#he makes his way to a righteous cultivation sect to see his brother who he thought was lost to him in death…

[femmedefandom]

so I actually really enjoy the OG SQQ, he is such an angsty and dramatic bitch absolutely stuffed with trauma and terrible coping behind that ice cold veneer and it’s a shame we didn’t get more of him. there’s just so much to explore with him and he gets cut out and missed by his sect exactly 0% which is pretty heartbreaking.

#svsss #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #og!sqq #a guy that had the outline of a protagonist but the realism of life #orphan child taken living on the streets that has seen too much darkness to be naive but he cares for the other children in his own way #tries to survive the streets and being sold to an abusive family #his friend is saved and brought to a better life leaving him behind #he’s stuck playing the gentle toy for an oblivious girl as her brother torments him regularly #he’s abandoned by his friend and he decides to take fate into his own hands #learning cultivation from a rogue and breaking free of his chains the only way he’s learned how #with brutal and efficient violence…all by himself #he murders his abusers and the rogue who pushed him further into darkness and crime #he makes his way to a righteous cultivation sect to see his brother who he thought was lost to him in death… #…doing apparently just fine as the future sect leader of the top sect with nothing but a bright shiny future and no worries #his past and betrayals have turned him bitter and cutting and closed off but more driven than anyone else #he suffers from qi deviation and likely issues being around other men and substandard education to become head disciple and later peak lord #but no matter how high he goes all he sees is that little beaten and abandoned boy who was good enough for no one with no future #all those fancy worries and honors mean nothing to someone who did anything to survive #all the vague apologies in the world do nothing to ease the suffering he’s experienced #all the rumors and snide remarks are worth him trying to explain himself constantly - to justify his existence #and all the self loathing that has built up could have done nothing but explode upon meeting the blessed protagonist #don’t mind me #just in my feels about sqq again #mxtx why did you make this man only to throw him away??

[fincalinde]

you’ve mentioned a few times in your meta that you view nmj as being hypocritical, and i’m inclined to agree with you! would you share some specific quotes from the text that you feel especially support this reading of his character? 👀

It is one of my favourite words to apply to him, isn’t it! I think that’s because a) it’s true, and b) NMJ’s reputation for righteousness (and his belief in his own righteousness) grant an in-universe illusion of consistency that often bleeds through to external readings of him. So I press the point, because it’s fundamental to his character and I usually see it elided or reduced to all-bark-and-no-bite-grumpy-bear-with-a-heart-of-gold fanon NMJ.

And oh yes, there’s an absolute wealth of quotes supporting this. As always, I use the EXR fan translation because I’m old school.

Christ, this got long. Click for more.

It’s all relative, man

First we need to establish what NMJ’s principles supposedly are.

[Nie Huaisang’s] brother, Nie Mingjue, was extremely resolute when carrying out orders, quite renowned in the cultivation world. […] Nie Mingjue had always taught his younger brother with extreme harshness, particularly caring for his studies. (Chapter 13)

[…] he took over the Nie Sect before he even reached twenty, doing everything in a direct, forceful fashion. (Chapter 21)

When he lived, Nie Mingjue was often exasperated by the fact that his brother didn’t meet expectations, so he disciplined him strictly. (Chapter 21)

In spite of Nie Mingjue being a junior to Jin Guangshan, he conducted himself in a strict manner and refused to tolerate Xue Yang no matter what. (Chapter 30)

Without any hesitation, Nie Mingjue scolded, “Drinking the water he brought you while speaking such spiteful words! Did you join my forces not to kill the Wen-dogs but to make idle talk?!” (Chapter 48)

“A proper man should carry himself with proud righteousness. There’s no need to care for the talk of those idlers.” (Chapter 48)

As we can see, NMJ is all about righteousness, but we don’t get too many details confirming what that righteousness entails. We’re expected to make assumptions based on context: that his values are in line with the ideal values of his society, and that he’s living his life according to those principles (and enforcing said principles on others).

This is worth keeping in mind. We know NMJ is ‘righteous’. We know, in a general sense, what societal standards for morality are in this setting and we see the tension between society’s theoretical standards, its actual standards, and the moral frameworks of characters such as WWX and LXC. And there’s tension between those standards and NMJ’s moral framework, too. But though WWX attempts (and fails) to opt out and LXC attempts (and fails) to find a better way through open conversation and consideration of context, their failures are not due to hypocrisy but instead larger forces at play. In other words, they go up against society and society wins.

NMJ has a problem with society too, but for him the problem is not with its rules and assumptions—it’s with the individuals who make it up. He has no problem with the system. To NMJ, the system is a good thing. If only the people in it would rigidly conform to the rules, everything would be fine. And an outlook like that can only ever lead to hypocrisy, not just because human beings and their actions don’t fit into rigid categories, but because by not attempting to navigate the system (LXC, JGY, JC) or even attempting to opt out (WWX, LWJ, XY), NMJ positions himself above society, as a moral arbiter.

This is why he feels entitled to upbraid JGS, who is a generation above him. It’s why he feels entitled to harass and attempt to murder JGY for not being loyal to NMJ over and above his filial duty to his father. These actions are after he’s reached the point of no return with the sabre spirit, yes, but they didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s just the nadir of a path he’s been on presumably his entire life.

All the information is on the task

NMJ is very good at bending his supposedly rigid principles when it’s convenient for him, while not offering any grace or understanding to others who do the same. And ‘others’, let’s be real, usually equates to JGY. The horror vortex of NMJ’s obsession with controlling JGY really cannot be escaped.

Let’s start with the biggie. JGY is naturally the one who calls NMJ out, because he’s the only one who can see the emperor has no clothes, and by clothes I mean leg to stand on.

“But, Brother, I have always wanted to ask you something—the lives under your hands are in any regard more than those under mine, so why is it that I only killed a few cultivators out of desperation and you keep on bringing it up, even until now?” (Chapter 48)

“Are you saying that all of the people you killed deserved their deaths? […] Then, may I ask, just how do you decide if someone deserves death? Are your standards absolutely correct? If I kill one but save hundreds, would the good outweigh the bad, or would I still deserve death? To do great things, sacrifices must happen.” (Chapter 48)

Chifeng-zun, my man, he has nailed you. The point is not to start drawing equivalences in quite the way JGY is doing—I would certainly argue that if you’re killing undeserving people for the greater good you’d better have one hell of a greater good to be aiming for, even in the crapsack world of MDZS. JGY’s argument is partly a numbers game, but I want to set that aside, because it’s a distraction from his core point, to which numbers are irrelevant: can NMJ truly justify every single murder he has ever committed? Because if he can’t, he’s condemned by his own supposed standards. Note JGY’s use of the word ‘absolute’. NMJ is a moral absolutist! Is he absolutely sure? And if he is sure, does it matter that he’s sure? Why is his certainty more important than anyone else’s?

NMJ never once grapples with these questions. If he did, he might be able to pull the teeth of his own hypocrisy by acknowledging it and engaging with it. But of course he’s not capable of that, certainly not by the time of this scene.

And speaking of NMJ’s hypocrisy re: who does and doesn’t deserve to die…

“Very well! I’ll kill myself after I kill you!” (Chapter 49)

But Roquen, you cry! NMJ says such an utterly mad thing because he’s battered and beaten and not thinking clearly, not to mention past the point of no return with the sabre spirit as he’s been cultivating with resentful energy intensely throughout the war! That’s why he walks it back after LXC intervenes!

To which I say: it is almost as though context matters!

And yes, I’m aware of the context. I’m aware that just before this bit of dialogue the narrative claims JGY pointing out ‘if I hadn’t killed them you’d be dead’ is a subtle way of saying ‘you can’t kill me because you owe me your life’ as though that’s purely manipulative rather than being, you know, true. ‘Even if you refuse to accept I acted for the best, please don’t kill me and I’m going to subtly remind you that you owe me to maximise my chances of getting you to not kill me (after I just risked my life to save yours when it would have been 100x better for me personally if you died)’ is hardly an outrageous position.

It’s interesting, though, isn’t it, that NMJ never again mentions taking his own life as a matter of principle, despite the fact that he subsequently attempts to murder JGY again for the apparently unforgivable crime of … not being able to overrule his abusive father about XY, and then having the temerity to complain to LXC about NMJ’s attempt to murder him.

Obviously the Jin are a huge threat after the war, but these are all pretty feeble reasons for piling on JGY. Sure, maybe JGY would also have tried to protect XY if JGS weren’t around, but the fact is that JGS is around and he’s calling the shots. Besides, once JGS is out of the picture JGY has no issue disposing of XY (with Dr Evil levels of ineptness, apparently), so that’s a fairly decent indicator he’s not ride or die. As for the fact that JGY is making nice to NMJ’s face but complaining behind his back, well. Regardless of any genuine desire to vent to his only friend, I have no doubt he was indeed trying to drive a wedge between NMJ and LXC as a strategic move. But is it wrong of him to do so, considering NMJ is a genuine and present threat to his life and LXC is just not getting it? And does any of the above, including his struggle to maintain his position and all the other work he does for his father mean he deserves death—immediate, extrajudicial and violent death?

Let me put it this way. NMJ is making JGY responsible for his father’s actions and his father’s orders—the question of whether JGY is on board with his father’s instructions is academic, because he has no choice in the matter. JGY cannot opt out of his situation. The only opt out is death, and that is not a meaningful choice because no one else is getting vilified for having the audacity to fight for their place in their world rather than lie down and die. And even if JGY really were a cackling supervillain 100% on board with his father’s diabolical plans, NMJ’s focus on him to the exclusion of JGS is driven by emotion and not by a rational evaluation of the morality and logistics of the situation.

And when he’s insisting that JGY deserves death (and trying to mete it out to him) NMJ never again considers for a moment whether, if JGY really deserves to die, then maybe he does too.

As a third example, to make it a hat trick, we have this:

However, Jin Guangyao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin Guangyao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie Huaisang. (Chapter 49)

“Brother, it really was my father’s orders. I couldn’t refuse. Now. if you want me to take care of Xue Yang, what would I say to him?” (Chapter 49)

NMJ is perfectly aware that according to the rules of their society and the moral framework he himself subscribes to, JGY’s highest authority is his father. But NMJ can’t accept that. He thinks he should be the ultimate authority over JGY, and though he couches it in moral terms about wanting JGY to follow the correct path, what he really means is what he himself considers to be the correct path. As always, he doesn’t listen to JGY’s perfectly valid points about how it’s not possible for him to do the ‘right’ thing as he just doesn’t have that kind of authority and will only end up making his own life worse. I don’t have a quote demonstrating this, but considering everything we know about NMJ, I think we can infer he would not take kindly to JGY ordering NHS to do something futile and self-destructive in the name of the correct path, purely on the grounds that JGY is now his elder brother.

I’ll acknowledge again that JGY is absolutely an accomplice in his father’s schemes, and the originator of a fair few of them since he’s politically gifted. But it’s just not possible to untangle JGY’s complicity from his need (and his right!) to survive. NMJ is correct to be concerned about JGY as a risk, because he’s a huge asset to JGS. But once again, making JGY a target is not the moral or even the sensible thing to do. We know JGY enjoys aspects of what his father asks him to do. We also know that once his father is out of the picture he gets rid of XY, purges the Jin of corruption and pushes through the watchtower project. When he has agency as a clan leader he doesn’t follow his father’s political agenda to the letter, to say the least! So there is certainly a large dollop of truth in his claims that he has no choice and he’s unhappy and vulnerable.

And then a bonus, something not linked to JGY to demonstrate that NMJ’s hypocrisy extends beyond his personal vendetta.

Nie Mingjue spoke coldly. “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.” (Chapter 73)

Charming. Funny how NMJ says this after spending the war fighting on the same side as the guy who invented demonic cultivation and controls an army of desecrated corpses, violating every possible social and cultural principle they have. But the Sunshot Campaign would have failed without WWX’s contributions, so I suppose NMJ thought that compromise was acceptable. It’s all right for him to stay silent and not oppose WWX, since WWX has been useful to his own agenda. What’s not acceptable is staying silent when the consequence is your own violent death and literally no good whatsoever being achieved thereby.

Aside from being a hypocrite, NMJ is also pathologically incapable of self-reflection.

Finish him!

At the end of the day, NMJ’s principles are inherently contradictory because he’s living in morally relative world where the narrative expects us to take context into account and root for a protagonist who brutally tortures his enemies to death and a romantic lead who find+replaces his ethical framework with ‘Wei Ying’.

It is simply not possible for NMJ to be both righteous and rigid, so when he chooses to be rigid he foregoes being righteous. Even in his moments of flexibility, he continues to apply harsh standards to others that he refuses to apply to himself. That’s what makes him a hypocrite. He isn’t a bastion of absolute morality in a sea of corruption. He’s in denial about the nuanced reality he’s living in, and placing himself on high as a moral authority with no actual mandate. Hypocrisy inevitably results, and the consequences are hugely damaging to everyone around him.

#ask #thatswhatsushesaid #roquen meta #like i said he is FASCINATING #but in a horrifying kind of way #i should also sling in the tags a clarification #that i literally do not care that wwx has an army of desecrated corpses #i'm just pointing out that like you know #it's relevant #if i applied my actual real life moral standards to this text #i wouldn't be able to engage with it all #bc everyone is a walking war crime

[staunchen]

so i was thinking about lan wangji and how he has this reputation of being righteous while also in my opinion acting like an asshole? like he acts very petty and is ready to pull his sword on people a lot and isn't really involved in politics even in a way that makes sense as a high ranking member of a sect? like the silencing spell on jin ling is uh. bad.

it's like lan wangji has scary dog privilege by virtue of his reputation and his brother and uncle who will wreck you if you do or say anything to/about him. except thats not right because theyre not scary dogs at all, they just protect him. it's like lan wangji is a scary dog and lan xichen and lan qiren smooth things over and stop him from doing something too awful and calm others down after lan wangji does something not too great. and i guess with the reputation for being righteous (second jade of lan) is enough to deter people from saying/doing things like "hey he's a dick" because dude that's hanguang-jun, what are you talking about???".

and the people he saves on night hunts or whatever are random civilians who don't interact with him enough to see him behave badly, and a cool and aloof powerful cultivator saving them gets a lot of leeway on account of being a famous powerful cultivator and also being someone who saved them from fierce corpses or spirits or healed their kid or grandparent or whatever. who cares if theyre quiet and kinda rude they saved their sister!!!!!

so when lan wangji is a dick to jin ling or fucks off from political stuff or is ready to pull his sword on jiang cheng in the jiang ancestral hall or whatever he's doing so with the reputation of hanguang-jun who saves people and also is supported by lan xichen (lan sect leader and brother) and lan qiren (former acting sect leader, uncle, teacher) and they are protective and dare i say overindulgent of lan wangji???? like bro you are a political figure whether you like it or not, your actions have effects on things besides your own direct personal circle. like the heir of gusu lan pulling a sword on sect leader jiang is fucking political incident whether or not theyre both being assholes or not. the adult heir of gusu lan using the lan silencing spell on the teenage heir of lanling jin is a political incident. not engaging with other sects politically, ever, says important things about your priorities and your influence both within the sect and without.

also like. what if something happened to gusu lan? like say lan xichen is injured, and lan qiren is also out of commission for some reason? that means lan wangji is acting sect leader. can you IMAGINE lan wangji as sect leader. imagine it. really visualize it. there's a lot of jokes about lan wangji being a petty bitch and people love it but imagine a petty bitch as a sect leader. the situation would blow up faster than lans get drunk on a glass of wine. like dude. so much stuff would be totally fucked.

anyway lan wangji as he is in mdzs would be a shit sect leader/chief cultivator/etc. he doesn't behave like he's intimately involved in the politics of his world (which he is) and may or may not have training in doing so - maybe he has training and just doesn't do it? which is also really bad, then he would know better and still not do it or help in any way.

#mdzs #meta #mdzs meta #yeah #it's rough #lan wangji #i mean dude is not diplomatic #could do a whole other thing on how lan qiren and lan xichen and nie mingjue are not great on not preparing lan wangji and nie huaisang #for political stuff #i deeply understand why #wanting to protect your younger loved on from shitty realities and keeping them safe and happy #but also they have responsibilities and they may/will fall on them eventually! #like nie huaisang will likely be sect leader someday! esp as nie mingjue's qi deviations get worse and worse post sunshot #i mean nie mingjue is aware and part of the whole thing is protecting him from their sect's damaging cultivation #and taking care of him #but it still isn't good for nie huaisang and nie sect as a whole #and in lan sect its like. lan wangji may not ever be sect leader but we've seen so much bullshit happen before and during sunshot especiall #and wanting to protect him esp after the shit in their childhood with their mom dying #but like. dude. you are doing your younger sibling/nephew/whatever no favors by not preparing them or teaching them what's up #they are in for a rude awakening because as we see with nie mingjue and nie huaisang you can't protect them forever #and people will make judgments and behave accordingly #sucks all around honestly

[loosingmoreletters]

Summary: Her crime is justice. How long would it take for a-Zhan’s boy to fall to the same judge? Deep in the throes of the Sunshot Campaign, Lan Zhan begs his mother for help. Warning: Rated M for Implied/Referenced Rape of Madam Lan.

“Mother, please.”

A-Zhan is her son and that scares them. They insist his posture remain perfect, his conduct flawless, and his adherence to the rules absolute. She and Lan Qiren have an understanding, so she knows it is an act of love. If Lan Qiren can raise a-Zhan right, he will not be put in the hands of others, who might forbid her from seeing her sons altogether. For all his own faults, Lan Qiren has raised a-Zhan well. She doesn’t begrudge him this – Lan Qiren has never wanted to be a sect leader or father and his brother has forced him to become both.

No, she judges Lan Qiren for a hundred other things, a thousand sometimes, when she is feeling particularly vicious. Those days turned rarer as her sons grew older and she saw them raised to be kind. A-Huan listens when most refuse, even to her plight, against her wishes and expectations. No boy should learn what monster he’s forced to call father, but neither she nor Lan Qiren could spare him this.

His death was a relief.

It takes a-Zhan longer to realize because they’ve learned what mistakes not to make with a-Huan and because a-Zhan struggles to imagine cruelty as anything but absence. He brings her injured animals to heal and learns traveling songs to remind her of the road.

Her children are both kind, but a-Zhan is hers in the way a-Huan isn’t.

A-Zhan would taste blood for love.

It would coat his teeth the same as hers as she consented to having a-Zhan in exchange for seeing a-Huan. Had the birth not nearly killed her, she likely would’ve struck a bargain again, bloodied teeth, nails digging into the wood, carving runes. Two decades of imprisonment, and all she has to show for it are papers beneath hidden floorboards, enough anger to break the barrier holding her.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The Lan know how to keep someone quiet and isolated better than anyone else.

Even now, when they are in the middle of rebuilding and fighting, her sons bleeding on the battlefield, she is kept here instead of sent out to fight, mind the children, or cook meals. It isn’t a-Huan’s decision to keep her, but his word isn’t setting her free either.

It is a-Zhan, too thin, crying as he did upon his first return to Cloud Recesses, finding her alive.

“Wei Ying,” he says, “Wei Ying, his cultivation is harming him.”

Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian, the adventurous boy keeping her son away from her for three months, the clever boy who gave her the fish he’d caught after being dismissed from the classroom, the dear boy her son loves and cannot keep.

“What is he doing?” she asks unnecessarily, already aware of what they call him.

She is not a soldier in this war, but she knows the Wen army is twice the size of theirs and heard of the man drowning in resentment, commanding what she prophesized years ago.

‘Energy is energy!’ laughed the unfamiliar boy openly when the same crime had seen her imprisoned.

Well, not the suggestions. They accused her of lying when she’d been entirely truthful: she had come to the Cloud Recesses to study. Haunted by a girl suffering under a man’s hands that her spirit could not be suppressed anymore, wouldn’t it be more righteous to let her vent her anger at the target? When she came to the Lan, she thought their cultivation might give her ideas; instead, she found an injustice no one would take action against.

Her crime is justice. How long would it take for a-Zhan’s boy to fall to the same judge?

“He has corpses fight for him, he commands them by song or whistle, clapping if he can do neither. He walks the unorthodox path and I cannot help him. Mother, please. I need your aid. If he won’t listen to me, won’t take back the sword—”

Mother, can you protect my love?

All her theories are hidden beneath the floorboards and she knows a-Zhan hasn’t seen them. “Who told you, a-Zhan?”

Her son avoids her gaze, which is as good a confession as any. No one told him; he’s either concluded why her cottage is warded so heavily against resentment or caught sight of whatever documents remain of her hushed-up trial.

“A-Zhan,” she says and brushes the tears off her son’s cheek. “I theorized, but the furthest I’ve ever come to using resentment was summoning a singular spirit to my bidding.”

And her bidding had been the spirit’s will. Who summoned who in that forest, twenty years ago?

But her son is desperate and she loves him. There is nothing she wouldn’t do for him, has remained here for a-Huan and him.

“Talk to him, please. You soothe my mind when you speak to me. Perhaps you’ll figure out how to ease his temper. No one understands what he does, only that it is unnatural.”

Her a-Zhan is five all over again, asking her about a world she hasn’t seen in years, confident that mother will righten it and lead him on the correct path.

She smiles at her son and brushes imaginary dust off her robes. She has a xiao, bought when she was a student and kept because the Lan did not know what she wanted to use it for. Absentmindedly, she wonders if Lan Qiren has seen Wei Ying and realized what the instrument was for. She hopes a-Huan won’t resent her for using an instrument he utilizes too, and only because of her.

“I’ll do my best, a-Zhan. Can you bring me to him?”

Breaking the ward will call attention to her escape, but before she has time to linger on the thought, a-Zhan simply deactivates it. She blinks, having forgotten momentarily that for a few terrible weeks, a-Zhan was the sect heir, a-Huan presumed missing or dead.

“We must hurry, mother.”

So serious, her dear boy. She laughs and accepts his hand, taking one step after another out of her prison. She is further from the building than ever when a-Zhan helps her step on his sword. What a picture they must make together, a-Zhan dressed for recovery and her for another day of solitary leisure, flying towards war.

She doesn’t cry or show relief yet, refuses to give her son any reason to feel guilty.

Tomorrow, she will see his Wei Ying and ask him if twenty years of theory measure up to three months of practice.

#wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #madam lan #mdzs #the untamed #fanfic #mdzs fanfic

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Lans used to be conquers, before putting on a public facade hundreds of years ago to shift public opinion on them. Buying them the perfect time. Genuinely Dark! Lan Xichen and NieYao.

Jin Guangyao thought that Nie Mingjue would be the one to break first.

After all, he’d been a sect leader, and not just a sect leader, not just an honored general or an acclaimed warrior, but the unquestioned and even beloved ruler of his expansive and powerful family. To go from such terrifying heights to being little more than a prisoner of war – no, not a prisoner of war, for that suggested that there might be some reprieve, but a slave.

A pet. Beloved still, even cossetted and spoiled, but forever confined.

Surely, surely, such a radical transformation would be impossible to tolerate, much less for someone of Nie Mingjue’s righteous and choleric temperament. Surely the advantage lay with Jin Guangyao, who was accustomed to being at the bottom of the heap, a whore’s son with no power over his own life, who had had to build himself up from nothing more than once and could do it again…

Yet in the end it was Jin Guangyao that felt strangled by their new position in life, reduced to a much adored collared pet of the new tyrant of the cultivation world, Lan Xichen of the now fully ascendant Lan sect that had been gathering its power and developing plans of conquest for generations. It was Jin Guangyao that constantly tried to find ways to assert himself, to get information in or orders out, that tried to bribe the guards or escape or – or something. Anything.

Nie Mingjue, on the other hand, spent most of his time either sleeping, eating, or reading. Occasionally painting.

Jin Guangyao hadn’t even known that Nie Mingjue knew what a paintbrush was.

“I’m pretty awful at it, aren’t I?” Nie Mingjue asked cheerfully when Jin Guangyao, pushed to the end of his tether and beyond, confronted him. “It’s not even that fun, to be honest; I doubt I’ll keep it up. I just wanted to see what Huaisang was always blabbering on about.”

“What about Nie Huaisang?” Jin Guangyao asked, seizing on that. “Don’t you worry about what happened to him?”

Nie Mingjue frowned at him. “I know what happened to him – he’s with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, over in Lan Wangji’s fortress in the west. Quite happy, to all accounts. Xichen even said –”

“Oh, yes, er-ge said, so of course it must be true,” Jin Guangyao said bitterly. “Didn’t it occur to you that he might lie? The way, oh, you know, he lied about everything else?”

“Are you really still bitter about that? He was trying to conquer the world! Naturally he wasn’t going to tell us about it.” Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes. “The Lan sect rules say, Have wins and losses. You shouldn’t take it so much to heart –”

“Did you really just quote the Lan sect rules at me?!”

“Why not? They’ve clearly worked out pretty well for them.”

Jin Guangyao snarled in frustration. “How can you tolerate this?”

“Because I lost,” Nie Mingjue snapped back, his formidable temper starting to rear its head. “I did everything in my power to stop it, but I still lost.”

“So now you just give up?!”

“Ah, what would you understand?! You’ve never been responsible for anyone other than yourself, not really, not as anything more than a transient job. Losing has always been a possibility, something I’ve had to face up to – do you know what the Wen-dogs would have done to my sect if they won? We’d be lucky if they left even the infants alive!”

“So instead you’re content to be conquered by the Lan?”

“Better the Lan than the Wen! My people are safe and well cared for, my brother is safe. Even I’m safe. For the first time since my childhood, I don’t have to worry about any of them. If I’m inclined to take some time to finally rest, there’s nothing wrong with that, and you of all people aren’t going to make me feel as though there is. So get lost!” Jin Guangyao gave up on him and stormed off. Maybe he could try again to bribe the guards…

#mdzs #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #alt headcanons #dunno if this really meets the prompt #but such as is

[iamwestiec]

yesssss here have three that happened to all be next to each other anyway:

Matchmaker Matchmaker Plz Stop Multipoint time travel phoenix mountain reverse

Muahahaha okay so —

Matchmaker Matchmaker Plz Stop is the transcript/outline of a 5+1 that I chatficced approximately one million years ago, wherein a blissfully married postcanon wangxian decide that what Lan Xichen needs is a partner. It goes... poorly:

WWX: Lan Zhan, does your brother like women? Doesn't Sect Leader Yao have a daughter?

LWJ: Wei Ying, she hates you.

WWX: Most people do, that's okay.

LWJ: 'Your blood debt cannot be repaid even if you died ten thousand times' hates you.

WWX: Sure, but he dated Chifeng-zun, so we know he likes people passionate for justice!

MEANWHILE, however, Lan Xichen is becoming friends with Song Lan, who has come to the Cloud Recesses for Reasons and is sticking around because he's had a tough several years, so listening to Lan Xichen's low-stakes matchmaking woes is actually kinda nice. Song Lan is a really good listener! Lan Xichen finds him very pleasant company and easy to like. (He grew up with Wangji; he is used to a conversation partner who communicates primarily in Eyebrow.) The +1 is the perfect date Song Lan plans after hearing about everything Lan Xichen doesn't want. 😊

Multipoint Time Travel is an unfinished threadfic based on this poster featuring the unlikely grouping of Alive Wen Ning, baby Jiang-zongzhu, Lan Camp arc Wei Wuxian, and post-timeskip Lan bros:

Shufu waves them to their seats and resumes his lecture, and Lan Xichen spends the next shi alternating between distant panic at their situation and silent amusement at Wangji's clear struggle not to respond to Wei Wuxian’s pranks. When a little red paperman makes its way across the room, Lan Xichen has to disguise his giggle as a cough at Wei Wuxian’s stunned face as Wangji picks it up and does nothing more than smoothly tuck it into his robes, next to his heart.

When time comes for the midday meal, Lan Xichen rises, planning to rescue his brother from the cheerfully bewildered chirps of, "Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan!" that started up as soon as Shufu dismissed them. He receives an unexpected assist in the form of Jiang Wanyin shoving his shixiong out the door with a growled, "Go find jiejie; see if she needs help."

Before he can extract Wangji, Jiang Wanyin spins around, flexing his right hand in the way Lan Xichen knows would have Zidian sparking in his time. For a moment, his student robes seem overlayed with purple. "One of you tell me—" Jiang Wanyin demands, looking older than he should but with an uncertain edge in his eyes Lan Xichen hasn't seen since the war, "just what the FUCK is going on?"

Phoenix Mountain Reverse is some postcanon wangxian roleplay:

Lan Wangji sat cross-legged with his hands poised over his qin and his back against the trunk of a broad, sturdy tree, blindfolded.

He was in these woods for a hunt, and he had entered them blindfolded to prove to a certain cocky young man that wicked tricks offered no true advantage over one properly dedicated to the righteous path. By Hanguang jun's example, that youth and all those tempted to imitate his dangerous new cultivation would come to see the error of their ways and return to the path of orthodoxy before they met a terrible and inevitable end.

Or at least that was the reason Wei Wuxian had devised. He was, more accurately, so seated and so attired because he wished to be so, because it pleased him and Wei Wuxian both to play these sorts of games, even if Lan Wangji required far less in the way of elaborate background story than did Wei Wuxian. The construction of the fantasy, he had come to realize, was part of the game for his husband, part of the pleasure of it. And Lan Wangji was not one to deny his Wei Ying even the smallest measure of pleasure.

So: here he was in the woods, waiting to be ravished. 

ask me about my WIPs!

#wip titles #wip wednesday #sheesh some of these are DUSTY #westie writes #shadaras

[ladyqueth]

Lan Xichen’s “Mistake” Line

There’s been much ado about Lan Xichen calling Wei Wuxian his brother’s “only mistake.”  To a reader, it’s quite a soundbite.  But I’d like to make the case that that line doesn’t say anything more or different from the rest of LXC’s rant speech.  Which is to say, it wasn’t passing a romantic or even personal judgment on WWX or Wangxian.

This isn’t a translation meta, but any time a short line gets outsized attention, I like to check against the original just in case.  The word here is 错, which has similar breadth to the English word “wrong” - covering things from being incorrect on a test to moral fault to, yes, mistakes.  So in that sense, it’s not wrong (hah) to translate it as “mistake.”  But I think that brings some baggage and does bias English-speaking fans’ reactions in a way the original text may not.

@spicychickenyang once suggested to me that a better localization would be “transgression.”  I think that’s perfect.

See how it changes things?

You were his only mistake.

You were his only transgression.

The latter makes clear that it’s not LXC’s personal opinion that WWX is ‘wrong’ in some sense.  It’s rules and society that claim WWX is in the wrong.  WWX knows that; he’s not going to be bothered by LXC saying so.

[This isn’t the place for me to talk about translation vs. localization, but here’s a nice article about it.]

That LXC is speaking about societal judgment is also clear in the other instances of 错 being used in the same speech.

Do you know how he’d knelt in front of the the Wall of Discipline?! When I went to see him, I told him, ‘Young Master Wei was already in the wrong [大错], why add onto the wrong [错] committed?’ And he said……. He can’t affirm whether what you did was right or wrong [对错] . But no matter what, he was willing to shoulder all of the responsibility together with you.  (x)

LXC’s comments immediately before the “‘mistake’ line” is also all about societal perception (or the perception of authority, when he invokes LQR).

With the ways in which he looked and talked to you when he saved you and hid you in that cave, even someone who was blind or deaf could perceive his feelings, which was why my uncle was in such anger. WangJi was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. In his whole life he had been honest and righteous and immaculate---you were the only mistake he made!  (ExR translation)

In other words, everyone saw LWJ as above reproach.  The only time he acted out of accord with that was for WWX.

Recall that this--the societal condemnation of LWJ for helping WWX--was precisely LXC’s fear after the events of Nightless City.

I was afraid that if some other sect had reached the two of you first, WangJi would be treated as your accomplice. His name and reputation would be ruined forever or, worse, he would be killed instantly without trial.  (x)

The anger in LXC’s delivery was personal (even then still from a place of not wanting to see LWJ get hurt), but what he was telling WWX was all about societal and external consequences to LWJ, not LXC’s personal feelings about LWJ’s behavior.

If you go back to the top and follow the overall arc of what LXC and WWX are talking about, it boils down to this:

WWX: How did he get his scars?  Did it have something to do with me?

LXC: How could it not have something to do with you?  [Exposition.]  Wangji has been perfect in all else; his only transgression that could earn such punishment would be in relation to you.

Maybe this is still offensive to some fans.  But it doesn’t make LXC a Wangxian anti.  And the words are not something that WWX would be bothered by (separate from the underlying facts, which do bother him of course) or that LXC should need to apologize about afterwards.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #lan xichen #this is one of those 'I don't care about xyz but the haters turned me into a defender' things #but if you come down to it I don't think LXC is either the Wangxian ship captain nor an anti #he's just a nice guy and generally benevolent towards others #he supports things that keeps his brother healthy and happy #but also feels more constrained by rules and society than LWJ #and actually I think that's part of the anger that's coming out in this speech #his frustration at his own inability to flout society as compared to what LWJ did #anyways #this post probably got harder to write the longer I waited #would you believe this was the original reason I started a Tumblr account #and then I thought I needed to better understand why people were upset about this line #all the while getting sucked into Tumblr for its own sake #well now it's done. I'm out. #(just kidding) #(you're still stuck with me)

[heavymetalchemist]

I think it’s easy to forget that Wei Wuxian is strongly villain-coded. We see the story from his perspective, we know his reasons and justifications, if you’re watching CQL and paying attention you can figure out the core transfer before the reveal. We know that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are good guys. We know that the Burial Mounds gang is a bunch of tired uncle/aunts trying to grow some stupid radishes, a four year old, and the Disaster Bi Gang (none of whom have swords, even!) We know that Wei Wuxian has his heart in the right place, that he feels an incredibly strong debt to the Wen Siblings and by extension their remaining family, that he has no golden core and has no choice but to forsake the sword and cultivate the demonic path, that he defects from the Jiang sect in a fake fight with his brother so that the Jiang sect won’t suffer the consequences of his actions, even though they have Secret Soup later.

But if you’re not us, the audience? If you’re, for example, Sect Leader Yao?

Hey did you all hear about how Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses for violently lashing out at the Jin sect heir?

Hey did you all see how he doesn’t carry his sword any more and claims it’s because he’s so badass that he doesn’t need it? And he has that Stygian tiger seal, so maybe it’s not bullshit? Can you even fight against that with a sword?

What kind of power does this guy even have? He’s a teenager! He drinks all the time and he’s moody and surly and holy shit did you hear what he did at that Wen outpost? He tortured all of them to death! Ugly stuff, man. Gruesome way to go. Maybe even worse than what Wen Ruohan did, at least a hot poker doesn’t make you claw your own eyes out.

Oh shit, he just stormed into this banquet and just SAID “if I want to kill someone who can stop me” and he still has that tiger seal I think we should be worried???

He just busted a bunch of Wen cultivators out of prison! And then he ran off to the Burial Mounds??? And his sect leader didn’t even know anything about it? Is he going rogue? Is he starting an uprising? This demonic cultivation stuff really seems to be corrupting him!

Oh man he got kicked out of the Jiang sect? You mean even the man he grew up with, who he was raised with practically as a brother, can’t control him any more? Did you hear about his fierce corpse? They call him the Ghost General! He’s unstoppable! What are we going to do if he comes for us?

He could be building a whole army in there, Sect Leader Jin said so! Who knows what kind of sick, twisted stuff he’s getting up to! Don’t forget all that horrible shit in the Sunshot Campaign, remember when he was raising the Wens’ own dead to turn against them? He could do that to us! He’s working with the Wens now, even! He’s gone totally crazy!

We can’t let some outlaw have all this power. It’s putting the safety of all of us at risk. What if it’s just another Wen Ruohan waiting to happen? (especially applicable if you’re thinking he’s using Yin iron as in CQL!) If we let him consolidate his power too much, then he’ll be unstoppable!

HOLY SHIT he murdered the Jin sect heir and his cousin with his fierce corpse! That’s the man his former shijie married! The one he punched in the Cloud Recesses, remember when the Lans kicked him out because he was so unruly and disrespectful? Yeah! It was probably revenge! Have we done anything to him? Oh gods what if we’re next???

A major point of MDZS/CQL is how important reputation is, and how that affects everything. Wei Wuxian’s reputation is straight-up villainous. We, the audience, know that he’s trying his best, that he’s a traumatized teenager with a shitload of emotional baggage trying to do the right thing and repay a colossal debt, that he’s made choices that he now has to try and live with, etc. But to the rest of the world this guy has fucking lost it, he’s gone off the deep end and he has an incredibly powerful weapon and a mode of cultivation that seems to corrupt you and turn you into a monster, and frankly, they’re not wrong! It does affect his temperament and he does end up killing a lot of people and he is out of control!

MDZS/CQL is interesting precisely because we’re getting an entire Villain Apology Story. A long time ago I read a post by someone on here saying they find Jiang Cheng challenging to write about because he’s the protagonist of a different story, and he really is. He’s the guy whose former shixiong turns into a villain in pursuit of power, the Obi-Wan to WWX’s Anakin, the one who sees how incredible power corrupts and is obligated to fight against it. Having to fight against a former ally who was seduced by “the dark side” (in this case, demonic cultivation) is a story that gets told over and over, but always condemning the one who went to the dark side. He’s the blackened protagonist, the aren’t you tired of being nice, don’t you want to go ape shit power fantasy, where we as the audience can justify his actions because we know he did it to save his brother, his sister, the Wen remnants he owes a debt to. He isolates himself from the people who love him to protect them, he refuses Lan Wangji’s help because he’s convinced he just wants to lock him up and stop him from using demonic cultivation because he’s a righteous upstanding Lan (totally unaware of LWJ’s intense crush, obviously). He jokes about it but he knows he’s being painted as the villain, and he’s in denial about how much that will affect him, because after all… he’s the Yiling Laozu, and he knows his power. But so does everyone else, and they’re rightfully terrified!

And yet? When he comes back, LWJ still wants him, still cares for him, will move heaven and earth to protect him. JC cares about him so much he’s having a Constant Crisis about it. And WWX has not forgotten his shijie or shidi, immediately cares about Jin Ling, and still is the man who really just wanted to be free and grow some goddamn radishes. He accepts that he paid for what he’s done with his death, and just wants to start over.

It just drives me nuts when people pretend like WWX was an angel who did nothing wrong because the whole POINT is that he was a villain-coded gay (well, bi) and the man you had to really watch out for was the polite, thoughtful, soft-spoken one that worked his way up from a tragic backstory. It’s a whole subversion and it’s awesome!

#mdzs meta #wei wuxian #yiling laozu #of course wwx has a good heart but remember when that kid shot an arrow at him and he threw it right back through his heart? #remember when JC and LWJ walked into that Wen outpost and were like oh fuck oh man what the fuck? #remember when he almost busted out chenqing to murder JZX over a SOUP MISUNDERSTANDING? #this is not a wwx hate post this is a pls understand complex characters and nuance post #that audience knowledge is NOT character knowledge #is this a lowkey NMJ defense post? yes.

[dangermousie]

Mousie’s absolutely subjective, very biased Top 10 web novels list

Please note that this is hardly aiming to be objective, if one can even be properly objective about a work of fiction. It is 110% based on my preferences, which means this list is heavy on the angst and has nothing set in the modern day. It is also heavily danmei-centric, even though I read way more het romance than danmei, because for whatever reason, most of the danmei I’ve read has been insanely good.

10. Return of the Swallow - one of the two non-danmeis on this list. Smart and nuanced and with a large cast of characters. Our heroine is a long-lost daughter of the family that is brought back in and has to cope with familial struggles, crazy royals, court intrigue, invasion et al. It’s SO GOOD! There is romance with the sexy smart enemy general but honestly, it’s the heroine that is the main selling point for me.

9. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - the only other non-danmei novel on this list, this was my very first web novel and what drew me into this insanity. This is just a ton of fun, probably the lightest novel on this list, not an ounce of angst to be found. But it’s hilarious and features competent heroine and tsundere hero and I will always love it for opening a new world to me. Anyway, our heroine transmigrates into the novel as the female lead. Unlike the original lead though she doesn’t want to seek adventures and angst - she just wants to comfortably live with the wealthy, nice husband heroine has. Alas, said husband is no longer nice since he has previously lived this story where he was betrayed by FL and then transmigrated/reincarnated into the past. Oh well, the heroine opens up businesses and makes friends. And eventually, her husband realizes his wife is way different this time around. This actually doesn’t have much romance, not until close to the end, but this is so fun I don’t care.

8. Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

7. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) - oh come on, how are you even on this tumblr if you don’t know MDZS/The Untamed? This was my very first danmei and it’s so much fun! I love everything about it - the unreliable narrator, the looping structure, the main OTP, Wei Wuxian’s laidback, traumatized insouciance, everything. Anyway, the plot in the event you somehow transported here from 2005 is that the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Wuxian, was defeated by the righteous sects over a decade ago and fell of a cliff to his death. Only now that same Wei Wuxian opens his eyes in another body and everything that was supposed to stay in the past starts again.

6. Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF) - people either love its meandering narrative, picaresque structure and cast of thousands, or find it a detriment compared to much more compact MDZS. I love it even more than MDZS for those very qualities. It does have a rock-solid, darling OTP, but what really elevates it to me are the MXTX trademark combo of snarky/light tone hiding a ton of trauma underneath, the insanely intricate world-building, and what it has to say about the nature of grace and goodness. Xie Lian is one of my top 5 web novel characters and probably in top 10 from anywhere. Oh, and while MXTX’s stuff is not as angsty for me as Meatbun’s or even Priest’s, there are always exceptions, and there is one chapter in this novel that pretty much broke me and sometimes I still flashback to it and feel unwell.

Anyway, what is it about? There is a commotion in the heavenly realm - Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of a long-destroyed kingdom, has ascended to Godhood. That in itself is not so exciting. However for Xie Lian this is the third time (!!!!) as he’s ascended and lost his godhood twice prior. And now, the biggest joke of the divine realm is back, throwing the heavenly realm into chaos. And elsewhere, Hua Cheng, one of the four most powerful demons of that Universe, sits up and takes notice.

5. Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

4. Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

3. To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

1. The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

#cnovel #2ha #yuwu #to rule in a turbulent world #lsww #sha po lang #golden stage #return of the swallow #transmigrator meets reincarnator #lord seventh #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #heaven official's blessing #the dumb husky and his white cat shizun

[jingyismom]

Thoughts on Lan Wangji’s uncomfortable position during Sunshot

Rated T, pre-relationship wangxian, cw for harrassment, suggestive language, no other warnings, canon compliant

~

During the Sunshot campaign, Lan Wangji only had the reputation of being peerless and pure before the fighting began. It is entirely possible that this, plus his position and appearance, could have resulted in jumped-up heirs from lesser sects thinking him easy prey.

He came into it late, too, after leading the Wei Wuxian-finding mission with the Jiangs.

Imagine this beautiful young cultivator in spotless white appearing in a city filled with men primed for war.

Worse, imagine the fragile state of Gusu Lan and their dependence on these alliances.

Lan Wangji is politically aware, even though he's not held to the same standard as his brother. And when these men loom out of dark corners spewing lewd remarks and making even lewder requests, he wants to kill them. If the situation were different, they would come away at least maimed.

But he cannot afford to be rash. Not when the Cloud Recesses is not yet rebuilt. And he is in no real danger - if one of them tried to touch him he would feel no qualms taking a hand in recompense. So he...lives with it. For months.

Lan Xichen has other, more important troubles on his mind, there is no need to make him aware. It is just men indulging their baser instincts. It is nothing.

Except. Over time. It begins to wear on him. Its true he's only the second master of Gusu Lan, an ornament, a bargaining chip. A thing. He begins to feel like a thing. And after weeks, then months, of bloody fighting and unceasing, unseemly comments on his body, his face, his mouth - he begins to feel like a dirty one.

One night, Wei Wuxian is walking between tents during the push for Nightless City. He hears gruff voices, liquor-proud, making obscene offers not far away. He tenses and strides over, resentment rising beneath his skin. How dare anybody in this army treat a fellow soldier this way?

He comes around a corner and freezes. Lan Wangji is there, practically glowing in the black of night. Is he already taking care of the problem?

The voices continue to jeer. Lan Wangji doesn't move.

Is he...with them? It can't be possible that Lan Wangji would...hang around...anyone like this.

Wei Wuxian peers closer at him, still hidden in shadow. His face looks. It looks...weird. Wei Wuxian still has trouble reading Lan Wangji, but he knows this is...not his normal face. It's tense. Like he's angry. That, he's seen before, maybe too often. But there is the slightest furrow to his brow.

Like he's torn. Or...helpless. Which is, well. It's ridiculous. Lan Wangji is incapable of helplessness.

Still, the strangeness of it kicks him into action. He comes out into the firelight ready for a fight.

And pauses once more.

There are four men Wei Wuxian doesn't recognize facing Lan Wangji.

Blocking his path. They're saying things...the things they are saying. Are. Are far worse than any of the hushed, private joking Wei Wuxian has been privy to among friends. The things they are saying are forceful. Joyfully violent.

And they're saying them to Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji's eyes snap to him immediately and go wide, but Wei Wuxian doesn't see it. His vision is bleeding out to tones of red and gray, Chenqing clutched tight in one shaking hand. He points it at the men. They laugh. They don't yet know what he is, what he can do. He's happy to show them.

He raises his flute to his lips, only for a hand to catch his elbow, to drag it back. He shakes it off. He's going to rip these sorry excuses for men into small pieces, and then make their ghosts thank him for it. He's going to--

"Wei Ying."

He looks at Lan Wangji's face, right beside him now. It isn't stern, or reprimanding. It only looks tired.

He stops. Looks back at the men. 

"I was just speaking with Nie-zongzhu right over there," he lies, bringing up the only name he can think might strike fear into these animals. "Shall I go and get him, and let him hear what trash is fighting alongside him in his righteous war?"

The men scowl and leave. He turns to Lan Wangji.

"Lan Zhan," he says, confused and still unsteady with rage. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Lan Wangji says. He lets go of Wei Wuxian's arm and turns to go. Wei Wuxian catches his in turn.

"Nothing? Nothing? Lan Zhan, why did they think...why did they think they could say such things to you?" He knows Lan Wangji could have ended their lives with one strike. "Why were you letting them?"

Lan Wangji does not look at him.

"Because they can," he says. He tries to break away, but Wei Wuxian holds on.

"No," he says firmly. "They can't."

Lan Wangji turns to face him at last. "Why not? They may speak as they please to the second son of a broken clan."

Wei Wuxian bridles. "A broken - Lan Zhan-"

"If Gusu Lan is to recover, it cannot afford animosity from any who might give it aid." His voice is hard and sharp as steel. "Their words are of no consequence. Their coin is a different matter."

"No consequence?" Wei Wuxian asks. "Lan Zhan. They were saying..."

"I know very well what they were saying," Lan Wangji says, and pulls away at last. He leaves Wei Wuxian staring after him in open shock. 

Lan Wangji is mortified. He tells himself he is merely concerned about what he almost witnessed Wei Wuxian do to those men, but in truth is he is shaken. Scared, and tired, and very much ashamed. That Wei Wuxian has witnessed the way mere strangers could reduce Lan Wangji so easily to nothing. For the first time in his life, Lan Wangji feels uncomfortable in his own skin. And now it is as if Wei Wuxian knows. As if he knows that Lan Wangji is just...just a blank canvas for any passing uncouth fantasy. He both is and isn't the Second Jade of Lan - He is not untouchable, not in mind, in spirit. He is neither peerless nor pure. But he is not human, either. Not real in any way that counts.

And now Wei Wuxian, almost the only person that counts, can see it.

They do not speak of it. The war rages on. They fight, side by side, and protect each other.

Wei Wuxian does his best to protect Lan Wangji off the battlefield, too. Tries to make sure he never walks past strange tents alone at night, without being too obvious about it. He knows Lan Wangji wouldn't thank him for it, and their friendship is tenuous as it is. Still, the expression he'd seen on him that night haunts Wei Wuxian. He doesn't want it to make a home on his beloved face.

After Nightless City, though, things change.

Wei Wuxian isn't respected, exactly. But he is feared. When he speaks, cultivators at least pretend to listen. They've seen now what he's capable of.

He hasn't forgotten those men. Hasn't forgotten the lurid, barbaric pictures they dared to paint over Lan Wangji's undeniable impeccability, nor the unforgivably horrible way they'd managed to make Lan Wangji feel.

But there have been other things to take care of.

Until the banquet.

After the battle, after Wen Ruohan has been killed, liquor is bountiful as cultivators and foot soldiers alike make merry, preparing to feast. Jin Guangshan, now that things are over, has opened his purse to the victors, and none of them intend to waste it.

Once Wei Wuxian has recovered, once Lan Wangji has deemed him well enough not to need healing music any longer, they lose track of each other in the busy work of cleaning out the city, of preparing to celebrate a job well done.

But when the night arrives, Wei Wuxian is hurrying back to the Jiang quarters alone to join their contingent and head to the banquet. He's late, partially because he's him, and partially because he does not want to go. But Lan Wangji will be there, and he hasn't seen him in days.

He hears voices down a parallel street. Rough and loud. Familiar.

He turns and is halfway down the connecting alley before consciously deciding to change course. Dozens of voices whisper in his ears of vengeance, of justice, and black smoke licks his skin.

He sees them, lit harshly by the bright moon, washed out, pale and ugly, leering. He doesn't care what they're doing, who they're talking to. They have to pay.

"Wei Ying."

Lan Wangji's face swims into view, suddenly close. He looks nearly wild with concern. Wei Wuxian realizes Chenqing is already pressed to his lips, the first notes of a fierce melody dying on the air. Lan Wangji is gripping his wrist.

"They are not worth your life," he says."

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to disagree. Lan Wangji's fingers tighten. Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and looks away from his steady, grounding eyes.

The men are still there, daring to look at them. Brazen.

"You have nothing better to do than lower the value of this entire street by merely standing on it?" Wei Wuxian calls to them.

They shift uneasily. But one of them lifts his chin, defiant.

"Who are you to discipline us? We're not Jiang or Lan, you can't speak to us this way."

Wei Wuxian angles away from Lan Wangji, faces them fully. Lets the shadows grow longer all around him. Pitches his voice low and calm. "Oh? Can't I?"

Three of them begin to back away, but the mouthy bastard stands firm. "You've no claim on us nor that one. What, is ruining our celebration your idea of fun? He's been acting all high and mighty all the while we've been down in the mud. It's high time he takes a turn on his knees."

Wei Wuxian flinches as if he's been hit. He doesn't look at Lan Wangji. He can't manage it, can't believe he's allowed this to happen again.

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji pleads beside him. "The banquet. Your shidi and shijie are waiting for you. Lotus Pier needs you."

Wei Wuxian's breaths have gone erratic and shallow. He cannot kill these men. He should not. It would be...there's a reason. Lan Wangji doesn't want him to. He cannot kill them.

But he cannot leave it be, either. Something dark and animal rears up inside him.

"No claim?" He repeats. "What claim could I or my sect have on miserable refuse such as you? What claim could I possibly need in order to teach you a lesson? Cutting your throats would be

counted as a service to the world. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

The man crosses his arms. One of his companions is pulling frantically at his shoulder. "Give me one good reason why I can't bend that pretty thing over my knee."

A vicious snarl rips out of Wei Wuxian's throat and he lunges forward, but he's held back. Lan Wangji is holding him back.

"Why are you stopping me?" He bites out at him. "Why aren't you ending them yourself?"

Lan Wangji is angry now, enraged, Wei Wuxian can see. Why is he still letting these men breathe?

"Because my duty to my family comes first. As does yours. Wei Ying, think. Alive, they are nothing. Dead, they are an excuse to deal a killing blow to both our sects."

Wei Wuxian clenches his teeth and rips his arm out of Lan Wangji's grasp. He's right. Wei Wuxian hates that he's right.

The resentment is burning him up from the inside with no outlet. But Lan Wangji is looking at him, holding him steady with just his righteously angry gaze. 

"Well?" Calls the man, who apparently has a deathwish. "I'm waiting."

"For what?" Wei Wuxian bites out, not looking at him. "Leave if you value your life."

"Waiting for you to give me a reason we can't have him. It's just one night. Who's to know? Who's to care?"

It's a ridiculous question. Beyond ridiculous. There is no single reason - the best one is that Lan Wangji would have the perfect excuse to kill them if they did indeed try. But Wei Wuxian is past thinking clearly. He sees only the worn, tired anger in Lan Wangji's eyes. 

The dark, animal thing in his chest strains against his hold, bucking and shaking, trying to get free. Trying to curl around Lan Wangji and protect him from anything that could dream of making him feel so exposed.

"One reason?" Wei Wuxian asks, then turns to look at them again. He lets the resentment free, lets it seep out into the night in curling, questing tendrils. Entirely without thinking, guided by some deep-seated, abhorrent instinct, he wraps his arm around Lan Wangji's waist. "He's mine."

He lets the thick wisps of shadows flick at the cultivators' faces, cold and burning. They claw at their own skin, crying out, and finally, finally, turn and run. The resentment chases them out of the street, and then returns to him, preening.

Once their screams have died out, and the resentment has settled back beneath his skin, Wei Wuxian comes back to himself. With a sickening start he realizes that he is still holding Lan Wangji firmly against his side. He lets go and steps away, heart pounding.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm - sorry."

Lan Wangji is staring at him, expression unreadable. Wei Wuxian cannot believe he's managed to do something so thoughtless, so stupid, so...horrifyingly revealing.

"That was stupid. I didn't mean to...I was just trying to speak a language he'd understand. I'm sorry. You're not - you don't-"

"I understand," Lan Wangji says quietly. His gaze has shifted to Wei Wuxian's shoulder. He looks strangely fragile. Tall, straight, and graceful still, but...

"No," say Wei Wuxian, "no, that was uncalled for. I should have left when you told me to. I'm sorry I made things worse."

The shake of Lan Wangji's head is slight. "No more apologies. I will see you at the banquet."

He leaves then, sword in hand, one arm neatly folded behind his back. Wei Wuxian watches him go, and can't help but feel he's made yet another fatal mistake he can't take back.

He's mine.

Lan Wangji cannot get those words out of his mind. He cannot forget the sound of Wei Wuxian's voice, the certainty in it, the firm, inarguable tone. They echo in his ears almost palpably, an illicit caress that won't let the shiver in his spine die.

He feels the ghosts of Wei Wuxian's fingers on his waist for a week. He finds himself, at random intervals, placing his own hand over them, trying to exert the exact same pressure, to feel - but it is not the same. Not without the warm, hard length of Wei Wuxian's side against him.

The alien mixture of emotions from that moment twist and mix and become ugly parodies of themselves in his dreams. He does not know what he felt, then, anymore. Does not know what he feels now.

The only thing he knows with any confidence is that every time he sees Wei Wuxian thereafter, he aches, and aches.

Aches to simply tell him that he was right. 

#my fic #mdzsnet #lan wangji #wei wuxian #the untamed fanfic #imported from twitter and unedited #just thought i'd share here because the concept of lwj experiencing harassment during sunshot is...too real now that i've thought of it #idk this isn't a complete thing with a plot it's just #something that could have happened #easily i think #maybe some day i'll formalize this and use it for the lead up to yllz smut?

[mostlikelytofangirl]

Jin Zixuan is always shown as being absent whenever JGY-related things are happening in book canon.

From a doyalist perspective, I believe this is probably to maintain the image of JZX as someone who is good in an uncomplicated way, because having JZX in any way involved or witness to anything that JGY does or is subjected to would complicate JZX to a degree that could harm the story.

Can you come up with a Watsonian explanation for JZX's convenient absences?

- Regular Anon

Elementary, my dear anon!

I've actually thought a bit of that myself before tbh. I love Jin sibs, and I think these two in particular should have been given the chance to get closer and be (awkward) brothers. But then there's the fact that JZX doesn't seem to be around much.

So, my working theory is JGS. We know this man is manipulative and unrestrained, he would us whatever assets he had to his advantage and he's not above using his own family.

On one hand, he has his legitimate son and heir, the golden boy of the cultivation world, and probably one of the few ppl keeping the good name of the Jin clan; he's clearly righteous and with a conscience... JGS has no use for someone like that in his machinations; in fact, he can become a liability. His best course of action with JXZ was keeping him as far away as possible from the political scene and his plans. JZX just got married and had a son, it's much easier to have him focus on them, or going around doing cultivator stuff, being a figure of everything that's good about the Jin, instead of around Koi Tower and all the dirty little secrets deep within.

On the other hand, he has his bastard son, completely devoted and obsessed with the idea of impressing him and gaining his aproval; he's smart, cunning and the perfect minion and scapegoat. He could do with him whatever he wanted and make him do whatever he wanted too. JGY knew all too much... there's no way he's letting that boy anywhere near someone who can do something to stop him, aka the next sect leader, already known and liked. While he can trust JGY to not say a thing, he cannot trust JZX to not figure something off. It's easier to just tell the bastard to not get too close to his brother, for the sake of his father's plans and JZX's own safety, of course.

While on the subject, on the rare occasions in which JGY and JZX did cross paths, as previously mentioned, JGY wouldn't have said a thing and would have tried to keep him as far away as possible from all the schemes he was partaking in and the mistreatment he was enduring; if JZX went to his father with any sort of complain of demand for an explanation, JGS would have known right away that it was JGY (or just punish him for the sake of it). JGY couldn't trust or rely on his brother, so he wouldn't go out of his way to look for him.

So I think the reason why we don't see JZX a lot during JGY's time in Lanling is bc their father orchestrated it like that to use both his sons to his convenience. One son for the light, the other for the shadow.

#replies #mdzs #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #jin guangshan #I know it's kind of my default to blame things on jgs #but can you really blame me #dude makes it all too easy by being a manipulative old weasel #that's one thing I would give him tho #he was smart #too self-absorted and egotistical but cunning #there could also be simpler less awful explanation that jzx just didn't know how to approach his brother #he's an awkward disaster #he has never had a sibling #so he just kinda does his thing and doesn't try to get close to jgy simple bc he has no idea how

[antebunny]

Continuation of this based on the Maleficent AU over on @angstymdzsthoughts because I write trash when my life is going terribly. 

All his life, Lan Wangji has heard more about his mother than he has actually seen his mother. He and Lan Xichen were taken to see her as many times as they could, but more often than not, it wasn’t safe to be around her. But Lan Wangji heard the other Lans talking about her, sometimes.

“How sad,” the elders would say. “The first not to accept the Grounding.”

On the good days, Lan Wangji’s mother would let him sit on her lap as she combed first Lan Huan’s, and then Lan Wangji’s hair. She would ask about their day, and invariably something Lan Wangji said would make her laugh. But with the good days came the bad days, when Mother flew into a terrible rage and could not be approached by anyone, not even Father, and Father was her fated one. On the bad days, Mother had to be left alone in her house until she calmed down, and no one ever let Lan Wangji go near.

“It’s because of the wings,” Lan Wangji is told. The wings that his mother once had, back when she was a heavenly spirit, the wings that make her want to leave.

“Such a tragic tale,” some of the elders say, shaking their heads. “Such a tragic love the main Lan family faces, generation after generation.”

Mother is never able to accept the binding, and no one knows why. Father performed it correctly, to this everyone swears up and down. Qingheng-jun has always been the pride of Gusu, but he grows increasingly more and more frantic during Lan Wangji’s sixth year, the year that Mother gets sick. Soon, the whole world knows that Madame Lan has a seemingly incurable disease. Before Lan Wangji turns seven, his mother dies. He knows because he never sees his father after that either. He’ll later learn that Father, unable to accept both the loss of his fated one and his own failure, retreated from the world, leaving his sect duties and his children to his younger brother.

“It is the destiny of one of you to find your fated partner in a heavenly being,” Uncle explains to Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, but he doesn’t say it with the same pride and finality that he explains the other rules of the Lans.

Lan Wangji grows up. And though he’ll never admit it, Lan Wangji privately hopes that this destiny is not his to bear. It’s terribly unfair for both the sect duties and the Grounding to fall to Lan Wangji, and consciously he hopes that his older brother does not have to bear both burdens. But privately, somewhere buried deep where Lan Wangji cannot find it or examine it too closely, he hopes fervently that it is not him.

Then he meets a boy with black wings underneath the moon of the Gusu mountains, and his entire world changes.

Wei Wuxian laughs, and Lan Wangji has never heard anything like it before. His great black wings unfurl like ink from a brush, and they effortlessly lift his feet off the roof.

“I’m technically not in the Cloud Recesses,” he points out, silver eyes sparkling with mirth.

Lan Wangji can feel his ears turn a violent shade of red. He withdraws his sword, then, but a single flap of Wei Wuxian’s wings carries him above Lan Wangji’s head. And even then, in the exhilaration and frustration of their first meeting, Lan Wangji hates those wings for taking Wei Wuxian out of his reach. They’re beautiful, his massive crow wings. Each feather is a soft black that shines purple under the right light. Lan Wangji wants to touch them and see if they’re as soft as they look, but he doesn’t dare.

Wei Ying is magnificent, and Lan Wangji can only despair.

-

His brother is the first one to notice.

“Wangji,” he says, one day when he finds Lan Wangji with two bunnies and no explanation. “I’ve noticed that you seem to be spending a lot of time with the crow spirit, Wei Wuxian.”

Not by choice, Lan Wangji wants to say, but he knows it isn’t true, and lying is forbidden. But he doesn’t know what the truth is. He’s unsure, because Wei Ying is unsure. Wei Ying teases, Wei Ying smiles at him so sincerely and says not as pretty as Lan Zhan only to finish with I’m only joking, Lan Zhan! What if it’s not Wei Ying? What if Lan Wangji gets it wrong?

So instead, he says nothing.

His uncle is the second person to notice.

He’s frowning and stroking his beard after the day’s lectures have finished, and he stop Lan Wangji to talk after the other students have all left. “Yunmeng’s Head Disciple, and Sect Leader Jiang’s adopted son,” he muses out loud. “His…rambunctious personality makes me cautious, but he is one of the best cultivators of your generation. I am confident that he will recover from the Grounding.”

Lan Wangji tries to picture Wei Ying’s loud personality being confined to a single room for any period of time.

“Wangji,” his uncle says, when he notices Lan Wangji clenching his fists. The word is at once filled with pride, a warning, and gentler reassurance. “What happened to your mother was a tragedy,” he says, echoing the words of countless elders. “It has never happened before. There is no reason why it should happen again.”

There is no reason why it wouldn’t, Lan Wangji thinks. Still, it hardly matters, in the face of generations of tradition, in the face of his own destiny. There is no denying it: he loves Wei Ying. His next course of action is to perform the Grounding, before Wei Ying returns to Lotus Pier. His uncle expects him to. The elders all expect him to. Even his brother doesn’t understand his hesitation. And yet–

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says. “Come flying with me!”

When Wei Ying takes him flying, he takes him higher than Lan Zhan has ever gone by sword. Together, they soar over the misty mountain tops of Gusu, past pine forests and heavy clouds. Wei Ying is an single black spot in the blue heavens, but he dwarfs the entire sky, and Lan Wangji, in a place he doesn’t stop to think about, has never lived more in a day.

“Wei Ying,” he says at the end, when Wei Ying sets him gently back on the ground. His tongue is lead in his mouth. He knows what he should say–he should ask Wei Ying to take him to the cave in the back of the mountains, and there, where the wings have no power, he should perform the Grounding. But Lan Wangji looks at Wei Ying, framed by his crow wings in the green fields of Gusu, and all he can think is: Wei Ying loves his wings.

Which is why all that comes out of his mouth is: “Will you marry me?”

-

“Wangji,” Uncle says, and now his name is simply a warning. “You are doing this wrong.”

Lan Wangji bows his head low over the table he is seated by.

“I have left the Grounding to your own prerogatives,” Uncle begins to lecture, further angered by his silence. “I have raised you to be obedient and righteous, but if I must perform the Grounding for you, then I will.”

“No,” Lan Wangji blurts, and his uncle raises an eyebrow. Somehow, he knows that is wrong. His hands are clammy in his lap. “No,” he repeats, in a tone expected from him. “I will perform it. Tomorrow morning.”

“See that you do,” Uncle says. A dismissal.

-

He almost doesn’t.

Wei Ying is sprawled by his side, fast asleep, but his wings are wrapped around Lan Wangji when he wakes up. He rolls Wei Ying over slowly, carefully pulling his hair away from his back. Lightly, he runs his hands over the wings one last time, wings that were softer than he thought they’d be, and then he withdraws Bichen. His grip hasn’t trembled on his sword in years, but it does now.

In the end, it is very simple: Wei Ying loves his wings, but Wei Ying loves him. Surely that is enough. It has been enough for countless generations of Lans.

In the end, it is too simple. Lan Wangji flicks his wrist, and Bichen tears through Wei Ying’s beautiful wings. Wei Ying does not stir. He sheathes his sword and collects the wings reverently. He steps out of the room, long enough to leave the wings on the table, and returns to a devastating surprise:

Wei Ying is gone.

Naturally, the first person Lan Wangji goes to is Lan Xichen, and together they head to the Jiang disciple quarters. Lan Wangji is distressed the whole way, thinking of a Wei Ying who woke up alone, in the dark, missing his wings. He was supposed to be there to explain it to Wei Ying. He was supposed to be there for him.

But Wei Ying isn’t in the Jiang disciple quarters. None of the Jiang siblings are. The other Jiang disciples are still asleep, but when Lan Wangji makes an exception and wakes them up, they have no idea what’s going on. Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen split up, but no one Lan Wangji talks to has seen Wei Ying or the Jiang siblings. And when Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen circle back around to the quarters of the first Jiang disciples they talked to, they’re gone.

By the time the sunrise fades into yet another bright day, all of the disciples from Yunmeng Jiang are gone. None of the other guest disciples have seen them, not even the ones awake at that time. It is as if they simply all vanished back up to the heavens without a word, without a single warning.

And Lan Wangji is left reeling in their wake, stunned at the thought that somehow Wei Ying’s Grounding has gone even worse than his mother’s.  

#mdzs #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan wangji #my writing #writeblr #look im tired #angstymdzsthoughts #antebunny's ficlets

[dimpledpran]

Going off the feels of this post, because I am still not done talking about it.

Baby boy was having one of the worst day of his life here. He was told by Lan Xichen to stop cultivating with resentful energy and pick up the sword again, because “your actions affect my little brother”. Basically his brother-in-law told him, you are only worthy of my brother if you remain on the normal/acceptable side of cultivation. Then he comes back to lotus pier, already feeling very sad, and you have Jiang Chen who chews his head off about not being by his side and always running away. To top it off, Jiang Cheng pushed Wuxian away, making him realize how weak he really is without his golden core. So yeah, saying he was not having a good day is an understatement, considering that life has not stopped throwing shitty situations at him at every turn.

Then he sees his Shijie crying at the ancestral shrine, and despite what he is going through, he does what he can to reassure her. Shijie then mentions “No matter how bad your situation is, you are always smiling”.  Which he feels like has to prove by smiling, and playing a kid and make her smile again. But nope, it does not end there. Shijie then goes on to talk about how since their parents are gone, the three of them only have each other. To love, to care for and to protect. And Wuxian already has all this (misplaced) guilt that it is his fault that the parents died. The guilt, the uncertainty on how he can protect his remaining family without a golden core when that is the last thing that Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu ever told him, the certainty that he will one day let Jiang Cheng and Yanli down or give the Jiang clan a bad name for not sticking to the righteous path is all weighing down on him, on top of everything else he hasn’t dealt with (losing his family/sect, losing his golden core, in a way losing lwj). And so he just breaks down. He cries, but he doesn’t want to show it to Yanli, and hides his face and tells her that he is hungry instead.

That was in a way his cry for help. He was tired of trying to be strong for so long and pretending that everything is fine. He finally succumbed to all the pressure and emotions that was weighing him down. And he constantly had to keep being strong all these while, but he could finally let his guard down just a tiny bit with Yanli. He did not want to worry her though, so all he could do was say he is hungry and ask her to pamper and coddle him. That was the only way he felt he could ask for some help, some love and protection. Because even at his lowest point, he never wants to cause someone else any worry. He would always be that person who hides his tears and instead offers someone a smile so that they feel better. He never feels like he is worthy of the attention and love that he gives to others. 

Finally he ends it off by changing the topic, and asking Shijie why someone will like another person so much. Was he really considering if liking LWJ (and thinking about his family) was worth trying to let go of his cultivation with resentful energy? And that’s another topic for another day.

#my quotations are not exact quotes please don't come at me #cql #the untamed #cql meta #wei wuxian #fytheuntamed #some of these lines came from a very personal place and so if it is me projecting onto wwx i am sorry #but i saw pooja's post again and I just had this emotional overload that I had to get out #my rambles #rambles

[ibijau]

Xue Yang’s Master pt 2 / On AO3

Xue Yang and the wounded boy he rescued make a deal

By the time morning came, Xue Yang was exhausted, but he was alive.

So was the rich kid, sadly.

Not just alive, but his fever had fallen a little. He was also less pale, and seemed to be breathing a little less slowly. When Xue Yang knelt next to the bed and took his wrist to check his pulse, the rich kid opened his eyes and stared at him again.

“Thank you,” he said weakly, which made things rather awkward for Xue Yang who had just figured that he would really have to kill the older boy himself after all. “Thank you, I’ll… I’ll repay you.”

He certainly was going to repay Xue Yang. That sword and the gold guan were going to change his life for good. At the same time, Xue Yang was a little curious what the older boy thought he could offer, in these circumstances.

“Repay me how?” he asked. “Do you have money?”

The rich kid frowned. Through a great effort, he managed to check inside his sleeves, producing only a very small pouch and an elegant fan that would probably be enough for Xue Yang to buy another servant, when he had his farm, or at the very least a strong pair of oxen.

“Money,” the rich kid rasped. “I think… no, I think it’s empty. I spent it all… unreasonable again. But I can… Are you interested in cultivation? I can teach you.”

In spite of himself, Xue Yang perked up at the suggestion. He wasn’t stupid, he knew only very few people had the right disposition to really learn cultivation, and most of those were already born in sects that practiced it. It wasn’t for poor people, cultivation, unless those rich folks took pity of you… or unless they needed new servants for cheap. Everyone knew that Chang Ci’an treated the disciples that didn’t share his blood as little better than slaves, and he wasn’t the only one like that.

Still, Xue Yang had always dreamed that someday, he might make Chang Ci’an pay for his lost finger, and he knew that the only way something like that could happen was if he were to become a cultivator as well… or to have enough money and power to hire one to do the job for him. Sects might be righteous, but rogue cultivators were more bribable, everyone knew that. But if he could save himself the expense by eliminating the middleman…

“You don’t really look like a cultivator,” Xue Yang pointed out, mostly to tease. “And if you’re one, you’re a bad one, getting almost killed and all. Doesn’t sound like you’d make a very good teacher.”

Again, the rich kid frowned. This time, he put a hand on his stomach, a little under where his navel would be.

“Ah… I’m good enough for a golden core, at least,” he sighed. “I… I can’t make you an immortal, that’s certain. But… but if you have the basics down, then a real sect could take you on. They… most of them, they like when part of the job has been done for them.”

“Are you part of a sect?”

The rich kid pinched his lips, staring at Xue Yang for a moment before slowly nodding.

“Can you get me into your sect?” Xue Yang asked. “Then I’d get a proper shizun right away, it’d be better.”

“Not… Not an option. It’s… they’re gone. Everyone's gone, I think.”

“Killed by the Wen?” Xue Yang guessed. He didn’t know a lot about the details of that Sunshot Campaign, nor did anyone who wasn’t a cultivator, but he’d heard rumours that the Wen had slaughtered some of the other sects and that had started it all. But to his surprise, the rich kid shook his head, wincing at his own movement.

“I am a Wen,” he confessed in a low voice. “I… I’m Wen Chao. I have to be.”

Xue Yang looked at the rich kid with wide shocked eyes. Even he knew the name Wen Chao, the second son of Wen Ruohan. Some people said Wen Chao was the one who’d caused the war to start by attacking another sect that had had more allies than he’d realised. More importantly, some people, a lot of people, said that Wen Chao had died about halfway through the war, or even earlier than that.

“You don’t seem too sure of yourself,” Xue Yang remarked with what he thought was great tact.

The alleged Wen Chao blinked a few times, looking worried.

“I’m… I have to be… it makes sense, it’s the only thing that… Everything is so… I can’t make sense of things, but this, it makes sense, it’s the only thing… I have to be, I have to… my head hurts. Can, Can I have something to drink?”

There was a well behind the little house, from which Xue Yang was able to draw water. It didn't smell of anything, and he couldn't see any bugs in it, so it had to be clean enough. The rich kid eagerly drank some, and then passed out again, his fever having returned somewhat. 

Xue Yang hesitated. He looked at that sword he'd taken from the older boy, already stained with blood, then at the other boy's face, and sighed. It was a risk, trusting that rich kid, and one he probably shouldn't have taken, not when murder was such a clean and easy option, but… 

But even Xue Yang had dreams, and he just couldn’t pass this slim chance of becoming a cultivator. 

Although he had little experience taking care of others, Xue Yang did his best in the days that followed. He made sure the rich kid drank plenty, to compensate for what his fever made him sweat, and made him eat a little whenever he woke up, so he'd have strength to heal. For an ordinary person it probably wouldn't have been enough, but cultivators were different. After four days, the rich kid no longer had a fever and although he remained weak, he started being able to sit up and talk. 

"Thank you for taking care of me," he told Xue Yang when he was well enough to chat.

Xue Yang, sitting cross-legged next to the bed, shrugged. 

"I just did it because you said you'd teach me cultivation. You better not back down on that." 

The rich kid pinched his lips, his eyes glancing to the sword that never left Xue Yang now. He then smiled quite peacefully. 

"I'll teach you everything I know," the rich kid promised. "But if you're not made for it, it won't do you any good. Give me your hand a moment, so I can check." 

Without hesitation, Xue Yang gave his left hand, the right one firmly on the sword's hilt. The rich kid glanced over his missing finger without comment, and inspected his wrist a moment before gently sending some energy through Xue Yang's body. He then gasped in surprise. 

"Oh, you'll be good at this if you put in the effort! With a student like you, even I should manage to be a teacher."

He sounded relieved, sincerely so, as if he'd been worried about his capacity to keep his promise. Of course, it was probably just because he realised that Xue Yang, while younger and not a cultivator, wasn't above trying to kill him if he weren't useful enough. 

"What's your name?" the rich kid asked. 

"I'm Xue Yang. What's yours?" 

"I'm Wen Chao. But a disciple should call his master shizun, right? Not that I'm asking you to!" Wen Chao quickly added, glancing at the sword again. "Call me whatever you like, I guess." 

“Are you really Wen Chao?” Xue Yang asked. “I’d heard both of Wen Ruohan’s sons had died.”

Wen Chao frowned, his face darkening as he gave that question more consideration than anyone should have done upon being asked to confirm their identity. If he was merely lying, then he wasn’t very good at it.

“Everything is a little confused right now,” Wen Chao admitted, closing his eyes with a pained grimace. “I can’t… I can’t be sure. But I remember… it makes sense. I am from an affluent cultivation family, I know that, know it for sure. I’m a second son, and not… not very favoured by my family. They think… no, they know that my older brother is miles above me in terms of skills. He’s the one everyone likes, with good reasons. And there’s that sword… it’s a Wen sword, I know it is and I had it in hand after… after…”

He paused and licked his lips, closing his eyes tighter while hunching his shoulders.

“It’s the only weapon I had on me, after he attacked me,” he whispered. “That man… I don’t know who, but he hated me, wanted me dead. I know that. Almost did. Almost killed me. It was… I don’t know how I escaped. And I… I think it was about the war.”

Wen Chao reopened his eyes, gazing into the distance.

“Yes, it was about the war,” he said, shivering. “I just know that. I had to die, so the victory could be complete. He needed me gone. So I’m a rich second son of the Wen sect, whose survival could compromise the success of the Sunshot Campaign… who else could I be but Wen Chao?”

Feeling a reaction might be expected of him, Xue Yang shrugged. He didn’t know a lot about the sons of Wen Ruohan, aside from the sort of things that everyone knew. They were spoiled, and they were cruel, one had died at the hands of the terrifying Nie Mingjue who’d put his head on display, the other had… disappeared. Just vanished. There hadn’t even been a body to show off, apparently, because it had been too badly damaged.

All things considered, that was a very odd thing, wasn’t it?

Xue Yang looked carefully at his new teacher. He could well have been a Wen. He did have a northern look to him, so it wasn’t so far-fetched for him to be from that sect. And with all that gold on him… it made some amount of sense. Enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least until his memory returned.

“Fine then, shizun,” Xue Yang said. “I guess you’ve got to know better than me. Now, give me a lesson in cultivation. Or are you too tired?”

Wen Chao, who had opened his mouth to protest, quickly closed it again and shook his head with a thin smile.

“No, I’m sure I can handle at least a little.”

Xue Yang grinned, and prepared to listen attentively.

His teacher had better be good and his own progress had better be fast, because between the two of them, Xue Yang was the one with a sword now.

#nie huaisang #xue yang #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #nhs is wc au

[rosethornewrites]

Fics I read this week!

MDZS/The Untamed, entirely. Including Tumblr fics here now, even if I shared them as well.

A lot of these are super short since I decided to embark on a journey to clear my AO3 “Marked For Later” list of anything under 3k words by reading them.

This is also a lot of fanfiction and I might have a problem. Any fanfiction addict support groups out there?

Also, I learned that I can only post 100 links. So this is going up early and I’ll separate the Not Rated, E, and M ones into a different post for next week.

Finished:

Not Rated (or Tumblr fics):

Parents, by @bloody-bee-tea

Untitled, by @mondengel

Untitled, by @mondengel

Untitled, by @cerusee

Xue Yang - The Third Jade of Gusu, by inawritingfrenzy

As Long as You're Here, by Aitheriomeraki

You are the last person I need to tell me exactly what I already know. You’re going to tell me to go back to cultivating the righteous path. You’re going to tell me that this is against the principles of a cultivator. I’m going to hear you drone on and on about what’s wrong with what I’m doing. You’re going to tell me that I’m acting like a pure disgrace, completely out of line, extremely unhinged and unruly and every other word your Lan vocabulary can muster up.” His words felt heavy but unstoppable, tears making their way to his eyes.

“You’re-” He was about to continue before getting cut off.

“Wei Ying… zhiji.” Lan Wangji breathed out like a plea, like a prayer. -------------- OR Lan Wangji talks to Wei Wuxian the day after killing Wen Chao.

Things we lost in the fire, by KatAnni

Three instances in Lan Wangji's life that involved fire. One of them certainly ends better than the others.

OR Wangxian can be cute in any situation, even when someone sets fire to their inn.

Sleep Talk, by breezebrocolis

"...But being awakened through such ungodly hours is worth it after all, because Wei Wuxian discovered that, contrary to popular belief about his boyfriend's sleeping habits, there’s a moment when Lan Zhan sleep talks, and he's the only one who knows it."

and

"...for now, after all and a year more, he'd never choose to have those lonesome minutes back. It turns out that filling the gaps with emptiness was necessary once, but it doesn't really fit him anymore. Lan Wangji has Grace on his side for now, the print of Wei Ying's delicate fingers into his skin."

In other words, a study about WangXian's sleeping habits.

Hold On, by voxnoxsox

“And really,” Wei Ying continued, “it makes no sense. Why would they not want to hug you, Lan Zhan, or, like… Do you warn them off or something? Give them the ol’ icy Lan glare?”

“No,” Lan Zhan said, when it was clear a response was required. His mind was a little preoccupied with Wei Ying’s hands still running up and down, up and down.

Rated E:

The Dreams of Youth, by Sami (25 chapters)

"Mother, I have to go, with or without you. Please come with me."

"A-Zhan, you're five years old," she says.

"With or without you, Mother," he pleads. "Please come with me."

Lan Wangji starts again from the beginning.

Rough and Tumble, by SugarMilkTea (3 chapters)

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are paired together for sparring, because of course they are.

Wei Wuxian is better than the rest of the disciples, because of course he is - so Lan Wangji takes him to another field to train privately.

Things escalate, because of course they do.

and if we choose to fall (who's to say it isn't flight?), by KiaraSayre (2 chapters)

Wei Wuxian has an idea and makes a talisman. A sexy talisman.

to live this way is not for the meek, by la_muerta

Yiling Laozu and his band The Restless Dead are one of the biggest names in the rock scene, playing to thousands of screaming fans in sold-out concerts all over the world.

But underneath the black leather, makeup, and untouchable, arrogant facade is a side of Wei Ying that only Lan Zhan gets to see.

Awareness, by syriala (last in a series)

Awareness is slow to come to Jiang Cheng, mostly because he doesn’t want to be aware. He’s warm and comfortable and Jiang Xiuying is bound to be still around and that is really all Jiang Cheng needs in life.

But then there’s an open mouthed kiss to the hinge of his jaw, Jiang Xiuying slowly trailing his way down Jiang Cheng’s throat, and it’s enough to get Jiang Cheng’s eyes open, however reluctant he might be.

Jiang Xiuying seemingly knows him better than Jiang Cheng does himself because he is already looking up at Jiang Cheng, his eyes sparkling and a teasing grin on his lips.

“Good morning,” Jiang Cheng says, his voice still rough from sleep and Jiang Xiuying leans up to capture Jiang Cheng’s lips in a kiss.

The heat behind it tells Jiang Cheng exactly where Jiang Xiuying wants to take this today, and Jiang Cheng can’t say that he minds too much.

yours for the taking, by SugarMilkTea

“There’s still time to back out, you know,” Wei Ying says, quiet enough that even the attendants waiting at the corners of their table won’t hear.

Lan Wangji pauses in the middle of reaching for the sash on Wei Ying’s—on his husband’s—outer robes. A pit opens in his stomach. His hand falls to his lap, and he lifts his eyes to meet Wei Ying’s. “Is that what you want?”

---

The components of the marriage ceremony are easy in theory. The handfasting, the bows, the feast... and the Taking.

housed by your warmth, by wangxiians

wei wuxian may never grow to enjoy mornings but he enjoys this, he really enjoys this – stolen time together, bodies reuniting, waking up before the world.

Rated M:

Heaven Hath No Fury, by Lady Mythos (Lady_Mythos)

The two biggest mistakes Yu Ziyuan has made are as follows: assuming Wei Wuxian was the cause of all her problems and assuming Cangse Sanren was dead.

Or, Cangse Sanren has a lot of things to say to the bitch that abused her son.

weird and awkward, by sami (3rd in a series)

At the age of sixteen, Lan Zhan falls in love, somewhat against his will.

Have Your Cake and Eat it Too, by adrian_kres (4 chapters)

Like half of all sound-tied people, Wei Ying was born with words in his heart and needing the melody they belong to. It’s his soul marker, and he’s been searching for his soulmate his whole life. Things change when he hears a tune being hummed in a cafe that matches his lyrics perfectly. Except he didn’t see who was humming it! To help, his brother’s soulmate puts him in contact with the beautiful pianist Lan Wangji, who makes Wei Ying question if he wants to find his soulmate at all…

Until The End, by abCEE (40 chapters)

"When I - when I tied my ribbon around our wrists, I knew what I was doing and I privately honored it." Wei Wuxian's brows continued to meet as he tried to understand where the conversation was going until realization dawned on him. "Wa - wait! Lan Zhan, is it what I think it is?!!" "It is usually done at the end of a wedding ceremony -" "What-" "But it could have been acknowledged as an engagement." "Lan Zhan!" He cannot believe what he is hearing now. "But my ancestor revealed herself -" "And we bowed… three times. We bowed, Lan Zhan!"

In which wangxian are married since the Cold Pond Cave incident, knows how proper communication works, and had confessed in the middle of the Sunshot Campaign. Things went up and down from there.

Breaking The Ice, by aflaminghalo

“Why are are you asking for punishment?”

Bring Your Honor, Bring Your Shame, by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (21 chapters, third in a series)

Nie HuaiSang has a problem. His brother is losing his mind.

Rated T:

don't close your eyes, by howodd5ever

In which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian actually talk about the porn book.

Another Road, by Rynne

Something in the Guanyin Temple goes wrong. When Lan Wangji opens his eyes, he's fifteen again.

Phobia, by yougetsomekisses

What if Lan Wangji had been thrown in that dungeon with Wei Wuxian?

Snow Hunt, by InsanitysxCreation

A short scene of a winter hunt.

Entirely self indulgent, in that the idea of Lan Wangji in white leather gloves arrived in my brain and wouldn't let me continue until I'd written this.

真金不怕火炼 | True Gold Fears No Fire, by adrian_kres

In the immediate aftermath of a successful Sunshot Campaign, Wei Ying is kissed by Lan Zhan at the Phoenix Mountain Hunt while blindfolded. But when the blindfold comes off, Lan Zhan is nowhere to be found. Now, Wei Ying must deal with this heartbreak on top of forced therapy he was mandated to complete due to using demonic cultivation to end the war. Through it all, Wei Ying learns he has value, and that his assumptions about what happened at the hunt may not be entirely correct.

Fantasy, by snowberryrose (3 chapters)

In which Wen Qing leaves Or: Wen Qing rescues herself

Canon divergence from episode 20

Chapter 2: Qin Su’s choice Chapter 3: Xue Yang’s end

Four Parts Honey and One Part Vinegar, by masked (6 chapters)

“You know,” Ouyang Zizhen says thoughtfully over dinner one day, “I’ve never seen Wei-qianbei get jealous before.”

Lan Jingyi pauses for the briefest second, remembers the sect rule of keeping silence during meals, and decidedly forgoes it. “What?”

“Well,” Ouyang Zizhen continues, “Hanguang-jun always has a lot of admirers everywhere we go, but Wei-qianbei never seems to mind it.”

“Why are we talking about this?” Jin Ling asks flatly.

Four times Wei Wuxian doesn't get jealous, and the one time he does.

sweet dreams, by ShippersList

Distance won’t hinder Wei Wuxian from giving his Lan Zhan a goodnight kiss.

Sugar Baby, by nirejseki

“Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said, and uh oh, that sounded like his ‘bad news’ voice. “We need to talk about your spending.”

That was worse than Nie Huaisang had thought.

“Is the talk going to be about how amazingly economical I am in making intelligent and aesthetically appropriate purchases?” he asked hopefully, clutching his latest and most aesthetic fan.

“Oddly enough,” his brother said, “no.”

Somehow, Nie Huaisang hadn’t thought so.

He was...No, He was Incompetent, by Corundum_Creations

He was Lan Wangji, a Twin Jade of the Lan Clan and he could face anything... so how did he become so incompetent with taking his Wei Ying and hiding him away?

The Resentful Cultivator Who Cried 'I'm Fine', by Mikkeneko

"Who's possessed?" another voice joined the scrum, and Wei Wuxian moaned in despair as Jiang Cheng came marching over to join the rest of the party, glaring daggers at Wei Wuxian for being the source of all this trouble. Purple lightning crackled on his wrist as his eyes narrowed. "This idiot got possessed? I can take care of that with Zidian! Stand back!"

"Ahaha, Jiang Cheng, there's no need for that!" he protested hurriedly. "Really, I'm not possessed!"

"Ah," Lan Jingyi nodded knowingly. "That's exactly what someone who was possessed and trying to throw us off the trail would say!"

---

While on a night-hunt with his friends and family, Wei Wuxian takes a near miss from a dangerous beast. Fortunately he wasn't hurt... but for some reason, they have trouble believing him when he says I'm fine.

Why I Can’t Help But Love Red, by spiralingbutmakeitanimerelated

Lan Wangji takes a bath after a night hunt. Wei Wuxian has questions about the night he branded himself.

Not Till Then Dare I Part From You, by forgottenenvy

WangXian share a tender moment as Lan Wangji braids flowers into Wei Wuxian's hair.

Snowmelt, by sugar_shoal

Lan Zhan has been badly injured on a night-hunt. Wei Wuxian panics only a little. Jiang Cheng drags them all to a nearby abandoned hut to wait out the encroaching blizzard.

Head Empty, Only Wei Ying, by nana_banana

Wei Ying is getting married? To someone not Lan Wangji? Fuck. Not if Lan Wangji has anything to say about it.

sparrow heart, by CeliaBlair24 (fourth in a series)

They pass notes through the spaces between their desks about nonsensical, inconsequential things. About the weather and birds, romance novels, and the forest behind the Cloud Recesses where they spend all their afternoons playing.

And Wei Wuxian is smart, both by the books and on his feet. If he wanted to, he could easily play Lan-xiansheng’s favorite class pet --studious and diligent about being studious; creative besides-- but he doesn’t. He listens to Lan-xiansheng and Jiang Wanyin’s complaints with half an ear and when all is said and done, he turns his back on them both and greets Nie Huaisang with his cheeky smile.

Otherwise known as "Nie Huaisang falls into like."

Retrospective on the State of the Field: Qinghe Patron X (QPX) Studies, by bladedweaponsandswishycoats (jeweledichneumon)

"Qinghe Patron X, eh?" Nie Huaisang chuckles, noticing the heading. Licking his lips, he circles the listing for the conference panel with a yellow highlighter. Despite the moniker having become common several years ago, he still gets a kick out of it. Of course he'd have to go to that one. He takes a moment to feel the faint touch of regret that he isn't on the panel himself; it is always more fun messing with people as a panelist than trying to rely on the Q&A period to say something provocative but relevant.

or

In which immortal cultivator Nie Huaisang likes to fuck around with scholars attempting to study what they think they know about him, and other shenanigans he gets up to (both with and without the help of his friends) in the modern age.

or

The year is 2021. Lan Wangji still goes where the chaos is, though these days that can mean a lot more than night hunts. Especially when Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang are dedicated to making sure being immortal never gets boring.

A Story for the Ages, by Supernova_Sage

Lan Wangji saunters over to the mystery section. He can hear people whispering, but he isn’t close enough to make sense of the conversation. The lilt in the voice makes it sound like one person is asking a question. Hmm. If he can hear whispering, they’re still being far too loud. He shakes his head and continues his browsing. He pulls his phone out to check the time. It’s nearly 6p. He really should get home. He still needs to feed the bunnies and feed himself and look over emails and—

He stops in his tracks. Stops when he sees the book that he’s been waiting to check out for months now. Every time he’s stopped by, though, it’s been checked out by someone else. And now it’s finally here. Sitting on the shelf in front of him. Once he manages to collect himself, he reaches for it. His fingers don’t touch the spine of the book, though. Instead, he finds his fingers brushing against the fingers of another.

DanTian - Into the Dark (LWJ), by ArchiveWriter (fourth in a series)

Wangji's memory holds images of Wei Ying. Wangji does penance by reliving his memories, and by making sure Wei Ying is loved. Wangji burns the millet porridge he's supposed to stir whilst Wei Ying fetches water for tea.

chasing echoes, by SWANPYRE

Lan Wangji must learn to co-exist with what he has learned his entire life to despise.

Snowfall, by nightflower

During a winter storm in Cloud Recesses, Wangji's old scars ache. Wei Ying takes care of him.

relics of love, by cl410

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Lan Zhan pinched the bridge of his nose. “The bunnies were almost eaten.”

“Our son was almost traumatized for life,” Wei Ying said, choking on a laugh. “Lan Zhan, he almost witnessed a double homicide on our own balcony.” He wheezed with laughter, clutching his ribs.

“We will install higher locks,” Lan Zhan said grimly.

Rated G:

A-Yuan's guide to eat the rich (a.k.a. How A-Yuan single handedly stopped a siege from happening and saved everyone), by fanficaddictXOXO

A-Yuan is only three years old. But he knows many things. He knows how to write his name. He knows potatoes are better than radishes (Xian gege said so). But the most important thing he knows is that the handsome gege with a white forehead ribbon is rich.

Obviously You Hate Me, by Sarehz

Wei Wuxian leans across the round table. "Okay, this isn't going to work."

From across the very same table, Lan Wangji raises one puzzled eyebrow. "Mn?"

"This!" Wei Wuxian gestures between them.

Begotten, by ecorie (6 chapters)

“He’s mine.” He echoed what had once been teasingly said in jest, and added, “This is my son.”

Against all odds and without a choice, Lan Zhan brings A-Yuan back to Cloud Recesses. Xichen keeps his brother’s secrets, and shields the child when Lan Zhan could not.

Alone Stands the Quiet, by ecorie

The story of the Yin Iron starts with a celestial war and ends with Lan Sizhui.

A Good Plan, by nirejseki

“The…Lan sect?” Meng Yao said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“I am,” his mother said, her mouth tight. She looked upset, the way she always did these days when he referenced, intentionally or otherwise, the original plan that she had had to send him to join his father, sect leader of Lanling Jin. She’d raised Meng Yao on a steady diet of stories of what his life would be like when his father finally took him back the way he’d promised her he would, stories that had filled his days and nights for years and years and years, and then just last year she’d suddenly stopped talking about it entirely. It was as if the person who’d told those stories had nothing to do with her.

Meng Yao didn’t know what had happened, but he assumed it must have been pretty bad.

“It'll be a good fit,” she added.

The Late Great Custody Debate, by stiltonbasket (5 chapters)

"You owe me child support," Lan Zhan blurts, before Wei Wuxian can open his mouth to say hello to him. "Take responsibility."

Or, the one where Lan Wangji's pet rabbit has a better love life than he does, and single father Wei Wuxian develops a healthy fear of attorneys, courtesy of his next-door neighbor.

Switcheroo, by nirejseki

Mo Xuanyu thought that this Wei Wuxian person whose body he’d stolen must have been a really interesting person, mostly because he’d been here for three days so far and nobody’d noticed the switch yet.

A Kiss for you, my love, by Speechless_since_1998

"Ladies and gentlemen."

Suddenly the attention of the whole hall turned to Nie Huaisang, near the orchestra with a microphone in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, "On this wonderful evening I would like to share with you all the happiness I feel. for a wonderful couple who got married today. " Wait a minute did he say marriage? He must have heard right, even Lan Zhan had stiffened. “Let's give him a wonderful round of applause. To Wei Ying and Lan Zhan newlyweds. " Hot shit. They weren't supposed to attract attention.

The attention of the room focused on them, whispers in the crowd, some scandalized, some excited. Nie Huaisang motioned for him to keep the game, but what was she supposed to do ?! "Lan Zhan, we mustn't ..." He didn't have time to finish the sentence as Lan Zhan kissed him. In front of everyone.

Soulmates, by Yacs_Weasley

Ever since he was a little boy, Wangji had longed to find his soulmate.

Stay with me, by KatAnni

Sizhui's memories come to him in pieces, and some of them in dreams. This time, he dreams of Wei Wuxian putting him in a tree. He runs to the Jingshi immediately, to find his Baba.

The truth, by syriala (first in a series)

“Do you even remember a single person of those you killed after the war?” he demands to know and Jiang Cheng turns his glare on him.

“Why should I?” Jiang Cheng asks and a fearful hush falls over the crowd. “Do any of you remember even a single person you killed in your lives?” he asks them and is met with a pretty telling silence.

“You’re a monster,” someone whispers, but in the quiet it rings out loud and clear.

Jiang Cheng has heard these words a lot in the past sixteen years, and so he simply smiles at them, even though they sting like always.

He reminds himself that the people that matter know the truth, that they know him for who he truly is, and that it has to be enough.

Boys, by nirejseki

“Hey,” Lao Nie protested mildly. “Who’s the father here, me or you?”

“If a-die wants a new wife, little uncle will find one that isn’t inclined to kill him.”

That sounded like a recitation.

“Then what’s even the point,” Lao Nie grumbled, and reached out to ruffle his son’s hair, enjoying how Nie Mingjue yelped when he did, glaring up at him with offended dignity.

Loss, by FlutterFyre

Lan Wangji knows something is wrong.

Hearsay, by syriala (second in a series)

“A girl went missing a few days back,” Wei Wuxian says, voice serious, and Jiang Cheng can just imagine the accusatory look on his face. “Coincidentally you were seen in that area during the same time.”

“So?” Jiang Cheng wants to know and Wei Wuxian makes a frustrated sound.

“What did you do with her?” Wei Wuxian asks him, even though he clearly already made up an answer for himself.

An ally, by syriala (third in a series)

“I just don’t want you to force yourself to face them,” Jiang Cheng finally says and Jiang Xiuying smiles at him.

“I’m not forcing myself. I am going on my own free will. It will be fine. And besides, Lan Xichen was never the reason I left.”

“But he didn’t stop you either,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and then rolls his eyes. “Fine. Accompany me, see if I care.”

“All I see is you caring,” Jiang Xiuying honestly gives back and Jiang Cheng flushes bright red.

Escalation, by syriala (fourth in a series)

“How can you lie to him like that?” Lan Wangji wants to know but it seems to be morbid curiosity more than anything else, because he goes right on. “You’re coming with me to the Cloud Recesses. There will be a trial.”

“A trial,” Jiang Cheng scoffs out, because it’s a farce and nothing more.

Lan Wangji has already decided on his sentence. And they all know it's going to be death.

Resolve, by syriala (fifth in a series)

“Regarding the accusations made against me today,” he starts and cuts his glare over to Sect Leader Yao, who has the good grace to shrink back at the venom in that glare, “I have something to say.”

“Speak,” Lan Wangji demands, but he doesn’t sound too sure all of a sudden, doesn’t seem too happy with the proceedings, and Jiang Cheng does rather enjoy the feeling of triumph it brings him.

“I am innocent. I did not kill any demonic cultivators, nor did I torture them.”

His voice rings out in the courtyard because everyone is silent for two seconds, but then chaos erupts. The voices calling him a liar are the kinder ones, and Jiang Cheng shakes his head at them.

“And I have proof,” he continues, raising his voice so that it carries over the others.

Devotion - Gather, by syriala (sixth in a series)

“What?” Jiang Cheng asks, because for once he is in no immediate danger of being murdered by the other Sects and Jiang Cheng really doesn’t think that look is fair.

“You absolute asshole,” Jiang Xiuying hisses at him and Jiang Cheng knows that if he wasn’t injured Jiang Xiuying would try to slap him over the head or shake him until he sees sense.

“What? What did I do now?” Jiang Cheng wants to know because he was asleep! There is no way he could have done something to upset Jiang Xiuying like this!

“I don’t even know where to start,” Jiang Xiuying says and starts to pace Jiang Cheng’s room, without giving any thought to the fact that this is Jiang Cheng’s bedroom and he really shouldn’t be here.

Well, Jiang Cheng is not going to say that to him, because with the mood Jiang Xiuying is in right now it wouldn’t go over well for Jiang Cheng, Sect Leader or not. Not that he actually cares anyway.

It’s Jiang Xiuying after all.

Home in Lotus Pier, by syriala (seventh in a series)

Jiang Cheng's angry frown turns into a confused frown when he sits down for breakfast and finds a box next to his bowl of congee.

“What is this?” he asks into the room, because someone is bound to be around, but he doesn’t get an answer and Jiang Cheng heaves out a sigh.

He tugs the box close and opens it and he’s surprised to find that his favourite tea is in it. It’s hard to come by lately, as it is entirely seasonal and only grown in a small spot in Sect Leader Yao’s territory, and after everything that happened at the Cloud Recesses a few months back, he already mentally said goodbye to it.

He wouldn’t be getting any more supplies from Sect Leader Yao after all, so this is more than surprising.

But the gifts don't stop there.

Parallelism, not equivalence, by DreamaholicsAnonymous

Wei Wuxian reminded him of Xingchen, Song Lan thinks, not for the first time.

Bring Your Secrets, Bring Your Scars, by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (fourth in a series)

Nie MingJue keeps his promises.

All Your Madness, I Will Tame, by Terri Botha (Isilwath) (fifth in a series)

Wen Qing in the Burial Mounds.

Puppy, by Speechless_since_1998

Returning home, Lan Zhan found his husband hiding behind the sofa and A-Yuan sitting on the ground playing with a puppy dog.

The puppy must have been a few months old, probably hadn't even been weaned. It was harmless, but Wei Ying didn't care. It was enough that it was a dog to be afraid.

“Ah, Lan Zhan! You finally arrived! Take that monster away!" Wei Ying pleaded, refusing to come out of hiding.

A-Yuan puffed out her cheeks, "Shiro is not a monster!"

Heaven, he had already given it a name.

Being Good, by ricochet

Lan Wangji tries to be good.

no shadow can touch, by sunflowersfield

When it is time to hand out the mics, Lan Zhan forces himself to lower his expectations. Their exchange will be fleeting, and Wei Ying will barely even look at him.

Or: Wei Ying is cast in a musical at his local community center. Lan Zhan is the theater technician.

make a mess (inside my heart), by avenqelic

Wei Wuxian looked comfortable against Lan Wangji’s white sheets, curled up in his blankets. Lan Wangji’s chest ached, mind swirling with possibilities – falling asleep looking into Wei Wuxian’s eyes, waking up in his arms, holding each other close as the moon shifted across the sky and the sun rose.

Finding a way home, by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens

Prompt idea for a less than one thousand words one shot! Lwj walks into a coffee shop and barista wwx cannot stop flirting with him while both of them are dying on the inside because the other is so handsome! Wwx writes his number on the cup! Up to you if lwj has an existencial crisis after finding the number or if he even finds the number. Bonus points if the oneshot ends with lwj going back to the cafe and wwx smiles at him when he sees him! — this is a.a. now with a prompt

DanTian - Planting Gentians (LWJ POV), by ArchiveWriter (1 chapter plus art)

Wei Ying's been up their old mountain early in the morning. Wangji does needlework and indulges in watching Wei Ying's hands. A slice of domestic contentment because I like them happy.

Tease, by annjellybean

Now, Wei Ying had long outgrown teasing his husband mercilessly the way he used to back in their childhood days, they had been through so much since then, he had honestly forgotten how to do so. That being said, it did not mean Wei Ying had completely forgotten his gremlin roots, and as a self-proclaimed gremlin husband, today he wanted to tease.

Pure Morning, by ShizunThirst

It’s on mornings like these that Lan Wangji can love Wei Wuxian the way he deserves to be loved.

deeper etchings, by fensandmarshes

“And remember, a-Yuan,” comes the voice, lowered but still loud as though it shuns the petty boundaries of the house, “you absolutely cannot tell diedie about this.”

Lan Wangji pauses, there in the middle of the portal array, halfway through setting down his bag, and tilts his head just slightly.

Caring Warmth, by MountainMist

Wei Ying is sick and lonely. Head empty only Lan Zhan.

And how Lan Zhan takes care of him.

just them, together., by adeptiwings

It was okay, now that it was just them.

the boy with rabbit ears, by dragontea

Lan Zhan got lost in an amusement park and found his way home in the company of the boy with rabbit ears.

heart-shaped knots, by twigofwillow

There’s been a ghost in Cloud Recesses for over thirty years, but no one has talked to her until now.

Setting Suns and Dawning Realisations, by wereworm

Wei Wuxian's plans for a romantic night out in Caiyi with Lan Zhan are ruined when he works late, the sun already setting by the time he makes his way home to the Jingshi. Instead, they enjoy a quiet night in and Wei Wuxian comes to terms with the peace that he'd fought so hard to earn and the life that's he's finally allowed to have.

[For the prompt: a sweet wangxian date night in]

Won This For You, by Preludian_Staves

He looks up as his husband comes into the room with something suspiciously large hidden behind his back.

A single soul (no more), by Lysdance1

The core transfer surgery goes as in canon BUT it leaves the spiritual link open between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian and, well, what goes one way can go both ways.

"It's what keeps him (mostly) sane, a tether in this dark place where he cannot feed and cannot sleep and cannot escape; through the link he feels - trickles of love, Jiang Cheng's worry for him. It shouldn't be enough, but somehow, in this dark, dark place, it is. It reminds him, faintly, of home, and in the dark he hears the rhythm of one, luminous, far away soul."

To Need Someone, by Preludian_Staves

"A-die?"

"Hm?"

"What does mean to need someone? To want them with you?"

Approval, by Speechless_since_1998

"You look tired, "he said, sipping his tea. He shouldn't, it wasn't kind. But he couldn't resist teasing him a little.

Lan Zhan stared at him blankly, "I've been drinking."

"I saw."

"I kissed Wei Ying."

"I saw that too."

And thanks to the gods there was no uncle because he hated worldly occasions, otherwise he would have a heart attack.

"We had sex at his adoptive parents' home."

"And?"

Lan Zhan raised an eyebrow, "Aren't you surprised?"

"Oh, sorry, now I'll try again ... Really? !!"

"You're not funny."

Unfinished:

Not Rated:

An Obsidian Among Jades, by bluebeads

What happens when a sad lost mantou cheeked Lan Zhan teams up with a cheerful one to find his family in the unfamiliar streets of Yilling. A Yu Ziyuan Ultimatum AU which I submitted a while ago on angstymdzsthoughts Also a Gusu Lan Sect Wei Wuxian.

I've had enough, by pluma1007

He is ascending. They’re minds unhelpfully supplied.

Then, Wei Wuxian is gone.

The cultivators are in disarray.

“Wei Wuxian… Wei Wuxian ascended!”

“How can this be?! A monster ascended?!”

“No! My core! My powers had diminished!”

Hearing that, the cultivators checked their cores. Gasps rang out the mountains. Enraged cries are heard, cursing Wei Wuxian. There are also those who kowtowed, praying for forgiveness. There are others who praised him.

Song of Joy and Regrets, by HelloKitten

The Archery competition at Qishan this year has hit a snag. As the Sects face the wrongs perpetrated by their future selves, Wei Wuxian finds himself adopted by half of the cultivation world who are determined to save him from himself.

Baby Wangxian suffers. Adult Wangxian's job here is done.

"I'm starting to see a pattern to all his plans..."

"Do they all involve him being bait?"

"Yes" came deadpanned responses.

Hua Cheng is not amused.

Rated E:

the long way back home, by Misila

Wei Ying always knew he was the single discordant note in the Jiang household. That was why, after graduating from university, he didn’t return home. With him gone, Yu Ziyuan wouldn’t have anyone to compare her son to, and Jiang Fengmian wouldn’t have to keep avoiding his own family to prevent further conflict.

…Right?

(Seven years later, married to the man of his life and with a four year-old son, Wei Ying returns to his hometown and tries to reconnect with his siblings and befriend his nephew; but, most of all, he struggles to figure out what’s wrong with his brother and how to help him, despite Jiang Cheng not wanting to have anything to do with him anymore.)

Will You Stand Beside Me, by trashgavin

Wei Wuxian takes all his strength and spits blood in Wen Chao’s face. His eyes narrow and he speaks, though his voice is quiet and full of pain.

“Go to hell.”

It only makes Wen Chao laugh. He releases his hair and stands to his feet. “Bring me a whip.”

Rated M:

For the Dust and the Dirt, by Nyxelestia

His breath came out in shaky gasps, but still he could do nothing as the demonic copy of himself brought the blade down to the bare skin of Wei Wuxian’s uninjured shoulder. He whimpered when he felt a small cut, then when the blade lifted. He didn’t have time to even think of relief before it came back, right next to the first cut in a different direction, then again below in a line, multiple small lines in multiple directions like…like a character.

“Like I said,” the demon mused as Wei Wuxian realized what it was doing. “I’ll write it down for you.”

A brutal assault on a Cloud Recesses student leaves the Cultivation world reeling. Wei Wuxian struggles to recover, while everyone else tries to make sense of an ominous message. But since when do demons care about sect politics, anyway?

Between Wen Ruohan's rising aggression, simmering tensions across the guest disciples, and the mysterious fierce corpses still popping up all over the place, Wei Wuxian would rather ignore the confusing, horrifying visions the demon left him with.

If only the demon's taunting predictions didn't keep coming true at every turn.

I Know How Those in Exile Feed on Dreams of Hope, by rabbit_habits & saltedpin

“What does it mean, that Wen Ruohan has all the Yin Iron?” Jiang Cheng asked, dragging himself up into a sitting position – her medicines must have worked quickly, because his ribs gave only a twinge when he moved.

Wen Qing settled down beside him, head bowed as she packed away her supplies, her shoulder brushing his arm when she moved. “It means that no one in the cultivation world can oppose him,” she whispered.

—

Canon divergence AU in which Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan are captured by the Wens after escaping from the Xuanwu's cave, before they can return to rescue Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

Misunderstood, by Silver_Flame_2724

There is something called a memory ball that shows the memories of a chosen person.

In order to further incriminate the already dead Yiling Patriarch, the cultivation world decides to use this memory ball at the next Discussion Conference to show how evil the demonic cultivator can truly be.

What appears, though, truly shocks them all.

laughing shadow, by ich_bin_ein_stern

During the commotion involving Wei Wuxian, A-Ling refused little sleep. His screams carried across Koi Tower, putting wailing ghosts too shame. He was inconsolable by everyone. It was only when Jin Zixuan unintentionally passed the room holding Wei Wuxian while trying to calm down his son did A-Ling miraculously settle down. Since then, he has slept peacefully every night. Yanli expressed, in the quiet and security of their bedroom, that perhaps Wei Wuxian's spirit soothed A-Ling and continues to do so.

At the least expected times, Jin Zixuan swears he can hear the distant sound of a flute.

But when he stops to actually listen for it, he hears nothing.

Come From My Inkstone, by magicgenetek

“So your plan,” Nie Mingjue said dubiously, “is to move into the Burial Mounds to write and illustrate erotica about you and Lan Wangji seducing the Yiling Patriarch to earn his trust and sell the public on the idea that he's not a threat, then convince him to give up the Yin Tiger Seal?"

“The way I said it sounded better,” Nie Huaisang said. “And you forgot the part about me seducing the Ghost General, that is crucial.”

“I hate this, and as your brother, I am begging you not to actually stick it in a fierce corpse. How much money do you need?”

Rated T:

Here We Go Again, by Alliandra

He looked over to where the swordswoman was still fighting, but her focus seemed entirely locked onto that fight so it was unlikely that she could have had anything to do with the energy drain. He was still wracking his brain for something else to do to assist, so this thing didn’t kill them both, but now he was feeling weak, dizzy and currently not far from helpless.

~~~~~~~~~~

It has been several months since the events at the Guanyin temple and Wei Wuxian is wandering around on his own. After he helps a stranger kill a very dangerous beast he uncovers what seems to be a conspiracy aimed at ending his life. He heads back to Cloud Recesses with his new companion in tow, looking to get Lan Wanji's help in working out what is involved.

Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling made a surprising discovery under Koi Tower that may well be linked to the threat against Wei Wuxian's life.

Can they all work together to find out what is going on and put a stop to it, before something disastrous occurs?

A place of Gold, by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens

A few days after Wei Wuxian has parted from Lan Wangji on a forest path, he gets surrounded by Jin officials in an Inn, who formally ask him to return to Jinlintai to fill in the position of Sect Leader, as is his right and duty.

Wei Wuxian thinks it is an artful prank. Until it is not.

Blossoming flowers in a full moon - 花好月圆, by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens

What if Wei Wuxian wasn’t able to get out of Lan Wangji’s grip at the cliff in Nevernight? What if Lan Wangji refused to let go?

All will be well when the day is done, by abCEE

The one where Yu Ziyuan time traveled but she thought that it was her visions of her alternate life.

She learned that there is a brat named Wei Ying who brought destruction to her and her family's life.

And so in her present, she vowed that she will never allow that to happen.

In which Yu Ziyuan found the four-year-old Wei Ying, newly pushed out of the inn where his parents left him, and decided that no, this child must never be associated with her, her family, and their sect at all.

And so Yu Ziyuan thought that she could bring him somewhere where someone may or may not find him but definitely far from where her husband could find him. If he's lucky, he'll survive that winter, if he's not, then death awaits the fevered child.

This is the extent of mercy that Yu Ziyuan could give a child.

With this, she'll raise her children without having to deal with a brat that brings trouble where he goes according to her visions of her alternate life.

Like the tag stated, this is definitely not Yu Ziyuan centric.

Rated G:

How Jin Zixuan Helps Everyone, by BryxcrSt

The Yunmeng Heroes, Twin Jades, Nie Huaisang, The Peacock, Cinnamon Roll Ghost General and Lan Qiren suddenly transport back to the past before the Conference in Qishan, with their very memory of how all their clans battled Wen Rouhan's and now they're all ready to prevent it from happening now that they're back to the past. Especially Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian.

Surprisingly, Jin Zixuan wants to help them instead of standing out of the front line like how he used to but what can he do?

To Repeat, Repay, and Repair, by adrian_kres

Wei Wuxian has died again and his family grieves. Lan Sizhui, now married and with children of his own, grieves the loss of both fathers, as Lan Wangji has entered seclusion. But somehow, he unknowingly sends himself back to the time he spent in the Burial Mounds at three years old. Will his family take his confused, nonsensical warnings seriously? Are they doomed to repeat the same fate?

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #cql #mdzs #wangxian #untamed fanfiction

[robininthelabyrinth]

Discordant Rhapsody - ao3 - Chapter 13

“I’m just happy we made it in time,” Nie Mingjue said, having stopped by Lan Qiren’s rooms to take some tea with him privately before he returned to his own sect. He looked tired underneath his seemingly boundless energy, faint circles under his eyes that his cultivation was already erasing. “Convincing Jin Guangshan to give in and denounce his own guards, even in the face of contrary evidence, was…difficult.”

“I can’t even imagine how you managed it,” Lan Qiren said, drinking another swallow of the bitter concoction Wen Qing had created for him to drink, which the Lan sect doctors had very strongly endorsed. He was all in favor of her abandoning her solitude and finally making common ground with her colleagues, but was it necessary for that to happen over them ganging up against him? “Any of it. Convincing Jin Guangshan is one thing, he’s always been one willing to cut off his own tail to protect himself, but finding the evidence necessary to do so, and then gathering it up in time to prevent the imposition of discipline…Xichen told you about the precise timing, I assume?”

“Don’t be ridiculous; he would never violate your privacy like that. It was Wei Wuxian.”

Of course it was, Lan Qiren thought, finding to his mild bemusement that the tenor of the thought was amused, resigned and fond rather than annoyed.

“Mm,” he said out loud. “And as for how Wei Wuxian managed to get you a message in time – say, by using the post reserved for the sect leader –”

“I’m very sure Xichen has no idea,” Nie Mingjue said, very virtuously. “He would never look the other way while someone absconded with his post.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes.

He would need to remind his nephew that propriety stated that a sect leader did not skulk around doing things underhandedly, but he wouldn’t put too much effort into the scolding; it was good for Lan Xichen to have finally gotten some of the harsh truths about politics into his head. He had already seen the fruits of it, with Lan Xichen being very firm in arranging matters around Lan Qiren’s recuperation regardless of any resistance.

Not that there was much, of course. Lan Qiren’s enemies in the sect had seemingly realized the extent of how their pig-headedness had blown up in their faces – putting aside Lan Xichen, who was now far less inclined to be swayed by their advice than he had ever been before, there was also the majority of the sect’s younger generation that had very publicly thrown in their support to Lan Qiren, which was enough to sway those who were generally on the fence into supporting his approach over theirs. The other Lan elders would be licking their wounds for quite some time after this loss of face…

“I’m still surprised you found evidence of misconduct,” he remarked. “It’s highly implausible that a few low-level guards could have acted without their sect leader’s permission, but for it to be in writing…”

“Yes, it was lucky that I’d already started looking into things when I first heard the rumors about your new disciple,” Nie Mingjue said, then added, “Huaisang helped.”

Lan Qiren nearly choked on his medicine: as Nie Huaisang’s teacher, he was well aware of Nie Huaisang’s talents, or lack thereof. Nie Huaisang was clever, but his primary interest was in avoiding work, not doing it. There was only one thing that Nie Huaisang was good at, beyond wasting money, and that was making forgeries, having honed mimicking his brother’s signature into an art long ago.

Nie Mingjue couldn’t possibly mean…!

He did.

Nie Mingjue grinned at him, utterly shameless. “I told you I’d support you,” he said cheerfully. “Did you doubt me?”

“Only your good sense,” Lan Qiren scolded. “Aren’t you supposed to be righteous?”

“I’m preventing an injustice. That’s righteous, isn’t it?”

Sometimes Lan Qiren could see the relation between Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang – and their scoundrel of a father – more clearly than others.

“We don’t have a rule against lying,” Nie Mingjue teased, looking far too cheerful. “Anyway, we were only able to blackmail Jin Guangshan into agreeing to letting the whole thing blow over because there must have been evidence of something else going on – it’s not like Huaisang did anything more than mimic the old bastard’s handwriting on a few scraps of burned paper. He must have been afraid of what else we might have found out…besides, lying or no lying, it’s only righteous to keep your promises, and I promised you.”

“That’s its own problem,” Lan Qiren huffed, though he was having trouble concealing his amusement. That sounded remarkably like a pit that Jin Guangshan had dug for himself. “You shouldn’t be making that sort of commitment blindly.”

“Aren’t you my teacher, too?” Nie Mingjue chuckled. “Or is your students’ devotion something you think limited to the Lan sect?”

Lan Qiren couldn’t say anything about that, given the display Nie Mingjue had happened upon. He felt his ears go hot. “Then why – I mean, Sect Leader Jiang –”

“Also one of your students, and with his own interests in it, given Wei Wuxian. Besides, do you think he wouldn’t do such a thing for you after you did him such a favor?”

Nie Mingjue had a point. Jiang Cheng was a good child.

Though he had been very angry…

“Was Wei Wuxian the one that got him involved as well?” Lan Qiren asked, and was pleased when Nie Mingjue nodded. “Good.”

“Very good, given that we couldn’t have pulled it off without him,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “I’m pleased to report that your good disciple has a black eye but that both victim and aggressor have gotten over whatever it was that was lingering between them and are currently competing to see who can drink the most Emperor’s Smile without getting pickled.”

Of course they were.

“And while we’re on the subject, you really did a good thing when you took Wei Wuxian as your disciple.”

“Oh?” Lan Qiren stroked his beard. “Because of his scheming to preserve my life?”

“That’s all well and good, but actually it’s because I’ve never in my life seen Jin Guangshan caught so flatfooted.”

Lan Qiren tried valiantly to keep a smile off his face, though he suspected he wasn’t wholly successful.

“In fact, I genuinely think that’s the real reason we were able to get him to agree to condemn the actions of his sect – or at least of some guards whose deaths he could write off,” Nie Mingjue said, making a face of displeasure at his fellow sect leader’s callousness. “Your acceptance of Wei Wuxian as a personal disciple unnerved him, and then the Lan sect announcing such a disproportionate punishment unnerved him even further…he thought you were all up to something. No, more than that – that you knew something, and that it was all a dodge to get you out of the public view in order to allow you investigate it, and that us finding the ‘letters’ were us warning him off.”

Lan Qiren stared.

Nie Mingjue was, he knew, possessed of a sense of humor, sometimes an unnecessarily deadpan and even morbid one, but despite Lan Qiren’s initial hopes, it did not appear to be in evidence at the moment – Nie Mingjue was being completely serious.

“That man’s paranoia knows no boundaries,” Lan Qiren finally said, reluctantly accepting that it was the truth, regardless of how ridiculous it seemed. All of that, a façade meant just for the purpose of deceiving Jin Guangshan..? How talented in lies did he think they were? And worse, what did it suggest about Jin Guangshan’s own actions, present, past, or future, that he thought such a thing was the most reasonable conclusion…? “And here I thought Sect Leader Wen was bad…”

Nie Mingjue snorted.

“You realize, of course, that this means he is up to something that he fears will be uncovered by investigation,” Lan Qiren said, because he knew Jin Guangshan too well after all these years.

Nie Mingjue sighed. He knew him, too.

“You only think you’re being extorted when you have something worth extorting,” he agreed, then looked down at his hands, playing a little with his teacup. “I’m concerned that Meng Yao has gotten involved in it, whatever it was. His reaction in terms of agreeing to help us was – a little slower than righteousness or fellow-feeling might have preferred. I think Xichen was a little disappointed in him.”

“Meng Yao…Jin Guangyao? Your sworn brother?” Lan Qiren hadn’t had much interaction with him so far. There hadn’t really been time… “He came in the end, didn’t he? As a representative of his sect?”

That had been extraordinarily useful, in fact. Right or wrong, by the rules of the cultivation world, even Lan Qiren’s bitterest opponents couldn’t exactly continue to push for a punishment when the aggrieved victim was disclaiming any injury.

“Yes, he did, but it took some convincing.”

“That’s reasonable, though, isn’t it? Jin Guangshan is his father, which makes it difficult for him to contravene him, and add to that the fact that he’s only just recently been recognized… It would make sense that he might want to be cautious about moving forward in acting on his sect’s behalf.”

“Not that. We sought his assistance in convincing his father in the first instance, putting forth our reasons, and his initial inclination was to try to stall us, even though he knew the reason for our urgency.” Nie Mingjue shrugged. “He did eventually agree to help, and I don’t doubt that his genuine affection for Xichen played a large part in it. We wouldn’t have settled things nearly as quickly or satisfactorily without him knowing just how to best push his father.”

“But..?”

Nie Mingjue sighed. “I just wish I knew if it was because he genuinely changed his mind or because he realized that it was going to happen whether he liked it or not, and wanted to get on board as early as he could. After all, there’s not much that can’t be done if you can get enough of the Great Sects behind you, and we had them, whether Lanling Jin wanted to help or not. And who wouldn’t want to be on the winning side..?”

“You distrust him,” Lan Qiren observed. “If that’s the case, why would you swear brotherhood with him?”

“Because I have faith that he could be better. If he wanted to be…”

A classic Nie Mingjue problem, really; he always wanted other people to live up to his expectations for them. Lan Qiren would have to charge Lan Xichen with keeping a close eye on that situation, in the event that Nie Mingjue’s too-freely-given trust was betrayed – the Nie sect didn’t have rules about careful screening or imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals, but they should. Lan Xichen was partial to his sworn brothers, of course, but a timely reminder that trust should follow verification was probably in order. With the recent example ahead of him, Lan Xichen might even be inclined to listen.

“Admirable,” Lan Qiren said, because it was. “But still, you can’t solve everyone’s problems, you know.”

Nie Mingjue arched his eyebrows at him. “Really, Teacher Lan? Are you saying that one shouldn’t run around putting oneself on the line to fix other people’s issues?”

Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “The sarcasm is unnecessary. I’m aware of the foolishness of my actions.”

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “It all worked out in the end,” he said pragmatically, then, eyes curving into a smile, added, “Except now you’re stuck with a personal disciple that’s a bit of a handful.”

“I’d already resigned myself to that. I think we’ll get along quite well, actually – he’s matured a little since his youth, unavoidable in a time of war, and we share an interest in music.”

“Mm. Think you can control him?”

“Most certainly not.”

Nie Mingjue laughed.

“That being said, I have some further insight into his behavior,” Lan Qiren said, thinking of the fight Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had had, the rumors of how the Jiang sect leader had isolated himself after, the little hints that had come out here and there over the past month about Wei Wuxian’s debt to Wen Qing in particular and his refusal to use orthodox cultivation even in miniscule, irrelevant ways…it was fairly obvious what must have happened, once one thought about it. The execution of the Core-Melting Hand had been especially vicious. “And his demonic cultivation, while abhorrent in implementation, is at least being used for beneficent purposes, to pursue justice. Or it certainly will be in the future, anyway…I think we’ll manage, one way or the other.”

“I’ve never had the slightest doubt. Teacher Lan can turn even the worst trash into a gentleman.”

Lan Qiren wished he could find whoever it was that had first described him that way, primarily so that he might be able to wring their throat.

“I also see that Wei Wuxian seems to have improved his relationship with Wangji.”

“…mm, indeed,” Lan Qiren said. “You were right about that. They didn’t dislike each other as much as all that.”

“Glad to hear it. Though if I were to ask exactly how much they – ah – don’t dislike each other at the moment…”

“Talking behind the backs of others is forbidden,” Lan Qiren said austerely. “I’m not above violating that rule, Sect Leader Nie, but I’m not going to do it in order for you to win a bet with your little brother.”

“But it’s in a good cause,” Nie Mingjue protested, eyes curving with laughter again. “Huaisang promised me a whole season of saber training!”

“Good saber training? And did he specify which season? Or for that matter, which year or century?”

Nie Mingjue opened his mouth, then paused, looking abruptly annoyed.

Lan Qiren felt the desire to laugh starting to bubble up from his chest and suppressed it firmly.

“Huaisang is an exceedingly clever young man,” he said instead. “And most of all in how well he convinces people to underestimate him.”

“And don’t I know it,” Nie Mingjue sighed, then shook his head, standing up once more. Unexpectedly, he put his hand on Lan Qiren’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re all right, Teacher Lan. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Lan Qiren was appalled by such a ridiculously blunt statement – to someone from another sect, no less! – but Nie Mingjue strode away before he could start lecturing him. Or worse, thanking him.

“Hey, shifu! Shifu!”

Lan Qiren suppressed a sigh. He’d done this to himself.

Wei Wuxian skid to a stop in front of him. He looked better than he had in the past – no red in his eyes, only minimal resentment floating around him like a haze…he did in fact have a bruise on his face, though not quite the black eye Nie Mingjue had made it out to be, and he did stink of wine, rules against consuming alcohol or no. He was less gaunt than he had been in the past, though, which seemed to help mitigate the rest. Apparently, despite all the complaints about the Lan sect’s food that Lan Qiren had been subjected to on their way to the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian didn’t disdain it as much as that.

Well, that, or else Lan Wangji had been sneaking down the mountain to buy his beloved snacks. As courting methods went, it wasn’t a bad one, especially if he ever managed to obtain chili sauce.

Hm, perhaps Lan Qiren could drop his nephew a hint at their next meeting. There were some spice merchants that came by every once in a while, surely one of their merchant contacts in town would still have something left over that they could buy.

“What is it?” Lan Qiren asked, and Wei Wuxian grinned at him.

“You answered,” he crowed. “You’re really stuck with me now!”

Lan Qiren stared at him. “Wei Wuxian. How drunk are you? I was under the impression that you prided yourself on your tolerance –”

“I’m not that drunk, don’t be ridiculous. What would I even be drunk on? Your sect’s idea of a party involves tea and peach-blossom water.”

Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “Sect Leader Nie has already told me about your little contest with Sect Leader Jiang.”

“Oh good, that spares me the effort of evading the subject,” Wei Wuxian said, utterly shameless. “Anyway, don’t distract me. I wanted to thank you.”

“There’s no need for thanks between master and disciple.”

Wei Wuxian waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, whatever,” he said. “Jiang Cheng said the same thing.”

Lan Qiren nodded, then, trying not to be too blunt, said, “I understand you were the one who reached out to him to ask for assistance…?”

“I wasn’t going to let you get in trouble on my behalf if I could help it,” Wei Wuxian said, fierce for a moment before relaxing back into his usually spirited cheer. “It’s a fault of mine, I’ve discovered, though one I’m pleased to share with my shifu. It’s because of you that we managed to make up, you know.”

“Because of me?” Lan Qiren asked, surprised. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You exerted yourself to save me, even though it caused you great trouble, and you refused to share that trouble with me,” Wei Wuxian said. “And let me tell you: it was awful. I hated it.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes.

Wei Wuxian smirked at him, but then grew a little more serious. “I did the same thing to Jiang Cheng. I did it because he means the world to me – he’s my shidi and my friend, and he deserves everything. I wanted to give him everything, do anything for him. I thought I was helping him by not sharing my burdens with him. By taking it all on myself, by being selfless, by giving away pieces of myself without counting the cost, without even letting him help.”

That sounded…familiar, yes.

“Well, that was utterly asinine of me,” Wei Wuxian proclaimed, and grinned when Lan Qiren glared at him. “You’ve figured out what it was, haven’t you?”

“I have my suspicions,” Lan Qiren allowed. “If you ever wish to confirm them, you may do so at your leisure.”

Wei Wuxian snickered.

“You know he does the same for you, correct?” Lan Qiren asked, curious. “Make stupid decisions, that is. If Jiang Wanyin did not care for you as much as he did, he would – and should – have wrapped you up in Zidian and dragged you back to the Lotus Pier from the Burial Mounds whether you would or wouldn’t.”

“I’d like to see him try!”

Lan Qiren merely arched his eyebrows pointedly.

“…all right, yes, I know,” Wei Wuxian said, wrinkling his nose. “That’s the problem, though. If I’m giving up things for him and he’s giving up things for me, then what’s the point? We both end up losers. I don’t want to end up doing things that actually hurt the person I want to help just to appease my own pride.”

“That way is a dead end,” Lan Qiren agreed, thinking of his brother’s terrible selfish love – the type of love that Lan Wangji had not followed, would not follow. Would never follow, especially if both he and Wei Wuxian managed to learn now what Lan Qiren’s brother never had. “Love is no excuse, even if it is an explanation. I admit my own faults as well…I am pleased Jiang Wanyin is no longer angry with you.”

“Oh, no, he’s furious, and he’s going to take it out on me for months to come,” Wei Wuxian said. He seemed quite proud, in a manner that suggested that he thought that being the target of Jiang Cheng’s continued rage was the finest gift he could possibly imagine receiving. Presumably he had deluded himself into thinking that Jiang Cheng would have chosen to turn away from him and become indifferent, instead.

Ridiculous disciple.

“I’m glad my shifu admits his faults,” Wei Wuxian said, interrupting Lan Qiren’s thoughts – he had an expression on his face as if he were being clever about something. “Naturally, as a my teacher, he will have to model better behavior in the future in terms of valuing things that other people care about.”

“Are you trying to scold me for not cherishing my health?” Lan Qiren asked, his eyes narrowing. The master scolded the disciple, not the other way around.  

“What, me? I wouldn’t dream of it!”

What a rotten little liar Lan Qiren had taken on as a disciple.

“Anyway, that’s not what I came here to say,” Wei Wuxian said hastily, seeing Lan Qiren starting to reach for something to throw. “I talked with Jiang Cheng a bit, and he said that while he still wants my help in the Lotus Pier from time to time, he thinks it’s best if I stay here for now, focusing on learning and contemplation and meditation and all that stuff, so as to improve my reputation by association with the tranquil and orthodox Gusu Lan.”

Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren surmised, had not yet heard about the alchemists’ group Wei Wuxian had been invited to join. That was probably for the best.

“And I just wanted to thank you.”

“I already said –”

“I know, I know. But still – thanks for bringing me back here!”

With that, he left as well, leaving Lan Qiren behind him, blinking owlishly.

I want to bring someone back to the Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji had said. But they are unwilling.

Not so unwilling anymore.

Lan Qiren smiled faintly.

“Shufu?”

Lan Qiren turned – his nephews were both there. They looked anxious, as if they thought he would scold them for having schemed to get his punishment lifted: Lan Wangji by rallying the sect to protest, causing the elders to grow concerned over the reception of their decision and drawing their attention, such that they wouldn’t notice Wei Wuxian and Lan Xichen’s efforts to find a way to overturn it.

And neither would Lan Qiren, whose devotion to his sect and his rules would have compelled him to ask them to desist.

His devotion to his sect, to his rules, which was greater than everything – everything other than his love for his nephews.

Lan Qiren probably would scold them, later. For…something.

Eventually.

“This medicine is very bitter, but in the end it is good for me,” he said mildly, and saw both his nephews start to brighten. “Mistress Wen and the other doctors have said that it can be drunk alongside tea. Perhaps it would be suitable to wash it away with a better flavor. Would you two like to select one for me?”

Lan Xichen beamed so widely that it seemed painful, and even the reticent Lan Wangji smiled.

“Yes, shufu!”

-END-

#mdzs #lan qiren #wei wuxian #nie mingjue #lan xichen #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #discordant rhapsody #variations