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drwcn · 3 years

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CQL!AU: Everyone is an orphan except Wei Wuxian, and the Twin Jades are dark practitioners. Needless to say, that changes things. (canon what canon)

Master Post

[1-3]

[1] Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were the ones who died early. Wei Changze returned to Lotus Pier to become the guardian and regent of his best friend’s son and heir.

Lotus Pier was black and white. Lifeless.

That was the first thought that crossed Cangse Sanren’s mind when she and Wei Changze docked at the port, swords in hand, and their little son in toll.

The people mourned. Posts were temporarily closed, the market suspended. Windows and doors of their bustling riverside town were firmly shut, with white and black drapes hanging from its sills and fluttering in the wind.

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were dead. Two young cultivators, parents, taken from this world too young, gone before their time.

“A-Ying, come child,” Cangse extended a hand to the boy who glanced around at the unfamiliar place with timid curiosity.

“A-niang, what’s going on?”

“No questions. You must behave yourself today.” Cangse brought her son closer to her, watching her husband’s usually smiling, gentle face pull taut into a mask that betrayed none of the grief he felt underneath. He held himself taller today, shoulders pulled back, spine rod-straight and jaws clenched. She’d forgotten, after all these wonderful years of travelling the world with their family, that this place was once his home.

“Er’shixiong,” a man greeted them at the pier, flanked by a party of younger Jiang disciples, all appropriately garbed with white sashes around their waist. “Cangse-daozhang.”

They had spoken in depth about returning. Cangse knew there was nothing she could do to stop him; Changze’s devotion to Jiang Fengmian ran deeper than she understood. It was never herself that Yu Ziyuan should’ve resented; though however misplaced Madam Yu’s jealousy had been, it was a moot point now.

Chang’ge, I will not ask you to choose between your love for him and your promise to me. If Lotus Pier is where you wish to go, I will go with you. I cannot promise however that I will always stay. That — is not my nature.

Thank you, Wumei*. I understand.

They found Jiang Wanyin, the little lord, and his sister Jiang Yanli, in their mourning robes, kneeling and crying before their parents’ funeral altar.

Wei Changze sunk to his knees beside them, and folded his body until his forehead hit the ground. “Shixiong,” he spoke to the spirits. “I’ve come back.”

“Who are you?!” The boy Jiang Cheng, five-years-old and hurting, blurted out rudely through his tears. His sister held him from behind and gave a trembling nod of deference to the older man.

“Wei-shishu.”

Beside her, clinging to her skirt, Wei Ying looked up and asked quietly, “A-niang, are we going to stay?”

Cangse Sanren, the favoured fifth pupil of Baoshan Sanren herself, smiled down quietly at her only child and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, A-Ying we will. Lotus Pier is home now.”

(JC 5 yro; WWX 5 yro; JYL 8 yro)

[2] When Qingheng-jun’s respected mentor died - murdered - he made a very different choice. He turned his back on his clan and his responsibilities, and escaped into the wild with the woman he loved. They were just an ordinary family, living away from the chaos in a paradise of their own. But even Eden eventually falls, and nothing gold ever stays...

Take A-Huan and A-Zhan and go! Do not stop until you are safe. Do not turn around. Do not come back.

Shijie! You’re injured! Let me help you -

Zhao Ming! Zhao Zhuliu, you listen to me: their names, Lan Xichen for the older, and Lan Wangji for the younger. It’s what their father and I wanted for them.

Shijie - jiejie -

Now go! Go!

A-Niang, come with us! A-Niang, don’t go!! A-Niang!!!

The forest burned like the autumn sun at dusk descending from the sky, red and golden and glorious. A single figure stood amongst the flames, corpses littered at her feet. Bichen fell from her grip, barely making a sound as it landed against dampened earth, soaked with Lan blood. Those who fought her were dead, but she feared that she did not have long either.

“Rong-gege,” Qiu Baiti collapsed onto her hands and dragged her body towards the man who lay still amongst the carnage, arrows piercing his front, his sword Shuoyue still clutched tight in his left hand.

Lifeless eyes remained open, as though he could not rest.

“Rong-gege,” Baiti called helplessly, crawling to him and laying her head down against his chest. There used to be a heartbeat there, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear it again. “Wait, don’t go without me...”

She was so tired and bled from so many places. It was not until a sharp cry and a familiar face descended from the sky that Qiu Baiti realized the inferno which surrounded her was not yet hell.

"Qiu-jiejie!" Cangse rushed forth, almost tripping over the corpse of a dead Lan disciple in her haste. “Lan-da’ge, he -” A horrified gasp drowned the rest of her words.

“Cangse...you’re here...”

Cangse gathered her bosom sister into her arms and immediately drew upon a torrent of spiritual energy from her core, channeling them into her fingertips to heal her friend. She could tell that whatever combat Qiu Baiti had been through, it had already taken the little life inside her, and now hers was following it to the other side.

“Hold on, I can save you - hold on -”

“Cangse - Cang - stop, it’s too late.” Qiu Baiti lay limp there.

Death, it drew near, but she was ready. She closed her eyes as a slip of tear escaped beneath her lashes. "I did this to him, to all of them... if I hadn't...it’s all my fault. I was the one they wanted; he was just trying to protect me. A-Huan, A-Zhan...."

Trembling and in near hysterics, Cangse sobbed, “No, don’t say that! Where are the boys?”

“Safe. A-Ming has them...you mustn’t tell anyone. Not anyone, promise me. Not even Lan Qiren. Especially Lan Qiren... Rong-gege trusts his brother, but I - I - promise me - promise -” Qiu Baiti gasped for breath, gurgling blood in her throat with each laboured attempt.

“Qiu-jiejie, please - don’t - I - I promise.”

“Good...Cangse...” Qiu Baiti clutched her hand and smiled, a crimson wound cutting across her pale, beautiful face. “Good.”

And then she died, with the red of the forest flames still in her eyes.

Cangse held her friend - dear, damned, dead - and allowed a scream to tear through herself. From the depth of her grief, she released a pulse of unrestrained spiritual energy that rippled through the dense woods as though the storm of her anguish could not be contained. And like a measly candle-light assaulted by the winter wind, the forest fire was extinguished in an instant.

The sun was gone, and the night was dark. All was quiet, but there was no peace to be found.

Cangse buried Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti in two unmarked graves side by side beneath a tall oak tree. She sifted through the bodies and the grime and collected the spiritual weapons they left behind — Shuoyue, Bichen, Liebing (cracked in two places) and the strings of Qiu Baiti’s shattered guqin — and stored them away in her qiankun pouch. She hoped one day that she would find Zhao Zhuliu and the sons Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti had left behind, and return these items to their rightful owners.

It was not until three years later, not too far from her shifu Baoshan’s sacred temple nestled in the snowy mountain peak, where Jiang Yanli had been brought to strengthen her health and train as Cangse’s direct disciple, that Cangse perchance came across Zhao Ming again.

He was accompanied by two youngsters, two beautiful jade-like children who called him jiufu. Cangse was not surprised in the least to find that both of them have learned the technique for which their mother and jiujiu were hunted: the core-melting hand.

(LXC 9, LWJ 6 -> LXC 12, LWJ 9 )

[3] They called her “The Little Queen”. Wen Qing never wanted to be Sect Master, or Deputy Sect Master, or Regent Sect Master. She just wanted to live quietly with A-Ning and Wen-popo and study the art of healing that her parents practiced. But alas, life had other plans.

Wen Qing was a month short of her tenth birthday when her life changed forever.

Wen Ruohan, her father’s older cousin, who’d always been close with her family, had come to visit Dafan. Wen-bobo didn’t have siblings, and her father Wen Ruotian was as close as a brother to him, more than any other Wen descendent of their time.

Wen Qing liked Wen Ruohan well. He was doting and found her intelligent. Her parents chose the simple village life, but they often spent New Years and holy days at Nevernight at Sect Master Wen’s behest and invitation.

When Wen Ruohan came to Dafan and told her folks that there was a piece of the Yin Iron inside the Stone Fairy, her father had been eager to help, though weary he was of those powers he could not understand.

He’d been right to be afraid.

The extraction had gone horribly wrong, and the rebound of dark energy had eviscerated all those near by, her mother, her father, and Wen Ruohan himself. It was by the skin of her teeth that Wen Qing managed to yank her baby brother Wen Ning out of the way. Then, without thinking, she caught the vile, wretched thing as it sailed through the air. It landed in the palm of her hands, and there she stood, regarded with fear and bewonderment from all those in witness as the cursed item, which burned the life out of cultivators much older and seasoned than her, quieted in her small hands.

The Elders said she had...a nature affinity. For what, they could not say.

Wen Qing was brought back to Nevernight and given the name Yuefan: to exceed mortality. Within days, the heavy crown of Sect Master of Qishan Wen was placed on her head.

It was then that she learned that her Wen-bobo, with no inclination to marry and bind himself to another, did not leave behind a legitimate heir. His young sons, 4-year old Wen Xu and 2 year-old Wen Chao were born to him by women of ill repute. They were kind, good boys, but they were infantile and illegitimate. Wen Qing felt for them, but she could not change their fate. So for the time being, she accepted what she had to.

The adults did what they could for her, but there was no one in the cold, vast palace of Nevernight to mind her or nurture her. She stood alone upon the towers where the eternal flames, fuelled by Qishan Wen’s combined spiritual energy, burned in their iron brazier, and watched over the lush volcanic mountain range that was hers to govern and protect. Those beneath her - servants, disciples - feared her and her unknown powers. Those advising her - Elders, mentors - had their own agendas. In any case, they stopped seeing her as a child the minute she held the Yin Iron in her hands and lived to tell the tale.

It was a secret, they told her. She must guard it well.

The Chief Cultivator Jin Guangshan sent his ambassadors to congratulate her succession. Gusu’s Lan Qiren and Qinghe’s Nie Heqiu both arrived consecutively to pay their respects to their ten-year-old colleague and fellow Sect Master.

There was a momentary rumble amongst the Wen Elders about whether Nie Heqiu’s older son Nie Mingjue would be a good match for her someday, but as he too was set to inherit, the idea was put aside as quickly as it was brought up.

Then came Yunmeng’s regent Wei Changze, bringing along an entourage of Jiang disciples and a boy one year her junior, the son he conceived with the revered Cangse Sanren.

Wei Wuxian.

Wen Qing liked him enough. He was spontaneous, agreeable, and clever, and he found her aloofness fun to provoke. They would’ve both been satisfied with the arrangement had she not met Yunmeng Jiang’s young Jiang-zongzhu some years later, and had he not crossed paths with the vengeful and infamous Lan Wangji.

But life, as the gods have planned it, must have its mysteries.

(WQ 10, WWX 9)

TBH?

Note:

Wumei - fifth sister, Wei Changze’s nickname for Cangse.

Details of Cangse and Wei Changze’s name as well as Qingheng-jun and Madam Lan’s name can be found here .

jiufu 舅父 - maternal uncle, formal.

#cql #the untamed #wei changze #cangse sanren #qingheng-jun #madam lan #wen qing #cql ficlet #It’s Sunday and I worked about 60 hours this week #and i say the jades are evil #and so evil they will be #i do recommend listening to gloria regali when reading this #or like the GoT soundtrack lmao #obviously some deaging of wen chao and wen xu #im literally imagining young queen amidala for wen qing lol #maybe i'lld write more if ppl wnat to see more of this disaster au #corie fics #carbon in the steel

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