#to be clear this is not a criticism of wei wuxian i love that hes arrogant! it is a wonderful facet of his character!

[micamicster]

Pride's gonna be the death of you and you and me and you and...

The Untamed vs Kendrick Lamar (Jiang Cheng edition)

[touchlikethesun]

okay so. don’t crucify me. but su she and jin guangyao do actually make some pretty compelling points.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Oct 6th

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1. Hello. I’m hoping you can help me find a fic. In it Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are poisoned at Jinlintai and fake their deaths. Their bodies are brought back to the ancestral hall at cloud recesses and they escape and live away from the cultivation world for many years. Theres two parts and in the second part the sect leaders come to their mountain thinking immortals live there and asking for help dealing with problems they can’t solve. (Ie The Lan sect is dealing with resentful ghost). Thanks!! @vegdawn

FOUND? To live with no regrets Series by Lyna_Mei (E, 96k, WIP, WangXian, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Angst, Self-Esteem Issues, Golden Core Reveal, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Developing Relationship, non-consensual marriage, CQL-Verse, Case Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Cultivation Sect Politics, Cultivation World Critical, Not JGY Friendly, Family Feels, Found Family, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch WangXian)

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2. hi this is for the fic finder! i’m looking for a fic i read which i’m pretty sure is completed. it should be wangxian, modern au, and i think wwx was living alone (maybe estranged from the jiangs?) and i think mo xuanyu and xue yang were kid brothers who lived in his building that came to hang out with him sometimes? and he was sorta like a big brother to them? this wasn’t a major plot point but it was definitely there. and a-yuan may or may not have been there, either living with wwx or the wens in the same building. does anyone know what this is?

FOUND? Visitations by Vir_Abelasan (M, 18k, WIP, WangXian, past XiYao, Modern AU, Corporate Espionage, Post-Divorce, Reconciliation, Father-Son Relationship, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Custody Arrangements, Not a revenge fic, Past Abuse)

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3. Looking for a highly specific fic where WWX is forced to wear scantily clad armour that only covers his nipples and man-bits as a punishment by Madam Yu. Wangxian encounter each other in a night-hunt sort of thing, but its not set in the jianghu but an AU where its more fantasy magic with warlocks, that sort of thing? There is a specific scene where WWX has to go change the armor and it hurts alot and makes LWJ very sad and angry at madam yu?? GOSH HELP its been stuck in my head foreverr thank u

FOUND? 🔒 His Knight in Shining Armour by celerydragon (E, 23k, WangXian, dead dove do not eat, Curses, Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Slut Shaming, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, yu furen sucks, protective lwj, Hurt/Comfort, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, mild dirty talk, Biting, Outdoor Sex)

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4. Hello, I am looking for an AO3 Fix it Fic where all the sects bring gifts to the Burial Mounds to compete showing who is the most generous. @hopefulbeardface-blog

FOUND? The Untamed: A Dinner to Remember by YenGirl (Not Rated, 33k, WangXian, XuanLi, post sunshot, Indulgent Fic, Feed WY & the Wen survivors, Some angst, Some humour, Dinner is about family and love, Some Fluff, Soft Boys, Manly Tears, JGS is still greedy, Possible OOC-ness, No hundred holes curse, Unreliable Narrator, accidental heroes, Some violence and gore in Chap 9, Redeemed JGY, Redeemed SS)

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5. HI!!!this is for a fic finder, it had madam yu as a super toxic parent idrm bt maybe she was also abusive, she sends wwx to this school owned by the lans and i think theres 2 divisions, 1 for the smart kids and one for the delinquents

the school is super weird and strict , lqr is especially mean to wwx and all the staff is aswell and they do horrible things to him and in the end i think lxc exposes his uncles school?? wwx and lzh get tg to.

Thankyou!! @jnxi839

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6. Hi! For FicFinder

The fic I'm looking for is canon divergence, I believe. I can't remember if it had time travel or not, but Wei Ying left the Jangs before the war. I think there was focus on his inventions. The only clear details I can remember are the Jins giving him multiple chests full of gold, and them sending him someone to his rooms in the night. The person gets caught in an array at the door. Also, there were two Lans assigned to help Wei Ying. Thanks in advance! @rens-shadow

FOUND? Just go forward like you mean it by tawaen (M, 101k, WangXian, WWX & WN &WQ, WWX & JYL, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, WWx does not attend the Wen indoctrination, WWX saves Lotus Pier, Inventor WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Sect Leader JYL, JC Has No Golden Core, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Not JC Friendly, but he gets a happier ending than canon so don’t look here for bashing)

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7. Fic finder please!🙏

A wlw wangxian where LWJ was self conscious about her body bc LQR wasn’t really helpful when she was going through puberty and bought her too small bras and stuff and then she meets wwx, much later on who encourages her to wear what she likes and love her body. There’s a scene with them on the couch cuddling and idk how it ends bc ao3 went down and I lost my tab!! 😭😭😭

FOUND? your lips, my lips, apocalypse by lily_winterwood (E, 12k, WangXian, Modern, Fashion & Models, College/University, Lingerie, Burlesque, Rule 63, partial genderswap, Not Everyone is Cisswapped, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character, Female LWJ, Female WWX, Trans LXC, References to conservative Chinese family values, Mild Transphobia, Body Dysphoria, Self-Esteem Issues, Brief reference to eating disorders, Sexism, Pining, Filial Piety, Masturbation, Cunnilingus, Gender Changes)

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8. fic finder help! there is a modern fic where lan zhan and Wei ying are best friends and the fic starts off with Wei ying asking lan zhan to call off work to play hooky for the day. eventually we find out Wei ying quit his job (he's working with the jiangs). it was part of a series I think. @the-marathon-continues-nip

FOUND! in good time by magicianprince (T, 11k, WangXian, Slice of Life, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Modern AU, modern with cultivation (pretty background tho), lwj has a cat, and some unresolved feelings! oh boy, "in good time" by magicianprince [Podfic] by The_Grynne)

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9. Looking for a fic where lan xichen and possibly lan qiren? go into a meeting with the elders, who have been giving Wei wuxian a hard time, and they hand out lists of rules that the elders have each individually have broken @lonelyreverances-corner

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10. hi i have a request: i want to find fanfic which included older lan wangji (i think he was older by 7 years) who meets wei wuxian in yiling and it is their first meeting. he and lan xichen are twins and it is mostly focused on lwj visiting burial mounds and wy and lz have a sex not long after they meet first time. i think it counted from 20 to 30 (or 35) chapters and it also had 18+ fanarts

FOUND? Awaiting Your Return by Karmiya (E, 126k, WangXian, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, the opposite of slow burn, Found Family, Canon Divergence, Age Difference, discussions of wwx's canonical abusive childhood)

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11. Hi! I'm looking for a fic (I think it may be a series of fics) where Wei Wuxian was accused of spying on Lan Corp. I think this is one where Lan Wangji believes in him the entire time and leaves his family over the accusations. I don't remember if he served any time or not, but the truth comes out that he was innocent (thanks in part to NHS). WWX and LWJ live with Wens, started a company with them, and live in the same building with them.

FOUND?🔒 moonlight falls Series by RoseThorne (T, 19k, WangXian, Modern, Found Family, Corporate Espionage, Bunnies, Adoption, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, References to Depression, Anxiety, Blind Character, POV Third Person, POV WWX, Confrontations, Bad Parent LQR, Dissociation, Mental Health Issues, Anniversary, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Emotional Constipation, Communication Failure, JC is Bad at Feelings, JC is Trying, WWX Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Sex, Food Sex, Friendship, Reconciliation, Psychological Trauma)

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12. hi! i am looking for a fic that is a juniors time-travel fix it. i know they go back in time to right before jin zixuan gets killed and save him, the juniors reveal that wangxian are married in the future, and then also there is a scene where jin zixuan and jiang yanli tell older jin ling that he is their son, too, even though baby jin ling is there. thank you so much! @whenstarsignite

FOUND! ❤️ Tragedy is Not the End by Hobbsy3 (T, 358k, wangxian, Time Travel, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Canon Divergence from Qiongqi Pass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yunmeng sibling bonding, good dad wwx, good dad lwj, JZX Lives, JYL Lives, Junior Quartet Dynamics)

NOT FOUND! Time, Time, Time by skeletonofaplant (G, 44k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, LSZ & WWX, JYL & JL & JZX, LJY & LSZ, Time Travel Fix-It, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Angst, Fluff, Junior Quartet Dynamics, Time Travelling Junior Ensemble, Junior Ensemble Shenanigans, Humor)

~*~

13. Hi! I'm looking for two fics. I think I initially saw B on this page, but I can't find it anywhere

A) A meteor crashed near college student WWX’s house, where he finds a shape-shifting bunny/toddler alien A-Yuan. LWJ is also a different kind of alien.

B) I think it takes place in a camp after defeating the Wen. JGY spikes the Lan's tea with alcohol. LWJ and WWX spend the night together, but by morning the Jiang siblings think it was noncon. Eventually JGY confesses that it was JGS's idea to serve alcohol.

13A)

FOUND! Lost and Found by diamondbruise (E, 52k, WangXian, Modern AU, Aliens, Slow Burn, Alien LWJ, Crack Treated Seriously, Soulmates, Kid Fic…..kind of, i use that tag very loosely, Masturbation, Rough Sex, canon typical cnc elements, Happy Ending)

13B)

FOUND! The Teapot Plot by ToxicAngel13 (M, 52k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, Misunderstandings, Plots, protective Jiang siblings, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Damn Jins, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Pre-Burial Mounds, Potential for M-Preg, Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Idiots Everywhere, LWJ ’s Biting Kink, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Protective LWJ, Protective WQ, JGS is his own warning, Protective JYL)

~*~

14. hiya! for the fic finder, i'm struggling to find a fic i read a few months ago - not sure if it's been deleted or not. i am fairly certain it was an a/b/o au where wwx was carrying lwj's kid by the time he ended up in the burial mounds and basically he kept control of the spirits by asking the female ghosts to help him protect him unborn baby. wen qing also refused to take his golden core because of the baby and jiang cheng ended up with wen ning's core instead going into the sunshot campaign. the wen siblings and the wen remnants live in this au and help wwx raise his daughter after she's born. somewhere along the way wwx tells his siblings and lwj about his daughter too.

second fic i've been looking for, but not as much of a priority to me as the first one, all i remember about this one was lwj found out about wwx giving up his core almost immediately after it happened and wwx lets lwj help him sooner. one scene i remember was wwx and jiang cheng were arguing and jiang cheng uses zidian on wwx and mortally wounds him and stops wwx heart (i think?)

thank you for your help in advance! <3

14A)

FOUND! 🧡 Don’t Wanna Fall by nekojita (M, 111k, WangXian, Mpreg, A/B/O, Fix-it, Lots of pining, Angst with a happy ending, Canon Divergence, Child thief WN)

14B)

FOUND! these colours fade for you only by doodlebutt (T, 36k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, …eventually, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, bed sharing, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Sunshot Campaign)

~*~

15. Hi! This is for fic finder. There are 2 fic that i want to read

A) It short fic. JYL and WWX likes to play the "xianxian is 3 years old". I dont remember how but NMJ knows and ask to join with NHS. JYL give them permission, thinking it was like a play between her and WWX. Then they (JYL and WWX) found out it was different. Between JYL and WWX is like a play pretend but between NMJ and NHS is different in a way that NHS transform into a 3 years old child

B) The story is between yunmeng trio and nie sibs. JGY wants to make the nies and jiangs enemy. He then found out that NHS didnt have a single blood of nie. In the discussion conference, he invite nhs blood aunt that thinking nhs deserve better than become the second young master of the nie and revealed that nhs is jfm child not the former nie's sect leader. I only remember that

Thanks

15A)

FOUND? Little by nirejseki (T, 3k, NHS & JC & WWX & NMJ, Age Regression/De-Aging, Non-Sexual Age Play, Misunderstandings)

~*~

16. I'm hoping you guys can help me find a fic I vaguely remember. It was fox!wwx and I think he was in an arranged marriage to lwj, but before he left he cut off a tail and left it as a present for JC to find (I think) when he got back to Lotus Pier.

I think I've read #16, was the Jiangs doing a silk/cloth dyeing business and JYL was super sick, and Wei ying was conscripted to be part of the search for a mate for prince ? I'll try to find it if it is

FOUND! #16 reminds me of the deleted "Bleeding Bones, Aching Hearts " by scarletmoontears. Do you remember if Wei Ying was a war general of Yunmeng Jiang and was sent as a warprize to the Lans?

~*~

17. Hi!! I'm looking for a fic. This is a Modern AU where WWX fakes his death (I think because of Madam Yu) and LWJ sends him voice and text messages during his grieving process. Everything changes when WWX accidentally answers one of those messages and LWJ finds out he's not dead. I don't recall more. Thank you so much for your help!! @fantasiacoral-blog

FOUND? Love Don’t Belong To Me by airinshaw (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern, Getting Together, Kissing, Intercrural Sex, Light Angst, Happy Ending, PTSD, Panic Attack, WWX’s canonical self-esteem issues, Canonical Child Abuse, not as dark as the tags imply, Past Relationships mention)

~*~

18. Hello! This if for a fic finder

A) mo xuanyu is a ghost that stays with wwx i think he and wwx can both be concious in the body? Idrm much but it was wwx/mxy/lwj

B) this was a modern au lan jingyi came out to his parents or something like that and they gor abusive , jiangcheng ends up adopting jingyi or smth like that they tale him to a doctor too I remember jiangcheng and lan xichen were dating

18A)

FOUND? Serrated by InkSplatterM and MrMissMrsRandom (E, 194k, WangXianYu, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gore, Past Abuse, Canon Divergence, MXY Lives, spirit possession, 2/3 men are virgin idiots, WWX is an emotional dunce, MXY is gay and tired, LWJ finds his heart is very large, Discussions of Suicide, Suicide Attempt, victim self-blame, Panic Attacks, mentions of past sexual abuse, PTSD, Past Rape/Non-con, Masturbation, Voyeurism, Outdoor Sex, Exhibitionism, light cum play, Praise Kink, gentle dirty talk, D/s elements, Under-negotiated Kink, Dom MXY, Sub LWJ)

~*~

19. Hello! I'm looking for a modern au fic wherein i think lwj and wwx are roommates. wwx is writing a paper on the effect of spanking on children and asks lwj to spank him to experience it firsthand. i think there's a couple of instances where wwx forgets to clear out the sink and stuff and gets spanked for it and then gets aftercare??? i think there's some dialogue that goes like "my hand. no french. over the couch" idk?? I cannot seem to find it

FOUND! "The Efficacy of Spanking on Behavioural Change" by redscudery (E, 15k, WangXian, SL/WWX, Platonic BDSM, Oblivious WWX, Spanking, we all know this is not platonic, With One Exception, Bisexual Disaster WWX, Light Dom/sub, not a single brain cell was consulted, Boys Kissing, Boys In Love, Getting Together, First Time, Lube Shenanigans, mild alcohol and marijuana use, Non-graphic vomiting, big bisexual awakenings r us, Love Confessions, Modern, Canada)

~*~

20. Hi I would like to ask if you know the title of the story in ao3 that I read back then. It’s like burial mound setting, they made a village inside the Burial Mounds but it’s hidden in the rock and no one can enter but then they invited Lan Xichen in their home. Thank you have a nice day ahead!

~*~

[fixielixie]

in wei wuxians second life, after everything he’s been through and all of the preconceived ideas he had about what lan wangji thought of him, he notes the change of how lan wangji treats him and is so quick to completely let go of that lingering resentment/confusion and trust fully that lan wangji truly does respect him, has his best intentions in mind, cares for him.

he doesn’t ever question lan wangjis motives, or wonder if he’s worthy of lan wangjis esteem. he’s confused at first, but only because he doesn’t understand it when faced with the reality of everyone else in the world hating him so much more now (cough jiang cheng) but once it’s revealed that lwj knew who wwx was the entire time, wwx processes that and is like okay chill love that for us.

like i really don’t understand how people characterise wei wuxian as someone who is oblivious or has low self esteem. he’s critical of decisions he’s made in the past, sure. but he never questions his own worth, when lwj made it clear that he wanted to be around wwx, even at the risk of his own reputation, wwx wasn’t horrified at the idea of someone as amazing and The lan wangji dirtying his hands by associating himself with worthless little wwx. he is touched, a bit shocked but he accepts it and doesn’t try to fight lwj on his decision.

ugh i just think wwx is such a great character 😭

[thatswhatsushesaid]

I just re-read the whole guanyin temple sequence for the sole purpose of finding and sharing that devastating piece of official xiyao art with the rest of the class (as one does when one resides full-time in xiyao hell, like I do), and that re-read just drilled home for me just how easily jin guangyao could have killed or at the very least seriously injured literally everyone who converged on the temple--if he had wanted to. case in point:

jin guangyao has lots of jin sect disciples with him on-site exhuming his mother's remains. it would absolutely have been possible to tell them to stop digging and start helping him clean house instead;

lan xichen's spiritual energy has been sealed;

as soon as lan wangji shows up, jin guangyao manipulates him into sealing his spiritual energy as well by threatening wei wuxian. ...and then he lets wei wuxian go so that he and lan wangji can have their Moment, to go oversee the exhumation process instead (say 'thank you, xiandu,' you wouldn't have that heart-felt love confession without his leniency);

as soon as su minshan shows up, that's one more armed and capable (shut up sms critics, there will be no sms slander on this post; he's cringe, not incompetent) cultivator on his side;

when he provokes jiang cheng into leaping to wwx's defence (something that even wwx points out is unnecessary, since wangxian could easily have leapt out of range of jgy's guqin string strike), he stabs jiang cheng right in the chest--but intentionally does not deal him a mortal injury. instead, he just seals his meridians and basically sends him to go sit the corner to stew impotently next to poor, emotionally traumatized jin ling;

all of this happens before nhs's trap is triggered. jgy has the upper hand, he is in complete control of the situation, and while he is on a pretty tight deadline, it is absolutely clear at this point that his priority is not in sowing more chaos and bloodshed, but in retrieving meng shi's remains and stopping additional interference. sure, he's spilling all the tea to provoke his opponents into making mistakes so that he can take advantage of their weaknesses to disable them. but that was his goal: to disable.

like... killing all of these conveniently disabled captives would have been the logical next step for someone hellbent on mass murdering the whole jianghu to cover up his dirty little secrets, and he absolutely could have done it, if he'd wanted to.

but he didn't.

--- this post has been added to my dreamwidth meta archive here: https://thatswhatsushewrote.dreamwidth.org/9014.html

[kanene-yaaay]

Lending a Helping Hand (Tickletober Day 1)

Kanene's Notes: I wrote this on a whim, not gonna lie jhgtfdefghjdfgh. For some reason I suddenly felt compelled to participate of this lovely even so here I am! I am following both @/august-anon tickletober list and @/Jamiedraws mxtxtober list because I wanted to see what would come out of mixing those two together juygtfghjdcfgh I think most of my stories will be about mdzs so it seemed fitting :D Anyways, Day 1 - "Ghost" and "Antecipation".

Warnings: This is an AU. Ticklish!Jingyi and Ler!Wei Wuxian. Around 1.500 words.

[~*~]

The Patriarch Yiling was a devious monster, an empty shell of what had been once considered a man but now was known for atrocities beyond human comprehension. The sects still shivered at his name, parents used his story to make their children behave and other demonic cultivators dreamed of following his path, in archiving and surpassing the amount of power he once had. Every book that talked about The War talked of him. 

(But Hanguang Jun didn’t. He cut down every gossiping and always reminded them to have a critical mind when it came about the stories of one being told by another.)

But (almost) everyone could agree, he was a monster, and it was naive, crazy, even to believe you could win against him.

Jingyi was about to discover how crazy it was.

"Senior Wei!" He squirmed and ordered his hands to move, voice already trembling around the corners and getting a squeaky turn. It was all for nothing, just like before his own arms no longer answered him. Hysterical snickers began falling from his lips. "Stohohop! Why me?!"

"Well, you offered!" the ghost smiled and moved his hands towards him and with a scared kind of curiosity he watched as his own hands mirrored his move, wiggling fingers perfectly mirroring the older one in every mischievous twitch, getting closer until it was barely touching his clothes, still. The clear promise of a tickle attack made shivers run like electricity through his nerves. "Aiya, Jingyi! So young and your memory is betraying you already? Don’t you remember how you came to me so excited this morning, saying you wanted to help experimenting with my new ideas?"

Jingyi half groaned and half giggled. In his defense, it was very hard to try to remember something when a single finger decided to poke his ribs and make him dance from a side to another like he was performing the silliest of the dances. "Senior Wei!"

"Almost! Now repeat that but with less I-am-about-to-get-destroyed-by-ghost-tickles feeling. Don’t worry, I’ll help you remember.” Then, the ghost started doing a high pitched voice that sounded nothing like him. Jingyi would be bristling in protest if the (his?) hands found the horribly ticklish spot right next to his stomach and was trying to pinch it senseless. “'Senior Wei, Senior Wei! My classes have been canceled, can you believe? I can stay here with you the entire day!'" 

“This is not…” hs snorted and started to squirm even more, feeling himself slip more and more into titters. “Behehihing tickled to death was nohohot what I-I meheheant!"

Wei Wuxian chuckled mischievously, very much proud to realize that not even death took away his amazing tickling and teasing skills. He spent years honing it to perfect, afterall. “You should’ve been more clear, then. Or are you going back on your word, now? Tsk Tsk, and here I thought that the Lans prided themselves in their honor and fairness. Leaving a poor ghost here all alone, denying him his last wishes of experimenting and being happy before we part our ways. Refusing to even help me for a single day… Sniff. Where has the compassion gone in this new generation?"

Jingyi stomped his feet on the floor, protesting. The effect of it was dimmed by the giant smile going from ear to ear in his face. The hands now decided to “walk” with two fingers up and down his ribs, making his nerves dance with the anticipation and light tickling

"Y-you’re not going awahahay. And I can’t spend the entire day like this, stohohohop tickling me!"

“Tickling? I would never!” Wei Wuxian gasped and pulled his hands a few inches away from his skin, wiggling them in front of his face and giving the whole “ghost tickles” a new meaning as Jingyi squeaked and kept giggling uncontrollably, almost feeling this wiggling touch back on his torso. “See? I am not even touching you and you are still laughing, that has nothing to do with me.”

“I am nehehever-” his face was starting to get hot, looking at the playful way Senior Wei looked at him with a merciless grin definitely didn’t help. The more the older one kept poking, playing, teasing him, the more he felt that he would crumble in the very moment the actual tickling started. “nehehever helping yohohour experiments agahain.”

"Aw, but you must, Jingyi! Aren't you excited to know what will happen? Who will win, your natural defenses or my attack? Shizui, Don't you think it's an important research to know if ghosts can make you tickle yourselves?"

"It's not!" Jingyi's protesting words disappeared in a shriek when his hands pretended to lunge to his body, clawing, only to stop to hover above his belly. More uncontrollable, protesting giggles fell like a waterfall from his mouth. "Thahahat's stupid. Shihihihihizui, tell him!"

Shizui, like the good, righteous kid he was, pretended he heard nothing of their banter and kept feeding the rabbits hopping around him. When Wei Wuxian turned away snickering and twirling around Jingyi teasingly, he sent his friend an apologetic smile.

Wei Wuxian continued with plenty of mirth and dramatics. Delighted as always to be free to exercise his pranking rights. "Is that how you talk with your seniors? Lan Jingyi, what would Hanguang-Jun say?"

"He wohohohould protect me!"

"Would he, now? So where's your Hanguang-Jun, huh? To take you out of the evil Patriarch Yilling’s claws."

“Nohohot evil. Stohohop it.”

Wei Wuxian’s grin softened, for a moment. Then he lightened up once more. “Maybe I could even tickle him when he appears! It would take me much more energy but can you imagine? Is Hanguang Jun even ticklish? Have you ever seen he gig-" The ghost stopped as if he had been his, going from looking thoughtful for a moment then startled and embarrassed. If Jingyi didn't know him better, he could say a flash of hunger appeared in his eyes. Probably he was already going crazy because of the antecipation, though.

"Anyway!" He clapped his hands and Jigyi's own followed his moves. He tried once more squirm free from it, but it was impossible to concentrate his qi enough to push away the... possession? Control? Whatever this was before Wei Wuxian got a hold of it once again.

A loud squeal flew from his mouth when a finger poked too close his bellybutton, and he immediately descended in stronger giggling. 

The smirk that opened in Wei Wuxian face was positively evil. 

"I think we found a good spot." He sing-songed, the finger started circling his bellybutton, lightly scribbling the trembling skin around it, pulling guffaws that stopped him from pulling his belly away from the ticklish touch. Everytime it tried to twitch away, the finger would poke and poke and poke the button until he was too distracted to protest. “Sehehehenior Wei, wait!”

For a blissful second, he did.

Somewhere near, someone was letting out the most high pitched, half disparate and half joyful laughter. Jingyi felt his entire body want to run away, to squirm and trash and laugh with all the energy he was holding still. Only when he opened one eye to look at the floating ghost in front of him and his childhood friend smiling softly in the background did he realize he was the one responsible for these sounds. 

A silly snort intertwined in his laughter.

Wei Wuxian tapped a finger on his lips, pensative.

“Should I? Should I wait a bit more?” The finger scraped the tiniest bit on the walls of his bellybutton and Jingyi jumped on the same place, nodding and giggling and snorting and making himself stand still so the tickling wouldn’t be worse. “Hmmm, let me think about it…”

The finger kept light touches, soft tickles grazing the horribly ticklish skin. Jingyi shook his head at it.

Until it finally stopped.

A breath of air, his snickers were still filling the air.

Wei Wuxian tsked. “No. I don’t think I will.” 

And then attacked. 

(Shrieking, mirthful laughter danced in the air.)

[~*~]

Something something wat if Lan Wangji palyed Inquiry and Wei Wuxian answered something something what if he became closer to Shizui and Jingyi and watched and helped them as they grew up something something what if those 13 years of waiting were filled with his laughter and love something something.

[hamliet]

Warning: Untamed spoilers!

Okay so, I finished the Untamed drama a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to think of much since. I loved it, but I also have issues with it (it’s probably because I tend to take this stuff wayyy too seriously, which I am sure you can tell by this very long message, lol). I want to read the novel, but I’m worried I will have the same issues and will be frustrated all over again. I came across your Tumblr and I wondered if you might have some insight?

The thing that worries me is the whole moral ambiguity theme and feeling conflicted about Wei Wuxian as a character. I’m kind of embarrassed to say this cause usually I’m the one arguing for more complex, multi-dimensional characters. Irl I’m always telling people to try to see things from someone else’s perspective, to think about the other side. So… I ought to like this… But I guess I was just really enjoying WWX as an uncomplicated hero/underdog, fighting against the man. I loved how self-sacrificing he was, how committed to doing the right thing no matter the cost. That kind of trope really gets me. It made me want to go protest in front of an oil company or something. I really had no clue that he was anything other than a simple good guy, except for Lan Zhan repeatedly warning him about using the black magic—which admittedly was kind of a red flag… (Whenever anyone says “I can control it! This extremely powerful weapon definitely won’t be used for evil!” that’s never a good sign.)

But, black magic aside, when his sister and Jin Zixuan died, I was really thrown off-balance. It really seemed like it was his fault (at least in part). I know the drama tried to blame everything on Jin Guangyao, but I’ve been told in the novel he’s more directly responsible, which honestly didn’t really surprise me, because blaming Jin Guangyao did seem kind of like an afterthought. It didn’t really fit the tone or theme of the story.

The thing is, having him (directly or indirectly) cause the deaths of two important main characters seems to imply that he had made some mistake—that we should be critical of him in some way. Or else, why would that have to happen? I know Chinese authors love angst, but if main characters have to die for the sake of drama, why not have them die at the hands of an obvious villain? The fact that WWX was involved in their deaths makes it seem like he did something wrong. But I didn’t really understand what. What exactly was his tragic flaw? That he was trying too hard to play hero? That he messed around with the dark magic and couldn’t control it? He was too proud, too overconfident? For me, the takeaway wasn’t really clear.  

As I said, I am okay with moral ambiguity. But WWX is different in that what is attractive about him IS his goodness, his selflessness, his willingness to sacrifice everything to do what is right. That’s why I loved him so much. But, by making him morally ambiguous, it kind of takes away from that. It almost seems like the author is criticizing those traits? Are those traits bad? I mean, I guess sometimes they can be. In my own life there are times I have tried to play hero, and as a result have screwed things up. But that seems like a surprising message for a drama like this. Or is it just that life is messy and even when you try to do the right thing sometimes it doesn’t work out? I didn't get the message.

And it was kind of painfully disappointing because I loved WWX so much! For his goodness. I almost feel more ready to forgive Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang for their crimes because, in some way, I don’t hold them to the same moral standard. Their goodness wasn’t what appealed to me about them. I feel like it’s very confusing to have a story all about moral ambiguity in a character who seems to be trying so hard to be good.

And then, when I talked to other Untamed/MDZS fans about this, and asked if the novel is more clear about this stuff than the drama, they were all like: “Oh, WWX is not morally ambiguous! He was just forced into a bad situation by the REAL bad guys! Only people who didn’t know him thought that he was morally ambiguous.”

Which just made me more confused. It’s like, if we are just supposed to love WWX and not feel conflicted at all about his actions, then why have him kill two main characters? And why keep hammering home the theme of moral ambiguity, which the drama did A LOT. (I mean they talked about it many times. It’s even in the lyrics to the song!)

And I was conflicted about WWX after the deaths. I felt like, after Jin Zixuan died, WWX should have realized his mistake for cultivating the black magic and have tried to get rid of it or something. But instead, he just goes back to argue with everyone and defend himself, starting the fight that eventually killed his sister. In the drama, he doesn’t really express regret about any of that, just sadness for what happened. He apologizes to Jin Ling for his comments about him lacking “maternal education,” but he doesn’t apologize for indirectly killing his father. It seems like the creators of the drama don’t really blame him either, and we are just supposed to blame the Jin clan and Jin Guangyao. But again, if we’re not supposed to blame him, why have him seem even partially responsible for those deaths? And why keep mentioning the theme of moral ambiguity?

I’m okay with redemption, but part of redemption is acknowledging that someone did something wrong. It seems like Untamed wants to have a story about redemption without actually recognizing his part in everything. Anyways, I know the drama really fell short in explaining a lot of things that were part of the novel. I wonder if you think the novel will explain everything clearly and all my concerns will turn out to be nothing? Or if the novel is similar enough that I might have the same reaction? I know I should just read it for myself, but it’s really long and I’m scared of disappointment 😅. I also told myself I would wait to read the novel until I deal with some things in real life, because I know that once I start reading I will not be able to think about anything else. As you can see, I am already not thinking about anything else and I should probably just read it, sighhh.

Anyways, thank you so much for kindly reading this very long rant. It is greatly appreciated. ❤❤

Hi! No worries about spoilers, I watched it long ago :D

In short: I think you would like the novel.

See, apparently protagonists aren't really allowed to be that morally complex or gray in the same way they can be in a novel, leading to all sorts of mishandlings and even fumblings of different elements of the adaptation. It comes across as contradictory in the drama because it is contradictory; they're telling you WWX is morally perfect, but he is demonstrably not, and fans of the drama kind of gobbled that up at the expense of the novel's characterization. Which is a shame, because the novel is so much more thematically rich. I mean, I think The Untamed adaptors did the best they could with the circumstances they had, but the novel is so much more complete and thematically tight, if that makes sense. (It's actually one of the few novels in existence that I can say truly milks every drop of potential from every possible character, situation, and theme.)

To kind of demonstrate what's different about the novel, I'll answer some more specific questions below:

why not have them die at the hands of an obvious villain?

So the funny thing is that the premise of the novel is that they are searching for a villain (because society is always searching for a villain), only to realize there is no villain at all. WWX is one of the few characters who truly realizes this in the end and has compassion for JGY. WWX is a good boy.

As I said, I am okay with moral ambiguity. But WWX is different in that what is attractive about him IS his goodness, his selflessness, his willingness to sacrifice everything to do what is right. That’s why I loved him so much

Alas, so this is where I'm going to try to explain that while it might sound like I'm saying the novel might be less appealing to you, I actually don't think it would be!

WWX is a complex character, and admittedly no one in the novel is black or white, good or bad. Yet, the traits of his commitment to doing what he thinks is right, as shown in the show, are still very present. WWX is very pure of heart in the novel; he just also is very human.

Honestly, I'd say that WWX is a perfect idealist in the novel. His ideals are good, too. There just sometimes are not good or right options to choose from because their world is so messed up (society is the real villain, so the villain is simultaneously everyone and no one); sometimes it's levels of wrong to choose from. Also, as an idealist, when his loved ones die because of him (which does happen even more directly in the novel than in the show), he sinks into despair and gives up on everything, even goodness, briefly, which is what leads to the massacre he's known for committing and also his own death. But when he wakes up resurrected as Mo Xuanyu and gets another chance, he's still idealistic and hopeful enough to take it; he's just a little wiser about his limits this time.

His goodness and his love with LWJ (a societally scandalous relationship) offer society a glimmer of hope to change the entire world from monster to human--that's the point of the novel! So if you think of him as a beacon of light, you're in luck.

“Oh, WWX is not morally ambiguous! He was just forced into a bad situation by the REAL bad guys! Only people who didn’t know him thought that he was morally ambiguous.” Which just made me more confused. It’s like, if we are just supposed to love WWX and not feel conflicted at all about his actions, then why have him kill two main characters?

Ex-frickin-actly. You can blame censorship for this!

It seems like Untamed wants to have a story about redemption without actually recognizing his part in everything.

Again, I applaud your point because this is exactly the thematic contradiction that the censorship created. Said contradiction doesn't exist in the novel.

Anyways, if you do end up reading it, I'd love to hear from you!

[saintone]

So i have a new svsss theory.

First of all some context. Im a literature student. I read all those boring works aclamed by the critics that dont say nothing, but tell you everything at the same time. And I kinda get why we think the Uliles is a literature masterpiece or why Kafka was such a genius.

But hear me out. MXTX? Fucking brilliant.

MXTX is a great writter, but her work are also filled with deeper meanings to explore, and every single plot line can be connected, has a meaning, everything is there bc se wants it to and bc it contributes to the story.

And for me, more than a fictional funny story, SVSSS is a work with the quality to become an all time literature classic. So hear me out.

Shen Jiu was the protagonist.

He was the protagonist on the original sotry, on Shang Qinghua's original story. He was the fucking protagonist!

First of all, he had the looks. Natural elegance and otherwordly attractiveness. Sj was cononically a man whose appearence stuck out.

Second, he was powerful. Sj was "chosen one" level of powerful. He was a kid, showing signs of a promising cultivator's future, a kind of innate strengh that wasnt found in any other character of the story (ygy and lbh had to cultivate years, before they could show such phisical manifestation of their powers).

Third, his realtionship with Ygy. Like, that's some main character shit! "If theres something like loyalty on this life, i will give all of mine to tpu". Ygy going to look for him, dying under thousands of arrows? Greek tragedias pale in front of the lifes Qu Ge and Xiao Jiu, "big brother seven and little slave nunber nine".

Also, he was an orphan, and he was humble. The first atribute relates to the hero's construction in traditional fiction storys, the hero of unknown original who is actually a long lost son (*cought* Luo Binghe *cought*). But an orphan hero is a pretty common figure in fiction.

The second one gains more meaning in relation to MXTX's works and chinese culture. In her works, we commonly have characters from humble begginings who are judged by their upbringings. This is perfectly clear in MDZS, as Wei Wuxian is cursed and blamed for everything he dies,: but his worst sin is that he was a commoner. And the hatred he recieves contrasts heavily with the love the Jianghu holds for Zhan Lang. If you take the time to look for it, there ate many implicantions related to social class diferences in MXTX's works.

Shen jiu was hated by Liu Qingge for his "sketchy ways". And Sqq's ways were nothing but a reflection from his upbringing: a poor, homeless slave child.

It also isn't a coincidence that Shen Yuan was a rich kid. Like, just think about it! Some people think that Sy and Sqq were " the same souls with different lives and if Sqq life had been better he could have been like sy". But like, have u read Sy?

Shen Yuan was a rich kid who never worked in his life, and spent his family's money on online novels. Shen Jiu was a slave who was abused and fought with thooth and nail every day of his life to assure himself he wouldn't have to suffer ever again. A genious, who knew how to be safe on the streets even as an infant, with unbreakable morals, who protected the only one he loved even till the end (acá ygy). If it wasnt for ygy, shen jiu wouldn evem had gotten in trouble, in the first place.

Not to offend any Sy's fans but he is kinda selfish, and dumb (in a loving way oc). And he had zero, ZERO emotional responsability. Sy didnt gave SHIT about what anyone felt (bc to him, everyone were just "characters"). But he also was kinda emotionally constipated. His only priorities in SVSSS were being safe, and looking good and "elegant".

Like come on, the man was the living representation of that meme that says "everything's fine", whole the ropa is on fire.

So yeah, sy and sj arent the same soul (we can have two protagonist without reducing one into the other, but this is a convo for a other day i guess). Sy and Sj are actually opposites, and here the great MXTX gives us another wonderful jab. Bc Sy was believed to be kind, when everything he did was for his own safety, meamwhile Sj was truly kind, often risking himself to save others around him (aka Liu fucking Qingge), but he was always misunderstood.

And Sy was rich, had an easy life and didnt need to do any work (he was born in a good enviorment, in both worlds, having everything handled to him). Meanwhile Sj struggled all his life never attaining a true sence of safety.

This is why I say MXTX is true a genius. Sy and Sj are comppleate opposites for each others. If you analize her works deeper, you will start to find all these small connections that give meaning to every single action.

Now, back to the start.

Shen Jiu is our protagonist. But he fails. It's no one's fault, jut at the same time it's everyone's.

Yue QingYuan didn't come back. Shen Jiu waited for too long. Que Haitang didn't realize. Qiu Jianluo was a sick (rich) fuck. Wu Yanzi was there. Shen Jiu was human, and he made mistakes, and he was afraid.

Shen Jiu never gave up: he fought, he grew, he shone like the protagonist he was, unbreakeble, a 'protagonist halo' that protected him even as he went through hell.

But it didn't protect him psychologically.

And everyone around him didnt see what he really was. Instead of a protagonist, Sqq was tilted as the villan.

Now this is my personal theory, but the system couldnt allow a story with no main character. He has to replace Shen Jiu.

Enters: original Luo Binghe. Now lets analize Binghe. He was poor and humble at the beggining, but he had noble blood. Powerful blood. And a mother, a privilege young Sj didnt obtain.

Lbh becomes the protagonist, and here is when PIDW starts.

But Lbh also fails! Bc true heroes avoid darkness, dont fall into revenge. True heroes forgive, they become better people that their masters. Lbh is actually a worse versión of Sj, not a better one. If sj supoosedly preyed on women, lbh had a harem full of them. If sj hurt his martial brithers, lgh destroyed his sect. If sj was a menance to the Jianghu, Lbh literaly destroyed it.

And Lbh himself isnt even happy at the end, his Sjizhun dead, the world at his hands, a harem surrounding him and the deep, emptiness in his heart that cannot be fieled by anything.

Og! Lbh fails, and this is where Sy comes in.

Bc sj's presence on the story made such a mess, the system chooses someone who is his compleate opposite. Rich, selfish and dumb. And then it gets rid of Og! Shen Qingqiu

Sj dissapeares.

Did he die? We dont know. Is he in another world? Does he get his happy ending, does someone remember him?

We dont know.

We will never know.

Sj was rhe main character of this story, but now he is missing. And everyone else goes on without him. Everyone else becomes a person, something more than a character, as Sy realizes that he is in for this world and the people around him have hearts and feelings too.

Shen Jiu doest get that. He doesnt become a person, he doesnt get his arc. He is nothing more that a pitiful character.

This is why i think SVSSS is a masterpiece.

Shall we mourn forever the protagonist we lost. He didnt fit the narrative, thus he had to be taken down.

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

[the-0th3r-side]

Phoenix Mountain Kiss ( Consent & Communication )

There are a lot of people who say that Mxtx is a fetishist and has problems with consent, but the only scenes in which something happens without the consent of the other part is portrayed as problematic. In that case I'm going to talk specifically about the kiss stolen from the Mountain Phoenix Hunt scene. ( When they are not yet in a stabilized relationship in which the two love each other and mutually understand their desires )

First, plot involves conflict. This scene wasn't an error and it wasn't there by mistake, Mxtx purposely added conflicts to WangXian’s relationship. It's a scene used to emphasize the importance of consent and communication in a relationship. This is one of the main themes of the novel. It was a mistake that provided some development for Lan Wangji and his behavior towards Wei Wuxian. I understand that it may have been conceived in a romanticized way because of Wuxian's narrative ( And I also believe it could have been written in a more critical way ) mainly because he himself ignores it as if it doesn't matter much, it's not an occurrence that change his trajectory or affect him drastically, but the book makes it clear that it was a wrong move, especially when Wangji shows up later and he's kind of having a mental breakdown. He clearly sees his actions as wrong and disrespectful.

Now, let's take into account the non-linear narrative of Mdzs. The stolen kiss scene is inserted right after we discover the story of Lan Wangji's parents. This is obviously not a coincidence. It is for the purpose of informing us what would have happened if Lan Wangji had taken Wei Wuxian to Gusu back then, which could not have happened, even if the two solved their dilemmas. I explain in this post ( Link ) Ok, so we already know that since he was a child Lan Wangji was exposed to this topic regarding consent. He is aware that he may have been a child born out of rape, that his mother may have been forced into a marriage and imprisoned against her will, though this is never clarified. He was always encouraged to follow the rules and have self-control to not become like his father.

That kiss was the scene where he finally realized he was tracing his father's footsteps. First, he was pressuring Wei Wuxian to go to Gusu with him, even when Wwx had already clarified his desire not to go. Second, he forcibly imposed his will on Wuxian, kissing him without consent and when Wwx had already said he didn't like men. Third, he lost control of himself, one of the most important things he's built up in his life, acting completely impulsively and breaking the rules he's kept since he was a kid.

Going that way would be imposing a unwanted protection on Wei Wuxian, as his father supposedly did to his mother. In his conversation with Xichen, he says “I want to take someone back to Cloud Recesses… take them back and hide them. But he is unwilling.” This passage demonstrates that the only way he could possibly protect Wuxian without being rejected was in the way Wei Wuxian himself allowed, because if Lan Wangji continued to insist on his form of protection, which was taking him to Gusu, that would only distance them from each other even more.

With this sequence of events, there is a change in his behavior that can be better perceived in the future. It is immediately clear from Lan Wangji's second appearance in the book, when he says a phrase that will characterize his attitude towards Wei Wuxian from now on "Mark your words" in the sense that he will take Wei Wuxian's words seriously, so he should stop saying things that are inauthentic or that he doesn't really mean, as Lan Wangji had warned before in the Xuánwǔ’s cave “You shouldn't tease people like that if you don’t mean what you say, you doing whetever you please will leave people in turmoil!". He doesn't initiate anything with Wuxian, and when something happens it's with his explicit permission. In fact,  Lan Wangji even tries to tone down some moments, and there's the wonderful scene of him drunk knocking himself out after Wei Wuxian kisses him. So he doesn't try anything, even though Wuxian flirts with him repeatedly, and now comes the communication problems.

Lan Wangji had already confessed to Wei Wuxian and was rejected. In the course of the entire novel he thinks Wuxian is aware of his feelings, so why would he confess again? Wouldn't him acting on those feelings after being rejected be the same as imposing his will on Wei Wuxian again? From his perspective, Wuxian didn't even like men. And worse, Lan Wangji wasn't special, it was just that Wei Wuxian behaved that way with everyone “Do you behave so frivolously with everyone you meet?” " I guess so ".

On the other hand, Wei Wuxian believed that Lan Wangji hated him. It wasn't because he was oblivious or stupid, just that Wangji didn't give him any reason to believe otherwise before he reincarnated. This miscommunication leads them to a disagreement that goes on for more than a decade, until they finally talk and understand each other.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i feel like, as with so many other things in the text, this is one of those mysteries that 1) we'll just never get an answer to, and 2) was not originally intended to be that much of a mystery in the first place. i say this because even after her death, the only person who seems to experience any real grief in her passing is literally jin guangyao, and he also later claims responsibility for her death! (even tho the novel makes it clear that her death was a suicide rather than something jgy had a direct hand in, I think he counts her name among his victims because he feels responsible for what happens to her. just fwiw.)

jin ling doesn't seem to have many thoughts or feelings about qin su at all; she was his shushu's wife, and then she was dead, and he is understandably more preoccupied with the revelation that all this time, he's been palling around not with his shushu's whackadoodle half-brother who sexually harassed him, but with wei wuxian, the person who he has believed all his life to be solely responsible for the deaths of both his parents. but i think even if he hadn't discovered that mo xuanyu was really wei wuxian all this time... he probably would not have had many complicated feelings about the passing of an aunt who was maybe emotionally unavailable to him. his complete non-reaction to her death is weird whether they had a close relationship or a very detached one, imo. it doesn't seem like even mxtx put much thought into what their relationship would have been like in the intervening years. which sucks.

btw none of this is a criticism of what you've written about qin su, OP, i just saw your post and felt compelled to springboard off of it with some more thoughts, because i do often come back to qin su again and again as one of the most tragic characters in the whole novel, intentionally and unintentionally. she seems to exist for two reasons: 1) to be one of the three people in the novel who loved jin guangyao unconditionally (the others being lan xichen, however you choose to interpret that relationship, and of course meng shi), and 2) to suffer once she discovers the truth of her relationship to her husband. after that, her voice literally vanishes so completely from the text that she's barely even a ghost. so while i would otherwise agree that it sucks for jin ling to have grown up without receiving any affection from his aunt, i'm just not inclined to blame qin su for it. the narrative does her dirty enough.

One thing that always makes me pause for a moment is that it's insinuated that no one has ever cuddled JL (poor kid 😭)

Like receiving a hug from WWX is alien to him, it's something he finds so strange (but probably obviously love's it) and it always makes me stop and frown for a moment. Because if no one gave this poor kid a hug, it's not only JC or JGY didn't (and JGY does like to put on a good show so that did surprise me a little) but it's the fact the apparent "sweet and innocent" Qin Su did not even cuddle the child either. It makes me feel a little off about her.

I'm sure there are numerous reasons people will blame her lack of physical affection towards the boy as something to do with her son being murdered by his father/uncle dying, but personally, I think that's a bit of a crap excuse to have never hugged a lonely orphan child.

And before anyone says a word, I and a fair few others I know have lost children in different circumstances and we all cuddle our nieces/nephews and friends kids still.

[hoarder-of-stories-27]

In response to your fav ship dynamic, flawd holy being/demonic being devoted to them, what are the ones other than Good Omens? Please and thank you? I love ineffable husbands and need more of that dynamic in my life. 💖

Hey! I checked your profile and didn't find anything about whether you're a minor or an adult (which is super valid! heck yeah practice online safety), so I'm saying this with the disclaimer that these are all adult novels with adult themes including but not limited to sexuality and gore/death/etc. If you're a minor, as a blanket statement, I don't recommend reading them until you're older, though of course reading them would be your choice still and you're the one who knows your tolerance for adult themes.

With that out of the way: Hualian, Bingqiu, Ranwan, and maybe Wangxian fit that dynamic! Those are all canon gay pairings (as in, the books focus on the romance between two men who kiss on the mouth multiple times on the page, and Hualian is the only pairing that doesn't have explicit sex scenes, though it is clear that they do canonically have kinky sex) in novels by the Chinese authors Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and Meatbun.

Here, I'll copy-and-paste my summaries for each novel from this post:

Tian Guan Ci Fu, or Heaven Official’s Blessing (Hualian): a disgraced god meets a disguised ghost king who treats him with a surprising amount of respect, and starts to work on healing from eight centuries of trauma. My favorite book ever. Sweeping fantasy romance with fascinating background characters and themes of criticism of mob mentality. Main content warnings: abuse, gore, suicide. No explicit sex scenes; definitely still an adult novel.

(Note on the dynamic: this is the one I was mainly thinking of, making that drawing. It's SO good.)

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Bingqiu): a terminally online webnovel-obsessed Redditor-equivalent isekai’s into his favorite/most hated harem novel, and finds out, to his surprise, that the protagonist is gay??? Comedy that would be angst from any other character’s perspective. Main content warnings: dub/noncon, painful sex, internalized homophobia. There are a few explicit sex scenes between the main couple, including a dub/noncon/fuck-or-die scene.

(Note on the dynamic: Shen Qingqiu, the not-Redditor, is the flawed holy being, kind of. He's a cultivator - something like a wizard, maybe, in Western terms? though of course it's its own thing. Luo Binghe, the protagonist of the harem novel, is the demonic being devoted to him.)

Mo Dao Zu Shi, or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Wangxian): a disgraced dead man who’s definitely straight, trust him, is given new life and proceeds to unravel a mystery with the help of an old friend. Casefic vibes with themes of criticism of mob mentality. Main content warnings: uhh it’s been a while but definitely at least death and torture. There are a few explicit sex scenes between the main couple, including dubcon/drunk sex and CNC.

(Note on the dynamic: Lan Wangji is the flawed holy being. Wei Wuxian is the not-dead-anymore man "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation" refers to, though watch out for the differences between how people perceive him and how he actually is.)

Erha/2ha, or Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (Ranwan): an emperor who’s committed every crime, especially rape and murder, kills himself and wakes up as his teenage self, given a second chance with his teacher, the man he wronged most. Casefic vibes with themes of criticism of punitive justice, very dead dove. Biggest, most important content warning: rape. There are multiple explicit rape scenes, and they are integral to the story. I read this book for the rape scenes, and I was not disappointed. Do not read this if fictional rape is a trigger for you. Very good book.

(Note on the dynamic: Chu Wanning is the flawed holy being - another cultivator. Heads up that Mo Ran, the emperor, is very unlikable at first, but there is a happy ending.)

To anyone following me - please feel free to add on with other examples of this dynamic! I'd be interested as well. :D

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: WRH publicly calls JFM + Madame Yu out on being terrible parents.

A Tragedy in Four Acts - ao3

tagged warnings on Ao3

1

Wen Ruohan was going to take over the world.

He knew he would, because he deserved it. He was stronger than everyone else, smarter, more ruthless, more intent on getting his way; he was willing to do whatever was needed to accomplish his goal, and capable of thinking of what was needed, too. He’d fought wars and schemed against brilliant men and women, skillfully and successfully managing to divide and conquer his enemies even when they knew exactly what he was doing and why.

In comparison, tricking a young girl like Jiang Yanli was – easy.

2

“ – how dare you!” Jiang Yanli’s mother cried out, loud enough to be heard even outside the door, and Jiang Yanli froze right where she was.

She shouldn’t have gotten out of bed, she knew. Her parents had been very firm about that: no one was to be out of bed past curfew when they were hosting guests, especially guests from the Wen sect, and least of all a sixteen-year-old girl like her – she was only old enough to get in trouble, not old enough to know to avoid it, or so her mother said. But Wei Wuxian had been thirsty and had whined about how his throat was hurting, that it might even be a little swollen…she knew he was playing it up, of course. He always was, when he whined at her like that, pretending to be three instead of thirteen.

If it had been real pain, he wouldn’t have said a word.

But just because she knew that, she was weak when he did – she couldn’t resist wanting to coddle him and spoil him, just the way she did for Jiang Cheng who would never ask for it outright but who loved it so much, and so when he’d picked tonight to kick up a fit for no reason she’d kissed her little A-Xian on the forehead and promised to get him something from the kitchen.

She hadn’t expected to get caught on her way back.

She hadn’t expected –

“There is nothing wrong with the way we’re raising our children!” her mother continued, and Jiang Yanli abruptly exhaled with relief: she had not been caught, and her mother wasn’t yelling at her, but at their honored guest. She was in the clear.

She was also, abruptly, extremely curious.

No one had ever criticized her parents before - not over anything, but definitely not the way they raised children. Her parents were the leaders of a Great Sect, and powerful cultivators to boot! Who would be stupid enough to do something like that?

“I disagree,” someone inside the room said, and his voice was deep and smooth, velvety, smug and satisfied like a cat that just fished up something tasty for itself that it didn’t have to share. That meant it was Sect Leader Wen himself who was speaking; Jiang Yanli had only met him very briefly earlier, standing by her mother’s side to welcome the guests, but his voice was the sort that stuck in your mind. “I mean no offense, Madame Yu. I only think there is, in fact, a great deal wrong with how you raise your children.”

Jiang Yanli couldn’t help but inch closer to the door.

“Would Sect Leader Wen care to elaborate?” her mother said icily. “On how – non-offensively­ – he believes we are mistaken in our child-rearing?”

There was a low chuckle that seemed to travel straight up Jiang Yanli’s spine.

“Very well,” Sect Leader Wen drawled. “If that’s what you wish. My esteemed colleague, Sect Leader Jiang, grossly favors the child adopted into his sect over the child of his blood –”

“I do no such –”

“Sect Leader Jiang, please. Where is your etiquette? Am I not your guest? It’s rude to interrupt, especially when I’m answering a question posed by your wife. When I am done, you may speak to your heart’s content, and I will not object.”

No one had ever scolded Jiang Yanli’s father before – no one but her mother, anyway.

No one had ever done so successfully.

“As I was saying,” Sect Leader Wen continued, Jiang Yanli’s father having fallen quiet once more. “Sect Leader Jiang’s preference for Wei Wuxian is so obvious that even strangers can tell – and the boys themselves, as well. One could argue that Sect Leader Jiang merely has a preference for that sort of cheerful personality, which so closely accords to the principles of the Jiang sect, or that he is only rewarding the boy’s evident talent…but does he not realize how much of his son’s spirit he is crushing? How he is creating an impossible rivalry between them, in which his son tries his best and even exceeds it, only to repeatedly fail to obtain his approval – does he not understand how that will breed an inferiority complex? How it will generate bitterness, self-doubt, an inevitable personal crisis?”

That was all true, Jiang Yanli thought. Jiang Cheng wanted nothing more in life but her father’s approval, and he never got it. He never got it and never would, not as long as Wei Wuxian was around; Jiang Yanli had long ago realized that the fact that they were able to be friends despite it all was due wholly to the strength and generosity of Jiang Cheng’s heart.

“It’s one thing to be harsh to your children, Sect Leader Jiang. They expect and understand that; they know that we only want what’s best for them. But you are harsh to him while showering Wei Wuxian with praise and compliments, and even give him the physical affection you deny your son…do you know, in the entire week that I’ve been here, you’ve embraced Wei Wuxian more than ten times, and your own son none at all?”

He had. Their father never hugged Jiang Cheng anymore, and Jiang Cheng knew it. He used to cry about it to her…and still did to himself, late at night when he thought no one could hear.

“Sect Leader Wen –”

“I’m not done, Sect Leader Jiang,” Sect Leader Wen said, and his voice was smooth and pleasant and completely implacable as he spoke the words that Jiang Yanli had been thinking for years. Jiang Yanli’s heart did something strange inside her chest. “To dismiss one child immediately after bringing in another: it’s no wonder the whole of the cultivation world wonders whether Wei Wuxian is your own son, since it’s the only way to explain why you appear to be planning to give him your son’s inheritance.”

A brief pause – the sound of swallowing. Sect Leader Wen must have taken a sip of wine.

“Such a thing would never be allowed, of course,” he added, voice casual and off-hand. “Even if in the future you completely lose your mind, Sect Leader Jiang – and I’m not saying such a thing would ever happen, of course – there’s still the rest of us in the cultivation world. We, at least, know how to honor our ancestors and value our children and our bloodline.”

Jiang Yanli couldn’t see her father’s face right now.

She wished she could.

(Did that make her a bad daughter?)

“There is also the effect this favoritism is having on Wei Wuxian himself,” Sect Leader Wen continued. “Even if you don’t care about your own son – now, now, what have I said about interrupting? I didn’t say you didn’t, only that even if you didn’t, you might take some care to the damage you do to the boy you do favor. The mess you’ve made of that boy’s mind is truly astounding. He is spoiled and praised, so he is arrogant, always wanting to get his way – but he knows he is not deserving of the extremity of you favoritism, so he constantly feels as though he has stolen something. He owes everything to the Jiang clan, yet his mere existence hurts the Jiang sect’s heir, to whom he is always compared. He feels guilt, but his personality is not one that acknowledges guilt: he tries instead to lie about what is happening, to pretend he doesn’t see it, and in doing so worsens that guilt that he feels and aggravates the feeling he has that he must keep any complaints he has secret, to avoid burdening you further.”

Sect Leader Wen was right, Jiang Yanli thought, amazed. Sect Leader Wen was right.

She’d never been able to put it into words before, that something wrong that she sensed beneath Wei Wuxian’s cheerful demeanor, that feeling that there was something so terribly wrong in his relationship with them that she couldn’t fix no matter how many bowls of soup she made for him.

Wei Wuxian loved them all, she knew. He loved them dearly – it was that love that let Jiang Cheng, time and time again, love him back, no matter how much he unconsciously blamed Wei Wuxian for stealing his father’s love and attention away. And yet, for all that Wei Wuxian loved them, he didn’t always seem to trust them – he never shared his secret thoughts or hurts with them the way they did with him, always laughing them off or pretending he was fine. She’d thought it was because he still didn’t fully believe that they were his family, which would never leave him, or else because of the way his parents had died…

She hadn’t realized that he did it because he loved them.

Jiang Yanli’s heart felt warm and full at the realization, even as it made her sad. She felt grateful for Sect Leader Wen for putting the matter into words so clearly.

“You understand, of course, that this contradiction creates in Wei Wuxian an overwhelming sense of obligation that does nothing to restrain his arrogance,” Sect Leader Wen continued, voice mild and calm as before. “He will kill himself a thousand times over for your son’s sake, yet he will ignore his opinions and trample over his wishes…which is of course the worst trait one can have in a subordinate. You are planting the seeds for a bitter harvest in the next generation: his mere existence will undercut your son’s strength, spreading whispers of disdain as to who is the real heir of the Lotus Pier…in the end, your son have no choice but to banish Wei Wuxian from his home.”

“A-Cheng would never do that!”

“He will have no choice, Sect Leader Jiang, not if he wants to keep the inheritance handed down from his ancestors. You’re a sect leader yourself; you cannot pretend not to know how the other sect leaders talk, how easily they can turn against someone over a few rumors, spurred on by any sign of weakness…! Given how brilliant Wei Wuxian is, I have no doubt that he will be the one to realize it and recommend that course of action, even if it breaks his heart. It is our children who must reap the harvest we plant, Sect Leader Jiang! If you don’t want people twenty years from now whispering behind their hands that Wei Wuxian was the one the former sect leader Jiang always favored, the real heir, the one that ought to be listened to and the bloodline heir ignored, you have fix what you are doing now.”

Jiang Yanli nodded, pressing her hand to her mouth to avoid making any noise of agreement.

“And let us speak, too, of how Madame Yu has worsened the situation,” Sect Leader Wen added, and Jiang Yanli couldn’t help but feel a surge of glee. If no one had ever successfully scolded her father, then no one had ever even bothered to try to scold her mother – this would be a first! “Putting all her failed hopes for marriage onto her son’s shoulders, making him take on that extra burden…it’s not good enough that he do well, he has to do better than Wei Wuxian, that natural-born genius. An impossible request! And more than that, he needs not only to do well, but to win his father’s affection over his rival, when nothing he could ever do would achieve that – even more impossible! And yet you ask it of him, again and again, engendering in him an innate sense of failure…"

A small sigh.

"Madame, you make of your son a broken boy who will become a bitter man, a man who could change the world in his own image and never realize that he has done so, his eyes blinded until he can see only his shortcomings and never his successes. Do you not know how extraordinary your son is? How talented, how clever, how much he exceeds others his age? Or do you only see that he has not exceeded Wei Wuxian?”

Yes, Jiang Yanli thought. Yes, yes – yes!

She’d never really thought all that much about Sect Leader Wen before this. His reputation wasn’t especially good in the Lotus Pier: sure, he was known to be the most powerful of the Great Sect leaders, both for the might of his sect, whose influence extended across nearly a third of the cultivation world and more, and for his own extraordinarily powerful personal cultivation, but he was also said to be wicked and scheming, arrogant and conceited, blood-thirsty and ruthless in the extreme.

Dangerous, that was what they said about him. He was dangerous.

Currently, Jiang Yanli couldn’t see it. Sect Leader Wen was brave, she thought; brave enough to stand up to her parents and tell them to their faces what they were doing wrong. And not just brave, but compassionate, too: he didn’t need to say anything along the lines of what he was saying, which would almost certainly irritate her parents and make his future negotiations with them over sect matters more difficult, and yet he was saying it anyway, helping Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian for absolutely no benefit to himself as far as she could see. And to chose to speak like this, publicly but also late at night, saving her parents’ face in not saying it in front of everyone…in this way, it wasn’t as if Jiang Cheng or Wei Wuxian would know what he was saying and therefore know to thank him; he wouldn’t be able to reap the benefit of this in the next generation for his own sect.

No: because of what he was saying, the next generation, her generation, her Jiang sect, would be stronger – and that wasn’t to Sect Leader Wen’s benefit at all, if what they said about his ambitions were true.

And wasn’t that the greatest good of all, to do something kind for someone else even if it actively impedes your own goals? How could someone who did something like that be the way people said he was?

“And all of this is besides to how you treat your eldest daughter, of course,” Sect Leader Wen said, and Jiang Yanli’s wild thoughts came to an abrupt halt as if they had hit a wall while running.

Their eldest daughter…

Her? Her, Jiang Yanli?

No one had ever paid any attention to her.

No one had ever cared enough to bother to think about her.

“What about A-Li?” her mother asked, clearly startled out of what as most likely seething rage, sounding genuinely surprised. “A-Li is fine.”

Sect Leader Wen snorted. “Your daughter is most certainly not fine. Your skills at managing the sect are admirable, Madame Yu, but it is your daughter who is doing work of managing your family. On one hand she has to raise two boys, neither her own – to coax and coddle them, to encourage them, to try as much as she can do patch together the emotional wounds that you are leaving in them – and on the other she must manage you, her parents, who are always fighting and causing more trouble. There are sect madams who do not manage half as much as your daughter is managing, and all the while she must keep her temper, keep her balance, keep her behavior appropriate and pleasant in conformity with the expectations that we accord the female sex…no, Yu Ziyuan, your daughter is not fine.”

Jiang Yanli had taken a step back when Sect Leader Wen had first started speaking, the hand she had clapped over her mouth suddenly pressed so hard that it was almost painful, and then she had drawn closer to the door like a moth to a flame, unwilling to miss a single word no matter how much it hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt because it was true.

She’d never – no one had ever – not once –

“Do you think your daughter is blind and deaf? Do you think she doesn’t hear the rumors about her, the ones that say that she’s only ordinary and average, with neither extraordinary cultivation nor extraordinary intelligence nor extraordinary beauty? That her engagement with Sect Leader Jin’s son was won due to their mothers’ friendship, that such a prized match is wasted on someone like her? Do you think she doesn’t have a heart to feel injured by words like that, words her parents and her intended have never bothered to stand up to refute on her behalf?”

Stand up to refute on her behalf? Jiang Yanli had never even thought of such a thing, never even dreamed it. Of course her parents wouldn’t try to refute the rumors – they were true, weren’t they? She was average in every way; it was only the truth. What words would they use, what words could they use to defend her that wouldn’t get them laughed at? It would be silly to expect such a thing – it would be silly for them to do such a thing!

And yet she was suddenly certain that if Sect Leader Wen had some claim to her, some basis to speak in her defense, he would have done something, said something. Weren’t people always saying that Sect Leader Wen was shameless and rude, arrogant and self-involved, always praising those of his own blood no matter how much they deserved it? And yet look at what the cultivation world said about those Wen of her generation: Wen Xu a brilliant commander with a sharp tongue and sharper sword, Wen Chao, an indulged younger son free to do as he liked, Wen Qing, a woman and yet already classed among the finest doctors in the world…

No one sneered or laughed at them, even when perhaps they ought to.

“Having had a chance to see her in action myself,” Sect Leader Wen said, and Jiang Yanli held her breath in anticipation. “I would say that your daughter is charming and capable, with an exceptional temperament and a noble demeanor. That she can successfully wrangle your two very different boys and inspire them to love each other in the midst of all the conflict you have created between them speaks to her ability to understand people, and to manage them; that she persists despite all the disadvantages of having to be a mother at such a young age speaks to her maturity and devotion, her loyalty to those she loves. If someone laughs at her inferiority in cultivation, you could point to her refinement in character – she is kind, she is generous, supportive, warm…”

Jiang Yanli’s cheeks were on fire, and her hands had moved from her mouth to cover her cheeks, trying futilely to cool them down. She shouldn’t be reacting like this – it was only praise, a few compliments. Cheap talk, as her mother often sneered; what good were pretty words out of a man’s mouth? They cost nothing, meant nothing…

They should mean nothing.

But everything Sect Leader Wen had said up until this point had been true, devastatingly true, true in ways Jiang Yanli hadn’t even considered. Could this be true, too? That she was – that she was kind and charming and capable, that she could do things and be admired for them, even if those things weren’t the sorts of things the cultivation world generally admired?

That her parents had been letting her down all this time, just the way they’d been letting down Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian with their stupid pointless meaningless fighting that only hurt everyone?

“Sect Leader Wen speaks so highly of my daughter,” her mother said, her tone biting cold but her disapproval somehow far less frightening than it would have been even a single stick of incense ago. “I hope you’re not thinking of anything ridiculous. As you said yourself, she’s already engaged, so even if you asked, we would not consider an offer of marriage, not even if you offered yourself.”

An offer of – from Sect Leader Wen?

That was another thing Jiang Yanli had never considered.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know that women her age were already getting married, and sometimes to much older men, too. She was already sixteen! If it wasn’t for the fact that her intended was only thirteen, the same age as Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, she might already have been sewing the last few stitches on her wedding dress. Some of her friends from the Lotus Pier, who were her age or a year older, had already headed off to live in their husband’s houses, their hair done up in the style of married women and secretive smiles on their faces when the rest of them gossiped about what it would be like, after…

And it wasn’t as if it was a completely ridiculous match, the way her mother was making it sound. Jiang Yanli was a sect leader’s daughter – if her mother hadn’t moved so quickly to obtain a highly promising match within her own generation, no one would have been even remotely surprised at the idea of a sect leader of the previous generation making a play to try to win her hand. Such things happened all the time, young girls married off to older, more well-established men, especially when the sect leader was a powerful one – and there was no one more powerful than Sect Leader Wen.

And he wasn’t…he didn’t look old, the way the other sect leaders often did. The rumors said he was over a hundred years old, but that couldn’t be true: he wasn’t fat or balding or have some awful scraggly beard, a face full of wrinkles; he looked as if he were in his twenties, his hair shining and his face clean, those strange red eyes underneath sharp eyebrows, set off by that headpiece he wore with an ornament falling right between his brows, his lips always curved up into that faint supercilious smirk as if he knew things that other people didn’t know, secrets that one could only hope to learn…

Jiang Yanli’s cheeks were hot again.

She thought, suddenly, of her earlier thought: if Sect Leader Wen had some claim to her, she’d thought, he would have spoken up for her. She’d been thinking of a blood claim, a familial one, but there were other types of claim a man could have to a woman…

“Madame Yu compliments me,” Sect Leader Wen said, voice mild. “Your daughter is a precious flower, as lovely and refreshing as a spring breeze – what man wouldn’t be overjoyed to have her?”

No one had ever said that before, either. Even her intended, Jin Zixuan…the whispers she’d heard said he was spoiled, an arrogant little brat, that he’d been offered a chance to go visit her at the Lotus Pier and refused in favor of going riding with his friends instead. That he publicly moaned about being tied down to a woman with as rotten a reputation as hers, as if simply not being extraordinary was enough to make her rotten.

She’d tried for years to secretly fall in love with him, because she knew it would make it easier when they married if she was, and yet, at the same time, everything she’d heard about him made it sound as if he were another little boy that she’d have to raise and mother, to coax and coddle and break herself to pieces trying to please. And all the while, while she was doing all that for him and more, he would undoubtedly feel free to go out to find other women, women who were prettier and better cultivators and all that – who didn’t know about Sect Leader Jin’s notorious inclination towards such indiscretions? They said a father and a son were never too far apart…

No one said anything like that about Sect Leader Wen, though.

He had sons, of course, which meant he must be or have been married, but even though people said all the bad things in the world about him – about his greed, his arrogance, his overreach – Jiang Yanli had never heard it said that he treated his women badly. On the contrary, she had vague memories of her mother talking about the ladies’ clothing in the Nightless City some years ago when she’d returned from a discussion conference; her mother had been unwillingly impressed by their splendor, describing it to her maids (who had stayed behind to watch Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng – it had been before Wei Wuxian had come) as being even more striking than the ladies in Lanling City, a combination not only of wealth but also taste. The ladies of the Wen sect, she had said, were like butterflies, gaudy and glorious but never too much, and they could have anything in the world that they wanted with a wave of their hand.

Jiang Yanli had never been greedy. She didn’t want riches, even though she’d been promised all that of Lanling Jin, and she didn’t want power. She only wanted…

Before, she would’ve said that she didn’t know what she wanted, but at this moment in time it seemed so clear and obvious: she wanted someone to love her, to care for her, to respect her…to take care of her, the way her parents so obviously didn’t bother to do.

Sect Leader Wen was right again, she thought. Her parents really were letting her down, too. It wasn’t just Jiang Cheng or Wei Wuxian – she was suffering as well, only she hadn’t realized it. She didn’t know how much of a burden she was carrying until someone else pointed it out to her…and made her see, for just the briefest moment, how it might be like if someone was helping shoulder it along with her.

“Sect Leader Wen,” Jiang Yanli’s father said stiffly. “Let us be clear: are you asking for my daughter’s hand? For one of your sons, or…?”

“I am not,” Sect Leader Wen said. “Though my sons are both already wed, and happily so; if I were offering anyone, I would indeed, as your wife noted, offer myself, and be delighted to have won such a fine prize…ah, but as Madame Yu has already observed, your daughter is already engaged. I would not dare presume to intrude into the affairs of the other Great Sects.”

That last sentence was said with a fair bit of irony. As if everyone didn’t know that Sect Leader Wen was constantly intruding on the affairs of other sects – as if everyone didn’t know that he sought ascendancy over them all.

As if this entire conversation wasn’t one giant intrusion.

“I’m done, by the way,” he added, sounding amused. “You can speak now, if you like.”

Jiang Yanli had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. She knew it was wrong to find it funny, the way Sect Leader Wen scolded her parents as if they were disobedient children – she should always side with her parents, her family, over everyone else, least of all a rival sect intent on overtaking them.

And yet…

Naturally, both her parents started talking at once, their voices raising, and Jiang Yanli abruptly remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be here, couldn’t afford to get caught, and also that Wei Wuxian was probably still waiting for her back in his room, probably wondering what was taking her so long, his promised snack even now growing cold – and she couldn’t risk him trying to get out of bed to go look for her. Forget her; if her mother found him wandering around after curfew…!

(Her mother would rage, her father would forgive, and then it’d all start all over again, the usual bickering and making everyone feel bad, and she was tired of it, tired of having to play the peacemaker, tired, tired, tired –)

Jiang Yanli tiptoed away.

3

Jiang Fengmian and his wife were united, for once, in their fury at his disrespect, but Wen Ruohan considered the evening an overwhelming success. His hosts might be too focused on the threat he posed to notice the ever-so-soft footsteps of a young girl in the hall, passing by, and they wouldn’t care, either, likely assuming it was a servant or something. They certainly wouldn’t bother, as he had, to calculate how long it would take for her to return, setting the stage in the conversation in order to allow it to burst open at just the right moment – just in time for the intended audience, invisible, to be drawn in to listen –

He, on the other hand, was perfectly capable of such a thing.

It had been easy enough to manipulate Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan into their own roles. Almost pathetically easy, really. It was so much more effective when it was the girl’s own mother bringing up the possibility of him marrying her – it had naturally been meant as a jab, because Yu Ziyuan knew that his own sons were not happy in their marriages, both notoriously terrible bridegrooms, the elder too brutal and the younger a spoiled womanizer, and thus the only offer that he could plausibly put on the table would have to be himself. But to the ears of a sixteen-year-old girl, who would not have heard such rumors because his own might ensured no one would dare speak of them too loudly, it wouldn’t sound like a snide insult reminding him of his own parenting failures, but would sound instead as if her mother would be willing to consider such a possibility under other circumstances.

Which she wouldn’t, of course. But that would likely make it all the more enticing…

Sixteen, Wen Ruohan reflected, was such a stupid age.

His second son was rapidly approaching that age now - he was a complete waste, sad to say. His mother had spoiled him rotten, and then he’d made stupid friends with bad taste who’d spoiled him even further, drawing him to gambling houses and brothels and all other such ruinous things – Wen Chao liked to pretend that he was the most talented of his peers, when in fact it had been Wen Ruohan’s clever maneuvering that had the whole world comparing him to the other second sons of the Great Sects, Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji, all three years his junior, instead of to the likes of Lan Xichen, who was only a few months older than him.

And even with an advantage like that, he still couldn’t keep up!

Wen Ruohan had truly erred when he’d left his sons to be raised by his wives, too busy with his own business to pay attention to them. But what could he do about it now? They were still his sons, his blood, his name – he would give them whatever help he could, give them strong and able subordinates who were bound to them with chains of unbreakable loyalty, give them all the chances in the world to excel. If they still couldn’t live up to expectations at that point…

Well, he very much intended to live forever, so it wasn’t as if he really needed an heir.

He certainly didn’t need another wife, least of all one as young as Jiang Yanli, a girl only a little older than Wen Chao.

He didn’t even especially want another wife – wives needed to be kept satisfied, lest they cause problems, and while he was more than happy to satisfy them in bed, it was the rest of their requests that tended to create headaches. Each of them wanted a son of their own and then, once he had given them one, they immediately started to scheme to get that son more power, and of course they saw the best route to get it as being through him. Annoying! He gave each one of his wives exactly what he had promised them, power and wealth, the acclaim and admiration of others, all the respect and dignity that befit their station, and yet they insisted on seeing if they could try to win his love.

Love. Hah! As if such a thing existed. As if he hadn’t courted and won each and every one of them as part of his plan to take over the cultivation world, each wife bringing with her a legitimate claim to a sect that soon fell to his grasp, each wife thinking to herself that her maternal sect was too powerful to be swallowed up and then thinking that it was fine that they were subsidiary sects as long as they were powerful ones and then at last realizing too late that all her maternal family’s backing had been thoroughly crushed under his heel, leaving them with no backing at all – though by that point they were usually too in love with Wen sect power and their established lifestyles to do anything about it.

He'd never tried it with a Great Sect before, that was true; a sect as large and well-established as the Jiang sect would be hard to swallow, and he wouldn’t want it to get stuck in his throat. And yet Wen Ruohan thought that it wouldn’t be all that different, in the end.

Perhaps he would need to spend a little bit more time on Jiang Yanli than the rest – to go out of his way to make her feel special, to play the role of the ardent admirer offering both affection and succor, acting as if he were someone who could share her burdens and ease them, offering her a safe place to rest her head and be the one cared for rather than the one doing the caring.

That wouldn’t be a problem. He wasn’t as busy now as he had been in the past, his power having finally reached the point where it grew by itself – where before he had struggled to conquer each and every minor sect that he chased, he could now bring many in by sheer intimidation, while others turned themselves over voluntarily in search of their own petty power, looking to avenge slights or protect themselves from others. Calculating the number of sects in the cultivation world already under his thumb, he was closer to controlling half than the third often attributed to him, and in the next few years he’d be able to push his power all the way to a full half-measure or even more with barely more effort than flipping his hand.

He could take the time to indulge a young girl’s whims.

Wen Ruohan knew himself well enough not to flatter himself overly, but he had a pretty good opinion of himself. He was handsome and charismatic, when he wanted to be, and when he restrained his bloodthirsty aura it was possible for people to mistake it for mere presence; he knew, as young men Jiang Yanli’s own age would not, how to be charming and seductive, how to carry himself and use his body as a weapon in a battle of the heart – he knew, too, how to please a woman, knew how to kiss her until she was light-headed with desire; he knew all the right ways to excite her with his touch even before he finally brought her to his bed.

He knew exactly the words to use to convince Jiang Yanli that he cared about her stupid ‘brothers’, which by itself would move him halfway to winning her over, and he knew how to show through his actions that he ‘cared’ about her, too. If she liked poetry, he could recite it; if she liked passion, he could demonstrate it; if she liked a little bit of vulnerability, he could play up how hard the life of a sect leader was, tell her all about the burdens he bore and let her feel as though she and she alone could help him lift those burdens for a little bit – let her feel that she was making a difference in his life by caring for him, give her the impression that only she and she alone could win his ‘genuine’ smiles, his sincerity.

He would win her heart and then her hand; he would give her a son and then help her care for him, showing through spending time (now belatedly learned to be necessary in child-rearing) that he valued her above his other wives and this son above his other sons – women liked that, he’d found, though perhaps Jiang Yanli wouldn’t be so outrageously jealous as the others, with her mother as an example to avoid.

Yes, it wouldn’t be hard at all. He’d only spoken the truth earlier about her kindness and earnestness, which in his mind translated to little more than naivete, and he could use that to his advantage. He would buy her clothing that fit his taste rather than hers and make her feel complimented by his thoughtfulness in thinking of her while he was away rather than annoyed that he treated her like a doll; he would praise the aspects of hers that he most liked until she focused on developing them to the exclusion of others that he disliked; he would listen to her complain about whatever silly things composed her inner thoughts and never show a hint of impatience, at least not until he’d finished getting the use he could out of her.

And oh, what great use she would be!

Daughter of the Jiang sect, with its vast influence and ancient treasures, with its mastery over the waterways and its tricks of cultivation…Wen Ruohan wasn’t lying when he said that any man ought to be delighted to have her, though of course he had left vague the reasons why. It was true what they said about her, that she was average in looks and cultivation, but he didn’t need a cultivation partner – he had plenty of those as well, a wholly separate category from his wives, and if he had his way then one day Nie Mingjue would join that group, and be by himself more than sufficient for any needs in that regard – and he had never been so pedantic as to be moved by mere physical beauty.

No, Jiang Yanli had only one quality he truly did admire, and that was her loyalty – both her own loyalty, and that she so capably won from others. If she was his wife, Jiang Cheng would never dare lift a finger against him, that stupid boy so effectively ruined by his parents and Wei Wuxian into having the heart of a follower instead of a leader, and with him would come Wei Wuxian as well, with all his brilliant genius. Jiang Fengmian had shared some of the clever little tricks he’d invented, and Wen Ruohan had always liked collecting useful people – yes, there would be a place for Wei Wuxian at the Nightless City, tinkering away to create new weapons of war for Wen Ruohan to play with.

The boys would undoubtedly disapprove of him at first, but he could win them over easily enough – they were barely more than infants, really, and Jiang Yanli herself would unknowingly sell all their secrets to him if he pressed her the right way; they would never stand a chance. As for Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan…Wen Ruohan didn’t delude himself into thinking that they could be brought around enough to actually approve of the match. They were old enough to have seen his prior marriages and how he used them; they would know at once what he was going about, and try to stop him.

He wouldn’t allow that, of course. A little parental disapproval could add spice to a forbidden relationship, and he was confident that after tonight’s performance Jiang Yanli would ignore all the (accurate) rumors about him, explaining them away to herself as exaggerations or misdirection or malice on the part of his enemies. But Jiang Yanli was at heart a good girl, obedient and filial – if they pressed her for too long, she would yield to their wishes, even if her own heart yearned for other things.

No, it was clear that Jiang Fengmian and Yu Zuyuan would have to go.

Ideally, he would set it up to make it appear that the Jin sect had done it, for reasons that he could invent later ��� Jin Guangshan was an obsequious idiot who grossly overestimated himself if he thought that his overt sycophancy and gross flattery could hide the fact that he thought he was manipulating Wen Ruohan rather than the other way around; it would be easy enough to lead him around until he did something stupid enough to constitute an excuse.

That would kill two birds with one stone: with her parents dead, Jiang Yanli would flee into his arms, looking for comfort that he would be all too happy to provide – and revenge, which he would also be more than happy to provide. With the need for vengeance blinding Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, they would accept the help offered by his Wen sect in order to defeat the Jin sect, and never notice all the strings attached to the offer until it was too late, until Jiang Yanli was installed as his wife and their sect had become firmly subordinate to his own. When the war was over, he would very graciously split the spoils of the Jin sect’s remains with the Jiang, as befit another Great Sect, but in truth in the end it would all go to him – there was no way Jiang Cheng as he was now, without some inciting event to inspire him, would be able to handle managing a sect the size of the Jiang on his own without his parents to guide him, much less a Jiang swollen with the riches of the Jin. This would be especially true if his most trusted advisors were tragically killed in the war against the Jin, and his brother pulled away from him through rumors and clever maneuvering…and such tragic things did happen in war, did they not?

Wen Ruohan would have to step in yet again to offer his aid – as a favor to his beloved Jiang Yanli, of course. He would step in again and again, offering help with a smile, letting them rely on him as their backing, and slowly but surely he would replace Jiang Cheng’s men with his own, win loyalties to himself that should have gone to Jiang Cheng, and in the end the Jiang sect, no matter how big, would be swallowed down in its turn.

And when that happened, the Wen and Jin and Jiang all united under Wen Ruohan’s rule, it would be far too late for either the Nie or the Lan to do anything to stop him.

Perhaps by then, his son by Jiang Yanli would be old enough to require teaching, serving as an excellent excuse to bring Lan Qiren to live in the Nightless City – he might even be able to justify it to Jiang Yanli as wanting to have only the finest of teachers for their son, and she might even believe it.

Of course, by then, it wouldn’t really matter if she believed it.

Yes, it would all do quite well, Wen Ruohan thought to himself with a faint smirk, ignoring the way Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan squawked angrily and futilely at him. They wouldn’t dare actually play games with the treaties signed between their two sects, not when the balance of power so favored him, and they wouldn’t dare to stop inviting him over, not when he was as influential as he was. The only thing they could do would be to be more standoffish, cold, unwelcoming – and that would be useful, too. While they stayed inside, pretending to be too busy to receive him with the intent of making him cool his heels, he would be seducing their daughter right under their noses. There were plenty of opportunities that could be seized once the girl was a bit older – red-cheeked sixteen-year-old girls were not, in fact, an area of sexual interest to him – and a thousand tucked away places to steal kisses and maybe more, to make promises he would only keep for as long as seemed useful.

Best of all, he knew Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan: they would find it impossible to change their quarrelsome habits formed over so many years – they would ignore the advice simply because it came from his mouth. More than that, they would affirmatively reject it and sink even further into their old ways, ruining their children still further than they might have without his intervention, carving out all sorts of insecurities within them that he would be all too happy to exploit. Jiang Cheng’s competitiveness, Wei Wuxian’s hidden guilt, Jiang Yanli’s desire for validation…

He would make them all very happy, at least for a little while, before they realized what was happening. And if they could only be taught to enjoy their proper place, under his heel where they and all other people belonged, they might even one day grown to learn to be content to be there. After all, he really did take very good care of his people, when they were loyal and obedient and useful to him.

Yes – this plan would do quite well.

Wen Ruohan settled back in his seat and enjoyed thinking of the future.

4

“I’m so sorry, shijie!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, biting his lip. “I really – I didn’t know Uncle Jiang would break your engagement, just because of a stupid fight…”

“It’s all right, A-Xian.”

“I really didn’t mean to,” he said. “I really – you know that, right?”

“Of course,” Jiang Yanli assured him. “I really don’t mind, honest! A-Xian, look at me, do I look sad or angry? Of course I’m not. I know you only meant the best. Anyway, if he said that sort of thing about me, I don’t want him, either. Do you think I want to be married to someone who thinks of me like that?”

“Of course not!” Wei Wuxian said, deeply relieved and yet a little uneasy in his heart. Jiang Yanli really didn’t look that upset – her eyes were clear, her expression casual….at most, her cheeks were maybe a little flushed. But what did he know about women’s hearts? Maybe she was crying on the inside. “He didn’t appreciate you properly, that stupid peacock, that waste of space…I’ll find you someone much better, I promise! You’ll marry someone a hundred times better…no, a thousand times better!”

Well, he’d try, anyway. As much as he talked a big game about it, he was aware that Jin Zixuan was ranked as the third most desirable young master in the cultivation world, outranking even himself, for a reason. Jin Zixuan was the son of fortune, the only heir to the Jin sect – handsome, powerful, rich…sure, he was also a jackass and unworthy of his beloved shijie, but objectively, one had to admit that the guy had some things going for him.

“I’m sure I will, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli said, a faintly dreamy smile on her lips. For some reason, she glanced to the west, a slightly distant gaze in her eyes as she looked up at the night sky. “I’m sure I will. I’m sure there’s someone out there that would be just right for me, someone a thousand times better than Jin-gongzi.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t see anything over in that direction when he looked, only the flags waving in the area where they hung the sigils of visiting sect leaders – in fact, there was one flying there right now; it seemed that Sect Leader Wen had come visiting again. Probably here to bug Uncle Jiang about that stupid trade agreement he was so obsessed with, the one that was so pointless that no one could figure out why he cared so much about it no matter how much or how many times they wracked their brains to figure out his angle.

If anything, that just made Wei Wuxian feel worse about what he’d done. To think that Jiang Yanli had to hear horrible news like that, about all the things Jin Zixuan had said about her in public and the way Uncle Jiang broke the engagement and how everyone was talking about her prospects being ruined, and then still had to go play pleasant hostess to an odious villain like Wen Ruohan! How cruel to her, how unfair!

Despite that, Jiang Yanil’s smile widened.

“I’m sure of it.”

[suddenlystolen]

Hi! I discovered your name metas and am hooked. (Maybe it’s my background in Tolkien fandom - I can’t resist this stuff.) I saw you allude to the character arc in Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s name. Have you written more fully about him? Or do you plan to? :3

Hello fellow Tolkien fan :D There are already a good handful of name metas for Jiang Wanyin out there, which is why I just casually alluded to Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s character arc being embedded in his names in one of my metas. But I’ll just throw out my very quick take on his name, while trying to focus more on where my interpretation differs from what’s already been written.

Jiang Cheng (江澄)

Cheng 澄 refers to waters that are clear because they are tranquil. Jiang 江 itself means river. This image of clear, still river waters…isn’t it the opposite of Jiang Cheng’s nature and the course of his life — that is instead so turbulent?

From, his youth he’s pitted against Wei Wuxian by his own mother, feeling inferior to him as well as less deserving of his own father’s love. Then, since the seminal tragedy of the Sunshot campaign, he loses almost everyone he ever loved in his family except Jin Ling. He’s burdened with the duty of bringing the Jiang Sect from the brink to its former glory. Through it all, he’s deceived time and again. The waters are muddied for him so he’s more easily taken advantaged of, or as the saying in Chinese goes, 浑水摸鱼 — muddy the waters so you can capture the fish. The deceptions he’s caught in are born both out of goodwill (such as Wei Wuxian lying to him about his golden core), but also out of ill-intent (such as the circumstances of his sister’s death). Thus, it’s lies that Jiang Cheng lives by for the longest time. It is only at the end of the story that Jiang Cheng gains any sort of clarity about the arc of his life, and the motivations of the people around him. But it feels almost excruciatingly ironic — because by the time the dust has settled the damage has already been done, especially to his relationship with Wei Wuxian… Jiang Cheng can thus feel very poignant as a personal name…

Jiang Wanyin (晚吟)

Then his courtesy name — Jiang Wanyin 晚吟. Both words have multiple meanings. Wan (晚) means late or night. Yin 吟 has more meanings, and I’ll get to them one by one.

The most common interpretation I’ve seen of the courtesy name Wanyin, reads the word yin 吟 the way I think it is more commonly used — to refer to a moan or a groan, typically in pain or regret (as in the phrase shen yin 呻吟). Altogether, it would mean groan of the night, or a late groan. Perhaps at the end of MDZS, Jiang Cheng is full of regret that cannot be truly put into words, only let out in a sound.

Thus, where wan 晚 is interpreted to mean night, the image is of him crying out in a sleepless night.

Alternatively, where wan 晚 means late, it’s almost an indictment of his choices in his life — where by the time he knows to feel regret, to bemoan the decisions he made at critical junctures — it is already too late to salvage things, especially with Wei Wuxian.

But that begs the question — what did the person who gave Jiang Wanyin his courtesy name actually want for him? Surely neither Jiang Fengmian or Yu Ziyuan would give him an inherently tragic name.

This brings us to the other literary meanings of yin 吟, and how wan yin 晚吟 is used in premodern chinese poems.

Yin 吟 can also mean to chant or recite with rhythmic cadence — as in the phrase yin song 吟诵.

Or yin 吟 can be like onomatopoeia for the crying sound made by insects or the wind. Yin feng 吟风 for instance is the cry of the wind.

(One day I might get around to trying to translate a number of ancient chinese poems that use the phrase wan yin in these different ways, if it helps conveys the image of it better).

At any rate, 晚吟 wan yin is found as a phrase or even in the title of poems that are more subdued, wistful, contemplative; or even melancholic and regretful, because of the connotations of nightfall.

My personal theory is thus that the courtesy name Wanyin was given to Jiang Cheng to signify comfort through the vicissitudes of life — the way chanting or reciting a poem, or listening to the steady susurration of cicadas or the wind — can be a soothing accompaniment while one is staying up late. I’d interpret it as a realistic acknowledgement on the part of the giver of this courtesy name that there will definitely be dark times in Jiang Wanyin’s life. But also as their expression of hope that Jiang Wanyin will still manage to find some solace at the end of the day.

This, I believe, would be a kinder read on Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s situation at the end of the story. He’s lost so much. But at long last his personal name has turned from a cruel irony to a reality — where now at least he has clarity and can move forward to fix things……and his courtesy name suggests he will be able to sustain himself through his newfound sorrows.

But yeah I would definitely be interested to hear other takes on why Wanyin might be given as a courtesy name :3

(PS: For those who can read chinese, this website is v useful for finding poems with particular phrases in premodern chinese poetry. Go knock yourself out looking for all the wan yins and the jiang chengs and how they’re used in different poems :3)

[spockandawe]

Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting. 

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned. 

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao’s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.

[no--envies]

I’ve always wanted to write something on how Jin Guangyao describes the events of Wei Wuxian’s downfall in the Guanyin Temple, since it isn’t talked about enough.

Jin Guangyao did a lot of despicable things, but he has a keen perception of the things that happen around him and is really good at analysing situations. He displays such skills in the Guanyin Temple, after everyone found out that the culprit behind Jin Zixun’s curse - what started the chain of events that led to Jin Zixuan’s death and everything that followed until the first siege of the Burial Mounds - was Su She.

Firstly, Jin Guangyao illustrates Wei Wuxian’s role in his own fall from grace, presenting his downfall as something that would have happened anyway sooner or later regardless of Su She’s actions:

As he laughed, Wei WuXian’s eyes reddened. He mocked, whether at himself or otherwise, “I can’t believe it’s because of someone like you… because of such a ridiculous reason!”

But Jin GuangYao seemed like he knew what he thought, “Young Master Wei, you really shouldn’t think like this.”

Wei WuXian, “Oh? You know what I think?”

Jin GuangYao, “Of course. It’s quite easy. You’re definitely thinking about how unfortunate you are. In reality, you’re not. Even if Su She didn’t curse Jin ZiXun, Mr. Wei, you’d receive a siege sooner or later, because of some other reason.” He smiled, “Because that’s what kind of a person you are. At best, you’re the untamed hero; at worst, you offend people wherever you go. Unless all those whom you’ve offended lived their lives safely, as soon as something happened to them or someone did something to them, the first person they suspect would be you and the first person they seek revenge on would also you. And this is something you have no control over.”

Somehow, Wei WuXian smiled, “What should I do? For some reason, I think you make a lot of sense.”

Jin GuangYao, “And even if you didn’t lose control at the Qiongqi Path, could you guarantee you didn’t lose control sometime in the rest of your life? Thus, someone like you is destined to have a short life. You see? Doesn’t it feel a lot better if you think about it this way?”

(Chapter 104, ExR translation)

Jin Guangyao portrays the events leading to Wei Wuxian’s death as inevitable given his circumstances. On one hand, Wei Wuxian was the “untamed hero”, who always did the right thing without caring for his own reputation and without considering gains and losses. On the other hand, he made enemies wherever he went because he was unafraid to speak his mind and stand out against public opinion, even when he knew doing so would put a target on his back. While this is what makes him the hero we all love and admire, it’s what made him become a target of the sects’ hypocrisy, classism and self-righteousness. Wei Wuxian himself acknowledges there is some truth to what Jin Guangyao is saying, because he’s aware that his own attitude and personality made him disliked and judged by many.

Jin Guangyao is the kind of person who always tries to deflect blame when he does something wrong, either by claiming he didn’t have a choice or by highlighting other people’s responsibility. He’s a master manipulator: his words are so convincing because there’s always some truth in them.

After this exchange, Jiang Cheng attacks Jin Guangyao blaming him for everything that happened and calling him “son of a prostitute”, to which Jin Guangyao counterattacks by describing Jiang Cheng’s role in his shixiong’s downfall:

Hearing the words ‘son of a prostitute’, Jin GuangYao’s smile froze for an instant.

He looked toward Jiang Cheng. After some thought, he began in a lukewarm tone, “Sect Leader Jiang, calm down a bit, won’t you? I understand what you’re feeling right now. You’re in such a terrible mood only because you know the truth behind your golden core. When you think back on what you did all these years, your proud heart feels a tinge of guilt, and so you’re anxious to find a culprit for what happened to Young Master Wei in his past life, a villain onto whom you can push all liability. Then, you’d lash out at him, both in vengeance for Young Master Wei and to ease some of your burden.

“If being determined that everything from the Hundred Holes curse to the attack at the Qiongqi Path was part of my singlehanded scheme would ease your troubles, then feel free to think whatever you please. But what you have to understand is that, for what happened to Young Master Wei in the end, you are responsible too and in fact, you are very much so. Why did so many people crusade against the YiLing Patriarch? Why did they shout their support, no matter if they were involved or not? Why was he one-sidedly condemned by so many? Was it really their sense of justice? Of course not. A part of the reason is you.”

Jiang Cheng laughed coldly. Lan XiChen knew Jin GuangYao was going to start calling white black again. He shouted in a hushed voice, “Sect Leader Jin!”

Jin GuangYao wasn’t swayed, continuing with a smile, “… Back then, the LanlingJin Sect, the QingheNie Sect, and the GusuLan Sect had already finished fighting over the biggest share. The rest could only get some small shrimps. You, on the other hand, had just rebuilt Lotus Pier and behind you was the YiLing Patriarch, Wei WuXian, the danger of whom was immeasurable. Do you think the other sects would like to see a young sect leader who was so advantaged? Luckily, you didn’t seem to be on good terms with your shixiong, and since everyone thought there was an opportunity, of course they’d add fuels to your fire if they could. No matter what, to weaken the YunmengJiang Sect was to strengthen themselves. Sect Leader Jiang, if only your attitude towards your shixiong was just a bit better, showing everyone that your bond was too strong to be broken for them to have a chance, or if you exhibited just a bit more tolerance after what happened, things wouldn’t have become what they were. Oh, speaking of it, you were also a main force of the siege at Burial Mound…”

Wei WuXian, “Looks like being called the son of a prostitute is really Sect Leader Jin’s weak spot. No wonder you killed ChiFeng-Zun.”

Jin Guangyao’s main purpose here was hurting Jiang Cheng’s pride in retaliation for his insult, but what he said isn’t false. In fact, putting both of his descriptions together we get a pretty accurate picture of all the factors that contributed to Wei Wuxian’s downfall.

Given Wei Wuxian’s circumstances and personality - his cultivation method, his brash attitude, his actions that went against public opinion - it was just a matter of time before people started criticizing him and tarnishing his reputation, often driven by their envy and self-interest. Jin Guangshan’s greed and ambition also played a big part, since he succeded in adding fuel to the flames to make the rest of the cultivation world turn against Wei Wuxian, so that he could get his hands on the Tiger Seal and Wei Wuxian’s manuscripts. Besides helping his father in his fabrications, Jin Guangyao took advantage of Jin Zixun’s curse to set up the situation that caused Wei Wuxian’s loss of control at Qiongqi Path, which was the turning point that made the cultivation world’s diffidence toward Wei Wuxian turn into open hostility and convinced them that he was an actual threat to them all.

In this complex situation, Jiang Cheng himself wasn’t blameless and his actions impacted the events quite a lot. Not only his attitude made clear to everyone how fragile and strained his relationship with Wei Wuxian was, but it took almost nothing for Jin Guangshan to convince him to abandon his shixiong. Jiang Cheng’s position in the cultivation world wasn’t actually that vulnerable at the time: if he had managed to have Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue on his side he could have swayed public opinion in Wei Wuxian’s favor. The only thing he needed to do was show more conviction when he tried to speak up for him and actually explain the real extent of the debt of gratitude both he and Wei Wuxian owed to the Wen siblings. Without Wen Ning and Wen Qing’s help, the Jiang Sect wouldn’t even exist anymore. Given the importance of debts in the universe of MDZS, Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue would have surely been more inclined to believe Wei Wuxian hadn’t freed the Wen remnants and killed several guards because his demonic cultivation was corrupting him, but because he had a very good reason to take revenge.

I tend to find Jin Guangyao’s words quite interesting because he’s often right in his evaluations. It’s not his perception that is flawed, but the way he reacts to the things that happen to him and his habit of bottling up his emotions and remembering all the wrongdoings he received from others, instead of letting them go and focusing on the good things in his life. This is one of the main themes of the novel and makes Jin Guangyao a very interesting foil for Wei Wuxian, since Wei Wuxian’s willingness to leave all his grudges and negative feelings in the past is what allowed him to have his happy ending, while Jin Guangyao’s inability to do so was what ultimately ruined him.