#good friend nie huaisang

[wangxianficrecs]

Cleaning & Courtship by Winxhelina

Cleaning & Courtship

by Winxhelina (@winxhelina)

T, 13k, Wangxian

Summary: It all started with some offhand comment Jin Zixun had made about Wei Wuxian's father having been a servant. About how he should stick to that and not aim for places not meant for him. Wei Wuxian had been at a party at the time with Nie Huaisang and unlikely as it had been, Lan Wangji had been there too. Wei Wuxian had complained about money and that had seemingly inspired the comment from a man, who, Wei Wuxian was sure, had never worked a day in his life. Lan Wangji had stared at Jin Zixun so hard Wei Wuxian thought he might actually drop dead. Somehow, two months later, Wei Wuxian actually finds himself cleaning rich people’s houses. There are very few cultivators wiling to clean houses for other cultivators, but there is demand for it. You can't hire a regular maid to dust and clean your ancient artefacts, even just sword maintenance is a whole area of expertise that civilians aren't qualified to do. In which Wei Wuxian accidentally ends up cleaning his long-time friend's house and Lan Zhan's room harbours a secret. Kay's comments: A lovely modern with cultivation AU in which Wei Wuxian is a cleaner as a part-timer and focusses on cleaning cultivation artifacts. Really loved the sprinkles of world-building in this story, about how cultivation functions in modern society and which parts have been affected by technology. My highlight was definitely Huaisang though! For being a true friend and looking out for Wei Wuxian and making sure that Lan Wangji cultivates his intentions clearly. And Wangxian are - of course - also very adorable! Excerpt: "We're here to cultivate and meditate," Lan Wangji reminds them. Both boys stare at him oddly. Nie Huaisang eventually sighs, "Wangji-xiong, forgive this humble one," he says theatrically, “but Wei-xiong is my esteemed friend, so I have to at least ask, do you even really like him?" Lan Wangji feels very taken aback by being confronted so bluntly, "... I do." Nie Huaisang watches him with the sort of intensity very few people dare to. He flips his fan open and hides the bottom half of his face, still staring. He closes his fan and waves his hand away, "Ah. Good then," he says casually and throws himself back on his bed, as if the whole thing wasn't at all a big deal. "Why would you even ask it like that?!" Wei Wuxian cries, he's not horribly flustered, but there is a light blush on his cheeks. Nie Huaisang shrugs, "You get enough shit from your family. You don't need another person constantly reminding you that love is conditional and can be taken away from you at any moment. "

pov wei wuxian, pov lan wangji, modern setting, modern with magic, getting together, getting to know each other, lan wangji loves rabbits, first kiss, developing relationship, good friend nie huaisang, wingman nie huaisang, fluff, sweet

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #Wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #December 2023 #Teen #short fic <15k #Cleaning & Courtship #Winxhelina #pov wei wuxian #pov lan wangji #modern setting #modern with magic #getting together #getting to know each other #lan wangji loves rabbits #first kiss #developing relationship #good friend nie huaisang #wingman nie huaisang #fluff #sweet

[waitineedaname]

I am not a nie brothers scholar nor a jgy scholar so idk how to properly put these thoughts together, but I think it's unfair to act like nie huaisang would've tried to break up nieyao. what makes the tragedy and betrayal so delicious is that meng yao was his friend. in cql, he's visibly really worried about him and is pacing outside while nmj decides to kick him out. in the novels, jgy was constantly showering nhs with gifts tailored to his interests. nie huaisang liked him and trusted him, and that ultimately makes what happens later far more interesting than if he had hated him the whole time

#mdzs #i saw an incorrect quotes about nhs breaking up nieyao and i was like man... he wouldnt though #if anything he wouldve been their number one supporter back in the day #bc he wouldve thought he was a good influence on his brother #it's not until later that... well... everything goes so horribly #i think it actually really says something about nie huaisang #that he was able to look at this person who had once been his friend #and so completely unravel his life #because he was responsible for the death of his brother #people like to label themselves antis or apologists for these two #me personally? im putting them both in a jar and shaking them around #they are FASCINATING to me. i need to study them like bugs

[connectjump]

okay modern-day au with the MDZS characters, but make it a ghost-hunter au because it's been rattling around in my head for a while.

the unlikely four-man squad starting: wwx, jc, nhs, and lwj.

wei wuxian -

the unofficial leader of the group made it after a night of drinking and eating snacks with jc & nhs where he brought it up and they all went "sure why not".

wwx is the dude who always has something funny to say and jc is always ready to throw a response that others will quote or make fan art of.

makes a lot of equipment since he likes making things, and tinkering with whatever they do own to make it even better.

even better meaning it'll annoy the living hell out of jc.

is a bit of a spirit magnet. this is both good, and dangerous due to nhs's sensitivity to spirits.

he picks the places that the group will go to and is always ready to drop extra history of the place at the worst time.

aka the things, a ghost or demon might have done to a living person.

wwx : SO! it was in this very room that this one dude died [very horrible death]. jc is very much on the side of team, "stop talking before you freak out nhs anymore than he already is."

may or may not have talked lwj into joining their group. he may or may not also tease lwj any chance he gets.

jiang cheng -

jc is the voice of reason on the team. for every three ideas wwx has, jc has four ready in response of why, no, and absolutely not.

in charge of finding places to stay, and finding local shops in the area to interview folks.

probably hates the sound of the spirit box.

jc very much seemed the one whose not so easily startled when something happens, and usually has a logical explanation to keep himself and others calm.

jc can repel spirits to a small degree, the zone is about a 5mm radius around his person and those near him are safe and unaffected by the spirits. he isn't aware of this skill.

the designated driver of the group. can read a map, but uses the GPS that was gifted to him.

He's also the one who comments on the layout of everywhere they visit because if nobody is going to mention how POORLY thought out these old haunted buildings are. he will bring it up.

"these blueprints fucking suck. i would come back to haunt this place and the son of a bitch who made it if i died here." - jc

nie huaisang -

nhs joined the group because what's more fun than doing something with your friends after doing things you do not want to do.

poor nhs.

nhs is very much the sort of guy in the group who is like "i know a guy, who knows a guy and that guy knows something really interesting about this place."

wwx and jc never ask how nhs knows people or the more cryptic things about the building because nhs's only response was "the ghosts told me" in the most serious voice and they've been too scared to bring the question up again.

how and what nhs knows can be for nhs to know only.

wishes that he wasn't the one left alone in an area all by himself without the lights on, a mag light, a radio, and a spirit box.

spirits like the little guy, but nhs does not care much for them.

the one who's the most sensitive to spirits. but lwj is helping him with training to better resist the push & pull from spirits.

lwj and nhs are an unlikely duo when working together and outside of ghost hunting. the two know one another prior to ghost hunting due to their families, but never really interacted much more than was needed of them.

lan wangji -

the fourth member of the group! a surprising addition to the ones who know him and a fan favorite.

lwj is good with the equipment that they use and watching cameras when at base camp.

his family has knowledge of spirits, how to handle them, bring them peace, and help them crossover.

lwj makes sure that the group is well-protected and safe if the location is truly dangerous to them. wwx is always happy to show off whatever little charm (sometimes a little rabbit is often doodled on the charms!!) or a talisman lwj has made for the group.

he helps to round the group out, and fans enjoy how monotone he sounds and how unaffected he seems by the supernatural occurrences happening.

lwj is often paired with wwx when the group splits up into pairs. fans seem to enjoy their interactions, especially seeing how close the two of them become since lwj is very much still lwj.

lwj finds himself impressed with the group as a whole, everyone works well with one another, and their personalities mesh well.

when on break from ghost hunting wwx gifts lwj two rabbits, he will often post pictures of them online or send pictures of them into the ghost hunting group chat. the rabbits are spoiled rotten, most of it is lwj, but jc is also the next biggest spoiler of the rabbits with wwx and nhs being tied.

#i DonT cARE ABOUT tHE rABBits #mdzs au #mdzs modern au #mdzs ghost hunters au #the ghost hunting quartet #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #lan wangji #I WASN'T SUPER SURE OF HOW TO TAG THIS BUT TAKE IT #GET THE RATTLING OF THIS AU OUT OF MY HEAD!!! #sorry if it's ooc!!! i just want this to be free of my brain #jc my beloved #in this au lwj get's friends and by golly does he care about them #trust me the ghosts are scary but nhs is even more scary #- jc when asked if he likes lwj's rabbits while holding bags of rabbit goods #wwx is very much a chaotic loveable goober as per usual and you can believe when he realizes his feelings for lwj #he is very much like :0 and is a very cute mess #if anyone else finds joy in this bless you i just want these goobers to have some good fun silly times #feel free to babble or yell if you enjoy this! #papaya mumblings

[lilac-loserr]

Nie Huaisang (to literally anyone after his brother’s death): I’m going to exploit you. And you’re going to feel fucking good about it.

#mdzs as things my friends have said #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #nie huaisang #I mean not everyone felt good about it #but it worked out in the end #kind of

[yourcrumblingsaikiisnotmyproblem]

here's a few reminders for the mxtx fandom

1. Wei Wuxian had 2 older sister figures in his life and they both died trying to save him and in the end failed since he died anyway. (RIP Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli)

2. Mu Qing only ever had his mom other than XL and FX and she died a mortal death. We don't know anything about FX's mortal family.

3. Wen Ning was experimented on for 13 years in captivity after seeing his sister's ashes and blames himself still for wwx's downfall

4. He Xuan cannot leave the world even after his revenge to Shi Wudu and is purposeless for all of his immortal life.

5. Jin Ling will never taste her mom's handmade favourite soup.

6. Canon Feng Xin and Mu Qing do not know what happened at the temple to Xie Lian.

7. Jiang Cheng will probably never be good enough in his own eyes (until he has like grand-nephews or something)

8. Shi Qingxuan will (probably) die a mortal death.

9. Some of Nie Huaisang's last words to Nie Mingjue were that he never wanted to be a clan leader.

10. XL and WWX both tried to protect a certain demographic that got wiped out anyway and made them public enemies and reason for their eventual downfall making it essentially ineffective.

11. All the calamities are actually gods who could or did ascend heaven.

12. Xiao Xingchen killed himself after finding out he wiped out villages full of innocent people and his own best friend who he gave up his eyes for. And realising his pursuit of helping the world was worthless.

#im sorry guys #i just couldnt get it out of my head #please dont come at me #mxtx #mxtx tgcf #mxtx mdzs #mdzs #tgcf #hualian #wangxian #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #wen qing #wen ning #lan zhan #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #hua cheng #xie lian #mu qing #feng xin #shi qingxuan #he xuan #xiao xingchen #mo dao zu shi #tian guan ci fu #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #heaven official's blessing #founder of diabolism

[shanastoryteller]

Merry Christmas!! Could I get the Untamed please?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Wei Ying misses his parents, of course, but he doesn't remember them that well. He remembers how they made him feel, and what his mother's robe looked like, and the sound of his father's laughter. But it's snatches, more dreams then memories.

He remembers being cold and alone and hungry and scared for those terrible days after they disappeared - died. He remembers Wei Cheng finding him and saving him and how he'd felt like his mother and father both, the warm heat of a powerful golden core that felt like his mother's and the strong arms and broad shoulder of his father.

He's his father's cousin, he thinks, and he remembers his father saying they didn't have any other family, but maybe they just had a following out, or are related by marriage, or something. Because Wei Cheng had found him and raised him and Wei Ying has been calling him Dad for years and it doesn't feel like a betrayal. His father is dead. His father and mother left him behind and went on a night hunt and something went wrong and then he was all alone.

And then Dad found him.

He teaches Wei Ying everything, even gets him a real cultivator's blade, and he drills and trains him into the ground but Wei Ying doesn't mind. He understands.

His parents died on a night hunt. Dad just wants to make sure that never happens to him. He wants the same thing, to make sure he doesn't lose Dad in the same way he lost his parents, so he has to get stronger faster. He has to be good enough that Dad will trust him enough to take him on night hunts too, so that he can watch his back.

In lots of ways, joining the Nie is a relief.

He likes traveling, and how relieved and happy people are when they show up to a town in trouble, but the Nie are a proper clan, and Sect Leader Nie seems fond of his dad.

Like. Really fond. It's sort of gross.

But that probably means that he won't let him die. And Nie Huaisang is awesome, both of the equally thrilled to have a friend their own age. Nie Mingjue is a grouch, but he's delt with worse, so he doesn't mind. Especially because Nie Huaisang takes his side on any argument with his brother.

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

[incorrectly-quoting-mxtx]

I just realized that Shang Qinghua (writer of shitty porn) and Nie Huaisang (collector of shitty porn) would probably be really good friends if they ever met.

#shang qinghua #airplane shooting towards the sky #airplane bro #nie huaisang #svsss #mdzs

[rejectedfables]

Lan Xichen is clearly shaken by what WWX and LWJ tell him about NMJ’s death after the discussion conference. He has doubts, he is concerned, and in response to this he decides to USE THE EVIL SPIRIT AFFECTING MUSIC ON HIMSELF to SEE IF IT HARMS HIM. 

(A normal and hinged thing to do)

(it harmed him)

If we use Nie Mingjue’s behavior as a metric for what this selection from the Collection of Spirit Turmoil does to a person, we can reasonably assume it causes or exacerbates at least SOME of the following:

Disrupts spiritual energy such that a person progresses towards qi deviation

Emotional instability

Violent outbursts

Prone to suspicion or paranoia

Nie Mingjue is already prone to literally all of these things, but they ARE also the things the seem notably exacerbated at the end of his life. Whether it was The Song itself or merely the proximity to qi deviation which caused/exacerbated these things, we cannot be sure, but as the latter is caused by the former, there is no functional difference.

In Guanyin Temple, very shortly after Lan Xichen would have used the song on himself, he is notably distressed, his faith in JGY is further shaken, and he’s manipulated by Huaisang into killing Jin Guangyao-- something that is both understandable in context AND clearly horrifies him for the rest of his life.

Given the circumstances (learning what he’s just learned about JGY’s involvement in NMJ’s death, and then learning everything else he does during this scene), he was going to be upset with Jin Guangyao regardless. He was going to have questions, he was going to have doubts. But I do think it’s WORTH REMEMBERING that this man had JUST used the same song ON HIMSELF that Jin Guangyao used to speed up/cause Nie Mingjue’s qi deviation and death. It provides additional context for his reactions, both within the scene and after it.

Lan Xichen has spent over a decade on the same page with Jin Guangyao about JGY’s motivations, goals, and often even the unfortunate but necessary methods he needed to use to achieve said goals. LXC is not NMJ; he absolutely understood that JGY going undercover during Sunshot involved killing some of their own people, and he understands that that was unfortunate but necessary. He understood JGY’s situation with his father, understood that JGY was not in a position to do anything about JGS’s decisions wrt Xue Yang, supported JGY through everything it took to make the watchtowers a reality. NMJ told LXC about JGY killing his superior officer, and LXC went “I’m sure he had a good reason” and just MOVED ON. He’s not under the impression that JGY has never hurt anyone, broken the rules, or committed a crime-- he just does not care, because he truly believes that JGY is a smart, capable, and well intentioned person and therefore those are things to be understood and compassionate about, rather than condemn and scorn him for. He may not have been aware of the extent of JGY’s crimes, but he didn’t feel like he NEEDED to be. He knew JGY, and that was enough.

Under normal circumstances, Lan Xichen’s wish when finding out something that upsets him (especially with regards to his friends), is clearly to talk about it. The greatest example is when Nie Mingjue loudly and repeatedly threatened Jin Guangyao’s life-- Lan Xichen wanted to talk it out. FOREVER, if need be. This is a man who understands that mitigating circumstances exist (especially when it comes to JGY) but solves problems with people he KNOWS with words.

So he finds out JGY killed NMJ, and his response is horror. And his solution to that horror is that he wants answers. He wants to talk about it. Why didn’t you tell me? If you felt you were backed into a corner, why didn’t you tell me that either?? Why didn’t you come to me??? TALK to me???? It could have all been delayed even longer solved if only--!!!

And yet, despite more than a decade of defending JGY in the face of an entire society blaming JGY for everything they could, in Guanyin Temple he’s swept up in the mood of the scene and condemns JGY with the rest. He knows JGY better than anyone else, but is made to doubt this. He’s left wondering if he ever knew the man at all, simply because he’s shown a new side of him.

And he responds to that feeling with violence.

He lives in a world and holds a position in said world that necessitates and normalizes violence, but he himself is not prone to it, especially with loved ones. Yet he doesn’t threaten to tie JGY up, magically mute him, have him tried for his crimes, nor does he SIMPLY react instinctively in perceived self defense-- it’s notable that he threatens death. While the circumstances are different, he does the same thing Nie Mingjue did (threaten JGY’s life), and I don’t think it’s irrelevant that he must be not entirely himself to get to that point.

In the Untamed, during the Guanyin Temple scene, he even slaps Jin Guangyao. And while I believe this is not canon to the book, I don’t personally think it’s out of character BECAUSE I think it’s a further nod to there being something wrong with him in this scene. 

And his actions in that temple is, again, something he struggles to grapple with and regrets for, as far as we know, the REST OF HIS LIFE. 

Right until the last moment, Guanyin Temple is a scene in which Lan Xichen is made to suspect that he’s never known Jin Guangyao at all, and Jin Guangyao is made to believe that he’s never mattered to Lan Xichen like Lan Xichen does to him. And in the very VERY end, when Lan Xichen chooses to die with him and Jin Guangyao doesn’t let him, they’re both shown that that doubt was unfounded. Jin Guangyao may be many things Lan Xichen was never willing or permitted to see, but he is also, fundamentally, everything Lan Xichen has known him to be. 

And Lan Xichen never, ever, wanted to harm Jin Guangyao

#mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #mdzs #Mdzs meta #the untamed #cql #lan xichen #jin guangyao #somebody suggested I write about the Lan Brothers and I didn't have any meta about them BOTH brewing in my brain but I sure had this #so here you are #xiyao #lan huan #jgy #lxc

[whumpbby]

It would be so easy for Nie Huaisang to pull Jiang Cheng into his plots, wouldn't it?

So easy to get him involved and even get his sympathy - as someone who also lost his brother to the machinations of Jin Guangshan. As someone from the same generation and a friend. Or even without getting him onto the plan, he'd be able to bring JC to his side for the fallout... He'll, the moment he decided to involve WWX, it would be a good idea to get into JC's good graces , a shed get involved himself 100% and it could go both ways.

And yet he didn't. Jiang Cheng's involvement into this whole thing is pretty much accidental and only via WWX's presence. His relationship with NHS pretty much professional.

I wonder why.

Was he afraid JC would betray his confidence, associated as he was with the Jin sect? Was he afraid JC would figure him out? Was he so focused on the revenge he didn't think of what after? Did he have some plan for JC that he never got to/needed to act on? Yunmeng became a major power on the chessboard, it would be stupid to not include their leader - especially one known for being so vengeful - into revenge based largely on popular opinion.

Did JC get to escape revenge only because he wasn't at all involved with the Triad or was NHS simply sentimental towards an old friend?

#mdzs #jiang cheng #nie huaisang

[mxtxfanatic]

Was thinking about how often I see reactionary pro-Jiang Cheng content, and I just realized something: jc stans, just like their fav, believe that every good thing Wei Wuxian has—whether loved ones or good memories or admirable characteristics or character growth, whether canon or fanon—is actually the rightful property of Jiang Cheng that Wei Wuxian “stole” from him through the sin of existing, and it is their sworn duty to correct this “oversight” of canon.

Wei Wuxian gets his happily ever after with the love of his life, so jc stans give Jiang Cheng Lan Xichen and call Lan Wangji “second place.” Or they make Lan Wangji a cheater because “he actually likes Jiang Cheng more (who doesn’t, amiright?)” or Wei Wuxian a cheater because “he can never appreciate a good thing like Jiang Cheng can.” People point out how Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang seem to have had a closer relationship than Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng, so jc stans make the latter two a ship or make them the bestest friends ever that bond over being annoyed with Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian has a close relationship with the Wen siblings, so jc stans make Wen Qing spend all their time together saying that Jiang Cheng “was right” about him while Wen Ning is being “bullied” into being “anti-jc.”

Wei Wuxian is canonically smart and driven, so jc stans say that he is lazy while Jiang Cheng is hardworking. Wei Wuxian is canonically charismatic, so jc stans say that it was actually Jiang Cheng who was loved by all the disciples and is the sole reason the Jiang Clan of the present was able to pull in new disciples post-fall. Wei Wuxian loves to learn, so jc stans say that Jiang Cheng was actually a model student being sabotaged by the slovenly Wei Wuxian.

People imagine the Lan as accepting Wei Wuxian post-canon or imagine aus where the Lan adopt him as a child, so jc stans make Jiang Cheng the adopted Lan child, who Lan Qiren now likes better than his own nephews. People write Nie!wwx, so jc stans write about how “actually” Nie Mingjue sees Jiang Cheng as the brother he never had and views Wei Wuxian as an unwanted nuisance and competition. People make the most batshit ooc au where the QishanWen are actually good and adopt Wei Wuxian, and jc stans turn that into actually, the Jiang siblings are adopted while Wei Wuxian stays with the “totally horrible, abusive” father in Yunmeng. Fucking Baoshan Sanren descends from her mountain to look for her martial grandson, and jc stans will shove Jiang Cheng into the narrative as a disciple because “he’s just so lovable!” In all of these cases, some will still imagine that Wei Wuxian still gets left on the streets as a petty afterthought.

Shit, even some of the BAD things that happen to Wei Wuxian canonically are misappropriated by jc stans to give Jiang Cheng unearned sympathy. Wei Wuxian was whipped as a child? Now Jiang Cheng was too, but also his dad hates him. Wei Wuxian is an orphan who creates his own family in adulthood? Jiang Cheng is now disowned/an unloved runaway who later finds his people because who wouldn’t want him (amiright?). Wei Wuxian was at risk of losing his golden core completely in the transfer if it failed? Well Jiang Cheng was going to DIE! “See? Look how much harder Jiang Cheng’s life was than that pathetic attention whore Wei Wuxian! Doesn’t he deserve all the things Wei Wuxian has? Aren’t they rightfully his???”

And it’s like, you can’t even escape into fan content with this type of mentality, because look out how much I mentioned is popular fanon. Notice how ubiquitous these ideas are surrounding anything to do with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, even if only one of them is mentioned. No matter what anyone reads in the novel, no matter what individuals come up with in their own heads, no matter what tag or platform is used or not used to keep it out of their hands, jc stans will be there to create a reactionary counterpart to prove that nothing, nothing can ever just be Wei Wuxian’s. Because at the end of the day, the “oversight” that jc stans want to correct isn’t Jiang Cheng’s supposed depreciation by the author. The “oversight” was the author daring to say that Wei Wuxian deserves to be treated as his own person and not Jiang Cheng’s personal property. And every fandom interaction has been retaliation towards that fact.

The main character of the novel is relegated to mere a lightning rod that exists to attract all of Jiang Cheng’s bad qualities while injecting him with all of Wei Wuxian’s good, but jc stans wonder why people are upset.

#mdzs #human gripes at fandom

[rarepears]

Nie Huaisang, Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao, and Nie Mingjue all reincarnate together into PIDW, and become disciples around the same time as Luo Binghe.

The drama of this is of course enhanced by the facts that NMJ & JGY died "early," but NHS & LXC lived to the end of their natural lives as cultivators, and so some of their perspectives and opinions on events have naturally changed with age. (tfw the passage of time renders you unfamiliar to your once-loved ones)

Eventually they talk about their feelings and reconcile and such, and this ends up derailing the plot of PIDW severely as the rest of the PIDW characters confusedly observe quite possibly the weirdest disciples Cang Qiong's ever seen

NMJ on Bai Zhan, with no clue what's going on because he died first and NHS & LXC haven't told him anything

NHS on An Ding, thoroughly enjoying what's pretty much a vacation to him at this point and possibly running an interpeak illicit goods market (definitely not to distract himself from any of the emotions having NMJ & JGY alive and nearby would be causing him, Everything Is Fine) I haven't decided if he'd get involved with the whole og!SQH and MBJ situation tho

LXC on Qiong Ding, because I feel like he'd see himself in Yue Qingyuan and lowkey hate him for it and I think that could be interesting

JGY on Qing Jing, because he's the objectively the funniest/most interesting character to throw into the mess that is SJ and LBH. The way I imagine it, he's doing the most direct derailing of the plot, because he mostly accidentally gets right in the middle of the thing that is going on between those two

I feel like as I wrote this it became more serious than I originally intended so just know that I'm mentally picturing this like a fic that's interspersed with outsider POV of the 4 of them being completely deranged about eachother

(Also I'd feel bad taking away LXC's brother so LWJ and WWX + friends are busy doing hot girl shit being rogue cultivators. I think WWX should be a half demon so he gets to keep the cultivation and steal some of LBH's protagonist energy. If this was a fic then the rest of the Untamed gang would be perfect to use for side characters during off-peak missions)

*grabs popcorn and sits down to hear more*

Nie Huaisang is having too much fun waiting the two idiots called his shizun and shizun's poorly kept secret of a boyfriend go flailing around on these terribly unromantic dates BUT THE TWO WERE TRYING SO HARD that it was cute. He wonders if he should do something to help the poor idiots out... Should he?

Maybe he should...

(Watch Shang Qinghua and Mobei Jun suddenly have a number of sex pollen accidents over the next few months....)

Lan Xichen would be an old man and a good voice of reason for Yue Qingyuan. Although he's head disciple and a very good one at that (if only because his Big Brother instincts can't be held back and he MUST interfere to help prevent history repeating once more), Lan Xichen has made it very clear that he would never accept becoming sect leader.

Also don't forget Liu Mingyan in the background writing about a 4 person sex orgy. At least, that's her personal theory for why there's so much UNRESOLVED TENSION between these four sus male disciples. And also, because it's fun.

It's even funner when you consider that Nie Mingjue is out of the loop of Cang Qiong stuff even on Bai Zhan because he tags along on so many of Liu Qingge's missions that he's probably spending like 8 months of the year outside of the sect.

(Nie Huaisang gets "assigned" to missions that happen to take place near Nie Mingjue's hunts.)

Meng Yao is Meng Yao and he still craves the approval of Male Authority Figures That Could be his dad. Also Meng Yao still likes to climb up the social hierarchy and power. AKA Luo Binghe growing mushrooms in the corner at seeing ANOTHER QING JING disciple THE SAME AGE AS HIM being given SO MUCH ATTENTION AND APPROVAL by shizun.

Luo Binghe develops a complex over Meng Yao of course.

(Shen Jiu approves of Meng Yao because he understands these characters very well and know how to manipulate (cough kill or injury them physically or mentally) them easily. Plus Meng Yao is actually competent.)

[More in #Nie Huaisang Lan Xichen Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue reincarnate into PIDW and are Cang Qiong disciples at the same time as Luo Binghe is AU

#mdzs #mao dao zu shi #mxtx #the untamed #svsss #svsss au #svsss ideas #scum villain's self saving system #lan xichen #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #meng yao #Nie Huaisang Lan Xichen Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue reincarnate into PIDW and are Cang Qiong disciples at the same time as Luo Binghe is AU

[wangxianficrecs]

💙 Story-Shaped by lingering_song

💙 Story-Shaped

by lingering_song

T, 13k, Wangxian

Summary:Nie Huaisang knows that things in this world are rarely story-shaped. That they're more akin to ink spilled on parchment - Messy and unpredictable and rather tragic. But out of all the threads he's woven throughout damn near a decade, he had not expected the most straightforward of his ploys to go this awry. He had not expected Wei-Xiong to end up here in Qinghe, half-drunk and too thin with no Lan Wangji in sight. Because it turns out that on his way to becoming the Chief Cultivator, the great Hanguang-Jun had left Wei-Xiong on the side of the road to walk alone in a world that most probably still wants him dead. What else could Huaisang have done other than bring Wei-Xiong home with him?

Kay's comments: OK. So. I don't really buy this narrative that at the end of CQL, Wei Wuxian left to find him himself, or because he needed to travel and heal. Instead, I'm definitely team: Lan Wangji, what are you doing? You're giving the most mixed-signals! Pick up your soulmate and bring him home now, before he drinks himself into his second early grave! And on that note: this story is everything I ever wanted and I absolutely love it. It features Nie Huaisang finding Wei Wuxian, being sad and drunk after Lan Wangji left him by the side of the road, and deciding: fuck it, I'm taking him home! And of course, Wei Wuxian thrives in the Nie Sect, where he's given tasks and appreciated and allowed to teach and the cultivation sects hate to see it, but I love it. I live for it. All hail genius Wei Wuxian, my beloved. Eventually, Lan Wangji gets a stern talking-to too and all works out in the end, but of course, until then, we get to enjoy some delicious pining.

Excerpt: "So, where have your travels taken you so far, Wei-Xiong?" "Well, here and there," Wei-Xiong blinks slowly at the change of subject, accepting his newly-filled cup without question, "There's a lot of things to take care of once you're far enough from where the Sects give a fuck. Do you know there's a stretch of old Qishan Wen land that just goes unclaimed and the people without any Sect help at all? Right there, smack-dead between Lanling and Yunmeng. How many years has it been? It's crazy, really." And then it hits him. Why Wei-Xiong is here, in this dingy inn at the very borders of Qinghe Nie territory. Why it took his birds so long to catch any wind that the Yiling Laozu is wandering the land. Wei-Xiong, who wouldn't have felt welcome to go to Yunmeng after what his birds reported happened in the Yunmeng Jiang ancestral halls, who had been stabbed in the guts the last time he was in his nephew's Sect, and who had been the most hated figure in the Cultivation world when he died and when he was revived again. Nie Huaisang realizes, with the kind of swooshing emptiness he feels at particularly heartrending poetry, that Wei-Xiong is a man displaced in time with nowhere to go. That Lan Wangji had probably been the only safe place for him, up until Lan Wangji let him go to walk a world that most probably still wants him dead.

the untamed canon, post-the untamed, pov nie huaisang, chief cultivator lan wangji, inventor wei wuxian, genius wei wuxian, found family, qinghe nie sect, qinghe nie disciples, teacher wei wuxian, good friend nie huaisang, implied/referenced alcoholism, wangxian get a happy ending, wingman nie huaisang, not cultivation world friendly, cultivation sect politics, not jiang cheng friendly, mentioned character death

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #Kay's Favorite #the untamed canon #post-the untamed #pov nie huaisang #chief cultivator lan wangji #inventor wei wuxian #genius wei wuxian #found family #qinghe nie sect #qinghe nie disciples #teacher wei wuxian #good friend nie huaisang #implied/referenced alcoholism #wangxian get a happy ending #wingman nie huaisang #not cultivation world friendly #cultivation sect politics #not jiang cheng friendly #mentioned character death #Story-Shaped #lingering_song #short fic <15k #Teen

[dumbass-duo-showdown]

Ahem ahem

After months of waiting!

I AM PRESENTING THE BRACKET FOR DUMBASS DUO SHOWDOWN!

CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY!

The first 16 battles will happen at 8pm CET (gmt+1)!

Group 1!

Uhh btw some of these were put on one day accidentally

Roronoa Zoro & Monkey D. Luffy aka Zolu (one piece) vs Good times with Scar & Grian aka desert duo (hermitcraft)

Bill Preston & Ted Logan (bill & Ted’s excellent adventure) vs Jessie & James from team rocket (Pokémon)

Wayne & Raj (total drama) vs Denji & Power (chainsaw man)

Burton & Shawn (psych) vs Rosencrantz & guildenstern (hamlet & rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead)

Josuke Higashikata & Okuyasu Nijimura aka Josuyasu (JoJo’s bizarre adventure) vs Shouyo Hinata & Tobio Kageyama (Haikyuu!)

Isaac & Miria (Baccano) vs Jay Walker & Cole Brookstone/bucket aka Bruise (lego ninjago)

Ace & Deuce (twisted wonderland) vs Aang & Sokka (avatar: the last airbender)

Tommyinnit & Tubbo aka Clingyduo (dsmp) vs Shiver, Frye, & Bigman aka Deep Cut (splatoon)

Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) & Booster Gold (Michael Carter) aka boostle VS Mustard Lesbian and Ketchup Gay from this post

Mordecai & Rigby (regular show) vs Lindsay & Tyler (total drama)

Rui Kamishiro & Tsukasa Tenma aka Ruikasa (project sekai) vs Zuke & Mayday aka Bunk Bed Junction (no straight roads)

Ruffnut & Tuffnut Thorston (how to train your dragon) vs Jedediah & Octavius (night at the museum)

Merry & Pippin (lord of the rings) vs The Doctor & Donna (dr who)

Jedward (irish music history) vs Min-Gi Park & Ryan Akagi (infinity train)

Grif & Simmons (red vs blue) vs Beavis & Butthead (Beavis & butthead)

Bender & Fry (futurama) vs Porsche & Pete (kinnporsche)

GROUP 2

1/8-18:30 & 2/8 18:30

Kaz & Oliver (mighty med) vs Bobbi Morse & Lance Hunter aka Huntingbird (agents of S.H.I.E.L.D)

Henchman 21 & Henchman 24 (venture bros) vs Spongebob & Patrick (Spongebob Squarepants)

Galo Thymos & Lio Fotia (promare) vs Yusuke & Kuwabara (Yu Yu Hakusho)

Charlie Kelly & Mac (it is always sunny in Philadelphia) vs Donald, José & Panchito (the three Caballeros)

The Bros (the bro duet) vs Chai & 808 (hi-fi rush)

Markiplier & CrankGameplays aka Unus Annus vs Knockout & Starscream (transformers)

Caspar & Shez (fire emblem warriors: three hopes) vs Yukiko Amagi & Chie Satonaka aka Yukichie (persona 4)

Tk Strand & Evan Buck Buckley (911 on fox lonestar) vs Shane & Ryan (buzzfeed unsolved)

Ontario Pipping Plovers (birbs from canada) vs Kaminari Denki & Ashido Mina (My hero academia)

Rin Okumura & Kuro (blue exorcist) vs Adam Blampied & Sullivan Beau Brown (No barrels rolled)

Chip & Gillion aka Fish and Chips (just roll with it) vs Josuke Higashikata & Yasuho Hirose aka Yasugap (jojo's bizarre adventure)

Soldier & Demoman (team fortress 2) vs Cuphead & Mugman (the cuphead show)

Nott/Veth & Jester (critical role the mighty nein) vs Troy & Abed (community)

Walter White & Jessie Pinkman (breaking bad) vs Barbie & Ken (barbie life in a dreamhouse)

Cuddles & Toothy (happy tree friends) vs Heath Burns & Hoodude Voodoo (monster high)

Pete Wentz and Gabe Saporta (bandom) vs Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng & Nie Huaisang (MDZS/the untamed)

TAGS TO CHECK OUT!

#propaganda #dumbass duo showdown announcements #dumbass duo showdown update #round 1 #art gallery #polls

#tumblr tournament #tumblr bracket #tumblr poll #fandom bracket #tumblr tourney #round 1 #fandom poll #poll tournament #tournament poll #tournament #poll bracket #poll #one piece #hermitcraft #bill and teds excellent adventure #team rocket #total drama #chainsaw man #jjba #splatoon #psych #rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead #haikyuu #splatoon 3

[weiying-lanzhan-fics]

Practical Mythology by metisket

Funnest story ever! I loved this soooo much - didn’t want it to ever end. Thank you for this gem ❤️

Quotes:

“You only hurt bad people,” Lan Wangji informs him with perfect confidence. “They won’t be worried.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” the Yiling Patriarch says, ducking his head and smiling, but sounding sad for some reason. “If only everyone had the faith in me that you do.”

Lan Wangji frowns. Everyone should have faith in the Yiling Patriarch. The Yiling Patriarch is always fair, and that means his rules and the Lan rules can’t be that different. “Can I visit you again?”

The Yiling Patriarch beams at him so brightly that Lan Wangji’s breath catches. “Yes! Come visit me, Lan Zhan. But you have to wait until you’re grown, okay? For decency’s sake.” He laughs, and Lan Wangji isn’t sure why.

“When will I be grown?” Lan Wangji wants to be clear.

“Hmm.” The Yiling Patriarch looks skyward, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “…Twenty? Let’s say twenty. Your uncle shouldn’t have too much of a qi deviation about that. How’s that sound?”

Lan Wangji frowns, but nods anyway. It’s a very long time, but he supposes that’s how all the Yiling Patriarch stories are. You can’t win anything worth having without fighting for it yourself. “I will be here.”

“I look forward to it, Lan Zhan,” the Yiling Patriarch, smiling and tugging gently at Lan Wangji’s hair one last time before sending him away to the other side of the barrier—to his brother and uncle.

————

It takes him a couple of hours, but he eventually finds the perfect victim. Said victim is innocently standing in a garden admiring the flowers, and has no idea what level of little brother nonsense is about to hit him. Poor thing.

“So, Xichen-ge, I hear your brother is planning to run away and marry the Yiling Patriarch,” Nie Huaisang casually declares. He’s always felt more comfortable hassling Lan Xichen than he has Lan Wangji, anyway. “What’s that about?”

Lan Xichen sighs and suddenly looks very tired. “It was cute when he was eight.”

Wow. Just wow. “How did he even meet the Yiling Patriarch when he was eight?”

Oh, that was a bad question, because Lan Xichen’s eyes just iced over like a Gusu winter. Nie Huaisang will just have to pry the details of that ugly story from someone else. “Never mind!” he cries. “It doesn’t matter. At least Senior Wei is nice.”

Lan Xichen frowns at him in confusion. “Senior Wei? Your father’s friend, Senior Wei?”

Oh good. At least Nie Huaisang isn’t the only one who didn’t know. “My father’s friend, Senior Wei, who is the Yiling Patriarch. Yes.”

He’s never seen Lan Xichen gape before. This is a shockingly exciting day in the Cloud Recesses.

T, 17.5k

Summary:

The Yiling Patriarch is a living legend—a terrifying, ancient force of nature, dispensing punishment or reward with implacable, indifferent fairness.

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, is a weird but oddly charming guy who wanders around the cultivation world making fun of people's art and mooching food from sect leaders.

It really upsets people to find out that they're the same person.

#wangxian #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan wangji #lan zhan #the untamed fic #wangxian fic rec #the untamed fanfiction #untamed fic #mdzs fic #fun fic

[robininthelabyrinth]

Darlings - ao3

Summary:

“Clarity would not work to fix Chifeng-zun,” Lan Wangji opined.

Nie Huaisang resisted the urge to kick him – Lan Wangji wouldn’t stick his foot in somewhere it wasn’t wanted if he didn’t actually have relevant information – but even Lan Qiren frowned at him.

“You seem remarkably certain about that, Wangji,” he said. “But why not? While it’s not appropriate for every circumstance, it’s an extremely powerful song. I would think that it would be at least worth an attempt.

”Lan Wangji looked distinctly shame-faced, though perhaps only someone who knew him very well would recognize that particular flavor of it.

“I see,” Lan Qiren said. “And what exactly has your brother done that he doesn’t want me to know about?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m bored,” Nie Huaisang complained, and his brother’s eye twitched. “And don’t say ‘go train’, I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re never in the mood,” his brother said, his voice harsher than it usually was. It was often too harsh these days; the version of his brother that Nie Huaisang liked best, teasing and thoughtful and amused despite himself, seemed to have gotten rarer and rarer in appearance. “That’s the problem.”

“Not the point,” Nie Huaisang said. “The point is more fundamental than that. The Unclean Realm is boring! All these years, we’ve kept to ourselves because of the war – limited visits to friends, only going to places that are safe, that sort of thing. But the war’s over, right? So I should be able to go visit whoever I want.”

His brother grunted. Still unamused, when normally Nie Huaisang’s nonsense arguments amused him more than anything else.

Annoyed, Nie Huaisang changed his original plan, which had been to wheedle out permission for a visit to the Lotus Pier to see poor Jiang Cheng who was all alone now that his sister had married off, and instead said, “I want to go visit Wei-xiong!”

“Absolutely not,” his brother said, unsurprisingly. “He’s an outlaw for a reason, Huaisang. He murdered those Jin sect cultivators without warning, didn’t he? Who’s to say he wouldn’t murder you, too?”

“All sorts of reasons,” Nie Huaisang argued back. “Listen, what if –”

“I said no,” his brother thundered, leaping to his feet and slamming his hands against the desk. “You will listen to me, Huaisang, and if you don’t –”

“Why are you always yelling?” Nie Huaisang shouted back, losing his own temper. He was a Nie as well, after all. “Why do you always take everything so seriously? I was just suggesting –”

“It was a stupid suggestion –”

“Even if it’s stupid, you don’t have to hit things –”

“You wouldn’t be so afraid of me hitting things if you’d actually train the way you’re supposed to –”

“I shouldn’t have to worry about it at all!” Nie Huaisang screamed. “You’re my da-ge! You’re not supposed to act like – like – like Father!”

His brother, who was about to yell back, stopped, stricken.

Equally stricken by what he’d just said, Nie Huaisang stared at him.

“It’s not like Father,” he said, because it couldn’t be. It wasn’t allowed to be. Nie sect leaders died young, yes, everyone knew that, even (especially) him no matter how much he pretended that he didn’t, but – but their father had been older than his brother was now, and he’d been fine right up until the time he’d been murdered. If it hadn’t been for Wen Ruohan, they would’ve had him for another decade or two, easy, and he was nearly as good a cultivator as Nie Mingjue was…though he hadn’t had to fight a war on that sort of scale, either. Nie Mingjue’s cultivation had gotten scarily good the past few years. “It’s – it’s not, right?”

His brother said nothing for a long moment.

Then, at last, he sighed and sat down heavily on his chair with a thump.

“We can go visit the Lan sect,” he said, which wasn’t what Nie Huaisang had wanted at all, but for some reason the thought of arguing any further tasted like ashes in Nie Huaisang’s mouth.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go visit the Lan sect.”

-

The one good thing about visiting the Lan sect, Nie Huaisang thought bitterly, and in fact the only good thing was Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen was nice and friendly and gentle, indulgent the way a big brother ought to be, always thinking first about Nie Huaisang’s comfort and happiness. He would buy him thoughtful gifts, he would take him out on outings to new parts of the mountain where there were beautiful views, he would sit and paint with him and listen to him very seriously even when he was talking nonsense. He would even avert his eyes if Nie Huaisang brought out one of his own books to read during study time, smiling and blushing a little in a very fetching fashion – Lan Xichen wasn’t the most desirable bachelor of the cultivation world for nothing, his face earned all its accolades fair and square in Nie Huaisang’s opinion – and they had long conversations that covered everything and anything.

Fewer these days, since Lan Xichen was busy with rebuilding and with Jin Guangyao, who apparently needed quite a lot of support even as he managed to talk his sect into providing the Lan sect with support of a more financial nature, but Nie Huaisang had been sure that a nice visit to the Lan sect with no politics behind it would give him the opportunity to finally have Lan Xichen all to himself again.

Except, of course, that Lan Xichen wasn’t there.

“Off to the Jin sect again,” Nie Mingjue grumbled acidly under his voice as they walked up to the center of the Lan sect from the gateway where they’d received the bad news from one of the door guards. “Big surprise.”

Nie Huaisang, in an equally bad mood, agreed wholeheartedly. It wasn’t like he’d come here for the food or anything…but now that they were here, there was nothing for it but to grit their teeth and bear it. They hadn’t sent word in advance of their arrival, like a bunch of barbarians, even though they really should have. But the decision to go had been very spontaneous and in all honesty Nie Huaisang had been a bit worried that his brother would change his mind if they didn’t follow through on the decision right away, so here they were, visiting the Lan sect, and it was on their own heads that the main attraction of the Lan sect was not there to greet them.

Instead, they were going to have to deal with…the rest of them.

Nie Huaisang tormented himself briefly by wondering if they’d be greeted by Lan Qiren, that terrifyingly stern and rule-abiding teacher that even Nie Mingjue was a bit afraid of, or if it would be that menace Lan Wangji, who everyone praised as the upstanding and noble Hanguang-jun, perfect in every way, but who when approached alone was definitely still that horrible little hellion Lan Zhan who when they were children used to bite Nie Huaisang any time he didn’t get his way.

The answer, it turned out, was both.

Actually, the answer turned out to be Lan Qiren loudly scolding Lan Wangji, who to untrained eyes looked obedient and submissive and to those in the know looked completely unrepentant.

Lan Qiren knew it no less than anyone else, of course, which was presumably why he was still scolding him quite so fiercely – so fiercely, in fact, that it was pretty obvious he hadn’t noticed any of the lingering Lan disciples who’d clearly come to give him the heads up that there were visitors. He was currently going hard on the subject of responsibility, whether to the sect and to the self, and not being impulsive, and also how going to dangerous places, especially without telling people first, was completely beyond the pale of impulsive, especially extremely dangerous places like –

“Hey, wait, that’s not fair!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, affronted. “Why does Lan Zhan get to go to visit the Burial Mounds and I don’t?!”

His brother glared at him even as both Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji twisted their heads to stare at their guests in surprise and unhappiness – Lan Qiren presumably because he’d been caught lecturing his perfect Lan Wangji in front of outsiders, and Lan Wangji presumably because Nie Huaisang had slipped up and called him Lan Zhan again, which he’d been banned from doing ever since Lan Wangji had turned ten and insufferable.

“He did not get to go,” Lan Qiren said, retreating into stiffness as he always did when he was embarrassed, but that just made the expression on Lan Wangji’s face change straight back into mulishness.

“There were no serious threats there,” he said flatly.

Lan Qiren promptly puffed up in rage again. “No serious threats – it’s the Burial Mounds! Even putting aside Wei-gongzi’s presence, the resentful energy in the air alone –”

“What do you mean there weren’t any serious threats?” Nie Mingjue demanded, overriding even his old teacher in a bout of rather uncharacteristic rudeness. “All the reports I’ve gotten is that Wei Wuxian has prepared the mountain as if for a siege, surrounding himself with arrays and corpses. Is that not true?”

Lan Wangji shook his head firmly.

That made even Lan Qiren started frowning. “Similar news had come to Xichen and myself,” he said. “The Jin sect said they sent several envoys seeking peace and were repulsed with violence, did they not? Wangji, are you saying you were able to go there with no difficulty?”

“That is correct, shufu. The greatest difficulty I encountered was Wei Ying forgetting to pay for lunch.”

“Good man,” Nie Huaisang said approvingly. “He always knew how to sponge a meal like the best of them. Did he manage to get you to pay for anyone else, too?”

Lan Wangji hesitated, which meant yes.

“One of the Wens?” Nie Huaisang’s brother asked, and his voice had dropped down to a forbidding register.

Lan Wangji straightened his back. “I will not apologize for associating with a child of two,” he said icily. “Regardless of his surname –”

“A child of two?!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, horrified, and even Nie Mingjue’s seeming ever-present anger broke for a moment, leaving him looking aghast. “In the Burial Mounds?!”

“Oh, woe is us,” Nie Huaisang said, delighted by this turn of events, which proved to be far more entertaining than what he thought was in store for him on a visit to the Cloud Recesses. “Clearly we’ll all have to go to see for ourselves, right? Right?”

-

When they got to the Burial Mounds, a lot of things happened in extremely rapid succession.

First, Nie Huaisang’s brother acted like even more of a beast than usual, getting irritated by the defensive arrays and deciding to just smash them open with his saber and march up the hill instead of listening to Lan Qiren’s perfectly reasonable suggestion of just knocking and seeing what would happen.

Second, the Wen sect’s camp on the Burial Mounds, and Wei Wuxian’s ‘fortress’, turned out to be a lot less fearsome than the rumors had advertised, with even the sign on the big cave that read ‘Demon-Slaughtering Cave’ being written in a jaunty and cheerful manner as if it were advertising a wine shop – and the sign was crooked, too. This was a matter of great displeasure to just about everyone, although Nie Huaisang suspected he was the only one disappointed in not finding anything more interesting rather than being upset about how they’d been misled about the dangers involved. Said dangers seemed to be limited to a bunch of elderly folk puttering about in a radish field, Wen Ning the Ghost General who would have probably been a lot scarier if he hadn’t consented to being buried in said radish field by the previously mentioned child of two and had gotten in so deep that he couldn’t easily wiggle out, and a shocked-looking Wei-Wuxian himself who looked as if he’d just been woken up out of an afternoon nap and who had come to yell at the intruders to go away.

Third, there had been an awful lot of yelling, mostly on the part of Wei Wuxian and, of course, Nie Mingjue, who was being awfully shouty even for him. Matters had very quickly deteriorated at that point no matter how much the Lans present (and Nie Huaisang) tried to calm the situation, with Nie Mingjue pulling out Baxia and Wei Wuxian responding by pulling out the Tiger Seal. It probably would have escalated still further – even Wen Ning had managed to crawl out of the dirt by this point, and he was hanging around ominously with white in his eyes – except that when Nie Mingjue stepped forward and lifted up his saber to actually strike his host, an overreaction of such massive extent that even Nie Huaisang couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it was actually happening, Wen Qing had come out of the cave, taken one look at what was going on, and shouted, “He’s having a qi deviation!”

Fourth, Nie Mingjue was definitely having a qi deviation.

Fifth, Nie Huaisang immediately had a panic attack in response to his brother showing symptoms of qi deviation, because qi deviations were what killed Nie sect leaders and Nie Huaisang remembered what they had done to his father in those horrible last few months of his life following his murder.

Sixth, Nie Mingjue’s concern over Nie Huaisang’s panic attack apparently managed to bring him back to himself enough that he apparently willed down the qi deviation, which, according to Wen Qing, was –

“Completely fucking impossible.”

“…Wen Qing, you just swore,” Wei Wuxian said, sounding dazed. “You never swear.”

“Oh, I swear all right,” she said, though her blush suggested she did not, in fact, make a habit of swearing even in the most extreme of circumstances. Not really a surprise, given that she’d been raised as a proper young lady. “At least I do when I encountered the utterly impossible. Advanced surgery that’s never been tried before? Risky, but within the realm of expectation. Reversing a qi deviation out of sheer brotherly worry? That’s just – just – it’s just weird!”

“Can we stop talking about how weird it is and focus on making my da-ge get better?!” Nie Huaisang demanded, clutching his brother’s sleeve. The second Nie Mingjue had put down Baxia and turned to focus on calming Nie Huaisang down, Wen Qing had gotten him in the back of the neck with four needles and he was now completely unconscious, which was probably for the best, really, but which was causing Nie Huaisang no end of distress.

“Nie Huaisang is correct,” Lan Qiren said crisply, and stepped forward towards Nie Mingjue, waving some sort of fancy array into existence that immediately got Wen Qing’s attention.

“That’s way more advanced than the usual diagnostic array,” she said, sounding affronted and also fascinated. “Wait – is that actually measuring the amount of spiritual energy in a given meridian? I thought everyone said that was impossible to track!”

“It’s a matter of resonance,” Lan Qiren said, with a slight melt to his usual frostiness towards all people surnamed Wen – quite justifiable in Nie Huaisang’s mind, given what had happened to the Cloud Recesses. Even Nie Huaisang, who considered himself an amiable and forgiving sort of person, wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the people who helped Wen Ruohan kill his father and, later, lots of his friends and also very nearly his brother. “A number of my sect members specialize in the medical arts, and they invented it while serving as battlefield medics. It’s not actually tracking the spiritual energy directly, which is in fact impossible, but rather tracking the effect of the movement of spiritual energy as it reacts.”

“Reacts to what? Oh, wait, is that what that low droning sound is for? I thought it was a side effect of putting in too much spiritual energy, as it is with most arrays. But instead you’ve actually harnessed the excess sound using your musical cultivation –”

“Can! We! Focus! On! Fixing! My! Da-ge?!” Nie Huaisang interjected. Loudly.

That got them to shut up and focus for a while. Lan Qiren had been the general leading the Lan sect’s forces and managing the back end for most of the war, so he had a lot of personal experience in playing battlefield medic, and Wen Qing herself had of course been well known for her medical skill even before everything had gone down, so the two of them put their heads together over Nie Mingjue and started up a very technical conversation that no one else understood.

In the meantime, the rest of them – Nie Huaisang, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and Wen Ning – just looked at each other.

“Wei-gongzi, are we just going to stand here while they work?” Wen Ning asked Wei Wuxian in an undertone, ignoring (or maybe not understanding) the suddenly hostile tilt of Lan Wangji’s eyebrows.

“Yes we are,” Nie Huaisang said loudly, then glared at Wen Ning. “Anyway, aren’t you her brother? Don’t you know anything about medicine yourself?”

Wen Ning looked taken aback. “Uh,” he said. “Not – not that much? I was only ever her assistant –”

“Then what are you waiting for?!” Nie Huaisang demanded, and jabbed a finger towards where they were working. “Go assist!”

Wen Ning tried to look at Wei Wuxian for permission, but Nie Huaisang hissed at him until he picked up his heels and trotted guiltily over to inquire if there was anything he could do, then promptly got recruited to run errands – which showed he clearly had been needed, and therefore should have been there doing that in the first place.

“Hey, Nie-xiong, have you ever seen those animal traders that come from the far south?” Wei Wuxian asked. “The ones that sometimes have those long ferret-badgers, you know the ones, they always hiss at large creatures and they can fight snakes –”

“…the mongoose?”

“Yeah, the mongoose!” Wei Wuxian nodded, then grinned toothily at him. “Has anyone ever told you, Nie-xiong, that you sometimes resemble a mongoose?”

“This is definitely the first time, Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said. “Definitely the first time.”

“Maybe that should be your nickname! You’re the only one who doesn’t have one, right? I’m the Yiling Patriarch, Lan Zhan here’s Hanguang-jun – you can be the Stubborn Mongoose!”

Lan Wangji’s eye twitched. Why he was getting irritated over Nie Huaisang getting a stupid nickname, Nie Huaisang had no idea, since he was pretty sure Lan Wangji didn’t want to be called ‘Stubborn Mongoose’ himself when he already had a perfectly good title.

Maybe he was just jealous of Nie Huaisang getting Wei Wuxian’s attention. Well, if so, Nie Huaisang was more than willing to throw it right back onto him.

“No thanks, Wei-xiong,” he said, and smiled (somewhat toothily) right back at him. “I’ve had a dislike for animal-related nicknames ever since I was a child – you see, I went over to visit the Lan sect a few times and their precious ‘little Rabbit Bun’ bit me.”

He tilted his head pointedly in Lan Wangji’s direction.

Lan Wangji gave Nie Huaisang a death glare.

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, looked as if his entire life had been improved by at least six degrees. “Lan Zhan?” he gasped. “Your childhood nickname was Little Rabbit Bun? That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard! You must have been so cute!”

Lan Wangji glanced at him, his ears going red, and then glanced back at Nie Huaisang, who gave him a smug You owe me expression before saying, very virtuously, “Wei-xiong, don’t be silly. Wouldn’t you agree that our Hanguang-jun is still very cute?”

“No, he’s not cute, he’s handsome!” Wei Wuxian objected. “You can’t be ‘cute’ when you’re as dashing and bold as Lan Zhan is –”

“Being handsome doesn’t mean you can’t be cute at the same time! Haven’t you seen him when he’s smiling?”

Wei Wuxian looked stricken. “He smiles? You’ve seen him smile, Nie-xiong? Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, that’s not fair! You have to smile for me, I have to see it – you can’t smile at Nie Huaisang and not at me, okay, that’s just wrong, I’m the one who wanted to be your friend –”

Nie Huaisang bared his teeth at Lan Wangji – see I’m still better at managing people than you! – and Lan Wangji gave him a half-hearted glare back, too distracted by the way Wei Wuxian was tugging at his sleeve to really put any real heat into it. Or maybe he really did like Wei Wuxian bugging him all the time, who knew?

(Actually, the last time Nie Huaisang had seen Lan Wangji smile, they’d both been at least a decade younger, but he wasn’t about to let facts get in the way of a good taunt.)

The entire thing probably would have continued in that vein for a while, only then Lan Qiren and Wen Qing suddenly got up and that got Nie Huaisang’s attention entirely; he promptly forgot about what the two idiots he was waiting alongside were doing and rushed over.

“Is he all right?” he asked anxiously. “Can you make him better?”

“It will be difficult,” Lan Qiren said, and Wen Qing nodded.

“His meridians are in a bad state,” she said. “His situation was severely aggravated on account of the sheer amount of resentful energy in the Burial Mounds, and then driven into complete crisis when Wei-gongzi unveiled the Tiger Seal, but he was already doing quite poorly. You must have noticed his temper getting worse, less patience, more irrationality…”

Nie Huaisang didn’t want to hear about that. “We’re surnamed Nie, that’s not too weird,” he said shortly. “Anyway, can you fix it?”

“We’ve stabilized him for now,” Lan Qiren said. “There’s no immediate danger.”

Nie Huaisang exhaled. That was – not ideal, but still something. Better something than nothing.

“There are a number of techniques that can be applied to try to correct the deviation,” Wen Qing said. “Including surgery to straight his meridians out again, which I can do. But that’s a one-time fix, and he’s in a state of deterioration; even if I fixed him up, he’d only continue to spiral again, and all the fixes for that take a lot more time and effort and continuous supervision. If it were just me, I’d say there wasn’t anything we could do short of cutting off his access to his golden core for a while – and that’s incredibly dangerous in its own right – but Teacher Lan here says that the Lan sect has some extremely powerful music spells that might be able to do something.”

Lan Qiren nodded. “There is one in particular,” he said. “The Song of Clarity –”

“Clarity would not work to fix Chifeng-zun,” Lan Wangji opined.

Nie Huaisang resisted the urge to kick him – Lan Wangji wouldn’t stick his foot in somewhere it wasn’t wanted if he didn’t actually have relevant information – but even Lan Qiren frowned at him.

“You seem remarkably certain about that, Wangji,” he said. “But why not? While it’s not appropriate for every circumstance, it’s an extremely powerful song. I would think that it would be at least worth an attempt.”

Lan Wangji looked distinctly shame-faced, though perhaps only someone who knew him very well would recognize that particular flavor of it.

“I see,” Lan Qiren said, visibly resisting the urge to sigh and offer Lan Wangji a conciliatory candy the way he had when Lan Wangji had been young enough to still think that all problems could be fixed by biting. Possibly it was just Nie Huaisang that recognized that very particular expression, having seen it the most often out of all available non-Lan sect members – he’d been Lan Wangji’s favorite target, after all. “And what exactly has your brother done that he doesn’t want me to know about?”

“How did he know?” Wei Wuxian whispered to Wen Ning in an undertone barely louder than a breath, though not quite enough to escape being overheard by Nie Huaisang, who standing right next to them. “Did Lan Zhan even change expressions just now? Is there some secret sign language involved?”

Clearly Nie Huaisang needed to give Wei Wuxian a crash course in ‘understanding Lan Wangji body language’, Nie Huaisang decided – beneficently, of course. It definitely wasn’t so that Wei Wuxian could more effectively annoy Lan Wangji to death, no, absolutely not.

(Anyway, Lan Wangji seemed like he enjoyed being annoyed to death by Wei Wuxian, so maybe it really was beneficent after all.)

Facing all of their gazes, Lan Wangji squared his shoulders. “Xiongzhang has been concerned regarding Chifeng-zun’s health,” he said. “Particularly in regard to his family’s tendency towards qi deviations, which xiongzhang fears may be aggravated by Chifeng-zun’s powerful cultivation and the ravages of war. He has been playing him Clarity as a course of treatment.”

“As a course of treatment?” Lan Qiren asked, looking startled, and – oops. Had Lan Xichen not told his uncle about what he was doing? Sneaky sneaky! Yet more proof that Lan Xichen was obviously the finest and most superior of all Lans. “Impossible. A few times at full strength, perhaps…”

Lan Wangji was shaking his head in denial.

“It’s impossible,” Lan Qiren insisted. “As an actual course of treatment, he would need to play for him at least once every fortnight – every week, if possible. Xichen is sect leader now. He simply doesn’t have the time or the freedom to depart from the Cloud Recesses on such a regular basis.”

“Brother said a course of treatment,” Lan Wangj insisted back, stubborn as a mule.

“I would have noticed if your brother were slipping away every half-month, Wangji!”

“Anyway, it’s impossible for another reason,” Wen Qing put in. “If Chifeng-zun were getting regular treatment to help clear his meridians, we would have noticed that when we examined him in depth just now, and he definitely hasn’t been.”

“No, that’s wrong,” Nie Huaisang said, and now they were all looking at him, great. “I mean, he is getting regular treatment, and has been for the last few months. And, uh, sorry, Teacher Lan, it is the Song of Clarity. Only it’s not er-ge playing it for him – as you said, he’s way too busy to come to the Unclean Realm as often as that – but rather san-ge who’s doing the playing. Er-ge taught him how to do it…”

Judging by the color that Lan Qiren’s face just turned, Lan Xichen probably shouldn’t have done that, either. Nie Huaisang mentally apologized to Lan Xichen for the horrible scolding he was going to get when Lan Qiren got ahold of him again, but he figured Lan Xichen would forgive him – it was for Nie Mingjue’s health, after all! The people treating him had to know everything, after all, or else they wouldn’t be able to take proper care of him.

“Well, that’s still bizarre,” Wen Qing said. “Either your sect’s song-spell isn’t nearly as powerful as you think it is, Teacher Lan, which seems unlikely, or else whatever-his-name is playing it completely wrong. Judging from the evidence, Chifeng-zun’s state has deteriorated the past few months, not improved.”

She frowned.

“Actually, now that I think about it…” she said, trailing off, and turned to poke at the diagnostic array still hovering over Nie Mingjue’s body. “Teacher Lan, look here, at the lower levels – think of it as a way of mapping the evidence of what happened over time, the way stone does when it’s being worn away, like by a riverbed. His spiritual veins are strong, and then the deterioration is very slow, then faster but still not fast, and then, here, it suddenly starts going very fast all at once…”

“A few months ago,” Lan Qiren said, studying the array. “Yes, you’re right, that’s when the severe downturn began.”

“Hey, Nie-xiong,” Wei Wuxian said, sounding artificially light-hearted – extremely artificial, actually, and maybe Nie Huaisang wouldn’t have noticed except that he’d said the exact same words earlier when he was actually being light-hearted and the contrast between the two couldn’t be clearer. “When did you say Lianfang-zun started playing the Song of Clarity for your brother?”

“A few months ago…no, no, you’ve got it all wrong!” Nie Huaisang said quickly, realizing what Wei Wuxian was implying. “San-ge has been playing it for him for over half a year! He was getting better!”

Lan Wangji cleared his throat.

They all look at him.

“There is the matter of the Jin sect,” he said. “And their proposal regarding the position of Chief Cultivator.”

“Chief Cultivator?” Wei Wuxian asked, looking amused. “What’s that? How can there be a chief? We’re all different sects, aren’t we…? Well, excluding rogue cultivators like me, I guess.”

“That is how it has always been, yes,” Lan Qiren said. “However, in the interest of preventing another Wen sect and another Sunshot Campaign, the Jin sect has proposed creating a position of Chief Cultivator, which would act as an arbiter for the cultivation world – solving problems, settling disputes, that sort of thing.”

“My brother thinks the idea’s complete trash,” Nie Huaisang volunteered. “He says that we didn’t go to all that trouble to make sure Wen Ruohan couldn’t make himself the lord over all of us using his armies just to let Ji– uh, to let Sect Leader Jin do it using his money.”

“Has he said this publicly?” Wei Qing asked, and Nie Huaisang gave her a strange look for a moment.

Then it occurred to him that she probably didn’t know his brother that well, or even his reputation, so he clarified, “Yes, of course. My brother isn’t the sort of person who says one thing in private and another in public. He’s very straightforward.”

“That’s not what I was getting at,” she said. “It was more…when did he say it in public? I don’t suppose – a few months ago?”

“Well, yes, it was – I mean –” Nie Huaisang hesitated.

“I get what you’re saying,” Wei Wuxian said, and his face was hard, back in the lines that had been cut into it during the Sunshot Campaign. “Nie-xiong, would you say that that whole argument happened right around – or maybe right before – the time your da-ge stopped getting better whenever your san-ge came to play for him, and started getting worse much faster?”

“Lianfang-zun,” Wen Ning murmured. “Jin Guangyao.”

“But – but – they’re sworn brothers!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “He wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t he?” Lan Qiren asked. He looked older, suddenly, and tired. “Are you sure?”

Nie Huaisang wanted to say yes, he really did, he really really did –

But he couldn’t.

-

“You know, when I said I was bored and that the Unclean Realm was boring, I really was trying to use it as an excuse to go somewhere else,” Nie Huaisang said. “Ideally the Lotus Pier, which has both good food and good shopping and Jiang Cheng, who is pretty funny sometimes – usually not on purpose – but I was willing to settle for the Cloud Recesses because then I’d get to see er-ge. But either way, I hadn’t intended for the end result to be to liven up the Unclean Realm. Or at least, you know, not quite so much, you know?”

“You’re getting exactly what you deserve, you noxious little brat,” his brother said. He was still lying in bed, although he had a desk on his lap that contained all his work. He looked a lot better now that he’d had the immediate intervention surgery Wen Qing had done to straight his meridians out and after both Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji had played him the Song of Clarity – the real Song of Clarity, not whatever messed up version Jin Guangyao must have been using on him – a half-dozen times over the course of as many days. He was even smiling again. “Don’t pretend like you aren’t enjoying it.”

Nie Huaisang was loving it. His home had never been so rowdy, not for as long as he could remember it, and it was already a pretty rowdy place to begin with – but anything got more rowdy when you threw in Wen Qing, who was there to supervise the aftereffects of the surgery, Wen Ning, who was there to assist her, Wei Wuxian, who was there to watch over the still-somewhat-unstable Wen Ning, the rest of the remaining Wen sect, who couldn’t be left on their own and undefended, and of course also Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji in all their grumpy majesty.

And it was going to stay that way.

Well, Lan Qiren, at least, was planning on returning back to the Cloud Recesses, since they were very firmly in the process of rebuilding and he was concerned that Lan Xichen couldn’t do the rest of the work without him, but Lan Wangji was being assigned to the Unclean Realm on a semi-permanent basis since both Wen Qing and Lan Qiren had agreed that Nie Mingjue needed to continue with a daily regimen of Clarity for at least a month, then shift over to three times a week, then two, then weekly, and eventually twice-monthly and monthly before finally, hopefully, tapering off for good. Lan Qiren planned to come back to visit on a regular basis to supervise the musical aspects, and Wen Qing wanted to remain on hand in the event of another crisis – and to study the medical implications of musical cultivation, which was apparently an area she’d completely neglected in her previous studies on account of the Wen sect not teaching much in the way of music.

And if Wen Qing was staying, then obviously Wei Wuxian was going to have to stay as well, a fact that very obviously delighted Lan Wangji to no end. The two of them were completely unbearable when together in a way that made Nie Huaisang pretend to gag and Lan Qiren start heaving long sighs and grumbling about not wanting to deal with matchmakers – which Nie Huaisang hadn’t gotten at first until he suddenly did, at which point he started pretend-gagging even more, just for the principle of the thing.

Possibly Nie Huaisang was also occasionally going and dropping a lit torch into a fire-starting array any time they were showing signs of getting boring, like how just that morning he’d oh-so-casually reminded Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji used to like to bite people and how everyone used to say it was the way he showed affection, knowing that it would make the ever-competitive (though not as competitive as Jiang Cheng) Wei Wuxian start bugging Lan Wangji about whether or not he would have bitten him –

Nie Huaisang had hope that all that teasing would eventually make it through Lan Wangji’s otherwise impenetrable Lan sect reserve and he’d finally just drag Wei Wuxian into a bedroom and give him the biting he was asking for, but only time would tell.

“I admit to nothing,” Nie Huaisang said righteously, and hopped into the bed to curl up next to Nie Mingjue like he hadn’t since he was much younger. “You like it too. Don’t you?”

“I don’t like the political headache that comes with it,” Nie Mingjue pretended to grumble. “Not to mention that we’re now suffering an undoubtedly permanent infestation of those surnamed Wen – ugh.”

That complaint was probably genuine, Nie Huaisang reflected, since his brother had had to suffer the original Wen sect a lot more than Nie Huaisang ever had, but saving Nie Mingjue’s life meant they owed Wen Qing a life-debt. To pay it off, his brother, good and righteous person that he was, had officially buried his sect’s blood feud with hers, making them equal again, and now they had no grounds to be pissy with them or kick them out. The rest of the Nie sect loved their sect leader enough to begrudgingly forgive them as well, at least provisionally, but provisionally went an awful long way with the Nie sect. Unlike the Lan sect, they didn’t have a rule against bearing grudges, though they did it very well, thank you. It was just that they didn’t have the temperaments to do it more than once or twice in a lifetime, and the rest of the time they tended to forget about their wrongs pretty quickly and move on towards making friends.

All that, of course, meant that the Wen sect now had two places in the cultivation world that they could live – the rest of the cultivation world wasn’t exactly as incentivized to forgive them, obviously – and since the Burial Mounds were in fact pretty terrible, it was no surprise that they were much happier in the Unclean Realm.

“You can distract yourself by watching the Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian circus, like I do,” Nie Huaisang comforted his brother. “It’s really funny. And soon we’ll be able to host a wedding, won’t that be fun? And it won’t even have to be one for either you or me!”

“…that does sound fun,” Nie Mingjue allowed. “Everyone would enjoy that, and it’d be good for commerce, all the things you’d need for that – the Lan sect is still mostly investing in rebuilding, but I can’t imagine they’d allow their Second Jade to be married in anything less than the best.”

“I’ll paint them a nice couple set of fans as a wedding gift,” Nie Huaisang decided. “And you can make them a pair of supplemental spiritual weapons to match – you haven’t done that in ages, da-ge, and it used to be the thing you loved the most.”

Nie Mingjue looked seriously tempted, or at least he did to someone who knew him as well as Nie Huaisang did. His brother wasn’t actually an ascetic, the way Jin Guangyao had once or twice joked in a not-quite-joking tone he was; he just had different vices and hobbies than most men. No wine, women, or song for Nie Huaisang’s quixotic big brother, no – he liked steel, and forging, and sometimes dancing when he thought he could get away with it without losing face. Also those stupid overly complicated puzzles that Nie Huaisang needed to hunt up more of for him.

“I don’t know,” Nie Mingjue said, still hesitating. “My health –”

“I’ll get you cleared by Wen Qing,” Nie Huaisang assured him. “I’m sure she’ll say it’s good for you to engage in your hobbies more often, since you’ve been so bored without training Baxia so often.”

“I need to start doing that, too.”

“Ah, but you can only do that under supervision of doctors, and only in limited quantities until your qi improves. You need to fill your day with something that isn’t work, da-ge – doctor’s orders!”

Lan Qiren’s orders, to be more accurate. He’d been shoved into the role of sect leader, too, though he’d been older than Nie Mingjue was when it’d happened; he was now rigid to the point of unyielding on insisting that Nie Mingjue not allow himself to be swallowed up by it any more than he already had.

Anyway, his brother had already been very pointedly avoiding anything to do with sect business outside the sect, and in specific in relation to the Jin sect, and Jin Guangyao, which Nie Huaisang fully understood and supported. His brother might be tough on the outside, but he had a soft heart, and Jin Guangyao’s actions had broken it – it was better for Nie Mingjue’s health that he not think about it, at least for now.

Nie Huaisang had instead taken responsibility for external affairs into his own hands for the time being.

He wasn’t necessarily very good at it, he wasn’t good at much, but he was extremely capable of being very annoying and given the Nie sect’s current ascendant position in the cultivation world, that was all he needed to be to keep the Jin sect so busy guessing what he was up to that they’d (hopefully) be too busy to scheme any more.

And if Nie Huaisang had a scheme or two he was planning on trying back on them…well, that was his own business, right? Even if it failed, no one would be too surprised, he was just the stupid and useless second young master of Qinghe, after all.

No one broke his brother’s heart and got away with it. No one!

(Also, being in charge of external affairs meant that Nie Huaisang got to spend quite a bit of time sequestered with Lan Xichen, nominally ‘discussing sect business’, and it was great. They barely did any work at all!)

“All right, all right,” Nie Mingjue said. “You win, as you always do. Don’t you have anything better to do than attach yourself to me like some sort of parasite?”

“Nope! Cleared my entire morning just for this.” Nie Huaisang burrowed in more. “I’m going to steal all your heat away, da-ge, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Huaisang…”

“And later,” Nie Huaisang interrupted, marching all over his brother’s half-hearted protest, “you’re going to tell all the things you haven’t been telling me about our family’s cultivation style, and the saber tombs, and all of that.” His brother went very still. “You’re going to tell me, and then we’re going to figure out what we’re going to do about it together. All right?”

He waited to hear his brother’s response.

Instead, he felt the light touch of his brother’s palm on his hair.

“All right, Huaisang,” his brother said. “That sounds good. I’ll listen to you.”

“As you should,” Nie Huaisang said. “As you always should!”

“I’m not buying you any more fans, and you still need to train your saber.”

“Awww, but da-ge…!”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lan qiren #lan wangji #wen ning #wen qing #wei wuxian #my fic #this is an old one from the vaults #I THINK I never got around to posting it #if it's actually a duplicate let me know #my fics

[i-will-cry-you-a-river]

Like all things in Nie Huaisang's life, it started with Da-ge.

When killing Jin Guangyao and causing the heartbreak of Lan Xichen didn't help, didn't bring back his Da-ge nor gave him happiness or peace, at least - he tried something else.

The thing about sacrificing one, and alienating the other source of his to demonic cultivation was that it made everything way harder than it should have been - but he was always a resourceful little demon. Just as easily as he defeated the mastermind behind the murder of his Da-ge, he found himself back in time, when Jin Guangyao was still called Meng Yao and Da-ge was still a living, lovely little ball of rage and fierceness.

It was a strange experience, to be older than his brave and strong and talented Da-ge, but... he would always be his spoiled little didi. It wouldn't take long to get back to being the pampered little Second Master of Qinghe. Except...

He couldn't allow himself to be that lazy and shallow as he was. His Da-ge would. Not. Die. Not under his watch.

He was ready to kill Jin Guangyao, before the man could lay even a finger (or a faulty note) on his brother, but-

The man he met at the first time he opened his eyes in his past - in his new present -, was Meng Yao. His favorite non-Da-ge person, his friend, his first (second, if he wanted to be honest) crush. Da-ge's deputy, whose presence was essential in the daily lives of Qinghe. Nie Huaisang's plans changed in the minute he heard his A-Yao's soft words of concern.

"Is Second Master okay? Should I call for the healer?"

It was real.

Ever since he realized who killed his beloved brother, he questioned everything he knew about Meng Yao. He questioned his care, his love, his friendliness. But it was all real. His A-Yao really cared about him.

Maybe not Jin Guangyao. But Meng Yao did. And that care was what saved him.

"No, it's okay! It was just a quick dizziness, but everything is good now. And how many times more should I tell you that it's A-Sang?! A-Sang! A-Yao is so cruel to his A-Sang," he pouted, and the helpless adoration in the other man's eyes was so clear to him now that he didn't understand how past him had failed to notice it.

"Once more, probably," Meng Yao sassed, his tiny smile and cute little dimples hidden behind his sleeves.

"So cruel..." Nie Huaisang muttered, hiding his own smile behind a fan.

"Sect Leader sent me to tell you to get ready for the arrival of Young Master Lan," A-Yao said, taking Nie Huaisang's hairbrush in his hand to tame the unruly hair, and the younger boy allowed it, deep in his thoughts.

Meng Yao had to stay. Qinghe couldn't afford losing him right now, Jin Guangshan didn't deserve him, Nie Mingjue needed him at least until after the war, and Nie Huaisang... well, he wanted him. But in the past, as soon as Meng Yao had a better option, he took it, be it the adoration of Lan Xichen, the acceptance of Jin Guangshan or the opportunity to become Sect Leader. Meng Yao would do everything to be as close to power as he could, to be acknowledged and respected.

Nie Huaisang couldn't give that to him. He was just the heir, and saving Nie Mingjue was the whole reason for doing the whole time travel thing. He was not powerful enough. On the other hand, he would never allow Nie Mingjue to fall for Meng Yao, as his brother would never survive that relationship. Allowing Jin Guangshan to accept Meng Yao into the Jin Sect was absolutely out of the question. But-

But.

Hm.

That might work.

Lan Xichen had fallen for Meng Yao before. It was inevitable, but it was not enough. They would never do anything with their feelings; Xichen-ge was too Lan for anything, and Meng Yao would always feel inferior. And just the two of them... that would not guarantee Nie Mingjue's survival. (Hah! On the contrary, it would make the whole murder easier.) But!

But...

Lan Xichen always had a soft spot for Nie Huaisang. With some carefully timed helpless tears, some grateful hugs that last longer than appropriate, some flattering words and carefully cultivated image of being soft and sweet and just spicy enough to not be seen as a younger brother, it would be so easy to seduce the First Jade.

A-Yao already adored him, and if he had the means, the opportunity and the incentive to have Nie Huaisang as his, he would take it. Before, he never started anything with Huaisang because being the husband of the Second Young Master was not attractive enough. But being the spouse of the heir of Qinghe AND the heir - soon-to-be Sect Leader - of Lan was a completely different thing. Having connections to not one but two of the Big Sects, being Consort Lan, the husband of a man who would be indulgent to all of his manipulations and power games would be a temptation not even Meng Yao could resist.

Jing Guangshan had to die soon, though. It would be a shame to kill his not-yet-husband because he thought it was a good idea to suck up to his walking sexually transmitted disease of a father.

#better than revenge #nie huaisang #meng yao #lan xichen #xisangweek2023 #xisangyao #xisang #sangyao #xiyao