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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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I am *endlessly* curious about how Wei Wuxian ended up at the Cloud Recess, and very satisfied my internal suspicion that the Lan and the Jiang were busy rebuilding their power/plotting a coup was right. Though I'm now curious about their reaction to 'Meng Yao is being kept around, and as Empress at that'.

spontaneous fic extra for Good Help - ao3 link

Good news! one of Nie Huaisang’s letters started, which was never good news. My brother has finally become gainfully employed! He will no longer be a burden on society, a good-for-nothing that does nothing but idle his days away, bringing shame upon our family name.

Wei Wuxian blinked down at the letter. “Jiang Cheng,” he said. “Did I manage to hit my head and wake up in a world where Nie Mingjue is not the Empress?”

“No,” Jiang Cheng said, looking bored. He was officially there on Jin sect business, though everyone politely pretended that he wasn’t very clearly there to see Wei Wuxian or, for those not in the know, sent by his husband, who had virtually no cutsleeve tendencies at all, to get him somewhere that wasn’t Lanling. It was an excuse they used rather a lot to get Jiang Cheng to where he needed to be. “He’s definitely still the Empress. Keep reading.”

Wei Wuxian kept reading.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said a second later. “Someone mistook him for a guard? How?!”

“I mean, it’s not as ridiculous as you might think. No one’s seen him in years,” Jiang Cheng said, finally breaking his mask of boredom in favor of a grin. “He’s always behind all those veils – I’m pretty sure his fashion sense as Empress is ‘how much can I look like the curtain I’m trying to hide behind’.”

“But he’s so –” Wei Wuxian moved his hands around in an attempt to encompass very broad shoulders, a narrow waist, muscles, and also height. “Notable!”

“It’s been a while since you’ve been to court, hasn’t it? He’s always up on that platform far away from everyone else – you know how Wen Ruohan likes to look down on everyone – and everything around him has been resized for him; he looks more proportional that way. And if you didn’t know, and there’s no reason that this Meng Yao fellow would know…”

“Still!”

“No, really, it’s not that strange! You know how Wen Ruohan’s guards of the inner hall are dressed, all fancy Wen sect robes, and that’s all Nie Mingjue has other than his Empress get-up, which obviously isn’t appropriate for when he wants to go outside to train Baxia. He would’ve been wearing the right clothes and walking in the right place, and he is what you’d expect a guard to look like…if you bumped into him at random, as happened here, it’s a reasonable mistake to make.”

“He hired him as his secretary,” Wei Wuxian marveled. “Just – wow. Wow. Mingjue-xiong is going to break him in half, the first time he tries anything.”

“Maybe,” Jiang Cheng said. “Maybe not.”

Someone needs to go assassinate this Meng Yao person right away, Nie Huaisang’s next letter – nominally addressed to Lan Wangji this time – said. I think my brother might actually like him. A upstart Jin bastard that worked his way up through the Fire Palace – do you think all these years with Wen Ruohan has rotted da-ge’s sense of taste?

“He doesn’t actually mean that we should assassinate him,” Wei Wuxian told Lan Wangji, who nodded in agreement. “We still need the viceroy to remain in his place as the target. He’s just being dramatic.”

If Nie Huaisang actually wanted Wei Wuxian to assassinate someone, he had other ways of asking.

That was a fair portion of what Wei Wuxian did these days, actually, other than work on his ideas for demonic cultivation and warm Lan Wangji’s bed. Ironically enough, of the three, the last was his actual job: after Wen Chao had his golden core destroyed as punishment for having dared fight back when the Wen sect invaded the Lotus Pier – a temper tantrum at not being allowed to do the same to Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian suspected, since Wen Ruohan had even then already planned to sell the heirs of the Jiang sect to the highest bidder – Lan Wangji had, after quietly rescuing him at Jiang Cheng’s frantic instigation and with Nie Huaisang’s connivance, announced that he was keeping him as a personal pet.

Wen Ruohan had been pressuring the Lan sect to adopt some vices, simply because he knew it would make them uncomfortable – Lan Qiren had been a particular target – and he’d been satisfied by the notion of one of Lan Qiren’s precious nephews, the Jades of Lan, deciding to keep a whore, even if he’d insisted on having Wei Wuxian inspected to make sure he’d been thoroughly used.

(Proving it had not been a hardship, not when Wei Wuxian had a lover as thorough and tireless as Lan Wangji. Joke’s on you, Wen Ruohan!)

Still, even as Wei Wuxian did (in his opinion) some of his best work on his back and puzzled his way through demonic cultivation as the only possible route for him now – Lan Qiren helped him with some of the musical cultivation bits, and also in arguing to the Lan sect elders that some type of cultivation was better than nothing, and anyway there was a limit to how much trouble he could cause while under close supervision – he had also started up a sideline in taking out their political enemies on account of being the one of them that people would least suspect. No one even remembered his name anymore!

“Maybe we should go to court and check him out,” Wei Wuxian added thoughtfully. “See what he’s like, make sure he’s not leading Nie Mingjue down the wrong path, that sort of thing.”

They could pass along some of Nie Huaisang’s messages, too.

There was that whole coup they were planning, even if it was far less interesting than Nie Mingjue actually making a friend for the first time in over a decade…

“Mm,” Lan Wangji agreed. “Wei Ying has good judgment.”

“I do! If he’s nice – though there’s no chance he’ll be nice, he’s from the Fire Palace – I’ll tell Nie Huaisang that I approve,” Wei Wuxian decided. “If he’s awful, I’ll send a ghost to haunt him until he can’t sleep. If he’s a little awful but seems salvageable, I’ll…I don’t know…I’ll set some dogs on him!”

Lan Wangji’s eyebrows went up.

“You’ll set some dogs on him!”

The eyebrows went down.

“Rude, Lan Zhan. Very rude.”

“So having now seen Meng Yao and my da-ge interact with my own two eyes, I’ve decided that they’re going to get married,” Nie Huaisang announced.

“Is that wise?” Wei Wuxian asked, even though he actually thought Meng Yao was pretty cool. He was so good at being nice to people that he disliked, so incredibly efficient, so thoughtful, and best of all only very rarely followed up on the occasional murder-eyes he liked to shoot people when he thought no one was looking; it had actually been the fact that he and Lan Wangji had both vouched for him that had convinced Nie Huaisang to change his plans to account for his brother’s preferences. “Making him the Empress? He’ll be bossing your brother around in no time.”

“He’s already bossing my brother around, and that’s the way my brother likes it,” Nie Huaisang said. “Making Meng Yao the mother of the Empire – above ten thousand, below one – is the ideal way to sate his hunger for power in a way that makes him feel confident that he won’t be so easily replaced the way a viceroy or prime minister would be, and therefore unlikely to betray us. Also, it will make Jin Guangshan have an aneurysm, and that will be hilarious.”

“I like that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Also, didn’t we agree that you were going to be the prime minister?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said patiently. “You are going to be prime minster, and I’m going to be your empty-headed but pretty former Imperial Consort wife.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘former Imperial Consort’ isn’t usually a thing.”

“Yes, well, it’s a coup, we make the rules. It’d be such a shame not to use this nice bureaucracy that Wen Ruohan set up for us…Wei-xiong, what about you?”

“What about me? I’m very happy as Lan Zhan’s whore.”

Jiang Cheng tried to hit him, but Wei Wuxian dodged, cackling. “Maybe I’ll start spending his money on fancy clothing and living it up now that I’m his official mistress,” he said. “I have Wang Lingjiao’s example to look up to, don’t I..?”

“I would like to marry Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji opined, and Wei Wuxian suddenly felt all gooey inside.

“I meant what will we do with him in the government,” Nie Huaisang said, long-suffering. “You’re all useless – though not as useless as me, of course.”

Jiang Cheng pressed a kiss to his cheek. “No one’s as useless as you, my little good-for-nothing.”

“And don’t any of you forget it!” Nie Huasiang exclaimed, then elbowed Jiang Cheng in the ribs. “Don’t touch me, you married man. Get a proper divorce before you try making your way into my bed; what sort of girl do you think I am?”

“You can’t be serious!” Jiang Cheng spluttered. “Jin Zixuan is drawing up the papers right now –”

“I feel like I deserve a proper wedding, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang asked Wei Wuxian, who started laughing. “I didn’t get a proper one the last time around –”

“We’ve been sleeping together for years!”

“We were having a thrilling affair under the nose of an evil tyrannical dictator. Who’s to say that the spark’s still there?”

“Oh you want spark,” Jiang Cheng said. “I’ll give you spark –”

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #my fic #my fics #good help #I saw this ask and got Inspired #barid-bel-medar

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rueluxprince · 4 years

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Why Does Jin Guangyao Have So Many Goddamn Ships

This dude. I don’t know what is with him. He can be shipped with so many goddamn people, and you can find something in canon (show/novel/audio drama) to justify it. You like a specific trope? He’ll have a ship that gives it to you. (Lets extrapolate some from canon)

Qin Su/Jin Guangyao: Naive yet headstrong heiress trying to fight on the battlefield and contribute to the greater good. Bit off more than she could chew and was rescued by a gentle and quietly self-assured young man. Romance and comedy ensues as she vows to make him her husband! Flowers! Hijinks! Enlisting quirky handmaidens for advice! Jin Guangshan doesn’t exist in this one!

Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao: hero saves the beauty, gay edition. Young bookkeeper wants to be worthy of noble young master’s esteem, works his ass off, puts himself in years of danger, finally climbs to the top and now must deal with the “is he or is he not” of romance in politics! Is he or is he not? He’s always at your house and gives you a free pass to his house and draws you exclusive paintings and only attends conferences hosted by you and trusts you completely! But he never says anything! Cue the yearning! The soft touches! Reminders of etiquette! Swooning into strong arms!

Jiang Cheng/Jin Guangyao: reluctant and accidental co-parents reluctantly and accidentally fall in love in the long years of raising a precocious nephew into adulthood. The kid turned out surprisingly okay, with a commendably hard moral backbone. One realizes it’s nice to have a perpetually angry grape ready to blow up in your defense. The other realizes someone closest to him is already fulfilling all his marriage requirements and he didn’t even know it! Domestic bliss! Cute kids! Internal struggles of sexuality! The italicized oh!

Nie Mingjue/Jin Guangyao: Noble and righteous leader recognizing and promoting downtrodden but talented beginner –> no good opinion forthcoming but still wants to care his own way older brother x turning down a dark path but still wants to go back the way things were younger brother –> So much resentment fierce corpse x unable to forget the guilt murderer –> they are buried together. Deteriorating relationship! Shakespearean tragedy! Ultimate darkness! Death! Eternity with each other!

(Honorable mention: 3zun - a wholesome ouroboros loop of death, mystery and found family)

Nie Huaisang/Jin Guangyao: you ever have that one childhood friend that takes care of you and indulges in your oddities and protects you with murderous looks and a scarred back even though he’s frailer than you are; and then that childhood friend murders your older brother but leaves you alive and still takes cares of you and spoils you and would drop everything to help you with a made up problem? And so you’re now left seething in rage because how dare he ruin you and love you all without pause?! Cue the revenge plots! Lies! Deceit! Best actor winners going toe to toe on the world’s biggest stage! Inner conflict! Angst! More conflicted plotting!

Mo Xuanyu->Jin Guangyao: You’re weak and a mess and constantly bullied and the only one in this huge and scary house that ever showed you kindness is your older half brother. He becomes a god in your eyes, all golden and brilliant and surrounded by equally golden and beautiful people you can never touch. But you still try despite everything because he’s the sun and he wanted you to thrive, and you’re just a little moth ramming head first into the flames. And when you’re scorched to the bone and everyone still keeps on trying to stomp you into ash and you finally decide to take revenge, you still can’t bring yourself to blame that splendid sun who were never yours in the first place. Resentments! Unrequited love! More angst! Inner courtyard intrigues! More tragedy! Poetic inner monologues!

Su She->Jin Guangyao: generous and focused ruler x dedicated and competent supporter. He gives you all the respect you need and you know in your soul you will die for him and you don’t care one whit about it. You protect his heart but you always stood one step behind. The position beside him is taken, often by a soft figure in golden silk, or an eminent figure in blue satin. Jealousy! Loud expressions of loyalty! Ego management! Pining and simping!

Xue Yang/Jin Guangyao - friends who murder together stays together. One causes wanton destruction and the other picks up after them. Not because he particularly cares that people are getting hurt but the cost analysis tells him it’s not worth the clean up. You pay for my shopping, I rip out the tongues of anyone that insults your mother. Lighthearted talks of murder! Scheming with friends! Lots of cursing! Dubious experiments! Lots of magical cursing! Friends with benefits!

Wen Ruohan/Meng Yao: local megalomanic tyrant sees this random ass kid all bloodied up and gleaming with spite and went “I would like to raise that one. I’ll give it a sword and I’ll teach him stuff and I won’t say I appreciate him but I will definitely save him from imminent danger.” And that kid acknowledges said tyrant as his teacher and tortures for him pretends to love him, all the while stealing his secrets and preparing to stab him in the back to win the war. Struggle! Trauma! Living in hardship! Double agent reminding themselves not to be conflicted! Psychological torture!

Wen Chao + Wen Xu: uhhhhhh, the canoodling with stepmom trope? Do we even go that far on tumblr? It’s a possibility I’ve considered for about two seconds and now I wish I could wash my brain out.

Jin Zixun~~Jin Guangyao: the “I know I’m slapping the me two years ago in the face with what I’m doing right now but it’s love so I don’t care” trope? All the Jins do this. The year before you were all “why are you always here you don’t belong here you bastard son” and now you’re all “wheres A-Yao he promised he would ambush this public menace with me owo?!??!!??” What a weakass motherfucker with weakass principles.

Honorable mentions:

Wei Wuxian + Jin Guangyao: best in law dynamics, potentially. Terrorizing the Cloud Recesses, eating lots of spicy food, hiding secrets in perfectly groomed hair, causing aneurysms in Lan Qiren, violating all the OH&S regulations Etc.

Lan Wangji + Jin Guangyao: best in law dynamics, actually. It’s a whole battle. Jin “I am physically incapable of seeing someone and not wanting to take care of it” Guang “yes I will be calling you Wangji and trying to give you stuff and show audible concern for your love life” Yao vs. Lan “I do not wish to know you I do not care for your seating arrangements do not ever invite me to your banquets again” Wang “just because you’re maybe dating my precious older brother does not mean I will not refute you to your face about my boyfriend at your banquet in front of said brother” Ji.

(And yes the last two are purely familial/platonic. And also everyone else? You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift is the most fitting theme song for half of them)

~more MDZS metas under #my thing# tag~

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ibijau · 3 years

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chap 4 of the modern xisangyao, also on AO3

Meng Yao faces his past and his future

Meng Yao screams upon seeing the face of those two intruders, and nearly stabs himself in the cheek with his tiny knife as he brings up his hands to cover his mouth.

He knows these men.

They killed him, once.

The one in blue chopped off his arm.

That one in red destroyed his reputation, exposed the darker sides of him for all to see, leaving him no choice but to die.

And Lan Xichen, of course, dealt the fatal blow.

Three men in this desolate house with him. Three murderers. Or is it really three? After all, none of this would have happened without…

Meng Yao, who refuses to fall to his knees like Lan Xichen out of sheer pride, sobs. He doesn’t know when, exactly, he started crying. But his face is now wet with tears and snot under his hands and his breath fogs up the blade of his knife. He hasn’t cried like this since his mother died.

In every life he’s lived, she has died too early.

A curse bound to repeat itself, a punishment for everything Meng Yao ended up doing after she died in that first life, and the second, and the third, and…

Somewhere a thousand miles away, heavy footsteps climb up stairs two, three at a times, rushed and loud as they never are usually. Meng Yao can’t see through his tears, but he still knows it must be mister Shanzi. A suspicion confirmed when a moment later his employer speaks up, breathless from running up those stairs.

He never was an athletic man, mister Shanzi, not if he could avoid it.

“Don’t hurt him!” Mister Shanzi cries out, trying to run again, only to settle for stumbling along until he’s in front of Meng Yao.

It’s a surprise, and it’s not. Either way, it startles Meng Yao out of his tears. He blinks a few times, until his vision clears. Mister Shanzi is there, shielding him from the other three, arms spread wide as if to better protect him. Meng Yao can’t see his face, but he can imagine the fierce, determined expression on his employer’s face.

His fourth murderer, and yet now Meng Yao feels less scared at last.

The newcomers aren’t impressed with mister Shanzi. The man in white and blue, kneeling next to Lan Xichen, glares up at mister Shanzi. Meng Yao feels he should know his name. He knew it, once, but they haven’t met in many lifetimes.

“You didn’t say,” the man says coldly, eyes darting toward Lan Xichen, still prostrated on the floor, as if he’s remembering as much as Meng Yao does, and enjoys it as little. “You know how much I’ve tried to find…”

“I’ll buy you lunch, Wangji,” mister Shanzi cuts him. “Deal with your brother, I’m taking care of Meng Yao.”

Lan Wangji frowns at this answer.

That’s his name, Meng Yao recalls. Lan Wangji, the one who goes where the chaos is. And the other, then, is Wei Wuxian. Two parts of a whole. Meng Yao thinks he hated them, once. Even before they destroyed him, he hated them for their freedom, for their right to be careless, when he had to measure his every word, his every action. Or perhaps it is just that a part of him always knew they would kill him.

As Meng Yao tries to remember which came first between hatred and murder, he feels mister Shanzi reach for his hands. The knife is taken from him and put away on the nearest surface, which ought to scare him. He knows, though, that no weapon he might yield could protect him, should mister Shanzi have it in mind to murder him again. Meng Yao has never once been successful in defending himself against him.

With this certainty in mind, Meng Yao doesn’t resist as mister Shanzi pulls him away, back to the basement. This, too, reassures him. Mister Shanzi loves his paintings more than anything in the world, more than scamming powerful assholes and overconfident idiots. If he had to kill Meng Yao, mister Shanzi wouldn't do it somewhere that would taint his precious art.

Once they reach the workshop, mister Shanzi gently brings Meng Yao inside and invites him to take the chair while he closes the door, locking it behind them. This too should scare Meng Yao. It doesn’t.

“How are you feeling?” mister Shanzi asks, coming closer but stopping at few steps away from Meng Yao. Giving him space, so he can feel safe. “How much do you remember?”

“I remember dying because of you,” Meng Yao says, falling onto the chair which rolls away from his employer.

Mister Shanzi is unphased, his face showing only polite interest, the way he does when meeting sellers and buyers. With him dressed like this, the neutral expression feels wrong. Funny, almost. Meng Yao would laugh, if he remembered how.

“You killed me several times,” Meng Yao says. It should make him angry. When he looked at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, he felt unfathomable rage over what they did to him even if he doesn’t understand what, exactly, it is that they did. They only killed him once, though. But mister Shanzi, who he can remember towering over him, holding a blade wet with his blood… “You also saved me, didn’t you?”

Mister Shanzi smiles, if you can call it that.

“I had to find a new way of dealing with you,” he casually admits. “After the first few times, killing you wasn’t as fun anymore.”

“I was a child the last time you killed me,” Meng Yao protests, and maybe there is some anger to be felt over that. He was just a child that one time.

A toddler really, playing in the street with other kids, Meng Yao suddenly remembers. His mother hadn’t quite died yet in that life, but her health had been declining, so he’d been left to his own devices too often. Someone had offered him sweets and he’d been too young to know he should refuse.

He hadn't even gotten those candies before getting his throat slit.

“It was a low point for me,” mister Shanzi admits with a shiver. “At that time, I was... You see, you had killed my brother in the first life in which we met, and in a truly horrible manner too,” he explains, and Meng Yao nods. It rings a bell. A corpse butchered, a melody... “and since he had never reincarnated, I didn’t see why you should get to. I’d always found you as an adult before that, and it was easy to find some failings of yours to excuse killing you. A child though…” He grimaces in disgust, looks down as his hands as if they're still stained with the warm blood of a three years old. “After that, I started reconsidering the way I was doing things. My brother had believed you were worth giving several chances, once, so I thought I’d honour his memory and do the same.”

“I suppose I should be grateful?” Meng Yao asks. “Just as I was supposed to be grateful toward Mingjue.”

Hearing his brother’s name makes mister Shanzi jump. But he’s not mister Shanzi, Meng Yao realises. That was never his true name.

“You’re Nie Huaisang,” Meng Yao says, mostly to himself. “You’re… after so long, and you’re still doing all this for him. I’d murdered the wrong brother, back then.”

Realising what he just said, Meng Yao tenses and throws Nie Huaisang a sharp glance, terrified that he might lash out at the reminder of that crime which has entangled their fates through centuries.

Nie Huaisang turns away, curling up on himself, shoulders shaking. Meng Yao braces himself for an attack, verbal or physical, but instead after a moment Nie Huaisang bursts out laughing, loud and unrestrained.

“Every time!” Nie Huaisang giggles. “Every damn time, you end up saying that! And every time I say that…”

“Da-ge would have been just as fierce in avenging you, so there was no right brother to kill, no right brother to spare,” Meng Yao finishes in a whisper. “I’m not saying that I want to kill you now,” he quickly adds. “I don’t. Not after what I owe you.”

Of course in that very first life, he owed Nie Mingjue, and that hadn’t stopped him. Meng Yao can feel the reek of the terror he’d felt then, stuck between a rock and a hard place, certain he didn’t have a choice. Perhaps he didn’t. Those were different times, and he had promised his mother to be a good son so his father would give him the status he deserved. So she hadn't suffered in vain when raising him.

Meng Yao had tried to be a good son, which had turned him into a poor friend. Not to Nie Mingjue exactly. They weren’t friends anymore by then. But to Lan Xichen, who had suffered first the loss of Nie Mingjue, and then years later the horror of having helped it happen.

And then Lan Xichen had killed him.

Maybe he hadn't been a very good friend either.

“I’m really sorry for this,” Nie Huaisang says. “You’ve always remembered, whenever I’ve taken you in, but it’s never been quite so fast and brutally. And it’s the first time that…”

He trails off, looking over his shoulder toward the door with a mix of dread and longing.

“Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao guesses.

“Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang agrees, before chuckling sadly. “Did you… does he… did he know before coming here, or…”

Meng Yao thinks on it, and shakes his head. He might be deluding himself, but he doesn’t believe Lan Xichen knew, not until they arrived to the Hanshi, not until he saw Nie Huaisang, not until he was confronted by his own brother. It took both of them by surprise.

Meng Yao wants to ask about Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, but doesn’t. It’s not necessary, he realises. Having been in their presence, he can guess that they are more like Nie Huaisang than like him or Lan Xichen. There is just something about those people who no longer die that sets them apart from ordinary humans, even at first glance.

“He was just here about the painting,” Meng Yao explains. “He’s writing a book on… well, on you, I guess.”

The expression on Nie Huaisang’s face is a complicated one, equal part regret and relief.

“Wangji had been looking for him,” he says. “Quite desperately. Well, he found him now, good for him. As for myself, I don’t think I should… well. Well. It doesn’t matter. Lan Xichen made it clear once how he thinks of me, and I know better than to impose myself where I am unwanted. I’ll just disappear for a while, make sure we don’t run into each other. The antics scene was getting a little bothersome anyway. Damn technology, ruining my life. I’ll have to find something else to keep me busy. I guess I’ll have to leave this house, too.”

As he speaks of abandoning the Hanshi, Nie Huaisang looks truly sad. Almost in spite of himself he raises a hand to touch the nearest wall, brushing his fingertips against it as one would a lover.

He's owned this house most of his life, he once told Meng Yao. At the time, Meng Yao had thought his employer had bought it young, or inherited it somehow, meaning he’d lived there for maybe twenty years.

He wonders how long “most of his life” really means.

“Am I fired?” Meng Yao asks instead. A more practical question, and one to which he’s more likely to get an answer.

“Fired?”

“I… I betrayed you. I took someone here without your knowledge.”

Nie Huaisang blinks a few times, then laughs softly and comes to kneel before the chair, taking Meng Yao's hand. His skin his warm, his touch grounding, and Meng Yao, stupidly, wants him to never let go.

“Oh, A-Yao,” Ni Huaisang sighs, squeezing his hand. “Neither of us would ever know how to refuse Lan Xichen anything that he asks. How could I blame you for this? No, you’re not fired.”

Meng Yao lets out a deep exhale.

“I still can’t keep you around anymore,” Nie Huaisang adds, tilting his head slightly. It makes him look like a curious bird. He’d like the comparison, Meng Yao thinks in a panicked effort to not delve on what his former employer just said.

“I won’t betray you again,” he promises, grasping Nie Huaisang's hand tightly, as if that could keep him here.

“If Lan Xichen asks, you will. I don’t think he’ll ask, mind you,” Nie Huaisang says with a smile. “I haven’t seen him since that first life we all shared, and we didn’t part on good terms. You wouldn’t know, you were dead already, but I… well. He did not take kindly to being used as my weapon to kill you, to put it mildly. And now you’re in love with him again, in a world where… well, it’s easier to love him these days, isn’t it?”

“I’m not in love,” Meng Yao says, but the protest sounds hollow as it leaves his lips.

If he’s not in love with Lan Xichen, he’s more than halfway there already. Why else would he have betrayed Nie Huaisang, whom he does love, in spite of how stupid it is? Even without realising exactly what 'mister Shanzi' was, Meng Yao could tell there was something off about the man, something unnatural and dangerous. He's an idiot, though, and loved him all the more for it.

“I��m not in love just with him,” Meng Yao corrects, which startles Nie Huaisang. Good. Meng Yao isn’t quite as cruel as he was in that first life or some of the following ones, but he wouldn’t call himself kind either. If he must suffer, why shouldn’t others do too? “Take me with you. Wherever you’re going, take me with you.”

“No.”

“Do you really think Lan Xichen would still have anything to do with me, now that he remembers?” Meng Yao insists, rising from the chair. Nie Huaisang lets go of his hand and stands up as well, takes a few steps back as if putting distance between them will do anything. “It’s pointless to leave me behind. Take me with you.”

“No. You’re mortal,” Nie Huaisang sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You… I’m not doing that. I’m not involving myself with a mortal. I’ve seen what it does to people like me. I won’t… I can’t allow anything to destroy me like that. Not until I’ve found da-ge again, not until I’ve seen him safe and happy.”

Meng Yao nods, because he understands, because he’d give everything for a chance to see his mother again, would sacrifice anything just to make sure she’s happy. And still, he says again: “Take me with you.”

“No.”

“You’ll need an assistant. You need one. You're useless on your own. You suck at keeping track of appointments, and you still haven’t figured out social media, and… just that, just your assistant.”

“No.”

“I can keep things compartmentalised.”

“I can’t,” Nie Huaisang snaps. “I… I would have let you go soon, anyway,” he adds, more quietly, as if confessing a terrible secret. “You are… I got attached, more than planned. You’re good, in this life. I think the world is finally changing enough to allow you to exist and you’re… but it doesn’t matter. I was always going to let you go, it’s just happening sooner than I’d planned.”

“So I am fired.”

Nie Huaisang grimaces. For a moment, just a second, he looks exactly as old as he is. There’s an exhaustion in his eyes, so deep and ancient it is almost frightening to behold. Centuries after centuries of looking for the same person, of never finding him, of meeting instead his brother's murderer over and over and over again.

“You’re not fired,” Nie Huaisang tiredly insist. “I’m going to continue paying you until you find another job, and I’ll make sure the right people know you’re on the market again, if you want to stay in that line of work. I also don’t mind paying for any school you like. I’ll write you letters of recommendation, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re good even without me, but… but after today you won’t see me again. I just can’t risk it.”

“And if you found your brother again,” Meng Yao suggests, because unlike Nie Huaisang he’s good with new technology. If Nie Mingjue is alive somewhere, he can find him. He will find him. It can’t be a coincidence that Lan Xichen and him met like that, so maybe…

Nie Huaisang shrugs, and shakes his head.

“I’ll never stop looking for him. But I don’t think he’s coming back. I think the damage to his soul was too great, and it was just the end for him. I’ve got to keep looking, but I think there’s nothing to find. So I won’t make promises to you, Meng Yao. I’ll have that decency, at least.”

It’s funny, Meng Yao thinks, how little Nie Huaisang has changed since that first life.

By which he means, Nie Huaisang is still the same dramatic asshole as he used to be, still so wrapped in his own problems that he doesn’t really care about the effect his decisions have on others, because he’s a Nie so of course he’s always right.

It used to drive Meng Yao grazy, in that first life, when he thought all Nie Huaisang had going for him was a good inheritance and a pretty face.

It still drives him crazy right now, when he knows Nie Huaisang is perfectly capable of being more than this, should he feel like it.

Before Meng Yao can insist, there is a knock on the door. They both startle, having half forgotten there are others with them in that house. Nie Huaisang looks panicked for a moment, but quickly gets himself under control. He probably guesses, as Meng Yao does, that it cannot be Lan Xichen, who surely would never reach out to either of them.

That guess turns out to be right. When Nie Huaisang goes to open the door, he finds Wei Wuxian there, who looks… not quite angry as such, but ready to be pushed there if anyone says the wrong thing.

“You still want us to take you away?” Wei Wuxian asks.

Nie Huaisang nods quickly, than shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling.

“Zewu-Jun can’t… If he's coming too...”

“He needs time to digest, and he says that one…” Wei Wuxian nods toward Meng Yao, who flinches on instinct “...called him a taxi, so he’ll make his own way home. Lots to think about. Did you fucking know, Huaisang?”

“Not until today, and I called you right away. You think I wouldn’t have told you, if I’d known? You think I’d have gone anywhere near him by choice?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs, in a manner that seems to imply he doesn’t really know what Nie Huaisang might do about anything.

“What about that one?” Wei Wuxian asks, nodding again toward Meng Yao.

Nie Huaisang shrugs. “He has his car. Wei-xiong, I just want to leave now. Please.”

They do leave. Wei Wuxian glances one last time at Meng Yao, but Nie Huaisang doesn’t look back as he exits the room.

Just like that, Meng Yao finds himself alone, with only paintings and a broken game console for company.

He allows himself a moment of sorrow because, and he can admit this to himself now that it no longer matters, he’d been hoping to spend the rest of his life with either Lan Xichen or Nie Huaisang. Both, if fate chose to be kind to him.

Fate has never chosen kindness, when it comes to him.

So Meng Yao dries his tears, and picks up that shattered console on the floor.

The paintings in this room are worthless to him. Over half are fakes, and even Nie Huaisang, who painted them, doesn’t always recognises just from looking what’s real and what’s not. But the console… well, there’s a guy who lives in Meng Yao’s building who’s made a business of buying broken electronics and either repairing them or scavenging them for parts.

Maybe Nie Huaisang really will continue paying him, or maybe he won’t, but Meng Yao hasn’t gotten where he is in life by counting on the kindness of others.

He’ll sell the console when he gets home.

#xisangyao #sangyao #xisang #xiyao #mdzs #counterfeit au #everyone is a mess with a crush oops #jau writes

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perkynurples · 4 years

Note

... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?

also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those

Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.

Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof

Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...

And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.

The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.

And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.

It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.

But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who’d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.

But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.

Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.

And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.

At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.

Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.

In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.

Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.

No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.

But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.

And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.

This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.

But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)

How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.

I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.

The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast.

He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you.

And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.

For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.

Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.

In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.

Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.

Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?

When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.

When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.

In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.

Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.

Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.

And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?

All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.

Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.

#jin guangyao #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #so this is..... a thing.#honestly I'm. i can't say that eloquence was my primary goal here #can't really even be sure WHAT the primary goal was #but this is now a thing that exists so take it off my hands I suppose #while I go make some hot chocolate and think of bunny rabbits and rainbows for a while #to cleanse my palate #Anonymous #ask #jgy #my meta

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gingersnapwolves · 3 years

Text

The Untamed, a brief summary [Part 2/6]

Part One: Sword Wizard School

Part Two: The Search for the Yin Iron and the World’s Worst Summer Camp

Ext, Somewhere

Lan Wangji is looking for the yin iron. Wei Wuxian catches up with him and makes some bondage jokes. Lan Wangji is clearly warming up to him, as he doesn’t punt him into the stratosphere.

Jiang Cheng, still incensed that his brother snuck off, goes to look for him. Jiang Yanli packs him a sack lunch and tells him to be careful.

Wen Qing is stuck with Wen Chao, following Lan Wangji, and looks like she wants to throw herself off a mountain.

Ext, Tanzhou [Yiling]

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run into Nie Huaisang, who apparently decided not to go home after school, presumably due to his grades. Yiling is nowhere near Qinghe. When Nie Huaisang decides to fuck around and find out, he goes for it.

In Tanzhou, there is a magic florist. She has a piece of yin iron, but they’re too late. Wen Chao has already taken it. I will forget that this happened in 90% of my fanfics.

Ext, Dafan Mountain [Yiling]

The three of them end up at a creepy village. There’s a woman mumbling something about a statue. Everyone else is missing except one creepy dude at a shrine to said statue, whose purpose is to give exposition. For some reason they decide to sleep in the weird cave with the creepy statue outside the abandoned village. Kids, amirite?

Ext, Somewhere

Jiang Cheng runs into Wen Qing. She purposefully picks a fight with him and he looks like someone kicked his puppy. But oh ho! It was just a ruse so she could tell him that his brother is in trouble at Dafan Mountain without anyone overhearing. He thanks her and takes off.

Interior, A Creepy Cave [Yiling]

The statue comes alive and attacks them! It keeps going for Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian makes a joke about it having a crush on him. They seal it to keep it from moving.

Outside, a mob of villagers who look the same as the not-a-corpse guy attack them. Nie Huaisang posits that he would like to be excluded from this narrative, of which he never asked to be a part. Wen Qing shows up and uses a magic flute to subdue the mob. She will never use this flute again despite countless times doing so might come in handy. Jiang Cheng turns up too but is too busy roasting Wei Wuxian for running off to do anything useful. Wen Qing tells Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian that the mob is powered by a shard of yin iron that Wen Chao has in his ‘dire owl’ which is a bird made out of shadow that could not possibly look less like an owl.

Wei Wuxian uses a nifty golden net spell that he will never use again despite countless times it might come in handy to protect the others while he and Lan Wangji fight Wen Chao and kill the absolutely-not-an-owl. The villagers are released from the spell.

Wen Qing tells them that this is where she and Wen Ning grew up. The statue had a piece of yin iron in it, and when Wen Ruohan came and took it, the statue went berserk and killed a bunch of people, including her parents. It also stole part of Wen Ning’s soul and that’s why he’s weak and sick. Then she goes back to Nightless City despite that this is clearly a terrible idea, because Wen Ning is there. Jiang Cheng asks her to stay, but she won’t, and Jiang Cheng is sad. Somehow nobody thinks to point out that she’s serving the man who got her parents killed.

Ext, Yueyang [Qinghe]

Somehow they’re all the way up towards Qinghe now. Please don’t ask questions about travel times. It’s my worst nightmare in my fics.

Nie Huaisang says that Meng Yao is meeting them here. Why? Who knows. My best guess is that Nie Huaisang knows he’s going to be in Big Trouble for sneaking off and thinks Meng Yao can protect him.

They stop at an inn. The waiter tells them something weird happened at the Chang house and now nobody’s there but they hear noise every night. The yin iron starts clamoring to be let out of its pouch and gives Lan Wangji heartburn.

Ext, the Chang manor [Qinghe]

Xue Yang has killed every damn person. It’s fucked up.

ENTER SUPERMAN and BATMAN, like seriously, imagine you were in a DC Comic and those two just dropped in for cameos and nobody bothered to explain who they were because they figured you would already know. Their names are Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, and by the time they show up again, you will have forgotten that.

They’ve been tracking Xue Yang for All the Crimes and want to arrest him. There’s a fight. Xue Yang loses and enjoys it way too much.

Wei Wuxian asks him questions about the yin iron. He acts like a little punk. He doesn’t have any yin iron on him even though he obviously used it for Carnage, and they can’t find it anywhere.

Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang show up. They agree to take Xue Yang back to The Unclean Realm to be tried for All the Crimes.

Xue Yang cheekily says, “Don’t forget me!” to Xiao Xingchen, who immediately forgets him.

Exeunt Superman and Batman, while Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both stare after them longingly, clearly wishing that they too could hunt monsters and criminals instead of dealing with political bullshit.

Ext, The Unclean Realm [Qinghe]

Meng Yao shows them in and tells Nie Huaisang that the Wen sect has demanded each sect send an ‘inner heir disciple’ for ‘indoctrination’. Nie Huaisang remembers that he’s the only inner heir disciple sect in the Nie sect and panics. Meng Yao laughs at his histrionics. To be fair, they are indeed funny.

ENTER THE WORLD’S MOST BADASS MUSTACHE

This is Nie Mingjue. He is the head of the Qinghe Nie sect. He carries an enormous sword and has the title ‘Red Blade Master’. Every molecule of this man exudes big dick energy.

Nie Mingjue decides to immediately execute Xue Yang. Meng Yao steps in and counsels that maybe execution shouldn’t be their go-to, being rather permanent and all. Xue Yang can give them information and they shouldn’t waste their chance to get it. Nie Mingjue agrees. The others admire the fact that Meng Yao is clever and persuasive, and Wei Wuxian makes a comment about how Meng Yao’s biological father (the head of the Lanling Jin) is an idiot for not realizing he could make use of such a talent.

Nie Mingjue orders Xue Yang put in prison and the guard strengthened. Meng Yao delivers this order to the Captain of the Guard, who decides he’s going to be a giant prick about it. He’s too good to take orders from the bastard son of a whore. Meng Yao puts on his best retail smile and says that he’ll make do.

Meanwhile, the others are discussing the yin iron and the Wen sect’s demand to send disciples. Nie Mingjue says Lan Xichen has written to him and he thinks Lan Wangji should go back to Cloud Recesses. There’s only one piece of yin iron left unlocated and Xue Yang clearly knows where it is, so they’ll take it from here. Wei Wuxian reluctantly agrees that he and Jiang Cheng should probably head home too, to see how their father wants to handle the Wen sect’s demands.

Int, Cloud Recesses [Gusu]

Wen soldiers have showed up. It’s bad. Lan Qiren tells Lan Xichen that he should take their most precious knowledge and run away. Lan Xichen tries to argue but Lan Qiren insists.

Ext, The Unclean Realm [Qinghe]

The Captain of the Guard is still being an asshole to Meng Yao, this time while drunk.

Wei Wuxian, also drunk, has decided to sleep on Lan Wangji’s roof like any well-adjusted person would.

Lan Wangji gives him a longing stare and says ‘farewell’ under his breath like the stoic repressed gay he is, before heading back home.

ENTER MINIMUM WAGE REPRESENTATION MAN

The next morning, Wen Chao shows up with his Head Henchman, Wen Zhuliu. He’s clearly there because Wen Chao can’t find his ass with two hands and a flashlight. They demand the release of Xue Yang and grandstand a lot. Nie Mingjue tells them to fuck off.

There’s a big fight, mostly between Nie Mingjue and Wen Zhuliu.

Someone shouts that Xue Yang has escaped. Nie Mingjue makes it to the prison and finds Meng Yao standing there with a sword through the gut of the Captain of the Guard. We all take a moment to wish that we could stab the people who have bullied us. Nie Mingjue, however, does not agree, and is very upset. Meng Yao hilariously says ‘Xue Yang did it’ even though he’s literally got his hand on the hilt of the blade. Nice going, Meng Yao. I spend the next ten months wondering if that was a translation error.

Wen Chao (or maybe Wen Zhuliu? I don’t remember tbh) throws his sword at Nie Mingjue. Meng Yao leaps in front of it and gets lightly stabbed. Then Wen Chao talks a lot of shit about how much the Nie sect sucks and also the Lan sect sucks and his brother has taken men to go burn Cloud Recesses to the ground. Everyone is upset. Wen Chao gallantly agrees he’ll let them off the hook for the day, but if they fuck with the Wen sect again, they’ll regret it.

Nie Mingjue drags Meng Yao inside and they have a messy breakup. Meng Yao tries to explain that the Captain of the Guard was a big douchebag, bullied him for years, and took credit for his accomplishments. Nie Mingjue points out that this was not an excuse to murder him. Because Meng Yao just saved his life, he says he won’t execute him, but exiles him from Qinghe.

Meng Yao bids farewell to Nie Huaisang, who is upset and tries to get his brother to reconsider, but Nie Mingjue is adamant. Everyone seems to forget that Meng Yao just got fucking stabbed. He’ll walk it off.

So who released Xue Yang? This question is actually never answered! Did the captain of the guard do it for some reason, and Meng Yao stabbed him because he caught him in the act? Did Meng Yao do it? If so, why? Did he have nefarious purposes? Or did he do it because he thought it would make the Wen sect withdraw and stop attacking The Unclean Realm? Did the Wen soldiers get to him and let him out? Did Xue Yang just escape on his own? You may believe any canon that you wish. (My personal head canon is generally that Meng Yao released him to try to get the Wen soldiers to withdraw, but I’ve also written some variations.)

Ext, Lotus Pier [Yunmeng]

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are home. Yay! They reunite with Jiang Yanli. It is cute.

ENTER A PAIR OF EXTREMELY BAD PARENTS

So here’s the tea on the super dysfunctional family that basically drives this whole story. Jiang Fengmian is the head of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. His wife is Yu Ziyuan. He didn’t really want to marry her, mostly because he was in love with another woman named Cangse Sanren. However, the leaders of their two sects were pushing them to marry for alliance reasons. Jiang Fengmian kept refusing, but then Cangse Sanren married a guy named Wei Changze, who was one of Jiang Fengmian’s close friends. Since she was no longer an option, Jiang Fengmian then agreed to marry Yu Ziyuan. They hate each other.

The two of them had two kids, Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng. Jiang Yanli is not a strong cultivator and seems to have some health issues, although these are never detailed. Therefore all the sect responsibilities fall to Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli was betrothed to Jin Zixuan (whose mother was the sect sister of Yu Ziyuan).

Meanwhile, Cangse Sanren is what we call a ‘rogue cultivator’ ie a cultivator who is not formally part of any sect. Wei Changze was a servant at Lotus Pier. They had Wei Wuxian and went to fight evil. When Wei Wuxian was four, they were killed by a monster. He lived on the streets for about three years before Jiang Fengmian found him and adopted him.

Yu Ziyuan is super pissed that Jiang Fengmian adopted the child of the woman he was in love with. She’s also super pissed because Wei Wuxian happens to be a more powerful cultivator than Jiang Cheng. Jiang Fengmian is very indulgent of Wei Wuxian’s behavior because, you know, his parents died, and Jiang Fengmian loved his mother and was friends with his father. Yu Ziyuan constantly accuses Jiang Fengmian of loving Wei Wuxian more than he loves their own son, constantly abuses Wei Wuxian for having the audacity to exist in her home and be a good cultivator, and constantly berates Jiang Cheng for not being as strong as Wei Wuxian and says he’s not going to be a good sect leader. Meanwhile Jiang Fengmian can’t be arsed to reassure Jiang Cheng that yes, he does love him very much. Jiang Yanli basically raised both the brothers which is probably the only reason they turned out as well as they did.

tl;dr this is a super toxic environment for everyone involved

Ext, Cloud Recesses [Gusu]

ENTER A MAN WHOSE POSITION IMPLIES HE SHOULD BE IMPORTANT YET PLAYS LITTLE ROLE IN THE STORY

Wen Xu, the first son of Wen Ruohan, is coordinating the attack on Cloud Recesses.

Lan Wangji arrives in time to find most of his sect rushing to shelter in the magic cave because the Wen troops are slaughtering everyone there.

A bunch of disciples are trapped outside because only members of the Lan bloodline can get in. Wen Xu starts murdering them all until one will tell him how to get in.

ENTER A 2 WHO THINKS HE IS A 10

A disciple named Su She, who incidentally is the guy who lost his sword in the lake like a dumbass while fighting the water demon, tells Wen Xu that only members of the Lan bloodline can get in and he could do it if he had one of the Magic Ribbons.

Lan Wangji emerges from the cave to try to fight off Wen Xu and a zillion guys single-handedly. Unsurprisingly, this does not work and he is captured. Since he’s got the yin iron, Wen Xu decides that’s good enough and they take off. Everyone left behind presumably calls Su She a jerk.

Int, Lotus Pier [Yunmeng]

They’ve received the demands from the Wen sect. Jiang Cheng is the inner heir disciple and he has to go. Wei Wuxian says he’ll go too. Yu Ziyuan tells him nobody gives a shit what the son of a servant does.

Ext, The Indoctrination Bureau, which may or may not be in Nightless City. It sure seems like it is but then later it sure seems like it isn’t [Qishan]

Wen Chao has lined all the disciples up outside so he can insult them and brag about how great he is. Wei Wuxian is worried because Lan Wangji isn’t there at first, but then he’s escorted in, clearly injured and trying not to show it.

Wen Chao forces them all to surrender their swords. Surprisingly it’s Jin Zixuan who picks a fight about this.

ENTER A WOMAN WHO IS NOT PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS SHIT

Jin Zixuan’s retainer, a woman named Luo Qingyang but who everyone calls Mianmian because of how cute she is, calms him down and reminds him that Jin Zixuan’s father told them not to make trouble. He’s pissed but hands his sword over. So does everyone else.

(A note on swords: there are strong implications that the swords are semi-sentient and connected to their bearers on a spiritual level. I’m sure I would know more about this if I was more familiar with xianxia. But the long and the short of it is that taking their swords is a Big Fucking Deal.)

Wen Chao tells them all to memorize ‘The Quintessence of Wen’, basically the rules of their sect.

Ext, somewhere nearby [Qishan]

Wen Ning is excited that Wei Wuxian is in Qishan and asks Wen Qing if he can go outside and play. Wen Qing says no because Wei Wuxian is supposed to be their enemy. Wen Ning uses sad puppy eyes. It has no effect.

Ext, The Indoctrination Bureau [Qishan]

Wen Chao tells them to recite the Wen stuff. Lan Wangji refuses. Jin Zixuan refuses.

Wei Wuxian eagerly volunteers, and then like the chaos gremlin he is, starts reciting the Lan principles instead. Wen Chao is pissed. Lan Wangji is smitten. Even Jin Zixuan thinks it’s funny. Jiang Cheng is upset that Wei Wuxian is causing trouble but he also thinks it’s funny and just won’t admit it.

Wen Chao punishes Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and Jin Zixuan by making them do some menial labor involving buckets of dung. Jin ‘never done a day of actual labor in his life’ Zixuan is the most upset about this.

Wei Wuxian takes the opportunity to try to talk to Lan Wangji about the yin iron and what happened at Cloud Recesses and why he’s injured. Wen Chao gets even more pissy and throws Wei Wuxian in a dungeon with a terrible CGI wolf monster. Wei Wuxian nearly gets eaten but Wen Qing intervenes by using long distance acupuncture to knock the monster out with throwing needles. Wen Ning brings him some medicine to stop the bleeding from his multiple wounds.

The next day, they’re still reciting the stupid Wen stuff, or at least pretending to. Nie Huaisang either falls asleep on his feet, passes out, or decides this is bullshit and pretends to pass out, and is dragged back to his guest house.

The rest of them go on a field trip.

ENTER THE HUMAN VERSION OF PERIOD CRAMPS

Wen Chao has a girlfriend, somehow. Her name is Jiaojiao and she is the absolute worst.

They head off to a mountain where bad mojo is going around. Wen Chao is clearly planning to use all these cultivators as cannon fodder, because he’s a fucking asshole. Wen Zhuliu accompanies them, presumably because Wen Chao will trip over his own sword and die if left to his own devices. Wen Qing also comes along, even though she’d clearly rather not. Wen Chao keeps hitting on Mianmian and it makes Jiaojiao jealous.

Lan Wangji is limping badly. Wei Wuxian wants to help him. Jiang Cheng tells him they’ve got their own problems and they shouldn’t get involved in other people’s business. Wei Wuxian says, ‘but consider: I do what I want’. He offers to carry Lan Wangji, who refuses. So instead Wei Wuxian uses a little paper talisman to ask Wen Qing if she can help them out. She calls for a break so they can get some water.

Wen Chao tells her she’s too soft-hearted. She tells him he thinks too much, which seems vastly inaccurate.

Int, Muxi Mountain [Qishan]

They find a cave and go inside. There’s a steep drop off and nobody wants to go see what’s at the bottom, so Wen Chao pushes Wei Wuxian over the edge. Everyone is pissed about this, and they all have to climb down.

They’ve discovered an underground lake and the home of the monster! But it’s nowhere to be found. Wen Chao wants to string someone up and cut them to attract it. Jiaojiao suggests Mianmian. Wen Chao clearly doesn’t want to because he has the hots for her. Jin Zixuan tells him to get his grubby eyeballs off his friend. For the first time in the show, we feel a jot of respect for Jin Zixuan.

One of the other disciples tries to grab Mianmian anyway, Jin Zixuan intervenes, and there’s a big fight.

Wei Wuxian tells Wen Chao that using his position to bully others means he should be executed, using the words they had to memorize from the Quintessence of Wen. Wen Chao doesn’t recognize their own principles. Everyone laughs at him, and Wen Zhuliu looks like he’d rather be flipping burgers at McDonald’s than have this stupid job.

While Wen Zhuliu is distracted mentally updating his resume, Wei Wuxian grabs Wen Chao, puts a sword to his throat, and jumps to a rock in the middle of the lake. He tells Wen Chao to make all his guys lower their blades. But then, uh oh! Turns out the rock he jumped to is in fact the monster, which is a terrible CGI turtle snake thing.

There’s another big fight. Jiaojiao decides that this is an ideal time to punish Mianmian for being pretty near other people, and tries to burn her with a hot iron. Wei Wuxian jumps in between them and gets hit with it.

At some point, Wen Chao decides fuck this. The Wen soldiers all retreat, dragging Wen Qing with them, cut the ropes to the bottom of the cliff, and seal the entrance.

They find an underwater exit from the cave. While Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fight the monster and keep it distracted, the other cultivators escape. But they don’t manage to make it out themselves. They’re now trapped in a cave together, soaking wet and wounded. Thank you, Untamed.

Wei Wuxian teases Lan Wangji and is too stupid to realize he’s flirting. Lan Wangji prays for patience. He tells Wei Wuxian that he went back to Cloud Recesses and that his uncle is injured and his brother is missing. Wei Wuxian covers Lan Wangji with his robe while he sleeps. We all swoon.

In order to get out, they have to kill the monster. Wei Wuxian goes inside it and we all very studiously do not ask which entrance he went through.

The inside of this monster is very gross. There’s a black sword inside it which emanates evil energy. Wei Wuxian grabs it because he is sixteen and stupid. He hears lots of screaming ghosts and such, but hangs onto it anyway because he is sixteen and stupid. They kill the terrible CGI turtle snake thing but it collapses on top of the exit so they still can’t get out. Wei Wuxian is badly injured. Lan Wangji sings to him and there is a montage of their significant moments together up to this point, because the Chinese censors apparently weren’t looking.

Ext, Muxi Mountain [Qishan]

Wei Wuxian wakes up to find he is outside. Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng have rescued him. Lan Wangji has already left to go back to Cloud Recesses to look for his brother. Wei Wuxian is still holding onto the creepy sword. They awkwardly thank Jin Zixuan for helping out with the rescue. Jin Zixuan awkwardly accepts their thanks and then bounces. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng head back to Lotus Pier.

Nobody ever mentions how Nie Huaisang gets out of Qishan, and for some reason I find this very funny.

~end part 2~

#the untamed #liveblog

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a-very-fond-farewell · 4 years

Text

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 19/?

Wedding Planner AU [xicheng edition]: “Chickens on the Loose”

[let me have this]

Jiang Cheng doesn’t believe in love and that’s precisely the reason why he plans other people’s special day. The most extravagant, the boldest, the loudest, the better. Because if there’s something he got to accept over the years is that people aren’t willing to pay for something realistic, but for something unattainable instead. Over-compensating bland, ordinary reality with fantasy and dreams is his job and he’s well aware that no one can compete with his genius. Not with his father owning a catering and food chain company. Not with his mother being the most sought out wedding gown fashion designer on the market. They taught him everything there is to know on how to make other people’s dream come true before the inevitable envelope of a dainty, innocuous divorce application can make its way in a once happy household. Better make the satisfaction last, because Jiang Cheng will only accept advanced payments in cash, no monthly installments allowed.

His sister YanLi may have married honoring tradition over useless exaggeration, but what did her love bring aside from suffering and neglect? Marrying into the richest family in the country to the heir of a textile empire has given her nothing but sorrow and a husband too proud and distant to even visit her regularly. Jin Ling growing up without a father, spoiled rotten by the wrong side of the family who lured him into their shining world of nothingness day after day. At least Jiang Cheng’s family did rise from nothing and learned to trick the rich into relying on useless services soon enough. But Jin ZiXuan and his family had never worked once in their life and didn’t know how to take care of their loved ones. Not that Jiang Cheng’s parents could do any better, their marriage a wasteland where no love could grow, but at least they were honest about it. Better enjoy a dream while it lasts.

That is why if even Wei Ying’s marriage were to turn out to utter shit like YanLi’s, at least it will not be Jiang Cheng’s fault. Everything needs to be perfect, from the vows to the tea ceremony, from the food to the color scheme, from the seat arrangements to the music. Hell, some of his stepbrother’s requests may be too much to handle for most, but not for Jiang Cheng and if Wei Ying wants a parade and a whole week worth of celebrations, Wei Ying will have exactly that.

Hence he will not, under any circumstance, allow anyone snooping around as he plans the wedding of the century. No, not even the fiancée’s overprotective older brother asking people for blackmailing material on Wei Ying behind Jiang Cheng’s back. Not even if he pays him in nature, no ma’am.

... . ... . ... . ...

Lan Huan is the best divorce attorney in town precisely because he believes in unconditional love. That’s why he doesn’t see the point of two people (or three people, on one memorable case in Europe) spending the rest of their life together if change is inevitable and something to be expected. He would much prefer to get the best deal out of it for his clients and prevent children to suffer from it in the process.

Judges fear him and his diplomatic smile that can never hide his tunnel vision drive for victory. His trusty private investigator Nie HuaiSang is equally terrified by his assets, but still feeds him with the juiciest details whenever Lan Huan asks for favors, discreetly requesting the younger man to do background checks on this or that subject. Settlements may be nice, but not if the (soon to be ex) husband or wife in question can be easily found guilty of adultery, gaslighting, or even violence. Not on Lan Huan’s watch.

That’s why his world gets completely turned over the moment his younger brother Lan Zhan announces his intention to marry a man he hasn’t known for a full three months yet. Truth to be told, Lan Huan had never seen him this happy: glowing with something akin to adoration, affection dripping from every pore, love spilling all over just by mentioning one name, Wei Ying. In case this rascal happens to crush his precious baby brother’s heart, Lan Huan needs to find dirt on this man and squeeze everything he has out of his dead cold hands the second his brother files a request for a divorce.

But for some reason Nie HuaiSang cannot seem to be found for the job this time around. Not unlike most of his other contacts and informants, who have seemingly disappeared at the mention of his brother’s fiancee’s name. If this Wei Ying is such a big fish in the sea to make even Lan Huan’s most loyal colleagues dissolve into thin air, then he must find the answers by himself.

And if it means to bomb the wedding preparations to get shit done, oh he will. He’s not above flirting to get what he wants, but if this Wei Ying turns out to be a good person in the end... well. Lan Huan prays things won’t get too messy to proceed with the celebrations in the end. Hopefully, that is.

[fun stuff under the cut.]

NHS went to uni with Wei Ying and he knows LXC won’t find anything on him bc WWX himself is a blackmail master and will 100% diss you in front of your children calling you out on your deepest secrets so no. NHS will not mess with that and he urges to do as much to all LXC’s informants and sources.

JC looks scary but his staff loves how dedicated he is and they make bets on when he’s going to lose it and sleep with someone out of frustration. although they think he gets more turned on by going over every point in his check-lists at times...

LXC’s colleague always ask him if he’s dating anyone, clearly to set him up with someone (who will not be of LXC’s liking, he’s sure). to which he answers by smiling and lying saying he has a terrible personality. since nobody believes him, he asked his friend Meng Yao to make a scene at the firm once: (all too pleased to mess with his bestie’s reputation) Meng Yao murder-walked into the office and demanded to meet LXC, only to cry in front of everyone and smack him across the face for cheating on him. THEN his sister A-Su made her sudden appearance and smacked LXC’s other cheek lamenting the same, ridiculous thing. the two siblings gaped in fake horror at each other before spitting on LXC and storming off of the building.

NMJ laughed his ass off for weeks after the sharade. he started dating A-Su not long after (with both JGY and LXC’s blessings) bc he was mildly impressed by her willingness to jump on the opportunity to make a fool of both LXC and her brother at once. LXC thinks they are a good match, but he worries A-Su might be too tiny and full of undiluted mischief for NMJ to be able to handle her antics.

NMJ used to date LXC, but they were too driven and competitive to let their relationship get in the way and in the end they stopped seeing each other. they still care deeply for one another, but they love their jobs at the firm too much and making things messy at the office wasn’t worth it. A-Su knows about it and doesn’t feel left out because of it, glad that they settled into their respective lives while still being loyal friends to each other.

JGY tries to set LXC up with a new woman every week, saying he would benefit from having a cute wife taking care of him. but LXC doesn’t know what business JGY has to talk about women that way when Meng Yao’s been a raging homosexual since the first time he has landed his eyes on another boy in kindergarten. too many crushes on boys to even be aware of how many hearts he has broken in his life. all those pretty girls falling for his looks, poor kids. only JGY’s younger brother Mo XuanYu could rival his victim count, but barely so.

ZiXuan is secretly keeping an eye on his half-brothers and half-sister while he works as a representative for his family company and this is mainly the reason why he has distanced himself from YanLi and Jin Ling in these past few years. he would like to approach his three half-siblings and maybe have a chance to rekindle lost relationships, but by stressing over it he is losing sight of the found family he actually has. YanLi wants him to come around, eventually, but she knows how lonely ZiXuan has been with no siblings and how secretly jealous he is of the bond that she has with her family. so she won’t pressure her husband, but she feels lonely nonetheless.

the two wangxian lovebirds are too happy to notice the mess LXC is making and they don’t even realize he’s there until like, three days before the actual wedding.

LXC may be a shark but he’s not subtle. JC doesn’t know what he does for a living but he assumes he has too much time on his hands, hence not someone worthy of his time. but LXC always causes troubles on the venue or messes up with the flower arrangements or prods for information to the wrong people and JC is over it.

“if you don’t have anything better to do help me find the sommelier so I can ask him what’s wrong with him and if he studied anything at all” or “if you have so much time to waste be useful and learn how to make flower crowns for the children to play with” or “if you can sit on your ass all day at least look over my nephew while I go look for someone to emotionally bully to let off some steam.”

Jin Ling is five and even more bossy than his uncle and orders LXC around to be his pony when JC should babysit him at work. LXC discovers the boy is JGY and A-Su and Mo XuanYu’s nephew and that JC doesn’t what any of them to interact with Jin Ling. but LXC secretly lets them hang out with the boy when JC is too busy to notice.

JC and LXC get closer the more the latter understands that there’s not much dirt on Wei Ying (aside from some questionable pictures taken during a university party back in the days, but that’s beside the point). LXC appreciates how crafty and ingenious JC is, always helping others around instead of just shouting orders...even if his temper is atrocious at times.

JC forces LXC to take dance lessons with the lot of the main family members and LXC meets JC’s mother for the first time. she is competitive about her dancing skills and Wei Ying tries to win her over by asking her to show everybody how it’s done by leading her ex-husband in a tango. after publicly humiliating her ex-husband (and making him fall in love with her once more), she insists on practicing a waltz with LXC and basically threatens him to cut off his balls if he dares to lead JC on with his charms.

LXC realizes he’s been playing and flirting too much with the man for him not to notice, but JC seems oblivious. no. he’s completely oblivious and kind and beautiful as he dances with Jin Ling and twirls him around in delight. LXC played too hard and now he’s in too deep.

the only source of drama in this would be JC finding out LXC let Jin Ling hang out with his other uncles and aunt despite the warnings. JC was starting to trust the man... and LXC stabbed him in the back. he would have much preferred not to discover it from his nephew (who let it slip that LXC “told him not to speak of his uncles and aunt to Jiujiu”), because he would have given LXC a chance to explain himself otherwise. but no. JC cannot have good things apparently and now he’s heartbroken without even knowing why.

without the lucky charm that is JC (holed up in his flat eating junk food to forget the pain of being an afterthought in other people’s lives), everything goes to shit three days before the wedding: the chef quits, the tea set for the ceremony breaks, one of the maids has accidentally torn apart one set of wedding robes and so on.

the venue gets flooded with live chickens when a truck transporting them breaks down in front of the building and the chicken escape. Jin Ling is loving every second of it, but everything gets destroyed in the ruckus and JC’s hard work is ruined.

Wei Ying is heartbroken and Lan Zhan silently accuses LXC of being the cause of this and urges him to fix the mess unless he wants to receive the cold shoulder for the rest of his days. but LXC is a cowards and spends his time actually fixing the broken things or replacing them or finding seamstresses to help with the garments and so on himself. anything but facing JC and be rejected.

ZiXuan comes to his senses and blurts out that “he really just wanted to have a loving family” the moment JGY, A-Su and Mo XuanYu come check on LXC. they hug and cry and laugh and YanLi gently reminds them that this is not about them right now and that they should help with the preparations if they have so much time on their hands. her mother is very proud of her and nods appreciatively at ZiXuan’s shocked and weirdly intrigued expression after being humiliated so boldly in front of everyone. the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree indeed.

the day before the wedding Wei Ying threatens to call the wedding off if JC doesn’t show up for his big day: not because he’s the planner, but because Wei Ying wants him close on his happiest day and he will not have it any other way.

LXC goes to fetch JC in his apartment himself the night before the wedding and they yell and they make peace and then they make love and then they woke up late the next day and they have to rush to the venue.

Wei Ying is livid until JC appears and then they celebrate the wedding of the century. A week of celebrations later Lan Zhan deadpans that they actually got married already like, one month in after meeting each other, but Wei Ying wanted a big wedding and he didn’t want to deny his husband a single thing.

JC tries to strangle his brother as the last family picture is being taken.

give me an award already.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #the forbidden crack! untamed prompts #xicheng #wangxian #mdzs/au: modern #mdzs/au: wedding planner #mo dao zu shi

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peridot-tears · 4 years

Text

MDZS but it’s Percy Jackson

Idk. Consider this PT’s coming out of retirement to make her last contribution to the fanfiction world. Will be moved to AO3 soon. Enjoy.

The new boy could shoot better than Wen Ning.

Wei Ying, everyone called him. The “ying” stands for “baby” or “infant”; not “hawk,” as he first thought.

Strange. It was more a nickname than a proper name, but one look at his boyish, sunshine face, and it was evident that something more proper would be unsettlingly serious. He had a big, stupid grin that was equal parts coy and...more stupid.

“Earth to Lan Zhan.”

He startled. “Ge.”

Lan Huan smiled at him indulgently, which Lan Zhan knew to be his big-brother smile before he thrashed him like a normal sibling. “If you’re so into him, why don’t you go make friends with him?”

“Ge...,” he said, only changing the intonation half a dial.

Lan Huan’s smile changed serious, just a little bit. His eyes flicked towards the new boy, whose arrow flew across the sky, and struck the target dead—because of Wei Ying’s hawk-like eyes.

“A-Zhan,” he said. “You’ll be claimed someday, and move to a cabin other than Hermes’s, but they are still good to us for taking us in. And, it is prudent to have friends in other cabins. He’s already made friends with those two from Apollo’s cabin.”

Lan Zhan felt his lips thin.

He didn’t respond, didn’t need to. But when it was his turn to shoot, and the new boy whooped for him and called him, “Lan-er!” he did not ignore him; he spared him a glance, and then refocused on what was important there and then.

His arrow thudded into the target. Dead and center.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Wei Ying said to a boy next to him—someone Lan Zhan had seen with him before, attached at the hip—“let me go again, Jiang Cheng. Let me go, let me go, let me gooooooo.”

“My gods,” said the boy, rolling his eyes. “Fine, if it’ll make you stop whining.”

Wei Ying whooped; Lan Zhan hardly registered as he brushed past him to reach the spot he had been standing in seconds ago, because he was busy registering Wei Ying brushing past him. “That was a good shot, Lan-er,” he said.

Lan Zhan bit. “How do you know my name?”

“Who doesn’t know the great and refined Lan Zhan, brother of Lan Huan, who sleeps across my bunk in the cabin?” Wei Ying asked, eyes sparkling with mirth, like a naiad’s. “They say you’re the next Percy Jackson.”

Lan Zhan wasn’t sure that he liked the sound of that.

Wei Ying winked at him, like a naiad trying to seduce him, and turned back to face the target, nocking his arrow. “看好了蓝湛“，he said casually, in their shared language.

Without realizing it—no one else was shooting on the range, all eyes on Wei Ying, so of course he would too—he obeyed.

Wei Ying had chosen a classic bow, all wood and strung with something hand-coiled. He stretched it back, all angles between the bow, the taut string, the cock of his arm. The feather of the arrow moved over his profile. It slid past his eye.

With a smirk, he released.

That was why he had chosen to take up Lan Zhan’s target...before anyone could collect the arrow Lan Zhan had shot. Wei Ying’s arrow touched the end of his in the blink of an eye; in another blink, it had pierced his through.

Wei Ying was not done. Before any demigod had the chance to bring their hands together, he had pulled and fired again, twice, three times, until there was a neat stack of arrows pierced together in a pile against the center of the target.

“You can clap now,” he told the stunned demigods gathered around the range.

They did, breaking into claps. Wei Ying turned back, casting another glance at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan felt his breath catch in his throat.

—

It was the first in a series of episodes in which Wei Ying played a game of Rile Him Up, with Lan Zhan as the main goal. And each time, it stirred up a raw feeling in him that made him go absolutely mad.

“He seems to want to make friends with you,” Lan Huan commented on their outing for strawberries.

Lan Zhan stopped their trudge up the hill—glide, more like, he refused to let his back bow more than necessary even on an upward incline—to sweep the horizon, the valley in the sunset. It was an orange sunset today, drowning Camp Half-Blood more than the sparkling sea in the distance could reach.

“He spilled my soup yesterday,” Lan Zhan said, and his older brother was kind enough to not add, But he immediately offered you his entire lunch and claimed he wasn’t hungry anyway. No, he just let it hang silently in the air instead. Lan Zhan had the best older brother in the world.

“He can be thoughtless at times, but still so thoughtful,” Lan Huan finally said, and this thought must have circulated in his mind for quite a while, because he said it after they had picked a basketful of strawberries in comfortable silence.

Sometimes, Lan Zhan thought he should be more talkative when they had these moments together; his brother was spending more and more time with that Meng Yao, also unclaimed, and if he were Wei Ying, he would probably be begging for Lan Huan’s attention back the way Wei Ying did Jiang Cheng. But he had such a secure attachment to his brother, who had been here when Lan Zhan was born silently as he lived. Lan Huan could go far, far away, but he would always come back for Lan Zhan to treat him with cold indifference. That was his love language, after all.

Why does Wei Ying want my attention?

Why does Wei Ying cringe at every mention of Cerberus, Hades’s hound?

Why does Jiang Cheng keep telling Wei Ying not to bother me, but then roll his eyes and look at me like I was the one bothering them?

Why am I thinking so much about Wei Ying?

“Didi,” Lan Huan said.

Out of it, Lan Zhan found his brother’s gaze. They were almost back at the Hermes cabin. “Ge.”

He just smiled. Lan Zhan was not sure whether to be annoyed or endeared. Well, it was his brother—so both.

The Hermes cabin was so loud this time of day, when everyone ought to be tired right before bed. But instead, it was crowded, and bustling, and there was one particularly guilty culprit in the middle of it all. Its name was Wei Ying, and its laughter could power an entire skyscraper in Monsters Inc.

Which he, of course, was narrating in great detail.

“Mike Wazowski is a Cyclops with amnesia!” he argued, while Jiang Cheng hovered in the background, rolling his eyes.

“Mike Wazowski took his girlfriend on a date to a sushi restaurant,” said another of the boys—Nie Huaisang, an actual, born son of Hermes. There had been a vague sense that he and his brother, Nie Mingjue would take on the legacy of the Stoll brothers as Cabin Eleven’s co-head counselors...until Mingjue had been claimed by Ares.

It was none of Lan Zhan’s business, but everyone wondered what kind of woman had managed to snag both Ares and Hermes as fathers to her children.

“Therefore,” Huaisang was continuing, seeming almost offended, “why would he eat fish? Poseiden’s pretty much all of them’s dad, that’s like eating his brother!”

“Well, yeah,” Wei Ying fired back, “that’s why he doesn’t know. Because amnesia!”

“The body remembers when the mind forgets!” Huaisang responded. “J.L. Moreno, the creator of psychodrama.”

“How do you even know that, when you can’t read?” Wei Ying fairly shrieked, obviously seconds away from calling his friend a nerd.

“You and I both have dyslexia, you know we can still read a little!” Huaisang actually shrieked.

Lan Huan cleared his throat.

All heads turned towards them. Lan Zhan wanted to be the younger brother rolling his eyes right now—Lan Huan had stage presence when he wanted to, didn’t he? But he had been taught to never, ever, ever roll his eyes, so he settled for giving everyone the cold shoulder as he walked away instead.

“We have procured some strawberries,” Lan Huan said goodnaturedly, and the entire cabin exploded in the sudden rush to gently wrest them from him before they were all gone.

“Me first!” Huaisang said, drowning somewhere in the middle. “I want to give some to my brother!”

“The Ares kids can pick their own strawberries!” Jiang Cheng huffed, strolling back to his bunk. He slept under Wei Ying. Wei Ying had the top bunk. And Lan Zhan had the next top bunk. They were next to each other.

Below him, the entire, considerable mass of Hermes demigods had turned into a sea of sardines. Had he and Lan Huan even picked enough?

Out of that sea exploded Wei Ying. “There aren’t anymore!” he exclaimed to the crowd that he was probably trampling his way out of right now. “No more, no more...sorry, guys...”

“You just put them all in your pocket!” one of the Hermes kids shouted. There was a split second of silence, before the shrieking cabin kids flung themselves at him. Those shrieks turned from accusing to disappointed as they realized...surprise, his pockets were flat and empty against his legs.

They pulled back, leaving him blinking innocently. “Why would I do that?” Wei Ying asked, sounding offended. “Why would I get more than my share? I don’t even like strawberries.”

“Uh-huh,” some of the demigods said, disbelievingly, but there was nothing else they could do. They drifted back to their beds, or the front stoop of the cabin, cradling their precious red-flavored catch of the day.

It was only once Wei Ying was left to his own devices that Lan Zhan turned his head to see him huddled with his brother and sister in the corner, gently pressing strawberries into their hands. Squint, and he could see them rolling from his sweater sleeves.

That clever little...

Truly, he was a son of Hermes. Lan Zhan could not wait until he found out who his father was, and he could finally go someplace where he would not have to hear Wei Ying snoring at night.

And yet, it was nine. Wei Ying was still huddled in the corner, giggling and whispering with his siblings. These sounds were keeping Lan Zhan awake, though his eyelids were heavy and he wanted to give in to that lull.

It was not until Wei Ying clambered his way into the bunk across Lan Zhan’s that his soft, happy snores filled their side of the cabin.

As he finally fell asleep, Lan Zhan realized that he had familiarized himself with the sound of Wei Ying’s snores.

—

Spring had finally burst into a full, ripened warmth that was gentle to them even at night. Wei Ying walked around in short sleeves now, which meant that he had to find a better way to hide things.

Lan Zhan sat by his brother as food appeared on his plate.

“Ah, your favorite! Watery soup!”

He twitched. “Wei Ying!” he said sternly, just barely stopping himself from covering his soup with his hands.

“Ah, I’m not gonna spill it this time, promise, promise!” Wei Ying said. “I said sorry for last time too, right? You can even have some of my food this time around! Or I could climb over and get some strawberries for you right now.”

Lan Zhan could feel his brother’s gaze on them both. “That will not be necessary,” he gritted out, picking up his spoon with deliberate care and slowness. And that would be the end of that.

According to him, not Wei Ying, who could not be stopped, “Ah, but those strawberries you and your brother picked the other day were so good. And you never got to taste them? What’s the point of a climb like that if you don’t even get a little bit? I could return the favor.”

“That will not be necessary,” Lan Zhan repeated. Maybe it would make him finally go away.

And on it went, Lan Zhan falling silent, Wei Ying bothering him still until his sister called him away.

“Sorry about that,” Jiang Cheng said, sounding not very sorry at all. “He’s adopted.”

Suddenly, there was a hush.

Lan Zhan could not describe it if he tried—the chattering camp fell silent, and he was compelled to follow. Nothing had happened. No sudden appearance of anything in particular. But he was sitting there next to his brother, all at once heavily aware of an uncomfortable silence.

He exchanged a glance with Lan Huan. It was not the sort of silence that led them to think there was some imminent attack oncoming, but he tensed slightly all the same.

At the front, Chiron stood, frowning slightly. He opened his mouth, but needn’t have bothered.

It became cold—the kind that felt like opening a refrigerator too fast on a steamy summer day. Lan Zhan was used to the coolness of clouds, but nothing like this. It was bone-deep, and that was how he knew who had come.

Not very far from him at all was Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan twisted his neck to see him let go of his siblings’ hands; he was standing between them, now staring straight at Lan Zhan as though confused. His eyebrows furrowed as he opened his mouth to speak, but for the first time, nothing came out. Black smoke furled gently from his clothes, rising above him, curling its tendons around them all. Lan Zhan refused to recoil when one touched him, and his unflinching bravery was met with a brief sense of...something. Resentment, maybe. Something dark. Something deeper than he could understand, though he understood perfectly.

As the wisps caressed his hands, his face, whatever smoke rose evaporated into a cloud above Wei Ying, whose eyes still never left Lan Zhan’s. He was stark, stark pale next to the black, and Lan Zhan was sure he looked much the same way.

Eventually, the cloud coiled into a shape. A crescent, though it stood like a tree.

A hush, for real this time.

Chiron trotted forward.

“All hail the son of Hades,” he said.

Wei Ying’s eyebrows dragged all the way up into his scattered bangs, as he finally blinked and looked around at anyone else that was not Lan Zhan.

Hades...the children of Hades rarely ever led happy lives, and yet here was Wei Ying, the brightest mark of light in anyone’s life.

But his large, puzzled doe eyes snapped back to Lan Zhan. Some part of them, Lan Zhan realized with a startle, was accepting. He even saw the hint of a smirk scratching the edge of his lip, like the revelation no longer troubled him. Like he embraced it, was excited for it.

“A-Zhan.”

Lan Huan. And, not just him, or Wei Ying—when Lan Zhan finally looked around, everyone was staring at him now. And he saw why, because his brother must be mirroring him: The two of them were surrounded by a reddish-brown glow, that slowly melted away. Nothing had changed otherwise, but there was viscerally something different—like his brother stood taller, his chin tilted higher.

“Oh,” someone gasped.

“Ah,” said Chiron. “All hail the sons of Aphrodite.”

—

[A/N: The “ying” in Wei Ying is a homophone for “hawk” and by extension, “eagle.” The more you know. I will be abusing the hell out of this wordplay.

This all started because of a talk I had with my good friend, whom I converted, and who I will love forever and ever. Crackhead culture? Mayhaps.]

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blog-of-reaction · 3 years

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Wei Wuxian is doing the right thing here. Why can’t anybody see that? I mean, could he have approached it in a more diplomatic manner? Maybe, but it’s Wei Ying, he doesn’t have a fraction of the diplomacy needed for this and if he had tried to go about it in a more diplomatic way even more people would have died because it would have taken longer to get anything done.

Again, they are supposed to be the good guys. But no. And Nie Mingjue should really know better. Zewu Jun even more. And the response to Mianmian speaking the truth? That it wasn’t actually that unreasonable that those men died? Ridiculous. Like come on, she is making sense y’all but NO. We’ll let hatred and fear blind us.

And then there’s Jiang Cheng. Pretty much my reaction to his actions during the last episode or so have just been “I love you man but what the fuck” Like for one how could he even consider the thought that Wuxian wants to start his own clan? What has he ever done to make him think that? And why is everyone being so thick. Also, what happened with Lan Zhan’s parents? Because Lan Qiren was obviously referring to something bad that happened.

Also, do Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan know that Wuxian was actually cast into the burial mounds by Wen Chao all those months ago or not? Like, they know right? It should be obvious know, especially to Jiang Cheng. Why didn’t he ask Wuxian what happened back then. Also, will it ever tell us what happened during those 3 months in a flashback or something? Because I need to know. Also, what is Lan Zhan up to right now? And again why the heck don’t people realize that what they want to do to the Wen clan is wrong? Like yeah, kill the bad ones, but for heavens sake they are even going after the kids. Seriously why? Literally the only marginally comforting thing about this is that at least I know Wuxian doesn’t go evil. He just does the right thing when he can. And it ends in a civil war in which he dies and people think that’s a good thing. Great, that’s just great. I actually hope it doesn’t go that way. Like seriously come on.

Also, I paused the episode I was on because Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian started to fight and that is no bueno. I don’t like that at all.

Also, Wei Wuxian l is so determined to help Wen Ning and I hope things go as well as they possibly can. Seriously, Wen Ning is to pure and doesn’t deserve any of this.

Oh, and Wuxian being intimidated into washing Yuan’s clothes by Wen Qing was hilarious. I love their friendship so much. And speaking of Yuan, he is precious, I love him.

You know who I don’t love though? Fucking Jin Guangshan. He is horrible. Also, I liked Meng Yao at first but know I don’t know. He seems a bit....yeah, I’m not sure I trust him.

Oh, and btw that scene when Wuxian rides off with the others in the rain while Lan Zhan stands there? Heartbreaking.

Oh, and Madame Jin’s cousin? He sucks.

Ps. Sorry this is so long, I just had a lot of thoughts and didn’t feel like making a bunch of separate posts.

#the untamed #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #lan wangji #wen ning #wen qing #jiang cheng #jin guangshan #meng yao #jin guangyao

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restingdomface · 4 years

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Since I’m just as obsessed with yarn craft (making it and dyeing it and using it) as I am with fandom, I just feel that y’all should know, in every modern AU I make where Lan Wangji has bunnies, they’re all angora and he raises them for not only being precious, but also he steals their wool. I’m making an AU where it’s a 3zun sorta fic (they all technically live separately with their houses next to each other in a triangle and knocked down their fences so they would have one massive garden) and LWJ was obsessed with bunnies when he was little but Lan Xichen really liked to knit so he was all ‘hey, let’s get angora rabbits’ and now Lan Qiren spins their fiber into yarn and when LWJ is like 9, Wei Wuxian shows up cause the Jiang’s bought the lakehouse across the street from them and so now they show up for holidays and school breaks and LWJ got an instant crush on him and crocheted him a beanie because WWX has never seen snow before (y’all this bitch out here while it’s snowing in shorts and a tee shirt LWJ is afraid he’s gonna DIE) and WWX falls in love instantly and it’s cute. Also WWX is trans. And Meng Yao raises Mo Xuanyu and later on Rusong (not his kid, Qin Su showed up saying she couldn’t handle getting rid of it but she couldn’t keep it either so MY was all ‘okay, I’ll take it’ and that’s that) and later on after WWX gives birth to A-Yuan (yeah I went there, deal with it, it was an accident tho, WWX is told he should get rid of it cause he’s too young for being pregnant but he’s all ‘nope, going through with it, then I’m getting those parts removed’ cause oooof) LXC suddenly gets surprise custody of their little cousin 6month old Lan Jingyi and he’s all ‘Ahh shit’ and so there’s like. So many toddlers running around the garden at all times. Jin Zixuan meets Jiang Yanli when he’s visiting one day and she’s over having tea with LXC while they watch the kids roll around like a bunch of idiots in the garden and it’s cute. They like each other. Jiang Cheng gets sick when he’s around sixteen and ends up getting an organ transplant (or maybe bone marrow? I was looking up transplant stuff but apparently if you get a donated kidney you’re only expected to live another 20 years at most before you need another transplant??? IF you can get another??? And liver would be much more rare I guess for a 16 year old. But if he had some sort of cancer or a disease involving bone marrow transplant as a treatment, it could work) and WWX is the one that gives the transplant. Why??? Because you need some angst in somewhere and tbh I kinda want 16 year olds JC and WWX to spend a while in the lakehouse doing homeschooling (with LWJ because LQR homeschools him cause of his fear of crowds and Jiang Fengmian was all ‘hey, can you just... teach them for a year?? They’re too tired to cause much trouble anyways and they can’t go to school and hanging out with LWJ night cheer them up) and Nie Huaisang takes that as permission to get homeschooled for a year (Nie Mingjue originally refused him because he was a little shit and wouldn’t stop bothering him when he didn’t have people to chat with all day but now he’ll have JC and WWX to chat with) and now LQR is stuck with them all for a year before JC and WWX go back to their hometown school. It’s long enough for LWJ and WWX to start a budding romance and for JC to realize that he thinks relationships are nasty and kissing is gross. Actually, they probably just stay there till they’re all graduated because why the heck not. Yanli is dating JZX and uses that as an excuse to visit him often (well, she’s also spoiling baby bro’s, but if she can get some flirting in while it’s happening, why not) and YZY and JFM tend to travel a lot so they don’t see an issue with them all staying there while they can. It’s been helpful to WWX cause there’s still some issues with bullying back in their hometown (and in a town where not everyone sees him as the ‘weird tomboy girl who thinks she’s a boy’ here, he gets into less fights) and this has been really helpful.

I wanted to make the worlds longest paragraph ever but tumblr said no. So anyways. JC is still in recovery for a while so it’s best at the Lakehouse instead of a city, and he can chill out on the porch in the warmer months and get cozy inside next to the fireplace with a million blankets and hot cocoa when it’s cold out. He’s. So. Cozy. Also JFM got him a service cat because WWX still can’t be near dogs. He wishes his bro could get a dog and feels bad about it, but tbh they keep forgetting that for all JC would like a dog, he’s basically a slut for any cute animal ever. He hangs out in the 3zun garden across the street a lot. NHS has like 15 birds and NMJ has like four cats (who are Not allowed in the atrium lol) and LWJ has all those rabbits and MY has like a million kids and those are basically wild animals so they count. (Seriously tho family members keep dropping kids off with 3zun and not coming back for them but??? It’s okay??? Cause they’re all ‘single’ -not living together- gay men and so none of them can get on an adoption list for shit anyways. Lol so many kiddos running around.) LQR is ready to murder WWX by the time the kiddos all graduate and he’s all ‘oh thank god now I don’t have to see him all the time’ but then WWX shows up at the house one day (him and LWJ have been dating for like a year and a half now) and he’s all ‘hey. I’m. Pregnant.’ And LQR is all ‘...ahhhh shit now I gotta deal with him even more’ and it’s. Amazing.

WWX pretty much moves in with them after that (WWX is all ‘we can get an apartment or something’ and 3zun is all ‘sure, okay’ but then always find a way to distract them cause they’re all ‘yeah, we like our space’ but then they’re all ‘if a single sibling/child of ours moves out we’ll get instant empty-nest syndrome and die’ and so they’re like. Really possessive over their kiddos. LQR is mostly there cause he’s the only adult that bothered to stay in LXC and LWJ’s lives when they were growing up and he’s great.

A year after A-Yuan is born, they get Lan Jingyi (he gets dropped off with LXC and just never picked up again wild) and then Jin Ling is born (and he gets dropped on Meng Yao a lot cause JZX has watched him with kids before and knows his brother genuinely loves babies) and then Qin Su (their half sibling) shows up one day all ‘hey, so, I’m pregnant and I’m not keeping it but it’s too late to get rid of, you like kids, you want one?’ And MY is all ‘...yes...’ and she stays with them till little Rusong is born and then heads off to live her life and MY gets the joy of taking care of an infant that he hasn’t gotten to experience since MXY was little which was like 13 years ago. Lol MXY isn’t all that enthused with his new baby bro but Baba says he’ll get less ugly when he’s older and stops looking like a potato. MXY does NOT agree that he once looked like a potato himself, how dare you, Baba!

They have a greenhouse and LXC is definitely growing pot in it.

#the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang cheng #wangxian #lan xichen #meng yao #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #3zun #wn and wq work in the hospital where the transplant happened

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madtomedgar · 4 years

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k so i saw someone blaming Meng Yao’s mom for Meng Yao becoming a terrible person and i’m in a lot of pain which makes me angry so sorry not sorry for this really long post

first of all, finding the nearest woman and blaming her for everything regardless of her actual level of involvement or control over things? please. grow up.

blaming the mom for the son becoming a murdering nutcase? again. please. grow up.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it should be so obvious as to be self-evident that Meng Yao’s mother was a victim of her pimp and of Jin Guangshan, and that blaming her or not “stepping up” and “figuring out how to buy her own freedom” and for not “getting away from Jin Guangshan” is possibly the stupidest take on this situation you could conceivably have. If you need an explanation as to why, I’m sorry that your stupidity is terminal, but there’s nothing I can do for you.

Here are a brief list of people who could have meaningfully done something to keep Meng Yao (adorable, sweet, precious) from becoming Jin Guangyao (horrible, murder gremlin, war criminal, his complexes have complexes).

1) Nie Mingjue: Look, his intentions were good, but his execution was blazingly terrible. He basically hands this kid the “lean in” book, gives him the “twice as good/be the bigger person” talk, and then. Does nothing. About the way everyone else in his sect treats Meng Yao, and everything about how Meng Yao reacts to said abuse. (Can you see why I’m obsessing over the r63 Meng Yao that only exists in my head?) This required a multi-pronged approach, and bless his heart, Mingjue has one tool in his toolkit, and it’s a BIGASS SWORD. He could have treated Meng Yao with the sort of respect reserved for peers (not favored servants) in front of everyone and set up the precedent that insulting Meng Yao would be insulting him. He could have treated Meng Yao more similarly to the way Jiang Fengmian treats Wei Wuxian. Hell, he could have sent him to Cloud Recesses as a disciple to be trained rather than as a servant to carry a teapot! Especially in a situation where he’s going to be in the same room as his half-brother, who is getting to attend cultivator school! He could have done anything at all about the constant HR issues being created by his captain. I refuse to believe that Meng Yao hadn’t tried to address this through proper channels before getting stabby. Nie Mingjue had the opportunity to grow himself his own version of Wen Zhuliu, and he just blew it.

At Nightless City, at least in the show, and I realize I have serious Meng Yao bias, but Nie Mingjue kind of threw a big unfixable monkey wrench in Meng Yao’s spy shit. And like. It should have been extremely obvious to him that Meng Yao was the double agent, but Nie Mingjue, while he is the manliest tool in the shed, is not in fact the sharpest. So fine, he doesn’t put two and two together to make four, I get why he’s mad afterwards, fine. But he could have apologized! For trying to kill Meng Yao! For saying incredibly mean things to him based on an incorrect assumption! For letting the HR situation with the captain get to the point where murder seemed like a viable option! For treating him like a servant and not a peer/family member/something more worthy of respect! Like I don’t think many people have apologized to Meng Yao in his life for lack of respect! That would have been a game changer! He could have offered him a place in the Nie sect not as a servant but as a protege! He could have not side-eyed him for years!

Lan Xichen: Xichen tried, but not very effectively. I’m sure that if he’d written to his good friend Nie Mingjue praising the bright young man who had accompanied Huaisang and requested that he be permitted to stay and attend the lectures as he showed promise, Mingjue would have agreed, but no, Xichen gives him the same “twice as good” bs speech and sends him on his way. Bby Meng Yao would have benefited greatly from being roped into Hauisang’s (and by extention Wei Wuxian’s, Jiang Cheng’s Jiang Yanil’s, Wen Ning’s, and Lan Wangji’s) college bullshit.

Post Nightless City. Look. I get it. Sometimes, you just couldn’t save your parent’s marriage. And so you must (must) therefore attempt to recreate that dynamic between your two best friends, but this time, you tell yourself, it’ll totally work out! But here’s the thing: it never does, and Lan Xichen was old enough to know that. He could have done a lot better handling Nie Mingjue and getting an actual reconciliation to occur there. He also could have given Meng Yao an alternative to the Jin by offering him an official spot (of status) among the Lan, particularly now that they’re sworn brothers. The Lan have suffered significant losses, they need new blood and Meng Yao’s logistical savvy would be really helpful! And I feel like since he’s a hero now kind of, it could have been offered in a like. We would be honored if the great hero of Sunshot who slew Wen Ruohan in his own hall would do us the great favor of joining our sect kind of way.

My personal read on Meng Yao is that the moment when it becomes to late for him is the moment he accepts Jin Guangshan’s recognition and offer of a place in the Jin clan. Because his status with them is extremely precarious and completely dependent on staying in Jin Guangshan’s good graces, and also he will do anything, literally anything, if he thinks it will make his dad love him. He lives for every crumb while being completely aware they’re crumbs and hating it. He knows he’s being manipulated but thinks he’s still winning and couldn’t get out of it even if he knew he wasn’t. The scene where Jin Guangshan, Lan Xichen, and Nie Mingjue are debating what to do with the Wen remnants that the newly minted Jin Guangyao has brought in, you can see how conflicted Jin Guangyao is. He knows what his dad is asking him to do is wrong. He doesn’t seem too happy about committing war crimes. He really really wants to keep Xichen’s admiration and respect. But he can’t go against his dad when he’s only just been acknowledged and maintain his spot in the Jin clan.

Look. He should have looked at this and decided that these people’s lives were worth more than his dad’s approval. But I get why he didn’t. I also don’t think he would have committed war crimes or framed Wei Wuxian without his dad making his recognition and “love” contingent on that.

Jin Guangshan: could have not purchased sex, could have bought the freedom of the sex worker he was seeing. could have bought the freedom of the mother of his child. could have provided for said child. could have not kicked said child down the stairs for the crime of asking for acknowledgement. Could have recognized him before it was convenient. Could have not used him to get away with war crimes, corruption, human experimentation, shady power consolidation, etc. Could have let Jin Guangyao hold the baby. I could go on.

#untamed stuff #shameless jiggy apologism #long post

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Fire and Light (ao3) - on tumblr: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10

- Chapter 11 -

The Fire Palace was, ironically enough, on fire.

Nie Mingjue had known that something was going to happen since earlier that day, when Meng Yao had breezed in with an unusually pointed announcement that it was “Breakfast as usual!” and then handed him a bowl of glistening red-braised meat. Yesterday’s leftovers, of course, a servant’s share, but more and better than Nie Mingjue had had in quite a while.

He’d looked up at Meng Yao silently in question as he ate, wondering if Meng Yao giving him his own meal – it was obviously that – was a good thing or a bad thing, the final meal of the condemned or a means of gathering strength before an upcoming event of some unknown variety.

Meng Yao looked as tense as a wound-up spring, his normally placid features unusually tight and his attention elsewhere, but he noticed Nie Mingjue’s attention and winked.

Not an execution, then, Nie Mingjue concluded. He might have doubted it if it was someone else, but Meng Yao was fundamentally selfish, deep down in his core, and as long as he enjoyed Nie Mingjue’s company he wouldn’t be willing to release him to the comfort of death and non-existence, no matter how much he might prefer it some days.

Learning to deal with someone like Meng Yao had been a great deal of fun, actually – puzzling out how to talk his language, to try (in vain) to understand his way of thinking, to try to figure out how to appeal to him. Possibly it wouldn’t have been something he’d enjoy if he’d had anything else to do, but, well, he didn’t, and next thing Nie Mingjue knew he was eating meat and Meng Yao was winking at him and he knew that he needed to prepared for whatever happened next.

He hadn’t exactly been expecting a fire, but he supposed he hadn’t really been expecting anything at all.

Except, perhaps, that when he tried the door to his cell, staying low to avoid the smoke, it swung open as if it had never been locked at all.

Meng Yao – thank you.

Nie Mingjue went over to unlock as many of the other cells as he could – as he’d suspected, Meng Yao hadn’t thought of that, or possibly hadn’t bothered to care – before heading back up to the main hallways of the Sun Palace. He wasn’t sure if Meng Yao intended for him to run away or if he was supposed to be doing something else, but surely by now Meng Yao knew that he wasn’t the sort of person to get himself out of trouble.

Not when there was a chance that Meng Yao might need him.

Not when there was a chance –

He lies, Nie Mingjue reminded himself. He likes to hurt you. There’s no reason to believe that they’re actually dead and gone.

The Sun Palace was a mess as well, people running around left and right with panic in their eyes – mostly not people he knew, or who knew him – and whoever had set fire to the Fire Palace had definitely reached here as well. Few of them carried swords, and Nie Mingjue suggested to the handful of staff who considerately stopped to warn him that he was going the wrong way that if they couldn’t get away entirely, they might be safe if they took refuge in the kitchens, in the hope that the invading army would live up to their principles and not engage in a wholesale slaughter and, if it took a turn for the worst, then at least they’d have lots of knives close at hand.

When he opened the door to Nie Huaisang’s old room, he saw someone move out of the corner of his eye. For a moment his heart was in his mouth, hoping – but no, it wasn’t his brother.

It was a boy about the same age, though. He was not quite yet fifteen at a guess – a child, really, and who let a child join in with an army?! – and was wearing dark clothing with no clan insignia, a sword at his side and a single red ribbon woven through his hair. He was holding a long box that he’d dug out from underneath one of the stones in the floor.

He looked up just as Nie Mingjue looked down, their eyes meeting.

“Uh,” the boy said. “You don’t look like a guard.”

“I’m not,” Nie Mingjue said. “You don’t look like my brother.”

“Your brother…? Oh!” The boy smiled, suddenly, and the expression transformed his face into something far livelier and good-natured, although Nie Mingjue suspected that he saw more than a little arrogance mixed in there, the sort that’d undoubtedly get the boy into trouble one day. “In that case, this box is for you, da-ge!”

The boy said it in an especially familiar tone - had they met before? Nie Mingjue didn’t think they had.

He thought he might remember having taken on a little brother like this, full of mischief.

But he accepted the box, more out of bemusement than anything else, and knew from the second it was in his arms what it contained.

“Baxia,” he breathed, his eyes stinging with tears as he drew her – he’d missed her so very much, during his time below, and he thanked his brother’s wisdom in hiding her. Nie Huaisang must have acted very quickly, right after Nie Mingjue’s failed attack on Wen Ruohan, spiriting her away when everyone was still distracted…Nie Mingjue looked at the boy. “How did you know..?”

“Nie-xiong told me,” he said. “I’m Wei Wuxian, of the Yunmeng Jiang – I’m sworn brothers with Wen Ning, which makes you my big brother, too!”

Well, that at least explained that.

“Is A-Ning all right?” he asked. “Is - is Huaisang…?”

“They’re both fine,” Wei Wuxian assured him, and Nie Mingjue might adopt him as a younger brother for real just for bringing him that news. “Nie-xiong sent me here to help rescue you!”

“You’re too young.”

“…fine, I told him I was smuggling myself along anyway no matter what anyone said and asked if he had any requests, and he told me that if I’m going to make a fool of myself I may as well make myself useful and get Baxia.”

Nie Mingjue hoped that meant that Nie Huaisang had assumed that this part of the Sun Palace would be out of the way of the fighting, although knowing his brother, he might have just decided that Baxia was more important. He had a bad tendency to slip into Qishan Wen-like sneaky thinking when Nie Mingjue wasn’t around to correct him…

“Where is the fighting happening?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“The main hall,” Wei Wuxian said promptly, then pause. “You’re asking so that we can avoid it, right?”

Nie Mingjue liked to think of Meng Yao as a prison guard, and he was, but Nie Mingjue was one of Wen Ruohan’s precious prisoners, one of the ones he liked to cradle in his fist like pearls, and you didn’t get a job like that – being one of Wen Ruohan’s chief torturers – without being close to the man himself.

And that meant Meng Yao was facing danger from all sides: from the attackers, who would see Meng Yao’s Wen robes and Wen sword and not think twice, and from Wen Ruohan, if he ever figured out the extremely obvious truth that Meng Yao was a spy.

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, and turned his feet towards the main hall. “You can go, though.”

“Are you kidding? Your brothers would kill me if I let you go alone – and that’s probably for the best, they can get rid of me before Wen Qing gets to me.”

“They won’t kill you. Sect Leader Wen will.”

“…I’m still coming with you,” Wei Wuxian said.

“How good are you with your sword?”

“Good enough – and, hey, at least I don’t look like I just spent the last few months in prison or something!”

“I was in prison,” Nie Mingjue pointed out, mostly because it was funny to see Wei Wuxian try to swallow his tongue. He didn’t waste time objecting to him coming along, though – if necessary, he could distract Wen Ruohan himself while Wei Wuxian got Meng Yao out.

The corridor was lined with bodies in all sorts of colors, Wen, Lan, Jiang, and even somehow the familiar colors of the Nie sect, which he hadn’t been sure anyone still wore. Nie Mingjue rushed forward, unable to shake the feeling that something bad was happening, and burst in through the doors only to see Wen Xu crumpled on the floor, on his knees but not injured or bleeding, his father towering above him, and Meng Yao one step behind him, his sword in hand and moving forward to stab, but Wen Ruohan wasn’t distracted enough – he had noticed him, was turning towards him –

“Wen-dog!” Nie Mingjue shouted. “Go fuck your mother!”

He’d never actually cursed Wen Ruohan out loud before, a mix of terror and survival instinct, and maybe it was that that made Wen Ruohan stop in surprise for just a moment, just a breath, a heartbeat, and that was enough time for Meng Yao to complete his swing.

Wen Ruohan staggered, struck, and he lashed out with his hand, sending Meng Yao flying.

“Go help him,” Nie Mingjue ordered Wei Wuxian, who was already moving, and he took three steps and sent Baxia out ahead of him.

Wen Ruohan tried to bat it away, like a cat to a mouse, but if he knew Nie Mingjue too well by now then Nie Mingjue also knew him in turn; he hadn’t bothered to send his saber straight at him but past, letting Baxia use her blunt end to full effect in spinning herself around with the momentum of Wen Ruohan’s own blow and using the extra force when driving herself straight into his back.

Wen Ruohan spat out a mouthful of blood.

Before he could collect himself, Nie Mingjue was in front of him, his hands on his neck, and Wen Ruohan choked, the blood welling up in the back of his throat given no release. His eyes were bloodshot, his impressive cultivation an unstable mess from all the fighting he’d been doing for months and now the two unexpected stab wounds, his hands reaching up to try to tear Nie Mingjue’s hands away, but Nie Mingjue wasn’t going to let him. He refused to let him, pulling freely from the deep reserves of his own cultivation, strengthened through years of practice and meditation, maintained even in prison through discipline and boredom. He had so much, had wasted so much, never using his power the way it was meant to be used, to eradicate evil and protect the innocent, but rather just pointlessly stockpiling it for years and years while trapped in the Nightless City – but that was all fine.

He only needed to be strong enough for this one moment in time.

“Rabid dogs,” he said, “need to be put down.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes widened in recognition of the words he himself had spoken all those years before when he’d killed Nie Mingjue’s father twice over, once with his saber and another with his own hands.

The light of recognition was still there in his eyes when Nie Mingjue snapped his neck.

“Fuck,” Meng Yao said from where Wei Wuxian was helping him up, wheezing a bit. “I was hoping to do that myself, da-ge. I need it.”

Nie Mingjue shrugged and crooked his finger, Baxia pulling herself out of Wen Ruohan’s chest to cut off his head. “You struck the first blow,” he said, nodding at the head that tumbled down to the floor. “You can take credit for the whole thing.”

He didn’t need credit. There was Wen Ruohan’s blood on Baxia’s blade, his last breath on Nie Mingjue’s hands – he could burn incense for his father at last, and hope that he enjoyed the prizes his son, so belatedly filial, had at last won for him.

“Mingjue-xiong!” Wen Xu shouted, having gotten up off the floor, and threw himself at him. The movement was very agile, which meant that Nie Mingjue’s assumption that he was uninjured – that he’d been felled more by his fear of his father, the poisonous anxiety his father had cultivated in him deliberately, than by pain – was correct. “You’re all right!”

Nie Mingjue staggered with the weight of Wen Xu in his arms, with his arms around him and holding him tight.

“Mingjue…?” Meng Yao’s jaw gaped open like a fish. “Wait, you’re Nie Mingjue?!”

“Did you not know that?” Wei Wuxian asked him, gingerly picking up Wen Ruohan’s head by its hair. “Actually, come to think about it, who are you?”

“Consider A-Yao as my younger brother,” Nie Mingjue told Wei Wuxian. “Since you’re sworn brothers with A-Ning, you can consider him a brother as well.”

Hopefully that connection, and any others Nie Mingjue could scrounge up, would be enough to make up for Nie Mingjue having put his revenge ahead of Meng Yao’s ambitions. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that Meng Yao needed Wen Ruohan’s head in order to win a place at his father’s side – to get the name he was entitled to, the name he’d promised his mother he’d get – and Nie Mingjue had taken that from him.

“You said you were nobody important!” Meng Yao said accusingly, uncharacteristically off-balance, glaring at Nie Mingjue like he’d done something to him personally. “That people had probably forgotten you!”

“That’s our Mingjue-xiong, all right,” Wen Xu said, grinning. He didn’t so much as glance at the body at their feet, but his eyes were a little wet, glassy with relief – an ancient fear finally defeated, not a beloved father lost. Nie Mingjue was unwillingly glad that they had broken their father-son bond so thoroughly; he would have killed Wen Ruohan anyway, but he would have regretted causing Wen Xu pain. “Never listen to anything he says about himself, that’s the first rule. So you’re another of Mingjue-xiong’s younger brothers, huh? I guess that makes you one of us, then.”

“Us?” Nie Mingjue echoed. “What are you talking about, you’re older than me –”

“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t count!”

“You’re four years older –”

“I’m going to call you da-ge from now on and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

When Nie Mingjue had thought of travel – and he had thought of it often, trapped behind the walls of the Nightless City, unable to leave – he had imagined himself flying on Baxia, or maybe riding a horse on a long journey, the animal laden with all the baggage. He excelled at both skills within close quarters, and his endurance was similarly excellent – how different could long-distance travel be?

He hadn’t expected to be making his first journey in years in a carriage.

It might even be the same carriage that brought him and Nie Huaisang to the Nightless City that first time, large and echoing, as vacant and barren as their hearts had been.

Of course, it wasn’t vacant now.

“– and of course the walls are made of stone, so there really wasn’t that much damage,” Nie Huaisang was saying enthusiastically, waving his fan around like a saber, though he’d never admit as much. “Some tapestries, some chairs, that sort of thing, things that can be replaced –”

“I tried to preserve as much as possible,” Wen Xu interjected, still somehow looking guilty despite having been told a dozen times over that Nie Mingjue didn’t hold him accountable for having burned the Unclean Realm. “I let word go in advance, they were able to move a lot of things out, evacuate –”

“Things can be remade, people cannot,” Jin Zixuan agreed quietly, ducking his head when Wen Xu wrapped a companionable arm over his shoulders in thanks for his support. They’d apparently gotten close after Wen Xu had officially defected, bringing over those Wen sect cultivators that did not wish to engage in Wen Ruohan’s wars of conquering or who were disgusted by the way their side had conducted themselves during the war to date; Wen Xu had been leading his own men, but being able to take people with him didn’t mean anything about provisioning them, and Qingheng-jun as the general of the overall campaign had assigned the Jin sect to assist.

Jin Guangshan had probably thought, when he agreed, that it would end up with Wen Xu in his debt, a rosy future in which the Jin sect controlled two of the five Great Sects even after Wen Xu recovered the vast Wen sect coffers that were his birthright.

He was probably not expecting Wen Xu to save his son’s life in battle, or for the two of them to impulsively swear brotherhood as a result.

There was, Nie Mingjue reflected, an awful lot of that going around.

Wen Ning, for example, was currently sitting at one corner of the carriage playing some sort of bizarre hand-gesture game with his two sworn brothers, the Jiang sect boys, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. Exactly what meritorious deed they had done together to justify such an oath remained a little vague – Nie Mingjue suspected, based on various comments, that they might have done it purely to keep Wen Ning at the Lotus Pier when Wen Ruohan had started to make noises about bringing him home.

Regardless, Wen Ning was happier than Nie Mingjue had ever seen him – Wei Wuxian’s brash and outgoing nature was rubbing off on him a little, making him more confident, while he positively blossomed under Jiang Cheng’s harsh scolding-as-affection, which was similar enough to Nie Mingjue’s own that Wen Ning was by now thoroughly versed in how to accept it. He, in turn, was able to bridge the gap between the two of them, acting as a translator when each boy’s issues interfered with communication, and the three of them were by this point utterly inseparable.

Nie Huaisang had apparently thought the idea was marvelous and insisted on a sworn brotherhood triad of his own – Wen Chao, of course, and surprisingly enough Lan Wangji, who apparently had been conspiring with the two of them in regards to the war ever since his visit to the Nightless City so long ago. Nie Mingjue had no idea how that brotherhood had managed to work out, given Wen Chao’s bizarre affinity for Lan Wangji’s father (they’d agreed to share), Lan Wangji’s tendency to communicate exclusively in barely visible facial expressions whenever possible, and of course Nie Huaisang’s rampant but ultimately harmless tendencies towards self-indulgence causing disasters left and right all the time, but they all certainly seemed very happy about it.

(Lan Wangji was currently sitting next to Wei Wuxian, watching the game – in all accuracy, Wei Wuxian was halfway into his lap, given the cramped nature of the carriage, but Lan Wangji didn’t seem to mind.

It was an interesting parallel to Wen Chao, sitting across from him, with Wang Lingjiao in his lap…)

Wen Qing, at least, did not have sworn sisters.

Yet.

It was apparently a subject being seriously discussed, along with Jiang Yanli and a Jin sect girl variously referred to Mianmian or Luo Qingyang, but they hadn’t reached any conclusions as of yet.

That had not stopped either girl from addressing Nie Mingjue, rather cheekily, as da-ge.

In fact, it hadn’t stopped any of them from doing that.

Even Lan Xichen – currently sitting and chatting with Meng Yao with great enthusiasm – had joined in, apparently on the basis of his younger brother being sworn brothers with Nie Mingjue’s younger brother. The whole thing smacked of Nie Huaisang’s reasoning from start to end, but Nie Mingjue couldn’t dispute that it was rather nice to see so many people happily calling each other brother and sister – the cultivation world hadn’t been peaceful enough for such familiarity in at least a generation.

Of course, the fact that they’d all thirteen of them insisted on squeezing into the carriage with him, which was spacious but not quite at the level of a qiankun pouch, was making it abruptly clear to Nie Mingjue that he had – somehow – assumed responsibility as the elder brother of the vast majority of the younger generation of the Great Sects.

Possibly that was going to become troublesome once the older generation realized.

Probably, even.

This carriage ride was probably going to be the thing that made everyone realize it.

(There were those that already knew, of course – in his brief meeting with her, Sect Leader Yu had gruffly informed him that she whole-heartedly adopted Nie Huaisang’s interpretation of how sworn familial relationships worked and therefore, as the older brother of her grandson’s sworn brother, he ought to give up and resign himself to calling her grandmother already, and then there had been Lan Qiren who hadn’t even bothered to logically justify any of the most un-Lan-like hugs he had insisted on giving him. But everyone else in the cultivation world was probably going to be in for a bit of a shock…)

Nie Mingjue himself had been very firmly placed in the center of the carriage where the bumps had the least impact, and which was also conveniently within arms’ reach of everyone. They’d all picked up a tendency to reach out to touch him every once in a while, as if reminding themselves that he was there and not dead and not about to vanish out into the ether. Even the ones he didn’t know that well at first had very quickly lost their reserve around him, which Nie Mingjue ascribed to mob mentality and everyone else ascribed to him exuding an aura of trustworthiness and reliability – Nie Huaisang declared that he just felt like a big brother – which Nie Mingjue thought sounded silly but everyone else agreed with fervently enough that he realized it was time to stop arguing.

There had been a lot of tears when they’d found each other again, a series of meetings that had left him drained and dehydrated and so, so happy. Wen Ruohan hadn’t killed a single one of them.

Nie Mingjue had then given everyone a scare by collapsing, more out of relief than anything else, but that scare was presumably why he was stuck in the invalid’s place even all this time later – he wasn’t actually an invalid any longer, no matter what Wen Qing darkly insisted and everyone else tried to enforce, he’d even started gaining back some of the weight he’d lost in the Fire Palace and he was swinging Baxia free and clear in carefully monitored trainings that made his heart sing – but in all honesty he didn’t mind or, more accurately, didn’t care.

He was going home.

Back home to Qinghe, to the Unclean Realm, which he hadn’t seen for five years and more. Back to his Nie sect, which demanded that he be recognized as their sect leader by seemingly unanimous acclaim despite there being a plausible argument that he’d not made much of a contribution in the war – an argument that, whenever he mentioned it, made every single one of his now-siblings bristle and hiss like cats, and, whenever anyone else mentioned it, made him have to quickly run damage control before his vengeful mob could plot their utter destruction. Even the interim Sect Leader Nie, a cousin of his, had yielded up the position at once, even though he might’ve had a reasonable argument to keep it.

The world was in chaos, the politics of the situation following Wen Ruohan’s demise not yet sorted out, there was rebuilding and healing to be done, truces to be reached, forgiveness to be given out, justice to be achieved, endless amounts of work to be done –

None of that mattered right now.

Nie Mingjue was going back to the place he loved the most, with the people he loved the most by his side.

He didn’t know what to expect when they arrived. He thought it would be something good.

- END -

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wen xu #meng yao #jin guangyao #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #fire and light

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razberryyum · 5 years

Video

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 4 (spoilers for everything)

(covers mainly MDZS chaps 13 and 14)

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

(a 🐰 is earned every time there is a WangXian scene or even when they’re just thinking of each other…more than one 🐰 can be given based on the level of WangXian-ness in a scene)

I loved and enjoyed all of Wei Ying’s “Notice me Wangji-senpai" moments in this episode, but my favorite has to be the one above: the way he tried to play off Lan Zhan totally ignoring him by blaming the other man’s hearing makes me laugh out loud every time I watch this episode. It’s just too adorable. Even though Lan Zhan is clearly still annoyed with him, I like how it’s also obvious that Wei Ying is slowly but surely burrowing his way into his psyche and taking hold there by either not leaving him alone or just being himself which is ample to constantly draw Lan Zhan’s attention to him. It‘s as if Lan Zhan’s life was a calm pond and Wei Ying was a beautiful, lively carp that suddenly decided to just jump into his waters without permission, taking liberties by swimming and splashing around, basically causing ruckus in every corner of his pool. Naturally, Wei Ying’s actions perturbs Lan Zhan to no end at first, but at the same time, he is also leaving an undeniable impression, so that eventually, when this carp leaves Lan Zhan’s pond, he can’t help but constantly think of Wei Ying and even miss his disruptive presence, thus naturally paving the way for the escalation of his affections that follow later on.

Whereas with Wei Ying, I think he simply enjoyed irritating this fuddy-duddy at first, but eventually, his light-hearted teasing probably became just a little more meaningful and he started looking forward to getting a reaction out of Lan Zhan because it provided him with genuine joy and satisfaction, until those feelings grew into just joy from being around the other man and interacting with him.

Ultimately that’s a big reason why I love their relationship: the development and progression of their feelings for each other makes a lot of sense to me. The phrase “opposites attract” has never been more applicable in terms of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, but at the same time, they still share enough things in common—such as their moral code and belief system—that makes them absolutely just perfect for each other. I can imagine a future for them right from the start, whereas with other couples in stories, regardless of their sex, I’ve had difficulty believing they should be together other than because the plot requires them to be. I think the drama really succeeded in showing us why it’s completely logical that these two people would be drawn to each other, that they almost can’t help but be drawn together, by actually showing us all these little precious moments between them as they occurred, which the novel for the most part only described in an after-the-fact manner. While subtlety has its merits too, I do appreciate the more clearly illustrated path The Untamed decided to take for WangXian.

Along those lines, I also appreciated how CQL chose to show us the first time Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao met and their instant connection. Honestly, when I first saw this moment…

I immediately thought they were going to be a couple too, like Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, and I was totally on board, until I found out from reading comments here and there that I shouldn’t be because this ship was bad news. I was disappointed of course and even tried to withstand its alluring call for a while, especially after reading the book and finding out exactly why this wasn’t a ship I wanted to board since it was on a one-way ticket to hell and heartbreak basically. But the drama just made it so damn hard to resist, and before I knew it, I was lowkey hooked. Much like with WangXian, I was surprised at how much the show was getting away with in terms of XiYao:

I mean, big bro Xichen totally stroked Meng Yao’s finger there, right? First time I saw that, I remember rewinding a few times just to check and and make sure and if it’s just an optical illusion, that’s a damn convincing trick. Amusingly enough I thought at first Wei Ying was seeing the same thing and was reacting in disbelief to that moment, until I realized from his angle, there’s no way he could have seen that small gesture and he was just responding to that (ugly) incense pot.

After finishing the series, I have to admit I’m pretty much a full-on XiYao-shipper now, which is really out of character for me because I usually prefer ships with happy endings. I have to blame, or rather, give credit to the two actors portraying LXC and JGY (Liu Haikuan and Zhu Zanjin, respectively) for conjuring up these feelings in me because they had so much chemistry together, which honestly at times rivaled that of Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo’s chemistry. I just love how LXC’s expression softens every time he interacts with JGY and even from their first meeting, it’s obvious there were genuine feelings of respect and gratitude behind Meng Yao’s reaction to LXC.

Take the moment above as an example: the extreme admiration emanating from JGY after seeing LXC exhibit his fluting powers had to be for real since there was no reason to react just for Nie Huaisang’s sake. I can totally imagine hearts fluttering all around him as he looked upon XiChen with those wide, innocent-seeming puppy eyes of his. And when he bade his farewell to big bro later on in the episode, I loved how the camera lingered on LXC’s hands as Meng Yao moved away after saluting him, just to reiterate the intimacy of their brief physical contact.

I also appreciated the small, seemingly trivial moments before and after he meets up with LXC in that scene, where Meng Yao is first ignored by the two male sect disciples walking by him and then later on by two female disciples. Contrast that with how LXC immediately praises Meng Yao and recognizes him as his peer from the get go, going so far as to refer to himself by his own name (“Xichen”) just to reinforce their equality, it’s no wonder JGY was instantly drawn to him. I would go so far as to say he probably fell for LXC right from the start; doesn’t even matter if it might be only in the platonic sense, man was smitten no matter how anyone chooses to categorize his feelings.

XianQing? No thank you

When I first watched this episode, I still had the stormy cloud of fear that Wen Qing would eventually be the love interest that comes in between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji hanging over me due to some rumors I came across prior to even watching the show. As a result, every time Wen Qing and WWX would have a scene together, I would view it with trepidation as I was certain it was yet another building block to something undesirable, with the ultimate goal of mutating the relationship at the core of MDZS. If I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I was even able to rest easy until after Wen Qing’s passing and knowing for certain that the “danger period” was finally over, even though I had already grown to like her character. I still have complaints about how they altered her personality for the live action, but at least now, when I watch the scenes she shares with Wei Ying, instead of being filled with anxiety, I am actually more fascinated. I can still see the ghost of what Team CQL had initially intended with Wen Qing and WWX in a lot of their scenes together, before the fans’ uproar thankfully forced the producers to change their minds and stick with the source material. This scene wasn’t one of those moments, but with revisiting each episode, I actually look forward to picking out which scenes were feeding into their ship because of the way they were shot and how the two actors were directed to perform during the scene, especially Meng Ziyi. I’m glad I can actually sit back and have fun with all of this now.

XianNing? I can’t

I can see why some folks support this ship, and upon first viewing I thought this was a cute moment as well, but of course, I simply can’t go there since my heart already belongs to WangXian. And now, after having read the novel, all I could think about is how much I wish we got the archery contest at the Cultivation Conference. I’m glad we got to see it depicted in the donghua; it was as amazing as I hope it would be, but it’s a shame we didn’t get to see it in the drama. Since the producers had mentioned releasing specials of extra scenes that they couldn’t fit into the flow of the show, I hope the archery contest will be one of them. I don’t know where it would fit in in the timeline though…I guess it could happen while they were all held hostage at Nightless City, so the reason for the archery contest will have to be changed, but then maybe that’s the impetus for Wen Chao’s decision to force everyone on that dangerous quest to the Xuanwu cave: he’s so pissed off at losing at archery on his own turf that he decides to try to get all the sect kids killed. Either way, I hope we get to see the contest in live action form one day.

Wei Wuxian is so smart

I loved this scene. I love how WWX schooled everyone with his inventive fourth reason. He’s so awesome. That’s really all I wanted to say about it.

Random Bits of Randomness

I don’t think there’s anything wrong the color function on my tv, so please explain to me how that can be considered “purple” in any universe??

All I could think about in this scene is how disgusting that fish must have tasted cuz it looked awful, and I think Xiao Zhan even mentioned in an interview that it was gross. What probably made it taste worse was the fact that he kept on eating it from the stomach side, which can be really bitter. I think Wang Zhuocheng (Jiang Cheng) was eating it from the same side as well and I just can’t help grimacing every time I see this moment.

Odds and Ends:

I don’t really have any questions from this episode, but I did wonder if Wen Qing ever actually attended classes while she was at Cloud Recesses or did she just spend all of the time wandering the back hills, throwing her needles at barriers, cuz that’s not suspicious AT ALL. Unless I just happened to have missed her every single time in class, even though you would think it’s easy to spot her red in a sea of white…if that’s the case then I probably need to get my eyes checked.

Also, I wish we got to see Shijie draw her sword. She carried it around in the beginning, but I’m kinda bummed that we never saw her actually use it. I’m sure she is completely capable and would’ve looked just as badass as the boys.

And bless Uncle Lan for his brilliant idea of making Lan Zhan enforce the disciplinary action on Wei Ying, thereby allowing the boys to have valuable alone time in the library pavilion to further nurture their bond. In retrospect he probably regrets that decision, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s one of his best one he’s ever made.

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ibijau · 4 years

Note

How about one where Huaisang accidentally ascended (as in HOB) and Nmj and Lxc have no idea that their Sang-di's a baby god? He can't interfere with anything in the mortal realm, which is why he's always running from martial practice and saying 'i dont know' instead of giving straight answers. He's much more commonly known among the common people than cultivators (god of something simple but sweet?), and Meng Yao is the first to suspect (Can be extended to eventual XiSang where LXC...worships).

Well it only took me like four months to fill this prompt, and then when I finally did I basically ditched everything your suggested except for the “nhs accidentally ascended” part but... hey, if you’re still around after this much time, enjoy??

When Nie Mingjue is twenty and finally given full reign of his sect, there's a huge storm that nearly blows off all the roofs of the Unclean Realm. It is everything he doesn't need, but honestly everything these last three years has been everything he didn't need, starting with his father's death. In the morning, when the storm calms down, he assesses the damage, organises for those wounded by debris to be taken care of, sends disciples in Qinghe and the closest villages to see if they need help.

It isn't a surprise when he learns that the storm only struck the Unclean Realm. There was a taste in the air that did not feel natural.

Hearing this only worsens Nie Mingjue's other concerns. Namely, the disappearance of his prodigy of a little brother. Nobody has seen Nie Huaisang since the storm. His room appears to have been devastated by the winds, everything thrown upside down. His wing of the main residence is the one that has suffered the most damages, the roof apparently blown open.

Initially, Nie Mingjue did not particularly worry. Since the storm was unnatural, it wouldn't be strange for Nie Huaisang to have noticed it and gone after the source of it. It's reckless, and he'll get scolded for it, but it can't be helped. Nie Huaisang cannot see a wrong without wanting to right it. Yet as the hours pass, and then the days, Nie Mingjue gets more and more anxious. Just like the storm that hit them so hard, nobody around has Nie Huaisang. He has simply vanished. Search parties are sent everywhere, inquiries are made to allied clans.

Nothing.

Not a trace.

After a month, Nie Mingjue is starting to consider checking with Qishan Wen when one afternoon, Nie Huaisang simply passes the gate of the Unclean Realm.

Nie Mingjue hugs him and scolds him and demands an explanation, but none comes.

“I got lost,” Nie Huaisang laughs. “I didn't realise so much time had passed. It felt shorter, or I'd have come home sooner, I swear!”

“But where were you?”

“Somewhere I shouldn't have been,” Nie Huaisang evasively replies. “I'm home now. That's what matters.”

It's all Nie Mingjue can get from him. Considering his brother's taste for secrets, he should have expected it.

“Don't do that again,” he orders, before letting the matter drop.

Nie Huaisang doesn't train anymore after the storm. At first, he says his long wandering exhausted him. Then he pretends he wants to focus on his calligraphy, on painting, on just anything but martial arts.

Nie Mingjue lets it slide at first. He's long given up on making sense of his brother, and Nie Huaisang has always been a little too wise for his age. Whatever he does, he does for a reason. But as weeks pass and his brother doesn't return to the training grounds, Nie Mingjue has no choice but to corner him about it.

“I don't like it anymore,” Nie Huaisang says. “It's boring.”

“I'm told you also don't meditate. Is that boring as well?”

Nie Huaisang nods firmly.

“What's the point? I now we do this to reach immortality, and maybe even to ascend but... I've given it a lot of thought lately. I don't think it'd be much fun, being a god.”

“What are you even talking about? You... Huaisang, you're good but you're fourteen, it's not like there's any risk of you ascending!”

Nie Huaisang laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Right? I am just fourteen, it'd be so stupid! Still, better not take the risk.”

“Huaisang! Enough now!”

Nie Huaisang pouts, and whines, and gets dragged to the training grounds anyway, where he performs with a mediocrity that he's never shown before. He can't even hold his damn sabre properly, drops it several time. Nie Mingjue is too stunned to even think of punishing him.

Stunned and worried.

This simply isn't like his brother.

With help from the elders and some healers, a number of tests are conducted on Nie Huaisang. He is not possessed. He mind is not altered. He hasn't been cursed. His cultivation hasn't been damaged. If anything, it might have risen higher than last time they checked for it.

“Then what's wrong with him?” Nie Mingjue asks.

The elders look at one another, unsure what to say.

“Teenage rebellion?” one of them suggests.

“Gods. That'd be worse than a curse,” Nie Mingjue sighs. “How do we fix that?”

Every few weeks, Nie Mingjue gets letters from the Cloud Recesses. Lan Qiren is at his wit's end with Nie Huaisang, because there's no way a boy this clever can fail so consistently. He thinks it's done on purpose. Nie Mingjue, after being shown some of his brother's tests, can only agree.

This, too, makes no sense. Nie Huaisang is competitive to a fault and cannot stand it if anyone is better than him at something. In the company of people as famously brilliant as Lan Wangji, Jiang Wanyin, Jin Zixuan, and Wei Wuxian, Nie Huaisang should be thriving and fighting for top position.

Instead, he has taken to drinking and looking at porn.

He still passes his exams, with the best grade of his class.

When asked about it, he just says he didn't feel like going back because the food is really too awful and he missed home.

After that year in Gusu, Nie Mingjue gives up on getting his brother back to normal. This is just who Nie Huaisang is now apparently. Gone is the martial prodigy, all Nie Mingjue has now is a bumbling fool who cares for nothing but fans and birds.

Especially birds.

Frequently, Nie Huaisang disappears for days on hand to go birdwatching. That alone is frustrating, since he rarely bothers to say where he's going or for how long. But then, he also systematically leaves his sabre behind, and refuses to take an escort with him, arguing everyone is too loud and will scare away his feathery targets.

Nie Mingjue gives orders that his brother isn't to be allowed outside of the Unclean Realm on his own. Nie Huaisang still manages to get out whenever he damn pleases and laughs it off when his brother gets concerned that there are secret passages in the Unclean Realm.

“An enemy could use that to get inside and slaughter us without warning!” Nie Mingjue points out.

“No, that's not going to happen,” Nie Huaisang replies with a knowing smile. “Nobody can get in. The Unclean Realm will never fall.”

“You don't know that!”

Nie Huaisang laughs.

Nie Mingjue never gets him to reveal how he leaves the Unclean Realm.

When the Wens come to the Unclean Realm and demand that Nie Mingjue put his little brother in their hands, he refuses. If they want a war, he's ready to give it to them, even if the rest of the cultivation world would rather grovel at their feet than stand for themselves.

His brother has other ideas. Nie Mingjue finds a note announcing that Nie Huaisang has decided to offer himself as hostage, because he fears they are not ready yet for a war.

Nie Mingjue could kill him for that betrayal.

He knows the Wen might beat him to it.

As soon as Nie Huaisang makes it home with a bunch of desperate but unharmed kids from a number of other sects, Nie Mingjue announces that he's sending him to Gusu.

“No, my place is in the Unclean Realm!” Nie Huaisang protests. “I belong here. I know it now, I know this for sure, I have to be here.”

“Are you going to fight at my side then?” Nie Mingjue counters. “Are you going to pick up your sabre at last and help me?”

“I can help without a sabre. Mingjue, don't send me away. I want to be here. This is my home, I need to be here.”

“It's the sabre or Gusu.”

Nie Huaisang whines and pouts and begs and complains and even threatens, to no avail. Nie Mingjue will not bulge from the choice he's giving him.

Without surprise, Nie Huaisang chooses Gusu.

Nie Mingjue wishes it didn't disappoint him.

The war is bloody and harsh and it should be hopeless, but it is not.

Several times, they snatch a victory at the last moment through sheer luck. Hope, that most precious of commodities at such a time, never leaves them. Rumours start to circulate among the disciples of those sect who chose to stand against Qishan Wen, although it is many weeks before they reach Nie Mingjue, who never paid much attention to gossip.

In the end, it is Lan Xichen who tells him about it, seemingly rather amused by the stories about...

“A young man wearing a mask who sometimes appears when the situation is desperate,” he explains. “He carries no weapon, but he has a magical fan that he uses when fighting. He is rarely seen in battle, but several people who had been taken prisoner claim that he came down from the heavens to free them before they could be tortured or killed.”

“A rogue cultivator?”

Lan Xichen smiles, but shakes his head.

“A god, apparently.”

Nie Mingjue snorts. Gods don't mess with the affairs of mortals.

“Don't dismiss it so easily,” Lan Xichen scolds him. “I can name more than one sect that decided to join us after hearing about the Faceless God on our side.”

“They even gave him a title?”

“They had to, he never gave his name.”

It's a ridiculous rumour, and it can't be anything more. On a rare letter sent to his brother in Gusu, Nie Mingjue mentions it, guessing that this is the sort of things that might amuse him. He used to like stories of gods and immortals, before he became someone Nie Mingjue doesn't know anymore.

It's just a rumour, but even within his own ranks, Nie Mingjue catches a few people praying to the Faceless God on the eve of battle.

He doesn't dissuade them. With the war dragging on and the Wens still so strong in number, people need something to hold on.

Nie Mingjue puts all his faith in his own strength and that of the people he trusts, but he understands that not everybody can be satisfied with this.

And then he meets the Faceless God.

A young man wearing a mask, Lan Xichen had described him, but all Nie Mingjue sees is a boy in disguise, trying to appear taller and larger than he is.

He carries no weapon, and Nie Mingjue understands why when he sees the fan in the Faceless God's hand. It is one he has seen too many times in the last few years. He wonders if the boy who holds it assumed nobody would recognise it as easily as they might know his sabre.

He rarely joins in battle, but he comes for those who have been captured, like Nie Mingjue dragged before Wen Ruohan, humiliated by Meng Yao who he once trusted above all others.

Both Meng Yao and the Faceless God strike Wen Ruohan at the same time.

Both Meng Yao and the Faceless God cower in fear before Nie Mingjue when he rises to his feet.

Meng Yao kneels before him and swears he was always on their side.

The Faceless God runs away.

It doesn't matter.

Nie Mingjue knows where to find him.

It is a while before Nie Mingjue recuperates enough from his injuries to return home. When he finally does, Nie Huaisang is waiting at the gate for him, an uncertain smile on his face and a fan in his hand. Nie Mingjue hugs him and asks for news of the reconstruction in Gusu, unsurprised when the answers remain evasive.

He waits until they are alone in his room to ask the question that really matters.

“It was that storm, wasn't it?”

Nie Huaisang freezes in the act of pouring tea, looking like a rabbit who spotted a hawk. Slowly, hesitantly, he nods.

“If you ascended, why are you here?”

“This is home,” Nie Huaisang simply says. Then, when his brother frowns, he adds: “I never expected to ascend, and when it happened, I realised I didn't want to. They gave me all those rules to follow, they told me I couldn't see you again, couldn't go home again and that was... I belong here. I belong in the Unclean Realm. Maybe when you're gone I'll feel differently, but for now this is home and I'm not going anywhere. The Heavenly Emperor himself could order me to leave and I wouldn't. Which is exactly what I told him before I came back here.”

“You rebelled against the Heavenly Emperor.”

Nie Huaisang nods.

“You're an idiot.”

“I was fourteen!” Nie Huaisang protests. “I should never have ascended! I wasn't prepared for it! I'm still not prepared for it. I don't care about their rules, I don't care about emperors and gods and anything else. But I care about my home, and I care about my people, and I care about what's right.”

Nie Mingjue sighs. This is so wrong, on so many levels. There are reasons why gods don't meddle with mortal affairs, why they stay in their own domain most of the time. This is wrong and it'll bring trouble down the line, he's sure of it, but... but suddenly, so much makes sense, and he's proud of Nie Huaisang.

“I'm not calling you 'Highness',” he warns.

“I sure hope not. I'm still your didi, now and always.”

Nie Mingjue smiles, and pulls his heavenly brother into a tight hug. Everything else is going to be different, but this bond between us will never change, he's certain of that.

#Nie Mingjue #Nie Huaisang #mo dao zu shi #nhs basically becomes the god of war prisonners and OH BOY that will be awkward when wwx and the Wens start turning to him for help lol #jau writes #Anonymous

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