#ye baiyi/rong changqing

[tbgkaru-woh]

few updated pictures for prints :D

[candidsoup]

So I know Word of Honor has several iconic scenes that made people go, "Wow, I can't believe this was allowed past censorship!", but I feel like no one talks about this one!! And I think it's actually one of the more surprising ones!!

At the end of episode 12, Zhou Zishu reveals to everyone at the table (Cao Weining, Wen Kexing, and Gu Xiang) that he's terminally ill (in addition to talking about traveling with his zhiji, wink wink). Early in episode 13, Cao Weining waxes poetic about love, and how emotional he is, and we get this scene. THIS SCENE very, very, very overtly puts Zhou Zishu's and Wen Kexing's relationship in the same context as (a hypothetical heterosexual) marriage. And Gu Xiang's response of, "Oh, you mean my master and ... Zhou Xu? They do look good together." I mean..... lmao.

By the way, the show hints at Ye Baiyi's past with his unrequited love, Rong Changqing throughout, but one thing I noticed on rewatch is that he is introduced later in this same episode. The same episode with Cao Weining's speech about the sword and the scabbard, we meet this man with a sword he carries in a cloth wrap... he's missing the original scabbard... (it was originally Rong Changqing's sword...) (I cry...)

(Note: I must mention the word translated as "soulmate" doesn't necessarilyyyy mean anything romantic, and so Cao Weining calling Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing soulmates (zhiji) is the LEAST surprising thing about the scene)

[vanilla-phantoms]

So hear me out. Yknow ye baiyi and rong changqing. What if yby gets hanahaki but when he becomes immortal it doesn’t cure it it just means that it can’t kill him, and so yby has this progressive terrible disease that gets far worse than it would be capable of getting in a normal living person, and he continues to have it even after rcq dies

[sadfishkid]

龙背

[snarkspawn]

yea I'm late but I swear I started it on day 4: white

[omgpurplefattie]

These are the stories of some people, all more or less queer, that live their lives in the City, are all interconnected (either as friends or as rivals) and go through both fun and difficult times together.

This modern AU for several historical and/or wuxia c-dramas is set in some large globalised city adjacent to the Sinosphere, or at least with a very sizeable Chinese diaspora. I don't know enough about Taipeh, and Singapore is out of the question for reasons, so I'm just calling it The City and shall leave it at that. It has everything a city needs -- a university, high-rises, an IKEA, internet cafés, a gay scene, corruption in the building sector, an airport, and young edgy artists. It's hot there in the summer, very rainy in autumn (think typhoons, the way they tend to interrupt life in Japan) and temperate in winter. In this place, characters from

Word of Honor

The Untamed

A League of Nobleman

Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Sleuth of Ming Dynasty

and some more that are a bit blink-and-you-miss it,

are living their modern, non-magical lives which I am following along in this series.

The main parts are "A Matter of Priorities" (Rong Changqing/Ye Baiyi from Word of Honor / Tian Ya Ke) and "Detoxify" (Li Lianhua/Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing from Mysterious Lotus Casebook), but everybody gets their moment in the limelight. Even Mo Xuanyu.-

Re-post of this self-promo inspired by @fealiniel's recent post. Thanks to @busarewski for cheering me on while writing, and helping me pick the banner.

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

a daydream

[booksandwords]

Xie'er could feel the Xie Wang part of him losing patience before he put a mental lid over that boiling pot. He's not used to being denied physical intimacy, no matter how awkward or unique the situation.

For better yesterdays by @tbgkaru-woh

This is a beautiful fic. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I clicked on it, the tags kinda explain what is going on but make much more sense in retrospect. A combination of YeXie and RongYe

[deboracabral]

modern ye baiyi and rong changqing having bubble tea for @omgpurplefattie 🙏 Thank you!

[anqelbean]

Ahhh finally finished Tian Ya Ke...feels, goddamnit

[tbgkaru-woh]

The immortal's forgotten half

[bluemorningsoup]

TYK Rong Changqing/Ye Baiyi fic - Clear Skies, No Magpies

Rating: T

Length: one-shot, 1.5K words

For Ye Baiyi Week 2022, Day 7: Free Space.

AO3 link

[minnarr]

ten first lines

tagged by @leenik-geelo and @rainsfalling (thank you!!)

1. There’s a whole group here from Taihu Sect, puffed up in their uniforms. (first sight, word of honor, sort of luo fumeng/zhao jing, 3/4/24)

2. “Don’t move,” Wen Kexing grumbled, pressing humid kisses into Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. (No Shortage of Nights, word of honor, wenzhou, 1/13/2024)

3. “And don’t come back!” Zhang Nianxiang fumed, following it up with a solid kick that sent the last of the boys sprawling onto the street. (The Road Is Never Lonely, gen, 12/31/23)

4. The days of Ye Baiyi’s long seclusion varied little. (Here Comes Trouble, gen, 12/31/23)

5. Someone sat down across from Gao Xiaolian’s desk. (The Demon General's Wife, word of honor, gao xiaolian/gu xiang, 10/27/23)

6. Gu Miaomiao slipped into the room they’d taken at the inn on silent feet. (secret weapon, word of honor, gen, 8/18/23)

7. Siji Manor’s front courtyard was so full of people, Gao Xiaolian almost didn’t recognize it. (take a little time (walk a little line), word of honor, gao xiaolian/ofc (also gxl&deng kuan platonic marriage), 5/26/23)

8. Somewhere outside, the sun still shines. (Carve Out My Heart, word of honor, yue feng'er/rong xuan but primarily horror, 5/1/23)

9. Ye Baiyi came into the house on Mount Changming like a stormcloud. (take a look at what we've made, word of honor, rong changqing/ye baiyi, 4/5/23)

10. Zhou Zishu had been spending a lot of time outside his own house the past few weeks. (sample of one, qi ye, wu xi & zhou zishu platonic kissing with bg wu xi/jing beiyuan, 4/5/23)

what I've learned is that I need to write fewer first lines about people's status vis a vis being inside places, and also carve out my heart is still a banger

tagging (no pressure) @orchisailsa @antique-forvalaka @monsterbookworm @stifledlaughterao3

[melodious-tear]

Top 3 fics of yours that you wish everyone would read—GO! Then remember to pass this on to at least 5 other people ❤️

(I know you did it before but in case you changed your mind ;P)

I didn't change my mind about the others, but I have fics that need more love too, and it's hard to decide anyway! XD

A ghost in the neon light (The Untamed) This little Xiyao one started out with one sentence I couldn't get out of my head, and it became this slightly spooky reincarnation fic which has, other than originally planned, a happy ending.

Evening with an old friend (Word of Honor) A small, poetic take on Ye Baiyi's last days, remembering his time with Rong Changqing. It's sad, naturally. :'D

The Big Headache (Love and Redemption) This is one of the fics I regularly re-read. idk how to call it, sophisticated crack? XD I'm very fond of this one.

[miyazai]

White

My small contribution to #yebaiweek Day 4 - White

---

Ye Baiyi hadn’t always been his name. He had one - a name, once upon a time, long forgotten. He’d remembered it for a time after Rong Changqing had started calling him Baiyi - white clothes - a flippant comment with lasting effects. 

It would be the only name he’d ever known in his long, drawn-out life. And in exchange, in the manner of a promise unuttered, Rong Changqing would be the only one who knew his name.

It was one of the many things he remembered about Rong Changqing; it was one of the many things he mourned. And in his mourning, continued to don the colour of death. 

Like his name, he’d also forgotten why he’d started wearing white.

Rong Changqing had asked him once: “Don’t you have any other colour?”

He’d smiled then, a curve of his lips that barely reached the corner of his downturned eyes. How could he have put it into words? Rong Changqing was a painter, one that poured every colour in existence into Ye Baiyi’s life, reaching into every corner he’d kept hidden and filling him with things and emotions he’d never known.

Rong Changqing was golden like the sun, warm and powerful. Red like fire; fierce, passionate. He was the blindingly blue sky, the fresh, green grass in summer. He was the rosy, gentle pink of peach blossoms. He was every shade in between, leaving no margin for anything else.

Ye Baiyi didn’t need anything else. He only needed Rong Changming.

And when the latter left, so did all colour.

What remained was a chasm of mourning, of nothing. A life unlived, frigid and cold like snow on the mountain he’d lived on. A familiar absence. A white cloth, long faded from age and neglect. What gilded brilliance it used to exude had disappeared, lost and beaten down by time, by loss, by grief.

That’s what he was. Nothing but white. Nothing, and white. A canvas stripped of its former glory,  that would forever wait to be dyed in colour that no longer existed.

His name was Ye Baiyi.

---

Original tweet is here:

View on Twitter

[omgpurplefattie]

for the character-centric stories prompts, Ye Baiyi and "What would happen to a houseplant in their care?" ♥

“She’s not going to kill you if they don’t all survive,” Rong Changqing had told Ye Baiyi after Rong-furen had finally stopped with her instructions, repeated instructions, and even more admonitions.

“Not so sure,” Ye Baiyi said, trying to commit to memory what the little yellow orchids needed. They wanted little water, right, but regularly, and they could never be allowed to remain standing in a puddle?

Compared to the orchids, the large pot of silvergrass was simple. The kitchen herbs were even simpler -- give them two ladles of water whenever they started looking a bit wan.

“Don’t think about the damn plants,” Rong Changqing assured him, “the main thing is you keep training Xuan-er and make sure he goes to bed before midnight. And don’t let him tinker in my workshop by himself. At least not after midnight. Please? Baiyi?”

If Changqing looked at him like that, with his beautiful smile and beautiful eyes, what else could Ye Baiyi do but grumble “I’ll try to” ungraciously, rather than smile back and reflect the things that Changqing made him feel. Every. Single. Time.

You’d think he would be used to it by now. For the Heavens’ sake, Xuan-er was already nine; the pain in those feelings should have worn down, become dulled and familiar. Perhaps it was the immortality that Rong Changqing had so unwisely cultivated and then dumped on Ye Baiyi; not only Ye Baiyi’s body, even his feelings were preserved forever unchanging in a block of clear ice.

“Don’t look so crestfallen, Baiyi,” Rong Changqing said. “It’s not even a month; we just have to be at the wedding of my lady’s youngest brother. We’ll hurry back as fast as we can. And Xuan-er can help you. If you’re really scared of what she’ll do to you if her chives have turned into hay, or the forge cats have peed on the basil.”

“I’m not scared,” Ye Baiyi grumbled. “I’m just offended that you wouldn’t even trust me with a fucking potted houseplant. I can feed the forge cats all right, and make sure that Xuan-er eats every day and sets nothing on fire. So why should I kill the damn orchids?”

“The forge cats,” Rong Changqing laughed, “will complain very loudly if you don’t feed them every day. Plants, however, just wilt quietly, and before you realize it, they’re dead.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ye Baiyi said, glaring up at Changqing, “I know what qi feels like, and I won’t let it falter.”

“Course you do,” Rong Changqing said, easily, but Ye Baiyi felt he still didn’t believe him. He made a face.

***

Two lunar months later, the Rongs returned, with a lot of gifts and good food for Xuan-er, and a few books they had thought Ye Baiyi might like, as well as a few bottles of syrup for him to flavor his snow with.

Xuan-er had built a box that would shoot crossbow bolts without the crossbow, steadily feeding them into the mechanism; he proudly presented it to his father, and they took quite a while to take it apart and then improve it so it would shoot even faster.

Baiyi went and had some snow with pomegranate syrup; it wasn’t bad, really. He perched on a rock and looked into the valley where he hadn’t been for so long, except in especially fierce winters, and then only for a little bit.

He didn’t know how he felt about Changqing and Rong-furen being back. Life with Xuan-er had been fun; they had trained every day, there had been no set bedtimes or mealtimes for either of them, and they had just ambled through their days in the snow. Xuan-er’s martial arts had taken leaps and bounds with nobody to interrupt him. He did look a little unkempt now, but really, all those hot baths were overrated, especially for a nine year old.

It was already getting dark when Rong-furen came out to get her husband and son from the workshop; the fire was going, and she had been cooking dinner.

“What have you done to my plants?” she asked, casually, as she passed Ye Baiyi.

“Nothing,” he said, “except what you’d told me. The forge cats were much harder to take care of; the calico brought out her kittens, and we kept running after them. Xuan-er shot at an eagle who tried to grab one. They’re all doing fine.”

“Don’t deflect,” Rong-furen said. “My plants have never been this lush and healthy. You have made cuttings from the orchids, and the roots are coming on fine; the basil is almost a tree now, and the other herbs fairly burst from their window boxes. I have noticed the kittens because they were playing hide-and-seek in the silvergrass and jumping up to catch the fronds. The lotuses in their basin and the peonies in their container are already flowering even though it’s early for them, this far up. You turned out to be an excellent gardener.”

“I just did what you told me,” Ye Baiyi said. “I checked every day, and made sure the forge cats didn’t pee on them. That’s all.”

He may have been feeding the plants a little of his qi, but hey, he was an immortal, he had the stuff to spare.

“Do you want to carry on doing it?” she asked. “I have seen the way you repotted the little blue orchids; there was so much care and attention in the work. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“Nah,” Baiyi said, “they’re your plants. I just didn’t want to be the one who killed them. Changqing -- well, he thought I’d screw up, so I wanted to show him I don’t. I’m no good at this, and the plants don’t really like me. I’m the last person you want as a gardener, really.”

“If you change your mind -- any time,” she shrugged, and went about her errand.

Changqing and Xuan-er emerged from the forge even before she had reached the door; they were holding out the kittens and talking enthusiastically while they walked back towards the house and their dinner.

“Good job, Baiyi,” Changqing said vaguely as he passed Ye Baiyi on his perch; he reached up to clap him on the upper arm, then went inside with his family, plants and Baiyi already forgotten.-