#AND FOR YANLI TO KNOW HER SON

[waitineedaname]

Good morning I am thinking about how Jin Ling continuing to call Jiang Cheng “jiujiu” makes it easier for him to slot in an address for Wei Wuxian without having to change anything. This could probably be a metaphor for the ways that JC and through him JL don’t let go of things and how that’s a huge part of what lets WWX get his happy ending but also. You see the legendary and ferocious Sandu Shengshou and then this full teenager calls him the uncle equivalent of “mommy”

YEAHHHHH I LOVE THIS ABOUT THEM. it really is the equivalent of calling for his mommy/daddy because he didn't grow up with his actual parents -- his jiujiu was his parent. it does make me kinda sad to think he probably can't do that as much post-canon, or at least in the public eye, since he has to become Jin sect leader and present himself like a mature person that should be taken seriously. he's already so young -- it would not be good for his reputation to be so informal and childish when referring to a fellow sect leader. but I think in public or around his friends, he still calls him jiujiu, because Jiang Cheng will always be that to him :')

#asks #anonymous #I love jin ling and jiang cheng's dynamic So Much #jiang cheng loves that kid SO MUCH #he RAISED him #he gave that kid all the love his parents never gave him #also re: address for wei wuxian #I think about that so often!! what would he call him! #I read a modern au where he called wwx his dajiu(?) since he was the older of the two #but idk what he'd call him in canon #he probably just calls him wei wuxian #but I think if he referred to wwx with a familial term it would completely knock wwx on his ass #like. wei wuxian claims him as his nephew #but he doesn't expect jin ling to claim him as an uncle #but it would certainly make jiang yanli happy to know her son considers her didi family just as much as she did :') #grabbing this whole family and SHAKING THEM AROUND. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[sazzafraz]

key emotional background point in no return: the yzy/jfm and Elder Jin Marriage which is four people who have NEVER improved the vibe at a function ruining several generations of children in many directions

#yanli: oh my god zixuan i'm so sorry #madam jin: i saw yu ziyuan at a party producing absolutely rancid vibes and i just HAD to HAVE her #shame jfm was sopping wet tho. if he was less a bore we could have made it work #hmm? my husband? he's exactly what all are men so don't really see the problem dear. its so nice u did marry my son #yes he was also a sopping wet disaster don't know how that happened #i must now go and make even more jin flower parties anxious and exhausting tata for now! #no return #lazy danmei tag

[tossawary]

Thinking about an AU where Jiang Yanli's "weak / mediocre cultivation" was caused by a horrific training accident when she was pretty young, in part to explore the tragedy and disability of it all and in part for the humorous "older relative casually drops wild personal lore that changes your entire perception of them" angle.

Like, Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan's firstborn child is a girl, which is not ideal in this deeply sexist world, but the sect motto is "attempt the impossible", right? It's not unheard of for female cultivators to lead sects and Yu Ziyuan wants her daughter to be the first female Jiang sect leader, to show up the cultivation world, and Jiang Fengmian isn't against the idea and wants the best for his daughter (although he probably doesn't want her to be a copy of his wife). So Jiang Yanli starts her cultivation training pretty early. There's a lot of intense pressure, a lot of expectation and projection and some arguments, and it all culminates in this poor child getting badly injured, with permanent damage to both her body and to her cultivation. It's a "no one's fault and everyone's fault" thing.

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan quietly drop their plans for Yanli to become the sect leader and focus on a very young Jiang Cheng instead, which is easy in part because everyone expects the son to inherit anyway. A young Jiang Yanli is betrothed to the heir of the Jin Sect and this is basically never talked about ever again. General perception is that Jiang Yanli is a mediocre cultivator at best because she was born that way (she's a WOMAN, after all) and/or because her disposition is just too sweet and agreeable, and OF COURSE the son became the heir as soon as the Jiangs had a son. That's just how things work!

So, in an AU where Jiang Yanli (and Jin Zixuan?) lives and teenage Jin Ling is freaking out about some embarrassing and/or dangerous mistake on a night hunt...

Jiang Yanli, patting her son's shoulder: "It's going to be okay. You know, when I was a young child, I permanently injured myself in a training accident and could no longer become the Jiang sect leader, and it felt like the end of the world, letting everyone down, but it all worked out in the end!"

Jin Ling, whose entire 15-year-old worldview just got flipped upside-down: "...Mother?! What?!?!"

#tossawary mdzs #fic ideas #jiang yanli #jiang fengmian #yu ziyuan #jin ling #jiang cheng #xuanli #jin zixuan

[shanastoryteller]

Happy holidays! Lady mo please?

a continuation of 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Jiang Yanli does not often feel old. Her golden core does not keep her eternally young like it does her brother, does not prevent the more persistent illnesses from plaguing her, but it does east the aches and pains non cultivators her age often complain of, does keep her skin youthful without the aid of strange poultices and she’ll probably never need dyes to keep her hair dark. But she feels old now, watching Xuanyu and Lan Wangji fumble around one another, watching her struggle for the affection of a husband who might care for her, but does not treat her with care.

At least by the time she married Zixuan, he’d told her that he loved her.

 “What was all the commotion about?” Zixuan asks, arms encircling her waist as he tugs her back against his chest now that they’re back in their own quarters.

“Your cousin got drunk and pissed off the wrong people. Again.”

He huffs, his breath warm against her neck. “Yanli. You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I know A-Yao thinks I’m stupid, but even I notice servants running about and clan leaders and their wives going missing. Especially when one of them is mine.”

“A-Yao doesn’t think you’re stupid,” Jiang Yanli says, even though he kind of does. He thinks most people are stupid and Zixuan has at least grown out of taking it personally. That doesn’t mean she has to rub it in. “Xuanyu was just – a little upset. About things.”

“Lan Xichen likes her. Lan Wangji’s kid adores her. And we all saw what Lan Wangji thinks,” he says. Defending is also not the same thing as caring, but she doesn’t say that. “A-Yao even calls her our sister. Do you remember how long it took him to call me brother? It seems like it’s going well.”

If it had gone a little less well, she’d be less distraught.

Jiang Yanli is debating how much she can say without revealing Xuanyu’s pregnancy – enough people know that it won’t stay a secret for long, but Zixuan is terrible at faking surprise – when there’s a loud, frantic knocking at their door.

Zixuan frowns and goes to open the door.

“Fuck off,” slurs a familiar, beloved voice.

Jiang Yanli hides a smile and goes to stand next to her husband.

A-Cheng is standing there, sort of, considering he’s mostly being supported but a long-suffering Li Jun. “Meimei said she won’t deal with him anymore.”

“Ah,” Zixuan says, already resigned.

A-Cheng stumbles forward, grabbing her wrist and tugging her towards the table. He blearily glares at Zixuan. “Go away.”

He sighs, leaning down to kiss her and then saying, “I suppose I’ll be in a guest room.” He makes a face, remembering that the tower is full of foreign disciples. “Somewhere.”

He’s going to end up sleeping in their son’s room and A-Ling is going to complain about it. Loudly.

“Good night,” she says, barely keeping from laughing as she closes the door on Li Jun side eyeing Zixuan. Her sect has never completely forgiven Zixuan for being a teenage boy, not matter that she’s spent over a decade in the Jin rather than the Jiang.

She lets A-Cheng pull her down beside him at the table, leaning his head on his arm while he stares at her. She pours him a cup of water that she hopes he’ll drink. “Are you all out of sorts because of Xuanyu too?”

His face goes blank then it creases and he’s turns to hide it in the bend of his elbow.

With the first stirrings of genuine alarm, Jiang Yanli realizes he’s crying.

“A-Cheng? A-Cheng, what’s wrong?” she asks, putter her arm over his back and pulling him into her side like she used to when they were kids.

The words come out muffled, but he says, “I hate him. How could he – I hate him.” Then, quieter, in a tone that doesn’t match the words at all, “I hate him.”

She runs through everyone who’s here, every cultivator she saw A-Cheng speak to, but it’s a fool’s errand. No one gets to him like this. No one but –

“Wei Wuxian came back.”

#prompt answers #prompts are closed #asks #xxqiao #untamed

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Wei Wuxian might actually be my favourite depiction of an adult interacting with unrelated kids that I’ve ever seen in fiction. He reminds me of the adults I look back on fondly from when I was growing up, and of the adult I want to be when interacting with teens through work etc.

He’s fun and silly and teases them, but knows when to step up as the adult in the situation and be responsible.

His degrees of closeness to them are appropriate; closer to the ones who are “his kids” (ie Jin Ling as his nephew and Sizhui eventually as his son), and friendly but not excessively so with the others.

He actively watches out for the kids and protects them from danger, but also gives them practical advice and opportunities to spread their own wings and exercise their own abilities.

He impresses upon them that they don’t need to achieve the things their fathers and uncles had by their age: he was there, he knows those tales of glory are rooted in blood and suffering, and he works to free the juniors from the pressure to hold themselves up to that shallow veneer of triumph as a standard.

He even occasionally drops good relationship advice even before he and Lan Wangji get their shit together: the bit in Yi City where he refuses to waste time on the whole “I won’t leave without you!” thing and instead tells the kids essentially, “No. I trust him, and I have to do what I need to do, and leave him to do what he needs to do,” really sticks with me.

Anyway...rambling, but yeah. I love him, and I love that he’s sometimes a disaster but he is so good at switching to Adulting Mode as needed. Also there’s definitely some very bittersweet thoughts to be had about the fact that, aside from his brief sweet memories of his parents, Yanli was definitely the one who taught him how to be a caretaker. And now, he gets to use what she taught him to watch over her son.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #wei ying #blorbo posting #i feel like there's something SO real about him having all his own issues but being able to kind of switch them off when An Adult is needed #been there

[biennatodd]

i cant stop thinking about what if pregnancy was really hard for YZY.

what if her labor was so difficult that her doctors encouraged her to not even try again (the impossible be damned) despite having a daughter for a firstborn.

what if she pushed (and JFM was amenable, as he often was then) for her daughter to be made heir, only for JYL to struggle with foundation building so much that they worried she'd never reach core formation.

unsuitable.

it goes from improbable to nigh impossible for yanli to be sect leader.

so YZY decides to try again, its been years since the first time. surely she's recovered more than enough. if she can not make her body do even this then. then.

she will do this.

imagine her suffering another dangerous child birth, only to have another daughter.

and never once does her love for her children waver but she could cry, honestly cry because why could nothing ever be easy for her.

and then she has a thought.

it would be so easy. she could force the midwives to take an oath of secrecy. she would have to be more hands on in the raising of her child than most others in her position, but it wouldn't hurt to be seen as doting...

no one would ever know.

That year, the jianghu celebrated the birth of Jiang Fengmian's son and heir, Jiang Cheng.

#mdzs #yu ziyuan #jiang family #i was just thinking what if YZY's insistence JFM recognize JC as son and heir was caused by something.. else #what if YZY (and jc by proxy) had a secret #and yes that secret is #trans jiang cheng #its a bit different bc jc would not have any choice re: gender presentation or identity but i feel like that provides good character drama #jiang cheng in for the shock of his life when he finally learns other boys are built different

[nutcasewithaknife]

I've been obsessed with Jiang Cheng since halfway through my first watch of cql, and here's why. He always keeps doing better than I expect him to.

(wow, this got long. rest is under the cut!)

He's introduced as the brother-killer, the ruthless sect leader with a reputation for being merciless. Then cut to the flashback, a Jiang Cheng who is fifteen, surrounded by his sister and brother and happy about it, occasionally doing stupid teenager things, trying so very hard to be Ideal Heir, while Wei Wuxian is the prodigy that keeps stealing his thunder effortlessly. And you go, "oh, I know this story. It's a tragedy, because these brothers loved each other once, but one's ambition will eventually breed jealousy which will fester into hate and end, tragically, in the death of the better half." It's Cain and Abel! You've seen how it ends, it's the first scene you see, of course that's where it's going!

And then you see how the three siblings help each other survive a frankly horrible and abusive household. They try to do for each other what their parents couldn't; Yanli tries to be their mother, Jiang Cheng doesn't believe the rumours about Wei Wuxian being jfm's illegitimate son or hold it against him as he very easily could've learnt to from his mother, and Wei Wuxian does his darned best to get jfm to acknowledge and love his son as he does for Wei Wuxian.

You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop!! Yunmeng burns, Jiang Cheng chokes his brother in the rain, and you think this is it, this is where it finally breaks. But he sticks with his brother and sister, he makes some stupid decisions in his grief and pays dearly for it. When he wakes up without a core he is broken, his 'ambition' is destroyed, and you remember him choke his brother and think this is it, and then... it isn't. Other than the one grieving rant in the rain, he never blames his brother for their loss, never demands that he fix it all. When Wei Wuxian does come with a solution, Jiang Cheng doesn't act like it's something he was owed. It's his brother, his brilliant genius brother, who miraculously fixed this impossible thing! He's the most Jiang of them all, of course he achieved the impossible!

And then he's the young sect leader in a bloody war, needing to win, needing to prove his worth and his sect's worth at every turn. This is where he becomes the ruthless, powerful man we meet in the first few episodes! Only.... he finds Wen Qing, who is the enemy in the eyes of the Jianghu, and offers to protect her (only her because he knows his limits, he can't protect all her people and his own, and his duty to his sect is first). He goes looking for his brother, months on end, haggard to the bone.

Then Wei Wuxian shows up wielding a power that's the worst taboo in their world, a power frighteningly similar to the power-drunk villain that they war is being waged against! He's doing unspeakable things, terrible torture in the name of revenge! Ah, so this is what it finally is! The moment they finally fall out for good, where Jiang Cheng cannot abide to tarnish his sect's reputation with Wei Wuxian's, and their love turns to hate.

But.... Jiang Cheng sees what he's done, and the first thing he does is to hug him tight. He asks about Wei Wuxian not carrying his sword, but even after the diplomatic nightmare of a war council, Jiang Cheng is just worrying. It's the most open, the most honest we've seen him so far, and he is concerned for his brother. He shuts it down when Jin Zixun tries to pick a fight. He takes responsibility for the person everyone's wary of, because that's his brother and he trusts him! He's hiding things, yes, but one day he will be ready to talk and Jiang Cheng will wait till then.

Then the war's won (by Wei Wuxian, of course!) and he has a sect to rebuild. And his brother is not at his side. First he's slacking off and drinking around town, then he runs away with the Wens to the Burial Mounds. It's terrible for the sect's and Jiang Cheng's own precarious position in Jianghu. Surely, this is the last thread of Jiang Cheng's love for his brother, the beginning of the man we were introduced to? But it's fucking not! Yes, he's frustrated. Yes, he's mad. And yet, he doesn't force his sister into a diplomatically advantageous marriage (which I strongly believe is the bare minimum of being a decent human being, but is something that wouldn't have been a questionable or dishonourable thing for him to do in the culture and world this story is set in) because she is not a pawn and he respects her choice above the politics! He tries to defend his First Disciple, his brother, and is overshadowed by much more powerful leaders who are bigoted and/or afraid of his power. And when it all goes to shit, they fight! This is the end of it, surely? But no! It's all fake! They fight, make up a lie about how the Yunmeng Jiang has supressed Wei Wuxian and his Wens in the Burial Mounds so they can live without being under attack for however long, and then have shady meetups to discuss their nephew's name!!

In the carnage of Nightless City, their sister dies at his hands, and the horrible realisation dawns that this is what pushes them over the brink, literally. And then!! AND THEN!!!!! EVEN THEN IT WASN'T ENOUGH FOR HIM TO KILL HIS BROTHER!!! The first scene was a lie, WEI WUXIAN HAD TO THROW HIMSELF OFF!!!!!! And when he's finally back, what does Jiang Cheng do? Kill him? ban him from ever returning to their home? No! He wants to drag him back home and make him apologise, explain himself!!

A lot of this is very focused on the brothers, but even outside of that, Jiang Cheng keeps subverting the expectations that the story builds for him right in the beginning. For all the talks of 'disciplining' his nephew (which could unquestionably entail some form of corporal punishment, as we see in other parts of the story) and the childhood Jiang Cheng himself had, the idea of his Jiujiu raising his hand against him is unthinkable to the point of incredulity for Jin Ling. When Jin Ling has his breakdown over Suihua on the Lotus Pier docks, I was full bracing myself for Jiang Cheng to yell at him for crying in public without any shame or dignity, but what does he do? Calls his nephew to his side and demands to know who made him cry, so he can fucking wreck them for daring to do that! He has a mere day to process the Golden Core reveal, and after all the yelling, he actually apologises to his brother!!

Then, in the mother of all sucker-punch moments, we find out that the one grief-riddled, frustrating moment of apparent stupidity whose domino effect this entire thing has been, was in fact Jiang Cheng willingly sacrificing himself, sect be damned, to save his brother and sister. And like!! How do you have such a character who simultaneously is and is not what he seems to be!!!

I (and a lot of the audience) immediately played into the simple brotherhood-destroyed-by-jealousy plot that it seems to be at first, but that's the intention! The entire story keeps showing how misleading, how vicious rumours can be and how horribly it can affect who someone is in the eyes of society. We see this happen in the story, of course, but the narrative also relies on the audience to make the same mistake, to take the tropes that seem obviously implied at the start, and then unravels the true complexity of the story as it moves forward. We got played by the narrative and it was so worth it!! Wei Wuxian is the prime example, of course, but cql (and mdzs from what I gather, though I haven't read the books) does it with such nuance and brilliance for Jiang Cheng, how do you not immediately lose your entire mind about it for the rest of forever!!!!!

#this wasn't supposed to be so long but the brainworms commanded it #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #wei wuxian #wei ying #Jin Ling #jiang yanli #wen qing #meta #cql #the untamed #yunmeng brothers #yunmeng siblings #jin ling and jiujiu

[mxtxfanatic]

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever written a meta on Madam Yu/Yu Ziyuan before? 🤔 Let’s change that!

Yu Ziyuan is a petty ass spiteful bitch who never loved Jiang Fengmian, showed no care for her only daughter Jiang Yanli, and cared for her only son Jiang Cheng only insomuch as he was a reflection of herself. There is not a singular nice thing she has to say to or about Jiang Yanli in the text, not even on the eve of her death. Towards Jiang Cheng, her “defenses” of him are all backhanded comments on how he isn’t better than the son of the woman she, herself, is jealous of, that he is unlikeable because he is her son, and that even his own father doesn’t want him. Jiang Cheng already feels unloved by his father from Yu Ziyuan’s perpetual harping before Wei Wuxian is brought back from Yiling, so this insecurity cannot be laid at his feet. On top of that example, people also like to claim that Jiang Fengmian was a “bad father” to Jiang Cheng because Jiang Cheng only remembers (which is already suspect because jc usually only conveniently remembers things that make him a victim) his father holding him a handful of times, but as for his mother? The only time he remembers her hugging (and kissing) him is when she knows she was about to die. He is 17 and has never been hugged by his mother in living memory. But she loves him (allegedly).

As for her (alleged) love and pining for Jiang Fengmian:

Of course, she was Jiang FengMian’s wife, and used to cultivate with him as well. Naturally, she should be called Madam Jiang. But, for some reason, everyone had always called her Madam Yu. Some people guessed that it was because she didn’t want to take on her husband’s surname due to her assertive personality.

…

Madam Yu came from the prominent Even after she married Jiang FengMian, she had always been out on night-hunts, not overly fond of staying at the Jiang Sect’s Lotus Pier. On top of that, where she lived at Lotus Pier was different from where Jiang FengMian did. She had her own area, where only she and a few of the family members she’d brought from the Yu Sect lived.

—Chapt. 51: Courage, exr

She refuses to be known as the Madam of the Jiang Clan. She refuses to integrate her people into her husband’s home. She refuses to stay in the same place as her husband in their home. She refuses to even be in their home except to prepare for nighthunts. And when she’s home, she only picks fights, claims that she’s the only one who sees what’s “really” happening but nobody listens because they don’t like her or what she has to say, then leaves again. This is not a woman that cares about the clan she married in to. This isn’t even a woman that cares about her immediate family. So why is she even here?

This culminates into the “petty ass bitch” part:

The entirety of the cultivation world knew that third lady Yu had cultivated together with Jiang FengMian when they were young. Jiang FengMian’s character was gentle, yet Yu ZiYuan’s personality was harsh. The two didn’t share too many interactions. Thus, although their backgrounds matched, nobody associated the two as a pair. Later, ZangSe SanRen came from the mountains, passed by Yunmeng, and happened to become friends with Jiang FengMian. They had even night-hunted together on multiple occasions. Both thought highly of each other. People supposed that it was very likely for ZangSe SanRen to become the next mistress of Lotus Pier.

However, soon afterward, the MeishanYu Sect proposed an alliance through marriage to the YunmengJiang Sect.

—Chapt. 56: Poisons, exr

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan knew each since they were young and had many interactions, but they were incompatible because of Yu Ziyuan’s volatile personality. Nobody considered them a pair despite being a perfect match on paper. Neither of them wanted marriage; neither clan proposed or pushed it. However, the moment another woman appears that is universally loved and is suspected to be made into the new Madam Jiang, suddenly MeishanYu wants to pressure Jiang Fengmian into this ill-fated marriage? The story makes it clear that the proposal only came into existence after Cangse Sanren became a rumored option—not during any of the other times Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan had met and parted without a care, not when Cangse Sanren first descended—while only Jiang Fengmian opposed the marriage. And who does Yu Ziyuan have a massive inferiority complex to, so much so that she’s willing to abuse the orphaned son of the woman to make him indebted to her family? Cangse Sanren.

Yu Ziyuan wanted to marry Jiang Fengmian not out of care or love but out of a petty desire to “prove” that the position of Madam Jiang was hers, only. Even if it meant consigning herself and another person to a loveless, violent marriage. From beginning to end, Yu Ziyuan was a person obsessed with her reputation and what she felt was “owed” to her as the daughter of cultivation clan leaders, and this led to the destruction of herself and her family.

Anyways, that’s all, folks!

#mdzs #human metas mxtx #this is all i have to say

[askew-d]

mdzs midnight thoughts

lan wangji does not know that his forehead ribbon truly was askew the second time wei wuxian pointed it out, now does he

as i’ve mentioned before, lan wangji also does not know that wei wuxian had alike scars in his back as a punishment for having saved him

lan sizhui and the rest of the juniors have no idea about the story hanguang-jun and senior wei had together. if they saw the dire situation where they screamed at each other and fought, they’d be really shocked, because: seriously, these two men are so goddamn shamelessly affectionate in a daily basis, how could they ever had conflicts?

jiang yanli, jin zixuan, wei wuxian and the wens’ deaths were basically in the same couple of days. none of them actually know that besides wei wuxian. jiang yanli and the wens think they’ve died to save wei wuxian, but in the end it just spared him some more time. he died not long after anyway.

no one despite lan xichen has any idea why lan wangji was so interested in bunnies out of a sudden, right? he just one day appeared with a ton and they just thought, ‘oh yea, it’s hanguang-jun, we’ve got him covered’

if wei wuxian’s mother saw how much her boy tormented lan qiren and the lan clan in general, from what her reputation precedes, she’d possibly smile proudly

everyone still thinks wei wuxian was the preferred ‘son’ instead of jiang cheng. they think he’s got a privileged childhood for living with the jiangs being treated not as a servant, but as part of the family! they dont know everything he’s been through in that goddamn fucking environment!!

perhaps meng yao would’ve been more empathic towards wei wuxian if he actually got to know his tragic backstory in the streets and with the jiangs. maybe if he got to know him better, before the sunshot campaign events. they were treated unfairly in resembling points, weren’t they, after all?

nie huaisang and wen qing would be like brother and sister if they were to know each other. they never did. in fact, wen qing wasn’t spoken about or to enough.

mentioning the public eye again, for them it’s like wei wuxian was the dishonest and devilish son of the two most famous, righteous rogue cultivators of their age. and considering madam lan’s past actions, lan wangji is the son of a murderer. historically ironic.

wei wuxian is part of jin ling’s family three times. one as himself (martial uncle), second as being in the body of mo xuanyu (biologically an uncle) and third as being the husband of lan wangji, lan xichen’s brother, who’s sworn brother with his uncle (a very distant relative, but a relative likewise, especially since being sworn brothers is such an intimate thing there).

the lan disciples simply saw hanguang-jun, the epitome of righteousness and the king of blank expressions, pick a random gay demonic cultivator one day and let him tag along on his adventures only for them to get married later because, yeah, that’s the yiling patriarch, in fact, why nobody told me my idol had a situationship with the biggest badass villain in history??

from somewhere within, mo xuanyu is oddly satisfied for seeing wei wuxian getting a proper revenge for him and a bunch of other stuff, beyond having very gay sex with the hanguang-jun — can you imagine?! he must think that at least his body served for a good cause!!!

#wei wuxian #lan wangji #the untamed #mdzs #mdzs thoughts #mo dao zu shi #cql #mdzs wei wuxian #mdzs lwj #mdzs novel #mxtx mdzs #mxtx #jiang yanli #jiang zixuan #jiang cheng #the founder of diabolism #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #wangxian #yiling laozu

[loosingmoreletters]

Oooo for a prompt: Jiang Cheng raises a-Yuan thinking he’s actually Wei Wuxian’s biological child

Anon, you really said “I will cater to Letter’s interests” with this ask.

When Jiang Cheng finds the boy, he’s still grieving. He hasn’t stopped grieving since they received the first terrible news of Jin Zixuan’s demise. He grieves, he rages, he cries and carries on. A circle reminiscent of the schedule followed by a boy burned out by loss.

He grieves when he pulls a-Yuan from the ash. The child is barely breathing, malnourished too, wrapped in an adult’s cloak.

Wei Wuxian, he thinks, and presses the boy close to his neck, hides his face when he hurries down a troubled path where his most trusted disciples wait. They do not question him, they ask nothing at all but how quickly they need to return home.

Fast, is his reply. He’s seventeen again, running across the countryside on bloody feet to get his brother home. He saved Wei Wuxian then, he saves a-Yuan now.

The healer asks him how old the child is and Jiang Cheng has no answer for her. He’s so very small, sleeping off his fever under her care. She thinks he is around two, perhaps a little younger, but they have no way of knowing. Everyone who would, is dead.

Like the rest of Jiang Cheng’s family, all of them, but Jin Ling. His nephew is a healthy baby, chubby fat and dressed in only the softest of silks. He’s loud too, crying out for parents he doesn’t have anymore, in everything but this, the exact opposite of a-Yuan.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t questioned a-Yuan’s presence in the Burial Mounds the first time round, too caught up in all his other anger. Maybe he should’ve stopped fighting with his brother to ask. Why would Wei Wuxian give everything up for the Wen if the Wen wasn’t his?

The following weeks agree with him. A-Yuan grows into Wei Wuxian’s smile, no longer asks for the dead as his memories disappear. Jiang Cheng wonders if his brows resemble Wen Chao, Wen Qing or her brother, any of them. Jiang Cheng has no clear memory of them he cared to keep, but he knows Wei Wuxian, hears him in the way a-Yuan phrases his question.

He knows his brother’s child.

Perhaps the other parent doesn’t matter, maybe the story there is as sad and terrible as every other.

His sister and her husband are dead, his brother is gone, his nephews are orphans both.

Jiang Cheng is tired of losing family.

The clan registry burned when the Wen attacked them. Jiang Yanli painstakingly wrote a new one when they rebuilt. He stares at her handwriting as he adds a-Yuan’s name to it. No one will ever look at this document, see that his sister put Wei Wuxian down as their brother, see that Jiang Cheng never struck him from the books, that he adds his son.

The Yiling Patriarch is dead, his legacy is cruel and terrible and it perished in the Burial Mounds.

A-Yuan is here.

The maids call him Jiang-gongzi, Xiao Yuan, Yuan-er, and a hundred different little endearments they’re quick to adapt for Jin Ling too when Jiang Cheng is allowed to take him to Lotus Pier.

A-Yuan loves his little cousin, and maybe if Jiang Cheng raises them together like this from the start just right, they’ll never break apart.

Only a handful of disciples know just where Jiang Cheng picked his nephew up, everyone else believes him a deceased cousin’s son.

It is for the best.

There’s no place in the world for Wei Wuxian’s son after all, none at all, unless he remains Jiang Cheng’s nephew first.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan sizhui #mdzs fanfic #fanfic #ask #anon #who does jc assume the other parent is??? i leave it up to interpretation #tho it WOULD be incredibly funny if like 5 years down the line #he meets lwj briefly and has a ‘wait a second. I know that nose’ moment #but most likely JC assumes sth Very Sad #depending on how you gender your WWX it’s VERY sad #anyway wwx gets resurrected and meets Jin Ling and aYuan night hunting and has Very Many Emotions #anyhow I hope you enjoyed this!

[poorlittleyaoyao]

The introduction of Jin Zixuan in the drama is so funny. I know many people seem to view it as a Mr. Darcy situation, where he’s haughty and deeply awkward, but kicking the Jiang contingent out of the tavern is next level. It’s not that the Jin don’t flex for the sake of flexing: Jin Zixun cajoling the Twin Jades to do shots serves no practical purpose, and Jin Guangshan’s entire existence is based on stepping over boundaries and daring someone to say something about it.

But in those two cases, they’re doing it because they are horrible human beings and can conceivably get away with it. Lanling Jin is the most powerful sect post-Sunshot by such a wide margin they can quite literally get away with murder and even Nie Mingjue can’t do anything about it but complain. But at this point in the canon? The Jin clan are the wealthiest, sure, but they’re otherwise on even footing with Yunmeng Jiang. Zixuan is out here knowingly allowing the expulsion of his peers from a prominent ally, including his betrothed. Like. What. The political ramifications there are INSANE.

And it’s set up in comparison to the bit where Lan Wangji initially refuses the Jiang contingent entry to Cloud Recesses because The Rules Say You Need Tickets 😐, which makes it even WILDER because Wangji eventually explains the situation to his brother on their behalf and ensues they they’re let in. LAN WANGJI is more polite and/or more politically aware than Zixuan!

Imagine if their respective mothers found out! Imagine Madam Jin learning that her son KICKED HER BELOVED BEST FRIEND’S DAUGHTER OUT ONTO THE STREETS even after Mianmian told him to chill! Imagine Yu Ziyuan finding out that her daughter was like “no it’s fine 🙂” and allowed it! The only logical explanation is that Zixuan is so desperate to get out of the betrothal that he is determined to be as rude as he possibly can without having to actually, like, directly say things to Yanli’s face. (The bit where he walks into the room she’s vacating and is like “ah!! sorry for intruding!!” but makes NO acknowledgment of evicting her? Incredible. Absolute disaster.)

[theballadofmars]

RANKING MDZS CHARACTERS AS HOW MUCH I THINK THEY WOULD SURVIVE IN FNAF:

11. MO XUANYU: he dies during the first five minutes. Don't know how. He just does.

10. JIN ZIXUAN: he doesn't listen AT ALL to Phone Guy and just...doesn't do a thing? He probably thinks he's too rich to die.

9. JIANG CHENG: he dies the first night. Just, sorry. He wouldn't follow Phone Guy's instructions at all, or try at the beginning but then gets mad and fights the animatronics. Sorry jc you're not winning this one.

8. NIE MINGJUE: he's not fucking surviving more than 2 nights, I'm sorry. He doesn't know how anything works, he survives the first night by sheer stuborness, but gets out of luck on his second night. He dies fighting thought.

7. XIAO XINGCHENG: he actually gets to the second night, but his problem is that he tries to help the children to move on and, unlike lxc, he gets killed.

6. SON LANG: survives 4 nights, but gets bitten by an animatronic and dies from the injury. He's the only other character who makes it to night 4 this is so funny mdzs character's would be amazing at surviving or terrible.

5. WEI WUXIAN: he ALMOST survives, but he gets scooped in night 5. Idk how, because this is based in fnaf 1, but he gets scooped, 100% sure.

4. LAN WANGJI: is lwj. He doesn't involve himself in the drama like his brother, but is able to survive the 5 nights. Never comes back.

3. LAN XICHEN: weird position, because lxc doesn't look like he would be the best with computers, but he's a Lan. He's not only going to survive the 5 nights, he also saves the souls of the murder children, because he would try to talk to the animatronics and give them therapy sesions.

2. NIE HUAISANG: he actually suffers the first night, because he doesn't know what's going on. The second night tought? He already knows the cheats. He survives and as a plus makes a theory about the lore that it turns out to be true.

1. JIN GUANGYAO: listen, LISTEN. He not only survives the five nights, the extra night and the 20/20 mood. He's jgy. Being a night guard at Freddy's is actually a vacation for him. Animatronics aren't worse than rich people. He even gets bored at night 5.

HONORARY MENTIONS FOR CHARACTERS WHO DOESN'T GET TO BE IN THE RANKING BECAUSE THEY'RE A SPECIAL CASE:

-XUE YANG: this fucker messes with the animatronics ans disassembles them for fun. The animatronics are the ones hiding from him.

-THE FOUR JUNIORS + A-QING: they are the kids possesing the animatronics. Sorry juniors :(

-YANLI: befriends the animatronics somehow. She makes them soup :D

-MIAN MIAN: stays one night, survives, never comes back. They don't pay her enough for this bullshit.

-WANGXIAN: they fuck in the security office and the animatronics are traumatized.

-WEN QING: finds the bodies of the kids and reports it do the police

-WEN NING: look, I think he would get springlocked but wouldn't become a vengative animatronic (unless he's possesed). He's just there behind a wall.

-LAN QIRENG: survives because Lan power, but instead of doing his job as a security guard starts to reprimend the animatronics and tries to teach them THE RULES.

Tgcf characters ranking

#mdzs #the untamed #wangxian #lan xichen #jin guangyao #wen qing #wen ning #jiang yanli #jiang cheng #xue yang #mian mian #xiao xicheng #son lang #nie huaisang #nie mingjue

[stiltonbasket]

jzx, seeing yanli carrying around baby a-yuan: oh. Oh.

Also, the idea of A-yuan being surprisingly tolerant of jzx while his a-niang and jiang-shushu have never felt more Betrayed™️.

Thank you very much for ur cultivation baby sizhui au i am in love!!!!!!!

As is the way of things when one happens to be the heir to a sect, no one has ever dared to hurt Jin Zixuan's feelings.

Of course, he argued with his mother sometimes; and when he was a child, he tried to quarrel with his father about the women he brought into Koi Tower. Those arguments never turned in Zixuan’s favor, but no one but his father has ever tried to insinuate that he was wrong about something important: and when the first person to do so turns out to be Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan spends the next two weeks in a state of abject shame.

He had misjudged Maiden Jiang, badly. He never knew her to be dishonest in their childhood, and she had never been proud—but Zixuan was flattered by the notion that someone would take the trouble to make him soup on a battlefield, and when he saw the girl who delivered the first bowl, Jiang Yanli seemed weaker and more talentless than ever in comparison. She could not fight, and she was not beautiful; and her pursuit of Jin Zixuan into battle seemed poorly done, when there were other women who had come to fight or elected to remain at home to defend their sect strongholds.

“Do you have anything in that thick skull of yours? Anything at all?” Wei Wuxian had demanded, on the day Zixuan insulted Jiang-guniang for bringing him soup. “She has two brothers at the front, and you think she’s here for you? Do you think you’d even get to see her face if Nie-zongzhu sent me and Jiang Cheng somewhere else?”

Jin Zixuan had been a fool. He considered Jiang Yanli’s affections as his by rights, even when he thought he did not want them; and now that he did, it would be shameless to pursue her considering their broken engagement.

Just the other day, he had seen her walking around camp with Wei Wuxian’s child in her arms, and the picture she made was so devastatingly beautiful that Zixuan wished he could strangle the younger version of himself that thought her plain.

“It’s nobody’s fault but your own,” Mianmian said mercilessly, when Jin Zixuan asked for her advice on the day before they departed for the Nightless City. “No one asked you to treat her coldly when we were children, or insult her at the Cloud Recesses. No one forced you to reject her cooking, either. You’re reaping your own rewards, gongzi, and you won’t get any sympathy from me.”

“I know I don’t deserve your sympathy. I don’t deserve Jiang-guniang’s love, either,” Jin Zixuan pleaded. “But surely—surely I could apologize to her? Her feelings must still be wounded, and I haven’t done anything about it.”

“The time to make apologies was months ago,” she snapped. “Frankly, I don’t see how marrying you could make Jiang-guniang happy now. Let it go.”

So Jin Zixuan let it go, knowing that the bitterness of losing Jiang Yanli was nothing compared to all that she had endured at his hands. But then, a bare twenty-four hours after Wen Ruohan was finally slain, he meets her in the compound of the Sun Palace reserved for recovering cultivators, and stops dead in his tracks; for she has Wei Wuxian’s son tied to her back in a sling, and the baby had seized one of the gold peony chains dangling from Jin Zixuan’s guan as he passed by.

“Oh!” Jiang Yanli exclaims. “Pardon me, Jin-gongzi. Yuanyuan, let go of his hair.”

The baby—Yuanyuan, Jiang-guniang said—does not let go. Instead, he winds his tiny fists around the end of the chain and pulls it towards his mouth.

“Bu!” he shrieks, when Jin Zixuan tries to free himself. Unnerved, Zixuan drops his hand and edges a little closer; he hates listening to babies’ cries, and this baby’s crying kept their regiment from sleep on so many nights that most of the Jin cultivators refuse to go anywhere near him.

Jiang-guniang reaches up and pries Yuanyuan’s left hand open. But the minute she reaches for the right one, the left hand clamps back down on Jin Zixuan’s hair.

“I’ll just give it to him. I’ve got others,” Jin Zixuan squeaks, his face burning. “It won’t take long, Lady Jiang.”

He detaches the guan and its six gold chains from his bun, letting his long dark hair fall free, and then he puts it back up with a spare hairpin and gives his guan to the baby.

“Here,” he says, and then, when she opens her mouth to thank him:

“It was no trouble,” Zixuan blurts out. “It’s just a guan, and he’s only a baby.”

Jiang Yanli gives him a kind smile and steps past him, heading towards the house where Wei Wuxian is convalescing.

But Wei Yuan, apparently unsatisfied with the peony chains now that they were his and not Zixuan’s, wriggles up and hangs the guan over Jiang Yanli’s ear.

“Pitty,” he coos, rubbing his tiny cheek against hers.

In that very moment, the sun emerges from behind a veil of rosy clouds; and when it falls upon Jiang Yanli, the light strikes the golden peony blossoms in her hair, and fills her big eyes with a gentle fire that nearly brings Jin Zixuan to his knees.

“Mianmian,” he gasps, after he staggers back to the Jins’ guest compound and collapses on the floor by his bed. “Mianmian, I need help. I love Jiang-guniang, I do—even if her affections for me have faded. I won’t press her—I could never press her, even if I had not disrespected her so in the past. But if I have the slightest, slimmest chance, then maybe—”

Mianmian looks supremely unimpressed.

“Get up,” she sighs, a little while later. “Very well, I’ll help you.”

Jin Zixuan bolts upright. “Then you think she might accept me?”

“Why do you think I told you to stay away from her?” scolds Mianmian. “If she’d learned her lesson after that business with the soup, I wouldn’t have bothered. I warned you off for her sake, Zixuan, because Jiang-guniang still loves you.”

Jin Zixuan gawks at her, wonderstruck, and bursts into tears.

#xuanli #jin zixuan #jiang yanli #lan sizhui #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mianmian #cultivation baby sizhui au #my fic #!!!!! cultivation baby au is back! #also on a more humorous note #wwx be like: is it crack you smoke??? you smoke crack???? #re: jzx and the soup incident

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 25

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

———————————————————————-

The evidence from the Fire Palace came in not long after, confirming Lan Qiren’s deduction.

Wen Ruohan still looked stupefied by the revelation, though he’d lived up to his word and believed Lan Qiren immediately, which was nice. He just hadn’t believed it of Jin Guanshan, Lan Qiren supposed.

That was reasonable enough.

Jin Guangshan might not be especially smart, but he made up for it by having cunning in spades. Lan Qiren could out-argue him nearly every time, particularly on matters of morality, but Jin Guangshan got his own way just as often, whether through schemes and maneuvering or underhanded tricks. He’d been pretty close to Wen Ruohan, too. The Wen sect never made alliances, it was part of their founding principles – the clan over everyone, the clan over the world, Wen Mao at what was either his finest or his worst depending on what commentary you were reading – but Jin Guangshan was good at flattering people, and Wen Ruohan liked to be flattered. He enjoyed not only the reality of being powerful, but the pageantry of it: he liked it when people bowed to him or recited phrases honoring him, he liked it when people thought about him, and he liked it when people praised him, even when they were smarmy sycophants obviously out for their own interests like Jin Guangshan.

(Having now spent a little more time with Wen Chao, Lan Qiren felt that he had a better understanding of Wen Ruohan’s character. Wen Ruohan was smarter, subtler, and far more experienced than his second son, and certainly more ruthless, but Lan Qiren could see that some of the same characteristics were there, writ miniature. Certainly some of the same flaws: Wen arrogance and self-absorption, a prickly competitive pride – though with Wen Chao, unlike his father, not quite enough cleverness and talent to justify it – and of course a tendency towards indolence and laziness, impulsiveness and excitability…not to mention, interestingly enough, a certain degree of gullibility, worsened by their tendency to think themselves above being tricked.

It was a little adorable, actually.

Wen Chao, at least, was young enough that Lan Qiren felt confident he could help ameliorate the worst of his flaws, or at least help him manage them better and with fewer awful tendencies than his father. As for Wen Ruohan…well, it was good for him that Lan Qiren liked him so much. He’d never met a man more in need of a beating. And that included Lao Nie.)

“Why would he be so foolish?” Wen Ruohan asked, not for the first time. He had started pacing – almost as if conjured up by his irritation, Cangse Sanren had appeared, this time with Wei Changze trailing behind her. “No Great Sect directly encroaches on another, not like this. We all refrain because we all know where it would lead…why would he incite war against me?”

“Not just a war, but a war in which you are the aggrieved party,” Wei Changze agreed. He looked worried, probably because of his natal sect’s potential involvement – the Jiang sect were formal allies with the Jin sect, close to the point of having arranged for a future engagement between Jiang Yanli and Jin Guangshan’s son, Jin Zixuan. The engagement had been mediated by their mothers, who had been close as girls, but even Lan Qiren, who did not gossip and tried not to listen to it when it was presented to him, knew the rumors that claimed that Madam Jin had utilized that very connection to help win her current place as mistress of Jinlin Tower. “It does seem rather implausible, not to mention irrational.”

“People act irrationally out of fear,” Cangse Sanren said. She’d perched herself on the stool again, with her knees pulled up in a dreadfully inappropriate manner; Lan Qiren was starting to wonder if she had difficulty getting comfortable unless she was contorting herself. “His conduct being irrational doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a trap.”

“It could be,” Wen Ruohan said.

“Anything could be. In this case, I don’t think it is. Qiren-gege is right: Sect Leader Jin decided to bet on a roll of the dice with Qingheng-jun, siding with him and trying to box Sect Leader Wen into a major loss. He probably figured that two Great Sects acting together were hard to stop, especially since he could bulk up their power by suborning Yunmeng Jiang through their alliance with his sect. And it’s a good point! With three Great Sects you can do a lot!” She shrugged. “But he didn’t realize that Qingheng-jun was insane, so his plan failed.”

“That’s not unreasonable. But it is unreasonable to go from there to ordering an assassination.”

“I suspect that part is likely my fault,” Lan Qiren said heavily. “Jin Guangshan has always been able to rely on his knowledge of people to manipulate them. With Wen Ruohan, he counted on knowing how to calm him down whenever he overstepped, whether through flattery or gifts or otherwise. But now, for the first time, we rejected his attempt to smooth things over…well, I rejected it, and Wen Ruohan endorsed that rejection. That may have spooked him.”

“Spooked him enough to try to kill me?” Wen Ruohan sounded offended, even though he himself had pointed out several times that his temporary vulnerability made it a perfectly reasonable time for someone to try something. “I understand that he had a relatively narrow window of opportunity at present and would need to act swiftly if he wished to take advantage of my impairment, but at the same time, it seems like rather a bold move, particularly for him. Maybe it is a trap.”

“Even if it is a trap, how can we avoid it?” Lan Qiren pointed out. Quite reasonably, to his mind. “I despise war. I would do everything within my power to avoid it where possible, but despite that, even I know that trying to kill another sect’s sect leader can lead nowhere else. If we do not respond in force, it would be tantamount to saying that anyone can try to kill the people in the Nightless City with impunity.”

“How bloodthirsty of you, Qiren.”

“He’s not being bloodthirsty,” Cangse Sanren objected. “He’s being logical.”

“He’s being terrifying,” Wei Changze said bluntly. “He’s not wrong, it makes sense, it’s the way it has to be. But wars aren’t bloodless, and they shouldn’t be started bloodlessly.”

Lan Qiren frowned. He was hardly being cold-hearted, he didn’t think – it really was only logical, and not just because his new sect happened to be the victim. The Wen sect was the most powerful sect in the cultivation world; its behavior set the standard for the rest, for better or for worse. If they didn’t take the strongest possible measures against someone who had ordered an assassination now, it would suggest that such things were acceptable, or at least not too objectionable, and setting such a precedent would be disastrous for the entire cultivation world, not just the Nightless City. Every sect would start thinking about how to target each other.

They had to stamp this out at once. They had to make it so incredibly clear that the consequences of this type of behavior vastly outweighed the benefits, that there would be immediate and overwhelming reprisals, that the only outcome would be utterly cataclysmic. The only way to do that was to go to war.

There was simply no other choice.

What had Jin Guangshan been thinking? It would be one thing if he were in the Wen sect’s position, thinking that he was strong enough to cast off the consequences or maybe even to intimidate whoever he had offended out of demanding justice. But they weren’t a small sect being threatened by a large sect, where they would have to balance accepting an intolerable offense against the risk of their sect being subsequently destroyed. The Wen sect was large and powerful and unlike most sects, it had an army. An army, and a powerful sect leader known for conquest and tyranny. It would never take such an insult lying down.

Jin Guangshan wasn’t strong enough to go against Wen Ruohan’s Wen sect, and surely he knew that. He’d done the equivalent of poking a bear with a stick and running away, expecting the bear to chase.

Under the circumstances, it was pretty obvious that there had to be some sort of trap involved.

Why get a bear to chase you if you didn’t have plans to deal with the bear once you got it to where you wanted it to go? Lan Qiren was perfectly willing to believe that Jin Guangshan was a little stupid, or even more than a little, but he wasn’t that stupid. He must have, or at least must believe that he had, some sort of ace up his sleeve that would enable him to turn the tables against them at the last moment, some final card left to play, something that he plausibly thought would let him triumph over not only a weakened Wen Ruohan, but the entire Wen sect army.

But what could it be?

“– need to look at who we’re dealing with here,” Cangse Sanren was arguing. “Don’t look at the situation as a general rule, what would normal people do and why would they do it. We need to think about why Sect Leader Jin would do what he did. ‘People are different, and different people react differently to the same stimulus.’”

That almost had the sound of a rule.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Lan Qiren thought he might remember having said something similar to Cangse Sanren all way back when they were still adolescents, back when she’d been frustrated by not being able to understand why people acted the way they did. He’d overheard her ranting about it one afternoon and he’d been struck by a sudden sense of kinship. As one person struggling with the same issue to another, he’d offered to share the benefits of his hard-won lessons on social norms. He hadn’t actually expected her to accept, but she had, and he’d spent a number of highly enjoyable afternoons explaining what he’d figured out to her, occasionally even supplementing his explanations with charts and the like. It had been fun.

He hadn’t realized that she remembered.

“I see your point,” Wei Changze said thoughtfully. “Sect Leader Jin is rich and powerful, and he was born rich and powerful. I doubt he’s ever haggled or been desperate for anything in his life. He doesn’t need to take risks, he probably never did before, and now, for the first time in his life…”

“Exactly! He’s exposed. It’s probably the weakest hand he’s ever held. Combine that with pride and egotism, and he decides to double down – ”

“It is still irrational,” Wen Ruohan said with a scowl. “Starting a war with another Great Sect – with my sect – is tantamount to suicide. Jin Guangshan may be foolish, but he is not that foolish. To act so recklessly is unlike him. I think – ”

“Qiren-gege,” Cangse Sanren interrupted, turning to look at Lan Qiren. “Can you call a doctor? I think Sect Leader Wen might be under the influence of some sort of severe fever or mind-altering drug – ”

“What?!”

“Or possession! It could be possession, we haven’t checked – ”

“Cangse Sanren, that is enough,” Lan Qiren said sternly.

She crossed her arms and arched her eyebrows. “Sect Leader Wen is refusing an invitation to go to war? A justified war, that no one will be able to object to? By the laws of the night-hunt, that definitely qualifies as aberrant behavior sufficient to necessitate a check for possession.”

“I am not refusing,” Wen Ruohan snarled. “I am merely – ”

“I think my brother might be involved,” Lan Qiren announced, deciding that the minor breach of etiquette involved in interrupting people and blatantly changing the subject was less egregious than allowing this conversation to continue any further. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed that Wen Ruohan was being unusually squirrelly about being handed an opportunity that he would normally salivate over and even scheme wildly to obtain, but he also had enough insight to be able to determine that his hesitation was more than likely due to him still being unnerved by their earlier discussion about Lao Nie rather than any actual anxiety over the notion of going to war.

After all, Lao Nie and Jin Guangshan had ascended to their positions at around the same time. To lose one would be an ominous sign for the other, and Wen Ruohan had already lived past the length of a human lifetime, had already lost every single person he’d known as a young man. He hadn’t yet prepared himself for more loss, more change.

Lan Qiren could sympathize with that.

“I do not mean to be repetitive on the topic of my brother,” he added, when everyone else had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him. “I assure you, I am not seeking to lay the blame for all my misfortunes in one place simply for convenience. I genuinely think that my brother may have played a role in what happened.”

“I doubt your brother has access to assassins,” Wen Ruohan said dryly, then smirked. “Unless – ”

“There are no secret assassins in the Lan sect.”

“Hey, Lan Qiren,” Wei Changze said. “Remind me again, what was that really cool skill that Lan Yi invented? Starts with ‘chord,’ ends with…?”

“…Chord Assassination is named that way because of its similarity to other already existing methods of combat, and the fact that at the time using a string to garrote one's enemies was considered the sole province of assassins,” Lan Qiren said, rubbing his temples. “We do not employ actual assassins.”

“But theoretically, if you wanted to – ”

“If I wished to assassinate someone, I would not use Chord Assassination to do it. I have a sword. I would merely stab them.” He scowled at the crowd of grinning monkeys in front of him. “As I very recently demonstrated, if you recall. Can we return to the subject at hand?”

“Right, your brother,” Wen Ruohan said. He was still smirking, but Lan Qiren was willing to give him a pass on account of smirking being better than the tight and angry expression he’d had earlier. “Explain your thought process. How is he involved?”

“He was always exceptionally talented, and he continued to improve both his cultivation and his swordsmanship during his time in seclusion,” Lan Qiren explained. “Having faced him, I would rank him exceedingly high, putting him among the greatest cultivators of our time, up there at the top alongside Wen Ruohan and Lao Nie.”

“From what I hear, you’re not that bad yourself,” Cangse Sanren put in, rather unhelpfully. “Especially once you factor in the element of surprise.”

“He’s magnificent,” Wen Ruohan informed her. Also unhelpfully.

Lan Qiren decided to ignore them.

“We know that my brother has not returned to the Lan sect,” he said. “We know, too, that he must have worked with Jin Guangshan to put together the plot that led to the mountain collapse in Xixiang, though presumably Jin Guangshan was only informed about the parts of the plan that involved causing Wen Ruohan to take a loss, rather than the parts that involved mass slaughter of innocent lives.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Wei Changze mumbled. “I’ve met him. He might not mind.”

Lan Qiren was also not particularly sure, having also met Jin Guangshan, and indeed having had to spend significantly more time around the odious lecher than he would have preferred. Still, the rules said Be easy on others.

“However it may be, we know that they worked together. It was likely one of the Lanling Jin sect’s spies that was used to set up the plot, and Lanling Jin’s support was critical to springing the trap by convincing the rest of the world of the truth of their claims – in short, for whatever reason, however he did it, my brother successfully obtained Jin Guangshan’s support. I propose that when my brother left Xixiang, he may have gone to ground in Jinlin Tower.”

“Jin Guangshan also left the battlefield early, around the same time that your brother disappeared,” Wen Ruohan said, nodding. “His absence was commented on at some length at the party. Wasn’t that why he was handing out those stupid trinkets? To distract everyone from that?”

“Trinkets?” Cangse Sanren perked up, resembling a magpie catching a hint of something shiny. “What trinkets?”

“Commemorative coins to celebrate the event.” Wen Ruohan wrinkled his nose in genuine disgust. It was adorable, though possibly Lan Qiren was biased. “I had my subordinates pick up a few extras, if you’d like some.”

“Ugh, no thanks. They’re probably unbelievably gaudy.”

“They are. They’re also made of gold.”

“We’ll take two,” Wei Changze put in at once. “Cangse, stop scowling. Even if they’re hideously ugly, it’s not like we’ll keep them for very long. We’ll sell them the next time we run out of cash.”

“Oh, all right…”

Lan Qiren pointedly cleared his throat.

“I believe I see where Qiren is going with this,” Wen Ruohan said, returning to the subject with the speed of a man who knew Lan Qiren’s temper. “If Qingheng-jun has gone to ground in Lanling, that may be what Jin Guangshan is counting on to defeat any attack that we throw at him…though that still seems unreasonably foolish to me. There is a limit to what one man alone can do.”

“That was the previous wisdom,” Lan Qiren said. “You just demonstrated that it might not be the case.”

Wen Ruohan looked pleased.

“So you think your brother, what, told Jin Guangshan that he could do something similar to what Sect Leader Wen did at Xixiang?” Cangse Sanren looked thoughtful. “And Jin Guangshan believed him, so he thinks that even if we attack Jinlin Tower, he’ll be able to fight back, or at least cause enough damage to the Wen side to make a siege not worth continuing. Not the worst plan, I guess.”

“No, but it is also not an especially good one,” Lan Qiren conceded. “But I think you had it right earlier in your analysis of Jin Guangshan: he placed his bet on my brother, and now that the risk has gotten greater and the stakes higher, he has chosen to double down on that bet.”

“Hold a moment,” Wei Changze said. “That was a gambling metaphor. Lan Qiren, you know how to gamble?”

Lan Qiren threw the nearest thing to hand at his head.

He expected Wei Changze to dodge, the way anyone else who knew him well would have, but apparently he’d managed to take him by surprise – he hit him dead on, the paperweight hitting his head and bouncing off.

“Owwww…” Wei Changze whined with theatrical pitifulness to his wife, who was sniggering unmercifully at his expense. “Cangse, don’t laugh! Your husband is injured…”

“I have a better question for everyone to consider,” Cangse Sanren said, eventually yielding enough to press a kiss to her husband’s definitely-not-actually-bruised temple. “What is Qingheng-jun getting out of this arrangement? Jin Guangshan gets a powerful weapon, but what does Qingheng-jun get? What is even his goal, now that his plan has failed?”

That was a good question. Lan Qiren had been wracking his brain for answers, but short of “trying to kill me” – which would involve explaining why his brother hated him enough to consider breaching the taboo against murdering one’s kin – he couldn’t think of anything. What could his brother’s motive possibly be? Why wouldn’t he go back to the Lan sect? What in the world could he still want, after having lost his schemes for power, lost face, and lost even his chance for revenge…?

“He wants to kill everyone, of course.”

Now everyone turned to stare at Wen Ruohan, who shrugged.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “It’s certainly how I would feel under the circumstances.”

“…please explain,” Lan Qiren said, still staring. “What do you mean, ‘kill everyone’?”

“I mean exactly that. If you put me in a situation where, to my perception, the whole world has seen my disgrace, I would naturally want to raze it all to the ground to cover it up.”

“That’s not natural,” Cangse Sanren announced. “That’s definitely not what most people would think…uh, right, Qiren?”

“Certainly not,” Lan Qiren assured her.

“It seems natural to me. Perhaps it is the assumption of rulers…?”

“You’re so full of yourself. Why are you like this?”

“It seems like a fairly wild assumption to me,” Lan Qiren said, turning back to Wen Ruohan before he could answer the question. He suspected that Wen Ruohan’s answer, whatever it would be, would be annoying enough to kick off a fight, and they should not waste time nor energy on that. No matter how tempting it might be. “That my brother would so swiftly go from wanting to damage the Lan sect but not kill it, to wanting to kill not just them but far more people…when you say ‘everyone,’ do you really mean the entire cultivation world? How would he even do something like that?”

“Oh, I know! Poison the water – I’ll be quiet now, Qiren-gege, please don’t throw anything at me.”

Wei Changze politely cleared his throat, possibly in an effort to save his wife from Lan Qiren’s wrath. “Is there perhaps some other goal that he could be seeking to pursue at this stage?”

“I can’t think of anything,” Wen Ruohan said.

Cangse Sanren thought for a moment, then shrugged in agreement.

Lan Qiren…was going to have to mention it.

“He may want to kill me,” he confessed, and winced at the expressions of alarm on both Wen Ruohan and Cangse Sanren’s faces. “To remind you: I am here, I am fine, there is no cause to worry.”

“He’s your brother. He wanted to kill you?” Wen Ruohan was scowling. “He tried to kill you?”

“I think you should have mentioned that earlier,” Cangse Sanren said, with a shockingly identical look on her face. “Say, preferably before you went to a party where someone else tried to kill you…?”

“I do not think that was related,” Lan Qiren protested. “It is my belief that the assassins wanted to kill me to avoid me taking over the Wen sect in the event that their attempt to kill Wen Ruohan was successful.”

They were still glaring at him.

“Why does he want to kill you?” Wei Changze asked, in what would have been a helpful breath of fresh air and logic except for the fact that Lan Qiren dearly did not want to answer that question.

(He’d moved from being embarrassed to being angry about it. How dare his brother question his integrity like that? How dare he question He Kexin like that? Wasn’t it enough that he’d forced her to marry him, that she’d borne his children despite being in seclusion…? How could he have thrown away ten years just like that, without a moment of regret…? Even Wen Ruohan had regretted ordering Lan Qiren to the Fire Palace almost immediately, and they’d only been married for the equivalent of a blink of the eye!)

“Yes, that’s a good question,” Wen Ruohan said. “I knew he hated you and would gladly see you dead, but most people would not violate the taboo of killing one’s own blood-related kin with their own hands. What could compel him to go to such extremes?”

“I…that is, he…” Lan Qiren was stuttering. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. Be strict with yourself. Stop bad habits. Do not tell lies. “He thinks that I seduced his wife.”

“He what?!” all three of them shouted.

Lan Qiren grimaced at the loudness. He hated to even repeat the slander, though in truth he felt a certain amount of relief at having shared the information with them, freeing himself of a burdensome secret. As always, the rules were right, and following them the correct path.

“Not just that,” he said with a huff that encompassed all of the complaints that had been weighing him down. “If that were not ridiculous enough – as if He Kexin and I did not barely tolerate each other! – he continuously accuses me of seeking to subvert him through violations of the rules against promiscuity and debauchery. His relationship with his wife, his alliance with Wen Ruohan… I do not know why he is so fixated on the subject, but he is.”

Cangse Sanren suddenly laughed.

Lan Qiren turned to look at her, feeling betrayed. What was funny about what he’d said?

“I’m sorry,” she sniggered, her laughter getting more out of control rather than less. “I’m sorry, are you saying that your brother thinks you’re some sort of – seductive vixen?”

“…I did not say that.”

“But you meant it! That’s what you meant!”

Lan Qiren thought back over his brother’s accusations. “Well. I mean, I suppose – ”

Wen Ruohan started laughing as well.

Lan Qiren tried to glare at him, but it was impossible, not with Wen Ruohan looking as overwhelmingly gleeful as he did. Even Wei Changze had hidden away his face in his sleeves, his shoulders shaking with laughter. Cangse Sanren was nearly in tears.

“You!” she kept chortling. “You! Lan Qiren! Harlot and seductress, a nation-destroying fox-face beauty…you. With – ”

She hiccupped.

“With – with your slutty, slutty thousands of rules…”

Wei Changze fell off his chair, now completely covering his head with his sleeves. Wen Ruohan was by now bent over at the waist, the volume of his mirth reaching that typically associated with chittering baboons – in fact, it was possible he was crying with laughter as well.

Admittedly, even Lan Qiren could see the humor of it.

“Please do not refer to the rules that way,” he still said with a faint sigh. The laughter seemed to be doing them all some good. “You may continue to poke fun, but please limit your pejorative comments to me.”

Tragically, all three of them were more than willing to abide by that restriction, and insisted on continuing in the same vein for some time. It turned out that they all had several additional and very colorful suggestions that they felt the need to express before they were willing to change subjects. Or, well, Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren produced the majority, while after a few contributions Wen Ruohan primarily spent his time looking at Lan Qiren with a hungry expression that suggested that he had a new idea for what they could do later when they were alone.

Possibly something involving a nation-destroying fox and an indulgent emperor.

After a suitable interval, once the giggles seemed to have mostly passed, Lan Qiren cleared his throat pointedly.

“Can we focus?” he asked. “Need I remind you all that we must now prepare for a war? I cannot imagine that such an endeavor will be an easy one.”

“Easier than you might think,” Wen Ruohan said. He was still smirking lazily, but the tension from earlier had completely disappeared – now he looked the way Lan Qiren would have expected, full of anticipation and ambition, eager for an opportunity to expand his sect’s power at the expense of others. “I gave all the necessary orders to mobilize the army already to deal with the situation in Xixiang, and no one has ordered them to stand down. On the contrary, I suspect my generals have been putting them through their paces in an effort to demonstrate their competence to me – it will take no time at all to get them ready to march.”

“They’re all eager for a fight,” Cangse Sanren agreed. “Or at least to go out and show off.”

“War isn’t about showing off,” Wei Changze reminded her, but she only shrugged carelessly.

“What actually needs to be done to prepare?” she asked Wen Ruohan. “I’ve never seen a war before…Ooh, will there be siege weapons involved? Can we take some?”

Wen Ruohan snorted and took up his brush. “I’ll put together the orders, and you can take them to my generals. We will depart in the morning. I will include that you have my permission to examine the armory – ”

“Yes!”

“– but you will need to clear anything you wish to use with me before you remove it.”

“Spoilsport.” She smirked. “You know me so well by now. Don’t you trust me?”

“Not with siege weaponry.”

“I don’t trust you with siege weaponry, and it’s because I know you,” Wei Changze put in, looking alarmed. “Cangse – ”

“Beloved husband of mine – love of my life – ”

“You do not need siege weaponry!”

“But my love, sometimes women want something really big and really, really destructive…”

Wen Ruohan finished what he was writing and held up the page. “Take this and get lost. I have something to show Qiren, and I do not require your company for that.”

“I bet you don’t,” she giggled. “Be careful, Sect Leader Wen, you never know what a sexy beast like our Qiren might do – ”

“Never say that again,” Lan Qiren said firmly. “Ever. Under any circumstances.”

“I do have to ask, Senior Lan,” Wei Changze said. “Has your brother ever…met you?”

Lan Qiren reached out and picked up the inkstone from the table.

Wei Changze fled the room laughing, hand-in-hand with his wife.

“You know, I’d been planning to find a reason to repurpose the Fire Palace,” Wen Ruohan remarked. “But it hasn’t been repurposed yet. There’s still an opportunity…”

Lan Qiren snorted and put the inkstone back. “That is unnecessary. Is what you want to show me the gift you mentioned earlier? The painting?”

“It is. I do not know if it will be to your taste, but I wish to present it to you nonetheless.” Wen Ruohan rose to his feet, gesturing for Lan Qiren to join him, then paused. “Do not ask me to explain the meaning behind it.”

Lan Qiren nodded, accepting the limitation, and followed him. He was immensely curious. Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji had told him about their conversation with Wen Ruohan on the flight from Xixiang to the Nightless City, and that had been funny enough – Lan Qiren had privately enjoyed the thought of Wen Ruohan interrogating two children as to the best method of apologizing to him – but he had been particularly captivated by their mention of Wen Ruohan’s claim of being an accomplished painter.

Wen Ruohan was notoriously vain. If he was an accomplished painter, shouldn’t his own paintings be everywhere in the Nightless City, given place of honor? Since they weren’t, what was the reason?

He’d even taken a little time to ask around with the record-keepers of the Nightless City, discovering to his surprise that Wen Ruohan had once been more famous as a painter than a tyrant or even a warrior, back when he was only a young master and one son among many. Only…he had also been assured that Wen Ruohan had given up the habit of painting long ago, so long ago that few people could remember it.

Lan Qiren wondered what it meant, that he’d picked up his brush for Lan Qiren’s sake now. Or even if it meant anything at all – perhaps it was just a whim, just a mindless impulse that was, as he himself warned, not susceptible to questions about his intent…

“Oh,” Lan Qiren murmured, stopping just inside the threshold of the secondary study. Wen Ruohan had just stepped aside, letting him see the painting.

It was – beautiful.

Wen Ruohan painted the way he wrote, bold and fearless, arrogance and self-assurance in every stroke. The painting was a masterpiece of the cultivator’s art, seething with deeper meaning: he’d captured both image and spiritual energy, the overwhelming feeling of the image pouring out at the viewer. The trees towered over the ruined earth, the blood and the ash, the remnants of war – devastating and grim, gloomy, despair tasting like soot on the tongue –

“I don’t explain my paintings,” Wen Ruohan said.

“I do not require an explanation,” Lan Qiren said, stepping forward and looking it over more closely: had Wen Ruohan really completed this in a single evening? No wonder it had taken him into the next day. It was exquisitely detailed, sparse lines coming together to suggest deeper meaning, adding additional complexity to the image. “It makes perfect sense to me. It is beautiful. Thank you.”

Wen Ruohan stepped up behind him. “I’m pleased that you like it.”

He put his hands on Lan Qiren’s waist. His breath was hot on Lan Qiren’s ear.

“Tell me, do you know what this scene depicts?”

A war scene, Lan Qiren wanted to say, but something stilled his tongue. There was something in there, something more than just a war. There was devastation, yes, the remnants left behind by a battle, grotesque in its intrinsic cruelty, the shadows all that was left of those that passed through and left this in their wake, but there was something else here. Something almost familiar…

“Obliteration,” he said, and that felt right. “A broken heart.”

Wen Ruohan’s hands tightened around him.

Lan Qiren tilted his head to the side a little, not looking away from the painting. “Is this my sect?” he asked. “My Gusu Lan…did we do this?”

“Mm. Your sect, and mine. There was a war between our sects when I was young.”

Lan Qiren traced the lines of the painting with his eyes. The way the trees loomed, tall and almost misshapen…he calculated the time in his head. The Lan sect records mentioned a war from over a century ago, though details were sparse. Perhaps deliberately: that war was not considered a point of pride for their sect, even though it had been instrumental in settling the borders of their territory where they presently lay. On the contrary, it had always been referred to with some censure, seen as an overreaction, though no one had ever mentioned what exactly the sect leader of that time had been reacting to.

If he had the dates correct, Wen Ruohan would have been very young indeed.

“Thank you,” he said once more, unable to say anything more than that. His chest felt full of feelings, which he could not bring himself to express aloud. One day, perhaps, his eloquence would return, and he would be able to put the feelings into words – or perhaps he would do what Lan Wangji suggested in the essay he had composed in response to Wen Ruohan’s request, and put to music the feelings that Wen Ruohan, who was not gifted in composition, could not.

Obliteration.

Obsession.

Perhaps other people would not appreciate such a gift. It was a war scene, after all, and they were about to march to war themselves – such a thing could have been a mockery, disdaining the sacrifice and destruction that awaited them, the pain that accompanied all wars. What sort of gift was this for a lover? One did not often associate war with love…

Well, perhaps other sects did not. But Gusu Lan did.

A broken-hearted Lan on the path of just revenge will not rest until they have obliterated the cause of their grief. Complete destruction, without mercy or regret. Whether external or internal, whether the target is another or themselves…such grief demands an answer, and Gusu Lan will answer.

If you have been consumed by love, if you are mad with it, then I am mad alongside you.

My feelings are just as strong as yours.

I will be your partner, as you have been to me. I will match you in this as I will in anything else.

Believe me.

Lan Qiren smiled.

Yes, he would need to finish composing that song for Wen Ruohan one of these days. He thought he might even know how it went, now, the difficulty he’d been previously having with it melting away in the heat of the inspiration. The heat of the sun, perhaps – it seemed apposite.

He thought Wen Ruohan would like it.

Wen Ruohan chuckled, resting his chin on Lan Qiren’s shoulder. “I assume I should resign myself to a lonely night of listening to you at your guqin? I know what inspiration looks like.”

“It will not be lonely,” Lan Qiren said peaceably. “I will be there.”

“All for the best, I suppose. I do have a war to prepare for – if I were to spend all evening in bed, I really would be letting myself get distracted by a nation-destroying fox.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes and shook Wen Ruohan off. Where was his guqin? Back in the other room, right. He should make his way there at once…

The daze of inspiration did not lift by evening, when he went to sleep, and it continued throughout the morning. It even continued past the point when the army set out – Lan Qiren merely relocated himself from the bedroom to the carriage and carried on, slowly refining the song he was putting together.

By the time he actually managed to extract himself long enough to notice where they were and what was going on, they were already well on their way to Lanling.

He could hear the army singing as they went. Not musical cultivation, since the Wen sect didn’t do that, but rather just an ordinary person’s travel song, one of the ones from Qishan. It was surprisingly euphonious to hear them all together like that, even though Lan Qiren could tell that most of the people singing had never had any sort of training and many didn’t know how to hold a tune.

He shook off the lethargy of a particularly long period of creative activity, stretched out his aching hands, and got out of the carriage, intending to explore. He was quite curious.

Lan Qiren had not had much opportunity to date to interact with the Wen sect army.

The entire concept of a professional army of cultivators was an innovation of Wen Ruohan’s own making. Most sects did not have anything of the sort. When they went to war, they took only their sect disciples, armed with whatever sect treasures they happened to have, and it boiled down to being a battle of power and talent. Even the Great Sects, which went to war on a larger scale, had to rely both on their larger selection of outside disciples and on the subsidiary sects that swore loyalty to them to make up the numbers.

Wen Ruohan had not been satisfied with that. Contrary to the approach of most sects, which fiercely guarded their cultivation styles and resisted spreading them to others, the Wen sect had taken its cultivation style and broken it down to its barest essentials, until it was barely more than rudimentary, and then they’d taught it to all the recruits that joined their army. The truly talented were accepted as proper sect disciples, becoming outside disciples just as with all the other sects, but those that were less talented, the ones that other sects would have rejected outright, were offered the chance to learn cultivation in exchange for their service. For many, it was the only opportunity they would have to learn cultivation in their lifetime – many of them were people born in ordinary families, without cultivator ancestry or lineage, and they happily traded their loyalty for the chance.

No, to call it mere loyalty would be to understate it. Wen Ruohan’s army was fanatically devoted to him.

And why wouldn’t they be? Their families back home were able to boast to all and sundry that they had a cultivator in the family, an immortal who could touch the clouds, and borrowed their glory to better their own fates, while their hometowns grew bold and unafraid, each one feeling that they had a resource they could rely on for when evil spirits emerged from the dark. The common people were proud of their cultivators, prouder than most, and Lan Qiren couldn’t blame them one bit.

As for the soldiers themselves, however poor their personal cultivation might be – many of them could not even fly a sword – they still found themselves with a career, salary enough to let them marry a wife if they chose, as well as a home, a place to belong. Those of them that were talented were given resources that they could not find anywhere else. Cultivation was a rich man’s province. To progress in cultivation, one required both money and leisure: sufficient time to spend in meditation, contemplation, and art, whether the sword or an instrument, and also access to spiritual jade and other tools, a place with appropriate spiritual energy…the Wen sect, with all its power and wealth, was able to hand such things out more liberally than most sects could ever dream. There was a reason that many sects voluntarily came under the Wen sect’s banner, and why even those that hadn’t joined voluntarily often found that they had trouble extracting themselves later.

The Wen sect’s soldiers even had the glimmer of hope that they could one day exceed their relatively lowly station, demonstrate their worth through their talent, maybe becoming one of the Wen sect’s outer disciples – or even higher than that. The Wen sect was rather famously one of the few that voluntarily shared its surname, adopting in the best of the best so that their brilliance could shine light onto their clan’s glory. Lan Qiren had no doubt that the dangling prize of that goal was a feature of many of the surrounding soldiers’ dreams.

The end result of it all was an army whose numbers dwarfed the rest of the cultivation world.

Sure, any solid sect disciple, and certainly one from any Great Sect, could easily match themselves against three or four Wen sect soldiers, and a talented one would be able to defeat still more than that. But battles weren’t merely cultivation against cultivation, not when there were such numbers, not when the Wen sect army could bring to bear treasures and siege weapons and formations that utilized numbers as their basis. It didn’t matter if a talented cultivator could defeat ten Wen sect soldiers if they were up against a hundred.

The army must have been such a scandal when it was first proposed, Lan Qiren mused to himself. But who knew how long ago that had been? By now, no one objected on the basis of it violating orthodoxy. It was just accepted as being part of what the Wen sect did…

He wandered through the army, nodding at the Wen sect disciples who served as lieutenants as he passed – they saluted him in return, though they did not stop marching. He could not quite determine the way the army was organized, though he could see that there was some sort of division, with various smaller groups each being distinguished by the presence of a flag: either the one with the Wen sect name, white with red calligraphy, or else the symbol of the sun.

He had never noticed it before, actually, but the army’s emblem was black with a golden sun, a contrast to the white-and-red that was the Wen sect’s emblem in peacetime. He wondered if that was Wen Ruohan making a private joke to himself: that mysterious black sun that was the greatest weapon of his cultivation power, and the black sun of his army that was the foundation of his political power, too.

Probably. It seemed like him.

Lan Qiren wondered if Wen Ruohan expected him to accept some of these soldiers into his classes as well. Many of them were already adults, but surely they had children that they wanted to educate, and for those that came from common families, without a cultivation background, it was possible that even the adults would benefit from a solid foundation in orthodoxy.

He certainly wouldn’t mind if that was the case. He had started his classes by inviting second and third sons, branch members and cousins, all the troublemakers that other sects grew impatient with. It was only later, once he’d gotten a reputation as a teacher, that people had started sending him their talents, their geniuses and their heirs. It wasn’t unheard of for him to accept a particularly promising disciple even if they lacked a sect’s surname – he’d even agreed to take on servants as students a few times, though his sect elders had always given him an earful whenever he’d done so, looking down their noses and citing Avoid imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals with a disdainful sniff.

Not that he especially cared about what the Gusu Lan sect leaders thought right now. Especially ones like Lan Zhengquan, who had been one of the harshest critics of Lan Qiren’s classes. What a joke that turned out to be now! He’d always been unreasonably concerned that Lan Qiren was letting slip some of Gusu Lan’s secrets, rather than just helping people understand their rules and establish the moral basis they would need, helping them find ways to improve themselves as they went down their own cultivation paths.

Judging others by his own standard, Lan Qiren supposed. The hypocrisy was truly vile.

He’d have to find time to go to the Lan sect to confront them, and soon. Even though it had been ten years since the injustice that they had perpetrated, now that Lan Qiren knew about it, impatience bubbled under his skin – he wanted to go at once, wanted to fix it at once. He wanted to excise the tumor of that crime from his sect’s heart, wanted to cut out the rot and purify the whole thing, to remake the sect back into its original intended image.

He wanted Gusu Lan to be everything that it should be. His nephews deserved that.

Whether he would be able to achieve his aims, he did not know. But he felt compelled to try.

Eventually, Lan Qiren’s wandering took him to where Wen Ruohan was conversing with his generals, all of them sitting or standing around a map in a moving pavilion drawn by horses. He paused briefly before greeting them, enjoying the sight of Wen Ruohan in his element: he looked alive, spirited and enthusiastic, even as he lounged back indolently in the seat that was very nearly a throne and waved his hands as he spoke, smirking as he dismissed some idea or another.

After another moment, Wen Ruohan noticed him, and his smirk widened momentarily into a genuine smile as he waved for Lan Qiren to join him.

Lan Qiren climbed up onto the pavilion.

“We’re discussing strategy for dealing with Lanling Jin,” Wen Ruohab said, not bothering with a greeting – or indeed with any questions or teasing about the fact that Lan Qiren had just spent several days in non-stop composing. Presumably he understood the impulse. “It is complicated by the fact that Jinlin Tower is based in an urban environment, surrounded by Lanling City.”

Lan Qiren nodded. That was one of the unique features of Lanling Jin – the Cloud Recesses were nestled among the valleys between the mountains, while the Unclean Realm was built into the very side of their own mountains, both of them isolated from the nearest towns, and while the Lotus Pier was situated near a large trading town, both on the same river, it was not part of it. The only one that was remotely comparable to the urban nature of the Jin sect was the Nightless City, but even that was different: the Nightless City was a city, yes, but the entire place was under Wen Ruohan’s personal management as sect leader, with even the ordinary people belonging to the Wen sect in some way. Lanling City, in contrast, was full of ordinary people who might pay tax to Lanling Jin, but who were otherwise completely uninvolved with them: ordinary merchants, tradesmen, artisans, scholars…

It went without saying that if they simply ignored the existence of the city and attacked anyway, there would be tremendous loss of life. Ordinary people were no match for cultivators, and Lan Qiren couldn’t even imagine what they would do in the face of siege weaponry: large scale treasures with effects that stretched out well into the distance around them, formations that could bring down entire forests and shake mountains, and all of that not even bringing into consideration the sort of specialist arrays a master like Wen Ruohan could put together. It would be a disaster.

A disaster Wen Ruohan was currently trying to avoid.

(Lan Qiren did not flatter himself into thinking he was the only or even primary reason for that. Wen Ruohan was a canny politician, well aware of the importance of saving face in public – he would never go around blatantly slaughtering common people left and right, as that would risk drawing the ire of the entire cultivation world. Certainly he would not do so when it was easier to take precautions, and in so doing win admiration and praise for his restraint. But whatever the cause, it was nice to know that Lan Qiren’s lover was not, in fact, a bloodthirsty madman with no sense of conscience or self-control, as he sometimes treated himself in his worst moments.)

“What is your plan?” he asked.

“It depends on the circumstances when we get there, which won’t be long now – we’ll get there by this afternoon. You can already see the lights of Lanling in the distance from here if you fly up a little, and in another shichen you won’t even need to do that.” Wen Ruohan tapped the map with a sharp fingernail, indicating where they were. “If they took my words to heart and set up their shields, we will have no choice but to set ourselves around them. We can take measures to evacuate the city back by some distance, creating a buffer zone in which we will operate. However, we are hoping that they haven’t raised the shields at all – that they are still hoping for some end that involves negotiation rather than fighting. If that’s the case, we will send a delegation inside to confront them.”

“How will that help?”

Wen Ruohan’s smirk was vicious. “Once we have people inside their shield perimeter, everything gets a great deal easier.”

Lan Qiren frowned, disapproving – No dishonest practices, no concealing sharp weapons – but ultimately he decided not to object. The Wen sect was well known for their treachery and disregard for convention. If Jin Guangshan invited them into his city despite knowing that, it could barely even be called a dishonest practice.

Wen Ruohan was watching him, and his smirk broadened triumphantly when Lan Qiren refrained from speaking. He’d probably been betting with himself as to whether he would or not, and was very happy to have been proven right.

(If he mistakenly thought that Lan Qiren had set aside the concern entirely, he was going to be very disappointed in the future. What Lan Qiren considered to be appropriate under the present circumstances, when Jin Guangshan had literally tried to murder them both and scapegoat his own allied sect as the perpetrator, was most certainly not what he would be willing to allow for in other situations.)

“What is your plan for what happens after that?” Lan Qiren asked, deciding to move on.

Wen Ruohan waved at one of the generals, who stepped forward and began to explain.

The army rolled inexorably forward.

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived. By that time, the forward parts of the army had already settled into their pre-arranged places outside the city gates, setting up siege formations – the gates themselves were full of civilians from Lanling City, peering anxiously down at them.

Lan Qiren was pleased, if somewhat conflicted, to see that Jinlin Tower had not activated its shields.

That presumably meant that they really were planning to try to negotiate, rather than simply start fighting right away – a remarkably foolish move on Jin Guangshan’s part. This entire sequence of events had been one misstep after another for him. He should never have gone up against Wen Ruohan.

Or Lan Qiren, for that matter.

(If Lan Qiren ever managed to find that Wang Liu that Wen Ruohan had spoken of, the spy that had deliberately incited all of Wen Ruohan’s worst insecurities and set Lan Qiren up for the Fire Palace…!)

“Not long now,” Wen Ruohan observed. He looked smug and satisfied, as well he should. It didn’t really matter if his personal cultivation was temporarily weakened, not when he had his army there to wield.

“No,” Lan Qiren agreed, unable to refrain from a faint sigh. If only they could avoid going to war at all...! “Not long now. Will we send a messenger first, or shall we await them?”

“An excellent question. I expect they will try to make us wait…” Wen Ruohan’s voice trailed off, his eyebrows arching slightly with surprise as a lone cultivator flew out of Lanling City, clearly heading their way. “Or perhaps not. That seems rather impatient of them.”

Lan Qiren privately agreed. Putting aside everything else, displaying that level of eagerness for a conversation did not speak well for Lanling Jin’s negotiation skills – showing desperation was a rookie mistake, and not one Lanling Jin would normally commit. It struck him as odd.

He said as much to Wen Ruohan, who frowned and agreed.

Perhaps for that reason, he told his general “Send the messenger in as soon as he arrives,” when normally Lan Qiren knew that he’d likely make the messenger wait outside as a demonstration of power.

Not long later, the messenger appeared. He was a middle-aged cultivator, clearly of relatively high rank in Lanling Jin, wearing Sparks Amidst Snow – meaning that this was a Jin of the main family, no less. That was an interesting choice for a negotiator; it suggested a considerable degree of respect, above and beyond the sort normally afforded to enemies.

“Sect Leader Wen,” he said, saluting respectfully, and then, in a move that surprised Lan Qiren, saluted Lan Qiren as well. “Senior Lan. Thank you both for granting me an audience. I have a message for you from Lanling Jin.”

“Oh?” Wen Ruohan drawled. “And what does Jin Guangshan have to say for himself?”

“Nothing,” the man said grimly. “You see, Sect Leader Jin is dead.”

#mdzs #wen ruohan #lan qiren #cangse sanren #wei changze #my fic #my fics #Megafic

[shanastoryteller]

HAPPY HOLLYDAZE!! More Lady Mo if possible!!! ✨

a continuation of 52 53 54 55 56 57

"I believe," Lan Wangji says severely, "that what my wife does or does not do is no one's concern but mine."

Xuanyu raises an eyebrow at that, which he ignores. He knows exactly what she thinks about his concern regarding her actions. She'd been irritated that he was upset she faced fierce corpses alone, of all things.

Jin Zixun pales, but he must have a high opinion of his own importance because he says, "For fuck's sake, you're being ridiculous. A year ago no one would have cared if she drunk herself to death and now she can't even have a little wine?"

Lan Wangji does not make the conscious decision to unsheathe his blade, but there it is gleaming in his hand.

Jiang Yanli is being pushed back into her seat by her husband while her son stares wide eyed.

There's some intense shuffling from the Lan section. Although he doesn't turn around, he does hear Jingyi and Sizhui whispering furiously. He wonders who is restraining who.

Jiang Cheng is standing with a hand on his sword and no one is going to any effort to restrain him at all. Li Shuchun, the only one that might have a chance of it, is leaning back to exchange money with another Jiang disciple.

"This is quite enough!" Jin Guangshan shouts. "What's this about? Sect Leader Lan-"

"Oh, be quiet Father," Xuanyu says, getting to her feet and stepping forward to grab his hand and shove his hand down. "What's with you today, Wangji? Put that away." She's very close and glaring at him, so he resheathes his sword.

"Jin Xuanyu!" Jin Guangshan thunders.

She rolls her eyes, turning to Jin Zixun. She punches his shoulder, a move that he dodges instantly. Which leaves him wide open when she grabs his sword off his hip, tosses it to Jin Guangyao, and then drops to kick his legs out from under him.

She pushes down on his shoulder, keeping him on his knees, and says, "Wangji, dear, would you hold him for me?"

She called him dear.

He steps to grab Jin Zixun's wrists, keeping him in place.

"What are you doing?" he howls. "You can't just-"

"You wanted to drink, right?" she asks then picks up a wine bottle with one hand and pinches his nose shut with the other.

He opens his mouth and Xuanyu pours wine down his throat. He can either drink or drown.

"Come on," she says cheerfully, "don't you want to drink to another fruitful year? Have some more!"

He drinks until he's coughing and sputtering, eyes glassy. Everyone just watches, but then again who is there to say anything? Jin Zixuan is keeping himself firmly in his own seat and Jin Guangshan and Madame Jin are just staring, probably more interested in watching everyone else's reaction then anything else.

"There," she says once the bottle is empty. "Feeling better?"

"You're crazy," he coughs.

Xuanyu's grin widens. "I am the legitimate daughter of Sect Leader Jin. I am the wife of Hanguang Jun. What I am is someone who is above you. You're lucky I don't have you whipped for your impudence. Isn't he, Father?"

Jin Guangyao has never once made a fuss about his status, afraid that what was easily given could be easily taken. Xuanyu clearly is, because her own status can't be revoked without making a mockery of the Jin's treaty with the Lan, and Jin Guangshan either reaffirms her rights and privileges as his daughter or risks lowering the authority of the son he does favor - Jin Zixuan.

Lan Wangji is suddenly grateful that Xuanyu hadn't been interested in manipulating him to her benefit.

Jin Guangshan is nearly purple in rage, but he gets out through clenched teeth, "Yes, Xuanyu. Of course."

"Why has the music stopped?" she asks the hall, giving Lan Wangji a look. He lets go of Jin Zixun and can't help the curl of amusement when he falls flat on his face. "This is a banquet, after all!"

The music starts up again and conversation slowly starts once more as Jin Zixun stumbles from the hall. He doesn't want to leave her side, but she's seated by Jin Guangyao once more and chatting about the schedule for tomorrow. Jin Guangyao seems supremely relaxed, which Lan Wangji is given to believe that means he's laughing on the inside.

He sits down next to his brother, waiting for the scolding he rightfully deserves.

"Wangji," Xichen says seriously. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I love your wife."

He hides his smile behind his teacup.

#prompt answers #prompts are closed #asks #anon #untamed

[littlesmartart]

i absolutely adore that meng shi comic with xiyao!! do you have any thoughts about meng shi interactions with the other jin siblings?? love your work!!

okay, so the Meng Shi Survives AU started as a conversation with @guqin-and-flute about an AU of the A-Fu AU where Meng Shi survives to meet A-Fu �� (see more posts about it here) in this AU, she does not meet any of the Jins until after JGS is gone (ie. in the happy era), so MXY is a young teenager, Qin Su knows who her bio dad is, and Zixuan has a heap of kids

Zixuan - his relationship with Meng Shi rather understandably starts out a bit awkward (Meng Shi sees the life her son should have had, JZX sees the woman his father was already cheating on his mother with BEFORE HE WAS EVEN BORN), but by this stage of his life and post his father's death, Zixuan has gotten a lot better at handling situations that make him uncomfortable, so it's not actually too terrible. Meng Shi is very touched that Jin-zongzhu interacts with her respectfullly and allows her to spend time with his kids, so she is very deferential and kind with him, and that helps him warm up and be less awkward to her. they're never going to be super close but Zixuan has a complex relationship with his own mother, and has a decent relationship with JGY at this point, so he really really wants to keep things positive between himself and Meng Shi. plus Yanli really loves spending time with another Yunmeng woman. the first time he calls her auntie Meng Shi has to fight very hard not to cry.

Qin Su - by this point Qin Su is living in Koi Tower full time as part of Yanli's retinue and a member of the inner family. she doesn't form a particularly close relationship with Meng Shi, but they are friendly and enjoy each other's company, and Qin Su is happy to treat her as an honoured auntie. she considers introducing her to her mother, wondering if they'd find some sort of solidarity together, but ultimately decides against it.

Xuanyu - MXY is ready to collect any and all relatives that want him hell freakin yeah!!! an auntie who's fun and nice and knows all sorts of cool stuff about about poetry and the arts and doesn't treat him weird for his makeup, and is Yao-ge's mum? awesome! MXY has a tendency to form attachments to people who are kind to him VERY quickly and Meng Shi is no exception. he actually does introduce his mother to her, and although there is some awkwardness initially, Meng Shi winds up taking Second Madam Mo somewhat under her wing and they do get on well.

#mengshilivesau #afvsjh #lucreziaborgiagf #ask #the untamed