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shanastoryteller · 3 months

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Lady Mo au?

a continuation of 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Oh, A-Cheng.

Jiang Yanli's eyes burn but she doesn't let the tears fall through years of long practice.

When she'd woken and they'd told her that A-Cheng had killed A-Xian, she'd laughed.

It doesn't feel like a joke anymore, except for one where maybe she's the punchline.

She knows that he didn't mean to do it. She's not even sure that he did do it - the idea that shoving A-Xian off a cliff would do more than lead to some bruises is laughable. Maybe if he'd been exhausted, as he probably was, he could have broken something. There's no way, even at the height of A-Cheng's rage and grief when he thought her dead, that he'd meant for his blow to kill. That he would have thought that it could have.

Jiang Yanli reaches for her brother's wrist, feeling the strong thrum of his golden core under her fingers.

When Wen Qing told her what she'd done, Jiang Yanli almost regretted saving her, nearly ended her life herself.

It was only the knowledge that Wen Qing would have let her that stayed her hand.

When A-Xian went over the cliff, he didn't have a golden core. He hadn't had a golden core for years. Because he'd tricked A-Cheng into taking his.

For the first time, Jiang Yanli had hated him.

Still, Wen Qing had admitted that even without his golden core, she doubted the fall could have killed him. He'd endured worse without it and survived.

However. He hadn't lost quite so much then. He hadn't thought her dead then. It's possible it killed him because Wei Wuxian let it kill him. She'll never know if that's true. She hopes it isn't.

They never found a body. A-Cheng clings to that still, but there'd been plenty dead during the war that never left bodies behind. Besides, if he was alive, he would have come back. He would have heard that she was alive and came back to her even if he was convinced that A-Cheng never wanted to see him again.

He never came back. The only answer is that he's dead.

"Okay, A-Cheng," she says softly, patting the top of his head like when they were children. She wonders who he saw that reminded him of A-Xian, if someone laughed a little too loudly, if they were a little too rude or a little too bright.

"He did," he mumbles, turning into her hand. "But not even to us. Asshole."

"I know," she says. He'd most of the way asleep already. He probably won't notice if she starts crying too.

It kills her, but she'll never tell him to stop, never tell him why all his hope is wasted, why he'll never find A-Xian no matter where he looks.

She's never told A-Cheng the truth about his golden core and she never will. It would break him, to know that all that's left of their brother now sits in his chest.

#prompt answers #prompts are called #asks #anon #untamed #rip jiang cheng #the boy who cried brother

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lgbtlunaverse · 3 months

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What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #nie mingjue #baxia #cql #the untamed #long post #I HAVE SO MANY TABS OPEN. FEEL MY SUFFERING #I understand that asking a gigantic region with thousands of years of rich history and many different subcultures #to have one standard naming convention is basically impossible #But could they do it anyway? for me? 🥺#i also want to buy one of these... so bad #or even just a plastic trainer so i can practice the techniques #but i know that once i start buying swords i'm not gonna stop until my money runs out #Being a sword nerd is a very dangerous not phyisically but for your wallet

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sunderwight · 2 months

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Nie Huaisang pulling a Jaskier where somehow everyone thinks he's physically tiny, because of how he tailors his clothes and the way he moves and acts and refers to himself, but in actuality he's almost the same height and shoulder width as Nie Mingjue and the impression of him as "just a little guy" is a carefully crafted illusion that would shatter if the main cast all lined up naked together.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #nie huaisang #like I wouldn't say he has nie mingjue's build precisely because he doesn't actually train nearly as much #but the framework is still there #everyone assumes his flashy outfits are adding bulk to him #meanwhile those 'shoulder pads' are in fact like 99% actual shoulder #and if you ask lan xichen he'd say that nie huaisang is shorter than him but taller than a'yao (though most people are taller than a'yao)#but nie huaisang is in fact half an inch taller than lan xichen and has been since he was seventeen #that sort of thing

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benevolenterrancy · 8 months

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i really do love that lan wangji is secretly an enormous bitch to jiang cheng specifically it's seriously too funny

#don't worry he had all the pictures backed up of course #mdzs #lan wangji #lan zhan #jiang cheng #wangxian #the untamed #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #i think this is the second b99 quote i've pilfered for mdzs art #the art Did Not Turn Out this time but for some reason i could not make anything look good #so we get bad art today but the joke is exorcised from my system and sometimes that's all you can ask for #my art

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evuwus · 8 months

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Wangxian on a date!!!!

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #mdzs #cql #wei wuxian #lan wangji #watercolor #back again posting watercolor wangxian on tumblr that no one asked for ;)#only trad artist on tumblr???#myart

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thatswhatsushesaid · 6 months

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cql out here redefining daddy issues one agonizing microaggression at a time

#c'mon system choose me to transmigrate into the jianghu just as some nameless jin sect NPC #let me take just one or two things with me #i'll just walk up to jgs and very politely ask him 'excuse me jin-zongzhu but could u tell me if this handkerchief smells like chloroform'#'smells like what--'#and then if i can just avoid getting revenge murdered by the jianghu's most filial son long enough to Explain #everything will be fine!!#mdzs shitposting #cql #the untamed #jin guangshan #jin guangyao

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conscydraws · 2 months

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No question, I just wanted to say your artstyle is so distinct and beautiful☺

Your not-an-ask made me incredibly happy. First of all your art is amazing! And secondly, for years I've been searching for a personal style, but couldn't settle on any single one. I just draw and paint however seems fit for the current piece. I still can't see any consistency in my art and I'm not sure, what do you mean by calling my art distinctive. But I'm considering that means that I do good and have a personal style after all! Which makes me very happy.

To project my love and joy I've painted some wangxian. Please accept 🤲💗✨

#ask #conscydraws #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #the untamed

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littlesmartart · 9 months

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oh man I LOVE how FUCKING DELIGHTED xichen is in that 3zun comic

I promise that any reaction you see in that comic is SERIOUSLY restrained compared to what it is going on in this guy's head after finding out that his two bitterly violently estranged boyfriends are potentially reconciled...

#lan xichen #nieyao #3zun #the untamed #afvsjh #ask #maggiedeshiboux

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starsxinxthexbluexsky · 10 months

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The Untamed | Episode 36 [Drunk Lan Wangji And His Chickens]

⤳WangXian’s Favorite Scenes [19/∞]⬿

#the untamed #cql #theuntameddaily #the time lwj asked wwx to get married but he didn't understand #come to think of it lwj was doing some research on wedding offerings. why do you know about the chickens?#i'm sure that wouldn't be in the gusu rules...#like when you are ready to get married but you are widowed without getting married and 13/16 years later your almost-husband was alive #and you have to get drunk to be able to give him some fat chickens #but at the end of the day wwx is stupid and doesn't know #today i used a new filter for editing. i don't know if it's called that but 🤷‍♀️#wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #my gifs #mygifs.scene

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wise-tortoise · 5 months

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Hi! i’m new to chengxian. so i was wondering, do you have any recs please? preferably long one shots (10k+) and set in the original location (i don’t like modern aus mostly as they are based in the us or uk). sorry for all the stipulations!

HELLO ANON AND WELCOME TO CHENGXIAN!!

I am DELIGHTED to be a source of fic recs, and I have JUST the fics for you.

First of all, I highly recommend checking out the various ao3 collections of past chengxian events, such as Chengxian Happy Ending Fest, or Chengxian Minibang 2023, Chengxian Week 2020, Chengxian Week 2021 , Our Meeting is Inevitable or The Chengxian+ Collection, which are a goldmine of wonderful fics. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding something to your taste among them!

Now, on to my personal recommendations, under the read more because this got LONG.

Based on what you said you'd prefer, the fic all my dreams have come and gone a half a million times by iri_vail sounds like something you'd enjoy. It's a lovely post-canon shuangjie reconciliation fic, 10k words, with wonderful art. There's frogs too!

consider rivers by Lirazel, 9k, canon divergence fic with no war that rewrote my brain chemistry. Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to marry Jiang Yanli: lots of yunmeng trio feels, lots and lots and lots of pining.

after the sun sets by Artemis1000, 12k words, it's an amazing fic set during sunshot campaign, lots of hurt/comfort, lots of love and understanding and softness between our two favorite miscommunicators.

electricity between both of us by zyprexd is an absolutely incredible series of two fics that make me go feral. Past w4ngxian, tentative shuangjie reconciliation with long overdue communication, lots of feelings aknowledged and accepted, Wei Wuxian introspection.

Turn Back, Dull Earth by groundwiremantaray, 8k, canon divergence, a whole lot of fluff (with a delightful twist). Though not a oneshot, if you like to read happy times with chengxian, this is absolutely the fic for you.

this love that I most fear by Runespoor, 25k words divided in three chapters, in which a coreless Jiang Cheng has to aknowledge Wei Wuxian as his bastard brother in order for him to become sect leader, with all the relative implications. An angsty delight!

Little Sesame by Rurtle, which is an absolute must read. In which the summoning ritual goes wrong and Wei Wuxian reincarnates into a dog. Shenanigans ensue.

born of waters like blood by Artemis1000 (same Artemis as before) which is one of my absolute favorite fics of all time. Chengxian baby made of resentment and lake waters! Chengxian being dads! An unspecified number of eyes!!!! This fic is a bit shorter than the others I've recced, but absolutely worth reading.

letters from inside the storm by serein, in which everyone has a very bad time (not me though, I enjoyed this IMMENSELY), double whump with a very tentative reconciliation.

if tomorrow would ever come... by Midori_99, 17k, a reincarnation fic in which Wei Wuxian after his death reincarnates into a playful little fox and, despite his best efforts, finds himself once again in Lotus Pier, beside Jiang Cheng (and, really, there's no better place for him to be). The good, GOOD, cathartic angst right here, good food for the soul.

If you'd like EVEN MORE chengxian fics, my bookmarks are open and the fics are all ready to receive lots of love (and of course, if you like, there's my fics too, but they're only open to registered users)

Alright, that's definitely not all the fics I would like to rec, but that's about all I can fit in a single post before it becomes too long.

I suggest of course that you check out other works by the authors I listed, as they are all incredibly talented (and I really really wish I could put more of them here but I tried to contain myself with word count and setting as per your request)

Thank you for the ask anon, I hope you'll enjoy your stay in the chengxian side of fandom and I wish you a wonderful day!!

#mdzs #chengxian #xiancheng #yunmeng shuangjie #cql #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #the untamed #anon ask

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shanastoryteller · 3 months

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Happy holidays! Lady mo please?

a continuation of 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Jiang Yanli does not often feel old. Her golden core does not keep her eternally young like it does her brother, does not prevent the more persistent illnesses from plaguing her, but it does east the aches and pains non cultivators her age often complain of, does keep her skin youthful without the aid of strange poultices and she’ll probably never need dyes to keep her hair dark. But she feels old now, watching Xuanyu and Lan Wangji fumble around one another, watching her struggle for the affection of a husband who might care for her, but does not treat her with care.

At least by the time she married Zixuan, he’d told her that he loved her.

“What was all the commotion about?” Zixuan asks, arms encircling her waist as he tugs her back against his chest now that they’re back in their own quarters.

“Your cousin got drunk and pissed off the wrong people. Again.”

He huffs, his breath warm against her neck. “Yanli. You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I know A-Yao thinks I’m stupid, but even I notice servants running about and clan leaders and their wives going missing. Especially when one of them is mine.”

“A-Yao doesn’t think you’re stupid,” Jiang Yanli says, even though he kind of does. He thinks most people are stupid and Zixuan has at least grown out of taking it personally. That doesn’t mean she has to rub it in. “Xuanyu was just – a little upset. About things.”

“Lan Xichen likes her. Lan Wangji’s kid adores her. And we all saw what Lan Wangji thinks,” he says. Defending is also not the same thing as caring, but she doesn’t say that. “A-Yao even calls her our sister. Do you remember how long it took him to call me brother? It seems like it’s going well.”

If it had gone a little less well, she’d be less distraught.

Jiang Yanli is debating how much she can say without revealing Xuanyu’s pregnancy – enough people know that it won’t stay a secret for long, but Zixuan is terrible at faking surprise – when there’s a loud, frantic knocking at their door.

Zixuan frowns and goes to open the door.

“Fuck off,” slurs a familiar, beloved voice.

Jiang Yanli hides a smile and goes to stand next to her husband.

A-Cheng is standing there, sort of, considering he’s mostly being supported but a long-suffering Li Jun. “Meimei said she won’t deal with him anymore.”

“Ah,” Zixuan says, already resigned.

A-Cheng stumbles forward, grabbing her wrist and tugging her towards the table. He blearily glares at Zixuan. “Go away.”

He sighs, leaning down to kiss her and then saying, “I suppose I’ll be in a guest room.” He makes a face, remembering that the tower is full of foreign disciples. “Somewhere.”

He’s going to end up sleeping in their son’s room and A-Ling is going to complain about it. Loudly.

“Good night,” she says, barely keeping from laughing as she closes the door on Li Jun side eyeing Zixuan. Her sect has never completely forgiven Zixuan for being a teenage boy, not matter that she’s spent over a decade in the Jin rather than the Jiang.

She lets A-Cheng pull her down beside him at the table, leaning his head on his arm while he stares at her. She pours him a cup of water that she hopes he’ll drink. “Are you all out of sorts because of Xuanyu too?”

His face goes blank then it creases and he’s turns to hide it in the bend of his elbow.

With the first stirrings of genuine alarm, Jiang Yanli realizes he’s crying.

“A-Cheng? A-Cheng, what’s wrong?” she asks, putter her arm over his back and pulling him into her side like she used to when they were kids.

The words come out muffled, but he says, “I hate him. How could he – I hate him.” Then, quieter, in a tone that doesn’t match the words at all, “I hate him.”

She runs through everyone who’s here, every cultivator she saw A-Cheng speak to, but it’s a fool’s errand. No one gets to him like this. No one but –

“Wei Wuxian came back.”

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

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