#this is not my beautiful house. this is not my beautiful wife (wei wuxian) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stiltonbasket · 3 years ago

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Not really something you've done before, but I can't help but think madame Jin and wwx could have gone along pretty welll, in a different setting. They both really love and admire jyl and criticize jzx. They could have snarked at him and spoil jyl together!

Though the whole jianghu must long for the world the Qishan Wen took away from them, Quan Yuyan misses it more than most.

Before the war, her sworn sister was still living, still there to support Quan Yuyan through the endless indignities that came with being Jin Guangshan's wife, and Yuyan was there to do the same for her. Before the war, she had assurance that her son would remain the only lawful heir to Lanling Jin, no matter what depravities Guangshan committed when he was away from Koi Tower; but now her husband's bastard roams the courtyards of her son's house, and holds a Jin courtesy name of equal rank and standing.

The fact that he was given Guangshan's generational character did not matter, for he should never have been taken into the sect at all. And as a result, Quan Yuyan does not stay her hand when she punishes Jin Guangyao.

And why should she? The boy's very existence is the proof of her husband's countless affairs, the evidence of Quan Yuyan's humiliation laid out for the very heavens to see--for who does not know, now, that her beauty and cultivation were not enough to keep Jin Guangshan? Who has not learned of Jin Guangyao's age, and known that Guangshan strayed from her before even giving her a child?

As much as Ziyuan had to suffer, with her husband pining after that huli jing of a Cangse Sanren, even she was never faced with proof that Jiang Fengmian truly had an affair with her. And even if he had, that affair could not have resulted in Wei Wuxian: she was visiting the Lan sect at the time her son was conceived, and Jiang Fengmian was at Lotus Pier with A-Li.

Whatever Ziyuan has said about Jiang Fengmian, Quan Yuyan cannot deny that he was a good father until he began favoring Liu Cangse’s son over his own.

But that counts for very little to her, because he even stopped thinking of A-Li’s happiness by the end.

What was he doing, canceling A-Li’s betrothal to Zixuan? Yanli loves Zixuan--has always loved him--and how could her foolish son ever find such a good woman to marry, after losing the one who has known him and held him dear all her life?

“That’s why Jiang-shushu broke the betrothal, you know.”

Quan Yuyan gasps, pushing her two handmaidens behind her, and draws her sword. She chose not to venture into the more densely-baited spots on the mountain, since Xiao Mei and Xiao Yin wanted to come with her, so who--

She looks up.

Wei Wuxian is lying on a tree limb over her head, with a strip of black cloth wrapped around his eyes, and he had clearly been eavesdropping on her since before she mentioned A-Xuan’s broken engagement.

“What do you know about it?” Quan Yuyan says coldly. “Wasn’t it in your interests that it happened?”

“Of course it was,” Wei Wuxian agrees--not even bothering to deny it! “The Peacock didn’t love Shijie, and she deserves nothing less than a husband who worships the ground she walks on.”

Quan Yuyan’s eyebrow twitches.

“Like you?” she hisses. “Is that what you mean?”

“Oh, no. But Jin-furen, if you’d engaged Jin Zixuan to someone other than Shijie, and that girl made her displeasure with him known whenever she had the chance--you would have broken that engagement, wouldn’t you?”

“Girls are different. No girl worth marrying would ever do such a thing,” Quan Yuyan snaps back. “And A-Xuan was young. He would have learned in time, and you robbed him of the chance.”

Wei Wuxian unwinds his blindfold and props himself up on his elbow.

“My shijie is not any man’s chance,” he replies, suddenly sounding so threatening that Quan Yuyan takes a step backwards. “She is the best woman in the world, and you know it as well as I do. Since that is so, and since you love Jin-gongzi above all else--of course you want the best of wives for him, as you want the best for him in everything.

“But my Shijie is not a thing, Madam Jin. She is a person, under no power other than her own, and a marriage to Jin Zixuan would not make her happy, no matter how badly both you and she wanted it.”

With that, Wei Wuxian leaps down to the ground, and bows to Yuyan and her maids with such grace that she feels--despite all the embellishment on her robes, and the gold ornaments in her hair--somehow diminished in comparison.

Wei Wuxian smiles, a quick, mocking turn of his mouth and cheeks, and vanishes into the woods before she can call him back.

When she crosses paths with him again, a little more than half an hour later, she finds him standing between A-Xuan and Yanli with that terrible flute held out in threat, and turns to demand an explanation from Jin Guangyao.

My Shijie is not any man’s chance.

My sister is not a thing.

Suddenly, Quan Yuyan feels very tired.

Tormenting Jin Guangyao cannot resolve this new entanglement, or smooth over the times A-Xuan rejected Yanli when they were children, or keep him from saying whatever it was that made Wei Wuxian attack him in the Cloud Recesses, or help her son make up for the day he shamed A-Li before his regiment for bringing him something to eat.

It will not make her husband any more faithful, either. A-Xuan is already twenty-two, and his age might not even be greater than the number of his half-siblings.

She can beat Jin Guangyao all she likes, throw him down the stairs like Guangshan did when he had the nerve to come knocking on her doors on the day of A-Xuan’s birthday. She could arrange his death, if she wanted, and no one would care but for his sworn brothers, and perhaps her blockhead of a son.

But another bastard might appear in his place, and would. Guangshan likes his women stupid--and if not stupid, then too young to know better, or almost entirely unlearned--but if, one day, he met some noble beauty who was willing, and sired a child upon her, who could ensure that her family would not compel Guangshan to claim it?

After all, he once tried to seduce Wen Ruohan’s wife at a conference, though he was so drunk he could not remember who she was, and the exchange that followed that encounter was why Guangshan refused to join the war until the choice was taken from him.

“Young Master Wei,” Quan Yuyan hears herself say, “take A-Li back to the stands. She looks faint, and the day will only grow hotter before the hunt is called.”

“Mother--”

“And Zixuan, stay by Guangyao’s side. His cultivation is not high.”

Wei Wuxian gapes at her for a moment before hurrying away with A-Li, taking Jiang Cheng and Ziyuan’s snake of a nephew with him. Hanguang-jun follows, refusing to stray more than a couple of steps away from Wei Wuxian, and Lan Xichen (though clearly bewildered by whatever had just transpired) retreats a trifle more delicately, after asking A-Xuan and Jin Guangyao to show him a way to trap measuring snakes without killing them.

“Most of them die the moment Mingjue-xiong and I show up,” he laments, tucking a hand into Jin Guangyao’s elbow. “We’re too tall to capture them alive, you see.”

He sounds so regretful that Quan Yuyan bursts out laughing, and laughs until she begins to sob with her head on Xiao Mei’s shoulder.

Today has been a failure in every way imaginable; A-Xuan didn’t manage to propose to A-Li, and perhaps he never will.

But for some reason, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as she thought it would.

#mo dao zu shi #the untamed #madam jin #wei wuxian #prompt fill #my fic #not exactly what the prompt says but #*jazz hands*#here you go!

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Prompt: anything with Jiang Yanli, I’d love to see more of her PoV

part 2 of whumptober 20 (JYL/LXC field medicine)

ao3 link

It wasn’t that Jiang Yanli never thought about other men.

After all, she was a female cultivator, and her opinion was therefore one of the ones that was rather eagerly solicited when it came to naming the most attractive young masters in the cultivation world; it was only that it had never seemed to matter. After all, she was engaged, and always had been, to her mother’s dearest friend’s only son, and that, it had seemed at the time, was that.

Oh, her father spoke warmly about marrying for love and not for obligation, but Jiang Yanli had never quite understood what he meant. Even if she didn’t love Jin Zixuan, she loved her mother enough to want to respect her wishes, and it was easy enough to dismiss what negative things she’d heard about him – arrogant, self-centered, impetuous, but of course he was still young, and weren’t most teenage boys like that? – and instead daydream about the life she would have in the future.

When she was young, it was mostly daydreams of having some faceless man (she couldn’t imagine little Jin Zixuan, who at three years younger was barely more than a baby) bring her gifts and tease her and kiss her, then say she was the prettiest person he’d ever seen. The way she’d always heard was supposed to be how lovers talked, the way people said that a marriage ought to be like - the way her parents’ marriage had never been.

When she was a bit older, her thoughts drifted away from retreading romantic stories and to the actual work of being married, of being the mistress of Lanling Jin. In the beginning, her duty would be to first and foremost produce an heir and a spare, to remain healthy throughout the process, and to support her husband as he slowly began to take on the duties that would eventually become his, but later on it would get more interesting. A sect leader could not be everywhere, and his wife would often be left in charge when he was not at home – she would have to know everything about the sect, same as him, enough to make decisions in his absence; she would have to answer correspondence, make decisions, negotiate with traders, collect duties, enforce the peace, and she’d also have to manage the sect’s social scene on top of it all.

She probably wouldn’t have much time to cook, Jiang Yanli thought wistfully, thinking about how Lanling women prided themselves on never having to lift a finger for themselves, and threw herself into her favorite hobby now, while she still could. If she was clever about it, she might be able to get good enough at it that her future husband would find some dish of hers that he liked, something that only she could make, and then her cooking would be something done at his request – a charming idiosyncrasy, an indulgence of sweethearts.

When she got older still, and learned about Sect Leader Jin’s philandering and the iron grip of control Madame Jin imposed on Lanling in order to keep her position in the face of all the backstabbing and politics, she thought to herself that that sounded exhausting. But by that point, all of her childhood daydreams had Jin Zixuan’s name on them – although admittedly not his face, for all that he had grown up into one of the most handsome young men of his generation, and certainly not his mannerisms – and it was far too late to raise a fuss now. So Jiang Yanli studied willpower in addition to trade routes, learned how to exploit social norms in addition to how to manage a dinner party, taught herself how to play people just as well as she played the guqin, absorbed the lessons of both murder and mathematics, and above all figured out how to stand up for herself and what she believed in no matter what overwhelming pressure she might face.

Even though Jiang Yanli was pretty sure that Madame Jin wouldn’t appreciate that last part in a daughter-in-law, especially not one reputed to be as easygoing as her father.

(“Let her be upset,” her own mother had snorted when Jiang Yanli had tentatively raised the issue. “Are you supposed to ruin your own future because she’s a bitter old mother-in-law that’d rather not give up control so early? I may have agreed to marry you to her son, A-Li, but she agreed to marry him to my daughter. If she wanted easy and pliable, she should have thought again.”

“But she’s your friend,” Jiang Yanli had said, frowning a little. “Don’t you want her to be happy?”

Her mother had looked tired. “Once, more than anything,” she’d said. “But the chance for that passed long ago.”)

So it wasn’t that she didn’t notice other men. It was just that there was no point in allowing herself to look, and she knew enough of her parents’ marriage, and of Madame Jin’s, to not want to look.

And then, suddenly, there was.

Her engagement was broken. One could say that it happened at her own beloved brothers’ hands, at her father’s blind dislike of arrangements even when it was one his own daughter had long ago accepted and had even learned to long for, but in truth Jin Zixuan was a proper young master, old enough to make decisions for himself, to exercise some control over his own life, and the first bit of control he’d taken into his own hands was to decide that he didn’t want her.

It was – not fine, no. She spent some time crying over it, and yet more time comforting Wei Wuxian who was distraught at having caused her pain, and the most time of all quietly wondering what the point of her existence was now that she was no longer useful as a marriage tool. She’d never been much of a cultivator, never been especially pretty, never been anything more than average – what was the point of her?

Maybe that was when she’d decided to pick up medicine.

Field medicine was womanly enough to satisfy critics, and yet it was something useful in a practical sense: she could save people’s lives, if she only learned enough, and studying she could do.

Sometimes, she even got the chance to save the lives of very attractive people, like when the First Jade of Lan lay crumpled in the cot before her as she patched him up. So this is the one they ranked first, she thought, examining him with her eyes even as she kept her hands busy, and she was forced to admit that the other female cultivators of her generation had good taste. He was devastatingly handsome.

Kind, too, she soon learned; gentle and courteous in his mannerisms. He smiled often, which she appreciated in a person (if one interpreted Jiang Cheng’s scowls as smiles, he smiled nearly as much!), and he seemed to genuinely admire her efforts at medicine, however rudimentary. Over dinner, which he insisted on sharing with her even after he was well on his road to recovery, the conversation between them flowed easily and well: they both had brothers they loved, which was a conversation topic of which neither of them would ever tire, and they both enjoyed art and music. He didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but enjoyed asking questions (especially after she’d made him a meal he particularly enjoyed, which was often), while she enjoyed the way he blushed when she teased him.

She didn’t think much of it, of course. If she couldn’t keep the husband that had been promised to her since before she could walk – if she was too dull, too plain, too weak, too average to be worthy of an untried young man like him – then she definitely had no hope of catching the most attractive and capable young master of their generation, a dashing war hero and sect leader in his own right.

And then, when they were both laughing over an especially hair-brained scheme they’d concocted to try to get Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian to spend more time together – Jiang Yanli had noticed how much Wei Wuxian talked about Lan Wangji once he’d returned to the Lotus Pier, and Lan Xichen swore up and down that Lan Wangji had been no better – he turned to her and said, “If you were in Gusu, your brothers would be sure to come to visit you.”

“Me, in Gusu?” Jiang Yanli was startled into a laugh. “Why would I be in Gusu? As your guest?”

Lan Xichen coughed. “I had been hoping for something – a bit more permanent than that. If that would be something you would be open to.”

It actually took her a moment to understand, and then she had to raise her hands to cover her suddenly burning cheeks.

“You don’t have to say anything now,” he said hastily. “Just something to think about, if you’re interested…and of course, if your heart is elsewhere –”

“It isn’t,” she blurted out, and had to turn away.

“I’d hoped that was the case,” he said quietly, his voice warm. “I’ll take my leave, Mistress Jiang.”

Jiang Yanli had grown up thinking of herself as the future mistress of Lanling Jin, with its riches and its beauty and its poisonous heart, and then she’d assumed she’d be nothing at all, an old maid that helped Jiang Cheng manage his sect until he finally found a wife to suit him.

She’d never thought about being the mistress of Gusu Lan.

Gusu Lan, which was not as wealthy as Lanling Jin but just as complex – with its own trade routes and subordinate sects and business to manage – with its beautiful and serene landscape, its culture that emphasized harmony and unity rather than backstabbing – with no overbearing mother-in-law that would have barely been tolerable even when her own mother would have been there to hold her back, but would have been impossible without such protection –

She hadn’t dreamt of Lan Xichen as a child, or even as a teenager, but when she thought about all those dreams with a faceless man that she’d named Jin Zixuan regardless of any similarity to the real thing…

Lan Xichen fit in much better to the idea in her head than the real Jin Zixuan ever had.

“I won’t live separately,” she told him when he came over the next day, before he could even say a word; it had been just about the only problem she could see with his proposal. “In another house, certainly, but not an entirely different dwelling, and if I have any children, I would want them to live with me regardless of their gender.”

“I wouldn’t dream of having you so far away,” he said, and he was smiling again, broad and bright and – somehow, impossibly – hers. “Might I kiss you?”

“You may,” she said, and he did.

“Mistress Jiang,” Lan Xichen said a moment later, “you’re the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.”

Remarkable, Jiang Yanli thought to herself, was better than pretty any day.

#mdzs #jiang yanli #lan xichen #field medicine #no. 20 #my fic #my fics #macgyvertape

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sincerelystranger · 4 years ago

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not enough 2

Jiang Fengmian falls into a fitful sleep. He dreams of Wei Changze. Dreams of one of their last conversations.

“I plan to marry Cangse Sanren,” Wei Changze says, a rare soft smile on his lips. His eyes are warm and his face is as handsome as ever.

Jiang Fengmian is so filled with rage and despair – he wants to hate him. How could you marry? He wants to ask. Sure, he’s never told Wei Changze that he loves him but… He must know… He must…

“I will prepare a house for you,” Jiang Fengmian says lowly, clenching his fist to keep his emotions at bay. A man needs a wife – of course. Wei Changze can marry. That’s fine. As long as he stays with Jiang Fengmian. That will be fine.

Wei Changze looks away then, the smile slipping off his face. “You’re too generous… but…”

Jiang Fengmian stares in disbelief. It can’t be, he thinks faintly. His heart beats loudly in his chest, disbelief claws at his throat. “Come now,” he says, a weak smile on his lips, “You plan to stay–” with me, he wants to say, “–here, yes?”

Wei Changze takes a step back and gives Jiang Fengmian a respectful bow.

Hurry, Jiang Fengmian wants to say. Hurry and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that of course you will stay with me. Tell me!

“I will follow my future wife and cultivate freely,” Wei Changze says.

Jiang Fengmian thinks he stumbles back a few steps. The world seems wrong. That wretched woman, he thinks faintly. That wretched woman with her laughs and beauty and talent. Stealing away what was his…

“Have I not treated you well?” he asks faintly, and his question seems petty even to his own ears.

Wei Changze straightens up. He reaches a hand out and places it on Jiang Fengmian’s shoulder. His shoulder burns at the touch. He feels greedy and desperate and he wishes he could glue that hand onto his shoulder and keep it there forever.

“I could never want for a better master,” Wei Changze says earnestly, “It’s been my pride and honor to serve you.”

“Then why?” Jiang Fengmian asks, and his voice is weak and whiny and he hates himself at that moment.

“My future wife does not have the temperament to serve another,” Wei Changze says. He pauses then and brings his hand back to himself. “And as much as I have enjoyed serving you… I want something different for my future child. Something more.”

Something more, Jiang Fengmian thinks numbly.

Jiang Fengmian’s whole world was this man in front of him and he wanted…

Something more.

“Fine, do as you please,” Jiang Fengmian says tersely. He turns and walks away before Wei Changze can say anything else.

Something more, he thinks irritably. Jiang Fengmian had given him the best of everything he had to offer. The best room, the best clothes, the best hunts – whatever Wei Changze had wanted, Jiang Fengmian had given… But he wants more…

Jiang Fengmian awakes with a troubled mind and heavy heart.

He realizes now what Wei Changze had wanted for his child. He realizes now what he meant by something more.

A well-kept, well-loved servant was still just that – a servant.

A sob rips from his throat as guilt wracks through him. All these years he had fancied himself doing justice to his old love’s wishes. How foolish. How prideful.

And for his stupidity, he will never see that face again.

---

They stay in the hut a few days to regain their strength. His wife’s great aunt tends to them as secretly as she can, and when they are recovered enough, they take a small flat boat up the river to Lanling.

His old friend, Jin Guangshan welcomes them warmly.

The air about him is grave – an expression Jiang Fengmian has never seen sits on his face.

Sect and Clan leaders from all over are gathered in Lanling.

Nie Mingjue sits at the center, rage almost visibly rolling off him. “How fortunate that you and your family survived the Wen-dogs,” Nie Mingjue greets solemnly.

Jiang Fengmian bows in return. “Only by a great sacrifice,” he replies. His hands threaten to shake at the thought of Wei Wuxian. His heart threatens to fall out of his chest.

“Mm,” Nie Mingjue nods, “I heard about Wei Wuxian – I am sorry for your loss. I know he was a disciple you looked upon favorably.”

Like a son, Jiang Fengmian wants to reply. Like the only connection I had left to the only man I’ve ever loved. Like my only chance to right my wrongs.

“Yes,” he nods instead, afraid that he might admit too much if he says much else.

Jin Guangshan enters the hall then and the hall quiets.

It is of decided opinion that the attack on Lotus Pier is the final straw. The Wens must be stopped.

They talk of war.

---

War is a strangely normal as everything else – and without a sword, Jiang Fengmian finds himself with too much time to think.

He’s tormented by nightmares as of late – Cangse Sanren finds him every night and asks him how he could throw away her son like that.

Wei Wuxian begs for him to save him. “Uncle,” he cries, bloody and beaten, “Uncle, please.”

Wei Changze torments him by not appearing in his nightmares.

Yanli and A-Cheng are quiet when he is awake. They do not mention Wei Wuxian and Jiang Fengmian can’t tell if it’s because they’re too heartbroken to speak of him or if they’re afraid of their mother’s ire.

Jiang Fengmian finds that war suits his wife.

It suits her so well that the woman that fell to her knees and implored him to stay in the hut seems almost imaginary now.

“A-Cheng will join the Twin Jades in their attack of Qishan,” his wife says over breakfast. Her tone easy and uncaring, as if she’s talking about her son going on a night hunt, instead of preparing for battle. “They plan to retrieve their swords.”

“The Twin Jades?” Jiang Fengmian hums, “A-Cheng will be with good company.”

His wife nods her approval.

War is strangely normal.

---

One of the Twin Jades comes to find him after their successful attack on Qishan. The younger one, Jiang Fengmian deduces based off of his cold expression.

“I congratulate you on your successful mission,” Jiang Fengmian greets politely.

The Lan-er says nothing and just bows politely in return. He stands there for a long moment, his eyes down, looking pensive. It seems to Jiang Fengmian that the Lan-er has something to say to him but is having trouble finding the words.

It almost reminds Jiang Fengmian of…

“Wei Wuxian,” the Lan-er says finally and slowly raises a familiar sword to Jiang Fengmian.

“Oh,” Jiang Fengmian replies stupidly. He can’t seem to find it in himself to take the sword from the younger Twin Jade. His hands shake at his side and he’s reminded of how delighted young Wei Wuxian had been when Jiang Fengmian first gave him this sword – Suibian.

Seeing Suibian now seems to make Wei Wuxian’s death seem too real.

Take it away, Jiang Fengmian wants to say. Let me ignore it just a little longer. He can’t be gone from me – he can’t be.

The Lan-er seems to read Jiang Fengmian’s hesitance and brings the sword back to his side.

“The soldiers at Qishan informed me that Wei Wuxian was dropped into the Burial Mounds,” Lan-er says softly.

It takes everything he has not to stumble back or fall to the ground like some woman.

The Burial Mounds.

Oh god.

It would have been better if they just killed him at Lotus Pier.

The Burial Mounds.

“Thank you for the information,” Jiang Fengmian says numbly.

The Lan-er studies his face for a long moment and nods once before bowing and turning to leave.

He takes Suibian with him and Jiang Fengmian is too ashamed to be thankful.

His wife is furious with him when Jiang Cheng mentions the sword at dinner that evening.

“Get it from the Lan-er this instant!” she seethes. “You’re swordless and you let that Lan-er just walk off with one you bought yourself?”

“It’s Wei Wuxian’s,” he says softly, mechanically putting rice into his mouth to avoid eye contact with his wife.

“He’s dead,” she says coldly. “If he can no longer be of use to us, the least you can do is use his sword when he cannot.”

Use, Jiang Fengmian thinks faintly.

All this time, he had fancied himself raising Wei Wuxian like a son. Wei Changze would have wanted him raised like this, he had thought to himself.

He hadn’t realized that he was raising him like a cow for slaughter.

Suibian is by his side when he awakes the next morning.

He takes it in his hands and stares at it a long while before trying to unsheathe it.

It refuses to open in his hands.

“Ungrateful wretch,” his wife hisses.

“Thank you,” he whispers to Suibian, letting out a sigh of relief that he hadn’t known he was holding.

---

The war continues.

Nie Mingjue beheads Wen Xu at Hejian.

The Sunshot Campaign moves ever westward. Strange things begin to happen as they move closer to and closer to Wen Ruohan.

They easily pass towns where hundreds of Wen soldiers have already been killed. Strange energy surrounds them, dark and hungry.

“What could be doing this?” Jiang Cheng asks over dinner.

“Perhaps an immortal has come down to join us,” Yanli offers.

Doubtful, Jiang Fengmian thinks to himself. The only immortal he knows can’t even be bothered to come down to save her disciples. As selfish and proud as they are, it is doubtful that any one of them would come down to help their cause.

“Keep away from it, if possible,” his wife says sharply, “Whatever it is may be on our side for now… but I don’t trust it.”

Jiang Fengmian nods in agreement. The energy is dark and strange and the way it kills is…

“Well I hope it stays away from Wen Chao,” Jiang Cheng says, “I will not have it take away my satisfaction from killing that sniveling Wen-dog.”

His wife taps the table irritably. Her face betrays no worry, but strangely enough, Jiang Fengmian can read it on her. She’s nervous, he realizes. Scared.

He reaches a hand out and places it on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.

His son. His only son.

His son looks at him in surprise, something young and vulnerable in his eyes.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Jiang Fengmian says firmly, “If Wen Zhuliu is with Wen Chao, come back. Do not face him alone.”

His son looks at him for a silent moment before he turns his head and nods. “I won’t disappoint you, father,” he says quietly.

Just come back alive, Jiang Fengmian thinks tiredly. He isn’t built for war, he thinks. He’s already so tired of losing.

Jiang Fengmian has realized two things about war.

It’s strangely normal

and

there are no winners.

#mdzs #the untamed #wei changze #jiang fengmian #yu ziyuan #wei wuxian #sincerely: not enough

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cactusspatz · 4 years ago

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February recs

I went back to the top-five format this month since my fic reading was curtailed by, you know, the massive winter storm in Texas knocking my power out, and suchlike. Four recs for The Untamed, and one for The Goblin Emperor!

my age has never made me wise by @idrilka (Untamed, Wangxian)

“We hear that His Excellency might be married by summer’s end,” the merchant’s wife says and Wei Wuxian freezes, his heart in his throat. “The Gusu Lan sect has been buying enough red silk and brocade that the merchants in Caiyi can’t satisfy the demand.”

He feels himself grow brittle inside, like a flick of a finger to his temple might make him shatter. His ears are ringing.

“Who’s the lucky bride?” he asks despite himself. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

This one has been recced EVERYWHERE and rightly so! Absolutely pitch-perfect, from Wei Wuxian having travel adventures and pining like a whole forest of dumbassery, to their reunion and (obviously, to everyone but WWX) marriage.

heartkeeper by @postingpebbles (Untamed, Wangxian)

In Gusu, there is a story about the most beautiful man in the world—and the wager he gives to anyone who wants to take his hand in marriage.

Being from Yunmeng, however, Wei Wuxian doesn't hear a word about this story until his aimless wandering brings him to the outskirts of Caiyi Town.

(in which there is wei wuxian, a rabbit, and a secret.)

Based off that Tumblr post, this is lovely and soft and pure fairytale romance.

kick the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight by tardigradeschool & AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf (Untamed, Wangxian)

The young man blinks at him. Wei Yuan doesn’t spend much time staring at his own face in the mirror, but he knows his reflection well enough; the dark eyes, the straight nose, the round face that comes to a pointed chin. This boy could be his exact double.

“Who are you?” the Lan boy facing him asks, tilting his head. He’s got a hand on his sword, but he hasn’t drawn it yet. There’s a faint frown on his face. “Some kind of face-stealing spirit? A demon?”

“Pretty rude to go around calling people demons,” Wei Yuan protests. --

Or, Wei Wuxian, presumed dead by the cultivation world, raises one Wen twin. Lan Wangji, presumed dead by Wei Wuxian, raises the other. A Parent Trap AU.

This Parent Trap AU is officially twin approved! *laughs* It’s only barely a PT AU in the twins-switching-places sense, but it IS a fantastic canon-divergence with TWO A-Yuans to love in entirely different ways, and a lot of thoughtful and original character arcs and plot. (also: twin shenanigans)

Raise It Up, Roll the Dice by @ghostysword (Untamed/TCGF, Wangxian)

“What prize do you desire?” the croupier asks, bone dice clacking in their black cup.

“The body and soul of Wei Wuxian.”

In the gambling house of the ghost king Crimson Rain Sought Flower, you can win any treasure--if you’re desperate enough, if you’re willing to risk enough, if you’re lucky enough. After six years of searching for any trace of Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji is desperate enough to come to Hua Cheng’s gambling table, and he’s ready to pay any price. Luck has rarely been on his side, but he’ll need it tonight.

You don’t need to know TGCF to read this, and this fic does not spoil any TGCF plot points (just a bit of worldbuilding).

I know just enough about TGCF to enjoy both sides of this, but it’s also just a really great look at Lan Wangji’s devotion and grief and love.

A Small Chance of Happiness by @sassysnowperson (Goblin Emperor, gen)

"You need our marriage," Vedero Drazhin said to Maia one spring night when they were pressed together on the rooftop, using Vedero's telescope to examine a comet that was visiting their night sky.

Quiet and pragmatic, but absolutely full of love.

#the untamed #wangxian #lan wangji/wei wuxian #goblin emperor #tgcf #fic rec #monthly recs

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ibijau · 4 years ago

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“Stop borrowing flowers out of my garden to woo people who don’t even treat you right.” said by Jiang Cheng! Hm, could you make this mingcheng???

This one got away from me so it’s a tiny bit longer than the usual, oops?

The problem was that strictly speaking, it wasn’t a garden. It was just a patch of dirt on the side of a long abandoned construction project that had never been completed due to lack of funds, or embezzlement, or some other bullshit that Jiang Cheng had never cared enough about to try and find out.

It wasn’t a garden.

But Jiang Cheng had been planting flowers there, out of sheer boredom, because he lived right next door and missed the greeneries of his parents’ house. Their garden had always been gorgeous, perfectly maintained by his mother, an absolute work of art. It was the only place she seemed happy. It was the only thing Jiang Cheng missed about his old life. Those quiet moments when his mother, in a fit of good mood, took him around her garden, her one true love, and explained to him about the plants and how to best care for them. People in their circle would sometimes joke that Zu Ziyuan loved her garden more than her family.

Jiang Cheng had never found it funny. Perhaps because he knew what it was like to envy mulberry leaves for the tenderness with which Yu Ziyuan would remove caterpillars from them, when she could hardly be near her son without pushing him around.

For a while, Jiang Cheng had hated gardens. That wasn’t the whole reason why he’d moved to the city, but it had probably impacted his choice anyway. He’d wanted to get as far away from his parents’ life as he could.

But in the end, something must have run in his blood. After months of walking by that abandoned patch of dirt, Jiang Cheng had given in one day. He’d bought some bulbs and seeds, a beginner’s guide to gardening, and set out to work.

It had surprised him when flowers actually started growing. Jiang Cheng was used to failure, and his mother used to tell him he had no skill for gardening. No skill for anything really, but gardening in particular seemed to piss her off.

But there were some wallflowers and geraniums to prove she’d been wrong about this.

About other things too, perhaps. For the time being, Jiang Cheng just clung to the gardening thing.

The entire first week after the flowers started growing, Jiang Cheng expected that whoever owned the plot of land would come to pour bleach on them. It was private property after all. But the plot appeared to be fully abandoned, and that meant Jiang Cheng was free to do as he pleased.

He got more flowers, making sure to pick varieties that were good for bees, because that would make his sister happy, if he ever got around to calling her. He also planted tomatoes, and after hesitation a few courgettes, because those grew like weeds and it wouldn’t matter if someone stole a few, or even all of them. It was the sort of things that’d make his brother happy, except he talked to him even less than to his sister, so Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure why that mattered.

What mattered was that the garden made him happy in a way he hadn’t been in a while. It gave him something to care about. To care for. Something to check on in the morning as he headed out to work, a place to spend a little time when he came home. It encouraged some of the neighbours to chat with him, when up until then they’d apparently half wondered if he was a serial killer with his constant angry face. The little old lady next door asked if she could borrow some of the vegetables growing, and gave him half the dish she made using them.

It felt like a homecooked meal, in a way the family gatherings he still occasionally attended never did.

“You should try planting daylilies,” she suggested. “Pretty and delicious, it’d be a win. My grandmother used to prepare them for us, I’m sure I can remember how to do it too.”

Jiang Cheng did as she asked, and sweet old madam Wen delivered on her promise when the flowers were ready. She invited Jiang Cheng to have lunch with him one Sunday, when her nephew and niece were there. It should have been awkward, but madam Wen was a cheerful old lady that managed to get all three of them chatting as if they’d always known each other.

Better than if they’d always known each other, in Jiang Cheng’s case.

He ended up trading phone numbers with both siblings. Not because he felt like flirting with either, as their aunt so clearly hoped for, but so he knew who to contact if something happened to the old lady. Wen Qing wasn’t very chatty, except to complain about their roommate from hell, but Wen Ning often asked for photos of the garden, and in exchange sent Jiang Cheng pictures of the dogs he got to see at the veterinary clinic where he worked.

For the first time in years, Jiang Cheng felt that things weren’t so bad.

So when one evening after work he dropped by his garden and saw a stranger in an expensive thought pacing by his courgettes, Jiang Cheng felt a familiar dread. If this was the plot’s owner, if he had come to ruin things…

Jiang Cheng rushed ahead, ready to plead his case.

Then stopped after a few steps when the man turned his way. He was handsome. Very handsome. The sort of handsome that belonged on the pages of a magazine, not in the middle of Jiang Cheng’s shitty illegal garden.

The man was also on the phone with someone, and apparently so deep in an argument that he didn’t even see Jiang Cheng just a few metres from him.

“You are the worst,” the man shouted at his phone, “and I swear I’m kicking you out this time. I will… no, don’t cry. Stop crying, it doesn’t work anymore! You…”

The handsome stranger started pacing nervously between the courgettes as whoever was on the other end of the conversation made their case.

“Listen, you are going to calm down, ok? I’m… hey, I’m bringing you flowers. How does that sound?”

He leaned down toward the daylilies, not yet picking one as he waited for the other person to reply.

“Of course real flowers. You… listen, I don’t have the energy for this. We’ll deal with it when I get home.”

The man hung up, and started tearing away Jiang Cheng’s flowers, roots and all, like a barbarian.

Jiang Cheng had always allowed everyone to take what they wanted or needed, but only if they showed some respect for his efforts.

“Stop borrowing flowers out of my garden to woo people who don’t even treat you right!” he barked, stomping toward the man.

The handsome stranger, startled, dropped the flowers.

“Your garden? What do you mean, your garden?”

“You think this got here on its own?” Jiang Cheng asked, gesturing at his garden. It wasn’t as beautiful as his mother’s, but it was his all the same and it loved his plants.

The man looked around with wide eyes, as if he hadn’t even noticed before where he was.

“Sorry, I thought they were just… wild flowers. Did you plant all of those?”

“Not the pumpkins, that’s the kids from down the streets who thought it’d be fun. And the herbs are madam Wen’s because she doesn’t like getting them from the store if she can get fresh ones. But the rest is mine.”

“Must have been a lot of work,” the man said with an admirative whistle. “I can make a cactus die of thirst, so I’m impressed, you must be really good. You’ve been at it for a while?”

“A couple months,” Jiang Cheng grumbled, refusing to let praise from a handsome man get to him. “I live next door and this place has been abandoned for ages apparently.”

“So it’s not your garden,” the stranger noted with a grin. “Well, if you’ve stolen the land, I feel less bad about stealing flowers. It’s not like you can call the cops on me.”

He bent down, ready to slaughter more flowers, so Jiang Cheng did the logical thing and pushed him to protect his daylilies. The handsome stranger fell in the dirt, which thankfully was dry and wouldn’t stain too badly. Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure he could afford to repay that suit.

“If you’re going to steal my flowers for your shitty manipulative wife, at least do it properly. Nobody wants a bouquet with roots.”

The man blinked a few times, a little disoriented after being pushed down. When he saw Jiang Cheng grab the torn daylilies and carefully cut the stems so he could replant the roots, the stranger laughed.

“You’re really passionate about this, uh,” he said, standing up and wiping the dirt from his suit. “That wasn’t my wife on the phone, by the way.”

“Your manipulative husband then,” Jiang Cheng retorted, cutting a few more flowers.

“Little brother,” the man corrected. “Apparently he got drunk last week, slept with my best friend, panicked, ghosted him, left town for five days to hide at his best friend’s house, and now he’s… ah, but you probably don’t care.”

Jiang Cheng shouldn’t care, no, but he couldn’t help laughing at the crazy story. It sounded like something right out of a shitty soap opera, or the kind of bullshit that Wei Wuxian used to pull all the time, back when he was still part of Jiang Cheng’s life.

“My brother’s the same,” Jiang Cheng said, handing out the small bouquet he’d managed to salvage. “Did you take those so he can go apologise to your friend?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure if he’s going to give them to Xichen or if he just wants to keep them to feel spoiled. I’m not sure I’ll give them to him, anyway. It’s not every day a handsome man gives me a bouquet, I’ll be tempted to keep it.”

Jiang Cheng shrugged and rolled his eyes, and absolutely did not blush like a schoolgirl being complimented by her crush.

“Just go give those to your brother. And learn to cut flowers properly, asshole.”

“If I drop by again, will you teach me?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged again and turned away, so it wouldn’t be too obvious just how red his face was. He’d have slapped himself if he could have. It was ridiculous to react so strongly. His only excuse was that the man was really, really gorgeous and had a really, really nice voice… and that it had been a long while since anyone had flirted with him, even this badly.

“Maybe I will, if I can find the time. My life’s not a fucking soap opera but I have my own stuff to do.”

“Fair enough. Well, I hope I’ll see you around. It was nice talking to you.”

Jiang Cheng shrugged, and refused to turn around to watch that too handsome man go, though he might have been slightly tempted.

He’d lost enough time to that asshole already, and the tomatoes weren’t going to water themselves.

#mingcheng #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jau writes #nmj probably owns that plot of land #tbh I'd be almost tempted to expand on this but blarg modern au...#Anonymous

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absynthe--minded · 4 years ago

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The Consent discourse regarding the sex scenes?

oh boy this is gonna be a long one.

tl;dr up front: MDZS is a romance novel, and I’ve read a lot of romance novels, and I think it handles its consent issues way better than a solid 95% of the other books in this genre that I’ve bothered to go through cover to cover. that being said, nobody should ever have to feel like they need to defend or tolerate something that triggered them, or upset them, or hurt them in some way, and I am absolutely fully in favor of these issues being discussed and talked about in a way that warns people they’re there. I am fully in support of anybody who doesn’t like the book because of the presence of dubiously consensual sex. that’s a super legit reason to be uncomfortable or triggered or upset. I’m also not ever going to say that not liking dubcon in a story is a bad thing. my frustration with the consent discourse is basically that I feel like it’s a conversation being held by people who aren’t familiar with romance as a genre, or with the places where MDZS rises above other romance novels, as well as a conversation that ignores that romance uses sex as a narrative device and a metaphor and not just as an idealized portrayal of true love.

more below the cut - tw: discussions of rape, dubcon, and consent in fiction.

I’m not a scholar of romance novels the way I’m a scholar of Tolkien, so I can’t really trace the development of trends in the genre, but I do read a lot of romance, because I’m a lesbian and I like urban fantasy and historical fiction and stories about women having fun adventures and getting what they want, and romance novels are an easy way to get those things as fast as possible. most of my observations are in this kind of fannish capacity.

but. romance has a consent problem, and it’s had a consent problem as long as the genre has existed.

this isn’t the post for a long drawn-out exploration of things like “how many humans on average tend to have rape fantasies?” or “why is it a statistical average that most people are bottomy in their sexual fantasies, rape or otherwise?” but one of the things that I think is worth bringing up wrt MDZS and WangXian is that constrained consent or a lack of consent and how the characters react to that is often endemic to romance as a genre. and I’m not just talking about sex scenes, either (though we’ll get to the 80s bodice rippers, I promise)

you’ve got plots like “My shitbag father fucked over an angsty rich guy so he’s keeping me hostage in his mansion and I’m not allowed to leave” (Anne Stuart, Night of the Phantom) or “I was going to be executed for stealing food but the local lord took pity on me and brought me to his house explicitly to be his wife and I’ll be expected to sleep with him whether I like it or not” (Amanda Ashley, Beauty’s Beast) or “I’m the heir to a substantial percentage of England in terms of sheer amount of land and I’m an orphan and the King has to marry me off to someone who’s both popular with the common people and strong enough to fend off attempts to seize my assets” (Kinley Macgregor, A Dark Champion). you’ve also got the eternal urban fantasy plot of “I’m a normal human woman/human-seeming woman with Power I Didn’t Know About who saw something forbidden to mortal eyes/otherwise became a target of the bad guys, so now I’m being held against my will by a brooding angsty magical creature so he can Protect Me”. that one is actually worse than a lot of the others because the woman in the standard urban fantasy plot usually tries to escape or constantly talks about how she’s being kept hostage, and it’s intended to be a signpost to the audience that she’s not a weak and passive damsel in distress but that she has Backbone and Intelligence and all that.

all of these are, on some level, about the main character(s) being placed in situations they didn’t consent to, and how they cope with that. (a lot of the time there’s also really clumsily written Threats To The Heroine’s Virtue from a cartoonishly unrealistic would-be rapist, in addition to whatever else is going on. the amount of times that I’ve read a book where a hero all too happy to dubcon his way into the woman’s bed then turns around and saves her from Evil Snidely Whiplash Rapist as a way of proving he’s a good person underneath... sigh.) and a lot of other plots are that way too! the Consent Discourse about MDZS is tapping into a conversation that’s existed wrt romance as a whole for a long time.

here’s why I think MDZS is different from basically every other romance novel: it knows it’s about consent.

the vast majority of the stories I alluded to up there really don’t seem to know that they’re dealing with a plot that centers around the heroine (and sometimes hero) coping with a loss of autonomy. she winds up being totally happy to be held hostage, or married off to some stranger, or protected by a brooding angsty dark magic man, or bound up in destiny and fated to fall in love. the violation of her consent is the framework for getting her in the same environment as her love interest, and we-the-audience are supposed to accept it as - well, if not okay, then acceptable, because it’ll all work out in the end. (there’s a lot of sometimes-unintentional commentary here about how specifically AFAB people in Western societies are often expected to deal with/make the best of/find happiness in situations outside of their control, but that’s also for another post, perhaps.) MDZS doesn’t do that. MDZS addresses the fact that neither Wei Wuxian nor Lan Wangji have been taught how to effectively communicate with one another, and their failings have consequences.

Lan Wangji ambushes WWX and kisses him while he’s blindfolded. This is done without permission, and without WWX even knowing who it is that’s put him in this position. He then goes on to treat it like one of his most egregious moral failings, and lose confidence in his ability to be honorable when it comes to dealing with WWX, and this matters to the story. LWJ viewing what he did as more or less unforgivable means he doesn’t open up to WWX about his feelings, which means WWX has no clue LWJ loves him. And as one of the many consequences to this, they spend the majority of the book married but one party has no idea it’s actually happened! They blunder around, and refuse to acknowledge how they feel, and need alcohol for any semblance of honesty because it breaks down their inhibitions. They almost completely fail at being a couple because when it comes down to brass tacks they cannot spit it out.

this lack of openness and lack of communication manifests in their lives further when it comes to the various dubiously consensual moments of intimacy that they have. their sexual incompatibility is a direct consequence of their failure to talk. they do have problems, and when those problems come to light, they’re meaningful and impactful. there is dubious consent in the first time they have sex, in their making out, in their near misses and their brief meetings. this is the point. they’re not supposed to be a healthy, functional relationship yet. they have sex for the first time and then have to deal with the fact that it happened under false pretenses and due to miscommunication. the theme of the book is learning how to come together and work together. they have to learn to communicate before their dysfunction is fixed.

and they do! the climax of the book is WWX admitting his feelings for LWJ, and LWJ realizing the depth of their miscommunication, and both of them coming together finally. the theme of this book is made manifest in their healing and joining. and only then can they have a true healthy marriage. and I like that? I like that the problems and the issues matter, and that both parties have to resolve it? I also like that just because WWX liked being kissed doesn’t mean his consent wasn’t violated and that this transgression doesn’t matter, because that’s in stark contrast to the 1980s bodice rippers where the heroine can be basically sexually assaulted or raped but it’s totally fine, she secretly enjoyed it so it doesn’t matter. (there’s yet another post I could make here about how this is a direct response to sexual mores harshly applied to women, where the only way they could feel safe admitting their desires was in situations where resistance was impossible, but that’s not for here)

I’m just one person, and this is a lot of text about consent, but ultimately? I like that MDZS deals with these issues realistically. I like that violation and miscommunication and unintentional deception are all weighty and meaningful.

this is one of the most realistic-feeling romance novels I’ve ever read, and its flawed characters that are supposed to be flawed are part of that.

#replies #anon replies #mdzs #I'm still a Tolkien blog I promise

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tt205 · 4 years ago

Text

- Love is a different book -

JIANG CHENG × READER

REQUESTED by softjisoo-exe :

Today you are not wearing your usual white colored dress .

WARNINGS: none, just pure fluff & some minor crack

•—————••—————••—————••—————•

You looked down to your purple dress as Yanli styled your hair in a tight bun , adding hairpins with rare gem stones on them .

Today you are dressed in purple , honoring the Yumeng Sect family & your soon - to - be husband.

You felt tears forming in your eyes as a knock on the door shooked you out of your thoughts and you know straight away who is it .

" Time will be up soon y/n you will have to rush !" Lan Xichen's excited voice entered the room .

" I'm finishing her hair Zewu Jun ! Tell my brother to wait 5 more minutes if needed!"

" Can I come in ?" Lan Wangji asked in a sad tone you expected , too afraid he will lose his twin sister for ever .

"A-ling go open the door sweetie !" Yanli told her 4 years old son as he went to do his mother task instantly.

"oh you are beautiful y/n !!! " said Wei Wuxian your brother in law both by him marrying your brother and be your husband's step one .

"Thank you Wei Ying !!" You said shyly.

You looked down your dress too afraid of what was going to happen .

For a moment you thought about giving up , the bamboo forest outside your window seeming too welcoming now .

Of course you loved Jiang Cheng, with you whole heart , but leaving your house was something you never dreamed of .

You loved you family and Clan members , you had friends here but at the same time your lover was a couple of miles away and the burden you felt was big .

He told you a thousand of times that you could visit your home daily but you know that you will miss them overly too much .

You felt Wangji hugging you from behind as his tears were wetting your collar.

" I'll miss you bunny!" He said as he sobbed harder .

You turned around hugging his head and shoulders with your shorter hands " I'll miss you too carrot !"

" Don't! Your makeup will be ruined!" Yanli told you before you could set a tear along with your brother .

From the other corner of the room you heard another sob and it was no other's but Lan Xichen's.

" Why don't I have a code name too? Am I not your brother ? Shame on you guys! Both of you are getting married and I'm here single and without a code name ! " he sobbed harder this time as all of you started to laugh at his cuteness.

" Don't worry uncle I'm here for you! " said Shizhui as he went hugging his uncle's leg .

"Thank you A-Yuan ! That's a precious person ! Nothing like you 2 punks ! " said the future Clan leader before hugging his niece and sitting up .

" We have a wedding to attend! Hurry up !" Wei wuxian said as he rushed his way through the long hallways of the Cloud recesses.

•—————••—————••—————••————•

You walked down the aisle with one of your brothers next to each one of your sides as they held onto your hands tightly.

You looked up on Xichen as he gave you a reassuring smile.

The lilac see-through satin fabric over your head made it a little harder to see around, but what it couldn't cover were the smiling faces of your clan and his own.

Looking at the end of the hallway you could see your uncle smiling proudly to you and then him .

The man you could sooner than soon claim as yours .

The man you were ready to build a family with,

And the boy you fell in love with years before he became a man .

He is Jiang Chen of Yumeng Sect , the little boy who became one of the greatest leaders .

But most importantly , your Jiang Cheng .

He reached his hand forwards to you once you arrived on the final step , welcoming you with one of his cutest smiles .

You took your place next to him as you bowed your head to your uncle.

The ceremony officially started and after everything important became complete, it was your turn to leave the place you called home for the past 18 years of your life .

He took your hand leading you inside the little ship that would lead you to Yumeng through the canals .

The water was decorated with floating white cherry blossoms the ones that Lan Clan threw in wishing you a safe and joyful life .

You looked back to your brothers and the rest of your family and Clan, waving at you as the boat took you a couple of meters away by each passing second .

"You look beautiful y/n " Jiang Cheng said moving an arm protectively behind your back , making sure there is no danger for you falling inside the water or get scared by the moving vehicle.

"Thank you Master Jiang " you bowed your head down making the fabric slip from its place .

You tried to move and catch it but it fell making you rush to put it back on .

" there is no need for you wearing it y/n I've already seen your pretty face over a thousand of times !" He spoke calmly.

" Sorry ma-" you tried to apologize

" why keeping formal with me my love so suddenly? I'm sure you knew my name years before .. it doesn't makes any difference calling me by it now ." He said a little irritated but still smiled at your cuteness and flushed cheeks .

" I sincerely apologize A-Cheng .. I'm just quite nervous right now .. " you confessed

" why darling is there anything you are afraid about ?" He asked clearly concerned by now .

" well .. to be honest there is a reason I'm acting like that .. I think your mother doesn't like me so much and I'm been awkward around you because of it ... I have no clue of how to act towards you around her . " you spoke each word with doubt, to anxious if your words would affect him negatively as he watched you the whole time closely .

" Y/n you don't have to be afraid of my mother , she indeed likes you pretty much and you were her most preferable choice between the brides that were meant for me .. act around her as you please . Both I and she love your true self so it's no need to hide yourself .. better now?"

" Partly.." you answered

" what's up now little minx ?" He asked full of curiosity.

" Where there other girls you could choose to marry ?" You asked pouting a little.

" definitely yes but to your reassurance .. even if I could marry 1.000 in my life i would just choose you over and over again. There is no other woman with such a spark in her eyes , so charming, so talented, so beautiful. There is no other like you , and I'm a pretty lucky person myself for having you here next to me .. as my wife " he spoke gently, his eyes honest and calm, full of love .

" I love you y/n " he spoke

" I know that " you said , teasing him

" YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO ANSWER LIKE THAT " he whined like a little child

" ok ok my mistake .. I love you too Jiang Cheng ! Happy now?" You asked

" Lots more than happy!!" He said taking your hands in his and kissing your temple.

The sun was disappearing in the horizon as the boats made their way through the full of lotus flower waters .

A book of your life just closed but a new one is already opening before your very eyes .

You are not alone on it this time , you are with someone that will love you a lot more than the meaning of love itself.

Because in this book two things are needed, his paper and your letters, in order to make a story that will be traveling from generation to generation again and again until you reunite through the centuries to make a new , better one .

•—————••—————••—————••—————•

THE END

Ok this cringed the living shit out of me BUT alright I still hope you enjoyed reading this ..

Like & follow !

Stay happy and healthy ♡♡♡

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sheadre · 4 years ago

Text

The Rogue Cultivator Part 2 (WWX x Reader x LWJ)

Summary: You’re a rogue cultivator who ran away from her home when they accused you of killing someone. You found yourself in Burial Mounds and accidentally in the Yiling Patriarch’s bed. After Wei Ying’s death, Lan Wangji took you to Gusu. What happens next?

Word count: 2577

Warnings: angst, sad ending

Lan Wangji sat across from you at the small table, his brown eyes piercing into your (e/c) ones. You wore your own hanfu, the last reminder of your clan as you sat. He was handsome, his delicate features stoic but held no malevolence. It took you a week to recover from your injuries. You were grateful that none of the sects knew anything about you but you were aware that once your brother arrives, you will have to run again until you’re far from civilisation. You didn’t want innocent people getting between you and your brother.

“Tell me” he said patiently. You could tell that he was barely keeping it together. Not that you were any better… yet you had to keep it together because your journey wasn’t ending here.

“I came from Guihai (L/N) shi, my brother, Haishen is the sect leader. He took a young maiden as his wife against her will, taking her away from her wedding when it was already arranged. He simply stated that he has the right as sect leader. He does as he pleases.” you sighed. “I ran away because his wife committed suicide when I was present. My brother accused me of killing her and I ran.”

“How did you meet?” he questioned his eyes boring into you, pressing you to answer. You could feel his coldness and you felt bad.

“I found myself at Burial Mounds after months of wandering… I thought that I could rest there for a while, that it is a place where no one goes to. That’s how he found me. I have no idea why he took me in… I was a stranger but he did. Wen Qing took care of my wounds… and they let me stay. Gave me shelter.” you smiled sadly.

“What was going on between you?” his question had an edge to it, his tone clipping like he was angry. No… he was jealous. You averted your gaze both out of embarrassment and out of guilt. It wasn’t hard for you to notice his feelings for your husband those months ago but this morning was confirmation.

“I became his wife” you replied firmly. You regretted nothing, Wei Ying was nothing but loving and he promised you his heart. He showed you his love on many occasions but there was always a place for Lan Wangji. Yet you never felt jealous… for why or how, you had no idea. You should’ve been jealous but you weren’t.

You lifted your gaze back up to meet Lan Wangji’s hurt expression. It was hard to read him but it was obvious now. He was in pain and you had no idea how to comfort him or if you should. He was at the verge of crying and your heart clenched in pain.

“I regret nothing… but I could never replace you” you reached out for his hand. At the sudden contact his hand twitched but your firm grip on his slender fingers kept him from pulling away. “He always loved you even when he was with me. I could never replace you, Hanguang-Jun.”

You sat there patiently, holding his hand, watching his handsome face show his emotions. He was beautiful, you couldn’t blame Wei Wuxian falling for him. You knew you wouldn’t be far behind if you let yourself. Wei Ying often talked about their time together at Gusu. He told you about every mischief he made, how Lan Zhan scolded him. Your favourite tale was when Lan Wangji got drunk. It must’ve been hilarious.

“I wish I could hate you” he said quietly after a long while. Lan Wangji pulled his hand away from yours and left you alone in a hurricane of white robes. You sighed heavily, tears rolling down your cheeks. You missed Wei Wuxian but you had to be strong. You couldn’t break down.

Later ~

A few hours later when the sun left the peak of the sky you leaned back with your hands on your hips. Your lips in a satisfied smirk. Your small hand made backpack was packed with your remaining things. Your sword was the last thing you needed to buckle on your side before you parted. You looked over the house with a sad and fond smile.

Lan Wangji was more than generous with only just taking you in and healing you. You couldn’t stay and be a nuisance. His coldness was easily noticed by anyone, yet he kept taking care of you and gave you food, even ate with you. Your eyes landed on the letter you left for him. Goodbyes were never your strength.

You hauled the backpack onto your shoulder and left the house quietly. You couldn’t help but admire the scenery. Back at Guihai you only had fortresses with grey stone walls everywhere. It was a labyrinth and meanwhile you found your way through the streets, other people tended to get lost in the city one too many times. You didn’t miss your supposed-to-be home. Once before you would’ve called it your home as a child even with your parents abusing you and your brother belittling you.

“(L/N) guniang” the gentle voice startled you making you jump a little in your place earning a chuckle from the Gusu Lan sect leader. You turned to Lan Xichen and bowed deeply in respect.

“Sect leader” you greeted.

“Where are you going?” he asked as he bobbed his head towards your backpack. You shot him a gentle but sad smile.

“It is time I depart” you started. “I cannot depend on Hanguang-Jun and cannot take advantage of his kindness. I am already in debt for he took care of my wounds and gave me shelter.”

“He took you to Cloud Recesses as his guest, (L/N) guniang” Zewu-Jun gave you a knowing smile. “He would be devastated if you left without him knowing.”

“It is not only because I wish not to overstep my boundaries but because my brother is coming after me and I would not want anyone to get caught in our fights.” you looked away with your heart heavy. You didn’t want anyone to get hurt when your brother would find you. No one deserved to die because of you. You must’ve wronged your family for them to treat you the way they always have done.

“Still… I have to ask you to think of my brother’s feelings… Wei Wuxian’s death took its toll on him” Lan Xichen looked sad for his brother making your heart clench in pain. Maybe there was a way for you to stay… maybe you would be able to be the shoulder Lan Wangji needed. You had no heart to leave him alone in these times. You heard rustling coming from your right side snapping your head to the sounds, you spotted Hanguang-Jun. His eyes widened when he noticed the backpack on your shoulder, his handsome face hardening as he quickly fled the scene.

“Excuse me, Zewu-Jun” you bowed to the older Lan brother before taking off after Lan Wangji calling out to him loudly so he would stop.

Five years later~

Your brother never came. No one knew you which meant rumours never spread about you. Therefore, your brother never found you because you changed your name and became Lady Qin, the wife of Hanguang-Jun. During the years you spent in Gusu, hiding, the two of you grew closer. At first, you had to be patient with Lan Zhan. He was mourning for years in seclusion. No one dared to bother him but you. You took his meals to his quarters, fetched warm water, took him to bed when he was drunk which happened at times and took care of his bunnies. The small rodents grew close to you and you often found yourself in the middle of the bunch of animals ranting about your problems to them.

One night, when you had enough of Lan Wangji moping about, you went out to the bunnies to clear your mind. The moon was full and shined brightly above you, lighting up the path in front of you. Your white robes brushed against the bushes, rustling the leaves as you took step by step. You sat down amongst the bunnies and opened up the basket full of vegetables feeding them carefully.

“I’m worried for Lan Zhan, you know?” you petted one of them with a sad smile. “He’s been mourning Wei Ying since years… I loved him too… more than I thought I could possibly love anyone. His heart was at the right place… and refused to stand in line with the monsters. Those people were kind to me… no one ever were kind to me back at Guihai. They were my family more than my real family ever was.”

You paused giving the bunnies from the large salad. You listened to them munching on it with a smile on your lips. You looked completely different from the way you did before. Your hair grew even longer and you untied the braids you had in it. Those braids once indicated your place in (L/N) clan but now you were nothing to them and they were nothing to you.

“And then… Hanguang-Jun took me in… I have no idea why… but I will always be grateful to him” you chuckled with a sob contorting it. Tears rolled down your cheeks. “He took me in and gave me a shoulder I could lean on when he needed it even more than I did.”

“I took you with me and A-Yuan because I needed you” his voice broke the silence of the night. Your heart skipped a beat as your head snapped up in surprise. You quickly wiped at your cheeks as he came closer. His steps were quiet but you felt him get closer. “You felt like a piece of Wei Ying… I felt like there was a piece of him lingering with you.”

“You hated me, didn’t you?” you chuckled as you kept your eyes on the horizon. You dared not to look at him.

“I did…” he admitted after a long silence. “But I learnt why he fell in love with you.”

“I never knew why he chose me when he could’ve chosen you” you chuckled brokenheartedly. You pulled your legs up so you could rest your chin on your knees, hugging them close to your chest. You didn’t care if it wasn’t appropriate for a lady to sit like that. It was just you and Lan Zhan. Nothing else mattered.

“He didn’t choose, A-(Name)” Lan Wangji sat down next to you as gracefully as a person can. No matter what he was doing, he was like a prince. His voice was gentle even when it sounded lost. “You were there when I couldn’t…”

“Nothing is impossible, Lan Zhan” you smiled as you turned to him. Your heart skipped a beat at the sight. His deep brown eyes bore into you as the moonlight turned his porcelain skin glistening like an ethereal creature’s.

That night was the first step for the two of you to grow closer. Each moment you shared brought you closer until one night, Hanguang-Jun kissed you. The night was dark that time, cold wind was blowing as it was about to turn winter. Lan Zhan asked you to stay with him and you did without a question. He should’ve been to bed already but he couldn’t sleep. You sat on his bedside pouring some calming tea when he kissed you. His lips felt so soft and sweet. Lan Wangji confessed to you his love and you agreed to be his bride.

The winter wedding was beautiful. Lan Qiren was the happiest even if he didn’t let it show. To your request, only few people were invited and those who attended agreed to spread the rumour that you were a young maiden from the village. Odes were singing about how the two of you looked like a god and a goddess. A prince and his princess in white. People expected you to be like Lan Wangji’s mother, to stay secluded in your own house. You had to make them disappointed. You followed Lan Zhan to nighthunts, travelled with him everywhere and when in Gusu, you taught the young female disciplines of cultivation.

Your first-born child conceived on a nighthunt. In Gusu, the two of you had no time for each other, but out there, in the inn, you only had time for each other. Your hand ran down his bare chest as your lips left a mark behind his ear. His slender fingers loosened your robes and the soft fabric fell down your shoulders to pool around your hips as you sat in his lap. You were a mess but Lan Zhan wasn’t far behind. His headband loosened by your hand and it slipped down his forehead.

“I miss him” you breathed against his skin as you rested your head on his chest. The morning sun was shining through the blinds but today was a lazy day.

“Every minute” Hanguang-Jun nodded as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“Thank you” you smiled sadly up at him. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion making you chuckle. “That you’re so good to me.”

“You say that like it is a goodbye” he rumbled as his arm tightened around you. You just shook your head and closed your eyes.

Oh, but it was a goodbye. You always knew that your brother wouldn’t give up. His hatred was too deep to just let you go.

Lan Zhan,

I wish that I could give you more to reciprocate all the happiness you gave me. I wish there were words I could write down that express my gratitude and love for you. You gave me two beautiful children and gave me a third one in Sizhui. You gave me a new life, a new purpose. You saved me more than one way. I know that it is hard but it was time for me to meet my fate.

When you find Wei Ying, tell him that I never ceased to love him. I wish I could be there to greet him, to hold him. And when the time comes, I will be there to greet you. And we will never have to separate again.

With undying love ~

(Name)

Lan Wangji found her letter on his desk one morning. Almost ten years passed since he took her with him from Burial Mounds. Lan Zhan knew that her brother was getting closer and closer. The man even sent a letter to (Name) to warn her. Lan Wangji stood in the middle of the room with the letter hanging from his fingers before it limply fell onto the ground. His heart was broken all over again.

Time skip~

Wei Ying was holding the letter in his hands as tears rolled down his cheeks. His A-(Name) died because Jin Guangyao told her brother where she was and how to find her. Jin Guangyao feared her powers because she was strong and so she had to die. He remembered how bright her smile was, how beautiful she looked in the moonlight. He always wished that the three of them could be together.

Lan Wangji pulled him back into his chest, arms tightening around his waist as he pressed a soft kiss to his bare shoulder.

“We’ll see her again… when the time comes, Wei Ying”

#romance #angst #sad ending #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #reader-insert

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immacaria · 4 years ago

Text

Family

Hello there! So this for Sangchengber Day 5: Family and it brings as a jealous Nie Huaisang, a amused and overprotective Nie Mingjue and a tired Nie Zonghui. There are some OCs of mine in there and I ask for forgiveness right now if their names are horrible or shitty. I hope you enjoy this and have a nice day!

For almost two years, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng were living together now. Almost two years that Huaisang had to deal with his roommate’s beauty and stupid. Really, how come that he didn’t notice Huaisang’s pining over him? More than two years and Jiang Cheng didn’t ask or did a thing to acknowledge him for goodness’ sake! Not a thing at all! Now, he was here, attending to a fucking wedding party while his crush was back at their house doing God knows what!

“A-Sang!” An aunt of his father’s side sang on his ear, throwing an arm over his neck. “My little A-Sang! How big you are!” She laughed, taking a full gulp of her drink. “Another wife, do you believe it? Your uncle has no shame!”

“Auntie, I think you have drunk enough.” Huaisang said, getting the glass from her. Just because he didn’t remember that one, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to look after her. ‘Well, until she passes out or go pester someone else. Whatever comes first.’, Huaisang thought as she nodded in agreement.

“But it’s true, you know?” She said, leaning into him, looking at the recently married couple bitterly.

“What’s true, Auntie?” He sighed, looking around for a savior. Anyone would do, truly.

“The rumors. That your uncle is marrying again because the first one couldn’t have children.” She explained, looking at the groom strangely. “Poor Mei, that’s what I think.” She breathed deep. “Poor Mei didn’t deserve this. She loved this asshole too much.”

“What do you mean, Auntie?” Alright, even if Huaisang didn’t like being there, the last family gossip always lifted him up. Even if it was just a little. “Do tell more.”

“Please, sweetie.” The woman said, looking directly at him, strange and suddenly sober. “Everybody knows that your brother and the oldest of the twins Jades of Gusu are nothing but boyfriends. One’s already out for love.” She chuckled, looking around for Mingjue. “And you, everyone knows that you are way over hills for the youngest of the Jiangs.”

“What do you mean, Auntie?” Nie Huaisang turned fully to her, curious and intrigued.

“Oh, sweet and innocent A-Sang. Once your father is dead, Mingjue is going to take over the business. But after his death, what happens?”

“I will still be here?” Huaisang said quietly, not liking what was going to happen next already.

“Oh, dear…” She said, touching his cheeks, eyes filled with pain and pity. “Everybody knows that you know nothing about your family’s business.” She whispered, stroking his eyebrows sadly. “Nobody expects you to, A-Sang. That’s why your uncle is marrying that whore. Anyway, enjoy the party, A-Sang. While it lasts.” She disappeared in the crowd, leaving Huaisang alone with his thoughts. ‘Why? Why would that woman do that to me?’ He groaned, turning to the waiter passing by.

“Do you guys still have whiskey?” He asked.

“Plenty of it, young master.” The waiter smiled at him, before vanishing in the kitchen, chuckling with the gentle ‘thanks’ of Huaisang. “Here it is, younger master Nie.”

“Thank you, Wu.” Huaisang smiled at him. “Bring me the whole bottle, would you?”

“Of course, young master.” He smiled, simpatectelly. After he brought the bottle, Huaisang decided that nobody would ruin his already horrible night even more, not even his own family. Maybe that was the real reason why he went to the dance floor, maybe it was the alcohol, but the fact was that he went to the dance floor, fearing nothing.

As his favourite music blasted through the speakers, he let his body move on his own, not caring for what the others were saying, doing or thinking. His heart was already broken, his head still full of thoughts, horrible thoughts. ‘No!’, he thought. ‘Tonight nobody can hurt me!’ he smiled as Blackpink started to play. ‘Not anymore.’

“A-Sang!” A cousin of his called, waving at him. “Do you know the choreography?” She yelled, throwing her stilettos away, almost hitting a cousin of theirs.

“Of course!” Huaisang answered smiling widely as Kill This Love blew through the amplifiers. “Uhuu!” He laughed, dancing and singing along with the other girls at the wedding. He kept dancing and singing as all the playlist played out, drinking and joking around with everyone, caring even less if Jiang Cheng liked him or that girl in his class with every passing second. “Let’s kill this love!” He chanted, dropping a little of the whiskey on the floor.

“Huaisang!” Mingjue screamed over the noise. “What are you doing?”

“Dancing!” Huaisang laughed, drinking a little more. He didn’t care if he passed out, he was having the time of his life. And nobody would stop him.

“And drinking!” His cousin, TongTong, said beside him. “Do you know I love you?”

“Yes. And I love you too!” He yelled back as Mingjue threw him over a shoulder. “Da-Ge!” He turned to him, completely ultraged. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you home.” Mingjue retorted, putting the nearly empty bottle on a table nearby. “You are too drunk, Huaisang.”

“No! I was having fun!” He reached for the bottle. “Funkiller!” He screamed at the top of his lungs before dissolving in a mess of giggles.

“You’re absolutely wasted.” He sighed, dumping his little brother in the backseat of the car.

“No, I’m Huaisang.” Giggled as Mingjue started to leave the parking lot. “Da-ge…” He called, lifting a hand to him. “Auntie said that Uncle is marrying that whore so he could take over father’s business.”

“I’m still here.” Mingjue patted his head. “As long as I’m here, you will be fine. And father’s business too.”

“But, Da-Ge…” Huaisang groaned, turning to him.

“Go to sleep, A-Sang. No uncle of ours will take over father’s business.” The older one threw his own jacket over the other’s shoulders. “Da-Ge will resolve everything.” He stroked Huaisang’s hair, smiling sadly at his sleepy brother. “No need to worry.” Was the last thing that Nie Huaisang heard before dozing off to a dreamless sleep, the first of many nights since he moved on with Jiang Cheng.

Sincerely, he didn’t know the exact reason him and Cheng had moved in. At first thought, Jiang Cheng’s brother, Wei Ying, was moving in with his boyfriend, Lan Zhan, and Nie Huaisang needed a place near the Art Institute after he got accepted. At second thought, Da-Ge could always buy him an apartment, but he prefered to go living with his long-life crush and best friend.

Now, here he was, sleeping on his older brother’s backseat while he drove around the city, giving him time to think, sleep or do anything Huaisang wanted to. But, what Huaisang wanted to do right now was go home and hide from all the world for the rest of the weekend, just eating and watching Netflix with Jiang Cheng. And, yet, he really didn't want to deal with Jiang Cheng saying that he was irresponsible, that all he and Wei Wuxian knew was to party and just get themselves fucking wasted and a lot of other things. So, nah, not coming home tonight.

Because of that, when he woke up, Huaisang looked through the window in front of him, trying to calculate if they had already arrived at his apartment or not. He really didn’t want to deal with Jiang Cheng’s grumpiness and all of the Jiangs brothers’ dramas tonight (nor the rest of the weekend, to be true).

"Da-Ge…" He whispered, getting up slowly. "Where are we?" Huaisang asked, putting Mingjue’s jacket on.

"Almost at your home." Mingjue answered, making a soft turn. "Your husband called four times already." He smirked as his little brother came to sit on the seat next to him. “Apparently, you are two hours past your bedtime.”

"Who?" Huaisang asked, putting the seat belt on. “I don’t have a husband. Nor bedtime. I’m not living with you anymore.”

“If you say so…” The older smiled fully, stopping in front of a small building. “Here we are.”

“I don’t want to go in, Da-Ge.” He whined, turning to him slowly, after some time.

“Why not?” Mingjue asked, entering in the overprotective mood instinctively. “What did that Jiang do to you? And don’t you dare lie to me, Huaisang, because I know he did something to you. You never drank how you drank today, Huaisang! Actually you never drank anything stronger than… Than… I never saw you drinking before, Huaisang!” He waved around, looking terrified. “So, please, please, what happened? You can tell Da-Ge. Da-Ge will protect you from that monster!’ He held Huaisang’s hands, searching for the younger’s eyes.

“Da-Ge!” Huaisang looked up to him, exasperated. “Jiang Cheng did nothing wrong!” He huffed, feelling the little squish Minigjue gave to his hands. “It’s not Jiang Cheng’s fault I still have a crush on him, beside I got worried about you and dad…” But Mingjue wasn’t hearing anymore, too shocked to process anything else. “And you aren’t even listening.” He sighed, rolling his eyes, before yelling. “Da-Ge!”

“What do you mean ‘still have a crush’? When did you get a crush on that kid?!” Mingjue grabbed him, pulling him closer. “And he doesn’t love you back? Fuck business’ friendship, I’m going to commit a murder.” He whispered in Huaisang’s hair. “Don’t worry, A-Sang, Da-Ge is here.” He patted his back.

“Da-Ge!” Huaisang pushed him away. “He doesn’t know and neither do I want him to.” Huaisang murmured, leaning back into his seat. “Just… Just take me to another place, please.” He closed his eyes, not working the energy to talk with Mingjue or anyone else and, yet, expecting him to argue. But the older one just hummed in agreement and drove away (still shooting a murderous look at the small and beige building).

After that, the Nie brothers went to an old apartment of theirs. Even if Mingjue wanted to stay and take care of his younger brother, he had responsibilities with their dad’s enterprises, trips to do and new deals to make. Nie Huaisang didn’t blame him, he did all of it so he didn’t have to, that’s all. His Da-Ge only wanted him to be happy, doing what pleased him.

At first, he planned to pass only a day there, but then a day became two and, suddenly, it was Wednesday and Huaisang had even put a foot out of the loft since the party. Nie Mingjue came to visit him everyday, not commenting on what he was doing, nor saying what was happening in the world around them.

"You really didn't check on your phone since we got here?" Mingjue sighed after Huaisang asked how TongTong was doing along with Zonghui.

"No, it died three days ago. The only charge here is from my old one.” He shrugged, making coffee for them. "And I couldn't find my old one."

"I see." He took the mug from Huaisang's hand. "Have you explained why you didn't go to college this week?"

"Nope." He chuckled, popping the "p". "I didn't even manage to work up the courage to get out of here, Da-Ge, let alone actually talk to someone.”

"And what the hell were you doing here all this time?" Mingjue sighed, putting the mug down.

"I'm painting again. And drawing. I forgot how cool and relaxing it was, to just paint and don't worry about anything else." Huaisang smiled, playing with his cup. "Do you want to see them?"

"Yeah. I do, A-Sang."

“C’mon, they are in my room.” He led the way to his bedroom, even though it was usually the other one who used it in his freetime. Seriously, since he had moved in with Jiang Cheng the only places he went to was the college, Mingjue and Xichen’s house, Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan’s apartment and his own apartment, beside the shopping nearby. ‘When did I get so old?’, he thought as he showed some drawings he had made that week. ‘When did I get so domesticated? And A-Cheng still says that the only thing I do is partying.’

“These are pretty cool. Thinking about putting it in your portfolio?” Mingjue asked, smiling to the scenes of birds and bees, to the neighbour’s drooling dog smiling back at him and to the… “Wait, what’s this?” He squinted his eyes, not quite believing in himself. “Is it Jiang Cheng--”

“Nope, this is personal, Da-Ge!” Huaisang pulled the paper from his hands, hiding it beneath his pillow, breathing deeply. “What about the other ones? Did you like it?”

“Yes, but I’m more interested in the one beneath your pillow.” He crossed his arms, smirking at him. “Was the young Jiang here these days?”

“No, Da-Ge, A-Cheng is at home, studying and, probably, hitting on a girl in his class.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he only talks about her! He’s always like Hua Mei this, Hua Mei that. She is gentle as a morning breeze and smooth as a petal.” He murmured, pouting. “That little shit didn’t even notice that it was always me, me, who was there for him. Not Hua Mei.”

“A-Sang, don’t take it wrong, but you should get back because your man asks me about you every single day!” Mingjue said, sitting on the bed. “Every single day, the Jiang boy asks where are you? Why aren’t you going to class?”

“He does?” Huaisang turned to him, momentarily forgetting his paintings.

“Of course, he does.” Mingjue huffed, rolling his eyes. “It’s getting annoying.”

“Oh!” He said, fidgeting his nails, stopping for a while. If it was true what Mingjue was saying, maybe, just maybe, Nie Huaisang had been a little bit too blind too, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He just had to muster up the courage to get out of the loft and actually talk to his crush. “Do you know if he is in class now? Or something like that?”

“For what I know, he is currently in class, sending you messages a mile per hour.” Mingjue fished the phone from his back pocket, looking at its screen for a second. “A cousin of us does the same classes as Jiang Cheng and said she would keep an eye on him for you.”

“Which cousin? A-Hua? I remember she wanted to be a veterinarian.” He said, laying behind him. “Or it was A-Liang?”

“A-Hua. Wang Hua Mei.” He smirked as realization came to his didi, his eyes widening with every minute. “Yes, our little cousin Wang Hua Mei who is a lesbian and a veterinary student.”

“I was jealous of A-Hua? The little A-Hua?! No!” He hid his face with his hands, howling dramatically. “I can’t believe this! Please, tell me TongTong don’t know this.”

“Of course I know this, sweet cousin. I know everything that happens in this crazy family, including the affairs and jealousy.” TongTong laughed, smiling. “Aaand you should thank me too. I made damage control on that video of us dancing. In the wedding.”

“What video?” Huaisang looked between his fingers, fear cradling at his insides.

“The one where you scream Fuck Jiang Wanyin so many times it became the name of the video.” Nie Mingjue said, smiling too.

“And to best everything, Let’s Kill This Love is blasting in full volume.” TongTong sat by his head, caressing his hair. “You really know the choreography, uhm?”

“Of course I do.” He mumbled, trying to hold the tears back. Now Jiang Cheng wouldn’t look at his face ever again. “I really screamed Fuck Jiang Wanyin?”

“It’s the name of the video, A-Sang, dear. What do you think?” She sighed, eyes looking fondly at him.

“Oh, gods! A-Cheng isn’t going to look at me ever again, Da-Ge!” Nie Huaisang groaned, trying to not scream too loudly. “What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, fight back, try to talk with him, change your name and move to the USA.” Nie Mingjue shrugged, getting up. “Either way you choose, you will have to get out of this loft, get your things in your apartment and know that your family is by your side. Now, get up, hand me that painting of the Jiang kid and let me be the judge if it will go to your portfolio or not.”

“What painting?” TongTong said, perking up.

“Da-Ge!” Nie Huaisang screamed, but pulled the painting from beneath the pillow nevertheless. He may not know what he was going to do right now, but he knew that his family was going to be by his side at any circumstance. Because that’s what you do when you are part of the Nie family, you take care of each other and let yourself be taken care of.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Okay, maybe the idea of bringing Nie Mingjue, TongTong, Nie Zonghui and A-Hua wasn’t the greatest idea Nie Huaisang ever had in his life, but they were family and certainly would intervene in the talk he was about to have with Jiang Cheng. If they did, then he would accept Nie Mingjue’s advice and move to the USA as quickly as he could because they were going to start screaming with Jiang Cheng and one another and Nie Huaisang would be kicked out of his home. And if there were a few things that he couldn’t stand, being humiliated was on top of them all.

“Okay, listen. I’m going to talk to him, okay? No need to shout or intervene or pull any weapon I didn’t manage to find before we came here, alright?” He turned to them, trying to look like the personification of calm and collected. “It’s just a talk, nothing that I can’t handle. There’s nothing to panic over. Everything is fine.”

“A-Sang, dear, you look like you want to be everywhere minus here.” TongTong said, passing him a fan. “Here, you forgot this at the party.”

“Thank you.” He said, breathing deep as he looked for the spare key they usually let hidden on his plants. “Ah, here.” He pulled it out, shaking it a little. “Breathe, Huaisang, it’s very unlike that he is going to be home now.” He whispered, behind his fan, looking to the sides. “Everyth--”

“Nie Huaisang.” Jiang Cheng growled, coming out of the kitchen, hearing an apron and yielding a knife.

“Da-Ge!” He yelped, running to hide behind Nie Mingjue. “Help”

“Haven’t you said that you didn’t need our help?” Nie Mingjue snickered, looking at him over his shoulder. “It’s just a talk, nothing I can’t handle. It was something like that, right?”

“Shut up.” He murmured, making himself look smaller.

“Hold yourself, kiddo.” Nie Zonghui rolled his eyes, a hand inside his jacket. “Put the knife down, Young Master Jiang.”

“Why the hell didn’t you answer my calls?! Or my messages?!” He said, walking to him. “Excuse us. Can you leave?”

“Ooh, I like him. He has no brain cells, just pure and beautiful anger.” TongTong whispered to A-Hua, smiling like crazy.

“Jiang-xiong has brain cells, he is just too worried with Huaisang-gege and kind of angry too.” She whispered back, laughing behind her hands. “They are kind of cute together, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Good propaganda too.”

“TongTong!” She slapped her arm as the other just shrugged.

“Let go of the knife and I will step back.” Nie Mingjue said, looking amused at him. “Now, Wanyin.”

“Fine.” Jiang Cheng turned around, scowling as he put the knife on the small cafe table Jiang Yanli gave them. “Happy now?”

“Yeah…” The oldest Nie of the room stepped aside, smirking at him. "For now."

"Why didn't you respond to my messages, Huaisang? Just because of that video?" He said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Yes?" Nie Huaisang said, hiding behind his fan.

"That's it? Yes?" He crossed his arms. "No more explanation?"

"I panicked, okay? I thought you weren’t going to look at my face ever again and hide.” Nie Huaisang started, knowing fully well that he would start rambling. “I was angry at you, okay? Every single time you opened your mouth, you would talk about Hua-Mei this, Hei-Mua that and I was getting jealous, alright? To worsen everything, when I arrived at the party, my fucking aunt simply glued on me and would let go, insisting that my uncle was marrying another woman so he could get children and usurp Dad’s company because Da-Ge insists that he is not dating Lan Xichen. But everybody knows that they are dating. And nobody believes that I could command it because I’m just the ‘poor and innocent A-Sang’!”

“Huaisang. Huaisang. NIE HUAISANG!” Jiang Cheng screamed, clapping his hands together. “Breathe!” He instructed when Nie Huaisang looked at him.

“No! Now that I started, I will finish. I was angry at you, I was angry at my poor Aunt who did nothing more than tell me gossip and I was angry at Hua-Mei without reason.” He pointed at her, fan furiously coming back and forth in front of him. “So, I started drinking and Wu brought me a bottle and I got another from who knows who and then TongTong asked if I knew how to dance Let’s Kill This Love. Of course I know how to dance it. I remember dancing, drinking and not caring even when Da-Ge put me on his shoulder and carried me out of there.”

“Why didn’t you come home?” Jiang Cheng crossed his arms again.

“Because I couldn’t look at your face, see you praising someone else and deal with the Jiang brother’s drama while drunk and dealing with my own drama and drinking. I was fucking wasted, A-Cheng, my hangover was horrible and I didn’t left the loft for nothing but do go get some groceries.” He answered, rubbing his face. "That 's it! Happy now?”

“So you're telling me that you got jealous over me and Hua-Mei, who is a lesbian and have a girlfriend…”

“And cousin.” The girl added, smiling.

“I didn’t know that at the time.” Nie Huaisang grumbled.

“And cousin, angered yourself in the wedding, got yourself drunk, started dancing with your another cousin and screamed Fuck Jiang Wanyin seventeen times in a row while singing Let’s Kill This Love?” Jiang Cheng carried on, lifting one finger to each action he quoted. “That’s why you didn’t answer my messages?”

“My phone died and I didn’t have a charger nearby.” He shrugged, still slowly fanning himself. “Sorry.” Jiang Cheng stayed silent, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. Some moments passed and nobody said a thing, just looking at each other as if trying to determine what was going to help next.

“A-Cheng, say something, please.” Nie Huaisang begged, when it all got too much for him.

“So, you like me?” Jiang Cheng said, looking uncertain of himself.

“Yes, A-Cheng, I like you.” He smiled as TongTong groaned behind him and A-Hua chuckled.

“Good, don’t this again or last time I will break your legs.” He took the knife back, walking to the kitchen. “I’m making dinner, put the table.”

“Okay, okay.” Nie Huaisang smiled, following him, chuckling when he heard Nie Mingjue said begrudgingly.

“Did he just use my threat?”

“Yeah, he did.” Nie Zonghui said, chuckling too.

"I'm liking him even more." TongTong said as A-Hua agreed with her. "We are staying for dinner, aren't we?"

"Yeah. I'm fucking hungry." Nie Mingjue said and Nie Huaisangī wouldn’t be happier than he already was.

“Just so you know, I like you back. Since we were in school.” Jiang Cheng whispered to him, nudging his arm with his elbow.

“Does this mean we are dating?” He whispered back, a smile forming on his lips.

“I think so. What you think?” He smiled back, returning to where he was cutting the vegetables before.

“Yes! I love you!” Nie Huaisang jumped at him, kissing his face.

“Careful, you idiot, I’m holding a knife!” He screamed, but soon he was laughing too. And if Nie Mingjue and the others looked inside the kitchen and screamed at them for delaying dinner with their smooches, Nie Huaisang didn’t care because now he was truly happy! He was dating his childhood crush, his family were by his side and happy for him and even if there were things that were kind of bad in his life, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. Alone or not.

#sangcheng #sangchengber #sangchengmonth2020 #sangcheng month #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #nie zonghui #my ocs: nie tong and wang hua mei #im sorry if this names are shitty #i tried to be as accurate as possible #jiang cheng #drunking #this was kind of funny to write

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stiltonbasket · 4 years ago

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I would kill to see a first meeting between lwj and qs!wwx

The first thing Wei Wuxian does after escaping the Jinlintai is go to a backwater inn in Changlun and get himself roaringly drunk.

Getting out of Lanling had been a nightmare; Jin Guangyao expected his wife to travel with a retinue and a couple of faithful maids, so Wei Wuxian had to dismiss them early after crossing the border of the Qin sect. And after that, he left a letter to Qin Cangye with one of the man’s retainers, explaining that he (or rather, Qin Su) would be heading to a ladies’ purification retreat to pray for the conception of a healthy second child.

Even if word gets back to Jin Guangyao about his illicit excursion, he won’t be in any hurry to visit the place: especially not now that Lan Xichen has spoken on Qin Su’s behalf, advising Jin Guangyao to consider siring another heir after Jin Rusong’s passing.

“I’m a free man again,” Wei Wuxian mutters now, pouring a cup of cheap Changlun wine down his throat and glaring balefully at the brash party gathered around the next table. “Maybe I can find a tradesman going down to Moling tomorrow.”

Wei Wuxian isn’t dressed like a noblewoman; Jin-furen prepared commoners’ clothes for him before her death, and even suggested places of refuge where her face was not widely known so that Wei Wuxian could lie low while he figured out what to do next. But his predecessor was a very beautiful woman, whether she was clothed in fine silks and gold or not, and the local boys keep trying to come up to him and buy him jars of the house alcohol in an effort to catch him off his guard.

But Qin Su’s tolerance for wine is even better than his was, so Wei Wuxian ignores the men and drinks the jug behind the counter dry before hopping up onto the roof for a breath of fresh night air.

It’s the kind of night I would have spent playing my dizi back at Lotus Pier, he thinks, tracing the finger-holes of the rosewood flute he bought in Laoling. I would have played the lotus-harvesting song over the kitchen, and Shijie would have sung along, and then...

Mindlessly, he brings the dizi up to his lips and plays a few notes of the lullaby he used to hum to A-Yuan in the Burial Mounds, high and mournful and so achingly sweet that the notes almost seem to shiver as they strike the bones of his ear.

Xian-gege, the ghost in his memory giggles, chewing on Chenqing’s red-silk tassel before jumping into Wei Wuxian’s arms. Play for A-Yuan!

“I could play for you the rest of my life, A-Bao,” he whispers, as something white flashes along the path under his feet--probably a mouse, or the glow from a swiftly opened window spilling out into the darkness. “If you were still here, I...”

Suddenly, a broad, pale hand clamps down around his wrist, and Wei Wuxian tries to rip himself away, momentarily terrified that one of the men from downstairs had followed him up to the roof--but then he finds himself staring into a face he last saw at the edge of a cliff in Qishan, hanging three feet above his own and sobbing Wei Ying, Wei Ying, come back--

“Hah,” Wei Wuxian gasps, pitching dangerously towards the ground before two familiar arms arrest his fall. His lungs fill up with the scent of sandalwood incense, and when he looks up, the elegant lips of his former zhiji are already shaping his name.

“Is it you?” Lan Wangji chokes, taking Wei Wuxian’s face between his hands and looking him in the eye. “Wei Ying, you--you are back?”

“You’re mistaken,” Wei Wuxian babbles senselessly, trying to get to his feet; but Lan Zhan refuses to let go of him, and his white-clad body is shaking in the chill night air as if he were somehow feeling the cold, immortal master or not. “It’s not--I’m just a rogue cultivator, you’ve got the wrong person--”

“Hanguang-jun!” someone else screeches from below. Momentarily stymied, the two of them peer into the inn’s leisure courtyard, which appears to be empty save for a lone young man wheezing through his nose as he tries to catch his breath. “Hanguang-jun, what are you doing up there?”

And then the young man blinks, and stares at Wei Wuxian. “Qin-guniang?” he squeaks, reeling back in shock. “Hanguang-jun, she’s married! Take your hands off her at once!”

“Married to her brother. It does not count,” Lan Zhan says succinctly, which makes Wei Wuxian gasp again and kick him behind the knee in a pitiful bid for freedom. “Mo Xuanyu’s letter said as much. And besides, this is Wei Ying.”

“What?” the boy screams. “Have you gone mad, Lan Wangji?”

“Who’s that?” Wei Wuxian demands, momentarily distracted. “Why do you let him talk to you that way?”

“Jin Zixuan,” Lan Zhan tells him, taking the opportunity to wrap his arms around Wei Wuxian’s waist and fly them down off the roof. “Wei Ying. Come to our inn with us.”

This is going to be trouble, he laments, as Lan Zhan hauls him away by the sash of his dusty robes. What have you gotten yourself into now, Wei Wuxian!?

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #qin su!wwx #my fic

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Could you do something where Jiang Yanli kills Jin Guangshan? Reason why and when are up to you.

“It’s just in case,” Jiang Cheng said.

“A-Cheng…” Jiang Yanli said, smiling helplessly. Her little brother was all grown up now and pretending like it was his duty to be protective of her, rather than the other way around. “A-Cheng, it’s really not necessary. I’m going to my own engagement dinner – I don’t think anyone’s going to cause trouble.”

“It’s just in case.”

“A-Cheng, you do know that once I get married, I’m going to live there, right?” she said, laughing a little helplessly. “I’ll be in Koi Tower all the time. I can’t take Zidian away from you forever.”

“It’s fine after you get married,” Jiang Cheng said. “Jin Zixuan is a peacock, but he loves you; he’ll be by your side as often as he can manage it. But an engagement party like this – it’s so unorthodox to have something like this anyway, I don’t know what LanlingJin is thinking – he’ll be occupied getting congratulations on his side, you on yours, and then you retreat to separate bedrooms. If someone wanted to cause trouble in your marriage, that would be a good night for it. So just take it.”

“I don’t even know how to use Zidian properly!” she protested. “Not the way you do! I always…”

She waved her hands.

“Massively over do it?” Jiang Cheng said dryly.

Jiang Yanli grinned bashfully. “Yes.”

Zidian was a delicate spiritual weapon – in her brother’s hands, it was like watching artistry, the crackle of lightning and the shifts between ring and whip and back, never stronger than he meant it to be, able to draw beautiful patterns in the air that left after-images on the eye.

In Jiang Yanli’s hands…

She’d only ever managed to figure out how to activate Zidian’s self-defense mechanism, an extremely powerful lightning zap designed to send anything it touched into the next room and usually the next life.

“I’d still rather you had it for this party,” he said firmly. “Please, indulge me.”

Jiang Yanli stood on her tip-toes and pulled her little brother down by the collar to press a kiss to his forehead. “Always, A-Cheng.”

No one notices an extra ring on her finger that evening – if anything, she’s under-dressed compared to most of the ladies in Lanling, who cover themselves in gold and jewels; they flock around her and drink just as many toasts as the men do, albeit in their own fashion, and the rest of the evening is spent in gossip. Jiang Yanli wasn’t sure how much she liked any of this, but she supposed the engagement party wasn’t really for her – it was for Madame Jin, presiding over the events and puffed up with pride for having made the engagement work out just the way she and Madame Yu had planned it all those years ago.

If it had been for Jiang Yanli, her brothers would have been invited. Both of them.

Still, as the guest of honor, she’s obligated to stay very late, until the party could realistically be considered over and everyone lingering could pretend that they’d meant to do that anyway. Jiang Yanli pointedly yawned a few times before making her excuses – she didn’t need to fake it all that much, actually, given how much wine she’d drunk, even if she had only taken a single sip for every toast.

Of course, no one grew up with Wei Wuxian as a brother without developing some serious alcohol tolerance, so she’s not as affected as she made herself out to be.

Still, she thinks a little later that night, remarkably clear-headed, being drunk would probably be…helpful.

Jiang Yanli took a moment to survey the scene one more time, made a few small arrangements, nodded to herself, and started screaming Madame Jin’s name.

She’d been given a room in the main family hallway, as befitting her soon-to-be-daughter-in-law status, and Madame Jin had (somewhat reluctantly) bid the rest of her guests farewell shortly after Jiang Yanli left, so it didn’t take long before the woman ran into her room, followed very shortly by Jin Zixuan – they must have been talking in Madame Jin’s rooms.

Jiang Yanli flung herself at her future husband – well, she hoped he was still her future husband – and clutched at him, giving him a meaningful look as she did, hoping he understood. “There’s a man in my room!”

Jin Zixuan’s arms around her were a comfort, and his eyes were narrow as he looked around to see the scene she’d prepared: a man with a sheet over his face, lying against a wall where he’d evidently been thrown.

“Zixuan, you comfort Yanli,” Madame Jin instructed, then turned to the servants. “I want this locked down immediately. No one but you is to know what happened – if anyone asks, the story is that she saw a rat and overreacted after having drunk too much; we’ll figure out the rest later. If the real story gets out, it may affect Yanli’s reputation – and I’ll know it was one of you.”

The servants, pale-faced, rushed out.

“What happened?” Jin Zixuan asked her, and she really appreciated that he didn’t follow his mother’s instructions to comfort her as if she were a child.

She wiped the rather legitimate tears away from her eyes. “I came inside and began to change for bed,” she said. “My maid had just finished putting my hair down when she suddenly said we needed more incense and left –”

“Bought out, most likely,” Madame Jin said, looking grim. It had been a maid she’d appointed herself.

“And the someone came up behind me and put his hands on me,” Jiang Yanli continued. “I pulled away, so he only got my shoulders, but he tried to throw me onto the bed. I couldn’t see who it was, only a blur in the dark; I grabbed a sheet and threw it at his face –”

That was the only part of this story that was a lie. The sheet had been a later addition – and she’d seen exactly who it was.

“How’d he end up across the room?” Jin Zixuan asked, glancing over. His tone wasn’t accusing, at least – more puzzled. It was understandable: Jiang Yanli’s cultivation had never been anything very spectacular.

“He tried to grab me again and Zidian’s self-defense mechanism activated,” she said. “My brother gave her to me so I’d have something of my mother’s to wear at the engagement party…you know we don’t have much of her that’s left.”

Madame Jin’s face softened at the mention of her childhood friend.

“I’m glad he did,” Jin Zixuan said, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I didn’t even know Zidian had a self-defense mechanism.”

“It’s for people like me who can’t use it properly,” Jiang Yanli explained, leaning her head against him. She was a little confused – they were taking all the actions and precautions she’d hoped they would, keeping the story quiet and listening to her, but…why weren’t they looking at the body?

“I’m glad,” Jin Zixuan said again, and now that her head was against his chest, she could feel that he was shaking. “Mother…what are we going to do?”

“Zidian’s effects are similar to a lightning strike,” Madame Jin said. “Especially the – it was the zap, Yanli?”

Of course Madame Jin would know – Madame Yu had probably told her all about it. Jiang Yanli nodded.

“With the make-up to conceal the impact on the veins, the cause of death could just as easily have been a heart attack,” Madame Jin continued. “We can spin that. Maybe we say he came in here by accident, and in the confusion of realizing he was in the wrong room, had the attack…?”

They’d recognized him, Jiang Yanli realized. From the first moment they’d come in, sheet or no sheet – no. It was better to say that while they hadn’t expected this would happen, it also hadn’t surprised them very much.

Jin Guangshan had truly been a vile human being, if his wife and son didn’t mourn his passing even for a moment.

Jiang Yanli let the stress slip off her shoulders. “That would raise questions,” she said, composed again. “And I won’t be able to marry A-Xuan if people think I killed his father. How about a slightly different spin: the room was dark when I came in, my maid left, and I got up to look around and began screaming when I found the body. It would be obvious what he’d been trying to do, but if he died before I even arrived…”

“No, that’s better,” Jin Zixuan said. “It won’t – no one will be surprised at something like that, from him. I’m sorry. But you screamed very convincingly.”

She smiled at him. “I’m not very good at screaming.”

“If I hadn’t been in a war camp with you, I would’ve believed you?” he offered with a shaky smile.

“I never expected you to,” she said and kissed his cheek. “It was for the benefit of the audience.”

“The sheet was a good touch,” Madame Jin said, and she sounded approving. “The servants wouldn’t have recognized him – some of them will think it was a stranger, inevitably, and that will create additional confusion when the stories leak out…yes, I think a sudden heart attack while waiting is the best approach. We will need to take action, A-Xuan – reach out to everyone we can trust at once.”

“Is there anything I should do?” Jiang Yanli wanted to know.

“No, you’re not a member of the family yet,” Jin Zixuan said. “Your first instinct was right: you need to be the distressed young mistress.”

“Shocked and a little naïve about what he could possibly have been doing there would be best,” Madame Jin agreed. “‘Surely he just wanted to give me another toast’ – that sort of thing. Can you do that?”

“I can try. Most of the women here don’t know me very well, so it should work.”

Jin Zixuan ended up taking her down the hallway to the only other family housed there, knocking at the door. Jin Guangyao had a smile on his face when he answered – but then, he was always smiling.

The smile didn’t alter as Jin Zixuan explained the situation in short terms.

“I would be happy to help,” Jin Guangyao said. “Don’t worry. Miss Jiang is perfectly safe with me.”

#mdzs #jiang yanli #jiang cheng #jin zixuan #madame jin #jin guangyao #my fic #guess it's just a jiang yanli day #Anonymous

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