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robininthelabyrinth · 9 months

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The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 13

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

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“When you say gone and missing, what precisely do you mean?” Wen Ruohan asked.

Wang Liu shrugged. “Exactly that, Sect Leader. The two heirs of Gusu Lan were last seen at their lessons, shortly before the delegation left for the Yunmeng, and not since.”

It wasn’t that Wen Ruohan hadn’t understood what his spy meant. It was just that he couldn’t believe it.

“In the sense that they were kidnapped,” he said slowly, “or in the sense that they’ve run away?”

“It is my belief that the latter is more likely. There have been no recent threats, and Gusu Lan’s gate wards remain unbroken – no one without a pass token has entered or exited.”

That was at least something, Wen Ruohan supposed. Still, when Lan Qiren found out…

Wen Ruohan did not want to imagine Lan Qiren’s reaction to finding out that his brother had somehow managed to misplace Lan Qiren’s beloved nephews. Not after all the work he’d put into keeping the man intact for his own purposes! And for that matter, how had Qingheng-jun permitted something like that to happen? He’d only had sole guardianship of the boys for a handful of months! They were his own sons and heirs!

Wen Ruohan was not particularly fond of children, not even his own, and his taste for the pleasures of familial life had largely evaporated after the death of his first family. But he hadn’t gotten to where he was by being careless, and so Wen Ruohan made a point of always knowing where his sons were, what they were doing, and what company they were keeping at any given time. To not know that was to invite disaster, and that was even without behaving in such a way as to make them think running away was a better option!

Currently, Wen Xu, his oldest, was at nearly fifteen finally getting to the point that he was worth talking to. About half a year prior, he’d expressed an interest in the army and Wen Ruohan had happily granted his wish, sending him to train under one of his generals. Lu Qipei had made some token protests about her son leaving her side, but she’d been satisfied enough with the placement. Wen Ruohan suspected she would have preferred that he just give the boy command outright, never mind that he was underage – but as Wen Ruohan had not yet reached that depth of madness, he ignored all her hints and hoped instead that Wen Xu would actually genuinely learn something from the experience. In contrast, Wen Chao was only eight, so he remained in the Nightless City, but his daily life was filled with tutors and friends, overseen by his mother (and Lu Qipei, who often offered her “help”). Wen Ruohan had assigned him Wen Zhuliu, the Core-melting Hand, as a bodyguard and personal servant, ensuring that no one would ever dare challenge or threaten his son.

He certainly had never lost either of them.

Much less both!

Oh, Lan Qiren was definitely going to have another meltdown when he heard the news. Wen Ruohan couldn’t even imagine what that one would be like…and Wen Ruohan did not want him to have another meltdown. He had plans! Plans that involved Lan Qiren being of sound mind!

And now Qingheng-jun was, through sheer negligence, going to mess with those plans.

Wen Ruohan reached up and pressed his forehead above the bridge of his nose in a rare outward concession to his frustration.

“Do the Lan know where their heirs went?” he asked, forcefully restraining his temper. Thoughts of stabbing Qingheng-jun were pleasant, but not productive. However he might feel about the other man at the moment, he was the sect leader of a Great Sect, and not trifled with lightly. “For that matter, if their heirs are missing, why isn’t there more of a frenzy on their side?”

“The Lan sect disciples at the Cloud Recesses are trying to see if they can find the heirs before reporting to Sect Leader Lan on their absence,” Wang Liu reported, which made sense. Better to report that they’d temporarily misplaced the children rather than have to report having lost them, minimizing the fact of their failure by mitigating it in advance. “It was initially believed that they were simply hiding away somewhere in the Cloud Recesses, possibly as some sort of protest, but they’ve since ruled that out. They’ve sent disciples down to Caiyi and are now searching there. If they can’t find them there…”

Then they’d have no choice but to send a message to their sect leader, confessing all.

After all, the boys were only nine and six. They weren’t exactly accustomed to travel. If they weren’t in the Cloud Recesses, and they weren’t in the nearby town, and the only people who’d passed the Lan sect’s gates were those with the approved pass tokens, the only plausible place they could be was...

Here.

“You got the news early?” Wen Ruohan asked, then nodded in approval when Wang Liu confirmed. “Well done.”

“Thank you, Sect Leader. Your grace is immeasurable. Do you want us to start searching Gusu Lan’s baggage for them now? We could find and secure them before the Lan sect admits to themselves that they are lost.”

It was a tempting thought. Wen Ruohan could imagine the scene now: Lan Qiren noticing the increasing hubbub on the Lan sect’s side and growing concerned, eventually (reluctantly) turning to ask Wen Ruohan if he knew anything, Wen Ruohan drawing him off to the side to privately tell him, Lan Qiren’s moment of shock and horror, delicious in its suffering, which then melted away into profound relief and appreciation when Wen Ruohan murmured in his ear that he’d already sent people for them and found them – that they were safe, and secure, and with him –

Wen Ruohan wasn’t sure exactly what would happen after that, but he was certain it wouldn’t be boring.

It was a beautiful image.

Sadly, common sense intervened.

“No need,” Wen Ruohan said. “Let us not risk your cover on such a thing.”

Even if he found the boys first, he wouldn’t be able to take them away without being caught. The Lan sect was on the verge of confessing to their sect leader that the children had been lost. Once they did that, a search would undoubtedly begin at once, and then it would be impossible for him to hide the fact that he’d ordered his men to start the search early. Once that came out, whether or not he’d secured them by then, he would be blamed for having tried to spirit them away – and unfortunately, there were still things Wen Ruohan could not do, lines he could not cross and taboos he could not violate. Neither his power nor his insanity had yet grown to the level where he thought he could get away with stealing the heirs of the other sects.

(Yet. That was what Lan Qiren was for.)

Wang Liu must not have thought of that. Well, he was still relatively new.

“Sect Leader, are you sure?” Wang Liu asked, frowning. “If we miss this chance, it is unlikely we will be able to gain access to the children in the future – ”

“I’m certain,” Wen Ruohan said firmly, making it clear that his patience was starting to slip. He appreciated his spies, but he did not permit anyone to question his decisions. “You’re dismissed.”

Wang Liu saluted respectfully and absented himself very quickly. Presumably he still remembered what happened to people that got on Wen Ruohan’s bad side.

Wen Ruohan forgot about Wang Liu the moment he left, instead opting to look around the room he was in, the one used to store the considerable luggage his sect had brought with them, with a critical eye. After a moment, he pulled out a piece of talisman paper from his sleeve. He hadn’t bothered doing this for himself in ages, but calling for a servant would take both more time and more energy – for the talisman, he just needed a few strokes, a twist of power, a little focus…

The talisman activated in a flash, splitting into four and flying onto all four walls of the room, the pattern on them stretching out until they covered the entirety of the walls, then dissipating. The gentle background sounds of the Lotus Pier went with them, the privacy arrays locking it all down into silence.

“There we go,” Wen Ruohan said, and smirked in triumph. “Would you like to come out now?”

No reaction at all.

“I know you’re there.”

Still nothing.

Fine, then. He’d go for the kill.

“And to think how upset Lan Qiren will be when I tell him that he missed you – ”

Two small heads, adorned with Lan sect ribbons, immediately popped up from one of the larger trunks, right where Wen Ruohan had noticed them earlier. His cultivation was too high for him not to have noticed the presence of two children hiding away close by like that: he’d heard the rustling of their robes, felt the small pulses of spiritual energy, smelled the faint hints of sandalwood from the incense packets hidden in their clothing. He hadn’t especially cared, of course, since they’d been too far away to hear or see him talking with Wang Liu – what did some stowaways matter?

Then he’d found out who they likely were.

After all, just because Wen Ruohan couldn’t search for them and couldn’t take them away didn’t mean there wasn’t an advantage to be had in finding them.

The older boy, who must be Lan Xichen, looked properly appalled, just like Lan Qiren when he was faced by some profound breach of etiquette, though on a far smaller and rounder face; it wasn’t clear whether it was because of Wen Ruohan’s implicit threat or simply the idea of his uncle being upset. The younger one, Lan Wangji, who was even rounder than his big brother and looked even more like a big soft bao, merely looked determined, hopping out of the trunk and marching straight towards Wen Ruohan, his two little fists gripped tightly at his side, teeth bared –

“Wangji, no!” Lan Xichen yelped, throwing himself forward.

Wen Ruohan bemusedly lowered his hand, which had very abruptly flown up to the level of his face – he’d had to withdraw it very quickly in order to keep from being bitten.

Bitten.

By a junior version of Lan Qiren!

“Where is Shufu?” the little boy demanded, heedless of his older brother rushing forward to try to tug him back. “Bring me to him right now!”

Lan Wangji was lucky that Wen Ruohan was too busy trying to imagine what Lan Qiren must have looked like at a similar age to strike him down for his insolence. The effort wasn’t working very well, even though Wen Ruohan assumed that Lan Qiren must have resembled Lan Wangji as he was now – but no, Wen Ruohan really just couldn’t see the other man as anything other than the antique he’d already been by his early twenties.

“Please let me apologize on my brother’s behalf, Senior Wen,” Lan Xichen said urgently. “He’s just very distressed, he doesn’t mean it.”

Wen Ruohan glanced down at him. “Do not tell lies,” he drawled, and Lan Xichen winced and turned red with embarrassment. “He most certainly meant it. And it’s Sect Leader Wen.”

It was only when both boys gasped that he realized that he should have kept his identity a secret. He hadn’t realized that they actually hadn’t recognized him – if he’d realized, he would have kept it back and used it as leverage, played with them until they’d said something particularly dreadful or embarrassing.

It just hadn’t occurred to him that they were being genuinely ignorant rather than just speaking too fast. Everyone recognized him.

But of course it made perfect sense that these little children wouldn’t. Lan Qiren had never allowed a single child of his sect under the age of thirteen anywhere near the discussion conferences, not even the ones his sect had hosted. Once someone had asked about it, more teasing than curious. In return Lan Qiren had given a ponderous frown and started reciting rules of etiquette in his dull monotone until everyone’s ears had started bleeding and the person who’d asked looked as though he regretted being born.

Moreover, these weren’t just any children, but Lan Qiren’s children. They probably even obeyed the rules against gossip…though it was fairly clear from the look of worry on both their faces that they had at least some notion about some of the rumors that accompanied Wen Ruohan’s name.

“You are the one who has Shufu,” Lan Wangji hissed like a little viper. “Give him back!”

“Wangji!”

Lan Xichen had to literally pick up his brother to keep him from lunging forward.

There was something intrinsically funny about the sight of one boy hoisting the other up by the waist to keep him in place, barely able to keep standing steadily given all the wiggling and kicking. Somehow, when Wen Ruohan had heard about Lan Qiren’s two nephews that he had personally raised, it had never occurred to him that the man might have raised one normal child and one absolute hellion.

“Wangji, behave,” Lan Xichen said, and put his brother down. “You won’t get anywhere with Sect Leader Wen by trying to bite him. He’s a very reasonable person. I’m sure he doesn’t want us to cause a fuss, because then people might come here and think he was the one who brought us here.”

Make that two absolute hellions.

Wen Ruohan’s eyebrows arched involuntarily. “Are you trying to blackmail me?” he asked, deeply amused. And also pleased that he’d bothered to take the time to set up the privacy talisman earlier, because Lan Xichen wasn’t wrong. “I’m certain that’s against your sect rules, little Lan.”

Lan Xichen looked up at him with a set face, stubborn determination in every line of him. “Is that so, Sect Leader Wen? Which one? Please educate this junior.”

Lan Qiren had raised these children?

On second thought, of course he had. Who else could take something so fundamentally uninteresting as children, who were boring, needy, and unpleasant until they’d at least completed adolescence, and create such a fascinatingly unpredictable mix of contrasts, cloaked in seemingly implacable Lan sect righteousness?

And if he could do that with his own children…really, Wen Ruohan had already been eager enough to see Lan Qiren teaching when his sole interest had been in hearing Lan Qiren dominate a classroom, but now he was really crawling out of his skin with anticipation. Perhaps he would even send his own sons to him to see if maybe Lan Qiren could somehow salvage the wrecks their insipid personalities and mothers had made of them – after all, they were Wen, and thus deserved the best. And everyone agreed that Lan Qiren was the best.

“My sect also has a list of sayings by which we are to abide,” he said instead. “All left behind by the founder, my ancestor. Do you know which one applies in this situation?”

They both looked uncertain.

“Neither do I. Because under my rule, they have become obsolete.” Wen Ruohan’s lips curled back into a sneer. “I would recommend against underestimating me.”

The intimidation worked beautifully against Lan Xichen, just as intended: the boy paled and looked as though he were reviewing everything he must have heard about Wen Ruohan in his mind all at once, and pairing that with the fact that Wen Ruohan had his beloved uncle within his grasp.

Lan Wangji, in contrast, scrunched up his face angrily, shouted “Arrogance is forbidden!” and smacked Wen Ruohan right in the knee with his little fist.

And then he burst into tears.

“Oh no,” Lan Xichen said, clearly horrified. He tried to reach out to grab his brother once more, only for Lan Wangji to throw himself on the floor and start hitting it with his fists, still sobbing, but with his mouth pursed as if he were trying desperately not to make too much noise during his temper tantrum.

Causing noise is prohibited, if Wen Ruohan had to bet. Those ridiculous Lan sect rules…

He really did look like a little Lan Qiren.

Wen Ruohan crouched down in front of Lan Wangji, wondering briefly if he should restrain him the way he had ultimately restrained Lan Qiren during his own fit – probably not, since Lan Qiren had commented that in the future he would prefer if Wen Ruohan limited his involvement to merely ensuring that there was nothing breakable in the vicinity and keeping other people away. Likely that was the course of action he would recommend to others as well.

It made Wen Ruohan again wonder if this was what Lan Qiren had looked like as a child, all chubby cheeks, red faced and utterly miserable.

No, he still couldn’t imagine it. Given the poor relationship between Lan Qiren and his brother, which must have started in their childhood, he simply could not imagine Lan Qiren being spoiled and beloved and secure enough in himself to have a fit out in the open in front of strangers. Though perhaps he was being unduly dismissive of Lan Wangji – the boy’s life had been through rather a lot of changes recently, all negative, and he’d already seen the impact of a similar thing on the already adult Lan Qiren. Sometimes meltdowns were simply inevitable.

No matter.

“How often do these fits happen?” he asked Lan Xichen, who was wringing his hands and bouncing up and down on his toes in profound distress.

“More often than they used to,” Lan Xichen replied in what was practically a wail. “He used to have much better self-control. That is, before – before Shufu…Wangji doesn’t like change.”

“Mm. Neither does your uncle.”

Lan Xichen glanced at him sidelong, gnawing on his lower lip. “Earlier…I heard…is my Shufu really your wife?”

“I’m his,” Wen Ruohan corrected, then grinned at the sweet memory of the disaster Lan Qiren had caused earlier by publicly calling him his wife. The cultivation world was never going to get over that one. “Tell me, what was your plan, hiding yourselves here? Why didn’t you try to go find your uncle straight away?”

“We didn’t know if he was going to be at the conference,” Lan Xichen said, looking abashed. “But he’d certainly be in the Nightless City, wouldn’t he?”

“I see. And when you were found in my possession? What were you planning to do then?”

“We wouldn’t be found!” At Wen Ruohan’s doubtful look, Lan Xichen puffed out his cheeks and pouted. “We wouldn’t. We weren’t found until now, were we?”

That was only because no one had properly looked.

Wen Ruohan decided to refrain from commenting. He could wait until a more appropriate moment to ruin the boy’s illusions – or at least until he managed to figure out what he intended to do with them. As he’d already determined earlier, there was no way he could smuggle them out of the Lotus Pier and to the Nightless City himself. Once the two children’s escapade was discovered, he and Lan Qiren would be immediate targets for suspicion. Their baggage would be searched, their retinue investigated, no stone left unturned. There was a limit to how clever even he could be, trying to hide something away when the focus of the entire cultivation world was on him.

And yet the other option was even less appealing: to bring Lan Qiren so close to the children he so longed to see, and yet not letting them see one another. Or worse, letting them see each other and then sending the boys back to the Cloud Recesses, thereby delivering the most powerful card over Lan Qiren into the hands of their father, Wen Ruohan’s rival in power.

No, that was intolerable. The boys had to come with him.

As for how – well, he’d think of something.

He was Wen Ruohan, after all. He always got what he wanted, eventually.

“Are you done?” he asked Lan Wangji, who seemed to have exhausted himself.

“I want to see Shufu,” Lan Wangji replied. Stubborn brat. “I want to see Shufu right now.”

“That can be arranged,” Wen Ruohan said. Both boys lit up, as he’d expected them to. Children were painfully easy to manipulate. “What will you give me in exchange?”

They both stared at him, clearly wondering if he was being serious.

Naturally he was. He would never have bothered if they were just two ordinary children, of course, but these were Lan Qiren’s children.

“Do not take advantage of your position to oppress others,” Lan Xichen finally said.

Cute.

“Do not be wasteful,” Wen Ruohan replied, fighting down the amused curl of his lips. He’d gotten pretty good at irritating Lan Qiren with his own sect rules, these past few months. A few children would be nothing.

“Do not build wealth using others,” Lan Wangji volunteered.

“…do you even have any wealth?” Wen Ruohan wondered, abruptly distracted, and tried not to laugh when Lan Xichen dug a single piece of silver out of his sleeve to proudly show off to him. His own little Chao-er had a monthly allowance of ten times that amount, but then again the Wen sect wasn’t nearly as fond of frugality as the Lan. “Don’t be unreasonable. How about a favor? One each.”

“A…favor?”

“Why not? I’m doing you a favor by bringing you to your shufu, aren’t I? Propriety suggests reciprocity.”

The boys looked at each other, clearly wary and searching for a trap, or at least a way out of the one they were in. That alone made them smarter than any number of sect leaders Wen Ruohan had to deal with on a regular basis, many of whom were blindly self-confident even when knowing the caliber of their enemy. In fact, even Lao Nie would generally agree to just about anything rather than owe Wen Ruohan an open-ended favor without limitation – he knew, as all smart people knew, that Wen Ruohan always remembered what he was owed, and that he was more than willing to wait for just the right moment to call it out, even if it took decades.

He had the time.

But in the end, wary as they might be, these were still only children.

“All right,” Lan Xichen finally said, clearly unable to think of another solution that would satisfy the situation and reluctantly accepting it. “One favor each. But nothing bad!”

Wen Ruohan thought about it, then inclined his head in agreement. Vagueness in a contract was beneficial to both sides, and he could go quite far with the wiggle room ‘nothing bad’ offered him.

Lan Xichen looked relieved. For his part, Lan Wangji looked between the two of them and nodded firmly, signaling his own consent to the arrangement. And then, having apparently decided that Wen Ruohan now qualified as a good adult, he held up his arms and said “Up!” to Wen Ruohan in an imperious tone.

“Not a chance,” Wen Ruohan informed him. These two children might be more tolerable than most, but he wasn’t about to start indulging them. “You have two legs, you can walk. Or ask your brother, if your fit earlier has truly incapacitated you.”

He waved away the privacy barrier and began walking back to the rooms he had been assigned, weaving his way through the many bridges and floating platforms of the Lotus Pier. Presumably Lan Qiren would be back from the ducks by now – though Wen Ruohan supposed he was the one who’d ended up being trailed by ducklings.

He found that he was looking forward to presenting his newest prizes to Lan Qiren.

Lan Qiren’s reaction would be amazing. The other man would undoubtedly be quick to realize the same issues with their presence and disposition as Wen Ruohan had, of course, but he was still a Lan; he would be emotional first, rational second. Seeing his nephews for the first time in months would snap that reserve of his in two like a twig, and Wen Ruohan wouldn’t have to suffer that dull-as-dishwater self-effacing persona that Lan Qiren had adopted as soon as they were in public.

Truly, it had been more irritating than Wen Ruohan had realized it would be, seeing Lan Qiren forcefully stuff all of the interesting things about him – his sharp insight, his fiery temper, his well-concealed ruthlessness – back into the perfect model of the navel-gazing scholar, untouched by mortal filth. That might be appropriate for the Lan sect, but Lan Qiren wasn’t here to represent them. He was here for Qishan Wen, as he himself had admitted. Admitted repeatedly, and in public.

The Wen sect did not hide their talents. They didn’t hide that they were better than everyone else.

It was more than that, though. Lan Qiren’s behavior made it painfully clear that he had been brought up to be a proper second son, always staying one step behind and ready to offer support without eclipsing the first son, not as beloved as his brother and excruciatingly aware of it. Given that he was so obviously superior to his brother in every respect, it grated on Wen Ruohan’s nerves to see him act like that.

But all that was in the past, now. He was better than that now.

Husband or not, Lan Qiren was Madam Wen now. He ought to act like it.

Perhaps Wen Ruohan would suggest that Lan Qiren learn a little from Lan Wangji. Now there was a younger son the way a younger son ought to be: deeply beloved and spoiled rotten, utterly certain that he deserved everything good in the world because his family had always strived to give it to him. He certainly didn’t seem to have any trouble being appropriately demanding, assuming other people’s acquiescence to his will as if it were inevitable.

Yes, this was going to be a great deal of fun. Lan Qiren would have his moment with his nephews, emotional as it would undoubtedly be, and then he would master himself and return to Wen Ruohan’s side so that they could plan out how to manage the fall-out when the boys were inevitably discovered.

Really, it was such a pleasure to have someone smart enough to actually keep up with him.

It was a painful rarity, especially when coupled with loyalty or straightforwardness. Most of the people who were actually smart enough to anticipate Wen Ruohan’s plans were too greedy or presumptuous to be tolerated, and the ones who were matchlessly loyal tended to be too stupid to talk to. Wen Ruohan trusted no one, of course, but doubting Lan Qiren was practically pointless, an exercise in futility…

A small hand tugged at his sleeve.

Wen Ruohan looked down.

“Don’t we need to hide?” Lan Xichen whispered loudly to him. “Anyone could see us!”

“Don’t be absurd,” Wen Ruohan said, shaking him loose. “I would be able to tell if anyone were coming long before they got anywhere near.”

“And then we’d hide?” Lan Xichen asked.

“No,” Lan Wangji replied before Wen Ruohan could say anything. “He’d kill them for seeing us.”

“Wangji. Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t!”

“The rule against killing is only in the Cloud Recesses. So why not?”

“Because it would still be wrong! Also, he wouldn’t be able to get away with it. Not in the middle of a discussion conference.”

Sad but true.

Wen Ruohan wondered if Lan Qiren had deliberately trained Lan Xichen to be more practical, a necessity in a sect leader, while Lan Wangji, as a younger son, had the luxury of being intransigent, or if the two boys’ characters had simply ended up that way by chance.

He really would need to give Lan Qiren a chance to make something out of his Xu-er and Chao-er. They weren’t bad boys, as far as Wen Ruohan could tell, and naturally, as his sons, he was proud of them, but just as obviously he wanted them to be outstanding adults, befitting the dignity of his bloodline. And even he could tell that the present difference between his Chao-er and Lan Xichen, or even Lan Wangji, was quite wide…

“He’d probably just hit them really hard on the head instead,” Lan Xichen concluded. “At most.”

“Mm. That would work.”

Very cute.

There was no point in telling the boys that Wen Ruohan was both so powerful that he could easily sense and avoid anyone coming their way and also a master of arrays, including those that were more than capable of hiding two children. It would be much funnier if he told Lan Qiren later about how they had plotted for him to incapacitate any enemy that came across their path. Lan Qiren would make such a face…

Ah, and just as he thought of him, Wen Ruohan turned a corner and there was the man himself, standing right outside the entrance to their rooms. He was unmistakable in his white-and-red robes and Lan sect forehead ribbon, his back straight and his face turned away from where Wen Ruohan was standing.

He was not alone.

He was talking with a woman – or perhaps more accurately, a woman was talking to him. She was tall for a woman, dressed in clothing of a rogue cultivator with no clan insignia, though there was a horsetail whip tucked into her belt alongside her sword. She moved one of her hands as she spoke, almost as though she were signing what she was saying.

The nails of the hand she was waving around were lacquered a very dark red, and very sharp. Not just the ones for playing guqin, either, but all five. Her other hand –

Her other hand was wrapped around Lan Qiren’s wrist.

And Lan Qiren was letting her.

Wen Ruohan stopped, knowing that the two boys were too small to see as far as he did, and glanced around – ah, there was another set of rooms here. Probably one of his subordinate sects, since no one else would agree to be placed so close to his Qishan Wen. The entryway was locked, but he forced it easily with a palm and held it open for the children.

“Your uncle is not far,” he told them, observing the way their faces both took on a hungry cast, as if they could think of nothing that they longed for more than the sight of Lan Qiren. “But he is not alone. Wait here until you hear me call.”

They went in obediently, although Lan Wangji had to put his clenched fist to his mouth and bite it in order to motivate himself to do so – he clearly wanted more than anything to run straight to his beloved uncle, as if simply being in his presence would cure all previous ills.

Ah, the stupidity of youth. Was I ever that young?

Perhaps once. He’d learned better quickly enough – betrayal had a way of doing that.

He didn’t bother applying another privacy talisman, knowing that the flare of spiritual energy would be enough to draw the attention of other cultivators, particularly one as sharp as Lan Qiren. The children would be fine without it, and if they weren’t…well, that wasn’t really his concern, in the end. What did he care?

They were just Lan Qiren’s nephews, not his.

Moreover, Wen Ruohan wanted to maintain the element of surprise. He wanted to see Lan Qiren’s face when he tried to explain what exactly he was doing, as if he’d completely forgotten that he’d written Do not give your wife reason to doubt your fidelity with his own hand on his own list of personal rules on how to be a good and worthy husband. Rules he was meant to follow.

Had that one been included as a trick? It only said “do not give reason to doubt” – could that be the loophole, that it focused more on Wen Ruohan’s doubt than Lan Qiren’s own fidelity…?

“I am fairly certain that cannot be accurate,” Lan Qiren was saying as Wen Ruohan stalked closer. He sounded somewhere between appalled and resigned, as far as Wen Ruohan could tell; it was sometimes difficult to determine given his general inclination towards monotone. “Why in the world – no, on second thought, please do not explain. I have no desire to hear any more.”

“Don’t give up on learning,” the woman said, her voice surprisingly deep, lively and cheerful. Was this the type Lan Qiren liked? She had a certain wild beauty about her, barely tamed, and even her hair was set in something that was neither the style of a maiden nor that of a married woman, more like that of a man at leisure. She was powerful, much more so than he would have expected of a woman her age. Nowhere near Wen Ruohan’s own strength, but he supposed that meant that at least Lan Qiren’s taste in partners had that much in common. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your family rules so quickly after marriage. Your memory isn’t supposed to be one of the things you give up when you make your marriage vows – you should pick something less necessary. Like freedom, or blood.”

Wen Ruohan paused. What?

“I…do not think you are supposed to give up your blood,” Lan Qiren said slowly, although he was oddly hesitant. Possibly he was simply wary of upsetting an obviously crazy person. “Or that such a thing is – possible.”

“You’ve been talking with the wrong people, then,” the woman said, brisk but cheerful. “Or thinking too narrowly, which you have a bad tendency to do. You and all the other Lan, always thinking straight! You should look around more – to look down more. Being in the Wen sect will be good for you. It’ll broaden your horizons.”

Then she giggled.

“Get it?” she said. “Horizons?”

Lan Qiren was visibly staring at her. Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe she’d been the one to grab onto him, and he’d only refused to shake her off because he feared what she might do.

“…no,” he said. “I do not ‘get it’. At all.”

“I think it’s especially apt now that you’re married! If there’s one thing I’ve found about getting married, it’s that it means you spend a lot more time being horizontal – ”

“Cangse Sanren!” Lan Qiren shouted, having clearly ‘gotten it’ this time.

Wen Ruohan’s eyebrows arched up immediately. He knew that name: Cangse Sanren was the immortal Baoshan Sanren’s disciple, who had descended from the celestial mountain. It would certainly explain how powerful she was, the spiritual energy coiled within her and glowing with strength.

Wen Ruohan had seen her once before, shortly after her descent from the immortal’s mountain. He’d been as curious as the rest of them, possibly more so given his own personal quest for immortality, but he hadn’t managed to make many inroads – she’d been quite fiercely protected by Jiang Fengmian at the time, the young man nominating himself to act as her escort and guardian as she traveled through the cultivation world to visit various sects. He’d been right to be so protective, of course, since at the time, it seemed as though half the world had been in love with her. It was no wonder Wen Ruohan hadn’t recognized her; it had been quite a few years since then, and she was no longer the young girl she had once been. He’d heard that she’d become a rogue cultivator after marrying Jiang Fengmian’s servant rather than the man himself – perhaps that was why she was here to visit him during the discussion conference, when the publicity would help quell the inevitability of gossip, rather than in private.

If Wen Ruohan recalled correctly, Lan Qiren had been acquainted with her back in their youth as well; they were of an age with each other, and would have been peers. She had spent a summer in the Cloud Recesses. In fact, from what Wen Ruohan had heard, while Lan Qiren had not been one of the many suitors that had proposed marriage to her, he was said to have liked her a great deal…

Wen Ruohan’s anger, which had been temporarily dampened by confusion, rekindled.

“I suspect the joke may relate to me,” he said as he came up to them, voice intentionally chilly, reflecting his displeasure. Oddly enough, Lan Qiren didn’t jump or try to hide away from him, which meant that he was either a better actor than Wen Ruohan had assumed or perhaps that he genuinely possessed no feelings of guilt. “The midday sun faces no horizon and looks down upon all the earth.”

“That’s the one,” Cangse Sanren said agreeably. She didn’t seem bothered by his presence either, and rudely pointed to him with those sharp red nails of hers – though interestingly now that he was close by, he couldn’t smell any lacquer or powdered herbs on them. Surely they weren’t that color naturally…? “That’s the joke. But also the Wen sect are all a bunch of arrogant – ”

“Cangse Sanren,” Lan Qiren hissed. “Do not use vulgar language!”

“I was going to say surgeons!” Cangse Sanren turned to look at Wen Ruohan, fixing him with an unexpected glare. “You’ve got medical skills, don’t you? You took long enough to get here. Fix him.”

She nodded at Lan Qiren.

Wen Ruohan frowned and turned to follow her gaze to Lan Qiren – who looked awful, now that he was actually looking at him. His lips were thin, pressed tight from tension, and all the skin of his face unusually pale, his lips unusually red. There was a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth that hadn’t been wiped off properly, and a matching stain on his sleeve.

He’d been coughing up blood.

“Didn’t you go to feed ducks?” Wen Ruohan asked, the chill that had filled him abruptly melting away in the heat of his irritation. He grabbed Lan Qiren’s other wrist to check his pulse – weak, miserable, distressed – and immediately started transferring over spiritual energy to stabilize him. As Cangse Sanren had been doing through his other wrist, he could now see. “How did you manage to get into a state like this? Did a particularly violent goose break one of your sect rules?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lan Qiren said, equally irritated. Wen Ruohan was pleased to note that he immediately shook off Cangse Sanren’s hand as soon as he was in possession of superior assistance. “It seems that I am too regular with my habits. My brother was waiting for me there.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed.

He’d known, of course, that Qingheng-jun wouldn’t take well to seeing Lan Qiren well and whole and intact – that had been part of the fun he’d been expected – but he hadn’t anticipated that the man would actually take action against Lan Qiren. He knew he hated him, of course, he’d based his entire strategy in making the marriage offer to Qingheng-jun on that fact. But even putting aside the taboo of injuring your own blood kin, surely the man didn’t hate his own brother enough to waste the benefits he’d managed to use Lan Qiren to obtain for his sect, and certainly particularly not before he’d actually had the chance to seize them…? After all, Qingheng-jun was a sect leader, however long he had lapsed in the position, and for a sect leader, the sect always came first.

But if, despite all that, Qingheng-jun had still raised his hand against someone wearing Wen Ruohan's colors –

"He didn't do anything to me," Lan Qiren added sourly, presumably picking up on Wen Ruohan's murderous expression. "I did it to myself."

"To yourself?" Cangse Sanren echoed. She sounded suitably skeptical. "How, exactly? Walked into a post hard enough to cause internal injuries, did you?"

"I really did walk into a post that time," Lan Qiren informed her, confirming Wen Ruohan’s sudden seething suspicion that it had been a reference to some shared past event. "But no. Nothing so crude. He baited me with words, not even objectionable words, and I fell for it. I allowed him to get to me to such a point that I grew unbearably angry – to the point that I nearly died of rage like…like some sort of Nie!"

Wen Ruohan choked. That might be the rudest thing he’d ever heard Lan Qiren say, scornful and definitely violating the rules against sneering and contempt.

(Wen Ruohan was such a bad influence on Lan Qiren. He gloried in it.)

“I don’t think we can go that far,” Cangse Sanren said, unmoved. Presumably she didn’t realize what a momentous event Lan Qiren coming anywhere near the vicinity of a pejorative was. “I’m no doctor, I’ve got no medical skills, but I’m pretty sure your current state can’t be diagnosed as ‘dying’.”

Lan Qiren glanced warily at Wen Ruohan.

“It’s not,” Wen Ruohan confirmed with a scoff. “You’re hardier than you think you are.”

It was that pure and shining golden core of his again, keeping him stable and helping him swiftly recover his equilibrium. Absent some truly tremendous trauma, some deeply intimate betrayal, Lan Qiren would be a hard man to break.

“See?” Cangse Sanren said haughtily. “Nothing but exaggeration. You’re worse than my son, and he’ll complain just to hear the sound of his own voice.”

“I recall hearing that you have a son,” Lan Qiren said. “Around the same age as my younger nephew, I believe? I never had the chance to offer you and Wei Changze my congratulations.”

Wen Ruohan glanced at him, wondering if that was sarcasm or jealousy, but he seemed genuine.

“My news is old news,” Cangse Sanren said dismissively, waving a hand. “Yours, on the other hand, is far more interesting. Why are you wearing Qishan Wen’s suns?”

“Yes, Lan Qiren,” Wen Ruohan drawled. “Why don’t you introduce us?”

Lan Qiren blanched, clearly realizing how rude he’d been. For her part, Cangse Sanren laughed at him and made a gesture that appeared to be mimicking stroking a fake beard, intoning, “No improper behavior” in a deliberately exaggerated manner.

“Sect Leader Wen, Cangse Sanren, disciple of the immortal Baoshan Sanren,” Lan Qiren said stiffly, not paying her any attention. It was near enough to his usual behavior that it was hard to tell whether he felt anything more for her than others, but then it would, wouldn’t it? “Cangse Sanren, Qishan Wen sect’s Sect Leader Wen, Wen Ruohan. We were married a few months ago.”

“You got married? To him?” Cangse Sanren grinned widely, showing off some rather sharp tiger teeth. “Wow, Qiren-gege, who would’ve thought you’d like – ”

“If you insult my wife, this conversation is over,” Lan Qiren snapped, causing both Cangse Sanren and Wen Ruohan’s eyebrows to jump up in surprise.

“I wasn’t going to,” she said primly, obviously lying, but then she smirked. “Is that why you were asking about a wife’s duties?”

“No!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, abruptly flushing red. That was good, it meant he had enough blood to spare for his face now. “I was merely – a suggestion had been raised earlier, and I found myself unprepared – I mean, I know they manage the household, but – and – I was only making conversation! And it’s not as if you had anything useful to say, anyway!”

Wen Ruohan felt his lips twisting involuntarily up in amusement as Cangse Sanren outright guffawed.

“Of course what I said wasn’t useful,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You were coughing up blood. I would have said anything that kept you talking, or else otherwise I’d be worried that you’d faint.”

Lan Qiren spluttered, but Wen Ruohan was already nodding in approval. Judging the moment right, given Lan Qiren’s improved appearance, he took the opportunity to stop transferring energy, though he kept his fingers curled loosely around Lan Qiren’s wrist.

Perhaps he really had misjudged the situation between the two of them, he reflected, his mood vastly improved for whatever reason. Lan Qiren was precisely the sort of tactless person that would on first meeting ask an old acquaintance for advice on his personal life, provided that he perceived them to be a potential expert on the subject, and for her part Cangse Sanren seemed a practical sort of person, familiar enough with basic first aid to realize that the damage would have been worse if Lan Qiren had lost consciousness or kept stewing.

“What did your brother say to you to get such a result?” he asked. Not that he couldn’t guess, but he wanted to see a little of the rage that Qingheng-jun had inspired.

Sure enough, Lan Qiren’s face soured, his lips pressing together once more and his eyes narrowing. “Nothing that anyone could object to,” he said. “He updated me about – about my nephews.”

Wen Ruohan nodded, feeling his own smirk start to grow. He noticed Cangse Sanren’s eyes flickering between them, frowning, but he ignored her. This was going to be fun.

“There is no point in dwelling on it,” Lan Qiren said, clearly trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “There is nothing I can do about it, far away as I now am. And after all, they are his sons.”

The way he said it sounded not unlike a man stabbing a knife repeatedly into his own chest.

“On that subject,” Wen Ruohan began, figuring now would be the best time to strike, “regarding your nephews – ”

Sadly, he never had the chance to finish his sentence: it seemed that he had delayed too long, outlasting childish patience. A small quavering voice interrupted him, shouting, “Shufu!”

Lan Qiren nearly jumped out of his own skin, then twisted around, gaping as two small bundles of white hurried down the floating walkway towards him. “Wangji…? Wangji! Xichen!”

He fell to his knees with an almost audible crack, holding out his arms, and the two boys rushed into them, both children sobbing so hard that they seemed scarcely able to breathe, let alone talk.

Emotional, just as Wen Ruohan predicted.

It was a pity that they’d come out so early, Wen Ruohan thought to himself, since he probably could have extracted some fun concessions from Lan Qiren before revealing them. Still, he didn’t mind it as much as he might have otherwise. Lan Qiren would know that it was his doing regardless, and he would find a way to make it up to him. He was good for that, dependable.

“You seem improved from when I last laid eyes on you, Sect Leader Wen,” Cangse Sanren commented, crossing to his side of the walkway and idly pulling herself up to perch on the railing like some sort of monkey or bird. “Less maliciously destructive, which I assume means less bored. Could it be that married life suits you?”

“My wives would likely dispute that claim,” Wen Ruohan said dryly. “At present I have two which preceded him, and neither reported any such improvement.”

“Ah, but now you have Lan Qiren. That’s different!” She grinned and tapped the side of her nose knowingly. “They say one mountain can’t hold two tigers, but that doesn’t apply if they’re one family. Put a tiger in a cage with nothing to do, they’ll destroy everything and then themselves…sometimes you need two.”

Wen Ruohan shrugged, not disagreeing. Lan Qiren was certainly far more tiger than either of his wives had ever been – and he himself was indeed a great deal less bored.

“It’s good, though,” Cangse Sanren chattered. “I haven’t spent any serious time with Lan Qiren since I was sixteen, and I’ve been meaning to make that up…anyway, it means I can stop avoiding the Nightless City, and just in time. I was going to go over to Xixiang to check out the rumors about that old mine, but after that, my little A-Ying has been begging me to take him somewhere new.”

“Naturally he has, if he hasn’t been to my Nightless City,” Wen Ruohan said, practically on automatic. “You will find nowhere finer in the cultivation world…”

He paused, the idea coming to him in a beautiful burst of light. No one ever paid attention to rogue cultivators, who came and went wherever they willed – and Baoshan Sanren’s wild disciple more than most.

“Cangse Sanren,” he said, and she turned to look at him, a questioning expression on her face. “Your son is about the same age as Lan Qiren’s youngest nephew, is he not?”

At her nod, he smiled with teeth.

“I think it is an excellent idea for you to bring him to visit my Nightless City once you are done with your next night-hunt,” he said. “And, perhaps, you could see your way to also bringing along a few small traveling companions…?”

Cangse Sanren’s eyes followed Wen Ruohan’s to look at the two young Lan boys, talking excitedly with Lan Qiren, all three of them smiling with faces wet with tears.

Her answering smile had just as many teeth as his.

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #lan xichen #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #Megafic

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gentil-minou · 6 months

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MDZS Daycare AU where Wangxian are co-lead teachers for a class of 10-18 month old babies and have a secret of their own.

---

Lan Wangji is the morning lead teacher while Wei Wuxian is the evening lead, and their shifts overlap for about 5 hours which is where max chaos ensues.

Mianmian, the assistant teacher in the mornings, and Mo Xuanyu, the assistant in the afternoons, like to confer over their findings when they take their breaks during nap time, leaving their heads in the classroom to...stare? Glare? at each other. They're not sure.

When Mianmian gets in for her shift at 8am, Lan Wangji is already there with the youngest kid on their roster, Wen Yuan, who always gets dropped off first every morning before she even arrives.

The babies trickle, with a mixture of tears and giggles, and of course a complete mood turn around once their caregivers have left them, A-Qing especially who goes from sobbing bloody murder to laughing maniacally as soon as her dads leave.

Lan Wangji keeps the morning peaceful with circle time and baby meditation which is mostly him and Mianmian trying to get the babies to sit still and somehow succeeding? Lan Wangji has to be magic.

They read a few books and sing some cute songs with the babies and it's all really nice and tranquil.

Then at 10AM, Wei Wuxian comes in and all hell breaks loose.

Where Lan Wangji is all about structured play meant to engage the babies' fine motor skills, Wei Wuxian is a "let them run free and wild" type.

His favorite activity is to cover a peace of long sheet paper in puddles of paint and let the babies go wild. Sometimes Mianmian and Lan Wangji are able to get smocks on them first…but most of the time there's a frantic clothing change before lunch so the babies don't fall asleep in paint covered clothing.

Mianmian has no idea how Jingyi always manages to get pain in his diaper, but yeah. Always.

She's trying to change as many babies as she can while she watches Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian argue again about Wei Wuxian's plans for the afternoon activity, which is really just "collect mud during out walk from outside and bring it inside!"

Lan Wangji glares at him with his mouth in a straight line while Wei Wuxian is clearly trying to not laugh at his face. At least little A-Yuan is there tugging on their pants to act as a cute buffer. No one can ever resist little A-Yuan.

He still hasn't learned how to crawl yet, so he scoots around everywhere on his butt which is insanely adorable. And he recently learned how to say "Ge!" and Wei Wuxian just about burst into tears the first time he did.

To be fair though, right now A-Yuan calls everything "Ge".

His teachers, including Mianmian? Ge.

Friends? Ge.

His carrots? Ge.

His bunny stuffy? Ge.

Naturally, nobody minds at all.

Around lunch time, when half of the babies are nodding off in either their simple rice dishes or mess of mashed something, Mo Xuanyu comes in to help them get the babies ready for bedtime. They spend half the time getting Wei Wuxian to lower his voice, with Lan Wangji sending him a dirty look.

It's funny because Mianmian has seen Wei Wuxian fill in as the only head when Lan Wangji was out. He absolutely knows how to be quiet at nap time.

Makes sense why he just smirks at Lan Wangji instead of really watching his volume.

Once the babies are all asleep, the head teachers confer over their lesson plans while rubbing the backs of the few stragglers who never quite sleep as fast, Mianmian and Mo Xuanyu go out for a walk and eat their lunch.

There, Mianmian fills Mo Xuanyu in on the day's anctics, which mostly just becomes a chance for them to gossip about their lead teachers.

"They're insane, I swear," Mo Xuanyu says as he takes the cheese off his pizza slice and eats the bread and cheese separately for…some reason. "Like how did they even start working together?"

"I heard Yanli had them placed together because they requested it." Mianmian eats her pizza normally, thank you, with extra pineapple and ham and mayo drizzled all over.

"God they're like obsessed with each other, I swear."

They head back in just as Zizhen starts crying, waking all the other babies and then they're off, Mo Xuanyu heading diaper duty this time while Mianmian gets their afternoon snacks ready. Wei Wuxian reads a book with way more theatricality than necessary for babies who probably don't have the ability to understand yet, but they watch him, enraptured by his voice as Lan Wangji puts their sleeping mats away.

Mianmian leaves soon after, once the babies are seated with their cheerios and blueberries and sippy cups, leaving Mo Xuanyu to help out with the afternoon shift.

They take the babies out in a walk using a giant baby wagon that honestly looks like it belongs on a rollercoaster and Mo Xuanyu is a bit put out that he can't fit in the seats. He's tried. They checked.

They take the babies on a promenade around the waterfront area where their daycare is, Wei Wuxian flittering about grabbing sticks and leaves for sensory exploration and pointing out all the cool birds. At the same time, Lan Wangji stands perfectly stoic and vigilant for passersby trying to take pictures of a kid they don't know (like who does that???) as well as a sniffley nose.

Usually that sniffley nose is Wei Wuxian, who is getting more energy out than any of the babies. Lan Wangji hands him a tissue all the same.

They get back in soon after, which is around when Lan Wangji has to leave to get to his night classes for his Masters in Early Childhood Education.

Mo Xuanyu heads up the afternoon circle time, singing songs and making up the lyrics cause he really never had the chance to learn nursery rhymes when he was a kid. He watches from the corner of his eyes as the head teachers mutter something to each other by the door, heads close together. But he can't focus for long when Jingyi has decided to climb on top of A-Yuan who is, for whatever reason, perfectly unbothered.

Lan Wangji leaves and Wei Wuxian joins them, taking over circle time. That's when the real fun begins.

Wei Wuxian's goal at the end of they day is to tire the babies out as much as possible so their poor parents won't have a hard time getting them to rest.

Mo Xuanyu thinks that's just an excuse for all the caffeine he drinks kicking in.

They start with one of the messier art activities Wei Wuxian can't get away with when Lan Wangji is around, usually involving some bits of natures that he'd dub "unhygienic".

"Pfft," Wei Wuxian tells Mo Xuanyu, for the thousandth time. "Everyone needs to eat dirt. Builds immunity."

Mo Xuanyu isn't sure that's how it works, but at least the babies love splashing in mud and sticking leaves to pieces of paper.

Once they change the babies into a second set of spare clothes, it's dance party time. The best time actually.

Babies can't really dance, but it's cute watching them wiggle their little butts and try. Wei Wuxian usually picks at least one kid to dance to Old McDonald with, spinning them around and around.

Usually the baby he picks is A-Yuan. They're not supposed to have favorites, but well Mo Xuanyu can't blame him. He is the cutest.

Sometimes they get noise complaints from the other classrooms, especially the actual baby room with the 3 month to 9 month old and their sleep schedule that are basically all the time.

Wei Wuxian typically just smooths it over by bringing Jin Ling over to join their party.

It's technically not allowed, and theoretically they should be careful since he's the boss' son and all, but Wei Wuxian is the boss' adopted brother and anyways the teachers on the baby baby room just give him a grateful look for keeping the colic baby busy and away from their splitting eardrums.

Once the dance part is over and Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu are lying on the carpet, letting the babies crawl over them in some attempt at "building movement skills", they get a bit of a reprieve before the real challenge of the day starts.

Pick up time.

This is when Wei Wuxian actually listens to Lan Wangji's suggestions for small group play, and they divide into three groups, one with independent play in the pretend area for the older babies that are more toddlers now and two others focused on sensory exploration and fine motor skills. Fancy words for saying the dollhouse area, the playdough zone (monitored by Mo Xuanyu because these babies will absolutely eat it) and the puzzle table that Wei Wuxian keeps an eye on as he greets the parents.

He's great with them, seriously. The parents love Wei Wuxian. It's like a switch flips and he goes from chaos gremlin to genius in childcare, offering really well thought out explanations for the activities the kids engaged in as he hands their artwork to the parents.

They ask him to babysit all the time, but Wei Wuxian deflects and makes some excuse about having busy evenings and weekends, then gestures to Mo Xuanyu who always needs the extra cash.

Mo Xuanyu is always struck with awe at this. He has a lot to learn from Wei-qianbei.

Sometimes the parents join them a bit for play, but a lot of the times, they just leave. Bustling their babies up in their coats with extra cuddles and taking them home, happy to spend a few hours with them before bedtime.

It's Mo Xuanyu's favorite time of the day actually. A good parent's unconditional love for their kid, who can resist?

The last one to leave, is, of course, poor little A-Yuan sitting at the puzzle table with Wei Wuxian. Once the second to last kid leaves, usually Jingyi screaming down the hall as his amused mom follows sedately after him, Wei Wuxian gives Mo Xuanyu a tired smile and tells him he can go.

"Are you sure? I can help clean up?"

The room looks like a tornado ran through it, every time. Mo Xuanyu always feels guilty leaving early, but he has night classes…so…

Wei Wuxian waves him off, "Don't sweat it, I have to stay a bit later anyways. I've got this."

Mo Xuanyu relents and goes over to smack a wet kiss on A-Yuan's chubby cheek before he leaves. He gets a gummy smile as his reward, and he and Wei Wuxian laugh as he leaves the room.

Mo Xuanyu can't help but feel a little sad for A-Yuan. The first to arrive and the last to leave. His parents must be so busy. He hoped they get to spend time with him on the weekends at least, hopefully.

The classroom is always quiet this time in the evening, and Wei Wuxian fluffs A-Yuan's messy mop of hair before he stands up.

"Well, A-Yuan…shall we clean up before your baba gets here?"

It doesn't take long actually, and Wei Wuxian has only just finished putting the toys away and is about to start on the mess in the sink when A-Yuan's other dad arrives.

Lan Zhan always come by after his last class to pick them up. He usually has a line of tension across his forehead, the long day having finally gotten to him.

Wei Wuxian smooths it out with gentle kiss and a hug, and asks "Who annoyed my poor husband today? Should I go beat them up for you?"

Lan Zhan's stiff shoulders droop as he relaxes into Wei Wuxian's embrace, releasing an exhausted sigh.

"Su She," he mutters into Wei Wuxian's neck, lips pressed against the soft silk of his skin.

Wei Wuxian snorts, "Of course. I'll get him for you, baby. Make him wish he never thought about messing with you."

Wei Wuxian runs his fingers through Lan Zhan's hair, luxuriating in the moment, before their son pipes up, not one to be ignored for long.

"Ge!"

His dad share a private laugh. "One of these days you'll call for us properly, right little bunny?" Wei Wuxian says, lifting A-Yuan into the air and smiling at his sweet giggles. "Come on, try it. Ba-ba. A-Die. Ba-ba." He sounds the letters out and points to him and Lan Zhan in turn, so there can be no mistake.

A-Yuan just tilts his head in confusion and gives them a puzzled look. "Ge?"

Wei Wuxian heaves a weary sigh as Lan Zhan takes A-Yuan from him and cuddles him against his chest. "Well, at least I tried. I'll just finish up here, and then we can head home, mmkay?"

"Mn." Lan Wangji nods as A-Yuan burrows into his shoulder with a sleepy sigh. He presses a kiss against the soft baby hair that grows wild on A-Yuan's head, swinging them gently back and forth as Wei Ying putters about and straightens the rest of the room.

He always wants to make the room prefect for Lan Wangji when he comes in early tomorrow morning. It brings a small smile to Lan Wangji's face thinking of the level of consideration his husband gives him, even with their conflicting teaching styles.

After this, they'll head home and enjoy a nice simple meal, spend an hour with A-Yuan just the three of them, before bathtime and bed.

Then, Lan Wangji and Wei Ying will have their own time, just for them.

Tomorrow, it will all repeat.

Maybe it's not the most conventional lifestyle in the world, but there's little Lan Wangji can complain about when he gets to spend every day with his husband and son, doing what they love, together.

fin.

(threadfic here)

#Ahh I really like this au.#this will also probably become a oneshot sdjfhsd also dont keep reading if you don't want spoilers #I see secretly married wangxian professors all the time but never anything with them as daycare teachers. I think they'd be so great at it!#Plus I got to use my own experiences working at daycares hehe #I miss the babies a lot T___T #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #cql #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #mdzs fanfiction #the untamed fanfiction #mdzs musings #bushy writing

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snugglebug-92 · 1 year

Note

Being the team parents!! Like Nolan and you are cuddling then suddenly freshman come in asking for help like how to do laundry

It was a lazy Wednesday night which meant you and Nolan were cuddling until he got a call from Adam.

"What do you mean you broke the washer?" Nolan grumbles sitting up.

"Luca doesn't know how to do laundry can we come over?" Adam questions.

"Yeah, whatever," Nolan says hanging up and cuddling back into you. After about 20 minutes you hear the voices of the boys showing up and you and Nolan crawl out of bed before going to the laundry room.

"Hiya cap," Rutger greets Nolan before he shyly waves at you. It was always a running joke that Rutger had a crush on you. It was moments like this that only solidified the fact he had a crush on you.

"Do none of you know how to do laundry?" Nolan questions.

"Not really," Johnny shrugs.

"Fucking freshman," Nolan rolls his eyes.

"Nolan Wen Da Moyle watch your language," you fuss.

"Sorry babe but they are in college they should know how to do laundry," he responds.

"Oh like you didn't just learn how to do your laundry last year. Anyways who's going first?" you ask. No one responds for a few seconds until Seamus raises his hand.

"Okay so is anything stained or really dirty?" you question the boy.

"No I don't think so," he shrugs.

"Do you have anything white or super light?"

"No?" he shrugs again.

"Then you can just put it all in at once. The rest of you will have to wait. I can make you food while you wait," you tell the boys as they file out of the room.

"So how much stuff do I put it?" Seamus questions.

"So you fill it to this line. You see it?"

"Yeah, I see it."

"Then you push the button and you are good to go."

"Okay that seems easy enough," he says. You walk to the kitchen and make food while Nolan wraps his arms around you.

"You are gonna be such a great mom one day," he whispers.

"Hopefully with your kids," you respond placing a kiss on his lips.

"Oh, baby you couldn't get rid of me even if you tried."

"I don't plan on it," you smile before giving the freshmen their food. You wash their dishes before it's time for the next laundry lesson. By the time laundry is done, it's close to 2 in the morning but at least the boys will have clean clothes.

#nolan moyle x reader

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ineffectualdemon · 1 year

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The thing people seem to miss about MDZS is there are almost no morally pure characters because almost all the characters have falling into a destructive cycle:

Characters are abused by people who see them as things

They are dehumanised

And when they rise up against that abuse their response is to dehumanise their abusers by seeing them as monsters that deserve whatever happens to them

Wei Wuxian tortures Wen Chao and those with him in brutal and horrific ways

For whatever evil that they did that was grotesque cruelty

So was the cultivation worlds treatment of the Wen sect remnant. The cultivation world didn't see them as people they saw them as "Wen Dogs" and it was easy to then see Wei Wuxian as less than human too

Jin Guangyao does the same process when seeking his revenge. What he does to his father is again horrific and of course to Nie Mingjue

Mo Xuanyu is another example

We see this most extremely with Xue Yang who had never been treated as a person until Jin Guangyao and later Xiao Xingchen and he has no desire to see anyone else as people

Jiang Cheng is an interesting example of this because like the rest of the cultivation world he does this with the Wens too.

Which is why he can't understand Wei Wuxian's choice and is so hurt. Because in the book he has no relationship with or memory of Wen Ning and Wen Qing. He had either been unconscious, nearly catatonic with depression, or blindfolded around them. They are quite literally strangers to him and strangers affiliated with a group he has stopped seeing as people and only sees as monsters.

A view that comes from his personal trauma and that is supported and encouraged by the adults around him

And until Jiang Yanli's death Jiang Cheng is one of very few people who does not see Wei Wuxian as a monster. After the death of Jiang Yanli he wants to see Wei Wuxian as an inhuman monster

He wants to be able to see him as something other then human. Something not his brother

And he utterly fucking fails at it

When Wei Wuxian comes back Jiang Cheng is posturing and threatening but he is much more bark than bite. I think some people see him as an antagonist early on but really it always felt more to me that Wei Wuxian wanted to get away not because he felt in danger (except if Fairy was around) but because it was really fucking awkward and his personal guilt was eating him alive

Like Jiang Cheng gets mad that he can't hate him properly! It's a whole thing! If he's an antagonist he's really shit at it!

Still, there is a reoccurring message: when you see people as monsters/less than human then it you run the risk of becoming monstrous in response

There are far more examples in the book. I'm not going to list every single one here.

Am I saying the cultivation world was wrong to fight the Wens? No

Am I saying Wei Wuxian was wrong to save the Wen sect remnant. No

What I'm saying is the book is an examination of a cycle of dehumanisation and brutal cruelty

And I think that's really interesting and one of the reasons I like MDZS

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, even Lan Wangji to an extent...their generation were kids who had horrific traumatic shit happened to them. It's not surprising that they saw the perpetrators as monsters instead of people. It was easier and it was encouraged by the adults around them who encouraged them to continue to paint people as monsters,

But I think a lot of the story is some of them realising in various ways how seeing people as inhuman warps your thinking and your actions. And they don't all learn that gracefully. And some don't learn at all, and some learn the lesson far too late

It's just something I really enjoy about the book

#mdzs #mdzs meta

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tmariea · 4 months

Text

Sunflower Child

Fandom: MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Untamed

Characters: Lan Sizhui, Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji

Rating: G

Summary:

Most young witches, the ones who live with their birth families, know that they are witches before their magic manifests. Most young witches don’t learn they are witches by turning their skin purple while trying to bake cupcakes for their best friend’s birthday. Lan Sizhui, as he is learning very quickly, is not most young witches.

Read on AO3

Written for this year's MDZS Secret Santa event!

Most young witches, the ones who live with their birth families, know that they are witches before their magic manifests. Most have watched their parents, or siblings, or aunts and uncles doing magic, just another facet of daily life. Many even have some rudimentary lessons when they’re young, so they know what and how to expect the day when their powers arrive.

Most young witches don’t learn they are witches by turning their skin purple while trying to bake cupcakes for their best friend’s birthday.

Lan Sizhui, as he is learning very quickly, is not most young witches.

He isn’t even the one who notices. When Sizhui’s a-die — a man of very few facial expressions for all he is a man of strong emotions — freezes in the doorway, eyes wide, and calls, “Wei Ying! I think you need to get down here!” that’s when Sizhui knows something is very wrong. He freezes, mouth full of cupcake and frosting, and takes quick stock. He doesn’t feel like he’s bleeding anywhere, he hasn’t knocked any of the glass bowls onto the floor and broken them, and the rabbits are visible through the door to the living room, perfectly safe and content in their pen.

Sizhui goes to put the cupcake down, and that’s when he notices his hand. He lets out a loud yelp and jumps hard enough that his stool tips over backwards and spills him onto the ground with a thump. A very small part of him, whichever part isn’t panicking at the moment, registers the sound of his baba coming down the stairs, and then beginning to laugh at him.

“Baba! What? I don’t know— how—? Baba it’s not funny!” Sizhui exclaims from the floor. He doesn’t mean to sound sulky, but it’s kind of hard when he’s also maybe a little bit trying not to cry.

“No it is not,” a-die agrees, kneeling down to help him sit up, and then running fingers through his hair to check for lumps.

“No, ah, sorry A-Yuan, Lan Zhan.” Baba stifles another round of giggles, by the way his ponytail shakes and his mouth is twitching around an attempt at a serious expression. “Are you OK? Does it hurt at all?”

Sizhui shakes his head, which has mercifully escaped injury by the feel of it. He lifts his other hand and finds it just as purple, all the way up his arm, but bizarre appearances aside it doesn’t feel any different. “What happened?” he asks, as if his fathers are any more likely to know. And then, hesitantly, “Is it everywhere?”

“Mn,” a-die confirms, with a solemn nod.

Baba crouches down in front of him, takes his hands and gives them a little squeeze. “It’ll be alright. Who knew our little radish would grow into a little witch, huh?”

“A witch,” Sizhui repeats. His voice sounds kind of far away and high pitched to his own ears. He leans back against a-die’s shoulder, hoping maybe he can absorb some of his perpetually-calm exterior.

Sizhui knows about witches of course. They’re not common, but there’s usually a couple in most towns, maybe a dozen or two in a larger city. He thinks that a lot of them even do the same normal things as everyone else, just with magic. And flying brooms. He can’t picture himself on a flying broom, no definitely not. That is something to freak out about later. “H-how can I be a witch? How did you not know?”

“Witchcraft runs in families,” a-die says from behind him, voice softer.

The adoption agency hadn’t had any information on Sizhui’s birth family. He nods; it makes at least a little bit of sense. “Then, I did this? But how? I don’t know any magic.”

“It doesn’t usually show up until you’re a teenager,” baba supplies, “and then can do some odd things if you don’t know what you’re doing. I went to school with a couple of siblings who were witches for a little while; some of the things that happened around them were so funny!”

Baba stands up suddenly, with a little, “oh!” and heads inexplicably towards the living room. He returns with Bichen, and deposits her in Sizhui’s lap, before pulling out his phone and wandering away again.

Sizhui instinctively begins to run his fingers through Bichen’s white fur, feeling himself start to actually calm down. His voice sounds less strange when he asks the next question on his mind, “If I don’t know magic, how do I undo it? A-die, am I going to be stuck like this? No one can see me like this!”

“I think your baba is working on that,” a-die replies.

As he trails off, they hear from the other room, “Wen Ning! Hey it’s been forever, how are you and Wen Qing doing?” A pause, and then his voice starts to get closer again as the loop of his pacing takes him back across the house. “Do you still live in the area, or know any witches who do? Yeah, my kid. No, no, nothing serious! But, I think he may need a crash course in magic.” Baba arrives back in the kitchen just in time to give them a wink and a thumbs up. “You’re the best, we’ll see you in a little while!”

Sizhui thinks he may disagree with the assessment that this is ‘nothing serious,’ but the rest sounds promising. Wen Ning lives in Dafan, a small town about an hour’s drive away, so they settle Bichen back in her pen and all three pile into the car. A-die drives, and baba sits in the back with Sizhui, like he used to do when Sizhui was six and would fall asleep on his lap on the way back from family functions. The words ‘I’m not a kid anymore,’ are on Sizhui’s tongue, but he swallows them back down when baba takes his (purple) hand. Which is still really weird, he’s not going to lie, but it’s not nearly so scary now that they’re going to see a witch his baba knows who can fix it. The witch thing in general though, maybe it’s kind of cool but it’s also so much; he’s not sure what to feel about it yet.

It seems Sizhui is destined to repeat the whole little-kid-backseat-thing, because he falls asleep on baba’s shoulder not ten minutes into the drive, lulled by the motion of the car and the traditional music a-die always plays through the radio. He wakes up to baba’s fingers carding through his hair, just as they hit Dafan. It’s a small town, nestled at the base of the mountains. Sizhui recognizes it from weekend markets his fathers have brought him to before, or hikes he’s taken nearby with classmates.

“There you are,” baba says, as Sizhui sits up to watch the traditional buildings of the town square slide past outside the window. “I think the magic might make you tired at first, until you get a handle on it. I always remember Wen Ning taking naps in the strangest places.”

“Ah,” Sizhui, replies simply, less comforted by that fact than slightly mortified by the possibility of falling asleep somewhere unintended. He changes the subject as the car takes a turn onto a smaller street leading back towards the edge of town. “Does he not live in Dafan?”

“Mn,” a-die confirms, “a few minutes out of town.”

The house that they pull up at is the only one along it’s stretch of road, on the last piece of flat ground before the land starts to rise up into foothills. It’s built of dark brown wood, with a roof of curved black tiles and large windows divided into many tiny square panes. All of that is secondary to the greenery bursting from the yard, and around the edges of the building. Ivies crawl the walls, so thick in places that it would be hard to tell what the house looks like beneath, and flowers take up almost the whole fenced area at the front of the house in a riot of color doing it’s level best to overtake the path.

Baba doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the chaos, leading them up towards the porch and setting roses and lavender swaying as he passes. Sizhui and his a-die follow at a more sedate pace. The scent is just as much of a jumble, but to Sizhui’s surprise it’s not overwhelming. Instead it smells as if someone bottled every scent memory he’s ever had of sun-drenched summers into one tiny patch of land.

The door to the house, which baba knocks on with two short, sharp raps, is a bright poppy red. It opens not a minute later to reveal a person who Sizhui presumes is the witch they’re here to see. He doesn’t get a good look though, before baba yanks him into a crushing hug with a cry of, “Wen Ning!”

“Wei Wuxian, hello,” the man says, slightly muffled from where his face is squashed into baba’s shirt. It sounds resigned, and Sizhui can’t help but laugh quietly; his baba is known to inspire that feeling in people.

Once he’s released, the witch stands up and straightens out his oversized gray sweater and cardigan, which he’s wearing despite the August heat. His long hair is only loosely pulled back from the front and out of his face, but the rest is left untied. He looks like he might be about Sizhui’s fathers’ age, but his round face and the swathed-in-blankets impression of his clothing makes him seem younger. He turns to Sizhui and his a-die, and bows. Sizhui wonders if it isn’t in part a ploy to hide his expression, as he can see the corners of his mouth twitch just a bit as he takes in the magical mess Sizhui has made of himself. He straightens and says, “I’m Wen Qionglin, local witch and apothecary for Dafan. Most everyone calls me Wen Ning, though.” His voice is a little slow and halting, and quiet, almost difficult to hear from where he stands on the porch.

A-die bows with the posture and formality as if he were greeting a great teacher. “Lan Wangji, Wei Ying’s husband and father to Lan Sizhui.” Sizhui does his best to copy his a-die’s bow. “Thank you for helping on short notice.”

“I really appreciate it,” Sizhui adds, with feeling. He figures there were probably witches who lived closer to them in Gusu, but there is something comforting about Wen Ning not being a complete stranger. Or perhaps it’s result of the softness the man himself seems to exude.

“And I’m Wei Ying, which you still won’t call me after all these years!”

Wen Ning just gives a small smile and a sheepish duck of his head in response to that. “Nice to meet you. It’s no trouble to help Wei Wuxian’s” - baba just pouts - “family. Come in, please.”

The three of them follow Wen Ning into the house. Sizhui is immensely interested to see what a witch’s home looks like. His first impression is that there are quite a lot of dark colored walls, the paint in the living room where Wen Ning settled them such a deep emerald to be almost black. But there are enough windows, and light wood furniture upholstered in cream and dusty-red fabric, that it feels still strangely open and airy. There are a handful of pictures on the walls, mostly Wen Ning with a tiny woman who looks a lot like him; Sizhui assumes this is the Wen Qing that baba had mentioned. Every other inch of the walls are covered in shelves packed to the brim with plants, and some random stands and side tables besides. There are leaves in every color of green, from the palest, almost-white to deep jewel greens, and even some in reds or deep purples. One corner of the room has been given entirely over to the strangest citrus tree Sizhui has ever seen, bearing what looks like lemons, limes, oranges, and some very bizarre thing shaped like a hand, all at the same time.

Their host gestures for them to sit and disappears into the next room for a moment - presumably the kitchen - and returns with a tea set and a large wooden box. He sets both on the low coffee table. “Sorry, the tea selection may be a little overwhelming. I’ve got most anything you might want in here,” Wen Ning pats the top of the box affectionately, “magical or non-magical both! Oh, although most of the magical ones are medicinal, so ask me what they do first, or if they’ll interact with anything you already take. They have the red labels.”

Sizhui and his baba lean over the box to start inspecting. He actually reads the labels, while baba just starts grabbing things and smelling them. A-die asks for a simple ginseng, which Wen Ning puts aside while the other two continue their search.

“Butterfly pea?” Sizhui asks, pulling out a small jar that looks full of dried blue and yellow flowers.

“Oh that’s a fun one,” Wen Ning replies, with a little smile playing around the edges of his mouth. “It makes bright blue tea, but turns pink if you add lemon juice.”

“Ah, no thank you.” Sizhui doesn’t quite drop the jar as if it’s burning him, but it’s a near thing.

“I’ll have that one!” Baba exclaims, plucking the jar back up.

“Ba!” Sizhui groans, at the same time as his a-die says in his warning voice, “Wei Ying.”

Baba just sighs and puts the tea back, before handing over a different one that smells distinctly sharp and cinnamon-y. Leave it to him to find a tea that is somehow also spicy.

Sizhui just watches as Wen Ning scoops out the leaves into individual strainer baskets over each cup, and pours. He notices that the witch’s movements are a little stiff and stilted, like his voice, but he makes both cups without spilling any. “I have a nice chamomile.” He says once he’s done and waiting for the tea to steep. “Something simple and familiar?”

Sizhui lets out a breath. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Wen Ning makes two cups of the chamomile, and takes the second one for himself, before settling into an arm chair across from them. “So you turned yourself purple,” he starts.

Sizhui thinks he might be blushing. He is also very glad there aren’t any mirrors in his immediate eye-line, because he does not want to know what that looks like. A-die makes a small gesture from next to him, not quite nudging, but a clear ‘mind your manners.’ “Yes, Apothecary Wen. I’d never done anything, ah, magical before today.”

Wen Ning gives a small, jerky nod. “Do you know what caused it? What were you doing before?”

“Maybe? I was baking. It’s Jingyi’s - that’s my best friend - birthday tomorrow, so I made some cupcakes. I was trying one when a-die noticed…” he trails off, looking at his purple fingertips. Blackberry cupcakes. The exact same color as the frosting.

“Cooking mishaps are pretty common. Qing-jie wouldn’t let me near the kitchen for a while. Until I got more control over my magic.”

“You turned yourself purple before too?” Sizhui exclaims. He’d definitely feel better if that was the case.

“Not that exactly. I made a chicken soup once that crowed like a rooster when we tried to eat it, though. That was really… disconcerting. And some cookies that made Qing-jie breathe out sparkles all day. That’s when she kicked me out.

“Magic, when it’s new and you don’t have anywhere to direct it, comes out in a lot of ways that are both weird and logical at the same time. It likes to follow the path of what we put into it - ingredients, materials, sounds or words, gestures - and what meanings we focus on for them. If that makes any sense? Sorry, I haven’t really taught anyone before.” Wen Ning had dropped his eyes to his lap partway through his explanation, but he raises them back up after he finishes speaking.

Sizhui risks a quick glance at his parents to see what they’re making of it. A-die has a blank, polite look on his face, so he’s probably not sure. Baba is nodding though. Which, baba likes a puzzle, or those mystery stories where you have to put clues together. “The frosting was this dark pink,” he muses, trying to think about it like a puzzle. “I added a few drops of blue color because I didn’t think it looked enough like blackberry. I was thinking it needed to be more purple!”

Wen Ning gives him two sharp nods and a smile. “That’s probably it!”

“So, does that mean you know how to fix it?”

“I have some ideas. Finish your tea, and then we’ll go out to the garden.”

Once all of the cups are drained, Wen Ning leads Sizhui - just the two of them, his fathers elected to stay in the house where it’s cool - through the kitchen and a room that was likely meant as a sun room but has been turned into a veritable tropical greenhouse instead. After walking through the heat and humidity, the summer sun is nearly a relief.

Stepping outside, all Sizhui can do is stare. Wen Ning had called this a garden. And while he doesn’t think it’s quite large enough to be a farm, it stretches hundreds of feet back from the house until it hits a copse of trees just before the land begins to rise towards the foothills.

“This is…” Sizhui starts, and then backtracks on just saying an incredulous ‘this is a garden?’ since it feels somewhat rude. “Do you take care of this all by yourself?”

“Mn. Mostly. I have an uncle that helps get things started in the spring. Qing-jie will pitch in if she’s in town, too.”

“It’s amazing. Is it all for your magic?”

Wen Ning shakes his head. “Some. I just eat the vegetables, and sell the extra at the town market,” he gestures towards a large patch where the red of ripening tomatoes stands out against a backdrop of trellised leaves, and winter squash vines sprawl over wide swaths of ground. He tilts his head to another section next, a riot of color even more chaotic than the front garden, “The cut flowers too, and the teas. I use a little magic on all of it though, to help it grow and keep the pests off. But we need the herb garden.”

He leads Sizhui not immediately to the herb garden, but instead to a wooden cabinet nestled up against the house, protected by the eaves. From inside he pulls a basket, a set of clippers, and two sets of gloves, and deposits all but his own gloves into Sizhui’s arms.

Sizhui follows him out into the rows between sections of garden, through the warm afternoon full of the sound of buzzing insects. It smells just as much like heaven out here as the front garden did, and there’s a breeze lightly stirring his hair and keeping it from sticking to the back of his neck. By all rights, it should be a perfect, relaxing summer afternoon, but he’s starting to feel unsettled again. “Apothecary Wen, you said you had ideas,” he starts. He really shouldn’t doubt Wen Ning when he’s so kind as to help, but part of him had thought that a trained, adult witch could just wave a hand and he’d be back to normal. “Is there not a spell in a book, or a potion recipe?”

Sizhui is more expressive of his a-die, he knows that. But everyone is always complimenting him on his maturity, a calmness and steadiness beyond his years. And it’s not quite that he tries to hide it when he’s scared or upset, but usually it’s only his fathers who can see it, his best friends every once in a while.

Wen Ning gets it right away, stopping and turning back, placing a hand on Sizhui’s shoulder and bending down a little so they’re on the same eye level. “No, but we will fix it, I promise. I have recipes for a lot of common things, headaches and stomach aches and anxiety. I also have a lot of tinctures and creams for psoriasis and acne and skin clarity, which we’ll draw on a lot of those ingredients and their properties today. But magic does weird, unexpected things sometimes, so as witches we learn to be creative.”

Sizhui takes a deep breath and lets it out, and decides that it is comforting, if Wen Ning is used to getting creative with magic. He’s even done a little bit of improvising himself before, playing around with tunes on his guqin or the piano, and they’ve come out OK. Maybe magic will be the same. He hopes. “Alright.”

Wen Ning studies his face for a moment more. Sizhui had noticed the witch looking at him slightly more than he might have expected while they were having their tea, but he’d figured it was the oddity of having a purple teenage boy on his couch. But now it’s almost as if he’s looking for something. Before Sizhui can start to feel uncomfortable, Wen Ning nods and straightens up again, then continues to walk through the garden. This time, they walk side by side. “Good. Plus, I’m very good at magical skincare. It’s my best seller,” Wen Ning says with a wink.

It startles a laugh out of Sizhui, and decides he feels almost all the way better.

As soon as they step off the gravel path and into the main body of the garden itself, it’s clear that this is where Wen Ning is most in his element. His soft face brightens up with excitement as he trails his fingers amongst the leaves and begins rattling off common names, scientific names, and properties. Enough so that Sizhui begins to worry about remembering it all, before Wen Ning stops and says with an embarrassed air, “Most of this we don’t need today. Just useful information, if you decide to shape your magic in similar ways. We actually only need the mint, it’s good for focus and concentration, so it should help you channel your magic.”

There are a lot of things in that statement that Sizhui has questions about, but he starts with, “My magic?”

Wen Ning looks down, a sheepish expression crossing his face. “Ah, sorry. I’ll go through the ingredients and guide you, but undoing the effects when our magic does unexpected things is one of the first lessons a young witch does.”

Sizhui wonders if that’s something he would have known if he had grown up with other witches, with his birth family. It causes a little pang in his stomach, part sadness part curiosity. One that he’s not entirely unfamiliar with, for all that he loves his fathers and wouldn’t trade them for the world. He shakes off the thought instead of letting it linger, and tells Wen Ning, “Alright, I’ll try.”

They pick the mint. It’s in it’s own little patch, surrounded by a thin brick border inscribed with runes that Wen Ning explains, with a laugh, are to keep it from taking over the whole garden. He points out some other plants as well that aren’t ready for harvest yet - fennel, red ginsing, licorice - which they’ll use dried from what’s stored in the house.

Then they circle around to the other side of the garden, to collect rose hips. There are roses in every color and size growing, red and pink and yellow and purple, solids and two-color, buds with loose, ruffly petals and ones with smooth petals packed tightly together. The rose garden is a little more orderly than the rest of the cut flowers too, and Sizhui thinks it looks like it’s straight out of a magazine, but Wen Ning makes a frustrated little sigh as soon as they approach a large, trellised bush covered with pink roses.

“Is everything alright?”

Wen Ning waves off his concern. “It’s just beetles. I’m going to go get something for them, if you’ll pick some rose hips from this bush. We’ll need 15.”

It doesn’t take long; the bush has plenty to harvest. It also has plenty of the iridescent beetles about the size of a fingernail which had so upset Wen Ning. He hasn’t come back yet with his beetle solution though, so Sizhui starts to walk down one of the paths through the roses while he waits. His attention is drawn instead to the tall stalks of sunflowers past the roses. Some are short enough to only be at eye level on him, others rise over a foot above his head. He can’t resist reaching out to touch the center of one, where all the little seeds point outwards. He has the faintest memory of looking up and up and up, all the way up to so many huge yellow flowers he could barely see the sky. He’d reached for them, in the silent begging of a small child, until someone with a face he can’t remember had clipped a flower as big as his torso and placed it in his lap.

“Do you like sunflowers, Lan Sizhui?”

Sizhui jerks a little in surprise at Wen Ning’s sudden appearance, his thumb pressing roughly against the scratchy surface. “They’re pretty. And almost nostalgic? I feel like I may have spent time around a lot of them when I was little.” He turns around to see the witch smiling widely, at either him or the flowers, he’s not quite sure.

“I know the feeling,” Wen Ning replies. “My popo loves them, grows even more than me. So many that Qing-jie and I would play hide-and-seek among the stalks. It makes sense though; they’re my family’s symbol.” He steps up to the sunflower that Sizhui had been looking at, takes the clippers from the basket, and snips the flower from it’s stalk, before nestling it between the mint and the rose hips.

“Is it for the, for my uh…”

“No, just for you. So you can take something nice with you, not just a memory of your magic doing things you didn’t want.”

“Thank you Apothecary Wen!” Sizhui bows, the basket swinging at his elbow as he does.

“You’re welcome, but it’s nothing.” Wen Ning leads them back to the house, and Sizhui trails just a step behind, still brushing his hand lightly against the sunflower as he does.

Inside, they wave to Sizhui’s fathers - a-die has found a book on plants and herbs to read, and baba is sprawled across the couch and his lap, on his phone - and grab an orange off of the odd tree, for the peel according to Wen Ning. Then they go into a room which would be a home office in anyone else’s house. Instead it has been transformed with strings of drying herbs strung up across the whole ceiling, and open shelves full of big glass jars and metal tins against two of the walls. The another is taken up by a long wooden workbench, the surface of which looks like it has been stained frequently over the years. Wen Ning gestures for Sizhui to put the basked on the bench, and then begins collecting tools for their work.

“You mentioned something earlier about how I decide to shape my magic, what did you mean?” Sizhui asks, accepting a heavy mortar and pestle that Wen Ning passes him.

Wen Ning is quiet for a moment as he collects a few jars of dried herbs, a thoughtful look on his face. “Remember I said magic comes out of ingredients, and thoughts. Our thoughts and magic are the real catalyst, but the ingredients are like a framework to direct it.” Sizhui nods; he does remember even if he’s not sure if he understands yet. “I use things people do think of as ‘ingredients,’ herbs and flowers and stuff. Which,” Wen Ning measures out a few spoonfuls of fennel seeds into the mortar and pestle, “you’ll need to grind that fine. ‘Ingredients’ can be anything that might provide direction though. Lots of people work with sigils and talismans. I do sometimes, if I need something lasting - like the mint border. People can speak spells, or move their bodies - I’ve seen magic like sign language and magic like dance. You can do magic with sewing, or pottery - although that’s usually sewing or carving sigils into the cloth or clay - or with cooking, or music.”

“I play guqin,” Sizhui blurts at the thought of music. Although, maybe he shouldn’t play for a little while, until he learns some control. That’s a sad thought, but then what could he do with it later?

Wen Ning nods. “I can see if I remember anyone nearby who uses music. Or I can ask around, if that’s something you want to try.”

Sizhui is surprised. He’d thought maybe Wen Ning would be able to teach him magic. But he tells himself that it’s not as if they’d talked about it. He was only helping out in an emergency, not committing himself to being a teacher for however long it took to learn. “OK, thank you,” he says, and changes the topic. “So then, what do witches do?”

That startles a laugh out of Wen Ning. He tilts his head to the side as he looks at Sizhui, long hair spilling over the front of his shoulder. “For jobs?”

“Mn.” The question of what having magic means for the rest of his life has been one of the bigger ones knocking around in Sizhui’s head all afternoon. He doesn’t say it though; it’s the kind of question that usually causes an adult to say he’s really mature, when actually he’d rather they say something reassuring instead.

“Anything really. You could probably guess, but there’s something about magic that matches up really nicely with creating. A lot of witches are artists. Qing-jie is a doctor and a researcher. She studies combining magical medicine with science to use in her practice. Uncle Four is in construction. He uses talismans to help balance loads more safely, or write fire and earthquake protection into the frame of buildings. Some don’t use magic for a career, and want to just do it for fun. You’ve got time though, to think about any of that, after you learn. And after you’re not purple anymore. That looks fine enough.”

Sizhui dumps the fennel into a clean glass jar Wen Ning brought out, and then they work on chopping and grinding the rest together. The witch writes down all of the individual ingredients and the properties they’re trying to draw on for the tincture, too. Which, Wen Ning says would be better than a cream or a lotion so Sizhui doesn’t have to worry about missing spots, which is a mortifying thought if there ever was one.

Once all of the ingredients are prepared, Wen Ning clears off the table and places only the jar and the list of ingredients in front of Sizhui. “Now, to add the magic which will activate it. Have you ever meditated before?”

He nods, “A-die does, and I join him sometimes.”

“That makes things easier. Begin as if you’re meditating, and I’ll talk you through where to direct your focus.”

Sizhui pulls over a stool and gets comfortable, before starting to count his breaths.

Wen Ning’s voice, already soft and slow, becomes even more so as he instructs, “Good. Focus on the center of your chest, just a little lower than your heart. You know the feeling of warmth, or a good tightness, when you are very joyful or really love an activity that you’re doing? That is what you’re looking for in that place. That’s your golden core, where your magic lives.”

Sizhui pictures it behind his closed eyelids, a warm glowing ball in his chest. He’d felt it earlier today, what he’d thought was only just happiness that his baking for his best friend had come out so well. Maybe that’s how some of the magic had gotten mixed into it in the first place. “I think I have it.”

“Now try to feel that warmth flow through your body. Down into your stomach, and your legs, through your shoulders and arms to your hands.”

That part is less easy. He holds his fists to that little knot in his chest, and tries to feel as if they are grabbing hold of some piece of it and dragging it through his veins, but he keeps loosing hold of it. He grabs the thread again and again in an imagined hand, until he makes a frustrated noise and sways in his seat.

“That’s OK,” Wen Ning says from somewhere that feels very far away. “It’s a new skill. Let’s take a break for a moment, and have something to eat. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Sizhui hears footsteps retreating, and eases his eyes open against the late afternoon sunlight casting a pattern of panes through the window and onto the workbench. He picks up the jar and tilts it side to side, looking at the way all the powders and pieces of what is supposed to be his cure shift together. It smells pretty nice actually, if he pays attention to it. He starts a little when the door opens and closes again, and he puts the jar down quickly. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb anything.”

“Not at all, it’s not a bad idea to interact more with your ingredients. Here,” Wen Ning puts down a plate of small, round cookies and another pot of chamomile tea on the table, and sits on the other stool. “Tell me about something other than magic, while we eat. Try not to think about it at all for just a few minutes.”

So Sizhui talks about the rabbits while they clear the plate of the cookies - surprisingly light in texture and flavored with cardamom. He even pulls out his phone and flips back to pictures of Bichen and Suibian when they were small.

“Is this you, Lan Sizhui,” the witch asks, about a picture where a nine-year-old Sizhui sits on the ground with both rabbits tucked together in his lap, and a radiant smile on his face.

“Mn, we’d only had them a few months, and it was the first time they sat in my lap.”

“You look like…” Wen Ning trails off, staring intently at the picture, and an odd quality to his voice.

“I look like what?”

He gives himself a little shake, and then says, “You look like you love them very much. A-are you ready to try your magic again?”

“Yeah, alright.” Sizhui puts his phone away, and closes his eyes again. He does feel better for the snack, and it’s easy to find the knot in his chest again. This time he forgoes trying to picture grabbing the magic, and instead thinks about the feeling of warmth from the first drink of tea and how it flows down his throat and to his stomach. He thinks of what it would feel like if it kept spreading throughout his whole body.

“There, you’ve got it!” Wen Ning exclaims. “Now, put your hand above the jar, and think about your ingredients, and what you need them to do. Think about pushing your magic into them, and waking them up. You can open your eyes and look at the list if it helps.”

Sizhui takes a deep breath, and opens his eyes. He looks at the individual pieces of mint and fennel and orange peel, rose hips and licorice root and red ginseng, remembers the smell. His fingertips feel tingly, the same way they might if his hand had fallen asleep, and then a red symbol blooms above the jar. It’s gone quickly, but Sizhui thinks it looked like a stylized sunflower, with a spiral as the base of each petal that then unfurls away from the center of the flower.

There’s a loud noise, like something smacking against the wood of the table top, and the feeling of the magic flickers away. “Ah, Apothecary Wen I’m so sorry! I lost it. Did I ruin it? Are you OK?”

The last is said as he looks over to see that the sound was Wen Ning catching himself with a hand on the worktop. “Tha-that’s Wen magic,” the witch stammers out. He looks a little dazed, staring at Sizhui but in an unfocused sort of way.

“Wen magic? What does that mean?”

“Each family has a magic signature, colors and patterns. They’re unique. Wen is a red sunflower, that red sunflower.” Wen Ning holds a palm up then, the one that’s not still supporting him, and above it blooms the exact same symbol that Sizhui just made, without thinking, over the jar. “Do you know anything about your birth parents?”

Sizhui shakes his head slowly, feeling confused and overwhelmed, and perhaps a little dizzy. He wonders if that last one is the magic, he did fall off a chair the last time he used it. “No, there were never any records.”

“What’s your given name?”

“Yuan, my given name is Lan Yuan.”

Wen Ning makes a punched out sound at that, and his eyes are starting to look a little wet. “I-I think you m-might be my cousins’ son. We weren’t very close; I didn’t think it was odd that we didn’t really have contact with them after they moved. But you look so much like my cousin when he was your age, and the magic... I have letters, and photos. Let me- let me go get them.”

Sizhui follows when Wen Ning leaves the workroom. He feels a little unsteady, and looks at his fathers without really seeing them.

“A-Yuan?” A-die asks in a questioning, concerned voice.

This alerts baba, who jumps up from the couch, and comes to take Sizhui’s face in his hands. “Is everything alright? You’re still purple, did it not work? Did something go wrong? Where’s Wen Ning going?”

Sizhui glances at where the witch had just turned the corner into the hall, and shakes his head. He takes his baba’s hand and leads him back to the couch, where he sits between his parents and says, “Apothecary Wen says I have Wen family magic. He thinks my birth parents might be his cousins.”

This pulls a startled, “What?” out of both.

“When I did magic, it looked like a red sunflower. He said that’s the Wen family symbol and color. He’s gone to get pictures. E-even if it’s true, you are still my parents, and I’m still your son!” Sizhui blurts out, suddenly anxious. They’ve talked about ways to try to find his birth family before, if he ever wanted to, but he hadn’t decided what he wanted to do yet, or when. He wasn’t expecting to have an answer sprung on him like this.

“Ayah, of course you’ll always be our little radish!” Baba cries, flinging his arms around Sizhui and a-die, to squash them both together in a hug.

“We never doubted,” a-die reassures. “A-Yuan shouldn’t doubt either.”

That’s how Wen Ning finds them when he comes back with what looks like a shoebox that’s been covered in nice paper. He sets it on the table, and kneels down to flip through the papers inside. “Ah, here!” He hands over a postcard, covered in photos like what someone might send for a holiday card; the address is from Dafan.

Sizhui’s hands are shaking just a little bit when he takes it, and stares at what is probably his own birth announcement, and baby photos. It reads ‘Wen Yuan, born January 12th,’ and dated 17 years ago. There’s him wrapped in a blanket in the hospital, in a crib in what must have been his childhood home, held between a man and a woman that he doesn’t know. Except, he’s looked at nearly the same face as the man’s in the mirror for years. It’s a little older, and Sizhui’s nose is a little wider and flatter - like the woman’s - but the eyes and the mouth are so, so similar. He brushes his fingertips lightly over the glossy paper, and blinks hard against the moisture in his eyes.

When he looks back up at Wen Ning, he’s offering him a letter this time, with a photo sticking out between the folds. There’s a date on the back of the photo - his third birthday - and it shows him sitting between the same two people on a couch. He has cake crumbs on his face, and is waving a paper butterfly on a stick with a big grin. Sizhui remembers, ever so faintly, that paper butterfly.

From where he’s looking over Sizhui’s shoulder, baba says, “this looks so much like when we brought you home.”

The letter itself is addressed from Qishan this time. Qishan was the city his fathers adopted him from, when he was four. The first line reads ‘A-Yuan is still having some trouble getting settled into our new home, but his birthday party certainly helped that along.’

“We got that shortly after they moved, and didn’t hear much after,” Wen Ning clarifies, as if wanting to fill the silence. As if not wanting to ask the question hanging in the air.

Sizhui swallows hard. “I think you’re right. I think this has to be me. Do you-do you know what happened?”

Wen Ning looks down at that, his face clouding over. “No. But I can ask Popo, or some of my aunts and uncles, someone may be able to help us track down an answer.”

“OK, OK that would be. Good. Maybe not right away though, this is all a lot.”

A-die runs a hand up and down Sizhui’s back.

“That’s understandable,” Wen Ning replies

“Then, you said you and my birth father were cousins, that would make you my tang-shu?”

“I think that would be right, but,” Wen Ning’s smiling, but it looks a little shy, “I don’t have any nephews, if you wanted to call me shushu?”

“Yeah, alright, I can do that shushu. And you should call me A-Yuan.” The tears break at that point, and Sizhui passes the picture and letter to a-die, at risk of ruining them. “C-can I hug you?”

Wen Ning gives two sharp, enthusiastic nods, and stands. Sizhui comes around the table, and throws his arms around him. Wen Ning’s hug is much stronger than Sizhui might’ve guessed from his appearance, but like just about everything else he’s experienced with the witch, inherently comforting.

“All this time, we weren’t even far from each other, and never knew,” Sizhui mumbles into Wen Ning’s shoulder.

He lets himself cling for a moment, before he steps back to rub his eyes and then bows formally to Wen Ning. “Shushu, will you teach me magic!” He had felt disappointed at the thought of going to a different teacher before, but now that he knows Wen Ning is his shushu, that he could learn magic from a member of his family the way witches have for hundreds of years… “I know it’s asking a lot, and I don’t know if I’ll want to do magic like yours, or with music yet, but I want to learn your magic, our family’s magic! Please.”

“I would love to!” Wen Ning tells him with a big grin, but then it twists up in amusement at one corner. “But maybe you should hold off on deciding until we see if your tincture works.”

“Ah.” Sizhui had almost forgotten all about it in this new excitement. That’s a good idea though, he would really like to stop being purple. And then maybe go home and curl up with Bichen and Suibian and a movie that has absolutely nothing at all to do with magic.

His newly minted witchcraft teacher returns to the workroom to fetch the tincture and Sizhui’s sunflower, and then shows them some old family photos while they wait for it to steep, from holidays or family reunions when he was a child. It seems Sizhui's birth father had only attended a few of the larger functions so there's not many, but the resemblance is striking.

“That picture of you with your rabbits really made me suspect. But I didn’t think it was possible, I didn’t know—” Wen Ning trails off, but Sizhui can guess the rest of the thought; he hadn’t know Sizhui had been adopted, hadn’t known he wasn’t living with his birth family anymore. “There wasn’t anything else it could be though, when you had the family signature. Which,” he pours a small cup from the kettle, and holds his hands around the bottom, just the faintest red light spilling between his fingers and the porcelain. “This feels like we’ve got it right. Give it a try.”

Sizhui takes the cup, and feels that some of the heat has been drained off, enough that he can drink all of it in one go without burning his mouth. It tastes a little muddled up, with all of the things they added, but not bad. That same heat that he’d felt when he called his magic spreads through him though, gentle and easy. “Did it work?” He jumps up from the couch again and goes to a mirror that he’d seen on the wall earlier. Staring back at him is his normal self. He tilts his head from side to side, and inspects his arms and legs; there’s not a hint of violet anywhere. “It worked! I did magic! Thank you shushu!”

Sizhui gives Wen Ning another bow, and his fathers stand to do the same. Since that’s about all the excitement it seems anyone is up for in one day, they decide on a good time for more magic lessons, and prepare to make their goodbyes. Wen Ning even suggests with an amused smile that with some training Sizhui might be able to come out here by himself on a broomstick, which is starting to sound more like a fun prospect than a scary one.

He leads them out to the porch then, and bows Sizhui’s fathers. “Thank you, for caring for A-Yuan so well. He’s grown into a fine young man, and I look forward to teaching him.” They bow back, and Sizhui does too, feeling his face flush under the praise, and feeling much better now that he won’t have to worry about what a purple blush looks like anymore.

A-die heads down to the car first, baba trailing a little behind. Before Sizhui can follow, Wen Ning hands him the jar with his tincture. “I don’t have any need of this,” he explains, “And we shouldn’t let any of your hard work today go to waste. Any of it,” he adds again with a wink. Sizhui hears his baba, who is still just barely in earshot, snort at that.

Sizhui imagines the look on Jingyi’s face when he eats the cupcake, and then sees the result. “I’ll have to find a good use for it, then.” When he gets down to the car, he turns back around to wave back, with the hand holding his sunflower. “Thank you shushu, I’ll see you next week!”

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #lan sizhui #wen ning #witch au #tmariea writes

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jaimebluesq · 2 years

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sangxun enemies to lovers??????👀

As some may be dismayed to know >.< I have a little thing with shipping NHS with Jin Zixun of all people, and this is a fic I've been working off and on for a while. There's a few scenes of them at various ages locking horns, but then the big part of the fic will take place during the Sunshot Campaign.

When NHS is smuggled to Gusu for his protection, they come across a Wen scouting party and get attacked. The whole thing is witnessed by a Jin party headed by Jin Zixun - at this point, JGS hasn't committed to the Sunshot campaign - and the moment the disciples realize NHS is in the fray, they realize that if he's captured, it could hugely affect the Sunshot campaign - so JZX takes his disciples in because they've been secretly pissed their sect leader hasn't taken a stand, and they don't want the whole thing to be decided then and there.

Basically, at the end of it all, there are only 2 people still alive - NHS and JZXun, the latter of which is severely injured and barely able to walk/stand. NHS gets them to safety, helps with some first aid, etc etc - and then they're on the run from the Wen (because JGS was happy to throw his nephew under the bus when confronted by WRH about Jin bodies at the scene of battle). Of course feelings are to be had, etc etc...

And then I was going to do 2 endings for the story and post them both as separate chapters. Ending 1: JZXun, through his love for NHS, doesn't provoke WWX the way he does in canon, vastly changing the way things happened, and through high and low, they do actually get a happily ever after. Ending 2: JZXun doesn't change, his antagonism of WWX tears SangXun apart, and canon happens as canon does.

My planned title was "Happiness and Disaster"

Now for the excerpt:

Lan Qiren felt like he was on the verge of a qi deviation.

This year's batch of students in Cloud Recesses had looked to be quite promising, and with only one great sect sending an heir (he expected the Jiang and Jin to send theirs the next year), he had hoped some of the usual inter-sect animosity would be at a minimum, allowing the students a peaceful place to learn and grow. He had thought he could dedicate himself to his lessons and observing the students for their potential as great cultivators of the future.

He had thought wrong.

He held back a sigh as his nephew, Lan Xichen, approached with a teapot and cups which he prepared and distributed to Lan Qiren and the two boys kneeling opposite him at the table. Two boys that had already been caught cursing each other out no less than two dozen times since classes had begun. Two boys that had been warned and punished several times, and yet here they were, in his office again after having been caught shoving each other and trading insults, proving their punishments had been for naught.

He lifted his tea to his lips and took a sip, hoping the bite from the piping hot tea would give him some strength to handle these two troublesome teenagers.

The boys for their part, couldn't have been more different than night and day. Nie Huaisang had looked sheepish at first, though when Lan Xichen arrived with the tea, Nie Huaisang had given him an innocent smile as if to gain sympathy by reminding Lan Xichen of his friendship with Nie Mingjue; Lan Xichen had a kind heart, if one that was terribly naive, and had returned the smile whole-heartedly. Next to Nie Huaisang knelt Jin Zixun, arms crossed over his chest and nose held high in the air as if he couldn't believe anyone would hold him accountable for any of his actions and that if Lan Qiren even tried, Jin Guangshan would come and stop him; he wasn't the first Jin student who had obviously never been disciplined as a child and he wouldn't be the last, and Lan Qiren hoped this wasn't an example of what he'd have to deal with Jin Zixuan next year.

Lan Qiren waited until Lan Xichen had left before speaking to the two boys opposite him.

“What have you to say for yourselves this time?”

Nie Huaisang blinked owlishly. “I don't know what you mean, Laoshi Lan. I really don't know why I'm here.” It was the exact same tone of voice the boy used when he 'didn't know' where he'd put his saber when it was time for sword training, or 'didn't know' where he'd put an assignment that was due but he didn't have in hand.

Jin Zixun snorted but made no other sound – he did, however, finally uncross his arms if only to pick up his teacup and take a drink.

“It wasn't bad enough that the two of you were fighting again, but this time it turned physical. There were dozens of witnesses, all of whom were very forward with their accounts. It seems neither of you have made many friends among your classmates, certainly not any that would stand up for either of you.”

Nie Huaisang's 'innocent' look finally slipped, as did Jin Zixun's arrogance. Perhaps if either of them had shown some sign of remorse earlier, this could have been avoided. Unfortunately, a decision had already been made – one neither of them would like. Those tended to be the best and most objective, he'd found.

“It has been decided that having both of you in classes together is a distraction to every student in Cloud Recesses. One of you will be returning home early and will be asked to repeat their classes next year, and the one that remains will be under severe house arrest, their movements restricted to the classroom, their dorm, the training field, and the library – even meals will not be taken with the other students.”

Both boys were now looking down at the table, genuinely upset at the verdict – but they had nobody to blame but themselves.

“Our decision as to who stays and who goes was very easy – we looked at two different considerations, and both led to the same result. Jin Zixun will remain in Cloud Recesses, while Nie Huaisang will return to Qinghe and come back next year. Firstly, as you both know there are age limits to the admission of students, and Jin Zixun is closer to it, and thus would have less possibilities of returning in future years. Secondly,” Lan Qiren gave a pointed look to a fearfully shocked Nie Huaisang, “judging by Nie Huaisang's test results in class, he will very likely have to repeat next year anyway as I can't see a single subject that he will pass in.”

“Ha!” Jin Zixun crowed, a victorious look upon his face as he looked down on the other boy.

“I wouldn't celebrate too quickly,” Lan Qiren interrupted, and he enjoyed how the pleasure drained away from the boy's face. “As I said, your movements will be restricted... but you will also be required to do extra work. That should help fill in your free time before this year's session is over.”

The one good thing that Lan Qiren could say about the two was that neither of them argued with his decision. They knew they were in heavy trouble, both had received many warnings that they refused to heed...

“Now, you'll both have a day or two before both of your Sect Leaders arrive to speak to you so that everyone is fully informed on what has happened and what we have decided to do about it. Have either of you any questions?”

“Da-ge is coming?!” “Jiujiu knows?!” Both boys spoke in near unison, their faces matching pictures of distressed panic.

A good Lan would not feel a certain level of vindication at students having to face the consequences of their actions, so that's certainly not what Lan Qiren experienced. He was simply satisfied that perhaps these two might finally learn their lessons.

“You are both dismissed and will remain in your dorm rooms until your sect leaders arrive to speak with you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Laoshi,” two voices echoed in dismay.

Lan Qiren watched as the boys rose up from their cushions, made proper bows to their teacher, and then with the experience of many years teaching growing boys and girls, Lan Qiren silently counted to five as the boys left the room. One... Two... Three... Four... Five...

“This is all your fault!”

“My fault? You're the one who said I was uglier than a yao!”

“So it's my fault I told the truth? You're the one who shoved me first.”

“And I'd do it again!”

“Boys!!!” Lan Qiren gave his voice enough power to be heard across the sect grounds if necessary. “If you do not separate this instant, I will have to have you escorted back to your rooms, and given further punishment to be completed before your sect leaders arrive. Is that clear?!”

“Yes, Laoshi.”

Lan Qiren lifted fingers to his forehead to ward off his coming headache. He made the decision to spend his evening after dinner in the ancestral hall, making prayers and offerings to his ancestors. He would plead and beg with them if necessary, all for one very simple wish, for the sake of his sanity.

That next year's studies at Cloud Recesses be much less eventful than this one.

(His prayers would not be answered.)

#my wips #sangxun #lan qiren dealing with terrible teenagers

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noxmachinimafr · 8 days

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Corrupted Tzen armor - 3D Model

Hi, It has been a while, once again! Sometimes, I am not sure what to share on Tumblr. I will try to keep sharing about my 3D journey. The next episode of Untold Tale of Pandaria (Pandaria Monogatari) is running well. The progress has been a bit slower than expected because of the sleeves that are custom and a nightmare to animate.

Talking about "nightmare", we finally arrived at That part that I wanted to give a try for a long time: a short horrific Japanese ghost movie! I am a huge fan of the Fatal Frame game series, and I also really enjoy the tones of Asian ghost stories and movies.

(Note: This gif features a yokai, not a yurei or an onryo. But it is the less scary I found) In the machinima, I feel like I have the unique opportunity to play around with this! The whole scene in this Kaiki eiga style will be released apart to not scare the audience. Also, from the lesson learned from the prologue, I need to avoid multiple intrigues, to keep the narrative flow clear enough. So we will briefly see ghosts (many more elaborated and diverse models than below), and see later whom they torment and how they proceed.

This long digression being done... Let's talk about the new model I made and its lore! (Finally) I have had the draft idea of this armor for a long time! In the lore of the machinima, the Tzen armor is a centuries-old artifact of the eponymous clan. It is thought to have been partly destroyed, just like most of the belongings of the disposed clan. The last warrior thought to have owned and worn the armor was Tho's father. Although Mei-Phang claimed that they saw it, altered but complete, in Tho's bedroom, during their teenage years (so about a decade after the execution of all the Tzen patriarchs). The armor is considered an artifact because it changes with the owner's will and absorbs the chi around, accordingly. The Tzen identified themselves with the Mountains of the South that can bring prosperity or devastation. The armor thus "embodies" that ambivalence.

In the prologue, we could foresee that Tho chose a path of destruction, realizing way too late the disaster he'd caused.

But this had consequences. And notably on the Tzen armor. In the "Notes about the Untold Tale" (written by one of my lorewalker OC, Wen-Long) states that the Tzen armor got corrupted with so much bad chi that it started wandering by night, more likely seeking for revenge. Older Mei-Phang would have to relocate their students, when the armor started causing a big safety concern. Yet, the armor never attacked Mei directly, unless they wear the official kimono of the Zhu clan.

The customization work on this armor was pretty simple and straightforward. I started from an existing Huojin sentinel model that I rediscovered while playing (Han-zhu) on the PTR. (On the screenshot, you can see a hint regarding one of Han-zhu's first names, btw... :D).

The original mesh of the model had few refinements to attenuate the plate-looking style. I then worked on the main additions: -add a wakidate on the kabuto (helmet) -refine the sode (shoulder pads) - add a kusazuri and a haidate (lower part) These additions were very simple but they gave a nice silhouette. I improved my retopology and seam marking, so the work on the kusazuri/haidate was much less painful than on Han-zhu's samurai armor in the prologue! The main work on this armor was the texturing that was almost completely remade from scratch. First I wanted Tho's eyes to be visible beyond the menpo (mask), but it looked like he was squinting, like, way too much! And it really messed up the frightening aura of the armor! XD

So I decided to keep the eyes red-glowing and add Tho's "emblematic" red scarf, instead.

Cannot wait for the next episode (and little Kaiki eiga spinoff) to go live soon! Hope you enjoy this long post! Thank you if you read everything!! P.S. If you don't know yet about this machinima project, here is the trailer.

youtube

#pandaren #blender3d #3d model #samurai #world of warcraft #warcraft oc #digital fanart #pandaria #Youtube

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sneakingpasta · 3 years

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Mdzs but WWX doesn’t die and is there as Jin Ling grows up with his parents and his uncles

Alright so WWX actually gets to celebrate Jin Ling’s one month celebration with his family

Brought him a spicy pepper or something because we all know that that’s how one accepts another into their family Yunmeng style

Jiang Cheng and him start fighting because babies can’t have spices until they’rs six months (Always gotta have a fight in a family reunion, you know how it goes)

Baby Jin Ling won’t go to sleep until Uncle Xianxian plays a little flute song just for him (absolutely spoiled rotten, this baby is) (WWX doesn’t mind spoiling him)

Once Jin Ling can actually have spicy foods you Know that wwx is cooking up a motherfucking call-the-ambulance lava melting meal for initiation

Jin Ling’s crying but is a stubborn boy who will eat every drop of this poison to assert dominance

After the meal is finished, the rest of the family members are dying while rinsing their mouths out

Meanwhile Wwx is holding Jin Ling like he’s the baby Messiah

“THIS IS MY NEPHEW” “THE BLOOD OF YUNMENG RUNS THROUGH HIM” “THIS IS MY NEPHEW”

Wwx keeps cooking and Jin Ling actually develops his level of spiciness

Wwx starts teaching Jin Ling how to destroy kitchens and people’s mouths cook and now they’re both disasters in the kitchen who can make food that will kill a man

WWX teaches Jin Ling some sick flute solos that he can now perform like it’s nothing

However, the best and most incredible thing Jin Ling has learned from both Wwx and JC, is how to swear

The first incident happens when Jin Ling is four

It’s a nice day, disciples are playing with the younger children, parents are setting up picnics on patches of grass, a gentle breeze is blowing through, filling everyone with peace

Then, like a discordant note swinging through the air, a resounding “FUCK” is heard

Everyone whips their heads around

Little Jin Ling is trotting at very fast speeds towards his two uncles, looking as though he had been treated with utmost discourtesy and unfairness, drenched in water

His face is red with anger and wwx and jc ask him what’s wrong

“The mudafucking wind threw me into the damn lake”

There is silence

Then, wordlessly, JC and WWX look to each other

And they can’t help it

Wwx “Pfft” is all it takes to send the both of them wheezing

Then they pick Jin Ling up, tears of laughter still steaming down their faces, as they go to fight the wind

Flash forward a couple of years

Jin Ling has become a master archer (Gotta thank Uncle Wen Ning for the lessons) and an amazing sword fighter

However, having been raised by two dramatic ass uncles, he is also a Drama Queen

And when Wwx starts showing signs that he’s got a fuckin big crush of Lwj, that’s when Jin Ling is like “Alright Showtime Motherfucker”

At this point, he knows for a fact that lwj is also helplessly in love (Jin Ling is repeatedly exasperated and annoyed at how dumb two of the smartest people can be. Like seriously. It was embarrassing to watch)

So he gathers all of the Lan disciples and recruits them into the “Getting my dumbass uncle his soulmate because he won’t stop whining about it over dinner and I am this close to snapping his neck” Team

With the crew together, they put together what might be the most extra plan to get two people together (including fake investigations)

With Jin Ling, Lan Jingyi, Lan Sizhui, and Ouyang Zizhen at the helm of the ship, they somehow execute the dumbest and most idiotic plan in the history of plans and make it work

Then, after months of preparation and build up, the day arrives

They send out a distress signal

Wwx and lwj enter a dark forest clearing

Hidden in the trees, the juniors are making hand signals at each other

From the darkness, thousands of lanterns float up into the sky (They spent two entire sleepless nights making them and transporting them here)

Beautiful white birds gently drift through the night sky

Flower petals seem to fall from nowhere (Are actually being thrown by frantic juniors who are so worried about making the plan go wrong if they don’t perfectly toss them)

Not a single cloud is in the sky, as the moonlight perfectly lights up the area (The Juniors swore to slice every cloud in half if it came to it and Heaven wasn’t bout to test them)

BUT since they forgot they lured them here with a DISTRESS CALL, wwx and lwj are stressing out about where the ducklings are and their safety and what type of creature was doing this and-

“HOLY FUCK JUST KISS ALREADY” Jingyi shouts from his spot in the tree

Similar shouts echo from the the forest as lwj and wwx finally understand the situation

Bada bing bada boom PG confession time

By the time they kiss a lot of juniors are rolling their eyes or gagging because “ew, kissing”

After the kiss, Jin Ling descends from a tree like a God, flute in hand, as he begins celebrating their win with the most epic fucking flute solo the world has or will ever hear

#Jin Ling’s uncles #jin ling #lan sizhui #lan jinyi #ouyang zizhen #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #lan wangji #the juniors #Wangxian #the untamed #mdzs au #mdzs #au where wwx can be the doting uncle I KNOW HE COULD BE #mo dao zu shi #Yunmeng bros

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stiltonbasket · 3 years

Note

Can we have a hundred day celebration for Shuilan in renouncement? Would love to see Wangxian happily showing off their baby and the everyone being KO’d by her cuteness.

If anyone had told Wei Wuxian what his future would hold five years ago, he would have laughed at the impossibility, and then dug a hole for himself in his favorite radish patch until Wen Qing came along to fetch him.

How strange it would have sounded to the Yiling Laozu holding court in the Burial Mounds, scraping by on thin luobo stew and the odd egg from market to feed A-Yuan, that one day a child of his would receive the blessings of all the Lan sect the moment she came into the world, and again thrice over at her hundred-day feast! It scarcely seems real to him now, after more than a year as Lan Zhan’s husband and the Lan Clan’s Xinhua-jun, and the sight of his richly dressed reflection in the looking glass bewilders him so much that he scarcely registers it when Lan Zhan materializes behind him with A-Lan in his arms.

“A-Lan looks so sweet, Lan Zhan,” he laughs, when his husband reaches out to touch his elbow--in a gesture that means come back, xingan, for I am here beside you, and you need never want for anything again. “She’s sparkling almost as much as you are.”

Lan Zhan dressed the baby in a tiny, glittering robe covered with beaded flowers, and whenever the light falls upon her little body, A-Lan glows like a moonlit pearl: so cool and soft and calm that Wei Wuxian can scarcely look away from her, even after the hundred-day feast is well underway in the banquet hall. He and Lan Zhan hold the seats of honor today, rather than Lan Xichen, and Xiao-Yu sits close beside them with his fluffy hair tied up into two pigtails.

“May I hold her, Hanguang-jun?” a kindly matron from the Cheng sect asks. Lan Zhan nods, and Lan-bao is swiftly transferred into Cheng-er-furen’s arms: puzzled by her sudden ascent, certainly, but happy enough to blink her big eyes up at Second Lady Cheng and coo like a roosting pigeon.

“Oh,” Cheng-er-furen gasps, as A-Lan kicks her tiny feet in their pink satin shoes. “Xinhua-jun, she’s beautiful.”

Wei Wuxian feels his heart quiver in his breast. “They say that one beauty recognizes another,” he says gravely, laughing out loud when Lady Cheng’s cheeks flush red. “Lan-bao can already tell, Lan Zhan, don’t you think?”

Lan Zhan presses his lips together and refuses to answer, but Wei Wuxian can see them twitching up at the corners. “That means he agrees with me,” he teases, as Cheng-furen slips a red packet into Xiao-Yu’s hands and kisses the toe of A-Lan’s little sock. “Don’t you, xingan?”

Lady Cheng rolls her eyes at their flirting and passes down the line with a smile, yielding her place to the next guest before going to find a seat at the banquet table.

“Ah, Wei-xiong,” the next well-wisher sighs, snapping open his favorite fan and holding it out to the baby. “A-Lan’s gathered quite a crowd today, hasn’t she?”

“Well, we did limit the full-moon ceremony to only our friends and family,” Wei Wuxian points out. As far as social events go, A-Lan’s full moon was one of the most exclusive gatherings of the year, open to members of the Lan sect and only by invitation to guests outside the Cloud Recesses; Ouyang Zizhen was generally envied as the sole attendee unconnected to Wei Wuxian by sect or familial ties, though he would have been invited anyway as Ouyang-zongzhu’s heir. “Lan Zhan was worried that we might fall ill during the monsoon season, so of course we had to invite everyone now that the weather’s turned warm again.”

Huaisang gives a meditative nod and lets A-Lan chew on the handle of his fan. “Lan-bao doesn’t have any teeth,” he yawns, when Wei Wuxian stares at the fan in disbelief and tries to pull it out of the baby’s mouth. “She can gum on my fan all she wants, I doubt she can put a dent in it.”

But the fan loses its charm before long, and A-Lan starts fussing in her blue satin wrap and refuses to settle until Wei Wuxian picks her up. The next group of guests offers their good-wishes one by one, leaving behind gifts like red packets and jade pendants and enough books to set up a new wing in the Library Pavilion; and a little while later, a shy two-year-old wanders up with his mother and presents a clumsily-carved dizi, just the right size for a toddler about as old as he is.

“I married out of the Cloud Recesses, so I live with my husband in Caiyi now,” the mother explains, as her son looks into Lan-bao’s crib with big eyes and makes soft cooing sounds in a clear attempt to play with her. “He runs a woodworking shop, so when we heard about the invitation to Lan-xiao-guniang’s hundred-day, Fang’er asked him to help carve a dizi for her.”

Wei Wuxian is so thoroughly charmed that he promises to stop by the woodworking shop later in the month, and present little Lan Fang--who seems to have taken his mother’s name, to retain his connection to her sect--with a learning dizi of his own.

“You can never begin too early,” Lan Zhan offers, catching Xiao-Yu by the sleeve to stop him from feeding his spicy peanut snacks to Lan Fang. “Does he prefer the flute above other instruments, furen? If so, he could come to the Cloud Recesses to study alongside Xiao-Yu when Wei Ying starts his music lessons.”

Wei Wuxian flinches, wondering if Lan Zhan has lost his senses--because what good mother would send her son to learn the dizi from the infamous Yiling Patriarch, even if he had been redeemed in the eyes of the gentry by his marriage to Lan Wangji? But Lan Fang’s mother is already nodding, looking fondly at Xiao-Yu as he offers Fang’er a bite of tangyuan, and the look in her eyes when she turns to Wei Wuxian is full of nothing but happiness.

“Xiao-Fang doesn’t get along very well with the children in Caiyi,” she sighs. “But he’ll surely come to study here one day, so if I could send him and know that Xiao-Yu-gongzi would look out for him--”

“Xiao-Yu will!” A-Yu exclaims, grabbing Lan Fang’s hand. “He’ll be A-Yu’s shidi!”

Lan Fang is more interested in doting on A-Lan, but Xiao-Yu is delighted by the prospect of having a junior sect brother, and tells the next ten people in line that he has become a shixiong now.

All in all, A-Lan’s hundred-day feast goes off without a hitch, and Wei Wuxian is nearly in tears at the sweetness of it all by the time Jiang Cheng arrives with a set of silver baby jewelry.

“A-Cheng, you shouldn’t have,” he chuckles, ducking his head so that Lan Zhan can pat his eyes with a cool handkerchief. “Lan-bao has enough jewelry for a new set every day, by now!”

“This isn’t just any set of jewelry,” Jiang Cheng informs him, motioning his head disciple to come forward and open the flat jewel-cases to reveal necklaces, bangles, ankle-bracelets and a longevity lock encrusted with silver beads.

Upon closer inspection, Wei Wuxian discovers that each tiny bead is a miniature clarity bell, etched with the Jiang sect lotus blossom and reinforced with so many protective charms that the collected set must have cost a small fortune.

“Didi,” Wei Wuxian begins, trying in vain to swallow the lump in his throat. “This, this is--”

“She won’t be able to wear these for long, but you could get them disassembled and extended with plain silver when she’s older,” his brother interrupts. “But A-Shuai says you should put them into storage when A-Lan gets older, because heaven knows I can’t afford another set.”

Lan Zhan frowns. “Why would we need another set?”

Jiang Cheng fixes him with a pointed stare, and Wei Wuxian feels his cheeks turn crimson when he finally gets the hint.

(Three years later, A-Lan’s hundred-day clarity jewels are passed down to a newborn baby sister, and no one is more pleased than her adoring jiujiu when Wei Chunyang wears them at her own full moon celebration.)

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian arranged marriage au #renouncement verse #my fic #RENOUNCEMENT VERSE IS BACK #baby!!!!#wei shuilan

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fortune-maiden · 3 years

Note

For the Touching prompts: Nie Brothers with 43, or Wen Qing and Wen Ning with 45?

I hope the day is treating you kindly.

-withoutenvies/amatorstellae

Thank you so much for these!! I am going to fill the Nie Brothers one in this space, and the Wen sibs one at some point in the near future (I love both of these prompts too much to choose one >.<)

Prompts are pinned on my tumblr. Happy to accept these at any time

This ended up as a 5 Times fic :)

AO3

“Carry!”

A small voice demands, and Nie Mingjue looks down to find his two-year-old brother tugging the hem of his robe with his small fists.

Nie Huaisang is a tiny lazy child, but is as demanding as an emperor, and about as loud as one when he can’t have his way. Nie Mingjue only needs to looks once at his round determined face though before his willpower crumbles. He places the wooden practice saber onto the ground and then lifts his delighted brother up into the air before hoisting him onto his back.

Nie Huaisang’s laughter is the best sound in the world. His chubby arms are wrapped tightly around Nie Mingjue’s neck, and his legs are secure under his arms. He’s had a Nie’s grip from the moment he learned to hold things. With his brother on his back, Nie Mingjue runs around the training grounds, his practice all but forgotten.

He’ll get an earful for it later, but for now he doesn’t care. His little brother’s happiness is all that matters to him.

II.

“Carry me!”

On the back hill of the Unclean Realm, Nie Huaisang stares mesmerized at the trees, then suddenly runs back to his brother and says his demands.

“There’s a bird’s nest up there!” Nie Huaisang explains at his brother’s deadpan stare. “I want to see it better.”

“You can climb the tree. You’re even better at that than me at this point,” Nie Mingjue points out, but the moment Nie Huaisang raises his arms, he lifts him up, as thought it were a conditioned response, and places him up onto his back. “Better?”

“Much!” Nie Huaisang points him to the desired tree, where he proceeds to climb his way onto Nie Mingjue’s shoulders, and stare at the nest on the branch fondly. Nie Mingjue is about to remind him not to disturb anything up there, but Nie Huaisang is quickly satisfied and slides back onto his back, hugging his brother tightly.

“You saw your nest. Let go.”

“No way. I like the view better up here,” Huaisang tells him. “Da-ge, I’ve decided. One day I’m going to be taller than you.”

“Glad to hear it,” Nie Mingjue remarks.

Even at the age of 8, Nie Huaisang is smaller and weaker than the other children his age, enough so that they’d delayed the start of his saber lessons in favor of letting him build up more strength first. Their father thinks his slow development now is a sign that he’ll surprise them all with a growth spurt later. Nie Mingjue thinks that Huaisang’s mother had been a small woman and that he’d inherited enough of her looks and frailty to have likely inherited her height too.

It doesn’t matter though. Nie Mingjue is tall enough for both of them and he’ll carry his little brother around as much as he wants.

“One day I’ll be so tall that I’ll carry you on my back, Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang promises him with far too much solemnity. Then laughs as Nie Mingjue tries to playfully shake him off.

“Looking forward to it,” Nie Mingjue says, but privately thinks he’ll be a little sad the day his brother outgrows these piggyback rides.

III.

“Carry meeeeeee!”

Nie Mingjue hears these words in lieu of a greeting and in the next moment, he’s tackled from behind, a familiar weight jumping onto his back and wrapping his limbs around his torso.

“I’ve missed you Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang says cheerfully. “Did you miss me?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue snaps, his ears burning as Lan Xichen stares at the two of them bewildered. “Did I send you here so you could run around even more wildly or to learn some manners? Get down at once.”

“Da-ge, I’ve shed so many tears waiting for our reunion. I could barely eat anything. Can’t you tell how much I’ve wasted away here?”

“You’re as heavy as always to me,” Nie Mingjue tells him honestly. “And is that any way to talk in front of your host?”

“I don’t mind…” Lan Xichen awkward smile suggests he’s heard these exact complaints many times before. “Huaisang was watching the skies for your saber all morning. He really has missed you.”

Nie Mingjue knows. He has a number of letters from both Nie Huaisang and Lan Qiren telling him this. It’s why he decided to fly out to the Cloud Recesses to discuss a matter that could have just as easily been resolved in writing.

“I’m here to see the Grandmaster, not you,” Nie Mingjue grumbles. “Go wait in your room. I’ll visit later.”

“At least carry me to the reception hall with you,” Nie Huaisang insists cheerfully. “You can drop me before you go inside.”

“I’ll drop you now,” Nie Mingjue threatens, but he’s already following a chuckling Lan Xichen’s lead, his brother still secure on his back. He hasn’t seen Nie Huaisang smiling so brightly in a long time, and doesn’t want to spoil his mood. Despite all the worrying letters, two months at the Cloud Recesses really has had a good effect on him, he thinks.

“Da-ge’s back really is the best,” Nie Huaisang mutters dreamily. “The best back. No comparison. None at all.”

“What are you –” Nie Mingjue starts, but then notices Lan Xichen avert his gaze with a small frown. “Xichen, if my brother’s bullying you, you can throw him into a lake.”

“Hey!”

“Of course not,” Lan Xichen says. “I was just remembering how Huaisang hurt his foot a while back, so I carried him to the infirmary. I was told my piggyback ride couldn’t compare.”

“You can throw him into the Cold Spring too.”

“Da-ge, no! I’ll die!” Nie Huaisang whines. “And it can’t! Xichen-gege, you should ask Da-ge to carry you. Then you’ll see exactly what I mean.”

“That doesn’t make any…” Nie Mingjue stops as he notices Lan Xichen looking curiously at him. “Xichen, do you want me to carry you?”

He did. Lan Wangji too apparently, having heard the tales.

“All of you are way too old for this,” Nie Mingjue snaps as he crouches down to pick up the next one.

IV.

“Carry me?”

Nie Huaisang looks up at his brother with big, pleading eyes, the orange light from the candles reflected in them. Nie Mingjue sighs.

“You’ll be clinging to me the whole trip to the Cloud Recesses tomorrow. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang replies immediately. Nie Mingjue sets down his brush and turns around to let Nie Huaisang climb onto his back, before lifting them both up with a groan.

“You really are getting too old for this,” Nie Mingjue grumbles as he starts walking down the familiar hallways to Nie Huaisang’s room. “How many more times do I have to tell you you can’t keep acting this way?”

“One last time,” Nie Huaisang whispers. “Just let me be your kid brother for one more night.”

“Idiot,” Nie Mingjue whispers, and lightly bumps his forehead against Nie Huaisang’s. “You’ll always be my kid brother. War doesn’t change that.”

War changes everything else though, and Nie Huaisang’s grip around his brother’s shoulders tighten involuntarily as he starts to tremble. Tomorrow, Nie Mingjue will take Nie Huaisang to the Cloud Recesses yet again, only this time neither of them knows when, or even if, they’ll see each other again.

Nie Mingjue can’t blame Huaisang for being wistful. Some part of him resents his brother’s lack of combat skill and inability to accompany him to the battlefield. Most of him is grateful that this doesn’t even need to be a conversation between them. Huaisang will stay where it’s safe, continue his training, and learn to manage a sect should he suddenly have to. The Lan will protect him while Nie Mingjue cannot.

Nie Mingjue carries Nie Huaisang to his bed, and sits nearby while waiting for him to calm down.

“We have an early start tomorrow,” Nie Mingjue tells him. “You really should try to get some sleep.”

“You too,” Nie Huaisang mutters, and curls onto his side like a shrimp, pulling his blanket over his head.

Nie Mingjue waits a little longer for his breathing to settle, then brushes his brother’s forehead as he stands, and returns to his study to finish as much of his mountain of work as he is able.

He doesn’t think about the small wet patch that remains on his shoulder.

“Carry me.”

Nie Huaisang’s voice is low and petulant. His grip around Nie Mingjue’s arm tightens, and Nie Mingjue stops to meet his brother’s stubborn, but drooping eyes. It can’t be helped.

Nie Mingjue frees his arm, takes a step forward, and crouches down, letting Nie Huaisang climb onto his back with practiced ease. He’s asleep within a few steps, and ahead of them, Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao stare back in mirth and bemusement respectively.

“Is he alright?” Jin Guangyao asks.

“Tired,” Nie Mingjue answers gruffly. “He overdid it a little. It’s fine.”

“He did very well today.” Lan Xichen’s voice is light and teasing. “Didn’t run or hide, landed the final blow, and not a single injury.”

“Be nice.”

“I am nice. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Huaisang night-hunting.” Lan Xichen slows his pace to fall in step with Nie Mingjue. “His swordplay is a joy to watch. There may not be much strength behind it, but his movements are very clean and precise. You worry so much, but Huaisang’s progress is clear.”

“What progress? He fought one beast and then went and passed out from exhaustion,” Nie Mingjue grumbles, but deftly steps aside before Lan Xichen can playfully poke his brother’s cheek. “Don’t wake him.”

Jin Guangyao chuckles. “I’m surprised. You were so hard on him before, but just now you didn’t even hesitate.”

Nie Mingjue gives him an odd look. “Why would I hesitate?”

It’s apparently the wrong thing to say because Jin Guangyao’s smile is quickly replaced by startled babbling, but Lan Xichen only laughs.

“Da-ge, don’t make such a menacing face,” he scolds. “And A-Yao, older brothers will always step up to carry their younger brothers like this. You’ve worked hard too. If you’d like, I can give you a piggyback ride as well.”

“Er, no thank you. I’m not a child.”

“And? Neither is Huaisang.”

Debatable. Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes and tunes out the rest of their banter. He stops briefly to adjust his hold on Huaisang, who nuzzles his cheek against his shoulder without a care in the world.

“Brat,” Nie Mingjue whispers fondly. Whether Huaisang is two or twenty-two, Nie Mingjue knows he’ll never refuse those two simple words.

He’ll carry him on his back as long as he’s able.

#nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lan xichen #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #theuntameddaily #fortune's fanfics #nie brothers #cute fluffy nies :)#and cute silly lxc :)#there is no plus 1 for this fic because i did not want any knives #there are still some knives hidden unfortunately but it is meant to be cute ;w;#my original ideas for the plus 1 were either nhs carrying nmjs corpse #or lxc carrying nhs to bed after nmjs funeral and him knowing its not the same #(a lighter variation of that ended up as the third section haha)

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rueluxprince · 4 years

Text

A Comprehensive List of Jin Ling’s Many Uncles

- an indulgent headcanon extrapolated from canon. It’s fiction but we’re still doing some media analysis.

- Jin Ling’s POV

- Canon-compliant

- accidentally deleted the original post, so reposting again

Mo Xuanyu: crazy queer uncle. You’re disgusted and confused by him and you also want to protect him. He bows too low to you.

Wei Wuxian: that other crazy queer uncle. Life coach. Believes wholeheartedly in learning via Direct Experiences. Will be disappointed in you to hear you didn’t get into a fight in boarding school. Somehow imparting a lesson on how to be a good person while stealing peaches with you at midnight. You’re sure enough of his love that you know you’re not gonna die when he tosses you head first into a hoard of angry ghosts.

Jiang Cheng: crazy angry uncle. Dad. High expectations. Really wants you to do well in swordsmanship. Got you a tutor to teach you how to shoot when you’ve turned out to obviously be better at that. Loud murder thunder on the outside, soft loving rain platter on the side. You’re sure enough of his love that you can scream back just as loudly when you two argue about what future path to take.

Jin Guangyao: crazy evil uncle. Mom. No expenses spared since you obviously deserve the best. Gave you a puppy you didn’t think you needed. Smells soft and nice and likes it very much when you hug him out of the blue. Tucks you behind him and plays the calm placater when your other uncle come storming in demanding how you’ve managed to blew up some horror death tomb the other day. You’re sure enough of his love that the possibility your lord-uncle may dispose his heir-nephew never even crossed your mind.

Lan Wangji: uncle by marriage. Apparently. You have no idea how to interact with him except to sit next to him in silent support as Wei Wuxian flounces around in dramatics around you at a bunch of low level resentful spirits. He gives you a silver nugget when he gets up.

Lan Xichen: uncle by... Not marriage apparently. For some reason you’re more scared of him than your Jiujiu. You tone down your voice by 50% when he’s around. Recommended some really good tutors to homeschool you. Always passes you an extra sweet when xiao-Shushu pretends he’s not looking. Taught you breathing exercises and the language of flowers. He’s always at your house and you don’t know how to feel about that.

Wen Ning: uncle by... friend osmosis? Idk you hang out with Lan Sizhui too much and apparently mi uncle es su uncle. You’re still very conflicted about him but he once rescued you and four other juniors from a lightning snake monster by running four miles really fast and carrying all of you in his arms. Apparently it was nothing. You are now marginally less conflicted. You suspect it’s the osmosis thing again.

Nie Mingjue: uncle by sworn brotherhood? Once gave you a really rough head pat when you were a baby. He had really large and warm hands. You don’t remember much else.

Nie Huaisang: uncle by sworn brotherhood’s brotherhood? You avoid him when you’re a child because you’re a bit vain and you don’t like his type of frivolity. He sends you presents on your birthday. You avoid him when you’re a young adult because if you ever see him you will probably rip his face off with your bare hands. He sends you inter-sect business letters.

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Wen Ruohan, Jin Guangshan and a few chosen others (say, wen Chao, wen xu, jin jixun, xue yang?, meng yao?) die untimely deaths...of natural causes. Just after the sect heirs have received invitations to the wen indoctrination camp. Huh. That's strange. But the cultivation world has just become a better, happier place. Whoever is back in time and what's going to happen next idk but you might

“So,” Nie Huaisang said. “I have good news, great news, and bad news.”

“Is the good news that you weren’t brutally murdered when you were dragged away by guards from the Fire Palace?” Jiang Cheng wanted to know.

“…yes, actually. Good guess.”

Jin Zixuan sighed audibly.

“The rest of my news is more important!” Nie Huaisang protested.

“All right, all right,” Wei Wuxian said. “Hit us with it. Don’t leave poor Lan Zhan in suspense.”

Lan Wangji, who had not shown the slightest hint of impatience (or interest, for that matter), ignored him. As usual.

“Okay,” Nie Huaisang said. “Great news: war’s over.”

They all stared at him.

“I’m not joking,” he clarified. “War’s over.”

“Okay,” Wei Wuxian said. “Right. What does that – mean?”

“Well, among other things, Sect Leader Wen is now dead.”

“He’s what?!” Jiang Cheng yowled, and he wasn’t the only one, either; even Lan Wangji was standing up and staring at him in alarm, although Wei Wuxian noticed soon enough and pushed him to sit back down on account of that broken leg and all. “In that case – Wen Xu –”

“Also dead.”

“…what?”

“Wen Chao, too. Plus Wen Zhuliu, in case anyone was worried about that.”

“Nie Huaisang,” Lan Wangji said, a warning tone in his voice.

Nie Huaisang held up his hands. “I’m completely serious! They’re all dead!”

Jiang Cheng sat down abruptly. Everyone looked at him.

“If they’re really all dead,” he said blankly. “If that’s true…the war really is over.”

They all stared at each other wordlessly for a while. It didn’t seem possible for it to be over so quickly – so anticlimactically. But without Wen Ruohan – without his two sons – who was left to be in charge of the Wen sect?

Wen Qing, maybe, as Wen Ruohan’s ward? Wen Ning?

Impossible.

Even if they did take over, they’d been Dafan Wen once – maybe they could be talked back into being pacifists or something?

“How did it happen?” Jin Zixuan asked. “All three of them dead all at once like that…it seems impossible.”

“Oh, well, you know,” Nie Huaisang said, a faintly malicious smile appearing on his face. “I’m not sure if Jin-xiong knows my brother’s deputy, Meng Yao?”

Of course he knew. Everyone knew the relationship between the Jin sect and Meng Yao, least of all the Jin sect.

“Well, he apparently showed up at the front gate of the Nightless City a few days ago having turned traitor and swore to serve Wen Ruohan. He even made him a few ingenious torture devices for the Fire Palace and got on his good side. And when Wen Ruohan finally stopped paying attention…”

“He killed them?” Jiang Cheng was disbelieving. “All three – well, four, with Wen Zhuliu – I thought his cultivation was weak? How could he defeat them?”

“He didn’t! They were having dinner and he volunteered to play them a song – well, possibly he did it a few times, I’m not terribly clear – well, either way, he volunteered to play them a song and then apparently used musical cultivation to drive them all mad and then they murdered each other. Poetic justice, in my opinion.”

Everyone exchanged glances, then shrugged and nodded. That seemed about right.

“He’s a hero, then,” Wei Wuxian said. “Meng Yao.”

“That should be enough to win him any favor he wants,” Jiang Cheng said, with a significant look at Jin Zixuan, whose shoulders went up a little, defensively, but who was gracious enough to nod in agreement.

“Oh, he doesn’t want to join the Jin sect anymore,” Nie Huaisang said gleefully. “He said that he learned his lesson about that – and some other things, too, which don’t make much sense, but I think he’s just tired from the whole assassination thing. Maybe he’ll change his mind later? Who even knows?”

“Well,” Wei Wuxian said, blinking rapidly. “All’s well that ends well, I guess?”

“Uh, about that…that was the good news and the great news,” Nie Huaisang said. “Who wants to hear the bad news?”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’m almost relieved,” Wei Wuxian murmured as an aside to Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng. “It was starting to feel too good to be true, you know?”

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng said.

Lan Wangji didn’t say anything, but his look suggested he agreed with Jiang Cheng.

“The bad news is – the Wen sect still has an army,” Nie Huaisang announced. “A very large, very powerful army, with lots of weapons and magical tools and all that, and without being dealt with, they could go anywhere and do anything.”

“Not good,” Jin Zixuan said, looking alarmed.

“That’s an understatement,” Jiang Cheng said, scowling, and Wei Wuxian nodded.

“I’m going to guess that you have an idea,” he said to Nie Huaisang, who pouted at him. “Sorry for spoiling your surprise, but you wouldn’t be this calm otherwise.”

“Wei-xiong, let me have my fun! But all right, yes, we have an idea: we don’t tell anyone that they’re dead.”

“…what?”

“I mean, we send messages back to our families, of course. But we don’t tell anyone here that they’re dead.”

“…what exactly are you suggesting?”

Nie Huaisang beamed at all of them. “I’m suggesting we collectively impersonate the Wen clan and run the Wen sect – maybe with Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s help, why not – for a few weeks until our families can eradicate the army problem.”

“That,” Lan Wangji said solemnly, “is a terrible idea.”

Nie Huaisang waved a hand at him. “Naturally it is. But it’s the only one that seems plausible – even Meng Yao agrees! And so – who’s with me?”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #jin zixuan #my fic #my fics #good news great news and bad news #consider this the spiritual successor to the Summer Camp fic

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chalkrevelations · 3 years

Text

So, Word of Honor, Episode 36 (and “Episode” 37) again, because I want to do a little bit more unpacking of this, particularly with some of the extra material and information that people have been able to point me to.

Spoilers, obvs. For right now, I mainly want to pull out this bit of my initial reaction to 36 & 37, because I think it remains a key point for me:

It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, show, some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues …

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot – queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands … So are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening in the story at the end of Ep 36 – what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling, isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told – by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level – is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37?

So, that’s a lot, but the reason I wanted to pull it back out is because I feel like this no-homo, surface-level, smoke-and-mirrors effect that gets layered over a queer bedrock of “reality” is precisely what the show did with its ending, and I want to approach that on a couple of different levels. Particularly since I’ve seen several reactions from other people who didn’t seem to have seen/didn’t have access to the extra of “Ep” 37, or who also found it difficult and vaguely unsatisfying to make the leap from Ep 36 to full belief in, and commitment to, “Ep” 37.

When I first posted this, I was really leaning on the idea of a classic Rashomon effect, given that we see – imho – a final Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing scene in Ep 36 that’s filmed to lead us to believe that Wen Kexing died, with a subsequent cut to Zhang Chengling wrapping up a telling of the “story” of ZZS and WKX to his disciples. The easiest fanwank on this is that all of what we’ve seen so far has been Chengling telling the story of ZZS and WKX to his disciples, making him an unreliable narrator who in fact doesn’t know the truth of what really happened. I was actually reminded of the contrast in The Untamed (god, I don’t need to warn for spoilers for The Untamed, do I, we’ve all seen Chen Qing Ling at this point, right? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE UNTAMED) between the cliff scene in Episode 1 when they make it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Wuxian, leading to his fall off the cliff, and you go back later and realize this is the version that the storyteller was telling to the people in the teahouse vs. Episode, god, what is it, 33? When we see the cliff scene in “real” time, and discover that’s not what actually happened, that what happened is that Jiang Cheng stabbed a rock and Wei Wuxian shook himself free of Lan Wangji’s grip to fall to his death. You can’t trust what you hear. Also … well, we’ll get back to Chengling in a minute.

The second level of uncertainty to unwind is Gao Xiaolian calling bs on Chengling’s story. So, I felt like the kid who’s practicing his forms in the snow and being coached by ZZS in “Ep” 37 might actually be someone, not just a random kid, and that might be important, but I could not for the life of me figure out who he might be. I wasn’t aware until I watched some of AvenueX’s wrap-up of the show (I think that’s the first place I heard this info pointed out) that this kid is supposed to be the son of Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan, and the dad who comes to take him home is Deng Kuan (formerly Da-shixiong of Yueyang Sect, who – let’s face it – Gao Xiaolian really wanted to marry). Seriously, I spent so much time making fun of ZZS’s stupid facial hair tricks in this show, and then they actually do just put a dumbass mustache on a guy, and I completely don’t recognize him. I have to admit, the mustache threw me enough that I had no idea that was Deng Kuan (well, and maybe only seeing him for three episodes also helped). But if that’s Deng Kuan, and if the kid is his and Gao Xiaolian’s son, then she would have some reasonable standing to know a story detailing WKX’s death was bs.

Finally, and most crucially – thanks to everyone who directed me to resources (including AvenueX and other fans who were able to do some translation) who were able to talk about the voiceover work in this final ep, because when I talk about how you can’t trust what you hear, but if you speak the language well enough and have a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on? When I talk about de-queered words being put into these character’s mouths? Apparently, this is what happens to Chengling in the final scene. That last scene - and the story he tells his disciples - apparently DOES provide the connective tissue from Ep 36 to Ep 37, but you can’t trust what you hear. Apparently, this is one of the places where you can see something different from what you hear if you’re able to lip-read, with Chengling telling the disciples something much closer to the idea that two people who love each other equally can equally support each other through this cultivation technique and both come out alive.

In the AvenueX discussion of this (Livestream #21, starting around 1:22:30), there’s an additional tidbit about the use of the word “cauldron” – I believe by Ye Baiyi - to describe one person in the pair, a word with a specific and widely-understood meaning within the genre that’s not necessarily known outside of the genre with, yes, sexual connotations. (Come on, slash fans, don’t tell me you don’t giggle every time you pass a perfectly innocent Jiffy Lube auto shop, at something that the mundanes don’t think twice about.) Apparently, “cauldron” is in the script, I believe it’s in the English subs, and it apparently was in the original Chinese subs, until too many people started talking about it and how it had been slipped past censorship, because it’s a perfectly common Jiffy Lube auto shop, right? and then it appears Youku went back and changed the character in the Chinese subs to something that doesn’t even make any sense. So again, we get an example of a case where if you’re a good enough speaker of the language this show is being told in – in this case the vernacular of wuxia – with a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on. Something that then gets no-homo’d. And has some nonsensical de-queered meaning laid over top of it. How many times do we have to do this until we learn the lesson that you can’t trust what you hear?

ANYWAY, I’m wondering if the visuals are important, too: Something we see in the last scene with ZZS and WKX in Ep 36, when WKX is either unconscious or dead (CLEARLY UNCONSCIOUS), is that ZZS – twice – doesn’t let WKX’s hands fall. He catches him by the wrists and then catches him again by the hands as WKX’s hands start to slip away from ZZS’s hands – aaaannnnd end scene. I have to wonder if that’s not a subtle but important detail, that we see ZZS refusing to let WKX physically slip away, and maybe, by implication, refusing to let WKX slip away from him into death.

Also, again with Ye Baiyi – in the flashback when WKX is yelling at ZZS, Ye Baiyi says “No one dies!” as he comes bursting into WKX’s sickroom. And then even reiterates it – “No one dies before me!” But then the voiceover during the qi transfer, he’s supposedly going on about here’s how WKX is going to have to kill himself to save his husband? I think the script has dropped the ball in a few places, but that would really be a tremendous flub. That also deserves some unpacking, but I’m running out of free time right now.

So, just some additional thoughts. I will probably have more, but next up, I think, will be a re-watch from the beginning.

One last thought, tho’: What’s the likelihood that Nian Xiang is Actual A-Xiang and Goa Xiaolian’s/Deng Kuan’s kid is Cao Weining, reincarnated?

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #gao xiaolian #deng kuan #ye baiyi #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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inessencedevided · 4 years

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There's been a lot of cql/mdzs atla-au posts going around lately and I need to add my take.

Because I think a lot could be done with Wei Ying as the avatar.

Imagine the story goes similarly as in canon. He is the son of traveling benders. Maybe Cangse-Sanren is a firebender and Wei Changse a waterbender. They get killed on some mission and he gets taken in by his father's old friend and leader of the Yunmeng water tribe. (This reminds me a lot of kyoshi's backstory, too.) He raises him a long his own children, his daughter who takes to healing more than fighting, and his son who likes nothing more than fighting.

Wei Ying already showed signes of being a waterbender, so they train him, even though he is the son of a former servant. He is, of course, more talented than any other of their students, even Jiang Cheng. Madam Yu still hates him for it.

At some point, they let all the children of the sect take the Avatar test. He passes. Occurs, they don't tell him until he is 16, so he doesn't know. Madam Yu dies though and her hatred for him for upstanding her son only grows. But Wei Ying is happy and loves them, much like in canon and, much like in canon, he is also convinced that he is deeply indebted to him and always brings more trouble than he is worth.

When they tell him he is the avatar on his 16th birthday, he is shocked and scared of his responsibility, but doesn't show it. He laughs it off and tells everyone he is glad because that means he can see the world and doesn't have to annoy madam yu anymore. He only shows cracks to his cheerful facade when they tell him that he has to leave the very next day. That means he will miss Jiang Cheng's birthday. When he tells Jiang Cheng's this, he gets angry and tells Wei Ying that clearly he is very important now and why not run off to the other sects, see if they will put up with him. He refuses to say goodbye after that, so it's just jiang yanli and Jiang fengmian seeing him off.

He goes to king Nie first who is the most renowned earth bending master of their time. He is unyielding and harsh, but unbelievably fond of his younger brother, who mostly uses his bending to sculp intricate and detailed statues. Wei Ying likes him instantly.

Next is fire. He doesn't like the fire lord who greets him and treats him like he is royalty himself, but in a way that makes Wei Ying's skin crawl. He does like the shy boy in his group lessons and his older sister. Wei Ying is good at firebending, even though it should be his natural enemy. Maybe it's his mother's side showing itself though.

Then of course, to complete his training, he needs to learn air-bending. He gets to Gusu and immediately dislikes it there. They are monks and they live like it, too. There are rules regulating every waking moment and the sleeping ones too and he vows to break at least half of them. By now he us 20 and he'll be damned if he lets himself be bossed around like he's 12 again.

He is greeted by their unusually young leader and his uncle and brother. He expects the uncle to be his teacher, but no. Lan Xichen explains that the honor of training the Avatar will go to the youngest air bender to ever become a master, his brother, Lan Zhan.

Okay, Wei Ying thinks, he can live with that. At least a teacher close to his own age should be fun, right?

Wrong!

Lan Zhan is strict, reticent, unyielding and punishes him for every single infringement of the 3000+ rules. He scolds Wei Ying for not taking the enormous responsibility of being the avatar more seriously. He never smiles and never praises him with more than a "passable".

But he is a challenge. One he is good! The best opponent in a fight Wei Ying has had since he was 14. And there is something so fun at making him react in even the slightest way! Also, his ears blush when he is angry and it's cute!

The first time, Wei Ying uses something other than air bending in their training fights, Lan Zhan is furious (Undisciplined!). But tge second time he grots his teeth and fights, really fights Wei Ying. He holds his own again a 3/4s-trained avatar for more than 30 minutes until Wei Ying let's him get swallowed by a whole in the ground that he than seals with a thick layer of ice that will take him way to long to slice open with air bending.

After that, their relationship evolves. It's more of a mutual rivalry, rather than just Wei Ying needling his air bending teacher until he snaps. After a few months, once Wei Ying has progressed beyond the basics (he can fly now! He loves flying! How can the Lans be so serious all the time? They can fly!!!), Lan Zhan introduces him to musical air-bending. Through bending, they can use the sounds to heal and to hurt, amplify them at will or direct them to a specific direction. Lan Zhan demonstrates some techniques on his guqin and then plays a song, though he refuses to tell Wei Ying its meaning.

Wei Ying picks a dixi. He takes to music like a fish to water and soon he is declared a fully trained air bender. His last night in Gusu is when it happens. News reaches them that Yunmeng is under attack from the Wen sect, who have been annexing more minor territoires for years. By the time Wei Ying gets there Lan Zhan at his side, Lotus Peer is burned to the ground. They barely get Jiang Cheng and Jiamg Yanli out, helped by Wei Ying's old friend, Wen Ning. They make it Wen Qing, who takes one look at Lan Zhan and tells him to go because Gusu is next.

(The wens knew where the avatar was abd where he wasn't abd chose their attacks accordingly)

Lan Zhan rushes back (alone. Wei Ying has brother to get back from the brink of death) but he us too late, too. Cloud Recesses is burned, his father dead, his brother missing and he is taken prisoner.

The war happens almost like in canon. The other heirs are taken hostage and given lessons as to how to behave towards their occupiers. They escape through the stupidity of Wen Chao.

I don't think that there'd be a burial mounts though, nor an equivalent to the list golden core. you can take someone's bending but i want Wei Ying to remain the avatar because:

In his desperation to beat the seemingly almighty Wen and his grieve for the Jiangs who took him in, he devices a plan. A) he goes to Lan Zhan and asks him if musical cultivation might help him to learn how to control the avatar state. He says they can try. They do try and after a while, Wei Ying reaches that state. And B) he rensacks the world for scrolls on blood cultivation.

When they advance on nightless City, he is ready. No one kniws his plan. Even Lan Zhan only knows of his having learned to control the avatar state. He needs the element of surprise and he needs it when he stavds in front of Wen Ruohan.

So he waits. By the time he stands face to face with Wen Ruohan and his army, the floor us littered with corpses.

Wei Ying, in front of his brother, Lan Zhan, everyone goes into the avatar state and with the power of all his former incarnations, bebds the blood of every single corpse, as well as every single Wen soldier to turn on Wen Ruohan and then each other. It's a massacre.

When he comes to it again, there is silence. And then cheers. Everyone cheers for him, even though blood bending has veen outlawed for ages. He won them their war though.

Everyone cheers, everyone but Lan Zhan.

They fight after that, a lot.

(I helped you enter the avatar state. You could have died! - my problem, not yours! - You desecrated the dead! What about their spirits? - what about their spirits? I'm the avatar, i can deal with them! - the avatar state is the sacret link to your past lifes ... - My past lifes, yeah Lan Wangji! Let me decide what to do with them. - Wei Wuxian! - Lan Wangji.)

They part on bad terms more often than not.

So when knews reaches that the Jins, a notoriously rich noble family in some corner of the earth kingdom, has taken Wen citizens, civilians mostly, for slave labour, he goes alone. He is furious, more so when he realises that his friends are among them. He enters the avatar stare involuntarily and has the blood of all present Jin soldiers boil in their veins. Wen Ning is almost dead, but he uses his bending to circulate his blood in his body until he can get him to his sister. She is in Lanling after all, having married their heir.

Now because I love Jiang Yanli, in this au, she plays a bigger role. She saves Wen Ning and shows them out of Lanling.

They flee to a part of Qishan that was all but destroyed during the war and then used as a mass grave for the Wens wei ying himself killed, the ones whose spirits Lan Zhan had warned him about.

And the workd turns on it's Avatar.

The avatar is supposed to bring Peace, stand for balance and justice. Not choose a handful of people to protect at all costs.

But Wei Ying thinks, this is just! The world is full of greedy rich people trying to outdo each other for power, so isn't protecting those who suffer from it through no fault of their own justice?

Now, this could go two ways. Either, in a plot more similar to mdzs, the spirits Wei Ying disturbed abd that he is now living on top of, betray him when the rest of the world finally comes to ambush him (cue Lan Zhan trying g to protect him abd falling from grace himself. And the eternally yearning because he list his chance. the avatar is reborn ofc and Lan Zhan vows to protect them because Wei Ying is still a part of them, but they aren't Wei Ying. They are a completely different person and Lan Zhan never loves again.) DEPRESSING

So, let's go the atla route. Wei Ying goes through a spiritual journey, similar to Korra, gets the Wen remnants rehabilitated, makes the right people see sense and basically does the whole Avatar shitck of first finding peace within himself in order to bring peace to the world. *waves hand*

He confesses to Lan Zhan. They adopt A Yuan. Cue kiss in front of a glowing sunset and "The End" displayed to soaring music.

Admittedly, the second ending needs more flashing out, but it's late,so if anyone wants to have a go, feel free :D

#this got way longer than intended #another thing that fits? all avatars are bisexual i don't make the rules #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #lan zhan #wei ying #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #atla au #the untamed au #mdzs au #long post #sophie writes #barely ...

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