#though Xue Yang did still loose that finger | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starshinegoblin · 5 years ago

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Just Relax with Me

Kiss Prompt: out of love

Writer’s Notes: This is written in my arranged marriage au, All That Is Me. I dedicate this one to @ruensroad and thank you for so much for drawing the amazing art below. It’s so beautiful!

The art below is of JinYi inspired the following ficlet below :D

** Credit: @ruensroad // DO NOT REMOVE CREDIT **

“Senior Lan, it’s here.” Xue Qing smiled brightly as she entered her sect leader’s jingshi. In her hands, a glass canteen. The contents a special order that Lan Jingyi had requested from the apothecary. He’d read in one of the books in the library that the blend is supposed to aid in relaxing one when soaked in water. The idea came to him after yesterday, the first day of the sect leader conference that had been forced on them. Oh, as an added bonus, the heaven’s decided that it needed to snow! In mid February! So as the other sects were arriving LanLing was having thick flurry showers.

After Jin Ling had gotten injured after getting rid of a striga in Yiling, rumors started because of his limp. Like who wouldn’t limp after one of those got a hold of your leg? Their claws extend out the length of their forearms. So to keep up appearances and Elder Yanbin from stirring the pot, Jin Ling had graciously offered to host the conference. The conferences were stressful with all the different personalities of the sect leaders that came.

The first night, Jin Ling had returned to their quarters exhausted. He’d barely eaten any food, took a quick bath not caring the water was cold, and went to bed. That wouldn’t be the case today. He refused to allow this to continue for the next four days.

“Thank you, Xue Qing.” Lan Jingyi said taking the pitcher from her.

“Is there anything else that you need, Senior Lan?” Xue Qing asked of him. Lan Jingyi assessed the room. Dinner was fresh and hot at the table, their bed was already turned down, and he’d just left the bathing room with a boiling hot tub of water. He was about to say nothing but then felt a cold chill as he stepped onto the wooden floor with his bare feet.”

“Add two more burners.” Lan Jingyi answered, “Then you can go.”

“Thank you, Senior Lan.” Xue Qing replied as she went to retrieve them leaving Jingyi to return to the remaining preparations.

Jin Ling was cold, hungry, wanting his husband, and exhausted. While he hadn’t actually done anything but sit today. Being stuck in the hall with all the sect leaders literally drained him. He felt the migraine he’d been trying to keep at bay during the meetings today decided to send a painful throb up his neck towards his left eye.

“Shit.” He cursed low, rubbing his temple as he made his way towards his private quarters.

It didn’t take him long to get there. Jin Ling opened the door to the jingshi. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He stilled just in the doorway seeing that their dinner was already prepared and that his husband was sitting in the window seat reading a book. He was still dressed in the robes he’d worn this morning, the rich dark sea blue robes with the opalescent embroidery on the collar and sleeves. His toes wiggling out from beneath the hem making him chuckle.

“Welcome back.” Lan Jingyi greeted him, finally realizing he was there with a warm smile. He was about to move to get up when Jin Ling stopped him with a gesture of his hand. He slowly made his way over not caring about the ache or the burn in his leg. Jin Ling came to a stop right in front of him. He leaned down pressing a quick peck on the other’s lips.

As he parted, Lan Jingyi chased his lips capturing them again as he took hold of the collar of Jin Ling’s robes. He quickly maneuvered them to where Jin Ling was the one sitting and Lan Jingyi was straddling his lap. The hem of his blue robes spilling over Jin Ling’s leg. Lan Jingyi didn’t sit on his lap though he stayed, up on his knees, hands cradling the other’s face as they kissed.

The new angle giving him the advantage to deepen the kiss only for him to move back, parting their kiss, shortly after. He hadn’t missed the slightly sharp intake of breath from being manhandled from Jin Ling.

“A-Yi?” Jin Ling whispered his name between heavy breaths. He was about to answer but the rather loud grumble of the taller man’s stomach making Lan Jingyi chuckle.

“How about we eat first?” Lan Jingyi offered rubbing Jin Ling’s sharp jaw with his thumbs before carefully getting up. Smoothly, he knelt helping Jin Ling out of his boots.

“How’s your leg?” Lan Jingyi asks as he helped him up.

“I should have propped it up like A-Yuan said. Keeping it bent only made it stiff as a board when the meetings were over.” Jin Ling answered, blushing a bit from embarrassment and lingering desire for his husband’s lips. He tried to will the blush away as he sat down but he must have failed with the gleeful look in Lan Jingyi’s eyes.

“Oh?” Lan Jingyi teasingly questioned him as he took his own seat across from him. A grin spreading on his face as he feels Jin Ling’s the foot of his injured leg slide into his lap. Jin Ling sntaches a chunk of diced cantaloupe avoiding his gaze.

“Yes.” Jin Ling answered before changing the topic to Sect Leader Yao mentioning something about Gusu making both Zizhen and his jiujiu rather heated at the man as the two of them started eating. Then Lan Jingyi told him about his day and how he wanted to start doing more evening training sessions which had Jin Ling beaming as well as agreeing. Jin Ling was talking about something to do with Yiling as he was munching on grapes. He felt that his husband was distracted enough that he reached down with his free hand to gently massage Jin Ling’s ankle in his lap, sending healing qi into the other.

The slight shudder of breath as Jin Ling continued on let Lan Jingyi know that, him healing Jin Ling hadn’t been missed and that his leg was in more pain than just being stiff. Oh so stubborn Lan Jingyi thought keeping his expression schooled. He was glad that he’d prepared tonight then. His husband needed tonight to heal and he was going to help him.

“I can undress myself you know? It’s my leg that’s wounded, not the rest of my body.” Jin Ling complained as he Lan Jingyi assisted him in getting undressed in their bathing room. After carefully removing the clarity bell and Jin Ling’s jade marriage token, Lan Jingyi had taken over stripping his husband of his robes. Lan Jingyi stepped behind him moving Jin Ling’s thick but soft brownish-black hair off to the side exposing his neck.

“You can but where is the fun in that?” Lan Jingyi replied as he pressed a kiss to the prominent freckle on the side of his neck as he reached around to untie the sash. His skilled hands slowly peeling the thin inner golden thread muslin robe off his shoulders. The fabric dropped to the floor easily.

Jin Ling huffed as Lan Jingyi peppered his neck and shoulder with feather light kisses. When he rolled his shoulder to get him to stop Lan Jingyi just laughed.

“Get in the bath.” he instructed, giving Jin Ling a slight nudge before stepping back. He needed to put some distance before he forgot all about his plan of relaxation for his husband. That earned him a scoff from the taller man. Having been left in his trousers, Jin Ling untied them letting them join the rest of the clothes on the floor. Then he got into the tub.

The water was still steaming and perfect for his aches. He could feel his muscles twitching as the pain was slowly fading. Jin Ling let out a moan of happiness leaning back against the edge of the tub getting comfortable. He closed his eyes only reopening them as he heard something being poured into the water.

Lan Jingyi was walking around the tub slowly pouring a pitcher of oils and herbs into the water. His mind supplying the purple figs being lavender mixed with the curls of orange peels. The mixture smells nice so he closed his eyes again just enjoying the moment. He doesn’t usually say it out loud but he loved these moments when Lan Jingyi takes care of him. It makes him feel loved.

Lan Jingyi set the pitcher aside once it was empty. He moved sitting on the steps leaning against the edge. Not caring about his sleeve, Lan Jingyi let his arm dip into the water since it was close to his injured leg. His fingertips barely touching the scarred leg. Jin Ling stirred feeling the transfer of qi followed by the other’s touch. He groaned happily feeling all the remaining pain leave. He shifted his legs sloshing the water a bit as Lan Jingyi took his arm out. Lan Jingyi folded his arm over the rim, propping his chin on top of his dry arm admiring his husband for a few moments.

“Where are you going?” Jin Ling asked catching Lan Jingyi’s wrist as he got up to let his husband enjoy the rest of his bath in peace.

“To grab you a fresh set of robes for bed.” Lan Jingyi said taking the hand that’d gripped his wrist into his other hand, raising it to press a kiss to his knuckles. “I’ll be right back.”

“Join me.” Jin Ling demanded, his expression flushed with a pout.

“Okay.” Lan jingyi chuckled, letting go of Jin Ling’s hand divest himself of his own robes. It didn’t take him long and under Jin Ling’s gaze he inwardly preened. Knowing that Jin Ling enjoyed his body. The blush Jin Ling was sporting had made its way down his neck splotching at his chest. Lan Jingyi always found it adorable that his husband still got like this.

Lan Jingyi got into the tub moving to sit behind him. He leaned forward placing a playful kiss on his shoulder as Jin Ling sat back against him. His head leaning on Lan Jingyi’s shoulder as he scooted down a bit so that he was more sprawled out. The waters warmth accompanied by the beating of the other’s heart against his back made him smile. He closed his eyes just enjoying the moment. No elders. No sect leaders. Just them.

“I love you.” Jin Ling whispered.

Lan Jingyi brought his hand up cupping Jin Ling’s cheek gently turning his head. Honey colored eyes fluttering open meeting his dark ones before he leaned in pressing a kiss soft kiss to his lips, letting his hand drop away. Jin Ling grinned returning to his comfortable position as Lan Jingyi pressed another kiss to the side of his head. The two of them just enjoying the warm bath and each other before the water started to turn cold.

#a love that is mine au #Jinyi #Lan Jingyi #Jin Ling #bath time fun #fluff #partner care #yes i made a-qing xue yang's sister #and yes a-qing and xue yang are having a happy life #though Xue Yang did still loose that finger #I hope you like it ♥

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drwcn · 3 years ago

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《Without Envy》 Storyboard 14

harem au. prince!lwj x concubine/sleeper agent!wwx Masterlist is here

After the brothel incident, WWX settles into a comfortable home life with LWJ now that Jin Ziyan is no longer a problem. Surprisingly Duke Jin Guangshan does not speak up for his nephew. In fact, he is secretly mad at Jin Ziyan for going against Wei Wuxian. Jin Guangshan is in league with Wen Ruohan and plots to betray Gusu. He knows Wei Wuxian is Wen Ruohan's man and does not wish Wei Wuxian to leave Hanguang Manor.

Without Jin Ziyan, Jiang Yanli is elevated into the rank of ce-wangfei (deputy consort) and given the right to manage the princely household. Everyone says if she gives birth to a boy then she will for sure become princess consort. Wei Wuxian is very happy for his foster sister, even though Lan Wangji feels guilty that the most likely scenario now is that he will only be permitted to install Wei Ying as his deputy consort if Jiang Yanli is princess consort, but Wei Ying laughs it off and says he genuinely does not care. He's a servant, being a deputy consort is already way above his station and way too much work.

Months later, Jiang Yanli gives birth to a healthy boy, which Lan Wangji names Lan Yuan.

— WWX bouncing baby A-Yuan: So cute, so chonky, so plump what a good boy, beautiful boy, perfect boy!! — JYL: 😊 Thank you A-Xian, I made him. Dianxia contributed, of course. — WWX: Zhangjie, I wanna make one too, if our dianxia is willing to contribute. — LWJ *straight faced*: I contribute daily. — JYL: ... 😅😅😅 okay there, that's enough information. ~~~ — WWX rocking A-Yuan in his crib: *sighs* — LWJ looking over WWX's shoulder, terribly pleased with yet another successfully made baby (internally: *damn I make them perfect*): What's wrong? — WWX stroking a-yuan's chubby cheek with one finger: How come you can't put a baby in me, Lan Zhan? — LWJ: .............. *srsly wondering did no one teach this shameless little bottom the birds and the bees, but decides to hell with it, and grabs him around the middle, already working at loosing his belt* I have three sons, but I'm still short of daughters, perhaps Wei Ying would like to share the burden? — WWX: Promise? ;) XY somewhere yonder * my wwx's bs sensors are tingling*

In the interim, Wei Wuxian discovers information about Yiling City's defenses through Lan Wangji and steals it for Wen Ruohan. This information is delivered via Xue Yang. Yiling has been a city of contention between Gusu and Qishan for many generations. In the last dispute, Gusu had won Yiling from Qishan, which they now want to retake.

At the same time, Lan Qiren quietly conducts his own investigation into Wei Wuxian since becoming suspicious of him after the brothel incident. The pastry shop which has been a front for Wen spies is called into question. The store owner is arrested; Xue Yang disappears, and Wei Wuxian is summoned into the palace for questioning. Lan Wangji does not understand why Wei Ying would be summoned so suddenly for questioning when things have been smooth for many months now.

Wei Wuxian is on his way to Lan Qiren when suddenly, urgent missive from the borderland is delivered into the palace and causes great upset. Wen Ruohan has finally launched his attack. His campaign comes without warning and is brutal and swift. Within half a day, the city of Yiling is ransacked and occupied. No longer the most pressing matter, Wei Ying is sent back to Hanguang-fu without interrogation. On his way back to the princely manor, he sees out the carriage window that the pastry shop he frequents has been seized and closed by the magistrate. He realizes immediately that his cover is at risk and that Lan Qiren may have summoned him to the palace for interrogation. Such being the case, it must mean they don't have enough proof. Still, his position has become precarious.

Wei Wuxian by now understands that he alone had given Wen Ruohan the means to overtake Yiling so quickly and therefore responsible for the hundreds and thousands of deaths that happened. At the entrance of the manor, Wei Wuxian is stopped by the sight of a beggar huddled by the side of the road. The beggar is disheveled but is wearing a ragged hat that has an almost unnoticeable plum blossom stitched along the edge. Pretending to offer the beggar money, Wei Wuxian crouches by the man, allowing a secret message to be passed between them. The beggar thanks him for his generosity and limps off into the busy streets of the capital. The missive contains very specific instructions that chill Wei Wuxian to the bone: your old reporting station is discovered, end all communications; the war is nigh; terminate Lan Wangji posthaste and return to Nevernight.

WWX returns to Hanguang-fu feeling numb, only to find that Lan Wangji has entered the palace after being summoned urgently. The rest of the manor is confused as to what could be the reason since they were not told what has happened. Wei Wuxian realizes that news of the war has not been publicized and does not reveal what he knows to others in the harem. He asks Jiang Yanli to help him prepare dinner for Lan Wangji when he returns, as he will likely to be hungry, and that Wei Wuxian himself would like to prepare most of the meal.

Wei Wuxian knows that in a head on fight, Lan Wangji and himself are evenly matched. To kill him, he needs to catch Lan Wangji off guard. The food is laced with a mild sedative that will put Lan Wangji to sleep. After dark, Wei Wuxian will take his life.

Lan Wangji arrives home with the grave new of Qishan's attack. Everyone is shocked and horrified, including Wei Wuxian who puts on an admirable act. Understandably, Lan Wangji is more sullen than usual, and after plying him with some tea and congee, Wei Wuxian suggests that Lan Wangji rests for the night. Lan Wangji falls a sleep in his arms and Wei Wuxian makes up his mind:

I should kill him now, nice and swift, so he may never know how much I have lied to him. How much I will still betray him.

WWX holds his dagger over LWJ's throat and he just... Do it, you fucking coward! Kill him! ... can't.

All along, Xue Yang was right and Wei Wuxian has just been lying to himself.

- All jokes aside, shixiong, be careful. You're falling for your mark. - I am not falling for my mark. - Oh really? So it's all manipulation? You're not making sweet love to your darling prince every night?

As if taking Lan Wangji to bed was the start of his problem...Wei Wuxian had fallen for him long before that.

So, because there is no way out, Wei Wuxian gets up, puts on his black robes, picks up Suibian and leaves.

He can't complete his mission - he's failed Wen Ruohan. He can't stay to face his mistakes or correct the wrongs - he's betrayed Lan Wangji. He is both ashamed of himself for the destruction he's caused and frustrated that he doesn't have the guts to see it through. The night is dark and curfew has long since passed. The streets of the capital are empty and still, and he is a swift lonesome figure. Suddenly, he feels the wind shift behind him, and a voice calls out, "Leaving so soon?"

Wei Wuxian spins around, sword drawn.

"Lian... Lianfang-jun?"

Meng Yao stands before him dressed in a smart, narrowed-sleeved outfit, all pretenses from his day-time garbs gone. "We've been watching you for a while now, Wei Wuxian. You did not disappoint."

"We?"

"Heya."

Wei Wuxian turns back the other way and exclaims in utter disbelief: "Xue Yang?? You work for Gusu?!"

Xue Yang scoffs, "Bitch please, I don't work for anyone. I was just sick and tired of Wen Ruohan's bullshit."

Meng Yao lays it out plainly for him. "For years now Wen Ruohan has been sending spies amongst our ranks. I've been steadily investigating and keeping tracks. If we are to uproot them, we must be thorough. I discovered your identities some times ago, but I kept quiet. Xue Yang may be a rat bastard " - hey! - "but you, you're different."

Wei Wuxian stands his ground. "You're right. I am different. I am not Xue Yang, and I won't work for Gusu. Qishan took me in and raised me. I owe Wen Ruohan my life. If you won't let me leave, you'll have to let me die."

Meng Yao chuckles, "Yes, Qishan did take you in. But do you remember Dafan Mountain, Wei Wuxian? It's greenery, its waters, its people?"

Wei Wuxian frowns. "What of it?"

Meng Yao tsks, "What? The honourable man forgetting who truly saved his life?"

"He was a child," a third voice joins in. "It's not strange that he does not remember."

And from the shadows comes forth a figure shrouded in a heavy cloak. The voice belies a woman, and as she turns, the light of the moon casts serendipitously onto her stoic face. It is not a face that Wei Wuxian immediately recognizes, but those eyes, always too serious for her delicate features… he remembers those eyes.

"Wen Qing…"

~~~

It turns out Wei Wuxian has been under suspicion for longer than he ever anticipated, and it turns out Meng Yao is more of a mastermind than anyone ever gave him credit for. He has his motives, and Wen Qing has her own. She is her father's ambassador to Gusu and together the goal is to dispose of Wen Ruohan and instigate peaceful reign under Wen Qing's father. Even Xue Yang jumps in at some point, casually throwing out: c'mon, shixiong, even you have to admit, Wen Ruohan is crazy.

Shut up Xue Yang, as you if you can talk. How many people have you killed? Does your daozhang know?

Xiao Xingchen has nothing to do with this and you will keep him out of it!

Wei Wuxian, "I will help stop the war, but you have to promise me, you won't take Wen Ruohan's life. I owe him everything I am today."

Wen Qing, "He is my family. My father will treat him with kindness. There are more people in court against this war than you know. Wen Ruohan holds all the military power, so few dare to speak against him. However, once it is clear that his victory is not assured, it will be easier to call his fitness to rule into question."

Wei Wuxian clutches Suibian anxiously. "What will you have me do?"

Meng Yao gives him a half smile, wary. "I’m afraid you're not going to like my answer. Come with me."

Meng Yao leads Wei Wuxian to a secluded residence. It looks like a normal city home. There is candlelight still burning despite the late hours.

Wei Wuxian enters it trepidatiously, wondering if Meng Yao is leading him into a trap.

"Jiang-shushu?! Taishi?!"

Inside, Jiang Fengmian and Lan Qiren sit together sipping on midnight tea.

Lan Qiren nods at Meng Yao approvingly. "A-Yao."

Meng Yao bows, "Huangshu."

Wei Wuxian falls to his knees. "Jiang-shushu, I swear I never thought to harm the Jiang family -"

Jiang Fengmian sighs, "All of that is inconsequential now. What is important is the actions you take to correct your mistakes."

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "I will not kill Wen Ruohan."

"And we're not asking you to. We do, however, need a man closest to him." Lan Qiren interjects. "A-Yao has spies but none of them have been able to get to the nucleus of his power."

Wei Wuxian's stomach drops. No... "You want me to spy for you?"

"Well it is what you're trained for, isn't it? You're rather good at it." Meng Yao tilts his head.

"Wen Ruohan will never believe me if I just return to QIshan like this."

"No naturally not. Your 'cover' will be revealed. Tomorrow, I will lead soldiers to Hanguang-fu for your arrest. You'll fight your way out. Those men will not know this is a ruse, they will give you a real fight, and in turn, you will kill anyone who stands in your way."

Wei Wuxian hesitates. "Those are Gusu's men, Gusu's soldiers. You would..."

"I would." Meng Yao's voice is hard. "Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Their families will be cared for and generously compensated, but their sacrifice will allow all of Gusu to survive. This is why when the war is over, you must disappear. Wei Wuxian will cease to exist. Your actions today and from this day forth will leave no traces in the history books. No one shall ever know of Dafan Wen and Gusu's alliance. For there to be peace, Dafan-fanwang's claim to Qishan's throne must not be tainted by usurpation nor collusion with outside forces. Similarly, I do not want Xichen's rule to be besmirched by the things I am forced to do to protect his throne."

"So I'm just...the scapegoat?"

"Not if you disappear. Before Nevernight is seized, I will send you a warning, and you must extract yourself from the city in a timely manner. If you do not, you will certainly be executed for your crimes."

Wei Wuxian sits back onto his heels, like a thousand stones in his heart weighing him down. "And... Lan Zhan?"

Lan Qiren twitches at his nephew's name.

But Meng Yao's sharp, fox-like eyes soften incrementally. "For this plan to work, the less people that know of your real mission the better. Eventually... I will tell him the truth, but to tell him the truth would be the whole truth."

"I understand. I never expected him to forgive me anyway."

Wei Wuxian returns to Hangung-fu and get back in bed to an obliviously drugged Lan Wangji. He holds him tight, kisses his hair, and cries the rest of the night.

The next day, right at the scheduled time, Wei Wuxian is sitting in the garden with Lan Wangji, Jiang Yanli and A-Yuan when the officers of the magistrate and the imperial guards come to arrest Wei Wuxian. [Detailed snippet here]

Wei Wuxian wounds and kills many of the officers and imperial guards and flees from Hanguang-fu with Lan Wangji hot on his tail. As planned, Wei Wuxian fires an arrow which directly hits Lan Wangji in the chest, throwing him off his horse. It is not a lethal wound, but looks hella nasty.

At the same time, Jiang Fengmian informs his son Jiang Cheng that "Wei Wuxian is a Qishan spy." Furious and hurt Jiang Cheng joins in the chase party. This all culminates in a show down where Wei Wuxian is seen "tossing" Jiang Cheng down the side of a cliff before escaping. A mangled corpse is found in Jiang Cheng's clothing and the young general is declared dead. The royal court sighs: it seems Wei Wuxian had deceived all of them, from the Jiangs who took him in, and to the prince who loved him. What an atrocious monster this Wei Wuxian is indeed.

"I don't believe it," confesses Jiang Yanli to Qin Su and Luo Qingyang as the three of them stand by Lan Wangji's sick bed.

Mianmian has taken to wearing armour on the daily now, since Lan Wangji has been incapacitated. Someone has to protect us, and I'm not leaving it to chance. Indeed her Jingyi and Qin Su's Kaisong are three years old, and A-Yuan no more than a month.

"Yanli, I know he and you had been close as brother and sister, but that Wei Wuxian was a spy! He did...heavens knows what he did, but look at our husband now. Dianxia would not be like so if it weren't for him." Qin Su tries to reason with her.

Jiang Yanli merely shakes her head. "Wangye is alive, that is enough proof for me."

Mianmian catches on quickly. "You mean..."

"I do. Spy or not, A-Xian loves our dianxia, because if he doesn't, that arrow would have been through the head."

Wei Wuxian returns to Qishan and his story is believed. Though his attempted assassination was unsuccess, Wen Ruohan does not punishment him due to the many successes his spying had helped Qishan to have. To test his loyalty however, Wen Ruohan requests Wei Wuxian "serve" him the way he "served" Lan Wangji [detailed snippet here]. Wei Wuxian, trained and hardened, plays his part to perfection. If initially it is meant to be a test, then perhaps the emperor of Qishan discovers some unexpected sadistic satisfaction through the process, for he keeps the young man in his bed for the rest of the night. The next morning, Wei Wuxian extracts himself from his new mark's slumbering form to call for some water and towels. A maid with a bowed head approaches him and whispers: "A-Qing greets Wei-gongzi. Is Chenqing well?"

Chenqing is Wei Wuxian's code name that Meng Yao has set up for him. Wei Wuxian realizes immediately that this A-Qing is one of Meng Yao's little spies. "Chenqing is well," Wei Wuxian whispers back. Then in a louder voice, he orders, "Prepare water and towels, bixia and myself require baths." A-Qing becomes Wei Wuxian's primary line of communication to Gusu.

Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng wakes up in an unfamiliar place and is greeted by Nie Huaisang - Jiang-xiong is awake! - Meng Yao, and to his utter shock a blind Nie Mingjue.

Meng Yao is only a little apologetic. "I suppose your father should have warned you, but we wanted the act to be believable, and frankly, Jiang-xiao-jiangjun, you are not an accomplished liar."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"What I'm talking about, Jiang-xiao-jiangjun, is we better catch you up to speed. Welcome to the Sunshot Campaign.

#the untamed #cql #wangxian #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #without envy #corie fics #cql ficlet #second last one!

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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how about song lan/jiang cheng and a happy ending, please? 💖 thank you for sharing all your amazing fics with us!

Untamed

As they travel towards the Unclean Realm, Xue Yang bound and carefully watched at all times, Xiao Xingchen naturally gravitated towards Wei Wuxian, sharing stories about the woman that had been Xiao Xingchen’s shijie and Wei Wuxian’s mother. Jiang Cheng, distinctly aware that if Cangse Sanren had not died that Wei Wuxian would be – at best – a familiar stranger, kept his distance from that discussion.

At first, he tried to distract himself with Nie Huaisang, but apparently Nie Huaisang had exceeded his quota for interacting with other people in a given day and wasn’t interested in anything other than a long nap in the carriage (Meng Yao, who had been recruited for use as a pillow, had shot him an apologetic look over his head), so Jiang Cheng had to find something else to do. If he wasn’t occupied, he felt useless, like he was intruding somewhere he oughtn’t be.

Somehow, he ended up walking alongside Song Lan.

“It’s an honor,” he said, feeling stupid and awkward. “Your name is – renowned, and your ambition to start a sect based on merit is very impressive.”

“On friendship,” Song Lan said, and Jiang Cheng blinked. “A sect based on friendship. Merit implies that you must have skills or talents that render you deserving of a place; the sect I dream of would have a home even for those whose only skill is in delighting others with their company.”

“That sounds nice,” Jiang Cheng said, feeling unwontedly wistful. Sometimes it felt like he spent his whole life trying to win enough merit, to demonstrate his value, to manage to justify having been born as his father’s son – trying, and failing, while all merit flowed naturally and effortlessly to Wei Wuxian.

He couldn’t even imagine a sect where that wasn’t necessary.

“You would be a good fit,” Song Lan said, and Jiang Cheng turned to him with wide eyes. “You care deeply for your friends.”

“I – I do,” Jiang Cheng said, stuttering over his speech. “I’d do anything for them.”

“Even if they didn’t do anything for you?”

“Why should they have to do anything for me?” Jiang Cheng asked, puzzled, and Song Lan nodded as if he’d said the right thing on the first try without straining, which might be the first time that had ever happened to him.

Suddenly feeling deeply moved, Jiang Cheng acted recklessly: he strode forward and turned to face Song Lan, stopping in his path and careful not to touch him – he would’ve just grabbed his arm if he were Wei Wuxian, but he’d noticed that Song Lan seemed to dislike too-close contact, even from Xiao Xingchen who was as close to him as a brother, and he didn’t want to offend.

“I’d like to be your friend,” he said, bold and brave the way a Jiang should be, and then promptly ruined it by coughing and looking down and muttering, “I mean, that is, if you want. No big deal.”

Song Lan looked at him thoughtfully. It made Jiang Cheng nervous, feeling like he was about to be rejected, but on the other hand it also felt kind of – nice, in some fashion, to know that there were other people in the world who had to think about what they were going to say, who didn’t have a ready answer for everything sitting on the tip of their tongues like Wei Wuxian always did.

“I would be honored to be your friend, Jiang Wanyin,” Song Lan said when he finally did speak, and then he smiled.

There are those that say that the smile of a solemn man was the most beautiful thing in the world, and after having seen it with his own eyes Jiang Cheng was inclined to agree.

A moment later, as if by unspoken agreement, they both turned and continued to walk along the road to Qinghe. They did not speak further on that subject, turning to others, but it was comfortable and evening the way almost nothing in Jiang Cheng’s life was.

When they finally said farewell, he had no regrets.

Later, much later, when so much had happened that Jiang Cheng could no longer recognize himself and fate led them to meet once more, this time at the house in which Wen Qing was hiding them, Jiang Cheng chased after Song Lan again: he called out from his window after him just as he was about to set out.

“Jiang Wanyin?” Song Lan asked, coming forward to him with a frown. For some reason, his eyes seemed not quite right for his face even though Jiang Cheng couldn’t quite put his finger on why. “I thought you were still asleep.”

“Comatose, you mean,” Jiang Cheng said mirthlessly. “One of the needles got bumped, and I woke up a little earlier…are you all right? I didn’t hear much, but – you got injured?”

“My eyes,” Song Lan said, which accorded with what Jiang Cheng thought he’d heard. “They’re better now, though.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “I’m probably going to die,” he said, trying for a matter-of-fact tone but he was pretty sure that he mostly ending up sounding scared. “And even if I don’t, I’m – I’m not going to be able to – to do anything. For you. I’d be totally useless.”

Song Lan looked taken aback, and then visibly softened when he realized what Jiang Cheng meant. “I told you before,” he said. “It’s friendship, not merit. You don’t need to do anything at all.”

That in all likelihood, Song Lan would never found that sect of his went unspoken between them.

It was just the way of things. Like Jiang Cheng probably dying the second the Wen sect finally caught up with them and found him, useless and weak as he was, without the golden core that he’d worked so hard on all his life.

You couldn’t change things like that.

“Anyway, there are still Jiang sect disciples out there,” Song Lan said, and to Jiang Cheng’s surprise he offered his hand out to him. “You will gather them and reawaken your sect from the ashes.”

Jiang Cheng wet his lips. He wouldn’t, of course; he wouldn’t be able to, not without a golden core, without cultivation, without hope.

And yet…

He was useless. He should just die and be done with it, not linger around to act as a burden other people.

And yet –

Jiang Cheng reached out and clasped Song Lan’s hand with his own.

“If I don’t, I’ll come find you and join your sect,” he said, only half-joking. Who else would take him as he was now? “But if I do as you expect, gathering them up and re-establishing the Jiang sect…in that case, you come find me, all right?”

“Find you?” Song Lan asked, now truly surprised. “For what?”

“You said that friendship doesn’t have to be about merit,” Jiang Cheng said. “But just because it doesn’t have to be doesn’t mean you can’t bring merit into it. If you’re my friend, I’ll want to do things for you, if I can. If you can do something for me, then why can’t I do something for you?”

Song Lan thought about it.

“All right,” he said at last, and squeezed Jiang Cheng’s hand before letting go. “It’s a deal, my friend. Now lie back down and let me put the needle back into place for you. You need to rest.”

Jiang Cheng’s chest hurt – in a completely different way from his missing golden core and the scars from the whipping he’d received – and he nodded, retreating through the window.

“Don’t forget,” he said, lying down and letting Song Lan reach up to his forehead with the needle. “You have to let me help you, or else it’s not equal. All right?”

“I understand,” Song Lan said.

Maybe he did, because later still, when all the world had changed once again and Jiang Cheng wasn’t anything like the man he remembered himself being – after he’d gone up a mountain and come down renewed, had led an army and re-started his sect, had lost his martial brother and then his sister and then his martial brother a second time over, this time for good, and was helping raise his nephew during the half-year that he’d begged the Jin clan to allow him – after all that, Song Lan really did come to him.

“My friend,” Jiang Cheng said, clinging onto his arms a little too tightly. He’d almost forgotten that Song Lan existed in the wake of everything, had forgotten that there were still people out in the world who he called friend and who called him the same in return. “My friend, you’re here.”

“I said I would be,” Song Lan said, and hesitated. “I have a favor to ask. You said…”

“A favor? Anything. Well, within reason, of course.”

Song Lan nodded.

“I’m looking for Xiao Xingchen,” he said. “I thought I could find him on my own, but all this time has passed, and I still don’t know where to look. I thought – maybe –”

Jiang Cheng had power at his fingertips. He could order a search party – could order dozens – could set a bounty and have every cultivator and every common person in the whole of Yunmeng keeping their eyes wide open for someone of Xiao Xingchen’s distinctive description.

“Let me come with you to search,” he said instead. “Jin Ling goes back to Lanling next week, and I’ll be at loose ends for six months, bullying everyone in my sect with my temper. They’d be happy to the back of me for a while. We can pick up where you left off.”

Song Lan smiled at him.

It was as beautiful as it had ever been.

Jiang Cheng felt his chest grow tight – he’d thought once that it was hurt he was feeling, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t hurt at all – and he coughed, not sure how to verbalize all of his feelings or even if they would be welcome. Maybe one day.

“Well,” he said brightly, forcing his way through the embarrassment. “Where had you stopped searching? We’ll start there.”

“There was a mountain path,” Song Lan said. “The road sign said that the next place to stop was a place called Yi City.”

“Yi City,” Jiang Cheng said. “Hardly auspicious, but I don’t see why we can’t give it a shot. And with me by your side, if Xiao Xingchen is there or if someone who has seen him is – we’ll find him. See who’ll stop us!”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #song lan #my fic #my fics #watercolour-carnations

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spockandawe · 4 years ago

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So this morning, I tripped across this excellent post about Xue Yang and classism, and it shook something loose in my head. Specifically, it got me thinking about the idea of Xue Yang taking revenge for ‘only’ losing a finger. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say anything as directly dismissive as saying he only lost a finger, but I do think that is at least partially the way that Xue Yang takes the argument.

And I’ve thought a lot and said a lot of words about the way Xue Yang feels hurt and betrayed and frustrated as he tries to explain himself to someone, for once, and that person completely misses his point. And I’ve said words about how in the three years in Yi City, Xue Yang gets hooked on the quiet comfort of domesticity, even if he and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing are still, objectively, poor. But I’d never thought about this particular angle of their last argument before now.

This is going to be long, I can tell, so let’s throw a spoiler cut in here

Now, I do think it’s important that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say directly that it was only a finger. I think it would have been cruel of him to say that. But I also think that his upbringing and position in the world make him a bit… oblivious to the implications of Xue Yang’s story, and what he’s trying to communicate, and that leads to him saying some things that are more insensitive than he would have chosen to if he’d realized.

From a very early point, he knew that Xue Yang grew up without parents or money.

Unhurried, Xue Yang began, “Once upon a time, there was a child.”

“The child really liked eating sweet things. But because he had no parents or money, he could rarely eat them.”

And he was told how that child was exploited, and how hard he was beat up and used even before things reached the point where he lost a finger

[The huge, brawny man] took over the paper and looked at it, and he gave the child a slap so hard that his nose started bleeding. The man pulled the child’s hair and asked, ‘Who told you to take such a thing over?’”

[…]

“[seven-year-old Xue Yang] felt scared and pointed the direction. The man went to the liquor shop, carrying the child by pulling his hair.”

[…]

“The store was in a mess and the waiter was feeling quite cross. He slapped the child a few times, so hard that his ears were even buzzing, and chased him out the door. He crawled up and walked for a while.”

[…]

What do you think happened? Just a few more slaps and a few more kicks.”

(It’s interesting to me that he dodges even mentioning his hand being run over in this version of the story, but later goes into a lot of detail about his hand later with Xiao Xingchen, even though Xiao Xingchen has completely turned against him)

And, something that I hadn’t really noticed until I went to collect these quotes, is how Xiao Xingchen reacts to this story.

After Xiao XingChen tucked her, he walked a few steps, then asked, ��What happened afterward?”

Xue Yang, “Guess. There was no afterward. You didn’t continue telling your story either, did you?”

Xiao XingChen, “No matter what happened afterward, since right now your life is fairly adequate, there’s no need for you to dwell too much on the past.”

That’s… a very high-minded approach to take, where I can see the good intentions, but I’m also kind of wincing at the accidental implications.

And then, to mix it up, let’s have some screencaps for the second half of the story, because these actors seriously knocked this scene out of the park

“The wheels of the cart milled over the child’s hand, one finger at a time. He was seven!”

And then another book quote, because it’s fascinating to me how directly he begs Xiao Xingchen to empathize with the child who was used so poorly and lost a finger in the process.

“Is it that, since the fingers weren’t yours, you guys were incapable of feeling the pain?! You guys didn’t know how horrifying screams sounded like out of your own mouths? Why didn’t you ask him why he decided to amuse himself with me without a single reason?!”

Only, right after he does this, Xiao Xingchen talks about how disproportionate Xue Yang’s revenge was. This really kills me, honestly, because this is the point where Xue Yang stops trying to appeal to him and explain himself, and takes a sharp turn towards losing control over his emotions instead.

Xiao XingChen spoke as though he couldn’t believe Xue Yang’s words, “Chang Ci’An broke one of your fingers in the past. If you sought revenge, you could’ve simply broken one of his fingers as well. If you really took the matter to heart, you could’ve broken two, or even all ten! Even if you had cut off an entire arm of his, things wouldn’t have been like this. Why did you have to kill his entire clan? Don’t tell me that a single finger of yours was equal to more than fifty human lives!”

I always just accepted that this was enough to hurt Xue Yang that much. But also… Xiao Xingchen knows that Xue Yang was a poor, parentless child, and he’s heard about how this child was callously exploited and mistreated by three separate adults. And there’s a couple class-related details in here that I want to touch on.

One, Xue Yang was again, a poor, parentless child, and I imagine he was living on the streets in a situation like that. Chang Ci’an broke (amputated) one of his fingers. And ran over the whole rest of his hand, which I have to imagine did other significant damage. Okay, so he wrecked this seven-year-old child’s hand. Now…. how much did this child have? What did he have besides his body? Did he even have a home to retreat to and recover? Because I have to imagine he didn’t. He didn’t have money for medical treatment, it’s not even clear if he knew anyone he could go to for basic medical help. Let’s not even talk about setting the bones in a shattered hand, did he even have access to anything to prevent infection? If he had any means of making a living (at age, again, seven), it would almost have had to be either begging or stealing. Having one ruined hand would have done awful things to this parentless child’s ability to survive. He made it through, clearly, but god.

And Xiao Xingchen isn’t approaching this from a position like most of our main characters, who grew up wealthy and privileged. He’s not approaching this in a way like how Jiang Cheng scolded Wei Wuxian for breaking his arm, because he had to get it all plastered up and spend weeks recovering, and that was super inconvenient. Xiao Xingchen was never wealthy, and he grew up as a feral mountain child with Baoshan Sanren. But that means that he wasn’t subject to the same social forces as a city child like Xue Yang. Even if he was injured as a child, even if he was badly injured, it wasn’t probably an act of cruelty or callousness on the part of an adult. And if he was injured, he might not have had access to formally trained doctors, but he had a teacher who was highly trained spiritually, and who would at least care for him.

In a way, I think that makes it all hurt… more for Xue Yang. Because Xiao Xingchen isn’t gentry, he never was affiliated with the great cultivation sects, and he and Xue Yang and A-Qing have been living together in a city in fairly poor circumstances for three years now. But Xiao Xingchen is an adult, and one who’s used to making his own way in the world. He has no personal understanding of what it’s like to be a powerless child in similar circumstances, without anyone. And in this moment, he’s not able to understand how awful and how serious this was for a child like Xue Yang to experience.

Like, compare and contrast. When the Wens are starting to move against Lotus Pier, there’s half a moment where Wei Wuxian makes his peace with losing a hand. He’s like ‘yeah, that sucks, but i’ll deal. i’ll just learn to fight with my other hand, whatever!’ But just imagine how serious that would have been before Jiang Fengmian found him. Without money, without a home, without anyone to care for you, without access to any real medical care, how dire an injury would that have been? Xue Yang might not have lost his hand altogether, but the cart ran over his whole hand, and hands are just full o’ bones. The consequences of that injury were significant.

And Xiao Xingchen’s initial reaction is ‘okay, so this wealthy cultivator broke your finger. why didn’t you just break his finger?’ and then he manages to escalate his way up to ‘idk, you could have even cut off his arm???’

In retrospect, it’s completely unsurprising to me that this is the moment where Xue Yang totally shuts down and starts asking why Xiao Xingchen even got involved, if he wasn’t capable of understanding.

“You shouldn’t have meddled in other people’s business. Right or wrong, kindness or hatred are not clearly distinguished, so how could an outsider possibly understand?”

“Your martial mentor, Baoshan Sanren, was indeed insightful. Why didn’t you listen to her and obediently cultivate in the mountain? If you couldn’t understand the human affairs and this world, then you shouldn’t have come!”

It makes me wonder what would have happened, if Xue Yang had leaned harder into what kind of suffering and hardship an injury like that meant for a street child, but considering how reluctant he was to share in the first place, I’m not exactly surprised he didn’t go there.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to me that when Xiao Xingchen calls Xue Yang ‘disgusting’, that’s when Xue Yang pivots into really trying to hurt him. I think it would hurt, coming from Xiao Xingchen, no matter what, but I have to wonder if he takes it extra hard in light of the way he’s just been trying to explain his history as a mistreated street child.

I’d been idly wondering if I was reading too far into this dynamic (not that that was going to stop me, but still, wondering :P), but this last addition to the conversation really caught my attention

“The people I hate the most are ones like you who say they’re righteous, who think they’re virtuous. Stupid, naive, dumb idiots like you who think the world’s better just because you did something good!”

And then I was like no, I’ve been right this whole time, haha :V

Xue Yang’s anger and hurt sense on a purely personal level, especially with the extra pain of trying to explain himself, for once, and Xiao Xingchen missing the point. But the extra frustration on behalf of his younger self makes so much additional sense.

Xue Yang likes Xiao Xingchen, he likes living with Xiao Xingchen, or he wouldn’t still be there three years after a chance encounter. It would be a whole other meta to source this claim, but it very much feels like there are things he admires about Xiao Xingchen, even if it’s kind of a condescending, indulgent fondness for his foolish, naive innocence instead of a straightforward admiration. Until it tips over here, and becomes personal.

And I think there were a lot of ways where he was prepared to disagree with Xiao Xingchen on a deep, fundamental level. They have very different values. But I don’t think he was prepared for Xiao Xingchen to be so oblivious to the class-based aspect of Xue Yang’s history. I don’t think Xiao Xingchen intended to be cruel, and I also think he had other significant things on his mind, but the seriousness of this incident doesn’t seem to occur to him. For someone with money, for someone with a skilled martial family, for even someone with a family, period, this would have been a traumatic experience, but one that could be dealt with. But then Xiao Xingchen equates the finger of this wealthy, purposefully cruel cultivator to the finger of a poor, parentless street child, and Xue Yang begins to lose control.

I already didn’t blame him for how upset he gets in this conversation, but now, even more than before, I find his reaction incredibly understandable. I mean, yes, their whole relationship is built on a foundation of sand, but he thought that he and Xiao Xingchen… supported each other, at least. They mattered to each other. And when Xiao Xingchen rejects him in the present, well, sure, that was going to happen if anyone was stupid enough to tell Xiao Xingchen the truth, that was understandable. But when Xiao Xingchen casually brushes aside the suffering of little innocent seven-year-old Xue Yang, that hurts Xue Yang more than he could have ever anticipated.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #xue yang #xiao xingchen #long post/#meta #xue yang: is it that since the fingers weren't yours you were incapable of feeling the pain?!#further speculation: xiao xingchen and lack of experience with *untreated* injuries #i really want to do something more with xue yang and bones that didn't heal right and an amputated finger that got infected #but heck if i know what

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captain-apostrophe · 3 years ago

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For @amaranthinelover, again - all I can say about this one is that I'm sorry? Yeah. I'm sorry.

(also on ao3, if you prefer to read there)

[M; XueXiao; bodyswap; canon divergence; description of a corpse; it's kinda gross]

- The Haunt -

At first, Xue Yang thought that the ritual had gone wrong and sucked the light from the room - everything was suddenly dark. He was good at what he did, he was a genius really, second only to one, but when you fucked with resentful energy you sometimes got interesting results.

But the light didn't return, and it occurred to Xue Yang after a few moments that actually the ritual had gone wrong and blinded him because it wasn't actually dark, he just couldn't see. He wasn't seeing black - he wasn't seeing at all.

It was only when he reached up to rub his eyes that he realised the ritual had gone wrong and put him into Xingchen's body.

He probed at the blindfold and then, when nothing actually hurt, pushed harder. Part of him expected pain but even when he yanked the cloth aside and explored the ruin beneath he didn't feel any; didn't feel much of anything at all, in fact, because his fingers - Xingchen's fingers - were clumsily insensitive. It was an affront, how graceless those hands were now. Still: he was not a fierce corpse, then, because those could feel pain. He guessed that this must be some kind of possession, instead.

There were other frustrations to discover as he took stock of the body he now inhabited: Xue Yang catalogued them with the same chaotic tenacity he approached all of his studies, exploring what grabbed his attention in the moment.

Xingchen's body was stiff all over (not in the fun way), limbs seeming to creak with every movement.

When he tried to stand up he immediately lost his balance, struggling to orient himself without sight.

Some areas of his skin felt too tight and others too loose, though Xue Yang was sure he'd been thorough about things like stopping Xingchen from swelling and keeping his skin from drying out.

A crawling sensation on his leg turned out, when he reached down to scratch at it, to be the literal crawling of maggots out of an unnoticed wound in the skin behind Xingchen's knee.

Xue Yang was angrier with each discovery. How had he fucked up so badly that he couldn't even keep Xingchen's body nice until he came back into it?

It was difficult to throw a tantrum in this body, when he couldn't see what he was doing and couldn't control it properly anyway, but he did his best: he grabbed whatever came to hand, flinging things at the walls, screaming in what came out as a broken wheeze from Xingchen's poor, slit throat.

His hands fell on something warm and pliant and Xue Yang froze, dropping ungracefully to his knees to explore and discovering that it was him.

Excitement immediately overrode his rage and he explored his own body with Xingchen's dead hands - at first like a scientist and then, since it couldn't be called a violation to feel up one's own body, touching it in ways he'd wished for a long time that Xingchen's hands would touch his body. Being on the driving side of that touch didn't do anything to diminish the thrill of it.

There was, he was forced at length to admit, only so much that he could learn from his habitation of Xingchen's corpse. He was frustrated all over again to realise that in his temper he'd thrown his talismans and ritual supplies away; it took him an agonisingly long time to gather them. It took longer again for him to meticulously prepare a new ritual space, working by memory as much as feel. He fought this body's lack of muscle memory for the characters he now had to draw without sight, guessing at what had gone wrong the first time, and...

Nothing.

Xue Yang wondered if there was enough of him still in his body for it to be grinning, or if it was even watching him at all.

#prompt fill #fic-iversary prompts #the untamed #xuexiao #dead guy warning #cap' writes

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spaceskam · 4 years ago

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pollute my body

Summary: Xue Yang learns what Xiao Xingchen likes and, through that, learns some things about himself.

Word Count: ~3k

Warnings: explicit sexual content, mild blood, biting, xue yang’s violent thoughts

ao3

In every way, Xue Yang could honestly say there was no one like Xiao Xingchen.

The man was irritatingly kind, blindly giving, foolishly trusting. It was almost too easy. No, it was too easy. It was too easy to make him smile, to make him laugh, to make him feel safe enough to kiss Xue Yang after a night hunt without knowing his damn name. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so fucking infuriating.

Xiao Xingchen, in all of his stupidity, didn’t stop smiling as he pulled Xue Yang along and into the small room he slept in. There was no bed, nothing but a mat on the floor. It was difficult for Xue Yang as he kissed him to not just gut him right then. As Xiao Xingchen’s nimble fingers touched his jaw, as his tongue parted his lips, as he led every action because Xue Yang had never done anything like this in his life and he knew it but he didn’t mind‒Xue Yang wanted to destroy him.

“Don’t,” Xue Yang said as those hands went to where his robes were held together with all intent to remove them. He grabbed Xiao Xingchen’s wrists to stop him and got what could only be described as a shy smile in response.

“Sorry,” he said, voice soft, “I won’t.”

“Won’t what?” he asked. Why the fuck was he asking?

“Touch you,” Xiao Xingchen offered, “If that isn’t what you want. I’m sure there are many cultivators who aren’t fond of it, especially when there was a war that scarred thousands.”

Xue Yang stared at him, his hands still gripping his wrists, and considered what it would feel like to snap them. Would that stop that growing feeling in his stomach, the one that felt like it was going to choke him from the inside if he didn’t do something? He hated that feeling. It always went away when someone else got hurt.

“But you do want to be touched, Daozhang?” Xue Yang said, “How impure of you.”

Xiao Xingchen had the audacity to turn a shade of red at that, looking to the side as if he still had eyes to avert. Xue Yang felt his jaw clench tighter as his grip on Xiao Xingchen’s wrist did the same. He didn’t say it hurt as much as he moved a bit closer, finally looking back at Xue Yang.

“Perhaps,” he said, warm and low, “I won’t touch you beneath your robes, but you are welcome to touch beneath mine. If you so wish. If not, I can take care of it myself.”

Take care of it myself.

And why was that more infuriating than everything leading up to it?

Xue Yang didn’t have any words to say to him other than calling him impure or selfish or something that maybe he could come up with if he had more time, but that feeling in his stomach hadn’t faded and he needed to do something. Something before he exploded and did something to himself when he should be doing something to others. They deserved it.

He released Xiao Xingchen’s hands in favor of grabbing his hips with the same amount of pressure. Xue Yang kissed him again as he kept a hold on his hips, pushing into him so far that his back arched. That tight feeling in his stomach nearly suffocated him as the man laughed. Laughed, for fuck’s sake.

“Did I say a fucking joke?” Xue Yang asked. Maybe he’d never kissed before, but it surely wasn’t a laughable offense. Gods, if Xiao Xingchen knew who he was, he wouldn’t be laughing at him as if he was‒

“No, no, that feels nice. I’m happy,” Xiao Xingchen told him‒quiet as if it would stop if he said it too loudly. Xue Yang stared at him. Happy.

There were an infinite amount of things Xue Yang could say to that, an infinite amount of ways to take that happiness and burn it. Imagine it, Daozhang, your greatest enemy making you happy. But he didn’t do any of it. It would be sweeter if he waited until after, wouldn’t it?

“Can I touch you here?” Xiao Xingchen asked, reaching up to touch his jaw once more. Xue Yang grabbed his waistband and all but tore it off, throwing it to the ground as an answer. “So yes?”

Xiao Xingchen was a pillar of righteousness and self-sacrificing to a fault. It was disgusting. And that made it all the more frustrating when Xue Yang pushed him against the wall and he smiled. Xue Yang thought about pushing harder, about pressing and pressing until the wall cracked and accepted this body as a new part of the structure.

He didn’t.

Xue Yang’s lack of experience in this had nothing to do with lack of opportunity. People had been interested and he had always been more interested in threatening them. Kissing and touching had always seemed tedious and boring, but it being Xiao Xingchen made it worth it. If he knew who he was allowing to do this to him, he’d hate it. It would make it so much better when he found out.

His hands pushed away the top layer of Xiao Xingchen’s robes, leaving him in nothing but a similarly pristine white shirt and pants. He dipped into the overlap of the shirt, his fingers grazing his chest. That feeling in Xue Yang’s stomach twisted impossibly and he let out a tense breath of frustration.

“My friend,” Xiao Xingchen said, catching his breath as he pulled away, “Come.”

It was surprisingly easy for Xiao Xingchen to move from the wall‒hadn’t Xue Yang been putting more pressure than that? He took his hand and led him to the mat in the middle of the room. Xiao Xingchen was too aware of his surroundings and too obscene looking in nothing but a loose shirt and pants for Xue Yang to make sense of it. That need to break him still hadn’t faded, even as he sat on the mat and ushered Xue Yang to sit with him. They sat cross-legged, knees touching.

“So, what are you trying to make me do?” Xue Yang asked. Xiao Xingchen smiled politely.

“I don’t want to make you do anything,” he said. Xue Yang’s eyes followed his hands as he moved his hair off his shoulders and then carefully reached up to remove his hairpiece. His hair fell in a genuinely unrealistic fashion. Then he moved to brush his shirt off his shoulder, exposing a wide expanse of flawless skin. How was he so flawless? Where were his scars? “But I would like it if you kissed me here.”

Xue Yang’s nails dug into his knees beneath his robes as he stared at his skin. So he was being invited to make it less flawless. Never had he been asked to do that. Well, he’d definitely been asked to do destruction, but never like this.

Xiao Xingchen’s hand slid to the back of his head as Xue Yang leaned forward to kiss him where he asked. The knot of tension Xue Yang's stomach got impossibly tight which made him feel unnecessarily frustrated and angry. He didn't know why. Xiao Xingchen was bent to his will, completely ignorant of what he was welcoming Xue Yang to do to him.

Then again, maybe that's what pissed him off.

But that anger overwhelmed him and he had only a handful of ways to get it out. Instinct overrode him and he sunk his teeth into Xiao Xingchen's shoulder, hard enough that he felt the small pop of punctured skin. His stomach got a little less tense, but Xiao Xingchen didn't even flinch.

"My friend," he said softly. Not out of fear or pain or even pleasure, it was simply a way to get his attention. His voice was warm and familiar and he wasn't angry. The tension that Xue Yang just got rid of came back in full force.

"What?" Xue Yang asked, snapping just a little bit. Xiao Xingchen's hand, that stupidly agile and nimble hand that had no business being on a cultivator, dragged up Xue Yang's arm slowly. It crossed over his shoulder and went to his chin.

One hand on the back of his head, one hand on his chin. It was too much contact. Xue Yang again thought about snapping his wrist, but the hand on the back of his head dropped before he could. It was almost too much to consider that maybe he could tell he didn’t like that.

Xiao Xingchen tilted his head just a bit to the side nonetheless and leaned forward. Xue Yang focused on the blood that he'd drawn on his shoulder as Xiao Xingchen kissed his neck softly. Then his teeth grazed his skin with a little bit of pressure, but not nearly the way Xue Yang had done it. Yet, somehow, it was much more of a mindfuck. His eyes slipped closed as Xiao Xingchen's warm tongue pressed against Xue Yang's neck, soothing away pain that'd never come. He felt like he was going to choke.

"Like that, please," Xiao Xingchen requested.

"What, you don't like it rough?" Xue Yang asked, trying to keep firmly in control. Xiao Xingchen gave that little smile though and moved until they were nose to nose.

“Not quite,” he said. Xue Yang rolled his shoulders back and let his eyes go back to the blood on his shoulder. He hadn’t even flinched. Where was the satisfaction in any of this? “But I can show you how I like it.”

“Aren’t you meant to disregard your own desires and needs for everyone else’s?” Xue Yang asked, his tone not nearly as venomous as he intended, “Is that not a part of your cultivation methods, Daozhang? Purity and selflessness?”

Xiao Xingchen took a deep breath and his thumb moved from Xue Yang’s chin to his bottom lip. His other hand stayed firmly in his lap, politely not touching Xue Yang more than he was okay with. How fucking cute.

“My friend,” Xiao Xingchen said again, “May I be selfish with you?”

“What?”

Xiao Xingchen adjusted himself so he was kneeling and he tilted his head, kissing him on his lips with his thumb remaining a barrier. Xue Yang dug his nails into his knees even tighter.

“You’re right,” he said quietly, “But there are always things that one would like to be selfish with. And I would like to be selfish with you.”

“What the fuck would that mean?” Xue Yang asked. His own voice was quieter than normal, less bite, a little dizzy at the grounding feeling of pressure on his bottom lip.

“It would mean,” Xiao Xingchen said slowly, his thumb moving just enough to graze over his lips entirely, “I want to feel these again when they’re swollen.”

Xue Yang grabbed his wrist and pulled away, surging up to kiss him again. Xiao Xingchen smiled and, when Xue Yang moved his hands to his knees to push him onto his back, he laughed. He moved down to his neck, dragging his teeth along the way until he got the bite mark on his shoulder. Xue Yang’s tongue cleaned the blood off his skin and Xiao Xingchen let out a shaky breath.

The taste on his tongue was something that made sense, something that let that feeling in his gut know he wasn’t going to die if he didn’t kill him. He could wait. He could. He had the self-control for that.

With self-control on one hand, it meant exploration on the other. Xue Yang didn’t like being touched in the way Xiao Xingchen very clearly did and that was something he wasn’t quite sure how to approach. He kissed his neck and again let his hand slide beneath fabric onto smooth skin. A bite to his neck, a thumb grazing his nipple, a leg between his thighs.

Xiao Xingchen moaned.

Xue Yang had to pause for a moment at the sound, his head trying to rewire to the new noise. Experimentally, he moved his thigh up a bit more intentionally between his legs and got another noise like the first one. Xiao Xingchen’s thighs tightened around Xue Yang’s and his hand moved to the back of his neck. He chased that noise, grinding his thigh harder between his legs and his tongue gliding from his collarbone to his jaw.

“Please,” Xiao Xingchen said. Please.

Many times in his life Xue Yang had had people moaning and pleading at his hand. Begging for him to let them go, moaning as the life slipped out of them, groaning as his blade cut through them. There were all sounds that his body tied to that release of tension, to that feeling of actually doing something to fix all the wrongs done to him first.

Never had he heard it quite like this.

Hearing Xiao Xingchen pleads beneath him because he wanted him there was something new. Hearing him moan because he was doing something good was also very new. It was exhilarating in a way he’d never experienced in his life. Each sound tore at the tension in his gut, leaving him with nothing but a desire to hear more. Hearing him was more pleasurable than any sort of touching could ever be, Xue Yang decided.

Xue Yang moved down to get more of a reaction, his mouth replacing his hand and his hand replacing his leg. He’d torn open his shirt at this point which gave him access to kiss and suck and bite whenever he wanted, finding the most success when he grazed his teeth over his nipple.

When he cupped his hand over Xiao Xingchen’s cock over his pants, however, he got an even louder moan. Xue Yang had to lift his head for a moment, watching his head tilt back and his chest rise and fall as he touched him. He was completely unskilled and hadn’t even got his hands on his bare cock, and yet he still reacted this way. That felt like more control than he’d ever felt in his life.

Xue Yang moved down a bit more, eyes still cast up to watch him as he dipped his hand beneath the fabric and grabbed him. Xiao Xingchen’s head tilted back and his mouth parted wide, a strangled moan exiting him in a similar way to the people Xue Yang had actually strangled. It was mesmerizing.

He moved his hand slowly, watching and basking in each little whimper and needy noise he got. A sea of yes and please decorated the noises. For a moment Xue Yang wondered if it would be even better if he said his name amongst them.

When Xue Yang really looked down for the first time, he noticed Xiao Xingchen had pinned his other hand behind his back while the main one continued to hold the back of his neck beneath his hair. He stared at it for a moment too long. Was it there for a reason? To keep him from touching himself? To keep himself from touching Xue Yang?

He tightened his grip on Xiao Xingchen’s cock as he thought about what the answer might be, but his mind was cleared again when he responded with a loud gasp. He made so much noise. Xue Yang found it was the most anything had ever made sense in his life.

It took no effort to go back to kiss his lips as he kept moving his hand a bit faster and faster with each desperate noise, feeling his way around the proper way to do it by listening and the way his hand felt on his neck. There was another reward in feeling Xiao Xingchen desperately trying to kiss back and struggling to do so. Because he felt good. Interesting.

Even more interesting when Xiao Xingchen gripped the back of his neck tighter than before and his body went entirely too tense. Xue Yang pulled back just enough to see his eyebrows knit closer together and his jaw drop as he came, a low moan of pure release exiting him without shame. He breathed heavily as Xue Yang started to slow down.

There was an unusual calmness in Xue Yang as he pulled his hand out of his pants and inspected it. This was another new change to an old familiar feeling‒bodily fluids on his hand. Like he did when it was blood, he licked it clean.

“Like candy?” Xiao Xingchen asked, smirking. Xue Yang found himself smiling, riding the easy and quiet feeling in his mind. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he wasn’t two steps away from either ripping out someone’s stomach or ripping out his own.

“You wish,” he said. Xiao Xingchen shifted a bit and the hand that had been pinned beneath him carefully grazed Xue Yang’s arm.

“Did you want me to do the same for you?”

“No.”

Xiao Xingchen touched his cheek instead. “Aren’t you‒”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Xue Yang, for what it was worth, searched for any trace of judgment that he could lash out at and found none. He didn’t swat Xiao Xingchen’s hand away either despite both of them being on his skin. It felt less overwhelming this time.

“Well, are you alright?” Xiao Xingchen asked, his thumb pressing into Xue Yang’s bottom lip.

Admittedly, he was a little hard and he felt warm, but he had no interest in being touched that way. The noises Xiao Xingchen had made because of him were more than satisfactory.

“You shouldn’t worry about me, Daozhang,” Xue Yang told him, “If you knew what I’ve done in my life, you’d never ask those words.”

“Yes, I would,” Xiao Xingchen said. There was a pause as he pulled Xue Yang down for another kiss, adding another stretch of time onto how long his mind would be so hazy. “So are you alright?”

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” Xue Yang asked, “I just listened to all the sounds you made and you expect me to have something to complain about? I mean, the floor is hard as shit. And I’m definitely not washing your clothes. And I’m sure your precious A-Qing is going to show up and be annoying any moment now, so I’ll complain then. Will that satisfy you, Daozhang?”

Xiao Xingchen’s smile had slowly grown with each word he said until he was laughing softly. Clearly, he got his answer.

“Yes, I’m very satisfied,” he said, “Lay with me for a moment, will you?”

Xue Yang blinked twice before he slowly laid his head down. Xiao Xingchen never stopped touching him.

And maybe that was okay.

#xuexiao #xuexiao fic #xue yang #xiao xingchen #the untamed #mdzs #my fic #i was going to post this for mdzsnet xxc birthday event but it ended up being more about xue yang #whoops #also posting on this blog because fuck it

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disastermages · 4 years ago

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this is chapter 14 of the au where Xiao Xingchen raises Wei Wuxian

Xiao Xingchen didn't know what he expected. Part of him had known that his grandmaster would be accompanying them to Gusu, but he still hadn't fully grasped it by the time they were leaving the inn, the six of them walking with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan at the head of the group with A-Qing walking between them, and Baoshan Sanren bringing up the rear.

Another, smaller part of him had expected his grandmaster to take charge like she had on the rare and special occasions that she brought him and Cangse along on her shorter journeys down the mountain, her back straight and her shoulders square as she led them through towns, showing them how to pass through without calling attention to themselves. She’d shown them the signs of disturbances, too, stopping whenever the opportunity struck to let them see examples as close as she dared let them get.

He and Cangse had been competitive when it came to identifying whether something was a haunting or a possession or just a simple monster. Their guessing games kept going until Baoshan Sanren announced that she’d had enough of their arguing, but they’d always picked them back up the second she stopped listening.

He doesn’t realize that he’s smiling until he feels Song Lan bump their shoulders together, “Is something funny?” The question comes quiet and soft, the smile on Song Lan’s face smaller than usual, though it still makes Xiao Xingchen’s breathing come easier.

“Just remembering something, that’s all.” Xiao Xingchen murmurs back, the tandem motion of the both of them swinging A-Qing over a mud puddle is muscle memory as she giggles. “My sister and I used to bicker whenever our grandmaster would take us off the mountain with her, it drove her to the point of using a silencing spell on us once.” Xiao Xingchen explains, his shoulders shaking slightly as Song Lan huffs out a laugh of his own, his smile starting to reach his eyes just a bit more.

The silencing spell incident had been one of their worst punishments, the two of them forced to follow along behind Baoshan Sanren silently until the spell lifted on its own. “Do you think she misses it? I think we could get A-Qing and A-Xian to bicker for a little while.” Song Lan teases and Xiao Xingchen snorts before he can stop himself, nearly dropping the horsetail whisk as he lifts his hand to cover his mouth.

“She might use the silencing spell on all of us if you aren’t careful.” Xiao Xingchen warns. Normally, Lan Wangji would’ve been exempt from any possible use of the silencing spell, but Xiao Xingchen had seen Baoshan Sanren pull him aside before they’d left this morning, her hands behind her back and her face strict. No matter how hard he tried, Xiao Xingchen hadn’t been able to make out what she was saying to him, though he’d seen Lan Wangji nod a few times.

He’d offered him a small, sympathetic smile when he and Baoshan Sanren had finished speaking, and if Lan Wangji had relaxed minutely, Xiao Xingchen didn’t call him out for it.

Silence never falls over them completely as they walk, Wei Ying’s chattering turning into comfortable background noise as he and Lan Wangji talk to each other and Xiao Xingchen tunes most of the conversation out, only stopping once to lift A-Qing onto his hip when she begins to look drowsy, Song Lan’s hand stroking over the back of her head softly as she buries her face in her father’s neck.

They’d woken up with her in their bed, wriggled in between the two of them, though neither of them could remember letting her in the night before, but the only thing they’d been able to do was smile at each other as they took turns trying to rouse her from her sleep.

It had felt suspiciously normal, and it still did, so normal that Xiao Xingchen can feel the change in the air on his skin, prickling like static and sending Shuanghua into a low hum in the back of his head. His grip on A-Qing tightens on instinct, his eyes squinting as he looks around them, Song Lan’s hand grabbing onto his sleeve as he does the same, bringing their group to a standstill on the road despite neither of them being able to identify any immediate threat.

“Uncle Xiao?” Wei Ying calls, and Xiao Xingchen turns his head towards his voice slightly, unable to turn his head completely, though he sees it out of the corner of his eye, the smile dropping further off his face as he begins to pry A-Qing away from his neck.

A group of fierce corpses were staggering towards them, their clothes ragged and their hair hanging in loose, messy strands around their faces. They’d gotten used to running into them over the last few weeks, following trails of them to see where Xue Yang had been and trying to guess where he was going, though usually, there were only one or two instead of the group of six or seven dragging their way towards them.

He doesn’t have to tell A-Qing to find a place to hide, though he still makes a point to stroke her cheek before he sends her off, watching as she ducks behind the trunk of one of the trees that line the road, smiling tightly and nodding as she peeks out from around it.

They find their positions, Song Lan pressing against his shoulder and Lan Wangji pressing against Wei Ying’s, Baoshan Sanren falling into step easily beside them, calling her sword out of her own qiankun pouch, though she doesn’t unsheathe it yet. Her eyes are hard, but the rest of her remains relaxed as she plants her feet.

“Corpses usually don’t group together like this,” Wei Ying points out, his voice low as they allow the corpses to come closer, their hands having long since turned into claws reaching out and pawing at them even though they were still a few yards away. “Do you think Xue Yang’s been through here?”

“It’s possible,” Song Lan answers, the frown on his face deepening at the thought, “unless he’s learned how to expand the range of the Yin Iron.” That still wouldn’t explain the sudden grouping, though Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say it, his own face going still as he draws Shuanghua out. Fierce corpses usually bumbled around on their own, wandering aimlessly until they stumbled over a living person, or worse, an entire family of living people.

“A-Ying,” Xiao Xingchen says, hearing his nephew draw Suibian without seeing it, “Uncle Song and I are going to try and scatter the group, can you and Lan Wangji handle the stragglers?” The corpses wouldn’t truly be dangerous unless he and Song Lan ended up surrounded on all sides, but the four of them had taken down enough of them to have a system worked out by now. “Grandmaster, could you-”

“I’ll go where I’m needed, Xingchen.” Baoshan Sanren decides, her face betraying nothing as she draws her own sword out, the blade shining as though it were brand new.

Without another word, Xiao Xingchen nods and he and Song Lan move forward, Fuxue and Shanghua moving in tandem with each other as the two of them work through the crowd, cutting down two of the corpses as they carve a path right down the middle of the corpses, splitting it in half and only barely seeing it as Wei Ying and Lan Wangji take on one half while Baoshan flits through and cuts down the other half on her own. The expression on her face borders on annoyance, rather than an actual challenge as her blade cuts through another corpse, sending it crumpling to the ground.

Spinning around, Xiao Xingchen catches one of the corpse’s arms as it reaches towards Song Lan, his free hand finding his husband as Shuanghua stabs through the corpse before he kicks it away. He doesn’t register that Song Lan has blocked another corpse from making contact with Xiao Xingchen until he’s forced to turn around again, Fuxue sending it sprawling backwards. It trips over a stone hidden in the grass and doesn’t get back up again as Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan press their backs together for just a moment before they both push forward, cutting down the rest of the corpses until none of them make an attempt to rise again, cracks over their flesh healing before their eyes.

Xiao Xingchen opens his mouth to speak, but before anything can come out, A-Qing is crashing into him and calling out for Song Lan and himself, her fingers winding tight into his robes as she looks behind her. “A-Qing?” Xiao Xingchen says, kneeling down quickly and then frowning again as two more corpses come stumbling out of the woods, their movements somehow clumsier than their predecessors.

“They’re acting as though they’ve been dead longer than the other ones.” Wei Ying points out, coming to stand beside his uncle, but holding out his hand for A-Qing and nudging her behind him when she takes it without a second thought. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t stop himself from moving to stand in front of the both of them as he stares ahead.

There were visible signs of decay on these corpses, their movements stiffer and parts of them beginning to wear and break away from the rest of their bodies. How long had these corpses wandered? How long ago were they risen from the dead to torment those who had probably been their neighbors? Xiao Xingchen is almost certain that he doesn’t want to hear the answer as he holds Shuanghua up in a defensive position. Fierce corpses usually didn’t reach this stage in their lifespan, they were usually cut down a few moments after they were risen, or they fell limp to the ground like puppets who’s strings had all been cut.

He means to let the corpses come to him before he takes Shuanghua to them, but Baoshan Sanren appears in front of them first, her blade slicing through both of the corpses cleanly and easily, their shrieks cutting off as the last of the forced life leaves them completely.

None of them move for a long moment, all six of them waiting to see if anymore corpses would come stumbling out after them, but when nothing comes and the static feeling on Xiao Xingchen’s skin fades, he turns and kneels down again and opens his arms for A-Qing, checking her for injuries as he rises.

“Not a scratch on her.” Baoshan Sanren says, her voice almost proud as she comes to stand over Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder. “A-Qing, it’s very important for a rogue cultivator to know when to ask for help, do you understand that?” Baoshan Sanren asks, her tone lapping into something that almost makes Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders relax with the familiarity of it.

“A-Die and Baba told me that before,” A-Qing answers, nodding her head seriously, “only Xian-gege forgets to ask sometimes.” Wei Ying makes a scandalized noise at that, reaching over and poking at his sister’s cheek despite the look Xiao Xingchen gives him.

At his side, Xiao Xingchen hears Song Lan snort, his fist covering up the smile on his face, though Xiao Xingchen makes no attempt to hide his own, shaking his head as he bumps A-Qing further up onto his hip.

A-Qing and Wei Ying didn’t even need their nudging to start bickering and teasing each other, but Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan had both known that.

The fire is burning low in front of her, but Baoshan Sanren only barely makes a move to stoke the flames, the sun would be coming up soon, and they would be moving on as quickly as they could, there’d be no point in keeping a fire going only to put it out again.

She’d sworn she’d never go back to Gusu, she’d told herself that she would never set foot in Cloud Recesses again, but she’d also promised herself that she would never forgive Lan Yi, hadn’t she? It had been the first of the promises she’d made to herself that she’d broken, her eyes suddenly feeling heavy as she stares into the embers. She doesn’t notice Wei Wuxian until he’s almost standing next to her, a twig cracking underneath his foot and drawing Baoshan Sanren out of her thoughts before she can follow the spiral any further.

“You’ve either stayed up far too late, or you’ve woken up very early, A-Xian.” She sighs, sitting up straighter as he watches her from a few feet away.

“A-Qing woke me up, she talks in her sleep sometimes.” Wei Wuxian says, the smile on his face doing absolutely nothing to cover up the lie he was telling.

It’s almost refreshing, he doesn’t look that much like Cangse when he tries to tell a lie. He might look like his father, but Baoshan Sanren couldn’t say that with any sort of confidence, she’d never met the man, it wasn’t her place to wonder what he might’ve looked like when he was telling a lie. “Are you going to stand there and watch me until sunrise, or are you going to ask me whatever question that’s brought you here?” She throws another handful of kindling onto the fire as she speaks, letting it catch and bring the fire back to life before she throws a few more sticks in.

Wei Wuxian takes it as an invitation to sit himself right next to her, tanned skin and dark eyes seeming to glow in the firelight. “Uncle Xiao told me that talking about Lan Yi was forbidden on the mountain.” Wei Wuxian starts, looking nervous, even as his grandmaster pokes at the fire in front of them. She wants to laugh, what did he expect her to do? Push the same rule onto him?

“We aren’t on the mountain,” Baoshan Sanren reminds him plainly, but then she stops, “but if we were, I might have you carry water down from the stream for the next week.” She means to tease him, and she hopes that it shows on her face. It had been one of Cangse’s least favorite chores, and maybe one day, she would tell Wei Wuxian that.

Whether or not he knows he’s being teased, Wei Wuxian still laughs and leans back on his hands, the smile on his face making some of the sternness she’d forced on her own to drop away. “I guess I just wanted to ask you why? Uncle Xiao said that you loved each other.”

“We did.” Baoshan Sanren answers and it feels too much like a confession, perfect posture relaxing as she closes her eyes for just a moment. “You and your Lan Wangji remind me of the two of us, in bits and pieces.” She hadn’t intended on telling him that, but the words are coming faster than she can stop them. “He seems dedicated to you, and you light up when you look at him.” When she looks over, her grandson is smiling to himself, his own hands on his knees, his fingers tapping against them restlessly.

“I didn’t expect her to notice me, my clan was the smallest one attending the lecture that year.” Baoshan Sanren laughs, shaking her head at the memory. She’d been enthralled with Lan Yi, from the way she wore her hair, to the cut of her robes around her body, to the way her hand held her sword.

“How did she notice you?”

“I sprained her cousin’s wrist while I was sparring with him. I didn’t always know my own strength back then, A-Xian.” Baoshan Sanren grins with the admission and they both laugh, “The boy’s father, her uncle, wanted me expelled from Cloud Recesses right then, but Lan Yi defended me, she told her father the truth about the sparring session and that I hadn’t done it on purpose.”

The memory comes back, shiny and new as though it had only happened a few days ago. Lan Yi had wedged herself between Baoshan Sanren and her uncle, her face furious. Baoshan Sanren might’ve loved her then, too. “I thought I had made things worse for her, her father had no sons and he’d already refused to name his brother’s son the sect heir, but she insisted on sitting with me while I had to copy all 1,500 of the Lan sect rules 600 times.”

Wei Wuxian’s face falls then, his eyebrows knitting together as he frowns, “There are 3,500 Lan sect rules, though.” For the first time in a long while, Baoshan Sanren laughs, her shoulders shaking and a smile pulling across her face as she looks away from him.

“There are things Lan Yi and I did that you’re too young to hear about.” She might tell him one day, though. She might tell him about the time she’d shared the wine she’d brought from home with Lan Yi and the two of them had ended up in a brothel in Caiyi Town wearing nothing but their under robes and shoes. Or about the time she’d nearly fallen off the cliffs near the waterfall, only because Lan Yi had kissed her suddenly and the tree they were leaning against had given under their combined weight.

“Your mother might’ve added onto the rules too, you know, I heard that she passed through Cloud Recesses at one point.” It wasn’t the complete truth, she’d heard the tale about her daughter shaving a main family member’s beard off, and a few more about her sending unwanted suitors packing with little warning besides her sword slid between their legs.

The smile comes back to Wei Wuxian’s face then, a touch more mischievous when he looks at her, “That’s what Uncle Song said, but Grandmaster Lan wouldn’t give me an answer when I asked him.”

“A serial rule breaker? In their upstanding lecture? A-Xian you should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting such a thing.” Baoshan Sanren teases, trying to pretend to lecture him, though she can’t keep a straight face, even if she tried.

The sky begins to turn pink and Baoshan Sanren sits back, looking just over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “I wish you and Lan Wangji better luck than Lan Yi and I had.” Baoshan Sanren says seriously, her eyes focused on the figure in bright blue as Lan Wangji emerges from his tent. “I think you may already have it.” She couldn’t be jealous of them, she wouldn’t, they’d managed to stay by each other’s sides this long, she was proud of them. Lan Wangji hadn’t even looked afraid when she’d pulled him to the side and made her expectations of him clear.

“She talked about you when I fell into her cave with Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says quickly, and Baoshan Sanren looks up at him with wide eyes, something in her chest already twisting, “she sounded like she missed you.” She wants to laugh again, he’s trying to comfort her in the same, well meaning, but clumsy way she’d seen him comfort A-Qing, the smile on her face turning rueful as she nods.

“She might.” She agrees, blinking the feeling away, “She might also know that I’m coming to tell her “I told you so” a hundred years after the fact.”

The last time Baoshan Sanren had been in Cloud Recesses, she’d been escorted to the gate by Lan Yi’s mother and a handful of senior disciples and ordered to never return. Lan Yi’s mother had blamed her for what had happened, and Baoshan Sanren had allowed it, rather than letting the woman blame herself or Lan Yi for it.

They still had another day’s travel before they reached the gates of Cloud Recesses, and Lan Yi’s mother could no longer bar her from entering, and Baoshan Sanren isn’t sure if she wishes she were able to or not.

Lan Wangji moves to the front of the group as they draw closer to Cloud Recesses, holding onto Wei Ying’s hand until he walks too far for either of them to keep it up, though when he does glance back at him, Lan Wangji gets a smile in return, his throat feeling suddenly thicker as they climb the steps.

He’d hoped they would have longer together before he would have to return, but they’d had two months without the watchful eyes of his uncle on them. Wei Ying’s uncles had allowed them to be alone together, something his uncle wouldn’t have even considered once he knew the extent of their involvement.

“Lan Zhan, are you alright?” Wei Ying’s voice is a whisper, sounding as though he were standing beside him, rather than walking between his grandmaster and younger sister behind him, though, when Lan Wangji turns his head slightly, he can see one of Wei Ying’s papermen perched on his shoulder, holding onto the strand of his forehead ribbon to stay in place.

If they’d been walking alone together, Lan Wangji might’ve taken the paperman into his hand, it would’ve been more stable, but for now, Lan Wangji can only sneak another look over his shoulder. “Fine,” he thinks in answer, eyes flicking to his shoulder again, if he wasn’t careful, Wei Ying’s paperman would wind its way into his hair again, “only wish we had more time together.”

“This isn’t goodbye, Lan Zhan, we still have to find Xue Yang and bring him back to Qishan.” Wei Ying reminds him, the paperman pulling at his ribbon impatiently now, the same way Wei Ying did when no one was looking at them, the silk wound between his fingers while they both pretended they didn’t know the meaning of what he was doing.

“Mn.” Lan Wangji answers out loud, inclining his head as they reach the top of the stairs and the two disciples guarding the gates bow to him quickly, his uncle and brother appearing at the other side of the gate as though they’d been summoned. Lan Wangji bows to both of them, ignoring the smile on his brother’s face when he rights himself. He has no intention of answering Xichen’s questions until they were locked away in the Hanshi, away from the possibility of their uncle’s lecture.

The six of them are admitted into Cloud Recesses quickly, his uncle’s mouth falling open when Baoshan Sanren is introduced, and Lan Wangji swears for a moment, he pales, though he says nothing about it. His uncle recovers quickly enough anyway, bowing deeply to her and Baoshan Sanren returns it, thanking Lan Qiren for hosting not only one, but two of her disciples in the past.

There’s a look of mischief that Lan Wangji recognizes all too quickly.

“You didn’t think to write to us about this?” Xichen teases, leaning into Lan Wangji’s space and Lan Wangji only blinks.

“Grandmaster Baoshan only joined us a week and a half ago, haven’t had time.” He says simply and his brother gives him a look before he smiles again, a chuckle coming from deep in his chest.

“I’ve missed you, Wangji, Uncle has too.” Lan Wangji knows his brother is speaking honestly, but all he can do is nod, glancing up to where his uncle is speaking with both of Wei Ying’s, their faces serious. “How is Young Master Wei?”

“Wei Ying is Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji answers proudly, turning to face his brother and almost buckling under the weight of his smile. He wouldn’t be able to escape without answering questions now.

Xichen doesn’t get the chance to ask any of his questions though, after a few more moments of talking, they’re all moving again, setting out towards the backhill, and Lan Wangji takes the chance to walk beside Wei Ying, his brother falling in step behind them after they leave Qing Sanren in the care of a senior disciple.

“A great bit of research has gone into understanding Ancestor Yi’s condition,” Xichen announces, walking to the front of their group and taking on the duty of disrupting the ward hiding the entrance of Lan Yi’s cave long enough for all of them to walk through single file, the paths below them still just as slick and icy as Lan Wangji remembered them to be. One hand goes to hold onto the cave wall and the other wraps around Wei Ying’s wrist, genuinely hoping to steady him in case he slipped.

The caves would have been difficult for Qing Sanren to navigate, as it stood, the paths were most likely never intended to hold all of them at once, stray rocks and icicles giving way as they make their way down. “We’ve found that speaking with her more frequently aids in keeping her tethered to this world, though, we haven’t found a way to reverse the effects of the Yin Iron quite yet.”

A guqin can be heard as they begin the last level of their descent, a chill settling through all five layers of Lan Wangji’s robes, his eyes lifting to the front of the group just in time to see Baoshan Sanren’s shoulders draw together tightly, her step faltering for just a moment, but not long enough to allow Wei Ying’s Uncle Xiao to run into her back.

Lan Wangji can only throw a quick, backwards glance to Wei Ying then, his hand tightening around his wrist as they press forward.

“Lan Yi.” Baoshan Sanren sighs to herself, her hands hanging limp at her sides as she watches Lan Yi’s fingers move over the strings of the guqin, a rabbit perched on either side of her and nibbling at her robes.

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t believed them, because she did, she wanted to, she’d wanted Lan Yi to be alive, but she’d been preparing for the worst. She’d been prepared to come down and find that the Yin Iron had eaten away at the last of her spiritual cognition.

Baoshan Sanren almost doesn’t feel the water seeping into her robes and boots as she takes a step into the pool. It should chill her to the bone, but she doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t feel anything until her splashing breaks Lan Yi’s concentration and she looks up, her hands still frozen in place over the strings of the guqin.

“A-Shan?” Lan Yi calls, looking as though she were the one seeing a ghost standing right in front of her. “A-Shan, are you here? Or have I fallen asleep again?”

“I’m here.” Baoshan Sanren answers too quickly, stopping in the middle of the pool as Lan Yi stands, gathering her robes in her hands and Baoshan Sanren’s heart stops. Those were the robes she’d worn into the cave the night it had happened, the bright cerulean had burned itself into Baoshan Sanren’s memory through the years. She hadn’t weighed the possibility of Lan Yi being trapped in those robes for the rest of her existence. “How have you been?” She hears herself ask, instead of saying anything useful, watching as the water just barely ripples as Lan Yi walks through it, though the chill doesn’t seem to touch her.

“I should be asking you that question.” Lan Yi laughs, though it sounds like a sob, “You’re the one who’s been wandering and taking disciples while I’ve been sitting in a cave.” There’s only a few inches left between them now, close enough that Baoshan Sanren could set her hand on Lan Yi’s hip and feel her underneath her hand if she allowed herself.

“My disciples are why I’m here.” Baoshan Sanren answers honestly, cold shooting up her arm and into her shoulder as Lan Yi’s hand wraps around her wrist, and Baoshan Sanren glances back, shaking her head as she watches Wei Wuxian wave awkwardly at the both of them, standing entirely too close to Lan Wangji for an unmarried couple in front of their families.

“I have to destroy the Yin Iron, A-Yi.” Baoshan Sanren says carefully, swallowing thickly when Lan Yi looks back at her, her eyes wide and her hand tightening around her wrist.

“You can’t.” She decides, shaking her head as a frown replaces the smile that had been on her face too quickly. “You can see what happened to me, A-Shan, the both of us can’t be trapped here.”

Baoshan Sanren is the one to reach for her now, shaking off the hand Lan Yi had wrapped around her wrist and putting both of hers on Lan Yi’s shoulders. “I’ve already done it once, A-Yi, I can do it again.”

“It’s true!” Wei Ying interrupts, his voice too loud against the cave walls as he steps away from Lan Wangji, though he doesn’t step into the water with them. “Grandmaster crushed one piece in her hand, she’s had time to recover without any side effects.”

Looking between the two of them, Lan Yi doesn’t look any more convinced than she had just a moment ago, clasping her hands in front of her instead of reaching up to touch Baoshan Sanren again. “I’m tethered to it, Baoshan, can you let me go in the same breath you’ll use to destroy it?” She isn’t asking to be cruel, Baoshan Sanren knows that, but it still sends an ice cold hand down her throat to grasp at her heart.

“There’s nothing else here that you can tether yourself to?” Baoshan Sanren asks, her eyes scanning through the cave, and only finding the guqin and the Yin Iron. She’d hoped to see Lan Yi’s sword somewhere in the cave, maybe buried in the ice, but the longer she thinks the more clearly she remembers seeing it carried out by senior disciples and handed over to Lan Yi’s mother as she wept.

Baoshan Sanren’s hands had been slapped away the second she’d reached to touch it.

“My guqin cannot hold my spirit, I’ve tried.” Lan Yi smiles sadly, her eyes looking wet when Baoshan Sanren manages to catch sight of them again. “Whatever holds my spirit must have some sort of importance, it can’t be something simply picked up off the ground, I’ve learned that much while I’ve been here.”

Stubborn silence fills the cave, and Baoshan notices for the first time that Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren had eased out of the cave some time ago, leaving the six of them to plan and agonize on their own. Baoshan Sanren almost envies them, being able to leave under the guise of giving them privacy.

“I have this,” Wei Wuxian offers, his voice much quieter as he pulls something out of his robes, a jade pendant held tightly in his hand, and Baoshan Sanren’s eyes flick back up to Lan Wangji. “Lan Zhan gave it to me before I left with Uncle Xiao and Uncle Song.” The two of them come closer to the edge of the pool then, and Wei Wuxian tosses the pendant to Baoshan Sanren, the catch made easy as Lan Yi’s hand finds hers again.

Looking at the piece of jade in her hand, Baoshan Sanren wonders if this had been the only thing Lan Wangji had given her grandson that day.

“Lan Yi? Will this be enough?” Baoshan Sanren holds the pendant out to her, watching as Lan Yi drags her fingers over the carving, her fingers twitching around her own.

“I believe so,” Lan Yi breathes, looking up at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji as though she expected the offer to be rescinded as quickly as it had come. “Young Master Wei is truly alright with this?” She asks, and Wei Wuxian smiles at the both of them.

“I can break down the ward if I need to get back in.” He says and Lan Wangji gives him a look that she swears she’s only given Lan Yi before.

Lan Yi takes the pendant into her own hand then, pressing it to her chest and squeezing her hand tightly. “A-Shan?” Lan Yi asks, leaving most of the question unsaid, and Baoshan Sanren allows herself to smile and nod.

Neither of them get another word out before the earth above them shakes, shouts echoing down to the lowest level of the cavern, and Xiao Xingchen, Song Zichen, Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji all move back towards the path they’d walked down.

“Xingchen?” Baoshan Sanren calls, the softness in her voice dropping away into the usual sternness she’d worked hard to keep.

“This is what it sounded like the last time we were under attack.” Lan Yi announces, her eyes staring up at the cave ceiling, as though she could see through it, distantly, they can hear voices calling out names, and Baoshan Sanren watches as the four of them make a move towards the entrance of the cave.

“Sect Leader Wen was correct,” Xiao Xingchen says, turning his head and looking at Lan Wangji, “Xue Yang has returned to Cloud Recesses.”

#the untamed #mdzs #mdzs fic #wangxian #songxiao #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song zichen #lan wangji #wei ying #lan zhan #song lan #baoshan sanren #a-qing #lan yi #as usual the ao3 link and links to the other parts will be in the reblog to my main #in light of recent events ive decided to use ao3 until a better alternative is found and when it is i will hop myself over there and move my #fics and stuff over there but until then ill keep using it and ill keep spreading awareness and pushing back against that specific policy

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silvysartfulness · 4 years ago

Note

Roadtrip ask/prompt inspired by the dinner one—what are their favorite foods? Xue Yang’s is obviously “anything sweet,” but what specifically? Do Xue Yang and Song Lan compete over who can make Xiao Xingchen’s favorite thing best?

Ohhh, this one's interesting! It's 5.30 in the morning, and my brain doesn't have spoons for drawing, but I can muse and headcanon at length! And maybe future drawings on the theme will happen at some point?

Starting with Xue Yang: we're told at one point in the book that he's eating glutinous rice dumpling in sweet rice wine while working for the Jin - and that's with all of Jinlintai's abundance of food to choose from, so I'd definitely guess that was a favourite!

Overall, I have a headcanon that while he can and will eat anything in a pinch (and has done so in the past) he's a determined gourmet. Like wearing fancy fine robes of silk, being able to eat whatever he wants is one of those (possibly subconscious) ways of demonstrating to himself and the world that he made it, he clawed his way up from his childhood on the streets, and now has the luxury of choice. So while sweet things are a favourite, there's also an appeal to variety.

In the Roadtrip, Song Lan observes him eat when they dine with the doctors in Tanzhou, noticing how he never eats the same thing twice in a row, constantly going for something new.

I have lots of very strong headcanons about Xue Yang and food, actually, what growing up as a hungry orphan on the streets did to him, planted a hunger in him that's never satisfied, not only for food, but for everything. He's always hungry, curious, greedy.

Putting the rest under cut, because this headcanon meta post is long...

I've hinted at that a few times in the Roadtrip, both literal and figurative hunger;

Watching him eat was an experience, swift chopsticks in his once-again gloved hand plucking pieces one by one into that smiling mouth, like he was nothing but hunger, something so thoroughly empty he would consume everything in sight and still never come close to satisfaction.

“I always did feel sorry for that poor wolf! He was just hungry. Most people can't imagine the things you'll do once you're hungry enough.”

”--he had to close his eyes, then, didn't want to, but if he kept watching, he would make a sound so obscenely hungry that Xiao Xingchen would no doubt flinch back, leave, maybe never come back--”

And from a future chapter;

“You can sit on your doorstep and toss crumbs to the unfortunate ones, like all the other good-hearted monks. Those already strong enough to fight and steal will lounge around gaping for a free meal, and those too weak to challenge them will still starve out of sight. But you'll stack up your three thousand good deeds in no time, achieving saintly immortality and feeling so very pleased with yourselves!”

And of course, there's the trauma of his hand, closely linked to food – it was the hunger for those candies/pastries that ended with him beaten, whipped and having his hand crushed/losing his finger, so there are complicated themes of that woven in there too. (We'll in fact poke that trigger just a bit in... about three chapters' time, I believe? ♥)

And don't get me started on how he always carries candy with him, no matter how dire his circumstances, so he never has to be without again! That's a textbook trauma response.

As for Xiao Xingchen, I will say that his favourite meal is rice, sliced lotus root and some kind of stew. This is what Xue Yang cooks for him while waiting for him to wake up after his suicide, and I can't imagine Xue Yang would serve him something he didn't like for that occasion.

Look at him set the table, the somewhat glazed 'this'll be fine, this'll be perfect' look on his face! A candle-lit dinner for two! Of course it'd be Xiao Xingchen's favourite food:

I also randomly headcanon him really liking spring rolls, because they come in such endless varieties and he just thinks they're fun. (I referenced that headcanon in an earlier comic I did). I have no scientific basis for this whatsoever, I just felt like it fit! XD

Overall, from what I’ve loosely researched, the Yi City area is near the modern town of Chongqing in Yunnan, and the food of this whole area is known to be extremely spicy, tons of chili in everything. It’s also extremely ethnically diverse, so you’ll find all sorts of food here you wouldn’t see anywhere else in China/the Untamed world.

We know Xue Yang wasn't overly fond of Wei Wuxian's cooking (I will admit, I love the commentary on it where he still poses as Xiao Xingchen in the book; Yet, after he had just one mouthful, the corners of his mouth started to twitch. He only stopped himself from spitting it out by tightly pursing his lips together. A moment later, he replied with respect, “Thank you.” “But, now that I think about it, if I had to eat this every single day, I’d rather die.”) so despite growing up in the general area, he's likely not a fan of too hot food?

I imagine getting used to the local spicy food could be a challenge for Xiao Xingchen, too, unless Baoshan Sanren’s mountain was somewhere in the region and had a similar cuisine..?

During the Yi City years, I headcanon them eating a lot of zha; pickled preserve, based on vegetables and occasionally meat and fish – relatively cheap ingredients that can last for months and be used in various dishes. We know they eat eggplant, potatoes and coriander (seen in the vegetable basket) as well as cabbages, apples and steamed dumplings (mentioned in the book).

Whether that particular food is their own choice or just a necessity in their life of relative poverty, though... who knows?

Finally Song Lan... he's tricky to get a hold of, since he's the one we see least of!

Currently in the story, being tongueless and dead, he has practically no sense of taste, so favourite food is a bit of a moot point. Perhaps he likes certain textures, in absence of taste? Perhaps he likes super spicy food that gives some semblance of flavour?

Before that though – we don't know a lot about life in Baixue (I haven't even been able to find out where it's located ;_;) but Song Lan is a stern and disciplined person, so I can see that he would be against gluttony and extravagances on principle, and take pleasure in relatively simple but well-made things (I can also see how he and Xue Yang will often clash on this particular matter...)

I loosely headcanon him as following a somewhat stricter Daoist doctrine when it comes to meat eating, where he abstains from once-living things, grain-based and processed food etc as much as possible. (I also headcanon that Xiao Xingchen's sect was a lot laxer on this, and that he, living in Yi City with two former street kids who would definitely want meat if there ever was a chance allowed himself to slip even further in that, compared to when he wandered with Song Lan.)

Again, I have no canon evidence to back that particular idea up, just headcanoning what I feel might fit the characters.

As for Xue Yang and Song Lan bitterly competing over who can cook the best food for Xiao Xingchen – absolutely. There would also likely be some confusion over that, since they both absolutely know what his favourite dish is - but it turns out to be two completely different things, sprung from the particular way of life he shared with either one of them. (This is where spring rolls come in handy! You can just vary the filling depending on person and end up with a shared meal that still suits everyone!)

So. As you can see I have Many Thoughts about Things. Maybe too many, at times. XD

Thank you so much for asking!

#untamed artfulness #the happy songxuexiao roadtrip story #asksilvy #nagisachan1

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kat8porgs · 4 years ago

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Tragic-3

I mean the PLAN was to work on my ‘WWX as the Jin’s pet necromancer’ fic but INSTEAD I wrote this set of three with one canon Sad Boy and two AU drabbles of the different ways the members of the Venerated Triad would react to the death of their brothers.

Lan Xichen mourned with silence.

Silence was the only truly acceptable way to mourn in Cloud Recesses. Loud noises were, after all, breaking the rules. Excessive shows of emotion broke the rules. Lying broke the rules. So, crying, screaming, rending one’s flesh… that was forbidden but so too was claiming that one was fine when one was obviously not.

Xichen was not fine.

He was not happy, or healthy, he was not capable of leading the sect. His Uncle might not have been happy to take over once again as acting sect leader but Wangji was there. The second jade of Lan was quite capable of becoming sect leader while Xichen was in seclusion.

He did not expect to break his seclusion any time soon.

He expected to die before he did.

Not that death would come fast. Lans in seclusion had lasted generations before death had come to them and the higher the cultivation the longer one may last. Xichen was not one to brag, that was forbidden, but his cultivation level was high enough he was positive that without a war breaking out and someone burning his cabin down he it might take two or three generations before death came for him.

It was why he had written the letter.

It was not a long letter (or, not a long letter at the moment, things could change) but it spelled out his wishes for his burial. Shouyou he asked to be placed in the armory, to be made available to any Lan disciples who were capable of wielding it. He asked to be buried with Liebing instead. He had no control over what was to happen in his next life but he hoped… if he was buried with a tool meant to bring peace he hoped not to be reborn into a world where he was forced to kill.

If Lan Xichen made it to 100 years, to the point when the coffin that contained his sworn brothers could be opened and their bodies moved…

As a former Sect leader it would be expected for him to be buried in the ancestral hall.

He requested he be buried alongside his sworn brothers.

He expected this request to be denied.

Nie Mingjue mourned with actions.

“Brother, you must calm down.” Huaisang at his side, his hand on Mingjue’s arm, on his sword arm. The weight of Huisang’s words and hand forced him to lower Baxia. There were no bodies this time, there had been no battle. The battles were meant to be done, to be finished.

“Sect Leader Nie.” Jin Guangshan speaks again, oily, assured. “What do you mean by threatening me this way?”

He still has trouble with the saber spirit, with remembering where he is. Sometimes the anger is too much and takes over. This… this was not one of those times.

“You killed my sworn brothers.”

There is tittering from the sides of the room, whispers, they are not important. What is important is the useless, slimy, conniving bastard in front of him.

Jin Guangshan does not laugh, it is all that saves him from being cut down right away. “Sect Leader Nie,” his voice only increases in sliminess, though he is attempting to sound reasonable, “Jin Guangyao killed himself.”

He does not call him ‘my son’ but at least he does not call him ‘that bastard son of a whore’.

Huaisang’s grip on his arm tightens and Mingjue’s hold on Baxia shakes. His sword shakes, hungry for more blood.

“He wrote a letter,” Huaisang’s voice cut through the whispers and forced them into quiet, “before he took his life, Sect Leader Jin.”

It is not often that his younger brother is serious, though he has seen it more and more often as they investigated the truth of Jin Guangyao… no, of Meng Yao’s letter. The letter had arrived addressed to Huaisang anyway, perhaps to circumvent whoever was watching for communication between the sworn brothers. After Xichen’s funeral Mingjue had little chance to talk with his youngest sworn brother, not that he had tried very hard.

He should have tried harder.

“A letter?” Nie Mingjue does not look over his shoulder to see what small sect leader is puffing himself up for attention, “You trust a letter from a man who clearly lost his senses? When did he even have a chance to write it? Everyone knows he was locked up to keep his madness behind closed doors.”

Madness, the whispers say, that lead him to take his own life.

That was true.

“I did not trust his letter.” Mingjue does not look away from Jin Guanshan, “I went to find proof.”

There it is. The tell. It had taken him years to figure out Jin Guanshan’s tell and in the end it was Meng Yao who had helped him do it. There is a twitch at the corner of his lips, a slight tick to the right before settles himself down.

This, he thinks, this pitiful excuse for a man, this terrible father, this… Lan Xichen was killed for this.

Huaisang pulls open his spirit pouch and tossed an object to Guangshan. By instinct the man catches it and then drops it almost as quick. A four fingered hand, the false finger held in the glove only loosely attached to the wrist, fell onto the floor before his seat.

“What…” half the cultivators in the room rose to answer the insult, “what is this?”

Guangshan swallows hard.

“Xue Yang’s hand.” Xue Yang, the man who had murdered Xichen under Jin Guangshan’s orders, who had been given the means through Meng Yao’s unwitting tutelage.

Who was now cooling his heels in Nie Mingjue’s dungeons where he would stay until he died.

Huaisang let go of Mingjue’s arm and he raises Baxia once more. “You killed my sworn brothers and for that, you must die.”

It does not take long.

Jin Guangyao mourned with words.

“I’m sorry.” He strokes the side of Lan Xichen’s beautiful face while the fierce corpse that was Nie Mingjue struggled against his bindings. Each touch brought on a fresh thrashing and a fresh wave of vitriol, muffled by a thick gag. He has sent Xue Yang away for now, Xichen’s corpse is a weakness he does not want the other man to control.

He turns to look at Nie Mingjue with a sigh. “Da-ge, did you really have to be so strong? I thought for sure the music would have weakened you enough.” He pulled himself up to sit on the table by Xichen, slid his arm down the other man’s bare arm to grasp his hand.

Xichen had such beautiful hands, such long fingers.

“I’m sorry you killed him,” he says to the corpse, who quiets down and glares at him, who promises murder with his eyes, “he wasn’t supposed to be there.”

He had sent Xichen away before the confrontation had happened, Xichen had been meant to stay away. Nie Mingjue had either been louder than expected or Xichen had been closer. Or perhaps Xichen had just wanted to see what was taking Jin Guangyao so long.

“It was a beautiful fight,” everything Lan Xichen did was beautiful, his martial arts especially so, “but he would never have killed you.”

And so Nie Mingjue had killed him, his sword had sliced Lan Xichen in two.

The wound on his corpse was ugly and red, stitched together with thick black string. Looking at it makes Jin Guangyao unreasonably upset. He has certainly seen uglier wounds, on living men and living corpses, but they were not Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen whose skin is otherwise flawless, even his callouses are aesthetically pleasing.

“I’m going to call Xue Yang in now,” he says to Nie Mingjue when the shackles holding him to the table creak with the strength of his pulls, “he loves a challenge.”

He needs to decide what to do with Lan Xichen, it was foolish to steal his corpse away, sentimental. He would make for a powerful fierce corpse, of course, but…

Perhaps he will bury him with his mother.

He has time to decide.

#drabble #mzds #3zun #it's not REALLY shippy #though Meng Yao gets kind of weird about Xichen's corpse

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curiosity-killed · 4 years ago

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a bow for the bad decisions: 27

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(on ao3)

The week before the Carp Tower Conference, they’re awoken by the thudding of running steps down the walkway. Jiang Cheng reaches for Sandu even as he squints, bleary-eyed, at the dawn light slipping through the walls. “Jiang-zongzhu! Jiang-zongzhu, it’s urgent,” a voice calls through the door. He’s too sleep-addled to recognize the disciple immediately, but the urgency is clear in any case. Wen Qing pushes herself up to frown as he clambers out of bed and throws on the first outer robe he can find. Cramming his feet into his shoes, he tugs his hair up haphazardly and crosses the room. “What is it?” he demands, sliding open the door. Gao Xiyang has the good sense not to look too startled by his sect leader’s appearance, but that might be because of the genuine alarm in his expression. “It’s Jin-furen, zongzhu,” he says. “She’s come with Jin-xiao-furen and Jin Xue.”

“Yanli is here? With Qin Su and the baby?” Wen Qing has come up behind him, one hand resting over his shoulder blade. He glances over to find her dressed with her hair pulled into a loose bun, a worried frown creasing her brows. “Yes, Jiang-furen, that is correct,” Xiyang says, bowing to both of them. “San-shidi took them to Sword Hall.” Unease is a physical thing, the first nauseous tendrils preceding true fear, as they walk down to the main receiving hall. None of them speak; when he looks over, Wen Qing’s expression is a tight weave of concern and confusion. On impulse, he reaches out and gives her hand a gentle squeeze. She looks to him only briefly, but some of the tension eases around her eyes. When they arrive in Sword Hall, his unease spreads. Jie looks harried, expression strained and hair slipping out of her usual style. Her expensive Jin robes have been traded for traveling clothes, and mud spatters the hem. Beside her, Qin Su looks like nothing so much as the dead walking. Her eyes are a little too-wide, gaze distant, and her face pale as ash. Jin Xue clutched in her arms seems to be the only thing keeping her upright. “Jie?” Jiang Cheng asks. “What’s going on?” “Oh! A-Cheng! Wen Qing,” jie greets, voice bright and brittle. “We’re so sorry to disturb you at such an hour and — and in such state.” “A-jie, what’s wrong?” Jiang Cheng demands. “What happened?” She casts a worried look over her shoulder, hands clenching around her sword, to where Qin Su still stands silent and unmoving. Jiang Cheng eyes her, unsettled. Qin Su has always been bright and cheerful, spring embodied in her laughter and easy conversation. After Rusong died, she mourned deeply but emerged to redouble her efforts everywhere else: as a doting aunt, as a bright young lady of Carp Tower, as a devoted wife. Now, she stands silenced, frost-covered. “Perhaps we should speak somewhere more private,” Wen Qing says. “Let our guests rest after such a journey.” Relief eases through jie’s posture, and she gives a grateful nod. They trail out of the hall behind Wen Qing with Jiang Cheng taking up the rear behind Qin Su and jie. Still draped against Qin Su’s shoulder, a-Xue yawns and lifts his hand in a sleepy wave toward him. “Hi, jiujiu,” he greets. Jiang Cheng gives a strained smile and a little wave back, and his nephew nestles back in. They settle in a receiving room Jiang Cheng rarely uses. His father would speak with sect leaders closely allied to Yunmeng Jiang here when he was alive, but Jiang Cheng so rarely permits outsiders, and the room has settled into silence over the years. Gao Xiyang is sent off with an order for tea and breakfast to be brought to the room, and then the five of them are left sitting around the table in uneasy quiet. At last, jie takes an unsteady breath and gives them a tight, polite smile. It’s the look she wears sometimes in banquets or terse meetings, never around them. “I apologize for causing such a disturbance,” she says. “I would have sent a letter ahead, but—” She casts a quick glance toward Qin Su before steadying herself and turning back to them. She sits up a little straighter, as if Mother’s still here to chide her posture. “Zixuan hasn’t told me everything,” she admits, “but he’s been worried lately — about everything going on. He said he found something and needed to speak with Jin Guangyao but that we — we should go somewhere safe.” There’s a flutter in her voice, a fearful tremble, and Jiang Cheng’s hands clench tight in his skirts over his knees. “What did he find?” Wen Qing asks. Swallowing, jie shakes her head slightly. Her hands have folded into the hems of her sleeves, drawing the pale fabric over the backs of them like soft shields. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I—I’m not sure where he found it or what it was.” “There is a vault.” The three of them jolt a little, turning to Qin Su as one. Her voice is even and flat, her gaze still long-sighted. “Jin Guangyao keeps a vault in his office with precious things,” she says. “I am not permitted to enter, but I’ve seen him enter through the bronze mirror in his study. He and his — his assistants, Xue Chengmei and Mo Xuanyu, used to spend hours in there.” Crossing his arms, Jiang Cheng taps out a discontented rhythm against his sleeve. Wen Qing’s lips have thinned, her thumbtip rubbing against the knuckle of her first finger. “Would Jin Zixuan have access?” he asks. Qin Su shakes her head. “Carp Tower answers to her master,” jie says quietly. “And a-Xuan has always been skilled, even with his injury.” “You think he could find a way through a protective array?” Wen Qing asks. Jie pauses a moment before giving a slight nod. Jiang Cheng exhales, leaning back and loosening his arms. Before Wen Ning punctured a hole through his core, Jin Zixuan had been one of the most capable cultivators in their generation. Even with reduced spiritual power, he still has all his training and years of growing up alongside and under the best mentors in Lanling. “And why would Jin-xiao-furen be in danger?” he asks. He shoots Qin Su an apologetic look immediately. “Not that you aren’t welcome, of course.” Everyone knows how in love Jin Guangyao and Qin Su are. They’ve been heralded as the epitome of a love match since they married. Now, Qin Su’s fingers dig into a-Xue’s sides, and jie worries at her bottom lip. “A-Su received a letter,” she says carefully, “from Qin-furen’s maid Bicao.” Cold prickles across Jiang Cheng’s back, frostwork fingers tapping against his spine and ribs. He doesn’t want to ask. “Jin Guangshan is my father,” Qin Su says. Wen Qing breathes in, sharp, while Jiang Cheng is left staring, uncomprehending. Jin Guangshan can’t be Qin Su’s father. Jin Guangyao was his bastard. If he was Qin Su’s father, too— “Did he know? Before?” Wen Qing asks. “The letter claims Mother told him shortly before our wedding,” Qin Su says. She speaks so evenly, placid and removed from the horror of her words. Jie has reached out, one hand curling around Qin Su’s. She shows no sign of noticing it. “What the fuck,” Jiang Cheng hisses, pushing himself back from the table and standing. He paces toward the door, hand tightening around Sandu. How could he? Jin Guangyao has always been a loving, doting husband — the memories now spoil in Jiang Cheng’s stomach like bad food. Rusong — he can’t. He can’t think about it. Turning back to the table, he lowers himself back to the ground and looks to Qin Su. “You are welcome in Lotus Pier for as long as you’d like,” he says. “We’ll protect you, and if — if he says anything, I’ll lie. No one needs to know you’re here unless you want them to.” It’s the least they can possibly do. “And Zixuan?” Jie’s voice is steady, but her posture is braced, prepared for the worst. “If Jin Guangyao is really planning something,” she says, “and Zixuan confronts him…” She trails off, swallowing hard. At her other side, Wen Qing sighs. There’s a sudden fatigue to her posture, to the tension around her eyes. “If he’s going to kill Jin Zixuan, he’ll make it look like Wei Wuxian or Wen Ning did it,” she says. “The Jin sect leader is far too conspicuous to simply disappear.” “A-Xian?” jie echoes. “But he hasn’t been anywhere near Carp Tower. A-Ling said that — well, that Mo Xuanyu was returning to Gusu with Lan Wangji.” Jiang Cheng frowns, working it over, before understanding hits like a kick to the chest. The missing head — Xue Yang in Carp Tower and running into Wei Wuxian — Zixuan’s discovery— “The discussion conference about the settlements,” Wen Qing says, looking to him with surprise-widened eyes. “Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are going to be there.” “They’re going to walk into a trap,” he curses. Jie looks up sharply, brows furrowing. “You think all this has to do with the rebellions in the settlements?” she asks. “But why?” At her side, Qin Su draws in a breath as if to speak before pausing, pressing her lips together. A small wrinkle has appeared between her brows, the first real expression Jiang Cheng’s seen since she arrived. “You have an idea?” he prompts. She looks up sharply, almost fearful, before looking back down to her hands. A-Xue has wriggled off her lap by now, though he still leans against her with his eyelids growing steadily heavier. It must have been a long night for him, and Jiang Cheng would send him to bed if it weren’t for the way Qin Su still holds onto him with one hand, like a lifeline. “Centralization,” she says. She swallows. “A-Yao—” She cuts off, like the name slipped out of her with sharp edges, and takes in a breath before continuing. “The Chief Cultivator’s authority comes from the sects,” she says, as if reciting some old lesson. “The more the sects need from him, the more they will hand over. My mother wanted me to stay in Laoling and lead it before it was given over as part of my dowry — part of Jin Guangshan’s request.” “Oh,” jie breathes out, eyes going wide briefly. “The cultivator outreach — Wen Qing, your efforts to send physicians and cultivators to small towns.” Shit. They’d been looking for a motive all this time, skipping over the most obvious one. The initiative had never been a political move in the sense of building up Yunmeng Jiang; it had sprung from that very first night Wen Qing brought dinner to his office, when they’d only been discussing an outreach program within Yunmeng. It had grown after that, but the hope had only ever been to help those villages or sects without the resources of the Great Sects. Pressing his thumb to his brow ridge, Jiang Cheng now curses their lack of foresight. Of course it would be a political move, even if that wasn’t the point. They’d helped smaller sects better establish themselves, lessen dependency on the Chief Cultivator. Wen Qing’s name was attached to it, the same name as the war prisoners in settlement camps they’d tried to improve over the years, the same name as the sect’s nightmares made flesh in Wen Ruohan and Wen Ning. If Jin Guangyao could stir up enough rumors, reawaken enough unease around the camps, he could resurrect that old mistrust of anyone with the surname Wen. “Fuck,” he exhales. For once, jie doesn’t chide him for his language. “If enough people thought an organized rebellion was rising in the settlements,” Wen Qing says, “the blame would fall to the most visible Wen alive. Yunmeng Jiang would be put in a corner, the initiative cast out, and the smaller sects once more at his command.” Her voice comes out steady but distant, a slow-dawning horror rising as she speaks. Across the table, jie and Qin Su’s faces are pale and tight. “And if Wei Wuxian were blamed for Jin Zixuan’s death, Jin Guangyao would not only become Sect Leader but also have a galvanizing force for the sects to join behind him. Fuck.” “Fuck!” a-Xue cheerfully echoes. His chirping little voice startles all of them, bright in the horror of their realization. For a moment, Jiang Cheng stares at jie, torn between scolding a-Xue and apologizing for forgetting his nephew’s presence. Before he can, jie’s lips tremble and she starts shaking with laughter. “Jie?” he asks, flummoxed. Her shoulders hitch up as she hides her face in her hands, the little tremors turning abruptly into sobs. Inhaling sharply, Wen Qing reaches out a tentative hand, curling it around jie’s wrist. On her other side, Qin Su pulls a-Xue closer to her side and watches with wet eyes. “I’m sorry,” jie sniffs. “I’m sorry, it’s just — it’s just I thought it would be alright, now that a-Xian’s back. I thought our family would be able to — to come home and—” She cuts off, looking away as she wipes at her tears. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t — there are much more important things than crying.” “Da-gu,” Wen Qing says, squeezing her wrist, “there’s no shame in tears.” She so rarely uses familial titles, and the name seems to startle jie a little. Just enough that she exhales and gives a shaky nod. Lifting her hand, she brushes the tears away from under her eye with the knuckle of her thumb. Her hand shifts to hold onto Wen Qing, their wrists aligned. Drawing in a deeper breath, she gives a firm nod. “Alright,” she says. “Then what are we going to do to stop this?” A week later, Jiang Cheng paces through a back courtyard of Carp Tower with nerves thrumming through him. Despite seeing Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji when they first arrived, he’s yet to be able to catch either of them to talk; Wei Wuxian disappeared partway through the evening banquet, and Lan Wangji remains frigidly evasive. Jiang Cheng doesn’t really want to speak to him first anyway, but he needs to get one of them. Panic has been clambering up his throat the longer he spends he, the more times he has to pretend like everything is fine when Jin Guangyao comes near. His skin crawls with it; his hands itch with the urge to tie him up with Zidian and lay out his crimes for everyone to hear. He can’t do anything without proof, though, and he can’t do anything while Jin Zixuan is still missing. Jin Guangyao had claimed Jin Zixuan was ill and resting in seclusion, his face all perfectly kind and sympathetic. It’s happened before; with his core weakened, Jin Zixuan no longer boasts the immunity of most strong cultivators and is more susceptible to illness, to fevers and colds that force him to rest until they abate. With everything else going on, Jiang Cheng still finds himself wishing he could believe it’s true this time. There’s a flicker in his periphery, a flash of talisman-yellow in the corner of his vision, and he turns on his heel in time to see a paperman stumbling across the floor. He stares for a moment as the familiar shape trips into a bush before taking three quick strides over and crouching. “Wei Wuxian, get the fuck out here,” he hisses. Silence falls abruptly on the bush where there had been the soft rustle of movement. Glaring, Jiang Cheng leans down until he spies the little figure flattened along one of the branches. “If you don’t come out now, I’ll go dunk your body in the lotus pond,” he warns. After another moment, the paperman clambers out of the branches and into Jiang Cheng’s palm. Perched there, it crosses its arms up at him before kicking at his thumb. Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, and straightens. He lifts his hand to his chest to let the paperman slide into a safe spot between his outer robes before setting off for Lan Wangji’s rooms. There’s a disorienting sense of familiarity as he crosses the tower with Wei Wuxian’s paperman occasionally tugging at his collar to direct him. Wei Wuxian had learned paper metamorphosis at far too young an age for anyone’s comfort, and Jiang Cheng can’t count the number of times they’d snuck around Lotus Pier with Wei Wuxian tucked into a sleeve or his outer collar. Now, Wei Wuxian directs him silently to a set of doors with a candle still burning behind them, and Jiang Cheng forces himself to raise a hand and knock. Even expecting Lan Wangji, he can’t help the instinctive dislike that has his lip curling at the sight of him. Lan Wangji’s own expression shutters into something hard and vicious, and he’s halfway to closing the doors in Jiang Cheng’s face when Wei Wuxian flits out to catch on Jiang Cheng’s hand and tug. Lan Wangji’s eyes widen briefly as they track the movement. “Well?” Jiang Cheng demands. “Are you going to make me stand out here the whole time?” Disdain flickers across Lan Wangji’s face, but he steps back to permit Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s paperman. Alarm jolts through Jiang Cheng at the sight of Wei Wuxian, slumped at a table with one hand propping his head up and the other lax against the wood. He’s seen it a hundred times but still — still it makes worry shoot through him even as the paperman falls flat on the table and Wei Wuxian comes to with a sharp inhale. He looks…better. Still too thin, still with a hint of strain in the lines of his face, but he’s not so pale anymore. Something he can’t quite name settles in Jiang Cheng’s chest as his brother shoots to his feet. He sways a little, but Lan Wangji is there, of course, to catch him, to steady him. Jealousy is a familiar bitterness in his mouth. “Jin Zixuan,” Wei Wuxian blurts out. “Jin Guangyao has Jin Zixuan in the vault. He found Chifeng-zun’s head and confronted Jin Guangyao and now he’s in a body-locking array.” “Chifeng-zun?” Jiang Cheng demands, thrown. The rest is — well, it might be better than what they’d hoped. If Jin Zixuan is in a body-locking array, it means he’s still alive. It means they’re ahead of Jin Guangyao’s plan at last. “I’ll explain later,” Wei Wuxian says, waving a hand as he reaches down with his other to grab a simple dizi sitting on the table. “Now we need to get Jin Zixuan out of there before Jin Guangyao can come back and finish the job.” Lan Wangji’s expression has tensed in what might be a frown, if Jiang Cheng were feeling generous. His gaze flicks to Jiang Cheng, then back to Wei Wuxian, who tilts his head briefly. Breathing out something like amusement, Wei Wuxian reaches over to squeeze Lan Wangji’s wrist, and Jiang Cheng looks away. He should have just dropped Wei Wuxian off and turned away. There’s no point in him being here. “Come on, I don’t know when Jin Guangyao or that other cultivator will come back,” Wei Wuxian urges, nodding pointedly toward the door. He’s tied on the stupid mask he was wearing earlier once more, like that’s really going to stop anyone from recognizing him. Hesitating only a moment, Jiang Cheng firms his shoulders and lets himself be dragged along. He’s part of this whether Lan Wangji wants him there or not. “How did you get through the mirror? Qin Su said it was Jin Guangyao’s private vault,” Jiang Cheng asks as they cross back through the same halls he just walked. “Some other cultivator was going in — all in white and blue, like he was trying to be Lan Zhan or something — and I hitched a ride,” Wei Wuxian explains. “I didn’t get a good look at it, but it feels like an interlocking illusion and repulsion array. Probably a seal to block it off from intruders, too.” The halls of Carp Tower are eerily empty this time of night, their shadows their only company as they cross the tower. It’s almost familiar, the three of them hastening through the night; all they’re missing is Nie Huaisang and the haunting sound of puppets scrabbling at the temple door. There’s a moment when it clicks, the reason it all feels so familiar, so like a step into the past. It’s been thirteen years, and Wei Wuxian looks exactly the same. Without his core, he should show the marks of time in soft lines by his eyes, by his mouth, the same way Jin Zixuan and jie have with their weaker cores. Instead, he matches Jiang Cheng’s memory perfectly. He looks like he stepped out of time in those days before he died and simply took a long walk to show up here. He nearly misses a step at the thought, his stomach swooping uneasily. The doors to Jin Guangyao’s study aren’t sealed, which should be their first sign. They slide open at Wei Wuxian’s touch as if recently oiled, and no one is around to raise an alarm. Inside, the study is neat and orderly, and Jiang Cheng has a brief twang of guilt. If they’re wrong, they’re violating the trust of a man he considers almost family. He brushes it away. If they’re wrong, they’ll explain to Jin Guangyao what’s happened and, like Jin Zixuan initially said, he’ll assist in unraveling this plot. The bronze mirror hangs on the far wall, and Jiang Cheng reaches out with his spiritual energy to probe at the arrays. Like Wei Wuxian said, he can feel the threads of both illusion and repulsion arrays intertwined: one to disguise the portal as nothing more than an ordinary mirror and the other to gently dissuade anyone from looking closely. There’s no array actually blocking entry, not like the defenses normally set up. Later, he’ll realize it’s the second sign. “You’re sure it’s this?” Jiang Cheng asks, looking over to Wei Wuxian. He’s standing close on the other side, fingertips trailing along the edge of the mirror. After a moment, he shakes his head. “Maybe whoever I saw forgot to reset the defense array?” he asks. “I guess we should thank him.” There’s a troubled crease to Lan Wangji’s brow, but he doesn’t offer any objection as Jiang Cheng steps forward through the mirror. As he passes through, the arrays shimmer with spiritual energy and then spark again as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji follow through. Inside the vault are rows of neat blue shelves, that summer-haze shade that marks Carp Tower apart from Gusu’s indigos and sky blues. There are racks of swords and shelves hung with talisman-lined covers. His gaze flits over them, briefly snagging on a half-familiar sword in a crimson scabbard. Sitting in the midst of all of it is Jin Zixuan. His eyes are open, posture stiff and correct, but he makes no movement at their entrance, shows no sign of even realizing they are there. Blood stains his side, seeping into his golden robes. “Shit,” Jiang Cheng swears even as Wei Wuxian crosses the room. “Can you undo it?” Wei Wuxian kneels in front of Jin Zixuan, brow furrowing in concentration. Behind him, Jiang Cheng can feel Lan Wangji’s presence like the cold off snowbanks. He ignores it in favor of watching as Wei Wuxian reaches out, briefly covering the backs of Jin Zixuan’s hands with his own. There’s a small surge, a pulse and an ebb. At last, Jin Zixuan slumps forward, eyes falling shut and body loosened from the locking array. He sways forward until he’s resting against Wei Wuxian, who’s stilled with wide eyes and sudden tension strung through his shoulders. “Come on,” Jiang Cheng says, crossing over. “We need to get him back to a room.” Wei Wuxian nods, and between the two of them, they lever Jin Zixuan up to his feet. Lan Wangji hangs back a little, watching like Jiang Cheng might reach over and stab Wei Wuxian here and now. Huffing out a breath, Jiang Cheng doesn’t roll his eyes but instead focuses on getting his limp brother-in-law out of this cursed room. As they cross the study, nearly to the doors, Jiang Cheng almost lets himself believe they’re safe. The doors slide open and everything falls apart. The conference seems to have reconvened in this very courtyard without warning: Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen freeze with one foot each upon the first step while Nie Huaisang’s still draped against them. Behind them, Jin Ling has stopped in the middle of putting his sister into a half-familiar arm hold. Across the courtyard, a whole contingent of minor sect leaders and Jin disciples gapes. “Jiang-zongzhu? Hanguang-jun,” Jin Guangyao starts, politely baffled, “what—” “A-die?” Jin Mu’s voice is so small, so much more fragile than she ever lets it be. her gaze flickers from Jin Zixuan’s still form, to Wei Wuxian, to Jiang Cheng, briefly beseeching. Jiang Cheng’s heart gives an awful, hollow thump. “What have you done to my father?” she demands, voice sharpening. “You awful lunatic! What did you do to him?” She takes a step forward, fists clenched at her sides. “Ruxia, please be careful,” Jin Guangyao says. “I don’t believe that’s Young Master Mo at all.” Cold prickles up from the marrow of his bones, nipping at the backs of his shoulder blades and all down his arms. “Surely, isn’t this Wei Wuxian?” Jin Guangyao says. He speaks with such innocent wonder, such wide-eyed confusion. There’s a gasp behind him; Jiang Cheng can’t tell where it comes from. “He almost killed Jin-zongzhu all those years ago and now he’s come back to finish him!” one of the Jin disciples blurts out. On Jin Zixuan’s other side, Wei Wuxian is still as stone. A quick glance across tells Jiang Cheng all he needs to know: that thin-lipped strain, the calculation in his eyes — they’re familiar from all the times he was prodded during the war but had no answer to give. “But san-ge,” Nie Huaisang objects, plaintive, “Wei Wuxian died, didn’t he? Everyone knows how Jiang-xiong himself killed him.” He doesn’t flinch anymore; he’s trained himself out of that. He can’t help the way he stiffens, though, to hear the truth laid out with Wei Wuxian right beside him. “But who cold stop the Yiling laozu from returning from the dead? His evil spirit must have been waiting all this time to return and torture good people like Jin-zongzhu again!” Yao-zongzhu, of course. When has he ever been scarce when he could be a nuisance instead? “True, true!” A clamor rising as the crowd converges. Jin Ling’s voice is thin and unsure when he speaks, looking between the clamoring cultivators and his own family as if for guidance. “But xiao-shushu, jiujiu hit him with Zidian on Dafan Mountain and nothing happened,” he objects. “If he were possessing someone, Zidian would force him to reveal himself, wouldn’t it? So he may not be Wei Wuxian, right?” There’s so much fragile hope in his voice. Jiang Cheng’s stomach sinks. When has he had time to grow fond of Wei Wuxian? Is he to lose his errant uncle again when he’s only just met him? “A-Ling, you’ve reminded me of what else appeared at Dafan Mountain,” Jin Guangyao says thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he the one who summoned the Ghost General Wen Ning? The only way to know for sure is to make him remove his mask.” Whoever Mo Xuanyu was — Jiang Cheng half-remembers a glimpse of a sour-faced young man, the much louder wailing of rumors around his expulsion — Jiang Cheng isn’t sure whether to curse or bless him. “He must be back for revenge! Leading the Wens to take over!” “He always hated Jin-zongzhu! Don’t you remember how he even attacked him during the war?” “And Qiongqi Pass — terrible—” They aren’t getting out of this together. If Wei Wuxian stays, he will be torn apart by the mob yet again. Swallowing, Jiang Cheng tightens his hold in Jin Zixuan’s limp form and tugs him out of Wei Wuxian’s grip. Thrown, Wei Wuxian turns to him with his arm still lifted as if to support Jin Zixuan. “Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng bellows. “How dare you!” With the arm not supporting Jin Zixuan, he unsheathes Sandu in a glittering arc. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, visible through that stupid mask that is now their only hope, but Lan Wangji grabs him by the wrist and leaps. Sandu misses them by a hairsbreadth, slicing through the edge of Wei Wuxian’s outer robe. “Stop them! After them! Go!” The disciples turn and bolt, a flock of minnows swarming after a crumb. “A-Ling, a-Mu,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Watch over your father. We’ll take care of them.” They turn to him with wide eyes before Jin Ling bobs his head in a nod. Ruxia’s eyes narrow briefly, something searching in her look as she lags a step behind Jin Ling. It’s not fair to settle their father’s limp weight in their arms, but maybe it will keep them out of the fray, keep them safe from this backlash. He runs toward the front in the same direction the disciples took after Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. If he’s lucky, they’ll have slipped out before anyone could catch them. The two of them have always been quick, all that mirrored energy rushing through them like rivers sweeping them downstream. Jiang Cheng has never been lucky. He reaches the top of the grand staircase in time to see Wei Wuxian push Lan Wangji to one side with the flat of his palm, pressing him out of the circle of swords now aimed at his throat. “Yiling laozu,” Jin Guangyao calls as he walks forward, “why do you still wear the mask even now?” There’s a wry twist to Wei Wuxian’s lips, frustration, resignation. Lifting his hands to the back of his head, he tugs loose the mask and drops it to the stairs with a clatter. At once, the crowd recoils with gasps and murmurs of shocked confirmation. The dread Yiling laozu stands loose-handed, with a collar of swords ringing his neck, and old irritation in the angle of his mouth. “Yiling laozu. You are truly worthy of your title,” Jin Guangyao says with slow applause. “Returning to the world after thirteen years, you can still make all of us look like fools. Not only Jin Ling but even Jiang-zongzhu and Hanguang-jun were fooled by you.” From this distance, Jiang Cheng can still see the way Wei Wuxian’s gaze dips low before his lips quirk up in cool amusement. He’s always been proud, but this is an arrogance he never wore till the wore: the haughty acceptance that the world was too stupid to catch up and he would pay the prize for their inadequacy. It slips over him now like a familiar robe. “You’re right,” he calls back jauntily. “He’s not right.” Fucking idiot, Jiang Cheng thinks as the assembly draws in a collective breath, faltering, and Lan Wangji takes a step forward with his gaze fixed on Wei Wuxian. “I have always known he was Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says steadily, with all the gravitas of a sworn vow. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian hisses, turning to him. In some other life, Jiang Cheng must have taken a mundane life and common sense for granted to such an extent that this life is a punishment for that pride. He can think of no other explanation for why he now has to stand and watch as his brother whispers urgently to Lan Zhan, who has drawn his sword and seems prepared to take on the entire cultivation world singlehandedly. He can’t hear the words they say, but he can see the surprise and slow-dawning smile bloom across Wei Wuxian’s face. The way his breath catches a little, and his smile turns watery as he shakes his head. It’s with mild horror that Jiang Cheng realizes he has actually overestimated Lan Wangji. Here, he thought the man would have thought to confess to Wei Wuxian somewhere between getting him back from the dead and tying him up with some sacred marital ribbon. But no. No, Lan Wangji had to wait till they were ringed in by all the world’s teeth before he could be bothered to say a word. Jiang Cheng really is going to kill him, as long as they survive this. Wei Wuxian, because he has neither care for Jiang Cheng’s health nor his own survival, is the one to start the fight. He’s armed with a dizi — a plain bamboo flute, not even Chenqing, which is still carefully locked away in Lotus Pier — and he makes no move to summon any resentment to him. Even here in purified lands, Jiang Cheng is certain the grandmaster of demonic cultivation could find some thread of yin energy to draw up and lay the cultivators low. But Wei Wuxian wouldn’t. Wei Wuxian still has some belief in all the honor and nobility that led to his first death, and Jiang Cheng can’t decide if he wants to yell at him or cry for how stupid and unfair it all is. He is pinned here at the top of the stairs, unable to defend his brother, unwilling to fight against him. He’s still standing there, hand white-knuckled around Sandu, when Jin Ling runs up panting. “A-Ling?” he demands, startled. “Where’s Ruxia?” Jin Ling shakes his head, even as he gapes at the fight in the middle of the stairs. “She ran off,” he says. “I couldn’t get her in time. A-die’s with the physicians and she said she couldn’t sit around.” Somehow, impossibly, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian with their single sword and stupid flute between them have cleared a path down the steps. They leap, and Jiang Cheng catches a flicker of gold before them. “Shit,” he hisses. Ruxia stands before the foot of the stairs, a sword in her hand. For a moment, Jiang Cheng doesn’t recognize it. She’s too young for her own spiritual weapon, and no one here is missing their blade. Then, with a jolt, he realizes where he’s seen that bloodred scabbard, those golden ornaments. He always wondered what happened to Wen Qing’s sword, who found it in the aftermath of the war. Now, it wavers in his niece’s hand as she holds it at Wei Wuxian’s neck. From here, he can’t hear their exchange, but he recognizes the shape of his brother’s name on Ruxia’s lips. “A-Mu!” Jin Ling blurts out, pressing forward. They’re too far away to intervene, to stop them. They can only watch as Wei Wuxian steps forward away from Ruxia, as the sword glitters in a sharp plunge. Wei Wuxian’s shoulders stiffen, his step falter. Jiang Cheng recognizes the angle of the sword too well. For a breath, he is kneeling in ashes with his brother’s blood on his hands. There’s a flash of white as Lan Wangji pushes Ruxia away and pulls Wei Wuxian forward. They disappear into the night, and the stairs descend into chaos. Fear shakes through Jiang Cheng, a long-forgotten horror. He’s always forgetting how fragile his brother’s life is, how easily it can be sundered. For so long, Wei Wuxian was his indomitable big brother, sword and shelter wrapped up in one lean frame. Even with the proof of his mortality on his hands, some part of Jiang Cheng had still believed that this couldn’t be the end, that Wei Wuxian couldn’t be torn from them so simply. He’d been proven right with this return. Wei Wuxian is alive and they’d have time to figure things out, to talk and fight and settle into some new pattern. Now, his brother’s blood drips from Wen Qing’s sword as it slips from his niece’s slack hand. He’s down the steps in an instant, fear hastening his feet. Wei Wuxian can’t die, not again, not yet. They haven’t even spoken, have barely seen each other except in harried flashes. “Jiujiu?” Ruxia asks. There are tears in her eyes, her shaking palms upturned as if she can see the blood on them. “Jiujiu, did I kill him? Did — did I do wrong?” she asks, pleads. Swallowing hard, he grips her shoulders and tries to will some sense of steadiness into her unsteady frame. He has so little to offer. “A-Mu, it’s alright,” he soothes. “You were trying to protect your father. You were trying to do the right thing.” It’s not enough to fix it. He doesn’t even know where he could begin to set things right. Some times he thinks they were always destined to follow this road, that their fates were set the moment Father brought a little orphan into Lotus Pier and told Jiang Cheng he was his brother. The rain has started, a slow drizzle that trickles down his shoulders and drips into his hair. Behind him, he hears Jin Ling’s footsteps running close. “Listen, a-Mu,” he says, as gently as he can. “Stay with a-Ling and your father, alright? Don’t do anything reckless, and don’t listen to the gossip.” She blinks up at him, eyes tear-bright and owlish, but she manages a nod. It’s as good as he’ll get. Straightening, he turns to Jin Ling. “A-Ling, watch out for your sister,” he orders. “Both of you take care of each other. We’ll get everything sorted out.” He’s not sure he believes it, but he can’t promise them any less. “Jiujiu, where are you going?” Jin Ling asks, already reaching out for his sister. She goes willingly for once, holding tight to his arm. “I’m going to go find your uncle,” Jiang Cheng says, unsheathing Sandu. It’s only once he’s in the air that he pulls out the talisman Sun Luzhou gave him. A spark of qi activates it, and pale gold fire engulfs the paper. As he turns out toward the forests edging Lanling, it burns brighter and pulls him further into the night. He skims low over the trees, looking out for any sign of movement below. The rain has increased to a proper downpour now, and it lashes his skin as he flies. Wiping water from his eyes, he nearly misses the sudden surge in the talisman and the flicker of white beneath the dark canopy. He drops, leaping down from Sandu once he’s low enough and striding forward. Sandu slides into her sheath with a familiar hum, and Lan Wangji twists around with his own sword raised. Jiang Cheng’s breath catches as he draws up a palm flame and finds the light flickering over Wei Wuxian’s sallow face. He’s slumped against a tree with one hand curled around the wound in his side, unconscious. Lan Wangji’s expression is set, wrath in the cold line of his brow and the steady grip on Bichen. Ignoring him, Jiang Cheng kneels before Wei Wuxian and reaches out for his wrist. “Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji growls. “Take him to Lotus Pier,” Jiang Cheng orders, finding Wei Wuxian’s pulse thready and fast. “The wards will recognize him, and Wen Qing is there.” Years of instinct and habit have him checking Wei Wuxian’s meridians before he’s thought better of it. He draws in a sharp breath, hand going tight around his wrist. There’s spiritual energy there, but it’s sluggish, stagnant in his meridians. Swallowing hard, Jiang Cheng forces himself to loosen his grip and turn to Lan Wangji. “Well?” he demands. Lan Wangji’s frowning now, scrutinizing him like he’ll see through Jiang Cheng if he just stares hard enough. Irritation rises up, a flood built up from years of Lan Wangji’s cool isolation, from Wei Wuxian’s absence, from all the hurt Jiang Cheng has pummeled into anger. “Lan Wangji, I don’t give a fuck about you or what you think of me,” he snaps, “but I swear to the heavens, if you let my brother bleed out because you’re too prideful to take him home to Lotus Pier, I will break your fucking jaw.” That earns him a blink, a quickly-shuttered glimpse of surprise. Standing, Jiang Cheng steps away and unsheathes Sandu. “And you?” Lan Wangji asks abruptly. “What will you do?” When he looks over, Jiang Cheng finds Wei Wuxian cradled in Lan Wangji’s arms, Bichen already drawn and hovering in wait. Good. At least that’s something. “I’m going to go cover your asses before the whole cultivation world comes for his neck,” he says. Yunmeng Jiang is no longer the unsteady young sect rebuilding from devastation. He’s no politician, but he’s learned in the years since Wei Wuxian died. He’s not going to let it happen again.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #my writing

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Note

could we see a continuation of that nmj goes dark? What happens when NHS is brought back? What does he think of how far his brother is willing to go for him?

part 1, part 2

The first thing Nie Huaisang heard in his new life was an expletive.

Several of them, actually. Fairly creative ones, in two separate voices.

He cracked open an eye to see who was swearing – one of the voices sounded like Wei Wuxian, and the other one sounded like a sullen teenager, and the idea of Wei Wuxian having to take care of an angry teenager with a mouth as dirty as his own promised a great deal of hilarity.

“Yeah, well, fuck your mother and suck your uncle’s – hey, he’s awake! Senior Wei! He’s awake! For real this time; I swear I’m not fucking with you this time!”

Where had Wei Wuxian even found a kid with a mouth like that?

His attempt to simply lie there and do nothing having been undone by his own curiosity, Nie Huaisang decided to sit up and face the music – or at least, to try to.

That was about when he realized that he’d been chained down.

“I didn’t realize we had this sort of relationship, Wei-xiong,” he said, shaking his wrist at the man when he ran over. “You should have said…wow, you look terrible. What happened to you?”

Wei Wuxian hadn’t looked his best since he’d started with demonic cultivation – too thin, too pale, eyes too red, reminding Nie Huaisang of his brother’s worst fits of temper – but he looked even more like a wreck now. It was as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“What happened to me?” Wei Wuxian echoed with a choked up laugh. “To me? Nie Huaisang, you…!”

He shook his head, and Nie Huaisang had a bad feeling about all this.

“How much do you remember?” the kid by his side asked eagerly. He was dressed all in black and looked no more than ten, although with that level of cursing perhaps a very young fourteen wouldn’t be out of the question. “Do the memories cut off at the moment of death, or is there something after that –”

“Xue Yang!”

“What? What did I say?”

“Death?” Nie Huaisang asked. “The – moment of death?”

The memories came back slowly – it was like having been very drunk the night before, and trying to remember what you did: you could get it if you tried, images uncertain and mixed in with each other, the timeline out of order.

The moment of death, though…he remembered that.

“Shit, the resentful energy is starting to increase –”

“What did you think was going to happen when you reminded him of what killed him? Brat! Go get a calming talisman –”

Nie Huaisang was dead. Apparently a fierce corpse, too, which really shouldn’t have happened; had his elders slacked on the soul-calming rituals to which every sect child had been endlessly subjected? Or had Wei Wuxian managed to find a way through that, disregarding it – yes, that seemed more likely.

Nie Huaisang was dead.

Dead.

He’d been murdered. Just like his father before him, and if that wasn’t the worst sort of inheritance, he didn’t know what was –

His father.

His brother.

Nie Huaisang covered his face with his hands. “Tell me no one gave my brother my saber!”

“Your saber?” Wei Wuxian asked, pasting talismans onto his chest and belly in quick, orderly movements. “Why does that matter? And since when do you care about your saber?”

Nie Huaisang looked through his fingers at the kid, who’d been more forthcoming so far, but the kid looked cowed for some reason, scared – damnit, that probably meant his brother had gotten hold of Aituan.

And given what he remembers of his death, and how the sabers faithfully recorded those last few flickers of their master’s lives -

That would be a disaster.

So Nie Huaisang said something he’d never said before in his life.

“Get me my saber!”

“Wow,” Wei Wuxian said. “Not to make light, Nie-xiong, but that might be the most Nie-like thing you’ve ever said.”

Nie Huaisang ignored him since he wasn’t being helpful. At least the kid – Xue Yang – was doing something, dashing over to the table by the entrance to the cave – cave? Were they at the Burial Mounds? How had he gotten to the Burial Mounds, his last memories were in Lanling –

Oh, this was bad.

Aituan was vibrating as it approached, and suddenly Nie Huaisang realized that there might be another problem.

“Stop! Wait! Don’t! Don’t bring it any closer, it’s going to –”

Aituan leapt up out of Xue Yang’s hands and flung itself at Nie Huaisang, sharp end first; Xue Yang shrieked and dived under a table, babbling something about ‘not again’, and Nie Huaisang had to headbutt Wei Wuxian off the bed before he accidentally got stabbed. Luckily, there was just enough give on the chains that Nie Huaisang was able to avoid Aituan’s slightly-too-enthusiastic greeting.

Well, greeting-slash-murder attempt. He might be Aituan’s master, but he was a fierce corpse right now.

“You’ve traumatized my apprentice,” Wei Wuxian said, and looked up at where Aituan was stuck in the wall, quivering, only a few finger-widths above his head. “Possibly also me as well…are you feeling very much yourself? Appropriately centered, stabilized, not likely to let your resentful energy loose to start murdering people left and right?”

“I’m fine,” Nie Huaisang said, reaching up to grab Aituan by the hilt. Getting control of his saber again was going to be a nightmare, but a necessary one: he needed to know if his stupid saber had blabbed about what had happened to his brother. If it had, if his brother had seen that…he didn’t want to think about that. “I’ve never been that resentful, Wei-xiong, you know that.”

“Except when you think about what killed you,” Xue Yang said, an insightful and pointed comment that would be much more cutting if he wasn’t still hiding under a table.

“Yes, well, that’s – different. It wasn’t a very good death. Anyway, not important. More important: how is my brother doing? I really don’t want to think about how he must have reacted…”

Wei Wuxian’s face paled, and he exchanged looks with Xue Yang.

“So, bad?” Nie Huaisang hazarded. “Did he kill someone? No, what am I saying, he would have seen, he definitely killed someone. Wait. He’s not in jail, is he? Or hurt? Tell me he’s not hurt!”

“As far as I know he’s not hurt,” Wei Wuxian said, and Nie Huaisang exhaled with relief. “But…uh…”

“He didn’t kill someone,” Xue Yang said. “He killed a whole lot of someones.”

That…didn’t sound good either.

“Hey,” Wei Wuxian said. “I don’t suppose you’re willing to tell me about the masterless sabers?”

That was worse.

“Is this really the time to be asking about that?” Xue Yang asked snippily. “Don’t forget where he went.”

Wei Wuxian’s face lost all traces of amusement. “That’s right. We need to get Nie-xiong to the Cloud Recesses right away.”

“The Cloud Recesses?” Nie Huaisang asked, and – oh no. Oh no. “We have to go right away! Da-ge will never forgive himself if he kills er-ge!”

“You really think he would?” Wei Wuxian asked, already undoing the chains as quickly as he could. “They always seemed to have a good relationship –”

“My brother dragged the entire cultivation world kicking and screaming into a war against the Wens in order to avenge our father,” Nie Huaisang snapped. “And now you’re telling me he brought the sabers out for me? Of course he’s going to kill him if he’s not stopped! He’s not going to think he has a choice ! Now get me to him!”

part 4 here

#mdzs #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #xue yang #blackened NMJ #my fic #my fics #calm before the storm #yes there's more to come don't worry #Anonymous #it's funny right up until it's not

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lady-of-the-lotus · 4 years ago

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Fractured Ice - Ch. 3/7

Xue Yang whisks a solipsistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right?

Your hand,” he says. He can’t think straight, but that much he knows to say. “Show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what he said.”

There’s no hesitation in the imposter’s movements. He unwinds the bandages, drops them to the floor, and eyes the naked clan leader evenly.

A black glove. The glove is distinctively fingerless save for the cloth-covered little finger, which sticks up stiffly.

“...Xue Yang.”

XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M

Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 4

Ch. 3: shadows and monsters

Lan Xichen doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, staring at the guqin, before Xiao Xingchen—

No. Not Xiao Xingchen.

—before the liar—the fraud—the imposter speaks.

“Well?” The imposter’s face is white, voice strained, eyes hot, but he’s sitting very, very still. “What did he say?”

That’s the last thing Lan Xichen is certain of for a while. Those words: What did he say? ringing in his ears, the desperation in the imposter’s eyes, and then, abruptly, icy-cold water on his skin, frigid water flowing around him, as he kneels naked in the stream outside.

The crane is nowhere to be seen, but Xiao—the imposter is on the bank. Sitting on a rock, as if he’s been there for a long time.

“Come on out, Zewu-jun,” he says coaxingly, as if he’s trying to lure a cat off a roof. Lan Xichen’s clothes are draped over his arm and there’s a blanket on his lap. “Let’s talk.”

Lan Xichen doesn’t remember crawling out of the stream any more than he remembers entering it, but he must have, because suddenly he’s being wrapped in the blanket and bundled back into the house.

The imposter sets the clothes down on a chair in Lan Xichen’s old bedroom and stands beside the bed.

“What did he say?” he asks. “He’s in there, isn’t he? I knew he was! I knew he wasn’t gone—”

Lan Xichen barely hears him. He’s almost completely numb, either from the icy stream or shock, but he’s almost certain he’s floating above the bed.

He tilts his head towards the imposter.

“Your hand,” he says. He can’t think straight, but that much he knows to say. “Show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what he said.”

There’s no hesitation in the imposter’s movements. He unwinds the bandages, drops them to the floor, and eyes the naked clan leader evenly.

A black glove. The glove is distinctively fingerless save for the cloth-covered little finger, which sticks up stiffly.

“...Xue Yang.”

The words hang in the air between them, blazing with the full heat of the betrayal, but Xue Yang doesn’t so much as blink.

Instead he claps slowly, grinning as if he’s enjoying himself. “Excellent detective work, Zewu-jun. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, tell me, what did he say?”

“Xue Yang,” Lan Xichen repeats. He’s not sure what he expected, but it was not this. He struggles to put names and events together, find some explanation, but his mind is a throbbing blank. “Xue Yang.”

There’s a knife in Xue Yang’s hand. He’s still grinning, but it’s a grin full of fangs. “Tell me what he said,” he says, “and I won’t slice your face off.”

Lan Xichen hears someone laughing, realizes it’s him, but he can’t stop. He’s overwhelmed with it, suffused with it, completely awash with amusement, laughter gushing through him and clawing its way out through his throat.

And then Xue Yang is laughing too, his knife back wherever it came from, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

It’s a long time before either of them get themselves under control. Lan Xichen feels warm despite the wet hair sticking to his bare shoulders. That old swelling, growing feeling is back in his chest, and he could swear that he’s glowing in the dimness.

“Nothing matters,” he informs Xue Yang. The monster has brought the chair over beside the bed and is sitting on Lan Xichen’s robes, feet up on the bed. “Nothing at all.”

“I guess not,” says Xue Yang. He tilts his head at Lan Xichen. “And, as that’s the case, maybe you can tell me what he said?”

“ ‘Xiao Xingchen.’ ”

Xue Yang closes his eyes in a kind of ecstasy. “He said that?”

“His name would be impossible to confuse with any other words.”

A shudder passes through Xue Yang. “I knew he was still in there,” he says. “I knew it—” He opens his eyes. “I did it,” he says. “ I brought him back, I nursed his spirit—”

Lan Xichen wants to ask him about how Xiao Xingchen ended up in the bag. Not for any real reason. Just base curiosity. It doesn’t matter, after all. He had been right, after all, no matter what Lan Qiren had tried to convince him of. The world is all shadows, all shades, all layers upon layers of curtains and veils.

It can wait.

“My brother didn’t recognize you,” he says.

Xue Yang points to his face. His voice is steady, but his hand trembles slightly. “Face-mirroring talisman. Itchy, but it comes in handy. I didn’t stick around long, though.”

Another layer, another curtain. Lan Xichen is glad of it. More proof that nothing is real, that nothing matters, that he can finally let go.

“Let me see your true face.”

He expects an argument, but Xue Yang just sighs and grips the side of his face. Tugs, peels off his skin. Drops the mask into the pitcher of water he’s set beside the bed and turns to Lan Xichen.

“A bit of a downgrade,” he says, rubbing at the skin around his jaw and temples, “but I haven’t gotten many complaints.”

He’s quite good-looking, actually, in a jarringly youthful, innocent way. Far different from the elegant beauty of the mask. Softer, with no sharp angles anywhere on him, and a well-formed nose. A surprise. Lan Xichen had never actually met him despite Xue Yang’s years as a Jin Clan guest disciple, but the idea of him as a grotesque monster has been fixed in his mind since his slaughter ( supposed slaughter, reminds himself) of the Chang Clan. His voice is lighter than before, almost flippant, with nothing of the genteel tones he’d used to impersonate Xiao Xingchen.

“And underneath?” Lan Xichen asks.

Xue Yang raises an eyebrow. “Underneath?”

Lan Xichen leaves it alone. He’ll peel off the next layer when he’s ready, shed his skin, reveal another level of reality.

“Xue Yang was always described to me as a madman,” Lan Xichen says. “But you…”

“By a group of self-righteous fucks who met me for five minutes as an adolescent?” Xue Yang grins. The half-feral grin feels more natural when coupled with this face, deceivingly innocent as it is, as does the intensity of his eyes and foul language. “Perhaps they were right. Perhaps they were wrong. Does that really matter to Zewu-jun?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t respond. It’s true, Wangji and Wei Wuxian had only met Xue Yang for the few days it took to travel to the Unclean Realm, and Nie Mingjue had only interrogated Xue Yang once.

All three had been unanimous in their verdict that Xue Yang was not right in the head. A sadistic monster with no true emotion, an animal who killed for pleasure instead of necessity.

A-Yao, though…

Jin Guangshan had pushed A-Yao to take a special interest in the young man after all the hoopla over the Chang Clan massacre, and A-Yao had dropped a few words to him about Xue Yang over the years, mostly in response to Nie Mingjue’s tantrums over Xue Yang’s death sentence having been commuted to life imprisonment.

He can hear A-Yao’s voice in his head as if it were yesterday.

“Xue Yang is not a madman,” he had told Lan Xichen during one of their late-night talks. A-Yao had been lounging in his most casual robes, the collar open, belt loosely tied. “He has violent tendencies, yes, and I can see why the false rumors were spread about him. He is often quite rude—” being rude, going by A-Yao’s tone, was a worse trait than any potential for sociopathy “—but he is deceptively clever, hard-working, and brimming with raw talent. The Jin Clan needs more disciples like him.”

And a different time: “If only he had been instructed from childhood, he would have been one of the greats by now.” And then, as if rethinking that, “Or perhaps not. He sits outside of everything. Sometimes I think that is his greatest strength.”

There had been a sense of envy in the way A-Yao spoke the words “outside of everything.” A-Yao, who had spent his entire life doing everything in his power to get on the inside, to climb to the top of the pyramid.

Lan Xichen hadn’t understood it then.

He did now.

He looks at Xue Yang. The delinquent cultivator is sitting with one arm dangling indolently over the side of his chair, his feet still up on the bed frame, not even trying to hide his smile. He’s staring at the ceiling as if counting something invisible up there, twirling his hair with his good hand.

Rule 8: Do not sit with a disgraceful pose.

Xue Yang gives a cheery little wave when he notices Lan Xichen’s attention. Despite everything, the young man looks so—so innocent —

A-Yao had been certain that Xue Yang had not been responsible for the Chang Clan massacre.

Perhaps he had been right, despite what Nie Mingjue had very emphatically believed.

Lan Xichen should ask Xue Yang about it.

He knows he should.

Demand a full account of the slaughter—

But, “Were you flirting with me before?” he hears himself asking instead. He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken that ridiculous, adolescent word out loud, but it’s the only one he can think of that fits.

Xue Yang starts. “What?”

Lan Xichen is thinking of A-Yao’s half-open robes. A-Yao had never so much as made a move—chaste as his marriage was, he’d valued his vows and Qin Su too much to betray them like that—but during their time living together in cramped inns before the Sunshot Campaign, there had been little privacy, and he had not been above an occasional open robe, the occasional outfit change in front of Lan Xichen out of necessity, the occasional soft look when he thought Lan Xichen wasn’t looking, and after his marriage he hadn’t bothered breaking himself of those habits during their late-night talks.

Things Lan Xichen had always dismissed. A-Yao, he knew, had an almost obsessive dread of anyone associating him with his mother’s profession in any way. Had never said anything that could be taken the wrong way, be it to a man or a woman. Dressed neatly and simply. Never indulged in off-color jokes or humor, avoided so much as traveling through the low parts of town, had always been uncomfortable when certain topics came up.

But if he’s right about Xue Yang, perhaps his judgment isn’t so far off after all, and if so, that might mean that A-Yao—

“Before,” he explains. “Because I can’t always tell.”

Xue Yang laughs. His knife is back in his hand, but there’s no threat there anymore. He seems to like fidgeting with things—the knife, his hair, that leaf. He tosses the blade idly into the air, catching it deftly.

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d say no to a pretty young man,” he admits.

“You were trying to…” Lan Xichen forces his tongue to form the words, uncomfortable as they feel in his mouth “… seduce me into helping you?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “I’ve done far worse trying to get him back than fuck another man.”

So Lan Xichen’s paranoia was justified, for once, but instead of this knowledge grounding him, it all strikes him as the funniest thing he’s ever heard. That Xue Yang should think infidelity is the issue here. That Xue Yang should have zero shame about it when all Lan Xichen has ever felt about anything that deviated slightly from the straight and narrow has been shame.

It’s all just so—so funny .

He shakes with silent laughter beneath his damp blanket, laughs until tears drip from his chin, till his ribs ache and throat is sore.

“What now?” he asks when the fit has subsided. Xue Yang is still tossing the knife up and down, patiently waiting for him to come back to himself. “What was your plan, exactly?”

Xue Yang straightens up. “You’re going to help me?”

“Of course not. But I’m curious.” Saying this out loud feels indescribably…luxurious is the wrong word, but it’s the one that comes to mind. Curiosity for curiosity’s sake has always been frowned upon in the Cloud Recesses. There is no single rule against it, but it violates a cross-section of rules ranging from admonishments to mind one’s own business to rules forbidding idle speculation.

Xue Yang is staring at his bandaged hand. “I was going to tell you that I know for a fact that there’s a ritual for bringing someone back to life in that forbidden library of yours, and, in exchange for you helping me bring back Xiao Xingchen, I would do everything in my power to help you bring back Jin Guangyao despite the fact that the little weasel did his best to murder me.”

“Execute you.”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Murder, execute, same thing.”

“What could you do?”

Xue Yang looks up from his hand. “Everything you aren’t willing to.”

“Get out.”

“But—”

“Get the hell out.”

Xue Yang reaches into his qiankun sleeve, pulls out a second spirit-trapping pouch, and sets it on the table.

“For your friend,” he says, and leaves.

* * * * *

Lan Xichen stares at the small brown pouch for a long time after Xue Yang leaves.

It stares back at him.

He gets out of bed, blanket pulled tightly around his naked body, and begins to pace the room, pouch in hand, rubbing his cheek on the soft material.

He feels—feels—feels surprisingly good , actually.

Nothing is real. Nothing matters.

And if nothing matters, if nothing is real, then A-Yao’s crimes don’t matter, his crimes aren’t real. All that’s real is the fact that A-Yao is trapped forever in a coffin with a vindictive spirit, stranded in limbo, never to ascend to the afterlife.

A-Yao. His A-Yao.

Nothing’s real, nothing matters.

Nothing but the fact that he wants him back.

Nothing’s real, nothing matters.

Nothing but the fact that the thought of A-Yao makes him happy. That emotion is real. Nothing around him is real, but the feelings inside him are, and right now the thought of A-Yao standing before him again makes his chest swell with warmth, makes him feel like he can jump swordless off the roof and soar, swoop through the air, glide over the treetops and fill his lungs with starlight.

Perhaps he has spent the night flying, soaring above it all. It’s almost morning when he returns fully to himself, standing naked in his mother’s courtyard, inhaling the moonlight, A-Yao’s spirit-trapping pouch still in his hand.

He throws his clothes on and hurries to Xue Yang’s room, yanking the door open so hard he rips the lock off.

Shocked awake, Xue Yang shoots upright, snatching the ornate knife resting on the bed frame. Shuanghua’s frosted white hilt peeks up from under the covers.

“Oh, it’s just you,” he says, breathing hard. He’s still gripping the knife, as if trying to ground himself with the feel of the cold metal on his skin and reassuring weight in his hand. “I almost bit my tongue off!”

“The library,” Lan Xichen says. “Now.”

Xue Yang bites his lip so hard he draws blood.

* * * * *

They spend all morning in the library. All day. All night.

All week.

“You said you knew for a fact that there’s a way to bring them back,” Lan Xichen says on the eighth day. “How do you know this?”

They’re sitting in the main library, eating a very late supper. Eating is forbidden in the library, but nobody dared refuse the Clan Leader’s orders.

Daily Tally:

Rule 40: Speaking during mealtimes is forbidden

Rule 43: Eating is prohibited inside the library

Rule 44: Eating is forbidden outside mealtimes

Rule 528: Do not conceal your intentions

Rule 2,007: Abuse not your authority

Rule 1,959: Reject the crooked road

And, of course, Rule 52: Do not befriend the evil , and the fifty-odd rules relating to demonic cultivation.

Xue Yang looks up from the honey-fried dumplings Lan Xichen specially ordered for him. Nobody has ever looked less evil. His mask is off, resting in a bowl of water beside him, and he looks like a sixteen-year-old who had led a particularly blameless life, albeit a particularly blameless life that’s kept him from getting enough sleep. “Did I say that?”

“Clearly.”

Xue Yang eats a few dumplings before answering. His table manners were better when he was pretending to be Xiao Xingchen. Lan Xichen wonders if he’s intentionally trying to provoke him by keeping his elbows on the table. If so, he’s failed. If anything, Lan Xichen finds the delinquent cultivator—the madman—the monster—fascinating. He’s so utterly different from anyone Lan Xichen has ever known.

He wonders how A-Yao got on with Xue Yang, his mirror opposite. Much as he’s always tried to suppress it, Lan Xichen has always had a taste for the absurd, and he regrets that he never got to witness them interacting.

Well, if all goes well, he’ll have that opportunity soon enough.

“I must have been talking about that thing I saw once,” Xue Yang shrugs finally, licking honey from his lips.

Lan Xichen resists the urge to remind him of Rule 23, Speak clearly . It’s hard to shake decades of being trained to think a certain way, to see rule infractions in every innocuous interaction. “What ‘thing’?”

“A page from a book originating here in this library. It discussed a ritual, but didn’t have all of the details.”

“Do you have the page?”

“It was destroyed in a fire, my luck.”

“What book was it from?”

“I don’t know. It was torn out. I’ve been looking for a book with a torn page.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”

Xue Yang shrugs again. “Then you’d only be looking for a torn book instead of looking for potential alternatives. For example, at first I thought we could find the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain somewhere in the books, though it’s become clear that that’s impossible. No sense in closing off other potential avenues.”

Lan Xichen rises with a sigh. “Put your face back on. We’re leaving.”

Wrinkling his nose, Xue Yang replaces his face and follows Lan Xichen from the library to his chambers.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Lan Xichen pulls an elegantly-carved blue chest from under his bed. Inside are bundles of books, scrolls, and wooden slips. Each has a portion missing, a page torn out, a section mysteriously shortened.

“Intellectual mice?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t respond. Xue Yang doesn’t need to know that he spent days going through the forbidden pavilion after Guanyin Temple, removing everything A-Yao had gotten to.

He seats himself at his table while Xue Yang goes through the chest. Touching the same books that A-Yao touched is too much right now.

He’s glad he hadn’t put A-Yao’s hat in the same box.

Xue Yang talks non-stop as he rifles through the chest. “…Not many cookbooks vandalized, I’ll guess. The food at Koi Tower was always good. Too oily though. Hell on your stomach, but no need to steal recipes from the Lan, of all people—Ah. Here it is.” Grinning, he holds up an ancient-looking book with unraveling binding and no title. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He sets it on the low table and kneels across from Lan Xichen.

But Lan Xichen rises, still unwilling to touch the book. “You read it,” he says, crossing the room standing in the door, looking out over the silent Family Courtyard. The shadows are deep, the moon hidden behind mist, the world utterly still.

He wonders if the crane is back in the stream.

Humming to himself, Xue Yang reviews the book, pulls a few others out from the chest, starts copying sections out using Lan Xichen’s calligraphy set.

Eventually Lan Xichen takes out Liebing and begins to play. The music soothes his nerves, quiets the anxious thoughts starting to buzz though his brain: the fear of being so close to bringing A-Yao back, of not being close of enough, of what if this is all a farce, what if what Xue Yang found is nothing, after all—

“Here.” Xue Yang is beside him, papers in hand. “Want to take a look?”

Lan Xichen puts his flute away. “No. Just tell me what my role in all this is.”

Xue Yang grins, tucking the pages away in his qiankun sleeve. “Traveling expenses, mostly. Unless we fly—”

“No flying unless necessary.” Lan Xichen is relieved Xue Yang agrees on this point. He doesn’t want his dreams bleeding into whatever this all is. Not exactly reality, but not exactly not reality. “I’ll make the preparations. Where are we going?”

“The Unclean Realm. We need to extract his spirit from the sarcophagus before we can do anything else. Yes, we’re starting with that dimpled little freak. I figure he’s smart, he can help us with my half—”

Lan Xichen barely hears him. “I’m not going to Qinghe.”

“Clan Leader Nie has the coffin.”

“I refuse to so much as speak to that—that—” Words fail him. It’s not like he doesn’t know any appropriate curse words, but none come close to expressing the hatred he feels at the mere thought of Nie Huaisang.

Nie Huaisang, lying to his face. Nie Huaisang, picking up A-Yao’s hat without a trace of emotion. Brushing the dust off. Looking at the blood on his hand.

A-Yao’s blood.

“That twat-nosed little fucker,” Xue Yang suggests, though he can’t possibly understand why Lan Xichen feels the way he does.

“That—” Fucker .

“Fucker,” Xue Yang says encouragingly.

Lan Xichen shakes his head.

Xue Yang pats his arm, far too familiarly. “I’ll do all the talking to that half-witted little fucktoad, my friend. You just try not to trip and accidentally-on-purpose impale anyone on your hairpiece.”

Lan Xichen’s jaw tightens. “The mere idea of being in the same room as him makes me want to peel my own skin off.”

“Like this?” Heedless of the fact that he’s in full view of anyone strolling through the courtyard, Xue Yang tugs off his mask, laughing.

Lan Xichen slides the door shut. “Put your face back on, please, and please leave.”

Instead Xue Yang clicks his tongue and follows him back to the table. He sits on the corner, tapping his knee with his knife as Lan Xichen sets the table right, straightening the papers and brush set and wiping up the ink splatters. The table is lacquered to prevent permanent stains, and he ought to just wait until a servant comes to clean in the morning, but he can’t abide messes.

“What were you planning for the journey?” Xue Yang asks Lan Xichen as he tidies. “Full procession, servants, half-dozen outfit changes, increasingly ridiculous hairpieces, inns fit for an emperor—”

He doesn’t typically travel with a full procession, but the rest of it is fair. “What other way is there?”

Xue Yang smiles. “Leave it to me.”

***

Up Next: Lan Xichen + Xue Yang road trip.

Or: An innkeeper may or may not meet an untimely end, depending on your interpretation of, “Of course I didn’t kill him. Not even a little.”

Chapter 4

#Lan Xichen decides that solipsism and nihilism make an excellent combination #Or: The joys of library research are many and varied #Fractured Ice #fanfic #xue yang #lan xichen #xiyao #xuexiao

21 notes · View notes

disastermages · 4 years ago

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this is chapter 12 of the au where Xiao Xingchen raises Wei Wuxian

Xiao Xingchen’s hand is tight around his husband's as they walk back to the inn, uncaring and unhearing as merchants and townspeople try to call out to them. A quick swipe of his thumb over Song Lan’s knuckles asks a question and the squeeze he gets back is all the reply Xiao Xingchen needs. They would talk once they were locked away inside their own room.

Song Lan crumples once they're inside, after A-Qing had hugged them both tightly, asking them where they'd gone and understanding all too quickly when the four of them hesitated in answering her. Wei Ying had distracted her then, grabbing her up and asking if she'd like to take a walk with himself and Lan Wangji, and refusing to set her down no matter how much she laughed and pretended to fight him on it.

Another squeeze at his hand pushed the answer out of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth, telling the three of them not to go far before he and Song Lan went up the stairs, Song Lan’s grip tight enough to turn his knuckles white, even after Xiao Xingchen had shut the door of their room behind them.

Now, Xiao Xingchen is all but sitting in his husband's lap, his cheek squished against the top of Song Lan’s head while his free hand runs through his now loosened hair.

"Tell me what you're thinking?" Xiao Xingchen asks quietly, ready to accept silence if that was meant to be his answer.

Warm wetness begins to seep into Xiao Xingchen’s robes, his own throat drying out and he presses his lips to the crown of Song Lan’s head. "This is my fault," Song Lan heaves against Xiao Xingchen’s chest, his shoulders shaking along with the rest of him, "I could have warned them. I should have warned them. If I hadn't-- If we hadn't gotten involved-- I did this to them."

The longer he speaks, the louder and rougher Song Lan’s voice sounds, his free hand gripping Xiao Xingchen’s upper arm tight enough to twist and wrinkle the fabric.

Swallowing thickly, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head, untangling their hands so he can wrap his arms as tightly as he can manage around his husband, his own eyes squeezing shut. The words don't come for the longest time, the grip of their absence tightening around Xiao Xingchen’s heart like a vice.

"My Zichen could not do this." Xiao Xingchen says finally, the words still sticking in his throat while they form. "My Zichen is patient and he is kind, he has been since the day I first knew him." Song Lan moves to pull away from him, but Xiao Xingchen holds him still and shakes his head again, fingers stroking through long, dark hair. "We did not and still do not know Xue Yang's plans," Xiao Xingchen is speaking slowly now, resting his chin on top of Song Lan’s head and reminding himself to breathe. "The fault for this is Xue Yang's, it will never be yours."

If it hadn't been Baixue Temple, it would have been another, another village, another clan, another sect wiped out for the sake of a mad man's ambitions. They both know that, there's no reason to say it out loud.

"Your Zichen is foolish." Song Lan murmurs once Xiao Xingchen has stopped talking, heaves slowing to hiccups, though he still hides his face against his husband's chest.

Sitting back, Xiao Xingchen lets his hands slide up Song Lan’s arms and over his shoulders before he gently pulls Song Lan out of his hiding place, his thumbs stroking over his cheeks and underneath his eyes. "The only time my husband has ever been foolish is when he asks our nephew to cook dinner."

It's meant to be a joke, and at first Song Lan laughs, tears forming in his eyes after. "I've been trying to teach him to cook since he was ten years old, Xingchen, and he's still just as bad at it as you are." Xiao Xingchen laughs then too, even as he strokes his husband's cheeks. Wei Ying’s earliest attempts at cooking had ended in flames and charred vegetables, whatever remains that could have been picked through were too spicy to consider eating.

Xiao Xingchen wasn't much better at it, they'd both been regulated to chopping and clean up duty ever since.

"I learned from my sister." Xiao Xingchen defends himself weakly, the ghost of a smile coming back to his face as he brushes Song Lan’s hair out of his face. His hands drop down to his shoulders as Xiao Xingchen leans forward and presses their foreheads together.

Song Lan hums, but says nothing else, his eyes fluttering shut as he wraps his arms around Xiao Xingchen’s middle. He still sniffles occasionally, but nothing bigger comes.

"Xingchen," Song Lan says, his voice barely a whisper as he lets his hand reach up and curl around Xiao Xingchen’s wrist. "Thank you." There was more, Xiao Xingchen knew that much just looking at his husband, but it doesn't stop him from melting just a little as Song Lan presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist, the hand left unheld sliding around to the back of Song Lan’s neck.

"We're married," Xiao Xingchen answers, pressing a kiss of his own to Song Lan’s forehead, "to have you lean against me is no hardship."

He'd only ever asked his grandmaster about love a handful of times, and each time, Baoshan Sanren had looked distant and melancholy, her eyes faraway when she told him that love was making the choice to catch someone when they fell.

Xiao Xingchen would make that choice over and over again without question.

He almost doesn't notice that Song Lan is looking up at him until a thumb brushes over his pulse, a light pressure that brings him back to the present, the smile on his face widening.

"How are you feeling?" Xiao Xingchen asks.

For a moment, Song Lan looks away from him, eyes focused on his wrist instead. "It hurts." He says finally, looking up and setting his hand on Xiao Xingchen’s cheek, "But it would hurt more if you weren't here."

Xiao Xingchen doesn't stop himself from turning his face into Song Lan’s palm and pressing a kiss there. "I wouldn't leave you to do this alone, Zichen, I couldn't."

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Song Lan says softly, blinking something away before he hides his face in Xiao Xingchen’s chest again. “If you hadn’t been there, if A-Xian and Lan Wangji hadn’t been there, I don’t know what might’ve happened.” His voice is thick and muffled as he speaks, grief ebbing into something else, something that makes Xiao Xingchen curl protectively around him, his own hair falling off his shoulder like a curtain to section the two of them off from the rest of the room.

Opening and closing his mouth, Xiao Xingchen’s chest aches as he searches for the right words, the smile dropping off his face. What could he say? That anything Xue Yang could do would most likely be worse than either of them could imagine? That Xiao Xingchen was grateful Song Lan hadn’t been there when the massacre started?

Before any of those thoughts can bubble to the tip of his tongue, Song Lan is speaking again and dragging Xiao Xingchen out of those thoughts, both of his hands tight on Xiao Xingchen’s wrists now. “We can’t let A-Xian or Lan Wangji put the spell on Xue Yang, we can’t, it’s too dangerous.” Anger and grief mix on his face as Song Lan talks, though his eyes are pleading. “They could get killed, Xingchen, Lan Wangji has already gotten hurt, we don’t know how far he’ll go the next time.”

“I’ll do it myself if that’s our only option.” Xiao Xingchen decides, swallowing thickly as he pushes past thoughts that went down paths he didn’t want to follow. He’d looked over Lan Wangji’s wound before he’d allowed Wei Ying to dress it, fearing that Xue Yang had cut him to the bone, though it had only been a near thing. Xiao Xingchen was grateful for that. “He won’t get near either of them again.”

Not without going through Xiao Xingchen first, he would make sure of that.

“One of us will do it.” Song Lan corrects, taking his hands off of Xiao Xingchen’s wrists to hold his hands instead, his voice still tight as he shakes his head. “I won’t let you carry this alone.”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t argue.

“Lan Zhan, how’s your shoulder?” Wei Ying whispers, pressing himself close to Lan Wangji’s uninjured side as they walk together, his other hand holding onto his sister’s. Lan Wangji had scarcely had time to change before he was being pulled out of the inn again, his wrist held tightly in Wei Ying’s hand as Qing Sanren leading them through the streets, telling them about the things she’d seen from the window after she’d woken up.

Wei Ying had asked her if she’d played tricks on anyone, half laughing and half scolding, but Qing Sanren had refused to answer her brother, saying that nobody had seen her except for the innkeeper.

“Fine.” Lan Wangji answers simply, shrugging and regretting it when the movement pulls at his wound. The hiss he lets out is involuntary, but it’s still enough to make Wei Ying bring the three of them to a stop in the middle of the street, his eyes widening just a little. “It is sore, but it is manageable.”

Lan Wangji wasn’t lying, the pain was manageable as long as he didn’t shrug or move his arm above the elbow, it would be fine until he could meditate in his room later. “You have to tell me if it’s too much, Lan Zhan, don’t just put up with it.” Wei Ying is speaking gently now, frowning just a little and making Lan Wangji wish that he were able to brush it away where they stand, his own mouth falling open just a little as he takes half a step forward. He means to tell Wei Ying that he wouldn’t lie about the pain, but before he can, Wei Ying is speaking again, his fingers loosely curling around Lan Wangji’s. “Uncle Xiao says I’m getting better at bandaging, but if it hurts, we can always ask him for help.”

A streak of spiritual energy curls up Lan Wangji’s arm like a vine then, starting at their fingertips and reaching up to soothe the worst of the stinging from the wound. “Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji whispers hoarsely, feeling as though he has butterflies trapped in his throat, even as the smile comes back to Wei Ying’s face.

They’d had lectures on medical cultivation techniques, but Lan Wangji had thought that Wei Ying had tuned them out. He, Jiang Wanyin, and Nie Huaisang had spent the duration of it passing notes back and forth, looking at each other and laughing after they’d been caught and scolded for it.

“Don’t call me shameless this time, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying teases, letting another burst of warm spiritual energy curl up Lan Wangji’s arm, “this is one of your Lan clan’s healing techniques.”

It was a healing technique meant to occur between cultivation partners, Lan Wangji wants to remind him, blinking owlishly as the red energy fades, though Wei Ying doesn’t pull his hand away from Lan Wangji, the ache in his shoulder trickling down into a dull throb rather than the flood of raw nerves. His uncle had only brushed over this form of healing, telling their class that they wouldn’t need it for years to come, had Wei Ying learned it on his own?

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji tries again, heat spreading across the tips of his ears, “I did not know you had an interest in medical cultivation.” Well, he hadn’t called Wei Ying shameless, that was all he’d been asked, hadn’t it?

There was no way Wei Ying hadn’t known the intention of the technique when he’d researched it, it was plainly spelled out in the books, there were even diagrams.

Wei Ying’s laughter derails Lan Wangji’s thoughts then, his unoccupied hand pressed against his own stomach. “Lan Zhan! Don’t look so surprised that I listened to your uncle’s lecture, he wouldn’t answer my questions after class, so I had to look it up by myself. It helped, didn’t it?”

Eyes flicking down to their hands, Lan Wangji feels himself nod, “Mn.” He should say something else, anything else, he should at least thank Wei Ying, but before he can, Wei Ying is taking a step back and looking around, the smile dropping off his face in less than a second.

“Where did A-Qing go? Did you see her?” Lan Wangji looks down at Wei Ying’s side then, his eyes widening minutely as Lan Wangji takes his own step back to look over his shoulder. She’d been there when Wei Ying had stopped them, and they’d only been talking for a few minutes, she wouldn’t have had time to go far, would she?

“A-Qing!” Wei Ying calls out, finally stepping too far away to continue holding onto Lan Wangji’s hand while they both look through the crowd.

Qing Sanren had been wearing white robes that matched Xiao Xingchen’s when they left her in the care of the innkeeper that morning, but now Lan Wangji couldn’t remember if she’d changed by the time they’d returned.

They walk the street up and down together, with Wei Ying calling her name and stopping whichever strangers would give him the time of day to ask them if they’d seen her. Lan Wangji tries to find her face among the rest of the children, hoping to find her playing in one of the larger groups, but none of them can place her when he dares to ask.

An hour passes between laps of the street and the streets nearest to the one they’d started on before an old man interrupts them, catching Wei Ying’s arm and telling them that he thought he’d seen her walking with an older woman in the opposite direction that they’d been headed.

Wei Ying had only been able to shout a quick thanks over his shoulder before he was taking off again, and Lan Wangji bows quickly to the man before he chases after him, just barely able to stop himself from crashing into his back as he comes to a stop in the middle of a square, the both of them looking over the occupied tables and Lan Wangji feels his own stomach sink when he can’t find her sitting at any of them.

“Xian-gege!” A voice calls out from behind them and they both spin around, their eyes still searching until they see Qing Sanren’s arm waving, an unfamiliar woman sitting behind her with an amused look on her face. “Xian-gege! Grandmaster’s here!” Perhaps she was only unfamiliar to Lan Wangji then.

Baoshan Sanren rises from her seat as they come over, she was taller and stockier than Lan Wangji had expected her to be, though he dares not say it as she clasps her hands behind her back and watches them bow before she returns it, sharp eyes focusing on his headband.

“A-Qing, you can’t just wander off by yourself like that!” Wei Ying whines, any and all formality dropping away in a second as he sinks down to his knees in front of Qing Sanren, already pouting as he looks at her.

“I didn’t wander off by myself, I was with Grandmaster.” Qing Sanren answers, grinning and not looking at her older brother as she rocks back and forth on her heels, “You were busy with Lan Wangji anyway.” Baoshan Sanren’s eyes flick between her granddaughter and Lan Wangji, her face betraying nothing as she puts one hand on the back of Qing Sanren’s head and the other one on Wei Ying’s shoulder.

“Enough.” Baoshan Sanren speaks deliberately, ending any argument before it could truly start, “Apologize to each other, A-Qing should know better than to wander off the second she gets bored and A-Xian should know to hold her hand properly.” For a long moment, both Wei Ying and Qing Sanren sit back and look at each other, as if they were weighing out their options before they apologize to each other, though it doesn’t happen without the both of them wearing similar pouts on their faces.

Lan Wangji can feel the corners of his mouth pulling upwards before he catches himself, though Baoshan Sanren has already seen him, raising an eyebrow as she looks between him and Wei Ying, neither smiling nor frowning.

His skin prickles under her eyes and Lan Wangji feels himself draw closer to Wei Ying, looking away from Baoshan Sanren first and swallowing thickly. Wei Ying nearly collides with him as he stands up, taking Qing Sanren’s hand into his own and pulling her closer. The smile comes back to his face once he’s able to look his grandmaster in the eye without looking up.

“Are you going to introduce me to your friend, or am I meant to wonder who he is for the duration of my visit, A-Xian?” Baoshan Sanren asks, getting to the point with lethal precision and just a flicker of something brighter in her eye.

Temporary embarrassment crosses Wei Ying’s face, and Lan Wangji reaches out and brushes his fingers along his wrist on instinct, trying his hardest not to let the surprise show on his face when Wei Ying’s fingers curl and try to catch his.

“That’s Lan Wangji!” Qing Sanren interrupts, pulling at her grandmaster’s sleeves, “They’re like Baba and A-Die, but A-Die says they aren’t married yet.” Color spreads high and hot at the tips of Lan Wangji’s ears, spreading down to his neck while he startles and freezes like one of his rabbits. He and Wei Ying hadn’t even gone that far in describing it yet, but Qing Sanren seemed to have no issue doing so.

He doesn’t dare look over at Wei Ying, but he can hear him sputter, telling his sister that she can’t announce things like that for other people, but he doesn’t object to it. Swallowing again, Lan Wangji allows himself to let his fingers linger where they’re caught by Wei Ying.

“Grandmaster,” Wei Ying starts sounding nervous, and Lan Wangji can’t help but look up at him, his heart freezing and his throat threatening to close when Wei Ying looks back at him with a smile, “This is Lan Zhan, courtesy name, Wangji, he’s my…” Wei Ying trails off then, looking back at Lan Wangji and then at Baoshan Sanren, her shoulders rolled back and her head leaned to the side as she listens.

“So, you have a Lan of your own.” Baoshan Sanren sighs to herself, her face betraying her for the first time as she looks away from them, instead focusing on brushing Qing Sanren’s bangs out of her face, though her eyebrows knit together when she looks up again. “Are the three of you alone? Where are Xingchen and Song Zichen?”

Both Lan Wangji and Wei Ying go still beside each other then, their hands dropping away as Wei Ying glances down at Qing Sanren and then back up at his grandmaster. “They’re back at the inn,” Wei Ying answers carefully and truthfully, frowning as he looks down, “but something happened at Uncle Song’s temple.”

Baoshan Sanren’s expression doesn’t become any less confused as she frowns, blinking at them quickly before she gestures to the table she’d claimed for herself and Qing Sanren, long sleeves folded back as she waits for the other three to sit.

Wei Ying tells his grandmaster the story from the very beginning, from the day he and his uncles had seen the Wen clan’s dire owl, to what they’d discussed in Nightless City, listing out Xue Yang’s crimes and allowing Lan Wangji to remind him of details that he’d forgotten, their knees pressed against each other’s underneath the table.

“I see.” Baoshan Sanren says after a long moment, her hands pressed flat against the surface of the table, her face is taut, though her eyes are calm. “Song Zichen, how is he?”

It’s Wei Ying’s turn to look down at the table now, his shoulders dropping as he shakes his head, “I don’t know, he and Uncle Xiao had already gone up to their room when we left.” Something sad and tired spreads across Wei Ying’s face and Lan Wangji feels a pull in his chest accompanied by the urge to wrap his hand around Wei Ying’s wrist.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drags Lan Wangji’s attention away from Wei Ying as Baoshan Sanren draws something familiar out, her energy a deeper red than Wei Ying’s when she flings it out, though nothing seems to happen.

“Settle down, it’s only a cloak.” She says quietly when Wei Ying, Lan Wangji, and Qing Sanren begin to look around, all three of their eyes falling back onto her in an instant. “Let me see the Yin Iron pieces, A-Xian.”

“We only have this one with us, the other one is in the cold pond cave, Lan Yi is guarding it.” Wei Ying says, already reaching for the qiankun pouch, but stopping when he realizes what he’d said and looking at his grandmaster with wide eyes. Baoshan Sanren’s hand is frozen in midair, her strict face losing it’s place for a moment too long as her fingers curl in on themselves.

“What do you mean Lan Yi is guarding it?” Baoshan Sanren asks, her hand dropping back down to the table, even as Wei Ying sets the qiankun down beside it, wriggling in his seat under the weight of his grandmaster’s gaze. “A-Yi died, A-Xian, there wasn’t even a body left to bury after what the Yin Iron did to her.”

For once, Wei Ying seems to flounder for words, his mouth opening and closing as his hands curl into fists on his lap.

“The spirit of my ancestor resides in the cave.” Lan Wangji speaks up, allowing the weight of Baoshan Sanren’s gaze to fall onto him instead. Lan Yi could allow herself to be seen, she could speak to them as she might’ve in life, but she was intangible and see through at times, her face flickering in and out of transparency the longer she was forced to present her physical form.

“Her spiritual cognition is tied to the Lan’s Yin Iron, she can’t leave the cave.” Wei Ying speaks up suddenly, almost interrupting Lan Wangji, but not quite. Lan Wangji does not fault him for it.

Baoshan Sanren’s face has morphed into one of disbelief as she looks between the two of them, her mouth falling open before she remembers to close it again.

“I should have known she would do something like this.” Baoshan Sanren says finally, closing her eyes for a long moment, her hand reaching forward and grasping the Yin Iron through the bag, her fist shaking as a cracking noise rings out around them, though the people outside their cloak take no notice of it. “She’s always been stubborn, doing whatever she wanted no matter who argued with her. I liked that about her, once.” The cracking begins to drown out Baoshan Sanren’s words, wisps of smoke curling between and around her fingers as she stares straight ahead at her own fist.

“Grandma?” Wei Ying asks, though Baoshan Sanren doesn’t seem to hear him as the Yin Iron starts to give underneath the pressure and Lan Wangji puts a hand on Wei Ying’s arm, his own eyes wide as he watches the wisps of smoke become darker and darker.

The Yin Iron breaks like lightning cracking through the sky, the sound of it startling enough that Qing Sanren presses herself tight against her brother, climbing into his lap and watching as Baoshan Sanren lets the now limp bag fall back onto the table before she slumps backwards.

Their passing of Qing Sanren is quick, Lan Wangji snatching her up as Wei Ying bolts forward and catches his grandmaster and holds her upright, calling out to her and shaking her shoulders. For a moment too long, Baoshan Sanren says nothing, her breath coming in gasps and her chest heaving, though soon, her face becomes as calm as it had been when Lan Wangji had first seen her.

“Grandmaster will do, A-Xian, there’s no need to call me Grandmother.” Exhaustion is evident in Baoshan Sanren’s voice as she speaks, nuding her grandson back, though she makes no real attempt to shake off his hands.

“Are you alright?” Wei Ying asks, his eyes wide as he kneels down next to his grandmaster’s stool, both of his hands still on her shoulders. Despite her exhaustion, Baoshan Sanren lifts a hand up and brushes Wei Ying’s hair away from his face.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’ll be fine.” Baoshan Sanren tries to sound stern as she speaks, but the battle she fights is a losing one, and her eyes change again, softening as she smooths the crease between Wei Ying’s brows. “You look like Cangse when you worry.”

Wei Ying’s mouth falls open as he looks at her, his eyebrows turning up and Lan Wangji looks away, half expecting Baoshan Sanren to continue, but nothing else comes. “We should take your grandmaster back to the inn, Xiao Daozhang will want to know she is resting.” Lan Wangji speaks quietly, his grip on Qing Sanren only loosening when she begins to fight against it.

Lan Wangji watches as she runs over and stands at Baoshan Sanren’s other side, small hands pulling at her grandmother’s robe and calling her like she hadn’t just heard the reminder her brother had gotten.

Baoshan Sanren only barely allows Wei Ying to help her stand, holding onto his arm nowhere near as tightly as she should as they begin to walk.

Lan Wanji tucks the bag of iron dust inside his sleeve before he catches up to them, allowing himself to walk just behind Wei Ying and his grandmaster.

The knocking at the door of their room is quick and insistent as Xiao Xingchen drags himself out of the nap he’d coerced both himself and Song Lan into, his hand grazing over his husband’s cheek even as he sits up.

He expects Wei Ying, or perhaps even Lan Wangji, but he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a Wen cultivator, the young woman’s face looking serious as she announces Sect Leader Wen’s arrival. She offers no more information as she bows and walks away, leaving Xiao Xingchen standing in the doorway to look after her.

Why had she come all this way? They’d sent her regular reports, with the exception from this morning, but night hadn’t even fallen yet.

Xiao Xingchen dresses quickly, barely taking the time to properly secure his hair before he exits his room, a note left behind on the dressing table should Song Lan wake up and find him missing.

He can hear Wen Qing speaking quietly amongst her contingency as he descends the stairs, though when he’s far enough down to catch sight of her, she’d be just as easy to lose. The ornate robes of a sect leader had been cast off and exchanged for something more practical, leaving only the gleaming, golden jewelry to set her apart from the rest of her sect.

The conversation happening below comes to a halt as she sees him, her face smoothing into something neutral. “Wait outside for Young Master Wei and Second Young Master Lan, I am in no danger here.” Wen Qing orders, her sword held low in her hand.

Xiao Xingchen watches as the cultivators file out of the inn, the dining room feeling much, much larger without quite so many bodies standing in it.

“Sect Leader Wen-” Xiao Xingchen starts, but stops as Wen Qing bows to him, neutral mask falling away into something remorseful.

“I received Second Young Master Lan’s report early this morning.” Wen Qing says, offering up the answer to a question Xiao Xingchen had yet to ask. “I have come to offer my condolences to Song Daozhang and my thanks to Xiao Daozhang as well as Young Masters Wei and Lan.”

Xiao Xingchen hadn’t considered the possibility of Lan Wangji writing and sending off the report, but he’s almost grateful for it as he nods, moving into a bow of his own, Shuanghua stretched out in front of him, but he’s stopped.

“There is no need.” Wen Qing shakes her head, taking her hand away and looking down at the floor between them. “I will not ask you to bow after what you’ve gone through because of my request.” She doesn’t look at him as she speaks, but Xiao Xingchen can hear the truth of it in her voice, and any remaining worry that had pulled at the hems of his robes drops away.

“I’ve asked for your aid in protecting the life of my younger brother, but I hadn’t considered that the lives of the ones closest to all of you might come into danger as a result of it, I can only hope that this sect leader’s deepest apologies could be accepted.” Wen Qing squares her shoulders as she speaks again, trying and failing to raise herself to Xiao Xingchen’s height, though he doesn’t call her out for it. “The only request I will make of you now is that you pass my message along to Song Daozhang.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” Xiao Xingchen tries again, but the doors of the inn are opening, letting blinding daylight in as Xiao Xingchen and Wen Qing both turn to face them, though only his mouth drops open once his eyes adjust.

“Grandmaster.”

#the untamed #mdzs #mdzs fic #songxiao #wangxian #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song zichen #lan wangji #a-qing #baoshan sanren #wen qing #wei ying #lan zhan #song lan #as usual the ao3 link and links to the other parts will be in the reblog to my main #songxiao had three minutes without the kids and the married intimacy jumped out

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lady-of-the-lotus · 4 years ago

Text

Fun Of His Own

A resurrected Xue Yang, his memory wiped clean, is Xiao Xingchen’s prisoner.

Too bad he doesn’t know it yet.

Inspired by @xuesongxiao‘s Halloween prompts

Read on Ao3! Rated T

******

The young man opens his eyes to a blurred world.

A dark gray blur of sky is just visible through his burning eyes, rain pattering down on his face. Blurred orange light gleams a little way off, with dark blurs on either side—buildings? Trees? Rocks?—and a dark human-shaped blur sitting beside the orange light.

The young man rolls onto his side, trying to blink away the blurriness, but it’s like rubbing his eyeballs with dirt.

Where is he?

More importantly, who is he?

He lies there in the—forest? Is he lying in a forest?—and struggles to remember something—anything.

Nothing.

He tries to move again, using his right arm to brace himself, and his whole body hurts but the pain in his right arm is agony, overwhelming him. The dark gray of the sky whirls around to merge with the fiery orange, and the shadowy blurs swallow him up.

* * *

It’s evening when he next opens his eyes, but he can’t tell how much time has passed.

He sits up. He's in a courtyard, hemmed by dilapidated buildings that are strangely familiar. Everything is gray or brown, the sky cloudy, the ground damp. Scattered around the courtyard are—

He scrambles back. The courtyard is studded with coffins. Lacquered black coffins, plain wooden coffins, engraved coffins, stone coffins—

“You’re awake,” says a voice.

The young man on the ground whirls around at the sudden voice, falling back on his palms. His right elbow gives away under his weight and he falls on his back with a cry.

A young male cultivator dressed in simple gray and black robes stands over him. He is tall but very slender, almost fragile, with a wide, expressive mouth and skin as clear and pale as an infant's. Gleaming in his hand is a sword with a white hilt as delicately-molded as the cultivator’s face.

“Who are you?” demands the young man when the cultivator just stands there with his sleeves and skirts flowing around him in the chill breeze that’s sprung up. The breeze smells of rain, and the young man is seized by a sudden insane fear that he’ll be left to die in the rain, as if he’s made of metal and can rust.

His hair, he suddenly notices, is wet. Has he been lying out here all this time?

“Who are you?” the cultivator asks in return. His voice is surprisingly deep coming from someone as thin and anemic-looking as he is. “Can you remember anything?”

“I’m—” The young man’s tries to sit up. “I—I don’t know.” It hurts to speak. He feels something on his chin. Blood. “How did I get here?”

“Now isn’t the time to discuss that,” says the cultivator. He smiles gently. Everything about him is gentle, from the graceful way he moves to the softness of his deep voice. He returns his sword to the sheath on his back and kneels before the young man, dabs at the blood dribbling from his tongue and dripping from his chin. “You may call me Xiao Xingchen.”

“What—what’s my name? How long has it been?”

“Just a few days.” Xiao Xingchen brushes his knuckles across the young man’s forehead as if testing him for fever, tracing it down his cheek and brushing away the fresh blood running from the corner of the young man’s mouth. “Let’s get you cleaned up and dressed, friend.”

The young man suddenly realizes he’s near-naked, dressed in scraps of damp, boody black-and-green rags and covered in mud and dirt. Xiao Xingchen helps him to his feet. He’s stronger than he looks, fingers unintentionally pressing hard on the young man’s tender right arm and sending stabs of agony down to his fingertips. Looping the young man’s arm around his neck, he carefully half-carries him around the run-down house the courtyard belongs to.

Above the front door hangs a sign half-faded with age and sun and rain:

Coffin House.

The house has only one livable room, containing a rough-hewn table and benches, shelves, two open coffins, and a single bed. Xiao Xingchen seats him on a bench and bathes him with a damp cloth. The young man is too dazed to feel shame at being treated as a child, at having his limbs maneuvered like a big doll. He feels as if he should be taking some kind of offense, but he has no strength to summon the emotion.

He’s of average or slightly below-average size, he sees by glancing down at his limbs, but wiry—a man of action, whatever that action may be. The limbs themselves are covered in scars beneath the dirt (Tooth marks? he wonders. Was I attacked by wild dogs?) with a thick faded gash in his stomach being particularly noticeable and, bizarrely, a ragged pink line circling where his right arm connects to his shoulder, where his pain is worst. The little finger on his left hand is mottled with bruises and scars around the base and feels like metal spike has been rammed deep into his hand.

As his unfocused eyes drift past his scars, thin lines of blood begin to drip from the fresher-looking of his scars, sealed as they seem to be. Xiao Xingchen gently mops the blood away, binding his wounds with strips of linen.

How could I have forgotten where I got these wounds? he thinks, but that’s as far as his thoughts go. It’s simply too exhausting to do more than sit there, pliant under Xiao Xingchen’s thin white hands, staring with drooping lids at the flickering candle on the table.

Xiao Xingchen helps the young man onto the bed, straightening his arms and legs as if setting a fresh corpse in a coffin.

He covers him with a black cloak and smoothes the straw-filled pillow. “Rest here while I prepare dinner, my friend,” he says, the first thing he’s said since the courtyard.

You know my name, the young man wants to say. You brought me here, you healed me; why? but instead he sinks back into unconsciousness.

It’s morning when he awakes, pale sunlight streaming through the gaping holes in the sagging ceiling and the torn paper covering the windows. Xiao Xingchen is already awake, setting two steaming bowls on the table.

He smiles when he sees the young man’s eyes open. His smile is soft, like everything else about him, showing no teeth, as if he thinks even the smallest flash of canine would be too threatening.

“I hope you like congee,” Xiao Xingchen says. “Do you need help, or—”

But the young man is already out of bed, tottering over the table. Lost memory or not, he’s sure he was never the kind of person to readily accept help. He sinks onto the bench opposite Xiao Xingchen and looks down into the watery porridge. His memories only go back a day or so, but he’s certain he’s never had less appetite even though he should be ravenous.

Xiao Xingchen raises his bowl to the young man in a kind of toast and begins to eat.

The young man hesitates before picking up his chopsticks. Suspicion, it seems, is part of his nature, but he tells himself that had the gray-clothed cultivator wanted to kill him, he had days to do so. Poison would be a waste of time.

He also had days to move you inside out of the rain, another voice whispers. His thoughts are sharper today, no longer clouded by pain and shock, though he still can’t remember further back than waking up in the rain several days before. And didn’t.

Xiao Xingchen smiles gently at him, as if overhearing his thoughts, and his smile is so pacific the young man is almost ashamed of himself.

Another emotion he’s unused to, he unconsciously knows, but there’s something about Xiao Xingchen that makes him instinctively trust him, instinctively want to get in his good graces despite any little whispers in his mind.

It’s this last instinct that spurs him to ask if he can help clean up after the meal, but Xiao Xingchen offers a laugh in response, as if he can’t believe the young man made the offer, and rinses the bowls and chopsticks himself.

The laugh tickles something in the young man’s mind, but the tickle fades before he can so much as try to scratch it.

“How did I get here?” he asks again after the meal. Xiao Xingchen is sitting on the stairs outside the Coffin House, polishing his sword. The pale yellow sunlight blinds the young man as he steps out of the dim house, and for a moment, as his vision is scorched, he sees a flash of gracefully swirling white robes—

“I brought you here,” says Xiao Xingchen calmly, scattering the vision.

“Why?”

“It seemed fitting.”

“Fitting how?” It still hurts to talk, but the young man has a rag ready to catch any dribbling blood from his oozing tongue. There’s a half-healed hole in his tongue, as if something had once been attached to it. “Why here, in this awful place?”

Xiao Xingchen looks up for the first time. “The happiest years of your life were spent in this awful place,” he says, very calmly.

“I don’t think I had any happy years.”

Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrow twitches slightly. “Your memory has returned?”

A flash of confusion. “No—no. I just got that impression.”

“Well, they were happy,” says Xiao Xingchen. “You had…fun.”

“Was it fun?” The words pop into the young man’s head, but he can’t pin them to a person or place. “Yes, of course it was fun!”

And then the words are gone altogether.

There’s an pregnant moment, as if there’s a lot more for Xiao Xingchen to say if he wants. The young man waits, and then, when it becomes apparent the cultivator has said all he means to say, sits down beside him. Closer than a stranger should sit, he realizes after he sits, but it’s too late to move without making things awkward. Instead he casually leans back on his left arm and drags his right arm through his loose black hair. The movement sends a stab of pain from his shoulder straight down into his scarred gut, and he gives a muffled grunt and tries to straighten his arm but can’t.

“Here,” says Xiao Xingchen. He sets down his sword and gently straightens the young man’s locked right arm. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help—”

“Hush.” He seats himself on one of the steps behind the young man and, still with his exquisite gentleness, combs the young man’s thick black hair with his fingers.

Another flash of memory, but it’s extinguished as quickly as the last one.

Carefully, Xiao Xingchen fixes the young man’s hair into an intricate bundle atop the young man’s head, with two long tendrils framing his face and majority flowing down his back like a curtain of the finest black silk.

“There,” he says. “Now you look more like yourself.”

“If you would only give me my name—”

“Too much all at once will only do permanent harm,” chides Xiao Xingchen. Something in his voice makes the young man thinks he’s trying to convince himself as much as the young man. “We can’t risk shocking your system, my friend.”

The young man ducks his head with feigned submission. I’m perceptive, at least, he thinks, tucking away this new hint as to who is. Smart enough not to push an issue when it’s not to my advantage.

What his advantage is, he isn’t sure. But he can wait. Patience, he instinctively knows, is one of his virtues.

Perhaps your only virtue, comes one of the whispers in his ear.

Lies! yells another voice in his ear. Lies! Lies! Lie!

He’s not sure whom the voice is addressing, and he’s busy trying to figure it out when Xiao Xingchen relents.

“This might jog your memory,” sighs the cultivator, rising. He helps the young man up and leads him to the well. Set beside it is a bucket of water. “This is why I brought you back, after all."

"...Back?"

Xiao Xingchen blinks, then relaxes into a soft smile. "Brought you here, I mean."

The young man examines his pale reflection in the bucket. He’s good-looking, he’s not surprised to see, though in a completely different way from the delicate beauty of the Xiao Xingchen. He looks younger than he actually is, he somehow knows, almost baby-faced, but the face is that of a stranger.

Xiao Xingchen is watching him closely. The young man shakes his head.

“We have time,” says Xiao Xingchen, smiling again, as if wanting to ensure that the young man doesn’t blame himself for the failure of his memory. He lays his hand on the young man’s bad arm. “Come. Let me help you.”

They sit on the porch steps the rest of the day. Xiao Xingchen finishes polishing his sword, produces reeds out of seeming nowhere, and weaves a basket. The young man sits beside him on the steps, listening as the town comes to life around them.

He could have sworn they were alone up till now, but he must have been mistaken. The Coffin House has been long abandoned, that much is obvious, but the front courtyard is still used to craft coffins for the town and surrounding villages, the finished products being stored in the courtyard behind the house. Idly, he watches the workmen at work in the courtyard, watches as the townspeople pass by the gates of the front courtyard. The young man calls out a greeting to one of the workmen who pass near him, but is ignored, and talking hurts too much to try again. The streets are bustling, the town having come back to life since—

Since what? Why is he surprised to see the town having risen from its—

From its what? Ashes? No, the buildings are too old to have been recently been rebuilt. From its—its dust—? No, that makes no sense, but his mind is suddenly filled with billowing brown dust—

He closes his eyes, focusing on that thought, straining to dive after that flickering thought, but it’s gone like an eel disappearing into the mud.

Xiao Xingchen lays his hand on his wrist. “Are you hungry, my friend?”

The young man opens his eyes. “Not at all.”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “You must keep up your strength if your wounds are to heal.”

The young man had almost resolved to let Xiao Xingchen explain things in his own time, still oddly reluctant to irritate the mysterious cultivator, but he can’t help but blurt, “But how did I get those wounds?”

There’s a touch of sadness if Xiao Xingchen’s fine black eyes. He hesitates long enough that the young man thinks he’s not going to answer, going to tell him the cultivator’s silence is for his own good, but then Xiao Xingchen speaks.

“Fighting a friend,” he says.

“Fighting a friend?”

There’s more than a touch of sadness in Xiao Xingchen’s eyes now, something the cultivator seems to realize and resent, by the swift change of expression that follows.

“I suppose you can call him that,” he says sardonically, getting to his feet. The bitterness suits him, somehow, but the young man is oddly certain that it never suited him in the past. “You're playing with your hair again.”

The young man lowers his hand from where he was playing with the long tendrils framing his face, opens his mouth to ask another question, but Xiao Xingchen has risen. “The past is the past,” says the cultivator. “Come. Let's go find our supper.”

The young man does his best to keep up with Xiao Xingchen, who seems to take it for granted that his wounds wouldn’t affect his ability to walk. He drags himself along after Xiao Xingchen, who seems to float almost ethereally through the streets, and—did this happen once before?—it feels familiar—

“Potatoes!” calls a vendor, startling him out of his thoughts. “Radishes! Turnips!”

Neither of them have money, as it turns out. Holding a finger to his lips, Xiao Xingchen sweeps a dozen potatoes and radishes off the table and into his basket, gliding off down the street before anyone notices.

The young man hurries after him. He has an idea, though he’s not sure where it comes from, that this is out of character for Xiao Xingchen, and feels an inexplicable sense of bone-deep glee at the thought that he is the catalyst for this. Xiao Xingchen, it’s obvious, would have been satisfied living on watery congee.

Supper that night, and breakfast and dinner for the next few days, consists of boiled potatoes floating in unsalted congee, along with thin shaves of radish. The young man makes himself very witty on the topic of the plain food, but that’s more to amuse Xiao Xingchen than anything else. He sleeps poorly, woken by pain and the tormented little sounds Xiao Xingchen makes in his sleep, but he's getting stronger.

“Still no memory?” Xiao Xingchen asks on the fourth afternoon since the young man has woken. They’re returning from the market, basket full of vegetables.

“Nothing,” the young man lies. Somehow he can’t bring himself to mention the flashes of memory. He’d almost prefer not to have them at all. Something tells him he could use a fresh slate, while another voice, the unhinged voice that’s been growing in strength, hisses, He knows who I am! He knows what happened to me, he must have a sinister reason for not telling me! and fills his mind with thoughts of the gray-clothed cultivator being pierced by a dozen blades, of having his eyes ripped from his sockets—maybe then he’d speak! Maybe then he’d tell him the truth—

Gaping eye sockets. Why did his mind go there?

He lies in bed that night and stares up at the sagging ceiling, turning it all over in his mind. It’s not that the savagery of the image has shocked him. The gruesome pictures feel welcome, if anything. Comfortable. As if his mind is settling into familiar grooves. But there is something about the missing eyes in particular—

Xiao Xingchen is outside, fetching water from the well to clean the young man’s wounds, when it begins to rain. It patters musically down on the thatched roof, gusting in through the gaps and soaking the straw of the two coffin-beds.

It doesn’t even occur to the young man to push Xiao Xingchen’s coffin bed out of the way. After all, his bed is dry.

Xiao Xingchen says nothing when he returns, just smiles as he bathes the young man’s bleeding scars as they listen to the wind whistle through the gaps in the Coffin House.

The young man doesn’t quite know what to make of Xiao Xingchen’s smile. For absolutely no reason, tonight it stirs him with a vague unease. If anything, the young man has gone out of his way to make him smile these past few days. So far the majority of his new life has been spent sitting on the steps of Coffin House, watching the villagers go by, or strolling through the town, all the while talking more than his fair share. He’s grown accustomed to the nail-like pain in his tongue and dribbling blood, and has amused himself by keeping up a steady stream of commentary.

Xiao Xingchen has been receptive, his mobile lips twitching appreciatively at the young man’s observations. Each twitch has sent a spurt of pleasure through the young man.

Well, I am witty, the young man thinks as Xiao Xingchen finishes tightening the last bandage. But out of the jumbled impressions of the man he used to be, he’s somehow aware that he’s not used to giving people joy, at least to those who aren’t tall thin young men with expressive lips and exquisitely delicate features that could have been carved from jade.

People like—

Xiao Xingchen tosses the bucket of bloody water out the front door and stands there, framed in the white curtain of pouring rain. The young man climbs back into bed, huddled under Xiao Xingchen’s cloak.

He normally falls asleep quickly, worn out by his daily blood loss, but tonight something keeps him awake. From under half-closed eyelids he watches Xiao Xingchen, watches the damp breeze ruffle his smooth black hair and rustle his gray robes around him like seaweed gently moving in the ocean current. Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes, lifting his face to the rain, filling his lungs with the wet chilly air, then closes the door and goes to his coffin bed. He reaches inside, feels the dampness of the straw, says something the young man can’t hear.

Hesitating, Xiao Xingchen turns and approaches the bed.

“My friend?” he whispers. “If it’s all right with you—”

The young man doesn’t speak, but he rolls over slightly. Xiao Xingchen removes his only slightly damp outer robes and drapes them over the bed for warmth before crawling in beside the young man.

The cultivator’s body gives off more heat than one would expect from someone so anemic-looking, but this is one more thing the young man somehow already knew. He lies very still as Xiao Xingchen settles in beside him, not sure if he should pretend to be asleep or not. He wonders if Xiao Xingchen is going to have another nightmare tonight, if it will wake him, if he'll be expected to do anything about it. Somehow he knows he wouldn't know how to comfort someone.

They lie like that for a long time before Xiao Xingchen speaks again.

“Today, at the market,” he says. “That boy.”

The young man doesn’t respond. There had been a young boy in the marketplace that day, no more than six or seven, selling homemade toys made from twisted reeds and sticks. A wagon had driven by, splashing him and his wares with muddy water and ruining them.

“When he began to cry that his parents would beat him,” continues Xiao Xingchen, his voice little more than a murmur, “and I gave him our fruits and vegetables for him to give them instead of money…I had resolved the matter. Why did you then…”

“Did I what?” asks the young man, genuinely puzzled.

“Why did you then find the wagon driver and beat him so hard he lost three teeth?”

“Made more sense than for us to go without our supper,” says the young man, though in all honestly he’s yet to feel any hunger since he opened his eyes in the Coffin House courtyard. “We did nothing wrong. Why should we suffer for the crimes of another?”

Xiao Xingchen turns so that he’s looking at the young man. “He deserved it?” he says. “He didn’t splash the boy on purpose.”

“He should have been the one to pay, not you. He made us go without our dinner—”

“We stole more food.”

“He didn’t know that!” says the young man impatiently. Xiao Xingchen, as intelligent as he is, can be willfully obtuse. “That man robbed us of our dinner!”

Xiao Xingchen turns so that he’s no longer looking at the young man, instead watching the rain drip down into his coffin bed. “Is that the only reason? Avenging our lost supper?”

“Why else?”

“Had the boy’s tears nothing to do with it?”

It dawns on the young man that Xiao Xingchen, for whatever reason, wants him to say yes.

All right, then. For all the young man knows, he’s telling the truth when he shrugs, “He left the child to be beaten; he deserved a beating in turn.” He has a faint memory of a fist and a boot and whip somewhere in his past, though he himself can’t say whether that affected his behavior today.

Xiao Xingchen smiles slightly, not a happy smile, which is somehow concerning, and is silent. The young man wishes the cultivator hadn’t brought the incident up. Had Xiao Xingchen not been there, the wagon driver would have lost a lot more than a few teeth. But Xiao Xingchen had meddled in things that didn’t concern him, dragging him away from the scene, and he resents it. For reasons he still doesn’t understand, he doesn’t like resenting the cultivator.

“The look on your face as you beat him,” says Xiao Xingchen after so long the young man had assumed he’d fallen asleep. “That smile…”

The young man grins with as much wicked charm as he can muster. Lost, perhaps, in the near darkness, but grinning is almost a reflex, a habit, same as his hair-twirling and Xiao Xingchen’s basket-weaving. “Can I not smile anymore?”

“Forget it.” It’s impossible to tell if he’s pleased with the way conversation has ended, or if the young man has made a blunder. “Forget I mentioned it…”

It takes another week before the young man realizes that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t want him to regain his memories.

It hits him as he sits on the stairs one morning, letting Xiao Xingchen fix his hair as usual, watching the workmen labor and wondering if he should make another attempt at striking up a conversation with them or if it would be unwise to draw attention to their squatting in the Coffin House.

“Why don’t you go on night-hunts?” he asks Xiao Xingchen out of nowhere.

Xiao Xingchen fastens the young man’s hair into the last intricate braid. “I can’t leave you alone in your condition.”

“I can come with you. I’ll stay quiet; I’ll carry the sword for you…”

And, those words triggering something, he sits up and turns around at the very sudden clear memory of gazing at Xiao Xingchen in a time long past—a false memory, it must be; why would Xiao Xingchen blindfold himself?—but it’s something—

He’d turned too quickly for Xiao Xingchen to alter his expression. It’s one of anger mixed with grief, and the cultivator swiftly rises and gazes down at him with an uncharacteristic sharpness.

“Fine,” he says, as if to change the subject, stop the young man from tugging on that thread of memory. “We’ll go tonight.”

The young man takes their kitchen knife with him that night, their only other weapon aside for Xiao Xingchen’s beautiful white sword.

He jokes about it as they walk through the silent moonlit woods, jokes about using his knife to fix dinner for any demons they might meet, but though he knows he should feel ridiculous he instead feels completely unafraid. It’s not only that he trusts Xiao Xingchen’s skill; it’s as if, deep down, he knows he can take down a monster with just a vegetable knife.

But he’s promised Xiao Xingchen he won’t step in, and he doesn’t. He watches with fascination as Xiao Xingchen’s swift silver blade dismembers a demon-snake, severing the head with one graceful yet powerful stroke, as if trying to spare the beast pain.

Not how I would have done it, but neat.

Xiao Xingchen glances at him with an unreadable expression as he flicks the blood from his sword.

“Well?” he says shortly. “Any memories?”

The young man shakes his head, noticing a slight relaxing of tension in Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders that the cultivator fails to hide.

They spend the next day fixing the roof, and the rain, accepting their challenge, returns at sunset. After letting Xiao Xingchen clean and bind his wounds, the young man retreats to bed, sitting up wrapped in the cloak. Xiao Xingchen sits shivering at the table as he brushes his ornamental horsehair whisk. Black hair, with a long handle of reddish wood.

It’s the first time the young man has seen it, but he instinctively knows it doesn’t belong to the cultivator.

“Do you ride?” he asks casually, twisting his hair around a finger.

Xiao Xingchen stops his ministrations for the barest fraction of a second.

“There are no horses where I come from,” he says.

The young man holds his twirled hair in front of his face, studiously avoiding looking directly at the cultivator. This is the first hint of his own past offered by Xiao Xingchen. He’s curious, despite himself, and hopeful that it might lead to knowledge of his own past.

“No horses?” he says with a skeptical laugh, trying to goad Xiao Xingchen into revealing more. “Mules, then?”

“No animals of any kind,” says Xiao Xingchen. “Only birds.”

He steals a quick glance at the cultivator. “Only birds? Like in the realm of the immortals?”

A faint look of alarm crosses Xiao Xingchen’s face. “Of course not,” he says. “I merely meant…”

“A whisk for birds?” the young man laughs when it becomes apparent Xiao Xingchen isn’t going to say more. “I’d like to see that demon-bird!”

“It belonged to a friend,” says Xiao Xingchen in a low voice, as if to himself. “As do these robes, as do my…”

“Those gray robes don’t suit you,” says the young man. He associates Xiao Xingchen with white, for some reason, but doesn’t want to risk saying it out loud. He’s learned to hide these hints of resurfaced memory, amusing as it is to ruffle Xiao Xingchen’s half-admirable, half-maddening placidity.

Pain wrinkles Xiao Xingchen’s wide smooth forehead anyway. “I wear them to honor him,” he says, so quietly the young man has to strain to hear. “He spent his life gathering the spiritual cognition of—of someone close to me; his last act was to sacrifice himself in order—in order to…”

“To what?”

“Make up for something long past,” says Xiao Xingchen. “Something that was not his fault. My sacrifice was made willingly.”

“The past is the past,” says the young man, echoing what Xiao Xingchen has told him many times over the past weeks. He grins slightly to show just how much he doesn’t care about his own lost past.

“I don’t know that will ever be true.”

The young man feels a gust of anger at this lost friend. He isn’t sure if he’s jealous, or if he’s angry on Xiao Xingchen’s behalf, or just plain irritated to have their placid domesticity ruined by this faceless and completely inconsequential person.

“Well, we can make it true,” he says. “Damn everyone else!”

A hint of red rises in Xiao Xingchen’s eyes, as if blood is rimming his eyes, and with a shudder he steps out into the rain.

A chill creeps over the young man.

Blood. Blood tears.

Only ghosts or those touched by the supernatural cry in blood.

A rush of rage so pure and potent he could have ripped Xiao Xingchen’s scalp off he been within reach overwhelms him. He’s been lying to you all along! Is he a demon?? You ought to go out after him, beat the truth out of him—

He makes it no more than three steps before collapsing under a sudden burst of agony. He curses, a sizzling tangle of filth that feels at home on his tongue, fingers scrabbling on the floorboards. He used to have a higher pain tolerance, he knows it—

He finds himself laughing for no reason as he drags himself towards the door, but the pain in his right arm is so overpowering, and the pain in his left hand is so numbing when he tries to compensate by shifting his weight, that he passes out right there on the damp dirty floor.

A vague sensation of being lifted, of something brushing his forehead. A pale floating face, illuminated in the rain-filtered moonlight coming in through the window. A warm body beside his. A soft murmur: Stop trying to remember, I beg you…

I will, I swear, he says, not fully understanding what he’s promising in his haze, the agony washing away everything but the present moment. He rolls into the warmth, sleeping, for the first time since waking surrounded by coffins, without nightmares shredding his sleep.

Something has changed the next morning; he can feel it.

As always, Xiao Xingchen is up before him, preparing breakfast. He smiles when he sees the young man’s eyes open.

“I thought we might leave this place,” he says before he young man can open his mouth and demand an explanation of what manner of demonic beast Xiao Xingchen is. “Start fresh somewhere else.”

The young man seats himself at the table.

“Well?” asks Xiao Xingchen. There’s a hint of something in his voice that the young man can’t quite pin down. “Are you better this morning? We can wait until you’re recovered a bit more…”

“I’m fine,” the young man hears himself saying. It’s not what he wants to say, but it’s what comes out. “We’ll need some time to prepare.”

A subtle shift in Xiao Xingchen’s posture, a gentle smile. He’s pleased.

Suddenly the young man decides not to ask him about his bloody tears.

They’re leaving.

The words bring a strange comfort.

They’re leaving this place, never to come back. Leaving to start fresh, to stop whatever game they’re playing—who’s the one playing the game, the young man isn’t sure, but he abruptly wants nothing more than to stop whatever it is, and simply start over. Start new.

“We’ll go to the neighboring town this afternoon,” Xiao Xingchen tells him. “They have the better market to buy supplies. We can leave here for good first thing tomorrow.”

The young man gives a small nod.

After breakfast Xiao Xingchen heads out to see what he can find in Yi City before they head for the other town, forbidding the young man from accompanying him this time. The young man busies himself in searching the house for anything they can take with them. He knows the house like the back of his hand by this time, but it’s something to do. The bowls and chopsticks, of course, and the canteens…

He lays his selections on the table and pokes around the back of the room, bored without Xiao Xingchen. Under a rotting carpet of woven straw, he finds a handle.

He knows he shouldn’t pull it.

The voices in his head are unanimous on that point, even the one that had once dwelled placidly on gaping eye sockets.

You’re leaving tomorrow. Let it lie. Go boil the water for tonight’s supper; a surprise for Xiao Xingchen…

He pulls the trapdoor open.

Turn around! clamor the voices, like branches clattering against a shuttered window during a storm. You’re leaving tomorrow…tomorrow…

Tomorrow…

He grabs a candle and drops down into the darkness.

The cellar is larger than expected. Mostly beams holding up the floor of the house, but there are shelves there too, long-rotted provisions and stores and broken coffin-making tools.

In the center of the space is a large array taking up most of the floor. Red paint covered in what looks like fifty years of dust and grime and rodent droppings.

Carpeting the array, caked with their own thick layer of grime, are dozens and dozens of little jars.

He picks one up.

Put it down! shriek the voices. Put it down, there’s still time, you can still leave…

He pulls the stopper.

No! yells the voices. We told you not to!

He stands there, frozen, every nerve in his body on fire, until the door upstairs groans open.

“I’m back,” Xiao Xingchen calls. “Where are you?”

The creak of floorboards, coming to stop near the open trapdoor. Xiao Xingchen drops down through the gap, a smile on his face.

“There you are,” he says. “I brought you a surprise at the market. I was going to wait, but—” He extends his hand.

In his curved palm are two small paper-wrapped sweet.

The last fluttering shreds of memory weave themselves together, and the young man falls to his knees. His mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out.

“Are your wounds bothering you again?” asks Xiao Xingchen in concern, crouching before the young man. “Do you think you’ll be able to travel? I don’t feel right stealing medicine, but we can always…”

He trails off as he sees the little jars. His eyes fall on the open one in the young man’s hand, and he drops the paper-wrapped sweets in his suddenly-trembling hand as he reads the name painted on the side in red paint:

A-Qing.

Time stops. The young man remains kneeling before the cultivator, unmoving, staring at the jar in his hand, at the sweets scattered on the filthy floor.

"...You swore you wouldn't try to remember," says Xiao Xingchen.

A single tear trickles down his cheek. It spatters at his feet, a crimson spot in the dirt.

“Welcome back, Xue Yang,” he says, and presses down hard.

* * *

The cultivator’s hand comes down, solid and white in the gloom, and rests on the young man’s neck, deceptively strong fingers brushing a nerve.

Xue Yang wakes tied to the bed upstairs.

Scattered around the bed are the dozens of jars, each containing the tongue of one of his victims during the time he lived with Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing, kept fresh by the protective array in the cellar.

Xiao Xingchen stands beside the bed, clothed in white. From his belt hangs A-Qing’s jar, washed clean of all dust and grime.

He lies very still, opening his eyes only just enough to take in his surroundings.

On his face is a look Xue Yang wants to believe is sorrow.

Xue Yang opens his eyes fully, and Xiao Xingchen straightens up, features smooth again. There’s new look in fine black eyes, an unsettling look that wavers between being far too intense and far too blank at the same time.

“Now what?” asks Xue Yang, straining against the ropes. His arm blazes with agony, but barely notices. He grins, his old psychotic grin, the one that showed the world just how much he didn’t care.

Xiao Xingchen smiles down at Xue Yang, his usual soft smile of gentle amusement. He takes the bound young man’s left hand in one of his, a knife gleaming in the other, and extends Xue Yang’s bruised pinky.

#my fic #xue yang #xiao xingchen #xxc #xy #fanfic #Fun of His Own #the untamed fanfic #cw torture #cw mutilation #blood cw #cw blood #blood #blood tw

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