#xue yang hurt all those who had nothing to do with the one he wished to take revenge upon

[wutheringskies]

I think in MDZS there is a fair share of nurture as well as nature. if Xue Yang lived similarly to WWX and didn't lose a finger he would still kill dogs, hunt and hound them and deeply resent and wish to take revenge on/or slaughter the Jiangs; that is his nature to think of himself as more important than the others; the nurture part comes in with the fact that if he had people like Xiao Xingchen earlier in his life; just like he stopped "night hunting walking corpses" he wouldn't have acted out on those impulses; however you cannot deny that being favoured by the jins, he did have stability; he chose to abuse it. he put xiao xingchen giving him chocolates and showing him kindness as of more stable of a state (which is right) yet the moment he is pushed up in a corner, he reverts back to his NATURE. and in his nature, he hurts others to protect himself. if others did x to him he can kill not only the person who did it but also everybody else who is close to that person, who didn't deserve to die. yet, he won't see HIS actions as crimes. won't regret them. thus, Wei Wuxian says, "if you had to kill someone, you should've executed yourself" because some characters have a strong moral code and fail to adhere (nie mingjue, lan xichen), some's adherence to their moral code makes them fail (wei wuxian, xiao xingchen), some do not have a moral code (jin guangsham), some are willing to push it aside for revenge (nie huaisang) and some twist around their watching frames to justify their immoral behavior (Jiang Cheng, xue yang, Jin Guangyao)

[ibijau]

Futures Past pt18 / on AO3

Nie Huaisang returns to the Cloud Recesses, and meets the people he's meant to befriend

Much to his surprise, Nie Huaisang realised upon returning to the Cloud Recesses that he had missed the place. Or rather, he had missed the friends who lived there.

All winter, Su She and him had exchanged letters, mostly to complain about every single thing that bothered them. When they finally met again in person, they were quite happy to do more of the same. They also discussed all the things they might do for fun that year. 

Su She, at long last, had risen in rank and been given more freedom than he used to have. He would have less classes to attend since he was now trusted to take charge of his own training to some degree, he would join more Night Hunts, he had been given a new jade token that allowed him to leave the Cloud Recesses at any time of the day as long as curfew was respected, and he would even be included among those juniors who patrolled to enforce the respect of the rules.

All this made Nie Huaisang so happy for his friend, that he did not realise at first all the implications this had regarding the amount of time they would get to spend together. Su She would be very busy in the future, but he promised he would do everything possible to still make time for his best friend, and Nie Huaisang easily believed him.

The other joy to be found in returning to the Cloud Recesses was not immediate. By the time Nie Huaisang had arrived there, Lan Xichen had not yet returned from a Night Hunt he’d gone on with Nie Mingjue. That was hardly a surprise. These two were usually far too serious in all things, but when they went Night Hunting together, they always stayed a little longer than really necessary. Nie Huaisang usually found that greatly amusing, and never missed a chance to tease his brother about skirting his duties. They seemed to have taken a particularly long time on this occasion, but since Nie Mingjue had complained a few times that he hadn't seen his friend in such a long while, it was not so odd. Nie Huaisang would have mocked his brother so much if he'd seen him before leaving home. 

Since he didn’t have a chance to do it that time, he instead teased Lan Xichen when he finally came home, on the same day most of the guest disciples were set to arrive, on the eve of the lectures' start. Of course if Nie Huaisang had been a good and dutiful person, he would have gone to the main gate to see those other guest disciples, and maybe try to strike a friendship with them as early as possible. But between trying to catch a glimpse of the boring friends his future self wanted him to make, and dropping by Lan Xichen’s house to see the friend he actually liked, the choice had been easily made.

Lan Xichen offered him tea and smiled when accused of dodging his responsibilities, but less warmly than Nie Huaisang had expected. In fact, he found that the older boy looked rather more tired than he should have been, and more nervous as well. He tried to ask about that, but Lan Xichen refused to dwell on the subject.

“There is just a lot to do, and you are right that I was gone longer than I should have,” Lan Xichen said. “Especially since Wangji is in seclusion… he was supposed to come out of it today, but I saw him earlier and convinced him to continue meditating alone for at least another month. There will be many energetic people among our guests this year, and I doubt he will enjoy their company too much.”

Nie Huaisang, who had found the Cloud Recesses even more fun without the constant threat of Lan Wangji being around to enforce the rule, could only nod. He didn't mind waiting a month to set in movement his older self's orders.

“And this had nothing at all with you wishing to have a little peace without your brother constantly enforcing the rules, does it?” he teased.

“I am nowhere near as rebellious as you seem to have decided,” Lan Xichen replied with an indulgent smile. “Though I suppose Lan Wangji does take a stricter approach to them than I do. I’m sure in time, he’ll learn that they are meant to be a guidance, not a restriction.”

“And that he should let his brother eat candies sometimes.”

Lan Xichen smiled, trying to hide a chuckle. That was enough to comfort Nie Huaisang. As long as he still enjoyed his jokes, Lan Xichen could not be doing badly. And after that the conversation soon moved on to music, giving Nie Huaisang a great chance to show off how hard he had worked all winter. By the time Nie Huaisang had to leave, Lan Xichen appeared in good spirits again, for which he congratulated himself.

-

When morning came, Nie Huaisang got up as early as he could manage after falling back on his old habits during winter, and headed toward the lecture hall with the other Nie disciples. There were a number of other boys assembled at the door, all waiting for the teacher to arrive. 

Among those, the ones dressed in purple attracted Nie Huaisang’s attention the most. He recognised Jiang Cheng of course, with Meng Yao next to him whose attitude seemed more that of a babysitter than a fellow disciple, perhaps because of that other boy standing near them who had a mischievous smile on his lips. Then, behind them, there were two other boys dressed in Jiang purple, plain and quite forgettable. Perhaps Wei Wuxian wasn’t there after all, or perhaps he had already entered the class to study on his own, as befitted someone who was destined to fall for Lan Wangji.

Even if that person was absent, Nie Huaisang decided he should go greet Jiang Cheng and Meng Yao at least, since he already knew them. But before he had taken even one step in their direction, he heard someone call out for him.

“You are Nie gongzi, right?” a haughty boy asked.

He was dressed in that shade of yellow that only the Jins ever thought pleasant, and his face bore a passing resemblance with Jin Zixun’s, except with much nicer features, and a far colder expression. All of this made it rather easy to guess his identity, even if they had never met.

“And you must be Jin gongzi,” Nie Huaisang replied with a polite nod. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Jin Zixuan said, returning the nod. “Since you are my cousin’s friend, I hope we can become better acquainted.”

Nie Huaisang gaped at the other boy.

“I’m what?”

“He’s too proud to use the word, but I know Zixun. He wrote about you several times last year, and he told me you helped him pass his exams.”

That this would be anywhere near enough to be considered a friend said a lot about Jin Zixun’s overall popularity. Nie Huaisang himself, who wasn’t exactly rich in friends, wouldn’t have used the word to talk about Jin Zixun, but he still felt flattered. In fact, he wondered if the acquaintance might be worth sustaining. Surely Nie Huaisang could try to write to Jin Zixun perhaps? He’d promised he would write to Xue Yang already, to give him a chance to practice reading and writing without the pressure of a classroom. If he was writing anyway, one more letter could be easy to fit into his very full schedule. Jin Zixun was a prick, but on occasions he'd been almost tolerable, so he wouldn't be the worst friend Nie Huaisang could make.

“He also said you became friends because he broke your nose,” Jin Zixuan added, his tone dripping judgement at the idea that anyone could ever put up with something like that.

Nie Huaisang self-consciously raised a hand to touch his nose, before quickly dropping it to his side, embarrassed by this habit he’d picked up.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” he grumbled. “But I guess I did help him pass. And, well… if you want to be friends, I have no issues with that.”

“We’ll see about it,” Jin Zixuan retorted, before turning around and returning to his own group, as if it might dirty him to spend too much time with people who weren’t Jins.

Jin Zixuan was lucky to have such a pretty face and to be so rich, because it certainly wasn’t his personality which would make him friends, Nie Huaisang thought. He was at least as annoying as Jin Zixun, even though it was in a different manner.

He must not have been the only one to have that impression. When he turned his attention back toward the Jiang disciples, all of them save for Meng Yao were glaring in the direction of Jin Zixuan. Worse still, when their eyes wandered toward Nie Huaisang, it was clear that mere association with Jin Zixuan had instantly branded him as unpleasant to them. That was odd, though. Everyone knew that there was an engagement between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli, so surely there should have existed, if not friendship, then at least some degree of cordiality between disciples of their two sects. 

Nie Huaisang feared what starting with a disadvantage might do to the mission forced upon him, when already he wasn’t the best at making friends. But his eyes then met Meng Yao’s who, after whispering something to Jiang Cheng, walked toward Nie Huaisang and even bowed to him with far more deference than anyone had ever bothered to show before.

“Nie-gongzi, I am glad we meet again,” Meng Yao said. “I never had a chance to thank you before for your help that day.”

“I hardly did anything at all!” Nie Huaisang protested, waving his hands in embarrassment. “In fact, you were even hurt by my fault that time!”

“And yet I must insist in expressing my gratitude. If not for you and Lan gongzi standing up for me, I would not have been given a chance to become a cultivator, which has been my greatest dream since childhood. For this, I am in your debt.”

Nie Huaisang blushed a little. “Really, it was nothing. Any decent person would have done the same! And with a potential like yours, it was only natural that someone would take you as a student someday! How’s Yunmeng treating you? Are they nice to you? You can tell me if they’re not, and I’ll tell my da-ge, and he’ll tell them to be nice. But it’s Yunmeng, of course they’re probably nice, right?”

His rambling surprised Meng Yao, who appeared a little unsure how to answer. Probably he’d expected the young master of a great sect to be a little more eloquent than that, the way Lan Xichen was, or even Jiang Cheng. But it was difficult to keep cool in front of the boy who would have become the man who had killed Nie Mingjue.

How could that have even happened? Even after months in Lotus Piers, Meng Yao remained shorter than Nie Huaisang, and barely any heavier. How could someone like that…

“I think we’re treating him fine,” Jiang Cheng said in a dry voice as he joined them. “Though your concern commends you, Nie gongzi.”

Nie Huaisang jumped in surprise, and quickly bowed to him.

“Of course I didn’t mean to imply… and, well, he’s here to study, so clearly he is well treated, and your father must be quite impressed with him,” Nie Huaisang said, fidgeting with his sleeve. “I’m quite glad that things worked out so well!”

That other Jiang boy, the tall and handsome one, also joined them and threw an arm around Meng Yao’s shoulders to pull him close.

“It’s not Jiang-shushu who’s impressed with Meng Yao, it’s Yu-furen,” the boy said with a bright grin. “She’s the one who said he should come, because we’re less stupid when he’s with us.”

“She said you’re less stupid,” Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Don’t drag me down with you.”

“Yu-furen also thinks that having Meng Yao with us means that stupid peacock will keep his distances,” the other boy continued, unbothered by that interruption. “She’s really so scared that we’ll start an argument with him.”

“You would!”

“Only if he insults Shijie! Which he would, because he’s nothing but a self-important…”

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “Can you not shut up just for a moment?”

The boy just laughed, while Nie Huaisang stared.

Surely there had to have been a mistake. That couldn’t be Wei Wuxian. There was simply no way that Lan Wangji would ever become even a little attracted to a person such as this, who was bold enough to insult Jin Zixuan within earshot, who was so careless regarding Meng Yao’s obvious discomfort at having the connection mentioned. Sure Wei Wuxian wasn’t half bad looking, but with a personality like that, Lan Wangji would only try to murder him, not kiss him.

“You know, if the teacher isn’t here yet, we can probably leave,” Wei Wuxian said. “That’s what we’d do at home. Let’s ditch the lesson and go have fun!”

Oh, Lan Wangji was so going to murder him when they met. Surely Nie Huaisang’s future self had to be mistaken about those two. 

“Hey, Wei-xiong, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Nie Huaisang advised. “There’s some people that might punish you if they heard you talk like this!”

“Sure, but the point is that the teacher isn’t here, so I have nothing to fear. Come on, Nie-xiong, it’s your second year here, right? Surely you’d rather run off to have fun with us than sit through some boring lectures again!”

As a matter of fact, Nie Huaisang very much wanted that. Considering how badly his studies went the year before, he had no reasons to think he would do any better that year either, so having fun would be a great use of his time. But that would upset Nie Mingjue, who didn't need that. And it might also disappoint Lan Xichen, which would be the worst thing ever. Having discovered that he enjoyed being praised, and how willing to do just that Lan Xichen was, Nie Huaisang didn't want to risk upsetting his friend. 

"When I say there's people you shouldn't make angry, I don't mean just Lan Qiren," Nie Huaisang warned. "He's mostly manageable, if you just avoid talking back and cry a little when he gets angry. But his nephew Lan Wangji is a real terror, and they've put him in charge of overseeing punishment for the juniors. You're lucky he's in seclusion at the moment, because just for speaking of skipping classes, he'd have your skin. He takes rules very seriously!"

"The teacher's nephew, uh," Wei Wuxian said with an odd smile. 

"You're thinking something unwise," Meng Yao accused. 

"Please don't go bother that guy as soon as he leaves his seclusion," Jiang Cheng warned. "Mother will murder you if you disgrace our sect!" 

Wei Wuxian's grin only grew wider, to the great anxiety of the other three. 

"That nephew, he wouldn't happen to be a very handsome boy?" Wei Wuxian asked. "About my size, very handsome…" 

"His brother looks much better," Nie Huaisang interjected without thinking. "Lan Wangji always looks so crossed… but he has a fine enough face, yes."

"And a silver sword that gives off a cold impression?" 

"Did you already meet him?" Nie Huaisang asked. 

"Yes, last night." 

"Last night?" Jiang Cheng repeated. "How… there's a curfew in place here! Are you already breaking rules?" 

Without a shred of regret or shame, Wei Wuxian started telling the story of his escape to buy wine, his attempt to return in secret, and his fight with Lan Wangji. Upon hearing that tale Jiang Cheng was furious, Meng Yao was worried, and Nie Huaisang so delighted he had to cover his mouth with both hands not to laugh. 

Lan Wangji losing his temper! Lan Wangji getting in a fight, and not even winning it! Lan Wangji failing to punish a criminal! It was the funniest Nie Huaisang had ever heard, and he couldn't wait to share all of it with Su She who would surely be just as entertained. 

This Wei Wuxian was a much more interesting person than anticipated, and Nie Huaisang could see himself becoming quite fond of him, even though he'd been determined to dislike him before. But that had been when he thought that his future self and Lan Wangji approved of him, two people whose opinion he didn't value much. 

"Wei-xiong, you are so dead," Nie Huaisang cheerfully announced when the other had finished his story. "It's going to be a matter of pride now, he's going to have his eye on you for the entire time you'll be here!" 

And for more than that, if Nie Huaisang’s future self was to be believed. That old prick didn't seem the sort to prank others, but it was also difficult to imagine Lan Wangji falling in love with someone like Wei Wuxian. People said that opposite attracted, but there were limits. Then again, it would be immensely funny if these two did become a couple. If it happened, Nie Huaisang might laugh to death. 

"That Lan Zhan is probably too busy to bother with me," Wei Wuxian claimed. "And it's not like he comes to the lectures, right? So I'm not worried in the least. Besides, I'm more than his match in a fight!"

The arrival of Lan Qiren, who seemed in as bad a humour as Nie Huaisang had ever seen him, cut short that conversation, though Wei Wuxian still looked quite sure of himself as they all entered the classroom. He only deflated a little when they all noticed that there already was a student sitting there, a Lan boy who only looked up from the scroll he was reading to glare at Wei Wuxian. In turn, Wei Wuxian did appear a little startled, having clearly not expected that his new nemesis would be there.

It took Nie Huaisang all of his self control not to laugh at this situation.

The plot to help Lan Wangji find a cultivation partner had held little joy when he had believed Wei Wuxian to be the second Jade's equal in temper. But discovering that Wei Wuxian was a wild spirit, sure to drive Lan Wangji mad with annoyance and to distract him from his duties, delighted Nie Huaisang. It was the funniest thing in the world.

It was the stuff of great romances, something which might blossom into a love story people would talk about for ages. Two people of opposite temper, of opposite values even, learning to see each other’s worth… it would be quite fun to watch that unfold, and even more amusing to give it a push here and there.

Helping the romance of others was the closest to living his own that Nie Huaisang was likely to get, so he’d have to content himself with that.

His lack of appealing skills made it unlikely he’d ever provoke the sort of strong sentiment already at play between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. But even a more talented nature would not have changed his delicate position as his brother's heir. Until his brother married and had children, Nie Huaisang knew it would be unwise of him to flirt with anyone of his own choosing, not when the Nie clan might someday require him to make a good match. The only reason he wasn’t already engaged to anyone, he suspected, was because there weren’t many girls of the right age among the greater sects, and because his brother disliked the idea of using him as a political tool unless absolutely necessary.

It was not easy, being next in line to inherit a sect, and Nie Huaisang was quite happy that he wasn’t in love with anyone at all. He only wished a little to be like Wei Wuxian, as a servant's son, free to live as he pleased as long as he did not bring any scandal for his sect. And it was lucky that Lan Wangji's status was not quite as dire as Nie Huaisang’s, not when he had a brother who was more likely to get married than Nie Mingjue, and even a relatively young uncle who could well have children of his own if needed. 

Lucky them indeed, but Nie Huaisang was determined not to envy them.

He’d just have his share of fun watching them… and maybe he’d see if Lan Xichen could be convinced to help too, just so they’d have another thing to laugh about together.

[bloody-bee-tea]

A story in three parts

Middle

This is a crime family/mafia au so expect some violence. The Mingxicheng in this part is established.

When Jiang Cheng comes to, he groans in pain. His head is throbbing, there’s a bad taste in his mouth and his arms feel as though they are dead.

Jiang Cheng blinks his eyes open fully, hating how the world tilts for the first few blinks and when he finally sees his surroundings, his stomach drops in fear.

He’s in a warehouse, tied to a chair and Xue Yang is grinning maniacally in his face.

“The little princess finally came to,” he says, his voice full of glee, and Jiang Cheng tries his best to get away from him, but he’s tied to a chair—that’s what’s killing the feeling in his arms, too—and there is nowhere for him to get away to.

“What do you want?” Jiang Cheng presses out, aware that his voice is shaking and he hates himself for how weak he is, for how easily he is to scare.

“Ah, straight to business, I see,” Xue Yang says, and he sounds disappointed. “I hoped to play some more.”

“Don’t be stupid,” someone else suddenly says from behind Jiang Cheng and he tenses in fear of what that person is going to do, but then Su She steps around him and Jiang Cheng relaxes slightly.

Between those two, it’s definitely Xue Yang he needs to be more afraid of, Jiang Cheng knows that well, and so he barely keeps an eye on Su She.

Which is a mistake, Jiang Cheng realizes with ringing ears, when Su She punches him square in the face.

“You’re probably wondering what we want from you,” Su She says, sweet as anything, once Jiang Cheng managed to right himself again.

“I’m not, actually,” Jiang Cheng bites out, trying to get past his fear, spitting out the blood that’s gathering in his mouth and Xue Yang laughs straight in his face.

“Oh, that sure sounded differently just a few moments ago,” Xue Yang says and then gets out a knife.

Jiang Cheng tenses in fear, a cold shudder running down his back, but when Xue Yang walks up to him, he tries to squirm away. He’s getting nowhere of course, not with how tightly the rope cuts into his arms and when Xue Yang puts the knife to his cheek Jiang Cheng freezes.

“Listen here, little princess,” Xue Yang whispers and he puts more pressure behind the knife.

Jiang Cheng is sure that by now he must be bleeding, even though he can’t actually feel the pain through his panic.

“Don’t call me that,” Jiang Cheng still hisses out, because he has to be contrary no matter what, but it only seems to delight Xue Yang that much more.

“Aw, the little princess has some bite,” he mocks him and then swiftly moves the knife from his cheek to his neck. “But if the little princess isn’t careful, my hand might just slip,” he says, punctuating the last words with increasing pressure on his neck.

“Don’t kill him yet,” Su She suddenly speaks up but Xue Yang still hesitates for long moments before he moves away.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s alive or not as long as his parents come for him,” Xue Yang says with a shrug and now Jiang Cheng begins to shake for real.

His parents are not going to come for him, that much he knows, and as soon as Xue Yang and Su She realize that, he’s dead.

His father will probably not even notice that Jiang Cheng is missing, even if someone should demand a ransom, and his mother will only see this as a training opportunity.

Jiang Cheng knows that he’s too weak, too soft for the family business—always has been—and his mother will certainly think that this is what he deserves if he can’t even manage to get himself out of this situation.

But Jiang Cheng doesn’t enjoy being the heir to an underground organization; doesn’t want to spend his days training and fighting and killing when all he really wants to do is become a veterinarian but he realizes now that his stubborn wish is probably going to cost him his life now.

Wei Wuxian might come to his rescue—he delights in fighting and is good at it, too—but Madam Yu sent him out on business. By the time Wei Wuxian will return to the country, Jiang Cheng will be just another body, dropped into the harbour.

“You’re wasting your time,” Jiang Cheng spits out, despite the cold grip of fear around his heart, and gets another fist to his face for his trouble, but that side of his face is already numb, so it’s not like he feels it much.

“And why is that, little princess?” Xue Yang drawls out, moving the knife against Jiang Cheng’s neck once again. “Are you so unlovable that no one will come for you?” he asks with a lunatic smile and while the thought cuts Jiang Cheng deeper than any knife could, he nods.

“Yes,” he says, once he thinks his voice will hold and he relishes the way both Xue Yang and Su She freeze. “If you think my mother will come for me, you’re mistaken,” Jiang Cheng goes on, forces out between clenched teeth. “She’ll probably thank you for getting rid of some useless baggage when you deliver my body to her.”

“As if she would thank us for killing the heir,” Su She says with a frown, but Jiang Cheng can tell that he’s already doubting his actions.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Jiang Cheng says with a laugh. “But my father made Wei Wuxian the heir,” he tells them, trying not to let it hurt him yet again, but of course it’s always useless.

He knows his parents think very lowly of him for wanting a more normal life, a life that doesn’t involve constant killing and fights and territory disputes and it should have stopped hurting long ago, but of course that’s not how that works.

He’s useless and unloved and Jiang Cheng knows it well.

Not completely, a tiny voice in Jiang Cheng whispers and he tries his damn hardest to push that thought away.

It’s even more unlikely that Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are going to come after him and Jiang Cheng knows it.

Lan Xichen left the trade a long while ago—preferring to be a teacher instead of taking over as the head of the family—and Nie Mingjue is not going to risk war with the Jin’s when he’s already in a constant fight with the Wens.

“You can tell Meng Yao that you fucked up big time by getting me,” Jiang Cheng spits out, pushing every thought of Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue away, and instead he thoroughly enjoys how wide Su She’s eyes get.

“You—” he starts but Jiang Cheng only laughs in his face, uncaring of the knife on his neck.

He’s going to die here anyway; a clean cut on his throat would probably be less painful than whatever Xue Yang has planned for him.

“You think I haven’t seen you run after Meng Yao like a lovesick puppy? Who else could be behind this, it’s not like either of you ever had an original thought in your lives,” Jiang Cheng snaps out and it’s only because he knows that he’s going to die here that he dares to be this brave.

“His name is Jin Guangyao,” Su She hisses and Jiang Cheng laughs in his face.

“Just because Jin Guangshan decided to give him a pity name doesn’t mean I have to use it,” Jiang Cheng hisses and then his vision goes dark when Su She hits him yet again.

“Shut up,” Su She yells and Jiang Cheng laughs because it’s so easy, so goddamn easy to rile him up.

“Calm down,” Xue Yang says and that makes Jiang Cheng laugh again, because Xue Yang has made quite the name in their circles for a number of things and being calm is not one of his defining features.

“You said we need him alive,” Xue Yang reminds Su She and when he eyes Jiang Cheng, his blood runs cold.

That’s a mad scientist looking at his next test subject and Jiang Cheng really wishes he would have managed that cut before.

“Maybe we don’t,” Su She spits out and then kicks Jiang Cheng right in the stomach with enough force that the chair topples over.

There’s no sound of breaking bone which is the only reason that Jiang Cheng knows he didn’t break anything, since he can’t feel his arms anymore, but his head hit the concrete rather forcefully and his vision goes yet again dark and spotty.

Xue Yang pulls him back up by his hair and Jiang Cheng clenches his teeth against the painful sound that’s trying to escape his lips. He might be the weakest Jiang that ever has been, but he’s not going to give them the satisfaction of screaming.

Not yet.

If Xue Yang gets to do with him as he pleases Jiang Cheng is under no illusions that he’s going to break rather sooner than later, but not yet.

“Any signs of that bitch yet?” Su She suddenly yells into the warehouse and it’s only then that Jiang Cheng realizes that they are not as alone as he thought.

Su She and Xue Yang definitely came prepared because there are about fifteen to twenty henchmen hanging around in the warehouse and if Madam Yu were to come, Jiang Cheng would worry.

Even is mother is just one person after all. But since she absolutely will not come to save Jiang Cheng from this dilemma he just finds the massive presence of henchmen amusing.

All these people called here to see one pathetic little person die. Jiang Cheng wonders how many of them will think this a waste of their time and how many of them will dare to say that directly to Su She’s face.

“Nothing is happening,” one of the henchmen replies and Su She klicks his tongue in apparent displeasure.

“Where the hell is she?”

“I told you, she’s not going to come. You went after the wrong one. Should have gotten Wei Wuxian if you wanted my mother to show up,” Jiang Cheng tells them and gets another cut to his cheek for that.

“You shouldn’t be speaking so much,” Xue Yang says as he leans down. “Maybe I should take your tongue, how would the little princess like that?” he asks and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes because he doesn’t think it really warrants an answer.

When Xue Yang cuts his other cheek Jiang Cheng figures Xue Yang didn’t like that answer much.

“So you think no one is coming for you, huh?” Xue Yang asks him, staring at his knife as he turns it around and around. “Why aren’t you begging for your life, little princess?”

“What use is there to beg a madman?” Jiang Cheng snaps back and Xue Yang still for a moment before a dangerous glint enters his eyes.

Maybe Jiang Cheng should have just held his tongue for once in his life, he thinks, right before Xue Yang drags the knife down Jiang Cheng’s front, putting just enough pressure on it to cut open his shirt.

“Oh, I’m going to have so much fun with you, little princess,” Xue Yang drawls out and Jiang Cheng can tell that he wants to get started with that right away, but suddenly there’s a sword pressed to the underside of his chin.

Xue Yang freezes and slightly backs away when the sword makes him, and Jiang Cheng cranes his neck around to see what is going on.

He did not expect to see Lan Xichen behind him.

“Xichen?” Jiang Cheng whispers and it’s only then that Lan Xichen tears his eyes away from Xue Yang and looks down at Jiang Cheng.

“We’re here, my heart,” Lan Xichen says and does something with his other hand that loosens the robe bound around Jiang Cheng.

Lan Xichen leans down to press a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s forehead and it’s only then that he seems to notice the blood on his cheeks.

“You’re bleeding,” Lan Xichen says, and his voice is hard and Jiang Cheng has never seen him look so cold. “Someone made you bleed,” he goes on and his glare turns towards Xue Yang, who has the good thought to back away a few more steps.

“Xichen, it’s not so bad,” Jiang Cheng tries, because he knows that Lan Xichen left this life for a reason, that he never wanted to kill again and Jiang Cheng isn’t sure if he can stand it if Lan Xichen breaks that promise to himself for Jiang Cheng.

“That’s Zewu-Jun,” one of the henchmen whispers and immediately panic breaks out where before everyone was frozen in surprise.

“Kill him!” someone yells, but before anyone can pull their gun, Lan Xichen is already moving, Shuoyue steady in his hand.

Jiang Cheng stumbles up, not entirely sure what he’s going to do or how he’s going to stop Lan Xichen, but he just knows that he has to try. But before he can decide on anything, two arms encircle him from behind and pull him towards a chest.

Jiang Cheng stiffens, before he recognizes the embrace and he fully leans into the body behind him.

“Mingjue,” he whispers and is rewarded with another kiss to his temple.

“It’s okay now, my heart,” Nie Mingjue whispers and tightens his grip on Jiang Cheng. “We got you know.”

“Mingjue, shouldn’t we—Xichen—he—” Jiang Cheng tries to say, but Nie Mingjue only hums, turning his gaze towards Lan Xichen.

It almost looks like he’s dancing from one henchmen to another, but whenever he leaves no one is left standing, Shuoyue nothing more but a silver flash in his hand.

“He’s magnificent, our light, isn’t he?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng has to admit that Nie Mingjue is right.

It almost looks like art, the way Lan Xichen is moving, the way his hair is flowing behind him and Jiang Cheng could watch him for hours.

Except that Lan Xichen never wanted to kill again and he walked away from the family business for good.

“He shouldn’t do this, he doesn’t want this,” Jiang Cheng whispers, and he’s ashamed to find that his voice is shaking with how relieved he is that at least someone came for him.

“He wants to,” Nie Mingjue says and kisses Jiang Cheng’s cheek, mindful of the cut there. “For you, he’d lead his family into war if it would protect you,” Nie Mingjue lowly tells him and Jiang Cheng shudders with his words.

“And you?” he dares to ask, slightly turning around in Nie Mingjue’s arms. “What would you do?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue gives him a wicked smile.

“I would let Huaisang burn the world for you,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng has to close his eyes against the tears that are threatening to spill over at that.

They all know that Wen Ruohan is only still alive because Nie Mingjue hopes to kill him personally; Nie Huaisang has at least a dozen plans that would kill him instantly if not anonymously and the only reason that hasn’t happened yet is because Nie Mingjue is telling him not to.

If Nie Mingjue would just unleash Nie Huaisang onto the world, letting him do what he wants, however he sees fit, it would be pure chaos. Some days Jiang Cheng suspects it’s only Nie Mingjue’s strong sense of right and wrong that stops Nie Huaisang.

If that should fall away—if Nie Mingjue should give him his blessing—Jiang Cheng can barely contemplate it.

“I thought no one was coming,” Jiang Cheng admits, shaking with how weak that makes him, but Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen know about his family life, about his insecurities.

Jiang Cheng thinks that maybe he can tell them this much as well.

“They wanted to kill you,” Nie Mingjue says and his voice is dark.

“And I thought they would,” Jiang Cheng whispers and Nie Mingjue turns him completely around and crushes him to his chest.

“Never,” he promises. “We would never let that happen to you. We will always come for you,” Nie Mingjue promises him and Jiang Cheng lifts his hand to grip his shirt.

“Does he need help?” Jiang Cheng asks when he thinks that his voice is steady, and he startles only slightly when a third hand lightly touches his back.

“No, I don’t,” Lan Xichen easily says and then tugs Jiang Cheng out of Nie Mingjue’s arms to take a good look at him.

Lan Xichen is covered in blood, but he seemingly doesn’t care about that at all, because his gaze is entirely fixed on Jiang Cheng. There’s still a cold glint to it that makes Jiang Cheng shudder.

“Where are you hurt?” he demands to know and Jiang Cheng shrugs.

“Some punches to the face, one kick to my stomach, the cuts you see,” he sums up, and he knows that he came away pretty easily from this.

Xue Yang’s face promised him so much more pain than those simple injuries.

“I should have made it hurt more,” Lan Xichen lowly says and Jiang Cheng can feel an incredulous laugh bubble up in his throat when a painfilled groan reaches his ear.

It seems like Lan Xichen did not immediately kill all of them, but left some of them to suffer.

“Xue Yang and Su She?” he asks and Lan Xichen’s face instantly darkens.

“Dead,” he promises and Jiang Cheng has no reason not to believe him.

He saw how deadly Lan Xichen was with Shuoyue. If he says they are dead, then they are.

“I should have killed Su She the moment he left the family,” Lan Xichen goes on, clearly beating himself up over that, and Jiang Cheng steps forward to cup Lan Xichen’s face between his hands.

“You saved me,” Jiang Cheng says. “That’s all that matters.”

Lan Xichen works his jaw at that, clearly wanting to argue, but Nie Mingjue puts his hand to Lan Xichen’s neck and lightly squeezes.

“Our heart is safe, my light,” he lowly says. “It’s okay. You can come back now.”

Lan Xichen relaxes as he hears his voice and he takes one deep breath before that dangerous glint vanishes out of his eye.

“My heart, are you okay?” Lan Xichen asks, and now he’s the Lan Xichen Jiang Cheng recognizes because his voice is soft and slightly panicked and Jiang Cheng knows way better how to deal with this than a vengeful, murderous Lan Xichen.

“I’m good,” he promises him, but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“He thought no one was coming for him,” Nie Mingjue says, and Jiang Cheng has a split second to feel betrayed by that, before Lan Xichen crushes him to his chest.

“We will always come for you,” he whispers and Jiang Cheng clutches to his shirt, completely uncaring that Lan Xichen is getting blood all over him.

“It’s just—my mother didn’t,” Jiang Cheng whispers, even though he damn well knew that his mother would never bother to come for him.

She probably thinks that he should manage to break free of this himself, and if he wasn’t strong enough to do so, then so be it.

“That’s because she doesn’t know how to love you right,” Nie Mingjue says and Lan Xichen nods in agreement.

“Not like we do,” Lan Xichen adds and Jiang Cheng’s eyes start to burn again.

“Can we go home now?” he asks, his voice choked up, and Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue immediately lead him out of the warehouse towards their car.

Lan Xichen slides into the back with Jiang Cheng, while Nie Mingjue gets behind the wheel and it’s not long before they are on their way away from the warehouse.

“Let me see, my heart,” Lan Xichen says and he tilts Jiang Cheng’s face this and that way to get a good look at his face, but it’s clear he doesn’t have anything at hand to treat Jiang Cheng’s wounds with, so Jiang Cheng is content to wait until they are home.

Once they get there, Lan Xichen immediately rushes him into the bathroom.

“Shirt off,” he demands and usually Jiang Cheng would give him a lewd look for that, but his head is still aching and he’s beginning to really feel all his injuries, so he simply obeys Lan Xichen’s orders.

Lan Xichen sucks in a surprised breath when Jiang Cheng shrugs the shirt off and it’s enough to bring Nie Mingjue to their side as well.

“You should have made it hurt a lot more,” Nie Mingjue presses out as he reaches out to trail his fingers over the bruises left behind by the rope Xue Yang bound him with.

Jiang Cheng is probably lucky if he regains all of his feeling in his arms, going by how tight they were.

“I should have,” Lan Xichen darkly agrees and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“You got me out, that’s all that matters,” he tries but that doesn’t seem too reassuring for Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue.

“My soul, get the big first aid-kit,” Lan Xichen instructs Nie Mingjue after he takes a deep breath and Nie Mingjue turns around on the heel of his foot.

Jiang Cheng can hear Nie Mingjue punch the wall a few times, before he regains his control and he looks down at his feet.

“I’m sorry to make you worry like this,” Jiang Cheng says, trying to hide the already blossoming bruises on his chest, but of course Lan Xichen doesn’t let him.

“He’s not mad at you,” Lan Xichen says and even though Jiang Cheng knows that, it still makes a tiny knot of worry in his chest disappear. “How do you feel?” Lan Xichen asks him, as he gets started on cleaning the cuts on his cheeks and Jiang Cheng shrugs, but immediately regrets that decision.

“My head is throbbing,” he admits and Lan Xichen hums at that.

“Probably a concussion and the aftereffects from whatever they used to knock you out.”

“Blunt force,” Jiang Cheng drily says, because he does remember very well how something had hit him from behind.

Lan Xichen huffs out a laugh at that, and then he makes grabby hands when Nie Mingjue comes back with the big first aid-kit.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t think it’s entirely necessary to bring out the big guns, but before he can argue, Nie Mingjue sends him one look and Jiang Cheng closes his mouth again.

“Let us do this for you,” Nie Mingjue says, and leans forward to brush a kiss over Jiang Cheng’s forehead.

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng sighs and then allows Lan Xichen to disinfect all of his wounds, even those that are only bruises, and then Lan Xichen diligently dresses all of them up.

“I feel like a mummy,” Jiang Cheng mutters when Lan Xichen finally deems him done and Nie Mingjue laughs at that, which makes Jiang Cheng suspect that he’s right about it, too.

“Are you hungry?” Nie Mingjue asks him when he leads him out of the bathroom and Jiang Cheng carefully shakes his head.

“I want to sleep,” he whispers, damn well knowing that neither Lan Xichen nor Nie Mingjue are going to let him sleep uninterrupted with a concussion.

“You can doze,” Lan Xichen very predictably yells from the bathroom and Jiang Cheng would roll his eyes at him if only his head doesn’t feel like it would explode any second now.

“I definitely need to lay down,” Jiang Cheng says, exhaustion finally making itself known and Nie Mingjue is quick to lead him to the bedroom.

“Come here, my heart,” he says as he lays down first, and then he pulls Jiang Cheng into his arms.

Jiang Cheng isn’t always down for cuddling, but today he thinks there is no safer space to be in then Nie Mingjue’s arms, and so he settles down easily.

“I’m glad you came for me,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and feels Nie Mingjue brush a hand over his head.

“I’m glad we were in time,” Nie Mingjue gives back just as lowly and Jiang Cheng moves closer to him, tries to entirely hide in Nie Mingjue’s arms.

It doesn’t quite work, but when Lan Xichen joins them and moulds himself to Jiang Cheng’s back, it almost feels like enough.

“I thought I was going to die,” Jiang Cheng suddenly sobs out, everything hitting him at once now and he can feel how Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue tighten their arms around him.

“But you didn’t,” they try to reassure him, but now that the tears are flowing, Jiang Cheng can’t stop them anymore.

He cries and he cries, and then he cries some more, and all the while Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue patiently hold him and tell him how much they love him, and when Jiang Cheng finally calms down, he instantly drifts off to sleep, headache be damned.

At least in the arms of his light and soul there is nothing he has to fear.

Next part

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[missfangirll]

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

Fandom: The Untamed Rating: General Relationship: Song Lan / Xiao Xingchen Tags: Canonical Character Death, Fix-it, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a happy ending, Pining          Chapters: 3 Summary: Song Lan has lost Xingchen twice. How will he endure after losing him a third time?

Read on AO3

This has lived in my head for a while and finally demanded attention. I am still not over Yi City and this is my attempt at a fix-it.

My eternal gratitute for @stormy-seasons who is a fantastic beta reader, and has helped and encouraged me immensely. Any remaining mistakes are mine. :)

- - - - -

Chapter 1: A road too wide

The road goes ever on and on Out from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, Let others follow it who can! Let them a journey new begin, But I at last with weary feet Will turn towards the lighted inn, My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

When Wei Wuxian had asked him, all that time ago, what he wanted to do now that he had gained his life back, he didn't have to think much to answer.

“Roam the world with Shuanghua, fight evil alongside Xingchen.”

It was what he had always done, a comfortable routine, not that different from before. No use in dwelling on the past, he had thought then. He was used to wandering the world alone, had done so for years and years in search of Xingchen, for a chance to apologize, to make things right again. Even if the road had felt too wide at times when he walked it alone, he had been content to do what once had been their shared goal: eliminate the evil that lingered in the world. In doing that he had felt close to Xingchen, and it had given him a focus other than his grief, his guilt.

He had never been one for expressing his feelings verbally, his words at the temple a festering proof of that, but he had still clung to that fraying hope of if only: if only he found Xingchen, if only he would listen, if only he could find the words, if only.

But it was idle foolishness to ponder on things lost and words unsaid.

He had lost everything that fateful day in Yi City, had lost his life, had lost Xingchen, had watched Xue Yang succeed. Even if it had been Xingchen’s hand and blade in the end, Song Lan refused to place any blame on him. It had been Xue Yang’s devious tongue that had poisoned Xingchen’s heart, Xue Yang’s twisted mind that had driven him to such hopeless despair that he had seen no other way out than the sword that had failed him.

When the Yiling Patriarch and Hanguang-Jun had severed Xue Yang‘s hold on him, he had been grateful, of course he had, but not particularly for the existence he had been granted. It had felt daunting, to face the world again, after years of living-not-living as a puppet. But he had accepted the spirit-trapping pouch Wei Wuxian had given him with shaking hands and a quivering heart. There was no one else left to care for Xingchen, and even when Wei Wuxian had told him that the soul inside the bag was shattered, broken, he had never once wavered in his decision. Xingchen and him, they belonged to each other, no matter the form, and so, caring for him was his responsibility. He wouldn't leave him, no matter how much it hurt.

For a short while he really had thought, had hoped, that with Shuanghua and Xingchen’s soul as his companions, the world would feel less empty, less silent, but ever since he had left Yi City behind, he had felt wrong, uneasy, in the way perception shifted when thunderstorms shadowed everything in an amber hue. He felt hollowed, a part of himself left behind in a black coffin adorned with talismans.

The road seemed wider than ever before, the silence even more unbearable now. Each room was too large, each bed too empty, each meal bland. Colours lost their vibrancy, any music was reduced to dull rhythms. He felt as if the veil of Xue Yang‘s influence hadn‘t fully lifted, but since Wei Wuxian had assured him he was free, he blamed being a living corpse for his dimmed senses.

Only in a fight did he feel almost as balanced as before, Fuxue still a trusted companion. He moved with the same deadly precision he always had, his senses sharpened by adrenaline and his energy flow. (It had been a surprise that his golden core seemed almost unaffected by the whole living-dead business, but for everything else he had lost, it was a relief that this at least seemed largely intact.)

Sometimes, very rarely, he even used Shuanghua on a night hunt. Not so much for his own sake, because the image of that blade at Xingchen's throat haunted him still, but for the sword's, which seemed restless without its master. After those hunts he would tell Xingchen about it in his mind, how his sword missed him, how the world missed him. (He felt he had not earned the right to miss Xingchen, and so said nothing of himself.)

When he talked to Xingchen, wordlessly, soundlessly, every time, every conversation began the same.

I am sorry.

-☾-•-❅-

The inn wasn't that different from any other he had taken shelter in, the wooden floors dark with age, but it was clean and inexpensive. He didn't really have to sleep as much as he’d had to when he had been human, but old habits were hard to break. Food wasn't a necessity anymore either, and most days it was a strenuous task, given the state of his tongue, but he still could enjoy the texture, the smell and temperature of meals. Losing his tongue had been as horrifying as losing his eyes so long ago, but he found that, with time, he had started to adapt. Communication was difficult at times, especially when the other party couldn’t read, but he had found most people understood his combination of facial expressions and humming sounds. It wasn't perfect and sometimes led to misunderstandings, but all in all it wasn't as arduous as he had thought.

After he had secured a room for the night – with a glance at the inn-keeper, followed by a nod towards the stairs, which she understood immediately – he sat in a corner of the small dining room, staring at the bowl of rice and steamed vegetables in front of him. The air smelled heavy, of food and unwashed people, and it made his skin prickle. He stirred halfheartedly in his rice, wishing it gone so he could escape to the temporary safety of his room.

When Song Lan finds him again, Xingchen is perched atop a wobbly wooden fence, one arm looped around the post next to him. In one hand he holds a few small peaches, the other, dripping with fruit juice, he holds out to Song Lan, offering him a piece. His smile is blinding, and Song Lan feels an urge to kiss away the sticky remnants of peach juice on his lips. He mock-frowns at the offered peach, then at Xingchen. Xingchen’s smile widens and he shakes his hand a little for emphasis. “You don't even need to touch it, Zichen,” he offers, playful and lighthearted, “just try it. It’s really good!” Song Lan has to hide his smile, glaring at the other for good measure, then carefully leans down, taking the offered piece between his lips. It is really good.

The sound of a cup being slammed on a table startled Song Lan out of his reverie. The mood of the company at the next table had grown noticeably more inebriated and, with a disappointed look at his bowl, Song Lan got up to retreat to his own room. He hated to waste food, but the thought of eating in company – in this company – made his stomach turn.

Alone in his room, the door closed firmly behind him, he finally felt able to breathe again. Setting Shuanghua and Fuxue on the table, he began his evening rituals. Eventually, with his hair down and only in a thin under robe, he sat on the bed, Xingchen's spirit pouch in front of him. It was not that the pouch ever left his side during the day, but these moments, alone, vulnerable, were special to Song Lan in a way he couldn‘t describe.

Softly caressing the silky cloth, he calmed his breathing, trying to convey his thoughts to Xingchen‘s soul.

I am sorry.

That was what he had wanted to say, when he had first lost him, but by now that wasn't the only important thing anymore.

I love you.

Come back.

He wasn't sure if he wanted Xingchen to come back, like Xue Yang had intended, as a fierce corpse like Song Lan was. Xingchen was warmth, life, sunlight – Song Lan had never understood why anyone would compare him to the moon, he had never met anyone as bright and warm – and being trapped in this lifeless existence wasn't something Song Lan wished for him.

And yet.

Even if Xingchen wouldn't return to him, he could mend his soul and enter the cycle of reincarnation, could eventually be born again. (Song Lan very deliberately didn't think about what that meant for him, since he wouldn't die of old age in the foreseeable future.)

Sighing, he laid down next to the pouch, cradling it to his chest, extinguishing the candle with a flick of his wrist. He couldn‘t speak, but had made a habit of pressing the pouch softly to his throat or chest and humming softly, hoping that the vibrations would travel and that Xingchen would somehow sense them. Sometimes, he hummed a childrens‘ song or a lullaby, a faint echo from another life, other times it was just a tuneless melody, anything to make Xingchen feel less alone. Closing his eyes, he let himself drift off.

It is deep in the night when Song Lan wakes with a start. Immediately he knows what startled him: Xingchen isn't by his side anymore, but before Song Lan can begin to worry, he sees him, standing by the open window. The moonlight cascades around him in silver waves, making him look ethereal, like a spirit from another world. He is, in a way, Song Lan muses as he watches him. Xingchen has his eyes raised to the moon, the light caressing his elegant cheekbones, his fine nose, the graceful bow of his lips. With a slight movement, a stray strand of hair falls over his face and he pushes it behind his ear with an almost impatient gesture. Then, seeing Song Lan from the corner of his eye, he turns, his lips turning upwards into a soft smile. Wordlessly, he abandons his place at the windowsill and returns to the bed, lying down next to Song Lan, facing him. Still smiling, he closes his eyes, and Song Lan breathes him in.

Song Lan didn't dream. He stopped dreaming the day Shuanghua had ended his life, his nights filled with something akin to deep meditation, but not real sleep. Thus, he woke deeply disoriented, instantly missing Xingchen‘s sleepy warmth at his side, blindly reaching for him under the covers. Reality slowly dripped into his consciousness, the realisation that Xingchen wouldn't be there striking him so forcefully he gasped for air.

The pain of missing Xingchen never went away, always lingered in the back of his mind, but this was immeasurably worse: The memory had been so real, he still could smell Xingchen‘s hair oil, feel his warm touch, hear his soft sleepy breaths. Closing his eyes with a groan, Song Lan forced himself up and out of bed. He wouldn't find any more rest anyway and the only thing that could soothe his aching heart, he knew that from experience, was distraction, movement, so he went on to begin his day.

After donning his robes and putting his few belongings back into his qiankun pouch, he silently slipped down the stairs and out of the house, both swords strapped to his back. Only a pale grey shimmer at the horizon promised the coming sunrise, but the small village still lay in deep silence. Song Lan followed the unpaved road out of town.

“Maybe I should hold onto you, so you don't get lost,” Xingchen grins at him, full of mirth, and swiftly, gracefully, takes Song Lan‘s hand in his. Song Lan almost trips over his own feet, but Xingchen’s smile is so radiant, his eyes sparkling with so much joy, that every excuse why they shouldn’t be holding hands in broad daylight on a road dies on his tongue. Wordlessly, he can only stare at the man beside him and hold on.

Song Lan‘s hand clenched around the spirit bag on his belt. Squinting at the sun above him, he took a moment to orient himself. The next village was his intended destination, the rumors of the vile energy and vengeful spirits troubling it had accompanied him for days. Not much time left before sundown, he realised, and quickened his pace.

-☾-•-❅-

The village was as unassuming as he had expected: a single road, no vendors, not even an inn. When he spotted an elderly woman in a doorway, he hastened to greet her with a polite bow, tapping three fingers to his mouth to indicate he couldn’t speak. Curious, she eyed the two swords on his back.

“Are you a cultivator, Daozhang? Did you come for the ghost?“

Song Lan nodded and raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

The woman gestured to the setting sun. “It is good that you arrived in time, Daozhang.” She sighed. “We have been plagued by that one for a while, and are afraid she will find another victim tonight.“

Song Lan gestured for her to continue.

“Well, you see, on a clear night like this, her lover left her,“ the woman said bluntly, and Song Lan began to understand. It always went like this: lovers lost, friends betrayed, brothers deceived. Greed, anger, hatred, but most of all, love - turned and twisted. He sighed inwardly: those were not easily put to rest. The woman went on.

“It… She was a girl from the village. Her name was Xiao An, they were betrothed. But then he… Well, after she hanged herself in his bedroom, he left the village, but she remained in that house. We hear her crying, every night.“ She shuddered. 

“Then, last week, a young man didn't return home to his family one night. We found him the next morning, he was…“ She trailed off, a haunted expression in her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “Forgive me, Daozhang, I cannot tell you. He was my granddaughter's beloved, and what she did to him…“ 

She turned towards Song Lan, pleading. “We beg you, Daozhang, release her spirit. We cannot give you much, but-“ 

Song Lan interrupted her with a grunt and a headshake. Then, with another raised eyebrow, he half-turned into the direction the woman had pointed to earlier, silently asking the way. 

She nodded. “It is the last house on the left side, you cannot miss it. It has been unoccupied since… Well, since then.“ With a deep inhale, she bowed to Song Lan. “Thank you, Daozhang. Your help is much appreciated.“ With a nod, the cultivator left into the direction she had indicated.

Since it had already been almost sunset when he arrived in the village, he wasted no time. As he walked towards the abandoned house, he prepared some talismans for the fight ahead.

He notices the fierce corpse behind him a heartbeat too late, too late to turn around and block its fury with Fuxue, too late to dodge the attack. Half-turned, he watches a hand descend towards his neck, unnaturally slow, as if through mud, before silver lightning strikes, cutting the offending arm off. Stunned, he watches as the white-clad figure gracefully follows the motion of the blade, using the momentum to behead the remaining corpse behind Song Lan.

“My thanks,” he pants, only to be grabbed by his sleeve and turned around with more force than strictly necessary. “Did it get you?”, Xingchen demands. “Are you hurt?” Song Lan shakes his head and Xingchen’s shoulders slump a little. Silently he steps closer and embraces Song Lan in a one-armed hug, hiding his face in the crook of the other’s neck.

Song Lan shook himself out of his thoughts. It wouldn't do to get distracted on a night hunt, he scolded himself. Shaking his head to clear it a bit, he mustered the talismans he had prepared, meticulously adjusting a few strokes. Perhaps because he was so focused on that, he realised too late that the trees around him had grown eerily quiet: no wind moved the branches, no bird sang to its mate, no insect buzzed evening songs. Instead, he heard a ghostly whisper that seemed to come from all around him. Unsheathing Fuxue, Song Lan carefully approached the deserted hut, only to stop abruptly when he heard his name.

Song Daozhang.

He couldn‘t answer, even if he had wanted to, so he cautiously stepped closer, eyes darting around to find the spirit that undoubtedly was responsible for this. His steps faltered and he stumbled, as the spirit's next words rustled in his ears.

You left him too, didn't you?

He fought to focus past the heartache and tear-blurred vision.

I didn't want to. I didn't want to. I didn't…

You left him. You left him. You left him and he died. He died, Daozhang.

He had to close his eyes for a moment. He knew this was a vengeful spirit, using his own thoughts against him, and still he was helpless against the guilt that threatened to weigh him down. Determined not to be bested, he turned around in search for the ghost, but all he could make out was that eerie whisper.

He died. He died. He died. HE DIED!

Suddenly, with a gust of energy that even smelled evil, foul and nauseating, the spirit materialised directly behind him, so close he could feel Shuanghua vibrate in warning. He whirled around and struck, only for the spirit to duck away and claw at him. He grunted with shock at a searing pain in his chest, then hurled Fuxue at the ghost‘s neck. The blade connected, and with a loud screech the figure dissolved, leaving only a cloud of dark, coiling energy behind.

Panting heavily, Song Lan dropped Fuxue – with a silent apology to the blade for such undignified treatment – and fumbled for a talisman. In its light, the black mist cleared and left only some sticky black residue in the tall grass.

With a groan, Song Lan dropped unceremoniously down into the grass next to his blade. His breathing slowly calming, he carefully took stock of himself. His robes were torn open, his chest drenched in blood from three large, ragged cuts, leading from his left shoulder down to the opposite hip. He winced and reached for the qiankun bag at his belt to find something to staunch the bleeding, and froze.    

The spirit pouch was gone.

Frantically, he scrambled to his knees, all pain forgotten in his rising panic. Sifting through the tall grass where he had stood mere minutes before, he paid no mind to the sharp blades of grass against his hands, his only focus to find it again.

There. With a wave of unmeasurable relief, he spotted the well-worn fabric and came closer to retrieve it, already silently apologising to Xingchen that he had let them be parted so easily.

But all words died when he saw the state of the pouch.

The silk was torn, gashed open like his chest, black and gaping where embroidered flowers should have been.

No. Please, no.

When Xingchen had died, Song Lan had been under the puppet master’s control, but seen all of it unfold, the heartbreak, Xue Yang‘s gleeful explanations, the agony in Xingchen‘s face when he finally put Shuanghua to his own throat. It had etched itself in his memory, and when he finally was free of the needles, he had relived this moment over and over, every time a helpless spectator. The heartbreak he had felt then, the horror, the helplessness, had almost swallowed him, and only Xingchen‘s presence in the spirit pouch had been a thin ray of hope in the darkness. 

But nothing, nothing he had felt then could be compared to the terror that now squeezed his heart with an iron fist.

The pouch was empty.

[ameliarating]

Who would have Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen become if Xue Yang had been taken to Baoshan Sanren’s mountain and Xiao Xingchen had grown up on the streets?

Featuring: a (slightly) more righteous Xue Yang, a (much) more angry Xiao Xingchen, and a long suffering (but much happier) Song Lan who did not sign up for these people in his life.

(an AU brought to you by a conversation I had with @paradife-loft)

So Xue Yang, who was brilliant and resourceful, and possessed of a strong golden core was taken to the mountain and brought up as Baoshan Sanren’s youngest disciple. This does not make him magically and suddenly able to match up the pain and suffering of others with his own. If pressed, he knows that just one of his fingers (of which he has ten!) is worth fifty lives or more, because his fingers are his own and the lives are of others.

But he’s grown up now in a secure environment that fosters and encourages senses of justice and wellbeing. He understands that everyone else in the room has their own sense of self-importance, of being a fully realized person, even if he can’t really get his head around it for others. He also understands that the code by which they live, which values caring for other’s needs and seeing the other as as valuable as the self, (and even to tear down the separations between other and self) has provided him and others with a good, fair life. 

People often thrive on the mountain. He’s thriving. So even though Xue Yang doesn’t really possess an intuitive comprehension of how others have worth and feelings that might even be equal to his own, he can focus on the abstract and philosophical principles that guide him to behave in a manner that suggests he does comprehend it. Even if he doesn’t.

The outwardly imposed sense of ethics takes the place of inner morality.

Now for Xiao Xingchen - he’s not nearly so trusting as he is in canon. He doesn’t possess as bright and clear a sense of right and wrong either. He does try to do what’s right, but it’s more complicated. He absolutely uses his cultivation to steal food and money for himself, to eat and survive. But he also shares more with the other street kids than he can maybe afford.

It marks him out as weak to people who think they can take advantage of him but Xiao Xingchen is naturally strong with a brilliant core (how is he cultivating it? sshhh, it’s pretend) and people don’t tend to think they can take advantage of him more than once. (Especially not since his own hand got run over and many of the people he’d been helping to feed disappeared on him when he needed help. He lost a finger, to the equivalent of the Chang Clan wherever he was, and he stopped being quite as quick to help people.)

At some point as a teenager he’s recruited to be a minor disciple of a cultivation clan, and he took advantage of that to learn and train and he even gets a sword of his own, but it doesn’t take long before he leaves in disgust. He can’t stand the hypocrisy involved. Maybe he even pulls a Mianmian and dramatically removes a sash!

Besides, he’s far less interested in hunts and adventure. He’s more drawn helping spirits and ghosts move on, because he has more of an understanding of why they might be so resentful in the first place. There have been many times in his life where, if he died right then, he would have stuck around to haunt the ones responsible.

Xue Yang is still sharp, is still cruel, is still prone to disproportionate retaliation, but it’s tempered by the philosophy with which he grew up. Xiao Xingchen is still sweet, is still overwhelmingly generous with himself, but he’s much less patient, has more sharp edges.

Xue Yang has a sense of place and security. Not only does he know he matters, but others around him have validated that. They tell him he matters too.

Xiao Xingchen has no place and no security. Even when people in power take an interest in him, he is not just disinterested in politics, he despises it. He feels betrayed by the sects for allowing people to have grown up the way he did. For letting clans like the Chang trample the fingers of disposable children.

So Song Lan has temporarily left Baixue Temple to travel around, to do what he can to help people, to make sure he doesn’t grow used to a state of permanence and place and he runs into Xiao Xingchen who is laying some ghosts to rest with a level of respect and tenderness he doesn’t usually see in cultivators. Especially when they’re the ghosts of nobodies.

He’s taken aback. He impressed. He’s a little smitten.

And he joins in the effort without a word of introduction, and Xiao Xingchen is equally surprised by Song Lan, who is kind and patient and dives into the work that other cultivators don’t bother to do at all. He’s taken aback and impressed and a little smitten as well.

They start traveling together. Song Lan restrains Xiao Xingchen from some of his less legal impulses. He keeps him from making messes of situations that will bring harsh things down on them both. Xiao Xingchen shows Song Lan how so much more of the world works. They introduce each other to new places and new manners of cultivation. They spar together and study together.

Song Lan improves Xiao Xingchen’s literacy and Xiao Xingchen teaches Song Lan how to fight without a sword. They go back to Baixue for a bit and Xiao Xingchen gets some more formal training.

Xue Yang, meanwhile, is bored. There’s a world down there full of things he has only heard about secondhand and he’s a firsthand knowledge kind of guy. Curiosity gets the best of him eventually and he leaves with a beautiful sword (but there’s something just a little off about the sword, not that anyone says anything, Baoshan Sanren gave it to him, after all) and a lot of hunger.

He runs into Xiao Xingchen first. He likes him. He’s angry, and Xue Yang is starting to see that there’s a lot to be angry about. He’s also inherently compassionate and Xue Yang kind of wishes he himself were compassionate person too. 

And Xiao Xingchen is fascinated by Xue Yang. He’s from a completely different world! He still has a cruel streak, and it’s used against everyone, but Xue Yang is traveling around, doing a lot of good, not for himself, not for glory, but just because Xue Yang is convinced that’s what he should be doing in and of itself. It’s what he’s been taught to do. Xiao Xingchen can respect that.

Besides, Xue Yang shares with him a deep disdain for how the world is being run, and between the two of them, there’s an urge to tear that down.

Xue Yang does not like Song Lan. Song Lan is boring, he’s grown up with a far more orthodox interpretation of Daoist philosophy than he has, and he plays by the rules more than Xiao Xingchen does. Worst of all, Xiao Xingchen likes Song Lan too much.

Song Lan does not like Xue Yang. He clocks that cruel streak, he clocks the way he looks at Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang is cold and doesn’t actually care about the people they’re helping, and sometimes he’s one comment away from hurting the people around them. Hurting them badly. 

Xiao Xingchen likes them both very, very much.

War breaks out, of course. All three of them get out of the way. 

Xue Yang doesn’t care, it’s all a bunch of worldly bullshit. Nothing will change when the next sect rises to power and starts the same cycle of abuse all over again. Baoshan Sanren has warned all her disciples about that.

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t care. All the sects are the same to him and innocent people are getting caught in the middle and that’s the greatest crime. He wouldn’t fight for any of those sects, though sometimes he wants to fight against them all.

Song Lan doesn’t care. It’s not for him to want to change the way the world is run, it’s for him to try and improve upon the lives of as many people as possible in as many small ways as he can. People need him, and he won’t be able to help them if he gets distracted by things like war.

They all get as far away as possible because by this point they’ve all made names for themselves, and many in the sects want them on their side or want them out of the way. They get so far away that they barely notice when the war is over and they start trading dreams about starting their own... something

Song Lan wants to call it a sect.

Xiao Xingchen does not. 

Xue Yang doesn’t have an opinion but he takes Xiao Xingchen’s side because it’s funny what that does to Song Lan.

Whatever it is, their first disciple (not a disciple, she’s a child, she’s a little sister, okay, but we could still call her a disciple, no we could not) is a sharp-tongued girl who they’re all pretty sure isn’t blind? Honestly, it’s hard to say. Xiao Xingchen catches her trying to fleece them. 

She’s going to be the best student ever.

[veliseraptor]

meet me where we are

[READ ON AO3]

so @deadeyellentigh​ mentioned wanting a sequel to my silence as a weapon (well. said that a fic was being held hostage and also wrote me another one) and I wanted a distraction from my long projects that are hurting me, so I went and wrote this instead! 2.3k of self indulgent fix-it (maybe! I believe in these boys. I mean I don’t but I want to.)

[brushes those fierce corpses under the rug] we’ll deal with that later. or never. what’s a few dead body secrets between boyfriends

---

“The man here with you,” Zichen said, and his voice trembled slightly, and Xiao Xingchen felt a sudden cold fear drop into his stomach thinking did he see you, did you fight, is he-

Unfair, he knew. Zichen had a right to his vengeance, or he should, only - only.

“Xingchen,” Zichen said, strained and careful, believing, Xiao Xingchen thought, that he was going to reveal a dreadful secret. “It’s Xue Yang.”

Xiao Xingchen folded his hands together so they didn’t shake. Cast his face down as though he were capable of avoiding Zichen’s eyes.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know.”

**

It was a betrayal. He had known that, since the beginning, and though he had never expected to have to face it he had made a kind of peace with that knowledge.

Still, Xiao Xingchen was grateful in this moment that he didn’t have to see the expression on Zichen’s face.

“You-” Zichen sounded like he was choking on the words. “You know?”

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I’ve...known for some time, now. He isn’t aware of that - as far as he’s concerned his secret remains safe.” There were reasons he had said nothing. Reasons that he had allowed Xue Yang’s charade to continue. Suddenly none of them seemed compelling enough justification.

“Xingchen…” He didn’t need to see the betrayed expression. He could hear it, and tried very hard not to flinch from it. “You’ve - and you’ve done nothing? Why? What were you thinking?”

He’d convinced himself that his choice had been the right one. That certainty was withering now. But he kept thinking, too, if Xue Yang returned now, he and Zichen would fight. If he and Zichen fought, one of them would most likely die.

He couldn’t bear that. Perhaps, if he were a better and less selfish person, he would be able to.

But he knew himself too well.

“Three years,” Xiao Xingchen said. His hands twisted with each other and he made them still. “He has lived here with me and a-Qing for three years, and through most of that time I have listened, I have stayed close, I have been attentive to his every move. And through all that time, despite opportunity...I cannot say he is kind, or virtuous.”

“My temple,” Zichen said, his voice trembling. “My shifu - what he did to them - Xingchen, you are blind because of him!”

I am blind because of you, Xiao Xingchen thought, but he was not so cruel as to say it and never would, and anyway he did not begrudge the gift. He had given it out of grief and guilt, but he would not regret it.

“I know.”

“And you have let him live - lived with him, knowing what he is-”

The brief pulse of anger Xiao Xingchen felt took him by surprise. He let it pass, only saying, “who he is, Zichen. However monstrous his deeds, Xue Yang is a person as much as you and I.”

“So you acknowledge his deeds as monstrous,” Zichen said, not quite snapped though his anger was clear. Xiao Xingchen did not let himself flinch from that, either.

“I do. Of course.”

“But that doesn’t matter?”

Again there was that thought at the back of his mind that said you are justifying a selfish choice because you are afraid to be alone. He tried to push it aside. He had thought about this, he had thought about it a great deal, and he needed to - hold true to his convictions.

“Yes,” he said. “It matters. But-” He swallowed hard. “People can change.”

“Not all of them,” Zichen said, his voice still hard and angry, so angry, and Xiao Xingchen’s heart beat in his stomach thinking he could walk away, he could leave you again, what are you doing. “The wolf changes hair, it doesn’t change habits. And how can you possibly know? How can you be certain he has not just been waiting, biding his time? Taking advantage of you, using you-”

Xiao Xingchen sat up straight, stung. “Do you think I’m so foolish I wouldn’t be aware of that possibility? That I wouldn’t notice?”

Zichen was quiet, briefly.

“I cannot say he is kind or virtuous,” he said, quieter. “But I can say that he has not done me or a-Qing harm. Nor the people in this city.”

“As far as you know.”

Xiao Xingchen paused, but he did have to allow, reluctantly, “as far as I know.”

“Xingchen,” Zichen said, and his voice was agonized in a way that cut Xiao Xingchen to the core. “Even if you are right - even if that - creature has somehow turned from active violence - don’t his previous victims still deserve justice? The Chang Clan, my temple, heavens know how many others…”

“Would his death be vengeance or justice?” Xiao Xingchen asked. His hands wrung together so hard it was almost painful.

Zichen was silent for a long time. Xiao Xingchen wavered, on the verge of saying Zichen, I’m sorry-

He made himself say, forcing the words out through his closing throat, “whatever you do, Zichen, I...will not stand in your way.”

“You mean,” Zichen said, his voice cold in a way that Xiao Xingchen had heard before but seldom directed at him, “if I decide to kill Xue Yang, you won’t stop me.”

“No,” Xiao Xingchen made himself say, though he felt sick. Imagined Xue Yang returning, basket in hand, humming the way he did when he was in a good mood. He wouldn’t see it coming. Was that better or worse?

He imagined, deliriously, Xue Yang realizing that Zichen was here and leaving. Escaping somewhere else. Xiao Xingchen knew even as he thought it that Xue Yang never would. Not without a fight that he would almost certainly lose. And if he didn’t lose - if Zichen was in danger-

What would he do then?

“But you don’t want me to,” Zichen said, and Xiao Xingchen almost curled into himself at the pain in his voice. “It would hurt you, Xingchen. Wouldn’t it. His death - would hurt you.”

He sounded so achingly, crushingly disappointed. But Xiao Xingchen couldn’t lie.

“Yes,” he said, voice hoarse, no more than a whisper as though that would ameliorate his shame.

He will leave now, said a harsh, cruel voice in his mind. He will walk away from you. Or he will kill Xue Yang and walk away from you. He would still have a-Qing, would not be wholly alone, but…

“Then what,” Zichen said heavily, “would you have me do?”

A lump swelled in Xiao Xingchen’s throat. I don’t deserve you, he thought.

“Give me a chance,” he said. “To talk to him. Can we begin there?”

“I won’t leave you alone with him,” Zichen said immediately.

“Then - you can go inside,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Somewhere out of sight. If he sees you I doubt I’d get a chance to say a word.” And if it came to blows-

He couldn’t let it get that far.

“Xingchen,” Zichen said. “The risk-”

“Please,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Just - give me a chance.”

I don’t want to leave, Xue Yang had said, in the throes of delirium that had seemingly made him honest. I don’t want you to leave.

Oh, Daozhang. I think I like you.

He wanted, so badly, to be right.

**

Xue Yang was humming when he came back. Zichen was inside, no doubt with his hand at least on Fuxue’s hilt if not with it already drawn. He tried not to think about that; tried to project calm where he sat, waiting.

“Daozhang,” he sang out, voice getting closer. “Give you three guesses what I found. You won’t believe-”

He cut off, sharp and sudden, footsteps and voice both stopping. For a moment Xiao Xingchen thought maybe he’d seen Zichen. Or knew, somehow. He wished that he could see, wished he knew what the expression on Xue Yang’s face looked like.

“Come sit with me,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, even.

He did not hear him coming closer.

“Where’s a-Qing,” Xue Yang said, and the ease was gone from his tone. He sounded tense, alert, wary. No, he thought. No, please. Stay calm. I need…

“Not here at the moment,” Xiao Xingchen said. “What did you find?”

“Oranges,” Xue Yang said after a moment. He still hadn’t moved.

“That sounds nice,” Xiao Xingchen said. He felt a little as though he was coaxing an animal into a trap. His stomach twisted. “I hope you got enough for all of us.”

“Uh huh,” Xue Yang said. The wariness in his voice was clearer now. “Obviously. I don’t want to listen to Qingqing whine about not getting hers.”

Xiao Xingchen tried to smile. “Is there a reason you’re not coming to join me?”

“You tell me.”

Xiao Xingchen took a breath in and said, “please, Chengmei.”

Silence. Finally, he heard slow, light steps approaching. He held carefully still, again thinking of luring some kind of wild animal in close enough to capture it, but that wasn’t what he was doing, it wasn’t.

“Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, voice a little lower. Xiao Xingchen could imagine him looking around the courtyard, searching, watchful. He kept his breathing steady and even. “Something happened while I was gone. You going to tell me what?”

Xiao Xingchen reached out, seeking Xue Yang’s arm to pull him down, but he seemed to be just out of reach. His stomach went cold and his mouth was dry.

He let his hand fall and said, as calmly as he could, “Xue Yang.”

Xiao Xingchen was listening closely enough to hear his breathing stop. And then start again, but faster.

“Please,” he said again. Calm, calm, calm. “Sit. I want to talk with you.”

“Talk,” Xue Yang said, the beginnings of a snarl in his voice but Xiao Xingchen thought he could hear the fear underneath. “Is that what you want to do?”

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “It is.”

He could hear Xue Yang’s breathing getting quicker. Almost feel his growing agitation. “Took you long enough to put it together,” he said with a nasty kind of laugh. Xiao Xingchen wondered if Xue Yang thought he wouldn’t hear the brittleness in his voice.

“I’ve known for a while,” Xiao Xingchen said. “The flower elemental poisoned you and while you were delirious you...said some things. I put it together from there.”

A brief silence and then a humorless sort of ha. He hadn’t moved, not closer or further away, not to draw a sword. “That long,” Xue Yang said, voice flat. “Did you think it was funny-”

“Did you?” Xiao Xingchen interrupted, quietly, and Xue Yang’s voice cut off like it’d been severed.

Xiao Xingchen folded his hands together so that they wouldn’t shake and said, “I don’t think you want to hurt me. I think - you did. But not anymore.”

Silence. Unlike with Zichen Xiao Xingchen wished he could see Xue Yang’s face. Wished he could get some kind of hint what he was thinking other than the too quick and slightly harsh sound of his breathing, and the fact that he still hadn’t moved, that he knew Xiao Xingchen knew and hadn’t taken any immediate action.

He paused, and took another risk. “I hope that’s so,” he said. “Because I don’t want you hurt either.”

Xue Yang’s exhale shuddered out of him.

“The fuck game are you playing, Daozhang,” he said after a moment, rough and ever so slightly unsteady. “What do you want?”

“I want you to sit with me and listen,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And do nothing rash.”

Still no movement. “If you’ve known that long,” Xue Yang said, “why are you just saying something now, huh? What changed?”

Xiao Xingchen swallowed hard. He’d hoped to be holding onto Xue Yang for this. To have a grip on him to make it harder for him to react immediately, or violently.

“If I tell you,” he said, and his voice sounded horribly thin, weak, “will you promise me not to take any impulsive action?”

This time he did hear movement, but it was a step back, not toward. Light and quiet and Xiao Xingchen could almost picture how he looked, poised, a fox either about to spring or turn and run. He could imagine Zichen, poised the same behind him, only he wouldn’t run.

He stood and moved where he would be - he hoped - between them.

“Please,” he said, almost begged. “Xue Yang. Trust me. Just for a few moments.”

“Trust you?”

“I’ve given you a chance.” One you didn’t deserve, he didn’t say.

Another long, long, silence. “It’s him, isn’t it,” Xue Yang said. His voice was flat and strangely dull. “Your Zichen. Come back for you, after he kicked you out of his life.”

Xiao Xingchen didn’t let himself flinch. He didn’t speak, either.

“How nice,” Xue Yang said, with growing venom. “So, what. Is this you giving me a chance to leave before you let him kill me, Daozhang? Because if I get a choice I’d rather you did the honors.”

He wouldn’t know, Xiao Xingchen realized, if Xue Yang went for his sword. Not until it was too late.

“No,” he made himself say. “This is - as I said. I just want to talk.”

Nothing.

“Three years, Xue Yang,” Xiao Xingchen said. His voice was soft, and a little hoarse, and not quite a plea. “Don’t throw it away.”

He took a step forward toward where he’d heard Xue Yang’s voice, where he could hear his too-quick, slightly unsteady breathing, and this time when he reached out he found his hand, folded his fingers around his wrist in a gentle tether.

Not a closing trap, he thought. An open hand.

“Trust me,” he said again. “Xue Yang,” his name, used like an invocation.

The moment quivered on a cliff’s edge, teetering, but Xiao Xingchen was suddenly, inescapably certain it wouldn’t fall.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: imagine if Xiao Xingchen could see what Song Lan was seeing after the eye transfer. Like the visual input went to both their brains... Ps! I love your writing!!

Song Lan knew himself to be a fool, and an ungrateful one.

He’d lost his entire family, the entire Baixue temple that had taken him in as an orphan to teach him all he knew, at Xue Yang’s hands – not just Xue Yang, but whoever was behind him, egging him on. His master had conveyed as much as he’d died in his hands: Xue Yang had done the work, yes, but as hired help, looking horribly bored even as he committed atrocities and only looking even mildly interested when he announced the supposed ‘motive’ behind it.

And yet Song Lan hadn’t listened. Beside himself with grief, with pain, with the loss of his temple, the loss of his eyes, he’d lashed out against his best friend, blaming him for the misfortune – if you hadn’t insisted on going after him, on finding justice for the Chang clan, then he wouldn’t have come here, he would have picked someone else, it’s your fault. Harsh words, vicious words, words he shouldn’t have spoken, and especially not to Xiao Xingchen, who didn’t quite understand the way the world worked.

The way emotions worked – how humans could say one thing one day, and believe another the next.

And now, Song Lan was forced to hunt down the real culprit behind the destruction of his Baixue temple alone, all while searching desperately for his friend – wanting to apologize, to beg forgiveness – and all the while Xiao Xingcheng…

Song Lan had to stop along the road to bury his face in his hands, in grief – 

Grief, and frustration.

Xiao Xingchen just had to find the least remarkable place in the entire world to settle in, didn’t he?

Song Lan knew he had, because Xiao Xingchen had given him his eyes, and Xiao Xingchen’s eyes were –

It wasn’t that Song Lan didn’t know that Xiao Xingchen had descended from Baoshan Sanren’s celestial mountain, armed with a sword and a horsetail whip and a mission to help people find justice. He’d been lucky enough to be the first person Xiao Xingchen met, after all, and he’d been helping him understand some of the nuances of the common world ever since – often things that most people should have known, but which apparently weren’t that common on celestial mountains.

It was only that Song Lan hadn’t realized that Xiao Xingchen’s differences from the common world were not merely experience, but also – physical.

His eyes, for one. 

Apparently, Xiao Xingcheng had two sets of eyelids: one external, the normal ones that everyone saw, and one internal – as far as Song Lan could tell, now that Xiao Xingchen’s eyes were his, it mostly functioned to keep dust out of his eyes or to make it easier to see through mist. His pupils, too, were unusual: they could resize themselves as appropriate to deal with the dark, and now Song Lan understood why Xiao Xingchen never tripped over anything even when they had traveled in the darkest parts of the night.

The most important aspect, though, was the fact that they were still connected.

Now that Xiao Xingchen's eyes were his own, Song Lan could see what was in front of him, yes, but he could also see – somehow – what was in front of Xiao Xingchen, and it should have made it easier to find him, but somehow it didn’t.

It just made the need to find him all the more desperate.

When Song Lan first opened his eyes and saw the translucent form of Xue Yang, smirking up at him, he panicked. Translucent meant that it was Xiao Xingchen who was seeing him, and that meant Xiao Xingchen was in terrible danger. Oh, Xue Yang might be too injured to do anything at first, but Song Lan watched as his wounds slowly healed, the way he started to offer to help with things, the way he –

Those poor people.

And poor Xiao Xingchen, too!

After the first “night-hunt”, Song Lan bought some paper and wrote the words, “Your guest is Xue Yang and he is deceiving you” on it, then settled down in meditation to stare at the words until they felt as though they were imprinted on the back of his eyes, hoping against hope that the eyes would work in reverse, that he could convey the much-needed message to Xiao Xingchen.

It didn’t work.

Or, rather, it did – Xue Yang’s ghostly form, reflecting off of the remains of Xiao Xingchen’s optical nerve even through the thin cloth he used as a bandage, came up to him.

“Daozhang, why are you rubbing your eyes so much?” his lips said, forming the words so precisely that Song Lan could very nearly imagine hearing his voice. “Are you in pain?”

He couldn’t heard Xiao Xingchen’s response, of course, and he couldn’t see it, either, but Xue Yang was a remarkably responsive figure.

“You’re the strongest person I know, Daozhang. If you’re sure you want to ignore it, I know you can.”

That was about when Song Lan had given up, because he, too, knew Xiao Xingcheng too well: his friend was stubborn to the ends of the earth, when he thought it was called for, and he must have known – as Song Lan did not – what were the consequences of giving up his eyes.

He was deliberately ignoring the input from Song Lan’s eyes. Very likely in a misguided attempt to give him privacy.

Song Lan wanted to scream.

It had been about what he deserved, though, for having rejected Xiao Xingchen the way he did: now he had to watch, to be tortured by watching, as Xiao Xingchen was led around by the nose by a vicious and cruel Xue Yang, forced to bloody his hands, all unknowing, all while thinking he was doing good. It was enough to make Song Lan weep, and to fear the day that Xue Yang lost interest in this game – the day when Xue Yang had enough, and the last ghostly image he would see would be the bastard’s sword raised up over Xiao Xingchen’s unwary head…

It didn’t turn out like that, though.

Xue Yang the murderer, the irredeemable – he stopped on his own.

Song Lan knew why, probably before Xue Yang himself did. He recognized the way Xue Yang’s eyes softened when he looked at Xiao Xingchen, the eager way he ran to him, the smile that involuntarily appeared on his face when he did something that pleased him – a happy smile, nothing like the cruel smirks from before.

Song Lan recognized it, because he’d seen the same in himself.

Xue Yang was in love.

How could he not be? Xiao Xingchen was kind, gentle, righteous – he was born to be loved, not tormented. Little by little, he crept even into Xue Yang’s barren heart, and found a way to make his home there, just as they had made their home in the little coffin house that looked the same in every town that Song Lan visited on his desperate quest to find them.

And little by little Xue Yang put down his guard, and started sharing stories…

The one that affected Xiao Xingchen the most was the one about the little boy, with his love for candy – Song Lan knew that, seeing as he did Xiao Xingchen finding candy to leave every day on Xue Yang’s pillow. Probably with a secret little smile, wanting only to make his friend happy.

The ones that affected Song Lan the most, though, were the ones about cultivation. About where Xue Yang had learned it, and how.

Xiao Xingchen had been so pure and good, so upset about the fate of his shijie’s son, that he’d never really picked up the nuances of how demonic cultivation worked or what it did, how it damaged the temperament and corrupted the mind, but Song Lan knew.

Song Lan knew how to do math, too. 

Xue Yang would have been little more than that stupid child who’d lost his finger as a result of his love of sweets when his first teacher found him – it might even have been immediately afterwards, when he was wounded and in pain and vulnerable, given some of the comments Xue Yang made about how he’d been stupid to follow the first person who offered him revenge.

That first man had had vile intentions. He’d taught Xue Yang demonic cultivation the way a farmer fed a pig: in order to raise him into a tool for his own cultivation. He hadn’t expected that when Xue Yang was still only eleven, he was already such a delinquent that he’d pick up a knife and murder his own teacher when that teacher tried to hurt him – Xue Yang had never gone into exactly what type of hurt, never even officially confirmed that he’d done the murder, merely that he’d broken paths with his first teacher when the teaching methods were too painful and that the teacher had died shortly thereafter, but who didn’t know about the dark history of the delinquent of Kuizhou?

Song Lan had known about the murder, long suspected by the citizens of Kuizhou but never proven, but he hadn’t known why.

Just as he had known that the Jin sect had recruited Xue Yang shortly after he became famous, but hadn’t known that it was specifically to try to recreate the Yiling Patriarch’s techniques, or that they’d given him as many cultivators as he wished to practice on…

Xiao Xingchen probably thought Xue Yang’s references to test subjects referred to practice dummies, and his references to “breaking” them “too often” as the harmless actions of a child.

Because Xue Yang would have been a child.

A street child, with no mother to raise him; taught by a demonic cultivator with vile intentions; taken in by the Jin sect at eleven, maybe twelve; raised there until fifteen, and required to do all sorts of dirty things for them as the means of keeping his place –

Had anyone ever taught Xue Yang the slightest scrap of morality?

The Baixue temple believed in justice, but it also believed in mercy – in mercy, and in redemption. As soon as Song Lan found Xiao Xingchen again, he would apologize for what he’d done, what he’d said, and he’d ask him to join him once again in a quest to bring justice to the world: to seek justice for his temple, for his teacher, from the person who had wielded the sword that was Xue Yang.

And as for Xue Yang himself…

Maybe there was something there that could be salvaged.

After all, he responded so well to Xiao Xingchen’s kindness – it’d been nearly three years now, and the vast majority of the time had been lived in peace and quiet. Xue Yang didn’t even threaten passerby merchants in the marketplace with knives anymore.

He didn’t practice demonic cultivation anymore, either. Three years without it, and Song Lan could see – through Xiao Xingchen’s eyes – how much cleaner Xue Yang’s qi was: how the meditation Xiao Xingchen coaxed him into trying actually helped bring it into a semblance of order, how he was belatedly forming a golden core the way a regular cultivator would.

Maybe there was still something left of that stupid street child who’d only wanted to taste something sweet after all.

If he ever found them, Song Lan would have to find out.

He sighed to himself, shaking his head at his own foolishness. He could dream about what they could do together – the three of them, and little A-Qing, too, the clever little blind girl that accompanied Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang both – as much as he liked, but first, he had to find them.

Song Lan glanced at the signpost.

Yi City, with the ‘yi’ for coffin home – what a strange name.

[hamliet]

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?: Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng

Or, how the two most virulent Wen-haters in the story tragically mirror each other in far more ways than just their issues with the Wens. 

I’ve written about MDZS’s use of character trios as a narrative structure before (here and here). In this meta I’m going to talk about the main three and the Venerated Triad. I’ve also written before about how Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao’s relationship (however you interpret it) parallels Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s, with Lan Xichen as a strong Lan Wangji foil (fitting, as they are the “Twin Jades”), and Jin Guangyao as a strong Wei Wuxian foil (as Wei Wuxian himself acknowledges in the story’s final chapter). So let’s talk about the third member of these trios: Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng, who also closely foil each other... in particular, through their respective relationships with Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian. 

But wait, you say. Jin Guangyao killed Nie Mingjue, which parallels Jiang Cheng killing Wei Wuxian!

True. There are some parallels between Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao (such as JC killing WWX to avenge JYL, even though she wouldn’t have wanted that, and JGY doing it when NMJ hurts NHS, even though NHS adored NMJ), as well as between Chengxian and Xiyao, but this is not a meta about those specifically. 

Nie Mingjue tried to kill Jin Guangyao in life (twice), and actually does do so in the end, and Jiang Cheng helped kill Wei Wuxian even if he did not do it directly. The reason both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng were able to treat their brothers like this was because of their immense privilege, the privilege neither acknowledge until it is time to weaponize it. In those moments, both chose not to empathize but to see their brothers as an “other” instead of as someone they loved (and I do think both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng loved Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian in a realistic, flawed way). In the otherizing of their brothers, both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng put on robes displaying society’s flaws as blatantly as Sect Leader Yao does, but with a lot more humanity than the flat, static Sect Leader Yao. Thus, MXTX tells us we cannot even “other” society as a whole. 

If this sounds like I’m hating on either character, I’m really not intending to. They’re great characters and I enjoy both of them (Jiang Cheng’s one of my very favorites), but they’re flawed, and in fact that’s the whole reason I like them. But I do admit this essay will be scathing to an extent; just know it doesn’t touch on my whole opinion of their characters, and isn’t meant to excuse Wei Wuxian (who had a savior complex) and Jin Guangyao (who sought society’s approval to his own doom); I’ve just previously excoriated those two.

I. Defining Justice as Trauma 

Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng both lost their fathers to Wen Ruohan (as did the Lan brothers), and both vowed to wipe out the Wens as a result. However, both of them fail to think about the Wens as people, and wind up, well, becoming eerily similar to the worst Wens.

Jiang Cheng has lived through the pain of losing everything (status, family, home) and he not only refuses compassion for the two Wens who saved him so that he could fight to get those things back, but inflicts the same traumas on them. In fact, Jiang Cheng’s reaction to Wen Qing’s predicament post-Sunshot campaign is paralleled explicitly with Nie Mingjue’s:

Jiang Cheng’s brows were knitted. He rubbed the vein that throbbed at his temple and soundlessly took in a deep breath, “… I apologize to all of the Sect Leaders. Everyone, I’m afraid you don’t know that the Wen cultivator whom Wei WuXian wanted to save was called Wen Ning. We owe him and his sister Wen Qing gratitude for what happened during the Sunshot Campaign.”

Nie MingJue, “You owe them gratitude? Isn’t the QishanWen Sect the ones who caused the YunmengJiang Sect’s annihilation?”

...

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few of times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

Lan XiChen knew that because of what happened to his father, Nie MingJue abhorred Wen-dogs more than anything, especially with how intolerable he was toward evil. Lan XiChen didn’t say anything else.

There’s a lot of irony in this. Wen Qing didn’t speak up because she wanted to protect her little brother--something Nie Mingjue should have been able to relate to, considering he sent Huaisang to safety in the Cloud Recesses during the war. Also, I mean, Nie Mingjue, you didn’t exactly rise up against Wen Ruohan until you knew you had the forces to win. He likely spent several years in begrudging deference to him, even sending Nie Huaisang along as tribute when Wen Chao demanded it. Jiang Cheng starts to do the right thing in this scene  by speaking honestly about Wen Qing, but then Nie Mingjue reminds him of society and propriety, and Jiang Cheng  backs down, crushed under society again. Both of them commit sins of omission, in that they stand back and allow society to belittle and vilify people.

The “sins of omission” is a motif that continues in both Nie Mingjue’s and Jiang Cheng’s arcs. For example, Jiang Cheng stood by to let Mianmian be brutally killed in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and even stood by to let Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan die too as they protected her. He goes on to blame Wei Wuxian for the deaths of his family because of Wei Wuxian saving them. Nie Mingjue keeps the truth about the saber spirit from Nie Huaisang, and additionally, the very same conversation about Wen Qing referenced above, Nie Mingjue is directly stated to know Jin Guangyao is lying to help his father, and he says nothing at all even though Wei Wuxian’s life hung in the balance. (It then karmically backfires on Jin Guangyao).

Jin GuangYao came to save the day, exclaiming, “Really? That day, Young Master Wei busted into Koi Tower with such force. He said too many things, one more shocking than the next. Perhaps he said a few things that were along those lines. I can’t remember them either.”

... As soon as he heard it, Nie MingJue knew that he was fibbing on purpose, frowning slightly.

...

One of the sect leaders added, “...Excuse my bluntness, but he’s the son of a servant. How could the son of a servant be so arrogant?”

With him having brought up the ‘son of a servant’, naturally there’d be some who connected it to the ‘son of a prostitute’ standing in the hall. Jin GuangYao clearly noticed the unkind stares. 

While Nie Mingjue is quick to accuse Wen Qing for her inaction but languid with his own, this isn’t exactly unique. He also is quick to accuse Jin Guangyao of standing by as Jin Guangshan manipulates to acquit Xue Yang for his crimes against the Chang Clan. (I’m not defending Jin Guangshan or Jin Guangyao in this.) How dare they stand there and not argue for justice? 

In spite of Nie MingJue being a junior to Jin GuangShan, he conducted himself in a strict manner and refused to tolerate Xue Yang no matter what. With an angry lecture, Jin GuangShan was left with no words and a great deal of embarrassment. Nie MingJue, as the irritable person he was, unsheathed his saber on the spot with the intention of killing Xue Yang. Even when his sworn younger brother LianFang-Zun, Jin GuangYao, attempted to ease the situation, he ordered him to leave. After a harsh scolding, Jin GuangYao hid behind Lan XiChen, not daring to say anything else. In the end, the LanlingJin Sect could only give in.

But, Nie Mingjue never offers a critique of Jin Guangshan when Jin Guangshan lied to Nie Mingjue’s face about Meng Yao. He discovered that Jin Guangyao’s stepmother is routinely beating him, and Nie Mingjue does nothing. Even if his hands were tied, if he really cared about doing the right thing, why didn’t he intervene somehow, some way, for his brother? If he really cared about holding people responsible for their actions, about making sure justice was served above everything else, why is it that the only person he consistently holds accountable is Jin Guangyao?

Could it be that, much like society, what Nie Mingjue was angry about was not injustice, but actually his hurting self? His hurt pride, his hurt child self still reeling from the cruel way Wen Ruohan betrayed his father and left him to die an agonizing death?

Likewise, Jiang Cheng knows, when he leads the siege at the Burial Mounds against the Wens, that no Wen there is dangerous. They are all elderly or children, not soldiers. He knows even that his sister died saving Wei Wuxian’s life, but chooses to ignore her wishes to satiate his own anger and the inner child inside of him still crying in loneliness. No one had ever chosen Jiang Cheng: his mother viewed him as a disappointment, and his father preferred Wei Wuxian, but Wei Wuxian promised to stick by Jiang Cheng no matter what. When Wei Wuxian breaks this promise, Jiang Cheng never gets over this, and carries out revenge on him for choosing actual justice over staying close to Jiang Cheng (looking back, this adds a symbolic irony to Jiang Cheng refusing to intervene and save Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan in the cave: they are both the people who will be his siblings’ spouses).

But the sad reality is, it’s a false dichotomy. Wei Wuxian did not choose the Wens over Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng, like society, chose society and conformity over Wei Wuxian.

I’ve said it before, but while Jin Guangyao isn’t correct that the siege on the Burial Mounds is “all” Jiang Cheng’s fault, he’s not wrong when he makes this point:

“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.”

...

“… 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…”

II. Privilege 

The main villain of all of MXTX’s novels is privilege (I’ve touched on this here and here and here). Unfortunately, both Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue are heavily infected with it, and it’s partially why they treat others as they do. 

Jiang Cheng speaks negatively of Mianmian in chapter 56, noting that she’s probably just the daughter of a servant. When Wei Wuxian challenges this by pointing out he is also the son of a servant, Jiang Cheng expresses that Wei Wuxian is somehow different (and to be fair, he is indeed treated with more respect because of Jiang Fengmian’s background with Wei Wuxian’s mother), but the implication is also classist. Ironically, again, when Jiang Cheng will not speak up for Wei Wuxian or Wen Qing during that same conversation referenced earlier, Mianmian does; though Nie Mingjue expresses admiration of her for doing so, he does not do the same. 

Additionally, Jiang Cheng says the following about Jin Guangyao:

Wei WuXian, “Isn’t Jin GuangYao here now? Jin GuangYao seems so much better than him.”

Jiang Cheng... “So what, if he’s better? No matter how much better he is, no matter how clever, he could only be a servant who greets the guests. That’s all there is to his life. He can’t compare with Jin ZiXuan.”

This pretty much sums up how society treats Jin Guangyao, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t think to question it. Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, points to Jin Guangyao’s character, which at that point looked decent (even if... later... sigh). Additionally, it’s hard not to see this as a commentary on how people think Wei Wuxian should be acting. Even though Jiang Cheng is, er, wrong about how far Jin Guangyao can rise, he contrasts with Jin Guangyao in how Jin Guangyao builds the lookout towers to provide justice for the common people, while Jiang Cheng encourages Jin Ling’s initially snobbish behavior (leaving common people in traps).

Not only that, but Jiang Cheng routinely commits atrocities under his protection as a sect leader. He’s described as having whipped the flesh off the backs of people accused of demonic cultivation, and supposedly no one arrested for that survived his tortures (ironically, Wen Ruohan is also known for torture). As someone pointed out once, the people who would turn to demonic cultivation are likely those unable to form golden cores (Wei Wuxian), or those taken in as disciples too late/too untalented to do so (Mo Xuanyu); Xue Yang was also taken in late as a disciple, but is noted to be unusually talented. The interesting thing is that all three of these people are from impoverished, humble origins. Thus it’s very likely the people Jiang Cheng was arresting and torturing to death were not wealthy cultivators (not to mention other sects would complain if so), but common folk. 

As for Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangyao goes further than Wei Wuxian and directly attempts to challenge Nie Mingjue to acknowledge his privilege with brutal honesty on his own part, only for it to go... poorly.

Nie MingJue, “There’s no need for explanations. Come back to me with Xue Yang’s head in your hand.”

Jin GuangYao still wanted to speak, but Nie MingJue had already lost all patience, “Meng Yao, don’t speak such pretentious words in front of me. Your whole thing stopped working on me since a long time ago!”

Within a second, a few degrees of unease flashed over Jin GuangYao’s face, as though someone with an unmentionable illness was suddenly exposed in the public. There was nowhere for him to hide.

He spoke, “My whole thing? Which whole thing? Brother, you’ve always yelled at me for calculating people and being too dishonorable. You say that you’re a proud, righteous person, that you aren’t afraid of anything, that propen men shouldn’t need to play with schemes. That’s fine. Your background is noble and your cultivation is high. But what about me? Am I the same as you? First, my cultivation isn’t as firm as yours. Ever since I was born, has anyone taught me? And second, I have no prominent background. Do you think that I’m in a steady position, here at the LanlingJin Sect? Do you think that I can rise into power the moment Jin ZiXuan dies? Jin GuangShan would rather bring another illegitimate child back than want me to succeed him! You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I’m afraid of everything, even other people! He whose stomach is full believes not him who is starving.”

Nie MingJue replied coldly, “In the end, all you mean is that you don’t want to kill Xue Yang, that you don’t want your position at the LanlingJin Sect to waver.”

Jin GuangYao, “Of course I don’t!”

He looked up, unknown fires dancing within his eyes, “But, Brother, I have always wanted to ask you something—the lives under your hands are in any regard more than those under mine, so why is it that I only killed a few cultivators out of desperation and you keep on bringing it up, even until now?”

Nie MingJue was so enraged that he began to laugh, “Good! I’ll give you my answer. Countless souls who have fallen under my saber, but I’ve never killed out of my own desires, much less to climb up the ladder!”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, I understand what you mean. Are you saying that all of the people you killed deserved their deaths?”

With courage gathered from nowhere, he laughed and walked a few steps closer to Nie MingJue. His voice raised as well, asking in an almost aggressive manner, “Then, may I ask, just how do you decide if someone deserves death? Are your standards absolutely correct? If I kill one but save hundreds, would the good outweigh the bad, or would I still deserve death? To do great things, sacrifices must happen.”

Nie MingJue, “Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?”

Jin GuangYao stared at him. A moment later, as though he had finally either decided on something or given up on something, he replied calmly, “Yes.”

He looked up. In his expression were some of pride, some of calmness, and some of a faint insanity, “I and they, of course we are different!”

Nie MingJue was infuriated by his words and his expression.

He raised his foot. Yet, Jin GuangYao neither avoided nor took defense. The kick landed right on him, and again he rolled like a pebble down Carp Tower.

Nie Mingjue, here, is being compared to two other people: the man who kicked Meng Yao down the stairs at a brothel as the man dragged Meng Shi outside naked to humiliate her, and with Jin Guangshan--the very person Nie Mingjue’s enraged with--by doing the same thing: kicking someone he views as lower than himself down the stairs. Instead of addressing the actual problem (Jin Guangshan), he finds a scapegoat. It’s not a good look. All three of these instances are linked with society standing by and allowing it to happen, with a few exceptions: Sisi intervenes with Meng Shi, and Lan Xichen intervenes to stop Nie Mingjue from killing Jin Guangyao. 

Nie Mingjue never had to kill to climb the ladder within his sect. He did have to kill to climb the ladder in the cultivational world--and he actually did so, through killing the Wens. Yes, I know Nie Mingjue killed the Wens because he wanted revenge for his father and protection for himself and his brother, but the problem is... that’s exactly what motivated Jin Guangyao: protection. Jin Guangyao just had more to fear than Nie Mingjue.

The irony of the above scene that Jin Guangyao knows killing is wrong, but it’s how to survive in this world, so he does it anyways. Nie Mingjue thinks the problem of someone thinking they are entitled to kill can be solved by killing the one who says such a thing, because he’s entitled to kill someone who thinks they’re entitled to kill-- You get the point.

That sad thing is that being shoved down the stairs doesn’t even end that scene. Nie Mingjue directly attempts to murder Jin Guangyao:

Just as Nie MingJue unsheathed his saber, Lan XiChen happened to leave the palace to see what was going on, concerned after having waited for long. Seeing the situation before him, he unsheathed Shuoyue as well, “What happened, this time?”

...

Nie MingJue, “... I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

This does not at all justifying Jin Guangyao’s subsequent murder of him, but again, Jin Guangyao kills to protect himself, and he’s not without cause for fear of his life (this does not justify, because neither is Nie Mingjue entirely without cause, but people have gotta acknowledge that reality). 

III. Reasons to Kill

I often see Nie Mingjue held up as someone who judged people based on their actions and was countercultural in that he was willing to stand up to Jin Guangshan when Jin Guangshan wanted to acquit Xue Yang of slaughtering the Chang Clan. However, this is decidedly not the case. Nie Mingjue is very much acting within society’s principals here (calling someone else out is hardly unique or noble: see, Su She, Jin Zixun, etc.) Nie Mingjue stood up to Jin Guangshan then because the crime was so severe he knew he might actually be able to win; otherwise, he let Jin Guangshan do as he wished. 

To illustrate this, I’ll share the  piping hot tea a commentator spilled on one of my fics recently, because she says it perfectly:

She isn’t wrong. You can hold Xue Yang--and Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian, for that matter--responsible for their actions and also point out the hypocrisy of a society that holds to ideals of how people behave, yet is constantly making exceptions for themselves. Nie Mingjue does just this by demanding Xue Yang’s head as a price for not killing his own sworn brother. Jiang Cheng does just this by murdering the older, helpless Wens at the Burial Mounds, and turning his back on the Wens who saved Jiang Cheng’s own life.

Why do these characters kill?

Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng killed out of revenge to honor their families and save themselves.

Jin Guangyao killed to get his father to acknowledge him as his son, and then in revenge when he realized he never would, and to save himself.

Wei Wuxian killed out of revenge and then out of despair--really, revenge against the whole cultivational world that had set him up for failure no matter what he did.

Xue Yang killed out of revenge for his little finger.

What do all of these have in common? They reveal what each person prized.

Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue prized the honor of their culture and of society.

Wei Wuxian prized his loved ones.

Jin Guangyao prized himself as his father’s son, a sort of combination of JC/NMJ’s status love and WWX’s wanting to be loved.

Xue Yang prized his body.

Xue Yang seems condemnable on paper, but let’s look at this a little deeper: what else did Xue Yang have? Nie Mingjue inherited a sect and had his beloved little brother, men who would die for him, people who admired him. Wei Wuxian had his loved ones, and then they were gone. Jin Guangyao had his dead mother’s wish for him to be approved for by society, and a famous father. What exactly did Xue Yang have besides his own body? He didn’t have parents, as far as we know. What else was he to value? Why is Nie Mingjue venerated, and Xue Yang condemned? Why is Jiang Cheng allowed to torture the poor under him for so many years, just because they reminded him of his brother, and Xue Yang hunted down?

The only answer is privilege. It’s privilege that allows Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng to decide when and how they want to enforce justice, and if they do at all. It’s privilege that they had families to avenge. It’s privilege that enables them to commit atrocities and get second, third, fourth chances. It’s privilege of his birthright than enables Jiang Cheng to never once die in the novel (Nie Mingjue not so much). But when Nie Mingjue dies, he seeks revenge on his murderer, not justice. He kills countless others in his quest to kill Jin Guangyao, people who had nothing to do with his death, and he could have killed his own brother. Even when he succeeds he ends up battling Jin Guangyao in a coffin sealed for a hundred years--hardly a victory. 

So since we’ve brought him up, let’s talk Xue Yang and the Yi City trio now. The “judgy” member of the Yi City Trio is decidedly not privileged (A-Qing, as @thisworldgodonlyknows​ wrote about her, foils Nie Huaisang, but also she foils Nie Mingjue), and her character reveals these precise flaws in Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng. She is a beggar girl and a thief, but she seeks justice for Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan out of nothing more than love. She herself does not kill, and frankly I’d say she is the moral backbone of the series more than any other character (along with perhaps Mianmian). She was never a part of society, after all.

A-Qing dies young, alone by a river, mutilated. She has no privilege, but her spirit survives as a ghost solely because of her desire to ensure justice for Xiao Xingchen and for Song Lan. Her condemnation of Xue Yang is at first admittedly selfish--she was jealous--but then honestly understandable and easier to swallow, since she came from a similar background. But because of this, and because A-Qing is willing to empathize, she ends up understood and her wishes fulfilled. In the end, Song Lan leaves with the remains of her soul, determined to heal both her and Xiao Xingchen. 

As I wrote here, A-Qing is also faced with a dark version of herself in Xue Yang. Similarly, Jiang Cheng is faced with a dark version of himself in both Su She (jealous of Lan Wangji, jealous of Wei Wuxian; he calls out their arrogance) and in Jin Guangyao in the temple, and only then is he able to move forward and grow. Nie Mingjue, unfortunately, did not recognize the dark version of himself in Jin Guangyao, and ends up trapped with him. 

[spaceskam]

pollute my body

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

Word Count: ~3k

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

ao3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take care of it myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Like that, please," Xiao Xingchen requested.

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xiao Xingchen moaned.

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

“Please,” Xiao Xingchen said. Please.

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

Never had he heard it quite like this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

“No.”

“Oh.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And maybe that was okay.

[isabilightwood]

The Problem With Authority - Chapter 7

Or, Sacrifice Summon! Jiang Yanli is here to make things right, be the ultimate big sister (step 1: bring back her dead brother), and maybe steal the Peacock throne in the process

[AO3][1][2][3][4][5][6]

Awareness rushed in with a crack like lightning. With it came pain, but not as much as Wei Wuxian would have expected from exploding into a pulp of blood and guts.

The ground beneath him felt solid. Cool and rough like poorly sanded wood, nothing like the smooth, burning volcanic stone that should have bordered the river of lava, should he have been unlucky enough to neither fall in nor die on impact.

Wei Wuxian was still, it seemed, in possession of arms. Because those were what hurt — and only those. That, and a bit of a crick in his neck from lying face down on a hard surface, and a possible splinter in his cheek.

He inhaled the scent of dried blood with every breath, and still, only his forearms burned.

Dust from the floor made his nose itch.

Fuck. He was alive. And definitely not at the bottom of a cliff.

He could only conclude that he had been resurrected. A few feet away he would find the names of whoever someone had decided to give up their very soul to destroy.

What if he just… didn’t? Wei Wuxian hadn’t agreed to this. He hadn’t wanted to be brought back. He’d only wanted the two people left in the world he cared about to live, without him around to get in the way.

He lay there longer than necessary, contemplating it. But in his heart, he always knew he would get up. Besides, he felt… not great, honestly. But more alive than he’d felt in a while. Like his soul had taken a nice sabbatical.

Like he’d come out of an extended, impossibly peaceful meditation. Similar to that used to cultivate to immortality, but for the dead. And landed in a body only slightly less full of resentful energy than the one he’d vacated.

Wei Wuxian pushed against the floor, raising his head. Someone gasped.

As he raised himself into a seating position, he swept the curtain of hair away from his eyes, and laid eyes on a stranger. A short young woman, draped in Jin gold and muted pink, both hands pressed over her mouth. A sword lay on the ground next to her, almost like she’d dropped it.

But cultivators never dropped their swords.

“A-Xian!” The woman breathed.

That couldn’t be good. Only Shijie had ever called him that. Did the Yiling Patriarch still have obsessive followers even after he so publicly self-destructed? Or worse, had the Jin decided to use him for their own purposes.

Wei Wuxian had only just been resurrected, and he was already in trouble.

Unfortunately, wherever he’d been must have been peaceful, because Wei Wuxian was feeling a lot less self-destructive, compared to the last thing he remembered:

Lan Zhan, still trying to save him, though he was already dead long before destroying the Stygian Tiger Amulet sealed the deal. Jiang Cheng, finally done with him, but missing his swing, and nearly killing Lan Zhan as well. Wei Wuxian had been happy to fall.

Yet now he felt more alive than he had in years.

Which meant that whatever this was, he had to deal with it. Ugh.  “Who are you?”

“Oh, right. You won’t recognize me like this.” She hurried to the wall behind her, and picked up a tureen. Wei Wuxian maneuvered himself into a sitting position as she did so, readying himself to run, once his legs felt strong enough.

And once he figured out who this woman and who the poor sap had killed himself for revenge expected the great and terrible Yiling Patriarch to kill.

She set it down on the edge of the array, and lifted the lid.

Only one thing in the world smelled like that. Just the smell was enough to bring tears to his eyes. His world shifted on its axis. “Shijie?”

She nodded, blinking rapidly.

He launched himself forward out of the array, and into her arms. “I’m sorry.” He sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Xianxian, no. I’m here.” She said, but she was crying too.

They fell to the ground together, and, because neither Wei Wuxian nor Jiang Yanli had ever been ashamed of crying, stayed that way for a long time. He stroked her hair and clung like he was nine years old again, and she was the first person he could remember tucking him in at night. The one he ran to when he didn’t understand why Madame Yu hated him so much. But now, she clung back just as fiercely.

He couldn’t believe she was here. Who would ever have summoned sweet, caring Jiang Yanli to take revenge? Few people knew how strong she was in spirit. And the body she was wearing remained entirely unfamiliar. Smaller, but more solid in his arms than Shijie had ever been.

Eventually, she pulled away, just far enough to ladle out a bowl of soup and press it into his hands. She watched him like a hawk until he’d eaten half the bowl, though he was still more than a little choked up.

When she was satisfied he wasn’t going to wither and starve to death in the next five minutes, she said, “There’s something else you should know. Your Lan Wangji —”

“He’s not mine.” No matter how much he wished it. Wei Wuxian had only ever cast his shadow on Lan Zhan’s light. He couldn’t let himself do that to him again.

“You should let him decide that for himself, but that wasn’t the point.” Shijie rolled her eyes as she patted his hand. She even took away his bowl and set it on the ground, which went to show that this was serious. Shijie would never take away soup without good reason. “He saved your A-Yuan. Lan Yuan, courtesy Sizhui now. ”

“Sizhui? Lan Zhan — me?” Lan Zhan couldn’t really have named his A-Yuan Sizhui, could he? That was — Wei Wuxian had been the one yearning, longing for someone out of reach. After Wei Wuxian’s first stint in the Burial Mounds, he never could have been worthy of Lan Zhan, of what they could have meant to each other. Lan Zhan, well meaning, had persisted in trying to help him. But he hadn’t thought Lan Zhan would still — not after all he’d done.

“A-Xian.” Shijie wiped her thumbs under his eyes, and he realized he’d begun crying again. “Those of us who know you for who you are, and not the masks you show the world, cannot help but love you.”

Lan Zhan was — Lan Zhan —

Wei Wuxian could not drag him into this, whatever revenge he was expected take. But maybe, someday —

“Anything else I should know while I’m out of tears?” He asked, when his eyes were swollen and puffy and finally dry.

She told him about the Wen siblings, and he wasn’t out of tears after all. At least Shijie had always been a sympathetic crier, so at least he wasn’t alone in his weeping.

After their tears finally died away, and Shijie had plucked a pair of his drying talismans from her sleeve, she refilled his soup. Wei Wuxian really was out of tears this time, or he might have started off again.

Only then did he remember to clarify what, exactly, was going on. Now that Shijie had told him all the important things. That he hadn’t gotten everyone he ever loved killed or condemned to a life of misery, after all.

“How did you manage this?” He asked around a mouthful off heavenly pork. “Whose body is this, I mean? And yours?”

Wei Wuxian listened with increasing horror as Jiang Yanli told the story of waking up in the body of the new Madame Jin, all the way through to the array he’d woken up in. His curiosity was sparked by the implications of what Qin Su had done — closer to what he’d been trying to accomplish with the arrays than anything he’d been able to achieve.

And she’d done it entirely by accident, with consequences they had yet to fully understand. All of which seemed to rest on Qin Su’s shoulders, with no signs that Shijie was anything but firmly anchored in her body. It bore further investigation anyways.

Though for the moment, another concern was more pressing.

“Xue Yang?” Shijie had gone near Xue Yang to bring him back? That twisted, murdering bastard without even a sense of scale to temper his depravity. And she’d done it for him. He wasn’t worth the risk. He should have killed Xue Yang years ago, when he had the chance — There was a wrenching feeling in his gut as his fear and anger spiked, irrationally, over a matter already settled. “Oh, ow. What the fuck.”

No, not his gut. His lower dantian.  That sure was a tainted golden core, so it really must have been Xue Yang. The state of his golden core would certainly explain why Wei Wuxian felt so off.

Xue Yang’s golden core, which was now his. A golden core, something he’d long believed lost to him forever, resting inside him, an unwilling gift from his enemy.

Wei Wuxian was simultaneously disgusted and euphoric.

He’d never had to deal with the risk of qi deviation before, because the resentful energy hadn’t interacted nearly so badly with the sluggish flow in his meridians after its driving force was removed.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Yanli put one hand over his forehead, and held his wrist in the other. He felt her, prodding around for what was wrong with spiritual energy. Something she never could have managed before.

Only Wen Qing knew how to treat this, though.

“Well, when a cultivator with a golden core uses demonic cultivation, it taints it with resentful energy. A little is fine and gets burned off, but a lot like Xue Yang — I’m surprised at how well he was holding off from a qi deviation, honestly.” “That’s why when I —” He broke off in a laugh.

Shit.

It was too much to hope that Shijie hadn’t caught his slip. “A-Xian. What happened to your golden core?”

“Um.” He really should have said Wen Zhuliu, but he couldn’t lie directly to Shijie. Not when she was staring at him, wide-eyed and concerned. Even if those eyes weren’t the ones he knew.

Wei Wuxian dared anyone to resist that.

When his confession was complete, she said nothing. Only sniffled.

Finally, she hugged him tight again, and ladled out more soup, though Wei Wuxian had yet to finish the second bowl. He dug in, shoveling each bite in, but chewing slowly, savoring the flavor like he’d never known he should before.

Tainted or not, the golden core inside him was fully formed and strong. An impossibility and a blessing.

“Are you all finished with the emotional reunion?” Nie Huaisang of all people swanned through the door. “Great! Hi, Wei-xiong!”

Gaping, he looked from Nie Huaisang to Shijie.

Shijie’s expression said oh right, him.

Ok, then. This was happening. “Hi, Nie-xiong. How have you been.”

Nie Huaisang plopped down in a heap across the soup tureen from him. “I’ve been better! Jin Guangyao killed my Dage, so we’re getting revenge.”

“Right, Shijie told me. Is he the only one I have to kill?”

Shijie shook her head, confirming his suspicions. “Him, another sect leader, and a few of Jin Guangyao’s guards. I’ll write the names down for you.”

Wei Wuxian really wanted to be done killing people. He wanted to — well, he wanted an impossibility. Traveling with Lan Zhan and A-Yuan, visiting Shijie and Jiang Cheng often in Lotus Pier, helping Wen Ning grow new varieties of vegetables in his garden, and arguing cultivation theory with Wen Qing. Even if Lan Zhan still wanted him, if they saved both the Wens, Jiang Cheng would never want to see him.

Shijie turned to Nie Huaisang. “We need to get him in to see Wen Qing.”

“Well, I can certainly provide a distraction, but he can’t just walk into Koi Tower like that.” Nie Huaisang hummed, tapping his closed fan against his lips. “You need a disguise.”

“A mask?” That would be the easiest thing to get a hold of.

But Nie Huaisang was shaking his head. “No, no, that won’t work. That’s just suspicious. You need something no one will see through.”

“I’ll think about it.” He wasn’t entirely sure that a mask wasn’t the solution — just not the sort of mask anyone else had ever come up with.

“You do that. In the meantime,” Nie Huaisang clapped his hands together. “Questions.”

“How did you get Xue Yang to give up his body to me?” Shijie hadn’t mentioned the details, but Wei Wuxian assumed the trickery had been at Nie Huaisang’s hands.

But Nie Huaisang tsked and shook his head. “I didn’t do it. Your sister did.”

“Shijie?”

“I lied.” She said, a slight flush rising to her cheeks. By the time she finished explaining what she’d done, he was looking at her in an entirely new light. “I wanted you back. I could save you, so I did.”

“Shijie. I — but. Your husband.” Wei Wuxian had been so caught up in having her back, that he hadn’t even apologized yet. What kind of useless brother was he?

Nie Huaisang got to his feet and practically ran for the door at the first sign of emotion.

“It wasn’t on purpose.” Shijie tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but Wei Wuxian flinched away.

“How did you know?” After all the time he’d spent antagonizing Jin Zixuan, calling him the Peacock and even attacking him in public, no one should have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Shijie did not deign to answer, simply looked at him as though the question was ridiculous. As though she still trusted him, after everything.

“Well, you’re right. I didn’t mean to, but it was my fault.” No matter how he thought of it, if it were not for Wei Wuxian — if he’d taken a less obvious route, if he’d taken Wen Qing with him instead or gone alone, if he’d imposed on Lan Zhan enough to ask for an escort, if he’d simply remembered how easily the power given by the Yin Iron could be stolen away — . “I stole Wen Ruohan’s control, and I forgot someone could do the same to me.”

“It is not your fault. You were ambushed, and scared, and trying to defend yourself.” Shijie hugged him, and again, he melted into her arms.

“It is, though. It is.” Wei Wuxian choked down a sob. He really couldn’t start that back up again. “I just wanted to meet your son.”

“You will.” She assured him, petting his hair soothingly, the way she had as long as he’d known her. Wei Wuxian couldn’t believe his luck.

When they emerged from the warehouse, Nie Huaisang was waiting.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Shijie asked Nie Huaisang.

“If it’s here, Xue Yang hid it well.” He sighed heavily, and didn’t even flourish his fan. So clearly whatever he’d been searching for was important.

Something in this little town full of coffins and burial goods, complete with paper mannequins peering out the windows. It was scarcely dusk, but the streets were already empty. He could feel — but not see, not like the mysterious resident of Shijie’s head — the mostly inert resentful energy everywhere. He could see what would have attracted Xue Yang to the town, but not why he wouldn’t have simply made it more of a living hell, and moved along.

The slippery little bastard had done nothing but complain of boredom on the way to what should have been his execution, after all. “What was he doing here anyway? It’s an eerie little town, but you said he’d been here a while?”

“Well, he was kicked out by Jin Guangyao, and it seems he set up a domestic little arrangement with Xiao Xingchen.” Nie Huaisang made an effort to sound flighty but his mind was clearly still elsewhere.

How the — no, actually, he didn’t want to know. Everything Wei Wuxian learned of the events following his death was stranger and more unsettling. “And my shishu won’t wonder what happened when he never comes back?”

Peering into the darkness of an alley, Nie Huaisang flapped a hand dismissively. “I’m having Song Lan tracked down. He’ll forget all about him soon enough.”

Good for his shishu. He deserved his second chance at love. Wei Wuxian hadn’t had time to be devastated over their separation, the failure of what he’d wanted his life to be because he’d been too busy throwing it away.

But maybe, just maybe. If he completed Xue Yang’s revenge and was here to stay, if Shijie and A-Ling and the Wen siblings were all safe and secure. Maybe he could earn a second chance with Lan Zhan someday.

It would take years to make up for his mistakes, Wei Wuxian imagined, a slow courting of hundreds of handmade gifts and tracking down the most challenging hauntings across the cultivation world. He’d remind Lan Zhan that he was good with children, and be there to help him raise A-Yuan the rest of the way. Show him he would never miss another moment.

There went his imagination, wanting things that were distant possibilities as best. Who was to say Lan Zhan hadn’t moved on? All Shijie had to go on was guesses, gossip, and a glimpse.

They passed a row of coffins, just waiting to be filled with some unlucky sap. Wei Wuxian drew up short. “Why do I sense some really strong resentful energy?”

“Xue Yang was turning people into puppets for fun.” Nie Huaisang said, causing both him and Shijie to glare at him. It seemed he’d failed to mention that to both of them.

Though, honestly, Wei Wuxian should have guessed. He pinpointed the coffin that felt like a mass grave, and whistled with no force behind it. Even so, a shifting spiderweb of resentful energy briefly became visible. That was a ward. One that would take him about an hour to unravel, using demonic cultivation.

Or, conveniently, application of Xue Yang’s own spiritual energy.

“No, this is more static. Almost like — “ He shoved hard at the lid of the coffin, and it slid forward a few inches, letting out a cloud of black smoke. “Shit, Xue Yang’s piece of Yin Iron.”

“Excellent! Exactly what I was looking for.” Nie Huaisang perked up, his usual good humor restored. “Do you think you can —” Shijie, uncharacteristically, pinched his arm sharply. “Jiang-guniang, why? I was going to say destroy it.”

“Sure,” He said absently. “Same way I did the Tiger Seal.”

“Can you destroy it without hurting yourself?” Shijie asked gently, reminding him exactly how that had gone.

“I can’t, but didn’t Lan Xichen manage it somehow?” He kept shoving at the lid, to no avail. Right, Xue Yang must have a sword somewhere. He reached into his sleeve and found a hilt, as well as a pair of qiankun bags.

“He said that, but Dage told me in confidence that the pair of them sealed them away again in secret. I don’t know if Erge told him where. I certainly don’t know.” Nie Huaisang paused. “And yes, I do mean that.”

The sword felt worse than the core, like it was used to Xue Yang’s cultivation. Jiangzai, it was called. That felt suiting. But though it resisted him, when Wei Wuxian sent a bolt of energy through it, the lid went flying into a wall thirty feet away.

Oh, so it was either nothing or too much with Jiangzai. He saw how it was.

Wei Wuxian stared down at the contents nestled inside. The Yin Iron was there, shaped into what looked like another Tiger Seal, but less powerful by far. Stacked right on top of two items that were undoubtedly just soaking in that resentful energy. Fuck. “Um. Nie-xiong? I think Xue Yang has your brother’s body. Also Baxia.”

It was agreed that Nie Mingjue’s body would have to be retrieved the next day, as Wei Wuxian had only just been resurrected and neither Nie Huaisang nor Shijie could fly. Shijie didn’t say, but he assumed she either hadn’t had time to learn, or temperamental swords were a side effect of resurrection.

In case it was the latter, he should probably bring that up at some point.

Shijie handed him some talisman paper, so he could construct a ward over the coffin, and they went down the foothills to an inn where Jin Ling was waiting.

His baby nephew had already been put to bed by the time they arrived. Which was all for the better because that meant Wei Wuxian actually got to see him.

Jin Ling was so big already, grown bigger than A-Yuan had been in what seemed to him the blink of an eye. Six years old, when he should have been all of a hundred days. Wei Wuxian reached out and hesitated, looking up at his shijie.

She nodded, watching them both with her heart in her eyes.

He hesitated several more times on the way to touching A-Ling’s hair, afraid that touch would shatter the illusion. But A-Ling didn’t disappear when Wei Wuxian touched him. A-Ling’s skin had the downy texture of childhood and his hair was silky under his fingertips, a sign of how healthy and loved he was. Jiang Cheng had taken such good care of him, though that never should have been his job, if not for Wei Wuxian.

A-Ling stirred under his touch, and he snatched his hand back, but the boy only shifted onto his side, and stuck his thumb into his mouth.

Wei Wuxian loved him so much, just as he’d known he would.

Because Wei Wuxian couldn’t bear to give up his scant moments with his darling nephew, he, Shijie, and Nie Huaisang sat on the floor to discuss how they would break Wei Wuxian into Koi Tower unnoticed.

Not something he ever expected to want. But he did want to see Wen Qing for himself — they needed to yell at each other for self-sacrifice, without her paralyzing him again. And Shijie would worry if she didn’t know he was alright. So Wei Wuxian supposed he would let Wen Qing poke around in Xue Yang’s core.

As Shije and Nie Huaisang heatedly (for them) debated their methods, Wei Wuxian occupied himself by unpacking Xue Yang’s bags item by item.

The current Nie First Disciple, a woman he’d fought alongside on occasion during the Sunshot Campaign, stood guard outside the door. Neither she, nor the younger disciples accompanying her, had seen remotely surprised to see him. So Wei Wuxian assumed resurrecting notorious traitors was just par for the course in things their sect leader did.

He reached in and grabbed something with an odd, elastic texture. Pulling it out, he flinched. And flung it on the floor.

It was a mask of someone’s face. He’d seen them before, when a possessed woman in Yunmeng had started carving the faces off her neighbors and wearing them as masks. This, though, was melded together to form a face disturbingly similar to Song Lan’s. And according to Nie Huaisang, Song Lan was still alive.

Had he written about that night hunt? Xue Yang could easily have modified the method. He would bet Jin Guangyao had focused on the profitable ideas among his inventions, and let Xue Yang make the most grotesque techniques of his demonic cultivation worse. The techniques that could do good had almost certainly been left to languish.

Even if Jin Guangyao wanted to leave reform as his legacy, he couldn’t openly use techniques that showed demonic cultivation was not all sacrificing virgins and creating puppets from amalgamated rotting meat. Better for him that the Yiling Laozu remained a monster under the bed, even if it meant leaving people to starve, their fields and forests tainted with resentful energy.

Well, if Xue Yang could twist his techniques, Wei Wuxian could twist them back.

“You, Wei-xiong, look like you’re having an idea.” Nie Huaisang fluttered his fan. Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrowed as he looked back and forth between it, and the creepy skin mask on the ground.

He thought back to the brightest period of his childhood, flashes of a masked figured twirling and kicking on a stage, flourishing a fan in sharp movements, creating an illusion of transformation. “Nie-xiong. You’re a cultural connoisseur.”

“I make an effort.”

“That dance where the performer changes masks behind a fan — do you know how it works?” The dance, from Meishan, involved face changes, using greasepaint or changing the color of a beard. Or, more importantly, masks. Madame Yu had enjoyed it, often hiring troops from her natal sect’s territory to perform for guests and during festivals. Wei Wuxian didn’t know the trick to it, but Nie Huaisang might.

“The Bian Lian? That is a particular favorite of mine.”

“No, really? I would never have guessed.” He never would have expected Nie Huaisang of all people to enjoy a dance that involved fans! Or masks!

Nie Huaisang rapped him on the shin with his fan, and “Ow, fuck, is that thing made of steel?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Nie Huaisang said primly, which Wei Wuxian took as a yes.

“Huaisang.” Shijie gave him a disappointed look.

It wasn’t quite as stern as in her own face, Qin Su’s heart shaped face rendering it somehow even more gently chiding, but it was just as effective. Nie Huaisang sighed. “Yes, I know how it works. Would you like me to sketch a diagram?”

“Please.”

Wei Wuxian interpreted Nie Huaisang’s caving to Shijie as his having been officially taken under her wing. He wondered if that meant they were brothers now.

It was a little-known secret that Wei Wuxian was not the only child raised by Jiang Fengmian to collect family wherever he went. He had, in fact, picked up that trait from his sister. Around the time she’d decided he was her didi, no matter that Wei Wuxian was never officially adopted into the clan.

“What are you thinking, A-Xian?” Shijie asked, while Nie Huaisang was busy being unnecessarily artistic with his diagram. Wei Wuxian would have so many extraneous swirls to work around.

“Well, I’m not wearing that thing. I’m pretty sure it is human skin, just not the person’s face it’s copying.” Wei Wuxian might control corpses on occasion, but he wasn’t wearing one on his face. That was just gross, in a uniquely Xue Yang fashion. Just remembering the moment he’d touched it made him want to spend the next week becoming a prune in an excessively soapy bath. “But I can’t just run around like this.”

Neither Wei Wuxian’s own face nor Xue Yang’s was exactly ideal. But Xue Yang had committed each and every crime he was accused of, with more undoubtedly yet to come. Wei Wuxian had only committed some of crimes he was given credit for. He was grateful Shijie had ensured he was given his own back.

Besides, Wei Wuxian was clearly better looking than Xue Yang, whether they were being judged on a scale of handsomeness or prettiness.

That didn’t stop either face from being a problem. “So I thought, why not make a mask where I can pretend to be Xue Yang? But where I can also quickly change to a harmless face, and avoid any future angry mobs.”

Wei Wuxian would strongly prefer not to be the target of future angry mobs. The once had been more than enough.

“Impersonate Xue Yang? But A-Xian —” Shijie frowned, an expression he never wanted to put on her face. “Don’t get more involved in this than you need to be for my sake. I brought you back for selfish reasons, and I can ensure those marks disappear and leave you free.”

Obviously, Wei Wuxian would never do that. “Shijie, you brought me back because you care. And I love you too, so don’t tell me not to help you.”

She reached out to pet his hair, and he leaned into it. “You’ve sacrificed enough.”

Shijie might think so, but he would never agree. Wei Wuxian would always want to help. Not because he owed her for what he’d done — which he did — but because he loved her. On top of that, she was trying to overthrow a child murderer, and improve the lives of ordinary people in an unprecedented way. Of course he would do anything he could to help.

And he didn't want her to have to learn how to kill.

He pulled away, and grasped her too-slim shoulders instead to meet those bizarre, smaller eyes that still, somehow, felt like her. “It’s not about sacrifice. I can be a distraction for you. If Jin Guangyao’s as clever as you say — and I remember that was  my impression of him — he won’t stay ignorant of what you’re doing forever.”

“A-Xian—”

Wei Wuxian cut off her protest. This was the best way for him to help. Any protest she had could only be an attempt to protect him. “But if Xue Yang’s a ghost he can’t catch? Maybe you can pull it off.”

[mercyandmagic]

Hi, mercyandmagic thank you for answering my asks... :D

Don't know if you remember, but I've asked before of your top 5 fav mxtx characters, and you've answered yours. If you don't mind me asking, can I ask you, why you like those characters (in a longer asnwer)? Sorry, if I ask you similar question again......

Yessss. This gonna be long. We’ll start from 5th and work our way to #1. 

5. Wei Wuxian

First, there’s just something incredibly refreshing about an untamed (ahem) character who says the thing everyone thinks but won’t dare say. It is my second-favorite character trope (We’ll get to the first). Plus, he has a great sense of justice and a self-sacrificing spirit... and yet he is capable of great cruelty, sadism, and hurting others to vent his pain (Nightless City, Wen Chao). Believe it or not, the fact that he has done great evil he cannot undo makes me love him more... because he knows it.  

In Chapter 68, when he’s confronted, he doesn’t deny killing Fang Mengchen’s parents, nor taking Yi Weichun’s leg. He doesn’t show anger at their valid pain; he merely points out that nothing he can do now will undo the damage he caused. 

He also has a low tolerance for BS and a high level of empathy. The fact that he scoffs at the cultivators gossiping against Jin Guangyao, the fact that he isn’t happy they have a new scapegoat, speaks a lot. Plus, he can easily understand why the Hook Hand’s final victim needs to scream (Ch. 124), why Jin Guangyao spared Sisi (Ch. 111) and made the Guanyin Temple (Ch. 110), why Nie Huaisang doesn’t want to admit what he did (Ch. 110), etc. Wei Wuxian is just great.

4. Qin Su

She deserves far more appreciation than she gets. She was involved in the Sunshot Campaign. When society judged Jin Guangyao and Meng Shi for their status, Qin Su never did. She loved the man who saved her life. She was willful enough to be the pursuer in her relationship with Jin Guangyao (Ch. 47), and was open to sleeping with him to ascertain their marriage (Ch. 106). She’s naive and trusting, despite losing her son. She’s loyal AF even to Bicao, even though Bicao literally sold her out for jewelry (ahem, Ch. 85). 

Qin Su. only has a short side role in the larger novel, but she’s a fully developed human.  That’s incredible.

3. Lan Wangji

I relate to Lan Wangji more than any of the other characters. Not being able to communicate, or being afraid to – relatable. Plus, having grown up fundamentalist Christian, I find the way in which Lan Wangji’s stubborn rule-following gives way to a willingness to break the rules when it does no harm or helps those he loves... inspiring. Like, he goes from having himself beaten for being pulled outside the Cloud Recesses (something this scrupulosity-sufferer relates to very well) to giving Wei Wuxian the Emperor’s Smile hidden in the Jingshi (Ch. 65).  

If I may add, I read MDZS around the same time I watched GOT Season 8. There’s a similarity in how Wei Wuxian and Daenerys Targaryen have murderous breakdowns after losing everything and everyone close to them. And yet instead of putting Wei Wuxian down like a dog (side eyes Jon Snow), Lan Wangji takes him away, tries to save him, still believes he is capable of good. In his own words, he’s “willing to bear all of the consequences with [Wei Wuxian].” Lan Wangji believes in redemption, in chance after chance. He’s refreshing in a world that believes one deed can stain you forever. I love him.

2. Lan Xichen

He’s just... good? Like, really good? He has to balance leading a clan with a society that is very Not Good, and this definitely leads to some gray points (The Wens, saying nothing in support of Mianmian, etc). But he, like Qin Su, refuses to judge people for origins. He always has to see the good in others – as Ch. 105 says, “whenever he heard there might be hidden reasons, he just had to hear it.” Lan Xichen wants to know and sympathize with everyone’s reasons. That’s just... wonderful. 

It’s notable that his whereabouts for the First Siege of the Burial Mounds are unknown. Lan Qiren led the Gusu Lan Clan, not Lan Xichen (Ch. 68). Which makes me speculate that while he thought Wei Wuxian was done for, he couldn’t bear to participate in killing the man his brother loved.   

He’s a touch avoidant, as seen when he tells Wei Wuxian he does not want to know why his mother killed his father’s teacher (Ch. 64). (I will also defend him agains the charges that he was wrong to try to reconcile Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao – they were his friends and Lan Xichen believed in them. Those two made their own choices, and it was Not Lan Xichen’s Fault). 

Anyhow, he’s good. And he loves Jin Guangyao. I know MXTX said she did not write a romance with them, and I don’t think they ever would have cheated on Qin Su. But that does not diminish that Lan Xichen’s seclusion at the end of the novel, is described as “exactly reversed” from when Lan Wangji was mourning Wei Wuxian (Ch. 114).  

1. Jin Guangyao

My favorite character. trope, the sneaky bastard with daddy issues! What makes Jin Guangyao stand out even among all my favorite sneaky bastards is that... his actions are so very gray that IMO he’s not even really a villain.

For real, what did Jin Guangyao do? Kill his brother who tried to kill him first and was slowly losing his grip on reality and hurting him and Nie Huaisang anyways? (Ch. 49, 50) It was still wrong – and I firmly believe that the motivation was payback for ‘son of a prostitute,’  (as Wei Wuxian suggests, Ch. 104) and not safety – but my point remains. (Plus there’s the implication that Jin Guangshan willed it, too). (Ch. 106).

Married his lover after discovering she was his sister to keep her from being an unwed mother? (Ch. 106) In that situation, I wish he had told Qin Su so she could choose, too, but I fail to find anything condemnable in Jin Guangyao’s actions there. 

Furthermore, when writing “Sentiment” and now “Sunlit Jade,” what I’ve been struck by is that most of his misdeeds end with killing Jin Guangshan. 

The possible exception is Jin Rusong (and since our main source for the idea of cold-blooded filicide and framing of an innocent clan leader is Clan Leader Yao, I am highly skeptical). And Xue Yang remaining alive, but again, we don’t know if Jin Guangyao chose to let him go with a warning/beating severe enough to disable his leg, or if Jin Guangyao truly meant to kill him (I favor the former position, but it’s open for interpretation).

Now, how Jin Guangyao kills and the fact that he does kill his father is wrong. Burning the brothel? Wrong, though I understand his hatred of that place and the people there. Killing the He Clan? Wrong, but 1) it’s on his father’s orders, and 2) he has a rather intriguing reaction when Xue Yang shuts He Su in alive with the corpses. (Ch. 118). 

He looks for something to “comfort” himself. 

This is strange, because he’s previously been a torturer (Ch. 47). What is more torture to him? 

I don’t know the answer, but it speaks to someone who suffers a lot, who did a lot of terrible things in pursuit of a love from his father that never came. And someone who, once he gains power in the position of Chief Cultivator, implements a program to save more commoners’ lives than ever before (Ch. 42).

That’s not the action of a villain.

[Sidenote, and based off a comment that wryhun on AO3 once left me: What I love the most about Jin Guangyao, and MDZS as a whole, is depending on the perspective you take, anyone can be an antagonist or a protagonist.

Jiang Cheng can be Wei Wuxian’s tsundere shidi (reader perspective), or he can be the serial killer of demonic cultivators who refuses to help commoners with spirits unless people have already died (Innkeeper’s perspective, Ch. 92).

Nie Huaisang can be the avenging didi (often a fan’s perspective), or the person who treated the juniors like fodder, killed cats, and sliced up a woman’s body just for revenge (Wei Wuxian’s perspective in Ch. 110, Jin Guangyao’s perspective in Ch. 108).]  

Jin Guangyao is an antagonist because his goals conflict with Wei Wuxian’s. But he’s really no worse than many of the other characters, and in fact, while all have suffered, he’s arguably suffered some of the worst circumstances of all. 

He makes poor choices, although he insists he doesn’t have a choice. I believe that he believes he has no choice... but he does. And that is so very, very tragic. 

I love him and want the world (or really just Lan Xichen) for him. 

[ibijau]

Futures Past pt16  /  on AO3

 Nie Huaisang learns more about his future self, and gets burdened with yet another annoying mission

Winter was never Nie Huaisang’s favourite season to begin with. It was cold, and wet, and grey, and generally unpleasant in every possible way. To make it worse, that year he wasn’t even allowed to head out of the Unclean Realm for a bit of bird watching, nor indeed to go alone in Qinghe to check the food, or just wander around and have fun. Nie Mingjue might not have been too upset about his brother failing his classes but he was still generally angry. He had apparently been worried sick about him disappearing, fearing the Wens had decided to take his brother from him, after having murdered his father.

After Nie Mingjue had confessed that fear to him one evening, Nie Huaisang stopped complaining against being grounded. Once, merely a year earlier, he would have called his brother paranoiac for jumping to that conclusion, and continued whining until he got his punishment lifted. Now though, with his older self’s promise of a war to come… It made him wish he could have found another way to rescue Xue Yang from his fate without worrying his brother. It also pushed him to make more of an effort to be a nice and obedient brother, though all that got him was Nie Mingjue thinking he’d gotten sick and asking the sect's doctor to check on him several times.

So Nie Huaisang was stuck in the Unclean Realm, bored beyond belief, constantly aching from all the training his monster of a brother forced him to do, wishing he could just go for a walk and do a bit of bird watching or find a nice landscape to paint. It was truly hell. Though at least, being constantly home gave him a chance to practice the guqin (he’d bought one of his own on the one and only outing to Qinghe he’d been allowed, after which Nie Mingjue complained at length about him spending too much money as always) and to keep a close eye on Xue Yang. That was nearly a full time job.

It was almost a relief when one night, his future self appeared in his room as he was preparing for bed. Unpleasant as their encounters tended to be, at least Nie Huaisang would know if his great plan had worked. So he sat cross-legged on his bed, and waited for the scolding that was sure to come.

“I should have come earlier,” his future self said with some annoyance, looking no angrier than he always did. “But my last visit drained me more than planned. When are you returning to the Cloud Recesses?”

“In a week,” Nie Huaisang mumbled, pointing at a pile of trinkets he’d just gotten around to unpacking from his previous stay. “Da-ge said to wait until after the new years celebration to start preparing, because I always bother the servants otherwise, and they’re busy enough already, and…”

“How is da-ge?” his future self interrupted. “Didn’t he hurt himself during a Night Hunt around this time?”

Nie Huaisang nodded. It had worried everyone when Nie Mingjue had returned from a Night Hunt with long gashes on his chest due to a particularly nasty fierce corpse, and they’d all made a big fuss of it. But in the end it hadn’t been anything threatening, and Nie Mingjue had healed quickly. In fact, he was currently absent on another Night Hunt, this time with Lan Xichen. That didn’t seem like a detail worth mentioning.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Nie Huaisang said, increasingly puzzled that his older self wasn’t scolding him yet. “It’s just, I’ve been wondering, you know and… well, is he alive now?”

His future self glared at him.

“What?”

“Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang clarified. “I’ve changed things, right? He’s got to be alive in the future now, right? You’re not on your own anymore, are you?”

His older self went still and stared at him with wide, shining eyes. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. After a moment the older man regained control of himself and turned away, opening his fan with a sharp gesture.

“That’s not how it works,” he hissed. “I thought it would be, but… but it’s not. I cannot change what has happened for me. My da-ge is dead, and nothing can change what happened to him. It’s… I don’t care. I’ve made my peace with that. He wouldn’t like what I’ve become anyway, and I couldn’t bear to lose him again, not like that. But I need to know…” 

He paused, and Nie Huaisang thought he heard a soft sob. 

“I have to know there’s a place out there where da-ge is alive. Not just alive, but he’s safe, he’s happy. No matter the cost to others and to myself, as long as da-ge is well… that’s what matters to me.”

For all the dislike Nie Huaisang had accumulated toward his older self, his heart ached to know that the man would never even get a chance to see Nie Mingjue again. It made him want to take his older self to have a chat with their brother, to see Nie Mingjue smile at him. Maybe he’d be a little less of a prick like that.

But since his older self was a prick, and unlikely to accept such an offer, Nie Huaisang instead jumped off his bed and went to take his hand to comfort him.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “Thanks for… thanks for saving my da-ge. I’m so sorry for yours, it must be…”

His older self turned around, tearing his hand free with such rage that Nie Huaisang stumbled a few steps backwards.

“I won’t be pitied by anyone!” the man hissed. “I’m not sorry for myself, and I forbid you to pity me, you stupid little brat! If I’d been smarter at your age I wouldn’t have let him die, so how dare you pity me?”

Nie Huaisang lowered his head and hunched his shoulders. His older self should have been happy: any pity he’d felt vanished instantly.

“Now tell me what I came here for,” his older self ordered. “Is Xue Yang dead?”

“He is,” Nie Huaisang lied, and he found it easier than he’d have expected, now that he knew the truth couldn't be discovered.

A certain tension left his older self’s shoulders at that answer. In fact, he seemed relieved enough that it worried Nie Huaisang a little, and almost made him confess the truth. If Xue Yang was really fated to become such a horrible person…

But he wasn’t horrible. Not yet, anyway. No more than a lot of other people were.

Xue Yang was a brat, sure. And he struggled with a lot of common decency, doing things like stealing from other kids, or stashing food away, or trying to fight teachers that disciplined him. But in those few weeks, Xue Yang had also made a lot of progress already. He’d started understanding that nobody would let him starve, so he didn’t need to hide food that would rot somewhere, and should instead eat everything that was presented to him right away if he was hungry. He was also slowly learning to accept that, a lot of the time, if he needed something he could ask for it instead of stealing it from someone. He still had a problem with authority, and that might never change, but he sometimes seemed to understand that the teachers were not his enemies, that they only wanted to help him learn.

But the turning point had happened just three days earlier. Xue Yang, with great reluctance, had finally explained how he’d lost his finger. From the defensive manner he told that story to Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue, it was likely that those he’d shared it with before might have mocked him for being naive enough to think he'd ever have gotten the sweet he'd been pormised. But Nie Mingjue, instead, asked if he remembered any names or precise locations, if he could recall when it had all happened, any details at all that might help if they decided to confront Chang Ci’an for what he’d done. In the end, Xue Yang’s memory had been too fuzzy to think of building up a case, something for which Nie Mingjue had expressed great regret, before saying he'd still keep an eye open in case he might discover who was the man whom Chang Ci'an had insulted.

The expression on Xue Yang’s face was one that Nie Huaisang wouldn’t ever forget. He’d looked… young. Like he really was an ordinary ten years old kid, instead of the tough criminal he tried to be. Like he might cry, just because someone was showing just and deserved horror over what had been done to him.

There was no saying whether Xue Yang would turn out good or not, whether the efforts of Qinghe Nie would be enough to bring him onto a more righteous path than would have been his, but they were going to try.

“This is wonderful,” Nie Huaisang’s older self said, fanning himself a little too fast, as if unable to contain his excitement. “I’ve always hated that little creep, even before he started slaughtering entire sects. Now the world is safe from that at least, and that’s one worry less for da-ge. Now, on to your next mission…”

“Are you ever going to stop giving me orders?” Nie Huaisang complained. “Every time I do something you say, you tell me there’s more to do!”

“Welcome to adulthood. Now shut up.”

But I’m not an adult, Nie Huaisang thought. He was just going to turn sixteen, there was an entire four years before he’d be considered fully grown. Even Nie Mingjue, who always complained about him being an immature brat, never actually demanded from him the things he’d have expected from an adult. After all, Nie Mingjue knew too well what it was to be forced to leave one’s youth behind too early, and he’d said multiple times he didn’t want that for his brother.

Too bad Nie Huaisang couldn’t extend the same courtesy to himself.

“I’ve had to give a lot of thought to the problem that is Wei Wuxian,” his older self said, starting to pace the room. “I still haven’t come up with a satisfying answer. On the one hand, it was so convenient to all of us when he left the established path during the Sunshot Campaign and became a horrifying master of death. But I can’t decide if it’s worth all the trouble it created after the war, when his new skills were no longer required. And it’s not like I could ask you to simply kill him after he’s stopped being useful because…”

“I appreciate that, actually.”

“I can’t ask you to kill him because you’d never be able to,” his older self dryly finished, pausing his pacing just long enough for a glare before he resumed walking. “Wei Wuxian is only the most brilliant cultivator of our generation, skilled in every martial art, a genius who has invented talismans and tools beyond your imagination. He’s already so talented you could never harm him now. By the time the war ends, the only way he could die is through self-destruction, as we’ve all come to learn.”

That sounded scary and, quite frankly, Nie Huaisang wasn’t sure he wanted to get anywhere near such a person. Geniuses tended to be difficult to deal with. Like his own brother, who was always so intense about everything, and didn’t have any hobbies except cultivation and leading their sect. Or Lan Wangji who was very intense as well, and had even less conversation than Nie Mingjue. Or Lan Xichen who…

Well. Actually, Lan Xichen wasn’t so bad these days. In fact, Nie Huaisang missed their music lessons, and he missed chatting together immensely, because Lan Xichen was one of the most interesting people he knew, along with Su She. Nie Huaisang couldn't wait to see him again. But it had taken a while to get there, and before they’d found common ground, Lan Xichen too had been boring and difficult to get along with.

The problem with geniuses, Nie Huaisang figured, was that they didn’t know how to have fun.

“Here is what we are going to do,” his older self announced, stopping his pacing and closing his fan to point it at Nie Huaisang. “You are going to befriend Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, as you were always meant to do. But you must also get closer to Lan Wangi…”

“What? But he’s awful!”

“...and make sure he befriends Wei Wuxian as well. None of that pining for a lifetime nonsense! If they become close earlier and realise their love as youths, then Wei Wuxian will probably not go dark quite as easily as he’s done from where I stand. And Jin Guangshan will hesitate a little more to antagonise Wei Wuxian if he thinks Gusu Lan too has close ties to him. Yunmeng Jiang was easy to pick on, but Gusu Lan is of a different class. Its sect leader might have been spineless, but anybody would think twice before crossing Lan Wangji. I think that’s our best course of action.”

Even more than before, Nie Huaisang became convinced that this Wei Wuxian had to be the least fun person in the world. After all, if someone like Lan Wangji could fall in love with a person, then that person had to be absolutely awful and boring. Wei Wuxian was probably a stickler for rules too. 

“Can’t I just help them without being their friend?” Nie Huaisang begged.

“Why wouldn’t you want to be Wei Wuxian’s friend?” his future self retorted, sounding puzzled by the request. “Whatever else he becomes later, I remember he was one of my favourite people when we studied together. I’ve always felt it was a shame he got kicked out so early. If he had stayed longer…”

The older man trailed off, his hand clenching on his fan, then promptly shook his head

“Nevermind,” he muttered. “Jiang Cheng was there the whole year, and that didn’t change anything to how shallow our friendship turned out to be. Just… just make sure to get them to like you, and help Wei Wuxian befriend Lan Wangji. But don’t get attached. No matter what promises you exchange with others, remember you don’t actually matter to anyone, so don’t let them matter to you either.”

“I won’t,” Nie Huaisang easily promised.

He didn’t think he was at any risk of ever liking someone who had Lan Wangji’s approval. And as for Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang had thought him to be a pretty interesting person when they’d met in Yunping City, but he was fairly sure the feeling was not mutual in the least.

“Excellent. I’ll cut this visit short then,” his older self announced. “Hopefully I will have recuperated enough for a brief visit in a month to hear about your progress. At worst, I’ll check on you for Qingming. Do not disappoint me.”

“I’ll try,” Nie Huaisang promised, but the older man had already disappeared.

It sounded like he had a very boring year ahead of himself.

And to make it worse, Su She was going to be so annoyed if he started hanging out with Lan Wangji.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Fractured Ice - Ch. 6/7

Xue Yang whisks a nihilistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right? AU where Wei Wuxian never came to Yi City and Xue Yang is still running around post-canon disguised as Xiao Xingchen.

Chang Ping ducks his head slightly. “Of course, my good daozhang. Anything for you.”

“Anything other than putting that crazed monster in the ground, you mean.” Chang Ping blinks, his watery pink-rimmed eyes bulging even farther out of his head.

“I beg your pardon, daozhang?”

“Xue Yang. You let him go.”

XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M - Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3  Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 7

A bit of blood in this chapter - brief violence onscreen and a brief graphic aftermath

Ch. 6: meaner than my demons

“I need to make sure it’s truly him,” says Lan Xichen. He stares at the spirit-trapping pouch clutched in his hand. Everything is blurred but the small brown pouch, which stands out starkly in the flickering orange torchlight. “I need to—to—”

“If he’s not in there, he’ll never be, and we have to get out of here.” Xue Yang shoves the heavy stone lid back onto the sarcophagus and steers Lan Xichen out of the tomb. The rain has stopped, and the morning star twinkles brightly through a gap in the clouds. “Fun as this is, we can’t hang around here. Those guards—”

Lan Xichen doesn’t spare a glance at the Nie guards, still lying strewn around the tomb. He’s too absorbed by the spirit-trapping pouch in his hand.

The pouch is warm. Almost pulsing. The throbbing warmth seeps into his cold hands, into his veins, flooding his numbed body with pleasant heat—

“Stop here.” Xue Yang lays a hand on Lan Xichen’s arm when he doesn’t look up. “We’ll change into dry clothes, and then you can try playing Inquiry. I’ll hold him while you change.”

Lan Xichen reluctantly surrenders the spirit-trapping pouch to Xue Yang, who sits on a boulder with the pouch set carefully on his lap, both hands cupped around it to make sure it doesn’t fall. Lan Xichen transforms back into Lan Huan in record time, throwing his hair up in a sloppy knot. Then, upon reflection, he takes the time to do it up properly out of respect for the little brown pouch on Xue Yang’s lap.

He sits cross-legged on the rocky ground as Xue Yang changes. Takes out his guqin, gently plucks a few strings.

The answer is clear, a thousand times stronger than Xiao Xingchen’s agonized murmur:

Meng Yao.

A glowing warmth suffuses Lan Xichen. Meng Yao. He’s always thought of A-Yao by that name, even after he’d received his courtesy name and title. Simple Meng Yao, the man who had risked everything to shelter him when he had nothing. Not Jin Guangyao, not Lianfang-zun, but his Meng Yao, his A-Yao, soft and welcoming and warm and bashful and giving.

And then, I didn’t think you would come for me.

Of course I came for you , he responds, then puts away his guqin out of fear of what A-Yao would respond to that.

He doesn’t realize how long he’s been sitting like that, eyes closed, one hand on the guqin, the other on the pouch, until Xue Yang touches his shoulder.

“Sun’s up, Zewu-jun,” he says. “We need to put distance between us and Qinghe. Can’t bring your friend back if we’re getting dragged back to Gusu by a dozen Nie meatheads.”

Lan Xichen doesn’t bother asking where they’re going. Xue Yang’s plan has worked so far. He just follows the delinquent cultivator through the mountains. Practically floats. It’s a different kind of drifting than before, though.

He examines the sensation. It takes a while before he finally realizes that it’s happiness, of a sort.

Rule 70: Do not be overly happy.

He laughs to himself. Xue Yang shoots him a curious look but doesn’t say anything. Uncharacteristically quiet, his friend seems to be lost in his own thoughts.

They meet several Lan cultivators on the road, obviously searching for someone, but they don’t recognize Lan Xichen and Xue Yang in their peasant getups.

“They’d never imagine the great Zewu-jun, fashion icon to thousands, would stoop to this ,” says Xue Yang, flicking a finger at Lan Xichen’s ragged tunic and trousers. They’re sitting in a roadside inn, not as much as a hellhole as they would have preferred, but so far no cultivators have entered. “I do wish you were a bit shorter, though, and still had your beard. Do you think the Lans roped the Nie beefeaters in on their hunt, after all?”

“For you, perhaps, but my uncle would never allow a whisper of my defection to leave the Cloud Recesses. They're probably simply affronted by our attack on the tomb's guards, with you getting the brunt of the blame.”

Xue Yang jerks a thumb in the direction of the qiankun pouch inside Lan Xichen’s tunic. By Xue Yang’s suggestion, he’s stashed the spirit-trapping pouch safely away in the qiankun bag. “Just remember, if I go down, so does he.”

Lan Xichen frowns. “I wouldn’t abandon you.”

“Good. Remember that I have the knowledge you need.”

Lan Xichen puts down his cup of what might be actual tea this time. “I wouldn’t abandon you, whether or not that were the case.”

Xue Yang sneers. “Is that a Lan Clan rule?”

Various elements of loyalty, fidelity, and gratitude are encompassed by a good five dozen rules, but Lan Xichen chooses to ignore that. “It’s my rule. Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

Xue Yang shrugs, idly picks up a piece of chicken with his chopsticks, examines it as if looking for bugs. “At least not until my usefulness runs out.”

“Xue Yang—”

Xue Yang shrugs again. “Don’t worry, my friend: I will make myself indispensable for as long as possible.”

Lan Xichen wonders just how strong the wine was. Xue Yang doesn’t speak for the rest of the meal.

Despite getting no sleep the night before, Lan Xichen lies awake a long time that night. He can stay awake for days by drawing on his golden core, but he doesn’t need to tonight. His heart is beating too fast for idle slumber , mind racing.

He takes A-Yao’s spirit-trapping out of his qiankun pouch and sets it on the bed beside him at eye-level. Traces the bloody symbols with his finger. Strokes the soft black tassels.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His voice catches in his throat. “I never should have doubted you. I’ll bring you back. I swear I’ll bring you back…”

* * *

“Where are we going, exactly?” he finally asks Xue Yang on the fourth day. They’re walking through the trees near the main road, keeping out of sight.

“Yueyang. We’ll arrive tomorrow.”

“Yueyang?” Something faint stirs in his memory. “Isn’t that where the Chang Clan lives?”

Xue Yang bows with exaggerated deference. “Zewu-jun is wise indeed.”

Lan Xichen smiles. “Why are we going there?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“…and?” Dealing with Xue Yang can be maddening sometimes. His flair for the dramatic and love of bantering is at complete odds with how Lan Xichen was taught to hold a conversation.

“You’ll find out once we’re there…” He makes a face when Lan Xichen raises his eyebrows. “All right, we’re going to pay Chang Ping a visit. He has something we want.”

“Something to bring Jin Guangyao back?”

“Wise. Most wise.”

“What about your…friend?”

Xue Yang unconsciously touches his qiankun sleeve. “We’ll get there, in time. But Jin Guangyao is the key.”

“You wouldn’t do anything that might harm Jin Guangyao—”

Xue Yang’s—Xiao Xingchen’s—fine black eyes are large and deer-like. “Zewu-jun—” He stops, as if too taken aback to respond. Instead he shakes his head. “Jin Guangyao’s spirit is whole,” he explains. “Xiao Xingchen’s spirit was shattered. Different methods are needed. Your friend was immersed in demonic cultivation towards the end of this life, and had access to books he didn’t let me near.”

“You think he hid those books?”

“No, but he remembered everything he saw, and I’m certain he knows something that can help Xiao Xingchen.”

Lan Xichen wants to tell him that this is a fragile hook to be hanging his hopes on, but doesn’t dare point that out to him and let it snap. The important thing is that Xue Yang is helping him get A-Yao back. And, he tells himself, he’s not taking advantage of the delinquent cultivator. Once he has A-Yao back, he, Lan Xichen, will do everything in his power to help return Xiao Xingchen to Xue Yang. From everything he’s ever heard about the rogue cultivator, Xiao Xingchen deserves a second chance at life.

“How exactly did it happen, anyway?” Xue Yang asks.

“Did what happen?” Lan Xichen is itching to get to an inn, take out the spirit-trapping pouch, tell A-Yao that they were close, so close to bringing him back—

“Jin Guangyao’s death, of course.”

It's like Xue Yang dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. Lan Xichen doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking until Xue Yang doubles back for him.

“His death?” Lan Xichen repeats.

“I need to know these things if we’re going to bring him back. The kind of death might affect the kind of spell we use, and besides, you don’t want me saying the wrong thing once he’s back, do you? I casually mention honey and find out he died after being stung to death by a horde of angry hornets—”

“You must already know what happened.” Lan Xichen finds that his feet are moving, but it’s as if someone outside him is making him walk, talk, breathe. He’s doubly desperate to sit down and take out A-Yao, but he and Xue Yang agreed not to handle the pouches unless within the safety of a locked room.

Xue Yang trots along beside him, voice low and sympathetic. “I know this is a painful subject, Zewu-jun, and believe me when I say I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to, but there are too many things that can go wrong.”

“He moved.” Lan Xichen’s voice is flat and toneless. “He moved.”

“Moved to…Koi Tower?”

“Moved. I told him not to move. I warned him. I told him not to move. I warned him. I warned him. Then—then that—that bastard —”

“Nie Huaisang?”

“—he told me A-Yao had moved. Made me think A-Yao was going to hurt me, and I—I believed him. Believed A-Yao would do me harm.” Lan Xichen’s voice is so thick he can barely push the words past his lips. “I stabbed him through the heart. Straight through the heart.”

“We ought to stop back in at Qinghe when we’re done,” says Xue Yang, “and take care of that fan-waving little plum blossom.”

“I told you, we’re not killing Nie Huaisang. Or anyone.”

Xue Yang tilts his head. “You mean anyone else .”

Lan Xichen has stopped walking again. “What do you mean?”

There’s something catlike about Xue Yang that he’s never noticed before, but his companion’s voice couldn’t be softer, couldn’t be gentler, almost as if he’s impersonating Xiao Xingchen again. “Nothing, Zewu-jun,” he says, bowing. “I was just thinking of Jin Guangyao. My apologies. It was uncalled for. ”

Lan Xichen doesn’t remember much after that, too focused on the thought of what is to come. They must have had a conversation about stopping, but he can’t recall it as he later lies on his cot, stroking A-Yao’s soft warm spirit-trapping pouch. Can’t recall eating the evening meal, or coming up the stairs, or taking off his tunic or shoes or letting his hair down, but he must have at some point.

He presses his forehead to the spirit-trapping pouch on the pillow beside him. Inside is A-Yao—Meng Yao. Not Jin Guangyao. Not Lianfang-zun.

Meng Yao.

Not the man he had stabbed through the heart with twelve inches of ice-cold steel, but Meng Yao.

It takes all of his strength to turn away from the pouch and roll over onto his back, limbs filled with mortar. Who is he fooling? No matter what name A-Yao went by, all four of them were the same person.

He had killed Meng Yao. Not Jin Guangyao, not Lianfang-zun. Meng Yao.

His Meng Yao.

He’d believed everyone’s slander, he’d believed A-Yao’s own words of self-reprobation, he’d believed that A-Yao—A-Yao!—could have ever meant him harm.

“But never have I ever thought about doing you harm!”

He dreams that night of floating, not quite flying. Floating over a river of blood streaming from his sword, with A-Yao’s hat bobbing in the current.

He wakes up numb. Dresses, fixes his hair with nerveless fingers. Gets a shave. Is too nervous to eat. Doesn’t hear a word Xue Yang says as they leave the inn and head down the road towards the Chang Manor.

“I’ve been thinking,” says Xue Yang. “—Zewu-jun? Are you listening?”

With a tremendous effort, Lan Xichen turns his attention towards Xue Yang.

“I’ve been wondering if you should dress in your Zewu-jun getup, or not. I figure that—”

“Yes.”

“Yes—?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t know how to explain that he wants to look presentable for A-Yao. He remembers how Xue Yang had put on his best clothes for Inquiry at the Cloud Recesses and hopes he’ll figure it out on his own.

Xue Yang smiles. “I understand. But on the off-chance something goes wrong, we don’t want it known that Zewu-jun was there.”

A surge of desperation. “I won’t wear my ribbon or give my real name. Although—you’re only getting in on the strength of Xiao Xingchen’s name, and the people after us know we’re traveling together.”

Xue Yang sighs. “I suppose they would have figured we came this way sooner or later, after tonight.”

“Is whatever you're planning absolutely necessary? If it will give us away…”

An odd look creeps over Xue Yang’s face. “It’s Chang Ping or nobody.” He turns away slightly. “Do what you want about your clothes.”

In the end, Lan Xichen puts on the best robes he brought, dressing while hidden in a copse of cypress trees up the road from the Chang Manor while Xue Yang puts on the green-and-white robes he arrived at the Cloud Recesses in.

They’re let into the manor soon after Xue Yang sends in Xiao Xingchen’s name. The grounds are dark and empty, very quiet and very still.

“Where is everyone?” Xue Yang asks the servant as they’re led through the courtyard into the discussion hall.

“The great Phoenix Mountain hunt, daozhang.”

The servant’s words pierce Lan Xichen’s numb shell. If Chang Ping isn’t here, their entire trip was for nothing—

“And, of course, Clan Leader Chang avoids Koi Tower as much as possible since that sickening miscarriage of justice,” says Xue Yang.

The servant ducks her head. Xue Yang winks at Lan Xichen.

He must have known Chang Ping would be mostly alone, thinks Lan Xichen, and he knows this should alarm him but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Please don’t tell anyone else about our visit,” Xue Yang tells the servant. “It is of a highly sensitive nature.”

“It’s just my husband and I right now, daozhang,” bows the servant. “Clan Leader Chang is not a fussy man.”

“Or a rich man,” says Xue Yang, glancing around the room after the servant hustles out. “This place was a lot nicer sixteen years ago.”

“What are you going to do to him, exactly?”

Xue Yang’s face is serene, but there’s something decidedly unquiet flickering in his eyes. “Nothing he doesn’t deserve.”

Lan Xichen winces. “Yes, but—”

Xue Yang unwinds the bandages covering his hand and rips off his glove with his teeth.

His left hand is a mass of scars, as if the original wounds that had once covered it had been badly infected at some point. The delicate bones along the back had healed all wrong, crooked and painful-looking. Worst of all is his little finger. It’s missing from the first joint, a ragged stump, looking as if—as if it had been bitten off with small weak teeth.

“He did this to you?”

Xue Yang is staring straight ahead. “I was seven.”

“Xue Yang, I’m—”

“Don’t.” He tugs his glove back on. “I don’t care about my hand anymore. But he’s the one responsible for Xiao Xingchen’s death—”

Chang Ping bustles in before Lan Xichen can ask questions. “Xiao Xingchen! I did not expect to see the daozhang again.” He makes ridiculously large gestures as he bows, sleeves flapping. He’s small and fat and, despite what the servant had said, quite fussy-looking. He has a rather unfortunate beard and mustache combination and reminds Lan Xichen of Wangji’s pet rabbits. “And—ah—Zewu-jun! What an unexpected honor!”

That’s right. Chang Ping tends to avoid Cultivation Conferences, but they’d met once before at Lotus Pier.

Chang Ping seats himself on his seat of office. His eyes dart to Lan Xichen’s face, observing the lack of forehead ribbon, but he’s too polite to ask about it. “What can your humble servant do for Zewu-jun and the esteemed daozhang?”

“Funny Clan Leader Chang should ask,” says Xue Yang, calm again. He bows low. His glove is still exposed, but he’s in full Xiao Xingchen mode, down to his posture and the way he holds his head. “There is something I need.”

Chang Ping ducks his head slightly. “Of course, my good daozhang. Anything for you.”

“Anything other than putting that crazed monster in the ground, you mean.”

Chang Ping blinks, his watery pink-rimmed eyes bulging even farther out of his head. “I beg your pardon, daozhang?”

“Xue Yang. You let him go.”

Chang Ping’s obsequious smile freezes on his face. “I beg your pardon?”

Lan Xichen senses something different in Xue Yang’s voice. It’s Xiao Xingchen’s voice—there’s not a trace of Xue Yang’s teasing, overly casual tones—but there’s a harshness to it belonging to neither Xue Yang or his usual Xiao Xingchen impression. A metallic tang, a brittle bitterness.

“You let Xue Yang go,” Xue Yang repeats. He’s slowly walking— gliding —back and forth in front of Chang Ping, a leopard stalking its prey. There’s a certain poise, a slight arch to his back, a grace to his step that Xue Yang perhaps intentionally lacks when he’s not Xiao Xingchen. “And do you know what that lowlife bastard did?”

Chang Ping licks his lips nervously. “Daozhang, you know I had no choice! My clan was in ruins; I needed the Jin Clan’s support—”

Shuanghua flies through the air, plunging deep into the chair cushion beside Chang Ping’s head. “ ‘No choice’?”

Chang Ping shrinks away from the blade. “I—I had a duty to my clan!”

“What clan? They were all dead! Wiped out by that maniac!”

“Not—not all—”

Xue Yang is up on the dais, retrieving Xiao Xingchen’s sword. At Chang Ping’s words, he grabs the clan leader by the collar and throws him down the dais’ steps, floating gracefully down after him like a flower petal on the breeze.

“Do you know what that monster did?” he repeats. His foot is on Chang Ping’s bulbous Adam’s apple. “Slaughtered my partner’s entire temple, blinded him for no reason other than his own petty revenge and amusement—”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I had a duty to my clan—”

Xue Yang stabs down with Shuanghua, skewering Chang Ping’s hand. “You wanted to be a clan leader—” He twists the blade, tearing the wound open, separating the bones in the back of the clan leader's hand.

Tears of pain stream down Chang Ping’s face. “I had to honor my father—”

“By setting free the man who exterminated his family?” Xue Yang walks around the quivering man, trailing the bloody sword tip over the stone floor with a scraping sound that sets Lan Xichen’s teeth on edge. “Not that he deserved your honor. Your father was as much a monster as Xue Yang. Chang Cian’s entire bloodline deserves to be wiped out!”

“Please! Please don’t! I did what I thought best—”

“You did what you thought best for you.” Xue Yang crouches before Chang Ping, grabs him by the throat and jerks the cowering clan leader’s head up so he’s forced to meet his eye. “You blinded my partner,” he says in a flat, toneless voice. “I gave him my own eyes, and then I met him , and because I couldn’t see I let him stay, and it’s all your fault— everything that happened; all your fault —”

Chang Ping’s face is a mask of fear and confusion. “I—I think you might have the wrong—”

“It’s all your fault, you and your whole tainted bloodline—”

Lan Xichen slips out of the room. He knows Chang Ping must be screaming, but Xue Yang obviously learned a silencing spell while at the Cloud Recesses, because Lan Xichen feels an energy barrier springing up around the room as soon as he exits and hears nothing.

The servant from earlier is waiting nearby.

“I need writing materials,” he tells her.

Bowing, she leads him to what appears to be Chang Ping’s study.

Lan Xichen settles down before the table. “Please go tell your husband to pack your bags. Return in ten minutes for the letter. Thank you.”

“Zewu-jun?”

“I discussed it with your master. Hurry!”

She hustles out.

Lan Xichen picks up the brush and removes a folded section of paper from the carved wooden stationary box on the desk.

The letter is ready when the servant returns with her husband and a little girl, traveling packs slung over their shoulders.

“Go straight to the Cloud Recesses in Gusu. Deliver this letter to the Chief Cultivator, and the Chief Cultivator only. This letter is for Lan Qiren, and Lan Qiren only. Take this as well.” He passes them a purse full of silver pieces. “Speak to nobody along the way. Now go!”

“With all due respect, Zewu-jun, we ought to see our master first—”

“If you do not go now,” Lan Xichen says, “you will never leave this place at all.”

He doesn’t think they quite pick up on what he means, but they hurry out. He follows them, making sure they leave, waiting outside the manor as they disappear up the road leading to Yueyang.

He remains on the side of the road for a bit, breathing in the crisp night air. The stars are particularly bright tonight, the moon full. He has a sudden urge to strip off his robes, stretch out middle of the road and bathe in the starlight. Be fresh and clean and glowing when A-Yao sees him again.

His heart beats faster at the thought.

A-Yao.

For reasons he can’t explain he feels suddenly like walking down the road, walking until his legs give out, walking off the edge of the world, leaving everything in this one behind, dissipating into a cloud of starlight.

Ridiculous. Just because he let Xue Yang execute a man who thoroughly deserved it is no reason to feel—feel unworthy of A-Yao’s return.

He turns quickly and heads back into the manor.

“A-Yao. A-Yao.” He repeats the name to himself, focusing on the word’s warmth on his lips. “A-Yao. A-Yao…”

“Not if you don’t get back in here.” Xue Yang is leaning against the door to the ancestral hall, himself again. “Where did you run off to?” He’s grinning broadly, eyes bright. Too bright. Shuanghua gleams in his hand, wet with blood. “The main event is about to begin.”

* * *

Chang Ping deserved it, Lan Xichen reminds himself. Over and over. Chang Ping deserved it. Chang Ping deserved it…

The clan leader’s naked body is hanging from ropes attached to a ceiling beam, a bucket set directly beneath his feet. The body is swaying slightly, as if Xue Yang gave it a playful push before going to wait for Lan Xichen. The corpse is a mass of pulpy red and oozing pink, exposed bone and ruptured fat and flayed muscle, an inhuman horror glistening wetly in the lamplight.

Chang Ping’s eyes are missing.

“Not bad, if I do say so myself.” Xue Yang is cleaning his blade with Chang Ping’s robes. “Considering how out of practice I am.”

“Did you have to—have to—”

“Give him the full experience?” Xue Yang laughs. His laugh is a bit too high and a bit too long. “I needed that resentful energy, my friend. Do you think I enjoyed torturing the good Chang Ping?”

Lan Xichen looks at Xue Yang’s left hand.

Xue Yang wags a finger at him. “What his father did to me had nothing to do with any of this. But believe me when I say he was just as guilty.”

“His father? I thought it was Chang Ping who…” Lan Xichen remembers what Xue Yang said about Chang Ping’s involvement in Xiao Xingchen’s death. “Never mind. What do you need the resentful energy for?”

Xue Yang points to the floor beneath the swinging corpse. Drawn in blood on the floor is a large, complicated array, with a new-looking spirit-trapping pouch near the bucket. “Three guesses. Now, I’ll be back in just a minute...Have you seen that servant woman?”

“I sent the servants away.”

The grin slips from Xue Yang’s face. “You what?”

“I sent them away.”

Xue Yang is staring fixedly at a spot just behind Lan Xichen. “And why did you do that? Pang of conscience?”

“I needed someone to deliver a letter to my brother. That’s all.”

“Suicide note?”

“Suicide is forbidden—”

Xue Yang jerks a thumb at the corpse. “So is murder.”

Lan Xichen swallows hard. “I could never do that to my family, or demean the gift of life given to me.”

Xue Yang keeps staring at that invisible spot, then bursts out laughing again. “We’ll get there eventually,” he says, shaking his head.

“What do you mean?”

Xue Yang pats his arm. “Not the suicide, my friend. Don’t worry. I want you whole and healthy. I’m talking about your sticking your nose in with the servants. It was my own fault. I thought you…ah, never mind. We have time. We have time.”

Lan Xichen moves out of arm-patting range. “Time for what?”

“Time to bring back your friend, of course .” Xue Yang sheaths Xiao Xingchen’s sword in the scabbard strapped to his back. “The pouch, please.”

“You mean—”

Xue Yang is grinning again. “I told you this would be worth it.”

Lan Xichen doesn’t remember him having said that, or given him any forewarning about what he’d done to Chang Ping, but he’s too nervous to think about it.

Xue Yang takes A-Yao’s spirit-trapping pouch from him delicately, holding it with as much care as if Xiao Xingchen himself had been inside the pouch. “Your hand.”

Lan Xichen extends his hand. Xue Yang uses his needlessly large knife to prick open the now-healed little wound he’d made back at the tomb, using his blood to create a number of talismans, which he hangs on Chang Ping’s body.

Then he picks up the new spirit-trapping pouch from the floor and takes a curved, palm-sized chunk of black-and-gray metal out of his sleeve. He grips it in the same hand as the new spirit-trapping pouch and A-Yao’s pouch, black smoke pouring off the metal piece and curling around the pouches.

Lan Xichen’s eyes widen. “That’s—”

Xue Yang puts a playful finger to his lips. “We know what it is.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry. I don’t use it often enough to go the way of Wen Ruohan or Wei Wuxian. I don’t want to lose my mind any more than the next person wants me to.”

“But—”

“Do you want me to continue or not?”

Lan Xichen ducks his head and steps back.

The black smoke twines around Xue Yang’s fingers. He sends the chunk of metal at the body, drawing a rapid-fire sequence of glowing red symbols in the air, then opens the new spirit-trapping pouch.

A blast of resentful energy escapes the bag, so potent that Lan Xichen is sent flying across the room. So Xue Yang had trapped Chang Ping’s resentful energy in the new pouch—

Xue Yang reaches for the metal, releasing a second burst of dark energy so powerful that Lan Xichen loses consciousness.

He awakens almost immediately. Sits up and looks around, heart beating wildly.

Xue Yang is kneeling before Chang Ping’s body, not in an act of contrition but as if using the…the chunk of metal had taken more out of him than expected.

But Lan Xichen barely notices him. His eyes are riveted on the naked, shivering figure lying curled up inside the array.

Lan Xichen rises, trembling, and takes a few shaky steps towards the small white figure.

“…A-Yao?”

Up Next: The final chapter! Things come to a head.

Or: The night sky sure is pretty and stars are cool.

Chapter 7

[somuchnonsense]

“Flufftober” Drabbles 5-9

The sarcasm quotes are there because I’m using the Flufftober prompt list but some of these are definitely not fluff. Drabbles 1-4 here.

5. Sweet    (canon Xue Yang gen)

In a better world, someone saw a young Xue Yang starving on the streets and gave him food, steamed buns to fill his stomach and all the sweets he could want to finish off his meal. Someone saw a little boy, scared and alone with nowhere to go, and brought him home, gave him a place to live where he could be safe and in good company. Someone saw a child who had never learned how to love and showed him that he could be loved and wanted, and that he could love in return instead of hurting.

In this world, a young man who suffered and made others suffer far worse than he ever did, a man whose chance at redemption arrived far too late, dies with a spoiled candy clenched in his fist.

6. Pillows    (pre-canon WWX gen)

When Wei Wuxian was orphaned and alone on the streets, he mostly wished for food enough to fill his belly or a house to keep him warm on cold winter nights. Sometimes, he saw children walking with their parents and longed for the love and security of a mother and father to watch over him. He only just barely remembered having that himself, but he pined for it all the same.

What he never thought about on those nights sleeping outside, cold and hungry and alone, what he never realized he was missing until he came to live in Lotus Pier was pillows, or the softness of a well-padded bed or a thick, warm blanket. Jiang Cheng, sleeping across the room from him, takes that comfort for granted, but for Wei Wuxian, it’s the height of luxury to curl up on this cozy bed in a warm, clean room and not have to want for anything. He can scarcely believe his luck, to be plucked off the streets and brought to this, and he can scarcely believe that he’ll get to keep it, but he’ll enjoy it for all he’s worth while it lasts.

Wei Wuxian never forgets—and it serves him well in later years—how to live with discomfort, how to sleep anywhere and eat whatever he can find, how to be alone and push through fear. But he also never forgets to enjoy the good things in life: a comfortable bed, a well-cooked meal, strong and delicious wine, and the precious company of those he loves.

7. A First Time    (post-canon Wangxian feelings)

“Stop.” Lan Wangji’s voice is quiet, calm, and firm.

“Stop what?” Wei Wuxian laughs, but a little nervously, unsure what he’s done to bother his husband.

“Stop talking that way,” Lan Wangji elaborates, which clarifies nothing to Wei Wuxian.

“What way? Too many hand gestures?” Wei Wuxian waves his hands around exaggeratedly.

“Stop blaming yourself for other people’s actions. Stop talking as though it’s your responsibility to save the world and your failure if you don’t.” Lan Wangji’s voice is still quiet, but earnest and sure of what he’s saying.

Wei Wuxian’s laugh is significantly more awkward now. “Lan Zhan, I wasn’t…” Lan Wangji’s eyes fix on him, seeing right through all the walls he has up, and Wei Wuxian gives up on trying to deny it. He doesn’t know what to say instead, so they lapse into silence.

Lan Wangji comes to stand in front of him, his gaze even more piercing up close. “You are enough,” he says. “More than enough.”

Wei Wuxian is so incredibly uncomfortable and so overwhelmed with love that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s wanted to hear those words, on some subconscious level, for a very long time, but that doesn’t mean he can handle actually hearing them. “Lan Zhan, you can’t just…”

“I can.” There’s a softness to Lan Wangji’s expression now, almost a smile, and Wei Wuxian hides his face in Lan Wangji’s shoulder because it’s all just too much for him. Lan Wangji says nothing, only wraps his arms securely around him, and that, Wei Wuxian thinks, is enough.

8. Laughter    (post-canon Wangxian)

Lan Wangji never laughs outright, but Wei Wuxian has learned to read the signs: the little twinkles in his eyes or the crinkles at their corners, the most marginal upturn of his lips that tells him Lan Wangji is amused by something—often at Wei Wuxian’s expense.

It always makes him smile when he sees it, even when Lan Wangji is laughing at him. He never could have imagined, once upon a time, that he'd be able to recognize so much emotion in Lan Wangji's inexpressive face, let alone that he'd see Lan Wangji fondly laughing at him. It makes him happier than he can explain, makes him want to be extra silly or even embarrass himself on purpose just to get that kind of reaction from Lan Wangji. And it makes him feel very lucky that he’s gotten to know Lan Wangji well enough to understand him in a way so few people do, and that he gets to have Lan Wangji by his side, happily looking (and laughing) at him.

9. Rain    (CQL canon Wangxian)

Lan Wangji’s umbrella protects him from the cold rain, but he feels as though it’s pounding down onto him anyway as he stands before Wei Wuxian and the Wen prisoners on their horses. Wei Wuxian’s words hit him as hard as any rain and chill him as surely as if he were soaked through.

They both want to protect others and do what’s right. They both knew, or should have known, that imprisoning and killing the defenseless remnants of the Wen Sect was wrong. But only Wei Wuxian out of all the cultivators in the major and minor sects is willing to stand against it now, not caring what it means for him.

For all their teachings about right and wrong, the Lan Sect has been willing to stand by and let innocents die—and Lan Wangji has been too. How much are all their lofty morals worth if they can justify treating small children and weary old grandmothers as the enemy? How can it be right to condemn Wei Wuxian, who is only trying to help when no one else will?

It sends a far deeper chill into Lan Wangji’s bones when Wei Wuxian offers to fight him—when he says, in essence, that he will accept being killed by Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian is rebelling against the cultivation world, but he will still accept Lan Wangji’s judgment. It seems that he’s saying, on some level, that if Lan Wangji believes he’s in the wrong, it must be true, a level of trust that Lan Wangji had no idea he had earned from Wei Wuxian.

His uncle would tell him that Wei Wuxian deserves to die. “Do not befriend the evil,” the Lan Sect rules say. But Wei Wuxian is looking at him with such determination and such trust, and Lan Wangji can’t accept that he’s evil, or that what he’s doing is wrong. He can’t bring himself to help, but he can step back to let Wei Wuxian and the others past, and he can hope that they’ll be safe.

As Lan Wangji is left alone, dropping his umbrella to let the rain fall on him at last, he wishes that he could be as brave as Wei Wuxian, as certain that what he’s doing is right and as determined to do it. He also realizes, with a shock even colder than the rain, what he already knew in his heart: that he could never kill Wei Wuxian, no matter what he does. But he can’t keep him either, and so he can only stand there in the dark, alone, long after Wei Wuxian is gone.

[boxoftheskyking]

This is why you should watch the Untamed

TO BEGIN WITH:

“In this time of uncertainty” (to quote a Bud Light commercial), what you want is something with enough episodes to get invested in, enough characters to occupy your thoughts and feelings, things to cry about but also plenty of sweetness and goofiness. So here is my list:

(I’m only on Episode 40 and I didn’t think very much before making this list)

(I did not expect to really like this show as much as I do and I look forward to rewatching it as soon as I am finished which I actually rarely do)

-50 episodes, 40 min each, so it’s enough to take up a good chunk of time, but it’s done so you don’t have to wait for another season.

-Equal parts wacky supernatural shit, Mysteries, and devastating Medieval tragedy (I could go on and on with Arthurian Parallels bc that’s a thing I sometimes study but I won’t right now)

-Tendernessss so much tenderness

-Everybody gets an arc! It’s well done.

-Xiao zhan’s face (Look, it was a gifset of WWX smiling that made me watch the show in the first place and I am not ashamed. that’s just good marketing.) (Also, as we say the biz, the guy’s got Genuine Chops.)

-So many stairs

-I don’t know if that’s a selling point for you but there are just so many stairs

-Listen you hear a lot about how they had to deal with censorship so they adapated a Very Explicitly Queer novel into something No Explicitly Queer. Which is true. But speaking as an American, this is more Queer Romance than I’ve seen on TV in a while (Also you can find translations of the novel online and they Bang A Lot)

-You will learn interesting linguistic things. And that helps stave off dementia

-Every family is a found family

-Everyone pretends to be stoic but no one actually is

-Does not pull punches when it comes to dark and upsetting plotlines. I used to compare it to Merlin bc of delightful magical intrigue but it is Not for Children

-Every 10 episodes the tone changes entirely but then as soon as you're lulled back into This is Fun it gives you something tremendously distressing

-Sets up an interesting political and magical structure so your hero can challenge it

-An actual villain’s-not-such-a-villain story (K*lo Ren wishes he were WWX)

All my fave fanfic tropes including: -very sober character gets very drunk and shows emotion. Also a  Chicken heist. -accidental baby acquisition -build your home out of Nothing -everyone is Devoted to someone and it's so painful

-Weird magic involving nails to the brain

-So much self sacrifice!

-Complicated feelings about Nemeses

-You can carry a ghost in a bag

-Everyone can fly

-Everyone is Beautiful

-That one time the kid’s jaw drops and a piece of chicken splats down into his bowl and the other kids picks it up and shoves it back in his mouth that shit was hilarious

-Supervillain whose main motivation is candy?

-Lotsa zombies

-A+ production design, everything is beautiful

-Great fake blood work

-Terrible cgi

-Wei wuxian’s little paper doll talismans!!!

-Immensely romantic. I cannot express the levels of romance

Things to know (thank you to everyone who explained to this foolish American blogger):

-there are time jumps. Kind of like the Witcher, you have to stick with it to put it all together. But it does tell you when it's jumping

-Wei Wuxian = wwx = Wei Ying = Yiling Patriarch = ends up in Mo Xuanyu's body A creature of chaos and sunshine. To quote that line from the Mummy script, You are Going to Fall in Love with Him. He's not really evil he's doing his best. Mad bisexual icon which means I identify too much (as a mad bisexual myself)

-Lan Wangji = lwj = Lan Zhan = Hanguan Jun Has a lot of feelings once you know how to look for them. You know those old folk tales where the hero's love dies and they sit by the grave and turn into a tree? That's him. Likes rabbits. Extremely wistful.

-Jiang Wanyin = Jiang Cheng Full of rage. I yell at him a lot

-Jiang Yanli = Shijie To pure for any world. Belongs in the bon appetit test kitchen, not on a battlefield

-Wen Ning = the ghost general A baby who is also a demon. Deserves better. Runs on devotion

-Wen Qing She’ll fuck you up but you'll deserve it. The bro to end all bros

-A-Yuan = I'm not telling A baby/a turnip

-Lan Sizhui A good boy

-Jing Ling = Jin Rulan A little shit. Could use one (1) good ass kicking for character development reasons

-Nie Huaisang Not Cut Out For This, but a bro who will lend you his good porn. So.

-Mianmian Underappreciated in her Time

-Song Zichen = Song Lan & Xiao Xingchen

Don't talk to me, I hurt. The original Danger Gays

-Xue Yang A Problem

-A-Jing A little shit. Deserves better

-i can't remember all of Yao's names but he’s a shifty lil fuck I don't trust for one minute

That’s all I can think of right now but give it a try. You’ll have fun and then around ep 16 you’ll realize how invested you’ve become

Also the fic is bomb as hell

[grapefruitsketches]

Ever Since You’ve Gone Away

My second fill for the Songxiao Reverse Itty Bitty Bang 2020, hosted by @touchmycoat.

Inspired by @StinaKaarina’s beautiful art on twitter at StinaKaarina/status/1305647328234278913 (hyperlink in reblog - just trying to make sure tumblr will show this in the tags lol).

Rated T, 1,865 Words, canon compliant, Songxiao, Grief/Mourning, post-Yi City, Angst

Also available on AO3 (see link in reblog)

Roam this world with Shuanghua. Exorcise evil beings alongside Xingchen.

That had been what he had told Hanguang-jun and Wei-gongzi.

Now all that was left was to do just that.

The extra blade at his back and the two spirit pouches at his waist weighed heavily on him.

He had left that city behind weeks ago. And now he only had the entire world ahead.

The action was familiar.

One step, and then another.

Enough steps brought him from one town to another.

Each town brought him from one day to another.

The days then turned to months which became years.

He could see that journey before him, just the same as the one that lay behind him.

Each journey, before and behind, brought maybes. Different in the ways that maybes differ between a journey to and a journey from. Woulds and hads. Shoulds and shouldn’ts.

Maybe he would apologize right away, shout it aloud without a thought the moment he laid eyes on him again.

Maybe if he had eaten just one more meal on the road instead of sitting down, maybe if he had saved just a few extra moments somewhere in those six long years.

Maybe he should wait, find out where he is staying, and then just be casually sitting in the inn’s dining room the next morning, just within view of the stairs coming down, but he would be facing away, letting Xingchen see him first, and greet him casually, like an old friend, one he was spotted.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so impulsive and instead only approached once the villain had left.

Maybe if he’d just, in all that time, figured out what he wanted to say, maybe then he would have had the chance to say it.

But he never had.

And so, fittingly, it never mattered.

Now, he walked through the world in a state of numbness. It was strange, readjusting to having control over his own body, his own mind. It had been so long, and far too late, before he’d regained it. He touched the spirit pouches at his side, feeling no response. He passively noted the wind on his face, the biting cold as he approached - then steered away from - the places he had known when he was young. Recognized but was unmoved by the smell of the sea. Noticed how one terrain shifted to the next, the clattering of stone to the crunch of dry grass.

He wondered if it was strange that he hadn’t wept yet. It felt almost as though his grief had been so large, so bottled up, for so many years, pinned inside by the spikes in his neck, that it had congealed, hardened, become stuck. There was a part of him that revelled in this. Like a confirmation that this was not his to mourn. The one thought echoing in his head eternally as he set the pouches by the side of whatever inn or makeshift bed he had each night: They might have been alive if you had just left them alone. Or if you had done one thing, any one thing, differently.

--

Xingchen carried with him the weight of many choices. Of many options he’d been offered. He had taken the wrong path every time. Every time but one.

He’d been given the choice to stay with his sect - to continue to cultivate on that lonely peak, a place that kept him safe from the world and the world from him.

He’d chosen to leave.

He’d been given the choice to wander alone, to maintain the sense of distance his Master had so emphasized.

He’d chosen to befriend, grow close to, fall for Zichen.

He’d been given the choice to give up the chase, or if he chose to single-mindedly pursue the murderer, to see it to the end.

He’d chosen to relax too soon, to never give up the chase but still let the man slip from their grasps.

But the one regret he didn’t have, even now living in this small and slowly shrinking city, was when he’d been given the choice to undo what he could, to correct some, even if not all, of the missteps that he’d taken.

He’d given up his eyes and given up his closest companion. Xingchen could not give back the family that his choices had taken from Zichen, but he’d done what he could to right the damage he’d brought.

And this he would never regret.  

--

Song Lan had had plenty of opportunity to think about death. His parents, who had passed when he was a child. His sect taken so brutally from him. But he had never connected the concept of death with him, with Xingchen. So full of life, so eager to explore, to learn, to live. How had Song Lan not seen though? Seen that beneath all that joy, that life, the thing that came first every time, was a willingness to give himself up for the sake of just about anything or anyone else. To fulfill any request, relieve any burden, no matter how small it was, no matter how much it would hurt him. He would give it up easily.

His childhood mountain home.

His eyes.

His friend, his soulmate, his partner who should have been there just as much for him.

All relinquished without fight. Without complaint. Each time it was asked of him, each time he had something to give. To make the world whole even if it meant disassembling himself into spare parts.

And once all that was gone, once he’d given up every element that might have protected him from the villain Song Lan knew, had known, would track his every movement, would take advantage of any weakness, the villain had caught up with Xingchen. Xingchen was told to give up his hope for a better world, that he might be someone who could help bring it into existence. It was the one thing that had driven Xingchen his whole life, and Xingchen was asked to release it. And as he was asked, so he did.

--

Xingchen let himself cry sometimes, let himself feel the losses that he’d sustained. But they always came with a feeling of guilt, then a time of reconsideration, recontextualization, then finally peace.

He’d made his choices, and paid the costs.

He had a small family now, who could never replace the man he had lost, but a family who he cared for all the same. He should be grateful. And so he made it so.

--

The first time Song Lan managed to shed tears was not for his soulmate, but for the other pouch he carried.

He wondered what she might have been like. He remembered her vibrancy, her protectiveness over her Daozhang, from even the brief moments he’d known her. She had been unable to save her Daozhang in the end, however hard she tried, but she had certainly saved Song Lan’s life, and the lives of all the other visitors to Yi City as well.

He was glad that Xingchen had had her, at least. But another part of him chastised himself for not wishing that she had never had the misfortune of falling into this mess.

Though in the end, what did his wishes matter? Even if he had once had the chance to have any positive influence on her or Xingchen’s life, he had long squandered it - throwing it away like it was nothing. In anger. In grief. Not thinking once - not until it was far too late at least - how his words would be received, would reverberate through the rest of his life.

He set her spirit pouch down on the table.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say. But it did not matter that he couldn’t speak the words. She wouldn’t hear them anyway. Where words would not, could not be enough, the tears flowed.

On his better days, he would imagine what Xingchen and a-Qing’s routine might have looked like during those short happy years during which they had lived like family. He never acknowledged any third member to that small household, still recoiling at the mere thought of just how long it had taken that monster to spin his web. Just how delicate the netting had been. Just how easily Song Lan - had he just been there sooner - could have easily swatted it away, before it was too late.

He didn’t think about Xue Yang.

Instead, he pictured Xingchen and a-Qing. How they may have cooked together. The things Xingchen would have tried to teach her - meditation, sword formations, calligraphy. How there were things he would want to teach her. He pictured them playing the old childish hand games that Xingchen had told him all of Baoshan Sanren’s disciples played, that Xingchen had been so excited to teach him. Song Lan almost laughed to himself at the memory before he caught himself. Stopped himself.

He had known her only a short while - at least, only a short while as himself. He didn’t dare to scrutinize his memories as a puppet too closely. But he had liked her, and understood why Xingchen would have taken an instant liking to her as well. She was charming, a bit of an outcast, but plucky and resourceful, never letting whatever her past must have been take her down.

She was a lot like Xingchen in that way, he thought

--

Eleven years ago, Xiao Xingchen walked through a small town. He had been wandering alone for six years and was content with that fact. It was as it should be – it was the way he could do the least harm, bring the least misfortune on others.

But he ran into a child.

She was smart, talented, quick. She could survive on her own and sometimes seemed to prefer it that way, but she had let Xingchen into her life. She offered a rare sort of trust that Xingchen didn’t take lightly. Especially since the last time someone had trusted him that way, he had let him down spectacularly.

But six years had passed since then. Maybe it was time… maybe he could be allowed… to accept another’s trust again?

The child chastised him, questioned his strange habits without ever letting that cast doubt on her affection for him. Tried to make sure no harm fell on him even though his wellbeing was a burden no one else should try to carry.

She was a lot like Zichen in that way, he thought.

--

Song Lan wandered, hoping his roaming would nurture the two spirits. Healing them was the absolute least he could do to start to repay what he had cost them, and what they had given willingly to him.

Song Lan felt so very old. So tired. But despite that, he took one step, and then another. Dealt with one haunting, and then the next. Because he was not old. Because he was still so horribly young. And so he had to keep going, to follow the long road ahead, tackling the ghosts that meant harm, and keeping the ghosts that had meant well by his side. Hoping, maybe, it would mean something, even if it could never be enough.