#they should have consulted lan wangji

[digitalstowaway]

My personal hc for post-seclusion Lan Xichen is that he does re-enter normal life after a few years, but he's a bit eccentric.

He's just not all quite there anymore, people say. He gets lost in thought easily. He doesn't seem to remember information as well as he did. He laughs loudly. He touches people too much--a squeeze on the arm, a hand on the shoulder.

He isn't much of a Lan anymore, people say. His sect leader skills have suffered. He's late to meetings because he stopped to watch two birds in the tree outside his rooms. He seems to have a distate for all military strategy and plucks away authority from his consultants if they suggest anything he doesn't like. He goes to conferences and talks about anything but politics to those around him.

But the junior disciples still love him. They ask him all sorts of questions of what he saw on his walk, how he enjoyed his recent trip. They ask him about the flowers in the spring and the snow in the winter. There's always some hidden wisdom when he talks about the patience of a new bloom or the cleansing that comes with rain.

Wei Wuxian adores his brother-in-law. They have tea together. They talk about this and that. Wei Wuxian brings him flowers for his rooms and diligently swaps out old bouquets before they can die--Lan Xichen doesn't like watching the flowers die. Wei Wuxian is just happy to see him smile even if he does have grief-tinted eyes.

Wangji worries. He finds Xichen wandering Cloud Recesses, coming to pauses with frowns and grimaces and eyes distant. Wangji takes him by the arm and leads him back home. He settles him with tea and sits with him until Xichen mentions that it's getting colder, Wangji should start wearing heavier robes. He doesn't want his brother to catch a cold.

And Wangji will take that to mean he's okay now. He'll promise to dress in his winter robes when the weather changes. Xichen’s hand lingers when they say goodbye. When Wangji steps outside again, he'll notice that there is a slight chill to the air.

#lan xichen #i am suuuuch a lan xichen girly #mdzs

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Joint efforts

Part 3 to Dirty mind. This AU is living rent free in my brain and has kicked almost everyone else out.

Enjoy!!

Lan Xichen hands his brother an ornate, black envelope and does a very poor job concealing a teasing smirk. "The Yiling Wei Sect is hosting a large night hunt in their efforts to cleanse the Burial Mounds. The great sects and a few others have been invited, us included."

Lan Wangji glares at his brother, whose smile only seems to grow wider in response.

"I wanted to consult with you on whether we should go or not."

A blatant lie that Xichen doesn't even try to make sound convincing. He didn't need to consult with anyone on anything, he just wanted an excuse to torment his brother - fair, considering the damages the Lan sect had to pay for after the last discussion conference when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian shared a room... but that doesn't mean Wangji has to like this.

"So?" Xichen asks and Wangji is, perhaps, considering fratricide on this fine summer morning.

"We will go."

Xichen tries to disguise a laugh in a cough but his brother knows better than to buy that.

"I will write back for confirmation." And Xichen smiles in that polite but incredibly annoying way that he does only when he wants to tease his brother about his love life. "Unless you wish to do so instead? I know you and sect leader Wei keep in touch very closely."

Killing is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses. Killing is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses. Killing is for-

---

Sect leader Wei awaits the night hunt participants right outside one of the last few places of the Burial Mounds he has yet to subdue.

Lan Wangji feels his heart rate pick up at the sight of him - but then again this is regular occurence. He always feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest whenever Wei Ying is around, as if it's trying to escape his ribcage and merge with Wei Ying's own.

He's wearing a much lighter version of his sect leader robes, tighter to his frame, and Lan Wangji decides he is going to stare, very disrespectfully, at the thin give of his waist, and the way the tight underpants peek from underneath his over robe. And he knows, he knows the moment Wei Ying is going to turn around, his back will be as much of a sight as his front.

Lan Wangji is definitely going to pay the Yiling Wei sect's seamstress a visit and personally thank her for always encouraging Wei Ying to go for low necklines. He gets men who gush about breasts a lot better now.

(Totally unrelated, but he is also going to ask the seamstress if she makes lingerie).

Wei Ying has taken to wearing his hair down but for today's night hunt, he's gathered it into a sleek, elegant ponytail, a few strands framing his face and a beautiful, silver hairpiece holding it in place. Lan Wangji recognizes it immediately, knows there is a pair of bunnies engraved on it - because he had it made for Wei Ying himself.

Lan Wangji does not believe in coincidences and the moment he meets eyes with Wei Ying, he knows this was no play of fate.

To his right, his head disciple, Wen Ning, appears to know it too, and though he is undead, he still appears as though he is blushing.

To his left, lady Wen Qing wears her perpetually done-with-your-shit expression, and the more people pour in, it only seems to grow darker. That's understandable, considering most of the participants to this night hunt have wanted her and her family dead.

She suspiciously softens as she glances towards the few rogue cultivators that have announced they would be joining in. It appears that Wei Ying has been right in that Wen Qing seems to have discovered she "has a heart", as he playfully puts it. Hopefully lady Luo Qingyang will notice her affections soon.

The welcoming ceremony is short and withoit fanfare. Wei Ying thanks the participants for agreeing to join in the cleansing efforts, instructs them on what they are likely to find, how to request assistance if they run out of flares and wishes everyone a good time.

Cultivators disperse as they walk into the deep, dark forest, and Lan Wangji joins in his sect's delegation as they do. Wei Ying winks at him when they meet eyes before swiftly disappearing into the night.

Lan Wangji makes it his goal of the night to find him.

And other f-words him.

---

No wonder Wei Ying requested only the most powerful cultivators join in this night hunt. The corpses are the fiercest Lan Wangji has ever seen, and he's quite sure the resentful energy swarming the place is nothing but pure hatred in a semi-physical form. He doesn't even see Bichen's glare anymore, sending it to slash at the monsters almost blindly.

He shouldn't have followed that junior disciple out here. Not that he doesn't trust his abilities, but he's alone in a place where he can barely even see his own hand, and he's starting to grow tired from all the night hunting he's already done. He should have asked someone else to come with him - but it didn't look like that big of a deal...

Now that Lan Wangji thinks about it, strumming a few notes on his guqin to deter the resentful fog around, perhaps that wasn't even a junior disciple at all. Wei Ying said that the Burial Mounds is full of tricks, maybe this is one of them - conjouring an illusion to lure people in the deepest, darkest parts of the place and kill them to fuel its power.

Lan Wangji is not an idiot, nor is he arrogant enough to believe himself capable of handling something like this. This kind of resentment is ancient, powerful, not the apange of any one person, no matter how skilled. He is just about to light up a flare and ask for help when his ears fill with the shrill notes of Chenqing playing a powerful tune. The resentment becomes agitated, as if it's being cut into, wailing in thousands of voices of pain and despair.

Wangji recognizes the song and joins in, harmonizing with Wei Ying in an undefeated duet. The resentful miasma clears up little by little, and the two find themselves face to face, sharing a victorious smile.

"Hanguang-Jun, what are you doing all the way out here? Have you left everybody so behind?"

"Looking for you." And it's only a half lie. Yes, he ran after the ghostly disciple, but he had also been looking for Wei Ying during.

"It seems that you've found me." Wei Ying says and easily crosses the distance between them, wrapping his arms loosely around Lan Wangji's neck. His eyes glow red, high on the adrenaline of the fight, voice low and teasing. "What are you going to do to me now?"

Lan Wangji wonders if it would be safe for them to duck behind those large rocks over there-

A flare for the Wei sect goes up and Wei Ying all but jumps out of his lover's arms. "Hold that thought. Duty calls!"

Lan Wangji watches him disappear in a fog of controlled resentment and sighs, frustrated in more ways than one.

A horde of corpses approach, but he glares at them so fiercely that they turn the other way.

---

It's enrapturing to watch Wei Ying fight. He has a sword again, forged in blood and resentment, but he wields it with more elegance and poise than many that carry spiritual swords. He's swift with his movements, confident and undeterred, and Lan Zhan doesn't think he can night hunt anymore if he's getting so lightheaded.

Why is he getting lightheaded? Well, take a guess.

The night hunt has been entertaining as much as it has been useful, but daytime is nearing, the colors of the sky catching lighter tones. Wei Ying and his disciples build one last array, powering it up as it sweeps through the area and purifies it.

The burst is so strong that it knocks Wei Ying's hair piece out, and rips through some of his otherwise intact robes. Lan Zhan tries not to think indecently about that.

He does not succeed.

"Alright, I think this is the last one." Wei Ying announces, running a hand through his hair to fix it. "The sun is going to rise soon, so I'm calling this night off for the moment. Thank you to everyone who participated, and please be sure to rest properly after such effort. If you have been injured, visit Wen Qing's medical division, wounds sustained here must be cleansed properly!"

The disciples bow, about to leave, little groups forming to return to the Yiling Wei sect's village, when sect leader Wei very casually and totally not teasingly reaches to undo Lan Zhan's forehead ribbon.

"Lend me this one for a little bit, Hanguang-Jun, I lost my hair piece."

And he proceeds to tie a high ponytail, looking over his shoulder towards Lan Zhan with a knowing smile.

Everyone scatters quickly after that.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #writing attempts

[aitchnkay]

Jiang Gunian Made A Change Part 17

Summer Hanson thought of herself as a stereotypical American college student: wavy, shoulder length dirty blond hair, green eyes, slightly taller than average. She studied hard during the week and played hard on the weekends. She had learned how to not grimace when drinking beer at parties even though she hadn't yet learned how to like the drink. Where she differed, perhaps, from that stereotype was that she had been introduced to Thai BLs by her freshman year roommate, and she had immediately become hooked.

It was natural to progress through the overtly sexual Thai shows to the more restrained Korean and Japanese BLs to the Chinese 'best male friends, soul-mates even, but definitely do not kiss and are never going to be intimate.... ever.' shows.

And then she discovered that some of the shows were originally books, and she became even more addicted to the genre. She read fan translations, machine translations, official translations. And discovered that there was a whole lot of 'we're not just BFFs' going on in the books that didn't make it into the Chinese drama or donghua adaptations.

As a stereotypical college student, she and a group of friends would escape to someplace warm for spring break. In her junior year, she was with them, waiting for a huge train to pass when the cars in front of her started rocking.

Then the car she was in started rocking.

The cars in front tipped, and fell into a hole that hadn't been there a moment ago. Her own car followed.

She vaguely remembered screaming. Pain. Something wet that smelled metallic. Lights strobing, hurting her eyes. Eye. Something was wrong. Why couldn't she see out of the other eye? People talking fast, calmly, rushed, blurred. And then, clearly, "She's coding."

Blackness. Blankness. Absence of... everything. Soothing. Relaxing. Comforting darkness.

When she awoke, it was to a strange room, strange clothing, a strange body. A new name: Xia KeXin, which made her giggle hysterically seeing as how close it sounded to the Word of Honor/Faraway Wanderers' Wen KeXing.

Thankfully, she had the previous soul's memories to rely on, as Summer had no idea how to live in this new world, new life, she suddenly found herself in. Cooking? Going to the bathroom? Dressing herself? Making a living? Knowing how much something should cost? Without her host's memories, she would be completely lost instead of mostly. Unlike Cucumber Bro, she didn't have a System to help her out, either. Which could be a good thing? No weird quests to go on? No points added or subtracted for doing something well or poorly?

It didn't take too long to discover that she was living in the town outside Lotus Pier in the days before the Sunshot Campaign. Her job as a fortune teller, didn't earn a significant income, but it was steady and sufficient to live on.

Not quite comfortably to live on, though. Her 'bed' was a mat and a couple of quilts that she folded away every morning. There was no padding. Her 'pillow' was nothing that resembled a twenty-first century pillow.

Once she was sort of used to this new life, she talked to the local blacksmith and asked him to make her a set of crochet hooks. She found someone who sold yarn and bought enough to hopefully make herself a heavier blanket to keep her aching bones (who knew being only in her late forties would be this painful?) warmer at night.

And then Jiang YanLi came in for a consultation. Given the opportunity to change Wei Ying's fate? To stop the jianghe from treating this wonderful man as a pariah? What kind of fujoshi would she be to stand by and let Lan WangJi mourn his love for thirteen years? What kind of person would she be to sit back and allow Jiang YanLi and Wen Qing die for nothing?

Jiang Yanli knelt at the table before Xia KeXin and arranged her skirts into a pleasing configuration. The older woman rolled her eyes, but said nothing until the younger stopped figiting. "I assume you're here to discuss your love life and marriage."

#wangxian #the untamed #chen qing ling #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #cql #jiang yanli #wei ying #lan zhan #wei wuxian #lan wangji

[youhideastar]

For WIP Wednesday, here's the first bit of my current WIP longfic, which doesn't have a title yet, but the file has the extremely on-the-nose name "Arranged Marriage.docx." I expect it to come in around 40K, and it's about halfway done. No warnings on this bit - hope you like it!

*

Lan Wangji is not consulted as to whether he wishes to marry. Wen Ruohan is accumulating power in a way that bodes ill for the other sects; alliances must be consolidated. Qinghe Nie has no potential spouse to offer—Nie Mingjue’s brother is his only heir, and his head disciple cannot be spared—so the choice is between Lanling Jin and Yunmeng Jiang: Jin Guangshan’s nephew, Jin Zixun, or Jiang Fengmian’s foster son and head disciple, Wei Wuxian.

The choice is left to Lan Wangji, as a courtesy; the options are presented to him in that order, with subtle emphasis on Jin Zixun as the superior choice, even though reliable reports name Wei Wuxian the stronger cultivator. He knows that it is because Jin Zixun is from a gentry family and Wei Wuxian is not, even though the Gusu Lan precepts are replete with exhortations to place no importance on birth or blood, but to judge others by their merits and virtues. The hypocrisy is distasteful. But that is not what makes up Lan Wangji’s mind.

Lan Wangji has met Jin Zixun. He knows firsthand that Jin Zixun is a crude, arrogant bully who thinks the whole world beneath him.

Thus, even though Lan Wangji has never met Wei Wuxian, his choice is immediate. Whatever else Wei Wuxian may be, he is not Jin Zixun. That is enough.

After the decision is made, Lan Wangji is not further consulted in plans for the wedding. He is involved enough with sect business to know that Yunmeng Jiang is striking a hard bargain for the loss of its head disciple, and he takes it as encouraging evidence of Wei Wuxian’s cultivation level, skill, and value to his sect.

He wonders, of course, about what his future husband will be like. As head disciple of one of the five Great Sects, he will surely be hardworking, diligent, and serious. As a commoner among the gentry, Lan Wangji expects he must be a master of proper etiquette and self-restraint; any slip-up in that regard would doubtless subject him to dismissive comments on his birth. By reputation, his cultivation level and skill are very high, and Lan Wangji has hopes that perhaps he will be able to assist Lan Wangji with his own duties as head disciple – that they might even be able the share the role as partners, in fact if not in name.

He hopes, too, somewhat frivolously, that Wei Wuxian might find him an acceptable companion, despite his own admitted coldness and terseness. Neither he nor Wei Wuxian are able to bear children, so there will be no need to share a marital bed; that should make it easier for the two of them to reach a natural, comfortable equilibrium. Two strings played in harmony; guests in each other’s home; a chaste and amiable partnership, founded on shared values and duties. This is Lan Wangji’s quiet hope, as he directs the placing of partitions in the Jingshi to provide private spaces for each of them to bathe, dress, and sleep. Perhaps, he thinks, as the years pass, they might even become friends.

*

The Yunmeng Jiang delegation arrives a xun before the wedding, for days of feasting, exhibitions, and negotiations. Lan Wangji waits at the entrance with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen to receive them.

Of the main Yunmeng Jiang party, Lan Wangji recognizes all of them—Sect Leader Jiang, Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Wanyin, and Jiang Yanli—with the exception of a tall boy in black robes with a red ribbon in his hair, snapping in the wind like a flag.

It must be Wei Wuxian.

He is very beautiful.

Lan Wangji is immediately horrified with himself for such a shameless and senseless thought, but it is the truth. And when Wei Wuxian throws back his head to laugh, free and wild, at something Jiang Wanyin said to him, the desire that comes over Lan Wangji is not for a chaste and distant marriage.

#wip wednesday #the untamed #my fic

[feanarotherindion]

The Venerated Triad

#they should have consulted lan wangji #he would have told them that wei ying is prettier than prettiest #lan wangji #hanguang jun #lan zhan #wei ying #wei wuxian #yiling laozu #yiling patriarch #mxtx #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #xiao zhan #wang yibo

[ibijau]

Xisang Week Day 5 : Dreams / Ribbon / Birthday

warning for minor character death, and me ranting for far too long about chickens

and big thanks for the anon who suggested I write about arranged marriage and dinosaurs because dang, I ended up having a ton of fun with this!!!

It wasn't that Xichen had particularly expected to enjoy his birthday that year. In fact, he had threatened a few times that he wouldn't come at all, furious at everything expected of him. Wangji wouldn't have put up with any of this. 

Maybe that was why his father had dumped this mess on him, and not on Wangji. They all knew Wangji to be a rebellious little rascal, while Xichen always ended up obeying his father. His only rebellion was to do it not out of filial duty, but because he always worried that his uncle would be blamed otherwise. 

Still, this time, Lan Xichen felt pushed to his limit. 

First of all, he had always firmly opposed Gusu Lan's association with those Jurassic Park resorts. The parks might have been legal, that didn't make them ethical, and it was a terrible misuse of their company's genetic engineering technology. They could have used that manpower and time to understand the origin of illnesses, to create more resistant plants and lower the use of pesticide, maybe help improve the genetic diversity of endangered species… 

Instead they were creating monsters for the entertainment of those who could pay to see them. Unhealthy, miserable monsters who were rarely given the space they truly needed, because they weren't legally animals and the Jurassic Parks weren't zoos. 

But who cared, as long as Jin Corp made money, and paid Gusu Lan huge sums for their help. Xichen, his uncle, and his brother might say what they wanted, it was his father who decided what direction the company should take, and he'd long ago stopped caring about ethics. 

That was why Xichen would spend his birthday at the first Jurassic Park to have opened. 

A birthday that would also be his engagement party. 

In some way, Xichen had always known that he wouldn't choose his own spouse, not after Wangji had eloped with a high-school dropout three years earlier. He'd thought that he might be asked to marry one on Jin Guangshan's less legitimate children, maybe Qin Su or Meng Yao, the two he had been forced to recognise. Instead, his father had surprised him by throwing him at another bastard, the second son of Qinghe Nie's owner. 

Xichen had never met that man. In fact, nobody in their circles had ever met him, because he'd lived abroad most of his life, his mother never seeing fit to tell Lao Nie that she'd had a son from their affair until she fell ill and needed someone to look after her then teenaged son. Even then, Huaisang had refused to leave his home, so Lao Nie had just hired him a housekeeper and allowed the boy to live his own life as he pleased. 

That might have been a bad decision, according to Mingjue. He had first met his half-brother some years earlier, and described him as a lazy little fool who didn't know what he wanted in life, and couldn't stick to a single path in university. The mysterious Huaisang had studied art, psychology, politics, paleontology, and more, before half-heartedly settling for something to do with animal behaviour. That was how he'd apparently ended up working for Jin Corp in their Jurassic Park division, a consultant of sorts for animal comfort. Xichen's father, hearing about that, had decided that he wouldn't mind strengthening his ties with the Nie as well, and Lao Nie had been happy enough to agree. 

Xichen would thus have the dubious pleasure of marrying someone he'd never met, and whose only online photo showed him at thirteen with crooked teeth, an atrocious haircut, and the sort of clothes that had regrettably been in fashion at that time. 

And they'd get engaged at a Jurassic Park. 

On his birthday. 

Xichen, having arrived at the party a mere five minutes earlier, was already tempted to grab something alcoholic to make the day less painful. 

Mingjue ruined that by bringing him a coke. 

"Huaisang just texted that he'll be late," he explained in the tone of someone who wasn't surprised in the least. Another good quality to expect of Xichen’s future husband then. 

That was the sort of person Xichen would marry. Unreliable and flaky.

“We can have a look around,” Mingjue suggested without enthusiasm.

“That’s just going to be depressing,” Xichen sighed, badly wishing he had some rhum to put in his coke.

“Anti-zoo much?”

“Actually, I’m in favour of zoos. They do a lot for conservation efforts, and for education regarding endangered species. This place isn’t a zoo. It’s… it’s…”

“It’s Disneyland but with attractions that can rip a man’s stomach open the instant their containment fails,” Mingjue suggested.

“Yes, exactly. It take it you’re not a fan either?”

Mingjue shrugged.

“I don’t like that the workers and visitors could be in danger. But regarding those dinosaurs…”

“They’re not even real dinosaurs,” Xichen complained. “For most of them, we’ve had to borrow from a lot of other animals. Their raptors are more chicken than anything else, you know.”

That made Mingjue chuckle.

“At least you’ll have something to talk about with Huaisang. He’s outraged by the choices of animal donors, he rants about it about once a week. The chicken thing in particular pisses him off.”

“Oh, really?” Xichen asked, bracing himself for the possibility that he was about to get engaged to one of those horrible people who screamed on the internet that dinosaurs weren’t supposed to have feathers.

“Yeah. Something about… pecking orders, and chickens having difficult tempers in groups, which the raptors have inherited? Apparently, they keep having problems with whole groups turning on weak individuals and harming them pretty badly. Huaisang says he’s made suggestions to handle that, but Jin Corp won’t listen because it’s more expensive to give decent living conditions to their assets than to regularly replace dead ones.”

That wasn’t something Xichen had ever considered. He wasn’t involved in the Jurassic Park project, but from what he understood, chickens had been used as the main DNA donors because their genome was well known, especially compared to other birds. The behavioural aspect had been given limited consideration, with the assumption that Jin Corp would notify Gusu Lan if they noticed anything problematic.

“Are they so aggressive?” Xichen asked.

“About as much as normal chickens, except they’re three times as big and they have teeth,” Mingjue said. “That means they can be pretty dangerous,” he clarified, perhaps realising that Xichen had had few encounters with live chickens in his life. “Huaisang keeps hens, he showed me what they’ll do to a snake. I didn’t expect animals that fat to be quite so deadly, so imagining a bunch of raptors doing the same…”

Seeing his grim expression, Xichen shivered.

“I hope to never see that,” he said just as a terrified scream resounded through the hall.

It was to be the first of many.

Xichen, at first, did not even see what was causing such terror among the guests. He could only watch as the crowd gathered there started running toward the nearest exit, pushing away everyone that stood in its path, trampling anyone unlucky enough to fall down. 

Xichen himself was shoved aside by a few people and lost sight of Mingjue, before hitting a table covered in expensive canapés and falling with it. Everything had happened so fast that he was somewhat disoriented and by the time Xichen managed to get back on his feet, the only humans left inside the hall were others who’d been knocked over like himself. He recognised Jin Zixuan and his pregnant wife not far from him, Wangji who appeared to have stayed behind to shield a crying toddler, and a little further away a man was screaming in agony while a flock of velociraptors tore him apart.

Xichen stared for a second, frozen in terror. But there was a person over there, dying, and he couldn’t ignore it.

Without thinking he tried running in the direction of the screaming man, only for someone to grab him by the arm.

“Don’t bother, it’s too late for him!” the stranger snapped. “Run away, I’ll get the others to safety.”

That statement might have been a little more comforting if it had come from a different person. The man who had stopped Xichen was a little younger than him, and a good deal shorter as well. He was also a little on the heavier side, and dressed in a very fashionable manner that didn’t exactly scream ‘capable fighter able to wrestle monsters’.

Very handsome, though.

Too handsome to be allowed to die stupidly while playing hero.

“I have to at least go help my brother,” Xichen said, pointing at Wangji who was closest to the raptors, and trying to soothe the sobbing toddler.

It would be great if that child could stop crying, because some of the raptors, growing bored of their first prey, seemed to be getting curious about the noise.

“Oh, that’s not good,” the handsome stranger muttered. “I knew it! ‘Oh, they don’t need enrichment, it’s fine’”, he mocked while looking around. “‘They’ve learned how to open the locks? We’ll get better ones, there’s no way at all they’ll take it as a fun game, they’re just animals, only humans can learn’... ah, that’ll do.”

He grabbed the table which Xichen had knocked over, and easily lifted it. It was aluminium and not particularly heavy, but it was large enough that it should have been a little harder than that for the handsome stranger to raise it above his head. He had to carry good muscles on him, for all that he looks soft and extremely huggable.

“Stay behind me,” the stranger ordered. “I’m going to make us look big and scary so they know we’re on top of the pecking order here. You’re going to grab your brother and those other two, and we’re going to get out of here together. How does that sound?”

“Pretty risky, but if you’re sure…”

“I’m a good eighty percent sure it’ll work,” the stranger said, before squinting at the creatures. “Ah, shit, that’s Big Floof’s flock. She’s a tough cookie, that one. Make that sixty percent sure, and only if I can shout loud enough. But what choice do we have, right?”

Xichen nodded, ready to follow that stranger into hell if necessary.

Handsome, cuddly, strong, and just a touch reckless.

Why was Xichen only meeting that man on the day he was getting engaged to someone else?

#xisang #xisangweek2021 #y'all chickens don't fuck around ok?? if they were any bigger we'd live in fear and awe #luckily for us they are small and taste delicious especially in nugget form #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #jau draws

[rhysiana]

Organizing various unfinished cdrama writings this morning and found this in my drafts, which I like a lot more as a standalone snippet than I thought:

Wangji comes to sit with him sometimes. Wangji is very good at silence; always has been, better than Xichen, though his silence never felt particularly serene. Xichen thinks he understands now. He has gotten much better at silence, and he is not serene.

He is still the one to break it, though. It’s been long enough since he last spoke aloud that his voice scrapes out of his throat, rough and ugly and broken. It seems fitting. “You must have hated me so much. All those years when he was dead, and I had them. For me to be happy while you were buried under so much grief.”

Wangji’s spine stiffens in surprise next to him, something that would have been a flinch in anyone else. He continues to stare out into the garden, but his fingers disappear into his sleeves like they have since he was a child, clenching where no one can see.

“No,” he says, firm, definite. “I did not begrudge xiongzhang his happiness.” He pauses to take a breath, slow and measured. “I was angry with the world, though. That it continued when he did not. As if he never mattered.”

Xichen should say that he is happy Wei Wuxian has been returned to his brother, against all odds. He doesn’t.

Silence descends again. Eventually, Wangji leaves.

***

At first, Xichen thinks the man on the path at the edge of his garden must be Wen Qionglin, but on second glance, he is too tall, too slender, too… elegant. Still a fierce corpse, though.

The man bows in apology and turns to head back down the path. Xichen racks his brain for who this might be, a fierce corpse incongruously dressed as a priest, and memory snags on a pile of confused night hunt reports from the juniors in the days before everything fell apart.

“Song Zichen?” he tries. It comes out dry and quiet. It’s been too long since he spoke, again. A bad habit.

The other man turns back, bows in acknowledgement this time.

“Would you like some tea?” Xichen asks, surprising himself.

Song Zichen quirks half a wry smile.

Xichen curses his uncharacteristic lapse in tact. Truly, he must have been away from people for too long now. He’s not wholly sure he regrets it.

He tries again. “Ah… or just to sit?” He gestures out at the garden, where a few fireflies have started to blink in and out over the flowers.

Song Zichen considers him for a moment, then inclines his head and comes to sit on the edge of the porch. He arranges himself with care, a perfect straight-backed meditation posture Xichen has seen in other temple-raised visitors who have come to consult the Gusu Lan libraries. Then he reaches into his sleeve and draws forth a spirit pouch, very white against the black and gray of his robes, and places it reverently in his lap. He looks at Xichen to see if he understands.

Xichen feels tears well in his eyes and blinks them away as he resettles himself on the other side of the porch. They sit there in twin silence, two men in love with ghosts, watching the fireflies long into the night.

***

I think our founder was wrong, he writes. He has to keep butterfly messages short, but he finds he doesn’t have much to say these days anyway. We should not have turned to cultivation in the world. Staying apart is better.

Song Zichen’s reply is over a week in coming, a letter written in excruciatingly careful calligraphy. Xichen remembers long, almost delicate fingers handling the spirit pouch and wonders how difficult such dexterity is for a fierce corpse.

Not better, just easier, he has written.

The blunt brevity startles Xichen into a laugh.

***

Doesn’t withdrawal from the world help us on the path toward immortality? Xichen returns, days or possibly weeks later, he no longer keeps track.

It can. Song Zichen had, of course, spent years traveling with a disciple of Baoshan Sanren. He should know. But should immortality really be considered an end goal? What will you do after achieving it, if you have no more attachment to the world?

Xichen can think of no reply to this startling question.

[Now also on AO3]

#lan xichen #song lan #lanlan #post-canon #the untamed #I just think they'd have a lot of thoughts about this #does it become a slow epistolary romance? #or just an epistolary friendship? #the lans only love once after all #but lxc seems like he understands many different types of love #rhys's stuff

[weiying-lanzhan-fics]

where they grow by queensmooting

Loved it!! It was sooo good. What a joyful read (despite the curse 😬😋)!

Quotes:

The Jingshi threshold fascinated him for as long as he remembers.

As a child he would pass over and back, back and over, feeling a strange tug in his navel. As if the house was pulling him back in, or pushing him out. If he sat directly in the entrance, leaning against the airy doorway, he could hear whispers. Sometimes he whispered back.

As he grew he felt silly indulging in imagination. But he still feels it as he crosses the threshold, a shiver of some hold over him, something older than himself.

It always passes the moment he sees his mother.

————

He consults his map often, careful to balance reading and flying. He'd never flown farther than a treetop from the ground before, and never longer than the length of a class.

It's as cold as it is exhilarating. He pulls the cloak tighter around his shoulders.

An uncomfortable flutter of nerves strikes at the first sight of sprawling lakes, a glimpse of Yunmeng territory in the early dawn.

He should have written ahead. He should have written back, even once.

————

It could be difficult to break the curse. But it could be broken. He never would have known without Wei Wuxian.

“No need.” Lan Wangji lowers his head, bringing his hands together. “Thank you for your help. I can continue on from here.”

“What, alone?” Wei Wuxian puts a finger under his chin, lifting his head. “This is your first time out in the world, right? You need someone at your side so you don’t fall into traps and get robbed by friendly-looking travelers.”

“You think someone could rob me?” Lan Wangji says doubtfully, shifting Bichen at his side.

“Ah, the point is it wouldn’t be right to let you go on your own. I’m your guide whether you like it or not.”

It’s tempting to accept. Now that he’s reacclimated to Wei Wuxian’s presence, he’s in no hurry to leave it.

M, 24k

Summary:

The night Madam Lan's first son is born, a grieving elder places a curse upon them.

Nineteen years later, Madam Lan's second son embarks on a quest to save them all.

@galpalpetraral

#wangxian #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan wangji #lan zhan #wangxian fic rec #the untamed fic #the untamed fanfiction #untamed fic #mdzs fic #mdzs fanfiction #LZ cursed #alternate au

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 19, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

The Man Comes Around

Over at the Wen Indoctrination Tower, which seems to exist just to torture Lan Wangji with stair climbing, Lan Wangji is climbing the stairs. Too bad his cultivation level is too low to be able to just jump up. At least this time his leg isn't broken.

This is the first vengeful stair-climb in the show, but not the last. (Parallel gifset here).

The Wen guards are stationed all the way at the pinnacle of this tower to guard...what? Why are they not at the bottom of the stairs? What is this location for, actually? This is further up the stairs than the scenes with the indoctrination lectures. Anyway, it's been three months since Wen Chao threw Wei Wuxian into the burial mounds, so naturally these guards are talking about that exact thing as Lan Wangji approaches.

Lan Wangji knocks them all down with a blast from his guqin. Did you know his guqin is named Wangji, by the way? It is. A guy who is that lazy about naming his quqin maybe shouldn't feel so superior to a guy who named his sword "whatever." 

(I'm suddenly remembering a plush lamb I had as a child, whose eyes were orange, that I named "orange eyes.") (I, however, was three. And I had a lot of plush lambs. Little ones. Grown-ups found it hilarious to give them to me.) (Native speakers of English can probably guess what OP's real name is. Hint: it rhymes with Canary.) (Everybody else: there is a kid's rhyming song called Mary Had A Little Lamb. OP's name is Mary.)

Anyhoo, after Lan Wangji is finally finished with his dramatic entrance, Jiang Cheng comes flying in from wherever he's been hovering for the past 20 minutes of stair time. A bunch of Lan sidekicks also flood into the frame from wherever they were hiding during the wide shots of LWJ on the staircase.

In case you hope that CQL Lan Wangji is as much of a top (offscreen) as MZDS Lan Wangji is (on the page), here's a gif for you.

(more after the cut)

He uses the patented Lan string attack to choke this guard.  Lan Wangji doesn't have to hold a guqin string in his hands to choke someone with it. He doesn't even have to tighten it, judging by how absurdly not-tight this string is.

Or maybe this guy is choking on the chin strap of his helmet. This is exactly how OP's son reacts when OP sticks a bike helmet on him. (Note: it's GOOD that they are following choking safety protocols on set. Very good. However, they could have just left the string out and pretended, and it would look better, in this instance)

The Wen guard tells Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng about the whole "thrown into the burial mounds" thing.  Team Let's Find Wei Wuxian is not happy to hear this.

A Vengeful Ghost

Meanwhile, in some Wen office somewhere? Where the hell is this? Yiling, we get an ominous shot of the rooftops where Wei Wuxian is lurking and then we see Wang Lingjiao trying to sleep and having a nightmare.

Wang Lingjiao has gone to sleep with a full face of makeup on instead of washing her face before bed. She has forgotten the important maxim, Go To Sleep Pretty, Wake Up Zitty.

She leaps out of bed to go cling to Wen Chao and freak out about Wei Wuxian's ghost. Wen Chao is trying to read the sports section and has clearly had enough of this crap. This has presumably been going on for a little while now.

Wang Lingjiao is in a new outfit, which is...pajamas? It has the feel of a 1930's French peignoir set, and it's much more softly colored than her usual bright red-purple combo. If this is her pajamas is it weird that her day clothes are a lot more aggressively sexy-looking than her nightgown? A freak in the streets but a lady in the sheets.

Wen Chao rants about the Sunshot Campaign and talks some smack about Wen Qing, and then leaves to go to the bar and watch the game with Wen Zhuliu. After he leaves Wang Lingjiao freaks out for a bit and then looks at the notice he was reading.

The notice basically says that the Sunshot Campaign is kicking their ass. She should be proud for inspiring the name of the campaign with that kite-shooting bullshit she made up at Lotus Pier. Before slaughtering everyone.

No Matter What You Do, I Only Want To Be With You

Back at the Indoctrination Tower, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are having feelings about Wei Wuxian. Jiang Chang does all the talking but Lan Wangji's thoughts are louder because a sad violin is playing Wangxian while they talk.

Jiang Cheng tells Lan Wangji about their meetup plan and says he thought WWX had dumped him to go find Lan Wangji in Lanling. Lan Wangji telepathically indicates that this didn’t happen. This means two things: 1. Lan Wangji has been hanging out in Lanling, where Jiang Yanli has been hanging out, so maybe they have bonded over the past 3 months and 2. This is the first time Jiang Cheng has talked to Lan Wangji since Wei Wuxian disappeared. 

Much as my fic-loving heart would like to believe these two spent three months on the road together looking for Wei Wuxian, in fact they are both important high-level fighters in an active military campaign, and Lan Wangji was busy taking back the Cloud Recesses while Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were having elective surgery. They probably both were assigned to the "Indoctrination Bureau" mission and this is the first chance they've had to talk about Wei Wuxian.

Is it heartbreaking that, while Wei Wuxian was helplessly getting his ass beat because he'd sacrificed his golden core for Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng believed Wei Wuxian had abandoned him for Lan Wangji? Yes. Yes it is.

For some reason Jiang Cheng is hesitant to believe that Wei Wuxian really was thrown into the Burial Mounds. I mean, I understand not wanting to believe Wei Wuxian is dead, but given that Wen Chao is the dude who oversaw the massacre of all of the people at Lotus Pier, including kids, why would Jiang Cheng think his guards are wrong? Maybe he just feels like Wei Wuxian is invincible, since so far he kinda has been. 

The Sword is Mightier Than Not Having a Sword

While they've been chatting, the Lan disciples have found their swords. One disciple is holding Bichen (LWJ's sword), Sandu (JC's sword), and OP consults wiki Suihua (Jin Zixuan's sword). Another disciple is holding Subian (WWX's sword).  

Jiang Cheng grabs Sandu while the Lan disciples, who apparently know their gongzi’s heart, offer Wei Wuxian's sword to Lan Wangji. 

Lan Wangji takes Subian (Bichen: What am I, chopped watercress?) and immediately tries to draw it. Like you don't do. It's sealed itself, which apparently means that it's upset. It's unclear if it's upset because Wei Wuxian is dead or if it just misses him, however.  

Lan Wangji definitely misses him, and wonders, out loud inside his own head, where Wei Wuxian is. Um, he's in the Burial Mounds, dude, they just told you. Well, I guess he's actually in Yiling proper at this point, haunting Wang Lingjiao as he promised her he would.

Twa Corbies

The scene shifts to Qinghe, where there are about 12 dead bodies lying around, which in this show means that there are really a few hundred. In fact, per Jiang Yanli's statement "nothing can be seen but corpses covering the plains." The camera can't see most of them, is all.

Wen Xu's head is hanging in the doorway, and the Jins talk about how Nie Mingjue killed him, cutting his head off with just one swing. Is this foreshadowing anything, like perhaps someone else's head being cut off by Baxia in just one swing? Nope, definitely not.

A couple of crows are perched on a body, totally not eating it, but Jin Zixuan gallantly zaps them with a talisman to make them fly away anyway.  It might be noteworthy that nobody used to use talismans but gradually more and more people are using them - particularly people who have spent time with Wei Wuxian.

With mony a lock of his golden hair-o, we’ll theek our nest when it grows bare-o

Asshole cousin Jin Zixun says “scavenger rights,” so Jin Zixuan puts him in charge of collecting all the bodies. 

Since OP just finished watching fur-collar-happy Nirvana in Fire, these crows look to me like they are wearing luxurious fur collars. Where OP lives, crows are not this fancy. 

A Romantic Corpse-Filled Interlude

Disaster het Jin Zixuan goes to help Jiang Yanli get out of the carriage but she rejects his hand just like he rejected hers back in Gusu.

Jiang Yanli is extremely shocked when she sees Wen Xu's severed head, and turns away in horror, preferring to calmly rest her eyes on dozens of crow-pecked corpses.

Jin Zixuan tries to comfort her and she tells him she'll be going now, thanks for the hospitality. He tries to say that he has to personally deliver her to a representative of the patriarchy one of her brothers, but then one of her brothers shows up.

Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng arrive, having presumably flown there from Qishan. They show that they are flying by blowing a fan on the ground and then jumping off of a box, which is better than the effects we were subjected to earlier in the episode.

Jiang Cheng rushes over to have an emotional reunion with Jiang Yanli, while Lan Wangji rushes over to have an emotional reunion with Wen Xu’s severed head. Jin Zixuan kind of spoils it for him by talking about Wei Wuxian's absence while Lan Wangji is trying to have a moment.

The whole time Jin Zixuan is talking to him, Lan Wangji appears to be gazing into the middle distance but in fact he is staring at Wen Xu's severed head. This is the guy who led the burning of Cloud Recesses, killed a bunch of disciples, and personally broke Lan Wangji's leg. Lan Wangji stares at his head for more than a full minute before glancing away.

Jiang Yanli hasn't seen Jiang Cheng since they were in Wen Qing's clinic, and she is happy he's recovered. When she asks about Wei Wuxian he gives her the bad news in the classic Jiang fashion, which is to say nothing, but look stricken until your interlocutor figures out that something is horribly wrong, but not precisely what.

Four Angry Men

Inside the fortress, Nie Mingjue is slapping the table and saying, this bad boy can hold so much resentment and vengeance. They're having a mini war council and we're getting a better sense of Nie Mingjue's anger management problem. Note for those who don't get the gif reference: this is a The Godfather joke, not a sex joke, but it can be both, if you like.

We're also getting a little more info about Baxia, who seems to be eager to go fight even without anyone wielding it. (Her? Him? Them? do swords have gender? I don't know). Well done, person below the camera frame whose job is to rattle Baxia in a menacing manner.

They've got a giant model of the battle targets, which looks like it was carved out of real rock (I mean, as much as any of the rocks on this show look like real rocks) and has its own table and everything, decorated in Nie colors. Where was this before they took Qinghe back? Has Nie Mingjue been traveling with it? 

Anyway, I'm assuming Nie Huaisang made it, because it's pretty nice. Hopefully they will keep it around for tabletop gaming after the war is over.

Jiang Cheng is upset but is using his anger management mantra to help control his temper while Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji talk with Nie Mingjue. 

Lan Wangji talks by leaning forward meaningfully, mostly not by using any words, but he asks for a battle assignment and Jiang Cheng immediately joins in. They both want to go find Wei Wuxian. 

Nie Mingjue says Yiling is too difficult of a target, but Lan Wangji puts on his determined face, which is apparently very persuasive.  

After Team Find Wei Wuxian leaves, Nie Mingjue asks Jin Zixuan to hang back so he can ask him how Meng Yao is doing. This is the first time he finds out that his ex didn't go to Lanling. Jin Zixuan tries to delicately remind him that Dad's got, like, SO many bastard children, they really don't have space for all of them. Nie Mingjue dismisses him immediately and abruptly. 

Nie Mingjue might invite the straights to his party but he isn't interested in actually socializing with them.

Unconditional Soup is Only for A-Xian

Jiang Cheng can't sleep, and takes some time, now, to be sad about Wei Wuxian. Presumably he spent the prior 3 months being mad, not sad, because he really thought he just buggered off without saying anything for all that time. Which is sort of fair, but sort of not. One thing about these two bros is that for as close as they have been and as much as they love each other, their mutual understanding has some big, messy gaps.

Fortunately while he is feeling sad, Jiang Cheng does not try to draw Subian from its sheath, because wouldn't THAT be awkward.

Jiang Yanli can't sleep either, and comes to sit with him. Jiang Cheng feels bad that she's wearing herself out with worry and she says "As your sister, I have nothing to do but to worry about you." Jiang Yanli isn't one to complain but she doesn't like being inactive or helpless. In Lanling she was far from the war, but now that she's in Qinghe she'll make herself useful by tending the wounded, and later she'll help Jiang Cheng shoulder his responsibilities as he takes over the Jiang clan.

At the moment, however, all she can do is fret and make soup. As she gives Jiang Cheng a bowlful she reminds him that he absolutely has to rescue their brother who has, according to his captors, been reduced to bone dust.

With all the impossible shit that Jiang Cheng is expected to achieve - and in many instances, does achieve - he is absolutely the embodiment of the Jiang Clan's motto. Fuck his father for disrespecting him because he hadn't figured out how to do everything by the age of 16.

Definitely Not Chilling in Yiling

Back in Yiling, Wen Chao is hearing the news that the Qishan Indoctrination Bureau has fallen and that he's being called back to Nightless City. Wen Chao says he shouldn't need to go back because his dad has a new right-hand man. That new right-hand man, we will eventually learn, is Meng Yao. Wang Lingjiao, meanwhile, is hiding under the bed covers and deciding it's time to dump Wen Chao.

She locks the door and goes to pull out her jewelry box, which is locked and hidden under the bed. Maybe this is Wen Chao's jewelry box, because she acts kind of squirrely about opening it. Upon opening the jewelry box, she doesn't find jewelry but a pair of bloody fake eyeballs staring at her.  She screams and freaks out and then the wind picks up and we hear the sound of a flute, playing the "I'm here to fuck your shit up" tune that Wei Wuxian likes.

Wang Lingjiao runs to the door and pulls down the protection talisman that's pasted above it, and pastes it directly to her chest instead, which is, we will learn in the next episode, the worst idea she could possibly have at this point.

Then she uses a poking stick to go flip the jewelry box open and finds it's full of ugly-ass jewelry again, plus an improbable number of weird round paper-mache biscuits that have been painted gold. None of this jewelry looks anything like the exquisite accessories people wear in this show, which means this stash was put together by the practical effects department, not by the costume department.

Anyway, Wang Lingjiao apparently thinks she can sell this fakeass stuff for a good price, so more power to her. But then we get a short glimpse of the menacing eyeballs again, this time on the floor, having moved out of the box and brought their little blood pool with them. Screeching ensues.

Next episode: Lady in Red!

Soundtrack: Twa Corbies, by Steeleye Span

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #jiang cheng #wang lingjiao #jin zixuan

[stiltonbasket]

chancellor of the morning sun: burdens, mingjue (youth)

In which being a woman in the cultivation world is difficult, and Nie Mingjue comforts a friend.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | | Part 8 | Part 9 | AO3

On the night after the welcoming banquet, Nie Mingjue wakes to the sound of someone crying outside his door. 

This was by no means unusual when he was younger; Huaisang often had night terrors after his mother died, and refused to sleep without Nie Mingjue for the next three or four years. But A-Sang is thirteen now, far too old to come crying to his da-ge after dark, and the person on the other side of his door seems to be a woman. 

“Who’s there?” he calls, lighting one of his dream lanterns before getting out of bed. “A-Sang, is that you?”

“No, it’s me!” a familiar voice shouts, nearly sending Nie Mingjue to the ground as he scrambles to keep his footing. “A-Jue, let me in!”

Nie Mingjue drops his lantern and tries not to panic. The crying is still going on, but the person who called his name was Lan Xichen, without a doubt; and if she had come to his chambers this late, with the Unclean Realm full of foreign cultivators who would gladly take any chance to see her reputation ruined, then she must have come to seek his help with some kind of emergency.

And Nie Mingjue has not forgotten that the son of his father’s murderer is sleeping under his roof, or that Wen Ruohan openly sought Xichen’s hand in marriage for Wen Xu, and would have forced the two to meet if Nie Mingjue’s own fuqin had not intervened.

“I’m coming!” he says frantically, throwing the door open and grasping Lan Xichen’s arm the moment she crosses the threshold. “Lan Huan, I’m—”

And then he looks over Lan Xichen’s shoulder, blinking at the miserable line of young maidens trailing down the corridor behind her. Jiang Yanli is standing at Xichen’s side, crying into her sleeves, and Qin Su and Jin Zixuan’s first shimei are there, too; and Wen Ruohan’s young niece is standing in the back, holding Qin Su’s arm to keep her from falling over. All five girls smell of liquor, even Xichen, and Nie Mingjue gapes at them in bewilderment as Xichen fists her hands in his tunic and shakes him from side to side.

“Jiang-jie won’t listen to us!” she complains, sobbing drunkenly into his chest: which sets Jiang Yanli off again, and then Luo Qingyang starts weeping, too. “A-Jue, tell her!”’

Mingjue frowns. “Tell her what, A-Huan?” he says gently, wiping his intended’s face. It will be ruin for them both if anyone spots her here in the middle of the night, let alone with four other girls in front of his private quarters, but Nie Mingjue would rather cut his own hands off than turn the girl he loves away in such distress. “What’s wrong?”

“Jiang-guniang thinks she’s not worthy of Zixuan,” Luo Qingyang wails. “But just look at him! He prances around like a prize stallion, and he keeps making a fool of himself everywhere he goes! It’s pathetic! And he keeps talking about how wonderful he is, almost as much as Zixun! Nie-zongzhu, I have to beat him up twice a month to keep him in line, and it’s not even working!”

“Not worthy of Jin Zixuan?” he snorts. “Jiang-guniang, it’s Jin-gongzi who isn’t worthy of you. A-Huan, didn’t you tell her so?”

Jiang Yanli only cries even harder, and Xichen gives him a reproachful look and pinches his stubbly cheek. “She won’t listen to us when we tell her she’s more than enough. Yanli thinks we have to say so, since we’re her friends, so I brought her to you so you could tell her instead!”

“Jin-gongzi should count himself lucky that a maiden like Lady Jiang would give him the time of day,” Nie Mingjue says promptly. “He’ll get over himself in time, and Luo-guniang will beat him into the ground if he doesn’t. Right, Luo-guniang?”

Luo Qingyang nods fervently before listing straight into one of the walls. “I will!” she yells, as Wen Qing reaches over and puts her back on her feet again. “‘N then I’ll put itching powder in Jin Zixun’s pants, and, and…”

“Steal his wine again,” Qin Su suggests, letting out a loud burp. “That peach-blossom brew was delicious. Don’t you feel any better after drinking it, A-Li?”

“No, I don’t,” Jiang Yanli murmurs. “Good night, Nie-zongzhu. I’m going back to bed now.”

“Yanli!” begs Xichen, throwing herself at the shorter girl and almost knocking both of them backwards onto the floor. “Yanli, don’t go! You’re worth a hundred of Jin-zongzi, you—A-Jue, help!”

“What am I supposed to say?” he asks, thoroughly bewildered. “I can go challenge Jin-gongzi to a duel myself, if you like. Would that cheer you up, Jiang-guniang!”

But to his surprise, Jiang Yanli only goes to her knees and trembles like a kitten left out in the cold, sobbing about her fears for her future at Koi Tower and her dread of being bound to a man who will never respect her, her terror at the prospect of having no allies past her wedding day save for her mother-in-law, and then about having to spend the rest of her life within reach of Jin Guangshan. 

“Mother keeps telling me that I should try to do better, so that Jin-gongzi likes me,” she chokes. “And one of my Yu aunties told me once that Jin-gongzi has to like me, since that’s going to be the only thing keeping me safe from—from—”

“Why haven’t you spoken to your parents about this?” Nie Mingjue demands, aghast. He knows very little about how his own engagement was settled on Xichen’s side; but not long after his ascension, he discovered that neither she nor her uncle were consulted on the matter, and that the sect elders only informed Lan Qiren of his niece’s engagement after the betrothal papers were sealed and signed and the bride price was already paid. 

Nie Mingjue’s father made the agreement believing that Lan Qiren was amenable, and would have dissolved the betrothal in a heartbeat if Lan Xichen ever said she was unhappy with it—even in the months just before his death, when his greatest regret was that he would likely not live long enough to see his grandchildren. But he never disapproved of Lan Xichen’s decision to remain unwed until Wangji was at least eighteen, though the wedding was originally set to take place just after Xichen turned eighteen, and he would even have accepted a divorce if his daughter-in-law initiated it. 

And Jiang Fengmian is widely known to dote upon his daughter, just as Nie Mingjue’s father doted on Lan Xichen, so why would he not offer the same choice to his child that Nie Huangyin gave to A-Huan?

“Father would break the engagement if I asked, but Jin-furen is mother’s best friend,” Jiang Yanli weeps, in answer to Nie Mingjue’s unspoken question. “It would make things so difficult between them if Jin-furen ever knew I felt this way. And A-Xian and A-Cheng already hate the idea of me marrying into Lanling, Nie-zongzhu. It would be so much worse for them both if they found out I was afraid.”

“It is better out now, than ten years from now, when you are wedded into that house and bound there by a husband and children,” Nie Mingjue says somberly. “Jin Zixuan is not a bad sort, but if he can look upon a maiden who spends her days tending to her family and teaching in orphanages and finding apprenticeships for street children, and call such a girl unworthy because of her looks and low cultivation—then he is not worthy of any wife, let alone one like you, and I pray he will come to recognize it without some great tragedy to bring him to his senses.”

“But—”

“If A-Huan were to lose her cultivation, I would still count myself as the luckiest man in the world to be her husband,” he declares. “And if she were not beautiful, that would be nothing to me. Whatever the strength of her golden core, and whatever she looks like—her heart has nothing to do with either her face or her jindan, and I love her for that above all things.”

Jiang Yanli’s jaw drops open, and she stares up at Nie Mingjue in open disbelief. Xichen is far too drunk to register what he just said, and Wen Qing seems to have stuffed bits of cloth into her ears to keep herself from listening to anything Jiang-guniang would not have confided while sober—but the word love still burns on his lips like the hot filling from Lan Xichen’s sweet bean cakes, flooding through every inch of his body until he can think of nothing else, and he spends a good two minutes in a kind of stricken trance before wondering if saying such a thing before Maiden Jiang might have hurt her feelings.

“It didn’t,” she says softly—because apparently, Nie Mingjue said that last aloud. “I think I see now, Nie-zongzhu.”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth to ask what she means, but a small purple blur interrupts him before he can get the words out. The blur skids around the nearest corner, screeching in indignation at the sight of Yanli’s tearstained face, and then it turns upon Nie Mingjue and demands an explanation. 

“What did you say to my Shijie?” Wei Wuxian cries. “Shijie, did he bully you?”

“Silly A-Xian,” Jiang-guniang smiles, ruffling Wei Wuxian’s hair. “Nobody bullied me, but Nie-zongzhu made me feel much better.”

“By making you cry?” Wei Wuxian says doubtfully. “Should I get Suibian?”

“A-Xian, no!” Jiang Yanli is giggling now, kissing her brother all over his puffy cheeks. “Come on, let’s go back.”

Wei Wuxian drags her off down the hallway, casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, and Wen Qing charges herself with the duty of escorting Luo Qingyang and Maiden Qin back to their own quarters. However, she declares in no uncertain terms that managing three drunk girls is beyond her, and that leaves only Nie Mingjue to look after Lan Xichen. 

“Your uncle’s going to kill me if he finds us,” he whimpers, as he struggles up a flight of stairs with his betrothed yawning in his arms. “And then A-Sang will spend the rest of his life on birds and fans, and never catch up with his lessons in time to attend your clan lectures.”

“Shufu likes you,” Xichen assures him, patting the tip of his nose. “He would never do such a thing.”

“He would if he thought I’d been improper towards you,” Nie Mingjue groans. “A-Huan, have you had anything to eat after you started drinking?”

“Mm, A-Su brought snacks. And Wen Qing kept slipping headache medicine into my wine.”

Nie Mingjue sighs in relief and hugs her a little tighter. “Good. Will you try to drink a little water after we get back to your room?”

Xichen nods drowsily, nearly stopping Nie Mingjue’s heart as she nuzzles against his shoulder, but he manages to get her up to her bedroom in one piece and helps her get into bed, making sure she lies on her side to prevent choking in the morning. He also puts a few pieces of rice candy on her nightstand since he always carries a handful in his pocket for Huaisang, and fetches a glass of water for her to drink when she wakes. 

Lan Huan is fast asleep by then, breathing quietly in her nest of blankets with her hand tucked under her cheek, and Nie Mingjue makes it as far as the door before remembering that she is still too drunk to be left alone.

But she doesn’t have a maidservant, Nie Mingjue thinks desperately, staring wildly out of the room as if one might climb out of the nearest cupboard. And Wangji didn’t come along this time, and I can’t wake Lan Qiren—

Oh, no.

Oh, this is very bad. 

Anything could happen to Lan Xichen with so much alcohol in her blood, and she might even stop breathing during the night and smother. But there is no one to fetch except for Lan-xiansheng, and that means Nie Mingjue will have to stay with her until she wakes. And given the fact that Lan Qiren will be looking for his niece by mao hour tomorrow, while Lan Xichen will probably sleep a shichen longer than usual—

Nie Mingjue sinks down beside the bed and puts his head in his hands. 

Well, that settles it, he despairs, pulling the thick blankets away from Xichen’s face. Lan Qiren is definitely going to kill me. 

But he would be lying if he said that the sight of Xichen’s peaceful face was unworthy of death by uncle-in-law, so Nie Mingjue accepts his demise with grace and starts planning his funeral instead.

___

When Lan Xichen opens her eyes, the first thing she notices is the dull pain in her head. 

The second thing she notices (after gulping down the water and candy on the nightstand) is that someone seems to have left a heap of something dark near her bed; probably a bag, or a pile of clothes, though she can’t see well enough to tell what it could be. 

And the last thing is that her uncle is sitting on a chair by the door, tapping his foot loudly enough to make her head pound. 

“Shufu,” she croaks, struggling upright with the aid of one of her pillows. “What are you—”

“Disciples of the Lan clan must not consume alcohol,” he says, strangely calm despite the enormity of her transgression. Her clothes still smell like Baling mead, sweet and spicy and fruity all at once, and she nearly dies of shame at the thought of how shocked Shufu must have been when he found her. “They must not go out of doors after haishi. And they must never share chambers with any member of the opposite sex to whom they are not married, unless they are a relative.”

Lan Xichen freezes. “What?”

“Should I not be asking you that?” her uncle reminds her. “What is Nie-zongzhu doing in your bedchamber?”

Thunderstruck, Lan Xichen stumbles out of bed and stares at the dark heap on the floor, which yawns at her touch and stretches like a cat before springing up in horror. 

“Lan-xiansheng, it’s not what it looks like!” Nie Mingjue cries, making Lan Xichen shrivel at the memory of how shamefully she must have behaved last night. “I only wanted to make sure Xichen was safe, I would never—”

“And you did not think of waking me?” Lan Qiren lifts his eyebrows at them. “Even if you wanted to ensure that my niece was well, how could you risk being seen leaving her rooms in the morning? My own quarters are just on the other side of the hall.”

Mingjue ducks his head in shame, and Lan Xichen suddenly wants nothing more than the comfort of his hand in hers. “I didn’t want her to get in trouble, xiansheng,” he mumbles. “She only came out last night for someone else’s sake, and I couldn’t have borne to see her unhappy just for that.”

“You are a sect leader, Nie Mingjue. Don’t look down when you speak to me,” Shufu scolds. “As it is, I am glad that you did not leave her. But as her uncle, I must order you to go now before the breakfast bell, lest you ruin both of your reputations at once and force her to marry before she is ready.”

Mingjue takes the hint and flees, leaving Xichen and her uncle alone. Shufu says nothing more for a while, merely studying the ceiling as if the laws of the Lan sect were inscribed there, and then he clears his throat and points to the stack of parchment on her desk.

“Copy each precept you broke, a hundred times each. The tenth, eighteenth, and seventy-first laws. Go.”

And then, after a moment’s lull:

“I think he will be a good father someday, A-Huan,” Lan Qiren reflects. “Your little ones will want for nothing, what with how he cares for you and how much he coddles Huaisang. I could not have found you a better husband if I chose for you myself.”

Lan Xichen drops her paintbrush.

“Shufu!”

#nielan #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan arranged marriage au #my fic #long time no update #it's been 84 years

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: a continuation of you NMJ/WWX ficlet. LWJ chaperones their courtship meetings while desperately pining, torn between proposing to WWX himself and not wanting to jeopardize WWX and the Wen's chance for safety. Either NHS or NMJ are well aware of his crush. Thank you for writing for this rarepair! I love all your stuff

continuation of this fic

Lan Wangji knew that duty sometimes – often, even – called for sacrifice. Personal sacrifice. It was something he had long ago accepted: to be good, sometimes one had to suffer.

And oh – how he was suffering.

He’d been at Qinghe when Jiang Cheng had arrived with his proposal, visiting alongside his brother in a way he tended not to do if the visits were to Koi Tower instead of the Unclean Realm; he’d waited outside while they���d had a discussion between sect leaders, more than happy to absent himself from the trouble –

His brother had explained it all, after, and had asked him if he would consider acting as a chaperone.

A chaperone to Wei Wuxian, who would be marrying – Nie Mingjue.

“He’s not a cutsleeve,” Lan Wangji had blurted out, then checked; the expression of those around him indicated that his tone had remained indifferent and above it all, stating a mere fact that didn’t relate to him, and only his brother’s eyes started to widen a little.

His brother had always understood him too well.

“He’s not not a cutsleeve, anyway,” Jiang Cheng had said with a shrug. “He indicated he was willing – and it’s better than the alternative. My Jiang Sect can’t defend him right now…it would be very good if you would agree to be chaperone, Hanguang-jun. Not only is your reputation flawless, you would add the implicit support of the Lan sect; it would give it additional legitimacy.”

“I’m not sure –” Lan Xichen had started to say, but Lan Wangji had known that he was only refusing because he’d just realized that Lan Wangji wouldn’t be happy to see Wei Wuxian marry another, that he’d wanted – that he’d –

“I’d be happy to go,” Lan Wangji had said at once.

“I wouldn’t have anyone else,” Nie Mingjue had said, and that had been that, no matter how Lan Xichen tried to talk to him about it later.

He hadn’t wanted to talk.

There was nothing to talk about. The Lan sect was still rebuilding the Cloud Recesses – they, like the Jiang Sect, couldn’t afford to shield someone so inconvenient as Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch.

Inconvenient. It was a good word for Wei Wuxian: he was very inconvenient. Inconveniently appearing in Lan Wangji’s thoughts, in his dreams, in his heart –

It didn’t matter. The Lan sect couldn’t stand against the entire cultivation world for him, and so even if Lan Wangji were willing to do so, it wasn’t a good match. And that was that.

And now he was here, at Yiling, and Wei Wuxian kept talking about it.

About – him.

Nie Mingjue.

Lan Wangji sincerely respected the man: he was a brilliant cultivator, an awe-inspiring swordsman, an effective and admired sect leader, a just and upright man with solid principles that he never backed down from. He was skilled in virtually all of the six arts – music excluded, as he couldn’t play an instrument to save his life, but it really wasn’t fair to hold being born half-tone-deaf against him.

Wei Wuxian didn’t talk about any of that. No. That would be too easy – Lan Wangji would agree with him, and that would be fine.

No, what Wei Wuxian wanted to talk about, apparently, was the man’s body.

“– and his arms. Did you see his arms?”

“En.” Lan Wangji hoped his admission that he had, in fact, observed that Nie Mingjue had arms would be enough to forestall Wei Wuxian.

It was not.

“Magnificent, aren’t they? Big as a tree branch. He went out for saber training earlier in that outfit, didn’t he, the tight one without armor to cover them up; maybe he’ll swing by this way on his way back and we’ll see them again…”

Lan Wangji wanted to die.

“I never knew I liked arms so much before, you know? I’ve only been noticing lately – you have excellent arms yourself, actually – huh! These robes really cover a lot, don’t they? But in fact your arms are quite sturdy –”

Wei Wuxian was touching him. Lan Wangji pulled away as quickly as he could, which was probably not as quickly as someone else could.

“Oh, Lan Zhan, why do you always ruin my fun? It wasn’t as if I was stripping you down, I was just feeling them through the robes; even you can’t object…object to…”

Wei Wuxian trailed off, staring at something over Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

Lan Wangji turned.

Nie Mingjue had, in fact, taken this route back from his training. However, he was no longer wearing the tight robes – old ones, clearly designed for use during training – and was, in fact, not wearing anything on the top half of his body at all, the robes bunched up on his arm and clearly messy with mud and dirt; someone must have played a prank or something, to judge by the irritated look on his face.

Not that Lan Wangji was spending a lot of time looking at the man’s face.

Not when there was so much else to look at: sloped shoulders, a collarbone, rich supple flesh glistening with the slightest sheen of sweat –

Wei Wuxian was right about Nie Mingjue’s body being very nice, he found himself thinking to his horror – why was he thinking about this, he’d gotten over this years ago – and he shook his head and turned back to Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian, who was staring at him with a growing grin.

That was not good.

“You like him!” Wei Wuxian declared and no, no, this was not happening. “You think he’s attractive.”

“No,” Lan Wangji said firmly, and sat down, determined to ignore Wei Wuxian.

Predictably, it went about as well as any of his previous resolutions to ignore Wei Wuxian.

“How long has this been going on? When did you first start noticing him?”

“No.”

“Tell me! When did it start? How long has this gone on?”

I was six, he picked me up with one arm and told me I was a good boy and later that night I asked Brother if I could marry him and Brother thought I was joking but I wasn’t and then when I got older I had spring dreams about him right up until I met you.

“No,” Lan Wangji said again.

“‘No’ isn’t ‘I don’t’,” Wei Wuxian crowed, far too delighted by this revelation of Lan Wangji’s inappropriate interest in Wei Wuxian’s future husband. “You have to tell me, please. I’m dying of curiosity. You of all people had a crush! On Nie Mingjue! I have to know everything! Please, you have to tell me, I’ll do anything!”

“What is anything?” Lan Wangji asked, because his voice was a traitor that did things without consulting his mind, and anyway this would be just like that time in the cold spring where Wei Wuxian had offered him ‘benefits’ and it turned out he meant that he’d introduce him to girls…

The next thing Lan Wangji knew, Wei Wuxian had thrown himself into his arms, disregarding all propriety. “I don’t have anything you want,” he wailed, and that was the most wrong thing that had ever come out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “You have to give me a hint, I can’t live without knowing, Lan Zhan…!”

That, of course, was when Nie Mingjue walked in.

Lan Wangji froze at once. This was horrifically inappropriate – not merely as a breach of etiquette, but of principle. He’d known from the beginning that he was the wrong man to stand chaperone for Wei Wuxian, but he’d agreed regardless, thinking that he could force himself to be righteous; he’d even convinced Lan Xichen that it would be better for him to feel the sting of the loss all at once, from close by. And what was he doing instead?

Allowing Wei Wuxian to clamber all over his lap as if he were an especially affectionate monkey.

In front of his future husband.

He opened his mouth to say – something. Anything.

Nothing came to mind.

“Huh,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice low and amused. “Huaisang has been handling the details of all of this, but he really should have mentioned it if I was going to be marrying both of you.”

Lan Wangji blinked.

“…no?” he said. It was both hesitant and a question, neither of which he meant for it to be.

“I think you mean yes,” Wei Wuxian said, looking as though it were his birthday and New Years all at once and he’d just been given every present he’d ever dreamt of as a child. Lan Wangji could very nearly sympathize with the feeling. “That’s a wonderful idea!”

It was a terrible idea.

For…reasons.

None of which were coming to mind right now, but Lan Wangji was certain they existed.

Didn’t they?

#mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #lan xichen #my fic #my fics #everyone in this fic is so thirsty #wangxian #lan wangji/wei wuxian/nie mingjue #mostly lan wangji/suffering #notdexterousatall #pasttime with good company

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

I want 8, the hand-kissing, because I am in some respects extremely predictable :D

(I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you.)

8. Laying a gentle kiss to the back of the other’s hand

In the polygon of morning sunlight on the floor of jingshi, Lan Wangji is three lines.

One is a headband: straight and steady, a wall of rules made of silk, pale and hard as ice; a horizon—a divider of things—Heaven above and Earth below.

One is a guqin string: the first finger of his right hand hovers over an A as it shimmers and evaporates like morning dew, passing from the “is” into the “was.” Such is a language that can speak to the dead.

And the third… The third only Wei Wuxian has seen.

Beneath five layers of white and a sun-shaped scar, a muscle beats steady and slow. He’d dug them out of the raw earth, carved talismans right into ribs, and seen them in their natural state, rotting inside scrimshaw cages. “Keep me alive that I may kill,” he had intoned, his mouth dry with terror and thirsty for revenge as bones popped and sinew creaked and muscles moved anew.

None ever beat, less so like this one. On a mountain of corpses turned to soil, none were solid ground. None raced to look at him or pulsed when he muttered a name.

“Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji keeps playing but meets his gaze without hesitation. Wei Wuxian realizes he has no statement or question to follow with; none was really intended, and he fails to contrive one instantly. The thrill of knowing that he can garner Lan Wangji’s full attention with such ease is still overwhelming, and were Lan Zhan really made of thin jade, the whole world, too, could see that muscle picking up speed.

‘May I have the honor of a glimpse from you?’ He had once asked.

It has been a string of hazy early mornings and quiet afternoons since he returned to The Cloud Recesses. Overly quiet. As if something was waiting to be said.

From Wangji rises gentle pops of color: a golden A, the soft green tincture of E, the purple query of G. Sometimes they are soft as rain, sometimes they are momentary fireworks.

There is no end of notes; they spring up like weeds.

But neither had there been an end of corpses.

It was at Nightless City that he had first seen the third, the line that runs from the right hand all the way to the heart, reaching at right angles against the other two down the face of a cliff to catch him, to anchor him to the world when he did not want to stay.

“Let me go, Lan Zhan” he had said.

Now it had reached across 16 years...

“Indulge me, Lan Zhan,” he says. He rises, crosses the room, and drapes himself closer, balanced on elbow and hip, back to the guqin on its low table, and punctuates with a single spin of Chenqing.

Lan Wangji’s hands do not miss a note. “For Wei Ying, always.”

Wei Wuxian purses his lips and worries Chenqing’s tassel, twisting it around his finger. “Shizhui told me something interesting the other day.” He pauses and lets the silence sit between them for a moment. “He said that when he was younger he used to hear you playing Inquiry late at night, and that’s why he asked you to teach him: because it was ‘the saddest and most beautiful thing he had ever heard.’” He spins Chenqing again, suddenly introspective. “I don’t think of Inquiry as beautiful, but then… I suppose that would depend on who’s doing the asking… what is being asked… who it is being asked to.”

He does not need to look: he can feel the sudden and subtle electric tension. “Lan Zhan, were you—by chance—playing for me?”

He had never answered when Wei Wuxian asked about burning money, but the guqin has gone silent, so Wei Wuxian waits, the thrill of expectation rising. Then Lan Wangji plucks a solitary note: E flat.

E flat?

Yes.

Ah, so this is our game!

Wei Wuxian rolls excitedly onto his stomach in front of the dias, beaming, his hands clasping Chenqing under his chin. Lan Wangji’s gaze is demurely downcast.

“Lan Zhan, tell me the truth: did you burn money for me?”

Yes.

Wei Wuxian practically giggles with delight. “When I left this last year, did you miss me when I was gone?”

Yes.

He’s going to hurt himself grinning like this. “Did you truly miss me when I was dead?”

Yes. But the note is plucked harder than it should be and it quavers.

“But you find me so boring! Really, how long would it take you to get tired of me?” He crawls up onto his knees and plops himself into a sitting position at the table, guqin between them.

“I know I don’t have much core to speak of,” he pats his abdomen gingerly, “and I’m working on that! But let’s say we both became immortals, would you get tired of me then? 16 years is one thing, but 160? 1600? 16,000 years? Imagine how boring, Lan Zhan!?”

Lan Wangji is silent.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian leans in close and low, trying to catch his eyes under those lashes. “May I have the honor of a glimpse from you?” Lan Wangji looks up at him, and the gaze is so intense that Wei Wuxian feels suddenly vulnerable. “What on Earth did you want to ask me back then?”

Lan Wangji is quiet for long enough that Wei Wuxian starts to think he has no intention of answering, but then...

“If the lotus seeds were ripe. If you thought the day was pleasant. If you heard the birds singing near Cold Pond, and if their song reminded you of the past. If you could forgive me for having only bitter soup for dinner. If you could see the kind young man A-Yuan was becoming. If you could divide for me the black from the white. If you knew the name of the song. But now… Wei Ying, now I think you do; I no longer need to ask that. So I will ask something else.” He swallows suddenly and Wei Wuxian could swear he’s trembling. “May I make this Wei Ying’s home? Will Wei Ying bear the early mornings and quiet hours and bitter soup and cold winters? Will Wei Ying allow me 16,000 years of Inquiry?”

Wei Wuxian is struck dumb. He sits back, slack-jawed and broken open. What can he say? How can he say…? Did he really wake this morning or is he dreaming still? He feels sloppy, wholly inadequate; his lips are clumsy things, his limbs an awkward pile of angles. How can he be worthy of the look on Lan Zhan’s face? Tears well up and surely he will combust.

But there is no end of tears. Tears spring up like weeds.

And there will be no end of corpses. But he is not a corpse. They are not. No, far from it.

Wei Wuxian fumbles with Chenqing and raises it to his lips where he plays a messy and solitary E flat. In truth it is more than that: a polyphonic note in a contrapuntal song that he’s sure only Lan Wangji can hear.

Gently, he reaches for Lan Wangji’s right hand, the one that had reached for him 16 years ago. Pale as a lily, the nails kept long to pluck the strings of his instrument, he wraps it in his fingers as delicately as he has seen Wangji handle his rabbits and brings it to his lips, and if some of his tears mar that perfect skin he has a feeling Lan Wangji won’t mind. The kiss is soft but is not the tickle of joss paper waiting for the fire; it shudders with his breath but is not the brush of a moth’s wings. It’s tender and reverent and warm with the promise of days and kisses to come and is very much—so very much—alive.

“16,000 years of Inquiry… We should get started then.”

He lays the palm of the hand against his cheek. His smile erupts without warning, and to his delight, Lan Wangji is not prepared.

“My dearest Lan Zhan, what would you like to ask me?”

———

In January gifs and meta about The Untamed started rolling across my dash. As interesting as it looked, I was determined not to watch—just no time for that. And then I saw you posting meta about it, and well… you made it sound very good, and I figure you know what you’re talking about. Add to that one particular gif you reblogged: the moment in the opening scene when LWJ’s arm, clothed in bloody white, reaches across the frame towards WWX as he falls. That was the first image of this show that really seared itself into my brain. So, I offer this with thanks for inspiring me to watch this amazing show (and with endless congratulations)!

Notes:

OK, admittedly it’s not a sun-shaped branding iron in The Untamed, but I like the sun shape better.

E flat is what “yes” sounds like to me during Inquiry in the man-eating castle, but I’m also the last person anyone should consult about music.

Still incomplete associated fanart HERE (color illustration on right).

[update: finished fanart can now he found HERE]

#my fic #the untamed #cql #mdzs #wangxian #chen qing ling #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #my writing #fytheuntamed

[presumenothing]

we’re doing it to ourselves (or so the saying goes)

(AO3)

Jiang Cheng swears up a storm and a half when he shoves open the investigation room door the next morning to find someone already there.

The red ribbon hanging long down Wei Wuxian’s back blends in so seamlessly with the red thread strung all over the murderboard that it takes slamming his hand against the wall switch to shatter the sudden imagination of his brother’s photo up there with the rest of the clues, just another person they’d failed to save from this case.

Wei Wuxian gives a hiss of half-startled annoyance, blinking from the abrupt brightness, but it frankly serves him right for standing in the dark like a burglar with only the corridor emergency lights filtering in. Had he even been able to see anything? Even demonic cultivation doesn’t give you night vision, last he checked. “Good damn morning to you too, Jiang Cheng.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you got in here,” he replies, because at least half of what he knows about breaking into places he’d learned after Wei Wuxian taught himself how to one boring rainy day in high school. “Tell me all this has nothing to do with you.”

He doesn’t specify what this is, because there’s no need to. Wei Wuxian hasn’t moved from his frozen stance in front of the board of clues, crimson lines running between the serial murders like a bloody taunt, a web Jiang Cheng has stared at long enough over the past week that the afterimage feels burned into his eyelids.

There’s nothing of Wei Wuxian’s usual brash overconfidence in the answering shake of his head. “No. I meant it when I said I’d never go vigilante again, Jiang Cheng. And I haven’t. I’ll swear it again on anything you ask.”

In a different time, Wei Wuxian would already have sworn up and down that the heavens should strike him down right then if he’d lied, but maybe that��s exactly the problem – he had already been struck down once, in almost every way that mattered, and worst of all is how it makes Jiang Cheng more inclined to believe him now.

It’s still not quite enough, though. “Swear it on Jin Ling’s life.”

He doesn’t need to see Wei Wuxian’s expression to know he’s not happy about that. Which doesn’t matter, because neither of them are; the space Jin Ling occupies among them has been almost sacred especially after they’d nearly lost Yanli-jie, but it’s also exactly why Jiang Cheng is asking him to swear on this. He can’t accept anything less.

Wei Wuxian has to know that, too, because he doesn’t argue, only says, “I swear on Jin Ling’s life that I don’t have any direct involvement with this case.”

Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow and pointedly does not look relieved. “‘Direct’?”

“Duh.” Wei Wuxian gestures, wide and too-careless, at the grotesque web on the wall. “You’ve got a copycat killer, and a surprisingly thorough one at that. I’d be surprised if the original Yiling Patriarch isn’t tied to this somehow.”

“Careful, they might not be able to see your ego from space,” Jiang Cheng bites right back, even though he’s been thinking the same for probably about as long as Lan Wangji has, for all that they hadn’t acknowledged it aloud until the day before yesterday. “How the hell did you even find out about this?”

“Wen Qing did most of the autopsies, didn’t she?” Wei Wuxian answers, pretty much as he’d been expecting. “And before you think about going to yell at her, she didn’t actually reveal any case details to me, just that you and Lan Zhan were investigating something that I might be interested in. Also that she might snap and add one or both of you to the body count if she has to mediate even one more argument between you two.”

How Wei Wuxian’s presence could possibly do anything except exacerbate that, Jiang Cheng has no idea, but it’s not like he can afford to alienate the best medical examiner they have across all the districts. (And he doesn’t want to, either; Wen Qing’s clear expertise had single-handedly silenced all of the brass who’d had issues with hiring a Wen, but there’s never any telling what might get them started up again.)

Still. “I wouldn’t call that mediating,” Jiang Cheng mutters.

Wei Wuxian laughs, because he still doesn’t have even half an ounce of self-preservation, even against someone who could and would immobilise people with just three well-placed needles. “Speaking of which, how much longer are you gonna lurk there, Lan Zhan? I thought the Gusu bureau had a rule against eavesdropping and all.”

Jiang Cheng gets a crick in his neck from how fast he turns, and sure enough – there’s Lan Wangji stepping out of shadows that had hidden him far too well for someone in so much white. (Even after having no choice but to work this case together with him Jiang Cheng still has absolutely no fucking idea how Lan Wangji keeps his clothes spotless even at crime scenes; he’s starting to suspect it’s some kind of cultivation-related trick designed specifically for this purpose.)

“Eavesdropping would require neither of you to be aware of my presence,” he says, like that isn’t just some bit of pedantry, and inclines his head. “Wei Ying. Jiang Wanyin.”

And that’s definitely intentional, putting his name last like Jiang Cheng cares what order Lan Wangji addresses people in. Which he really, really doesn’t, especially not before inhaling at least half the thermos of coffee that always resides in his backpack in avoidance of the acidic slop from the pantry machine.

Wei Wuxian smiles at Lan Wangji, because of course he does, but it’s strangely gratifying to note that he hasn’t put any effort in making it look convincing at all. “Well, Lan Zhan – do I need to swear my innocence in this case to you too?”

“Unnecessary. I believe you,” Lan Wangji says, bearing regal like he’s some monarch issuing a decree, and Jiang Cheng snorts. How easy for him to say that when Wei Wuxian hadn’t cost his bureau and family almost everything they’d been.

It doesn’t make the back of his throat taste any less bitter when Wei Wuxian’s expression warms a little at that, but at this point Jiang Cheng doesn’t think anything ever will. “Enough chitchat,” he snaps. “The paperwork?”

Lan Wangji retrieves a folder from his briefcase and slides it over to the centre of the table wordlessly, while Jiang Cheng crosses his arms and scowls at Wei Wuxian until it sinks through his stupidly thick skull that the paperwork is for him.

The answering groan, at least, is entirely sincere. “What the hell is that for? You know I hate paperwork, Jiang Cheng, I didn’t quit over it but I very well could have.”

Yes, he’s very aware of that, seeing as their weekly paperwork grudge-match marathons from before everything had gone to hell had been held in his office. “Just read and sign the damn thing, Wei Wuxian, it’s the only bloody reason I haven’t already arrested you for breaking into bureau offices ten minutes ago.”

And that has to be enough for Wei Wuxian to already know, because bureau policy hasn’t changed that much in the years since his defection except to get more annoyingly onerous, but still he looks surprised at the contents of the contract. “A civilian consultant?”

“You have a skillset that could be invaluable to resolving this case. It would be highly remiss not to bring you on board.” Lan Wangji still looks perfectly neutral, as far as Jiang Cheng can tell, but that’s more sarcasm-free words in a row than he’s ever heard from him since the start of this investigation. Possibly since their first acquaintance with each other.

“I wouldn’t call ‘being the prime suspect’ a skillset, exactly,” Wei Wuxian mutters, which is something Jiang Cheng can definitely agree with at least. Though the only reason this is possible at all is because there’d never been an official conviction in the original Yiling case, for a whole chaos of reasons including the public uproar in support of whoever had taken down Wen Ruohan and his cronies for good, and because they already had reasonable evidence to suggest Wei Wuxian’s non-involvement in this spate of murders.

The non-suspect in question is still flicking his way through the clauses of the contract, which Jiang Cheng would feel insulted by except he’d also gone through each and every one just as closely, taken his concerns to Yanli-jie who’d taken them to Jin Zixuan until they could be sure this arrangement wouldn’t jeopardise Wei Wuxian in any way.

He reaches the last page, and from the skip of his gaze Jiang Cheng knows instinctively what Wei Wuxian has to be looking at – the grid of signatures starting with his own and Lan Wangji’s as primary investigators of the case, dated clearly to two days before this conversation had even occurred, followed by Lan Xichen’s confirmation both as Lan Wangji’s superior and because Jiang Cheng can’t very well second his own recommendation even as the Yunmeng bureau chief, and finally a space for Wei Wuxian’s chickenscratch initials.

(It’s frankly mystifying, why someone who can draw talismans that flow like the finest art has never bothered with a more elegant signature, but it’s not a mystery Jiang Cheng cares to solve. Better that than the unmistakable signatures the Yiling Patriarch had left at his scenes, at any rate; even he has had nightmares about that.)

Jiang Cheng tosses him a pen, anything to break the sudden silence, and Wei Wuxian catches it without looking but of course doesn’t get right to signing, because that would be sensible. “What is this for, then? There are easier ways to keep an eye on me. Cheaper, too.”

“The forensic evidence is scant, and the culprit has done something to keep the victims’ souls beyond my ability to communicate with,” Lan Wangji answers without further prompting, which is probably more information than they should be giving out to a not-yet-contracted civilian but Jiang Cheng’s not the one with a stick up his ass about protocol in this room and anyway Wei Wuxian had already broken in here. “An alternative method might help.”

“Last I checked, no one likes the alternative when it means resurrecting th– ah,” Wei Wuxian cuts himself off with a flick of his gaze between them, and has the gall to look amused. “So the old coots are desperate enough by now that anything goes?”

“Not anything,” Jiang Cheng grates out, just to be clear. Wei Wuxian hadn’t been wrong; the investigation methods favoured by each bureau differ even just among the four major ones, but the dislike of the way Wei Wuxian had done things since somehow escaping being taken hostage by Wen Chao had been almost universal.

(There’d been a brief period when it seemed like things might work out after all, when Wei Wuxian had demonstrated how undeniably efficient demonic cultivation could be in comparison to their regular methods – even the Gusu musical techniques couldn’t beat speaking to the victim in the flesh, as it were. But then everything had gone to hell in a massive speeding handbasket and Wei Wuxian had been most of the one who’d sent it there.

Possibly Jiang Cheng is being monumentally idiotic in not assuming this time will turn out exactly the same way, but annoyingly enough Wei Wuxian is also correct in that they need this case solved, or everything might just go to chaos anyway.)

“I’m pretty much the definition of anything, I think,” Wei Wuxian retorts, which Jiang Cheng ignores like the obvious nonsense it is. “Don’t blame me if you lot regret this.”

“Pretty sure it’s already too late for that,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, swiping the thermos out from where he’d set his backpack down.

Lan Wangji can deal with filing that paperwork, if he’s just going to stand there in stoic satisfaction. Jiang Cheng needs his damn coffee.

#mdzs #mdzs fic #fanfiction #mine #long post #once again i blatantly plagiarise richard siken for a fic title #yes this was supposed to be the sort-of-pushing daisies au but things happened #/elaborate and unbothered shrug emoji

[guqin-and-flute]

How does Xichen tell the others that he's a dad now? Does Xichen tell them himself or do they hear the news second hand before he figures out how, like 'Hey did you hear the Lan Sect leader is always walking around with a baby these days, I guess it's good that his robes hide the spit-up stains fairly well'?

Goshdarnit, I meant to write a specific thing, but now it’s tied up in another thing, and so I will shorthand the gist for you!

[Note to Nie Mingjue vibes]

Dearest Da-ge. Hello. I hope you are well. How’s are things there. Pretty terrible, I’m guessing, as a ton of people died just a week or 2 ago. Hope that’s going well. Please let me know if you need anything. Well, I’m writing you to say...I have accidentally adopted a child. I would like to note, that this was not my intent, but holy shit, if I let him out of my sight I start to panic and it feels like my heart is being crushed and I’ve just been carrying him around strapped to my chest and I’m freaking out, can you tell I’m freaking out because I sort of am and I love him so much and he’s so cute, look, I’ll paint a little picture here in the margin, see, his teeth and fingers and toes are so small and it’s been so long since I’ve smelled the top of a baby’s head but they smell so nice and I haven’t been sleeping very well because he keeps waking up to cry and every time I think about everything that I could do wrong to mess up his life I start to get lightheaded and I feel like I’m going to throw up, help please help, please tell me that I’m not going to ruin this child, please tell me if this is the worst thing I could have done, but please be nice about it because I can’t give him up, I physically can’t let anyone else hold him right now and is that normal, I thought that I remembered what it was like with Wangji but this is so very different and also Wangji is not doing well and there is another child(?) here that I am also taking care of and Wangji won’t tell me where he’s from but I think he might be Wei Wuxian’s illegitimate child(??) and Wangji wants to keep him and I want to let him but Uncle is so mad and so now I have two children, two innocent adorable orphan children that I think I’m going to fail horribly, I have no idea what it’s like to live with your parents and I keep having terrible nightmares about people taking them and fierce corpses or the Wens killing them in awful ways. 

...

Anyway. I miss you. Love you. Please advise. 

Lan Xichen

[Note to Jin Guangyao vibes]

Dearest A-Yao. Hello. How are you holding up? Is your father treating you well? He can’t be pleased about how that all went. Things are...strange. I did something...without consulting you and Da-ge and I’m hoping...that it will not be a problem for you :( But I have unintentionally, uh, adopted an orphan from my clan. I didn’t mean to. I just realized one day that giving him to another family sort of made me want to die and I figured...that was bad....and you don’t have to do anything! I’m not asking anything of you! I’m just letting you know that things have gotten more...complicated. And I can understand if this is not what you signed up for. And that this is something that should have been talked about. And that this is kind of selfish. It’s very selfish. I probably shouldn’t have done this. It probably isn’t the best for him. But he’s become pretty attached to me and I to him. His name is A-Fu. And he’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, look, here’s a print of his hand in ink, look how tiny it is, he smeared it all over his face just the second after I did that and then put it all over my robes but I actually don’t care all that much and I want to give him literally everything in the world and I never want him to be sad and I’m so afraid that every time he cries that I’ve done something wrong and I try to sing to him all the time like I remember my mother doing when I was with her and I hope he likes it. I would love for you to meet him, if you would like. I do think you would like him. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined this.

Let me know. Love you.

Lan Xichen

[Note from Nie Mingjue vibes]

!!!!! I’M COMING THERE NOW!!!! WE HAVE A BABY???

[Note from Jin Guangyao vibes]

Er-ge. You’ve ruined nothing. Are you alright? Are you sleeping well? You sound flustered. I’m sorry this is reaching you late, I forgot myself researching parenting advice and neglected to finish my letter until today. Is he eating well? Who were his parents? How old is he? Is he A-Ling’s age? Will they be contemporaries? Judging from the size of the hand print and my research, I’m guessing between a year and 18 months. Do you have robes for him? Do you need anything? Do you have toys? I could send toys. I could bring toys. When is a good time to visit? What does your Uncle think?  Where will he be schooled? I’m getting ahead of myself--may I hold him?

I would love to meet your son.

Jin Guangyao

#3zun raise jingyi au #oh this was meant to be funny but there is a LOT OF SAD HERE #my stuff #ask #Anonymous #vomit mention #suicidal ideation mention #like really mild but still #3zun raise jingyi content

[ninereadytoanswer]

darker yllz gets lan wangji, protected lan zhan edition (notfic)

Inspired by an older idea I was rereading:

One of those verses where lan wangji is promised in some deal to a darker yllz. It’s also one of those verses where lwj is of some verse-contained category that in the verse culture is supposed to be kept sheltered and protected - he’s a submissive in that kind of d/s au, or an omega in that kind of omegaverse (or an alpha in that kind of omegaverse), etc.

So lwj isn’t there when he’s promised away. And, in this one, the Lans have no intentions of going through with their end of the deal. (Of course lying is forbidden and one must keep promises and act honorably, but things are different when dealing with someone like the Yiling Patriarch. He is outside the bounds of decency, and so decency does not apply to a negotiation with him. And just look at what he asked, that only shows how true this is. And they have no intention of letting their pure Second Young Master Lan anywhere near him). 

They also don’t tell lwj about any of this. Things like this are not his affair. (Xichen has mixed feelings about that. One the one hand, it seems not right to leave his brother so completely unknowing about something so relevant and importantly so to him. On the other hand, it’s his younger brother, of course he wants his little brother to be safe and happy, not getting distressed (and pointlessly distressed, of course they’re going to protect him) with such terrible world-complicated matters.) The Lans do impose some extra restriction on him, and some extra guards. They don’t tell him why. It is made obvious to him, when he notices and tries to ask, that it’s not his place to ask or be told.

So Lan Wangji is in his rooms, alone but for guards just outside, when the Yiling Patriarch comes to the Cloud Recesses to take what he was promised. 

He’s come prepared. He has talismans and arrays ready to take down wards. His own sort of forces (and perhaps a few tricks here and there) to handle the more human kind of resistance. (He isn’t actually planning to kill anyone, this time. The non-lethal version should suffice for a demonstration and to get him what he wants, and it’ll be better for his early days with his new... acquisition, and it’s a threat to hold for any next time or more serious transgression. (He’ll probably lose more of his corpses, this way, and need more, to keep everyone down, but he doesn’t care about that, and it’s not a problem for him.))

.

Lan Zhan doesn’t know what’s happening. It’s very apparent that something is happening. He heard more disciples coming, and conversation he couldn’t make out, and now there’s guards actually in the room with him. (Or maybe, depending on timing, he’s even very quickly escorted to yet another building, more hidden and secure?) The disciples still don’t answer his questions. Before too much longer, he can overhear screaming, shouts, sounds of fighting. He’s incredibly alarmed, incredibly worried, he wants to know what’s happening. The guard disciples tell him in no uncertain terms to stay where he is. They will enforce this, if they have to.

But the sounds of fighting only get closer. Until finally they’re obviously just outside the room, and he can hear the guard disciples as they engage - someone. And he can hear bodies hitting the floor. (The disciples are fine, are on the floor in the alive and held down sense, but he doesn’t know this, one way or another). Then suddenly it’s quiet. The door opens.

The Yiling Patriarch comes in alone. Saunters in, really, black robes and red in his hair and dark power dense and choking around him. He has his flute in his hand but not at his mouth right then. The guard disciples left in the room run at him; he swats them aside with barely a wave and resentful energy holds them down. He catches sight of Lan Wangji. He smiles. 

Lan Zhan isn’t sure if he should - try to get away somehow, at least try to retreat further into the room (that doesn’t seem like it’s going to help at all. And also - he can’t help but notice the way this man is looking at him - if this man is here for him he doesn’t want to be the cause or prolonging what’s happening), or try to charge at the man himself (that doesn’t seem likely to help either). He ends up just standing there. But - no, he can do better than that, he decides. Whatever is going to happen he can - at least control himself. For - however long he might have left. If that’s what’s happening.

He composes himself. Bows in greeting. He wasn’t expecting visitors, he says, and doesn’t have tea ready, but if his guest wants to sit down, he can begin to make it and have it ready shortly.

The Yiling Patriarch laughs. (Oh, he chose well, he thinks). Ah, he says, your sect did instruct you well, at least, when they decided to go back on their word and keep you from me. 

Lan Wangji is not someone who is generally very expressive in his face, and he is actively trying to be composed. But his reaction at that is enough for the Yiling Patriarch to notice it. What, he says, did they not consult you? Did you have a different strategy in mind? ...It becomes apparent, after a few such statements, that Lan Wangji has no idea what he’s talking about. Oh, the Yiling Patriarch says. Oh they didn’t tell you at all, did they. Oh, they shut you in this room and surrounded you with guards and put up their wards and drew swords at me, and they didn’t even tell you anything at all.

Lan Zhan wants to know what is going on. What this man who invaded his home, who - (drew their swords, he just says, and Lan Zhan tries not to think about disciples he knows, about his Uncle, his brother, drawing swords and being cut down). What he is so obviously not saying. And asking his disciple guards had never worked, but this man is someone else. And is not like he will lose anything, really, by asking. So he bows again, and continues his tea service. And asks.

And the Yiling Patriarch tells him. Tells him who he is. Tells him about the agreement his clan and his family made. Tells him what they promised. Tells him how they went back on this agreement.

Lan Zhan listens. At first he - doesn’t believe it, can’t believe it. Something like that would violate he isn’t even sure how many precepts of the Lan Sect. The Lan elders would never agree. His brother would never agree. 

The man does not sound like he is lying (but would Lan Wangji be able to tell, with a man like this one appears to be). And there is no reason for him to lie - if he wanted to come in here for no reason and take Lan Wangji captive, carry him away, it is very clear at this point that he could do just that. (It’s been minutes now, longer, and no one else has come. Lan Zhan tries not to think about why that might be.)

But the final piece comes from the disciple guards who'd been in the room. They’re still in the room, held down but not unconscious. And he can see them, when the Yiling Patriarch describes the sequence of events he claims brought them here. He can see the way they react. It is not the way someone would react to hearing an outrageous lie. (It is the way someone might react hearing a truth that they are, perhaps to some extent, uncomfortable with. Ashamed of.)

.

Lan Zhan swallows. Looks at his ‘guest’. ‘What did you do to them’, he asks. (Perhaps it’s an injudicious question. But he doesn’t think the man will kill him for something he says, not after all the effort to - obtain him. And he’ll bear whatever other punishment, to know.)

Oh, don’t worry, Yiling Laozu tells him, looking over at the disciples still on the floor. Anyone who was alive before he came should still be alive now. And he has no plans to change that. There’ll be some punishments in order, but they’ll survive them.

He doesn’t know if that’s true either. But the disciples here are alive, even after they directly attacked the Patriarch. And again, there’s no reason to lie to him, not really. And if it even might be true - he knows what he needs to do.

Lan Wangji goes to his knees in front of the Patriarch. Bows as low as he can, forehead to the ground. He apologizes deeply and intensely, he says, for what has happened. He wants to give indemnity for what his clan has done. He will go with the Yiling Patriarch, however the Patriarch demands. He begs that the Patriarch might have mercy on his family and sect. 

(He can hear some sounds and expressions of objection, fury, from the fallen disciples. He ignores it. The Yiling Patriarch has come to take him, and there is nothing he or any of them can do about it, and he is not going to gain anything by being dragged kicking and screaming, and all he can do is try to help his family in the last moments he has here, and this is what he can do. And it is not as though the Patriarch could not achieve the same aim by taking basically anyone here hostage for it. Let alone Lan Zhan’s own family. Who - if he told the truth - are still here. And who the Patriarch must be especially angry with.)

The Yiling Patriarch looks at him. Smiles, maybe a different smile. (Oh, he thinks, yes he has chosen very well.) Good, he says. He is glad to see that at least one Lan has honor. And perhaps sense as well. Get up, he says. And come with me.

Lan Wangji stands up. Straightens his robes, makes sure his headpiece is in its place. Tries to restrain himself from taking a final look around the room, or at least from lingering too much in it. And he goes where he’s told.

Walking through the Cloud Recesses is - very unpleasant. Not only because it is full of corpses, the traces of fighting, full of disciples, some with torn robes or injures, struggling against them and being forced down. But also because of how people look at him, as he walks, with the Patriarch, going where he instructs. But at least it shows that the Patriarch told the truth. All of the Lans and disciples he sees are alive, and he doesn’t see any bodies (not any that weren’t obviously already dead), or the large, awful bloodstains where bodies may have been, and none of the corpses look like anyone he knows, none of them wear Lan robes or ribbons.

He continues walking where he’s told.

#the untamed #mdzs #cql #lan wangj #yiling patriarch #well this got longer than I was thinking #constrict!lwj #yllz gets lwj #dark!yiling laozu #altruism kink #n!f #prostration

[jadedadultritsu]

(hope am not bothering) So like I looked up Birth flowers for January and October (wangxian's bday months) and idk if mxtx did it on purpose but the symbolisms of their birth flowers describes their personalities v accurately and if mxtx did assigned their birthday months like that on purpose they are an absolute genius (sorry if my words don't make sense I'm not very articulate but I need to infodump on some1 so am sorry)

You're not bothering me at all! Why would you think that. 😟😖😭

If anything, this is an opportunity for me to put my research skills into practice and I’m gonna go grab whatever. Also, this is actually an interesting question! :O I will do my best to answer this. So first off, I’ve consulted google if there is a similar ask from before bc 1) we don’t want a duplicate work 2) in case there’s already an existing ask, cross-referencing would be pretty nice :D 3) my memory fails me if I did see interpretations of WangXian birth flowers before, I think I did but I guess it got lost in the v. depths of the internet lmao. So if we looked up at the same site, there isn’t much to interpret actually. But I can def connect it to some events all across adaptions with a few takes haha. 

Ok ok, so here it goes:

For Lan Wangji: January - Carnations & Snowdrops

DUDE, both flowers can bloom in the cold winter months?! And this characteristic is RARE? HELL YES! These flowers are insane, they are to be envied by other flowers they should start shedding off their own petals by now lol (lemme at least personify them). You know who else could withstand such unbearable cold weather?

Him and HIM.

Carnations are also easy to spot bc of its bright color (pretty pretty boy Hanguang-jun in the crowd isn’t smth you see everyday).

Snowdrops symbolizes hope and rebirth. LWJ had hoped countless times already for different things but it’s not like it’s all directed solely for himself. LWJ isn’t a one-dimensional character who exists just to complement (or contrast) WWX’s chara. Remember the line Hanguang-jun being “wherever the chaos is”. I believe some ppl rlly wondered why LWJ didn’t take his own life if he truly loved WWX? (wtf is that even). Who wants another vers. of Romeo and Juliet? He wished to carry on bc of their oaths (paper lantern scene in CQL) and to ward off evil. Plus, WWX’s promise aligns to that of LWJ’s moral values so he HOPED to get them fulfilled as much as possible, prolly 'til his last breath. Ppl keep forgetting that LWJ is an individual too, while I could understand and relate when ppl see them as a single unit mostly. Song Lan still carried on with night-hunting with XXC and AQ’s souls HOPING he could mend them along the way. I'd say that "if he dies, I die too" death trope is so boring now, I could dieeee myself, sir. JC didn't dismiss the possibility of WWX reincarnating. So LWJ must've his fair share of hope that WWX would reincarnate anytime in his lifetime. He's not gonna pursue love anywhere else. It can only be WWX. LWJ's rule-abiding nature loosened significantly during the Nightless City incident. Post-burial mounds siege, he didn't completely cut himself off from the sect affairs, but he did engage with them minimally. That, my friend, is his own vers. of rebirth (a.k.a. character dev't)

Snowdrops are well-known for being droopy-shaped flowers. I interpret this as, although esteemed and ppl have high regards for him, HGJ could still humble himself inspite of the facts.

For Wei Wuxian: October - Marigold & Cosmos

Marigolds’ vibrant color says a lot abt October babies huh. Marigolds symbolize fierce love, passion and creativity. Fierce love for family? Burning passion for knowledge? Need I say more? Creativity idk why but the first thing that popped up in my mind is paper man Wuxian since he’s the only one shown to use that ability. WWX also strives to think outside of the box by thinking of a fourth method in LQR’s quest abt dealing with the resentful executioner’s ghost. I recall a tumblr user saying how WWX is a nerd locking himself up in the Demon-Slaughtering Cave performing experiments, inventing demonic tools, and whatnot. So he wasn’t merely a mischief-maker all along lmao. "Marigolds also have a long tradition of being used medicinally to heal inflammation and skin problems” - sure, if transferring the cursed mark from JL’s leg to your own leg would count lol.

Cosmos flowers represent peace and tranquility. Although loud most of the time, he can read and sense any f up situation and can appreciate peace at times and as needed. “They also attract bees, so are a great flower to grow to draw pollinators to your garden!” dkdnfkdnfdk LWJ is the bee. <3

So you’ve finally reached the end, I applaud you. Congrats and thank you for keeping up with me this far. Now let’s get to the real quest, did MXTX assign the birth months to her chara’s on purpose with that basis in mind? Was it purely coincidence? I vote for the latter. If I were a Danmei author and I wanted to assign a birth month for the stoic-faced and icy personality chara, I’d conveniently assign a winter month. Same goes for WWX. Since WWX shifted to the heretic and wicked path, I, too, would conveniently assign him a birthday near Halloween. Surely, the birth flowers interpreters have also given this a lot of thought associating the corresponding flowers accordingly to the seasons while meticulously considering the characteristics of these flowers.

#asks box #ask box #jade replies #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #cql #founder of diabolism #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wtf it's 4am #i watched haikyuu before finishing wwx's part bc i get #✨easily distracted✨ #wwx's adhd is contagious #i only write for reports. college. work. n stuff. im not cut out for ao3 #im too weak for that. is that a disclaimer? yes. yes it is #*tosses this back to u ghost. enjoy* #like a vball :D #i tried to see this ✨objectively✨ #birth flowers meaning