#normally Cao Yinuo is fully on board

[thisisallthehattersfault]

Excerpt from my Wei Wixuan Descended From Hualian Fic

"Xingan," Wei Chaoxiang says, aggrieved. "The boy is sixteen. Sixteen, for heaven's sake! And he carries himself like he's been carved out of stone!"

Cao Yinuo purses her lips and presses her fingertips together the way she does when she's trying not to show that she's upset. "We cannot go around adopting the children of random sect leaders, most especially while those sect leaders are still alive," she says, but Wei Chaoxiang knows his wife and hears the reluctance in her voice.

"That's an easy fix." She looks at him like he's an utter fool, which, fair. But still! "Look at that child and tell me he has ever in his life experienced a shred of parental affection."

"... Jin Furen is--"

"Bah!" Wei Chaoxiang does not make a habit of interrupting his wife, and to do it now highlights how fired up he is. "That woman happily betrothed her son to a girl he despised for most of their acquaintance, the fact that he came around in the end means nothing. Even had he not, she would have forced them to marry and damn either of their chances at a happy future."

Cao Yinuo hesitates. Picks uncertainly at her nails.

Wei Chaoxiang pushes onward. "Jiang Fengmian's disgraceful neglect of his children is shameful enough, but at least he doesn't have Jin Guangshan's reputation, which Jin Furen seems entirely too passive about exposing Yanli to. What must it have been like for Zixuan, growing up under that shadow? And more to the point -- we are a reflection of the company we keep! What does it say about Jin Furen's character, that she counts a woman like Yu Ziyuan as her closest friend! She may not take a whip to her own son, but she would surely to someone else's, and that's another weight the boy has to shoulder. At sixteen! He's hardly out of his milkteeth!"

"Our own boy is only a few years older," Cao Yunuo says, though her stony defiance is melting.

"Exactly! They're babies, the both of them! And Zixuan looked ready to burst into tears when I told him he'd done well last night."

His perfect, wonderful, brilliant, ever-loving wife sighs with all the exhaustion of an immortal grown weary with the passage of time, and fixes him with a Look. "So, after so many years of avoiding the Sects entirely, we're now going to just show up and adopt all of their children?"

"... Maybe not all of them."

"Husband."

"Well -- oh, but that Nie Mingjue is hardly into his twenties isn't he? And already carrying so much responsibility. And Xichen, of course, if we're to have Wangji then we simply must have his brother, and it's not like he couldn't do with a kinder hand than Lan Qiren seems willing to give. And of course Wanyin and Yanli, if Jiang Fengmian didn't want me to steal his children from him then he shouldn't have kidnapped my nephew, and they're a-Ying's siblings, we can't just abandon them... Hm."

"The Wen boys."

"The Wen boys! Yes, I'm not fond of the Wen boys, and I'm afraid it's too late for an intervention to matter there. Unfortunate, but that's the way these things turn out some times. So it's not all of the children. Just the ones who need us."

Cao Yinuo looks up at the statue of Granduncle like she's hoping he'll come and rescue her from her foolish husband, but she doesn't actually call out to him. She only raises a hand to rest gentle fingers on the red silk thread, dangling from the statue's own outstretched hand. "... I suppose," she says, softly, "That the family may have -- may have been too distant, since Changze died. Clearly things have gotten out of control without us around to keep watch. If they want to -- if they want to, Chaoxiang, you cannot actually steal these children -- if they want to, then it's not like we don't have space at the table."

"Yes!" Says Wei Chaoxiang, and wraps his arms around his perfect, wonderful, brilliant, ever-loving wife to dip her into a kiss to show his gratitude.

#mdzs #the untamed #Wei Wuxian #not present but tagged for visibility #OCs #WWX's uncle and his wife are like Morticia and Gomez #insofar as they are Constant Adding New Family Members #A child cannot Sniffle within ten meters of them without getting adopted #normally Cao Yinuo is fully on board #its only the sect politics that give her pause