a proper part of Lanling Jin, her father’s daughter, and entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof – that the looks started.

Looks of pity.

She hadn’t understood why, at first. Why pity? Wasn’t she getting everything she’d ever wanted, a place at her father’s side, recognition, wealth and power beyond her wildest dreams?

And yet.

And yet.

She was left with the distinct feeling that she had made a terrible mistake.

It was only later, when she’d been re-named Jin Yao, when she’d been shown to her fancy new rooms, when the servants finally relaxed enough to start gossiping, that she learned what a mistake it had been. There would be no wealth and power for her, no; why should a bastard get any of those? The only reason she’d gotten recognized at all was because Jin Yao was more useful a pawn than Meng Yao: her new beautiful room that she hadn’t even had a chance to enjoy was little more than a cage, meant to lock her away until she could be sold off, part and parcel with one of her father’s alliances.

“Maybe this one won’t mind it,” one of the maids giggled. “Not like the last one.”

“The little lady from the north?”

“No, the merchant’s daughter – you remember. The one who threw herself out the window when she saw the old man who’d come to take her as his concubine.”

“Can you blame her? Cultivator or no, he was practically decrepit. Uglier than a dog, pox-marked and leaking piss and snot every time he coughed…she would’ve only been a concubine, too, so neither her nor her child would even have hope of inheriting anything later on. I would’ve thrown myself out the window, too…!”

They giggled for a bit, and then that one added in a smart sort of tone, “Of course, we have railings on the window now. This new one won’t be able to do that.”

“Would she care?” the other one asked, tone scornful. “She’s from a brothel, isn’t she? Being a concubine to some rich man is undoubtedly a step up in the world for someone like that. Nothing at all like a merchant’s daughter with a scholar sweetheart back home who’d offered to make her his principal wife – and to think she’d said no to that poor boy on account of wanting to get what was hers from the Jin sect…”

“Get what’s hers? Hers! Don’t make me laugh – more like what was promised to her mother, yeah? As if we don’t all have a pearl button to our name, each and every one of us. Only we’re not so stupid as to try to make use of them…”

“You wicked woman! Don’t be so crass. How’s the daughter of some country merchant or common nobility supposed to any know better? I bet they don’t even know how to prevent something like that from sticking, and get with child all by accident.”

“Oh, sure, one of them, maybe not. But this one’s a prostitute’s daughter! How dumb does she have to be?! Doesn’t she know that there’s no point in carrying anything with Jin blood to term, much less fill her kid’s head with dreams? As if any of them ever get anything – the girls all get sold as party favors, the boys sent into the army to disappear without a sound…”

“I heard they thought this one was a boy at first,” one of the maids said, her voice a stage whisper meant to draw attention. “She was dressed like a boy when she came – that’s what got Madame Jin so upset! You know she hates seeing the boys more than anything, and on her own son’s birthday, too; really, it’s no wonder Sect Leader Jin had to take stronger measures than usual. That’s why he threw her off the stairs himself, rather than just sending the guards to drag her away…only she screamed as she fell, you see, all high-pitched. That’s when they realized she was a girl.”

“Oh, I see! That makes sense. I was wondering why they bothered with the stairs – wouldn’t making such a fuss just have made things awkward, later?”

“Oh, to be sure. I’ve heard that Sect Leader Jin had been planning on throwing her out of Lanling entirely, actually, even when they though she was a boy. After a fuss like that, the usual convenient army death would’ve been a little awkward if anyone found out about it later – there were other sect leaders at the party, you know! – but as it is, since she is a girl, he’s promised Madame Jin that she could vent her rage about the interrupted party by matching the girl with any old man she pleases. It’ll be even worse than that old decrepit from last time, mark my words!”

More giggles, and then they moved away, still chattering.

Meng Yao’s nails were dug deep enough into her palms to draw blood.

She checked the window, and there was indeed a railing there, keeping her from opening the window anything more than a crack to let a breeze in. If she asked, they could probably excuse it as being for her own safety…assuming, of course, that they’d bother at all with making the pretense that this room, larger than the entire brothel she’d grown up in and yet suddenly claustrophobic, was meant as a gift rather than a cage.

She supposed their approach on that question depended entirely on whether it would amuse them more to see her immediately succumb to despair, or whether it’d be funnier to have her dance to their tune for a little while, running to and fro in a desperate and futile bid to win favor that they all already knew she’d never be able get.

She got her answer the next morning.

A bunch of old women burst into her room while she was still sleeping. She was on the bed, of course; it was the finest and softest thing she’d ever encountered, and anyway there was no way out of the locked room that she could spot so there was no point in martyring herself by sleeping anywhere else. Before she could wake up fully or try to escape, they grabbed her and held her down, prying her legs apart and forcing them wide while they peered and prodded at her most sensitive parts.

“Still a virgin,” the oldest woman there announced for all to hear, and at least one muttered something under her breath about it being little more than a miracle, what with Meng Yao’s origins. “Genuine, too, no tricks. Get her dressed and take her to see the Madame.”

Madame Jin wore enough gold on a single finger to buy Meng Shi’s freedom from the brothel ten times over, and she had gold on everyfinger, not to mention her headpiece and necklaces and even her dress. Meng Yao had always known that the Jin sect was rich, but both her and her mother had apparently dramatically underestimated the amount – willful self-deceit on her mother’s part, she assumed, since seeing the vast riches of Lanling Jin made painfully clear how little effort it would’ve taken for Sect Leader Jin to redeem her out of slavery even if he’d done nothing else, as easy as flipping over his hand, only he hadn’t even bothered with that.

Someone pushed Meng Yao’s shoulder roughly, making her stumble out in front of everyone – Meng Yao didn’t fight against it but instead went with it, gracefully turning the near fall into a curtsey.

She had experience saving face in situations like that, lessons hard-learned at the brothel and her mother’s knee, and she hated to have to be grateful for that. She’d never been grateful for the brothel for anything, not even shelter, and to now have to thank it for the background that let her handle herself with what little remnants of pride she had left to her rather than fumbling around in the face of other women’s wickedness and jealousy like a complete novice, the way some poor merchant’s daughter might…

She hated it.

She hated them.

“So you’re little A-Yao,” Madame Jin said, looking her over with a cold expression that was barely covered with the veneer of geniality implied by the intimate term of address.

“I am,” Meng Yao murmured, her voice as soft and sweet as she could manage it. It didn’t matter that she wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out, just like it’d never mattered how much she’d longed to do the same to all of her mother’s clients, the ones her mother had fought so hard to defend her from all these years. All for the sake of preserving her for this. “This humble one greets Madame.”

“Stand up and let me see you.”

Even in the brothel, people wanted to inspect the goods before selling them, wanting to know what sort of price they could obtain. Meng Yao stood up.

She’d been stuffed into a dress that would have stopped her breath if she’d seen it in the streets of Yunping, all golden silk and yellow ribbon, covered by a gauzy overlayer that seemed as light as a breath of cloud; the servants dressing her had matched it with jewelry fit for an unmarried maiden, done up her hair and touched up her face with a little make-up. If she hadn’t overheard what she had from the maids, hadn’t seen the indifferent expressions on the faces of the serving-girls, she probably would’ve been ecstatic to receive such a thing, thinking that such a valuable gift represented the first step towards ultimate acceptance. As it was, Meng Yao compared her clothing to the other women in the room with a critical eye and found that even Madame Jin’s maids were dressed better than she was.

“Acceptable,” Madame Jin said, and Meng Yao heard fit to be shown in decent company, I suppose. “Clever of you to dress as a boy to avoid notice from any unsavory characters on your way here. Tell me, do you have any talents? Can you write your name?”

Meng Yao could write essays so well that she could sell them to scholars in the local academy who wanted to show off to their teachers, not to mention writing letters both formal and informal; she could even wield a brush fast enough to take dictation, as sharp as any secretary. She could recite classic texts from memory and propound on a given theme so well that she probably could have sat for one of the triennial examinations. She could play weiqi and debate philosophy, compose poetry and analyze artwork, paint pictures and play music on half a dozen different instruments; she could maintain a conversation among people of any rank or status in a way that disguised her origins and made them feel comfortable as if they were amongst their peers. She could keep accounts, both the written ones and the real ones that lived only in her head, and manage a schedule book, arranging things in such a manner that pleased everyone involved; she could bargain merchants down to reasonable prices, coordinate the thousand and one things necessary to run a business, and do it so well that they’d thank her for the privilege of working with her. She knew how to read a person, especially a man, after exchanging only a dozen words or fewer, knew to predict his actions and anticipate his desires; if she chose, she could make that man’s life so easy and comfortable that he didn’t even realize he’d started to rely on her.

If she’d been born a man, she would have been a treasure.

“This humble one can write a little,” she murmured, ducking her head demurely instead of saying anything of any of that. “I also have some small talent at playing qin, but nothing worth offending Madame’s ears with.”

She allowed her voice to sound a little proud, as if she thought herself quite good at playing but didn’t want to show off – as if it were her only real talent, and she couldn’t keep herself from mention it to show off to her new ‘family’, to try to make them proud of her.

Madame Jin huffed. “Music is good,” she said, completely disinterested. “A-Ting, you examined her earlier. How are her meridians?”

“She’s past the best age to start and has done nothing until now, but she can cultivate,” the chief of the women that had manhandled her earlier said. “If she’s a quick study, it won’t take more than a few months to establish a basic foundation, even if forming a golden core is unlikely.”

Meng Yao’s mother had worked herself to the bone to buy cultivation manuals for Meng Yao to practice with – all fake, it seemed. Meng Yao had suspected as much at the time, but it still burned to hear it now, knowing how much her mother had sacrificed to get them.

“Get her some standard introductory manuals, then,” Madame Jin ordered. “A-Yao, you are now a daughter of the Jin sect. We are a cultivation sect; there is no place here for those who cannot cultivate. You will need to work hard to catch up with the rest.”

Meng Yao understood: so they would have her dance on their string first, just long enough to entice her to work hard at developing the characteristics that would increase the price they could get for her, and then only later would the truth come, and the despair. That was fine, preferable, even. It would give her more opportunity to find a way to escape the cage she’d accidentally let herself be trapped in.

She wasn’t going to throw herself off some tall tower.

“Madame is gracious,” Meng Yao said, and curtsied again. “I will work hard to live up to your expectations.”

“Don’t think that cultivation is all that you will need to learn,” Madame Jin said. “You’ll need lessons in manners, etiquette, decorum, which you’ll be provided with. In the meantime, you can remain by my side and learn by example.”

Doing the job of a maid for free, Meng Yao assumed. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Madame Jin called her A-Yao in the same tone that she’d called the maid A-Ting, less an intimacy than an insult.

Still, there wasn’t anything for it. She inclined her head in a nod, accepting it, and was sent away, nominally for her to rest but actually so that they could discuss her future fate without her interference.

After that, events proceeded much as she’d expected, only she’d mistakenly thought that Madame Jin would off start with a pretense of benevolence towards her. In fact, there was none of that at all. It wasn’t three days before she saw the first sign of Madame Jin’s famous temper and had a cup of tea thrown at her head. If she’d intended on staying, she might’ve shrugged it off and redoubled her efforts to convince the woman to approve of her – indeed, she could see others in the same position as her falling into the same trap, remembering only the honey of that first meeting and hoping against hope to reclaim it in the face of their current adversity, flattering themselves that their skills were so unquestionably good that they would eventually win over anyone, given time.

It would have been a good trap. It would have worked on her.

But those looks of pity had let her know that something was wrong, and the words of the maids had let her know what – and now she saw, as she hadn’t before, how carefully her freedom was curtailed. There were always guards around to ‘see to the lady’s protection’; there were places she could and could not go, places that were beneath her – if by beneath her they meant any place she might be able to use as a means to escape. The Jin sect had a use for her, and they didn’t intend to let her go before she could fulfil that role.

It was a few weeks before she met her legitimate brother, Jin Zixuan, and only, she presumed, because they didn’t have any choice in the matter. He’d insisted on seeing her, it seemed; he had heard about what happened with the stairs and started arguing with the guards and servants that he was entitled to meet his sister. It seemed, also, that he didn’t want accept no for an answer, like the spoiled gilded lordling he must be, having never been denied anything a day in his life.

Meng Yao went out to meet him.

“I heard about you,” he blurted out, eyes wide as saucers as he stared at her. “From…from before. You know, I’ve never met any of – any of my siblings before. You’re the first.”

From this Meng Yao determined that Jin Zixuan was a sheltered idiot, and that Sect Leader Jin hadn’t yet bothered to introduce his heir to the harsher realities of life. If she hadn’t arrived during that birthday party and lost face so publicly for the Sect Leader and his wife, if she hadn’t been mistaken for a boy that might have expectations of inheritance instead of a girl that could be traded out like yet another coin, he probably would never have heard of her existence. She would have disappeared into the cavernous mouth of Lanling Jin without a sound, just like their unfortunate half-brothers had disappeared into the army, supposedly to win glory but in reality to be appropriately disposed of once no one was looking…

Someone else, then, would have been the ‘first’.

There were no bastards in Jinlin Tower. No living bastards, anyway.

Still, being an idiot didn’t mean being useless, and so Meng Yao put on her best smile for him.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” she lied, averting her eyes in pretended shyness. “I’ve never had a big brother before.”

He was probably younger than she was, she’d wager, not older. But boys preferred to protect sweet younger sisters, while expecting to be themselves babied by mature older sisters, and she knew which one was more advantageous to her right now. Anyway, who was going to call her on a detail like that? Who even cared enough to check?

She’d been foolish enough to give her birthdate at the door, back when she’d deluded herself into thinking that they cared enough to need it to put her on the family register in her proper place, but while it was undoubtedly stored somewhere to be used in future matchmaking, she doubted anyone would bother to think of it long enough to contradict her.

Sure enough, Jin Zixuan puffed himself up a little when he heard that.

“Then we’re well matched: I’ve never been a big brother before,” he said, and smiled in a way that might’ve even been cute if his parents weren’t casually planning to destroy Meng Yao’s life at that very moment just to mildly improve this stupid little boy’s reputation and their own. Maybe if Meng Yao thought that Jin Zixuan could be worth something as an ally – that he might be willing to try to convince them not to do that – or even just to help her in getting out –

“Jin-gongzi! Your mother’s here!”

Jin Zixuan’s face lost all color and he quailed. “Oh, no,” he moaned under his breath. “She’s going to be so angry…”

Useless, Meng Yao thought, and smiled through her anger. “I’ll go back inside,” she offered, still pretending to be gentle and kind the way she always did and always had and now, terribly, suspected she would always need to. “You can pretend you didn’t get a chance to see me.”

Relieved, Jin Zixuan nodded.

Perhaps the deception worked well enough for him to avoid blame, but Madame Jin wasn’t fooled, nor had Meng Yao suspected she would be. This time, it was a vase that got thrown at her head, and when the first one missed, Madame Jin ordered her maids to hold Meng Yao in place, and made sure the second one didn’t.

Madame Jin was very smart, Meng Yao thought, examining herself in the mirror later that night. She seemed careless in her rage, completely unable to control herself, but she’d restrained her strength enough to avoid actually disfiguring or damaging Meng Yao – as a cultivator herself, a truly casual blow from her would have been enough to snap Meng Yao’s neck. But by seeming so uncontrolled, she avoided blame for what she had done: as far as anyone else was concerned (anyone who mattered was concerned), it was Meng Yao who had to bear the burden of having angered her ‘mother’ until she reached such a state, and not Madame Jin who was oppressing her.

It also meant that it was Meng Yao’s duty as a good filial child to double or even triple her efforts to win her new ‘mother’s’ heart through her hard work and good efforts.

In the end, all told, Meng Yao stayed at the Jin sect for two months.

That was how much time it took for her to memorize everything in the introductory cultivation books that had been provided to her – she wasn’t allowed to look at anything more advanced, not even when she’d pretended it was just to motivate herself to do better with the current ones – and to lean how the Jinlin Tower was laid out, the ins and outs of it, and while she was at it to also learn the ins and outs of the cultivation world enough to figure out her next steps.

It was also enough time for Madame Jin to come up with a suitable match for her.

Perhaps the match was indeed some dashing and handsome young man intent on making her his principle wife, a man who was well-born and well-learned and full of potential, desired by all female cultivators, the way her maids assured her with false smiles on their faces, or perhaps he wasn’t. In all honesty, Meng Yao didn’t care: either way, she had no intention of sticking around to find out.

Now that she knew the truth, she’d figured out that she’d rather set herself on fire than do something, anything, that would benefit the man who’d fooled her mother with baseless promises of love, and nearly fooled her with the same.

(What had she even wanted from Lanling Jin in the first place? she wondered. She wasn’t a boy, capable of inheriting – she was a girl, good only for marrying out. Even the most loving father would have thought the same, though perhaps not quite at this level of vile cruelty.)

She would do better just about anywhere else.

After two months of Meng Yao playing the naïve idiot role to the hilt, her guard had gotten lax, and even Madame Jin’s endless suspicions were hampered by the fact that she simply didn’t respect Meng Yao enough to think her smart enough or ruthless enough to do what was needed to get out.

But get out she did.

When she crawled out of the stinking hole she’d hidden in for three endless days and thousands of li, having left the shining brightness of Lanling Jin far behind, she still thought the same: anywhere, surely, must be better than there. She was dressed as a man again, though this time she had no intention of letting anyone see through her disguise so easily this time.

This time, she’d be taken in on her own merits, or not at all.

And for someone with capacity for merit but no birth and no backing, there was only one place to go.

Add to that the fact that the Qinghe Nie were longstanding rivals of Lanling Jin, constantly causing her paternal sect problems through their excessive honesty and straightforwardness, constantly sneering down at them from the safe moral high ground of their incessant righteousness, driving them up the wall with annoyance every time they met…if the Unclean Realm was a place that the scions of Lanling Jin would not go unless they had no choice, and which would never, as far as the current Sect Leader Jin was concerned, receive an offer of alliance of any sort, much less one with a girl thrown in, especially given that the rotten old prudes, as he called them, wouldn’t accept such an offer anyway…a place that even Madame Jin complained of as a barren place and swore she’d never go no matter the inducement, a place which hadn’t had a woman of sufficient status to receive her in the manner to which she was accustomed in over a decade…

Well, all of that was just a bonus.

This time, Meng Yao thought to herself, this time, she would make her own way in the world, winning what she could win through her own efforts – and no one, no one, would convince her to throw it away for all the false gold in Lanling Jin.

Least of all herself.

[afriendofhanguangjun]

BRI’S BIG LIST OF 3ZUN FIC RECS

a few people on twitter expressed some interest in my 3zun rec list so here are some of my faves! this isn’t separated by ship but by the kind of fic. there are some i didn’t rec because i can’t rec them in good conscience even though i like them. YEAH

THEY WIN I PROMISE (or: happy ending fics)

there is just one thing i need by MonocerosRex. modern au, rated G, 11k! primarily nieyao, but it’s 3zun. nieyao go on a cross-country road trip to pick up lan xichen from the airport. it is SO FUN, i laughed SO MUCH. the nieyao dynamic is DELIGHTFUL

just one kiss (for our fake date) by thefaceofno. 4k, rated T, modern au! xiyao. jgy brings his friend lan xichen as his fake boyfriend for a family gala. somewhere along the line, he forgets to mention the word “fake” to xichen. the misunderstandings are really fun and cute! 

you seem, secretly, to love everything by jelendra. 11k, modern au, M, 3zun but the focus is on a nieyao get together. it’s part of a big series but tbh i havent read the rest of the series. but THIS ONE is that lan xichen is dating jgy and nmj separately and wants them to date each other! meng yao feels really weird about this. 

Synced by theherocomplex. T, 23k, nielan, space au! nmj and lxc become partners to explore a little satellite planet. featuring fun mental bonds and AMAZING wordbuilding. the atmosphere is so quiet here. i love the vibes

soaring, carried aloft on the wind by skadiseven. E, 68k, nielan, au! lan xichen is forced into an arranged marriage with “”””warlord”””” nie mingjue and finds out that there is more than he had initially assumed about the people who are invading his kingdom. AMAZING prose, the worldbuilding is so fun, the fic itself is so soft and sweet. if you want to be sold on nielan this fic sure will sell you! 

holding off the rust by me! :3c 3zun, 3k, T, modern au. jgy THINKS he’s cheating on nmj and lxc with each other. he is wrong. it’s a good time! 

Becoming Prom King in Ten Easy Steps: A Guide by Jin Guangyao by me. 3zun, 40k, modern au, T. jgy wants to become prom king and schemes his way to the top. along the way he gets some boyfriends. this is a teen comedy movie in fic form. 

Nevermore to Leave also by me! nieyao, 17k, canonverse, rated T. meng yao’s first 100 days as the vice general of the nie sect. he learns how to be safe and the nie bros eagerly adopt him. lots of family content! 

FOR A GOOD OL’ CRY (bittersweet fics!!!)

to exist, in reaction by autoclaves. 6k, modern au, T, nielan with past xiyao. lan xichen learns to handle his grief of losing the husband he thought he knew thanks to the help of a plant shop, two cats, and the cute man who keeps coming into his shop. this made me tear up ;u;

tell me what I already know by daughterson. M, 9k, modern au, nielan with past xiyao. the entire series is AMAZING but this is the flagship fic and its honestly one of my favorites. lan xichen cheats on his husband nmj with one of the students at his university. he learns to deal with the fallout. it is heartbreaking and amazing and AAAGH JUST. AAGH!!!! LAN XICHEN AH LAN XICHEN!!!

to hoard promises that could sniff out the lie by Mayarene Rose. 3zun, 50k, T, pacrim au. please. my god. if you’re gonna read any fic on the list, read this one. i don’t know shit about pacific rim and i loved this. it cycles between their povs and it is AMAZING. it GETS the 3zun dynamic so well. im choked up thinking about it. the epitome of “they’re in love and it wasn’t enough.” 

favor by venndaai. T, 30k, focus is xiyao but 3zun is important too, hunger games au. WIP!!! this makes me SO emotional. meng yao volunteers in nie huaisang’s place and meets lan xichen in the games. im miserable over this. the prose is gorgeous and i don’t know where it’s going but i am delighted to see where! 

MY LOVE IS THE KILLING KIND (BAD END FICS)

the ruins left inside of you by aroceu. M, 26k, canon divergent au. 3zun, focus on nieyao. technically a jennifers body au. this is one of my favorite 3zun fics of ALLLLLL time. its a GREAT character study of nmj and how a demon whose power you absorbed for your own and an evil spirit that you let corrupt your soul arent all that different in the end, huh!!! the ending is so tasty. my god. i love this one.

Cry a river, call it rain by rheawrites. 2.6k, E, modern au. jgy kidnaps xichen. that’s it. that’s the fic. i love it

qinghe triptych by bloodletter. E, 3 part series, canonverse mostly nieyao but part three is sangyao and mosang. 40k total. a three-part examination on the qinghe trio and a three-part breaking of my heart. each fic is gutting and beautifully written and UGHHHHHH I DONT HAVE THE WORDS I JUST WANNA WAILLLLLL

there is the way the air feels by nenyanaryavilya. 9k, xiyao, modern au. E jgy visits lan xichen in his big lonely manhattan apartment. some FUCKED UP xiyao vibes that i love a lot, thanks. 

The Mountain Stood So Large by esperra. 16k, M, canonverse. very 3zun.  two weeks before nmj’s death, lxc and jgy take him on a night hunt. what follows is some light horror, a lot of hallucinations, and a character study on what it feels like to be unable to trust your own mind. 

Obligation by ilgaksu. 53k, rated M, 3zun at different points. canonverse. WIP. ON HIATUS a CUTTING jgy pov fic. non-linear timeline, but cuts across different points of canon. jgy is just a fucked up little man and it’s delightful to read. the prose is UTTERLY beautiful.

GETTIN DOWN WITH 3P (you can extrapolate what that means for urself)

Past Tense, Present Perfect by nonplussed. canonverse, around sunshot...? kind of a fix it fic. 6k, E. 3zun. 3zun get down to some fun roleplay and learn how to communicate with each other along the way! there’s a lot of fun identity stuff with this one. i am a sucker for dom jgy

softly by isozyme. E, 3.5k, canonverse. nieyao. jgy breaks nmj’s d*** for fun and profit. they’re so in love. that doesn’t make anything better. the vibes are terrible and i love it so much

études (in a minor key) by bigspoonnoya. E, 9k, modern au, xiyao with past (?) nieyao. jgy shows up on a repressed lan xichen’s doorstep one night saying that nmj broke up with him. lxc tries to comfort him and then he Comforts him ;) jgy is an absolute piece of shit here. i love it. the ending is GUT WRENCHING. part 3 of the series is also good!

half cloak & half dagger by fahye. 13k, E, canonverse. jgy and lxc are happily married but sometimes a gremlin has to scheme his way into a good bang, yknow???? its SO funny and the jgy pov is SO good

the notes on an old mistake by esperra. 26k, series. mostly nieyao but it turns into xiyao and 3zun. nmj and jgy are exes who end up sleeping together again... and again... and again..... if you love bad decisions you’ll love this series. jgy gets together with lan xichen and then ropes nmj into a terribly negotiated polycule.

ok thats all of them that i am brave enough to rec haha

[ibijau]

Lapse in memory pt 3 / on AO3

aka the fic where nhs is cursed into amnesia a few years post canon, and came to lxc for help

The worst part of Nie Huaisang’s amnesia, Lan Xichen soon decided, was the realisation that he should have seen long ago that there was something wrong with Nie Mingjue’s little brother.

Although the other man had apparently always possessed frightening self control which made it difficult to know how much his current loss of memory impacted him, he used that control in a manner very different from what he had done after the death of his brother. Instead of displaying eternal sorrow and helplessness, Nie Huaisang was acting exactly the same as he had done before his life took a turn for the worst. He smiled, and chatted with people as if things were perfectly fine, only to break down once alone with Lan Xichen, asking when this person had died, whether that remark had been a joke or a reference to a true event. 

If he hadn't known better, if he hadn't been shown the other side Lan Xichen might have fallen for that new comedy as he had fallen for the old one. Nie Huaisang was good at this.

In fact, as Lan Xichen started remembering over the following days, he was good at many things. 

For example Nie Huaisang was smart, it turned out. After a decade of lies, Lan Xichen had forgotten that, too used to a man who barely managed to pick his own outfits without needing three different opinions, and would make four mistakes in a two digit addition. And indeed, when it came to cultivation, or when Wei Wuxian tried to discuss his ideas about what curse might have hit him, Nie Huaisang was clearly lost. But when the topic interested him, when someone mentioned art or literature, he spoke expertly and always made excellent points. 

Because he had his own duties to attend, and he aimed at being a better sect leader than he had been in the past, Lan Xichen spent little time with Nie Huaisang at first, and thus rarely enjoyed his conversation. Since the other man couldn’t be allowed to wander freely when there was still the possibility that all this was only a deception, Lan Xichen assigned one of his young disciples he trusted the most to stay with Nie Huaisang and make sure he didn’t misbehave. Almost immediately, he started hearing about the heated debates that Lan Jingyi and Nie Huaisang got into over classics, over art, over just anything that could be debated, and quite a few that shouldn’t. Lan Xichen had offered to find another person to keep Nie Huaisang company, only for Nie Huaisang to protest he was having great fun with Lan Jingyi.

It surprised Lan Xichen at first. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a man who enjoyed confrontation.

But he had once been a boy who did. Nie Mingjue used to complain at length about that, as did Lan Qiren when he’d had the dubious pleasure of teaching him. Nie Huaisang once had opinions on just about everything, especially if it could get him out of doing something he didn’t enjoy. Lan Xichen had found it amusing for a long time, and even he had been tricked into the odd argument here and there. But then there had been the war, there had been the constant worsening of Nie Mingjue’s temper, and Nie Huaisang’s tendency to argue over everything hadn’t felt so cute anymore.

After those difficult final few months, it had been a relief, in a way, when Nie Huaisang’s grief had made him so mild and pliable. He had never objected to any advice given to him, agreeing to everything and anything that Nie Mingjue’s sworn brothers suggested. If Lan Xichen hadn’t been so devastated by the loss they had both suffered, perhaps he would have noticed something was wrong.

Perhaps it was guilt, then, that soon pushed Lan Xichen to rearrange his schedule so he could spend a little more time with Nie Huaisang every day. He refused to let him down again. Or perhaps it was selfishness, the joy of having an old friend back in his life, someone who didn't know about his failings, and didn't judge him for being imperfect. 

"Imperfection is more fun," Nie Huaisang claimed one evening, as they sat together inside the Hanshi's courtyard, watching a pair of swallows build a nest under the rafters. "I like you better when you're not trying to be Zewu-jun. Zewu-Jun is a very boring person, while Lan Xichen is delightful company. Do you remember how we used to laugh sometimes when I came here to study? You did such a good imitation of your uncle. And you'd help me with my homeworks, and I'd let you have candies… wasn't that more fun than being perfect?"

"I miss those days," Lan Xichen admitted, something he had never told anyone except Jin Guangyao, once. He'd instantly regretted it back then, realising that Jin Guangyao had never had a chance to enjoy a carefree youth. He didn't regret telling Nie Huaisang who laughed so hard he startled the swallows, making them fly away for a moment. 

"Of course you miss that! Well, I'm back now, and until I'm better I can give you a taste of how it used to be. If I make you laugh enough, you'll stop being angry at me, right?"

“I’m not angry at you,” Lan Xichen said, which to his surprise wasn’t even a lie. This young and innocent Nie Huaisang, whose biggest crime was cheating during exams, who hadn’t yet discovered his own viciousness through fighting with Nie Mingjue and then for him, who could be irritating but always remained endearing… how could Lan Xichen have been angry at him?

“But you’re angry at the man I’ve become,” Nie Huaisang said.

Lan Xichen looked at him, that handsome young man sitting just a little too close, leaning somewhat toward Lan Xichen and yet tense enough that at the first sign of anger he’d probably leap away and disappear, the way he used to do with Nie Mingjue.

Lan Xichen wondered again how he had forgotten how observant Nie Huaisang could be. He should have known. The moment Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji told him that something terrible had been done to Nie Mingjue’s body, Lan Xichen should have guessed that Nie Huaisang knew as well, and that he’d be doing anything to avenge his brother.

“I think I’m more angry at myself than at you,” Lan Xichen said. “What happened, what you’ve done, it was… Maybe you really had no choice, or you thought you had no choice anyway, and I’m not sure I have a right to judge you. You… you still don’t remember, do you?”

“No. I don’t think I want to,” Nie Huaisang said. He started playing nervously with his sleeve, having forgotten his fan somewhere, and hesitantly spoke again. “I don’t think he wanted to remember either,” he whispered. “Him. Me. I… I don’t think it was an accident, Er-ge. I think I forgot on purpose.”

Startled by the confession, Lan Xichen stared again at Nie Huaisang who avoided his eyes. He looked pale, and started shaking slightly, as if again expecting a burst of anger that didn’t come. Lan Xichen was too stunned for that.

“When did you start suspecting this?”

“Right away,” Nie Huaisang confessed, nervously playing with his sleeve, pulling and tugging at the fabric. “It was just too odd that there was nothing at all about those lost years. I found some recent correspondence which let me know I wasn’t on very good terms with you, Jiang Cheng and Jin zongzhu, but that was it. And I know myself, Er-ge. I’ve kept a journal of everything I do since I was seven. Everything important, I write it down so I remember, I should have had a trace of those missing years.”

Lan Xichen nodded. Nie Huaisang had mentioned that habit of his, back when he was studying in the Cloud Recesses. Back then he’d complained that too little happened and he had nothing to write down, but also that homework and studying took so long he almost didn’t have time for his diary. Lan Xichen hadn’t realised that the habit was such a serious one, and he’d never heard Nie Huaisang mention it again as an adult, so he hadn’t thought to ask about that.

“Could it be that you simply stopped doing this?” Lan Xichen asked.

Nie Huaisang shook his head and frowned.

“It’s not just a hobby. My memory isn’t great, I really forget things if I don’t write them down. Everything important… in code if it's too important, of course, I’m only a little stupid. And I hid the journal, and kept all of them, from the very first. I’m the only one who knew where they’re all kept, but when I went to check, many of them had been destroyed, or at least moved somewhere else. Everything after the Sunshot Campaign is gone. Maybe he hoped to forget the war too.”

Not so much the war as what had happened just before it, Lan Xichen thought. He’d heard about the way hostage juniors had been treated by the Wens, and the horror of the Xuanwu of Slaughter killing people in that cave. Nie Huaisang had never wanted to talk about that, Lan Xichen recalled. He usually loved to complain, but on that particular topic he’d always close off or change the subject.

Aside from the death of Nie Mingjue, the terror of the evil Xuanwu had to have been the worst moment of Nie Huaisang’s life.

Without thinking Lan Xichen took Nie Huaisang’s hand, hoping to comfort him. Nie Huaisang startled and trembled, but didn’t try to remove his hand.

“I think it’s like you said,” Nie Huaisang explained, looking pleadingly at Lan Xichen. “That he did certain things because he thought he had no choice. He… I… if someone harmed da-ge, then I’d want to harm them back," he hissed with such rage that Lan Xichen shivered, reminded of the man Nie Huaisang had indeed become. "Even if it was san-ge! I can’t believe he’d do something like that, he’s always so nice, but it doesn’t matter. If I had been sure he’d hurt da-ge, then I… I would…”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand.

“I think I had regrets of a sort though,” Nie Huaisang said. “The way it seems to me… I didn’t regret that these things had been done, I didn’t regret that people had died or been hurt, but I didn’t want to live with the weight of that either. I think… I’m a little bit of a coward, Er-ge. I’m fine with knowing I did horrible things, I just don’t want to know what they are, because that way it’s not really me who did them. So I can see why I chose to forget, and I also don’t want to remember.”

Had it been anyone else, Lan Xichen would have found that person cowardly indeed. Just as he bore the guilt of his failures and strove to do better, he would expect others to face their own faults, take their punishment, and try to improve in the future. But Nie Huaisang wasn’t just anyone, and Lan Xichen pitied him too much to wish for his suffering. Nie Huaisang had already been punished enough for what he’d done, having lost his brother, having lost all his friends, having lost the respect of his sect.

Having lost himself, too.

“It’s fine if you don’t remember,” Lan Xichen said. “You can stay here with us. Wei Wuxian seems happy enough to have you around, Lan Jingyi loves having someone to argue with… even uncle said the other day that it’s been a while since he’s had a decent opponent at weiqi.”

“And what about you?” Nie Huaisang asked, his cheeks a little pinker than they ought to be. “Are you also happy to have me here?”

“I am,” Lan Xichen replied, surprised to find that this, too, was the truth.

Partly because he’d always been a little too fond of Nie Huaisang, back before the Sunshot Campaign changed everything and forced him to set aside most of his personal attachments to better serve his sect. Partly, also, because he liked this current Nie Huaisang, who wasn’t quite as naïve and self-absorbed as he’d been as a boy, but lacked the cruelty years of solitude and resentment had taught him.

This was Nie Huaisang as he would have been, had the world been a little kinder. A clever young master who watched the world around him and understood people a little too well, but loved fun too much to ever do anything with what he learned, as long as his loved ones were safe.

“I’m glad to be here as well,” Nie Huaisang said.

He shuffled a little closer until he could rest his head against Lan Xichen’s shoulder. It had been years since anyone dared to be so carelessly intimate with Lan Xichen, who found he didn’t mind. Not if it was Nie Huaisang.

“You know, I’ve talked with Wei-xiong today, about this,” Nie Huaisang continued. “About what happened to me, and why, and how. He thinks it’s a curse, and there’s probably a condition that would allow it to be lifted. There usually is, after all. But I think if I really did this to myself, I'd have picked an impossible condition, because I wouldn't want to be saved from it. So I might stay like this for the rest of my life.”

“And you’ll be welcome to stay here that entire time,” Lan Xichen promised without thinking, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand again.

“That sounds really nice. I think I’ll take you on your offer, Er-ge,” Nie Huaisang said with a smile that Lan Xichen would have kissed if he’d dared. Later, while lying in his bed, he would wonder if he should have tried, only to eventually decide it would have ruined the moment.

Perhaps someday, in the future, thing would take that direction. For now they both had too much to deal with, too much to learn again about each other. It was fine. Lan Xichen was content to remain like this, sitting close together, holding hands, and watching those swallows finish their nest.

Just this was already more than he’d ever imagined he would get.