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elenirlachlagos · 1 year

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SangCheng Fanfic Rec List

This list is definitely not exhaustive, I'm sure there's some I've forgotten because I neglected to put them in my bookmarks. I just dug around in there and tried to make it a little diverse and covering different authors.

I'm trying to word this post in a way that it doesn't get flagged, so please also mind the tags on the fics.

Sorted by word count, starting with the short ones.

the strangest, dampest embrace by Anbessette

Rating: teen and up

tags: crack treated seriously, shapeshifting, squid!NHS, friends to lovers, interspecies romance, Cloud Recesses study arc

POV: WWX

word count: 3.020

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: canon divergence

summary: Squid Yao Nie Huaisang is learning to shift into human form. Jiang Cheng is having the weirdest 'oh no my friend got hot' crisis in teenage history.

personal opinion on the fic: This sounds ridiculous, I know. And it kind of is. And it's also... kinda cute? This one fic is rather short, but it's the start of a series. Other fics of this series are rated explicit and with NHS being a squid, you can decuce what that means...

dark water by Morgan (duckwhatduck)

Rating: explicit

notable tags: drinking, loneliness, lots of feelings but no talking about them, hopeful ending

POV: JC

word count: 7.055

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: in universe

summary: Sect Leader Jiang invites the freshly appointed Sect Leader Nie into his chambers to have a drink, and it leads to more.

personal opinion on the fic: This is basically pwp, but filled with emotions. JC discovers, in a way, his sub nature, but he's also an emotional mess, and while NHS keeps it together more, he's also not 100% confident and in control - and this is actually one of the aspects I like about this, it feels much more authentic like this.

He's no bully, he's my friend by JaimeBlue

Rating: General audiences

notable tags: homelessness, dog!Jiang Cheng, unspecified city, , podfic available

POV: NHS

word count: 8.976

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: urban fantasy/modern cultivators AU

summary: Nie Huaisang has been living on the streets for almost two years since his brother's death, just trying to get by despite the 'things' he sees that scare him, though nobody else can see them - it's been that way since he was a boy. Then one day he chases some kids away from harassing an injured pit bull, and he finds in the dog a friend and partner in surviving life on the streets. But there is more to his dog than meets the eye, and maybe the companion he'd saved might just save him in return.

personal opinion on the fic: This fic is different. First of all, there's not much romance in it, just a hint of SangCheng at the end. Not surprising since Jiang Cheng spends most of this fic as a dog. So it's NHS-centric, too. It's very heartwrenching, but also sweet and hopeful (and I'm not even a dog-person).

the cold read by offlight

Rating: teen and up

notable tags: fake/pretend relationship, drunk making out, set in USA

POV: JC

word count: 12.022

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: college/university AU

summary: JC is annoyed by WWX constantly going on about his relationships, while he never had one. NHS comes up with the seemingly brilliant idea to start fake dating; for not entirely unselfish reasons.

personal opinion on the fic: It's a cute, fluffy fake relationship fic. Maybe things go a little too smooth overall, but sometimes you're just in the mood for that. However I do think the anger directed at JC towards the end is a little unfair; he genuinly didn't realize. There's a hot little drunk make-out scene in the middle, that doesn't go too far (so the teen rating is still correct, in my opinion).

the light of autumn by crooows

Rating: general

tags: canon compliant, hurt/comfort, talking, drinking, angst with a happy ending

POV: JC, NHS

word count: 13.845

chapter count: 5

status: completed

AU or in universe: in universe, post-canon

summary: Nie Huaisang arrives a week early for the conference which will be held in Yunmeng to discuss the position of chief cultivator.

personal opinion on the fic: This is a short one, so you can't expect a long built up and maybe the big "oh!" realization comes a little too fast. But the story shows both of them broken in ways that make them understand each other, and they're so sweet and cute together. Haha, that poor Jiang disciple.

Lights, Camera, Kiss by MissMagus

Rating: explicit

notable tags: 5+1 Things, dom/sub, brief Nie Huaisang/Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji, bottom Nie Huaisang, service top Jiang Cheng, top drop, (plus a few other tags for the "movie" they're filming)

POV: NHS

word count: 15.377

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: adult entertainment industry AU

summary: When Nie Huaisang gets paired with straight Jiang Cheng for a five-part series, he’s sure it will be an utter disaster. Until the cameras start rolling and their chemistry alights like wildfire.

personal opinion on the fic: Alright, this is pretty much pwp; most of it is set during filming. Also this is of course most probably not in any way representative of the real industry. My favourite things about this is how the whip was incorporated (not done enough, imo) and the top drop JC experiences, something I've never read before.

Just Let Me Stay Here by Your Side, That Would Be Enough by xcourtney_chaoticx

Rating: teen and up

notable tags: friends to lovers, arranged marriage, canonical character death, post-traumatic stress disorder - PTSD, non-sexual intimacy, Jiujiu content, OCs

POV: NHS

word count: 15.822

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: canon divergence

summary: In the wake of the Sunshot Campaign and the sworn brotherhood of Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, and Jin Guangyao, it is decided that Nie Huaisang should be married into the Yunmeng Jiang. He is married to Jiang Cheng.

personal opinion on the fic: Sweet, fluffy slow-burn arranged marriage - sometimes you just need something like this. (Ok, maybe not always only fluffy, some of the dark things of canon still happen and there's the PTSD tag...)

Neutral Territory by Pyrria

Rating: mature

notable tags: movie violence, everyone lives/nobody dies, no Golden Core transfer, gangsters, bar/pub setting, drinking

POV: NHS

word count: 19.185

chapter count: 2

status: completed

AU or in universe: cyberpunk AU

summary: A series of conversations between Nie Huaisang, the overlooked, underestimated, playboy younger brother of the former leader of the Qinghe gang and Jiang Wanyin, a lowtek bar owner who knows more than he should and is connected to some very dangerous people. Is Jiang Wanyin someone Nie Huaisang can trust as he tries to unravel the attempt on his brother's life? Or is he one of the many moving pieces acting against Qinghe? If he's already fallen, does it even matter?

personal opinion on the fic: I really like the idea of the loss of a Golden Core being changed into not having cybernetic implants. I love the description of the AR technological world contrasted with the "old-fashioned" real worldness of JCs bar - it makes me wish I could actually see this (as film, animation, whatever). Plus it's always nice to have some uncle/nephew interaction and Nie Zonghui included. Yay for family. The mature rating is for the violence that the whole gang theme includes; I'm really bad with gore and violence and such but it hardly bothers me, so I'm sure most others will be fine.

a loving kind of boy by artsy_alice

Rating: teen and up

notable tags: tooth-rotting fluff, coming out, Jiang Cheng and puppies, 5+1 Things, childhood friends getting together, asexual Jiang Cheng, minor WangXian

POV: mixed, it's a bit chaotic (but it works out)

word count: 19.740

chapter count: 7

status: completed

AU or in universe: modern cultivators AU

summary: Or, 5 Times Nie Huaisang Comforts Jiang Cheng Through the Power of Cuddles, Heart-to-Hearts and Cute Animals, and the 1 Time it was the Other Way Around

personal opinion on the fic: I love the world-building in this. It's basically a collection of scenes from their lives, so there's not much development or plot or anything, and the SangCheng just kinda happens, so don't expect big romantiv events. Make sure to check out the author's social media accounts, though, because there's lots of cute art from this AU.

bright sunlight filtered by givemebaretrees

Rating: explicit

notable tags: arranged marriage, hopeful ending

POV: JC

word count: 20.175

chapter count: 1

status: completed

AU or in universe: canon/in universe

summary: Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang are arranged to marry each other by Jiang Fengmian and Madame Yu, which seems to make everyone happy—up until Wei Wuxian's life is changed by the Sunshot Campaign. Jiang Cheng is left to pick up the pieces of every broken promise his brother left behind, and some of his own, too.

personal opinion on the fic: I really like how the story weaves itself between the events we all know; it mentions them but doesn't do any unnecessary retelling. JC and NHS slowly dance around each other, getting closer, and then again further away. I kind of wished the NSFW part was a little expanded, then again it also fits like this.

Four Days in Lanling by halotolerant

Rating: explicit

notable tags: first time, mastermind!Nie Huaisang, grief/mourning, drunkenness, podfic available

POV: JC

word count: 21.020

chapter count: 6

status: completed

AU or in universe: in universe, partly post-canon

summary: During his first Cultivaton Conference as clan leader, NHS does some scheming that doesn't directly pay for his masterplan, and after the events at Guanyin temple, JC begs him to help his nephew again. And maybe also something else that happened between them can be rekindled, too.

personal opinion on the fic: The fic treads a fine line in making JC the oblivious and inexperienced and passive one; this could go very wrong - but it doesn't. He does have his expertise and he's growing into his role. They both have their obvious traumas and weaknesses, too. I do love how clever NHS is in this, it's a joy to watch how he manipulates and no ones notices.

Heart opening flow by gekidasa

Rating: teen and up

notable tags: yoga, college/university, background WangXian, awkward boners, jealous!JC, established NieLan

POV: JC

word count: 27.002

chapter count: 10

status: completed

AU or in universe: modern AU

summary: Jiang Cheng agrees to do a class at Cloud Recesses Yoga as a favor to Wei Wuxian. He was only planning to go once, but then Nie Huaisang walks into the class, and Jiang Cheng is immediately smitten. Unbeknownst to Jiang Cheng, the feeling is entirely mutual.

personal opinion on the fic: This is one of those fics where clearly the author pours in much knowledge about their interest. There's reference pics for yoga poses and all (it's pretty advanced yoga, though, so don't try this at home). NHS tries his hardest with flirting, but he is up against JCs insecurities. They dance around each other for a bit, but it's so sweet. It's seperated very conveniently into short chapters.

A Sweet and Vicious Cycle by Kendershire

Rating: explicit

notable tags: sugar baby/sugar daddy, emotional manipulation, pretend relationship, scheming Nie Huaisang, protective Jiang Cheng, panic attacks, terrible Jiang parents, demisexual!Jiang Cheng

POV: NHS

word count: 37.192

chapter count: 12

status: in progress

AU or in universe: modern AU

summary: After his life was upended and his brother incarcerated, NHS has to make a living with a generally disdained job - and uses it for his carefully planned revenge scheme. He intends to use his childhood friend for his means, too; but it doesn't quite go as planned.

personal opinion on the fic: The JC in this fic is what all those rude young CEOs in Asian dramas should be and never are. He's so noble that it'd be easy to condemn NHS for what he is doing, if it wasn't obvious that NHS is not unaffected. I so love the idea of the Crisis Blanket! Everyone should have one. This fic is not completed and has slow updates, but it's not abandoned.

perfect pretenders by skyestiel

Rating: teen and up

notable tags: WangXian, Gusu Trio shenanigans, practice kissing, making out, getting together, friends to lovers, mutual pining

POV: NHS, WWX, JC, LWJ alternating

word count: 60.549

chapter count: 15

status: completed

AU or in universe: in universe, canon-divergence

summary: During a drunken get-together, wei Wuxian has the glorious idea of a kissing competition between him, JC and NHS. Later, and still drunk, JC has the equally glorious idea that him and NHS could outdo WWx with the help of - each other.

personal opinion on the fic: Yay, Gusu times trio/quartet content! Happy innocent youth. I love all their interactions, I can very well picture them like this. It's so cute, but also sensual - I think chapter 5 has to be one of my favourite SangCheng content.

Shorelines in the Moonlight by Emrysian

Rating: teen and up (but there is an outsourced NSFW scene that has an explicit rating)

tags: hurt/comfort, suicidal ideation, Junior Quartet, qi deviation/unrest, loneliness, anxiety, slow burn, angst with a happy ending, family feels, JL/LSZ, healing, relapse

POV: alternating (JC, LWJ, JL, LSZ...)

word count: 62.854

chapter count: 27

status: completed

AU or in universe: in universe, post-canon

summary: A year after the events at Guanyin Temple, everyone seems to be moving on with their lives and learning how to live as they are. That is, until Sect Leader Nie's health is brought into question at a Discussion Conference, and soon everyone realizes that there are some things that have yet to be addressed. Grief takes many forms. What happens to those who are left behind?

personal opinion on the fic: Completely self-indulgent, but I love how everyone starts worrying about NHS. He even gets those infamous hugs from JC - since CQL this is something I'm jealous of. I love how the juniors crush on NHS, it's so cute and also hilarious. The time everyone spends together in Qinghe at the festival and in Lotus Pier, is so sweet to read with its family feels and budding love... Not everything goes smooth, though, there's a little more realistic approach to healing.

Come Go With Me by roseclaw

Rating: explicit

notable tags: set in USA, therapy, moving away from family, surfing, chronic pain, mentions of a being in a car accident and witnessing death (chapter 13), yunmeng sib feels, accidental kitten acquisition, small town vibes, lots of food preparing, house renovation, lots of ogling, making friends

POV: JC

word count: 102.289

chapter count: 15

status: completed

AU or in universe: modern AU

summary: Six years after he was in a car accident that killed his parents and left him with hardware in his knee and chronic pain, former competitive surfer Jiang Cheng quits city life, takes his parents’ inheritance, and buys a dilapidated inn on the ocean to fix up.

personal opinion on the fic: Everyone is mentioned in this fic, seriously, everyone, including Zonghui; there's kittens and even Wang Yizhou's thigh tattoo gets a mention, too. Personally I think that JC (often very relatable) and NHS (who stays mysterious throughout) feel a little OOC, though it may only be the vastly different setting. I do love the setting. I don't know a thing about the area in which this is set nor the surfing community, but it has a certain atmosphere I really like coming back to. (Somebody do a mood board?) The relationship between the siblings is really well done. When I first read this, my mother had a knee surgery, so a lot in this sounds familiar, especially how a lot of things that are normal to others are out of the question, and how overdoing it on good days can easily lead to bad days.

we both know better (maybe we don't) by captain_apostrophe

Rating: explicit

notable tags: fake/pretend relationship, demisexual!Jiang Cheng, slow burn, rich families, nobody is dead, background WangXian, occasional smut (often XueSang), Jiujiu content, robbery, sexuality exploration, angst and hurt/comfort, terrible Jiang parents, family dynamics, childhood trauma, non-sexual intimacy, divorce, skip codes for explicit content

POV: NHS, JC alternating

word count: 281.873

chapter count: 56

status: on hiatus

AU or in universe: modern AU

summary: NHS was hired to paint a mural on WWXs pizzeria wall but then WWX has another job for him: be the fake date for his very attractive brother to get people off his back about marriage and kids. The problem is that WWX didn't inform JC of his plan - and it goes how you might expect it to; or even worse. But since the worst damage seems to already been done, JC decides "why not" and the deal is on until WWXs wedding.

personal opinion on the fic: The "JC is a martial arts instructor" content you didn't know you needed. NHS is so thirsting over JC in this, and he's taking us all on that trip with him. The growing casual intimacy between them is so lovely to read (I'm a little jealous, really). I was a little worried about the addition of an OC to the family, but it works. The big "oh!" moment is so cheesy, so tropey - and so, so good. There are a couple of flaws. Sometimes it tries too desperately to be woke, like there's some secret plan to squeeze in a whole modern sex ed curriculum, to the point that it feels like in school books when the authors try to put some kind of story around a math problem (in this case the other way around) but it ends up being awkward. The demisexuality of JC is really well done; some other parts not that much, in my opinion. The more obvious problem is of course the current status. I'm not surprised, it had this vibe the last couple of chapters... But if you don't mind the uncertain future, do read. Or you could always stop after chapter 42.

#SangCheng #fanfiction rec list #fanfiction recommendation #I made this in the hope that it spikes my motivation to continue writing #it didn't quite work #I had to delete some fics from this list so there might be another some time

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utilitycaster · 11 months

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I spaced on sending this when you initially made the post, but if you were ever so inclined to make that full list of recommendations on metafiction/the liminal space of tangential genres, I would be very interested to see it! (the original list was 100% some of my favorite books/media)

Oh man I've been uh. bad at reading as regularly/much as I'd like for the past few years, something I'm attempting to remedy, and I've never been the biggest of film buffs, and as such that covers a lot of the high points.

(obligatory reminiscing): Truly the the most "not actually a real problem" tragedies of my life is that I was a teenager before the Goodreads era and so I was shaped, indelibly, by whatever Collected Science Fiction Anthologies of the Latter 20th Century my local library had circa 2004. As a result there's like a thousand 70s and 80s sci fi stories the titles of which I cannot remember but which are etched deep within the recesses of my brain. Occasionally I have enough details to go to some thread on the internet and say "pretty please can you find it," but often I don't. There's definitely one I'm thinking of in which a group of scientists keep doing an experiment to change the time line and they keep believing that it fails, but as a reader you clearly see the list of names and various details is changing. This is not super helpful to anyone other than to say "go read short speculative fiction." ANYWAY here's a few more.

On the topic of short fiction, Sword Stone Table is a collection of short stories inspired by Arthurian legend which I read last year, and not all of them worked but there were enough to make it worth it (and it's a quick read). Hilariously, the coffee shop AU was one of the more metafictional examples.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I don't remember this well but I own a copy and might re-read it; I distinctly recall purchasing it because she made a chapter in the form of a PowerPoint presentation and got interviewed by NPR about it since she could see how many people quit reading at that chapter thanks to eReader data, and I was like "sounds cool". I love when authors are hostile to their audience in a way that's good for them, and I remember enjoying that chapter very much.

I mean your bio quotes Calvino so I'm assuming you're good there but like...I have not read all their work, but I trust Calvino, Borges, Le Guin, and Susanna Clarke to always deliver.

Jules Feiffer's A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears; Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock (among other Diana Wynne Jones books); The Phantom Tollbooth; and the various works of Ellen Raskin (best known for The Westing Game but I read so many of her books) are middle-grade or YA but they are in fact a big reason why I eventually became a college student who would read House of Leaves and Calvino for fun and why I became an adult who devoured Piranesi in one sitting.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

It's also been a hot minute since I read Possession by A. S. Byatt but I do remember loving it at the time.

For...the best I can put it is "popcorn reads?" low postmodernism? mass-market metafiction? Fun shit? Jasper Fforde is your guy.

Technically The Princess Bride is metafiction. Fun fact: a good friend of mine in college did not realize it was not legit a translation when he read the book. His undergrad thesis was in part about translation. We made fun of him for this.

David Mitchell's literary universe, notably Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell is a very good writer who does tend to have a pretty dark interpretation of our world's future and so I sort of fell off following his works because they were particularly depressing but like, that's a me problem because he's immensely talented. (note: did not see the film adaptation, cannot speak to that.)

I am also going to plug the Teixcalaan books (two so far, starting with A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine which is a bit of a stretch but I'm doing it anyway because I think it’s underappreciated (it occupies the same space in my mind tbh as Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota and to an extent Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire, both of which I’ve mentioned before, of an incredibly intelligent SF story with queer characters and relationships that was well received but just doesn't have the buzz of some other modern sf series). It’s not metafictional per se, but it does have an incredibly strong theme running through it of engaging with narrative and controlling it (honestly? Similar to Black Sails in that regard.) The Teixcalaan Empire is hyper-aware of language and legend, naming patterns are a number and a word, and the cool thing to do is write complex forms of poetry. The second book also has a character purchasing an indie comic and drawing all sorts of interesting comparisons to her ongoing situation... a little bit like Tales of the Black Freighter within Watchmen.

Run Lola Run/Lola Rennt (I watched it as a non-German speaker with subtitles and enjoyed it)

#answered #playerkingsley #long post

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jiangwanyinscatmom · 2 years

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Once more, why Jiang Cheng's homophobia is not funny, cute, or anything to do with a sibling dynamic:

Hi! So first of all I want to clarify that I’m not in any way saying jc isn’t a homophobe, because I mean, it’s pretty obvious. However back when I read the mxtx interview I read her answer as ‘wwx acted all of a sudden very different with lwj, to the point where it was jarring for jc who had not seen him act that way before.’ I do not think jc understood at all wwx’s affections towards lwj, and this did not think it was disgusting because he saw it as flirting. (½)

I find it weird that people use it as a 'proof’ that jc is homophobic when it’s not straightforwardly telling us it’s homophobia, and also since you know, the novel is right there and tells us far more clearly that jc is, in fact, a homophobe. (2/2)

So, here, I agree the interview isn’t a stated full explanation in itself and not to be used as evidence alone.

I think that at the time it was not fully homophobia on his part when he had first noticed Wei Wuxian’s attention for Lan Wangji in Cloud Recesses. Jiang Cheng had never understood Wei Wuxian’s penchant for wanting to be around Lan Wangji and I think that his surprise of Wei Wuxian flirting with a man (He himself talks about how he never thought it odd with Wei Wuxian flirting with women all the time) Lan Wangji was always the strange outlier for flirting. It steadily devolves into more overt homophobia as they get older.

Cloud Recesses when they’re 15,

Wei WuXian replied, “Yeah, I also thought that he should be praised for having the courage to come see me. He was probably told by his uncle to come check if I was kneeling properly.”

Jiang Cheng instinctively felt a foreboding sensation, “Were you kneeling properly?”

Wei WuXian, “I was kneeling properly. After he was some distance away, I found a stick and started to dig in the dirt. The pile beside your foot. There’s an ant hole there that I went through tons of trouble to find. When he turned his head, he saw that my shoulders were shaking, and he definitely thought that I was crying. He even came back to ask me. You really should have seen his expression as he saw the ant hole.”

“…” Jiang Cheng spoke, “You should get lost and go back to Yunmeng as soon as possible! I don’t think that he wants to see you ever again.”

The part that sticks out here is the fact that Jiang Cheng feels any sense of foreboding at all for a silly situation that Lan Wangji had walked away from seeing Wei Wuxian was actually okay. It’s the first seed of him continuing the line of thought that “He hates you”. He is already feeling strange about Wei Wuxian’s flirting and chooses to sort of project this hate into Lan Wangji for Wei Wuxian.

Lotus Pier summer after Cloud Recesses lessons:

I just thought of someone.”

Jiang Cheng, “Who?”

Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan.”

Jiang Cheng, “Why would you think of him for no reason? Reminiscing what it felt like to copy sect rules?”

Wei WuXian spat out a seed, “It’s fun to think of him. You don’t even know—he’s just too amusing. I told him, ‘Your sect’s food is disgusting. I’d rather eat stir-fried watermelon peel than eat your food. If you have time, come have fun with us at Lotus Pier…'”

Before he even finished, Jiang Cheng slapped his watermelon off, “Are you mad? Inviting him to Lotus Pier—are you trying to torture yourself?”

Wei WuXian, “Why are you so upset? My watermelon almost flew away! I was just being polite. Of course he wouldn’t come. Have you ever heard of him go anywhere by himself to have fun?”

Jiang Cheng had on a stern expression, “Let’s make this clear. I don’t want him to come, anyhow. Don’t invite him.”

Wei WuXian, “I never knew you hated him so much?”

Jiang YanLi sat down between the two, “Who are you talking about? A friend you made in Gusu?”

Wei WuXian responded happily, “Yeah!”

Jiang Cheng, “What a shameless ‘friend’ you are. Go ask Lan WangJi and see if he wants you as one.”

Wei WuXian, “Fuck off. If he doesn’t want me, I’ll bother him to the point that he does.” He turned to Jiang YanLi, “Shijie, do you know Lan WangJi?”

Jiang YanLi, “I do. He’s that Lan-er-gongzi whom everyone describes as handsome and talented, isn’t he? Is he really that handsome?”

Wei WuXian, “He is!”

Jiang YanLi, “Compared to you?”

Wei WuXian thought about it for a moment, “Maybe just a bit more handsome than me.”

He formed a tiny bit of space between two fingers. Taking the plate away, Jiang YanLi smiled, “He must be truly very handsome, then. It’s a good thing you made a new friend. In the future, you two can visit each other in your free time.”

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng spat out his watermelon. Wei WuXian waved his hands, “Forget it, forget it. All that’s at his place is bad food and a whole lot of rules. I’m not going again.”

Jiang YanLi, “Then you can bring him here. This is a good opportunity. Why not invite your friend to come stay at Lotus Pier for sometime?”

Jiang Cheng, “Don’t listen to his nonsense, Jie. He’s super annoying in Gusu. Lan WangJi would never want to come home with him.”

Wei WuXian, “What do you mean!? He would.”

Jiang Cheng, “Wake up. Lan WangJi told you to get lost, didn’t you hear? You still remember that?”

Wei WuXian, “What do you know!? Even though he told me to get lost on the surface, I know for sure that he secretly wants to come play with me in Yunmeng—in fact, he would love to.”

Here Wei Wuxian is still in the belief that Lan Wangji does like him. Jiang Cheng of course isn’t amused by Jiang Yanli’s indulgence in Wei Wuxian’s daydreams. Wei Wuxian continues to, well, essentially pine innocently about Lan Wangji, his fellow disciples even encourage it leading to… Jiang Cheng sulking even further over the fact that Wei Wuxian is in fact pining over another boy. He puts two and two together as Wei Wuxian is flirting with the girls on shore later on and he talks of the things he will do with Lan Wangji as he visits. He talked of training with Lan Wangji in the same way he invited the girls to watch him train.

Phoenix Mountain Hunt:

Lan WangJi suddenly raised his hand, stopping a flower tossed over from behind him.

He looked back. Over at the side of the YunmengJiang Sect’s riding formation, which hadn’t departed yet, Jiang Cheng clicked his tongue impatiently, seated at the front. However, the person beside him sat on a horse with black, gleaming hair. His elbow was at the head of the horse as he looked to the side as though nothing happened, talking and laughing with two slender-bodied maidens.

Lan XiChen saw that Lan WangJi had drawn the reins and ceased to move forward, “WangJi, what happened?”

Lan WangJi, “Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian finally turned around, face full of surprise, “What? HanGuang-Jun, did you call me? What’s up?”

Holding the flower, Lan WangJi seemed to be quite cold. His tone seemed cold as well, “Was it you?”

Wei WuXian immediately denied it, “No, it wasn’t.”

The maidens beside him spoke at once, “Don’t believe him. It was him!”

Wei WuXian, “How could you treat a good person like this? I’m getting angry!”

Giggling, the maidens pulled their reins and went to the formations of their own sects. Lan WangJi lowered the hand that he held the flower with and shook his head. Jiang Cheng spoke, “ZeWu-Jun, HanGuang-Jun, apologies. Don’t pay attention to him.”

Lan XiChen smiled, “That is fine. I will thank Young Master Wei’s kindness behind the flower in place of WangJi.”

When they slowly rode into the distance, carrying with them the clouds of petals and fragrance, Jiang Cheng glanced at the colourful sea of handkerchiefs waving on the watching towers before turning to Wei WuXian, “Why are you throwing out flowers along with the girls?”

Wei WuXian, “I think he looks nice. Can’t I throw a few as well?”

Jiang Cheng pointed his nose into the air, “How old are you? Who do you think you are, still playing tricks like that?”

Interestingly enough, this flower scene is similar to what had once occurred during the summer of Lotus Pier. This is after it had been established that Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji now dislikes him morally. Yet he still reaches out to tease and flirt with him, leading Jiang Cheng to continue asking why well into their early 20’s is Wei Wuxian still doing this. It was excusable when they were younger but now this is inexcusable and troublesome for someone who is supposed to be his righthand acting on whims still and flirting with a man of reputation. Jiang Cheng actively had encouraged the rift between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji after the return from the Burial Mounds. He agreed very readily that Lan Wangji wanted to imprison Wei Wuxian instead of extending any help in regards to Wei Wuxian’s volatile disposition that went on for years after this altercation, convincing himself and Wei Wuxian of Lan Wangji’s supposed hate.

Wei WuXian was in such a state of distress that he couldn’t remember whether or not he called someone’s name at all. He only managed to pull himself together after Jiang Cheng commanded the dog to back away. After a moment of hesitation, he abruptly turned his head away. On the other side, Jiang Cheng left his seat. There was a whip attached beside his waist. With one hand on it, he bent down to look at Wei WuXian’s face. After a pause, he straightened up and asked, “Speaking of it, since when have you been so close to Lan WangJi?”

Wei WuXian immediately understood whose name he had unconsciously called out.

Jiang Cheng smiled menacingly, “It really is quite curious how far he went to protect you, back on Dafan Mountain.”

A moment later, he corrected himself, “No. You weren’t necessarily the one whom Lan WangJi was protecting. After all, the GusuLan Sect couldn’t have forgotten what you did with that loyal dog of yours. How could someone so celebrated for his righteousness tolerate the likes of you? Maybe he’s familiar with this body that you stole instead.”

His words were cruel and sinister. Every sentence seemed well-meaning on the surface, but was actually derogatory. Wei WuXian couldn’t bear hearing it any longer, “Watch your language.”

Thirteen years later his taunts have become more refined as he is well off into hating Lan Wangji himself now that Wei Wuxian had been dead. He taunts that Lan Wangji is more promiscuous than presented as well as using Wei Wuxian’s old goodwill for Lan Wangji for him to go on the defense. Jiang Cheng however thinks using the fact these men are gay is only a tool, he does not believe they are as his disgust of Mo Xuanyu being gay does disgust him. His suspicions have turned into bigotry instead finally in the years that Wei Wuxian was gone.

When Jiang Cheng accused him, Wei WuXian couldn’t defend himself at all, but he just couldn’t bear it when those words were being directed at Lan WangJi.

Wei WuXian reprimanded, “Jiang Cheng, just listen to yourself. What are you saying? Is it appropriate? Don’t forget who you are. After all, you’re the leader of a sect. Insulting a renowned cultivator in front of Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu’s spirits—where is your discipline?”

His original intention was to remind Jiang Cheng to at least hold some respect for Lan WangJi. However, Jiang Cheng was always sensitive. From those words, he managed to make out the notion that he wasn’t fit to be a sect leader. Immediately, darkness crawled up his face, bearing an eerie similarity to how Madam Yu looked when she was angry. His voice was harsh, “Who is the one insulting my parents in front of their spirits?! Could you two please understand whose sect you’re in? I don’t care if you act so shamelessly outside, but don’t you dare fool around inside our ancestral hall, before my parents’ spirits! After all, they were the ones who brought you up—even I feel ashamed for you!”

Wei WuXian never expected such a huge blow to crash down on him. He was both shocked and furious, blurting, “Shut up!”

Jiang Cheng pointed outside, “Mess around outside however you want, whether under a tree or on a boat, hugging or otherwise! Get out of my sect, get away from anywhere my eyes can see!”

Hearing him mention ‘under a tree’, Wei WuXian felt his heart skip a beat—could Jiang Cheng have seen the moment where he crashed into Lan WangJi’s arms?

His guess was not wrong. Jiang Cheng did indeed go out to find Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. He chased after them in the direction that the street vendors pointed at. A voice in his heart seemed to tell him which places Wei WuXian would definitely go. He caught up to them in just a while. Yet, he just so happened to see Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi enveloped in a tight embrace under a tree, unwilling to let go of each other even after so long.

Goosebumps immediately ran down Jiang Cheng’s body.

Although he’d made guesses at the relationship between Mo XuanYu and Lan WangJi before, they were only attacks trying to offend Wei WuXian, not that he really suspected anything. He’d never thought that Wei WuXian would have ambiguous ties with a man, because after all, when they grew up together, Wei WuXian had never expressed any such interest. He’d always loved good-looking girls with a passion. On the other hand, it was even more impossible for Lan WangJi. He was famous for his asceticism, seemingly interested in neither men nor women.

But hugging like that seemed intense no matter what. At least, they didn’t seem like normal friends or brothers. He immediately recalled that Wei WuXian had always stuck to Lan WangJi ever since he came back. Lan WangJi’s attitude towards him was also different from what it was before he was reborn. At once, he was almost certain that the two really were in that kind of relationship. He couldn’t turn around and leave, yet he didn’t want to say a single word to the two, so he continued to hide himself as he followed them. Every single look and movement that passed between them seemed different in his eyes. For a while, the shock, absurdity, and slight disgust that he felt combined to overpower his hatred. It was only after Wei WuXian brought Lan WangJi into the ancestral hall that the long-suppressed hatred was awakened again, devouring his courtesy and rationality.

Wei WuXian was holding something back, “Jiang WanYin, you… apologize right now.”

Jiang Cheng mocked, “Apologize? For what? For exposing your thing for each other?”

Wei WuXian raged, “HanGuang-Jun is only my friend—what do you think we are?! I warn you. Apologize right now—don’t make me beat you!”

Hearing this, Lan WangJi’s expression froze for an instant. Jiang Cheng laughed, “Well, then I’ve never seen “friends” like that before? You warn me? Warn me against what? If you two had the slightest trace of integrity left, you wouldn’t have come here and…”

Seeing the change in Lan WangJi’s expression, Wei WuXian thought he must have felt insulted by Jiang Cheng’s words. He was so angry that his entire body was shaking. He didn’t dare think about what Lan WangJi would think after being shamed like this.

Obviously in the penultimate scene Jiang Cheng himself is being “the unreliable narrator” that fans love to accuse Wei Wuxian of. He says he never expected this of the two, but all the years of his behavior shows that he had always gone out of his way to keep the two away from each other and had always been mildly homophobic when the two did express interest in the other however innocent it had been in their youth.

All of this is to say, when it comes to how MXTX worded that interview answer, I think it was meant as a careful nudge for those who had still tried to insist that Jiang Cheng didn’t mean to be homophobic, actually wasn’t homophobic and was just angry at any other actions of Wei Wuxian and lashing out about that etc, it was her telling people to simply pay attention to the underlying shadowing of Jiang Cheng and how he exasperated his own pre-existing biases that morphed into an uglier hate.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jiang cheng's canon homophobia #it is nothing to do with him seeing WWx as a sibling #and everything to do with him believing two men can't be romantically involved

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greenhills-woodtoburn-fic · 2 years

Text

TheAnswer had some questions in their review on "Chapter 7: Scattered like spring flowers", and we thought it would be fun to answer them here! feel free to send us in any other questions/headcanon requests :)

I wonder if you could share some meta on what are the changes to canon in this story? This seems almost like a "what are the smallest changes necessary to get to a happier ending (or - if the jianghu had more than one braincell)".

so "what are the smallest changes necessary to get a happier ending" was definitely our original premise - this entire AU actually started as a discussion about that very concept and just sort of spiralled outwards! our very first small change was Meng Yao staying at Cloud Recesses for the lectures, which we figured would butterfly-effect outwards by giving him some actual friendships, as well as a closer relationship with Huaisang and an earlier one with Xichen, and that would potentially change his priorities and situation, and then... it goes on and on. our other key premises that we started with were "what if the live action show had an unlimited budget" - and from that we hugely expanded the war section and the amount of people that exist in the jianghu, and played with the use of magic - and other other key premise was... uh... "what if there were actually a reasonable amount of women in this world, and those women actually got to be interesting characters". which was what led us to giving Yanli her handmaidens, making Mianmian a POV character, populating the side character roster with lots of women, and bringing in Qin Su much earlier in the story.

what brought Qin Su's mother here?

hopefully that's pretty clear by now ;)

Why is Lan Xichen being the distraction who's going to get captured (and not Nie Mingjue)?

this decision wound up happening because of things that we extrapolated from canon - we think that in canon Mingjue is the one who leads the infiltration to Nightless City because he is unwilling to risk other people and thus gives himself the most dangerous role. we cannot think of any other good reason why the fuck someone with minus one in stealth would decide to play assassin, unless you want to dig really deep and try and find some sort of double bluff from Meng Yao to get someone into the city to kill Wen Ruohan and Meng Yao didn't want it to be Xichen because he doesn't want Xichen to get hurt but that starts to get way too overcomplicated!!!

so if we assume that Mingjue's top priority is going to be to keep the people he loves as reasonably safe as he can - without compromising the war effort - in a universe where Mingjue a. knows Meng Yao is the spy, b. knows that Meng Yao loves Xichen and will fight and kill to keep him safe, it makes sense for him to send Xichen as the distraction, because either:

the plan goes perfectly! Xichen gets into the city and kills Wen Ruohan, and the war is over and everyone is safe

the main plan is messed up and Xichen gets captured - but he gets held in a cell and kept safe by Meng Yao until Mingjue and the rest of the Sunshot forces arrive to kill Wen Ruohan and end the war

the plan is absolutely fucked. Xichen is captured and the Sunshot forces are destroyed. in this case, the safest place for Xichen to be is with Meng Yao, who Mingjue knows would move heaven and earth to make sure Xichen survives - and if Xichen manages to escape, that means there's someone who would look after Huaisang with Mingjue gone

there's also the fact that Mingjue is literally the general leading the entire Sunshot campaign, so the idea of him not being there for the LITERAL CLIMAX OF THE ENTIRE WAR to help lead and strategise is just ????? like. from a doyalist perspective obviously it happened beause the NieYao confrontation needed to be a thing but it really makes no tactical sense!!!

#meta #part 2 #nie mingjue #lan xichen #meng yao

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darthmarrsgf · 1 year

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3, 10, 24, 27, 30, 33 for any OC you'd like :) if this is too many questions feel free to pick your favorites!

omg omg ok. ok. we've got this. we've been training for this. (cracking my knuckles and whipping open my laptop bc this is too much to type on mobile...) i think i'll probably rotate through a couple blorbos for this one!

3. What is something they really like about themselves and what is something you really like about them?

Unayah (my Inquisitor/Darth Imperius/babygirl/perfect angel, etc. etc.) - I think something that Naya really likes about herself is the lengths she's willing to push herself to get what she wants. I think she genuinely thinks (knows?) that she really is Built Different—while others are short-sighted and let themselves get bogged down in Sith grandstanding and politicking, she sees that getting too comfortable is a mistake and a limitation. I think that's what I like about her, too. Her ambition stretches beyond complacency; she'll do whatever she has to in order to attain true freedom, even if it's uncomfortable, painful, or contradictory to what the Sith have taught her. I have kind of a version of a conversation I think she had with her mother before they were separated that I toy with in my head—she told her daughter that even if she became a Sith, she didn't have to let herself lose her most important and human characteristics. She's never forgotten who she is and where she came from, and she uses that to her advantage.

Sohlara (Consular) - I think Sohl would speak positively of her own candor, and, kind of like Unayah, the deep reserve of grit and mental toughness that she keeps kind of intentionally concealed from others. I just always think of the mental load that the Consular's mission would have required of them, and I think she accepts that duty so readily because she knows it's right, but she also knows that she can. I think I've kind of funneled a lot of little bits and pieces of my own likes/dislikes into her but I really admire how unflappable she is, which is not a trait that I share, lol. I think her attunement with the Force makes her very confident that things will simply work out the way they're supposed to if she moves through them with the best of herself. I also really love her relationships and friendships with others, like the deep and genuine respect she and Qyzen have for each other and how tolerant and eager she is to learn from others' perspectives.

24. How do they relax? Is that a solitary activity, a group activity, or both?

Unayah has never relaxed a day in her life so jot that down (jk jk). This is a good question... I think she would really take advantage of her newfound freedom to get completely lost in reading/researching whenever she had the free time. I think she would also get a kick out of skulking around seedy bars with her surly pirate husband, just for old times' sake.

Sohl is definitely that kid who was like sitting crosslegged or walking aimlessly in circles around the outfield watching clouds and/or picking grass during recess (me). I think she would relax by doing some kind of active meditation outside, especially on Odessen once all the evil Force ghosties have vacated the premises.

27. What is their romance’s theme song?

When I tell you I have PLAYLISTS...

I think for Unayah/Andronikos it would be Sunlight by Hozier from my perspective, and For Your Love by Maneskin from his lol, both for pretty self-explanatory reasons. For Sohl/Theron, I associate them both so deeply with Who's Gonna Love Me Now by Cold War Kids, because it's generally a song about your life not turning out the way you were told it's supposed to and wondering... who's gonna love me now? And in their case, it's the person who's had sort of the eerily opposite life trajectory that fate keeps throwing you together with to run absolutely batshit missions <3

30. What is their love language?

Ooh this is also such a good one. I think for Naya it'd be physical touch, because feeling grounded and in control of her body is extra important after all the shit she's been through. For Sohl, I think either acts of service or quality time. She loved and valued her Jedi upbringing and how communal it was, but because of that, she secretly really likes feeling like someone is spending a little extra effort just for her.

33. What is their favourite color? And which colors do they like to wear the most?

Okay SO I made so many slay outfits for Sohl and then I randomly got the remnant underworld consular chest piece and put it on her. It is lichrally so boring and brown but something about it just feels so perfect for her. My girl is utilitarian. She loves the poncho vibes it's giving and so do I. Idk. I love it so much. In general I think she's def a neutrals girl and prefers not to draw attention to herself or her status through her clothes. (UNLESS... it's Relics of the Gree and then it's blue scalene armor all day every day.) I think her fave colors are definitely very earthy greens and aquatic blues.

Naya is a purple girl which is def me projecting but I LOVE a purple lightsaber and purple lightning. She mostly wears black with occasional, subtle, slightly threatening pops of gold, purple, and red.

HEHE THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!!!! this was so fun! <3

#swtor #my ocs #blorbo posting #oc: sohlara #oc: unayah

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rosethornewrites · 1 year

Text

1/10-11/24 NR, E, & M reading

Moving after this so may be a gap.

Finished

Not Rated:

Deliver Us, by b00mgh

When Wei Wuxian gives himself up before Wen Ning and Wen Qing get the chance, everyone who loved him steps in to protect the people he gave his life for.

Don't worry, they bring him back B)

rulebreaker, by straelamo

Wei Wuxian returns to Cloud Recesses, and the world is set right.

in this close hand, by twigofwillow (2nd in a series)

Just a very cozy rainy day in the greenhouse

Birthday Cakes and Bunnies, by Hauntcats

A-Yuan wants to do something special for his a-Die's birthday. Who better to help than Bunny-gege.

Explicit:

lightning in a bottle, by bigbabyjeno

“You don’t see me,” the man hisses, creeping down the corridor with his back pressed to the wall, arms spread like he’s some sort of secret agent on a top secret spy mission.

Lan Zhan watches him for a moment, trying to decide if he’s worth any concern. The man is currently crab-walking behind a row of potted ficus, though, so Lan Zhan is reasonably sure he doesn’t need to alert security about this one.

[Or; Lan Zhan is photographing a wedding when he catches someone trying to sneak in. The man claims to be the bride's brother and begs Lan Zhan to make him his assistant for the evening so he can watch his sister get married. Lan Zhan reluctantly agrees and gets a lot more than he bargained for.]

At the End of the Road, by trickybonmot

It is the stupidest, most transparently terrible idea. Wei Ying’s hand is fisted shut on the fabric of his t-shirt, twisting it up far enough to reveal a glimpse of golden-brown skin. This is the worst idea. Lan Wangji is going to say no.

“How do you imagine that would work?” he says instead.

Wei Ying gives a little half-shrug. “I guess I would jack off,” he says. “And you could, like, spot me.”

The Nines of Winter, by ArcadianMaggie

When Wei Ying misses his flight home from college for winter break, Jiang Cheng arranges a ride home—with Lan Zhan, whom Wei Ying hasn't spoken to in over two years. When the weather takes a turn for the worse, they are forced to stop for the night. Luckily, Lan Xichen's house is en route and they are able to wait out the storm. There's weather (frightful) and a fire (delightful), two rabbits and a puppy, plus Lan Zhan's emergency preparedness kit.

Snow-Covered Jingshi, by squishh

He hadn’t even realized he’d moved until he felt soft silks beneath his palm and plush lips against his own. The pull of those eyes had made him sway forward, drawn in like a spell. His hand was on Lan Wangji’s thigh, his weight pressing his hand down as he leaned against firm muscle. The heat of Lan Wangji’s lips made him feel like he was burning.

Nothing could have ever felt this good. It felt safe, and it felt dangerous. He was in danger of never wanting to do anything else but kiss this man.

______

What I imagine should have roughly happened when LWJ and WWX were in the Jingshi in episode 43 if the censorship laws weren't whack and WWX weren't so oblivious to his own emotions lol

Mature:

Get it right (this time), by AmiraAlzilu (30 chapters)

Death would be a fate too kind for Wei Wuxian. He should pay for every sin he committed.

At least that’s the only explanation he has for this impossible situation. After falling from the cliff he woke up in his 15 year old body, just before his months of study at Cloud Recesses.

So, thinking it was for the best, he decides to disappear when he was supposed to be searching for their lost invitation.

Little does he know someone else came back in time with him.

Reset, by SuperiorJello (11 chapters)

What if things went horribly wrong at the end of episode 50, and Wei Wuxian sent himself and Lan Wangji back in time to Cloud Recesses to save them?

Follows mostly CQL/The Untamed canon, but I have also read translations of the novel and seen some of the donghua, so some of that is in there too.

This fic is part of a series!

Part one only takes place in Gusu, detailing wwx and lwj's arrival in the past and the immediate repercussions thereof. It is now complete.

Part two will continue the story as our characters head to Yunmeng Jiang and forward.

Too Much To Bear, by madwriter223 (10 chapters)

Coming back to life and being immediately thrust into a quest to discover the origins of the demonic arm that had murdered nealy an entire clan overnight was not something Wei Wuxian ever thought he'd have to deal with, but it was fine. He had Lan Wangji and together they were unstoppable.

However he had no clue how to deal with discovering Nie Huaisang was apparently a wreck on the verge of collapse at any given moment. How in the world had this happened?

AKA

this is filed under 'nervous wreck nhs' in my fic folder for a reason

if i had the strength, by agloeian (6 chapters)

Jiang Cheng seethes, gripping the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know how to help you,” he admits, “so I’m sending you to the people that do.”

It nearly slips out then, the truth of the matter. Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to snap back ‘There’s no helping me, not now!’ but the words stick in his throat. Shijie is crying and Jiang Cheng is defiant and Lan Zhan is staring at him so earnestly that Wei Wuxian simply doesn’t know how to tell them all that he’s living on borrowed time.

So he doesn’t.

---

At the behest of his siblings, Wei Wuxian is sent to Gusu to recover from the strain of the Sunshot Campaign.

If only he knew how to do that.

The Yu Temper, by madwriter223 (2 chapters)

How the confrontation between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian in episodes 27/28 could have gone if Jiang Cheng had let loose the temper he'd inherited from his mother?

Jiang Cheng goes apeshit on the morons he's surrounded by and fixes (nearly) everything

A pissed off Jiang Cheng adopts everybody, because fuck you, Wei Wuxian!

Unfinished

Not Rated:

Rise of the Peacock, by JustAWanderingBabbit

Killed at Qiongqi Pass, Jin Zixuan wakes to find himself in an old and familiar scenario; the day he and Wei Wuxian fought in Gusu Lan. The day his betrothal to Jiang Yanli came to an end.

Unsure whether or not he's dreaming, Jin Zixuan decides to seize the chance and change the future. But for that he'll need help from his bastard brother, Meng Yao.

you can have the best of me, baby, by stiltonbasket

Twelve hours after Jiang Cheng and the others escape from Mount Muxi, Wei Wuxian risks wading into the lake and discovers that the underwater passage to the stream in the maple wood has been blocked behind the tortoise’s body.

“It’s sleeping right beside the opening,” he whispers, when he and Lan Zhan are safe in a tunnel of rock too narrow for the Xuanwu’s neck and head. “Judging by the current in the water, that passage was the only way out.”

Trapped in the Xuanwu's cave with no means of escape, Lan Wangji suggests a surprising course of action to strengthen himself and Wei Wuxian for battle: dual cultivation.

The session proves successful, but despite their best efforts, Wei Wuxian's golden core yields unexpected consequences for them both.

Explicit:

unfated; unscripted, by homeybee

Lan Zhan finds Wei Ying on tinder, the first time. He isn't someone Lan Zhan knows, or he would have swiped left. It is his smile that draws him in initially, causes him to swipe right when ordinarily he would have closed his phone again, put on his pajamas, and tried properly to sleep. It is, after all, past his bedtime.

Half an hour later finds Lan Zhan, undeniably not in his pajamas, driving down the highway to the next tiny town over.

...

A series of 'first' meetings.

Discarded, by teawater

Children in Cloud Recesses are succubming to a dark curse. There's one person who may be able to help.

Time Unwinds in a Kaleidoscope of Red, by vamprav

Wei Wuxian falls through time and hits the ground in the Burial Mounds. After taking stock of his situation he decides that things will be different this time, even if it kills him, starting with that disastrous reunion with his brother and future husband.

Heart of the Beast, by WaitForTheSnitch

“Wei Ying?” Nie Mingjue prompted him gently. “Where are your parents?”

“They went on a night hunt,” Wei Ying said, a bit evasively.

“Your parents are cultivators?” Da-ge asked in surprise. “Did they leave you here while they hunted? When did they go on their night hunt?”

“Four summers ago,” Wei Ying said a bit uncomfortable.

“Four summers ago,” Nie Mingjue repeated. “What are your parents’ names?”

“My mama is Cangse Sanren and my baba is Wei Changze,” Wei Ying told him, and recognition registered in Nie Mingjue’s eyes.

“Wei Ying,” Nie Mingjue said, sounding a bit regretful, “Your parents aren’t coming back.”

Or, Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang run into Wei Ying while in Yiling and decide to bring him home. And it changes everything.

We met again but in a different time, by akumanomiyu

Jiang FengMian never found Wei WuXian after he lost his parents, so he spent his life on the street, alone.

He didn't have a clan to protect him and teach him how to become a true cultivator, but he still managed to grow up a strong and righteous man.

People hated him or feared him for the demonic tricks he had to learn to survive. His life wasn't easy but he lived it as he wanted.

Until one day, a good action made him discover an evil plot against the cultivator world and cross path with the Lan clan...

you'll find my heart on the mountainside, by lulu_kitty

After parting ways with Lan Wangji on the mountain path, Wei Wuxian takes some time to consider what it is that he wants with this new second chance at life.

The answer finds him coming back to Lan Wangji, his zhiji, but after they reunite and set forth to embark on their new life together, an unexpected surprise awaits them on their journey home.

Or, a post-canon CQL/Untamed getting together story: accidental baby acquisition addition.

The Communication Effect, by draechaeli

If only there was more communication, or the right kind then everything would be all right. Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi might be bad when it comes to talking to each other about the important things, but they are still leagues better then the older generation that use communication like swords: concealing, revealing, and striking as they please for their own gain. From apologies, to misunderstandings, to sieges, to rumours and gossip, to cold wars, to lies, to civil wars, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi navigate the world together once their brothers make sure they’re engaged before the classes at Cloud Recesses are finished.

This fic is finished at 186k in 37 chapters + 3 extras

most barren peak and bleakest winter, by WhatTheOwlHears

He drank. Set the cup down. “I understand Wei Ying would not choose to behave that way ordinarily.”

Well that was certainly true, but it felt like a lie anyway. “Haha, yeah.” Wei Wuxian put his elbow on the table so he could put his face in his hand. “Definitely would not normally make attempts on the virtue of my dear dear friend Hanguang-jun.”

Mature:

can't find a way home, by KouriArashi

After giving away his golden core and being thrown into the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian takes his revenge on the Wen sect without crossing paths with the Sunshot Campaign.

With no trace of him found, his loved ones have no choice but to believe he died in the Burial Mounds, and go into mourning.

But then strange things start to happen around Yunmeng ... and in Lanling, Jin Guangshan has only begun to take advantage of the power vacuum left behind by the war.

Second Summer, by Anonymous

“So, this is awkward,” says Wei Ying, with a little laugh. It sounds fake. “But I think you have mistaken me for someone else.”

A year after the mysterious death of the Jin heir, Lan Wangji runs across the secret, long-lost, amnesiac love of his life while on a night-hunt.

Tragedy That Befall Upon Us, by xoxoholic

"Hey! What's this?" Jin Ling yelled, pointing at the glowing, black and red orb. Jiang Wanyin marched over to Jin Ling, but the young Jin sect leader had already touched the orb.

"Jin Ling!" Jiang Wanyin yelled in anger. If his golden core was not sealed, then Zidian would be cackling furiously.

"..Oops?" Jin Ling sheepishly smiled as he hid behind his friends. Lan Jingyi laughed at Jin Lings predicament while Lan Sizhui sighed. Ouyang Zizhen laughed with Lan Jingyi in amusement before he was hit in the back of his head by his father.

Hound's Tongue Tied Up, by Stepdavii

“I’ve figured out a way to keep us safe. Forever,” Wei Wuxian replies, still writing out all that he can think of that would possibly help.

“Oh? And whats that?” Wen Qing asks blankly.

“I’m going to make the world forget we exist.”

In which Wei Wuxian figures the best way to keep everyone safe and make everyones life better, he should make it so that his and Wen Remnants existence become forgotten. He just doesn't realize how much an impact doing so would be.

Dreams of Paradise, by Hauntcats

This on begins during the siege of the Burial Mound. Wei Ying is trying to destroy or nullify the tiger seal before anyone else can get it. The results don’t work out quite how he thought they would. His essence is trapped in between time where he witnesses different scenes of the lives of those he cares about. (The 13? 16? Years when he was dead.)

Then he wakes up in a place he didn't expect.

Once again, not Jiang friendly. If you don't like that, please, don't read.

Seeking Solace, by DragonHeart (Taer01), Taer01

Months after the Siege of Burial Mounds against the Yiling Patriarch, the cultivation world gets a rude awakening.

We're Alone Now, by Forever_Marie

"Did you hear, did you hear? Hanguang-jun deserted his clan"

Lan Zhan deserts the Lan Clan in favor of protecting Wei Wuxian and warns him of the pending Siege. They all run for the hills and everything is quiet for a decade until one day Xichen wanders upon him in a market in Yiling.

Impossible Remains, by Jengabears

Jiang Cheng wakes slowly to the feeling of spiritual energy swimming through his veins. Not just swimming. Singing. Flooding. He was filled with it. He didn't know if it was because he had been without any for so long or if Baoshan Sanren had chosen to make him stronger, but he had never felt so powerful in his life. It was glorious. It was everything. He felt alive again. Whole. Better than whole. He had to thank her. He had to scream his joy across the mountain. He was so infinitely grateful.

He ripped off his blindfold, turned to look around him, praises and gratitude resting on the tip of his tongue. Yet what his eyes rested on was a face he never expected to see. His joy and gratitude instantly snuffed into ashes in his mouth. His eyes widened in horror at the sight which greeted him. He wished he could take everything back. Every thought which had passed through his mind since he'd woken.

How could this happen?

Wei Wuxian dies in the core transfer.

Summer Snow, by Forever_Marie

Jiang Cheng dies after Lotus Pier falls and the Jiang are no more. This leaves Wei Ying without family and a home, now and for after the war, forever shattered. He joins the Lan clan (at Wangji's insistence) to fight in the Sunshot campaign as Lan Wangji tries to fill in the cracks left behind.

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

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lilnasxvevo · 2 years

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I think a really interesting difference between Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang is whether or not they feel like they need to justify their actions when the truth comes out.

In Guanyin Temple, Jin Guangyao spends. A LONG time explaining himself, explaining everything he can, giving all the reasons why he felt he HAD to do all the terrible things he did (except for the ones he notably does not address—the death of Jin Rusong doesn’t come up in those scenes at all, I don’t think!). Sure, it’s because he’s being kinda-sorta interrogated (by his own captives—JGY, you are a mess), and of course he’s trying to convince them to allow him to leave, and of course he’s trying to buy time so his workers can finish digging up what we know by book canon HE thinks is his mother’s body, but. He’s not as good an actor as he thinks he is when emotions are high, and we see his mask slip a lot when he’s upset in other scenes, but he seems really completely genuine throughout a lot of Guanyin Temple. He wants to be understood, especially by Lan Xichen, and he wants to be forgiven and absolved, especially by Lan Xichen. He doesn’t want to be thought of as a monster. He is desperately trying to get them to see things from his point of view.

Nie Huaisang displays nothing of the sort. When it’s all over, he doesn’t leave right away, but neither is he trying to talk to anybody. He sort of perches himself near Lan Xichen, and Xichen is I think the only person to address him here, desperately trying to get some kind of closure for himself—Huaisang, did you really see him move when my back was turned? And Huaisang, everybody’s sweet useless baby brother Huaisang, dithers and stammers like he always does and tells him that he’s sure he doesn’t know anymore, not when you ask like that. And they look at each other, and they both know he’s lying, and then he leaves.

Later, when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji catch up with him in the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian could have asked him to explain himself and Lan Wangji fully expected him to, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t ask, and so Nie Huaisang doesn’t explain. The closest he gets to that is an extremely vaguely worded reassurance that he wants to go back to his old life now and he has no interest in messing in things that aren’t his business (with no clarification on what things he considers to be his business or not his business, this reassurance is not terribly reassuring). Like with Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang in this scene makes eye contact with Wei Wuxian, they come to a silent understanding, and then Nie Huaisang. Just. He just leaves.

I think the difference here has to do with class. One, and this is the less interesting half of the equation, part of the reason that Jin Guangyao explains himself in depth and Nie Huaisang doesn’t is because he is asked to. Jin Guangyao is bombarded with questions, and every answer he gives that makes someone unhappy leads to more questions. Nie Huaisang is asked maybe two questions total, gives a VERY unsatisfying answer to each of those questions, and yet isn’t asked any follow-up questions. I think there is an unconscious classism at work in the people asking questions and not asking questions, where Nie Huaisang is viewed as inherently more trustworthy because he lacks ambition, because he was born with the silver spoon already in his mouth.

I also think that class has to do with how each of them view themselves, though. Jin Guangyao knows that people are more willing to think less of him because of where he comes from, so he does everything he can to try to convince them that he’s not trash, he’s not a monster, he’s not someone putting on airs above his station, he IS a gentleman and he’s also just a guy doing what he can to survive. Nothing more, nothing less, but he knows it’s a hard sell which is why he goes in on it so hard.

Nie Huaisang is not used to being questioned or scrutinized pretty much ever—he’s been the heir presumptive or sect leader of one of the great clans since as long as he can remember, so there’s never been a point in his life where people don’t defer to him or make excuses for him or look the other way without being asked. This means he doesn’t even anticipate being questioned about his actions, because he never has been before, and he isn’t this time either. He’s used to getting to do whatever he wants with no consequences because of how he was born.

#idk I ran out of steam #feel free to add your thoughts. or disagree. or whatever

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ghooostbaby · 3 years

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deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true.

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is).

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional.

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

#wangxian #mdzs #mdzs meta #holds wei wuxian close and murmurs into his hair 'no one knows you like i know you baby'

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difeisheng · 2 years

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@cerusee Okay! Since you are enabling me, welcome one and all to the Xiandu Jiang Cheng Agenda. Bear with me here:

Post-canon, the Jianghu needs a leader because Oh Boy there are problems to fix. Lan Wangji has been handed the job, but let’s be real, his interests and general way of operating are not suited to presiding over the squabble of complaints and gossip that is the sect leaders. I doubt anyone sees his appointment as a permanent or long-term measure, least of all himself. He’s here to keep things from falling apart for the time being, but as soon as they can readily find someone else for Chief Cultivator I think he’s happier carrying on as he was before, just with more Happy Wei Ying Time. So who else can take his place?

You need someone from one of the remaining Major Four sects, because they have enough power and strength to get others to follow them. Aside from Lan Wangji, there are few options. Jin Ling? Taking care of the Jin Sect will be a difficult enough task, and he is a literal child. End of discussion. Lan Xichen? In seclusion until the time being and even if/when he does come out, I really, really don’t think he wants anything to do with leadership and politics. If anything he’ll be in the Cloud Recesses as a teacher. Lan Qiren you could possibly argue for, but he’ll have been covering for Lan Xichen while he’s in the Hanshi and I also don’t think leading the other cultivators is what he wants. So the Jin and Lan sects are out. Nie Huaisang after Guanyin will have showed his hand as someone actually reasonably competent and good at planning if he puts his mind to it, but in the wake of Jin Guangyao the Jianghu likely does not want someone of the overly scheming sort. Besides, he carried on the Headshaker persona for so long that there are probably people who are still gonna think he’s weak and indecisive regardless.

The search for a future candidate is looking bleak here. But you know what. You know what. Who, throughout the last sixteen years, has proven himself able to handle massive amounts of responsibility with ruthless efficiency? Who has had to start from the bottom in chaos and ruin before, and done it well enough to become the unchallenged largest power in the southern Jianghu? Who, despite his own opinions, can deal with the other sect leaders effectively while still maintaining reputation and decorum? That’s right, Jiang Cheng.

Immediately after Guanyin Temple he is, admittedly, an emotional wreck who’s gonna need some time to get through things. But as we have seen before, eventually all the feelings Jiang Cheng was warring over he poured into his work instead. Especially because his family has suffered due to the world being the shitshow it is, and not wanting the same thing to happen to Jin Ling, he has a vested interest in making sure the Jianghu runs fairly! Jiang Cheng’s drive and goals are very much suited to the job of Xiandu. He has enough strength in reputation and resources to back up anything he wants to do. He’s also direct with his words and opinions, so even if he’s still too grumpy for the Jianghu’s tastes, he’s a better-looking option to them than another mastermind in disguise. Jiang Cheng doesn’t have time for that. He just gets shit done.

Not only is Jiang Cheng the only person Lan Wangji can even consider to pass on his title, he’s someone who would take his duties seriously and in stride. Others might dislike him, but they also can’t deny that what he did for the Jiang sect was extraordinary and shows great skill and determination. I would in addition argue that, after all the secrets and plans of the last few Chief Cultivators have been exposed, Jiang Cheng’s tendency of wearing everything on his sleeve is probably the type of voice the Jianghu needs to settle down and lead it into a more peaceful era. End post.

#voila #i missed writing meta like this tbh i haven't had the mind for it lately #anyway here you go and i hope my thoughts are worth considering #mdzs #cql #jiang cheng #meta #ashton originals

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wangxianficrecs · 1 year

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mirror, mirror by hauntedotamatone

mirror, mirror

by hauntedotamatone (@hauntotamatone) G, 1k, Wangxian

Summary: Some people take him at his word, believing that they must have heard wrong about the child Jiang Fengmian had taken in all those years ago. They haven’t exactly heard wrong, but he isn’t lying either. The first time Jiang-shushu had introduced him as the son of Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren, he had thought his face would split from the force of his smile. No one had argued with the sect leader, but Wei Wuxian is not a sect leader, and those of Gusu Lan do not seem to take kindly to any sort of correction. At least, if their esteemed teacher and acting sect leader is anything to go by. or; Wei Wuxian attempts to sneak into the Cloud Recesses for a very different reason.

Kay's comments: A retelling of Wangxian's first meeting, only here, they are both trans and Wei Wuxian is sneaking into the Cloud Recesses at night because he doesn't want to get sorted into the women's half by mistake if the Lans end up being rude. He meets Lan Wangji, who unbeknownst to him is also trans, and the rest is history. I loved this one! Living for the tag "rude gender affirmation". It's so them!

Excerpt: “You do not belong here,” he says, his voice like the first frost of winter. “Ahah–,” Wei Wuxian laughs, covering the dread he feels coming up his throat. He’s been caught and there it is, the phrase he least wanted to hear. “That is– I–” “What is your reason for sneaking so close to the women’s section?” The suspicion is clear in this young master’s pretty eyes, but not the kind he believed he might encounter. No, this handsome boy thinks he’s some pervert, a fox looking to slink after the chickens, a pig after prized cabbage.

pre-relationship, canon-compliant, retelling, trans wei wuxian, trans lan wangji, cloud recesses study arc, first meetings, transphobia

~*~

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

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #pre-relationship #canon-compliant #retelling #trans wei wuxian #trans lan wangji #cloud recesses study arc #first meetings #transphobia #short fic <15k #Gen #mirror mirror #hauntedotamatone

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fannish-karmiya · 3 years

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Wei Wuxian’s Position in the Jiang Household

Fandom tends to mischaracterise Wei Wuxian’s position in the Jiang family greatly. A lot of people project more modern ideas about adoption onto his relationship with the Jiang siblings, and write as if he really is their sibling and only Yu Ziyuan’s abusive nature gets in the way of their bond.

This strikes me as a bit misguided. While adoption was practised in ancient China, it was mainly for the purpose of obtaining a male heir in the absence of one, or obtaining more daughters to marry off for alliances. Jiang Fengmian had no reason to adopt Wei Wuxian into the main family, and he didn’t. Wei Wuxian’s position in the household is far more nebulous than that, and honestly it’s hard to find an exact corollary, in Chinese history or in any culture, precisely because it was so messy and ill-defined.

A Companion to Upper Class Children

Wei Wuxian is the son of a servant of Yunmeng Jiang; it’s notable that Wei Changze is always referred to this way, rather than as a disciple. Wei Changze wound up leaving the sect in order to marry Cangse Sanren, and Jiang Fengmian considered them dear enough friends that when he heard they passed away, he spent years searching for their orphaned son. He wound up finding Wei Wuxian on the streets of Yiling and brought him home as his ward.

Wei WuXian was taken home by Jiang FengMian when he was nine.

Most memories from back then were already blurred. Yet, Jin Ling’s mother, Jiang YanLi, remembered all of them, and even told him quite a few.

She said that, after his father heard of the news that his parents both died in battle, he had always dedicated himself to finding the child that these past friends had left behind. After searching for a while, he finally found the child in Yiling.

(Chapter 24, Exiled Rebels translation)

It’s clear from the start that beyond this sense of obligation to his old friends, Jiang Fengmian also had a role set out for Wei Wuxian: he wanted him to be a companion to his children, and Jiang Cheng in particular.

He encourages a friendship between them, insisting on a sleepover between the two a week into Wei Wuxian’s stay.

On the second day, Jiang Cheng’s puppies were given to someone else.

This angered Jiang Cheng so much that he threw a big tantrum. No matter how much Jiang FengMian comforted him gently, telling him that they should ‘be good friends’, he refused to talk to Wei WuXian. Quite a few days later, Jiang Cheng’s attitude softened. Jiang FengMian wanted to strike while the iron was still hot, so he told Wei WuXian to sleep in the same room as him, hoping that they’d grow fonder of each other.

[...]

That night, Jiang Cheng locked Wei WuXian outside his room, refusing to let him in.

[...]

Wei WuXian waited outside for a long time. When the door opened, before the joy could spread onto his face, he was bombarded with a pile of things being thrown out. The door banged shut again.

Jiang Cheng told him from inside, “Go sleep somewhere else! This is my room! You’re even gonna steal my room?!”

[...]

Standing outside, as Wei WuXian heard that dogs would come bite him, fear immediately bubbled within him. Twisting his fingers, he hurried, “I’ll go, I’ll go. Don’t call the dogs!”

Dragging behind him the sheets and blanket that were thrown outside, he ran out the hall. Having only arrived at Lotus Pier for a short period of time, he didn’t dare jump around yet. Every day, he obediently holed up in the places that Jiang FengMian told him to stay at. He didn’t even know where his room was, much less have the courage to knock on other people’s doors, scared that it’d disturb someone’s dreams.

(Chapter 71, Exiled Rebels translation)

After Jiang Cheng is worried about getting in trouble, he goes to Jiang Yanli for help, and she searches for Wei Wuxian.

But this was the first pair of shoes that Jiang FengMian bought him. Wei WuXian was too embarrassed to make him go out of his way to buy another pair, and so he said that they weren’t too big. Jiang YanLi helped him into his shoe and pressed the hollow tip, “It is a bit big. I’ll fix it for you when we get back.”

Hearing this, Wei WuXian felt somewhat uneasy, as if he did something wrong again.

Living in other people’s homes, the worst that could happen was to make trouble for the hosts.

Jiang YanLi put him onto her back and began to walk back, wobbling in her steps as she spoke, “A-Ying, no matter what A-Cheng said to you, don’t bother about him. He doesn’t have a good temper, so he’s always home playing with himself. Those puppies were his favorites. Dad sent them away, and so he’s feeling upset. He’s actually really happy that somebody’s here to be with him.”

(Chapter 71, Exiled Rebels translation)

Later, Wei Wuxian offers to cover for him, saying simply that he ran outside by himself because he was scared. In this one case it feels like a genuine instance of children showing solidarity and covering for each other’s little misbehaviours. But it also follows a pattern of Wei Wuxian doing this and making excuses, time and time again, for Jiang Cheng. I wonder if on some level, he already knew that his role in the household was in part to be a companion-servant to Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian normally never puts up with people treating him poorly or being arrogant; he constantly bites his tongue when Jiang Cheng does so around him. While they study at Cloud Recesses, Jiang Cheng frequently insults Wei Wuxian, who always just smiles and laughs it off.

Jiang Cheng humphed, “Him? He wakes at nine in the morning and sleeps at one during the night. When he wakes up, he doesn’t practice his sword or meditate; he goes boating, swims around, picks lotus seedpods, and hunts for pheasants.”

Wei WuXian replied, “No matter how much pheasants I hunt, I’m still number one.”

(Chapter 13, Exiled Rebels translation)

Jiang Cheng scolded with a darkened expression, “What are you proud of?! What is there to be proud of with this?! Do you think that it’s a glorious thing to be told by someone to get lost? You bring so much shame upon our sect!”

(Chapter 16, Exiled Rebels translation)

We never see Wei Wuxian excusing this sort of behaviour from any other character; he has no problem scolding Jin Ling for his arrogant attitude and telling him that he shouldn’t be imitating his uncle, after all! It’s only where Jiang Cheng is concerned that he does this, and honestly, even then he seems to be quite aware that Jiang Cheng’s behaviour is wrong; he simply accepts on some level that it’s his role in the household to put up with it.

He actually does, very gently, try to guide Jiang Cheng at times. In Lotus Seed Pods, for example, he tries to give Jiang Cheng advice on how to flirt with some of the maidens in Yunmeng and make friends:

Wei WuXian threw the seed pods toward the shore. It was a far distance, but they landed lightly in the women’s hands. He grabbed a few more and stuffed them into Jiang Cheng’s arms, shoving, “What are you doing, just standing there? Hurry up.”

After a few shoves, Jiang Cheng could only accept them, “Hurry up and do what?”

Wei WuXian, “You ate the watermelon too, so you also have to return the gift, don’t you? Here, here, don’t be embarrassed. Start throwing, start throwing.”

Jiang Cheng snorted again, “You must be joking. What’s there to be embarrassed about?” Whatever he said, however, even after all of the shidi began to throw seed pods, he still didn’t start to move. Wei WuXian urged, “Then throw some! If you throw some this time, next time you can ask them if the seed pods tasted good, and you’ll be able to make conversation again!”

[...]

Jiang Cheng was just about to throw one when he realized how shameless it was the moment he heard it. He peeled a seed pod and ate it by himself.

[...]

After a while of laughter, he turned around and looked at Jiang Cheng, who was sitting at the front of the boat eating seed pods with a long face. His smile gradually disappeared as he sighed, “Well, what an unteachable child.”

Jiang Cheng fumed, “So what if I want to eat alone?”

Wei WuXian, “Look at you, Jiang Cheng. Nevermind. You’re hopeless. Just wait to eat alone your whole life!”

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

He even sighs rather disappointedly when Jiang Cheng refuses to take the hint; he knows that Jiang Cheng’s sullen behaviour is going to make him miserable down the line, but all of his gentle efforts to nudge him in a better direction have failed.

He also speaks with great awareness of Jiang Cheng’s flaws after the fight in the ancestral hall:

Wei WuXian reached out with one hand and massaged his chest, as if trying to break up the pent-up feeling inside his heart. A moment later, he blurted, “I knew Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have let us go so easily. That brat… How could this be?!”

[...]

Wei WuXian’s eyelids throbbed, “Every one of them. The brat’s been like this ever since he was young.He’ll say anything when he’s angry, no matter how bad it is. He gives up on all grace and discipline whatsoever. As long as it’d annoy whomever he’s against, he’d say it no matter what terrible insults he uses. After all these years, he hasn’t gotten better at all. Please don’t take it to heart.”

(Chapter 90, Exiled Rebels translation)

This is so interesting to me, because it really makes it clear that Wei Wuxian has always been aware of these flaws of Jiang Cheng’s. He hasn’t been viewing him through rose-coloured lenses or making excuses for him because he’s ‘family’. He puts up with Jiang Cheng’s behaviour because being his companion is one of his duties in the Jiang household. It may never have been directly stated, but there seems to be some unspoken understanding to this effect.

I honestly don’t know if there is any official role in history (in any culture, not just China) which perfectly correlates to this. In China a lady’s maid was expected to also be a close friend and companion to her mistress (in canon, see Bicao to Qin-furen and Yinzhu and Jinzhu to Yu-furen). In Europe an upper class woman would hire a lady’s companion, a woman from the lower fringes of the gentry who would serve as her companion in exchange for financial support.

I don’t know of any version of this role which involves two men. In general, this sort of role existed because upper class women were confined to the household by and large, and had very limited social spheres. Men, meanwhile, had much greater ability to meet with their peers and make friends. I almost feel like Wei Wuxian wound up being shoved into this role simply because even as a child Jiang Cheng was so unsociable that Jiang Fengmian didn’t know what else to do!

Wei Wuxian also at least once steps in and starts a fight in place of Jiang Cheng (essentially taking the fall for him). He does this when Jin Zixuan speaks disparagingly of Jiang Yanli at Cloud Recesses:

Jin ZiXuan asked in reply, “Why don’t you ask me how on Earth can I be satisfied with her?”

Jiang Cheng instantly stood up.

Pushing him to the side, Wei WuXian walked in front of him and sneered, “You sure think that you’re pretty satisfying, don’t you? Where did you get the guts to be all choosy here?”

[...]

Wei WuXian sighed, “… It’d be nice if shijie came. It’s fortunate that you didn’t hit him.”

Jiang Cheng, “I was going to. If you didn’t push me, the other side of Jin ZiXuan’s face would also be ruined.”

(Chapter 18, Exiled Rebels translation)

It’s also very notable that Wei Wuxian is never shown having friends outside of Jiang Cheng’s social circle, despite what an outgoing and friendly person he is. Any time he expresses interest in someone for himself, as with Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng tries to nip it in the bud. Being unable to deter Wei Wuxian from Lan Wangji directly, Jiang Cheng instead tries to drive a wedge between them, constantly telling Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji hates him.

“Yeah,” Nie HuaiSang spoke, “It looks like he really hates you, Wei-xiong. Lan WangJi usually… No, he never does something so impolite.”

Wei WuXian, “He hates me already? I wanted to apologize to him.”

Jiang Cheng sneered, “Apologizing now? Too late! Like his uncle, he surely thinks that you are evil and unruly to the core, and didn’t bother to pay you any attention.”

(Chapter 14, Exiled Rebels translation)

Jiang Cheng pulled him even closer, “It’s not as if you’re familiar with him! Don’t you see how much he hates you? You’re going to carry him? He probably doesn’t even want you a step closer to him.”

(Chapter 52, Exiled Rebels translation)

He even directly orders Wei Wuxian not to invite Lan Wangji to come visit him at Lotus Pier during the Lotus Seed Pod extra.

Wei WuXian, “Why are you so upset? My watermelon almost flew away! I was just being polite. Of course he wouldn’t come. Have you ever heard of him go anywhere by himself to have fun?”

Jiang Cheng had on a stern expression, “Let’s make this clear. I don’t want him to come, anyhow. Don’t invite him.”

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

It’s not only Lan Wangji he tries to steer Wei Wuxian away from; he also interrupts his conversation with Wen Ning at the archery competition:

Wen QiongLin was probably one of Wen Clan’s disciples furthest in bloodline. His status was neither high nor low, yet his personality was timid. He didn’t dare do anything and even his speech stuttered. Through much practice, he had finally conjured up the courage to enter the competition, but he blew it because he was too nervous. If he didn’t receive the right guidance, perhaps the boy would hide his true self more and more from now on and never dare to perform in front of other people again. Wei WuXian encouraged him a couple of times and touched on a few areas of growth, correcting some miniscule problems that he had when he was shooting in the garden. Wen QiongLin listened so attentively that he didn’t even turn his eyes away, nodding uncontrollably.

Jiang Cheng, “Where did you find so much nonsense? The competition is starting soon. Get into the arena right now!”

Wei WuXian spoke to Wen QiongLin in a serious tone, “I’ll be off to the competition now. Later, you can see how I shoot when I’m in the arena…”

Jiang Cheng dragged him away, short of patience. He spat as he dragged, “See how you shoot? Do you think that you’re a model or something?!”

(Chapter 59, Exiled Rebels translation)

Even when it comes to Wei Wuxian’s friendly flirtation with Mianmian, Jiang Cheng has something to say and tries to deter him from her:

Jiang Cheng, “The one that MianMian gave you? I didn’t.”

Wei WuXian exclaimed his regret, “I’ll find her for another one later.”

Jiang Cheng frowned, “You’re at it again. You don’t really like her, do you? The girl does look fine, but it’s obvious that she doesn’t have much background. Maybe she isn’t even a disciple. She seems like the daughter of a servant.”

Wei WuXian, “What’s wrong with servants? I’m also the son of a servant, aren’t I?”

Jiang Cheng, “How can you compare to her? Whose servant is like you, having your master peel lotus seeds for you and boil you soup. I didn’t even get to have some!”

(Chapter 56, Exiled Rebels translation)

Jiang Cheng really does seem to view Wei Wuxian in a very proprietary light; he’s not allowed to have any friendships which don’t exist under Jiang Cheng’s direct control.

The idea that Wei Wuxian was meant to be Jiang Cheng’s servant-friend is reinforced at its darkest when Lotus Pier falls: both Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian’s last words to Wei Wuxian are an instruction to protect Jiang Cheng.

One hand holding him, Madam Yu grabbed Wei WuXian’s lapels with her other hand as though to strangle him to death. She spoke through clenched teeth, “… You damn little brat! I hate you! I hate you more than anything else! Look at what our sect has gone through for your sake!”

[...]

Madam Yu, “Don’t make such a fuss. It’ll loosen up when you’re somewhere safe. If anyone attacks you on the journey, it’ll protect you as well. Don’t come back. Go to Meishan straight away and find your sister!”

After she finished, she turned to Wei WuXian and pointed at him, “Wei Ying! Listen to me! Protect Jiang Cheng, protect him even if you die, do you understand?!”

[...]

Jiang FengMian stared into his eyes. Suddenly, he reached out. Only after pausing in the air did he finally touch Jiang Cheng’s head, slowly, “A-Cheng, be well.”

Wei WuXian, “Uncle Jiang, if anything happens to you, he won’t be well.”

Jiang FengMian turned his eyes to him, “A-Ying, A-Cheng… you must look after him.”

(Chapter 58, Exiled Rebels translation)

Even Jiang Fengmian, who supposedly favoured Wei Wuxian, only gives him instructions as pertains to his own son; he doesn’t spare a single last word for Wei Wuxian himself.

A Lower Status Family Member

It wasn’t uncommon throughout human history, across many cultures, for wealthy families to take in relatives who were orphaned or had otherwise fallen on hard times. They tended to have a lower status than the main family; they lived with them and were still a part of their social sphere, but were not quite equal, either. The English term for this is ‘poor relation’.

Obviously, Wei Wuxian isn’t actually a blood relative at all. But his position in the Jiang household definitely has some similarities. He lives in the main house, eats meals with the family, attends school with the son... He is even on some conditional levels accepted into the gentry of cultivation society. But he isn’t a full equal member of the family, either.

The fact that he’s Jiang Fengmian’s ward, not a blood relative or adopted into the main family, puts him at even more of a disadvantage. It seems that Jiang Fengmian paid for all of Wei Wuxian’s expenses:

Wei WuXian took a bite, “Back then, I didn’t even have to pay when I ate at the dock. I grabbed whatever I wanted, ate whatever I wanted; ran after I grabbed, walked as I ate. A month later, the vendor would get the reimbursement from Uncle Jiang.”

(Chapter 86, Exiled Rebels translation)

While this is a bit of conjecture, I gather that he was given access to family money as if he was part of the clan, and could just charge Yunmeng Jiang whenever he shopped in Lotus Pier. Which is great so long as Wei Wuxian is accepted in Yunmeng Jiang...but as we see during the Burial Mounds settlement period, the moment that acceptance fades, Wei Wuxian is left out in the cold without a single coin. And because he isn’t a member of the family, it’s a far easier matter for him to be thrown aside, as he was when Jiang Cheng grew angry with him over his decision to protect the Wens.

Of course, Chinese families traditionally did share their wealth, and still do nowadays. Ideally, in a loving family, this is a positive and means they all support each other; but when that isn’t the case, it leaves the victims of abuse vulnerable.

In Wei Wuxian’s case, he has some of the benefits of being a member of the Jiang clan, without ever actually being a member. He can be cast aside at any time, and he is never afforded the same respect by wider cultivation society which an inner clan member would have.

I don’t believe the novel ever directly addresses Wei Wuxian’s acceptance into the guest lectures at Cloud Recesses in this light, but the donghua actually has a very interesting little exchange about it which takes place between Nie Huaisang and a relative of his:

“Wei-xiong is just a disciple from Yunmeng. Why could he come to Gusu to study?”

“Wei-xiong is the son of Jiang-zongzhu’s old friend. He has been treated as their own son.”

“Oh, I see. That explains why they don’t look like master and servant, they seem like brothers.”

(MDZS Donghua, Episode 3, Guodong Subs)

Wei Wuxian was only allowed to attend these lectures, which seem to mainly be for sect heirs and inner clan members, on the grace of being Jiang Fengmian’s ward (and probably to accompany Jiang Cheng). While this exchange is not from the book, we never do see or hear about any of the other students being outer disciples rather than members of the main clan. Here’s what the novel had to say about it:

In that year, aside from the YunmengJiang Sect, there were also the young masters from other clans, sent to study here from parents who heard of the reputation. The young masters were all around fifteen or sixteen. Because the sects all knew the others, although they weren’t close, they had seen others’ faces before. It was widely known that, although Wei WuXian’s surname was not Jiang, he was the leading disciple of the sect leader of the YunmengJiang Sect—Jiang FengMian, and also the son of his friend who had passed away. In fact, the sect leader regarded him as his own child. This, along with how youths were not as concerned with status and ancestry as elders, they were soon friends. Only a few sentences passed, and everyone started to call others older brothers or younger brothers.

(Chapter 13, Exiled Rebels translation)

And Wei Wuxian isn’t treated as an equal at school, either; when he and his friends get up to mischief, he’s frequently the only one punished. Nie Huaisang even notes that Lan Qiren seems to be far harder on him than the other students:

Nie HuaiSang spoke, “Why does it seem like old man Lan is especially strict towards you? He always directs his scoldings at you.”

(Chapter 14, Exiled Rebels translation)

And we see Wei Wuxian being the sole one punished out of a group taken for granted by his friends multiple times:

As a result of cheating notes flying everywhere in the air, Lan WangJi suddenly attacked during the test, and caught a few initiators of the commotion. Lan QiRen exploded with anger, writing letters to the prominent clans to tell on them. He loathed Wei WuXian—in the beginning, although these disciples could hardly sit still, at least nobody started anything, and their buttocks were able to stick to their legs. However, now that Wei Ying came, the originally spineless brats were influenced by his encouragement, venturing out at night and drinking alcohol however they pleased. The unhealthy practices grew greater and greater. As he had expected, Wei Ying was one of the biggest threats to humanity!

Jiang FengMian replied, “Ying has always been like this. Please take care to discipline him, Mr. Lan.”

And so, Wei WuXian was punished again.

(Chapter 14, Exiled Rebels translation)

The boys were all cheating, but Wei Wuxian is the one punished most severely. This happens when he's caught sneaking alcohol, too (though to be fair to Lan Wangji, he probably was only punishing him, and himself alongside him, for being outside after curfew when he threw them off the wall).

Of course, Jiang Cheng didn’t dare to say that Wei WuXian was at fault. Thinking back, it was them who urged Wei WuXian to buy liquor. Each and every one of them should have been punished. He could only speak in a vague way, “It’s fine, it’s fine; it’s not that serious! He can walk. Wei WuXian, why are you still up there?!”

(Chapter 18, Exiled Rebels translation)

It’s not entirely unreasonable for the one who gets caught to take the punishment (what’s he going to do, rat his friends out?) but their ready acceptance of this does fit into a pattern.

Jiang Cheng’s top was tied at his waist. Hearing his mother’s chastise, he hastily put it over his head. Madam Yu scolded again, “And you boys! Can’t you see that A-Li’s here? Who taught you brats to dress like this in front of a girl!?”

Of course, it was needless to think who led the group. Thus, Madam Yu’s next sentence, as usual, was “Wei Ying! Do you want to die!?”

[...]

He could still feel some pain in his back, so he tossed the paddles to someone else, sat down, and felt the stinging piece of flesh, “How unfair. Nobody else was wearing anything, but why was I the only one who got scolded and beaten up?”

Jiang Cheng, “Because you hurt the eye the most with no clothes on, for sure.”

[...]

Everyone nodded. Wei WuXian, “Thanks for the praise, you guys. I’m even starting to feel some goose bumps.”

The shidi, “You’re welcome, Da-Shixiong. You protect us every single time. You deserve even more!”

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

While we know that Yu Ziyuan is an abusive person in general, she abuses Wei Wuxian far more harshly than anyone else, even the outer disciples. It’s made clear to us in Lotus Seed Pods that she whips him regularly over minor infractions:

Madam Yu was even angrier, “How dare you run! Come back right now and kneel!” As she spoke, she let loose her whip with a flip of her wrist. Wei WuXian felt a searing pain slash across his back. He loudly exclaimed, “Ow!” And almost tripped on the ground.

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

And that his back is heavily scarred from it:

He felt his back, covered in scars both old and new, and still couldn’t hold back the question he’d be thinking about, “How awfully unfair. Why is it that I’m the only one who gets beaten up, whenever something happens?”

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

Rumours about this even made it outside of Lotus Pier; during their visit to the ancestral hall years later, Lan Wangji even states that he heard about some of it:

Lan WangJi had on an expression of understanding, “Kneeling as punishment?”

Wei WuXian mused, “How did you know? That’s right. Madam Yu punished me almost every day.”

Lan WangJi nodded, “I have heard of a few things.”

Wei WuXian, “It’s so famous that even people outside Yunmeng, even you Gusu people know—how could it be ‘a few things’? But, to be honest, in all these years, I’ve never seen a second woman whose temper was as bad as Madam Yu’s. She told me to go to the ancestral hall and kneel no matter how small the matter was. Hahaha…”

(Chapter 87, Exiled Rebels translation)

Wei Wuxian’s lower social standing is definitely a part of why Yu Ziyuan is able to abuse him so terribly and receive little to no censure for it. Everyone at Lotus Pier simply takes it for granted, with the exception of Jiang Yanli who at least does try to deflect her mother when she is angry with Wei Wuxian:

Yet, all of a sudden, someone’s quiet voice drifted by Madam Yu’s ear, “Mom, do you want to eat some watermelon…”

[...]

Jiang YanLi almost cried from her mother’s pinching, mumbling, “Mom, A-Xian and the others were hiding here to relieve the heat and I came here on my own. Don’t blame them… Do… Do you want some watermelon… I don’t know who gave them to us, but it’s really sweet. Eating watermelon in the summer is great for cooling down and quenching thirst. I’ll cut them for you…”

(Chapter 125, Lotus Seed Pod, Exiled Rebels translation)

She both tries to deflect her mother from her anger, and also outright states that Wei Wuxian and the other boys weren’t at fault. Jiang Yanli seems to be the only one at Lotus Pier who ever does this.

After the war, Wei Wuxian attends social events at Jiang Cheng’s side but is never quite treated as an equal, either. See how at the Flower Banquet, Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue greet Jiang Cheng but not him:

Suddenly, a voice spoke, “Sect Leader Nie, Sect Leader Lan.”

Hearing the familiar voice, Wei WuXian’s heart jumped. Nie MingJue turned around again. Jiang Cheng came over, dressed in purple, hand on his sword.

And the person standing beside Jiang Cheng was none other than Wei WuXian himself.

He saw himself walk with hands behind his back, wearing all black. A flute in the shade of ink stuck to his waist, hanging down with crimson colored tassels. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jiang Cheng, he nodded in this direction to show respect. Attitude slightly arrogant, he took on a profound, disdainful appearance. As Wei WuXian saw the stance of his younger self, the root of his teeth even cringed in soreness. He felt that he really was pretentious, and itched to just beat the hell out of himself.

Lan WangJi also saw Wei WuXian, who stood beside Jiang Cheng. The tip of his brows twitched ever so slightly. Soon afterward, his light-colored eyes returned to where they were, still looking forward in that composed way. Jiang Cheng and Nie MingJue nodded at each other with grave faces. Neither had anything unnecessary to say. After a hasty greeting, the two walked their separate ways. Wei WuXian saw his black-clothed self glance around as he finally saw Lan WangJi. He looked as if he was about to speak before Jiang Cheng came over and stood to his side.

(Chapter 49, Exiled Rebels translation)

They then proceed to talk about him and his lack of a sword behind his back, never having said a word to Wei Wuxian himself:

Nie MingJue’s gaze turned over again, “Why does Wei Ying not carry his sword?”

Carrying one’s sword was like wearing formal attire. In such gatherings, it was a non-negligible indication of etiquette. Those from prominent sects saw it as especially important. Lan WangJi responded in a lukewarm tone, “He had probably forgotten.”

Ning MingJue raised a brow, “He can even forget something like this?”

(Chapter 49, Exiled Rebels translation)

At Phoenix Mountain it also seems that Wei Wuxian is conditionally a member of the gentry, but not treated like an equal. Sometimes there are these more cheerful interactions:

Holding the flower, Lan WangJi seemed to be quite cold. His tone seemed cold as well, “Was it you?”

Wei WuXian immediately denied it, “No, it wasn’t.”

The maidens beside him spoke at once, “Don’t believe him. It was him!”

Wei WuXian, “How could you treat a good person like this? I’m getting angry!”

Lan XiChen smiled, “That is fine. I will thank Young Master Wei’s kindness behind the flower in place of WangJi.”

(Chapter 69, Exiled Rebels translation)

But then he will be publicly disparaged and it is readily accepted by others. Jin Zixun first starts an argument with him by criticising Wei Wuxian for fighting Jin Zixuan, then turns the topic to Wei Wuxian’s having taken a third of the prey in the hunt.

Jin ZiXun, “Wei, just what what do you mean by going against ZiXuan so many times?”

[...]

Jin ZiXun sneered, “How is it presumptuous? How is any part of you not presumptuous? Today, in such an important hunt involving all of the sects, you really showed off your abilities, didn’t you? One third of the prey have been taken by you. You sure feel pleased, don’t you?”

[...]

He mocked, “But it’s only natural that you don’t think you’re in the wrong. It’s not the first time that Young Master Wei has disregarded the rules. You didn’t wear your sword in both last time’s flower banquet and this time’s hunt. It’s such a grand event, and you care nothing for courtesy. In what regard to you hold us, the people who are present with you?”

[...]

No disciple had ever dared say such lofty words in front of so many people. A moment later, as Jin ZiXun finally regained his composure, he yelled, “Wei WuXian! You’re only the son of a servant—how dare you be so bold!!!”

(Chapters 69-70, Exiled Rebels translation)

Naturally, Jin Zixun is able to weasel out of giving an apology, even though Jiang Yanli demands one. And guess who also takes a third of the prey, but this time without any censure?

Jin GuangYao, “In reality, not only did Young Master Wei keep a third of the prey to himself, our eldest brother has eliminated over half of the fays and the monsters as well.”

Hearing this, Lan XiChen laughed, “That is how Brother is like, after all.”

(Chapter 70, Exiled Rebels translation)

Never a Brother

As I’ve already mentioned, Wei Wuxian was never adopted by Jiang Fengmian, or adopted into the clan in general in even a distant way. And this nebulous ‘we’re letting you live with the main family as a charity, but you aren’t really one of us’ attitude also reflects in his relationship with Jiang Yanli.

I’ve already discussed how Wei Wuxian was more like a companion servant to Jiang Cheng than a brother. It’s also worth noting quickly that neither of them ever refers to the other as a brother. Wei Wuxian refers to Jiang Cheng as his shidi a few times, and Jiang Cheng never even refers to him as his shixiong (because Jiang Cheng views him as his servant, not as even a martial brother, I’d argue).

Only one member of the Jiang family ever does use familial terms to refer to Wei Wuxian: his shijie, Jiang Yanli. At Phoenix Mountain, when Wei Wuxian is being insulted by Jin Zixun, Jiang Yanli stands up and defends him, and states clearly that she considers Wei Wuxian a little brother:

The people who gathered around Jin ZiXun had on the same dark faces as he did. Yet, taking into consideration Jiang YanLi’s background, they didn’t dare talk back to her directly.

Jiang YanLi added, “Besides, hunting is hunting, so why bring the matter of discipline to the table? A-Xian is a disciple of the YunmengJiang Sect. He grew up with my brother and I, and so he’s as close as a brother is to me. Calling him the ‘son of a servant’—I’m sorry, but I won’t accept this. And thus…”

She straightened her back and raised her voice, “I hope that Young Master Jin ZiXun would apologize to Wei WuXian of the YunmengJiang Sect!”

(Chapter 70, Exiled Rebels translation)

It doesn’t come through in the Exiled Rebels translation, but she actually refers to Wei Wuxian as her didi in this scene, not her shidi. She’s trying to draw a line and state that Wei Wuxian is a part of the family. However, no one takes her seriously, and shortly afterwards we see Jin-furen insisting that Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian shouldn’t be walking alone together because it would be inappropriate.

Jiang YanLi whispered, “That’s not necessary. I’d like to have a few words with A-Xian. He can walk me back.”

Madam Jin raised her brows, looking Wei WuXian up and down. Her gaze was somewhat cautious, as if she was feeling displeased, “A young man and a young woman—you two can’t stick together all the time if nobody else is present.”

Jiang YanLi, “A-Xian is my younger brother.”

[...]

Wei WuXian lowered his head, “Excuse my absence, Madam Jin.”

He and Jiang YanLi bowed at the same time. As they turned around to leave, Madam Jin grabbed Jiang YanLi’s hand and refused to let her leave.

(Chapter 70, Exiled Rebels translation)

Jin Zixuan also never treats Wei Wuxian the way one might a brother who is still angered with him over his past dismissive treatment of his sister. For example, see their argument at the Flower Banquet:

Before he could see how Lan WangJi reacted, a series of clamor suddenly came from the other end of the base. Wei WuXian heard his own raging shout, “Jin ZiXuan! Don’t you forget about what things you said and what things you did? What do you mean by this, now?!”

Wei WuXian remembered. So it was this time!

On the other side, Jin ZiXuan also fumed, “I was asking Sect Leader Jiang, not you! The one I was asking about was also Maiden Jiang. How is that related to you?!”

[...]

Jin ZiXuan, “Sect Leader Jiang—this is our sect’s flower banquet, and this is your sect’s person! Are you going to look after him or not?!”

[...]

...Jiang Cheng’s voice came, “Wei WuXian, you can just shut your mouth. Young Master Jin, I’m sorry. My sister is doing quite well. Thank you for your concern. We can talk about this next time.”

Wei WuXian laughed coldly, “Next time? There is no next time! Whether or not she’s doing well isn’t any of his business, either! Who does he think he is?”

He turned around and started to leave. Jiang Cheng shouted, “Get back here! Where are you going?”

Wei WuXian waved his hands, “Anywhere is fine! Just don’t let me see that face of his. I never wanted to come, anyway. You can deal with whatever’s here yourself.”

Having been abandoned by Wei WuXian, Jiang Cheng’s face immediately clouded over.

[...]

Jiang Cheng stowed away the clouds on his face, “Don’t mind him. Look at how impolite he is. He’s used to such rude behavior at home.”

He then began to converse with Jin ZiXuan.

(Chapter 49, Exiled Rebels translation)

Jiang Cheng also quietly dismisses the notion of Wei Wuxian as a brother in relation to Jiang Yanli; when they visit to show him her wedding dress and she asks for a courtesy name, Jiang Cheng specifically says:

Jiang Cheng, “The courtesy name of my unborn nephew.”

(Chapter 75, Exiled Rebels translation)

Not our nephew, mine.

Even the disastrous invitation to Jin Ling’s one month celebration is framed as a favour to an old shidi, not a family member:

Jin ZiXun, “Since you’ve heard it from him already, you should know that I can’t wait. Don’t tell me that you’ll disregard your brother’s life for the sake of Sister-in-Law’s shidi?!”

Jin ZiXuan, “You clearly know that I’m not that kind of person! He might not necessarily be the one who cursed you with Hundred Holes either. Why are you so rash? I was the one who invited Wei WuXian to A-Ling’s full-month celebration anyways. If this is the way you do things, where does that leave me? Where does it leave my wife?”

Jin ZiXun raised his voice, “It’s best if he doesn’t attend! What does Wei WuXian think he is—does he deserve to attend our sect’s banquet? Whoever touches him gets nothing but a splash of black! ZiXuan, when you invited him, weren’t you worried that you, Sister-in-Law and A-Ling would receive an irremovable stain for the rest of your lives?!”

(Chapter 76, Exiled Rebels translation)

It’s clear that not only does wider society not consider Wei Wuxian and the Jiangs siblings...they themselves don’t, either. Wei Wuxian, after all, readily accepts that his relationship with them is over after he leaves the sect:

Before they parted, Jiang Cheng spoke, “We won’t see you off. It wouldn’t be good if someone saw us.”

Wei WuXian nodded. He understood that it wasn’t easy for the Jiang siblings to have come out here. If someone else saw them, all those things they did for the public to believe would be wasted. He spoke, “We’ll go first.”

[...]

He turned around, knowing that it’d be a long time before he’d get to see the people he was familiar with again.

But… right now, wasn’t he on his way to seeing people he was familiar with as well?

(Chapter 75, Exiled Rebels translation)

Cast Aside

The way cultivation society treats Wei Wuxian when he is not with the Jiangs is also very revealing. Any level of respect he is given is contingent on his position in the Jiang household, and when they aren’t around that minimal respect fades away. Look at how disrespectfully he is treated when he approaches Jin Zixun to ask for Wen Ning’s location.

Wei WuXian didn’t make small talk either, getting straight to the point, “No thanks. I don’t.” He nodded slightly at Jin ZiXun, “Young Master Jin, could I please have a word with you?”

Jin ZiXun, “If you have anything to say, come after our banquet is over.”

In reality, he didn’t want to talk to Wei WuXian at all. Wei WuXian could see this as well, “How long do I have to wait?”

Jin ZiXun, “Probably around six to eight hours. Or maybe ten to twelve. Or until tomorrow.”

Wei WuXian, “I’m afraid I can’t wait for that long.”

Jin ZiXun’s voice was arrogant, “You’ll have to wait even if you can’t.”

Jin GuangYao, “Young Master Wei, what do you need ZiXun for? Is it a pressing matter?”

Wei WuXian, “Pressing indeed. It allows for no delay.”

[...]

Jin ZiXun, “Wei WuXian, what do you mean? You came for him? You aren’t standing up for a Wen-dog, are you?”

Wei WuXian wore a broad grin, “Since when is it your business whether I’d like to stand up for him or cut his head off? Just give him to me!”

At the last sentence, the grin on his face vanished. His tone turned cold as well. It was clear that he had lost his patience. Many of the people within Glamor Hal shivered in fear. Jin ZiXun felt his scalp tingle as well. Yet, his anger soon soared. He shouted, “Wei WuXian, you are too bold! Did the LanlingJin Sect invite you today? And you dare run wild here. Do you really think that you’re invincible, that nobody has the courage to confront you? Do you want to overturn the Heavens?”

Wei WuXian smiled, “You’re comparing yourself to the Heavens? Excuse my language, but your face is a little too thick, isn’t it?”

[...]

Just as he was about to rebut, sitting on the foremost seat, Jin GuangShan spoke up.

His voice seemed kind, “It’s not anything too important anyways. You youngsters, why lose your tempers over such a thing? However, Young Master Wei, let me be fair here. Barging in when the LanlingJin Sect is holding a private banquet is indeed inappropriate.”

To say that Jin GuangShan didn’t mind what happened at Phoenix Mountain would be impossible. This was also why he only smiled when Jin ZiXun bickered with Wei WuXian but didn’t stop them, and only spoke up when Jin ZiXun was at the disadvantage.

Wei WuXian nodded, “Sect Leader Jin, it was never my intention to disturb your private banquet. My apologies. However, the whereabouts of the people whom Young Master Jin took are still unclear. Just a moment of delay, and it might be too late. One of the group had once saved me before. I will definitely not sit back and watch. Please do not feel pressured. I will make amends for this at a later date.”

[...]

After a few laughs, he continued, “Sect Leader Jin, let me ask you something else. Do you think that, because the QishanWen Sect is gone, the LanlingJin Sect has all right to replace it?”

All was silent within Glamor Hall.

Wei WuXian added, “Everything has to be given to you? Everyone has to listen to you? Looking at how the LanlingJin Sect does things, I almost thought that it was the QishanWen Sect’s empire all over again.”

[...]

A guest cultivator on his right shouted, “Wei WuXian! Watch your words!”

Wei WuXian, “Did I say something wrong? Forcing living people to be bait and beating them up whenever they refused to obey—is this any different from what the QishanWen Sect does?”

Another guest cultivator stood up, “Of course it’s different. The Wen-dogs did all kinds of evil. To arrive at such an end is only karma for them. We only avenged a tooth for a tooth, letting them taste the fruit that they themselves had sown. What’s wrong with this?”

Wei WuXian, “Take revenge on the ones who bite you. Wen Ning’s branch doesn’t have much blood on their hands. Don’t tell me that you find them guilty by association?”

Another person spoke, “Young Master Wei, is it that they don’t have much blood on their hands just because you say so? These are only your one-sided words. Where’s the evidence?”

[...]

Jin GuangShan stood up as well, his face a mixture of shock, anger, fear, and hatred, “Wei WuXian! Just because… Sect Leader Jiang isn’t here doesn’t mean you can be so reckless!”

Wei WuXian’s voice was harsh, “Do you think that I wouldn’t be reckless if he were here? If I wanted to kill someone, who could stop me, and who would dare stop me?!”

[...]

“Young Master Wei really is too impulsive. How could he speak in such a way in front of so many sects?”

Lan WangJi spoke coldly, “Was he wrong?”

Jin GuangYao paused almost unnoticeably. He immediately laughed, “Haha. Yes, he’s right. But it’s because he’s right that he can’t say it in front of them, correct?”

Lan XiChen seemed as if he was deep in thought, “Young Master Wei’s heart really has changed.”

(Chapter 72, Exiled Rebels translation)

The only person at this banquet who speaks to Wei Wuxian respectfully is Jin Guangyao, a consummate manipulator who is also of a lower social status. Everyone else speaks to him dismissively, refusing to respect his request for Wen Ning’s location even though he states that Wen Ning helped him during the war. Wei Wuxian is extremely polite at the beginning of this conversation, and only slowly begins to lose his temper when Jin Zixun speaks rudely and Jin Guangshan decides to bring up the matter of the Yinhufu (Wei Wuxian is right in suspecting him of wanting to replace Qishan Wen, of course, and that it’s very bold of them to think they have the right to a spiritual tool of his just because...they’re rich?).

When the sects meet at Koi Tower to discuss the breakout at Qiongqi Path, no one considers Wei Wuxian as an independent agent who they might actually want to meet and negotiate with themselves. He is a wayward servant of Yunmeng Jiang who the sect leader has failed to keep in hand.

Jiang Cheng only spoke after a few moments, “What he did was indeed a bit too much. Sect Leader Jin, I apologize to you in place of him. If there’s any way at all to help the situation, please let me know. I’ll definitely compensate for things however I can.”

[...]

Jin GuangShan, “Sect Leader Jiang, Wei Ying is your right-hand man. You value him a lot. All of us know this. However, on the other hand, it’s hard to tell whether or not he actually respects you. In any case, I’ve been a sect leader for so many years and I’ve never seen the servant of any sect dare be so arrogant, so proud. Have you heard what they say outside? Things like how during the Sunshot Campaign the victories of the YunmengJiang Sect were all because of Wei WuXian alone—what nonsense!”

[...]

Lan WangJi sat with his back straight, speaking in a tone of absolute tranquility, “I did not hear Wei Ying say this. I did not hear him express the slightest disrespect towards Sect Leader Jiang either.”

[...]

The good thing was that, not long after he felt awkward, Jin GuangYao came to save the day, exclaiming, “Really? That day, Young Master Wei busted into Koi Tower with such force. He said too many things, one more shocking than the next. Perhaps he said a few things that were along those lines. I can’t remember them either.”

[...]

Jin GuangShan followed the transition, “That’s right. Anyhow, his attitude has always been arrogant.”

One of the sect leaders added, “To be honest, I’ve wanted to say this since a long time ago. Although Wei WuXian did a few things during the Sunshot Campaign, there are many guest cultivators who did more than him. I’ve never seen anyone as full of themselves as him. Excuse my bluntness, but he’s the son of a servant. How could the son of a servant be so arrogant?”

[...]

“In the beginning, Sect Leader Jin asked Wei Ying for the Tiger Seal with nothing but good intentions, worried that he wouldn’t be able to control it and lead to a disaster. He, however, used his own yardstick to measure another’s intents. Did he think that everyone is after his treasure? What a joke. In terms of treasures, is there any sect that doesn’t hold a few treasures?”

“I knew that something would eventually happen if he continued on the ghostly path—look! His killing intents are being revealed already. Killing indiscriminately those from our side just because of a few Wen-dogs…”

[...]

Jin GuangShan continued, “Sect Leader Jiang, you’re not like your father. It’s just been a couple of years since the reestablishment of the YunmengJiang Sect, precisely when you should be displaying your power. And he doesn’t even know to avoid suspicions. What would the Jiang Sect’s new disciples think if they saw him? Don’t tell me you’d let them see him as their role model and look down on you?”

He spoke one sentence after another, striking the iron while it was still hot. Jiang Cheng spoke slowly, “Sect Leader Jin, that’s enough. I’ll go to Burial Mound and deal with this.”

Jin GuangShan felt satisfied, speaking in a sincere tone, “That’s the spirit. Sect Leader Jiang, there are some things, some people that you shouldn’t put up with.”

(Chapter 73, Exiled Rebels translation)

This is very reminiscent of the way that Jin Zixuan would often turn around and say, ‘Why aren’t you controlling your servant?’ to Jiang Cheng whenever he had a dispute with Wei Wuxian over his treatment of Jiang Yanli.

When Jiang Cheng goes to the Burial Mounds and Wei Wuxian defects from Yunmeng Jiang in order to help the sect save face, Jiang Cheng treats this as a personal betrayal. He not only challenges Wei Wuxian to a duel but then announces that Wei Wuxian has betrayed Yunmeng Jiang and declared himself the enemy of cultivation society:

After the fight, Jiang Cheng told the outside that Wei WuXian defected from the sect and was an enemy to the entire cultivation world. The YunmengJiang Sect had already cast him out. From then on, no ties remained between them—a clear line was drawn. Henceforth, no matter what he did, they’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect!

(Chapter 73, Exiled Rebels translation)

“Wei Wuxian has betrayed the sect, and publicly regards all cultivation sects as enemy! Yunmeng Jiang Sect hereby expels him, breaking all ties with him and drawing a clear line between us. Henceforth, no matter what this person does, it will have nothing to do with Yunmeng Jiang Sect!”

(Modao Zushi Radio Drama, Season 3 Episode 5, Suibian Subs)

Naturally, no one ever questions this or wants to hear Wei Wuxian’s side of the story. Jiang Cheng is a sect leader and Wei Wuxian his servant, and that is all cultivation society needs to know.

In Conclusion

Wei Wuxian was never really part of the Jiang family. The wider social view was that he was a servant who was lucky to be taken in by the family and allowed to live in the main house alongside the sect leader’s children. He’s accepted into cultivation society conditionally, but only as someone who remains a rank below everyone else.

This attitude isn’t just the wider social view which the family themselves disregard; they all play into it. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Cheng both actively enforce it, Jiang Fengmian passively enforces it, and Jiang Yanli tries but fails to break through the social barriers between them.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #modao zushi

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robininthelabyrinth · 2 years

Text

Relentless - chapter 2 - ao3

Lan Qiren sat in the room and meditated for a long while.

After the first day, he was not so much consolidating his strength as he was simply passing the time. There was no real way of telling how much time had passed since he’d been thrown in – food had not been provided, though the time was within his capacity to handle through inedia – but based on his ingrained sleep schedule, he estimated that six days had passed. Even accounting for travel time or the possibility that he’d dragged his feet on his way home, that was enough time to get to the Cloud Recesses and back. Someone at his sect would have undoubtedly noticed that he’d gone missing by now, and where it had happened, and they would have taken appropriate action accordingly.

Exactly what was ‘appropriate’, he wasn’t sure.

Other than worrying about that and meditating, there wasn’t much to do. He wondered on occasion if this imprisonment was meant to be some bad joke of Wen Ruohan’s, a ‘kidnapping’ to match Lan Qiren’s far more benign time with Wen Ruohan’s sons, but he quickly dismissed the possibility.

Wen Ruohan’s sense of humor was not the sort that started wars. He only did that when he was serious.

In the meantime, Lan Qiren had thoroughly explored the little room he’d been imprisoned in. There was really nothing there in terms of furniture or items, although his earlier suspicion that the scratches in the walls were actually words had been borne out. There were more than just a few of them, too – it seemed that the previous occupant of the room had been the loquacious sort. He’d found scribblings all over the walls. Some were seemingly mundane: love poems and once-popular song stanzas, occasionally annotated with statements like this was the song they played in the marketplace the day we met, my heart, do you remember? or I always hated this one but you loved it so I never said. There were also the more disturbing ones, the ones that said you blame yourself but it was all my fault and I swear to you that I never meant to kill them and throw my bones to the Burial Mounds, my heart, for only the ravens’ beaks can pick me clean again. They were all quite old, and all by the same hand.

Lan Qiren tried not to think too hard about them.

Or, for that matter, about the manacles, or the strange dents in the wall that made it seem as if some furniture had been ripped out from the walls, or the surprisingly comfortable bed that (Lan Qiren couldn’t help but notice) was large enough for two to share. The entire place made him think about his brother’s tragic romance with He Kexin, and the way that things could have gone if his brother were a little more ruthless or their sect a little less rule-abiding.

Really, it was much easier to just – not think.

Ironically enough, after Lan Qiren had resigned himself to his present circumstances and gave up on worrying as pointless, the opportunity for complete and enforced rest and relaxation was actually quite beneficial to him. He had fallen unexpectedly ill after hearing of the death of Cangse Sanren and her husband, the result of too much work and too few friends to easily tolerate losing any of them, and although he had sought permission to enter seclusion for a while in order to collect himself and grieve her properly, his request had been denied. The reason had been given that the sect could not do without him, that it was his duty as acting sect leader to put aside his feelings and devote himself fully to his work and his sect, and out of sheer exhaustion he had simply accepted it – but now that he had had some time to think it over, he was starting to wonder if that were really true.

As much as Lan Qiren hated to admit it, Wen Ruohan had had a point when he had said that the sect must have planned for the possibility of Lan Qiren’s death. There had to be someone they had in mind to take over the role of sect leader if he were to abruptly expire; it would be sheer irresponsibility not to have someone prepared. And yet, if such a back-up existed, then why could they not serve to support him now, while he lived, while he was drowning? Why were his sect elders always pressing at him harder and harder to spend all his time on the endless work of sect leadership, and even when he did all that he could, still complained that he took too much time for his teaching or his music, encouraging him to cut back on his hobbies and interests for the sake of the sect? Why did they object so strenuously to his demand to be permitted to raise his nephews as he saw fit, only begrudgingly agreeing to his increasingly desperate requests when he agreed to take on even more duties in exchange?

The elders of the Lan clan were his kin, but Lan Qiren had never been very close with them. Between his distance from his father and his clashes with his brother, not to mention his strenuous efforts to root out corruption in the decade or more since his brother had retreated into seclusion, matters between them had always been tense. He did not want to ascribe nefarious motives to others within his sect, and still less to the elders that he was rule-bound to respect, but he could not help but acknowledge that the lives of not a few of them would be considerably easier if he were kept too busy working himself near to death on a regular basis to pay too much attention to what they were doing, if he were forced to delegate or postpone key tasks that might otherwise uncover something he would consider wrongdoing.

In contrast, this quiet cell, completely devoid of any distractions, came far closer to true seclusion, the Lan sect ideal – quietness and contemplation, consideration and self-correction, peaceful tranquility – than any halfway seclusion he had known in the time since he’d become sect leader. His (typically brief) seclusions had always been caveated with numerous exceptions and work that he was urged to take into seclusion with him. He had even been grateful for it at the time, terrified as he was by the notion of his brother’s endless self-imposed isolation, though he knew that it meant he wasn’t getting the rest he required. It was exceedingly ironic that the recovery he needed so greatly came to him when the threat was greatest.

Lan Qiren rested.

He mourned Cangse Sanren, he reminded himself of how thankful he was for having met those he loved, he strengthened his mind – he even went through his usual physical exercises, seeking to maintain the strength of his body. Even some of the more unusual ones, out of lack of anything better to do.

Naturally, Wen Ruohan happened to walk in just as he was doing one of latter, something Lan Qiren only noticed when he heard a strange choking sound and glanced up to see Wen Ruohan gaping at him as if he’d turned into a fish.

Lan Qiren frowned and rolled out of the one-arm handstand he’d been in, careful to avoid the rules he’d been tracing into the dust with his finger and moving into an upright position to glare at Wen Ruohan with all of his ferocity – albeit that ferocity was somewhat dampened by his sudden spike of (undoubtedly misplaced) concern, given the exceedingly strange expression on Wen Ruohan’s face.

“Has something happened?” he said stiffly, deciding to focus on the worst possibility first.

“…you were upside down,” Wen Ruohan said. He sounded oddly blank.

Lan Qiren frowned even more fiercely. “I was copying rules, since I had nothing better to do to pass the time since you locked me in here. Now what –”

Wen Ruohan held up his hands to cut him off. “You copy rules while in a handstand?”

“…at times,” Lan Qiren said. He wasn’t sure he understood the relevance. “It is a punishment typically assigned to rowdy or disobedient children, and sometimes adolescents, as a means to encourage complete focus, though there’s nothing against adults doing it. Why? Does it matter?”

“No wonder you all have those ridiculous arms,” Wen Ruohan said, completely nonsensically. “Tell me, is it also necessary that you do it while in only your inner robes?”

Lan Qiren had nearly forgotten that he’d removed his outer layers – it actually was necessary, of course, since otherwise the looser robes would get in the way of the handstand. Regardless, he flushed, mortified, and snatched his extra clothes up again, putting them on rapidly in practiced motions.

“Do not think you can distract me,” he warned even as he tied what should be tied and attached what ought to be attached. “You locked me in here, Sect Leader Wen! What were you thinking? Are you going to let me go?”

“I was thinking that for once I was going to get my way in the way that I want it, without having to compromise or grit my teeth over it, and damn whatever the rest of the world thinks,” Wen Ruohan said, which did not bode well. “Have I not said that I am relentless? My sons are my blood and my legacy. They deserve only the finest in life, and you, little Lan Qiren, are quite evidently the finest teacher in the cultivation world.”

Lan Qiren did not appreciate the compliment.

“Do you know how much they’ve improved after a single session with you?” Wen Ruohan demanded, which was flattering but extremely unhelpful. “A-Chao voluntarily practices calligraphy for a shichen each day on top of his lessons, and A-Xu has stolen three books on scripture from the library – he’s even started helping A-Chao with his lessons as a means of refreshing himself on the basics. Before, you couldn’t have paid them to stay in each other’s presence. You’ve worked wonders.”

“That wasn’t me,” Lan Qiren said impatiently. “You praised them for doing well – you’re their father, they adore you. Is it such a surprise that they should seek to win your praise once more by repeating those actions that previously worked?”

“I only praised them because they did something worthy of praise,” Wen Ruohan said, missing the point completely. “Which they did because you led them there. I must admit, I really had no notion that your lectures were so sought after? I hadn’t really been paying attention – but I have rectified my mistake. They tell me you can turn anyone into a gentleman, even the worst trash, and to send you a jewel is to see it returned polished and refined into something a hundred times better.”

“Exaggeration,” Lan Qiren said. “And you’d said you’d heard the stories before.”

“Yes, from Lao Nie. Not from other people,” Wen Ruohan said dismissively, and – well, he had a point. Lao Nie was a friendly person, overly sociable, and he was rather notoriously prone to hyperbole, most especially in connection with people he liked. He was fond of saying that a tale’s value was in how entertaining it was, not in how truthful, and matched his actions to his words, too, the rotten liar. “I’d never cared to look more deeply before. Now that I have, the stories just keep pouring in, one after the other – and from all sorts of interesting sources. How long have you been doing this? A decade?”

“A little more,” Lan Qiren said, suddenly wary of Wen Ruohan’s interest.

“And yet you already have dozens of students from sects all over the cultivation world, including even some who’ve pledged to my Wen sect.” Wen Ruohan shook his head, smiling that faint but dangerous smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile. “In another decade, you’ll get the remaining Great Sects turning their heirs over to you; with a reputation like yours and the precedent you’ve set with little Nie Mingjue, how could they not? A decade or two more, and I wonder whether there will be anyone left who would dare raise their hand against you, lest they face accusations of unfilial behavior – a teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime, as they say…”

“I’m not plotting to take over the cultivation world through my teaching!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, realizing where Wen Ruohan’s twisted mind had somehow gone. “Don’t be absurd!”

“It’s not absurd,” Wen Ruohan said mildly. “It’s actually quite clever. You started with the troublesome students, the ones no one wanted – that was the only way you could get their sects to agree to having their children be taught by an outsider, wasn’t it? The Lan sect’s lectures are famous but insular; it’s not their tradition to teach the children of others. It’s not anyone’s tradition to teach outsiders, not anymore, not since my own ancestor Wen Mao led the way in prioritizing the clan over the sect, and all those schools died out. That was all you…and you excelled. A ploy like that only works if your skills can accommodate it, and very clearly, you could.”

Lan Qiren pressed his lips together in annoyance. “You ascribe to everyone else your own motives,” he said. “My ambitions were far more limited. I only wanted to teach.”

“That is what makes it so interesting. You have come up with a brilliant method to convince the current generation to let you win the confidence of the next – after all, who among us does not remember their teacher…? – and you have carried it out with such stunning effectiveness so as to have made solid inroads in virtually every corner of the cultivation world…all of that, and you did it by accident. By accident, and against your sect’s wishes.” Wen Ruohan shook his head. “Utterly exceptional. I shudder to think what you could accomplish if you had proper motivation or proper backing.”

“You do not appear all that frightened to me.”

“I said I would shudder, Lan Qiren.” Wen Ruohan bared his teeth. “Not that it would be with fear.”

Lan Qiren gave him his best glare in return. “We are not on such close terms that you should feel free to refer to me by name, Sect Leader Wen,” he said icily. “I may be your junior by age, but unless something has drastically changed in the past six days, I am still your social equal. Even if you do not wish to give me face, you must give it to my Lan sect!”

Wen Ruohan barked out a laugh. “Oh, you are fun,” he said, his eyes curved up in something far more genuine than his usual smirks and threatening smiles. “I suppose I will need to admit to Lao Nie that he was right after all, and I hate doing that… You know, it’s odd. I think you actually seem healthier after being trapped in here for so long with neither light nor food? How did you manage that? And how did you know it was six days, anyway?”

Lan Qiren was not going to tell Wen Ruohan that the engrained Lan sect sleep schedule was more reliable than any clock, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell him that he’d treated the time he’d been locked away as a much-needed vacation, although he had the sinking suspicion that Wen Ruohan would guess it anyway.

“Are you going to let me out?” he asked, deciding to ignore him entirely. “Or are we taking the other path? Because I assure you, I will not hesitate.”

“Before I answer that, can I inquire – as a purely theoretical matter – as to how exactly you would plan to commit suicide?” Wen Ruohan asked. He still looked amused, which was not promising. “You have neither sword nor dagger on you, nor even a guqin string to use as a garotte, and you must have noticed by now that this room prevents the use of offensive talismans and arrays, as well as physical self-harm; if you attempt to beat your head in on the wall or floor, it would restrain you. What is left?”

“There is a musical spell meant to be used to heat a cup of tea,” Lan Qiren said. “It is short and straightforward, and can be whistled for convenience’s sake. It’s traditionally taught to adolescents as a means of encouraging fine control of qi through music, as the actual spell itself is widely considered a waste of time – the effort of using it drains the user’s spiritual energy, and the tea generally tastes terrible.”

“On account of being heated too quickly, no doubt.” Wen Ruohan said, arching his eyebrows a little. “What’s your point, exactly?”

“My point is that the same spell, when applied to the human brain, will induce death in less time than a stick of incense,” Lan Qiren said, and had a moment of pleasure in seeing Wen Ruohan’s eyebrows shoot up even higher in surprise. “That is one of the many means by which I could obtain my desired result. Do not concern yourself with the manner of my death – instead, I would be grateful to you if you were to tell me whether I should be in need of employing it.”

“You know, I suddenly understand why Lao Nie likes you,” Wen Ruohan murmured. “I assume you have a plan in place for if I chose to restrain your spiritual energy as well?”

“Naturally,” Lan Qiren said, and it was not a lie – the fact that the plan was not an especially good one did not mean it was not a plan. “Well?”

Wen Ruohan hummed for a moment, looking contemplative. “No,” he eventually said. “I don’t think such extreme measures will be necessary.”

Lan Qiren felt relief pool in his belly. “You will let me go, then?”

“I most certainly will not,” Wen Ruohan said, and reached out to grab Lan Qiren by the arm, pulling him forward in a sudden jerk through an abruptly appearing array in the wall, leading him stumbling back into the main part of the Sun Palace before he could react to what had been said. “You asked me to tell you why, under the circumstances I described, you would consent to teach. I have provided an answer.”

“An answer –”

“Shufu!”

Lan Qiren froze, and Wen Ruohan smirked. He released Lan Qiren, who turned to look, disbelieving – and yet what he saw was undeniable.

His nephews were standing at the other side of the main hall.

They were as familiar to him as himself, if not more; they looked the same as always. Lan Xichen was waving to him, while Lan Wangji was too busy looking around his surroundings with his nose wrinkled suspiciously, just the way he’d done when Lan Qiren had taken him to the Unclean Realm for the first time. They were standing not far from the Wen boys, who were huddled together along with a somewhat older girl (the talented prospective doctor Wen Qing, presumably) and another young boy, talking avidly amongst themselves.

“What are they doing here?” Lan Qiren asked, raising his hand to return Lan Xichen’s greeting. His lips felt numb.

“Visiting, of course,” Wen Ruohan said in his ear. He had somehow gotten behind Lan Qiren, such that when Lan Qiren backed up a step, which he hadn’t even noticed he’d done, he’d accidentally stepped into his arms. “It’s all quite normal. A sect leader can invite another sect’s heirs to come stay for a while in order to build relations between the sects and set up the future generations with a strong alliance, built from childhood…ah, but of course, your Lan sect does not trust my good faith. So it makes sense that you, as their guardian, would come to stay for the duration of their visit as well. To supervise.”

That was not wrong as a technical matter. Lan Qiren had used the same tradition of ‘visiting heirs’ to excuse his own visit with his nephews to the Unclean Realm, although there he had not had any fear at leaving them unattended under Lao Nie’s supervision while he himself continued to go around attending to sect business.

From the outside, knowing nothing, this current situation would appear completely above-board.

Lan Qiren’s teeth ground together.

“I see,” he said. “And while I’m here, I might as well teach them something?”

It did not need to be stated that his nephews were currently in Wen Ruohan’s power, surrounded by his disciples and not far from his dreadful Fire Palace, should Lan Qiren refuse or fail to make his utmost effort to provide the Wen boys with a good education. How could his sect have allowed such a thing?! Even if they did not care for him, his nephews were the sect heirs!

Wen Ruohan snorted. “You couldn’t restrain yourself from teaching for the length of a party. Who am I to deny you your favorite pastime?”

“I couldn’t restrain myself because the party was awful,” Lan Qiren said. “To the extent you exercised your rights as the host, you misused them to stalk around looking like a bird who’d had his tailfeathers cut off. Or maybe something else cut off instead.”

Wen Ruohan blinked.

“Also, Lao Nie is within his rights not to attend one of your parties,” Lan Qiren added waspishly. “He has sons, and a sect, and a life outside of you, no matter what you think.”

“Did I know you had a sharp tongue and a fierce temper under all those rules?” Wen Ruohan asked the air. He no longer looked as amused as he had before – no doubt a reaction to Lan Qiren mentioning Lao Nie. “I assure you, I am well aware that Lao Nie has…a life outside of me, as you put it. Why, I’ve even heard rumor of him soon taking on a third wife –”

Lan Qiren snorted. He hadn’t meant to; it was completely involuntary. It was just that the real situation was simply too ridiculous not to laugh.

Wen Ruohan paused. “No?”

“He’s not allowed.”

Wen Ruohan gave him a strange look.

“I’m serious,” Lan Qiren insisted. “You know how the Nie sect is, with its principles? How they decide on them collectively, the way my Lan sect settles on its rules?”

A bemused nod.

“Well, they had a family meeting something like a year back, maybe half a year, and Lao Nie is officially on probation for breaking their principle against reckless endangerment of the lives of his fellow sect disciples – or something like that, anyway. At any rate, he’s officially been forbidden from taking on a new wife until the probation is lifted, and even lovers are being strongly contraindicated until he’s proven himself worthy. I’m given to understand that he was informed that marriage is a privilege, not a right.”

Wen Ruohan’s face kept twitching. Lan Qiren couldn’t tell if it was out of disbelief or strangled laughter.

“Lest you think that I’m coming up with nonsense, I heard it straight from Nie Mingjue,” he said, shaking his sleeves and putting his hands behind his back. “Who has been charged by his sect to assist in preventing his father from breaking his probation. I’m told that his disappointed looks are very effective.”

“Dare I ask what the inciting incident for such a prohibition was?” Wen Ruohan asked, pressing a fist to his lips – definitely strangled laughter, then.

“Admittedly, that part I’m not so clear on. Apparently Lao Nie started flirting with a dragon, or possibly a ghost, or maybe it was a ghost dragon –”

Wen Ruohan had to turn his face away. His shoulders were shaking.

“As you undoubtedly know, the Nie sect boasts of having some imperial blood in their bloodline from not long after their butcher ancestor raised himself up to cultivate, and for whatever reason they blame that inheritance for their hot tempers. It seems that the notion of an even purer infusion of draconic lineage was quite alarming to them – sufficiently alarming so as to overcome all arguments regarding the implausibility of such a match ever actually taking place. Or, I suppose, the unlikelihood of there being children even if Lao Nie really did get it into his head to mount a lizard –”

Wen Ruohan lost his battle and burst out laughing.

Lan Qiren hadn’t actually intended to try to make him laugh. He was merely relaying everything he had heard from both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, both of whom had been very eager to retell the tale – but he had to admit the entire thing was exceedingly funny. He himself had had some difficulty refraining from laughter when he’d first heard it, and Lan Yueheng, to whom he had conveyed it, had nearly choked himself to death for lack of air on account of laughing too hard.

“Shufu, what’s so funny?” Lan Xichen asked, having come over, the other children trailing behind him. The Wen children in particular looked dumbstruck. “Why is Sect Leader Wen laughing so hard?”

“…adult matters,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring the way Wen Ruohan kept chortling the word ‘mount’ and ‘lizard’ before descending into hysterics once more, as if he were a child without the slightest shred of self-control instead of the cultivation world’s foremost cultivator. “Pay it no mind. Are you both well?”

Lan Xichen nodded, and Lan Wangji did as well.

“Do you know the circumstances under which you came here?”

“We’re here to make friends,” Lan Xichen said promptly. “As part of the sect’s efforts to build an alliance with the Wen sect.”

So they hadn’t been told the truth either. That was good, Lan Qiren supposed – they were ten and seven, respectively, and that was far too young to know that they were being kept as hostages. Hostages for Lan Qiren’s good behavior, no less, which seemed utterly unbelievable and yet was somehow true.

Lan Qiren hoped, with some bitterness, that his sect had at least gotten something very good out of having condoned his kidnapping. It wasn’t quite a sale, at least, preserving as it did his face by making it out to look as though he had consented to it voluntarily, but it certainly wasn’t very far from it.

Well, there was nothing for it now.

“I will be acting as your teacher while I am here,” Lan Qiren said to the Wen children, continuing to ignore Wen Ruohan beside him, and had the pleasure of seeing Wen Xu and Wen Chao, at least, look enthusiastic about the idea. “I trust we will spend our time together productively. Where do you take your classes, typically? I would like to see it.”

Wen Xu nodded. “I can show you,” he said, and glanced over at his father for permission – Wen Ruohan, leaning against a wall to support himself, waved a hand dismissively, granting it. “Follow me.”

They had scarcely existed the main room when Wen Qing abruptly said, “I didn’t know he did that.”

“Did what?” Lan Xichen asked politely.

“Laugh.” She grimaced. “Uncle is not normally so…light-hearted.”

Lan Qiren was going to say something, probably something about how different people had different things that they found funny, or maybe something a little bit mean on the basis of Do not laugh for no reason – he was still in a very bad temper with Wen Ruohan about the whole kidnapping business – but little Wen Chao spoke up first, saying, “It’s Teacher Lan that did it! Last time, he said that Father was being an ass!”

Wen Qing gaped at him.

Meanwhile, from not far behind them in the throne room, the laughter that had been slowly dying down in fits and splutters abruptly cut off all at once.

Lan Qiren winced.

“Where did you say the classroom was again?” he said hastily, and Wen Xu, glancing warily over his shoulder, sped up his steps.

“Did you really?” Wen Qing asked when they were safely inside a perfectly respectable classroom. “I mean…really? You said something like that? In the Nightless City? To his own sons?”

Do not tell lies, Lan Qiren reminded himself, and suppressed a sigh.

“Well, he was,” he said, and Lan Xichen looked utter delighted, if a bit scandalized, while Wen Qing merely looked at him in horror. Lan Wangji simply looked disapproving. “There is a time and place appropriate for crude language. That is a matter we can discuss it at another time. Today, we will start with a proper assessment of your skill level.”

“I’m not staying, then,” Wen Qing said immediately. “I’m going to be a doctor, not a scholar. But you can teach Wen Ning.”

She made it sound like she was doing him a favor, rather than making a request of him, and if her chin hadn’t trembled a little as she stuck it into the air, Lan Qiren might’ve believed that she was just as arrogant as her uncle and guardian.

“You need not be concerned. I will watch over him,” he said mildly, answering the actual question, and watched as she blinked, blushed, and then rushed away – to her other lessons, no doubt. “Does anyone else have any objections to taking the assessment?”

Little heads shook all around.

If there was nothing else, Lan Qiren supposed, he still had teaching. His one consolation, just as it had been when he’d become sect leader against his will.

“Sit, then, and we shall begin.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #relentless

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heyheyloki · 3 years

Text

U&I

Summary: The reader begins to realize his feelings for Saiki.

Saiki x M!Reader

Word Count: 8711

1. The Best Friends

Being friends with a psychic definitely had its ups and downs. At first, you didn’t notice a thing out of the ordinary with Saiki, well, granted you were kids when the both of you met so naturally you just wanted to be friends and thought nothing more. However, he noticed something odd with you the moment you two met.

He couldn’t read your mind.

Actually forget being about to read your mind, none of his psychic abilities worked on you. He couldn’t see through you and when he touched you without his super thin transparent gloves on nothing happened. You were basically immune to him.

At first, he thought something was wrong with you, or that maybe you had some psychic powers as well. That wasn’t the case at all. In reality, you were a normal human without any powers or tricks. That stumped Saiki even more, but it also became the soul reason he wanted to be your friend as well.

For one, he didn’t have to deal with your thoughts. Two, his image of you wasn’t ruined because he can’t see under your skin. Three, your calmer personality made him relax. And of course all those other things like your kindness and stuff, but those were irrelevant the moment he knew he couldn’t read your mind.

It’s been years since he met you in the park during recess, and now here you guys were, 16 years later and still friends. Oh, there was one thing that bothered him about you.

“What to hang out today?” You asked as you slung your bag over your shoulder.

“Sure.” Saiki said. Yep. That’s right, since he can’t get in your mind, he actually has to move his mouth when he talks to you.

It was a bit weird to others that he never did it with anyone else other than you, but he didn’t care.

On the way home he couldn’t help but notice you eyeing his antennas, the things that keep his powers stable. He turned his head towards you and gave you a curiosity look.

“Do those things poke at your head at all?” You asked, moving you hand up to poke at the top of the pink ball. “Like, does it make your head ichy?”

Saiki shook his head. He knew he had to talk to you at some points, but times like these he didn’t. He enjoyed that about you too, that you don’t force him to talk all the time. You knew it was a bit weird for him to talk, he explained it to you when he told you all about his powers.

“Hm,” you hummed out. Your hands going back at your side and into your pant pockets. “It would for me, if I was you. They just look painful, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do if you don’t wanna blow up the world.”

Saiki nodded his head, his eyes continuing to linger on you. It was one days like these when he saw you thinking so hard about something that he wished he could just take a peak. At some points, he loved the silence, especially when the both of you were watching movies, but right now, especially in this moment, he’d give anything to know. It was mostly prominent when he’d stare at you during class and you’d have this far out look in your orbs, you drew him in, and perhaps that’s why he fell for you.

Though, there were other factors that won his favor. Mostly the fact that, unlike everyone else, he can’t stare right through you and just see your raw muscles and pumping organs. Instead, he was able to focus on your handsome face and not get side tracked about your racing thoughts. You were the only person in the world that make him feel somewhat normal. That was a love-hate relationship at times.

“Think I could sleep over tonight?” You suddenly asked, “we don’t have school tomorrow.”

Saiki stared at you for a moment just to relish in that fact that nothing worked on you. No telekinesis, mind control, no nothing. He was going to have to win your favor just like everyone else. To him, it wasn’t normal, but looking at you, he didn’t seem to mind the extra work.

“Sure,” Saiki said. He still had trouble talking aloud, hell, sometimes he will actually use telekinesis and wait for your response only to have pure silence. “My parents are leaving for a wedding, so the house should be free for a while.”

When the two of you got to Saiki’s house, it was a bit peaceful until his parents had to head out. You liked his mom and dad a lot, they were like your second family, so you wanted to wish them a good time. It was for one Saiki’s dad’s coworkers.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come with us?” Saiki’s dad asked his son. “You’ve met Kirishima before, and you can bring [Name] as your plus one date.”

You knew Saiki wasn’t going to be interested in a wedding. He always told you normal happy events for others is misery for him since he can hear the jealousy and pity that the crowd is thinking. You felt sorry that he couldn’t turn it off, but you were glad that you were the only person he could catch a break with. However, when you looking over at Saiki, he seemed to entertain the thought.

It was a new side to Saiki, one that made you confused. It was always either you or no one. You could tell the way he wanted to get away from many of the people in his class that seemed to have declared themselves his friends from a small interaction. Sure, you felt their interest, but it was just a bit sad to you that Saiki could never actually enjoy friends unless they were pure. Otherwise, he could hear all the backstabbing thoughts or otherwise stupid comments that go around in their brain that was thought to be private to them.

“I’m going to have to pass,” you commented. “I don’t have a suit, besides, you two should enjoy the night. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you both go out alone.”

Saiki’s mom smiled widely at you. Her eyes clouding over with a wet film before wrapping her arms around you for a tight hug. “Ah, thank you, [Name]! What would we do without you?”

You chuckled softy at the comment before saying, “Who knows, I rather not think about that.”

When she finally let you go, you and Saiki waved the both of them off as they left. Honestly, you weren’t sure if they’d even make it back at a reasonable time. It was a wedding, after all. Oh well, as long as they make it back drunk and safe rather than drunk and not safe, you didn’t mind. You were sleeping over anyway, so right now, you just wanted to hang out with your childhood best friend.

“What do you wanna do?” You asked with a calming tone.

Saiki turned his head to you. “TV?”

“Sure,” you smiled. However, as soon as you turned to the living room, you noticed the absolute mess his parents left behind. So, out of the goodness of your heart, you said, “How about you find something and all clean up this in the meantime. Sound good?”

Saiki nodded once more. He truly thought your actions were kind, but he rather have you watching TV with him than picking up his dad’s dirty clothes. He knew his father tended to be sloppy, but this was just a mess.

As you were about to pick up a pair of jeans, all the clothes that were strewn about the floor suddenly started to float in the air and shoot into the open washing machine. The trash floated itself into the garage while everything else was moved around to make it look clean until otherwise.

You pressed your lips together as your brows furrowed in annoyance. Once you turned to Saiki and saw his innocence face, you knew you couldn’t be angry but you had to ask, “Do you really want me to watch TV with you that bad?”

“Yes,” Saiki stated.

You sighed, your lips parting as you left the oxygen leave your lungs. “Fine, but let’s both clean up a bit before than. It’ll be a nice surprise and a way to thank your parents for letting me stay the night.”

Saiki nodded. “Okay.”

It took a bit of convincing on your end to let him let you help out. You may not have powers, but you didn’t want to take advantage of his. You knew it was effortless and he made it seem like it didn’t affect him whatsoever, but you knew every time he does something it takes a toll. His powers aren’t perfect.

You both ended up cleaning the living room, Saiki’s room, and now you were in the kitchen sorting the trash. Saiki was using his powers to sort while you whipped down the countertops.

“Good grief,” Saiki said aloud, his voice drawing your eyes to him. He was crouched down with two bags in front of him and the garage floating upside down, it’s contents was either going in the first or second bag.

“What?” You asked curiosity. It wasn’t all the time that he speaks from his mouth without you talking first.

“How could anyone have let it get this dirty in here?” He asked aloud. “I mean, really it’s a wonder we don’t have bugs.”

You were going to respond. That was until he suddenly shut his mouth, a chest deep grunt leaving him as you notice him stare at something on the furniture next to him.

It was a cockroach.

Mind you, the moment you realized what it was you weren’t the least bit surprised when he suddenly teleported. Saiki hates bugs. He could read the minds of humans, as well as animals, but he couldn’t with bugs. He thought they were small minded icky things. Hell, he couldn’t even let his powers touch the thing.

You counted down the seconds before he came back. It was around ten, maybe fifteen. He also teleported right behind you.

“Welcome back,” you greeted and watched as his eyes dart towards the floor.

“Sorry, I may have overreacted.” He muttered. “I just hate them.”

“I know,” you hummed out before looking around and grabbing a cup and piece of paper. Saiki watched you as you let the roach crawl on the piece of paper before placing the cup over it so it didn’t run away. You were quick to put it outside and close the window after so Saiki didn’t worry about it coming back in.

“All gone,” you cheered with a smile. “Now, let’s watch TV, ya?”

2. Saiki’s Pushy Friends

PK Academy was a school were many different personalities and people collided. It was always fun to meet new people in this school, yet on the other side of the coin, sometimes they were more than a little odd. Not like you can speak, your best friend was a psychic. Though, he wasn’t delusional like this one guy in your class that declared himself Saiki’s friend. His name was Kaido. He thinks he has powers and has an evil organization following him around.

Then, you have Nendou. Basically, he’s stupid. Not that you minded, but sometimes being stupid isn’t the best thing in the world, especially now.

It was the sports festival at PK and Saiki and you had to participate in it. You both were on the same team since all the teams were decided by class. This also gave you a good idea of the friends Saiki has made. It was safe to say that Kaido was growing on you. You felt a little bad for the guy, what can you say.

Let’s not forget about Hairo as well. You knew him a bit more from hearsay than the others, plus he was class rep. Though, you had to say, he was a little too overly enthusiastic.

It was kind of a surprise to see Teruhashi, the most popular girl in school, try and interact with Saiki. Though, it was a bit amusing since to him, she’s nothing more than walking muscle. However, you did think he would swoon over her like all the other guys in your school if she was like you. However, you knew Saiki had no interest in romance so you don’t care either way.

Finally, Nendou. You were originally going to say that you didn’t mind the guy that much and thought maybe he would be a good thing for Saiki. However, after just watching him take out one of the antennas from Saiki’s head, you started to wonder how much of a danger his stupidity is to Saiki.

You watched that pink haired friend of yours collapse to the ground with a hard thud as soon as Nendou pull the thing out of his head. You were quick to rush over to him and sit by his side. When you flipped him over, since he fell face forward, worry grew about your body and infected your bloodstream.

You heard protests about turning him over, but at this point all the worried voices drowned before they were even audible to you. His lips were parted as drool leaked from his mouth and went down his chin, his eyes dead and without life as darkness surrounded them. It didn’t take you long to recover and swipe the antenna Nendou was holding and pop it back in its rightful place in his pink locks.

You didn’t know how long it would take for him to wake up, or if he’d wake up at all. All you knew was to sit and wait for him to wake up. To your surprise, he woke up rather quickly. Maybe a mere minute or so after you fixed him up. When his eyes opened, you felt yourself suddenly get surrounded as Saiki’s friends crowed over him to ask how he was.

You noticed him using telepathy to talk to everyone when Hairo said, “You passed out after Nendou took that think out of your head, lucky for you, [Name] put it back right away!”

“Yeah, he saved your life!” Kaido spit out next, their hands placing on my shoulder out of respect and gratitude.

Saiki’s eye then direct to you, his voice never leaving his lips for a moment before you noticed him flinch.

‘Ah,’ you thought. ‘He tried to use telepathy with me again.’

When he noticed, Saiki just nodded in your direction. You knew he was thanking you, he didn’t need to word it out to you. The look in his eyes was enough.

Lunch came immediately after Saiki ended up waking up, and it was understatement to say he didn’t want to be bother with anyone else besides you. He was quick to drag you to the roof of the school to eat.

The both of you sat against the railing, lunch in your laps. You wanted I just forget about the scare that Saiki gave you, but the after effects he was having wasn’t making that easy. He was having trouble, and it was easy to see when his hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t even pick up his food without it falling back in the box.

You side eyed him, his expression one of concentration as he tried to pick up his food again. Though, he dropped it again.

He sighed quickly after that, only looking down at his food as you saw his mind wonder off.

Once you finished chewing whatever food you had in your mouth, you placed your food to the side and moved so that you weren’t side to side, but rather across from Saiki’s body now. He didn’t register your movements until he saw a hand come into his view and pick up an item of food with his chopsticks.

When he turned to you, you had the chopsticks in your dominant hand and your other under the food so it didn’t drop to the filthy ground.

“C’mon, lemme help,” you said. It was easy for Saiki to pick up the worry in your tone, however he knew not to address it or else you’ll just either deny it or baby him. “Open up.”

He obeyed your command after a moment, opening his mouth wide enough for you to place his food in his mouth. The hand that was meant to catch the food if it fell made sure Saiki closed his mouth, his fingers placed a bit of pressure under his chin to shut his jaws before slowly trailing away. The food wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the chill that ran down his spine at your lingering touch that crawled on his skin.

“I could hurt you.” He suddenly spit out. It was pained. “Having my antenna taken out messed up my powers.”

You leaned your head to the side, your eyes never falling from his. “Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“You should go.” He stated.

“Why?”

“I just told you.”

You smiled. “Saiki, you could never hurt me.”

He looked at you like you had something stuck in your teeth. “You don’t know that, I may not be able to read your mind, but I don’t know how my other powers react to you.”

You remained quiet for a moment before shuffling your body side by side again, your head falling to rest of Saiki’s shoulder. You felt him flinch at the contact, his muscles even began to tighten just out of fear.

“Yanno,” you started out saying, your hand coming up to play the antenna that you could reach. “It’s odd to me how these things are the only thing keeping you stable.”

“Is it?”

You chuckled and nodded. “Small things like these verses your powers. The thing that gets me is that these things actually win in that fight. Though, I suppose it does complete the look you have.”

“And what look is that?” Saiki asked as he gazed down at you to see your eyes already on him. He could feel his fingers twitch as he watched you say shamelessly, “The cute, mysterious loner type.”

Saiki’s lips parted as he gazed at you. He quickly recomposed himself when he noticed you waiting patiently for him to respond. He sighed before asking, “Mysterious loner? Where’d you get that?”

You laughed before sarcastically questioning, “yep, I wonder where.”

3. Your friends are my friends

You don’t know how you got wrapped into this, but perhaps it’ll allow you to know Saiki’s friends better.

Currently, you were walking with Kaido, Nendou, and Saiki to a good ramen shop Nendou suggested. You were dragged along when Nendou remembered you from the Sports Festival and as Saiki’s friend. They never really got the chance to speak to you since you’re usually out the door as soon as the bell rings, but today they finally caught you.

At some point Teruhashi joined the group, though you feel like she kinda took over since now the boys, except for Saiki and you, were fawning over her. Saiki and you took it upon yourselves to give them all room to talk to her, so you both sorts trailed behind.

It was silent for a while, the only noise was Nendou or Kaido talking to Teruhashi. However, you caught the, “what does that even mean,” that Saiki mumbled under his breath.

“Hm?” You hummed. “What does what mean?”

It was obvious to you he didn’t realize he said that aloud. But he just seemed to be glad that only you heard that.

“Teruhashi wants me to go ‘oh wow’ or something to her.” Saiki revealed. “I don’t even know what that means.”

You kept your gaze on Saiki for a moment. “So, she likes you?”

“I guess,” he muttered. “I think it’s more that I’m the only guy that isn’t kissing her feet.”

You watched Teruhashi interact with Nendou and Kaido. You know that, normally, she wouldn’t take time to hang out with these guys. However, because of her crush on Saiki, she bares with them. In all honesty, she seems a bit perfect. Being able to deal with them just for the person she adores. It’s easy for anyone to do, and not a lot of people would even bother.

“She seems like a good fit for you.” You suddenly uttered out.

When Saiki heard that, he felt his hands twitch. He didn’t like that, not one bit. What irked him the most was that it seemed natural, like you actually meant it. And, of course, he had no way of knowing if those words were genuine or actually forced.

“No way,” Saiki stated coldly. “Never in a million years.”

“Damn, that’s cold, Saiki.” He heard you say, a teasing tone wedged in your voice.

“Why do you keep calling me Saiki, anyway? We aren’t acquaintances.”

“Hm?” You questioned. “I thought you don’t like me calling you by your first name in public?”

Saiki sighed. “Well now I’m telling you I don’t care.”

Saiki knew this way of showing that you were closer to him than anyone would ever be may have been childish on his part, but when he heard his first name come from your lips in front of his other ‘friends’, he felt more than satisfied.

4. Friendship Can Bring Romance

Being able to rest during class was one of your guilty pleasures. Even if you got called out by your teacher, you didn’t mind. It was better when it was raining outside, the patter of rain when it hit the window made you want to nap.

“Hey,” a voice called out to you. You didn’t listen though, it wasn’t important.

“Hey, [Name],” it called out again. Okay, maybe you should wake up. Then again, sleep. You could always sleep later though.

You fluttered your eyes open as you felt your body being pushed around. When your sight became focused, the blurry figure in front of you showed a blue hair kid. You knew him, but from where?

“Saiki asked me to wake you up, sorry,” he confessed.

Oh, right. That’s Kaido, Saiki’s friend.

“Hm? Where is Kusuo?” You asked in a groggy voice, your hand coming up to wipe your eyes.

“Oh, he went home.” Kaido informed you. “Something just came up, I guess.”

“Alright,” you hummed before the end of your lips pulled upward. “Thank you, Kaido.”

It wasn’t easy for Kaido to wake up the quiet kid. Kaido only met the guy once or twice, and when he was hanging with him, you only stayed close to Saiki. It was kinda odd, but Kaido understood your attachment to the pink haired man. Saiki was Kaido’s first friend, after all, so he knew how awesome the guy was.

Though, he’s never got the chance to speak to you. He knows Saiki never really goes anywhere with you, and somehow you always end up by his side. He just always seemed to miss you when it came to getting the chance to introduce himself so Kaido was pretty glad when you came along the trip to that ramen place, even if it was a dumb and he got distracted by Teruhashi.

Kaido knew you were the closest person to Saiki. He’s pretty sure that not even Nendou is as close to Saiki as you are. And those two are best friends. Kaido didn’t know the extend of how long you two have been friends, but he does know from watching that Saiki has respect for you. So, it was critical that he makes a great impression with you so that he can become closer to Saiki and maybe you as well.

“S-Sure, no problem!” He stuttered, his bandaged hand retracting from your shoulder and holding them up in the air in a surrendered notion.

“Do you live around here at all? I’ll walk you home as a thank you.” You said as you stood from your seat and began to search for your bag.

“What? You don’t have to do that, really, it isn’t necessary!” Kaido spit out quickly, his words jumping all over the place.

“It’s really no trouble at all,” you stated as you put your bag over your shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get going before the rain gets worse.”

The rain eventually stopped when both teens got closer to your house. Kaido’s was further ahead, so he thought it would be better if he just walked you home instead so you didn’t have to walk more than you have to already.

“So, you’ve been friends with Saiki since he was little, huh?” Kaido asked as you explained why Saiki trusts you so much. “That’s pretty awesome! What was he like back then?”

“Pretty much the same.” You answered. “Though he did get more handsome throughout the years, and he used to be kinda sweet. Now, not so much.”

“I see, so you guys have been through it all together.” Kaido replied.

“Basically, though, he did start to worry me a bit since I was his only friend for a really long time,” you confessed. You paused as you looked up at Kaido and gave him a smile, “But I’m glad he finally made a friend like you.”

Kaido could feel his heart beat a million miles an hour just at the words you strung together. He never heard kinder words than those, and he was even more thrilled that he succeeded in making a good impression on Saiki’s childhood friend!

“It’s, uh, n-no problem, really!” Kaido muttered out as his whole face began to fluster, his hands going everywhere.

“Oh,” you hummed out.

“Hm?” Kaido questioned. His nerves going down. “What is it?”

“Did you know you were dragging your scarf the whole time?” You asked curiosity as your hands started to real in the extra fabric.

“What?” He asked out of pure shock. Though, realizing that he doesn’t make a fool out of himself he said, “O-Of course I did! It’s a fashion choice.”

“Not the best one,” you stated as you stepped closer to the blue haired male.

Kaido’s eyes widened as he stated directly into your colored orbs, watching them dance solely for him. It was like getting attention from a loved one, but this attention make him nervous to the point where he thought his face was going to explode with red. Kaido’s lips slowly started to disappear as the scarf started to build up around his shoulders and neck.

“There you go,” you said, “much better. Now your scarf doesn’t get more dirty and you look even better.”

‘Even better? What’s that supposed to mean? Does it.. does it mean he thought I looked good before?!’ Kaido thought.

Kaido let out an awkward laugh as he played with the end of the scarf. “O-Oh, haha, thank you.”

“Sure,” you hummed. “Now let’s get going.”

5. Blessing Turned On Jealousy

What’s that saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Yeah, that’s it. See, that could apply to this yet at the same time it would go a little different.

More like, the enemy of my best friend is my friend. At least for your situation. You see, walking home with Saiki has now turned into walking home with Saiki, Nendou, and Kaido. Not that you mind, but sometimes you really do wish it was back to when Saiki and you got to spend time alone together. However, being friends with Saiki and then having his friends automatically become your friends may have some perks.

Like now. Bumping into Kaido’s mom was totally accidental. But, in the end it payed off. Why?

Because coffee jelly.

“I know it’s not easy being friends with my son because he’s so shy, but please be patient.” Kaido’s mom announced as she placed the coffee jelly down in front of Saiki and you.

“Please don’t say that mama—I mean—mother.” Kaido pleased, his voice cracking as it got higher with embarrassment.

Overall, the beginning was a very nice. Hell, it was damn near perfect. Although, you just had to snoop around. Well, it was more like exploring Kaido’s room.

Your fingertips brushed along the spines of the many books Kaido had stacked up in his bookcase. It was seriously amazing how many books he had, he even had some original copies of some famous old books.

“This is pretty awesome,” you muttered to yourself before your eyes spotted something that didn’t quite match with the others. In all honesty, you were simply curious. However, curiosity did kill the cat. In your case, more like awakened the Saiki K.

“Hey, Kaido, what is the Jet Black Wings?” You asked aloud as the group sat down eating whatever snacks were about. You would always hear either chewing or at least some conversation, but after that question left your mouth it was dead silent. You felt like you killed something, but when you looked over you noticed Kaido’s face beat red. Seriously, his entire face was as red as a blood moon.

“P-Put that back!” He stuttered out, the blue haired boy suddenly running up to you to snatch the book from your hand.

As he reached for it, you held it higher. Even if he was about the same height or maybe a inch or so taller, you just needed to make him miss his hand from grabbing it.

“Don’t be embarrassed, I’m just curious.” You calmly said. “Is it bad or something?”

“N-No! It’s nothing, uh, bad! Just give me it back!” Kaido begged this time around, his hands trying desperately to grab it from you. Okay, maybe you were being a little mean at this point, but it was kinda fun to tease him.

You began to back up as Kaido trying to nab the book in your hand. “Just explain it!”

“No! Never!” He shouted.

You couldn’t help but laugh a little, though, that was your fatal mistake. Having yourself distracted by your own humor, your mind didn’t take into account the pile of prep books scattered about until it was too late. You quickly lost your voice, as well as your balance before slamming your head hard against the wood floors.

“Woah! You guys okay?” Nendou asked out of genuine concern.

As much as you would have liked to answer him, you were too concerned with the pain pounding into your skull like a jackhammer. Seriously, this is gonna give you one massive headache.

You scrunched your nose as your finally gave effort to open your eyes, though, they permanently remained open when you noticed a face staring down at you, a body on top of yours. You guessed that during the fall Kaido tried to save you, but only got dragged along instead.

“H-Hey, um, are you okay?” He asked under his shaky breath.

You only nodded before trying to avoid his gaze in any possible way. The position you were in didn’t help whatsoever in that department. Instead, you hoped that Kaido would take the hint and get off. That plan wasn’t looking too good cause all that was running through his mind was how you looked under him. Let’s say, the thoughts he had left a distaste in Saiki’s mouth.

Originally, he was just gonna let you handle it, but after hearing Kaido’s perverted thoughts about you, that plan blew up.

Saiki stood up, leaving his coffee jelly half eaten before grabbing Kaido by the back of his shirt and yanking him off of you. Saiki gave some strength into that but not enough to launch him into the bookshelf like he wanted too. He knelt down to come to your level and help you up, your massive headache being noticeable when you held onto the back of your head.

“Damnit, that really hurt,” you muttered to yourself but Saiki heard it clear as day.

It wasn’t long after that he took you home as well as the left over coffee jelly. Saiki advised you to stay home a day just to let the pain die down a bit before going back to school, so, the pink haired boy was all alone today. And all alone to everyone else meant to bother him more than usual.

Teruhashi, Nendou, Hairo. All of them. Though, it was a bit weird that Kaido wasn’t bothering with him today. Not that he was complaining, but he couldn’t pinpoint the answer until he heard Kaido’s thoughts, ‘I need to ask Saiki for permission. They’re best friends, it would be rude if I didn’t ask permission to ask out [Name].’

Never mind. He didn’t need to know that.

It was around lunch time that Kaido walked up to Saiki for the first one, the blush that littered his cheeks made Saiki want to gag for a moment.

“So, uh, Saiki, I have to ask you something.” Kaido uttered out lowly. Clearly, this was nerve wracking for him.

“What is it?” Saiki asked telepathically.

“Well, it’s about [Name], yanno, our [Name]?”

‘What other person has that name?’ Saiki thought. ‘And don’t say our, it’s creepy.’

“You see, I, well, I think I like him and I’d like your blessing to ask him out!” Kaido shouted, his body bowing at an almost 90 degree angle.

Normally, Saiki would just say to do whatever since he could read [Name]’s thoughts and see that he doesn’t like Kaido in that way. However, the one person in the world that Saiki actually wants is immune to his powers. He knew he needed to shut this down fast.

‘No way.’ Saiki responded.

“Thank you so much, Saiki, you won’t—wait—why not?” Kaido asked aloud, his voice getting higher the more he freaked out. He thought this would be easy, he means, it was Saiki. The most chill guy ever actually gave him a hard ‘no’ to asking out his best friend. Kaido shouldn’t be surprised, even though he is.

‘Because I said so,’ Saiki strictly put. He knew it was wrong to say this, who was he to say no to something that isn’t his business. Though, the feeling of relief that he still had a chance was more satisfying in the end.

By the time Saiki got to your house it was basically as soon as school ended. He used teleportation to get here as fast as he could, as well as just appear in your room. He wasn’t expecting you to still be asleep, though, he supposed this wasn’t too bad.

The pink haired male carefully walking up to the bedside of his best friend. It was odd to see your hair going in one direction instead of all over the place like normal, and don’t even get him started on the soft snores that came from your nose. Snoring isn’t usually the most attractive thing in the world, but this light snores from you made him think of the habit as cute.

Now, he would normally wake you up. But, just allowing himself to look at you for a moment longer without any consequences never hurt anybody. Saiki sat himself down on your floor, his eyes keeping to your closed ones as they slowly began to travel down to your lips. He doesn’t know what came over him, but it seriously began to freak him out when he started think about Kaido touching his lips with yours. After the freak out, jealousy was spiraling around in the psychic. He never knew that Kaido, of all people, would actually develop romantic feelings for you. If he did, he would have never allowed the both of you to interact the way you did at his house the other day.

Saiki let out a sigh before standing up once more, his hand came up to your shoulder slowly and began to shake it. It wasn’t long after that your eyes fluttered open and gave him that soft smile that caused his heart to skip a beat.

6. School Trip

The school trip was always the most looked forward to activity in high school. This year it was a three day trip to Okinawa. While you were excited to spend some time at a gorgeous place like Okinawa, Saiki was definitely less excited.

As kids talked with their friends in a group or just at their desks, you were currently sitting on top of Saiki’s desk with the pink haired boy sitting in the chair. This wasn’t something you always do, especially since at times Saiki has pushed you off out of retaliation, but after a moment or two of still being there, you knew he didn’t mind today.

“You excited?” You asked him.

“No. I don’t get the appeal.” He spit out, his eyes closing as he moved his head down. “I could get to Okinawa in three minutes.”

“Kusuo, not everyone is like you.” You explained. “So don’t go getting moody on this trip, I’m not letting you ruin it for me.”

“I won’t, I’m just saying a fact.” He replied.

You were about to continue with things you’re excited to do during the trip before Hairo came around to the both of you with a clip board in hand. He was responsible for dividing rooms.

“Saiki, [Name], did you guys decide on your group for the class trip?” He asked politely. “You should have three boys and three girls in your group.”

Saiki didn’t say anything, instead he just rested his head against your forearm. Perhaps he wanted Hairo to think he fell asleep and leave it to you, or maybe he was actually saying that he didn’t care as long as he was with you. Either way, you smiled at the contact and said to Hairo, “Kusuo and I will be rooming, it doesn’t matter who else is in our group.”

“Okay, great!” Hairo exclaimed as he wrote it down. “Kaido and Nendou are still available so I’ll just place Kaido with your group, and then randomly place you guys with a girls group.”

“Thanks, Hairo,” you hummed out as he walked away to probably inform Kaido about the rooming.

You never minded contact with Saiki, in fact, you sort of enjoyed it. However, seeing him still like this, even with Hario now gone, you worried.

“Hey, Kusuo,” you called out.

No answer.

“Kusuo?” You asked this time. And when he didn’t answer again you unconsciously moved your hand up to his head and moved it back to where you could look him in the eyes. Saiki’s face was still without expression, though, those eyes worried you. He seemed, almost, upset.

“Kusuo?” You asked. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, signaling that nothing was wrong. You knew he was lying.

You tilted your head, some of your hair moving with gravity to expose part of your forehead. “Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not.” He said, his voice was steady and yet, that look in his eyes still bothered you.

You knew he wasn’t going to budge but still, just because you’re going to let it go now doesn’t mean that you weren’t about to keep an eye on him.

Throughout the beginning and the first day of the trip, you kept an eye on Saiki. He seemed way more tired than usual, but that didn’t startle you. Instead, it was how he was by your side more often now when Kaido was around. You weren’t an idiot, it was pretty obvious. You didn’t mind Saiki’s attention, but you didn’t want him to think just because you were friends with Kaido that he’d be put second.

“Kusuo, can we talk?” You asked him as the two of you had the room to yourselves. The others were out and about, but the two of you decided on an early night.

“About what?” He asked as he set up his sleeping area.

“Today.” You started out. “You’ve been acting weird around Kaido. Did something happen?”

You watched Saiki carefully, so carefully that you noticed his fingers lightly curl around the blanket. You didn’t want to push him, so instead of pushing him to speak, you allowed yourself to be silent and let him take his time. You don’t remember how many minutes pasted, but you swear it felt like decades.

“Nothing happened.” He informed you. “His thoughts just aren’t for my taste at the moment.”

“His thoughts?” You questioned as you slowly approached Saiki on his blanket until you were right in front of him. “Okay, then, what’s got you all bothered? Let me guess, he’s thinking dirty things, right?”

“Sort of.” He replied.

“I bet it’s about Teruhashi,” you theorized. “Is that why you don’t like it?”

“No, it’s not about Teruhashi.”

“Really? Then who?”

Saiki went quiet once more.

You sighed. Your head moving down to get a glimpse at his face. It wasn’t until you moved your hand over by his, your finger tips brushing with his accidentally to get more stability as you leaned in did you hear him finally confess.

“It was about you.”

To say that you needed a minute to take that in was an understatement. Kaido was a good guy and all, but it was kinda startling to realize he liked guys, as well as girls, since you didn’t suspect that even for a minute with him.

“Seriously?” You asked once more.

Saiki nodded. “He asked me if he could ask you out.”

“And what did you say?”

“No.”

You couldn’t help a smile crawl upon your face with that one. You knew it was a bit hard to read Saiki, especially when it came to you, but you were just beyond happy to hear that.

“Good,” you suddenly shot out. Saiki’s head moving back up in an instant to see your happy features. “I don’t like Kaido like that anyway, saves me from breaking his heart.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope.” You hummed out. You knew this may backfire on you in more ways than one, but right now, you didn’t care. The happiness you felt told you to take a chance and throw out the bait. “I know you can’t read my mind, but I actually do have someone I like.”

Saiki aimlessly stared at you for a moment and took in the words you confessed to him. It was an odd feeling, the rapid beating of his heart, but perhaps this was finally the start of things going his way for once.

On the second day of the trip, everyone went to Emerald Beach. It was one of the many places were people could stare at others and no one would think anything of it. A perverts dream. Though, for Saiki, he just wanted to hang out with you.

“Where’s [Name]?” Kaido asked Nendou as Saiki stood behind the two.

“He said he had to go buy a swimsuit. The one he brought apparently went missing.” Nendou told the blue haired boy.

Now, that want a mistake. Sure, it may have been a dirty trick but Saiki rather die than see you in the swimsuit you brought. After all, you bought a shirt with it. He knew you didn’t take off your shirt often, even at the beach, but he was determined to see you with just a pair of shorts.

Much like how all the guys that crowded around the girls changing house waited patiently to see Teruhashi in a two piece swim suit.

It was a while after Teruhashi came out, and when everyone was in the water that you made your appearance. You had your hands wedged into your swim shirt pockets as you allowed your feet to take in the hot sand that felt magical between your toes. You gazed around for a moment before noticing pink hair sitting under an umbrella.

A devilish smirk crawled on your features as you began to slowly approach the male. This may give Saiki a heart attack, but it was worth it. As you stood over him from behind, you attacked. Your body shot down as your arms wrapped aruund his neck and pushed your chest into his bare back.

“Hey, what’s a cute guy like you doing all alone at a place like this?” You teased, allowing your voice to go on for some time so that he realized it was just you.

Saiki immediately flinched at the contact before noticing it was just you. However, when he noticed the touch of your skin against his, he could feel his entire body heat up. The sensation was new, he’s felt his face go hot before, but his entire body was a new one.

“What took you so long?” Saiki tried to play off.

You just sighed and got a tighter grip on the male, your chest pushing more into his back. “Someone stole my swimsuit. Sadly, I didn’t have enough money to replace the whole thing, so I had to go by some swim shorts.”

“Hm, as least you’re here.” Saiki stated, making sure not to comment on the ‘stolen swimsuit’.

“Yeah,” you uttered as you released Saiki from your grasp and sat down next to him. You gazed out at the beautiful ocean that was filled with laughing people with this loving look in your eyes, all the while not realizing Saiki’s held that same gaze as he stared at you.

When you did turn to him, he completely lost himself in his mind as his eyes wondered about your figure. You weren’t the most fit guy in the world, but you did have these subtle yet enchanting muscle lines along your upper body that made Saiki lose himself.

“I saw that.” You suddenly said. Saiki’s eyes now darting back to yours. “You just checked me out.”

Saiki saw no way out of this one. So, he just confessed it. “So what if I was?”

In all honesty, he just expected you to laugh and tell him that it’s only fair if he does the same. However, the twist was unexpected and, well, definitely appreciated. He watched as you gazed down, this bashful look in your eyes as you did everything to avoid his gaze. Your body language wasn’t helping either. Your fingers were tapping against the towel and the heel of your foot was moving back and forth.

Maybe this trip wasn’t totally for nothing.

7. All That Was A Secret

Spring break. It was one of those weeks that Saiki went to go visit his grandparents all the way in the middle fo nowhere. So, for the most of this break, you were home alone.

It was kind of boring. This break was definitely not one that you looked forward to, more now then before, especially after the beach during the class trip. Those words always ended up repeating in your mind, way too much then you thought they would. Then again, you shouldn’t be surprised. All those days that you’d try to subtly touch him, tease him, it was just a way to relieve yourself of the pent up emotions you’ve had for him for a few years now.

Currently, you were in your room upon your bed, hugging one of your pillows close to your chest. You never tried to dwell on if Saiki felt the same or not, but recently, it’s been clawing at you more and more. It wasn’t like you didn’t think you had a chance, but more if Saiki was more comfortable just staying friends. You would understand, even if it would hurt, you’d do it for him. You’d do anything for that guy.

You sighed before slowly lifting your body off the bed. Today wasn’t a good day for being sad, it was summer break, after all. You knew you had to get your mind off Saiki, and him being away made it a bit easier. So, you grabbed some clothes from your closet and laid them on the bed. You weren’t sure what you were going to do, but you were determined to fine something to take your mind off him.

You let your pants drop to the ground before taking the ones on your bed and letting your legs slip through each of the pant legs. Next, you stripped your shirt off and took in a deep breath. You paused for a moment before dropping the dirty shirt on the ground and grabbing the new one. In all honestly, you never really pay attention to your surroundings when changing. But, does anyone? It wasn’t until your head went through the hole on the top of the shirt did you realize that the bed in front of you was now missing and the wall you were staring at was not the wall of your bed room. When you turned your head, you locked eyes with Saiki in an unfamiliar room.

“Huh?” You uttered under your breath before your eyes widened, your face felling hotter than usual before frantically pulling your shirt all the way down. Once down, you opened your mouth and said, “You can’t do that without me knowing! What if I was in the middle of a shower or something and not just changing?”

“I would have given you some of my clothes.” He replied nonchalantly.

You bit the inside of your cheek before crossing your arms over your chest. “Why did you teleport me anyway?”

“I can’t stand it here.” Saiki confessed. Of course, you knew he didn’t exactly enjoying visiting his grandparents but he has never done this before. “Just hang out with me. I’ll send you back after.”

You sighed. You can’t exactly say no after that, so, with that Saiki and you began to watch a movie. It wasn’t one you two watched before so it was easy to get lost in it. Though, it was also easy to focus on Saiki when he suddenly placed his hand on top of yours as you guys watched. You weren’t too sure if he thought you wouldn’t notice, but there was no way you were going to pull away. After all, it’s not like he placed his fingers between yours, if he did that, you don’t know if you could handle it.

After a half an hour into the movie you finally got the plot of it, and you weren’t amused at all. It was a best friends to lovers troupe. More specifically, childhood friends that drifted apart only to be brought back together by work and now slowly are developing feelings for one another. Let’s just say now, you were a little more than nervous.

Thank god Saiki couldn’t read your mind, because now, you feel like you’d give him a headache. You couldn’t help but ask yourself if he knows and is only doing this to taunt you, or maybe this was all just a big coincident. Yeah, one massive coincident. In reality though, Saiki was just teasing you. He had no idea of your feelings but he wanted to watch the movie with you to implant the idea in his mind of the possibility.

Well, his plan was working. Maybe a little too much. Though, as you were about to spit something out, your eyes suddenly shot down to the floor in embarrassment. Yep, a make out scene. Of course, Saiki had no idea about that, but it was better than just the sappy stuff cause now it was really ingrained in your head.

Once it was over and you had somewhat of your cool back you couldn’t help it. You needed to ask. If it blew up in flames, then so be it.

“Hey, Saiki,” you uttered out lowly. Saiki caught it immediately and turned his gaze on you. “I have a.. question.”

“What?” He asked.

“Well,” your voice trailed off as you moved your eyes down to where both of your hands connected. “We’ve been best friends for a long time now but, have you ever, um, thought about doing...that?

Saiki remained quiet for a moment, his thoughts going everywhere before thinking to himself, ‘All the time, actually.’

As much as he wish he could have said that telepathically, he could never try to say that vocally. So, he just opted for a nod and watched your body flinch. The hand he touched growing warm.

“You’re hot.” Saiki suddenly spit out. This time, you brought your hand back to your body so he couldn’t tell anymore.

“S-So what?” You stuttered out.

To say that Saiki didn’t like this side of you was an understatement. He’s never never seen you so flustered before, and it was really adorable to look at.

“It’s cute.” Saiki commented, his body leaning in just to see your face closer.

You turned your head to the side, eyes darting to the tv just to look away for a moment to compose yourself. You knew that there wasn’t gonna be another perfect moment like this so, you slowly reached over to place your hand on the back of Saiki’s neck. It was warm. When he noticed what you wanted as you started to lean back and gently pull him with you, he complied quickly until he gazed at you from above. Suddenly, he was jealous at the fact that Kaido got to see this view before him.

He stared at you for a moment before watching you bite down on your bottom lip, his mind doing backflips at the want to read your mind, but also at how good you looked under him.

“Kiss me.” You whispered under your breath, just loud enough for him to hear.

“If I do,” Saiki uttered lowly. “I might not be able to stop.”

“That’s okay.”

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