#when wwx defected

[lgbtlunaverse]

Fandom is so nice to Jiang Cheng's inferiority complex because in reality every single thing he gets accused of is something Wei Wuxian is better at than him.

Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian? Nope. Didn't even get close. Wei Wuxian's own spirits tore him apart before jc could even get there. wwx:1 jc:0

Jiang Cheng tortures people? We get two and a half rumours and a mention from jin ling that jc has 'captured' demonic cultivators before, but who is also apparently confident that just letting wwx run off will kill the issue even though those earlier rumours said ~no one who sandu shengshou captured was ever seen again~

The word jiang cheng uses when he tries to talk big game about 'beating the truth' out of Wei Wuxian's is a word that carries the context of pestering someone to do their homework. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.

Wei Wuxian? Excellent at torture. A prodigy. Did you fucking see what he did to Wen Chao? Dude didn't have fingers anymore because wei wuxian made him eat them. He ripped out his hair, burned his skin off, and then stalked him for several days just to prolong the pain. He forced Wang Lingjiao to bite Wen Chao's dick off and then made her shove a stool leg down her own throat! 10/10, no notes. Absolutely horrifying.

Meanwhile Jiang Cheng's idea of torture is getting a dog to bark at Wei Wuxian for a few seconds. Weak, unoriginal, I bet fairy was literally wagging her tail the whole time. 2-0

Jiang Cheng made the entire cultivation world believe Wei Wuxian was up to no good on the burial mounds and ultimately orchestrated his downfall? lol. lmao, even

It's a big thing in certain corners of the fandom to really zoom in one one particular phrase at the end of chapter 73, where after wwx and jc have their staged duel to make the world believe they hate each other jiang cheng tells everyone wwx has defected and become "a public enemy'' or "an enemy to the cultivation world" or whatever the translation you're familiar with decided upon.

(As an aside, something I really like about this line is that the last half of it is almost exactly the same, like verbatim, as what wwx told him to say. like, the chapter is really hammering home just how much jc is speaking from a script here. wwx tells jc to say "今后魏无羡无论做出什么事，都与云梦江氏无关." and jc says "今后无论此人有何动作，一概与云梦江氏无关" the only meaningful difference is that he says 'this person' instead of wwx's name)

I've seen it said that this bit, the use of 'enemy' was said without wei wuxian's approval, that jc deviated from the script just to hurt his ex-shixiong for leaving him. And that this is what caused all the other clans to turn against wei wuxian. Regardless of if this is what jc and wwx discussed, or if jc had malicious motivations for it (considering my conclusions above, you can guess where i fall) it doesn't really matter, because the novel tells us when the clans completely freak out and become convinced wei wuxian is out to get them (though of course they've been wringing their hands about it since the literal day wwx ran off with the wen, months before jiang cheng visited) very neatly in chapter 75!

It's when they find out about Wen Ning.

And how do they find out about Wen Ning?

Because Wei Wuxian took him on nighthunts! And they kicked ass!

...Wei Wuxian, my man, why are you on nighthunts??? Why are you showing off your incredibly cool sentient fierce corpse buddy, who is way better and stronger than all the other fierce corpses, in front of the whole cultivation world??

Whatever his motivations (extra money, maybe?? they were strapped for crash) I can only draw the conclusion wwx had already given up on appearing calm or non-threatening and didn't care if the clans thought he was a threat, because they'd believe whatever they wanted anyway. Which he seems to clearly be aware of the whole time.

Regardless, we know that this is what created the myth of the Yiling patriarch. It's literally when the title first shows up!

Even if you really believe jc was secretly plotting against wwx in chapter 73, he's clearly doing a shit job of it because nothing he said made anywhere near as big an impact as this. Flopped!

The other point people use to argue Jiang Cheng caused wei wuxian's downfall is Jin Guangyao's speech in Guanyin temple about how jiang cheng could have saved wei wuxian if only he stood by him. Setting aside that jin guangyao is trying to get into jiang cheng's head here, and isn't necessarily saying what he really believes (though it very well might be! who knows with a character like jgy. assuming he's always lying is just as misleading as assuming he's always saying the truth) the fact is, if you read the speech closely, what he's talking about is not the 'public enemy' line, he's talking about the bond between them. The fact that people wanted wei wuxian out of yunmeng jiang, because the two were too powerful together.

He's talking about that one time Jiang Cheng very publically kicked wei wuxian out of the sect!

Which, unbeknownst to Jin Guangyao, was in fact Wei Wuxian's idea the whole time.

final score: 3 for you wei wuxian, you go wei wuxian! And nothing for Jiang Cheng bye.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #yunmeng shuangjie #i have never been more tempted to tag something as 'canon jiang cheng' #i don't really believe in the whole 'reclaiming the tag' thing i kinda roll my eyes at it and stay out of there #but I AM explicitly talking about fanon misconceptions about jiang cheng... and is that not what that tag was for?? oh well #let's not antagonize people #i am giggling at the realization that jgs must have thought all his pointed comments about wwx's 'disrespect' hit their mark #when wwx defected #only for jc to sneak his future daughter in law to yiling and letting wwx name his grandson a few months later #LMAOOO GET REKT OLD MAN

[labyrynth]

so um anyway jiang cheng canonically does not consider wei wuxian a servant—let alone “just a servant”—and does not treat him like one. idk where this idea came from but it is factually untrue.

in fact, jc repeatedly indicates that he thinks wwx’s station is on par with other gentry, that he likes the idea of being part of a pair with wwx, and even jokes with wwx, mocking the notion that wwx could be a servant.

after wwx was taken in, they were functionally raised as equals, and there is nothing in their interactions as youths that indicates or even hints that their relationship was master/servant instead of simply childhood friends.

and obviously wwx is not sect leader, so yeah, he is expected to defer to jc after the war, (and that’s not an inherently bad thing, that’s how leadership works) but jc lets him get away with SO much shit that Would Not Fly if wwx were a servant (or treated like one). if jc only regarded wwx as a servant, there is literally no reason to be as lenient as jc was with wwx’s loose canon tendencies.

i’m sorry, but there is simply no valid reading of their relationship where the dynamic of their relationship is master/servant. their relationship simply is not built on obligation, as much as they both try to act like it. this assumption undercuts a huge amount of context and motivation, leaving nonsensical character decisions and gaping plot holes. there is no mdzs unless they care about each other as individuals.

#jiang cheng #mdzs #mdzs talk #mo dao zu shi #moi #not to mention the fact that we literally never see wwx ever acting in the capacity of a servant #jc basically never asks anything of wwx #maybe ‘please don’t insult our colleagues (who are also our elders and have more power than us) to their faces’ #or like ‘please refrain from picking fights with people we’re trying to establish professional relationships with’ #up until wwx defects whenever someone started poking at wwx’s behavior jc just shut them down. ‘that’s the business of the jiang sect.’ #and some of y’all have the audacity to claim that jc didn’t do anything for wwx #that he didn’t even care #it’s appalling #i’m super tempted to tag as canon jc #but i will. refrain. #begrudgingly. #i absolutely hate it when ppl insist not only that jc didn’t care abt wwx #but that wwx. didn’t care about jc. #that wwx’s side of things was entirely out of obligation and he did not care about jc as a person in the slightest. #like imma be real w u chief: wwx does not come out of this assumption looking good #in fact he looks like a real grade A asshole #bc if he DOES think he’s just fulfilling his duties then why tf would be flat out lie to jc about their relationship #and if he has a duty to the jiang sect. why the fuck isn’t he doing it. yeah yeah he gave up his core sure. #but it costs zero dollars to NOT antagonize ppl ur sect is trying to built rapport with #it costs zero dollars to consider the political fallout for your sect before you do risky shit #like a wwx that is sticking around out of ‘obligation’ is a real fucking dick #like. either make an attempt at fulfilling your actual obligations or like. just leave?? #i mean jfc it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he does in fact care about jc #and jc does in fact care about wwx #um anyway

[sandumilfshou]

"why do you like jiang cheng?"

is such a weird question. what is there NOT to like?

sweet, insecure, covers up his embarrassment with fake anger, youngest baby sibling, heir to the sect, tries his hardest and is truly powerful and smart but doesnt look like it next to his beloved shixiong who is a genius and can do anything with barely any effort

desperate for his fathers approval, is aggressively mothered, pretends his shixiong is embarrassing and he wants nothing to do with him but is constantly letting himself get dragged into shenanigans

loses his entire sect and both his parents in one night, sacrifices himself in a potentially SI way to save his shixiong, becomes chronically disabled (for a cultivator), loses said brother he sacrificed himself for. gets plunged into a war as a teenager while trying to build up his sect from essentially nothing using his dead mother's weapon of choice.

goes through the sunshot campaign, wwx's demonic cultivation and defection, all while building up his sect again. loses yanli to the jin, loses wwx to the dafan wen. loses them both permanently. has no family remaining in the world, alone and vulnerable, except for infant jin ling.

3zun have essentially tied 3 of the 4 great sects together, leaving ymj out. vulnerable. so jiang cheng channels his mother and protects them by cultivating - successfully! - the reputation of the feared sandu shengshou who nobody wants to cross. forces himself to become angry and bitter to hide any remaining vulnerabilities, fragility, emotion.

threatens to break jin ling's legs but jin ling knows he is loved and is never scared of being physically harmed. raises the ymj out of the ashes to the point they can afford to lose 400 spirit nets without even worrying about it

jiang cheng is so broken and fragile and when he needs support, when he has lost everything and everyone, he has nothing. so he is forced to put himself back together, to harden his edges, to ensure that nobody will ever hurt him again. he is untouchable. he is respected. he is feared. he is powerful.

and despite all this, he still kept chenqing in pristine condition for over 10 years. he still trusts in wwx to do the right thing despite all the wrongs he has done. he cries, he rages, he threatens.

but in the end, jiang wanyin is the only one to come out of guanyin temple better than they went in. he wins. and he does it all by his fucking self.

even if all he wants now is jin ling to be safe and for wei wuxian to come home.

oh, and he looks like THIS:

#jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #mdzs #cql #ill tag both

[sonik-kun]

The fact it took JYL dying in JC's arms for JC to finally turn on WWX despite all the previous "red flags", is a testament to how family oriented he is.

Most sect leaders would have dropped WWX the moment he first showed signs of "insolence". WWX "defecting" to help the sect that almost wiped his own would have been the final straw for most. And yet JC still stood by him, visited him and allowed him to see JYL in her wedding dress, despite knowing that he's now helping a group of people who either took part in the genocide of his sect or were complicit in it. All whilst knowing the risks associated with it if he and his sister were spotted still associating with a "traitor."

Even the death of his brother in law didn't push JC over the edge. There was still some hope WWX could be saved. Or that there was some sort of explanation for all his current actions that JC was so obviously yearning for.

It took the death of his sister to finally shatter all that. And even then, he couldn't truly hate WWX for it. So much so that he hated HIMSELF for the conflicting feelings that haunted him throughout the 13 year gap up until the core reveal scene and thereafter.

His character is so juicy with so much depth. He is easily one of the most interesting characters in the book for all these reasons. It's such a shame he's often reduced to "purple man mean! >:(". When we can be talking about why the "purple man is mean." He's not "mean" for nothing, after all!

#canon jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #jiang cheng #the untamed #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mxtx mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #truly an interesting character #It's easy to see why he quickly became one of my favourites 💜

[naehja]

Because of a failed expriment, Wei Wuxian meets others versions of himself who have been adopted by other sects and who have more of less differents lifes. He must help them to return to their own universe but learns interesting things about them.

So our WWX has to deal with:

- A Nie!Wei Wuxian, adopted by the Nie Sect at 5 (gave his Golden Core to Huaisang, was sworn brother with Jin Zuxian), knows Lan Zhan since he's 6. Was called Nie Ying and then Nie Wuxian until he does defection to save the Wen Survivors. And then the next actions are the same. Jin Zixuan dies, Jiang Yanli dies, Lan Wangji save A-Yuan but let the boy know his uncles. Wei Wuxian is brought back by Mo Xuanyu like in canon. He hate Jin Guangyao with passion for what he did to Mingjue during the war and what he did after, killing him with the music who should have helped him. In this universe Miánmián marry Mingjue so Huaisang and Wei Wuxian have a niece and a nephew (twins born 6 months before Mingjue's death). He knows what Huaisang did but said nothing because he's just proud of his brother. Nie Huaisang is a lot stronger in this universe.

- A Jin! Wei Wuxian has been found at 7 by Jin Zixuan. Wei Wuxian becomes a strong cultivator, a pride in his sect. He sees Jin Zixuan as his brother and loves to tease him. He knows Jin Zixuan feelings about Jiang Yanli and being forced to marry and help him to getting to know her better. He goes to help the Jiang when Lotus Piers is attacked by the Wen. Then he's captured and throw in the burial mounds. Following that, the events are the same than in canon. The incident on Qiongqi Path is even worse since Zixuan was Wei Wuxian's brother and this death broke him. Yanli doesn't die. And so Wei Wuxian is brought back by Mo Xuanyu 13 years later. He's very protective of Jin Ling and feel even more bad about Jin Zixuan dead. He hates Jin Guangyao with a burning rage when he learns the truth.

- A Lan!Wei Wuxian, adopted at 5 by Lan Qiren. He never lost his Golden Core and is renowned for his inventions. He never touched demonic cultivation and is married with Lan Zhan for years. He's sworn brother with Huaisang and Zixuan. He's the only Wei Wuxian to still have his old body. He didn't have to learn demonic cultivation and create a lot of things during the war who helped to win. When he has decided to save the Wen Survivors, he asks Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen to come with him. Since he's sworn brother wirh Jin Zixuan, he's still Jin Ling uncle. Nie Mingjue never died because Wei Wuxian was visiting Huaisang one day and heard Jin Guangyao playing the "song of clarity" and was like "wait something is wrong about it". And so Jin Guangyao was discovered to poisonning Mingjue with dangerous music and has had to face consequences. Mo Xuanyu never died because Zixuan and Yanli decided to literally adopt this new little brother. Lan!Wei Wuxian is the only one to not die and be bring back to life or to lose his golden core.

It's just funny to imagine that all the Wei Wuxian became good friend/brother/sworn brother with Jin Zuxian, except the canon!one who more or less dislikes him.

Also all the Wuxian are in love with Lan Zhan. They're soulmates.

Feel free to write it if you are inspired =)

#jin zixuan #wei wuxian #lan xichen #lan zhan #lan wangji #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #nhs #nmj #lxc #lwj #nie!wwx #lan!wwx #jin!wwx #mdzs fanfic #mdzs idea #other sect wei wuxian #wangxian #xuanli #jiang yanli #Nie!Wei Wuxian #Lan!Wei Wuxian #Jin!Wei Wuxian

[doufudanshi]

for anyone who criticizes jyl for bringing soup to yiling instead of like, money—

we should first ask: could jyl actually have given wwx money? she must have something, you say. the jins are rich! she could even give him some of her betrothal gifts.

but realistically jyl probably didn't have much money at all! let's think this through. not only did she not marry jzx yet at the time of her yiling visit, but (based on many, many imperial palace tv shows lol) all her worth would be in betrothal gifts of jewelry, fine clothing, or other misc items, which is 1) heavy and difficult to transport without notice, but that doesn't actually matter bc it's ultimately 2) disrespectful to sell and worse to have the gifter find out when they come by for tea and you begin chatting about the event in two days and they say oh where's that one-of-a-kind jade bracelet I gave you wouldn't it match the also one-of-a-kind silk garment that lady jin gave you sooo well oh you will look so lovely in it won't you wear it.

or worse, have it recognized in some random pawn shop on the street by someone who has never really liked you and WILL get you in deep shit for it.

does jyl have any money from the jiang side? well, jc has been busy at work rebuilding lotus pier and the clan since before wwx's defection, and even if he's not borrowing a shitton of money from the jins (which he almost certainly is), he definitely has the opposite of surplus funds. he's also busy organizing and buying gifts for the wedding too, making him go more in the red because you know the jins aren't going to want cheap-ass things even if you don't have money.

let's say jyl did get a significant bride price (aka given money money)—not only does that go to her family (jc), but it is given during the ceremony (which, again, hasn't happened yet). and, realistically, jc probably will have to use it to offset the costs of the above.

beyond that, let's just take this scene from a storytelling perspective. sometimes it is simply about the emotional resonance. the vibes. let's say jyl did have some funds to give wwx. but imagine if jyl was like here a-xian take all this money 😐 ok sure useful for some period. but is that the gift that wwx would want during the first time he's gotten to see her in months, and likely the last time he will see her in a long, long time (possibly years)? would that be impactful for the story?

meanwhile, the soup she brings represents her love. we hear in the extra, from wwx's own words, the care she put into selecting the ingredients, making sure the lotus root is fresh and perfectly ripe. it also takes hours for her to even make iirc. wwx derives so much comfort from it—that's why it comes up again and again. it is one of his first memories of feeling safe in lotus pier, of home. it provides wwx some semblance of normalcy. he hasn't had any this entire time, and is likely something he aches for whenever he's homesick or sad or questioning his choices. it is simply, given the circumstances, incredibly thoughtful. (and how meaningful was it to see wn treat it with such respect? seeing that is literally the moment in the chapter when wwx realizes—ah. the wens are people I cherish as well.)

and regarding jyl coming in her wedding dress—it is not for herself. it is for wwx. we saw how devastated wwx was just to even hear that jyl was getting married because he had to hear it from someone who wasn't jc or jyl. and to immediately then realize he cannot go? even more heartbreaking. and jyl, who clearly knows wwx extremely well, would know, without having to ask, how upset wwx would be to miss such a huge occasion in their lives that was previously a given. this is what she can do to offset that, even just a little. because jyl came in her dress, wwx gets to experience a piece of her wedding even though he cannot physically be there. not to be a 2000s mastercard ad, but there really are some things that money can't buy.

idk there's also some fist-shaking at the class discrepancy in the scene. and I get it. it sucks! her dress is certainly lavish, and the wens are farming on a corpse mountain and have only just started making a bit of money. yes, it's fine to think that if you were in the character's shoes, maybe you would've found it to be in poor taste—but the story isn't about you. it is about these characters, and what this scene means to them. and I'm of the camp that if there is no indication that wwx is upset by any of this, and in fact moved by it, there really isn't reason for the reader to be righteously indignant about these things on a character's behalf. that's just not the focus or the point of the scene.

plus, jyl is sharp. she is likely more aware of the discrepancy than most people think. she has also been shown in the text to not just be another sheltered, spoiled noble (re jzx soup incident). but if what you want is guilt from jyl—I personally think that guilt is performative, and accomplishes nothing. her guilt would've only made wwx unhappy. instead, here is an action that is meaningful and brings joy to wwx. to share her joy with him is not selfishness, nor is it some lack of awareness of their situation. if in this moment, she shows off her dress, if she revels in her joy, her happiness, it is for wwx, and wwx is incredibly moved by it.

and let's face it—wwx, of all people, would want to see jyl in a wedding dress that cost more than rebuilding lotus pier from the ground up. he wouldn't want anything less.

#cultural context is as always important people! #idk i just see a lot of jyl slander and it rubs me very much the wrong way #anyway this is not the jyl thread I intended to write but it's a subset of my thoughts #get ready for more later o boy #jyl #cultural meta #mdzs #mine #ps I think ppl should question their assumptions and reactions to the most traditionally feminine character in the novel #im writing this at like 2am after being unable to fall back asleep btw if there are mistakes whoopsies #jiang yanli

[ookamikabu]

I'm going to come out and say that the more I re-read MDZS the more I actually HATE WWX.

I know he's a protag so everything is supposed to be about "poor me I've done nothing wrong" but I can't stand those types of people. He would be a person where if he existed in real life I would not be able to be around him.

I've actually become more of a Jiang Cheng apologist (actually, no, because that implies that he's ever done anything wrong).

I read through all the main points and here are a few things that piss me off. Please add on if I missed something:

WWX is obviously favored by JFM and if JC brings up this concern, all WWX says is: "no he doesn't lol you're so silly I'm not his son" TBH WWX wasn't his child but JFM had a son and it wasn't JC

Golden Core transfer. Need I say less (and fuck you Wen Ning for saying JC didn't deserve the core and the power he had wasnt actually his. He cultivated it for YEARS to get it to where it is today. It is NOT WWXs core anymore. Fuck all yall)

WWX defecting from YMJ and going with the Wens when JC had NOTHING. No sect, no support, no family. He's a new sect leader and has no resources or money to do anything or go against anyone. And thanks WWX for defending the people that, you know, massacred his family but whatever. (I understand they were innocent but still, I can tell it would really hurt JC)

Along with the defecting, WWX and LWJ broke into Lotus Pier and BOWED TO MADAM YU AND JFM WITHOUT JCs APPROVAL. DISRESPECTFUL AS HELL I KNOW WHY JC WAS PISSED. WWX had NO RIGHT to be there after everything he had done.

WWX tells JC to leave everything in the past. As usual, he is running away and not accepting any consequences for the many, many, things he's done wrong. If I were JC, I would permanently ban him from Lotus Pier and kill on sight because if he wants to leave things in the past, then that includes WWX.

Lastly, WWX never once defends JC. Whether it be against LWJ, Wen Ning, or other people that say terrible shit to him because they're being petty. Not once does he come to his defense.

To end my rant, WWX is actually a very terrible person (and so is Lan Wangji. Fight me) with no sense and I finally realized it after re reading the book multiple times. Come at me if you want but this is my honest opinion and I get why JC is such an ass because BITCH ME TOO GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.

Hopefully I have some support here but I also know I'm going to get some hate.

#jiang cheng #wei wuxian #mdzs #lan wangji #anti wei wuxian #anti lan wangji #anti wen ning #jiang cheng is a good boy #i kin him #thanks for coming to my ted talk #bad parent jiang fengmian #jiang cheng support #jiang wanyin #jiang cheng did nothing wrong

[angstymdzsthoughts]

Wei Wuxian doesn’t fight when Jiang Cheng strangles him, but this time jc doesn’t stop. He leaves wwx in the field, where his body is discovered by Wen Ning.

Angry and disillusioned, wn sends a missive to his sister that he intends to defect. As a result the Dafan Wen join the war effort, bringing wwx’s body to the Unclean Realm for proper burial.

No one knows it was Jiang Cheng, and he doesn’t say anything, but adds wwx to the family registry.

Lan Wangji throws himself into the war with no regard for his own safety. He’s the one who strikes down Wen Ruohan eventually, after more of the jianghu is destroyed than in canon. However, he dies in the process, and is at peace doing so because it means he can be reunited with wwx.

Years later, a mischievous genius is born the the Dafan Wen, specifically to Wen Yuan and his wife, and a stoic child is born to the Lan, to Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli, both looking too similarly to wwx and lwj for it to be coincidence.

They come together in a time of peace and ultimately end up together, their story lacking the tragedy of their prior lives, and they cultivate to immortality and adopt dozens of kids and work to help the common folk, becoming heroes to them.

Jiang Yanli meets wwx early and is happy to see he’s being raised the way she wishes he had been raised the first time—with love and without fear. She tells him who they believe he is, but only happy stories. Lan Xichen does the same for lwj.

Jiang Cheng can’t even look at the reincarnation of his brother, his soul too burdened by guilt, and he is always braced for the boy to remember and denounce him, but it never happens.

Neither of them regain their past memories, and live happily without regrets.

That would be a happy ending to a tragedy

#mdzs #reply #wei wuxian #lan wangji

[mxtxfanatic]

Hello! I've seen some posts talk about JC's inferiority complex in MDZS, and there were a few things that kinda puzzled me a bit. The first was talking about how JC treated demonic cultivators post-WWX's death. That him hunting them down and capturing them were just (BS) rumors? That the original Mandarin wording in them implied he didn't really do anything that bad to those he captured? As in, no actual torture? (That he was all bark and no bite, apparently.) Even looking at when JC finally captures WWX, they spun the event to be something like "wow, yes, JC is so great at torturing people! look at him, using just a little dog to scare WWX instead of doing anything else!" What did the novel really say about all that? The other matter was more specific, to ch. 73? When JC and WWX stage their fight and then WWX's defection from the Jiang Sect. How JC then declares WWX as an enemy of the cultivation world? Did he really say something like that in the novel? What were JC and WWX's plans for their stated fight? Did JC follow those plans, or go awry? If the latter, what did he do?

These posts, in my eyes, seem to almost want to make JC look like he really wasn't as bad of a person. That his actions (in regards to WWX) weren't /that/ harmful. Almost of if the rumors in the book (and maybe in the "fandom" too), painted him much worse than he really is. Which, of course all JC stans want to make their "little purple grape" seem like he's so innocent and that even his bad behaviors actually weren't all that bad when you really look at them. (Here's me rolling my eyes.) I'm not a fan of JC, at all; I hate him, actually, lol. But the things these posts mentioned kinda make me pause. Yet given my bias against him, and my terrible memory, I couldn't really recall what truly happened in the novel.

Anon, whoever is saying any of this is just lying. Jc stans lose the battle with canon every time, so they start making up shit to make it seem like Jiang Cheng is actually a good person according to some super secret text only they have access to. Many times, they will even resort to gaslighting, such as with this example. Of all the mxtx novels, mdzs is the most translated by a variety of independent translators on top of the official, and they all say the same thing (with the exception of the official, which is another topic of discussion). You do not need to understand the original Mandarin to know the story, because every translation says the same exact thing. But if you want, we can still go through each point:

1) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture people! It’s all rumors!” and 2) “Jiang Cheng only goes after bad people like demonic cultivators!”

Debunked (go to the very last response in the thread): everyone around Jiang Cheng, even Jiang Cheng his damn self, acknowledges that Jiang Cheng kidnaps people to torture to death (because people seem to forget he’s a serial killer when discussing the torture). He also does not go after “demonic cultivators” at all. If he did, he would have sided with Nie Mingjue against the Jin on the Xue Yang situation. He does not. He only attacks people who remind him of Wei Wuxian or are surnamed Wen:

The owner, “No, no. It was his misfortune. The person’s surname was Wen, and that Sect Leader Jiang’s archenemy happened to have the surname of Wen as well. He’s hating on everyone in this world whose surname is Wen. Whenever he sees one, he’d grind his teeth in hatred, wanting to skin them alive. How could he give a single friendly look to...”

—Chapt. 92: Longing

3) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture Wei Wuxian!”

Debunked: locking someone in a room with something that makes them go blackout with terror counts as torture. Some people liking dogs does not mean that cynophobia isn’t real, and downplaying people’s actual phobias makes you a shit person. Also, Fairy isn’t a “little dog,” she is (apparently according to interviews) a Husky, and her presence is what Jiang Cheng uses to confirm “Mo Xuanyu” is actually Wei Wuxian before he brings her in specifically to torture him. Because once again, he knows how terrified Wei Wuxian is of dogs.

4) What happened during the defection?

Honestly, it would probably be best if you just reread Chapt. 73 because the lead-up to the defection is long and starts at Wei Wuxian having to prevent Jiang Cheng from potentially kicking A-Yuan, Jiang Cheng attempting to re-murderer Wen Ning, then him telling Wei Wuxian to return the Wen to the labor camps because he doesn’t care about fulfilling life debts if it gives him a bad reputation amongst the other sects. This quote is the end of all that convo:

Wei WuXian, “There’s no need to protect me. Just let go.”

Jiang Cheng’s face twisted.

Wei WuXian, “Just let go. Tell the world that I defected. From now on, no matter what Wei WuXian does, it’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect.”

Jiang Cheng, “... All for the Wen Sect...? Wei WuXian, do you have a savior complex? Is it that you’ll die if you don’t stand up for someone and stir up some trouble?”

Wei WuXian stayed quiet. A while later, he answered, “So that’s why we should cut ties right now, in case anything I do affects the YunmengJiang Sect in the future.”

Or else, he really couldn’t make any guarantees on what he’d do in the future.

“...” Jiang Cheng murmured, “My mom said that you do nothing but bring our sect trouble. It’s true indeed.” He laughed coldly, talking to himself, “‘To attempt the impossible’? Fine. You understand the YunmengJiang Sect’s motto. Better than I do. Better than all of us do.”

He sheathed Sandu. The sword returned to its sheath with a clang. Jiang Cheng’s tone was indifferent, “Then let’s arrange for a duel.”

Three days later, the leader of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Cheng, arranged for a duel with Wei WuXian.

They fought quite a fight in Yiling. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence.

Under Wei WuXian’s command, the fierce corpse Wen Ning struck Jiang Cheng once, breaking one of his arms. Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei WuXian once. Both sides suffered losses. Each spat out a mouthful of blood and left cursing the other. They had finally fallen out with each other.

After the fight, Jiang Cheng told the outside that Wei WuXian defected from the sect and was an enemy to the entire cultivation world. The YunmengJiang Sect had already cast him out. From then on, no ties remained between them —a clear line was drawn. Henceforth, no matter what he did, they’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect!

—Chapt. 73: Recklessness

Notice how Wei Wuxian says tell the other clans he defected, and Jiang Cheng changes the statement to "let's arrange a duel." Also, keep in mind that everything after that conversation in the narrative reads like someone telling a legend: "They fought quite a fight. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence." The narration is depicting the duel the same way it depicted the opening prologue of Wei Wuxian's death: this is what the world was told about the defection battle after the fact, not necessarily the truth. Why do we know this isn't the truth? Well, Jiang Cheng had his non-dominant arm broken to make the battle seem real but also not to hamper his work too much:

Wei WuXian grinned, “How could it seem realistic if it wasn’t hard enough? It was your left hand anyways. It didn’t hinder you from writing. It takes a hundred days to heal a wound to the bone. It wouldn’t be too much even if you hung it up for three months.”

—Chapt. 75: Distance

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian was gutted, something the legend does not mention at all:

Although he was stabbed in the stomach by Jiang Cheng, Wei WuXian wasn’t concerned at all. He stuffed his intestines back into himself and like nothing ever happened, he even got Wen Ning to hunt down a few malign spirits as he bought a few large bags of potatoes.

—Chapt. 74: Distance

Keeping in mind that Jiang Cheng still has a golden core, Wei Wuxian seemed to have put a lot of thought into how to injure Jiang Cheng in such a way that seemed serious but was actually superficial. Wei Wuxian treated the duel like it was staged. Jiang Cheng treated it like it was real and tried to kill Wei Wuxian. The only thing I'll give Jiang Cheng is that his "declaration" wasn't what damned Wei Wuxian; him refusing to stand by Wei Wuxian rescuing the Wen is what damned Wei Wuxian. The declaration was only the official statement that he had cut ties and everyone else could do what they wanted to his former shixiong.

So in short: stop letting jc stans gaslight you just because they're loud and repeat the same lies over and over again with confidence.

#anon #mdzs asks #canon jiang cheng

[layzeal]

fellas, y'all know i'm a wwx stan and all, so because of that it's kind of an important thing i remind everyone that sunshot wwx did steal the bodies of people's grandma's. like, it's a whole thing how he did steal people's grandmas. he doesn't deny it!! he's actually quite ashamed of it!! it wasn't just wen soldiers, he specifically digged up the graves of innocent wen ancestors and made them fight their own descendants for the pure horror of it

like... the point of the story isn't that wwx didn't do messed up shit during the war. the point is that no one batted an eye when he did it back then, and even celebrated him for it. but after he defected to save innocent war prisioners, suddenly all those things he was admired for were used to demonize him.

mdzs is an elaborate commentary on mob mentality and hipocrisy that spans even beyond the protagonist. to cheapen it to some disney channel movie level of shallowness is insulting at best

(ExR and Simplified CN; chapter 66 of the webnovel)

#before anyone says ''it's okay because it was war/it's okay because they were wens'' #i reeeeeaaaaally need you to reanalyze your views. especially if you're north american #also pause and try to realize who you sound like #like... the novel straight up Says it #it's not even subtle????? #please stop making wwx boring. he's NOT boring #something something the removal of character's agency is modao's fandom biggest problem smth smth #not only wwx's but everyone else's. but this isnt the topic today #modao #lace speaks

[sandu-zidian]

I'm having Yunmeng Shuangjie feelings I am losing it over the way these two idiots try to rationalize the decisions and emotions towards the other through duty and obligation.

Wei Wuxian attempts to rationalize the golden core transfer and his subsequent actions of secrecy and running away by trying to convince both himself and JC (and others) that he made those decisions out of duty, debt, and obligation: duty to JC, debt to Yunmeng Jiang, debt and obligation towards the Wen siblings. By doing so he hopes to mask the deep truth that his singular most important decision -- to transfer his own core to JC -- was done not out of duty, but out of love. If he admits to how love pushed him to try and fix JC, he would then have to grapple with the blatant truth that not only did the decision break the trust between himself and JC, but in fact did the opposite of fixing JC. The event only further breaks them apart. WWX refuses to acknowledge any feelings of regret he could possibly have about the golden core transfer -- either because did not understand how terrible living without a golden core could be, or because he knows that what he did to JC was agonizing -- by only accepting his actions as done by a servant for a master, as a disciple for his sect and sect leader.

Jiang Cheng also suffers from this rationalization. When WWX defects and later dies, JC attempts to reinforce his righteous anger and rage towards WWX by viewing his betrayal not as done by a close friend and brother, but as betrayal done by a sect member and first disciple. By publicly and internally deriding WWX as a traitor to Yunmeng Jiang, forgoing his duty and obligation to his sect leader and the sect that took him in, JC can delude himself into accepting the derision and gloating exalted by the rest of the cultivation world and reject the complex and often contradictory feelings of grief and loss he feels towards WWX that stem from the painful truth that WWX hurt him not because he was a trusted discple, but because he was a close confidante and an almost-brother. Such pitiful emotions are unacceptable for someone so hated as WWX. So, JC aligns his emotional turmoil with the rest of society by refusing to remember the whole truth of his relationship with WWX as not just a trusted disciple, but as a dear friend and an older brother. In doing so, JC's negative emotions are quite unfair (though in his defense it's not like JC knew the truth behind WWX's confounding actions) and also never allow JC any chance to actually come to terms with WWX's betrayal and painful downfall.

I think the best Yunmeng Shuangjie reconciliation stories are the ones where JC has to admit that his comtempt towards WWX during the 13 years that he was dead was unneccessarily unfair and allowed him no place to truly accept and grieve for the loss of his brother, and where WWX has to admit to himself the true reason for the golden core transfer and how he cannot run away from the reality of the pain such a decision caused both himself and his brother, and perhaps even admit that it wasn't really the right decision, if there even is a right decision for that scenario at all. I need JC to yell at WWX about how the whole golden core transfer just serves to prove that WWX never accepted himself as family to the Jiang siblings when JC and JYL both cared for him deeply as a brother, while WWX yells back at JC about how he could possibly dare to see JC as family when all he has done in the years since his resurrection was act as if WWX was nothing but a sect traitor and stranger not worthy of a truthful conversation.

#mdzs #yunmeng shuangjie #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #can someone please physically force them into a room tied back to back and forced to actually communicate i'm going to SCREAM #7 minutes in heaven except it's actually hell and both of them trying to escape the mortifying ordeal of being fucking HONEST #someone hand me a blender i need to turn these two into scraps #please please please ur not just first disciple and sect heir/leader ur brothers ur friends ur platonic soulmates #the betrayal and pain of being hurt wouldn't be this bad if you were just disciple and heir #it wouldn't hurt this much if you didn't view the other as family #katantalks #oh god this is a rambling mess

[labyrynth]

the irony of “canon jiang cheng” losers insisting that jc is inherently a terrible/abusive/toxic/whatever nonsense person and then collapsing in a dead faint at the suggestion that sometimes wwx made bad choices or choices that hurt people

“writing jiang cheng as a better person always comes at the expense of making wwx a WORSE person!! they can never build up their own favorite character without acting as if MINE is HORRIBLE”

nah babe you’ve just been doing that to jiang cheng for so long that your perception of both of them has become so warped you can’t even recognize canonical actions of your own blorbo anymore. wwx DID pull some shitty and selfish shit, and he DID shut people out and break promises.

he’s not just your poor widdle sweet victim. he has agency, and he used that agency to make decisions that hurt people.

the insistence that wwx is perfect and can do no wrong does injustice to both of their characters.

#moi #salt is salt #mdzs talk #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #and then they say shit that is explicitly untrue #like ‘jc kicked out wwx because he didn’t want to repay his debts!!’ #like first of all: what debt. #the one that **wwx specifically** incurred? #second: jc didn’t kick him out. wwx rather famously defected. #like they’re really just out here lying about the book and demanding that other people believe it #and then accusing them of poor reading comprehension or being delusional or ‘victim blaming’ when they refuse

[asideoftrashplease]

Detangling JC, his motivations, & his feelings on WWX (i)

JC and WWX have a very fraught history, and while WWX’s role as the narrator makes it very clear what his feelings towards JC are, JC’s feelings towards WWX and motivations seem a lot murkier. He goes from treating WWX as a brother, to mounting a siege in a concerted attempt to take his life. His actions and motivations in the aftermath of WWX’s resurrection are also subject to interpretation. This meta provides argument for my interpretation of his feelings and motivations throughout these events.

LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD

It is clear from the outset that JC cared deeply about WWX (I wish I did not have to make a case for this because it should be obvious, but there are some who believe that JC did not love WWX). Although he holds bitterness and resentment towards WWX due to his family situation and their rivalry, he cares about WWX and is protective of him. This shines through especially in times of mortal peril. 

When WWX was trapped in the Xuanwu cave, he travelled without stopping to find people to rescue WWX. The trip should have taken 10 days, but because he drove himself to exhaustion in his desperation to save WWX, he only took 7 days.

When WWX is in danger of being discovered by the Wens after the burning of Lotus Pier, he uses himself as bait to draw them away from WWX despite the risk to his own life, which eventually leads to his capture and the loss of his core.

SO WHERE DID THINGS GO WRONG

Things started to take a turn after the Sunshot Campaign. I believe a few key events caused resentment and confusion to build and grow in JC over time:

WWX’s refusal to carry his sword, which put political pressure on YMJ

His decision to break out the Wen Remnants, without consulting or informing JC, with put more pressure on YMJ

His decision to defect from YMJ, effectively (in JC’s mind) picking the Wens over YMJ and his brotherhood with JC

His actions at Qiongqi Path which killed JZX — while we know from WWX’s POV what happened, JC and JYL have no idea what went down except from the claims of the surviving Jin cultivators

His attack on the 4000 cultivators at the Nightless City, which ultimately cost JYL’s life

It’s evident that JC is increasingly bewildered, angered, and hurt by WWX’s actions. It’s clear that he’s confused, and just CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY WWX IS ACTING THIS WAY. All the while, resentment is building in him that he has to clean up WWX’s messes, all while WWX’s actions undermine him as a leader and brings up childhood insecurities and jealousies. But his love for WWX drives him to continually stand by WWX and believe in him — even grudgingly, complainingly, and with growing resentment. Even up to the attack at the Nightless City, even after JZX’s death, he still seems to believe in WWX.

This last event, the attack at the Nightless City, seems to be the turning point where he stops believing in WWX, so I want to cover this particular event in more detail:

A “pledge conference” is being attended by QHN, GSL, LLJ, and YMJ. This conference is a ceremonial affair, centered around their pledge to eradicate WWX and the Wen remnants. It begins with them honoring the fallen with a toast, but while the other three sect leaders make the toasts, JC goes through the motions of the toast with visible unhappiness, and then conspicuously says nothing to honor the dead.

I feel this action needs to be understood in the context of the ceremony. They are standing in the Nightless City, where their comrades died in the final battle to take down QSW, a battle which WWX contributed to greatly. They are pouring the wine on the ground where the bodies lie to honor the fallen: “Here we honor our fallen. Rest in peace.” (Uncontroversial) “Now in the name of our fallen, we will eliminate the Wens who killed them — and the Yiling Patriarch!” (Controversial because WWX was brother in arms to these soldiers, and JGS is stirring shit because he wants the Yin Tiger Seal.)

JC knows the controversial bit is coming, so while the other sect leaders one by one say things like “rest in peace” and “may they live on” he dumps the wine on the ground and refuses to say anything. He is the only one, of the four with cups, who does not speak.

When WWX appears, the others all draw their weapons, but JC reaction is different: “JC’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand.” From this sentence alone, it may not seem clear what he’s feeling, but based on the rest of his actions in this scene, I would guess that he’s shocked and appalled that WWX would dare to appear before such a large and hostile mob, A MOB THAT IS CURRENTLY PLEDGING TO KILL HIM AND SCATTER HIS ASHES, thus recklessly and what seems like arrogantly endangering his own life.

After an increasingly hostile exchange between WWX and the mob, JGS calls for everyone to set up the battle arrays to seal WWX in, with the intention of killing him there. But when WWX calls up the corpses buried under them to defend himself, it’s stated that all the sects were in disarray, except for YMJ, which seems to indicate that WWX’s corpses were not attacking the YMJ delegation — and the YMJ cultivators were not fighting the corpses either.

This all seems to indicate that despite JZX’s death, despite the fact that JC has NO FUCKING CLUE what the hell happened at Qiongqi Path, despite the fact that he’s no doubt been fed lies and biased reports from the surviving Jin cultivators, and despite the fact that WWX is currently unleashing an undead army on all of them — he still believes that there’s another side of the story. He doesn’t even know WHAT that story is, but he believes in WWX— grudgingly, and with growing disbelief, confusion, and incredulity—  he still believes, BLINDLY, in WWX.

THE TURNING POINT

In the ensuing chaos, JYL is killed, and WWX finally snaps in his grief, unleashing a hellish and completely uncontrolled bloodbath upon the assembled cultivators. It is estimated that this killed three thousand people, severely decimating the cultivation world’s population.

The siege begins after this attack, and we know from the prologue that the siege was headed by JC, and that he was the one behind key tactical maneuvers (designed using his intimate knowledge of WWX’s weaknesses) that allowed them to eventually sack the Burial Mounds. In the aftermath, he was the main person credited by the cultivation world for the defeat of the Yiling Patriarch. When WWX meets JL at Dafan, he corroborates this by revealing, through the narration, that JGS was the second-biggest contributor to the siege — after JC, who was the biggest contributor.

I know that there are other popular interpretations of JC’s motivations here. I will name two:

He participated in the siege only due to political pressure — after what WWX did at the Nightless City, he couldn’t NOT condemn him or the cultivation world would have turned on YMJ too

He participated in the siege hoping to take WWX alive and bring him back home to discipline privately

But I don’t subscribe to either of these interpretations. I believe he FULLY intended to kill WWX. Firstly, if he was only participating in the siege due to political pressure, why contribute so vitally to the siege, why take a leading role and design tactical maneuvers to bring WWX down? He could have just done as he’d done previously, which was to participate perfunctorily in “opposition” against WWX, but contributing as little as possible, or nothing at all.

Secondly, some may argue that he was trying to capture WWX alive. But before this, he had always given the impression of being extremely cautious, to the point of inaction when maybe action would have been better. JC is VERY risk-averse. His characterization before the siege is that he’d rather do nothing than do something even potentially risky. The intention of everyone else was to kill WWX, NOT to capture him. As such, the risk that WWX would be killed in battle is extremely high. Even if by some miracle, he managed to capture WWX alive despite the best efforts of everyone else to murder him, it would be really difficult to stop the other sects from executing him, and getting permission to take him home and keep him under house arrest. It would be a safer bet to try to sabotage the siege from the inside, which is not what he did. In fact, he did the opposite. He was leading the siege viciously and with intent.

So I believe that he fully intended to kill WWX, which means the turning point was JYL’s death. Up to her death, JC still believed in WWX. After her death, however, the very last we see of him is him clutching JYL’s body, completely in shock, having not yet processed her death. I believe his last words to WWX should hint to us what caused the snap from blind faith to blind hatred. These words were: “Didn’t you say you could control it?! Didn’t you say it would be fine?!” To which WWX (who is having 99 fucking breakdowns all at once) finally admits that he was wrong, and that he can’t actually control it.

My belief is that this incident made JC realize that JYL’s death (and JZX’s as well) was largely caused by WWX’s loss of control over his demonic cultivation, and IMPORTANTLY, JC’s inaction re: WWX’s method of cultivation and his seeming descent into violent radicalism. Despite all the warning signs, the growing escalations, the increasingly violent confrontations with increasingly large death tolls— he continued to believe in WWX, even when he could no longer understand or predict WWX’s actions. Everyone told him “you need to reign him in” “he’s going off the rails” “he’s a danger to us all” and JC didn’t take them seriously because he BELIEVED IN and TRUSTED WWX.

And now his sister is dead, his month-old nephew is an orphan, and WWX has massacred three thousand people in a single night, likely including members of YMJ, in a total loss of control and conscience. I think that was the turning point, the crux of the betrayal.

I believed in you. I defended you. I stuck my neck out for you. But you scorned my help. You rejected and discarded me. You betrayed my trust.

You don’t give a shit about me.

You don’t give a shit about anyone else.

I BELIEVED in you, and YOU BETRAYED ME.

—

NOTE: Right now this meta is getting a little long, so I think this is a good place to maybe cut it in thirds? Part II should cover the siege, WWX’s death, and the 13 years in between, and Part III should cover JC’s actions and motivations after WWX’s resurrection. As the next parts have not been written, I can’t link it! But when Part II is done, I will edit the post to include a link below the cut:

[Part 2 is still in progress!]

#canon jiang cheng #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng shuangjie #twin prides of yunmeng #mdzs #meta #man this is fucking depressing #this is written from jc's perspective but i will NEVER stop being sad about WWX #i will never stop thinking about how he was driven to this point #initially you might attribute some of his downfall to hubris #hubris that he thought he could control this dark power #when it was stated no one ever succeeded #but the core reveal subverts this #it makes you realize that maybe the hubris #was tinged with no small amount of desperation #i think he never expected how difficult it would be to LIVE through the sacrifice #to lose his cultivation #he fucking brutalized himself out of love for jc #and he has to live with the trauma of that brutalization #when he happened upon this power #he was desperate to believe that he could keep it #and in the end #demonic cultivation took away EVERYTHING he cared about #it destroyed him and his life completely #and he died alone #in a terribly violent and horrific way

[fubuwu]

Yk what, jiang cheng was valid for not wanting to help the wens. Not only had they massacred his sect and many others, but helping the innocent ones was suicide anyway. He'd be literally putting a target on his and his sects back if he sided with them. Plus he didn't owe them shit lol.

---

Pretty sure it was specified that some of them were ex soldiers too..... a lot of whom were accused of war crimes and raping civilians during the war.... Hard to say giving the lack of info on them, but for all we know some of those war criminals could be amongst the wen remnants under new identities, seeking to start a new life after the war. I can see why jc and the others are wary of them (doesnt justify the camp they were put in, ofc. But jc's shocked reactions and feelings of betrayal when wwx left him for them was pretty understandable). They're all traumatised after the war and what the wen sect did. Makes sense that there would be a lot of distrust which you can't exactly hate a genocide survivor for....

---

Stop holding his decision not to help them over him. Even wwx respected his wishes to keep out of it and defected for him.... because yk... even he had the decency to see and understand the difficult situation jc was in, unlike some of you jc antis clearly do -eyeroll-

#canon jiang cheng #jiang cheng #mo dao zu shi #Sick of this discourse #Man's had a sect to run #Leave him alone

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Did jc kill wwx with his own two hands? No. Is he responsible? Yes, heavily

Was him not personally exploiting the path into the burial mounds during the siege not enough then to mean Jiang Cheng had a hand in leading Wei Wuxian to his death? And does this also somehow not stand that Wen Ning, the man whose family was killed by that exploitation personally, sees Jiang Cheng as the one reason for his family was killed?

The word you use is "responsible", let's focus on that word. Since we have one person in plot who admits to the deaths he caused. Wei Wuxian admits to his part of the killings in war, he admits to himself, Wen Qing and Wen Ning being the cause of using Wen Ning to having killed Jin Zixuan with hefty amounts of regret (despite all circumstance leading to that), and to having justifiably killed the cultivators that set an attack on the Burial Mounds.

Yi Weichun, the middle aged cultivator who proclaimed to have had his leg cut off by him and had to wear a wooden prosthetic from then on, spoke up once more, “The debts of blood you owe to three thousand people will never be repaid, not even if you die over a million deaths!"

Wei Wuxian interrupted him, “Three thousand people? There were indeed three thousand cultivators present at Nightless City, but so too were the leaders, the sects and many of their best. With all of them present, could I have really killed all three thousand people? You are either thinking too highly of me, or are you looking down on them?”

He was only trying to reason fact, but the other cultivator felt as if he was being scorned, and became enraged.

"What do you think we’re talking about here? How could there be bargaining for debts of blood?”

“It’s not that I want to bargain over such a thing, but I would prefer my crimes to not to be exaggerated just because of the words of others. I won’t carry the burdens of what I didn’t do.”

Someone spoke, “What you didn’t do? What is there that you didn’t do?”

“Well, for example, I’m not the one who tore Chifeng-Zun apart. I’m not the one who forced Madam Jin to take her own life at Jinlintai. I’m also not the one who controls all of those corpses you ran into when you rushed up the mountain.”

The cultivators present are a blatant and literal metaphor for Jiang Cheng's own unreasonable grudges for how he blamed Wei Wuxian for all of the tragedies he was met with or, how he used Wei Wuxian as his scapegoat to justify his own lack of loyalty and trust to Wei Wuxian.

On the other hand, Jiang Cheng refused to give up, shouting, “Wei Wuxian, who was the one who broke his promise and betrayed the Jiang Sect first? Tell me. That I’d be the sect leader and you’d be my subordinate, that you’d help me your whole life, that so long as the Gusu Lan Clan had its Twin Jades, the Yunmeng Jiang Clan would have its Two Prides, that you’d never betray me or betray the Jiang Clan—who was the one that said that?! I’m asking you—who was the one that said all of that?! Did just you eat all your fucking words?!”

He got more agitated as he ranted on, “And in the end? You go and protect outsiders, haha! The Wen Sect’s people, even. How much of their rice did you eat?! Defecting with such resolution! What did you take our sect to be?! You did all the best things, yet every time you do the worst ones, it’s involuntary! Forced! With some unspeakable grievances! Grievances?! You told me nothing, you played me for a fool!!!

“Just how much do you owe the Jiang Clan!? Am I not supposed to hate you? Can I not hate you?! Why is it that now it’s like I’m supposed to have wronged you?! Why do I have to feel like I’m a fucking clown all these years?! What am I? Do I deserve to be blinded by all your dazzling splendor?! Am I not supposed to hate you?!”

Even blatant foreshadowing and callbacks, are sadly ignored to say, yes, Jiang Cheng is right to hate and still use his excuses to hate Wei Wuxian no matter the real reasons. Ironic, isn't it?

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #canon jiang cheng #wei wuxian #wei wuxian vs jiang cheng

[stiltonbasket]

Hi Stilton! I was going through your fem!wwx au and absolutely loving it (as usual) but then it got me thinking - when and how did wwx realize she loves lwj back in this universe? Like, lwj seems to have done the usual thunderstrike moment, but with wwx we only know that she was somewhat mollified when he refused to leve her to fend for herself after her defection. How did her feelings develop? Thank you so much for this lovely au, hope you're doing great!

Over the course of Wei Wuxian’s decade-long engagement, most of her elders and sect siblings assumed that she and Lan Zhan would grow to be a love match by the time of their wedding.

The aunties in Lufeng began gifting her silk in blue and white after her thirteenth birthday, to match with the colors her intended husband wore; and by the summer she spent in the Cloud Recesses, there was hardly a soul in the jianghu who did not know that Jiang Fengmian’s adopted daughter was dearer to Lan Wangji than the daughter of his blood would ever be to Jin Zixuan.

Lan Zhan liked Wei Wuxian, in a way that most boys of nine and ten were not disposed to like little girls, and this in itself was regarded as proof that theirs would be a harmonious marriage.

In Wei Wuxian’s eyes, Lan Zhan’s strange liking was proof that he was lonely, and wise beyond his years in a way that little boys seldom were. After all, even Yu Zhenhong liked to play tricks on their er-shijie sometimes, and the less said about Jiang Cheng, the better.

All told, Wei Wuxian did not see her intended’s feelings as love until their third month in the Burial Mounds. The Wens were living quite comfortably there, since Lan Zhan’s brother sent plenty of money to cover their daily needs; but they could not think of leaving at the time, since Zewu-jun had not yet settled matters with the Jin.

On that fateful day, Wei Wuxian awoke in the Demon-slaughtering Cave with A-Yuan at her side, just as she usually did. It was nearly spring, so one wool blanket sufficed for both of them; and after she left her padded stone bed, she tried to wrap her half of the blanket around Yuan’er so that he could keep warm in her absence.

It was then that she noticed that the sheet and blankets were stained with blood, and that her dark robes were smudged with crimson between her hips and thighs.

Wei Wuxian pinches the bridge of her nose. She is past her twenty-second year, quite far from the child of fourteen who wept when her first monthly blood began the day before that summer’s Duanwu festival, but waking up to find her bed ruined is a great deal worse than being forced to forfeit a boating race against her shixiongdi. If she were still at Lotus Pier, she would simply have called for new sheets; but now, she will have to rinse the bedding in cold water herself, haul a tub of hot water to bathe in, and find a set of fresh clothes and bandages before she leaves the cave.

“Yuan’er, get up,” she whispers. “The blanket is dirty, baobao. Jiejie will find you a new one.”

A-Yuan sniffles into his pillow and opens his big eyes.

“Xian-jiejie, A-Yuan is warm here,” he protests. “Yuanyuan doesn’t want a new blanket.”

“I know, sweetheart, but Jiejie bled on this one. Be good and listen for just a minute, ah?”

Grumbling, A-Yuan rolls away from the soiled blanket and lets Wei Wuxian wrap him in a fresh one. She throws the bedding over her arm, and wraps her cloak around her waist to hide her stained skirts; and then, with a small bag of salt hanging at her belt, she heads out to the mouth of the stream to fill the wooden laundry tub.

Lan Zhan is kneeling at the water’s edge when she rounds the turn in the path, pulling up a pair of bottles that were submerged there to chill last night. He rises to greet Wei Wuxian as she approaches, giving her a respectful nod, and then his gaze drifts sideways to the bundle of fabric on her hip. 

“Why are you washing clothes?” he asks. “Today is Lin Xiang’s day to do the laundry. It is written up on the schedule outside the clinic.”

Wei Wuxian winces. Lan Zhan would pay mind to a thing like that, even when his name wasn’t on the schedule at all.

“I stained the sheets of my bed with blood, that’s all,” she mutters. “I can’t ask Lin Xiang to wash these things for me, can I? And anyway, bloodstained things have to be washed with salt and cold water. We use boiling water and lye for sweat and mud stains.”

Lan Zhan’s eyes go wide. He takes a step closer, looking her over for injuries, and then he looks at Wei Wuxian’s pale face and tries to take her pulse.

“Are you wounded?” he says anxiously. “You were walking stiffly when you came back from cleansing the unclaimed plain behind the mountain yesterday. Did something attack you?”

“I’m having my monthly courses, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian sighs. “They haven’t been regular since before the war, so I never know when to prepare rags for my clothes and towels to protect my blankets. It’s bothersome, to be sure, but I’m not in any danger.”

He frowns at her. “And the bedding must be washed now?”

“En, or the stains will set. It’s best to wash the blood out before it dries.”

Lan Zhan holds out his arms. “Then give me your clothes. I will wash them and bring a tub of hot water for your bath, and then I will fetch your breakfast.”

Wei Wuxian tries to resist, but Lan Zhan refuses to listen to reason. Worse yet, he argues, reminding her that she used to drink tinctures to stop her bleeding because it made her tired, and insisting that she should rest first instead of washing clothes.

“You need rest and food to replenish your energy, and I can wash clothes well enough,” he says. “I will be gentle with them, and make sure to use cold water first, just as you said. You have my word.”

“But—”

“I don’t think they are dirty,” Lan Zhan persists. “What cultivator of worth has never stained their clothes with blood? And even if I was unaccustomed to cleaning it, you are my—”

But here his breath stutters, as if he were suddenly uncertain of his words, and stares at the ground for a split second before meeting Wei Wuxian’s eyes again.

“You are my friend,” he says gently. “I can see that you are exhausted, and hungry, and perhaps in no small amount of pain, as well. I cannot lessen your suffering very much, but I would like to do what little I may, to help you.”

Thwarted, Wei Wuxian hands over her bundle of laundry and starts back towards the cave. For his part, Lan Zhan leaves her clothes soaking in the tub and goes off to draw her a bath; and after she bathes, he brings her a bowl of hot chicken porridge and a tray bearing a teapot and a plate of homemade snacks.

“I will take over your duties today,” Lan Zhan tells her, after he makes up a fire in the cave and sweeps all the dust out into the courtyard. “If you grow tired of resting, will you continue with A-Yuan’s figuring lessons? That will do more good than laboring in the field. Anyone can tend to the crops, but A-Yuan must learn to study somehow.”

This comes as news to Wei Wuxian. “You’ve been teaching him arithmetic?”

“Only a little. Wangji is incompetent, and has not yet found a way to teach A-Yuan his numbers without first teaching him how to read.”

Wei Wuxian’s heart twinges. She has never liked it when Lan Zhan blamed himself for anything—the morning he was beaten for drinking with her in Gusu had been unbearable for her, since she had to watch him receive his fifty strokes of the paddle without sharing the punishment with him—but this is a sweeter kind of ache, for it comes with the knowledge that her former betrothed was thinking about A-Yuan.

“All right, then,” she hears herself say. “I’ll spend today with A-Yuan, and you can take over my work in the produce field.”

In the end, she and A-Yuan spend the morning bundled up in a set of new quilts, practicing basic arithmetic with a tray of wet sand and a chopstick. Wei Wuxian writes the numbers down for him, and A-Yuan counts them out on his fingers before scribbling the answers on the tray.

Wei Wuxian’s mind is elsewhere, however. She finds herself thinking of Lan Zhan again, and puzzling over the fact that something between them has changed. Lan Zhan is as he always was—steadfast and valiant and almost foolishly kind, unaltered from his younger self save for his deepened wisdom—but Wei Wuxian’s feelings towards him are different, somehow.

I have always taken joy in his presence, she reflects, while A-Yuan tries to convince her that three and three put together yield a sum of three-and-thirty. But I never missed him when he was gone, not really. Now, it seems as if I think of him more than ever when he is there, and twice as often again when he is not.

Suddenly, Wei Wuxian realizes that she can no longer bear to be without him at all.

But sooner or later, Lan Xichen will send word of a new territory for the Wens, and Lan Zhan will go home to the Cloud Recesses and leave Wei Wuxian behind with A-Yuan. She might go to safety with the Dafan clan after that, or return to her old life at Lotus Pier: but there will be no marriage in her future, no boisterous wedding in Gusu, no bows to earth and heaven with Lan Zhan by her side.

There will be no wedding banquet to follow, no airy wedded home high up in the green-covered mountains—for Wei Wuxian rejected all of those dreams when she rejected Lan Zhan, and now their two lives have been forever sundered.

Who will Lan Zhan marry, when all this is over? wonders Wei Wuxian. Who will be lucky enough to have his companionship, now that I’ve thrown it away?

“Qian-gege only marries Xian-jiejie.”

Wei Wuxian blinks and looks down at the lump of blankets in her arms. “Ah?”

“Qian-gege only marries Xian-jie,” A-Yuan says again, snuggling closer to Wei Wuxian’s chest. “He told A-Yuan, but it’s secret.”

Her heart skips a beat.

“What secret?”

“Mn, secret! Only A-Yuan knows,” the child persists. “Gege chose a big name for A-Yuan, too! One for A-Yuan, and one for my baby didi.”

“Didi? But Yuan’er, you don’t have a brother.”

“My didi’s not born, but A-Yuan will have him someday,” A-Yuan pouts. “Gege says, if he’s very good and loves Xian-jiejie, maybe Jiejie will love him back, and then A-Yuan can have a baby brother.”

He gives her a shrewd look, squeezing his feathery little brows together like an owl’s, and pats Wei Wuxian’s clammy hand.

“A-Yuan told Gege that Jiejie already likes him,” he says gravely. “If Jiejie tells too, then we have a wedding, and A-Yuan gets a didi.”

Wei Wuxian bursts into tears. She stoops and kisses A-Yuan’s little face, holding him close until he squeals and begs to be put down; and then, with great, fat teardrops soaking into her gown, she sets A-Yuan down on the ground and tells him to find Lan Zhan.

“Tell A-Yuan that Xian-jiejie loves him too,” she croaks, pressing her lips to A-Yuan’s soft forehead. “I think I always have, but it took ten years for me to know it!”

“A-Yuan knows,” he murmurs, patting her cheeks with his chubby little hands. “But A-Yuan doesn’t have to tell Gege.”

He turns around and points to the mouth of the cave: or, more specifically, to the white-clad figure standing there on the threshold, too stunned to move a muscle as A-Yuan leaves Wei Ying’s embrace and toddles out to meet him.

“Qian-gege, you heard?” he pleads, plucking at the hems of Lan Zhan’s robes. “Jiejie loves Qian-gege, too.”

Wei Wuxian rises from her bed, trembling, and Lan Zhan takes a halting step towards her. They meet in the middle, grasping for each other’s hands, and stand together in dizzy silence for what seems like an eternity before Wei Wuxian’s intended presses his forehead against hers.

“My feelings have not changed,” he says thickly. “I love you, Wei Ying—I have always loved you—but if you would rather we continue our friendship as it is, then you need not—”

“No! No,” cries Wei Wuxian. “But Lan Zhan, you must know—my feelings haven’t changed, either! I felt this way when we were children, if you will believe it. But you weren’t mine, so I never let myself realize how much I wanted to be near you, and be with you.”

“You need not worry now,” Lan Zhan whispers, smiling through his tears. “I am yours, Wei Ying, in every way you could wish. I have long since been so.”

His cheek brushes hers, finding its way in spite of the dim lighting in the cave.

She takes his hand, laying the other on A-Yuan’s head, and rises to meet him in a salty-tasting kiss a dozen years in the making.

#wangxian #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #my fic #fem!wwx au #long time no see for this au hehe #pls reblog 🙏🙏🙏