#also note how open his expression is when talking to nmj in the first one vs wwx in the second | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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NHS ghost travels to the past and the only ones who can see him clearly are baby!NHS & NMJ

on ao3

“Would you believe that I’m a saber spirit?” the ghost asked. “Or maybe an ancestor?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. He did not put down the exorcism talisman.

The ghost sighed. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

Before Nie Mingjue could do anything more, the ghost rushed at him – taken aback, Nie Mingjue flinched, and when he opened his eyes again the ghost was gone.

He still pinned the talisman onto the swaddling wrapped around his baby brother, who was grumbling in sleepy dissatisfaction at having been nearly woken up.

He wasn’t taking any chances with his brother’s health.

“I’m actually not dangerous,” the ghost argued. He’d figured out that if he hovered high enough, Nie Mingjue wouldn’t be able to get at him – though he still flinched whenever Nie Mingjue threw rocks at him. He must be a relatively new ghost. “I know it’s difficult to believe, but I’m here to help.”

“Sure,” Nie Mingjue said. There were plenty of pebbles next to the place where laundry got done, and he could grab one without being spotted whenever he dunked the clothing in. “I believe you. Come down here a little closer, I’ll believe you some more.”

The ghost sighed.

“Just give me a chance, okay?”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“I have good reasons –”

“Don’t care.”

“If you come any closer, I’ll douse you in a male virgin’s urine,” Nie Mingjue said. “Ghosts are supposed to hate that.”

The ghost huffed. “Like I’m dumb enough come near you when you’re swaddling the baby anyway.”

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving! Just put Baxia down already!”

“You need more salt.”

“I thought ghosts hated that, too?”

“Maybe it’s rock salt ghosts hate?” the ghost asked, floating over Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. “I don’t think I have anything against proper seasoning.”

Nie Mingjue huffed, rolling his eyes, but he did add a little more salt.

“Ah ha!” the ghost exclaimed. “You are starting to listen to me!”

“That’s when the recipes says to put it in,” Nie Mingjue said. “I was always going to add some more of it in then.”

“I don’t believe you! You were definitely listening!”

“Listen, if I was a normal ghost, your father would have totally gotten rid of me, right?”

“Never said I thought you were normal,” Nie Mingjue said, soothing his brother to sleep in his arms with soft murmurs and a gentle voice that did not come naturally to him. “I said you were a pest. Did I ever say anything about being normal?”

“…no, I guess not,” the ghost conceded. “Damnit, I thought I was onto something with that. Also, shouldn’t a nursemaid be doing that?”

“Can’t be trusted,” Nie Mingjue said.

The ghost frowned, then blanched. “Right, right,” he murmured. “I nearly forgot, what happened with – uh, what happened right around that time. That would have been recently, too, wouldn’t it? You’ve always remembered it better.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t say anything.

“Still, you’re only seven. Even if they were scared to hire a nursemaid for fear of letting in another assassin, shouldn’t someone else be doing this?”

“I’m eight,” Nie Mingjue said.

“The point still stands. Surely one of the servants..?”

Nie Mingjue sighed. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’re at war,” he explained. “Everyone who can swing a saber is out fighting it, and that includes the servants.”

“I thought it was too quiet,” the ghost said, half to himself. “I haven’t seen anyone else in – okay, actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen anyone.”

“War,” Nie Mingjue said.

“You’re eight,” the ghost said. He looked upset. “How could they leave you alone like this? You make your own food, you do the laundry, you take care of – this is ridiculous! There must be people who are too old to go that could help…there must be other children! Where are the other children?”

Nie Mingjue didn’t say anything.

Nie Huaisang needed his sleep, after all.

“I refuse to let this go,” the ghost said. “Even if – especially if – a whole bunch of the other kids died or something, even if all of them died, which they didn’t, there’s absolutely no reason for you to be left alone like this.”

Nie Mingjue sighed. He’d hoped that the ghost would let it drop, but apparently, no.

Apparently, he was going to have to engage.

(Nie Huaisang waving his hands at the ghost, burbling happily, had nothing to do with that decision.)

“You assume they left me,” he said. “You have it backwards.”

“…what?”

“I ran away,” Nie Mingjue explained, and the ghost’s jaw dropped. “This place was abandoned because of the war – too awkward an outpost to be worth it for either side – and I took my brother and we came here, just me and him and Baxia. I’m planning on staying until the war’s over.”

“But why? You’re the heir.”

“Yeah,” Nie Mingjue said. “That’s why.”

“…what?”

“It’s ‘sang’ as in mulberry leaves, right?” he asked. “For his name? I heard you whispering it to him.”

“I - yeah, it’s mulberry,” the ghost said, blinking at him. “And ‘huai’ as in ‘to hold’…but you know that already, surely?”

Nie Mingjue shrugged.

The ghost stared at him. He didn’t blink, which was typical of ghosts, but still a bit unnerving.

“You named the child, didn’t you,” the ghost said. It wasn’t a question. “You take care of him, you raise him, you’re refusing to return home…it’s war, you said. Because of the massacre of the junior generation that everyone pretended was an accident but wasn’t, because of Mother’s death from that assassin pretending to be a nursemaid. People do things when they get angry, during war. What was going to happen to – to the baby?”

“Massacre at his conception, declaration of war at his quickening, assassination at his birth,” Nie Mingjue recited. “That’s three bad things; bad luck comes in fours, and we really can’t afford to lose this war. Newborns die easy as flipping over your hand, and maybe the next one won’t be so unlucky, won’t be a calamity star – that sort of thing. It was too dangerous.”

“Oh,” the ghost said. “I never knew.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “Who would have told you? I would’ve killed them, first.”

The ghost twitched, and stared at him.

“I like Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said. “It’s a good name. Even if how you got it is a bit circular.”

“Someone murders you,” the ghost – Nie Huaisang of the future, as Nie Mingjue had long ago figured out, but it was easier to keep thinking of him as ‘the ghost’ – said, sitting with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest. It’d be a sad and pathetic sight, except for the way he was sitting on the ceiling. “I was trying to come back to stop it from happening…maybe even prevent our father’s murder, too, if I could. That happens when you’re fifteen, by the way. You have to inherit, and spend the rest of your life avenging him.”

“Do I succeed?”

“…yes.”

“That’s good, then,” Nie Mingjue said.

“Don’t you want to know more?”

“Why? Are you planning on going somewhere?”

The ghost uncurled himself from his dramatic misery to float down until his head (still upside down) was floating in front of Nie Mingjue. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Ghosts that resolve their business are liberated,” Nie Mingjue said. “Maybe I like having you around.”

“…oh.”

“One day you’re going to save the world,” the ghost told him.

“Today, you already have,” Nie Mingjue replied.

“Maybe I never went back in time,” the ghost said. “Maybe I’m just dead, and this is one of the eighteen hells, punishing me for everything I’ve done.”

“Are you having a bad time?” Nie Mingjue asked. He himself was having a good time: Nie Huaisang wasn’t crying, for once, and he had him sitting in his lap, a stick wrapped in his little baby hand (supported by Nie Mingjue, of course) waiving in the air in the rudimentary beginnings of proper saber forms.

“Well, no. But then again, ‘everything I’ve done’ wasn’t that bad, and all done in the name of filial piety – I even bought already-dead cats – well, except for little Mo Xuanyu. He deserved better than he got from everyone, me included.”

“None of that made even the slightest bit of sense to me, you know,” Nie Mingjue said. “But if you feel so bad about it, I promise to change it this time around.”

“No, you don’t understand,” the ghost said. “If this is the underworld, then you wouldn’t have the chance to change it. We’d just repeat this over and over again, forever!”

“How many times has it been for you, then?”

“Well, only one. But it could be the beginning of many times! Or – or – maybe I’ve forgotten the previous times!”

“Seems like a pretty stupid punishment if you just forget about it,” Nie Mingjue said.

“…hmm. Good point.”

“You’re prone to anxiety, aren’t you?” Nie Mingjue said to the Nie Huaisang in his arms, who made an expression that was clearly his best effort at smiling. He was still building up those facial muscles. “We’ll have to work on that, in this life.”

“Hey!”

“Okay, so, positing that this whole living in an abandoned outpost is a real thing that is happened and is still happening, which I’m still not convinced of –”

“I don’t seem like the type to run away?”

“…you were always very righteous.”

“Sometimes, righteous people do stupid things,” Nie Mingjue said.

“Remind me to tell you about someone called Wei Wuxian,” the ghost said, now thoroughly distracted. “He’s more or less the walking, talking incarnation of that…”

“Did he have a sad childhood?”

“What? I mean, I guess so? His parents died, he lived on the streets for a while, developed a fear of dogs, but then he got rescued by Jiang Fengmian and adopted, so – are you taking notes?”

“How else am I supposed to keep track of all these names?”

“Maybe you should go pick up Meng Yao. If you’re planning on changing things, I mean.”

Nie Mingjue squinted at the ghost, who was supervising the stew he was making. It was meat, for once – a pheasant that had conveniently gotten scared to death. The ghost had gotten very creative in how he could help out despite his general incorporeality. “Isn’t that the name of the person who eventually kills me?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why would I go help him?”

“…he had a very sad childhood?”

“If I adopt everyone you say had a sad childhood, there won’t be a junior generation anymore,” Nie Mingjue pointed out. “They’ll all be Nie sect.”

“And it would be better for them.”

“Annoying for me, though.”

“ – and that’s what demonic cultivation is,” the ghost concluded. “Why do you ask?”

“I have absolutely no reason to be interested in a type of cultivation specifically designed to make dead creatures do what I say, including shutting up whenever they’ve started talking in the middle of the night,” Nie Mingjue said, yawning. “None whatsoever.”

“It’s not that late, it’s only – hmm. Oops.”

“It’s not that different from what I do with Baxia,” Nie Mingjue argued.

“What you do with Baxia eventually kills you,” the ghost argued back.

“I thought you said I was murdered?”

“Through an existing weakness!”

“Without which the world will end, so it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine at all!”

“I’m just saying, it would be –”

“No! I am not letting you demonically cultivate with me, and that’s final!”

“Fine!”

“Your older self is so annoying,” Nie Mingjue told Nie Huaisang after the ghost had stormed off. Through a wall, no less, and that was purely to be especially dramatic about it since Nie Mingjue knew that he knew where the doors were. “Such a pest!”

“If we’re going to do this – I can’t believe we’re going to do this – we’re doing it slowly,” the ghost said. “You hear me? Slowly. I don’t care how much of a cultivation genius you are.”

Nie Mingjue nodded.

“And no one ever finds out about it, okay? No one. If someone happens to see me, you need to lie and say that I – that I’m –”

“A saber spirit?”

“Shut up.”

“Baba!” Nie Huaisang burbled, or at least something that sounded vaguely similar. He was probably a few months too young for actual speech, though.

“Da-ge,” Nie Mingjue corrected, just in case.

The ghost sniggered. “So much of my childhood is suddenly explained, you have no idea.”

“I think I’m going to tell him to call you mama,” Nie Mingjue said thoughtfully. “What do you think that’ll explain?”

“You’re depressingly good at this,” the ghost said. “I mean, everyone always said you were a genius, but you’re really good at cultivation.”

Nie Mingjue shrugged.

“I still think you should hold off on the demonic cultivation aspects.”

“We’ve already agreed to disagree,” Nie Mingjue said. “And knowing demonic cultivation helps me refine my cultivation of Baxia as well – I can filter out only the finest resentful energy for her.”

“You make it sound like cat food.”

“Since you also thrive on resentful energy, what does that make you?”

“A mouse, surely.”

“Nah. Hedgehog.”

The ghost acted as if it had been stabbed and fell over backwards.

Dramatic bastard.

“There’s a person outside,” the ghost said. “They’re at the edge of the boundaries.”

Nie Mingjue could feel his shoulders stiffen. “What are they wearing?”

“Nie colors. I would’ve taken care of it myself if it was a Wen.”

They’d had an incident with a Wen squad coming too close, once.

The ghost, strengthened by Nie Mingjue’s demonic cultivation and the bond he’d formed between him and Baxia, had ripped the cultivators in the Wen patrol squad to pieces before they’d gotten too close.

Nie Mingjue had told him that he appreciated the enthusiasm, but to try to keep the mess down a bit next time. All that blood had attracted predators willing to feast on human flesh, and Nie Huaisang was still small.

“What boundary?” he asked, and went to go look down at it from one of the windows. “Oh.”

“Is this going to be a problem?” the ghost wanted to know.

Nie Mingjue looked at the man walking up. “No,” he said. “No problem.”

“What does he want? Is he going to make trouble for Sangsang?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. “Just for me.”

He waited outside the door, Baxia in his hand.

His father came to a stop a reasonable distance away. “What will it cost for you to return?” he asked.

It was about what Nie Mingjue had expected. They were a practical family.

Nie Mingjue didn’t have memories of his future life, and the ghost didn’t remember this period of his previous life: the months they had spent together in this abandoned fortress, the way Nie Mingjue taught him to smile and to crawl, fed him and changed him and slept with him to calm him, the life they had shared in the world without the ghost.

Still, he had asked the ghost the questions he had wanted answered, casually dropping names into conversation with the ghost to judge his response, and he figured out what his answer must have been in that life before.

He’d asked for the heads of those that had directly threatened Nie Huaisang, and an oath that the sect would honor Nie Huaisang as the heir, that he would be sect leader following Nie Mingjue. He’d gotten what he’d asked for, but what had been meant as a gift had in the end only been a burden – the ghost wouldn’t have been so desperate to come back to this time if it wasn’t.

He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

He smiled.

“I’d like to make some changes,” he said, thinking of all the people that the ghost had talked about – all the ones who had sad childhoods. Many were the children of the other Great Sects, which would make things tricky to start – most people didn’t want their children raised by outsiders – but he’d thought of ways to make it work, and he knew the investment would ultimately bear fruit. His father, ruthless as he was, would understand that part of it, at least, even if he didn’t understand the rest. “Back me in full, or lose me forever.”

This was even more of a gamble than what he had asked for in his past life. A few heads, even of loyal servants, didn’t matter much, compared to blood – a blank slate was a far more dangerous request.

His father looked him over, and Nie Mingjue knew that he was calculating whether it was worth it. Whether it was Nie Mingjue’s head that he should take, this time, since he himself was still young enough to have more sons. But Nie Mingjue had learned from the ghost all the secrets he’d known about his own future cultivation, added to it the demonic cultivation he’d deduced, and he was, in the end, a genius.

There was a reason he was confident enough to make the request.

“Very well,” his father said. “I will back you.”

They told everyone that the ghost was an ancestor.

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lao nie #my fic #my fics #Anonymous

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xiyao-feels · 3 years

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Nie//yao (MDZS)

So NMJ/JGY is actually getting two versions, because my read on them is wildly different for MDZS vs CQL.

In MDZS I...don't ship it? I mean, there just doesn't seem to be to be anything there at all of a romantic or sexual nature. It's not that they don't care about each other, they clearly do, but it's in a way that is...NMJ as substitute father, JGY as substitute brother, and heavily, heavily inflected by their (current and then former) relationship as superior and subordinate.

Putting this behind a cut because a) it's me explaining at breath length with quotes why I don't think they have a romantic or sexual relationship and I don't want people to have to see that unless they want and b) accordingly it is REALLY LONG and I also don't want to clutter people's dashes, so.

Actually backing up a step, I don't see MDZS NMJ as being attracted to anyone, that's not really specific to JGY. I tend to read him as aspec, tbh. So theoretically he could have romantic feelings about JGY without being attracted to him—I think he may have some quasi-romantic feelings for LXC, though I don't think he conceptualizes it that way—but... honestly, it's not really clear to me that he even likes JGY as a person.

I'm not saying he doesn't like JGY! He clearly does, at least before MY tricks him and flees. But it doesn't seem to have anything to do with MY's personality, as opposed to like—MY being really competent and conducting himself well.

Some quotes about what exactly NMJ values about JGY:

'Nie MingJue interrupted him, “I promoted you not because I wanted you to give back anything out of gratitude. I simply thought that you should stay in this position, since you are capable enough and your conduct is to my liking. If you really want to pay me back, just kill a few more of those Wen-dogs on the battlefield!”'

'After [Meng Yao] left [for Langya], Nie MingJue switched to another deputy. Wei WuXian, however, felt that the new one was always a few beats slower. Meng Yao was an unusually clever talent. He could understand what wasn’t said, and perform to the best with the simplest orders. He was efficient and never slacked. Anyone used to him wouldn’t be able to refrain from comparing him with others.'

'Nie MingJue was never close to people. He rarely opened up to anyone. Though he finally managed to obtain a competent, trustworthy subordinate, whose character and capabilities he approved, he found that the subordinate’s true colors were nothing like what he had thought they were. It was only natural that his reaction was so extreme.'

'Wei WuXian had once found it strange as well. Ever since Meng Yao betrayed the QingheNie Sect, the relationship between Nie MingJue and him hadn’t been the same as before. Then why did they later become sworn brothers? From his observations, aside from how Lan XiChen brought it up, having always hoped that the two would reconcile, the most important factor was probably the gratitude of saving his life and writing the letters. To be precise, in his past battles, he had more-or-less depended on the information that Meng Yao sent over through Lan XiChen. He still thought that Jin GuangYao was a talented person whom one would rarely come upon, and intended on leading him back onto the right path. However, Jin GuangYao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin GuangYao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie HuaiSang.'

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?"

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

You might notice a recurring theme here: there's a lot of focus JGY's competence and conduct. But anything about who JGY is as a person? Not so much.

They clearly had a good superior/subordinate relationship going on, albeit one in which NMJ was missing a lot of context (see just behave well and show people up, plus the you're missing a solid foundation thing). But it does seem to be basically professional. WWX describes them as conversing "peaceably, even impressively" in contrast to "his future self, always being scolded by Nie MingJue" and "those jokes of how 'LianFang-Zun fled whenever he heard that ChiFeng-Zun arrived,'" and.... that's kind of it. The closest we get to them as friends is them talking together with LXC after NMJ tells MY he will give him a letter of recommendation and send him to his father; as WWX describes it, "The three chatted back and forth, at times serious, yet at times light. The conversation was much more relaxed than when they had been in the living room. Listening to their chatter, Wei WuXian often wanted to get a word in as well, yet he was unable to do so."

That's definitely not nothing! But it's also the most we ever get, only shows up the once, and is explicitly contrasted with their conversation from earlier. Moreover, I'm pretty sure LXC's presence is a necessary part of things; NMJ tends to respond differently to LXC than to other people (even just earlier in this chapter, we're told that while "Nie MingJue had never been one for humour," "in front of Lan XiChen his expression eased"), and WWX explicitly notes LXC's conversation skills in the context of this conversation: "At this point in time, their relationship really isn't bad. Zewu-Jun is actually quite good at holding conversations, so why is Lan Zhan so bad at it?"

In addition, I'd say that looking at the early part of that conversation is quite telling; while LXC and MY are sitting together as equals, MY stand up at once the moment NMJ interrupts, and doesn't sit even after NMJ tells him to do so (I think he probably does take a seat at some point, but the narrative doesn't actually tell us when). Moreover, MY seems to be worried that NMJ will be offended by a possible lack of gratitude on MY's part ("Sect Leader Nie, if you heard everything, then you should've also heard me say that..."), and the only objection he expresses to leaving is precisely that he owes NMJ a debt of gratitude, not anything to do with, like, missing him. To me all the evidence suggests that while they had a close relationship, it was not a /personal/ relationship, but fundamentally one of superior and subordinate.

(For a close read of the scene where NMJ, LXC and MY are talking together, I highly recommend @confusion-and-more's post here)

Moving on, let's look at after JGY becomes JGY. They don't seem to particularly spend time together with each other, certainly not for the sake of it. There's a brief moment at the Flower Banquet where NMJ asks JGY why he's wasting his time with XY (who has not at this point in time committed his crime, he just has a reputation), but after JGY makes his excuse and scurries away, NMJ turns away and doesn't seem to seek him out or even pay him any particular attention for the rest of the scene; he only shows up once more, and that's following WWX. (And although JGY-as-replacement-NHS would be a post all on its own, I do think it's interesting to note that the exchange about XY is immediately followed by LXC and LWJ coming over, described in a way that highlights both their impressiveness and their status at brothers—their Twin Jade-ness, one might say.) During the guqin scene, NMJ only speaks once, and it's to address LXC—to protest the inappropriateness of LXC leaking exclusive Lan techniques. When JGY shows up to play the guqin for him the first time, NMJ asks JGY "what did you come here for," which suggests that NMJ is not generally expecting JGY to come by without a specific, concrete reason. The closest they ever seem to get after JGY becomes JGY is during these guqin-playing sessions, and as WWX describes it, "when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out"—which is certainly better than there being no peace at all, but which I think suggests there's still at least some tension, given that it's only a "hint."

Now, NMJ certainly cares about JGY, both in the sense of desiring his well-being, at first, and absolutely in the sense of being emotionally invested in him—even after his death, as a fierce corpse his only desire is to kill Jin Guangyao. But while they had a close superior-subordinate relationship—certainly NMJ seems to have felt close to MY—at no point was it a close personal relationship, and I don't think that NMJ even liked JGY (or MY, I'm using the name expansively) as a person, let alone was in love with him.

But mostly so far I've been focusing in NMJ's feelings. What about JGY? Is /he/ in love with NMJ?

Once again, I just don't read him that way. This isn't to say he didn't care for NMJ—he absolutely did! He goes to quite significant lengths to save his life from WRH in the Sun Palace, including quite a lot of risk to MY himself—I analyze that in a lot more depth in the first part of my post here, if you're interested, though I will also note now that he specifically sent for LXC to help NMJ. (You'll have to scroll down some; I'm responding to someone else's post.) Afterwards, he kneels to NMJ and apologizes, I think sincerely, for hurting him and for invoking his pain about his father's death. He certainly conceives of himself as owing a debt of gratitude to NMJ for recognizing him, and he's so overcome when NMJ offers to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation, saying that he didn't promote MY so that MY would owe him, that he quite remarkably can't even find words. NMJ meant a lot to him, and so did NMJ's not defining him in terms of his birth—until he did, of course, at the stairs kick incident. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing to suggest he has /romantic feelings/ for NMJ, and frankly—how can I put this—it does not at all surprise me that JGY isn't in love with someone with a violent temper who is noted at least twice to react to people explaining themselves when he is angry with even more anger, and that's even without the thing where he nearly killed JGY on multiple occasions and called him the son of a prostitute.

No, I think JGY's emotional journey with NMJ goes through three stages: first, he's deeply grateful to him and respects him a great deal, although he's also aware of NMJ's lack of awareness of certain social realities (see: the teacup scene, NMJ yelling at the other Nie cultivators about their treatment of MY and telling MY not to worry as long as his conduct is upright); second, after Sun Palace, still gratitude and respect but also a mounting frustration with his lack of awareness of the implications of JGY's social position and his hypocrisy re: acceptable violence; finally, after the stairs kick when NMJ kicks him down the stairs, almost kills him, and tells him what else can be expected from the son of a prostitute, he is completely done with NMJ, but is still very much scared of him. The gratitude, I've discussed; the frustration, I think is fairly obvious in the speech he gives back to NMJ at the stairs. But I think the fear is often undervalued, so I'm going to pull a bunch of quotes again:

Meng Yao shrunk immediately after his previous outburst. Watching Baxia slash toward him, he sprinted off at once, scared lifeless. Of the two, one striked with madness and the other fled with madness. Both staggered, still soaked in blood. In such amusing circumstances, as Wei WuXian chopped at the future Chief Cultivator, in his heart he split his sides laughing. He thought that if not for how Nie MingJue was under heavy injuries and lacked spiritual power, Meng Yao would probably have been dead already.

Baxia’s strikes were so menacing that Shuoyue had to unsheath. Lan XiChen stopped him, half to support his figure and half to block his attacks, “MingJue-xiong, calm down! Why bother?”

Nie MingJue, “Why don’t you ask what he did?!”

Lan XiChen turned around to look at Meng Yao, his face was full of terror. He stammered as if he didn’t dare speak.

Nie MingJue remained silent, while Baxia and Shuoyue continued. Meng Yao took a glimpse at the glares from the clashes of the saber and the sword, his gaze full of fear. After a while, however, he still took a step forward. He kneeled to Nie MingJue.

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side.

[part of his speech to NMJ at the stairs] You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I'm afraid of everything, even other people!

Within the temple, three people called Nie MingJue’s corpse ‘Brother’ but the three tones were drastically different. Jin GuangYao’s face was full of a drowning fear. His entire body began to shiver. No matter dead or alive, the person Jin GuangYao was most scared of was none but this sworn brother of his whose temper tolerated no evil. As his body shivered, his hands shivered as well, and the bloody guqin string he clutched tightly in his hand also began to shiver.

Clenching his teeth, Jin GuangYao struck a few acupoints of his arm. Amidst the dizziness that came from a loss of blood, he suddenly saw Nie MingJue walk a step towards him, his eyes locked on him. He was immediately half-dead with fear.

Collapsed beside Lan XiChen, Jin GuangYao saw this scene as well. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears could be seen in his eyes. But before he had a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.

The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face held a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”

I think the stuff with, you know, handling NMJ's fierce corpse and hanging onto his head is often viewed as evidence of JGY's continued emotional investment in NMJ, but... I don't really think so? First of all, NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY. I'll spare you another round of quotes on that because this is already ridiculously long and because it's not at all subtle—it's all over the temple chapters, take a look! And second of all—well, there's ways of getting information from a corpse. In this case, NMJ's resentful energy is so strong that without the protection of his body, papernan WWX is actually sucked into NMJ's memories against his will! Sure, maybe no one would risk it, and maybe no one who risked it would survive, but especially given that NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY, that's a heck of a risk to take. And look at the description of the protections around NMJ's head:

Suddenly, Wei WuXian noticed that one of the shelves were blocked by a curtain. The curtain was covered in sinister, blood-red runes. It was a talisman of forbiddance, one of extreme power.

Jin GuangYao walked over and lifted the curtain.

For a split second, Wei WuXian thought that he had been exposed. After the faint firelight made its way through the curtain, he found that he was enveloped in a shadow. A circular object just happened to be in front of him.

Jin GuangYao stood still, as though he was staring into the eyes of whatever was inside this shelf.

After a moment, he spoke, “Were you the one looking at me?"

Of course, there couldn’t be any response. He was silent for a while, then let down the curtain.

Wei WuXian quietly attached himself to the object. Cold and hard, it seemed to be a helmet. He then turned to the front. As he had expected, he saw a pallid face. The one who sealed the head wanted it to see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing, and so incantations had been crowded onto the waxen skin. The eyes, the ears, and the mouth were all sealed tightly shut.

There's containment, it's suppressed to all hell and back, and JGY quite justifiably expects it to be murderously obsessed with him, but to me it doesn't suggest a reciprocal obsession—just more fear.

I'll also note that as a strategy for containing the information about his own involvement it's a very successful operation! It failed in the end /eventually/, but the failure needed:

someone who could successfully break into his private treasure room and escape without being caught

who could also perform Empathy or a similar tecnnique on NMJ's head and survive it

who could successfully recreate from memory the altered Empathy song

whom LXC would be willing to listen to

That's a heck of a tall order!

As to being done with NMJ after the stairs, well, listen to what he says to LXC:

[...]

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

[...]

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis? Is it that because I couldn’t choose my background, because my mother couldn’t choose her fate, I’ll have to be humiliated by others throughout my whole life? If so, then how is Brother different from the people who look down on me? No matter what I do, in the end, just a sentence and I’m ‘the son of a prostitute’.”

And then of course there's what he says to LXC, in his speech to him at the end: "You, on the other hand, ZeWu-Jun, Sect Leader Lan, are as intolerant of me as Nie MingJue—you refuse to spare me even a single breath of life!"

So—wow, this got very long—I don't ship them, and although I think they have very much mattered emotionally to each other, I don't really see them as ever having been in love with or attracted to each other.

A couple of end notes:

In MDZS, NMJ isn't the first (non-MS) person who recognizes MY's worth, although he is the first person to promote him; by the time NMJ promotes MY MY has already met, rescued, and exchanged intimate confidences with LXC, who respects him greatly and thinks he is highly talented (see again the conversation in Hejian which NMJ overhears/eavedrops on).

I've seen people talk about them not understanding each other, but while NMJ certainly doesn't understand JGY, it's not at all obvious that the reverse is true; he generally seems to understand him pretty well. I think he has two surprises overall: first, that he wasn't expecting NMJ to say he didn't promote MY so MY would owe him, and volunteer to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation—and second, he wasn't expecting NMJ, who for all his flaws did seem to ignore JGY's background in good ways as well as bad, to call him the son of a prostitute.

I definitely don't read the coffin at the end as romantic. Or I mean, uh, there's the romance of an obsessive stalker-murderer finally getting his victim, and that's not nothing (unironically; look, I'm a Hannibal fan), but I don't think it's usually what people mean. This is a shitty end for JGY, part of how thoroughly he loses and is destroyed. I think to some extent it might be that he doesn't want LXC to be the one who killed him, and to some extent it's an act of defiance—now that he has nothing to lose, not even his life, he's going to go out fighting. I would expand on this but this post is ridiculously long and I have way too many quotes, maybe I'll do it in a separate post later on—but if you look at the description of it in the text, plus the subsequent description of it in the coffin...yeah. JGY didn't want to die, he didn't want to be engaged in a mutually destructive thing with NMJ; he wanted to leave NMJ behind in the past, and move on. It's not, for him any kind of fulfillment, is my read.

All quotes are taken from the Exiled Rebels translation: ch 48-50 for everything about NMJ and JGY's past relationship, ch. 47 for the description of JGY's containment measures for NMJ's head, and ch. 106-108 for the quotes about JGY's fear of NMJ's fierce corpse. The description of JGY going into the coffin is at the end of 108 if you want to have a look, and there's more in 109 and 110 about the difficulty of sealing NMJ's fierce corpse/its power and violence.

#ship meme #ship negativity #this is so goddamn long #how many quotes can I fit in one post? dear god #also there's no way the coffin is actually staying shut for 100 years see ch. 113 #also I didn't want to rely on material that isn't in the final text but if you do look at the scene of JGY cutting NMJ's head off #the same theme of NMJ's fierce corpse's murderous obsession + JGY's fear are very much there #also I'm not sure I'd call it a notp exactly? like obviously I don't see it but there are versions of it I can kind of enjoy #but I figured I was being well by all accounts it doesn't make sense enough that I wanted to circle it as like. a warning XP #we can't change places #anger burned in his heart #more than one tag could contain #long meta

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paradife-loft · 4 years

Text

Close reading all the Jin Guangyao scenes: episode 10

Episode 11 | Episode 22 | Episode 23

So, when I was talking to @fatalism-and-villainy the other day, I mentioned how while doing this third watch of The Untamed, I was feeling really quite tempted to make a semi-liveblogging project out of doing a close analysis of basically every episode where Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao has a substantial scene.... Their response was only to encourage me in this further obsessive descent, and well, here we are.

I’m starting with episode 10 where we are in this watch right now, rather than going back to episode 4, because while ep4 is utterly delightful, I don’t really feel like I have a lot to say about it that hasn’t already been hashed to death.

Meanwhile, episode 10... oh boy! So much going on here. This episode is most interesting to me because the main theme we see in a majority of Meng Yao’s scenes, is how wholeheartedly invested he is in advancing the cause and prominence of the Nie Sect that he serves. Particularly in light of how we see him later giving the same loyalty and effort to the Jin sect, it’s a really cool (and tragic, tbh) precursor that shows a lot about how much he’ll make a point of doing well by those who’ve elevated him in turn.

So he first shows up with Nie Huisang, when WWX/LWJ/JC are all discussing with Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen what they ought to do with Xue Yang. Noticing the latter two (who are established already as being well-known heroes throughout the cultivation world), he asks if they wouldn’t come along to Qinghe to figure out how best to punish Xue Yang, and also what the best course of action would be for dealing with the Wen sect. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan rebuff this offer... because they understand, accurately, that what Meng Yao is suggesting/asking about is for them to establish a relationship tying them, however informally (for now), to the Qinghe Nie sect.

(^This, incidentally, is the face he makes when they say “yeahhh, but no thanks,” or specifically, “We give less value to blood heritage and more to like-mindedness. We don’t want to depend on any cultivation family.” This is the face of “oh, okay, tell me no in such direct terms, when I went to the trouble of phrasing my suggestion a bit more obliquely, thanks so much,” and also, “Wow, doesn’t that sound nice to be able to do :/”)

Then a few minutes later, we get this wonderful facial expression! ...which I don’t actually have a whole lot to say about, except that I take it for... curiosity, mostly, about someone who’s had such an outsize effect on the local area, what with murdering a handful of minor cultivation clans? Interest in what inter-clan strategic advantages could be gained in one way or another with Xue Yang as a bargaining chip, source of information, etc.? Possibly also interest in the sense of, this is also someone who came from nothing and has been able to get a lot of important people to pay attention to him (even if not for a good reason), depending on how much he’s heard about Xue Yang as a person? There’s a lot of possibilities this is opening up, and I think he’s basically curious to see what happens.

Again, we just have him being very good at working the angles to get an advantage to the Nie sect (compared to the Wen sect in this case). Jiang Cheng even comments on him being thorough and formidable! (And Huisang mentions that Nie Mingjue really admires him; and Wei Wuxian says it looks like Jin Guangshan doesn’t know how to recognise talent... anyway.)

Mmmm, yep, douchebags gonna douchebag.... Nothing terribly interesting here that hasn’t already been noted a zillion times, since the basic fundamentals of his character relate to how poorly others treat him for his birth. (It is noteworthy though, I think, how the condensed timeline & events for Meng Yao killing his superior and ruining his relationship with Nie Mingjue in the process compared to the extended version in the novel, alters the first bit of screen time we get here seeing what Nie Mingjue is actually like as a leader. In the novel, his men in the army have a bit of a nasty gossip problem, but the person who mistreats Meng Yao and takes credit for his ideas later is a part of the Jin clan; in the drama, various Nie sect disciples have a gossip problem that he berates them for, but even so he still is, at best, ignorant of how his men’s mistreatment of the person he promoted and thinks highly of has continued.)

Oh boy, here’s where it starts to get fun! This is Meng Yao’s face as Wen Chao has just threatened to do “housecleaning” of the Nie sect if they don’t hand over Xue Yang, and it’s looking as though Nie Mingjue won’t be able to contain the conflict in a single one-on-one duel with Wen Zhuliu. It’s curious - he has a smirky face looking over toward Huisang when NMJ initially throws Baxia out in front of Wen Chao, like he’s thinking clearly the offered duel would go their way. Was he expecting the duel to be between NMJ and Wen Chao, who he’d clearly clean the floor with, and Wen Zhuliu stepping up instead took him off-guard? - Because that’s when he looks down thinking very quickly for a couple moments, and then tells Huisang he’s going to go check on Xue Yang.

As @veliseraptor and @ameliarating and I hashed out as this scene continued: what makes the most sense here is that, seeing how things might be going downhill for the Nie sect very quickly if something isn’t done to get the Wen sect off their backs, Meng Yao makes the snap calculation that the best course of action to keep them from getting massacred would be to free Xue Yang to hand him over. He doesn’t really look happy as he heads away from the entrance here; he looks like someone making the unpleasant decision to let a known murderer avoid justice because it will be better for his immediate concern of preserving the sect and clan he serves. Mingjue is uncompromising, but Meng Yao will look for the most advantageous option he can see and go for it, even if it’s a bit shady and perhaps not what his sect leader would prefer. Nie Mingjue respects him and listens to him well when he explains, after all, so with so much at stake, taking this gamble is probably worth the risk.

Aaaand, then we get to the part where he quite deservedly stabs the army commander who’s been treating him like shit for the past while! It’s not terribly clear (especially at this point) the exact chain of events that occurred before NMJ showed up, but from the number of other bodies in the back of the scene, I do think it’s quite plausible that Xue Yang actually did kill most of the dead Nie disciples there, as that would be... a lot of people for someone with a weak cultivation base to off very quickly. And the commander himself - I take that as a highly relished stroke of opportunism, honestly. Meng Yao picks up a Wen sword to use to kill him because he is good at quick thinking to avoid self-incrimination, but I don’t think he’d been intending on multiple homicides when he initially went back to grab Xue Yang before Wen Chao ordered his men to attack everyone and all hell broke loose.

Oh, ow! NMJ is getting ready to attack him, as Meng Yao frantically tries to talk him down - and Meng Yao still instinctively jumps in front of a sword for his sect leader! Like, truly, honestly, I do believe he had great regard for and loyalty to Nie Mingjue at the very least up through the end of this episode. Whether or not this particular sword thrust could have been fatal to either of them, it still says quite a lot about how he values Chifeng-zun’s person more than his own, even as he’s quite possibly gearing up to kill Meng Yao for what he’s done. That is just... a real intense instinctive sense of obligation and value differential between the two of them that he has, here. Ouch, ouch.

When they resume in the throne room, I think there’s a lot that’s already been said and/or is obviously central, with the line about “fame for merit” and how much it matters to him being the big one. (Why should being recognised for your merit matter so much??? says the one who essentially always has been - lining up one of the central conflicts that continues between the two of them until the ends of their lives.) But I do think it’s pretty fun and telling how seamlessly (performance-wise) Meng Yao slips in the definite lie about the army commander freeing Xue Yang, amongst all the other (pretty certainly true) reasons to condemn him, and then claims it’s all true. I think it definitely speaks of... familiarity with being in a position where others won’t take your own actual reasons for doing something as a good enough justification, and so you develop an intuition of how to mix in motives that also target and appeal to the person you’re talking to as well, to avoid harsh punishment.

Also... hmmmm..... >>>

Hey look, I’m just saying there’s some interesting thematic comparisons going on in this show regarding moral worth and who a person considers to have enough ethical standing and goodness in them to judge them for their actions and have them accept it, okay?

Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian are amazing narrative foils and I am probably never going to get tired of saying it.

Bonus round!

(When you’ve just been stabbed but you’re still really worried about the attack on the Cloud Recesses that Wen Chao has just revealed, because of what it means could be happening to one incredibly wonderful person! Better go make sure he’s okay, right?? ~*~ XiYao feels intensify ~*~)

#holy fuck this was a lot more than I was intending on writing at least for a first post here :'D #BUT HE'S WORTH IT <3333 #jin guangyao #meng yao #the untamed #meta #op #long post for ts #no good things for the poor sad cultivators #CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP

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