#then I can call them xiao lan xiao hei and xiao bai | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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sequel to Light on the Door (aka WWX adopted into the Nie sect)

“This is a terrible idea,” Wei Ying announced. “Absolutely awful. Doomed to end in disaster.”

“It really isn’t, Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said, and – ouch.

If Nie Huaisang, self-professed total useless person, thought it was a good idea, that meant it was so absolutely necessary, so absolutely critical, that it couldn’t be done without. Wei Ying might only have known Nie Huaisang for a month or so, but he’d already figured out that Nie Huaisang didn’t like to do anything if he could help it.

“But I hate dogs,” he whined. “They’re scary. Why do I have to get used to them? I can just get da-ge to scare them away.”

“Da-ge is pretty scary,” Nie Huaisang allowed. “Definitely scarier than dogs. But what happens if he’s not around?”

Wei Ying shivered at the thought, his heart growing cold. “Da-ge has to be around,” he said, voice a little shrill. “He can’t – he’s not allowed to disappear the way my parents did –”

“Don’t worry!” Nie Huaisang said quickly. “He’s not allowed to!”

Wei Ying was distracted from his imminent panic attack by the sheer ridiculousness of the phrase. “What do you mean, not allowed to?”

“Well, I mean, it’s not like he’s a rogue cultivator, right? He’s sect leader. He has to stick around.” Nie Huaisang frowned. “I mean, unless he dies.”

“…he can’t die.”

“Why not? My dad did. He was murdered; that’s why da-ge had to take over. He could die any minute…”

By the time Nie Mingjue found them, they were both clinging to each other and sobbing.

“We haven’t even brought out the dogs yet,” he said, clearly baffled. “And – Huaisang, why are you crying? You like dogs!”

“Stop using your practice saber to poke at the puppy, Wei Ying,” Nie Mingjue said with a sigh.

“Give me one good reason,” Wei Ying said with a growl that might have been fierce if it was coming from anything other than a nine-year-old boy who was still working on regaining all the fat he’d lost to years of starvation.

At least he was holding his saber in the correct defensive position, which was more than Nie Huaisang had managed in – better not to think about it.

Still, it showed real talent, especially from a boy that’d probably been learning the sword before.

“It’ll create bad habits,” Nie Mingjue said, as patiently as he could. “You can’t point your real saber at anything you happen to dislike – once you draw steel, you need to be prepared for bloodshed. Are you willing to cut off the puppy’s head?”

Wei Ying faltered. For all that he hated dogs, Wei Ying was no murderer, and the little fluffball Nie Mingjue had brought home had lived up to its billing of being ridiculously friendly – even now, it was wagging its tail and trying to dodge the saber so that it could lick Wei Ying in greeting.

“Well?” Nie Mingjue said, crossing his arms. “I don’t pursue futile aims, Wei Ying. If you really don’t think you can adapt to the puppy, I’ll execute him now –”

“You can’t execute Xiao Bai! Huaisang-xiong would be beside himself!”

“He’d get over it.” Nie Mingjue paused. “…also, you named the dog little white? It’s black and brown. The only white it has is on its belly.”

“It’s supposed to be ironic,” Wei Ying said virtuously in the tone of someone who’d recently learned a new word. “Also, Huaisang-xiong said that this type of dog was supposed to be from a snowy mountain and I said it couldn’t be because it wouldn’t blend in with the snow and then he said –”

“Wei Ying. Does the puppy live?”

“Oh, fine,” Wei Ying said, and put his saber aside, allowing the dog to come prancing around him. Wei Ying’s face twitched with fear, his shoulders shaking, but the exposure was already doing wonders: he hadn’t run away screaming, and he was even allowing Xiao Bai to sniff his butt without complaint. “Hey, da-ge. Why do you always call it a puppy? He’s already the size of a full grown dog.”

Nie Mingjue looked down at the dog, whose head came up to Wei Ying’s hip. “Maybe for a lapdog. He’s a sheepdog from the mountains – they grow large.”

Wei Ying frowned. “As large as a husky? Those are huge.”

Nie Mingjue decided, for once, to err on the side of discretion and to just not say anything more.

“Meat, meat, meat,” Wei Ying sang. “All the meat, just for me –”

“Just you?” Nie Huaisang said. “That seems mean. How could you do that to Xiao Bai?”

“Xiao Bai can get his own meat,” Wei Ying said. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing! If I feed him meat, he’ll like me, and then he’ll never leave me alone!”

Nie Huaisang raised his eyebrows. “He already never leaves you alone if he can help it.”

Wei Ying scowled at him, as if that were supposed to be a secret.

“He whimpers every time you go inside without letting him in,” Nie Huaisang said, and sure enough, there was the guilty expression. “It’s so sad. Whine, whine, whine. Then he just lays across the entryway, his head heavy on his paws, a forlorn expression on his face –”

“As if you can tell what expression he has,” Wei Ying said scornfully. “Anyway, I don’t care!”

He still fed him some of his meat later on.

Nie Huaisang smirked behind his fan and pretended not to notice.

“Qinghe barbeque is the best,” Wei Ying said, even as he reached over to upend an entire bowl of chili sauce on top of his grilled meat. “There’s just so much of it.”

“You’ll like Yunmeng food,” Nie Huaisang said, waving over the innkeeper and gesturing for him to refill the sauce – he wanted some, too. Not as much as Wei Ying, but still… “It’s notoriously spicy, and your father’s from Yunmeng, anyway; I’m sure you inherited this from him. Qishan’s food is pretty hot, too.”

The pleased expression dropped off Wei Ying’s face at the mention of Qishan. “I don’t like them. Or their sect leader.”

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “The Wen sect is pretty awful, no one in Qinghe’ll disagree with you on that.” He frowned. “When did you see Sect Leader Wen, anyway?”

“Before I came to Qinghe,” Wei Ying said. “I was hiding in da-ge’s room any time he was out at the Discussion Conference, since I was terrified he was going to forget to bring me, and one time he was talking with Sect Leader Wen right outside his door. Da-ge didn’t – he hates him, but he’s also afraid of him.”

Wei Ying looked disturbed, and Nie Huaisang was pretty sure he knew why. “He killed our father,” he said, since he wasn’t sure anyone’d actually told Wei Ying about it yet. It wasn’t a forbidden subject, but no one liked to talk about it. “Everyone knows, but no one is willing to do anything about it. That’s why da-ge’s like that around him.”

Nie Huaisang was expecting many things, but Wei Ying’s reaction - relief - surprised him.

“What did you think was the reason?” he asked, because he might be useless but he’s not stupid.

“Sect Leader Wen reminds me of some of the men back in the city I was staying in,” Wei Ying said. “The ones that wanted to spend money, you know what I mean, and he was always looking at da-ge.”

Nie Huaisang blinked. “I have no idea what you mean,” he admitted frankly, and for some reason that made Wei Ying laugh.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and generously only took half of the new bowl of chili sauce, sliding the rest of it over to Nie Huaisang. “Eat your meat.”

Xiao Bai barked.

“Great,” Nie Huaisang said. “Now you’ve taught him the word for ‘meat’. There’s no way that’s going to backfire on you.”

“- and this is my puppy, Xiao Bai,” Wei Ying said, twirling his hands with a flourish. “I hate dogs, but I’ve had to take care of Xiao Bai long enough that I think I’m over it when it comes to him. I mean, I still hate all the others, but Xiao Bai’s okay, I guess.”

His guest blinked at the dog, which was wagging its tail cheerfully. He seemed to be thinking of something, hands clasped behind his back and a serious expression on his face – Wei Ying had already figured out that he was the sort of person to think things over thoroughly before saying anything, and he was excitedly waiting to hear his thoughts.

“You’re not afraid of bears,” was what finally was said.

“Yeah, Xiao Bai is getting pretty big, isn’t he?” Wei Ying laughed, scratching the back of his head. “He really is more bear than dog.”

Xiao Bai could probably step on the dogs that he used to fight, Wei Ying thought, viciously pleased. There was something to be said for Nie Mingjue’s theory of fear, which could be summarized as you won’t be as scared if you find something even scarier to be on your side.

“If you want, you can pet him,” Wei Ying said encouragingly.

The guest – Wei Ying’s guest, in fact, the one that Nie Mingjue said he was responsible for taking care of, because apparently last time he’d come over Nie Huaisang had driven him to distraction and Nie MIngjue just wanted to spend some quiet time with his friend – looked a bit uncertain, but with a bit more urging eventually crouched down, rearranging his robes to minimize the amount of dirt.

He still held back, though, and looked almost wary.

“He really is very nice,” Wei Ying said. “Even for a big old scary dog. Nearly as nice as me!”

His guest gave him an unimpressed look.

Wei Ying put his hands together. “Give it a try,” he urged. “For me?”

His guest sighed, as if he was being so put-upon and just doing it to indulge Wei Ying’s ridiculousness, and put his hands in the middle of Xiao Bai’s furry belly.

After a moment, he smiled.

“Wow,” Wei Ying said, and meant it. “You’re really pretty when you smile, Lan Zhan. You should do it more often!”

“I can’t believe you named your saber Suibian,” Nie Huaisang cackled. “Da-ge’s going to give you the worst courtesy name he can think of just to pay you back for that.”

“He thought it was funny!”

“He thinks lots of terrible things are funny, he has the Nie sense of humor,” Nie Huaisang argued. “We all have it – even you, and you’re only an honorary Nie.”

“I have it in spades,” Wei Ying boasted, and rubbed his hand over Xiao Bai’s head: a trophy of his fears, confronted and finally overcome. Just like a proper Nie should. “No one’s ever going to doubt that I belong here.”

“Not after that prank you pulled during midwinter, no.”

Wei Ying laughed. “All I need is the courtesy name,” he said confidently. “I have a saber, I wear the colors, I even do my hair in the proper braids – now I just need to not to ever tell anyone my given name, and I’ll be a proper Nie.”

“That only applies to people born in the Nie clan main branch,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “Regular disciples don’t have to worry about that old superstition.”

“Maybe I want to worry about it.”

“Da-ge’s already told you that he plans to make you a direct disciple when the mourning period ends,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “A direct disciple. We’ll be like brothers, then.”

“And no one will ever call me by my given name.”

“No one? Not even Lan-er-gongzi?”

“…Lan Zhan’s an exception.”

Nie Huaisang snickered.

“Don’t worry,” he said, gently elbowing Wei Ying in the side. “You’ve lived in Qinghe for over a year. Who else could possibly have a better claim to you than us?”

Xiao Bai started barking, then, a warning cry, and both Nie Huaisang and Wei Ying looked down at him in confusion. They were in the middle of Qinghe – what type of danger could they be facing here?

“Boy,” an adult man’s voice interrupted their discussion, his tone urgent. A man in purple stopped in front of them – a visitor from the Jiang sect, Wei Ying thought, his mind immediately recalling some of Nie Huaisang’s lessons in etiquette; he was probably here for the yearly Discussion Conference. “Boy – are you Wei Ying? Son of Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren?”

Wei Ying blinked, surprised. “Yes,” he said. “Did you – did you know them?” That was the only thing he lacked, really, here in Qinghe: his parents had never come this far, and people could only tell him what they’d heard about them, their reputation and the rumors, and it wasn’t quite as much as he’d like.

The man in purple smiled.

“I knew them very well,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been looking for you for a long time now.”

“Looking for me? Why?”

“To bring you home,” the man said. “Why else?”

Xiao Bai howled mournfully.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics

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