#why should he have helped lan xichen. then a stranger. when he was fleeing the destroyed cloud recesses

[archiveoftragedies]

In mdzs, when the public opinion started shifting and everyone turned on jgy it made me feel vindicated. Finally they're siding with me against the guy that keeps pissing me off. But that only lasted an instant. Slowly, progressively, I started going wait. Wait no hold on. Go back. I didn't mean it that way go back. Because they were saying about jgy the exact same bullshit they had been saying about wwx the entire novel. And suddenly it felt really off.

Then, during the flashbacks leading up to Nightless City, I kept thinking back on that thing wwx tells nhs in volume one, when nhs explains his family's solution to their haunted saber problem. "Well, that's hitting a bit close to the demonic cultivation path". Doesn't nhs refuse to swordfight as well? Is he even carrying a sword? How come he can get away with this (and wwx can't)?

Wwx and jgy have similar origins but were raised in different environments. They learned similar survival methods and tried to play by the rules up until they couldn't anymore. They had the two more prominent roles in winning the sunshot campaign, and yet everyone forgot about that the second they decided they were irredeemable. They met similar ends, fighting and protecting people they loved.

Nhs became the kind of person his brother would despise in trying to avenge him. He became like his brother's murderer. His survival method is also trying to make himself seem harmless, not with polite smiles or clever distractions but with tears. The only reason he didn't meet the same end as the other two is that he managed to stay out of the public's eye, and because his reputation was unstained from the beginning. Although I should note that he is Nie Mingjue's half-brother, which might hint at a more complicated heritage, more similar to that of the other two, than one would suspect at first glance. But whether that's the case or not, the point is that nobody would call nhs a bastard, and that means that people will overlook certain things he does that have condemned the other two to death.

That's what makes them such great narrative foils. In the end all three of them are cheating, but nhs had better cards to begin with.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #wwx did most things out of love while jgy did most things to get ahead in life #but jgy went out of his way to help people he loved too #given his childhood his goals are not less noble than the other two's just because they're selfish #most of the things jgy did he was forced to do or genuinely saw no other choice. and most of them he doesn't regret #but also #why should he have helped lan xichen. then a stranger. when he was fleeing the destroyed cloud recesses #qin su would have suffered more than him if they had not married #call me lan xichen the way i will apologize for yao-mei's crimes #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mxtx #my meta

[stiltonbasket]

could i possibly please prompt you for some grown up kiddies? like the girls and a-yu, what's their dynamic like when they're like teens? do they like to get into trouble a lot or follow all the rules strictly? it'd be interesting to see them on a nighthunt together, maybe. what do they do when they get into trouble, how do they solve problems together? i adore all your fics and your oc's, i'm in awe of you bro

Boys Over Flowers

by stiltonbasket

The worst day of Wei Shuilan’s life comes not long after her fourteenth birthday, when her A-Die hands her a packed lunch in a basket and tells it to take it to her elder brother in the produce field.

“Xiao-Yu sent a butterfly saying he couldn’t leave his moonflower sprouts,” A-Die says. “Go bring him his lunch, A-Lan, and then hurry back so your food doesn’t get cold.”

Looking back on it, that was the moment Wei Shuilan's world imploded.

(Or: nineteen-year-old Lan Xiaohui falls in love. His sisters try to cancel his romance subscription.)

All of those days were miserable in their own gloomy ways, but the worst day of Shuilan’s life comes not long after her fourteenth birthday, when her A-Die hands her a packed lunch in a basket and tells it to take it to her elder brother in the produce field. 

“Xiao-Yu sent a butterfly saying he couldn’t leave his moonflower sprouts,” A-Die says—because Lan Yu is a shidao cultivator, and the medicinal herbs and crops he grows are so strong and wholesome that Uncle Xichen once swore that the dandelion tea from Yu-gege’s field could cure his reading headaches. “Go bring him his lunch, A-Lan, and then hurry back so your food doesn’t get cold.”

Shuilan nods and takes off at a run with the basket balanced on her elbow, dodging over rocks and clumps of grass until she gets to the produce field. She expects to find her brother kneeling in one of the flowerbeds, since his moonflowers have proved even more stubborn the enormous cactus he grew for burn paste, but the moonflower bed is decidedly free of muddy teenage boys with equally muddy forehead ribbons, and a squint around the field reveals that Yu-gege is standing near the lotus pond instead. 

Yu-gege isn’t alone, though. There’s a young man hovering next to him, dressed in the colors of Qinghe Nie, and his face is so red that Wei Shuilan can see his ears turning scarlet all the way from the gate. 

“I thought you might like these,” her brother’s strange companion seems to be mumbling, shoving a bunch of fire lilies in Lan Yu’s direction. “They, um. They still have the bulbs on, and the shop said they would put out new roots just a day after touching soil, so you can p-plant them.”

“Zhuyan!” she hears Lan Yu cry, obviously delighted. “How pretty! But—oh, no, my—will you dig out some holes for me over there, Zhuyan-xiong? I can’t leave my moonflowers seedlings for another hour, or I’ll have to start from scratch all over again.”

Wei Shuilan feels her blood run cold. 

No. No, it can’t be. 

“I can help you with them,” the other youth says shyly. “Can I?”

Not the moonflowers! Wei Shuilan wants to scream. Gege doesn’t even let me touch the moonflowers!

That’s because you keep trying to combine the modao with Xiao-Yu’s shidao cultivation and turning his radishes into demons, a voice that sounds a great deal like her Xiongzhang’s scolds in the back of her mind. Of course he doesn’t let you touch them!

“Do you mind waiting until they’re a little stronger?” Lan Yu replies, cheerily oblivious to his own younger sister coming to deliver his lunch. “They should be able to handle double spiritual signatures in a month, I think.”

Horrified into speechlessness, Shuilan throws the lunchbox at his head with a burst of spiritual energy and flees. Yu-gege doesn’t even blink, though, and neither does the stranger, and Yu-gege only looks up when the basket thumps gently to the ground at his feet.

“Oh!” he frowns. “Wait, that’s the basket A-Niang uses for my lunch. Was someone here?”

“I don’t think so,” the stranger says, with an adoring face like a dumb calf that nearly makes Shuilan sick on the spot. “I didn’t see anyone but you, A-Yu.”

Oh no, you don’t, Shuilan thinks, stomping back to the jingshi with clenched fists and helping her parents lay out the lunch dishes so angrily that they exchange a pair of startled glances over her head. I don’t care who this Zhuyan-xiong is, but I’m not going to let him take our Yu-gege away!

*    *    *

Wei Shuilan comes from a rather large family, which is rare among the Lan clan: and among the Weis, as far as she knows, because six generations’ worth of records at Lotus Pier show that her A-Die’s forefathers tended to have single children. Papa has only one brother, Uncle Xichen, and their father had a single didi, Great-uncle Qiren; but Wei Shuilan is the third child out of four, and her parents sometimes joke that they wouldn’t have minded another dozen. 

Her eldest brother, Lan Sizhui (or Xiongzhang, to his siblings) is almost as old as A-Die is, due to A-Die’s sixteen-year stint as a dead man that began when Xiongzhang was a baby. By the time A-Die came back to life, Xiongzhang was almost eighteen, and then he and Papa adopted Yu-gege, who was only two years old when A-Die found him in a brothel in Yunping. Shuilan arrived three years later, after her parents were married, and her younger sister Chunyang was born just after Shuilan’s third birthday.

Shuilan and Chunyang are the closest in age, and the youngest of the four, which is why Shuilan makes a beeline to her sister’s desk after lunch to ask if A-Chun knows a young master from the Nie clan with the courtesy name Zhuyan. 

“Of course I do,” Chunyang says, her warm sweet voice tinted with confusion as she looks up from her book of fu verses—a gift from Uncle Zizhen, who wrote most of the poems in collaboration with Nie-zongzhu. “He’s Nie Zhuxi-gongzi’s younger brother.”

“Really?” Shuilan frowns. Nie Zhuxi is something of a family friend, since he’s Nie-zongzhu’s heir, but he barely visits the Cloud Recesses because Father never even makes an effort to hide how much he dislikes him. “Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Why did you ask about him?” A-Chun wonders. Shuilan fights the urge to poke at her chubby steamed-bun cheeks and then decides that she might as well just do it, because A-Chun is nearly eleven and her adorable round cheeks probably won’t last for much longer anyway. “Jiejie?”

“I saw him just now in A-Niang’s produce field,” she sulks. “He was giving Yu-gege flowers.”

“So what?” Chunyang’s bewilderment makes sense, she supposes, because everyone gives their brother plant-related gifts when they visit Gusu; he’s the most famous shidao cultivator within the four great sects, though most of his fame comes from that one time he ran into a dog yaoguai when he was seventeen and yelled for A-Die and Father to save him. “Nie-shushu always gives Gege flowers and seeds. And he couldn’t come this week for your birthday, so he must have sent the flowers along with Nie Zhuyan.”

“It’s different when it’s Nie-shushu,” Shuilan protests. “He sent A-Die a baby dress for you before you were even born! But this Nie Zhuyan, he blushed when he was giving flowers to Yu-gege, and his ears were red! Like Papa’s always are when he looks at A-Die!”

“Oh!” her sister gasps, shooting straight out of her chair and grabbing Shuilan’s hands. “You mean—you mean he was giving Yu-gege flowers as a courting gift?”

A-Chun’s eyes look like sparkling black stars, and Shuilan nearly groans out loud before pulling the little girl back down to earth with a bump. “A-Chun, that’s bad! He’s not allowed to court Yu-gege!” she hisses. “We don’t know a thing about who he is, or where he comes from, or—”

“But...but he’s Nie-shushu’s cousin,” A-Chun points out. “And we’ve visited Qinghe Nie hundreds of times. We know his older brother, too!”

Shuilan’s eyes go wide. “That’s right!” she cries, bringing her fist down on the table as A-Chun leaps two feet into the air. “We know Nie Zhuxi, and we can’t trust him!”

“Um...why can’t we, Jiejie?”

“Because Nie Zhuxi tried to steal A-Die from Father! Before A-Die and Father got married, they were staying at the Unclean Realm, and Nie Zhuxi kept on flirting with him! He came to A-Die’s room after dark, and he made A-Die wear his clothes, and—”

The door slides open. 

“Nie Zhuxi?” their father’s voice croaks, right before they turn around to find him standing in the doorway with a frozen kind of look on his face. “A-Lan. Has Nie Zhuxi been here?”

Chunyang pouts and crosses her arms. “Papa, it’s time you made up with Nie-gongzi! You know Uncle Huaisang was just bribing him to flirt with A-Die so it would make you jealous!”

“I do not like him,” their father says snootily. “He demanded the clothes off your A-Niang’s back, and then he had the nerve to laugh when Wei Ying took them off and returned them to him.”

“That’s why we have a problem, Papa!” Shuilan cries. “His brother is trying to court our Yu-gege!”

Their father’s lips turn white. “What?”

“I saw him! He showed up with flowers for Gege, and he kept blushing—and Papa, Gege was staring at him so much that he didn’t notice I was there! I came to give him his lunch basket, and he didn’t even look at me!”

“Courting,” Father says, in a strangled voice that makes Shuilan’s own throat ache. “Not—not possible. Xiaohui is only nineteen.”

“He’s of age,” Chunyang pipes up, apparently under the impression that someone courting Lan Yu is a good thing instead of the worst crisis their family has ever had to endure. “And if they’re courting now, they’ll probably court at least a year, right? Gege will be twenty by then, Papa. Don’t worry.”

“I must speak with Wei Ying,” Father mutters, before absconding in a whirl of white satin robes and the flash of a silver hairpiece. “Courting my son, without leave! As if I would ever let such a thing happen!”

And then he disappears, leaving his daughters blinking in a sudden draft behind him. He’s probably going to find A-Niang in the jishi, which means that A-Niang is going to be responsible for telling Nie Zhuyan to stay away from Yu-gege. 

(For a moment, Wei Shuilan almost feels sorry for her brother’s would-be suitor, for having his dreams crushed the moment he worked up the courage to give Lan Yu a courting gift. 

Only almost, though.)

*    *    *

“So, Xiao-Yu!” A-Die says at dinner that night, as cheerful as ever as he fills Yu-gege’s bowl with hot rice and makes sure he gets plenty of vegetables from the dish in the middle of the table. “What’s this I hear about you going courting? Did you really grow up so much when I wasn’t looking, baobei?”

“Courting?” Lan Yu asks, around a mouthful of stew beef and potatoes. “Who’s going courting?”

“You, you silly cabbage. Aiyah, A-Yu, why didn’t you tell us? I’ve been looking forward to seeing you get married for so long, baobao, honestly—”

“I’m...I’m not courting anyone, though,” Gege replies, looking like a stunned rabbit for a minute before shaking his head and serving himself a helping of beans. “I’m too young, A-Niang! I just want to cultivate my plants and help you take care of A-Lan and A-Chun. And I don’t even like anyone, either.”

“You need not fear to tell us if you grow to care for someone, Xiaohui,” Father says anxiously. Shuilan can’t work out whether he’s still upset or not, because that sounded like he was upset at the thought of Lan Yu courting someone in secret rather than by the fact that he was courting at all. “We are your parents, and it is our privilege to guide you through all aspects of your life, including this.”

“Um. Thank you?” Lan Yu offers, clearly bewildered by the worry in Father’s eyes. “I really don’t want to court anyone, though. And I promise to tell you if I ever do, Papa.”

“Then what about Nie Zhuyan?” Shuilan wails, bursting into tears. “He gave you flowers! I saw him! And you were looking at him like he was the only one left in the world, and—”

Unexpectedly, her brother throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, my poor little A-Lan!” he coos, putting down his chopsticks and coming around to her side of the table to hug her. “Oh, no! I’m not courting Zhuyan-xiong. Those flowers were from Uncle Nie, not him, and—don’t cry, Lan-bao! Nie Zhuyan is the last person on earth I would ever think of marrying, you know. And besides, he already has someone he likes! He told me so.”

“Really?” Chunyang asks, looking so disappointed that A-Die passes her a dish of sweet bean porridge. “Who is it?”

“Oh, it’s Mianmian. You remember Auntie Qingyang’s daughter, right? She’s just a little older than Zhuyan-xiong, and he’s been making eyes at her for years. You know, I baked some of A-Niang’s lotus cakes for her once when we went to visit Ling-gege, and Zhuyan was so upset when he heard! He cried, actually, and he didn’t stop until I promised that I didn’t like her that way.”

A-Die’s face turns purple, and he almost chokes on a bit of meat before burying his head in his hands and laughing until he cries. Next to him, Father’s face goes oddly still, and stays that way until A-Die drags himself upright again with tears of mirth running down his cheeks. 

“He likes Mianmian?” he gasps, bursting into another fit of giggles. “Oh. Oh, so it’s like that.”

“What does that mean?” Chunyang inquires, as Father puts his chopsticks down and closes his eyes. “Like what? Papa?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” A-Die snorts. “Here, A-Yu, have some more of the lotus pudding.”

And after that, for some reason far beyond Wei Shuilan’s fourteen-year-old comprehension, the subject of Nie Zhuyan courting her brother is never brought up again.

*    *    *

“Oh, that poor boy,” Shuilan hears her A-Die cackle later that night, while she and Chunyang are brushing their teeth in the bathroom. “Oh, that poor boy! Lan Zhan, he’s just like me!”

“I am aware,” Father says wearily, followed by the creaking sound of her parents climbing into bed. “I do not doubt that Xiao-Yu will remain blind to Nie Zhuyan’s love for the next several years.”

A beat of silence, then. “Lan Zhan,” A-Die whispers, “you—I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I should never have made you wait for me for so long. Sometimes I think of how I love you now, and how much it would hurt me to lose you, or believe that you didn’t love me back, and…”

“I would have been the happiest man in the world even if you rejected me,” Father whispers back. “As long as you were happy, and healthy, and safe. I would you rather hate me, torture me a thousand ways, than injure a single hair upon your precious head—Wei Ying, you were gone, and then you returned to life when I spent the last sixteen years cursing myself for letting you go. What more could I ever have asked of you, my love?”

“I made you wait for me a whole year after I came back, darling. You can’t tell me that wasn’t torture to bear, Lan Zhan, because I won’t believe you.”

“Xingan,” their father chides, before the sound of a kiss makes A-Lan giggle so much that her toothbrush falls out of her mouth. “I had my beloved sleeping in my arms, with our son sleeping between us, and you think I was unhappy?”

“Well, when you say it like that…”

“That was the happiest year of my life, A-Ying. And then I married you, and the next year was the happiest. And then we celebrated our first anniversary, and the next year was happier still.”

“Does that mean that today was the happiest day of your life, then?”

“No,” Father says decidedly. “It was yesterday. Before I heard about Nie Zhuyan.”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan. Our little ones have to grow up someday, you know. A-Yuan might not ever marry, but A-Yu and A-Lan and Chun-bao are going to fall in love, and have people fall in love with them, and they might even get their hearts broken, but—”

“Never! Never, not while I draw breath. I have had my heart broken into pieces, and I would rather die than see our children suffer so. If that means I must pass a decree forbidding that boy to enter the Cloud Recesses, then it shall be done.”

The conversation doesn’t end there, but A-Chun’s eyes are slipping closed, and Shuilan doesn’t want to hear any more kissing, so the two of them go back to their room and jump into their beds.

“Jiejie?” Chunyang asks, after Shuilan puts out the lights and drags her pillow up over her head. “Do you want to fall in love? Someday, when you’re older?”

Wei Shuilan shakes her head. “No. I hate boys. The only one who even wants to talk to me is Lan Fang, and all he ever wants to talk about is how demonic cultivation corrupts the body and wounds the soul.”

“But it doesn’t corrupt A-Niang’s body and soul, does it?”

“He doesn’t mean A-Niang,” she sniffs. “He means me. Lan Fang thinks he knows better just because he’s a boy, and I hate him.”

“Oh,” A-Chun nods. “Jiejie, I think I want to fall in love.”

“Then Jiejie will support you! Do you like anyone, Chun-bao?”

“Not yet. But someday!”

And then Chunyang closes her eyes and falls asleep, leaving Wei Shuilan to her own muddled thoughts until she falls asleep, too. 

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #my fic #@anyone who reblogs this i will love u forever and also cry #please ;-; #lan xiaohui #rip anyone who likes this boy he is a FOOL #wei shuilan #wei chunyang

[pastthevaulteddoors]

Work in Progress Wednesday

This is more a summary, unclean vision of a story I thought up of. I'm not a huge mpreg fan, but I fell in love with a few Loki/Tony Stark get preggers due to MAGIC some years ago so that trope kind of stuck with me. Forgive me if it's not your thing.

The basic story; at a tense conference at Carp Tower, Lan Xichen offers to share his usual pavilion rooms with his brother and brother-in-law because of how packed the place is with unexpected guests.

Due to magic experimentation and an unexpected sexy times with Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao in the adjoining rooms, everyone is caught up in a pregancy spell of WWX's doing. That same night, unrest causes uproar inside Carp Tower and allies of WWX are forced to flee.

Things happen, Jin Guangyao gets separated and ends up in a fog that causes memory loss. He's found by an old farming couple, and they agree to take him on as a hired hand while he tries to piece together the mystery of his amnesia. They call him Li.

At the same time, he's very concerned that he's getting a belly rather quickly on a farmer's diet. Six months later, and he's convinced that whatever stole his memories also implanted a demon inside of him. He's looking for help get it out with cultivators in town when he hears of the famous WWX becoming pregnant as a man! He puts two and two together and realizes that he must have some connection to him, as the farmer's wife did joke about his symptoms being similar to when she had her children.

The following is my sorta written part I wanted to share. Enjoy!

A few days later, a small group of shadows drifted down from the skies into the village. And there Li saw the most beautiful man he’d ever seen; tall and dashing, eyes full of kindness in reserve yet brimmed with worry and hope. He, along with a few others, began to ask around for the famed Lanling advisor.

Li, however, was shy to approach. The thumping of his heart frightened him and he knew that his heart belonged to another (he merely didn’t know who that person was). Then he spotted a man in black with a wicked smile and a belly nearly as full as his own.

It was him! It was the famous demonic cultivator, Wei Wuxian. If the ebony flute and equally famed husband at his side didn’t give him away, then the rounded and full belly did! Everyone by now knew of his exploits.

He approached him as he (was forced to) rest on he porch of an inn. He looked bored and his lower lips protruded in a pout. He swung his flute around by the tassle as he watched the tiny town move about their daily lives.

Li didn’t dare rise up to the porch itself, and instead remained on the road. He offered a deep bow to Wei Wuxian, low and humbled. All he wanted to do was ask his advice about this strange growth in his stomach, he did not expect a loud cheer. Nor did he expect the overstuffed man to catipult himself over the porch railing and slam himself to Li’s side in an enthustiatic hug.

The following, babbling conversation ensues;

“You’re alive!”

“Y-yes, I am.”

“YOU’RE ALIVE!”

“You know me?”

“Yes, yes, I do! And you’re… pargarant? Pargerent!? Tweleve plus two weeks… PRAGRANT!!”

“Am… I don’t understand. Am I an experiment of yours?”

“What- no! No way! That means…” Wei Wuxian counts on his fingers. “You snuck into the pavilion the last night at Carp Tower, didn’t you? You dog!”

“I am not a dog!”

“Why didn’t you come find us? Everyone was worried sick about you.”

“I can’t. I couldn’t. I-“

Then a soft, deer-like tone sounds through the mess of conversation. “A-Yao,” it says sweetly, dearly, so full of enduring emotions that it makes Li’s heart ache from the purity of it all. Li turns to the beautiful sound and is captured by the deep hazel eyes of the tall man in white.

His eyes brim with happy tears, that hope spilling over like fountains in a garden. “A-Yao,” he says again, and Li knows that this must be home. He lets himself be swept away in another hug, and this one he returns. This stranger he does not know fills his heart with so many complex and happy emotions; his mind might not remember but his heart certainly does.

When they finally regain their composure, both are smiling widely, but then Li breaks the moment when he asks, “I’m sorry but, who are you?”

Lan Xichen’s face falls, even as he strokes Li’s cheek with his hands. “What do you mean?”

“The demon mist,” another voice calmly interrupts. It’s another tall, beautiful man in white. But certainly not as beautiful as the one in his arms.

“That’s right!” Wei Wuxain chimes in. “That distorts and wipes memories. Jin Guangyao must still be afflicted.”

“And pregnant,” Lan Wangji notes that huge belly.

It’s at that the Lan Xichen moves his hands to Li’s belly. His touch is far too familiar to be one of simple friendship. They must have been very close. Then, he suddenly gives a sharp look to the couple.

“What?” Wei Wuxian shrugs innocently, even as he takes a half step behind his husband. “We told you guys we were trying for a baby. How was I supposed to know you two would get wrapped up in that magic circle.”

Lan Xichen shakes his head. “Perhaps we should reconvene inside where there are fewer prying ears and eyes.” He then smiles once more to Li and it again makes his heart swell with joy. “I hope my brother-in-law was not too crude before I arrived.” He moved to escort Li inside when he stopped dead.

“Brother-in-law?” Li asks, astonished, eyes wide. He then glances to Wei Wuxian, then the stern man in white beside him. Of course, he heard of his famously disowned husband, Lan Wangji, who is brother to… “You’re Sect Leader Lan?!” he belts out before he can stop himself. When his mind catches up to this, of standing before one of the major sect leaders, he bows suddenly and low. “I apologize for causing you any troubles.”

#work in progress wednesday #work in progress #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #xiyao #wangxian #lan xichen #jin guangyao #lan wangji #wei wuxian #mpreg