#there are only three great sects left | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stiltonbasket · 2 months

Note

If you do Bingyuan prompts:

Bingge discovering/realizing that his children’s beloved head teacher is the friendly Shizun from the other world would be a delight!

(Shen Yuan with a miniature army of tiny heavenly demon children who adore him is just super cute!)

By the age of twenty-five, Luo Binghe possessed—or thought he possessed—all the wealth and treasures in the world that a man could want. His vengeance upon the Cang Qiong Mountain sect was complete, the mountain range burned and its peak lords slain but for the master of Qian Cao Peak and Qi Qingqi, whom he had spared for Liu Mingyan’s sake—and he had long since established himself as Emperor of the demon realm, with no small amount of influence in the world he was born to by virtue of his marriage to the Little Palace Mistress, Hua Zhihan.

But then—half-way through his twenty-seventh year, and three years after the construction of his great fortress close to Huan Hua Palace—he stumbled through a rent in the very skin of the world and found himself back upon Qing Jing Peak, cradled in the arms of a man who wore the face of Luo Binghe’s hated shizun.

He had hardly been there an hour before he discovered that that Shen Qingqiu had been nothing like the jealous fiend who tormented Luo Binghe in his youth. On the contrary, he had welcomed Luo Binghe into his home and bed like a new bride reuniting with her husband at the end of a long day’s work; and for several months after Luo Binghe returned to his own palace in the demon realm, he found no satisfaction in his endless riches, or the tens of wives in his harem.

He spent a full season hunting for that Shen Qingqiu in his own world afterwards, for he knew somehow that the living Shen Qingqiu who had married the other Luo Binghe and his own former Shizun were not one and the same. The Shen Qingqiu Luo Binghe knew had nothing in common with that man other than his face, and even that had been so altered by the spirit living behind it that Luo Binghe had not recognized him as Shen Qingqiu at first sight; but the other Luo Binghe reminded him a great deal of his own child-self, and how single-mindedly he had loved Ning Yingying in those early days at Cang Qiong.

But years went by, and Luo Binghe found nothing—no shadow or trace of that gentle Shen Qingqiu, whether living or dead—and at last, he drank himself sick on dragon-blood wine and unburdened himself to Ning Yingying, confessing that nothing under the sun had brought him joy since that one jewel-bright day with Shen Qingqiu three summers earlier.

Of course, he did not breathe a word about what had actually happened—for Yingying and the others believed that the strange, bewildered husband who stumbled into the hougong that day was none other than Luo Binghe himself, and he had never seen fit to disabuse them of the notion—but she seemed to understand that the better part of his life’s joy had left him, and said:

“A-Luo, if we sisters can’t make you happy as we used to anymore, do you think—do you think a child might make you happy? We’ve been married for nearly ten years, and I hoped…”

Luo Binghe thought for a moment, still dizzy from the six pots of wine he drank with his evening meal; and amid the soft haze clouding his thoughts, he realized that he would have died of envy if the poor imitation of himself from the other world had had a child with his Shen Qingqiu.

But the only children he had seen on Qing Jing Peak that day were a handful of young disciples in their early teens, far too old to belong to that pitiful Luo Binghe. It struck him that this was something that other Luo Binghe could never have—must never have, lest Luo Binghe know what had happened and find his way back to that dream-world to quell his jealousy by ripping his other self limb from limb—and then—

“It might not be a bad idea,” he heard himself say. “What about Yingying? Would you like a child?”

“Very much,” Yingying whispered, taking Luo Binghe’s hand.

Their first daughter, Suoxin, was born the next year; and when the head taiyi placed her in Luo Binghe’s arms, a tiny mote of the tumult in his soul grew calm, and never returned to trouble him again.

The birth of Suoxin’s younger sister Changying followed exactly a hundred days later, for Hua Zhihan had demanded a child of her own as soon as she heard that Ning Yingying was pregnant, and Luo Binghe saw no reason to refuse her. Several of his lesser wives had attempted to follow suit, but he was adamant that no children should be born to them until the children born of his five chief wives had safely reached the age of about three or four: especially after the tragedy that accompanied the birth of Luo Binghe’s first son.

The taiyi later discovered that his mother—Qin Wanyue, who had suffered a miscarriage at Sha Hualing’s hands some six years earlier—had been born with a deformation in one of the chambers of her heart; and due to her general good health and the strengthening effects of her cultivation, Wanyue never noticed it. But her cultivation was not sufficient to protect her from the strain of childbirth; and scarcely five minutes after the baby took his first breath, Qin Wanyue drew her last, dying without knowing anything more of her child than a single, snatched glimpse of his small red face.

The infant was given the name Luo Nianzu, in remembrance of his mother, and handed over to Liu Mingyan to raise. Mingyan had not wanted a child of her own, though she was more than willing to bring Nianzu up in Wanyue’s stead.

And in the wake of Qin Wanyue’s passing, Luo Binghe vowed to himself that he would never sire another child. He had been the instrument of her ruin, wittingly or not: and with three healthy heirs, of whom one was a boy, he refused to risk a second death in the harem.

But his resolve had not hampered Sha Hualing’s plans: and in truth, Luo Binghe should have known better than to expect otherwise. One night, she took Xin Mo from the stand beside his bed and stabbed Luo Binghe straight through the shoulder—rather more ferociously than usual, he thought—and absconded from the palace with three phials full of his spilt blood, returning a fortnight later with a fat baby boy swaddled in one of her own silk veils.

“Did you give birth to him?” Luo Binghe frowned, after he tasted the child’s blood mites and found that they were nearly identical to his own. “You were only gone for two weeks.”

Sha Hualing only laughed at him, and asked that he give their son a name. Luo Binghe named him Shunlei, with the shun for obedience and the lei for thunder; and though Hualing took the hint at once, she was so well-pleased with Shunlei’s name that Hua Zhihan spent the next month sulking about it.

The three years that followed Shunlei’s arrival were peaceful ones, for the demon realm had been brought to heel with Sha Hualing’s aid, and Mobei-jun grew more ruthless towards Luo Binghe’s enemies with every passing day. Yingying and Mingyan governed the harem both kindly and firmly, calming any disputes among the lesser wives and punishing those whose bids for favor put their sisters in danger; and they never faltered in their duty to the little ones, so that Luo Binghe went untroubled by the children’s needs until Liu Mingyan declared that Suoxin and Changying were old enough to begin studying with a trained taifu.

“I already have a candidate in mind,” she said to him over dinner one evening. “Will my lord permit me to look after the arrangements myself?”

“I don’t see why not,” Luo Binghe replied. “Do what you must. Only ensure that the taifu is well educated, and knows how to teach little children without frightening them.” One Shen Qingqiu was bad enough, after all.

And so, preparations went forth for the children’s education. Liu Mingyan wrote to the prospective taifu, who accepted the offer of employment and asked for a month to settle his affairs before moving to the palace; and Yingying began teaching Nianzu and Shunlei how to read, in the hope that the taifu would agree to instruct them alongside Suoxin and Changying.

Luo Binghe, having nothing further to do with the matter, left for the northern desert with Mobei-jun and Sha Hualing.

Linguang-jun had decided to rebel against his nephew’s rule again, and Luo Binghe was weary of indulging him. In the aftermath of Shang Qinghua’s betrayal, he and Mobei-jun had both decided that Linguang-jun’s continued existence was far more trouble than it was worth.

All told, he remained away from the palace for over two moons. When he finally returned, in midsummer, he went straight to his own courtyard and slept for three days without moving a muscle.

And then he awoke, and heard a soft strain of qin music issuing from the other side of the wall.

Luo Binghe froze.

That courtyard was meant to be empty; it had been empty since the day it was built, eight months after he met that other world’s Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe had filled its four rooms with books and bamboo furniture, and even the double bed in the inner chamber had been a replica of the one the other Shizun slept upon—and the courtyard’s little garden had a pavilion with a built-in table for a qin, since the construction of that Shizun’s house and garden made it plain that he liked to practice out of doors.

Who had dared set foot in that courtyard while Luo Binghe was absent?

Hua Zhihan? Qin Wanrong? Certainly not Yingying or Liu Mingyan; it resembled the living quarters at Qing Jing far too closely for either of them to find any peace there.

Trembling with fury, he pulled on the robes he was wearing last night and rushed over to the adjoining courtyard, where he stopped short at the threshold of its white-painted moon gate and gaped at the spectacle awaiting him within.

There was a man sitting at the qin table in the pavilion—a man, in the compound where Luo Binghe lived with his wives—playing a rearrangement of “Flowing Waters,” with Luo Shunlei on his lap. Suoxin and Changying were seated on either side of him, armed with child-sized guqins of their own, and Nianzu was nestled against the man’s shoulder, asleep.

And his face—

Luo Binghe had never seen such a face before. It was not the face of Shen Qingqiu—not the Shen Qingqiu he knew, at any rate—but the light in his eye and the warmth of his voice as he spoke to Suoxin were very like that Shen Qingqiu’s, though Luo Binghe noticed that there was a shade of difference between the two.

He is older, Luo Binghe realized at once, as his heart thundered inside him. The other Shen Qingqiu was young, judging by his manner—perhaps forty, at the very oldest—and my Shizun never even reached the age of fifty.

The other Shizun had worn green, he remembered. He preferred the same clean-cut style of dress that Luo Binghe’s shizun liked to wear, and of course their bodies and faces had been the same, as well; but this man wore s different face entirely, and his worn silk robes were a clean, stark white, like the garments of the wandering rogue cultivators who used to pass through Luo Binghe’s hometown when he was a boy.

The trappings of his flesh made no difference, however.

Luo Binghe knew him for what he was at first sight.

It struck him then that this must be the taifu Liu Mingyan selected for the children. He could not fathom why she would have housed an imperial tutor in the hougong, of all places: but now that he was here, Luo Binghe would rather walk through the Endless Abyss again than permit him to leave.

Luo Binghe could have stood in the doorway and stared at him for a lifetime; but then the taifu looked up and clambered to his feet, tugging the little girls along with him. Shunlei remained where he was, gripping the soft front of the taifu’s gown like a baby monkey clinging to its mother’s back; and Nianzu, securely balanced on the taifu’s hip, slept on without noticing that the man had moved at all.

“My lord,” the taifu said, bowing. “This humble servant offers his—”

“Xin’er greets Father!” Luo Suoxin cut in, glancing up at her teacher for approval. “Did I do it right, Shizun?”

“Yes, except for the part where you interrupted me first,” the taifu laughed. “Go on, Changying.”

Luo Changying nodded and stepped forward.

“Chang’er greets Father,” she said, rather more gracefully than Suoxin.

“Well done,” said the taifu. “Now, Shunlei…?”

Shunlei blinked and tightened his grasp on the taifu’s robes.

“A-Shun is hungry,” he complained, refusing to meet Luo Binghe’s eyes. “Shizun, snack time.”

Luo Binghe bit back a smile. This man was somehow more indulgent with his young charges than the other Shizun had been, and the sight of him holding Nianzu and Shunlei was so desperately sweet that Luo Binghe nearly reached out and touched him.

“Daozhang is the new taifu, I suppose?” Luo Binghe asked instead, taking another step forward. “Your name?”

The taifu nodded.

“This one is called Zhu Qinglan, my lord,” he replied, trying in vain to coax Shunlei down to the ground. “Now, A-Shun, my good little disciple…”

“Shunshun won’t look at him,” the baby insisted, his little voice muffled in the folds of Zhu Qinglan’s coat. “I want to eat cake, not see Fuqin.”

To Luo Binghe’s astonishment, Zhu Qinglan sat down on the steps below the pavilion and drew a wrapped package of sesame cakes out of his sleeve.

“Your imperial father has come back to see you after two months, and you act like this?” he chided, placing one of the cakes on Shunlei’s outstretched palm. “Now, eat your cake like a good child; and then you must get up and greet your father properly, like Xin’er and Chang’er.”

Luo Binghe lifted his hand.

“No need,” he said mildly, watching with half-crazed eyes as Zhu Qinglan stroked Luo Nianzu's fluffy hair. “Shun’er is always upset after this lord returns from his travels abroad. I do not see the children as often as I would like; but I try to dine with them at least once a week, and that little demon in your arms refuses to speak to me for days on end if I ever dare to arrive late.”

With that, he turned on his heel and swept out of the courtyard. He could not stand in Zhu Qinglan’s presence any longer, lest he do something that would terrify his children and turn their Shizun against him forever; and as it was, the little demon servant who brought breakfast to his quarters ten minutes later nearly died of fright at the sight of him.

“Zhu Qinglan,” Luo Binghe said to himself, after the petrified lackey made his escape. “The name suits him, whether it is a false one or no.”

He drained the last of his tea, and smiled.

“I’ve finally caught you, Shizun.”

#svsss #bingyuan #binggeyuan #the scum villain's self saving system #my fic #i live to serve and i have delivered #this is my first foray into multichapter svsss fic so please reblog if you liked it/would like to see more!#shen yuan's name is still shen yuan btw #we will unravel the backstory behind the name he's using Later #as well as some other.....backstory #;)

409 notes · View notes

shanastoryteller · 4 months

Note

Happy Holidays! I really love your writing, thanks for taking the time to write these prompts! I would like some Lady Mo please!

a continuation of 52 53 54 55 56

Wei Wuxian is irritated to see Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and A-Qing seated as far as from the main table as possible, but knows saying anything about it won't do anyone any good. Besides, all three of them look as exhausted as he feels, and it's a reminder that he's not the only one that's had a tumultuous day.

He's hoping he can leave the banquet early and crawl into bed and maybe cry a little bit before Lan Zhan joins him. He wants to blame pregnancy for his weepiness, but the truth of it is he wasn't exactly stoic and dry eyed in his first life.

"Lady Mo," on the senior disciples booms, far louder than necessary considering he's right there, "why aren't you drinking? You're not in Cloud Recesses anymore!"

The wine is right there and he can't even have any. What a tragedy.

He glances to the side, catching Jin Guangyao's eye instantly and neither of them so much as twitch but he's sure they understand each other perfectly. He never thought this level of familiarity was something he'd share with Jin Guangyao, but he can't say that he minds.

He briefly considers putting up a fuss at being referred to improperly, considering the very blatant insult in there, but the truth of it is whenever someone refers to him as Jin he wants to throw up a little bit.

"Jin Zixun," Jin Guangyao says smoothly, "Madame Lan is simply adhering to the rules of her sect."

Aw, putting him in his place and reminding him of Mo Xuanyu's status without using the name Jin, because he knows Wei Wuxian hates that. He'd pinch Jin Guangyao's cheek if he didn't think it'd get his fingers bitten off.

The senior disciple scoffs. "Even Sect Leader Lan drinks at banquets. Why shouldn't Madame Lan be able too? Toast to a fruitful year with me!"

Hold on a second, hasn't this happened before? He has a vague memory of drinking for Lan Zhan because someone was causing a fuss. Is this the same guy? It can't be the same guy.

Whatever. He can do the same trick Lan Xichen does and burn the alcohol off with his golden core. Which is sort of a waste, but the sting of it down his throat with none of the fun side effects is the closest he's going to get for a while.

Lan Zhan stands so abruptly that the table he's sharing with his brother scrapes against the floor.

Oh great. What's he doing now?

By the slight twitch of Jin Guangyao's left eyelid, Wei Wuxian knows he's thinking the same thing.

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

432 notes · View notes

esamastation · 6 months

Text

Part forty of Shizuroth, aka, the SOLDIER General's Self Saving Shizun.

Ao3 link.

Previous parts: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine

"My king told me - Junshang asked to see this lowly cultivator?"

"Shishu thinks too lowly of himself. Surely he's still a Peak Lord of The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, is he not?"

The great hall in the Northern Fortress hall is empty, bar the two of them, all the demonic courtiers dismissed. The emptiness of the place makes its gleaming floors and vaulted ceiling seem vaster than it even usually seems, as every word echoes in the icy palace.

The Demon Lord sitting upon the throne isn't the Northern King, however - but his master. The Half Heavenly Demon, Luo Binghe.

And the man before him was once - and in some ways still is - his Martial Uncle, Shang Qinghua of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's An Ding Peak.

Who is, quite plainly, shaking in his boots.

"Haha," he laughs, desperate, "I suppose they haven't kicked me out yet?"

Luo Binghe blinks, slow, like a predator.

Shang Qinghua squirms. "What - what can this Shishu do for Lord Luo?"

"Today this Lord announced a hunt," Luo Binghe said. "For any artefact, knowledge or skill that has to do with the transmigration of souls."

Shang Qinghua startles at that, then gapes at the Demon Lord, and then he looks at the floor. "That is - very interesting, my Lord?" he manages.

"Any member of this Lord's court that brings credible information is to be rewarded a wish within this Lord's ability to grant," Luo Binghe continues, watching him closely, unblinking.

Shang Qinghua looks helplessly away. "A - an incredible boon for anyone -" he gulps, as he sees something sharp and blue in the corner of his eye.

WARNING, it says, in bold, flashing letters.

"Mobei-jun then informed this Lord that his servant," Luo Binghe puts an emphasis on that, "has secret knowledge. That he speaks of other worlds. Of things this world lacks."

Shang Qinghua wets his lips, swallows, says nothing.

Luo Binghe is still and silent for a moment, watching him writhe. "Do you know why you have been called before this Lord?"

"This lowly one dares not guess," the Peak Lord of An Ding barely whispers, as the flashing blue screen presses closer.

Another slow predator's blink. "Is Shishu afraid?"

Shang Qinghua is terrified, thanks! "Lord Luo is powerful and unpredictable."

The Demon Lord scoffs and stands - and moves away while Shang Qinghua flinches. He faces instead the great ice windows behind the throne, looking over the fortress and, behind it, the Northern Desert. "This Lord has been informed that the reason he cannot resurrect his Shizun is because Shizun has departed from this world," he says in a voice that grows low with frustration. "That he is somewhere else now. He cannot be found in any realms this Lord has access to. He is, therefore, in another world."

Shang Qinghua's breath hitches. "My Lord has this from a credible source?"

"Madam Meiyin is one of the strongest foretellers in the Demon Realm," Luo Binghe says grimly, glaring at the view outside.

"... She is, yeah," Shang Qinghua says under his breath and then, even quieter, "... Shit."

Luo Binghe looks at him over his shoulder. "Does Shishu know what she means?"

"... N-not exactly, no, but -" Shang Qinghua looks away, incredibly guilty, squirming with awkward unease. The warning is still there, inching ever closer. "He might've - read some things, yes -"

Luo Binghe turns to face him fully. With the desert and the snowy fortress behind him, bright with eternal winter, he's left in his own shadow, and the only visible features in his face are his glowing red eyes - and the vicious demon mark on his forehead.

"What things has Shishu read?"

"Aiyah," the Peak Lord whimpers, caught between the Protagonist and the System and feeling the squeeze. "Nothing very recently, my Lord, I swear! It's only the words, transmigration of souls, are very familiar - where, may this one ask, where did Lord Luo hear of them?"

"They were spoken by Mobei-jun. He heard Shishu mention it," Luo Binghe says, his voice lowering to gravel. "What, exactly, does Shishu know?"

The System window sort of shakes at him, and Shang Qinghua despairs, lighting incense in his heart for himself and then for Cucumber-bro - who he will absolutely throw under the bus if it means he'll live to see another day.

Ah, Mobei-jun, his incredible perfect King, why did he have to be so -! If Shang Qinghua had realised Mobei-jun could actually hear him, he would've been more careful around him! Mobei-jun never reacted, never asked, never - ah!

"Shishu?" Luo Binghe growls and takes a step forward.

"This lowly servant doesn't know how it works," Shang Qinghua babbles, keeping a side eye on the System window. "Or what triggers it. Death, maybe! It's, the transmigration of souls is, like… like reincarnation, but sideways?"

"This Lord knows his Shizun hasn't reincarnated," Luo Binghe says very firmly.

Ahh, scary. "L-like this one said, sideways!" Shang Qinghua says feebly. "I-its not reincarnation, exactly. It's more like… possession?" Ahh, the System didn't like that at all! "This Shishu really can't say more, begging Lord Luo's pardon!"

It has already been too much.

Luo Binghe stares at him, and stares at him, and stares at him, and Shang Qinghua is going to see his gaze in his nightmares! "Shizun… Shizun is possessing someone…?"

Shang Qinghua backs away from the tendrils of demonic energy rising from Luo Binghe. "Maybe! Not exactly! The previous host usually dies, haha," no, no, no, don't take his B-points, take Cucumber-bro's points, he's the one this is all about, and it's not like he needs them anymore!

Ahh, Luo Binghe is coming closer, this is the worst! "There's compatibility, kinda! I think!" Shang Qinghua babbles in panic. "The soul is attracted to a body that suits it! They always were so alike, really, it was so uncanny at times? So it's not really like possession, more like - like reoccupation?"

Luo Binghe's eyes sharpen - like cat's eyes, detecting prey. "... what?"

Fuck! Shang Qinghua puts his hands up against whatever is to come, but it doesn't come, neither from the System, nor the Demon Lord. Luo Binghe's eyes pass him by as he thinks, his gaze flicking to and fro as the half-demon searches his memories and flexes his intellect.

Both which Shang Qinghua knows are considerable.

"Shizun… isn't the original Shen Qingqiu, is he?" The Protagonist murmurs. "Shizun changed. This disciple remembers it well, when Shizun became kind, when Shizun became generous. And Shang-shishu knew," Luo Binghe says, and his gaze refocuses. "Shang-shishu knows Shizun was a result of the transmigration of souls. Shishu knows where Shizun comes from!"

"Aaahh," Shang Qinghua whimpers. "My Lord Luo -!"

Luo Binghe leans in and says, with absolute certainty. "Shishu will tell this Lord all he knows of Shizun. He will leave nothing out."

Shang Qinghua is going to cry. Please, System, have mercy on his soul - because Cucumber-bro would not!

Ahh, rip, hamster-man.

#fanfiction #ff7 #svsss #ffvii #luo binghe #shang qinghua

343 notes · View notes

lizhly-writes · 1 month

Text

hi. we're back to svsss again. i read Asymptotical's Many an Ill to Cure yesterday. There was this line that sort of caught in my head:

If this bit of lore was true, then Yue Qingyuan was married to Shang Qinghua of all people, and that was about the only matchup he could think of that was possibly worse than pairing Shen Qingqiu with Liu Qingge.

and my brain.... ran with it. not for very long, because i really don't have a GREAT grasp of these characters and also i should absolutely be doing something else. but here you go.

At the ripe old age of twenty-something, Shang Qinghua had successfully lied and cheated his ass off to become the An Ding Head Disciple. It absolutely didn't mean his troubles were over -- it was still An Ding, and An Ding always meant backbreaking work, no matter how high up you climbed, and haha also there was still the entire fucking plot left. But at least he had a really nice house now! At least people had to pretend to respect him! At least the System wouldn't keep that fucking countdown clock in the corner of his eye about how he had X months to make Head Disciple before it nuked his brain into a crisp!

Overall, things were going about as great as could be expected!

Except for, you know, this... this one little thing.

"What???" Shang Qinghua said, when Shizun had first lobbed it at his head.

The Lord of An Ding Peak looked askance at him. Shang Qinghua cleared his throat and tried again. "Begging this one's pardon, but... but could Shizun repeat that?"

"You'll be engaged to Yue Qingyuan," said the An Ding Peak Lord.

Yeah, that's what Shang Qinghua thought Shizun said.

FUCK!

This was his fault. Like, literally everything was his fault, seeing how he was effectively God, but this was a mistake that he didn't have to make! You could argue about the violence and the papapa, but in the end, he was speed-writing a stallion novel for money so he didn't starve.

But the engagement.

Airplane-Shooting-Towards-The-Sky had been trying to explain exactly why so many young, beautiful, cold cultivators were so eager to get with Bing-ge, even if they seemed to hate literally any other person ever. He'd eventually settled on the idea that in PIDW, even cultivators weren't truly respected as adults until they were married. In other words, marriage was a requirement! A spouse was a job position! Of course Bing-ge's wives would sell out for the best possible candidate, even if they were ambitious power-hungry snakes without a romantic bone in their body! Especially if they were ambitious power-hungry snakes without a romantic bone in their body!

In fact, even the Peak Lords of Cang Qiong did it! They were even married to each other! Even the Sect Leader! Haha, it wasn't so weird after all!

God. It would have been fine if he left it without explanation. It wasn't even like he kept the explanation -- no, he wrote it and forgot about it, just like how he did with half of the shit he wrote sleep-deprived and running on caffeine alone. And now he was stuck with this.

"Do you have any objections?" Shizun said, and then Shang Qinghua had to go noooo, of course not, Yue Qingyuan was a mighty and handsome cultivator who topped the unofficial rankings for most eligible bachelor on Cang Qiong for three years straight! How could this lowly Shang Qinghua possibly have any objections?

It was super lucky that Shen Qingqiu was too busy being engaged with Liu Qingge to murder Shang Qinghua for the affront.

Anyway, that was how Shang Qinghua had ended up here -- alone with Yue Qingyuan, sitting across from each other and drinking tea. There was a plate of delicately shaped cakes sitting between them that Shizun had heavily suggested Shang Qinghua should make. You know, to show off his culinary skills to his... his fiance.

“Shang-shidi," Yue Qingyuan said, turning a cake over in one hand. There was some muffled yelling in the background. Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge were clearly having a great time of their own scheduled courtship meeting session.

"Yue-shixiong," Shang Qinghua said. "Hi."

Yue Qingyuan's smile didn't waver. "These are very good," he said politely.

Of course they were good. Shang Qinghua wouldn't have been able to successfully suck up to Shizun if they weren't good. It had taken a lot of practice! And sabotage! Practice AND sabotage!

"Haha, thanks," Shang Qinghua said.

Faintly, an explosion sounded in the background. Yue Qingyuan's brows furrowed slightly. "Shidi," he said. "Could you perhaps open the door?"

#svsss #shang qinghua #yue qingyuan #my writing

87 notes · View notes

themorrana · 11 days

Text

Jin Guangyao blinks before senses start to return to him. He blinks again at his father (how is he alive? shouldn't he be? should he?) who's looking at him expectantly. He turns his head and sees Lan Xichen (oh, Er-ge...) looking at him benevolently and beside him Nie Mingjue (oh, Da-ge...) frowning in displeasure but for once - not at him. And then he remembers. Everything. For a second his smile falls and his eye twitch, he's incandescently furious inside. Then the mask slips back. But he's changed.

He bows.

-Sect Leader Jin, this one is honored by your offer, but as you clearly stated before, this one's a whore's son and not fit to be in the Jin Sect. I acted on my own since I left the Nie Sect so all the deeds I may have done are beholden to me only. If Cultivational world sees fit to reward me, I will humbly accept on my own behalf.

He leaves and later receives his rewards but mostly withdraws, waiting.

When Wei Wuxian comes to find his Wens he intercepts and goes with him. They make it in time to save Wen Ning's life and many more prisoners than the last time.

He follows Wei Wuxian to Yiling but stops him from going to the Mounds.

-I was gifted the city of Yiling and some land around it, Wei-gongzi. There's no need to live in the graveyard.

He proceeds to sponsor Wei-Wen people, while coercing and manipulating Wei Wuxian in creating or doing all sort of things (like fixing the Nie's saber problem) until Wei Wuxian finds himself a well connected and supported Sect Leader of Yiling Wei Sect with two most able and ferocious advisors, and also a single father of a three-year old. Single until a very well written proposal to Sect Leader Lan goes from Yiling. Lan Wangji comes with courting gifts before the week ends.

Same year, after a Qin related scandal, Jin Guangshan is deposed as Chief cultivator. Meng Yao becomes the next one with the backing of all great sects and Yiling Laozu. Jin Sect doesn't get a break until Jin Zixuan becomes Sect leader.

#mdzs #the untamed #mdzs fic #just a thought #jin guangyao #you bastard #wei wuxian #3zun #my fic #lan wangji #wangxian #time travel #fix it au #lan xichen #nie mingjue

35 notes · View notes

xluna-reclipse · 1 year

Text

The devotion of a Lan and why Lan Xichen will never marry

(unless that person is Jin Guangyao)

From the likes of Lan An down to Lan Wangji, the Lan, at times tragic, were deeply romantic and always faithful. It’s hard to consider love at first sight to be a genetic trait, but the evidence doesn’t lie. Not a single Lan married a person they did not love. Not a single Lan moved on after the loss of their soulmate.

Lan Forehead Ribbon

The mark of a Lan is their forehead ribbon. At first glance, it is a symbol of self-control. In actuality, it is a blatant declaration of wild passion. The ribbon which represents the obligation to regulate oneself, can only be removed by a destined one? Isn’t this just another way of saying, the three thousands rules are to contain us, for in the name of our soulmate AND ONLY for our soulmate, we observe no laws, no bonds, no morals? The Lan follow the dao, but not even the intentions and punishments of heaven can hold them back from their Destined One.

The Lan are kind and just to everyone. The woman who crosses the street. The child who begs for alms. The man who nearly drowns. They are all the same, no more, no less deserving of help. The world is a calm and reassuring beige, every tragedy of equal hue and intensity, every joy a drop of water in a deep well.

Only the Instance of Lan is that great disturbance in their life. A warmth worth suffering for.

It’s fascinating to look at all the joy and pain that love brought the Lan.

And the singular way they dealt with loss.

Lan concept of love

The common process of the Lan romance is a strong initial first spark. Love at first sight (or first fight for Lan Wangji).

After that comes devotion. Devotion during life is to seek to be with the other. Lan An and Qingheng-jun married their Destined Ones. Lan Xichen would disappear for months at a time to see Jin Guangyao. Lan Wangji tried his best, appearing at the burial mounds in Wei Wuxian’s first life, but was chased away time and again. In his second life, he drags Wei Wuxian back to the Cloud Recesses and follows him on his adventures. The first part of devotion is to keep your north pointed towards your soulmate.

The second part, is to not hurt others, or involve third parties. The ability to refuse to marry, unless that person is the one you love, is quite admirable. There will never be a Jiang Fengmian in the Lan family, someone who marries a woman he doesn’t love and causes both family and wife to be subject to rumors and mockery, children to self-doubt and insecurity. No Lan marries for convenience. They marry out of love or not at all. It must be reassuring to such a deeply romantic family, to not have to be forced by their elders into loveless matches. (Otherwise, before asking Lan Xichen to marry, Lan Qiren would be served to platter.) Lan Xichen already anticipates this and treats Lan Jingyi as heir.

Then at the end, after your Fated One passes away, the Lan leave too.

The founder of the Sect set a poignant example for all of his descendent after. Lan An left the monastery for the love of his life and returned to the mountain, leaving not even dust behind after they left.

Lan Yi, in the Untamed has a hinted romance with Baoshan Sanren. While she did not witness her lover die, she never married another person. She also spent the rest of her days in seclusion.

Qingheng-jun fell in love at first sight and stood against sect and world to marry and protect her. He paid for her ‘sins’ as if they were his. And after she died, he did not leave seclusion until his death during the war.

The current Sect Leader, Lan Xichen also went into retreat after the love of his life died. And he will never leave unless Jin Guangyao returns, or in pursuit of Jin Guangyao’s return.

Not even Lan Wangji was an exception. Sometimes people will say that he moved on with his life after Wei Wuxian’s life, citing his night hunts as an example. But actually, Lan Wangji ‘appeared wherever there was chaos.’ Why? Because he was looking for Wei Wuxian. Because he wanted to be there if Wei Wuxian found himself in trouble (which Lan Wangji was right, Wei Wuxian nearly gets dragged back to Lotus Pier immediately). Lan Wangji never ‘moved on.’ He was waiting. He was searching. Why was it so easy for him to accept Wei Wuxian had returned from the dead? Because he was hoping it would happen. Wei Wuxian had already ‘died’ in the eyes of the world once before, when he was kicked into the Yiling Burial Mounds by the Wen. But! Wei Wuxian returned stronger than ever, albeit with literal ghosts, but he was back all the same.

He was different than his father and ancestors. He was lucky to love the Yiling Laozu. Wei Wuxian was exceptional. He proved the dead could return--sentient! Why did Lan Wangji have to live as dead when his heart had not died?

Lan Xichen will never remarry. Because he’s already married. The moment he looked into the eyes of his savior amidst the flames of war, his ribbon found an owner. Why would he marry when his clan will not ask it of him? Why did he raise Lan Jingyi like his heir, a child whose entitlement and sass can only be rivaled by Jin Ling? A child who is capable of being rude to Sect Leaders with out repercussion? A child who oozes the confidence of someone loved, respected, and of high rank, when he is a supposed orphan? Because he is the heir Lan Xichen prepared when he realized he had already found the love of his life.

And the love of his life had married a woman. But that is irrelevant in the face of the Love of a Lan. It does not matter if the other party does not love me (Qingheng-jun, I’m squinting at you; Lan Wangji who asks what is to be done when the person he wants to protect refuses to return with him), what matters is that I love them. And that they do not want my ribbon, does not make it any less theirs (when Lan Xichen cancels the permission of the jade order, but tells Jin Guangyao that it still belongs to him).

Why did he, after the death of Jin Guangyao, retreat as Lan An did for his Fated One, as Qingheng-jun did for his wife, as a Lan does for his soulmate?

And why, do we find it tragic?

Lan Xichen before Jin Guangyao was untouched by worldly emotions. Because of Jin Guangyao, he descended from the dais and was made human.

Lan An cultivated in the monastery, because of his Destined One, he went down the mountain. When that person left, he left too.

All he did was return from whence he came.

While I believe Lan Xichen will open the coffin because even if he does not want to, the Lan owe Jin Guangyao, a life in seclusion is not to be pitied.

A gift for Meng Haoran

I love a Master Meng, exalted across the world. The beauty abandoned his post, to rest white-haired in seclusion. Often drinking under the moon, preferring flowers to the king. To the mountain I long to reach, this disciple can only bow here.

Li Bai Translated by Luna_reclipse

赠孟浩然 (Zèng mènghàorán)

吾爱孟夫子，风流天下闻 wú ài mèng fūzǐ, fēngliú tiānxià wén 红颜弃轩冕，白首卧松云 hóngyán qì xuān miǎn, bái shǒu wò sōng yún 醉月频中圣，迷花不事君 zuì yuè pín zhōng shèng, mí huā bu shì jūn 高山安可仰, 徒此挹清芬 gāoshān ān kě yǎng, tú cǐ yì qīng fēn

李白 (lǐ bái)

Lan Xichen’s soulmate is Jin Guangyao and he will never trade him out.

Liu Haikuan, the actor who portrayed Lan Xichen in the Untamed, said in an interview, that Lan Xichen will never leave seclusion without Jin Guangyao.

Zhu Zanjin, the actor who portrayed Jin Guangyao in the Untamed, said that the relationship between Lan Xichen and JIn Guangyao is the same as that between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

The Lan through their now 4000 precepts, have bound themselves with rule after rule with only one release. And because of this Destined One, descend to become mortal, and without them, return to the mountain.

Lan Xichen has proven through layers and layers of Lan patterns that his soulmate is Jin Guangyao and this soulmate was worth it.

I leave you with Liu Haikuan’s words, “Both of their lives were tragic, but the relationship they had was not a tragedy. A-Yao, through the end, was very good to Lan Xichen.” (他们两个的人生各自都是悲剧，但这段友情不是悲剧，阿瑶直到最后还是对曦臣很好.)

#xiyao #wangxian #lan xichen #Qingheng-jun #lan wangji #jin guangyao #meng yao #LunaMeta #meta

212 notes · View notes

anarchytaken · 6 months

Text

the Devil doesn’t bargain

Reader and Proud Immortal Demon Way

You were naive.

Died by the hands of a speeding car, you reincarnated into the world SVSSS…or PIDW you’re assuming since you found yourself becoming a slave with Shen Jiu and Yue Qi, with your slave number being Ba for eight. The slavers found you when you were a toddler, bringing you to where the other slave children were. There, you were raised alongside Shen Jiu and Yue Qi. You were quite happy because Shen Jiu was your favorite character, despite not being there in the three books.

He was human with many layers and sides. You didn’t see an evil scumbag or a bitter slave that became a Peak Lord, but rather a child that was molded by society’s cruelty. Having taken psychology, you knew the Nature vs Nurture theory and evidence of it. And it’s clear that Shen Jiu is the product of Nurture rather than Nature.

You three were inseparable, becoming the dusk of Qi-ge’s light and A-jiu’s night. You had no hesitation to steal if it meant that your friends would be fed. A-Jiu would scold you while Qi-he would fuss over you, checking for wounds. It was then you swore you would change their fates from the original plot.

Even when you three were sent to the Qiu Household and Qi-ge ran away with the promise of returning, you stayed with A-Jiu to share his suffering. You became a friend and kindred spirit.

Even when you burned the Qiu’s house, except for Qiu Haitang, the women and the children. You held A-jiu’s hand all this time, smiling at him. Shen Jiu asked, “Will you not leave me?”

And you only graced him with a smile while saying, “I’ll be with you, A-Jiu. Whether fire, water, or air. Through light and darkness, I’ll be with you. And if you die, I’ll burn the world that has wronged you.”

You watched his eyes tear up as determination roared in your chest, prepared to change his fate.

30 years later…

A-jiu’s dead.

You stared emotionlessly at the corpse of Shen Jiu, now Shen Qingqiu, who’s now a bound corpse in the middle of the Huanhua palace room where his trial was. Cultivators, especially the ones from the great four sects were either celebrating his death and those angered that he got out too quickly before he could be replayed tenfold.

You walked towards the corpse, ignoring any voice that spoke your way, they were irrelevant. You took A-Jiu in your arms, his cold body against your warm and alive one as you embraced him. You nosed into the crook of his neck as anger began to bubble like a pot of water on a stove. Shaking, you hold him tightly as you grit your teeth.

“What are they doing!?”

“A friend?”

“As if that scum has any friends!”

The last line broke any restraint as you screamed into the ceiling with unbridled anger, letting out the demon that resided in you unleashed.

BENDY!

The ink demon was delighted to be out.

A shrilling screech followed by a guttural roar resounded throughout the room before black inky tentacles shot out of you and latched themselves onto everyone within the sect building. No one could escape, even as they resisted and struggled, it was fruitless as the tentacles latched onto their heads, rendering them still and vulnerable.

As you fed them the memories of Shen Jiu, letting them watch the nightmare you and he went through, you began singing. Call you mad in grief and sorrow, it’s the last piece of sanity you could entertain before actually going mad with anger, grief, and sorrow.

Before you destroyed Jianghu.

The lyrics left your lips before you even noticed, broken with incoming sobs.

“ The moon will sing a song for me,

I loved you like the sun

Bore the shadows that you made

With no light of my own

I shine with only the light you gave me…

I shine with only the light you gave me…”

The voices from the puddles join in with your singing, comforting your loss. Tears fell like a waterfall from your eyes, only to be wiped by a grotesque and deformed hand. The hand itself was barely covered by a glove, which only protected the palm and not the three fingers it had. A deep and guttural voice spoke beside you, near your ear. “Angry, little human?”

You looked back at Bendy, whose human teeth were stretched into an inhumanely wide smile, his horns curved back, and his body disfigured and disproportionate. He looms over you, towers even, but you feel no fear.

“So much,” you replied as the tentacles slowly retreated back onto Bendy, you came out of your back. One by one, the cultivators in the room regain awareness of their surroundings, pale with horror and realization. You glanced at Luo Binghe, who at one point had sympathized with him and loved him, who looked at you with new realization, paleness, and something unreadable.

You moved on to the Cang Qiong sect, where the peak lords are white as a sheet as they realize what they had done to your misunderstood friend.

Qiu Haitang, whom you glared with disgust, trembled. “No…it can’t be..my brother—“

“Was a lecherous, greedy, scum bastard,” you spat out the words like acid. “Qiu Janlou,”’ you said the name like it was a bitter delicacy. “That’s what he was. And you were too blind to see it, stupid princess.”

“I thought you were lying!” She cried, so into her head at the revelation and revealed that she didn’t notice you walking towards her. It wasn’t only till you gripped her head with your fingers, squishing her cheeks painfully while digging your nails. “Do you also wanna know?” You said loudly for all of them to hear. “Your brother lusted after you! That man was not only a lecher but also an incestuous mutt! A pathetic human being so low to even live!”

Before the girl could say anything, you slapped her, nails scratching her cheek. “You spoiled,” another slap “coddled, “and another “weak mistress!” A final slap sent her to the ground, her pretty face marred with scars from your nails.

You flicked the blood of your nails, sneering in disgust. Her sobs didn’t deserve any sympathy from you.

You then looked at the Old Palace master, a smile so vile with anger that he would've melted on the spot. “And all you pathetic cultivators talk about scum, you aren’t aware that a certain scum hides amongst you!”

They all turn to the Old Palace Master, who tries and fails to put up a kind facade. “What evidence do you have—“

“Oh, we’re really going that route?” You smiled with teeth, Bendy as the Ink Demon laughed behind you. “How about we ask Tianlang-Jun that!”

At your words, demonic qi filled the room as the said demon lord entered with casual swag, Zhuzhi-lang by his side. They gasped at his appearance, disbelief, and anger as they tried to make sense of this.

Tianlang-Jun, for his part, smiles casually yet his eyes hold malicious anger. “My, it has been quite a while since I’ve seen some familiar faces,” his eyes immediately went to the Old Palace Master. “Especially you.”

“How!?” The old man cried, speaking the question everyone had in mind.

With dramatic flair, you looked at Luo Binghe. “Luo Binghe, I would like to introduce to you Tianlang-Jun, your father. Who loved your mother, Su Xiyan, with all of his heart. Unfortunately, her Shizun was obsessed with her and out of jealousy, lied to the whole cultivation world to get rid of Tianlang-Jun. Who poisoned Su Xiyan to kill the baby who is now known as Luo Binghe.”

Meeting the said young man’s eyes, you then stated. “And the reason why you became an orphan.”

You ignored the hitched breath as you looked at the cultivators gathered, “Pathetic cultivators, young and old, I have come to announce the destruction of Jianghu!”

Expectedly, this outraged everyone excluding the two demons and you. Yue Qi looked at you pleadingly, trying to negotiate or settle this peacefully, but you snapped your head at him with fierce eyes. “Don’t talk to me so familiarly, Zhangmen-shixiong.” You said mockingly, outraging his shidis and disciples in his sect. “He was your brother, your friend! And yet you sided with the majority when it came to rumors and accusations! Didn’t I tell you to stay by his side, to give the benefit of the doubt to these rumors!? Are my visits a waste of time if this is the result!?” You groused, fingers elongating and scales fluttering on your cheek. “What a poor brother you have been to A-Jiu, you pathetic excuse of a brother!”

With a snap of your fingers, shards of glass hurriedly gathered into the air to form a single shard. The reflection then changed to the entirety of the Central Plains, whose faces were horrified and angry. You laughed, “People of the human realm, do you judge these cultivators as unworthy protectors of you all!?”

“Yes!” The people in the shard answer.

“What’s going on…” a cultivator asked, losing sense of reality.

“They know?!”

“The common people were watching the whole time!?”

“Stop them!” The Little Palace mistress shrieked, outraged that not only her father was slandered but soon their reputation would be destroyed.

“Silence!” You growled at her. “You have your answer from the people,”

Deciding enough was enough, you looked up at the sky with arms raised at your sides. “You celebrate his death, I’ll only celebrate…”

“When your ashes fall.”

From there, like a broken dam, demons poured into the building with glee.

Years later…

The story of the ruler of the Human realm spread for millennia. The story of how they overthrew the Emperor and his courts, how they exposed the truth of the cultivator world and brought it down to rebuild it back up. The story of how the Ruler of the Human realm soon merged and traded with the Demon Realm’s Emperor, Tianlang-Jun, who had been wronged by the cultivators.

In return for freeing him, Tianlang-Jun handed his only blood son to them as payment for their loss of a friend.

Some may pity the half-blood, but others would say that he got what he deserved for being blinded by hate and anger.

There were stories of the Qing Jing peak lord, Shen Qingqiu, who was abused at youth, and climbed to the top to have security, only to be gifted with accusations and a trial by the cultivators he adored.

There were songs about the tragedy of the two friends, the death of Shen Jiu, and the loss of the Ruler.

Demons and humans soon assimilated into each other, and racism between them soon became little as they understood one another. Cultivators soon became not demon eradications but rather equal to demons when it comes to fighting. The ruler of the Human realm does not tolerate racism, nor do they tolerate slavery, leading to the abolishment of slavery and giving the homeless a place of food and shelter while giving children a chance to learn and adults a chance to earn.

Yet, despite the good they have achieved, the ruler of the human realm soon died afterward, leaving their head disciple as heir.

The son of Tianlang-Jun, Luo Binghe, soon returned to the Demon Realm and it was whispered that he had changed while under the human ruler. There are whispers from servants that he has mellowed down and soon became hard-working yet stoic, not taking any wives or husbands nor concubines.

There were whispers of the servants from his chambers that said that when he would think he was alone, he would clutch a fan and a stuffed toy in his hands, pulling them close to his chest.

No one knew of the Ink Demon that lurks in the Human Palace, following, and tailing the Ruler. No one knows of its inky abyss that had sent rats of pathetic beings down to become one of the monstrous creations or a Lost Soul. No one knows that once the Ruler has passed, it soon lingers in the shadows of their Head disciple who took on the mantle to rule.

———-

All was dark before voices invaded your ears, stirring you to the waking world. When you woke up to clear green eyes, you weren’t surprised to find yourself back in the past with Shen Jiu. And by the looks of it, the wretched Qiu shack they put the two of you in.

You snarled internally when you looked at A-Jiu’s broken legs, “No…”

You refused to repeat the past.

Manhandling Shen Jiu on your back, you broke down the wooden wall of the shack with your body before running with Shen Jiu.

You won’t let Shen Jiu die.

You won’t let him be wronged.

You will make sure he’s raised with love.

With knowledge.

You’ll make sure he’s living happily.

Away from Cang Qiong.

Away from other cultivators.

Away from Luo Binghe.

With your knowledge of the future and the teachings that you had learned before your death, you’re sure of things.

A year ago…

The sound of screams was music to your ears, watching in glee as everything was thrown into chaos. Bendy having his fun with tearing apart any foolish cultivator that tried to go up against you. You watched as those who had wronged your friend were thrown to the ground before being branded as property for the demons to claim.

That was your end of the deal, offering any cultivator in the designated place that catches the eyes of the demons helping you.

You clapped with manic joy as you watched the Little Palace Mistress wail at the hot brand being burned on her skin by a large demon, who looked at her with leering eyes. Was this wrong? Morally, yes. But then again, it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Hammurabi's code historically. You did say to A-Jiu that you will burn the world that wronged him to the ground, and you’re about to do that.

You in your madness of rage, glee, and vindictiveness, spun in the middle of the chaos. “Kings have honor,” your right hand flung to the side open-handed in the air “Soldiers have bravery,” your other hand reached to the other side, making you go in a wide arm stance with two of your hands up in the air as if praising the gods up above. You then brought your hands together before clasping at your chest, “And poets have heart.” You smiled even when you felt a threat going behind your back. “But all I have…” Even when they raised a sword upon you before bringing it down…

Swish! Clang!

Luo Binghe looked absolutely dashing in his demonic heritage when you stopped Xin Mo with a scythe you procured from your sleeve. You kept your smile even then, eyes wide with fury, ink dripping down your face as if you were melting.

"̵̧̛̻̦̲̮̱̻̰̱̰̰͊̊Ḭ̶̧̺̜̮͙̗̙͓̿́͊̓̏̑͐̔̍͒̉͂̈́Ṡ̶̞̣̹͓̻̣̝͚̾̎ ̵̨̨͚̤̗̓͗̐̌̉R̵̢̡̩̦̘̗̪͇̬̺̓͆̓́̀͜͠Ą̷̮͎͎͒Ğ̸̫͎̗̠͓̖͇Ę̵̧̺̹̣̫͚̹͔̞͋̂̈́̐̍̈́͐̋̚!̵̡̧̼̠͓̥͓̬̗͕̜̙̄̈́͋̈͑̒̉͆"̷̟͎͉́̒̚ ———————

Throughout the years, you’ve managed to avoid Cang Qiong and the other sects, even people that hurt you and Shen Jiu such as Wu Yanzi. (Although you killed him when you had the chance.) You taught A-Jiu everything you knew about being a cultivator, such as opening your spiritual sense and forming a golden core, and even stole some manuals that’ll help you.

You both lived out your days in a cave, which you redecorated to both of your liking. A-Jiu learned to sew robes for the two of you, the quality immaculate, as expected as the soon-to-be - now the former peak lord.

You taught him how to read and write, which garnered his suspicions. You told him the truth, how you knew the future, and how you retained your memories. At first, A-Jiu was in disbelief but soon believed you since you had knowledge that was above a slave.

You two lived happily…

Until people from the past came looking for Shen Jiu.

Ao3

67 notes · View notes

add1ctedt0you · 3 months

Text

Novel quotes: wei wuxian having feelings/thoughts about jiang cheng

Under the cut because it's long

However, Jiang Cheng was gone. Holding steamed buns, flatbreads, and fruits in his hands, Wei WuXian felt his heart skip a beat. He forced himself to calm down. Even after he searched through the neighboring streets, he still didn’t see Jiang Cheng. He finally began to panic. Grabbing a cobbler on the side, he asked, “Mister, there was a young master about the same age as me sitting here. Did you see where he went?” The cobbler licked the thick end of a thread, “The one that was with you?” Wei WuXian, “Yeah!”

The cobbler, “I was in the middle of doing something so I didn’t really see. But he kept on spacing out, staring at the people on the street. And then when I looked up at where he was again, he suddenly disappeared. Maybe he left.”

Wei WuXian murmured, “... He left... He left...”

He probably left for Lotus Pier to steal the bodies!

As though he had gone mad, Wei WuXian sprinted immediately toward the direction that they had come from.

[...]

He gave himself a harsh scolding in silence—he was stupid, useless, ridiculous, it was bizarre, unimaginable. Yet, he was alone, without a sword or any tools, and on the other side of the wall there were thousands of Wen Sect’s cultivators, perhaps Wen ZhuLie as well.

He wasn’t scared of death. He was only scared that after he died, he wouldn’t be able to save Jiang Cheng and betray the trust that Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu left him. In such circumstances, the only one he could place his hope on was a person of the Wen Sect whom he had met only three times in total!

[...]

Wei WuXian’s gaze turned from Wen Ning toward Jiang Cheng, whose body was covered in blood and eyes were tightly shut. His fingers couldn’t help but clenched into fists.

Chapter 59 Poisons—Part Four

Jiang Cheng’s expression was rather strange. It was calm, almost too calm. He stared at the ceiling, as though he wasn’t at all interested in the situation that he was in, as though he didn’t care about where he was either. Wei WuXian didn’t expect him to react in such a way. Sadness, happiness, anger, shock—he had none of these. His heart skipped a beat, “Jiang Cheng, can you see me? Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?” Jiang Cheng glanced at him. He didn’t say anything. Wei WuXian asked him a few more questions. Arm supporting himself, he finally sat upright. He looked down at the mark of the discipline whip on his chest before laughing bitterly. If the discipline whip struck, it’d be impossible to wipe away the mark of shame. Wei WuXian comforted him despite this, “Stop looking at it. There has to be a way to get it off.” Jiang Cheng slapped him. His strike was so weak, so powerless that Wei WuXian didn’t even flinch, “Hit me. As long as you’ll feel better.”

[...]

If Wei WuXian were the one injured or if somebody else had saved them, he’d immediately say farewell and leave at once, full of determination. However, right now, Jiang Cheng was the one who had been injured. Not only was he injured, he had lost his core as well. He wasn’t in his right mind. No matter what, Wei WuXian couldn’t find any determination.

Chapter 60 Poisons—Part five

Out of the blue, Jiang Cheng spoke up, “Not to do what?” Wei WuXian paused in surprise, turning to him along with Lan WangJi. Jiang Cheng covered his wound with one hand, his voice chilly, “Wei WuXian, you’re such a great, selfless person. You did the best things possible, and you swallowed all the suffering and didn’t let anyone know. What a touching story. I should kneel down and cry in gratitude, shouldn’t I?” Hearing the mocking tone that lacked any courtesy, Lan WangJi’s face grew cold. Jin Ling saw the displeased expression and immediately stood in front of Jiang Cheng, scared that Lan WangJi would kill him with one strike, “Uncle!” Wei WuXian’s expression worsened as well. He never expected Jiang Cheng to make up with him after he found out the truth, but he didn’t think his tone would be as unkind as ever, either. With a moment of silence, he replied, voice muffled, “I never asked you to thank me.”

[...]

In the beginning, it was precisely because he didn’t want to see such a Jiang Cheng that he decided not to tell him.

He remembered every single thing he promised Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu—to help and take care of Jiang Cheng. If someone as unhealthily competitive as him found out about this, he’d be dispirited his whole life, too tortured to face himself. There’d always be something he could never overcome, reminding him that he could only reach where he was because of another’s sacrifice. It wasn’t at all his cultivation and his achievement. No matter if he won or lost, he’d long since lost the right to compete.

Afterwards, it was because Jin ZiXuan and Jiang YanLi died for him that he had no face to let others know. To tell Jiang Cheng after what happened then would be like shirking responsibility, hurrying to demonstrate that he’d contributed as well. It’d be like telling Jiang Cheng, don’t hate me, look I’ve contributed to the YunmengJiang Sect too.

Chapter 102- Hatred - Part Five

At this point, somebody on the side suddenly called, “Wei WuXian!”

Wei WuXian answered immediately, “What?”

Only after he answered did he realize that the one who called him was Jiang Cheng. Wei WuXian felt somewhat surprised. Jiang Cheng didn’t respond directly. Instead, he took something out from his sleeve and tossed. Wei WuXian caught it by instinct and looked, only to find a black, gleaming flute along with a crimson tassel.

It was the ghoul flute, Chen Qing!

As he felt the flute that he was more than familiar with, Wei WuXian didn’t even have the spare time to feel surprised.

Chapter 108: Concealment - Part Two

After a pause, he asked again, “How have Sect Leader Jiang and Jin Ling been?”

Lan JingYi pouted, “They seem pretty fine. Sect Leader Jiang is the same as before, always lashing out at people with his whip. Young Mistress’s temper has been getting better. In the past he could talk back thrice to his uncle after he scolds him once. Now he can do ten times.”

[...]

Hearing Lan JingYi say so, Wei WuXian relaxed slightly. In truth, he knew that these weren’t what he really wanted to ask. But as it sounded like Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling had been doing quite well, there was nothing left to say.

Chapter 116: Extra—Banquet - Part Three

#There are like other quotes but I got tired lol #Anyway. What really gets me is :'don't hate me jiang cheng'#what wwx really wanted was forgiveness! Something he didn't think he deserves! Arghhhh #Where is the post: mdzs is about wwx not being normal about his shidi. And lwj is there too #because imo is what really happens lol #wwx's thoughts about jc are tbh very mean. And imo it's because he's repressing resentment/fear of rejection #I think this because wwx starts to have uncharitable interpretations of jc only in his second life #wwx: I don't want a thank you.#also wwx: why is jc being so mean to me :-(#The fact that in the present wwx feels always surprised when jc speaks to him. It's like... Arghh #Chengxian #Kinda. Neither platonic neither romantic. But a secret third thing #mar!reading mdzs #I still can't decide what wwx wanted to ask in the end. (last quote). What do you want wwx? Say it to us!

36 notes · View notes

mxtxfanatic · 2 years

Text

Absolutely wild to read through mdzs and tally the sheer amount of lies the cultuvation world tell about and around Wei Wuxian that eventually get debunked:

Wwx purposely and maliciously ordered Wen Ning to kill Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Jin Zixuan died for siding with his cousin in an ambush his cousin created to kill wwx, an invited Jin guest. Jiang Yanli died protecting wwx from a cultivator stabbing him in the back, after Wen Ning was supposedly already destroyed.

Wwx attacked the Nightless City banquet for no reason, killing between 3,000-5,000 cultivators. The major clans and many smaller clans were gathered at Nightless City specifically to go back on their word to the Wen siblings to leave the Burial Mounds settlement, and to pledge to kill wwx. There weren’t even 3,000 present at the whole pledge, and wwx didn’t kill nearly all of them since a good portion of them show up to the second siege 13 years later.

Wwx ordered Wen Ning to attack the cultivators at Koi Tower, and his and Wen Qing’s surrender was a ruse to allow them close access to the clans to do so. Wwx was immobilized for three days, and otherwise does not control Wen Ning like a toy. Edit: the Jin purposely agitated Wen Ning to violence, then ensured that a majority of the cultivators in the room killed were from other clans to secure their support of the pledge conference.

Wwx had a great life at Lotus Pier, treated like he was part of the Jiang main family, only to betray them in the end. Wwx was whipped so gratuitously that he had scars as a child despite having a high-level golden core. Nobody bothered to tell him about his parents, despite Jiang Fengmian supposedly being close to at least his father before Wei Changze left the service of the clan. He was given no tablets to honor them in death, no keepsakes. Still, wwx fulfilled both of the Jiang rulers’ final wish/order to protect their son (above his own life), and wwx’s connections are why either were able to get a proper burial (unlike wwx’s own parents).

Wwx was committing evil acts and took on the Wen remnants as followers/test subjects for his dark arts. All demonic cultivators can be linked to his followers. Wwx rescued the Wen Remnants from labor camps set up, again, against the word of the cultivation world, and lived secluded in the Burial Mounds and Yiling until basically his death. The only “demonic cultivators” we see are Jin disciples who are given wwx’s notes after his death to study in an attempt to recreate his methods and secure the Jin’s power over the other great sects. Nobody cares that the Jin are doing this, even as they use other clans as test subjects.

Wwx created Wen Ning to be a weapon. Wwx resurrected Wen Ning on the request of his sister after the labor camp guards murdered him. The Jin, after lying about his destruction, try to turn him into a weapon and fail.

Wwx was killed by Jiang Cheng in a fitting moment of justice for the crimes committed against the Jiang. While Jiang Cheng’s part in the first siege was integral, he did not kill wwx. The Jiang have committed more crimes against wwx than anyone, and owe their entire continued existence to wwx.

Wwx turned to demonic cultivation because he was greedy for power. Wwx created the ghost path as his only means of surviving the Burial Mounds without a golden core. He sought no power and blatantly called out those who did (the Jin), only to be ignored because of his status. In turn, he defects from his sect and exiles himself to the Burial Mounds (with the Wen remnants), to which the sects continue to pursue him in a bid to kill the “servant” who won’t bow to them and to steal his power for themselves.

Wwx’s cultivation corrupts people, both in mentality and their health, which is why he became evil. Wwx’s cultivation path is shown to do no such thing, and nobody has precedence for saying this, as wwx’s cultivation is entirely new. On the other hand, the Nie saber technique is known to corrupt body and mind of the Nie who practice is, resulting in horrifyingly violent deaths by qi deviation, and yet no one shows care or concern about that being a problem for the whole cultivation world to have to deal with.

Wwx was ugly. Do I need to debunk this? 😭

And some ones tangentially related to him, but having to do more with the cultivation world lying to make themselves seem better than they were:

The first Burial Mounds siege was a deadly undertaking, but ultimately worth it to stop the Yiling Patriarch’s reign of terror. The siege was hundreds of trained cultivators against around 50 sickly people and a child with no tools to fight back. The only person who could fight back did not. It was the very definition of a massacre.

The participants of the first siege burned all the corpses on the Burial Mounds to release their resentment. The participants of the first siege threw the Wen remnants’ corpses into the blood pool to desecrate them, thereby imbibing them with even more resentment.

Disciples (or anyone connected to her) of Baoshan Sanren who leave her mountain are destined to meet bad ends as they are corrupted by the world. The cultivation world allows righteous people to die and their reputations to be tarnished in order to maintain their facade of “righteousness” while leaning into corruption and constant power grabs. It is often directly the fault of the cultivation world that these individuals are killed in the first place.

#mdzs #the way all those juniors grew up on straight up lies for 13 years #just for them to all be debunked in like a month #terrible #I wouldn’t be able to look my guardians in the face

842 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 8 months

Text

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 15

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

———————————————————————-

“At least your catering was excellent,” Wen Ruohan said to the Jiang sect disciple showing them out the door, purposefully snide.

The discussion conference had been canceled, of course, or at least postponed by at least half a year, having never actually gotten properly started in the first place. It was a tremendous embarrassment to the Jiang sect, though most of it wasn’t even their fault – the Lan sect needed to go search for their missing heirs, the Wen sect had just shocked the world with their sect leader’s marriage, and then there was the assault of a sect leader that fell under the Jin sect’s purview…all the Jiang disciples looked on the verge of tears, seeing the results of what was undoubtedly months of effort disappear in a flash.

“I agree,” Lan Qiren said from his side, voice much less sarcastic. “It is a credit to your sect that you were able to stand together and maintain your sect’s dignity under such trying circumstances. As always, it can be seen that each of you strives to live up to your sect’s motto: achieve the impossible.”

The Jiang sect disciples at the door brightened under Lan Qiren’s praise, however measured. “Thank you, Teacher Lan! Have a good trip!”

Lan Qiren nodded at them and continued on his way with his hands tucked behind his back, Wen Ruohan easily keeping pace beside him.

“I did mean that as an insult, to be clear,” he remarked.

“To be clear, I do not care,” Lan Qiren replied, utterly at peace. “It is not their fault that Jiang Fengmian lacks the spine to get the sects back in line even within his own home.”

Wen Ruohan snickered, too delighted by Lan Qiren’s relatively unusual cattiness to complain further.

“How many people do you think have guessed by now that we know where your nephews are?” he asked. “And how many think they’re with us right now, despite all of our possessions having been searched three times over?”

They’d even dug into Lan Qiren’s clothing, tossing it this way and that, in what was very obviously meant to be an insult – it wasn’t as though two children could plausibly be hidden in a few bags’ worth of folded fabric, and the searchers had deliberately left everything a mess. Wen Ruohan had enthusiastically suggested that Lan Qiren consider simply forgoing clothing entirely rather than wear something stained with others’ fingers, but tragically the Jiang sect had been able to provide them with swift laundry service.

A pity, really. Wen Ruohan would have been more than happy to keep Lan Qiren company for as long as it took to find new clothing, and probably even longer. Especially after the display Lan Qiren had put on, draping himself in Wen sect colors and fashions and playing politics with all the skill of ten years’ able expertise, all of it for him…

The mere thought of it was driving Wen Ruohan insane.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. From the first moment he had woken up and heard about it from his subordinates, to when he’d made his way around the Lotus Pier eavesdropping on the chaos Lan Qiren had left in his wake, the deliberate chaos that had left everyone with the Wen name on their tongues, to when he’d walked into the main hall and seen Lan Qiren standing there, proud and untouchable as any immortal. Lan Qiren, wearing his Wen colors and a low collar that hid nothing and instead proclaimed that the untouchable had been touched, and by the only man who deserved the honor…

The entire thing went round and round in Wen Ruohan’s mind, inflaming his desire until he was very nearly in pain with it.

Truly, sometimes he envied Lan Qiren’s lack of innate sexual impulse. It certainly seemed to make his life a great deal easier! It must be much more straightforward, not constantly feeling the rushing heat of yearning desire in reaction to sight and sound and thought…and it wasn’t as though the lack of impulse impacted Lan Qiren’s ability to perform or enjoy the act in any way, in much the same way a man accustomed to inedia could still enjoy food. It was only the irrepressible need for it that he lacked.

“Many will guess the truth,” Lan Qiren replied, and Wen Ruohan had to tear his mind out of the gutter and return it to the conversation they were having. “And the rest will figure it out once they have conferred with their wiser fellows. It is not that difficult to deduce that we must have had something to do with it, or at least it will not be once they are no longer distracted by constant twists and turns.”

“It was a shocking discussion conference-that-wasn’t, wasn’t it?”

“Mm.” Lan Qiren climbed into the carriage that would take them back to the Nightless City. When they were both seated, he said, very abruptly, “I want to compose something. For you.”

Wen Ruohan arched his eyebrows at the change in subject. “I have no objections. Some music would alleviate the boredom of a long journey quite well.”

Lan Qiren glared at him as if he were missing something. Wen Ruohan thought that that reaction was rather uncalled for, given that his suggestion would have been to see if they could fuck the entire way back. Wasn’t that what enclosed carriages were for?

(All right, it was to travel in comfort while allowing a large delegation to keep pace with each other for a lengthy journey; such a thing would be impossible with all of them on swords, so going by carriage was necessary to avoid embarrassing the weak and unnecessarily exhausting the strong. That wasn’t the point. The point was that they could, if they wanted to.)

After a moment, Lan Qiren seemed to realize his ire was misdirected and deflated somewhat, though he still looked grumpy. “Perhaps later,” he said with a faint sigh. “In the meantime, a gift to keep you occupied.”

He shook out his sleeves and put his left hand into Wen Ruohan’s lap. Not in any sexy way, either: his palm was facing upwards, his fingers lightly curled, the whole limb at rest, all white and red and pink and – black?

That wasn’t right.

Wen Ruohan frowned and peeled back Lan Qiren’s long undersleeve, revealing the purpling flesh of a particularly nasty bruise around his wrist. There were several indentations that were worse than the rest, visibly forming the shape of fingers – someone had grabbed Lan Qiren by the wrist and held him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to damage the muscle and grind the bone, to cause injury that Lan Qiren’s high cultivation was still working to fix it.

Someone had hurt Lan Qiren. How dare they?!

“Who…?”

“Your anger was not the purpose of the gift,” Lan Qiren said firmly before Wen Ruohan could really kick off into a rage – not least of all because it was evident that Lan Qiren had purposefully waited until they were on their way out of the Lotus Pier to reveal it to him, thereby robbing Wen Ruohan of the chance to find and destroy the person who’d dared to lay a finger on him. “Do not succumb to rage.”

“Oh?” Wen Ruohan said snidely. “Then what is its purpose?”

Lan Qiren sighed again, as if Wen Ruohan were the one being deliberately obtuse, and reached over to wrap Wen Ruohan’s fingers around his wrist. “I dislike bearing the marks of others, and I would have you fix the issue. And no, before you ask, I am not referring to your sect’s famed medical skills.”

Fix the issue? Without using medical skills, how was he supposed to fix –

Oh.

Wen Ruohan’s tongue darted out to lick his lips, his rage abruptly forgotten and his whole body suddenly aflame once more. “You would permit me to hurt you? To mark you anew, so that the only thing left on your body is me?”

Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows at him. “I would not offer if I did not permit,” he said dryly. “And we are in an enclosed carriage, are we not?”

People did say that couples grew to resemble each other once they married, Wen Ruohan reflected as he pounced, sliding himself into Lan Qiren’s lap and pinning the other man’s injured wrist above his head to watch him wince. He’d never noticed that before with any of his wives, not even the first, but he thought he might be starting to see some aspects of it now.

Ah, but it was such an incredible rush, the power of knowing that he had lured Lan Qiren onto this path of darkness along with him. A rush to know, too, that they were walking the path together, walking side-by-side, Lan Qiren his equal in a way no one else was, the way no one else could be. The power of knowing that he’d had a hand in reshaping this rigid and implacable man, recasting him in a mold of his own making, taking all that he was and adding in Wen sect arrogance and reckless disregard, the sun so far above the rest as to leave them all behind. Even if Lan Qiren maintained his scholarly reserve, his insistence on abiding with his sect’s strict rules, his bone-deep commitment to his principles of justice and chivalry…well, that just made it all the sweeter when the fire Wen Ruohan had stoked beneath his cold stoicism flared out.

When he finally acted as though he understood what a treasure he was. As he should.

Even if other people still didn’t see it.

Wen Ruohan wondered idly if Lan Qiren knew that everyone in the cultivation world thought that he was the one receiving when they were in bed together. Jin Guangshan had made a few comments along those lines in his hearing, since he incorrectly viewed himself as being Wen Ruohan’s friend; he had been smirking and condescending, laughing as if he thought that Wen Ruohan were only fucking Lan Qiren in order to break him – which had admittedly been his initial aim, though now in retrospect Wen Ruohan was pleased not to have been so predictable. Qingheng-jun had said something disapproving about it, something which most people would take as mere Lan sect prudery and which Wen Ruohan knew to be instead genuine upset at the fact that Lan Qiren wasn’t suffering as much as he might have hoped. And based on his reaction, it was clear that Lao Nie, who really ought to have known better than to make assumptions one way or the other, had also thought (initially, anyway) that Wen Ruohan was the one forcing the issue, so to speak, rather than the other way around.

They weren’t the only ones, either.

With Wen Ruohan’s cultivation, he could hear the speculation and whispers from all around, and at least a few of them had torn themselves away from politics to wonder about Lan Qiren’s performance in bed. Most of them were hilariously wrong, thinking of Lan Qiren as some ravished maiden from a bad opera, although a few of them, mostly the ones who’d sent him students, correctly identified him as someone who would incline towards being dominating in bed – though those few had then incorrectly assumed that Wen Ruohan would have crushed such rebellious behavior at once. All of them fools, all of them thinking that a sexual position or inclination said anything about a person…

Of course, even if Lan Qiren knew, it was unlikely that he would care. Wen Ruohan certainly didn’t, not when he could have Lan Qiren wincing under his hands, voluntarily submitting to his cruelty, letting him twist flesh between his fingers and dig furrows in with his nails –

“I broke a rule at the discussion conference,” Lan Qiren panted. His lower lip was still a little raw from where he had bitten it during his confrontation with his brother; Wen Ruohan swept down to replace the mark with one from his own teeth, kissing him so thoroughly that he nearly forgot what he was saying. “Not just – a casual rule. An important one, and I broke it knowingly. I thought to myself as I did it that I would need to impose punishment upon myself, physical discipline, and that you might – mm – that you might enjoy being the one to administer it – ”

“I would indeed,” Wen Ruohan purred. “Do you have something in mind? Do you want me to beat you? I know the Lan sect uses wooden disciplinary rods, but with my cultivation I could do the same degree of damage with my palms alone. I could turn you over my lap and spank you until you scream.”

That sounded good. Very good.

“I would not scream. Discipline is meant to be taken with dignity – and spanking is a punishment for children.”

“Mm, yes, and humiliation is meant to hurt, so as to better seal in the memory. I find myself rather taken with the idea of beating your ass until it is red, and then having you fuck me against a wall again, knowing that every little move you make makes it ache and burn.”

“I think we have gotten rather far away from the subject of discipline. But if it makes you happy…”

“It does.” Wen Ruohan ground himself down into Lan Qiren’s lap. “You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?”

He was mostly joking, not really meaning it, but Lan Qiren nodded.

“I would,” he affirmed verbally, as if it were that easy, as if he could just say something like that. “I would do many things for you.”

Wen Ruohan grinned triumphantly.

“And the next time you break a rule, I would return the favor twofold,” Lan Qiren continued, voice steady and unmoved, giving Wen Ruohan pause. “I do not think that I have the strength to actually harm you in that manner, of course. But perhaps I could make the experience enjoyable for you nonetheless – each strike driving you further into my lap until you are little more than a dog, shameless in your wretched display.”

Wen Ruohan glared at him. He was not going to let Lan Qiren thrash him!

Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows at him. “Humiliation seals in the memory, does it not?”

“…point taken,” Wen Ruohan conceded. “Perhaps we’ll limit it to strikes with the rod after all.”

At least to start.

Lan Qiren looked pleased – or he did until Wen Ruohan dug his nails into his already battered wrist, making him hiss and squirm beneath him as if trying to escape. Only he wasn’t, not really, because if he had truly wanted to get out, he would have found a way already.

“You’ll still have to kneel before me, though,” Wen Ruohan said, already imagining it. He used the friction between them to please himself as he did, rubbing himself against Lan Qiren. “Even in your sect, strikes are taken kneeling. I’m going to make you hurt – I’m going to make you bleed – ”

He stared at Lan Qiren’s face, avid, watching for fear, waiting for it…

“In that case, I think that I shall take the punishment in one of my newer outfits,” Lan Qiren said thoughtfully. “It will both increase your enjoyment and avoid ruining one of the ones I actually like.”

…and never getting it.

You are all alone, Wen Ruohan had told Lan Qiren. You have no one who would help you.

I have you, Lan Qiren replied straightforwardly. He had been so sure of it.

Even now, with Wen Ruohan hurting him, that certainty did not break.

How had Lan Qiren put it? Mutually consensual sadism?

Ah, truly, but it was so good that Wen Ruohan was a genius! To think, if he wasn’t so brilliant, he might have missed this chance to claim the treasure that was Lan Qiren for himself and for his sect. If he had done nothing but stood aside, someone else would have had this man, this man who was so obviously perfectly suited for Wen Ruohan and no one else, and then inevitably Wen Ruohan would have had no choice but to start a war just to get him.

Because he really truly had to have him. He had to have him in every way, in every manner, anything he could get –

“I want to dual cultivate with you,” he said without thinking, and then winced.

He regretted saying anything, of course. Even if he did want it, and he did, suddenly, want it desperately, Wen Ruohan still knew better than to bring it up just like that, suddenly and without preparation – dual cultivation was dangerous, particularly when there was such a difference in cultivation levels between the two partners.

Despite Lan Qiren’s talent, Wen Ruohan was by far the more powerful. If Lan Qiren lowered his defenses and yielded control over his qi to him, he would be helpless in the face of any decision Wen Ruohan chose to make. If he so wished, he could drain Lan Qiren dry, using him as a cultivation furnace to empower himself, sucking out years of painstakingly acquired spiritual energy from that beautiful golden core of his, so pure and shining bright. He could leave him as little more than the husks Wen Zhuliu’s core-melting technique left behind. He would not be wholly crippled the way they were, since he would still have his golden core and meridians intact, but assuming he survived the process, his power would be greatly damaged, requiring years if not decades of hard work to rebuild.

Sure, Lan Qiren could try to do the same to him, stealing what he could, but Wen Ruohan had more than enough power to spare. No matter what Lan Qiren did, he would survive the experience, however unpleasant it might be, and then he would kill Lan Qiren after. But Lan Qiren was unlikely to do something like that, being infamously virtuous and principled, whereas Wen Ruohan was a well-known madman – no, the risks here were all on Lan Qiren’s side.

Real dual cultivation required trust, the sort of trust that needed more than just a few bows and a vow to create. Not all married couples did it. Even those that did love each other, as Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan did in their strange, tempestuous way, might not be willing to allow their partner that level of intimacy, that level of vulnerability. And Wen Ruohan, who himself trusted no one, knew that he of all people was the last on the list of people that could be trusted –

“Very well.”

Wen Ruohan stilled and stared down at Lan Qiren, who frowned and amended his words: “Not in a carriage. I have standards.”

“You understand that I mean actual dual cultivation, correct?” Wen Ruohan said, feeling a little blank inside – not the usual sort of benumbed apathy that often came upon him and drove him to the Fire Palace to seek out any sort of feeling he could get, but a weird floaty sort of blank, like the type that preceded the mind-clearing lucidity of a really good orgasm. “Not the type you hear about in badly written erotic stories where it’s nothing but a thinly disguised excuse for sex, but the sort where both partners genuinely merge spiritual energy, share qi for qi, letting our golden cores resound and fill with each other.”

Lan Qiren blinked at him, as if puzzling through what he meant, and after a moment, his brows unfurrowed as he reached a conclusion that satisfied him. “Ah, of course,” he said, nodding judiciously. “Forgive me: obviously you would also not do something like that in a carriage, so my statement was unnecessary. I did not mean to imply that you lacked standards.”

Wen Ruohan did lack standards. He was the terrifying tyrant of the cultivation world, the unstable madman who lusted only for power and dreamt of standing above all the other sects as their master, and he knew it. He knew it was all true, what they said about him. There was little enough he would not do to achieve his goals, whether lying, cheating, stealing, murder or worse, and if he did not typically employ the most wretched of methods, such as human furnaces, that was not because of any scruple. His cultivation path was still an orthodox one, and so engaging in that behavior would likely harm him more than it helped; that was the only reason he hadn’t done the worst of the worst, the only reason. And yet, in the face of all that, Lan Qiren was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – to rely on him, to trust him.

Lan Qiren, Wen Ruohan decided in a moment of clarity, must be insane.

Luckily, it was the sort of insanity that went in Wen Ruohan’s favor, so he wasn’t going to complain.

Instead, he leaned down and kissed Lan Qiren again, using the hand that wasn’t busy digging new bruises into Lan Qiren’s already injured wrist to reach down and get himself off as efficiently as possible – which didn’t take long, as close to the edge as Wen Ruohan already was.

“Do you need something on your side?” he asked, after. “Or are you content to wait until later?”

“Later will do just fine,” Lan Qiren said, though he wrinkled his nose as he looked down at the mess on his bare abdomen. His slightly bruised abdomen, in fact, which Wen Ruohan noted in his heart as something else he’d have to pay back to someone someday. “A bath would be too much to ask for, I suppose, but some water…?”

Wen Ruohan moved back to his seat, allowing Lan Qiren to clean himself up and taking the time to simply luxuriate in the languor that followed release. When Lan Qiren returned to his seat, he took the other man’s wrist into his lap once more, this time to apply a few acupuncture needles to encourage swifter healing, then when that was done to smooth on some salve and wrap it in a bandage. And then, because he could, because no one would ever dare tell him not to, he slid down to his knees on the floor of the carriage and took Lan Qiren into his mouth.

“You are insatiable,” Lan Qiren said, though he sounded fond rather than complaining. Very few men would complain in such a circumstance, though Wen Ruohan suspected Lan Qiren might be one of them, if he were sufficiently motivated – though he didn’t seem to be now, based on the way he reached down with his injured hand to slide his fingers to rest in Wen Ruohan’s hair. “But if this is meant to be for me, then we shall do it my way, you understand?”

Wen Ruohan hummed in reply.

“Good. Just stay still, then…yes, just as you are, just like that. You may meditate or daydream, as you prefer – I do not require your attention – but do not move until I grant you permission. You can do that for me, can you not?”

He could, and quite happily, too. Wen Ruohan hadn’t kneeled in penance for a long time, though he still remembered that type of discipline from his childhood. Though shortly enough he discovered that this didn’t feel like penance or punishment – Lan Qiren would have made it clear if that was what he expected Wen Ruohan to get out of the act, and this wasn’t that. It wasn’t even meant to be humiliating.

No, it was more just…

A way to pass the time.

After a little while, Lan Qiren summoned his guqin, plucking at some song or another – not one Wen Ruohan recognized, so perhaps the one he had said earlier that he wanted to compose – while Wen Ruohan enjoyed himself. It was strangely meditative, in its way, and after a while it started to feel almost competitive, a race to see which one of them would break first: Wen Ruohan’s pride and paranoia against Lan Qiren’s stubbornness and stamina.

And Wen Ruohan did not lose.

Luckily, Lan Qiren might seem to have the endless patience of a block of granite, the way the Lan rules seemed to advise, but in the end he was still human. Eventually he gave in and let Wen Ruohan suck him off properly – and that, too, was a pleasure, and not just because it represented victory.

Wen Ruohan was in a very good mood.

That good mood persisted all the way through the long carriage ride back to the Nightless City, and even after, when Lan Qiren disappeared in the direction of their shared rooms with his guqin and a distracted air that suggested he was likely to forget to eat dinner that night in favor of playing music. Wen Ruohan saw him off with a smirk before heading towards the main hall: tragically, even though the time he’d been gone for the discussion conference that wasn’t had been shorter than expected, the never-ending work of a sect leader still beckoned.

Surely even those annoyances couldn’t dampen his mood…though they certainly seemed to be trying their best.

“Sect Leader, I swear to you, that is the rumor,” the reporting disciple bowed deeply. “They claim that our Wen sect cleared the area only through driving the monsters to the next region – that we are not only dishonest and untrustworthy, betraying the rules of the night-hunt, but that our great forces are only there to hide our weakness.”

Above all things, Wen Ruohan hated being laughed at the most. Normally, he would retaliate against such an insult by destroying anyone who dared make it, regardless of the truth of the matter – the truth didn’t really matter, after all. History was written by the victors, and the offense of insulting his Wen sect was far greater than whatever petty crimes his subordinates might or might not have committed. A subordinate could be punished, a scapegoat could be blamed, but someone who dared insult him…?

Perform acts of chivalry, have courtesy and integrity, take wins and losses…

Ugh, he could hear Lan Qiren earnestly chirping those stupid Lan sect rules even now.

Wen Ruohan rolled his eyes. Such a thing definitely wasn’t worth ruining his good mood over.

“Send a secondary squad to investigate what happened, both the initial squad’s behavior and the rumors,” he ordered, waving his hand dismissively. “If the crime has been committed, report to me for further instruction. If it has not, and the existence of false rumors is verified, then both squads may join hands and make clear our Wen sect’s displeasure.”

The Lan might preach If others lose to you, do not look down upon them, but the Wen had always felt differently. Even Wen Ruohan’s ancestor Wen Mao, who’d left his descendants with a whole list of seemingly altruistic sayings to make himself feel better about the vicious conquest he’d enacted to raise his clan up to the skies, had never included anything about having mercy on those that wronged you.

Even Lan Qiren wouldn’t be able to complain.

The subordinate bowed and retreated, shouting, “Sect Leader’s wisdom is infinite!” as he did.

The next petitioner stepped up – based on his clothing, he was one of the disciples surnamed Wen, a kinsman whether born or adopted, rather than merely an outer disciple.

“A report from the army, Sect Leader,” he said crisply, as professional and intimidating as expected from someone who bore their surname, and presented Wen Ruohan with a missive.

Wen Ruohan scanned it over for any unusual elements. It was mostly the usual, though naturally Wen Ruohan would never ignore something from his army – he was the only one with a sect large enough to even have an army, the only one bold enough to force lower-level cultivators into the sort of discipline required to call them an actual militia rather than merely wielding the fighting force of his sect disciples the way other sects did. Not that he could underestimate that: Qinghe Nie, for instance, had made its way into the Great Sects on account of their disciples’ outsized strength in arms.

“What’s this about us sending a squad to deal with a matter near Jiujiang?” he asked, tapping one part of the report. “That’s in the area between Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang, it’s not our responsibility.”

More to the point, it was perilously close to the Quanjiao Liu sect, the target of Qingheng-jun’s upcoming war of conquest. Not to mention only a stone’s throw from Xixiang, where Cangse Sanren was currently heading with Lan Qiren’s precious nephews…

“We received word of a large group of hauntings all in one place,” the Wen disciple said, saluting. “It seemed perfect for a training exercise on a large scale. Permission was received from the local sect that manages the area.”

Wen Ruohan grunted. That was normal enough, he supposed. “What sect?”

“Yuexi Xu.”

He’d never heard of them. A small sect, then, with nothing but their clan to back them up – even with paranoia as acute as his, Wen Ruohan had to admit that the chances of them being up to something that could harm his great Wen sect was relatively low. Still, wading into another Great Sect’s territory was always fraught with risk. It tended to make people nervous, and that nervousness was particularly acute when it was his Wen sect, given the reputation Wen Ruohan had for conquest. Was all that trouble really worth it for a mere night-hunt…?

“Is the prey particularly notable?” he asked. “Something that would gain our Wen sect great fame?”

“No, Sect Leader. However, the general was convinced that the opportunity was worth taking in order to ensure that the army had experience outside of drilling, in facing up against real opponents. In particular, he wishes to develop his protégé…”

Wen Ruohan relaxed. Now that made sense. He’d almost forgotten that he’d sent Wen Xu to be tutored by one of his generals, but naturally they’d want to flatter him by finding a way to show off to his son.

“Naturally my Xu-er must have many opportunities if he is to win fame for himself,” he said indulgently. “Very well, approved, provided they’re quick in handling it and getting out again. I don’t want to run into any trouble. Do you have any verbal reports to add?”

“Only that the general observed a number of sects in the area of Jiujiang making movements of their own recently, in their own names. He thought it unusual, given that they were not chasing the hauntings he was targeting, and thought to inform the Sect Leader of it in the event they were preparing for war.”

Now that would be bad timing, Wen Ruohan reflected. Mostly for Qingheng-jun – if the local sects in the area were gearing up to go against each other, the Lan sect’s little war of conquest risked escalating out of control as other sects leaped into the fray in order to win themselves some advantage over their neighbors. Starting a war to win some land was nothing, everyone would accept that, but kicking off a big clash like that? That would bring down censure and draw criticism from the entire cultivation world on any sect that dared, even if they were as renowned for integrity as the Lan sect. Even his own Wen sect would need to think very carefully before getting involved with anything like that.

Well, it wasn’t his problem if Qingheng-jun would need to delay his war. Wen Ruohan might have carefully negotiated a contract that gave his sect’s tacit support to the Lan sect’s war in exchange for support further down the line to eat away at the Jiang sect’s other subordinate sects, and certainly he wanted to take advantage of the benefits he’d negotiated for, but his real goal of obtaining Lan Qiren had already been fulfilled.

Lan Qiren was his, now, and by the Lan sect’s own traditions, he would never be anyone else’s.

“So noted,” he said, smiling faintly to himself and ignoring the way that it made the disciple in front of him blanch in terror. “Dismissed. Pass my regards to Xu-er, and tell him to plan to return to the Nightless City for a visit when he’s finished with this night-hunt.”

It was really past time for Lan Qiren to meet his children. The only reason he hadn’t met them already was because Wen Xu, who was promising, was far away, and Wen Chao, who was close by, was spoiled and arrogant and more than a little silly. He’d initially planned to wait until Lan Qiren had settled plans for his future classes to introduce Wen Chao, asking him to act as personal tutor in advance, but now it seemed better that he wait until Lan Qiren’s nephews arrived. His younger son had always yearned for the acceptance of his peers, and once they were all in the Nightless City, in Wen Ruohan’s grasp, it would be easy enough to ensure that they got along.

The next report involved even more rumors, this time in a different area – and even more impudent.

“They really said that my Wen sect is only a paper tiger, with nothing but empty roars and past glory to back us up? And they said it in public, to others?” Wen Ruohan laughed in anger. “Do they not want to live any longer? Ridiculous.”

“Should we take action against them, Sect Leader?”

“No, of course not. No one would dare say something like that – ”

And if anyone really was that daring, they certainly wouldn’t be after the discussion conference.

“– which means there’s the chance that someone is spreading the rumor on purpose, to use us as a weapon against their enemies. Do they think our Wen sect is so easily manipulated? Have it investigated.”

“At once, Sect Leader!”

Wen Ruohan shook his head. So many rumors, all at once, and not the ones he’d wanted or expected to hear after the success of the discussion conference. How irritating! It stunk of some sort of plot.

He raised his voice and addressed the room at large. “Has anyone else got any unusual rumors to report?”

Silence, with most people exchanging glances. After a few moments, one of his subordinates, relatively far back in the crowd, stepped forward.

“Reporting to the Sect Leader,” he said, saluting. “I heard some unusual rumors in the vicinity of Yueyang Chang, but was reluctant to share them, absent any corroboration.”

Wen Ruohan raised his eyebrows. Yueyang Chang was the sect he’d absorbed with Lan Qiren’s advice, and which had been suffering from – should he call them growing pains? To go from independence to subservience required an adjustment period, but that wasn’t anything he would call ‘unusual’. “Speak.”

“Sect Leader Chang was overheard complaining by those who I trust, who reported back to me. He claimed he had been tricked – that he was pushed to go out on a limb by someone who knew the branch would not hold his weight.” The subordinate hesitated. “He said that he would never have instigated the fight in the first place if he hadn’t received encouragement from the Lan sect.”

“From the Lan sect? Gusu Lan?” Wen Ruohan was confused. What did the Lan sect have to do with Yueyang Chang? It wasn’t located in their territory. Moreover, the Lan did not have a habit of messing around with other sects, they tended to treat themselves as being better than that. “What was he promised?”

“He did not say. Only that he greatly regrets his actions…the usual sort of thing. It was only the reference to the Lan sect that was unusual.”

That was unusual. Wen Ruohan didn’t like things that were unusual, particularly in politics. Too often, something unusual was an early sign that something was about to go wrong.

“You did well to report it,” he said, frowning. “Anything to do with the other Great Sects is worthy of my attention.”

That got the attention of yet another of his servants, this one right next to the last, and made him step forward eagerly. “Sect Leader, I also heard something unusual,” he volunteered. “Lanling Jin sect sent out many messages in recent days, and I intercepted several. It appears they are contracting rogue cultivators, experienced ones.”

Another surprise. Wen Ruohan was starting to get tired of them. “Mercenaries?”

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

“You said ‘in recent days.’ Do you know when they started? Before or after the discussion conference?”

“After, Sect Leader.”

Wen Ruohan scoffed. Qingheng-jun must have overplayed his hand, then – Lanling Jin was a Great Sect, but not especially known for its military talents. They rarely spent money on arms when they could instead use it on frivolities, like even more gold leaf for their ridiculously luxurious accommodations. The only reason Jin Guangshan would be reaching out to mercenaries was because he’d managed to figure out that the Lan sect was going to go to war, and he wanted to see what advantage he could get for his sect by fishing in troubled waters.

“Good to know,” he said. “Though hardly what I would describe as ‘unusual.’”

“It’s not that, Sect Leader – it was Yueyang Chang, that was what reminded me! One of the mercenaries the Jin sect reached out to was formerly part of the Chang clan, disowned by the last sect leader, so he’s formally unaffiliated with them, though I believe he’s still on good terms with his kinsmen. He wrote back to confirm that he would participate, saying he knew that it was coming, because – ”

The subordinate abruptly stopped, having clearly not meant to say as much as he was.

Or perhaps regretting what he had been on the verge of revealing.

Wen Ruohan’s frown deepened. “Speak. I will not punish you.”

“This – I – I can only report what I have read, Sect Leader, without judgment as to whether it is true or false. I have not had time to take any steps to verify…”

“Speak.”

“...yes, Sect Leader. The Chang mercenary stated that he knew trouble was coming because he had seen both Lan sect leaders in the environs of his natal sect not long before.”

Wen Ruohan blinked, for a moment not understanding. Both Lan sect leaders? There could only ever be one at a time, and Lan Qiren’s father was long dead. The only way such a thing would be possible was if the man was claiming to have seen Lan Qiren and Qingheng-jun together – together, and near Yueyang, which was nowhere near Gusu.

“Impossible,” he said firmly, ignoring the way his stomach started churning and bile rushed to the back of his throat as his paranoia tried to wake up with a vengeance. “Lan Qiren and his brother despise each other, I have seen it myself. They would never willingly spend time in each other’s company. The Chang mercenary must have been mistaken.”

Surely he must have been mistaken. Lan tended to all look quite similar from a distance, with their pale robes and strong family features and identical forehead ribbons. There was no reason to think that it really had been Lan Qiren.

It couldn’t have been, anyway. From the time Qingheng-jun had left seclusion to Lan Qiren’s marriage with Wen Ruohan and after, all of Lan Qiren’s time was accounted for.

Unless he was lying about being in seclusion, his paranoia whispered. The churning in Wen Ruohan’s stomach got worse. No one saw him. Everyone knows how much he dislikes seclusion. And the Lan sect were all so surprised to see him at the conference, weren’t they? Even his own sect…

But there’s no reason for him to lie, Wen Ruohan argued back. And anyway, he’s Lan Qiren. Do not tell lies, remember? He wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t. Not to me.

Wen Ruohan shook his head and stood up. “That’s enough for today,” he said sharply, watching as his subordinates all knelt and bowed before him. “Dismissed.”

That done, he rose and headed out of the main room, still feeling uneasy. He knew better than to listen to the words of some random rogue cultivator who might not know anything, or who might be lying for purposes of his own – and anyway, it wasn’t the first time he’d doubted Lan Qiren, only to see the error of his doubt. Even as far back as the first time he figured out the extent of Lan Qiren’s growing influence as a teacher, he had wondered if it was some sort of ploy, only to conclude it wasn’t.

It was surely the same now.

“ – of course Lan Qiren wouldn’t be concerned! Why would he? He’s got our dear husband wrapped around his little finger.”

Wen Ruohan paused, hearing Lu Qipei’s strident, scathing tones from the next corridor over, echoing loudly against the walls. She was talking with Shen Mingbi, or rather at her, as usual, with Shen Mingbi hurrying to keep up with her pace.

“You won’t believe what I’ve heard about the discussion conference,” Lu Qipei continued, her voice querulous. “The things that man said – and in public – ! He’s far more shameless than I ever imagined. To put such things out in front of the world as if he wanted us to be seen as some sort of farce, the dignity of our great Wen sect reduced to nothing – he’s laughing at us all, I’m telling you, and our husband not the least of it.”

“I don’t think he laughs,” Shen Mingbi said doubtfully. “Not in general, I mean. Not at all.”

“Oh, he laughs all right,” Lu Qipei said with a sneer. “I’ve heard him. Even today! He was looking at our husband from a distance, and he chuckled – laughing at him behind his back, I’m telling you. He’s nothing more than a shameless hussy whose plans are working out just as he intended – ”

Her voice faded away as she passed into the next room, Shen Mingbi’s hurrying footsteps fading away soon after, and all that was left was Wen Ruohan, standing there, feeling cold.

He hated being laughed at.

He’d never tolerated it, not even in his youth, not even with his brothers and sisters – not even the ones he liked. Mockery had always been his reverse scale; once he’d become the Sect Leader of the Wen sect, that great and glorious position, he had finally been in a place to ensure that no one would ever mock him again. He’d wreaked havoc on the cultivation world to ensure it, time and time again. He had always preferred that everyone think him a madman or a tyrant rather than allow them to think him weak.

Lan Qiren wouldn’t, he insisted to himself. He wouldn’t.

Certainly not now. Surely not now, not just after Wen Ruohan had just humbled himself before him, when Wen Ruohan had asked him to dual cultivate with him. He’d asked Lan Qiren to trust him and Lan Qiren had agreed, and Wen Ruohan had been happy, because at last, at last, he had someone who would give him the benefit of the doubt, someone who looked to him first, someone who trusted him who he could trust in return –

He could trust Lan Qiren in return. Couldn’t he?

Surely he could. Lan Qiren was…he was Lan Qiren. For all the (admittedly) quixotic fascination Wen Ruohan had for him, Lan Qiren was still so boring, so dull, so pedantic when he wanted to be – the passion that moved him was only his rules, which he followed with alacrity, and his loved ones, like any proper Lan. His nephews, of course, and…and his spouse, surely. Wen Ruohan, for whom he had promised to be a good husband, for whom he had written his own rules and tried his best to abide by them. He might not yearn for the sex they had, but neither was he repulsed by it, and he’d offered Wen Ruohan gifts, his own pain, given freely.

Surely Lan Qiren wasn’t going to betray him now.

It was odd how much it mattered, Wen Ruohan reflected as he walked towards the rooms he and Lan Qiren had shared since their marriage. He’d always prided himself on betrayal not mattering to him. He’d told Lao Nie himself that he didn’t really mind it when people betrayed him, as long as they did it with style, and he’d meant it, too. He was so powerful, so beyond all the rest, that no one could really hope to harm him, so what did their pathetic little plots mean to him? Let them squirm and scheme; what did he care? At most, all their connivance would do quite well to amuse him, like watching a play in which he was meant to be a character, a small break in the dull apathy of daily life.

He liked watching people plot against him. He liked crushing them in the end, too, when he was done being amused.

He didn’t like this.

Wen Ruohan knew himself to be paranoid, fearful and wary well beyond the normal bounds of men, but he also knew that his paranoia was well-earned. Who in his life had not betrayed him? In his childhood, it had always been that way: his father had been indifferent, his mother had preferred his older and younger siblings, his brothers and sisters saw him as an impediment to their goals. Even his sense of security in the world had abandoned him, courtesy of the supposedly peaceful Lan sect’s great war, where his mother and brothers had left him behind to die.

Nor had it changed as he’d gotten older. His younger brother whom he liked best had had his own interests, separate and apart from his own, and although Wen Ruohan’s own betrayal of Wen Ruoyu had been by far the worse, it wasn’t as though he had been incited to action out of nothing; it had been those cracks between them, the little evasions that chipped away at trust, that had allowed for Wen Ruohan to be deceived into turning against him. And his wives – ah, the less said of them, the better. It had been his first wife, who’d sworn an oath to be loyal only to him, that had first introduced him to the notion of adultery, blatantly telling him that she would take others to her bed to make up for what he did not give her. Only she hadn’t really ever wanted anything he could give, always laughing at him, never appreciating him, never trusting in him or his potential. He had still been weak when he’d married her, and so she had always looked down on him, sneered at him, thinking to herself that she could have and maybe should have done better for herself than settling for the likes of him. It was only later, much later, that she regretted her cruelty and selfishness, only when unexpectedly he really did begin to achieve all of his ambitions and gain the power that was rightfully his.

Of course by then it was too late. Too late for her to win his affection, because by then he knew the truth that she’d only ever wanted him for his power, and he’d hated her for that. And the two wives that came after her…he had long ago found them to be the same as her.

His children, of course, all tended towards their mothers, following in their footsteps. They all wanted his seat, wanted his power – perhaps Wen Xu and Wen Chao were too young to really scheme, but their mothers weren’t, and they’d grow to follow their long-dead older brothers’ footsteps one day, he had no doubt. One day they, too, would turn against him, inevitable and unstoppable, and there was no point in even hoping for more.

Even his lovers were the same! No matter how sweet their words, they all betrayed him in the end, one way or another. Even Lao Nie, who had been so gallant at the start – he’d taken one wife, which Wen Ruohan could understand given the need for descendants, and then another, which he couldn’t. And even now, with both wives gone, he’d turned quarrelsome and suspicious, always the first to think the worst of Wen Ruohan. No, Lao Nie had never been fool enough to think that simply sharing Wen Ruohan’s bed meant that he could trust him…

But Lan Qiren is different.

Lan Qiren trusts me. He doesn’t fear me. He would give me everything, and happily. He’s a Lan! The Lan love deeply, love madly, love only one – it is what they are all like, as characteristic of them as their ridiculous rules. No Lan would ever betray their beloved. It’s impossible!

…though that assumes that I am Lan Qiren’s beloved. Not just simply the one he married.

Wen Ruohan growled in frustration and threw open the door to his rooms.

Lan Qiren wasn’t there.

He should have been there, shouldn’t he? He’d said he was going to go play music for a while. His guqin was there, sitting on the low table he preferred to use when playing, and that meant Lan Qiren should have been there, too. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t here –

“Sect Leader, your lowly subordinate greets you. Forgive my impudence in coming here unannounced!”

Wen Ruohan turned, surprised. It was Wang Liu, his spy from the Lan sect, and he was kneeling.

“You,” he said blankly. “What are you doing here?”

It was impudence to come to Wen Ruohan’s rooms without being sent for. If Wang Liu had wanted to report to him, he should have gone through the usual channels – Wen Ruohan would have summoned him when he was ready and not a moment before, or else gone to meet him somewhere private. Even if it was urgent, there were ways in place that Wang Liu could have made that known.

Ways that didn’t involve bothering Wen Ruohan when all he wanted was to find Lan Qiren.

“I apologize, Sect Leader, but it was a matter that could not wait. It has to do with your marriage.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed. His marriage?

“What is it?” he demanded. “Tell me now.”

Wang Liu hesitated, but then squared his shoulders. “Sect Leader, the news I have may be unpleasant – ”

“Did I ask you to equivocate?! Tell me what you came here to say.”

Wang Liu still hesitated.

“Enough of this,” Wen Ruohan said angrily. “Tell me this instant – ”

“It’s all a joke!”

Wen Ruohan took an actual step back. Something was wrong with his balance. “What?”

“Forgive me, Sect Leader,” Wang Liu saluted deeply. “I have discovered that – that earlier reports regarding the dislike between Lan Qiren and Sect Leader Lan were erroneous. There is no such great hatred between them…or rather, the hatred we had observed was all manufactured. It was deliberate.”

There was a roaring sound in Wen Ruohan’s ears.

“It was all planned out from the start,” Wang Liu said. “They worked together on a plan that would allow them to best improve the Lan sect’s future, now that Qingheng-jun was out of seclusion. It was all part and parcel to it: Lan Qiren pretended to retreat into seclusion while his brother established himself, using the time to go look into the various weak points the sect had developed the past ten years. Refreshing alliances with some sects, identifying others as budding threats – Yueyang Chang and Yingping Wang, for instance – ”

“Those sects are nowhere near Gusu,” Wen Ruohan said. His voice sounded dull to his own ears. Shocked. Betrayed. Pathetic. “Why would the Lan sect care about their fate?”

“It is not those sects directly, Sect Leader, but their alliances. They were providing support to certain of the subordinate sects that fall under Gusu Lan, but now that they have themselves become subordinates of the Wen sect, that link is broken, and Gusu Lan’s control is now firmer than ever. I can show you evidence of letters, Sect Leader.”

He fumbled at his sleeve, pulling out some letters and unfolding them – Wen Ruohan could tell at a glance that the writing on them was Lan Qiren’s, even if he couldn’t make out exactly what was written on them. Beautiful but rigid, inflexible, uncompromising…

Not the sort of person who would decide to make the best of things in an unwanted marriage.

Lan Qiren had given in rather quickly, hadn’t he? I will be a good husband to you, he’d said the very first night, and Wen Ruohan had found it funny. He hadn’t complained or yelled or thrown a fit – not until later, not until he’d found the note from his nephews and had that terrible meltdown, which had been so severe that Wen Ruohan had first thought he was having a qi deviation. But when he’d checked him later, Lan Qiren’s qi had been just fine…could he have been faking it?

No, that was impossible. Surely it had to be impossible.

He laughs at him behind his back, Lu Qipei had said. I saw him, just today, looking at him and chuckling.

The mercenary from the Chang clan said he saw both Lan sect leaders in that area, together.

Do not tell lies, Lan Qiren said, and then looked his brother right in the face and claimed, I do not know where your children are right now.

“There’s more, Sect Leader.”

Wen Ruohan turned his head slowly to look at Wang Liu, who looked…apologetic, almost. Like he was pitying him. Looking down at him, the way everyone always looked down at men who had their heads turned by a pretty face, men who let themselves be led around by their lower halves. Men who let themselves be fooled and tricked into doing stupid things because they thought they were in – that they were in –

Wen Ruohan didn’t trust anyone. He certainly didn’t love anyone.

“What more?” he asked.

“Your former spy, Qing Yu. As you suspected, he was a spy for another sect…and he knew.”

Wen Ruohan’s hand shook. “He knew? That – that was months ago!”

At the time he’d had Qing Yu thrown into the Fire Palace, the idea of marrying Lan Qiren hadn’t even occurred to him yet. But it was that conversation that had sparked it, hadn’t it? It had been long enough ago that he couldn’t remember exactly what it was that had given rise to the idea, remembering only that long and circuitous discussion that had first led him to suspect Qing Yu, but…it had been then that the seed had been planted, his idea to marry Lan Qiren for himself, to take him into the Wen sect.

The Lan sect didn’t use spies. But they might suborn one, if they thought of it.

Had it all been planned? Had Lan Qiren and his brother been playing him all along? Him, the great Wen Ruohan?

Had they been laughing at him?

Every time he’d let Lan Qiren have his way – when he’d allowed him to be the one on top, when he’d acted against his own inclinations to indulge him, when he’d taken a loss rather than see his distress…when he’d let Lan Qiren call him his wife in front of the whole cultivation world, and even thought that he was enjoying it. Had that all been a joke to Lan Qiren? A humiliation?

“That was why I couldn’t wait to call on you, Sect Leader,” Wang Liu said, wringing his hands. “I got word that Lan Qiren was going to take action now.”

“Action?”

“Yes, Sect Leader. My men intercepted word that he sent back to his sect, saying that he thought you were sufficiently distracted that he would be able to go rescue Qing Yu from the Fire Palace – ”

Wen Ruohan held up a hand, cutting Wang Liu off.

He was seeing red.

How dare he? How dare he – how dare Lan Qiren laugh at me? How dare he take my goodwill, my sincerity, and throw it back into my face? How dare he think that he can take advantage of me?!

Wen Ruohan was nobody’s fool. He was nobody’s plaything, to be manipulated and used and then discarded – and he was sick and tired of being betrayed.

(Maybe it’s a mistake, something deep inside him whispered, soft and flat and monotone the way Lan Qiren’s voice tended to be. Maybe Wang Liu is wrong?

But how could Wang Liu, who had so much evidence, be wrong?)

“I will deal with this myself,” he said coldly, and swept out of his rooms, heading straight for the Fire Palace.

The walls warped around him as he strode forward, walking as fast as he could without breaking into an undignified run – he was losing control over his power, letting it leak loose in a way he hadn’t in ages. He didn’t care, just as he didn’t care about the way the servants who saw him recoiled and cowered at the sight of him, the way they used to before he had relaxed these past few months. He barely even noticed.

His attention was too caught up in the war inside his head, the roaring that still filled his ears.

Half of him, the paranoid old monster that he was, was screaming in wretched miserable vindication – I knew he was too good to be true, I knew better than to trust him, I should never trust anyone at all! – while the other half was thrashing around in denial, shouting No, no, there must be something wrong, something is wrong with this, Lan Qiren wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, not to me, he wouldn’t –

Wen Ruohan threw open the doors of his Fire Palace.

Lan Qiren was there. He was deep inside, but instantly visible, in his pale robes with white clouds and red suns, immediately recognizable, with that so-distinctive forehead ribbon fluttering behind him.

He was standing next to the cell Qing Yu had been consigned to.

He turned to look at Wen Ruohan and somehow, impossibly, began to smile –

“How dare you!” Wen Ruohan screamed, his voice cracking as he did. He watched in sick joy as Lan Qiren’s eyes went wide and he took a step back. “How – how dare – you betrayed me – ”

Lan Qiren was already shaking his head, trying to deny it, but it was too late, too late. Why else would he be here, if not for the reason Wang Liu had said? He didn’t love the pain of the Fire Palace.

He only liked the pain that Wen Ruohan gave him.

Or so he’d said.

So he’d lied – and all without saying a single untrue word.

“You want to make me a gift of your pain, do you?” Wen Ruohan said, his lips peeling back from his teeth as he snarled. “Very well, let me give you a gift back. My Fire Palace has all the pain you could possibly want and more. I will let you have your fill of it!”

Lan Qiren reached out to him. “Sect Leader Wen,” he said, his toneless voice as urgent as he could make it. “Wen Ruohan…!”

Wen Ruohan would have none of it. No more lies, no more mockery.

He turned his back on Lan Qiren.

“Guards!” he called, and his men appeared quickly, always at his beck and call. He smiled grimly at them, and they quailed back before him, afraid, terrified as they watched his rage-reddened eyes resume the dead look that he had worn for so long. The one that had protected him for so long, and it was only that he had let himself forget that, for a little while. A mistake, it seemed. “Lan Qiren will be staying as a guest of the Fire Palace from this moment on. Please make sure that he gets only the best of our Wen sect’s hospitality…and no matter what he says, don’t let him leave.”

“Wen Ruohan!”

Wen Ruohan left.

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #Megafic #happy halfway through the fic mark everyone #my condolences

67 notes · View notes