#even after wwx comes back

[monsieurboyardee]

I tweeted this when there was discourse about lwj playing inquiry for 13 years a la cql vs lwj moving on with his life a la mdzs/fan interpretation so here u go:

Hear me out hear me out, what if "hanguang-jun spent those thirteen years moving on from wwx and raising A-yuan" and "lwj spent 13 years playing inquiry on the guqin every night" are two ideas that can coexist?

Bc death is weird and hard especially when there's things you should've said or done that still weigh in you even years later, and it takes time to mourn and to grieve even when you've got other, more important things to be taking care of. Maybe after coming out of his three years of seclusion lwj did try to move on, to raise this kid and be a good father, to be a good brother and nephew, to be the second Jade of Gusu Lan. He went where the chaos was, he helped people, he lived his life. Even when wwx was alive they weren't attached at the hip. And slowly but steadily, he begins to move on because he is more than just his grief and his pain.

But at night, it's just him. The world is asleep, or getting ready for sleep, and he's checked everything off his to do list for the day. There's nothing but the silence in the Jingshi and the soft sounds of nightfall outside. And when wwx's death was still too recent, too fresh of a wound, lwj would sit and play Inquiry until his fingers bled over the strings, just in case his spirit was still out there, just in case he still has one more chance to say he's sorry. But an answer never came, and at this point he isn't expecting it to.

And he's been trying to move on, he really is, but sometimes it's the way Shizui smiles so so brightly and beautifully, sometimes it's when he's in caiyi town and he sees a bottle of emperor's smile, sometimes it's just when the night stretches on and all lwj can think about is wwx's hands on him, of his forehead ribbon in wwx's hands, of how he's so so fucking lonely despite everything because he's still kind of caught up in the idea of what might have been, what could have happened if lwj had just said what he'd wanted to say when he'd wanted to say it.

So he stores bottles of Emperor's Smile in his floorboards, and he sits up at night and plays Inquiry. As the years pass on he only plays it once or twice, but sometimes when the ache is too strong to sleep but not strong enough to put into words, he plays a few more. And eventually it stops being a way to call out to wwx and just one of those Things That He Does, as all people have--he holds his hand behind his back when he walks, he cannot handle his alcohol past one sip, and he plays Inquiry at least once a night every night before he goes to sleep. Because it's become a tradition of sorts for him, a way to rationalize and express his grief while still being able to go about the day and live out his own life. And so even when it stops being his crutch and just starts being his routine he continues, because it feels wrong to stop now and because he is Allowed to express every thing he cannot say in that short period, and he can quietly, secretly, say everything to wwx that he couldn't say before: I'm here, I'm here for you now, even though I wasn't there for you back then. And as the years pass and his routine continues, lwj learns to cope.

Until one day, thirteen years later, lwj hears an unmistakable melody floating through air and looks into Mo Xuanyu's eyes. And for the first time in what seems like forever, something slots back into place inside of him, a feeling that he had accepted and grown used to over the years rewritten over so quickly it would be astounding if he wasn't currently quite so distracted. And for the first time in thirteen years, lwj forgets to play Inquiry before he goes to sleep. Because for the first time in thirteen years, Lan Wangji can make things right.

#basically death is hard when ur a lan and u pick ur soulmate and that’s IT #death is weird ok and there’s no one set way to grieve #and i think lwj should be allowed that #bc that grief is a part of him #even after wwx comes back #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #lan wangji #lan zhan #lwj pov #grief #cql #the untamed #wei ying #copy pasted this from my twit #ace’s archives

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

While you were fighting in the war, I was falling in a pit.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #lan wangji #jin guangshan #blood #Not tagging wen xu because I...I don't think he ever comes back in the story after this. #Minorest of characters despite his significance in the wen sect. #You guys ever think about how the three months WWX was missing was probably the closest LWJ and JC ever were? #The missed friendship between them is so deliciously painful! They really do have a lot in common! #Maybe it is because they are similar that they can't make it work past the war. #Maybe it is the similarities that make JC feel even worse about WWX drifting away from him and towards LWJ. #This is all to say I think the dynamic between LJW and JC is very interesting and not something I see talked about. #In the *end* it becomes something along the lines of 'LWJ ignores JC' but god. Missing the same person so painfully. #The grieving takes very different form but they both still grieve the same person - essentially in isolation from everyone else. #Other notes I *need* to add: The end of ep 13 took me out with the falling scream. Why did they do it like that? #Genuinely the funniest thing I have heard. #I like to imagine he fell plinko style. Bumping around on random branches and ghosts for 3 months.

[whetstonefires]

Hey here's an angle on the Jiang family dynamic and its impact on Wei Wuxian that I haven't seen discussed:

Wei Wuxian grew up seeing Jiang Yanli routinely having her agency cut off and denied in both large (betrothal) and small ways. That were largely tied up in her gender, sure, but this was also a family containing Yu Ziyuan. A daughter in this household had every chance of having her gender treated as of secondary importance.

She just had to earn it.

The way Jiang Yanli was hemmed in and her potential as an independent actor dismissed was at least as strongly correlated with her failure to be a powerful sword cultivator.

So Wei Wuxian's total refusal to let anyone know that he'd lost access to his cultivation and his violent reactivity against being diminished or condescended to during his Sunshot-to-death period, when before he was pretty immune to being looked down on, could have a lot to do with having been presented with this clearly labeled diagram of how your personhood gets stripped away when you are, by the standards of your society, disabled.

#hoc est meum #like jiang cheng's desire to die about it also has this #but he had some specific shame issues #and the realistic assessment that rebuilding his sect and getting revenge was now impractical #and his problem was never really feeling like his place in the world was actually going to be taken #just like he failed to deserve it #whereas wwx had his secrets to keep but even after he'd lived up to most of his obligations #during this period #and i think it's what he's so mad at himself about looking back #during the Empathy flashback #that he valued his pride and clinging to his status when it turned out #it did jack-all to help and he got everyone killed #(Present-Day wwx is not an objective source on himself lmao) #and this in turn is why in the present-time of the novel he's so willing to lean into the indignity of mo xuanyu #he now has nothing to lose and it's liberating #but during his march-toward-death era having any more of his self-respect and conceptual status stripped away was agony #because it felt like an unpersoning #and some of the disability angles around this come up in fandom sometimes but #the fact that he internalized the idea that not having this specific type of power means you lose your personal freedom looking at jyl #doesn't really #and i think she Very Much informed his relationship to #power gender disability and #marriage #mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang yanli

[lesbianuchiha]

wangxian baihe *the crowd goes fucking wild*

#myart #mdzs #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #mo dao zu shi #lesbian lan zhan is very near and dear to my heart. even like canon lwj pines like a stereotypical lesbian and i love it #wwx voice jiejieeee #lwj voice Oh I Can't Not Fuck Her #i have tons of thoughts on them at all points in time... #i think lwj is very androgynous... tall sharp jaw big hands #still easily mistaken for lxc #and wwx is Painfully Feminine at times as almost a mirror of jyl #bc her shijie always had fun with dressing up with her and how could she say no... #but after she comes back shes like ehhhh fuck it dresses however she wants. more “masculine cut” robes that hide her figure #but lwj finds her just as beautiful no matter wht she wears and its like. bdump. bdump. What The Fuck Are These Emotions Towards Lan Zhan #<- thought her feelings were girlbestie feelings but they were Please Look At Me I Love When You Look At Me You See Me emotions #wlwangxian

[immortal-gege]

Jiang Cheng adopting tons of dogs post-Burial Mounds bc he loves dogs and he’s lonely and he has no reason not to have dogs now that Wei Wuxian isn’t there anymore

#mdzs #imagine lan zhan’s number of rabbits except its dogs #WAIT even better he adopts a ton of dogs after he knows wwx is back #that man will never come near lotus pier now!!! #hc

[layzeal]

we talk a lot about lwj having this anxiety about wei ying putting himself in danger, of him having this deep-rooted fear of losing wei ying again.

i do think he'd have that sort of anxiety, for sure! though considering how trustworthy he is of wei ying's abilities to do dangerous things (using a paperman to spy on jgy, guiding nmj's resentful corpse to the coffin when even lxc got worried it'd be dangerous, etc), i think it wouldn't be as bad as the fandom generally believed

but also! we all kind of overlook the deliciousness of wei ying having that anxiety over losing lan zhan, and not even realizing

#or rather. he does realize. remember post-bathtub scene when he thought he was going to lose lan zhan? #and that wasnt even a life-and-death situation. it was a ''he won't want to be my friend after this'' and that was enough to make him PANIC #we know that wwx's death is still a sensitive topic for lwj. but the mere idea of lwj dying (esp when theyre both still young #and newly married. would make wwx almsot shut down emotionally) #remember how he reacted to shijie's death? yeah #lwj kinda occupies a similar place in wwx's life when it comes to making him feel safe #idk i just can see lwj taking too long to return from a nighthunt and his brain has that one very scary passing thought #and suddenly wwx is almost in a panic stage. and he thinks of how lwj was whipped to an inch of his life while wwx was still alive #and he hadnt had a clue back then. so how would he know if lwj isnt at door's death rn? #listen IM JUST SAYING out of the two. the one who would react the worse to the possibility of the other one being in the verge of death #is now lwj. lwj would be scared but he Would Know What To Do. wwx might legit just shut down #modao #lace speaks

[grapestones]

No but Wei Wuxian throwing parties and Jiang Cheng begging Levi to come because he'll lose his sanity otherwise

They're each other's safe haven from Hanji and Wei Wuxian lmao

#it works until hanji and wwx realise whats going on #they have to find a new hiding place instead of each other's apartments after that #their relationship being like “please come with me to this thing bc you're the only sane person around” #“and even if you don't hold me back from punching someone you can help me tearing into them” #bro the cold stares levi would give every time domeone tries to ridicule jc #and jc would be do fucking loyal to levi and be by his side whenever levi needs someone #ugh #mdzs #jiang cheng #snk #aot #levi ackerman #levicheng

[llycaons]

I also don't like how this fic has wwx do the thing where he refuses to go to CR for help and then tries to leave after he gets there even tho he's sick bc he doesn't want to get in the way of the cc duties or something. please have more faith in him than that

#he said WHEN i come back not IF #he was happy to take lwj up on his hospitality even before they became close and overcame the #philosophical and emotional barriers beyween each other #not to mention after the temple when they were really close and comfortable #wwx crying when he realized lwj wouldn't come w him was really sad but I thought it was obvious how much of an understanding they had #but ig that would make the fanfic boring or not give it enough to do or something dumb #just let them play out their story its not hard #ficblogging

[sulsulzukohere]

Sim Download #25

A few characters from The Untamed. I watched the first 20 episodes and then read an english translation of the book online because I’m unable to get the books. It was great. Sim designs mostly from The Untamed, but some are inspired by the donghua and novel covers.

Wei Wuxian

Lan Wangji

Jiang Cheng

Lan Xichen

#ts4 #sims 4 #sim dump #sim download #sims 4 cc #watching the rest of the untamed now #i don't quite like some of the things that are different in the show especially the antagonist relationship between lwj and wwx after #wwx is found it's not even come back to gusu with me to be protected it's just you're doing bad things stop it or you'll be corrupted #but it's a good show #can't wait to see more of wen ning and to meet lan sizhui #mdzs #the untamed

[biqinsu]

it’s probably been said already but i love that after he fell into the burial mounds for the first time wei wuxian made good on his promise to haunt the wens but also had the deeply unfortunate side effect of haunting literally everyone else too

#obsessed with the terror the wens must have felt when their numbers started to die #word spreads yknow? and they’d all been so cocky after yunmeng #but also? wei wuxian is definitely not one hundred percent There after he comes back #(obviously) #but like. even from his family’s pov #there is a man in your house and he looks like your brother and he talks like your brother #and you know in your heart that it is your brother but there is something Different about him #something irrevocably changed that you were not there for and do not entirely understand no matter how much or how little you have tried #and sometimes when you look at him all hollowed cheeks and empty eyes and smiles and words he does not mean #some part of you does not recognize the ghost he has become #also i don’t think it’s *fear* i don’t think they were ever at any point afraid of him #but i wonder if they ever realized that he was already long dead #idk. dead man walking vs desperately trying to see if you could reach out to him anyway bc you love him. despiteeverythingitsstillyou.jpeg. #or something. it’s one a.m. maybe i’ll write something that makes more sense tomorrow #riko.txt #wwx

[kirkwallsquad]

i NEED to force more people to watch the untamed who wants to go batshit crazy with me

#THINKING ABT THEM (YUNMENG SHUANGJIE) #THINKING ABT HOW JIANG CHENG GOES OFF @ WWX WHEN HE'S BACK AND TOWARDS THE END OF HIS ANGRY RANT #HE SAYS 'YOU WENT TO DAFAN MOUNTAIN FIRST' #'YOU DIDN'T COME TO YUNMENG' #AND YEAH. YEAH THE WHOLE WEN NING BEING INVOLVED AND WWX BEING BACK IS OFC BRINGING UP BAD MEMORIES BUT #HE'S MAD! THAT! HIS BIG BROTHER! WHO WAS DEAD! DIDN'T COME HOME IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING RESURRECTED! #and then wwx says i want to go back to lotus pier even in my dreams and i [snarling] #max.txt

[muqingapologist]

i think it’s interesting how people often characterize lan wangji’s perspective of wei wuxian during and after the yiling laozi arc like “free my man, he did nothing wrong.” but to me, i feel like this is just selling short his character and his devotion to wwx. the way i see it, when wei wuxian is at his worst and in the years after when wwx comes back, lan wangji isn’t condoning his actions of that era. it’s more like, “i know you were trying to do the right thing, and things spiraled out of control, and i failed to help you back then, and i won’t fail you again.” it’s not wei wuxian’s actions that lan wangji is so defensive of but his intentions. even if lwj didn’t know at the time (and even when he comes back, at first) why wwx chose the ghostly path and gave up righteous cultivation, he has an unshakeable faith in wwx’s moral code, that wwx will do what he feels is right. or at least, doing what he thinks he needs to do to survive. this doesn’t necessarily mean that lan zhan thinks what wwx did as his mental state eroded WAS right. we see this so many times when lan zhan tries to help him, hoping that wwx will return to gusu with him. it’s not until it’s too late, when wwx is truly breaking down, that he understands that that wasn’t the right way to help wwx. the right way is to just be there for him, which is what he does when wwx returns. letting wwx make his own decisions while showing him that there is still someone who believes in him. imo this is much more meaningful than the other interpretation that i see a lot that i mentioned above. it’s about being there for wei wuxian even if he does make the wrong decisions because at the end of the day he knows that wwx, at his core, has good intentions.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lily posts

[neverdoingmuch]

every day i have feelings about the fact that wwx loves kids. like this is the guy who was universally loved by all the jiang disciples. at any given moment he is being followed around by at least three small jiang disciples. when they wanted to laugh, he’d play with them and when they wanted to cry, he’d be beside them with a comforting hand and caring words. 

and even when everything was being slowly and painfully stripped away from him, he still made time for that little boy in the burial mounds who’d run after him. he’d plant him in the ground and make him laugh in the place that hadn’t heard such a sound in hundreds of years. he’d be the warm arms wrapped around him when the night was cold and the soothing voice when his nightmares grew too fierce. 

then wwx dies and when he comes back he and a-yuan have both irrevocably changed but that doesn’t matter bc wwx does what he always does when he sees kids: he plays with them when they need to relax and teaches them when they need to learn and protects them when they need the help and most importantly, he loves them with every bit of himself (and they love him back, especially his special little radish)

#mdzs #modao zushi #wei wuxian #lan sizhui #the untamed #cql #grandmaster of demonic cultivati

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

MDZS modern AU, highschool setting, in which, tired of seeing his little brother friend-less, LXC decides to find him a friend himself

So he looks around the school yard one day and picks literally the loudest, most social dude around (WWX, obviously), pulls him aside and is like "i'll pay you 100$ weekly to be friends with my brother who's juat transferred here and is not very social."

WWX is iffy about it bc it's absolutely unfair to do that to someone - but he's, what, 15, Madam Yu is already harping on him about paying rent and making friends comes second nature to him - so he says yes.

He gets a name and a picture and he's off on his mission.

What luck that this new LWJ kid signed up for a music class elective where WWX has also just secured a spot. Sweet, they already have something in common!

Turns out, WWX does actually enjoy being LWJ's friend a lot, teasing him and getting reactions out of him and everything. He doesn't need the money LXC gives him at all, so he gives back as much of it, as quickly as he can after getting a job - after all "I don't need money to be friends with someone I would have wanted to befriend anyway!"

Time passes, it's wangxian and they fall in love, even plan to move in together after high school and marry after college.

Except, one day LWJ hears some people talking about how "Lan Xichen must've raised Wei Wuxian's pay by a lot now! Pretending to be Lan Wangji's boyfriend must be a lot harder than just acting as his friend!"

LWJ doesn't believe it and doesn't care about gossip.

But he thinks of how suddenly he and WWX became friends, of how he and LXC sometimes talked alone like they had a secret, how it always felt a little too good to be true.

Who should he go to first? His brother, who bought out someone for LWJ to spend time with because he didn't think LWJ able to find someone himself?

Or his boyfriend, who's been lying to him the whole time in exchange for cash?

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #original thots #wangxian

[tavina-writes]

I have been pondering the recent rash of "post canon NHS and LXC would never ever reconcile bc even if NHS wanted to have Er-ge back, LXC would never ever forgive him for [insert reason of choice here]" type of posts + the "do you think NHS thinks very hard about how much Da-ge would hate him for becoming [the way that he is now] by choosing to seek vengeance" type of posts, and I think fundamentally the reason these posts do not jive with me is that we have no indication, in the show or in the book that uh, NHS gives a shit about either of these things very much anymore?

The first type of post is predicated on the assumption that LXC's forgiveness or lack thereof some some sort of either extension of mercy (which NHS obviously does not deserve <- or so assumes the post) or some form of punishment (which is obviously the correct answer) but the last scene we get with NHS both in the book and the show make no indication that this is a thing he wants? Or cares about? Book NHS has *sauntered off* with his little hat trophy and Show NHS walks off screen after saying something along the lines of "What is my responsibility I won't shirk, what isn't my responsibility I won't care about." Now, arguably, show NHS is having a worse go of it emotionally, but shows no real inclination or interest in either apologies or making up and being friends again with LWJ, LXC, WWX, or other people. Book NHS seems pretty pleased with the outcome of the events as a whole?

The second type of post is predicated on the fact that NHS finds Da-ge's judgement a horrible burden to bear at this stage in the game, which! He might! But again especially in the book we get no indication that he has any fucks left to give about what Da-ge may or may not have wanted since Da-ge is dead. In both the show and the book, NHS went about revenge taking very specific and complicated actions with the desired result of JGY dying, but he certainly took the scenic route getting there, which, he didn't need to? As I've written about before, JGY didn't see him as a threat. If he wanted JGY dead he could've arranged to poison JGY's tea like, 10 years ago and had done with it instead of his complicated Rube Goldberg life ruining scheme. If he is still sickly anxious about how Da-ge might feel about the scheming and the trouble causing and the whole everything, that's certainly possible, but he must've decided it was worth it anyway regardless of that, and I don't know that it necessarily would've changed just because he got what he wanted at the end.

Overall, I think as a fandom we think a lot about like "will and should this relationship ever be repaired or similar to how it used to be?" and "does this character deserve/not deserve the forgiveness of people they've hurt or abandoned?" which can be interesting questions! I do feel like these are often taken as "is a character morally good (deserves to be forgiven) or morally bad (deserves to rot in hell forever never forgiven ever ever)" and based entirely on if Character is the meta writer's blorbo. Under this paradigm the concept of "Character did bad things to get exactly what they wanted and were happy about that and no relationships were ever repaired and the emotional detachment of people they used to care about no longer matters to them!" is uncomfortable.

It's just that for NHS I've increasingly come to the conclusion that canonically, I don't think NHS thinks he has anything to apologize for, nor is he super interested in being forgiven! He got what he wanted the way he wanted it to happen. Which is potentially supremely unsatisfying but I think is very sexy as a narrative concept.

#like for the record #nie huaisang IS my blorbo #and I like a good reconciliation fic and nhs is feeling some kind of way about everything fic like #at LEAST as much as the rest of us if not more #but these POSTS I keep seeing mostly serve to bludgeon him with the 'punishment' of LXC's unforgiveness or NMJ's judgment #as a means to say he was wrong and should repent and probably shouldn't've murdered JGY or something #I don't think this punishment works canonically because he appears to give no shits about this anymore #anyway #meta #my meta #nie huaisang #nie huaisang my beloved

[stiltonbasket]

what happened when wwx went to gusu summer school in the wrh raises wwx au?

"Thank the heavens," Lan Xichen laughs, when Lan Wangji presents himself at the Hanshi after returning from his latest monthlong night-hunting tour in Huai'an. "Shufu has been at his wits' end in your absence, didi."

Lan Wangji lifts an eyebrow and begins to unpack the basket of tribute gifts he received from the Huai'an magistrate. "Why? My duties were to be delegated to Changyi-tangxiong while I was away; and whatever Shufu might find wanting in his temperament, I have never known him to be anything but diligent."

"No one has dared replace you as head of discipline," his brother says wryly. "And according to Shufu, this batch of guest disciples has worse manners than most."

"Shufu rarely has trouble with the guest disciples," Lan Wangji points out, frowning. The lone exception to this rule was Nie Huaisang; but no one in the Cloud Recesses has ever bothered disciplining Nie Huaisang, even before his older brother was betrothed to Xiongzhang. "Who does he wish me to discipline this time?"

Inexplicably, Lan Xichen only grins at him and scoops a handful of icy-red lychees out of the tribute basket.

"Go to tomorrow's lecture in the Lanshi," he teases, "and perhaps you shall see."

Lan Wangji could not see the sense in this. If one of the guest scholars was being impudent in the Lanshi, Shufu ought to have sent them to the Pavilion of Discipline to receive punishment instead of waiting for him to settle matters; for as Head of Discipline, Lan Wangji's main duties consisted of revising the codex of appropriate punishments and patrolling the Cloud Recesses after hai shi on alternate fortnights.

But the next day, he made his way to the Lanshi as bidden—and the moment he crossed the threshold, he understood exactly who had been making trouble for his uncle, and why he had been left for Wangji to handle.

As ever, all four of the other Great Clans were represented among the guest disciples: Yunmeng Jiang disciples in violet and jade-green, the Jin in cream and gold, Nie Huaisang and his shixiongdi in their familiar black and silver-gray—and by the window, the fiery scarlet and gold of Wen Ruohan's delegation, dressed in silks so fine that they would not have looked out of place upon an imperial concubine.

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes at them. Each one is haughtier than the next, though not quite brazen enough for Shufu to blink at; but then his gaze moves to the disciple sitting at the front, and freezes as the boy rolls his shoulders and turns around to greet Wangji with an insolent, lazy smile.

This is the one, he realizes, as the disciple flutters painted—painted?—lashes at him before turning back to look at Shufu. He is the one Uncle wants me to discipline.

"Wangji," Shufu says, with such open relief that Lan Wangji looks away from the Wen disciple in surprise. "At last. Have you come to attend lessons with the guest disciples?"

Wangji puts his hands together and bows. "Yes, Uncle."

"Excellent. But before you sit down, go take Wei Wuxian to the dormitories, and see that he washes his face and removes those ornaments from his hair."

Lan Wangji nods and takes three great strides towards the Wen disciple. "You heard your laoshi," he says. "Come."

The disciple—Wei Wuxian—gives no reply; but luckily, he rises from his chair and follows Lan Wangji out of the Lanshi without protest. As soon as the doors to the lecture hall fall closed behind them, Lan Wangji opens his mouth to deliver a short lecture on the virtues of modesty and simplicity in dress—only to snap it closed again in shock, for he has never seen a man who painted his face like this outside the theater troupes Xichen used to visit with him when they were children.

Wei Wuxian's lips are a wet, shining crimson, as if he had dipped them in blood before arriving at the Lanshi; and his eyes are lined with fine black paint and red rouge mixed with some kind of bright, sparkling dust. Worse yet, he had even painted his eyelashes, to make them seem twice as long and dark as any man's lashes ought to be—and as if all of that were not enough, the heavy locks of his hair are fastened with chains made of solid gold.

"Why are you looking at me, Lan-er-gongzi?" Wei Wuxian asks. He puts his head to one side, and despite himself, Lan Wangji hears music; for someone had woven small golden bells into Wei Wuxian's braided hair.

"Enough talk," Lan Wangji says flatly. "Follow me back to the dormitories so you can wash and brush out your hair."

To his astonishment, Wei Wuxian does not object. He keeps pace with Lan Wangji all the way to the compound reserved for the Wen disciples; and then, without another word, he vanishes into his lodgings and leaves Lan Wangji behind to wait for him on the porch.

Puzzled, Lan Wangji seats himself on a convenient stool and wonders why Wei Wuxian had obeyed him so easily. It was only too clear that Shufu first tried to teach him the virtues of simple adornments at least a month ago, if not longer; so why had he flouted Uncle's wishes and honored Lan Wangji's?

Perhaps he is being too obedient, says a small voice in the back of Lan Wangji's mind. Perhaps he has run out through the back of the house, and gone off to frolic in Caiyi.

Lan Wangji frowns more deeply than ever and raps on the door with his knuckles. "Wei-gongzi? Are you finished?"

"Nearly," Wei Wuxian calls. "You can come in, if you'd like."

Wangji highly doubts that Wei Wuxian is really making himself presentable (or at least, not as he ought to be doing) so he enters the house and finds his charge wiping his face with a damp towel.

He lowers the towel at the sound of Lan Wangji's footsteps, and then:

"You were not meant to paint yourself in a different fashion," he says, incensed. "Wash your face properly at once."

Wei Wuxian blinks at him in confusion.

"I have washed it off," he says. "Look."

And then he leans forward and grabs Lan Wangji's hand, drawing it up to the damp skin of his face before Lan Wangji can turn tail and flee. He drags Lan Wangji's fingertips over the smooth bones of his cheeks and forehead, and across the bronzen skin circling his eyes—tanned and not painted, Lan Wangji realizes—and presses his full lips to the heart of Lan Wangji's palm, so forcefully that any traces of rouge left upon them would have been imprinted on Wangji's skin.

"There!" Wei Wuxian says, beaming—and completely unaware that Lan Wangji is very near to bursting out of sheer fury. "I'm as clean as a new jian."

"Your hair," Lan Wangji croaks; for if he dared raise his voice any further, he would scream, and then he would be the one submitting himself for punishment at the discipline pavilion. "Comb it."

Wei Wuxian nods and unravels his braids. Rather than undoing them one by one, he merely snaps his fingers and lets out a burst of spiritual energy; and immediately, the gold fastenings fall loose and clatter onto his dressing-table, leaving the glittering mass of his hair to slide down his broad back like a waterfall coursing down the face of a mountain.

Suddenly, Lan Wangji finds himself unable to breathe.

He flings himself out of the guest house and up the hill towards the Jingshi, where he spends an hour meditating in complete silence before he can bring himself to set foot out of doors again.

"Brother," he says, when he finally works up the courage to return to the Hanshi two days later. "I fear that I may be unable to take over the duty of disciplining Wei Wuxian. He made me angrier than I have ever been in my life."

Lan Xichen—who had heretofore shown no signs of being anything other than a kind, understanding brother—only stares at him, and bursts into laughter.

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #my fic #wrh raises wwx au #reblog this please i beg it took so long haha #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lan xichen