#wwx's smile is beautiful too

[ninjakk]

The cold spring scene - An important part of Wangxian's developing feelings for each other

The cold spring scene when WX are adorable teens is just such an interesting spa date interaction between the pair. WWX is a big tease and poor LWJ just can't seem to escape him! I actually think more praise needs to be given towards LWJ here... He keeps his cool quite well considering the circumstances. Although the scene is quite short and sweet - it still has a lot of details hidden just under the water surface.

After recently re-reading the ongoing MDSZ manhua, I noticed quite a few bits from the novel are missing. One scene in particular, is the one I am going to analyse here. I was quite surprised to see this was not included, even if it 'needed' censoring for whatever bullshit 'reason' - it still could have been included somehow surely?!

To me, this scene and the punishment scene prior to this, are actually quite an important part of the CR arc and a fundamental building block of WXs budding friendship/relationship. It shows their true characters to each other and the reader. LWJ punished himself alongside WWX because he is in essence, fair and just - even if WWX pulled him out of the CR grounds! We also see the utter horror WWX has at realising that LWJ has taken his words so seriously and is going to punish himself also. WWX tries to stop this happening, because he's kind and caring - he doesn't want LWJ to get hurt or punished, especially for something he caused. So to omit this and the cold spring scene, where WWX is very sincere and somewhat in awe of LWJ, is quite sad in my opinion.

So let's take a look at the scene in question. I have to say, one thing that always stands out to me is that WWX doesn't visit the cold spring until night-time. WWX was dragged out of bed very early in the morning, apparently 'before daylight even appeared'. After the beating, JC is carrying WWX away and they bump into LXC, who informs WWX there is a way for him to heal in a few short hours. WWX was beaten quite badly, and very swollen - yet he didn't go to the cold spring until much later. There were no lessons, because LQR was still away in Qinghe - so I find it a bit odd he waited all day before seeing to his injuries.

Chapter 18

It was night-time, at the cold spring of the Cloud Recesses. Lan WangJi’s eyes were closed as he relaxed in the ice-cold water. Suddenly, a voice rang beside his ears, “Lan Zhan.”

“...”

Lan WangJi’s eyes sprang open. Sure enough, Wei WuXian was lying on his stomach, above the blue stones beside the cold spring, tilting his head and smiling at him.

WWX has snuck up on LWJ while he is mediating in the spring. We don't know how long he's been there, but he's lying down on the rocks watching LWJ. Personally, I think it's safe to assume WWX was probably thinking similar thoughts to what he did when he saw LWJ in the cold spring in his second life. Blinded by his looks, but convincing himself he's not - as he's done so many times. We already know he finds him attractive from the amount of time he's said so since coming to the Cloud Recesses - so it's probably not too far off! The fact WWX lay on the ground in quite an alluring pose, just adds to the teasing tone he loves to use with LWJ.

At some point, probably after a long while of marveling at how beautiful LWJ looks WWX calls out to LWJ near his ear, which is quite a seductive way to make himself known. When LWJ opens his eyes, he sees WWX lying on the ground smiling at him with his head tilted. Interestingly enough, the head tilt is in a number of translations I have read as well. A head tilt is a subconscious facial cue that not only shows you are interested, but it also shows you are being submissive. Because it exposes a vulnerable part of the body, it's a sign that you are comfortable being vulnerable around the person you are talking to. Ironically, it's nonverbal communication that means 'I trust you not to bite harm me' - and considering LWJ's penchant for biting later in the novel, it's quite amusing. It's something females tend to do with someone they like. It's also often used in literature to convey flirtation and interest as well. So it's very interesting to see WWX adopting this stance in front of LWJ.

Lan WangJi blurted out, “How did you come in?!” Wei WuXian slowly crawled up, and spoke as he took off his sash belt, “ZeWu-Jun told me to come in.” Lan WangJi, “What are you doing?”

Wei WuXian kicked off his boots while leaving piles of clothing all over the ground, “I already stripped, so what do you think I’m here for? I heard that your sect’s cold spring can cure injuries aside from helping with one’s cultivation. So, your brother told me to come here and bathe with you. Except, it’s really not nice of you to come here to heal alone. Eep! It really is cold. Brr…”

I find this next bit quiet interesting. WWX slowly crawls up and proceeds to take his clothes off - which is a little provocative. He could have taken his clothes off before drawing attention to himself - but he didn't. He waited for LWJ to turn around and stripped in front of him. I know he's probably very used to be naked in front of the other male disciples back at his sect when they bathe and change. But it's the way he does it here that just seems more deliberate and teasing. Especially after speaking next to LWJ's ear and slowly crawling up before undressing. It's a good job LWJ's waist-deep in cold water if you ask me.

I also find it interesting that LXC told him to come and bathe with LWJ specifically. Perhaps to set up a spa date help mend their budding friendship after the joint punishment they received at LWJ's behest. LXC does seem to fancy himself as a bit of a mediator at times, and even used a similar approach to try and help clear up animosity between JGY and NMJ later in the novel. At least this one was more successful I guess! This could also be the reason WWX doesn't go to the cold spring until night-time as well.

“Do not move!” As he spoke, he extended an arm, and put his hand on Wei WuXian’s shoulder. Wei WuXian instantly felt a surge of warmth coming from where their bodies connected. Feeling better, he couldn’t help but to shift closer over there. Lan WangJi was wary of this, “What?” Wei WuXian replied in an innocent tone, “Nothing. It seems like your side is warmer.” Lan WangJi firmly kept his arm between the two of them, maintaining the distance. He sternly declared, “It is not."

I always find this part quite funny, as the adorable 'I do not have physical contact with others' LWJ was just pushed to the point he touched WWXs bare shoulder. LWJ refused to hold onto WWXs hand while saving him from the waterborne abyss, but now he's resorted to physical contact in order to keep WWX away from him - because he's shy. Personally I think the surge of warmth could have a double meaning here. Yes, the water is freezing and of course body warmth would cause this reaction. But considering how WWX subconsciously feels about LWJ, and the chemistry that has been there since they first met - it could also be a reaction to being touched by someone he is evidently attracted to. After the physical contact, WWX continues to gravitate towards LWJ, as he so often does. WWX claims he wants to get closer to him because LWJ's side seems warmer, apparently.

Wei WuXian wanted to get closer to Lan WangJi so that it was more convenient for him to flatter the other. Even though he couldn’t go over and was given the cold shoulder, he wasn’t angered at all. He glanced at Lan WangJi’s palms and shoulder. The bruises were still there, meaning that Lan WangJi really wasn’t here to heal. Wei WuXian spoke sincerely, “Lan Zhan, I admire you so much. You really did punish yourself as well, without treating yourself any better. I don’t have anything else to say.”

Lan WangJi shut his eyes again, without any words. Wei WuXian spoke again, “Really, I’ve never seen someone as prim and proper as you. It’d be impossible for me to do something like this. You’re so cool.”

Lan WangJi still paid him no attention.

WWX has now given two separate reasons as to why he was trying to get closer to LWJ, while they are naked in the cold spring. As we've previously seen, WWX actively uses self deception to rationalise the feelings or actions he is not ready to understand. There are many examples of WWX doing this throughout the novel. WWX actually did something similar when he saw LWJ in the cold spring prior to the Cloud Recesses flashbacks. He tried to rationalise why he was looking at the bathing beauty. So in the above scene, WWX is trying to reason with himself and justify his need to be near LWJ at this moment in time...while they're naked.

WWX goes on to state he wouldn't be able to punish himself if he was in LWJs position - but we know from other parts of the novel that this is not true. WWX actually takes the brunt of the punishment for the other junior disciples at his sect often. Perhaps not always out of choice, but I think he'd probably do it anyway as he's very protective of people he cares about.

What WWX is really impressed with is that LWJ took the punishment alongside him, which no one has ever done before. As we later find out, he's always the one taking all the hits and punishment dished out at Lotus Pier. No one has ever really stepped in to take some of the punishment with him. The joint punishment they received is an important part of the developing relationship (and somewhat unconscious feelings) WWX has for LWJ.

WWX didn't get a reaction from his very sweet and sincere compliments, so he continues to flatter LWJ to try and elicit a response. It is just adorable how much WWX craves LWJ's attention to the point he says 'I don't have anything else to say' after being so sweet - but then continues to praise him anyway!

WWXs compliments are genuine and sincere. He really is in awe of LWJ at this moment when isn't he tbh and his comments are very sweet. But as genuine as they are, this is also a flirting technique, as I've mentioned in a previous post. Complimenting in such a way, is feminine flirting technique that is a way to appease the male ego.

After Wei WuXian stopped feeling cold, he started to swim around the cold spring.

He swum for a while, but still went near Lan WangJi, “Lan Zhan, didn’t you notice what I was doing when I talked to you?” Lan WangJi, “I do not know.” Wei WuXian, “You don’t even know about this? I was complimenting you, trying to become more casual with you.” Lan WangJi glanced at him, “What do you want to do?” Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan, why don’t we become friends? We’re already so familiar.” Lan WangJi, “We are not.”

WWX is yet again gravitating towards LWJ. As LWJ didn't react the way WWX wanted him to, he is trying to justify his compliments. He goes on to admit he was complimenting LWJ, in order for them to become 'friends'. Which I'm sure is what he wants, but subconsciously he wants more than that and doesn't quite understand that although he likes him, it's in a slightly different way to a 'friend'.

Wei WuXian slapped the surface of the water, “Now, you’re being boring again. Really. There are lots of benefits if you become friends with me.” Lan WangJi, “For example?” Wei WuXian swam near the edge of the spring, and leaned back with his arms on the blue rocks, “I’m always really loyal towards my friends. For example, I’d definitely let you be the first person to look at new porn that I get hold of… Hey, hey, come back! It’s fine if you don’t look at them. Have you been to Yunmeng? Yunmeng is really fun. Yunmeng’s food is also good. I don’t know if it’s Gusu’s or the Cloud Recess’s problem, but the food in your sect are so bad. If you come to Lotus Pier, you can eat lots of delicious food. I can take you to pick lotus seed pods and water chestnuts. Lan Zhan, do you wanna come?” Lan WangJi, “No.”

WWX begins to tease LWJ once again, because he has seemingly rejected his advances of striking up a friendship. So he initially jokes about lending LWJ porn, which he knows he would reject. In fact, WWX might have even been trying to get LWJ to get angry here once again - as he definitely got a kick out of it (and he later admits he most certainly does!). LWJ was about to leave because of WWX's teasing, so he quickly changes the subject in order to stop him from leaving. WWX invites LWJ on a date to come and stay with him at Lotus Pier so he can show him around where he lives - which is just utterly adorable! I've already covered some of this in a previous post, so I won't cover it much further here.

I really love this scene as it's nice to see WWX able to talk to LWJ away from JCs disapproval and hostility. It's also outside of the Library Pavilion environment, where he is being punished and LWJ is even more reluctant to talk. It's interesting to see how LWJ is able to converse with him a little more than usual, over their past two interactions. Granted, LWJ didn't say much here. But it's certainly a start! As @parlerenfleurs stated in a recent post, if LWJ had been a little less guarded - I have no doubt WWX would have been enticed into kissing LWJ, if he'd been able to get closer to him.

There is very much a sense of mutual respect and admiration starting to form, alongside their chemistry and physical attraction. Over the past few interactions they have shared, WWX has noticed that LWJ is very strong, perceptive and virtuous. LWJ managed to simultaneously save WWX and the third wheel Su She, pulling them away from the waterborne abyss. In turn, showing the shocking strength of his sword and himself - which certainly impressed WWX. WWX also got to see that LWJ is extremely observant, as he was first to work out the water ghouls were luring them to a waterborne abyss. As stated above, WWX is also incredibly impressed with how virtuous LWJ is, punishing himself as well as WWX. In turn, LWJ got to see how brave and kind he is by saving Su She. He also got to see that WWX is also a skilled cultivator with a keen eye, as he spotted the water ghouls hiding under the boats when no one else did.

I really think this small but sweet scene is a lot more important than some people might think. Once you have read the rest of the novel and extra chapters, this scene becomes even more important in showing the growing feelings that they had for one another from the very beginning. The Lotus Seed Pod extra shows the reader just how much both of them were affected by this small encounter. It's been around a year since they met and they are both still thinking about WWX's invitation to come visit him. Although they are miles apart, they are both pining for each other, thinking of what was said that night at the cold spring.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs novel #mdzs manhua #the Cloud Recesses arc is just perfect #wwx and lwj on a spa date #lxc setting up a spa date for his bro #mdzs meta #its a good job lwj is waist deep in cold water

[wangxianficrecs]

❤️ Across the street to another life by danegen

❤️ Across the street to another life

by danegen

M, 99k, Wangxian

Summary: Wangji stays on the piano bench as they’re closing up. Wei Ying chews his lip, knowing what he’s going to do but horrified at himself. But what’s the alternative: kick the guy out and find him sleeping beside the dumpster in the morning? And that’s if the cops don’t take him in for vagrancy. “Wangji?” Wangji looks up. Please don’t be a serial killer. “So, we’re closing up for the night, but A-Yuan and I live upstairs. Do you want to join us for dinner?” Wangji blinks. His head bobs in what’s probably a yes. “Great!” Fuck. Or a ragged monosyllabic man wearing a collar shows up at Wei Ying's music store. Wei Ying and A-Yuan ask, is anyone going to adopt this guy? And then they don't wait for an answer.

Kay's comments: This story really had me hooked and I could hardly wait for each new chapter. It's a modern AU set in America based on the movie Unleashed. I didn't know the movie and thankfully, that didn't matter, because no knowledge is needed! Wen Ruohan is a crime boss here and Lan Wangji is his top-fighter that he keeps in a cage and collared and uses to commit violence on his enemies and to win illegal fights (he gave me Winter Soldier vibes!). One day, Lan Wangji manages to escape and he gets taken in by Wei Wuxian and his son A-Yua. Cue lots of hurt/comfort, some drama, family feels, tragic pasts, Wangxian getting together and having to deal with Wen Ruohan. Lots of angst and a well-deserved happy ending. Despite the author warning that Lan Wangji is way out of character here, it didn't really feel that way for me. Like, it totally made sense given his circumstances. I really loved the character dynamics in this story. The Jiang parents are divorced for example and now Yu Ziyuan is trying to be a less shitty parent and mostly doing it by bribing her grandchildren with gifts and one of my favourite parts, though he doesn't play that much of a role, is what the author made of Wen Zhuliu, because I'm really weak for him! I also really loved the slow thawing of Lan Wangji and him growing into his new life and finding a place for himself. Mojo's comments: Fucking spectacular, and I'm in a car and not able to make a good bookmark, but DAMN, y'all. Lwj has been kept in a cage and made to fight all his life, and finally slips his chain and sinks into domestic bliss with wwx and a-yuan: learns to read and use a fork and it's beautiful. But of course, his past doesn't want to let him go.

Excerpt: “Was that woman your mother?” Wei Ying’s smile falls. His mouth opens in a pretty O. “Oh, you mean Yu Ziyuan? The one who picked A-Yuan up?” Wangji nods. “No. Well, not really. My mother died when I was about A-Yuan’s age. My father, too. Yu Ziyuan and her husband—well, ex-husband now—raised me after that. More or less.” Wangji nods like he understands and stares down at the counter. He doesn’t know what to call a woman who is sort of a mother but not really. “Where are your parents?” Wei Ying asks. His voice is soft, like he isn’t sure he wants Wangji to hear. “Dead.” He doesn’t remember his parents, but when Wangji was younger, Wen Ruohan told him that he had taken Wangji in after they died. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Wangji doesn’t understand why Wei Ying would apologize. He’s afraid to ask why. “A-Yuan’s mother died, too,” Wei Ying says. When Wangji peeks up at him, Wei Ying has gone back to staring at the computer screen. He isn’t smiling. “She died when he was a baby.” It hadn’t occurred to Wangji that Wei Yuan must have a mother. He knows about mothers, but he’s never actually met one. He doesn’t know what to say, so he says what Wei Ying said: “I’m sorry.”

modern setting, modern no powers, pov alternating, family feels, set in america, based on unleashed (2005), past wei wuxian/others, wei wuxian is lan sizhui's parent, wei yuan, single parent wei wuxian, addition, implied/referenced drug addition, amnesia, ableist language, musicians, angst with a happy ending, found family, @danegen

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #Mojo's Rec #Mojo's Favorite #modern setting #modern no powers #pov alternating #family feels #set in america #based on unleashed (2005) #past wei wuxian/others #wei wuxian is lan sizhui's parent #wei yuan #single parent wei wuxian #addition #implied/referenced drug addition #amnesia #ableist language #musicians #angst with a happy ending #found family #Across the street to another life #danegen #Mature #long fic > 50k

[jasontoddiefor]

Absolutely begging for the trans WWX who’s living her best life as Lady Mo, I’m obsessed with this au

(Also I just want you to know there is now a crack version of this incredible au in my head where upon meeting “Lady Mo” playing Wangxian for Sizhui, Lan Zhan has a full on falls to his knees clutching WWX’s going “you’re as beautiful as the day I lost you” alla HTTYD 2, gets a dramatic (to Sizhui, read confused for WWX) “Lan Zhan!?” in response and the Lan Zhan (in an actual miracle of being able to communicate) goes “I raised A-Yuan all of these years for you, I’ve raised our son into a wonderful cultivator” (the miracle has ended, and WWX is currently bluescreening trying to connect the dots of teen I am traveling with is baby I loved what do you mean our son ooo wait Lan Zhan thinks I’m pretty!)

And thus creates the misunderstanding for Sizhui that “Lady Mo” is actually his apparently not-dead mom who’s apparently been vibing as a wandering musician for the past 13 years. Sizhui goes through the five stages of grief before settling on “I can work with this” as a-niang starts showering him with affection and apparently thought he was dead and thus began Sizhui’s grand scheme of luring his incredibly oblivious mother into marriage with his father and it becomes “unstoppable force vs unmovable object, second times the charm on baby trapping, right?” adventures.

This doesn’t matter but it’s important to me that you know this popped into my head. This au is absolutely incredible and there is so much comedy gold. NHS has been left alone in the group project but he still manages to scramble together enough to pass decently, good for him)

1 (Ao3) | 2 (tumblr)

aaah I'm flattered to hear that!! and tbh, it's not so much that NHS has been left alone in the group project but that he decided on the project and then didn't call anyone to do their parts. never got to write it but i figured the whole reveal would go sth like this:

Gusu doesn't look like Wei Ying remembers it, but it has been decades since her attendance. After the war, well, for all that Lan Zhan had asked her to visit, she'd never accepted it.

And look at her now! Going to the Cloud Recesses voluntarily, accompanied by Lan Zhan's little juniors. They're good kids, polite and inquisitive and opinionated and so very alive. She wondered how much Lan Zhan must have changed in the last years to raise them this well.

What if Wei Ying doesn't recognize him at all? No, that can't be. Lan Zhan was too memorable for Wei Ying to ever forget a single detail about him.

"Just ahead now, Lady Mo," says Lan Sizhui. "I'm not sure if my father is home. He's taken to traveling more...."

He trails off, his face splitting into a smile as he looks ahead. "He's there!"

Wei Ying expects some unfamiliar Lan, but no, standing there is Lan Zhan. He looks older, refined, and happy at their return.

Oh, thinks Wei Ying. I always want him to look at me like that.

Playing the dizi isn't always for pleasure, especially chenqing, summoning all kinds of evil, but the song Lan Zhan taught him is like homecoming. Wei Ying watches in delight as Lan Zhan's eyes widen in recognition, she thinks.

The juniors look at her in wonder, but Wei Ying pulls the dizi from her lips with a smile.

"Lan Zhan!" she calls, "Lan Zhan, I heard you're walking around, clearing my name!" And then, just for pleasure, just for herself, she calls his name again. "Lan Zhan, I've been traveling! I've seen the world and it's alive."

I'm alive, I'm here, won't you ask me to come with you a final time?

Wei Ying can't place Lan Zhan's expression until it breaks into something hopeful, something grieving, something lost.

"Wei Ying?"

#the untamed #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lan sizhui #ask #anon #fanfic

[nighttimeebony]

My personal headcanons/interpretations of the physical differences between Wei Wuxian's original body and Mo Xuanyu's body.

Wei Wuxian's original body:

Tall, broad shoulders, and a very athletic build with a lot of toned muscle

Fine, wavy hair texture

Ink-black hair

Black eyes

Sharp facial features with high cheekbones and cat-like eyes

Long fingers

More of a tanned skin tone because of all the sun he gets at Lotus Pier

Scars on his hands, wrists, and fingers from getting bitten by dogs when he would take food from them

I imagine that wwx would have a lot of little scars from playing rough as a kid, tiny thin slashes of silver scattered throughout his body

WWX's body was built for strength, but not necessarily for endurance

An inhumanly high pain tolerance

Has a chipped tooth near the back of his mouth that you could only see when he smiled wide enough

Dimples

Freckles that become more prominent when he gets more sun, but are especially concentrated on his shoulders and the back of his neck

Mo Xuanyu's body:

Short and skinny from malnutrition; probably has like 50 different kinds of vitamin deficiencies

Paler complexion, almost pasty

Thicker hair texture, which makes it look fluffier, and more unruly; it's a pain in the ass to take care of; #1 in the world for worst bed-head, gets tangled like you wouldn't believe

Delicate, more "feminine"-looking facial features, like wider eyes, Cupid's bow lips, and an overall softer-looking face

Gray eyes

Dark brown hair

Much more flexible, can probably twist himself into a pretzel whenever he gets bored

Prone to undereye shadows from poor sleep

Body better built for stamina once it gets better trained; even when he does get more muscles, it's more wirey than shredded; slender and lean

Low pain tolerance

Poor circulation and is more prone to get cold

Lightweight drinker, much to his dismay

Nose is crooked from getting broken at least once

Probably has anemia; bruises very easily

Has a couple moles scattered along his body

MXY definitely has the better ass

Both wwx and mxy have a complicated relationship with food and hunger, but mxy's body especially has gotten so used to running on little food that wwx (in mxy's body) has a hard time recognizing when he's hungry until he nearly passes out from lack of energy. I imagine that thanks to being adopted by the Jiangs and being taken care of by his siblings, over time, wwx's body was able to recover from running on starvation mode 24/7, while mxy was never able to have that recovery period, so his body is still accustomed to operating on little to no food.

I imagine that wwx and mxy are like two different kinds of goth; different shades of creepy, and beautiful in different ways. wwx would be more like a vampire, while mxy would channel antique haunted doll; sharp and powerful vs soft and delicate. wwx in his original body is the danger you expect, the danger you run from on sight, while wei ying in mxy's body is underestimated, unexpected, the kind of danger you would never see coming until it's too late.

If you're like me and also enjoy stories that involve Wei Ying adjusting to life in his new body, then here are some fics with that exact premise:

Saw My Life in a Stranger's Face

the soft animal

Notes on a Resurrection

we are here

#as much as i love the donghua and the live action #i feel like neither of them capitalized on the differences between wwx and mxy's bodies #in my opinion it kind of takes away a lot of the weight of wwx now having to live out the rest of his life in a body that isn't his #and what it would be like to have to get used to that #i dont know but this is a story premise that's very intriguing to me both as a writer and a reader #mdzs #wei wuxian #mo xuanyu #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mo dao zu shi

[stoopid-turtle]

BTS in Order Addendum 2

Second and final addendum for rn! This covers the translated bts clips for June that I found. Sadly, the playlist did not have July or Aug, so I can't go over those. If I ever do find July and Aug, I'll try to add it on.

As before, the timeline posts are already updated. I'm just highlighting some things here for those who don't want to hunt for the updates. Also, I tried to clean up some of the formatting but y'all, the formatting on Tumblr is just weird. I can't figure it out and I'm not gonna invest the time to do so, so I've done my best!

I can see where the WZC/GG pairing came from. GG and WZC seem quite close, often playful, and similarly physically affectionate to ggdd. Their dynamic is different, but I can def see how people could pull together a compilation of their bts clips for CPFs. (Not saying they were a real couple, like ggdd.)

Madam Jin did not seem to realize she was cast in a bl adaption.

There's much mentioned of dd's afterglow on 6.19 after the Dragon Boat Festival date, but I've never seen anyone mention that GG is also in a really great mood the next day. His first scene is in the forest with JC and JL, and he's all smiles and says, "I'm so happy this early morning. I really love my team."

JC says "Happy? What nonsense!" For some reason, this sets gg off on the giggles.

Needless to say, GG had his own afterglow.

Also on 6.19, there's this cute exchange between gg and the older lady producer (?), who is also from Chongqing:

Crewmember: So many beauties come from Chongqing. GG: I'm beautiful. Producer lady: More beautiful than me? GG: How can that be? Can't compare!

And then, a couple days later on 6.23, when dd is still gone, gg is in a hellishly rotten mood. He's visibly moody and unresponsive to xl and JC, both of whom try to cheer him up. At one point, he asks someone (his assistant?) if he has any crying scenes that day. And later he says, "Remember this feeling. After a month, when filming, definitely will..." I think he says something more to XL here, but I guess it was too quiet for the translator to hear. The implication to me is that he's gonna try to bring up the experience of his feelings in later scenes when WWX is having similar feelings.

Not everything with regards to the boys has to be about ggdd, so it's possible that gg's bad mood is bc of something else going on in his life. Family, friends, something with his company, politics, a stranger being a jerk, whatever. DD's one possibility among many. I did check out what dd was doing on 6.23 and 6.22, and he's on Produce 101, where he looks as DD (with a mullet) as ever. But there aren't any bts or unscripted clips of him where he might reveal a similar mood, so it's hard to say anything.

So basically, make of gg's bad mood what you will. It could be literally anything.

I need to talk about JC's fake butt

So the clip on 6.25, with JZX, Mianmian, dd, XL, and gg all chatting starts with them talking about JC wearing a "fake butt". I'm guessing butt padding? Some highlights:

DD is confused because he's "not even wearing jeans", to which gg asks if it makes sense to wear a fake butt in jeans.

The "reason" why JC wears this is apparently only known to XL and GG. XL refuses to explain.

GG says if she doesn't explain, dd will just walk up to JC and ask him, "JC, you wear a fake butt?"

Poor WZC did seem a bit put-upon on the set.

Also, unrelated, dd thinks sweat is sexy.

Also, the nasal spray that got passed around: looked sus, but not actually that sus. It's a Thai herbal nasal inhaler, which apparently looks a lot like people doing some uppers. (So much so that gg chastises the cameraman for filming it and XL turns her back to do it)

Also also, gg's rotten mood is gone. The clip on 6.23 of him being in a bad mood is only about 5 min long, and there's only a 45sec clip for 6.24. So basically, we have no idea what might have cheered him up and there are almost a full 2 days of stuff we know nothing about.

#bjyx #yizhan #the timeline of ggdd love yue #poor jc #but why the fake butt tho?

[gravitywonagain]

rounding out my depressing little triptych with lwj's pov

[dialog only] [wwx's pov]

[M, 4k, 1/1, Wangxian]

Tags: Major Character Death, suicide, suicide by zhiji (but, like, softly?), time travel, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt, I’m not going to lie this is all angst, not a happy ending (i’ve added a tiny consolation ending but it’s not really enough here)

--

There is a cave. Lan Wangji spotted it as he flew to Yiling once, so long ago. Too long ago. Maybe if he’d returned earlier, maybe if he’d stayed--

There is a cave. 

Lan Wangji knows his core is spinning low; he feels the pulse of it struggling through his meridians, qi sluggish and dwindling. His body droops, too heavy for his bones to carry. Bichen’s tip wavers where he points it. The descent, when he makes it, is fast. 

In his arms, Wei Ying is light as feathers. 

The cave is easy enough to find. Too easy, probably, to be safe for very long. But it’s his only option now. 

They cannot go back to Yiling. They cannot seek refuge among any of the sects, even his own. They cannot hide within a town, among people who could be hurt by the black, curling resentment leaking out of Wei Ying’s skin. And he could not leave Wei Ying where he was to die. 

The cave is deeper than Lan Wangji had anticipated, which is good. He carries Wei Ying inside, steps light and as even as he can make them. 

Darkness swallows them whole. 

He lays Wei Ying gently down upon the rough stone floor. Considers pillowing Wei Ying’s head in his lap -- like the last time they were in a dark cave together, qi and confessions flowing between them. But he doesn’t have the qi to spare this time. Depleted. He’ll have to settle for confessions alone. 

Somewhere deeper in, water drips into a pool. The sound of it bounces off the stone, echoing along the tunnels. 

Lan Wangji folds himself into a meditative pose and times his breath with the rhythm of it. If he can rebuild some of his spent qi, he can pass some to Wei Ying. He can protect Wei Ying if others find them here. He can get Wei Ying out, hide him somewhere--

“Did you see them, Lan Zhan? Did you see?”

He hadn’t noticed Wei Ying waking. Hadn’t heard the change in his breath, or pulse. Both are still so slow. So deathly slow. 

“Wei Ying--”

“United in their hate.”

Wei Ying sounds so tired. So fed up with the world, and who would blame him for it? 

Well… 

Lan Wangji feels anger and remorse thick in his throat. He says, “Let me--” But Wei Ying cuts him off again. 

“But they were united.”

He sighs with something that sounds like… hope. Relief, perhaps. Which makes little sense. 

“Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying shifts, turning to look at Lan Wangji, his smile barely visible through the blood and bruises in the low light of the cave. It is still the most beautiful expression Lan Wangji has ever seen. 

His voice is softer when he says, “It doesn’t work if there’s no villain, Lan Zhan. This world doesn’t work if there’s no one to hate.”

United, he’d said. 

But it still doesn’t make sense. With no other recourse, Lan Wangji says as much, “I don’t understand.”

But Wei Ying doesn’t answer him this time. He doesn’t explain. He rolls his head so his eyes are pointed up at the cave ceiling. 

“You should go,” he says, as if that was something Lan Wangji could do. “Leave me. They’ll only hurt you if they find you here.” As if that was some unexpected outcome, a deterrent to staying by Wei Ying’s side. 

“I won’t leave you.”

A harsh, rasping breath breaks in Wei Ying’s throat -- not unlike a laugh, yet so unlike the laugh that lives in Lan Wangji’s dreams. “So stubborn, Lan Zhan. So good. Always so good.”

Lan Wangji feels his blood beat in the tips of his ears. It is Wei Ying, not Lan Wangji, who is good. But to hear him say it… 

“Wei Ying, I--”

Again, Wei Ying interrupts him. 

“At least Shijie is alive this time.”

It’s an odd turn of phrase that catches Lan Wangji’s attention. 

“This time?”

In the darkness, Lan Wangji watches Wei Ying’s eyes fall closed. It’s not unlike the way Brother shuts out the world when it is too much, too harsh, too fast. 

The silence between them stretches, broken only by the steady dripping of water that continues to echo, like a clock that counts down the dwindling moments they have left. Like this, time flows too fast, trickling away between breaths and heart beats. Still, Lan Wangji waits. He does not push Wei Ying to answer him. He’s not even really sure what his question is. 

“Yes,” Wei Ying says, at last. 

Another rasping rattle of a laugh. 

That weary exhaustion hangs heavy in his voice as he turns his head to regard Lan Wangji once more. “Oh, Lan Zhan, I’ve done this so many times. I’m so tired.”

The first… Lan Wangji has no idea how to decipher. It sounds confused, mad, nonsensical. Yet Wei Ying says it with perfect lucidity. Whatever it means, he seems to believe it enough to be weary of it in a way that pierces bone. 

But the second: This, at least, Lan Wangji can help assuage. 

“Rest. I will be here.”

Wei Ying squirms against the stone where he lays. Contrary, as ever. 

Lan Wangji aches to take him into his arms, to hold him close and keep him safe. His old desire, his avarice, gnaws at the base of his breastbone. But he knows now that Wei Ying will not come to him willingly, and Lan Wangji will never cage him, even for his own safety. 

“They’re coming,” Wei Ying’s throat sounds full of gravel. But his words are timely -- a reminder that any cage Lan Wangji might offer is no longer an option anyway. They both know who they are. And Wei Ying is right. Still right as he continues, “They’ll be here soon. They’ll take you.” But then, “You should let them take you.”

Something like fury rises in Lan Wangji’s blood. Growling and thrashing in his gut. “I will not le--”

“A'Yuan needs you, Lan Zhan.” Lan Wangji’s blood freezes. “Let them take you.”

Wei Ying doesn’t plead with him, and Lan Wangji doesn’t know whether he should feel grateful for that or not. He would not be capable of refusing him if he pleaded. 

He may not be capable of refusing him anyway. 

“Wei Ying?”

“It’s okay. I– Like I said,” Wei Ying smiles, small but sincere, “it doesn’t work if there’s no villain.”

Lan Wangji thinks he’s beginning to understand. But, “Why you?”

“If not me, then who?”

Tears burn behind Lan Wangji’s eyes. Because of course Wei Ying would offer himself up for this. For this, for the Wen remnants, for any cause deemed worthy and right. He is still that beautiful boy who painted a rabbit on a lantern and pledged his life to protecting the weak and standing with justice. 

Lan Wangji holds the tears at bay with clenched fists. “Not you.”

It works, if only just. If only simply delaying the inevitable. But then, all of this is simply delaying the inevitable, isn’t it. A brief respite. The world will not change while Wei Ying and Lan Wangji are hiding away in this cave. 

Wei Ying inhales -- a ghastly sound, wet and ragged and rattling. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. I know.” Lan Wangji’s heart leaps into his throat, and Wei Ying says, again, gently, soothing, “I know. You’ve stayed with me before.”

“Before?”

It’s that strange tense again. Does he mean the cave with the false xuanwu? 

“Yes. You’re always so good. Too good. They hurt you when you fight. Don’t-- Don’t let them hurt you. A'Yuan needs you.”

“A'Yuan?”

It’s the second time Wei Ying has mentioned him. The boy who brought a smile to Wei Ying’s eyes. Who wrapped himself around Lan Wangji’s leg, full-bodied with trust and wide-eyed with wonder. 

“He needs you to raise him,” Wei Ying says, latching on to whatever it is he hears in Lan Wangji’s voice. “I know you’ll take such good care of him, Lan Zhan. You always do.”

This time. Before. Always.

“Wei Ying, I don’t understand.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

It’s nothing, meaningless, but it soothes him all the same. 

This man. This beautiful, brave, brilliant man. The light is low, but Lan Wangji can still see the radiance shining out of this man he loves. 

The time continues to drip away from him, from them both. He made a confession once, in a cave like this. But whether Wei Ying heard it, grasped it, understood it… Remembers it. Lan Wangji doesn’t believe he’ll have many more chances after this. 

“Please,” he says, “Wei Ying, I--”

“Don’t say it.” It’s almost a sob. As much of a sob as Wei Ying’s broken body can manage, Lan Wangji would guess. “Don’t say it, Lan Zhan. It only hurts more if you say it. If I-- Don’t say it.”

Of course. He already said he knows, after all. 

The ache is less than he imagined it would be. He swallows it down. 

“Okay. Okay, Wei Ying.”

“Let them take you. When they come, just go with them. Don’t fight.”

Obstinance returns, a welcome distraction. 

“They will kill you.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t--”

“You must.” Lan Wangji wants to throttle him, just so he stops interrupting. 

“They need a villain,” Wei Ying repeats. “They don’t need two. But if you stay with me, if you fight them for me, that is what you become. A'Yuan needs you.”

His voice breaks over A’Yuan’s name, and Lan Wangji breaks for him again. 

“Okay. Okay, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying moves slowly. His sleeve drags against the stone, a strangely soft sound for the roughness of the materials making it. 

He reaches toward Lan Wangji and asks, “Hold my hand?”

“But--”

“I only said not to say it. Not that it’s unwelcome.”

His touch is surprisingly warm. Lan Wangji laces their fingers together and traces the lines of Wei Ying’s veins with his other hand.

“Wei Ying--” he tries again, but Wei Ying shushes him. 

“Hush now, Lan Zhan. Just hold me. They’ll be here soon.”

It’s cold, in the cave. With his core depleted, Lan Wangji feels it seeping in through the many layers of his robes. He hurts -- everywhere. His heart, certainly, but there’s the ache of overtaxed muscles as well, and the nettle-bite of a hundred tiny cuts, partially healed and stinging for it. 

He thinks he will hurt much more before the night is through. 

Wei Ying’s breath is shallow and murky, but it’s even. His pulse is weak beneath his pale, thin skin. Resentment bleeds from somewhere under his robes, spilling sluggishly and sapping whatever remains of Wei Ying’s warmth. 

He’s dying, Lan Wangji knows. He’s dying, and there’s nothing Lan Wangji can do to save him. 

So Lan Wangji turns his mind to other problems. The other thing, the tenses that seem out of place, but possibly are not. 

Wei Ying is ingenious. He has created things -- terrible, powerful things -- that no one had imagined, that now everyone clamors for. If anyone could… what? Reverse the flow of time? Step in and out of the stream, perhaps? It would be him. 

“If you’ve done this before,” Lan Wangji asks, “why not fix it? Why not live?”

Wei Ying does not seem surprised by the question. But, if he’s done this before, perhaps he answered it before. Perhaps none of this is new to him. 

“It doesn’t work,” Wei Ying sighs. “It all falls apart. The clans fall to each other if not to Wen Ruohan. They need--”

“A villain. So you’ve said.” Lan Wangji can’t stand to hear the easy acceptance in Wei Ying’s voice as he repeats the brand again. 

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying’s lungs fail to contain his excitement, and he coughs wetly around what might have been a laugh. He says, “Interrupting me, so bold!”

Which is truly--

“I am trying to understand.”

“I know. I know. There’s no time. Which will be very funny to you later. Nothing but time. Maybe I will see you again, Lan Zhan.”

And maybe he will, but will Lan Wangji see Wei Ying again? If they’ve done this all before, what happens to Lan Wangji when Wei Ying starts over? He certainly has no memory of this. Where does Wei Ying begin again? Is it even the same stream in time, or simply another branch in the watershed? 

These questions and more pile up in Lan Wangji’s throat, too thick to speak through. 

In the end, they don’t matter because, “They will kill you.”

“Yes. Yes, and you should let them. So you can save A'Yuan.” A’Yuan, again. 

Wei Ying turns away from him, then. He doesn’t pull his hand back, and Lan Wangji finds he is pathetically grateful for this small comfort allowed to him. 

“Maybe,” Wei Ying says, “maybe you can make them all see. Make them open their eyes in the Burial Mounds. Make them see who it is they’re running through.”

The Burial Mounds. The Wens. The tiny village of broken men and women who have drawn life from a mountain made of death. 

Lan Wangji cannot fathom why the sects would besiege such a place, yet he knows that they must. That they’ve been threatening it for months. And now that Wei Ying is injured, now that his general has burned, now that his power source has shattered to pieces and the Burial Mounds are left defenseless… Now, he supposes, they must. Or else allow themselves to be called cowards by those who desire power more than justice. 

And Wei Ying has done this before. 

He brings their entwined hands to his mouth, but stops before he can touch his lips to Wei Ying’s skin. Not unwelcome, but not welcome, either. 

“Why can’t we show them together, Wei Ying? Why?”

“It doesn’t work. It’s too late for me. You saw what I did to them. You saw the monster I’ve become.”

The monster they made him into. It was their own hunger for the Yin Tiger Seal that drove Wei Ying to destroy it. The chaos that rained down, a disaster brought about by their greed, their prejudice, their failure to see Wei Ying and all that he was and cherish him as he deserved. 

Lan Wangji’s own failure. 

“Wei Ying--”

“I asked you to kill me once. If I was too far gone. Do you remember that?”

Lan Wangji freezes, his blood thickens and slows like ice in his veins. 

Of course he remembers. That night haunts him, will forever haunt him, now. The night he should have pulled himself up onto a horse and rode with them. The night he should have trusted Wei Ying. Should have protected him. 

His jaw barely moves, “I do.”

“Would you do it now?”

“Wei Ying?!” Lan Wangji jumps to his feet, dropping Wei Ying’s hand and immediately missing the touch. But he cannot-- He cannot. 

“I know,” Wei Ying says, a rueful edge to his tone. “You’re too good, Lan Zhan. You never agree to that.”

This time. Before. Always. Never. 

“Wei Ying, please.” Lan Wangji cannot hold the whine in his throat. 

“I could make you.”

There’s something in Wei Ying’s voice when he says it. Something malicious. 

No. Venomous. 

It is not evil. Wei Ying is not evil. He is good, sunlight, righteousness. 

Even the black and white banded snake strikes only in defense, or in hunger. Which is this, Lan Wangji wonders. Defense, or hunger?

“Wei Ying?”

“I could make you kill me,” he says, the venom thick on his tongue. “I haven’t tried that before. You would be the hero, then maybe you could stop the slaughter.”

“You are not a villain, Wei Ying!” His voice sounds harsh to his own ears. It ricochets off the stone walls like a rock slide in a canyon. Loud, crashing, and trembling. 

“I am,” Wei Ying presses. “I’m a monster, haven’t you heard? A demon. You would be venerated for putting me down.”

Wei Ying’s eyes -- clever and cruel -- begin to take on that eerie red hue, and Lan Wangji can’t stand it. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what else he can do. He has tried listening, he has tried confessing, he has tried arguing. None of it makes a difference. 

The tears he’s held back begin to burn once more. Insistent. Desperate. 

His body moves for him, seeking comfort in penance as it has over and over again. He spreads his skirts and kneels on the uneven stone. 

The stone is colder now, like the cold of snow over gentian blooms. It is rough and rugged like gravel. 

But he remembers that kneeling alone has never worked before. Kneeling alone has brought him nothing but absolution -- a release from the punishment, but not release from longing, not release from his own ruthless hunger. 

His mouth moves for him, “Please…”

He watches his tears fall, the curve of them catching whatever light is left in this cave. They shine like diamonds. 

“Please, Wei Ying…” 

They are as useless to him as diamonds. 

“It would crush you to do it, I know.” 

The ice in Wei Ying’s voice thaws a little. But Lan Wangji can see determination still flickering in his eyes. The red has faded, at least. The silver seems dulled with exhaustion. 

“We could do it together,” Wei Ying offers, “you and I. Draw your sword, Lan Zhan.”

“No.”

Lan Wangji tucks his fingers into fists and squeezes tight. It’s all he can do not to scream. Not to rage. Not to flee. 

“Lan Zhan, they’ll kill me either way. Let me die like this: in your arms, with you by my side.”

“I can’t--”

“A quick slide, right through my ribs. It will be almost peaceful this way.”

Almost peaceful --

“No!”

“You can hold me.” 

Lan Wangji feels the offer like a slap. He closes his eyes against it, against the want that curls in him even now. Even like this. 

“They’ll praise you for it.” Wei Ying knows him well enough to sound sorry about it. “You’ll hate that, but then the spoils will be yours. You can claim them. It could work, Lan Zhan.”

The spoils. The Wens. A’Yuan. As if anyone would allow him this. As if he wouldn’t have to wrench it from their greedy, grasping hands. 

“Wei Ying, please do not ask this of me.”

“It’s too much. I know. I know, Zhiji.”

Zhiji. I still am. 

Lan Wangji knows he’s being placated, but he doesn’t care. He grasps at the word -- the acknowledgment -- with both hands. He clutches them into Wei Ying’s bloody robes. 

“Zhiji. Zhiyin. Wei Ying.”

It still feels exhilarating to say. To speak into existence. Into memory. 

“You would do it if I asked you to. I know you would.” 

He would. It’s true. 

What does that make him? A monster? A fool? 

Tears stream down Lan Wangji’s face. He can feel their tracks on his cheeks. A deluge, unstoppable. Unimportant. 

Wei Ying bites his lip, turning it even paler around the dull edges of his teeth. 

“But is that something I can let myself ask of you? Is it too cruel? To make you bear this with me? To make you take some of the weight.”

He isn’t asking Lan Wangji. Not really. He’s thinking through a problem. Lan Wangji’s input is neither required nor requested. His opinion, his desire, is known. 

Lan Wangji begs anyway. 

“Please, don’t… Please, Wei Ying.”

Even as he does, he knows. He knows how this will end and he hates himself for it. He wishes, just for a moment, that he could be like his father. That he could say, No. You’re coming with me. I will keep you safe, whether you like it or not. 

But he can’t. 

Wei Ying is right. There are only so many ways forward. This one… This one could save lives. Possibly. Potentially. 

It’s excruciating. Like tilling soil on a mountain of bones. 

“Draw your sword, Lan Zhan.”

Bichen comes easy to his hands, once he’s untwisted them from Wei Ying’s robes. The white of the scabbard is too clean, too bright, for this place. The blade, too pure. 

“Wei Ying.”

“Good. Good. It’ll be quick. So quick.”

Lan Wangji knows well the speed at which life can drain from a body. 

He helps Wei Ying sit up as he slides himself down. Wei Ying is still far too thin, but the weight of him as he settles back against Lan Wangji’s chest is grounding. Lan Wangji tries to focus on that. On the places he and Wei Ying are pressed together. An embrace. A last comfort for Lan Wangji to hold onto. 

“Don’t worry,”Wei Ying says, “they’ll be here soon. They’ll see. They’ll help you. Your brother will help you.” 

Bichen’s tip settles easily -- too easily -- between the ladder-rungs of Wei Ying’s ribs. The blue light lends a sickly hue to Wei Ying’s pallor, but catches in his eyes like cold, crisp winter mornings. 

“Yes, right there.” 

The angle -- the angle that will kill Wei Ying with the least pain, the least suffering, the-- the fastest… It strains at Lan Wangji’s shoulder and elbow. He doesn’t have the qi to spend to hold Bichen with only his core. He has to use his hand. 

He has to use his hand. For this. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. It’s okay. It’s okay if it’s you.”

“This is not--”

“I know. I know. Just hold me.”

This is not what they meant when they said this in the rain. Either of them. This is not what they wanted when they came to this cave. Either of them. 

But Wei Ying believes it will work, and Lan Wangji trusts Wei Ying. 

He wishes--

No. The time for wishes has passed. But there is, perhaps, time left one thing. 

“Wei Ying?”

“Yes, Lan Zhan?”

“May I say it.”

“Ha. Yes, Lan Zhan. I think. I think I’d like to hear it.”

“I love you, Wei Ying.”

“I know. I love you, too, Lan Zhan.”

“I know.”

And he finds he does know. Because as much as he trusts Wei Ying, Wei Ying is trusting him, too. He is here. In Lan Wangji’s arms. Ready to die. Ready for Lan Wangji to kill him. Because it is right. This time. 

Lan Wangji’s tears spill onto Wei Ying’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. Deep breath. That’s it. It’s okay. It will be okay.”

“What’s that?”

But he knows. 

“Footsteps. They’re almost here.”

Lan Wangji nods. 

Wei Ying starts to beg. 

“Lan Zhan, please. You can do it. Please. Lan Zh--”

A short slide. 

“Wei Ying.”

The only light in the world goes out. 

--

“Wei Ying.”

.

“I love you.”

.

“I’m here.”

.

.

.

When his family enters the cavern, they bring with them talismans of light. Dozens of elders follow behind Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren, but Lan Wangji only really sees his brother. 

“Wangji?”

A sob cracks its way out of Lan Wangji’s chest. 

“Xiongzhang. He’s gone.”

Lan Xichen is gracious. His eyes don’t stray from Lan Wangji’s. Not to Wei Ying’s body, or the way Lan Wangji is clutching at it. Not to Bichen, dropped numbly to the ground, blood, red and glistening, wetting several inches at the tip. 

Not even to Lan Wangji’s bare forehead. Or to the ribbon wrapped -- too hastily, too late -- around Wei Ying’s wrist. 

He lets their uncle, their elders, witness those things. 

Lan Xichen simply kneels down before his brother and whispers, “Oh, Wangji.”

--

(Lan Wangji's love is kept secret. His vanquishing of the evil Yiling Laozu turned legend. He retreats from the world and builds a home for the Wens, this time on a mountain that is already green with life and rich with promise.)

(He wanders in the forgotten places, the places that do not know him. And he teaches his son that rumor is not to be trusted.)

(Lan Wangji will never be more grateful that Wei Ying didn't ask him to sing again as he is when he hears their song played on a poorly cut flute and thinks only of life, survival, and love.)

#lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #fanfiction #mdzs #major character death #suicide #suicide by zhiji (but like softly) #time travel au #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #on both sides #angst #not a happy ending #except for that tiny bit at the end #not a fix it but not not a fix it #canon-divergent au #yeah this is mostly just pain that needed to be rounded out with lwj's pov #i have no excuses #enjoy #my writing #a necessary evil (begging) #first draft as always #i think i'm gonna get bold and post all three of these on ao3 for the thing! #but maybe some edits first......

[aurorablackwei]

Ok so,

Fem!Wangxian, where they live like canon women in the novel, and WWX has some privileges like being a rarely First Discipule, and goes to CR but study in the female side, and of course there is LWJ who is a a not good example for other women, because she doesn't smile, she enjoy silence, but in a woman who must look for a husband is not a good attitude.

So the both of them got similar experiencies and make best friends really fast, both are better that a lot of men, LQR left LWJ to LXC because he didn't know what to do with a girl. And LXC who spot his meimei.

Both LXC and JFM promises to not negotiate married, one wanna be free and fall in love like her parents and doesn't want to marry JC who is the only option, and LWJ makes LXC promises because she doesn't really like man, they are gross and stupid and if someone try to touch her again she's gonna shop his hand's off.

Canon happens, WC try to rape WWX but he can't. Then Phoenix hunt, LWJ kisses WWX but WWX discover her. Then JZxun say his uncle wanna claim WWX for the Jins, it doesn't matter it is like JGS or JZX concubine or better JZXun wife. Meanwhile JGY try to talk with Xichen about marry LWJ with himself, so when LWJ go with the idea (with a broken heart) maybe Xichen will marry WWX and protect her, Xichen proposes to marry LWJ with JGY, she feel really betrayed and leaves.

So, that nigth, LWJ and WWX talk and accepts to leaves their sect with the only man that can protect and both can accepts them

NHS accepts, because he is no stupid, and when two of the most beautiful women of his world proposes to marry him there is just ome thing to do. Accepts

NHS is asexual for me, maybe a little vouyer, so they have sex, just for babies and he look sometimes, because their two wives are beautiful, and he sees their marrieage in secret.

So, the 3 of them go to a Nie, Lan, Jin and Jiang doctor who can said the truth about the two ladies virginity and run, saves the Wen and have a lot of sex, because the best is if the two are pregnant. (They go to doctor because the Jins spread the rumour about WWX and Wen chao, it doesn't matter if she didn't wanted)

Nie Mingjue run after his brother because JC and LX want to kill him. They do this in secret, so nobody really knows what is happening, just the 3 of them leaves the conference.

They found them in a Inn naked, so NHS and WWX were hiding behind LWJ, because for me she is always a really tall and strong woman (just think in Tiane Endler physics, I mean her arms)

And then married. WWX was pregnant from A Yuan, Nie heir and later another babies, because she loves be pregnant and be take cared for LWJ and NHS who is a great husband and love a lot his wives in a platonic way. LWY was pregnant just one time, after their marriage, she doesn't really like the sex with NHS even if his husband and wife make all comfortable for her. So LJY born, and yes, he was raised for WWX for the real pain of LQR who just wants LSZ like heir, but Xichen refuses to married and spot his sister's son, all of them, because all of WWX children are from LWJ too.

Meanwhile, NMJ protects all of his little gremlins, and love them. Obviously he don't die.

P.D.: Sorry for my english

#wangxian family #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #female wangxian #female wei wuxian #female lan wangji #genderbend #rule 63 #nie huaisang

[lil0-0blume]

I want to learn how to make edits because I have a list of Lana del Rey songs for every couple that I ship on the mxtx universe (and also for characters alone) but I don’t even know how to start… 🫠🫠

(I already edited before but only some silly things 😭😭)

List of the couples here if anyone is interested:

- HuaLian: Young and Beautiful (Classic, romantic, them)

-Wangxian: Summetime sadness (pls don’t kill me)

-Bingqiu: ArtDeco (like… the vibe?? Just-)

-Moshang: Playing Dangerous (For me, Sqh flirting is something like this -when he’s not afraid ofc)

-Beefleaf: Freak (trust meeee)

-YinZhen: Sad Girl (I’m not afraid to speak the word!!)

-XueXiao: Dark Paradise (Literally died for then, my Roman Empire)

-YueJiu: Cinnamon Girl (the definition of deserved better)

-FengQing: Diet Mountain Dew (THEM. JUST THEM.)

-Bingjiu: Ultraviolence (Got the hots for them but they also deserved better, to god -mxtx- they weren’t her favorite at all lol)

-JunMei: Fishtail (“this is an work of art” seriously, the “You’ll braid my hair” is literally how I envision them in the future, healing, together)

-Niecest: Lust for life (Like you heard that??? The “but my boyfriend’s back… and he’s cooler than ever…” - You cannot convince me otherwise it isn’t them!!!!)

List for the characters:

Binghe: Jealous girl (he was the easiest one for me and I don’t have to explain myself… BE AGGRESSIVE BE- )

Hua Cheng: Cherry (It just reminds me of him!! He really does fall to pieces many times on the story, literally, psychologically and emotionally, in good and bad ways…)

Lan Wangji: Serial killer/Happiness is a butterfly (Suprised for the first one?? Well, for me it’s about the intensity in his love, the type of doing anything and everything for the one he loves… I swear he’s just so dramatic and its just captures his teen phase of ‘first love and I don’t know what to do about it so I’ll just fantasy’ About the second… His time with his love in the first live was short and not completely well lived with so much problems and yet, and yet… he found happiness, also the “if he’s a serial killer than what’s the worst” just fits with the fact that he did in fact tried to save Wwx even against all the things others talked about him, regardless of the truth, he does what he needs to for who he needs… “Looking into his eyes I think he’s already hurt” IM SO SORRY I CANT LIE)

Shen Jiu: Born to die (like I’m not even trying to hurt anyone here but I know it hurts…)

Shen Qingqiu: Doin Time (Why?? Like, “the living is ease” vibe and the sudden “I’ve come to tell you that she’s evil” just reminds me to much of the fact that he’s the “villain”!! And I just imagined the “Louie” in the song as Sqh so much anyway)

Xie Lian: Brooklyn Baby (I don’t think I have to explain this one also right… the fans go “Yeah my boyfriend’s pretty cool… but he’s not as cool as me…” and also, “Baby I’m a gangsta too and takes two the tango” gets me thinking of two different sceneries, a dance with Hua Cheng as his flower and a dance with words representing his martial god nature)

Wei Wuxian: Salvatore (Salvatore is just him, really, the vibe of, like, even if you’re being murdered, you’re smiling and you’re smiling cause you know that, some way, you’ve just fucking won, of being on a serious situation and taking it lightly because is just his way to do things but at same time not as a mockery or a joke to all the suffering, the pain, but rather, an acceptance with a smile… oh gosh what a ride)

Mobei Jun: Black Beauty (like referring to a cold, untouchable beauty like himself, because honestly, life is beautiful but it took a while for him to see the colors but he managed to find his light, or, his “sparrow blue”…)

Shan Qinghua: Meet me at the pale moonlight (I swear, even if doesn’t make sense, for me, his “pale moonlight” is Mobei Jun… but seriously?? The “I’m the sweetest girl in town so why are you so mean?” part FR FR WTH that’s his life you’re singing about Lana)

Xue Yang: Blue Jeans (“Love’s mean… and love hurts” to “I’ll love till the end of times… I’ll wait a million years” is honestly just what he did and also that slightly possessive part “promise you’ll remember that you’re mine” inspired by his insecurities and regrets, only because he was afraid to lose him… couldn’t get any sadder)

Xiao Xingchen: Margaret (In another word yes, yes it could get sadder… He’s just so good… “It kind makes me laugh”, Ah I just keep reminding that scene where he’s with XY, laughing because he’s the easy laugh type of person… And also the “the soul that you bring to the table” I just like to interpret that in a way that he made a family out a villain and homeless distrusting girl and that the “soul” spoken off on the song it’s theirs, how they find “soul” in there, in themselves, in each other…)

Anyway

…Any tips on video edition…? 👀👀

#tgcf #svss #mdzs #hualian #wangxian #bingqiu #moshang #beefleaf #YinZhen #XueXiao #YueJiu #FengQing #BingJiu #junmei #niecest #lana del rey

[symphonyofsilence]

I am ready for the conversation about WWX crushing on JGY. Please elaborate 👉👈

I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!

Finally the day has come! Here we go!

First of all, this flirting here as JGY has a guqin string to WWX's throat! WWX My man may be discovering new kinks! The chemistry is off the charts! LWJ & LXC wished they could flirt like this!

"I think it's best if Young Master Wei stops right there. It's nothing if your flute's broken, but if your tongue or your fingers went missing, it'd be such a shame."

Wei WuXian immediately put his hand away, agreeing, "You make so much sense."

The person, "May I request your company?"

Wei WuXian nodded, "You're too polite,Sect Leader Jin."

Jin GuangYao smiled, "It's my pleasure."

Wei WuXian, "LianFang-Zun, you hid quite a big land deed in the secret chamber of Fragrant Palace, right beside my manuscripts. Don't you remember?"

Jin GuangYao, "Oh, that would be my fault. I should've put them separately."

Wei WuXian, "Right now, we won't be able to run from your grasp no matter what, so could you perhaps tell me just what a creature is being suppressed in this Guanyin Temple, LianFang-Zun, and quench my curiosity a bit?"

Jin GuangYao smiled, "Quenching your curiosity doesn't come at a low price. Young Master Wei, are you sure you'd like to try?"

Wei WuXian, "Oh. On second thought, then, nevermind."

(This whole interaction is even fruitier in the live-action)

He smiled, "Because that's what kind of a person you are. At best, you're the untamed hero; at worst, you offend people wherever you go. Unless all those whom you've offended lived their lives safely, as soon as something happened to them or someone did something to them, the first person they suspect would be you and the first person they seek revenge on would also you. And this is something you have no control over." Somehow, Wei WuXian smiled, "What should I do? For some reason, I think make a lot of sense."

Nothing like accepting and understanding your favorite homme Fatale's choice of bringing your downfall 'cause he just makes so much sense what you gonna do!😊 🤷🏻‍♀️

The way JGY is described:

Wei WuXian, on the other hand, carefully observed the chief cultivator of all sects.

Jin GuangYao was born with quite an advantageous face. His skin was fair, and he had a vermillion mark embellished on his forehead. His pupils were distinct against the whites of the eyes, appearing lively but not frivolous. His features appeared rather clean, attractive yet also ingenious. The shadow of a smile that always perched by the corners of his lips, and his brows, revealed at once his clever character. Such a face was enough to earn the love of women, but still wouldn't evoke the vigilance or aversion of men; the elderly would think of him as sweet, while the young would think of him as amicable. Even if one didn't like him, they definitely wouldn't hate him either, which was why his face was "advantageous". Although his figure was a bit small, his calm demeanor was more than enough to make up for it. Donning a cap made of black gauze, he wore the LanlingJin Sect's formal uniform, a blooming Sparks Amidst Snow crest over the front of his round-collared robe. With a nine-ringed belt at his waist, liuhe boots at his feet, and a right hand pressing down on the hilt of the sword hung by his side, he let out a powerful aura of inviolability.

Like LWJ is described in one paragraph ending with "mourning clothes" and JGY is described for a whole page with WWX going on and on about how you get some sort of feeling looking at him...EVERYONE! man and woman, young and old catch some sort of feeling basking in JGY's charm & beauty. (But he's being nonchalant about it...'cause ofc he doesn't have a crush...)

The unnecessary shade WWX throws at poor QS:

At this point, with a woman dressed in lavish robes by his arm, Jin GuangYao stepped into the room. Although the woman seemed rather dignified, a trace of innocence was blended into her expression. Even her graceful features appeared somewhat childlike. This was the official wife of Jin GuangYao, the mistress of Carp Tower-Qin Su.

descendents of prominent clans. Qin Su as the beloved daughter of Qin CangYe. Her personality was naive, but she had lived a comfortable life and was taught excellent manners.

Fortunately, although Qin Su had always seemed innocently ignorant since a young age, even to the point of being somewhat dense, she didn't trust Jin GuangYao anymore. She stared blankly at Jin GuangYao

I can't remember, and searched & couldn't find who it was that pointed out that the situation with NMJ had escalated so bad that the only way left for Jiggy was to murder him, and yet at the slightest, most desperate, most basic attempt at de-escalation that JGY shows WWX is BLOWN AWAY! Like: JGY: "Sry, Da-ge. My bad." WWX:

JGY is just trying to live another day without getting murdered by Da-ge and WWX is like Jin Guangyao is a master manipulator.

Jin GuangYao sighed, "HuaiSang is used to being spoiled, but he can't be Qinghe's idle Second Young Master for his whole life. One day he'll realize that you're doing this for him, Brother, just like how I realized that you're doing this for me."

Wei WuXian, Bravo, bravo. I wouldn't be able to say such words even if given two lifetimes, but Jin GuangYao can adjust his tone so that it doesn't sound strange at all. It even sounds a bit pleasing to the ears.

WWX taking a moment in the middle of QS's intense breakdown, crying, screaming, throwing up, pulling at her hair to remind us that Jin Guangyao is serving:

He was her husband. As of right now, under the candlelight, he looked as calm and as picturesque as ever.

Like...not now king .QS is having a moment here. Keep it in your pants for now. the last person who was horny for JGY is not yet done having her breakdown so you can walk in like that Theresa May meme and say that you'll take it from here!

What he most sees of Jin Guangyao is through Da-ge's eyes. Which are very horny eyes to look at JGY with. And it SHOWS.

The boy's figure was on the smaller side. He had fair skin and dark brows, precisely those favor-gaining features of Jin GuangYao.

When asshole Nie soldiers trash talk MY:

A flame of anger sprout within Nie MingJue's heart, burning all the way into Wei WuXian.

Wearing a gauze gap, he was almost beyond recognition. As handsome as ever, his cleverness was the same, yet his air was calmer that it had ever been.

The whole Wen Yao scene speaks for itself.

His chemistry with Xue Yang was unrivaled and JGY reminds WWX of Xue Yang:

recalling a certain someone as he watched how Jin GuangYao smiled and batted his eyes even as he fought. He whispered, "He really is the same as Xue Yang."

He admires JGY:

In these types of games, the head of all cultivators, LianFang-Zun, who was currently the most successful of all, was of course the most popular character. Although his family background was a bit disgraceful, the fact that he later climbed to such a rank was precisely why people respected him. During the Sunshot Campaign, he skillfully worked undercover for the QishanWen Sect, deceiving all of the Wen Sect's people to a point that a tremendous amount of information were disclosed, yet they knew nothing. After the Sunshot Campaign, with flattery, wit, and countless other methods, he finally became the Chief Cultivator, fully deserving of the title. Such a life could even be considered a legend. If he was playing, he'd also want to try being Jin GuangYao.

It wasn't difficult to understand why Lan XiChen defended this person. To be honest, even Wei WuXian himself didn't have a terrible opinion of the person they were suspicious of. Perhaps because of his background, he had always treated others with kindness and humility. He was the type of person who never offended anyone, the type who could make everyone around him feel comfortable talking to him, let alone ZeWu-Jun, who had been friends with him for years.

Jiang Cheng smirked, "Don't carry your sword, then. It doesn't matter. But don't provoke Jin ZiXuan from now on. He's Jin Guangshan's only son, after all. The future leader of the LanlingJin Sect will be him. If you beat him up, what should I, the sect leader, do? Beat him up with you? Or punish you?" Wei WuXian, "Isn't Jin GuangYao here now? Jin GuangYao seems so much better than him."

Jin Ling quickly tugged at the back hems of Jin GuangYao's robe. Jin GuangYao seemed as though he had been born to resolve conflicts,

Jin GuangYao could remember the name, title, age, and appearance of a person after just one encounter. Even after a few years, he'd be able to greet them without any fault, often carrying out solicitous conversations as well. If he had seen someone more than twice, he'd remember all of their likes and dislikes, therefore able to cater to their needs.

"With Jin Ling's temper, he offends other people whenever he opens his mouth, he pokes at the hornet's nest whenever he raises his hand. Your sect's JingYi calls him Young Mistress-well, he's right. The many times before this, if it weren't for how we protected him, he'd have no lives left. Jiang Cheng isn't at all someone who knows how to teach children. Jin GuangYao, on the other hand..."

(Now he's just going around attributing random capabilities such as the ability to raise a fully functional child to a man he's met only a handful of times 13 years ago as though he fully believes there's nothing he can't do.)

thinking, When Jin GuangYao saw the strange paperman and saw Suibian being unsheathed, he must've guessed who I was right there. And so he quickly made up a series of lies, causing Qin Su to take her own life, and then purposely force me to the cabinet with Suibian inside so that I could unsheath my sword and reveal my identity. Scary, scary. Who could've known that his reaction was so fast and his lies so flawless?

When Jin GuangYao lied, it really was unashamed and full of vigor! As others heard this, of course they'd think that Mo XuanYu had slandered LianFang-Zun and caused Madam Jin to take her own life since he held hatred toward him. Even Wei WuXian couldn't think of anything to say in refutation. What could he say? How he saw Nie MingJue's head? How he snuck into the secret room? The name of the person whom Qin Su saw before she died? The odd letter that could easily be argued as fictitious and fabricated? Such refutation would only make him look even more suspicious!

Under the shock and the terror, he spoke as though his words flew, fearing that Nie MingJue might start chopping before he could even finish his explanation. Despite this, his explanation still had clear logic. Every sentence was highlighting how horrible the others were, how poor he himself was.

Immediately after it were Jin ZiXuan's murals. Usually, in order to signify their absolute power, sect leaders would purposely lessen the number of murals for cultivators of their own generation or perhaps switch to an inferior artist, so that they wouldn't be outshone. To these acts, everyone gave silent approval, showing their understanding. However, Jin ZiXuan had four murals as well, unbelievably standing on equal footing as Jin GuangYao. The handsome man in the paintings displayed both pride and vigor.

Jin GuangYao didn't let her down either. Even though he held the important position of Chief Cultivator, his behavior was drastically different from his father's. He never took in any concubines, much less had a relationship with any other woman. This was indeed something that many wives of sect leaders envied.

He kins JGY:

And so, the waves of criticism began:

"Who knew this person could be so ungrateful and immoral!"

In the past few years, the words 'ungrateful' and 'immoral' were almost tied to Wei WuXian. At first, he even thought that they were criticizing him again. He only realized afterwards that even though it was the same people using the same words, the object of their criticism had already changed. He felt a bit not used to it.

Wei WuXian felt that things were rather comical, If they're rumors, why the hurry to believe them? If they're secrets, why would you come to know them?

These rumors didn't happen in just the one day. However, in the past, when Jin Guangyao was popular, they were suppressed quite well. Almost nobody took them seriously. Yet, tonight, all of the rumors seemed to have become absolute truths, forming the rocks and bricks of Jin GuangYao's supposedly-committed crimes, proving his lack of morality.

Wei WuXian immediately felt a bit speechless. The last time others praised him like this was during the Sunshot Campaign more than ten years ago. Although somebody finally inherited his position as being the enemy of the entire cultivation world, Wei WuXian didn't feel happiness at such an end, much less any warmth from finally being accepted by everyone.

He only doubted in silence, Back then, could it have been just like today? A group of people gathered up in a place, began a secret discussion, cursed everything, and finally decided to have a siege on Burial Mound?

But there was no use in saying all that. Nobody knew with more clarity than Wei WuXian that nobody would care and nobody would believe him. Anything related to Jin GuangYao would be given the most malicious conjectures and passed through the mouths of the crowd

They're narrative parallels, similar in every way, even in their relationship with twin jades and it's very sexy of them!

The crush thing aside, (I wasn't entirely serious about it. Just saying that if you wanna read it that way, the things are there. But he does admire JGY & the chemistry is certainly there) He barely even registers JGY as an antagonist in his story (he even resignedly admits that he would have sooner or later angered someone and got killed anyway even if JGY did nothing). He even confronts NHS, who brought him back to life about what he did to Meng Shi's body. We've seen how WWX treats the other antagonists of his story, the way he tortures Wen Chao & Wang Lingjiao, and other Wens to death, the way he raises dead Wens to kill their kin, the way he doesn't even remember Jin Zixun's name, or take SMS seriously. But what JGY gets is respect, both in general and in that he was a worthy player in their game (that wasn't even THEIR game), and understanding & sympathy.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #jin guangyao #wei wuxian #asks

[llycaons]

AND it's annoying when wwx is all 'oh poor me I'll never be as handsome as lwj I don't deserve him he's like a god' when wwx was fucking played by xiao zhan. a man who looks like XIAO ZHAN saying that??!!!

well, he’s nowhere near the league of Lan Zhan’s ethereal, Harper’s-Bazaar-cover beauty, but he’s not bad to look at either. Girls have told him he’s cute, that he has a nice smile.

like xz WAS on the cover of harper's bazaar! HE MODELED FOR HARPER'S BAZAAR TOO!!!! that was literally a thing that happened in real life! his smile is so bright and infectious and loveable that it's been the subject of many a themed gifset! 'nice' is underplaying it a little.

also a part of wwx's charm is that he's so confident in his looks and appeal he uses it to flirt with people to get what he wants. he knows he's hot!

oh jesus christ I just saw it's three chapters I can't do this I'm dipping

#serves me right for trying to find new material I guess! #ficblogging

[ninjakk]

When WWX met WN - Where LWJs jealousy for him stems from?

We know WWX met WN the day of the archery competition, during the Qishan Discussion Conference. This is the same day WWX saw LWJ again, after a year of pining for him - which I covered in a previous post here.

So, we can safely assume, judging from the fact WWX entered the arena just after he had seen LWJ, the scene below is set just prior to him being absolutely stunned at LWJ looking positively ravishing in the red uniform they were all wearing.

So let's dive straight into the scene where WWX meets WN.

Chapter 59

On that day, before the archery competition began, he was strolling around the Nightless City alone. As he strolled, he passed through a small garden and suddenly heard the sound of a bowstring vibrating from in front of him. Wei WuXian brushed through the leaves and branches. He saw a boy stand there, dressed in white, soft fabric. He drew a bow in the direction of a target before him and let go. The side of the boy’s face seemed to be quite handsome. His drawing posture was both standard and beautiful. On the target, feathered arrows had already thickly dotted the red center. This arrow had hit the center as well. None had been off the center. Wei WuXian exclaimed, “Bravo!” After the boy shot the arrow, he took out a new arrow from the quiver behind him. Head lowered; he was about to set it onto his bow as he suddenly heard an unfamiliar voice from toward the side. Surprised, his hands quivered and his arrow fell to the ground. Wei WuXian walked out from behind the garden, grinning, “Which of Wen Sect’s young masters are you? Well, well, beautiful, your shots are amazing. I haven’t seen anyone from your sect with such good…” Before he could finish, the boy had already disappeared, leaving behind him his bow and arrows. Wei WuXian was speechless. He felt his chin, Am I really so charming? So charming that I scared him away? He didn’t take the matter seriously either. He just thought that he saw something cool as he returned to the square.

This scene always brings a little smile to my face. WWX is so sweet and kind, he'll pay anyone a compliment if it is warranted. He loves to encourage people and he's actually very nurturing - which we see time and time again in later scenes with A-Yuan and the juniors.

It's quite a funny scene, with WN running away all flustered. Poor WWX, if men keep running away from him, he's going to get a complex! My favourite part of this scene is at the end when WWX thinks he's so charming that people just cannot bear it - it's just hilarious. Funnily enough, this is not what he thinks when LWJ does something similar in the not too distant future. This is because he's actually quite insecure about how LWJ sees him - after all, he's the object of his subconscious affections.

The competition was almost starting. Over on the Wen Sect’s side, there was much clamour. Wei WuXian asked Jiang Cheng, “How could they make such a fuss over their Discussion Conference? They have something going on every single day. What’s happening today?” Jiang Cheng, “What do you think? The spots are limited.They’re fighting over the people to let into the arena.” After a pause, he continued with disdain, “These Wen Sect’s… archery skills are the same level of bad. Wouldn't it be the same no matter who goes? What difference would be fighting over it make?” Wen Chao shouted from the side, “Another one! Another one, we’re still short one! The last one!” Amid the crowd beside him, the white-clothed boy was also there. Looking left and right, he finally raised his hand. But his hand wasn’t raised tall enough. He didn’t dare shout his name like the others did either. After a while of pushing around, somebody finally noticed him, musing, “QiongLin? You want to participate as well?” The boy called 'QiongLin' nodded his head. Somebody else laughed, “I haven’t even seen you pick up a bow. Why do you want to participate?! Don’t waste the spot.” Wen QiongLin seemed as if he wanted to protest for himself. The person said, “Alright, alright. Don’t be so curious. The rank is recorded. If you go up there and lose your own face it wouldn't be my problem.” Wei WuXian, Lose face? If anyone in the QishanWen Sect could find some face for you all, he’d be the one.

The Wen sect are making quite a big scene, we can imagine that a lot of the disciples waiting to enter the hunting grounds are watching from afar and wondering what is going on. LWJ is probably nearby as well.. so let's bear that in mind.

"Wei WuXian wasn’t too pleased. He raised his voice, “Who said that he’s never picked up a bow? He has, and his archery is quite good!” Everyone looked at him, somewhat surprised. They then turned to look at the boy. Wen QiongLin’s face was rather pale to begin with. Because of how everyone’s eyes centered on him, it immediately became bright red. Those pitch-black eyes stared at Wei WuXian. Wei WuXian walked over, hands behind his back, “Back then, weren’t you doing quite well in the garden?” Wen Chao turned around as well, doubting, “Really? You? Good at archery? Why haven’t I ever heard of this?” Wen QiongLin’s voice was low, “… I… I only startedpracticing recently…” His voice was not only low but also staggering. It sounded as if it could be stopped at any moment, and it was indeed often stopped. Wen Chao interrupted impatiently, “Alright, there’s a target over there. Quickly shoot an arrow for us to see. If it’s good then go, if it’s not good then don’t.”

WWX can't stand to watch WC being rude to WN after he had summoned up the guts to put himself forward. As he's witnessed, WNs archery skills are actually very good, so he interjects, vouching for WN.

Now.. as I said before, LWJ is most likely amongst the crowd waiting to enter the arena. LWJ is always very well aware of WWX if he is nearby - so it's safe to assume he had seen WWX prior. If not, he certainly would have heard WWX speaking up for WN. You can almost imagine LWJs cold glare homing in on the boy who is getting praise and attention off WWX!

The area around Wen QiongLin was immediately emptied. The hand that he clutched the arrow with tightened as he looked around, seemingly looking for help. Watching how unconfident he looked, Wei WuXian patted his shoulder, “Relax. Just do as you did before.” Wen QiongLin looked at him gratefully. With a deep breath, he drew his bow. Unfortunately, with the draw of the bow, Wei WuXian shook his head secretly, Uh-oh. It was likely that Wen QiongLin had never shot an arrow in front of other people. He was shaking all the way from his arm to his fingertips. The arrow flew out. It didn’t even land on the target. The Wen Sect’s people that watched from aside all laughed mockingly, “How is this good?!” “I can shoot better than this with my eyes closed.” “Okay, okay, stop wasting time. Let’s quickly pick somebody to enter the arena!

If LWJ was watching the scene from the crowd - he'd have seen WWX get closer to WN and put his hand on his shoulder, encouraging the mystery boy. LWJ probably also noticed that, according to an earlier description, WN is 'quite handsome'. He's been pining for WWX for a year and the first time he sees him again, he's acting friendly with a handsome boy. We know it doesn't mean anything, but if LWJ did indeed see this, jealousy would have surely sprouted within him - just as it does later in the novel when WWX is paying others attention. You can't really blame him either, yes it's all innocent, but he's a teenager with a huge crush and conflicting hormones waging war in his body!

Red seeped through Wen QiongLin’s face to even the bottom of his ears. There was no need for others to beckon him away; he fled self-consciously. Wei WuXian chased after him, “Hey, don’t run! Uh… QiongLin-xiong right? Why are you running?” Hearing his name called from behind him, Wen QiongLin finally stopped. Head hanging low, he turned around. It seemed as though shame rippled from his head to his toes as he stammered, “… I’m sorry.” Wei WuXian mused, “Why are you telling me you’re sorry?” Wen QiongLin replied with guilt, “You… You recommended me… but I made you lose face…” Wei WuXian, “How did it make me lose face? You haven’t really shot in front other people, have you? You were nervous?” Wen QiongLin nodded. Wei WuXian continued, “Have some confidence. Let me tell you the truth—you shoot better than everyone in your sect. Out of all of the disciples whom I’ve seen, no more than three people are better in archery than you.”

I find WWXs last comment about there only being three people better at archery than WN very interesting. Since the reader is already aware who placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the forthcoming competition - he's most likely referencing them. For reference, in case anyone has forgotten:

Chapter 51

In the end, after the calculations, the four with the best results were Wei WuXian, Lan XiChen, Jin ZiXuan, and Lan WangJi. If it weren’t for having to leave early, Lan WangJi could’ve done even better.

LWJ placed 4th, but according to WWX, he could have done even better if he'd not left the competition early - placing him higher than JZX. So it's highly likely he's stating WN is only marginally less skilled than himself, LXC and LWJ. Interesting, considering WWX claims a few short moments later (in chapter 45)... He hasn't thought about LWJ in some time! Which we knew was a lie anyway, but wow.. WWX you little liar! And I guess, if you wanted to really read into the above - you could also say that he has even contradicted himself further. He states, 'of all the disciples I've seen..' so, is this also him admitting he'd already seen LWJ prior to the start of Chapter 45, where he is gawping at LWJ's good looks? He's he been watching him practice as well? Just an interesting thought!

Anyway, I digress! Back to jealous LWJ.

So if LWJ has witnessed all of the above, which he most likely did - he would have saw WWX running after the WN. If he wasn't a little bit jealous of the attention he was giving WN before, be probably was now. I don't want to make LWJ sound pretty, because he's far from that. He is just a boy with a huge crush! And who didn't act a bit irrational regarding anything involving their crush at that age. Let's not forget, he was most likely well aware WWX would be attending the conference. LWJ was probably a potent cocktail of nerves, excitement and longing, in anticipation of catching a glimpse of WWX at the week-long event.

With that in mind... Try re-reading chapter 45 and notice how LWJ is acting. He's not seen WWX in a year. Yes, he finds it hard to talk to his crush - but he's not normally that rude to him really. He won't even look at him. Possibly because, he's jealous..?

You can find the chapter I'm referring to in my blog post on the archery competition, if you want to re-read it in full along with analysis. Or if you want to check it out for yourself, it's chapter 45.

Finally...

Silly headcanon... LWJ is even witness to WWX praising WNs archery skills while hiding in the bushes stalking him from afar! 🤣 No wonder he has a thing about WN and pushes him when drunk 🤣😱 Jealous LWJ is adorable ❤️

#mdzs #mdzs wei wuxian #mdzs lan wangji #mdzs wwx #mdzs lwj #wangxian #mo dao zu shi #mdzs novel #mdzs meta #wen ning #lwj is jealous #lwj is stalking wwx in the bushes #wwx is a little liar #when harry met sally... i mean wei wuxian met wen ning..

[jalpari-spouts]

as if you were on fire from within [mdzs fic]

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling

Relationship: WangXian

Premise: For as long as the world could remember, the tale of the wild fox and blazing dragon had been passed down for centuries — renowned cultivators, fiercely loyal, passionately in love. But their story had begun long before they became the Huli who wielded demonic energy & the Dragon who showed up wherever there was chaos. Or; a dragonji and foxxian tale!

Tags: Canonverse, Non-Human AU, Mythical Beings & Lore, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Pregnant Lan Wangji

Note: Gorgeous art embedded in the fic!

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44519959

Preview:

“Are you alright?” Lan Wangji asked worriedly as he approached the shivering child. “Did they hurt you?” He stopped a few feet from him. “N-no,” the boy’s lips trembled and he shook his head. “Tha-thank you,” he stood up and bowed, “for driving them away.” When the boy straightened up, Lan Wangji gasped under his breath as his face broke into the brightest smile Lan Wangji had ever seen. Despite his tattered clothes and dirt and tear stained face, the boy looked radiant and happy. His smile was wide and vibrant and made the snowy night a little brighter as it crinkled his eyes into beautiful crescents. “Here,” Lan Wangji stepped closer and removed his outer cloak. “You must be very cold in those,” he said simply as he held out the thick robe. “Ah, I can’t ta-take th-that,” the boy sniffled and shivered as he scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. “It belongs to you.” “I have more layers underneath,” Lan Wangji insisted. “You do not.” “Ah, alright,” the boy grinned and took the cloak and wore it, immediately exhaling with a relieved sigh as he was enveloped by its warmth. Lan Wangji felt a warmth bloom in his own chest as the boy’s smile softened and his shivers subsided. He couldn't help but observe him as the boy studied him from head to toe as well. The boy’s hair was black as a raven, wild and tangled as it was barely held together by a red ribbon that was in poor condition just like his robes. Lan Wangji thought he could make out small furry ears hidden within the wavy locks but he couldn’t be sure. If the boy was around his age, it was probably too early for any of his animal spirit features to be prominent. Lan Wangji’s own antlers and tail were barely visible yet. Even though Yiling did not have any cultivators, given its proximity to Qinghe it was possible that the child was a shishi, a lion dog, like the Nie clan. But if the child was an orphan as his current state suggested, he could have any animal spirit origin, if he was a cultivator at all. He glanced at the twitching strands on his head, his entire face softening on seeing how adorable the boy looked. Lan Wangji didn’t miss the way the boy’s curious eyes did a double take on seeing the rattle toy in his hand. He looked down at the toy and then at the boy – who was smiling even in his dire circumstance. Lan Wangji saw the twinkle in his eyes as the boy grinned wider and scratched his cheek and nose. Unbidden, his mind conjured up images of his mother and the way she would pull his cheeks and tap his nose. The boy seemed happy despite the state he was in. “Here,” Lan Wangji said, his voice barely above a whisper as he held out the toy. “Huh?” The boy tilted his head and blinked at Lan Wangji, looking even more endearing and innocent. “This is for you,” Lan Wangji hesitated but then stepped closer and reached for the boy’s hand. He placed the toy in his cold hand and closed his fingers around it, making sure he was holding on to it. Lan Wangji paused but then covered the boy’s hand with both of his, just for a moment, just enough to warm them, before letting go. He adjusted the cloak around the boy and fastened the clip before nodding and stepping back again. “Thank you,” the boy said softly, his smile shy and embarrassed.

#jalpari mxtx fic #mxtx mdzs #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #the untamed #wangxian #chen qing ling

[guqin-and-flute]

3zun Niebraid concept: JGY who knows exactly what each minor detail in these braids means bc he was part of the sect and memorized everything bc he's just like. that. but never thought he'd ever be allowed any further than wearing the standard disciple braids. Vs LXC who doesn't know that much about them but has been doing NMJs braids since they were young and occasionally got his own hair braided which was nice. And Apparently that was considered flirting which he learns from JGYs reaction

[I LOVE THIS. DAMN this was supposed to be a short oneshot (hahahaaa, when has that ever happened) about just Nie braids, but it turned into...this. It fits perfectly into 3zun Raise Jingyi AU though there’s nothing that specifically hinders you from reading it as unaligned from that. Set before the NieYao Schism, sometime within the 6 months WWX was at Lan Summer School, perhaps a month or two after 3zun have gotten together (which I will also eventually have sometime).

EDIT: I FORGOT TO PUT THIS IN THE FIRST TIME--Heavily influenced by the fic Triple Crown by scarlet_gryphon which I read, like, directly before this. Go read it, it’s so sweet!]

[3zun Raise Jingyi Au Tag] [Ao3 Series] [Ao3 Link]

Xichen had by no means ever considered himself the most rigid or pedantic Lan, but he would certainly never have described himself as salacious. And yet, the sudden rigidity in A-Yao’s smile and the way his eyes darted about the empty corridor makes it seem that the playful tug that he had just given the man’s braid was akin to goosing him in full view of the Nie Council of Elders. His ears were now a lovely pink at the tips--but this was now secondary to what on earth Xichen had just done to his and Mingjue’s new partner. 

Instantly, he drew back his hand, tucking it behind him at the small of his back in contrition. “A-Yao? What’s wrong?”

With nothing but the stymied duck of his chin, A-Yao conveyed the depth of his embarrassment, both at whatever Xichen had done and his own reaction. “Nothing at all, Lan-zongzhu.”

“Now, I don’t believe that. Was I too--did I hurt you?” He chanced to flick his finger illustratively toward his hairstyle before firmly confining it behind himself again. 

“Of course not.” He was smiling, if slightly stiffly, eyes flicking up and down the corridor once more. Checking for people.

“I’ve embarrassed you,” Xichen murmured in dismay, careful to keep his tone from carrying. “I apologize.”

“No, you--” He broke himself off with a sigh and with one more glance around, then led him with the tilt of his chin out a door set into an adjacent wall to the courtyard beyond. “Here.” 

It was a beautiful little garden Xichen had often seen in passing, but never had the occasion to visit. Most of it was shaded by the high walls at this time of day, with a slice of slowly disappearing sunlight that left it cool and verdant, mid-summer flowers rich and bright dotting about. Vines crawled up behind the stone bench set in the corner. Behind him, A-Yao closed and latched the door, then he turned, paused, then shyly reached out and took Xichen’s hand in his. With it, he led them both to sit on that bench, carved into the blunt cornered, slightly geometric patterns, that familiar the Qinghe style. This closeness eased the uncertain knot under his breastbone, the held breath that he had somehow offended or endangered A-Yao by this playful slip. This lush little courtyard had no windows leading onto it and only the one door, so the danger of being seen by anyone who wasn’t leaping about on the rooftops was negligible. 

“And so what have I done, A-Yao, that’s made you blush like this,” Xichen asked quietly once they had settled next to each other, lifting his hand to trace the shell of his still pink ear. “I really do apologize,” he added, a little woefully. “Please let me know if I ever go too far.” 

His touch spread the pink a little farther, onto the tops of his delightful cheekbones and that absurd and giddy joy that he got so often now-a-days whenever he saw A-Yao or watched him with Mingjue or caught a secret expression or--

Firmly he quashed his love-stricken brain and prepared to listen. This thing between them, the two of them, the three of them was still relatively new, mere months old and shaky--not unsteady, but instead like learning new footwork and Xichen would hate to jeopardize any of it.

A-Yao shook his head, smile less plastic and more apologetic. “It wasn’t truly too far, ge, I just...I simply used to a little more, ah, discretion. I suppose I would call it.”

Discretion. Yes, discretion was important, it was what they had promised each other in this, together. 

But certainly...in an unpeopled corridor, the innocent tease was not something that would overtly make anyone think they were anything more than agemates being playful? Well. He had never been very close to any of his Lan agemates and then, the Lan were quite strict about personal space. Perhaps he had somehow misread the more jovial, jostling air of the Nie? Certainly they punched arms, headlocked each other on the practice ground, laid hands on shoulders. Mingjue had never shied away from arms length, with him or any of his similar aged disciples. Xichen tilted his head, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “I should avoid touching you in public, then,” he clarified.

“I wouldn’t say so--no more or less than you might Huaisang or Mingjue-ge, I would think. Just...” he gestured in what was obviously supposed to be an eloquent and encompassing circle about his own head. 

Ah. Ah? His hair, yes? “Just not your hair,” he supplied, helpfully.

A-Yao flickered his eyes over Xichen’s politely inquiring face and they narrowed infinitesimally, calculating something. “Well, yes; at least, certainly the braids,” he replied, almost carefully, as if leading Xichen somewhere.

Xichen was happy to follow him down any path of logic, but this one seemed somewhat...undefined to him. He had braided Mingjue’s hair uncountable times in their youth, after swimming or bathing after training or, later, sex. There had even been several times Mingjue had returned the favor and done his hair in an elaborate series of sweeping, looping, coiled braids that pleased Xichen’s eye to see paired with the stark white of his headband. Of course he understood that playing with each other’s hair wasn’t something you would just go up to any stranger and initiate, but Mingjue had never given him reason to think that it was somehow off limits. 

The first time that they had met, when Mingjue’s parents had come to talk with Uncle and himself, they had wandered alone through the bamboo forest in the Cloud Recesses, talking and climbing rocks. They were both around 10 or 11 and Xichen had been fascinated by the intricate weavings on the older boy’s head. Sometime in the afternoon, after Mingjue had proven all day to be intelligent, easy going, and hard to offend, Xichen had mustered up the courage to chance impertinence to ask; “Can I touch them?” 

Mingjue had blinked back up at him from where he crouched by the burbling stream they had found. “Touch what?”

“Your braids, I--they just look.... I’m sorry, I suppose that’s quite rude.” He made to bow in apology, but Mingjue had just scrambled to his feet and drawn closer, eyes bright as he grinned. 

“Yeah, go ahead, it’s fine.” 

He had been half a head shorter than Xichen at the time, who had started to shoot up like bamboo at an alarming rate earlier that spring, even though Mingjue was a year and some older. It had given him a fine view of the braids’ detail without Mingjue even having to bow his head to let him tentatively stroke along the little beads each segment made. They had been warm from the sun and smooth, like the flank of some tiny, well groomed animal. “They’re very regal,” he had assured the other clan’s heir when he had studied his fill, earning himself another flash of teeth in his tanned face. 

“Thank you.”

But just because Mingjue had been unbothered didn’t mean that A-Yao would be. He hadn’t even grown up Nie and he certainly wasn’t going to demand rigorous explanations to any boundaries A-Yao might try to set down. What surer way to scare the man off? He had seen exactly how difficult it was to make him do anything but grin and bear whatever he thought that he should have to endure stoically in any situation. Getting him to reveal them any sort of 'want’--in bed or socially--was already a nightmare. “Ah, I see, now.”

“You do,” A-Yao nodded, tone seeking firmness in question.

“Well, if you say I shouldn’t, then I shouldn’t.” Xichen aimed for serene but was afraid he simply managed benignly baffled. “What more is there to understand? I never want to make you uncomfortable, A-Yao, that much I hope is clear.”

Seeming momentarily speechless, A-Yao searched his face with a growing, puzzled frown. “I apologize sincerely if this comes across as anything close to patronizing, ge, but...you do know what touching another’s braids means, correct?”

His tone was borderline apologetic, and so nowhere near patronizing. Xichen, however, was now solidifying his suspicion that there was something of cultural significance that he had just blundered right through, like a certain Jiang disciple currently causing his Uncle ulcers back in Gusu. It was an unpleasant feeling, as being savvy and diplomatic were not just things he prided himself on, but necessary for his position as Clan Leader. Being caught out being tactless was....uncomfortable. “I’m beginning to believe that I do not.”

Strangely, this seemed to set A-Yao more at ease, that careful way he had been holding his shoulders relaxing, even as his eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. “Oh. I see. Ah,” his gaze flitted about on his face, absorbing his obvious disquiet. “It’s just that, among the Nie, their braids are more than simply just decoration--they can denote status, official rank, life stage, and--” he paused only momentarily, eyes drinking in his reaction. “Availability. Touching another’s braids is an intimate gesture.”

Staring almost fixedly into the middle distance, invisible beyond A-Yao’s face as he absorbed this, Xichen noted with chagrin that this last sounded very like the strictures surrounding the Lan headbands. Very like. Had he been repeatedly stomping all over such a sacred border since he was 10? “Ah,” he stated, voice carefully controlled and neutral. And said no more.

“...Ge?” A-Yao sounded as if his silence was making him wary. 

“I was not aware,” he managed, somewhat distantly as he frantically searched his memory for times he might have done something similar to Mingjue in view of any Nie. Or, good gods, to Huaisang. He hoped he would have noticed what an uncomfortable reaction that would have surely gained him. Should he think to apologize to the boy if it ever happened or would that make it more uncomfortable? Mortification was spreading hot up his neck to his ears, though his face remained impassive. He hoped.

Probably not, for A-Yao was beginning to look dismayed, “I never meant to embarrass you, I’m sorry--”

“No, no, I definitely would prefer to know such things.” Mingjue, he added forcefully, silently.

"Has Mingjue-ge never told you?”

“He...has not, no.”

“Well, I doubt he would have just let you send such a message publicly, here, being as discrete as you have both been, so I wouldn’t let it trouble you.” He was clearly trying to soothe him, his hand petting over the backs of Xichen’s own. “And I’m not upset, gege. It was a misstep, you didn’t know.”

“Just...how intimate a gesture is it?” Had he inadvertently propositioned Mingjue on their very first meeting? Proposed? What had his partner thought of him at the time? Exasperation was now making its way through the dismay and horror, slightly prickly. Just what sort of fool have you allowed me to make of myself, my love? 

“Parents and siblings are allowed, and vice versa, though touching your parents braids past a certain age is frowned upon. Among adolescent agemates of no relation? Flirting. Like...a kiss on the cheek or a solid declaration of interest. It’s a little more lax among people of your same sex if you are particularly close friends, but it’s still not something that you do in public. It’s considered a little lewd.”

Lewd. The flush had reached his ears, he was certain, for they burned. No wonder A-Yao had nearly jumped out of his skin when he just reached out and tugged his braid in greeting. It was like goosing him in front of the Nie Council of Elders. “Ah,” he replied faintly. “I’m...terribly sorry for having startled you like that. With that. I never--”

“It probably wouldn’t be taken so seriously,” A-Yao hastened to assure him, clearly desperately sorry for his obvious humiliation. “You’re not Nie, after all. They might just assume that you’re....”

“An idiot?” Xichen supplied, somewhat dryly, as A-Yao trailed off and shut his mouth.

“No,” he returned to his sentence doggedly. “Unaware.”

“Oh,” Xichen breathed. “I was certainly unaware.”

After a few moments of silence, A-Yao noted, “You’re angry,” with something like trepidation, round eyes searching him, face cautious.

“I’m...not.” And he wasn’t. Not really. Not truly. Shocked. Embarrassed. Mm, annoyed at potentially have been making a rude, lewd, lecherous fool of himself for years, Mingjue. 

And now, come to think of it, the harder he thought and the more connections he had made, he recalled that Mingjue had only braided Xichen’s hair when they were spending the night together. Unlikely to be interrupted until he would take another bath and have had them undone. And just what exactly had that particular configuration meant, performed to an unseeing, uncomprehending audience?

Oh, he was certainly going to find out.

“I think, perhaps, a conversation is in order.”

A-Yao was trailing him with something like dread in the tread of his step, back straight as Xichen stalked--walked, he walked--through the paths of Unclean Realm to their joint partner’s office. He knocked, 2 smart and crisp raps with the back of his knuckle. Beside him, A-Yao winced slightly, so he shot him a reassuring smile, which seemed to do nothing of the sort. “Enter,” Mingjue’s distracted voice came from within.

Xichen did so, keeping his movements smooth and measured, now, since seeing A-Yao’s distress. Truly, he wasn’t looking for a fight, he simply wanted an explanation. “Good afternoon, Mingjue-xiong.”

Mingjue squinted up from his papers at him, brows beetled, face suspicious. “What, what happened?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re being...strange.” He cast a questioning look behind him at A-Yao, but Xichen couldn’t see his reaction without turning and he didn’t want to put A-Yao on the spot.

“Not strange. I’ve simply learned something.” As he spoke, he found himself studying Mingjue’s braids, the twisted coil, raising and grounding the large circular guan he habitually wore. The two trailing, adorned with metal circles, behind his ears. And what did this style mean? Clan Leader Nie, most likely. He tried, briefly, to recall if the previous Clan Leader Nie, Mingjue’s father, had worn an identical or similar style and found that it wasn’t something that he had every paid much attention to, while he had known him. “Is there a reason you’ve never informed me of the significance of the Nie braids?”

At this, Mingjue blinked, much like he had that first day that Xichen had asked to touch them, then sat back away from his desk, legs unfurling out from under his proper posture to cross under him, as his arms were doing across his broad chest. “Nie braids?” He shot another searching look at A-Yao, not angry or accusing, but one of confusion. “In what capacity?”

This time, Xichen also looked at A-Yao, but put his hand settlingly on his shoulder, as the man was beginning to look somewhat hunted. “In the capacity of intimacy,” Xichen said, trying to keep the emphasis he felt from stressing the word, and therefore his partners. 

“Intimacy,” Mingjue grunted, unhelpfully, rubbing at his chin. 

“I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything,” A-Yao insisted, a strained smile in place on his face, now. “Either of you. I simply thought that you had known, Lan-zongzhu.”

“Oh, I’ve told you, please don’t, A-Yao, none of that here with us,” Xichen sighed, waving the title away as if it were an annoying gnat. “No one’s in trouble.” Yet, remained unspoken as he pointedly did not raise a reproachful eyebrow at Mingjue, who was staring into space, thoughtfully. “The braids.” He repeated. Helpfully. Steering.

Mingjue finally met his eyes. Then shrugged. “I thought you knew.”

Pardon him, but Xichen found that a little galling, so he let his exasperation seep into his voice, just a bit, when he replied, “How on earth could I have known, Mingjue? Who else would have told me of this particularity?” It's not as if the Nie had an exhaustive list of their rules displayed anywhere.

“Hmm.” Without responding further, Mingjue closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Clearly, he was tired, having been cooped up here all day, reading correspondence and doing paperwork, all of which he found difficult and hated. Xichen softened.

“So it wasn’t something you were keeping from me for some reason.”

The look he received when Mingjue took away his hands again was crinkled disbelief and slight affront. “Why the hell would I do that?”

With a sigh, Xichen finally drew closer, allowing himself to settle onto one of the cushions in front of his desk with something a little looser than grace, setting his elbow down and leaning on it in studied ease. “It’s what I had wondered. I don’t know. Making a fool of me for some sort of,” he circled his other hand, searching for the word. “Secret kink seemed...unlikely.”

With a snort, Mingjue folded his arms up again and shook his head. “No. It’s just...not something I really thought about. Not something you had to worry about. I don’t know. Why, did something happen with it?” He then looked up at A-Yao and the tired set to his eyebrows relaxed as Xichen had against them. “Come sit, you look scared stiff. I suppose this is our first...whatever this is.”

“Complication? It’s certainly not an argument,” Xichen murmured, reaching a hand out for A-Yao, who was slowly starting forward, eyes still darting between the two of them.

“Sure.” Mingjue vented a short, mirthless chuckle. “Complication. Here, here,” he reached out his own hand and A-Yao carefully took it, his other hand in Xichen’s as he slowly knelt on the cushion Xichen leaned over to place for him on the short edge of the desk they were nearest to. “You look like you’re going to bolt or something. What?”

“I didn’t mean to cause a problem,” A-Yao replied, lowly, face unbearably serious, chin tucked slightly.

He was doing that subtle, shrinking, ‘don’t look at me, don’t hurt me’ thing that broke Xichen. So he drew A-Yao’s hand up to his mouth and kissed his knuckles with a smile. It drew A-Yao’s attention to him, so he beamed as much love and assurance through his eyes as he could. His knuckles were smooth under Xichen’s lips. “You didn’t cause a problem. Indeed, you fixed it. How would it have looked if Lan-zongzhu was going around brazenly flirting with his ally’s vice general? Or his fellow zongzhu? Or, gods forbid--” he shot a raised eyebrow at last at Mingjue. “His fellow zongzhu’s didi?” 

And at last, Mingjue did screw up his face in a grimace, perhaps of mild regret, though he offered no further enlightenment. His thumb rubbed absently on the back of A-Yao’s hand. Xichen reached out and took Mingjue’s free hand, lifting it to his lips as well, so both of them were there, side by side--one slightly broader, rougher, hotter, and the other slim but no less strong, and cool, each occupying opposite corners of his mouth. “And so tell me, gege,” he added, playfully now as he set them both down in front of him, squeezing possessively. “What exactly those styles you did me up in meant?” Hopefully further teasing would make A-Yao more at ease that one or the other of them weren’t about to suddenly explode at him.

“Hm?”

“Back on those long nights alone.”

A-Yao’s eyebrows raised in his periphery, pale, curious face turning to Mingjue like a flower. Good. 

“Ah,” Mingjue said, then jutted his jaw to the side, as if mulling something over. Then, he quirked a small, private smile and shrugged, as if discarding embarrassment. “Consort’s braids.”

Good gods, could love kick one in the head like a horse? Xichen felt dazed. “Oh.” His fingers tightened, on both sides as he desperately tried to recall the scaffolding of loops and dips, the hidden declaration of love that these had meant before he had ever thought to look for them. Sadly, all he could bring to mind was that they had taken a while and had left his hair delightfully wiggly when they were, ah, jostled during sex. “Oh,” he breathed again, strangely at a loss for words.

Mingjue was watching whatever play across his face with interest. “Do you remember them?”

“Sadly, I do not.”

“Hmm.” Mingjue eyed A-Yao with deliberation. “I’ll show you. Come here,” he said this last to A-Yao alone, releasing both their hands and scooting back onto his knees, his desk cushion now empty in front of him. He slapped it with his palm.

A-Yao did not move, instead holding up slighly warding hands, a gracious smile on his face. “Ge, I think you’d better show him on his own head, don’t you?” A-Yao tried to politely demur, but, love of his life--at least one of them--Mingjue would not let him.

“No, I want to do it on yours.” 

In the silence following this statement, Xichen covertly watched A-Yao’s face. Would he...? Oh yes. Oh yes, he had understood that. His eyes were wide, his lips parted slightly in rare shock. That sweet pink blush was back, warming his ears, his cheeks. Mingjue was never as covert as he was overt and this hadn’t been anywhere near the most blatant admission of either of their intentions with their lovely, intelligent, courteous, graceful, diligent, hardworking partner. But it seemed to be one that he believed, immediately. Finally. “What a lovely idea,” Xichen purred in encouragement, making A-Yao look to him again, rather helplessly, now, he thought.

Slowly, A-Yao stood from his seat, as if a little dazed, and sat quietly where he was bade, curling up his knees to his chest and circling his arms around them. Mingjue rose up on his own knees behind him and began to industriously, yet not ungently, undo the hairstyle that was already there. With each tug, A-Yao rocked minutely, his chin rested in the circle of his arms. Xichen came around to watch over Mingjue’s shoulder with genuine interest as his fingers quickly flicked apart the thin braids, then combed through the dark fall spread across A-Yao’s back, freed from his modest silver guan. Curiously, his own hand came out and stroked down the hair, marveling in the little rivulets of waves coursing through the rest of the straight cascade, tiny delights of sensation. He felt A-Yao shiver, just slightly, under their combined touch in his hair. 

Though he wanted to see the what and how of this particular style--and oh, did he ever want to--A-Yao’s clear uncertainty took precedence here, and so he kindly chivvied A-Yao’s knees down and laid himself down to settle his head own head across his partner’s lap. From this angle, he could see A-Yao’s sweet, clean features above him like the moon in the sky, and beyond him, Mingjue’s strong, beloved face, intent in concentration. The moon and the sun, if he allowed himself to be poetic. And he would. The lights of his life, Mingjue vigorous and vital, strong and golden. A-Yao subtle and mysterious, deep and sweet. Fallen in love with them in different times, in different ways, but each an illuminating, reassuring presence in his life. 

Reaching up, he smoothed his palm onto A-Yao’s cheek, trying to stimulate something of a smile there, and was rewarded by the quirk of his lip, a dimple pressing in underneath the base of his thumb. He smiled in return. “Good?” he mouthed, soundlessly.

A-Yao nodded almost insignificantly against his hand, clearly trying not to jerk his hair from Mingjue’s grip. They allowed silence, then, between them, Mingjue braiding, A-Yao swaying easily when his hair tugged him this way or that, Xichen drinking in their presence below them. Then, A-Yao lifted his own hands and laid them on Xichen’s guan, questioning. He beamed up at him.

It slid from his hair with relative ease once the pin was released--he was glad that he had chosen one of his his smaller, more curved headpieces today instead of the one with spikey, draconic crags. He wouldn’t have been able to comfortably lie on A-Yao’s lap with its point digging into his scalp. To assist, he tensed his core and lifted himself up, slightly, sweeping the length of his hair up with his hands so it no longer lay partially under him, but billowed across A-Yao’s whole lap, then rested his head now on only his closer leg, so he had more room to work. His lover’s hands hovered, uncertain, over this fall of hair. “Ge, it will be...difficult to avoid touching your headband in this.”

Ah, so uncertain of the coil that threaded through it, like an underground river, sometimes surfacing in a surge of bright white. “Then do not avoid it.”

Looking partially stricken, partially amazed, A-Yao peered back down at his face. “But that’s--”

“Yes?” Xichen answered tranquilly, smiling up at him.

“I know what it means,” A-Yao pointed out, voice, if anything, sounding slightly admonishing, almost peevish, as if he expected Xichen of trying to catch him out unawares like Mingjue had inadvertently done to him all these years. “To the Lan, I mean. I’ve researched all the Clans.”

And so Xichen stopped teasing, stopped the slide into mischief. He let his face soften, his brow loosen, his eyes warm. Taking A-Yao’s hand, he brought it up to kiss its fingertips, then rest it against his chest, over his heart, beating along solidly beneath their pressed palms. With his other, he stroked A-Yao’s lovely face; his lovely, uncertain, disbelieving face. How many times must I tell you? How many times must we prove that we mean what we say? How many more months can I make love to you and tell you and tell you that, in a better world, in a kinder world, without fear and shame and duty....

“I know. I know you know. And I am saying, A-Yao; you need not avoid it.” These last words were quiet and low, thrumming in his chest along with his heart. 

A proposal, in as many words as he knew how. As Mingjue’s had been.

Above him, A-Yao stopped breathing.

It made an ache, low in his chest, right at the joining of his ribs, to know that, eventually, his and Mingjue’s duty would rise up to bite their heels, restrain their limbs, fit them into a specific mold. It had been discussed, it was known, by all of them, this finality. The understanding was that, while this lasted, this would be as real and true as they could make it--but none of them were deluded. When the time came, when their duties as men and Clan Leaders called, none of them would begrudge another what was necessary. Their hearts, free of their bodies, would have chosen follow one another.

But they were not free. From their bodies or otherwise.

There was an end to this. There was a day coming, and who knew how distant with all of them already being of an age to be married, when they would have to leave each other’s arms and beds for the last time. It was the understanding that had rested between him and Mingjue for years, laying in the bed they sometimes shared along with them. And now it crowded in here with the three of them. But the courting was real, the intention and the wanting and the sharing was real.

His offer. Was real. 

As real as he could make it.

The ache had traveled up into the base of his throat, and he repressed it, holding it back from his eyes as he smiled up at A-Yao as soft as he knew how. Mingjue already knew, had already known--clearly. Now, A-Yao only had to accept.

Slowly, as if wondering, A-Yao’s hand lowered to rest just off from the crown of Xichen’s head. Still not touching the headband. Above him, Xichen caught that Mingjue’s hands had stilled, his eyes on them. Reaching up, Xichen dug his fingers back through his own hair and unraveled the same knot that he did up every morning and took down every night. The headband slid out easily from his hair with a tug.  A-Yao watched him avidly, dark eyes almost hungry. Xichen would feed that hunger while he still could, hold him while he was still able. Gaze locked on him, Xichen reached up and looped his headband around A-Yao’s wrist, once, twice, thrice, then secured it loosely, ends trailing down like ribbons. “There,” he said, quietly. He was going to continue with something oblique and coy, about it being out of the way, now, or that he needn’t worry about it, but it stuck in his throat like a lump, and he fell silent.

A-Yao’s hands came down, then, gently, lightly, to hold his face, expression unbearably tender. Xichen blinked, then blinked again as his eyes heated, then filled, most embarrassingly. He prided himself on control, this wasn’t....

A-Yao kissed him. He leaned down and kissed and kissed his mouth, deep and slow and thorough, and then, at some private thought, slightly sharp and frantic. Dazed, Xichen let him, kissed back as best he could, raising his hand to bury in his hair--his braids, the beginnings of the loops and ridges there already from Mingjue’s sure fingers. 

‘Yes.’

Unmistakably.

Then, with a shudder, A-Yao tore himself away, back, and up, and reached up to pull Mingjue down from behind him, the kiss he bestowed on him now bordering on desperate, but not with lust. Something else, more undefinable. Mingjue’s hands bracketed A-Yao’s chest, holding him steady, close and returned just as good as he got.

When they broke apart, rogue, unauthorized tears still prickled at the corners of Xichen’s eyes, and it seemed in A-Yao’s eyes too, but he closed them too quickly for Xichen to be completely sure. Neither of them mentioned it. Mingjue, however, gave a rather conspicuous, watery sniff, cleared his throat, and went back to braiding. It made Xichen smile, despite it all. Quietly, A-Yao set about braiding through Xichen’s hair as well, careful and kind to his scalp.

In the end, the consorts braids were indeed familiar. Looping, unisex, strong, they split in 3 back from the forehead, somehow woven into and not simply out of the hair there, cascading in complicated chains down. A-Yao looked gorgeous in them. Xichen wished he could wear them always.

“There would be a small ring, here and here, woven in,” Mingjue laid fingertips at each of A-Yao’s temples, just above his ears, voice contemplative and low. “But I don’t have them. And a guan at the back or a pin, depending on sex and preference.” 

A-Yao raised his hand from Xichen’s hair--the hand bound with Xichen’s headband--and felt tentatively over the beautiful twists there. When Mingjue produced a polished bronze mirror from his desk drawer, he studied it for a long time, face unreadable. Then, he smiled, softly. “I can envision it.”

That smile did much to soothe the ache in Xichen’s chest. Sitting up and twisting to snuggle in next to A-Yao instead of on him, he reached out to tilt the mirror toward himself, lowering his chin to see better. Two braids, drawing back from where his hair peaked on either side of his forehead drew back to coil at the back, where a guan would hold it in place. Odd to see on his own head, but he liked it. “And this?” he questioned with his own smile.

“Mm,” Mingjue hummed in recognition before A-Yao said anything. “Married man.”

Again, that love more like a battering ram than any gentle ocean swell. A yes. A yes, an emphatic yes. 

He smiled, perhaps a little crookedly, over at A-Yao, who was watching him keenly with his bright eyes. Leaning over, he kissed one of his eyebrows. “But this isn’t quite right,” A-Yao said, suddenly, eyes fastened on Xichen’s hair as he drew back and Mingjue hummed again, in agreement, this time.

“Ah yes, second Consort, then?” Xichen suggested, lightly. “First concubine?”

A-Yao snorted rather indelicately and Mingjue said, “I think not.”

Warm. Everywhere. “I think I’ll keep this one anyhow,” Xichen answered. “If just for tonight.”  After all, A-Yao had been the one to do it. Their A-Yao. 

While they all had each other.

#3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #SO I WASN'T PLANNING ON MAKING THIS A WHOLE LONG THING BUT ANYWAY #my stuff #my fic #3zun #Nie braids #Well now my brain is fried and it's late so I'm not gonna reply any more tonight #But I plan to tomorrow! This just got away from me 😬 #When I add this to Ao3 I might stick in a few more descriptive sentences but this is the bones of it #Those lan men decide FAST #Oh also nothing wrong with Xisang just this AU!Xichen would never #AO3 link waiting for me to post it 😅 will be back for that

[wisedawn13]

#xiantober Day 6: The Streets of Yiling

It's been years since WWX's parents told him they'd be back.

It's been years of WWX having to fend for himself on the streets of Yiling.

It is an unforgiving place for a child but he's learned to adapt.

Always smile sweetly and be kind, people are far more generous to happiness. If food is acquired, climb up somewhere high (either on a roof or up a tree) as quickly as possible or the dogs will come. When it is cold, stay by an inn's kitchen wall. Never show weakness.

In WWX's humble opinion, the dogs are the worst part of being on the street. Well, aside from the starvation, lack of shelter from the elements, and minimal human contact. The dogs are vicious and painful in a very different way. Those other things are manageable.

He's dealt with hunger and cold and loneliness for long enough, it's not as scary now.

Fortunately, over the years, WWX has built something of a rapport with a number of the shop owners that they started trusting him to do minor jobs and run errands in exchange for food.

He's quite proud of his reputation in Yiling. He is well aware that he is one of the fortunate ones. It is an unfortunate truth, but WWX has seen many a street rat fail to find a means of survival, succumbing to the elements or starvation or thievery.

Stealing is far too risky. He has seen far too many kids get caught and then...

Well, he never saw them again after that.

So, he works honestly. If no one has any work for him then he is a little hungrier for a while, it's not the biggest deal.

He has found that he can go for longer periods without food before feeling the sharp pangs of hunger.

Life is fine. He can't really complain.

It's a warm, spring day when the town feels like it's abuzz. WWX wanders around, listening to the aunties gossiping.

From the snippets of conversations he could hear, it seems that there's a small group of cultivators from one of the major sects in town, specifically the two heirs of the clan.

Ah, well that makes sense then. It's always exciting when cultivators visit.

In another life, perhaps WWX could have been a cultivator. From the little he can recall of his parents, he remembers that they both were. He wonders what that may have been like, he thinks he would have liked it.

Curious, he follows the growing sounds of gossip like a trail.

It leads him to an inn with a slight crowd amassing out front, people all trying to get a glimpse of the cultivators. WWX weasels his way to the front easily and finds a grouping of about 6 teen boys in white robes at a table and an adult talking to the innkeeper.

WWX stares with wide eyes at the way the boys hold themselves, so tall and proper. His eyes catch on one boy in particular off to the side, standing rather than sitting with the rest. His face is serious and he appears to be about WWX's age.

Oh, and he is stunningly beautiful.

WWX wants to talk to him.

He doesn't get the chance to because the adult returns and the group heads upstairs to the rooms. The crowd gathered begins to dissipate but WWX wants to stay and see that boy again.

So, he climbs on the roof across from the inn and waits.

It's not too long after that he sees that very boy walk out beside another, slightly older boy. They look very similar, so WWX assumes they must be brothers.

The elder one says something and the younger one nods before leaving the inn. The older boy walks back inside.

WWX slinks down to the street below and begins following the younger boy from a distance. He wants to approach him but doesn't know how to yet, and he is curious about where the boy is heading.

He quickly becomes confused when the boy turns down a narrow alley.

When WWX turns the corner, the boy is nowhere in sight. WWX feels his brow furrow as he enters the alley, his eyes flitting around for any sign of the boy in white robes.

Then, suddenly, his world spins and his back is slammed against a wall.

There's the press of a forearm against his throat and, when his vision stops spinning, his gaze meets with a molten gaze of golden amber.

"Who are you and what do you want?"

The voice (and the anger) makes WWX shiver. He blinks.

"Wow," he whispers in awe.

The boy's eyes widen in shock before quickly narrowing to a glare. "Who are you," he repeats in low tones, "and what do you want?"

WWX brain finally reboots. "Oh!" he exclaims. "I'm Wei Wuxian—but you can call me Wei Ying—" he winks "—and I just wanted to talk to you!"

The boy narrows his eyes even further, jaw tense. "You 'just wanted to talk' to the second heir of Gusu Lan?"

"Um... yes?" WWX squirms and the boy presses his arm against him more, pinning him to the wall. He swallows. "Look, I didn't know you were an heir! I swear it!"

Right as WWX lifts a hand to raise three fingers, the boy snatches his wrist in a bruising grip.

"Ah, ah! I wasn't going to do anything! Aiyo, you're a feisty one. I just thought you looked cool and I just..." He sighs. "I wanted a friend," he murmurs.

There's a funny sensation in his wrist, like a trickle of something foreign but comforting, and then the boy (he still doesn't know his name, but he can only assume it's Lan something) stiffens. "Come with me," he says and begins to walk away, dragging WWX along by his wrist.

WWX trips over himself to catch up. "Ah? Where are we going? I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable! I swear! I wasn't trying to steal from you. You can just let me go and we can pretend this never happened, yeah? I'll just... I'll leave. Okay? Just please—"

"Quiet," the boy snaps and WWX complies instantly.

Anxiety courses through him. He has no idea what is coming for him and he's scared. Of course, he'd be the idiot that follows a sect heir of all people. This is exactly why he keeps his distance, getting close only causes pain.

He only hopes that whatever punishment he will receive won't be too bad. He follows the boy morosely, walking to his impending doom. He doesn't bother looking up at all, he just lowers his head and allows himself to be lead, not fighting it.

"Wangji? What are you—oh! Who's this?"

The boy (Lan Wangji, he supposes) stops. "Xiongzhang, I need to speak with Shufu."

WWX ducks his head further, shrinking in on himself.

"Alright," the boy's brother replies. They begin walking again and make their way up the stairs.

The elder boy knocks on a door and they all wait. WWX hears the sound of the door opening.

"Shufu," the elder boy says. "Wangji needs to speak with you."

Their shufu hums in response and then they are moving again. The sound of the door shutting causes WWX to flinch.

They stop in what seems to be the middle of the room.

"Speak, Wangji. Why have you brought this boy here?"

WWX braces himself. The grip on his wrist tightens briefly before loosening. "Shufu, I ask that you check his meridians."

Stunned, WWX can't even find it in himself to react when another hand takes hold of his free wrist—LWJ hasn't let go yet—and there's another weird sensation, this one is far less comforting.

The hand pulls away and WWX tucks his arm close to himself, making himself smaller.

"Who taught you cultivation?"

"Huh?" WWX whips his head up, meeting a stern-looking man's gaze. "I'm not a cultivator."

The man hums, stroking his beard. "You have quite a strong core for someone not affiliated with a sect. Who taught you?"

WWX is flummoxed. He has a core? He can cultivate? How had he not known this? "I—I'm sorry. You said I have a core?"

"Yes, and quite a strong one at that."

"I don't understand... I don't know how to cultivate."

The man looks at him closely. "What is your name?"

"Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian."

He watches as the man's eyes widen. "I suspected as much. You are telling me that your parents never taught you how to cultivate?"

WWX's mind is reeling. "I... what? No, they—wait. You knew my parents?"

"Indeed. How come they never taught you?"

"They died years ago," WWX admits quietly.

The room seems to fall into a heavy silence and the hand still on his wrist twitches.

"I see," the man says. "My condolences. They were both lovely people, if a bit of a nuisance on the part of your mother."

"Shufu," the other boy speaks up. "Perhaps Wei Wuxian could come with us? Join the Gusu Lan sect?"

The man hums and WWX's heart pounds. What is happening?

"He certainly has the core for it, if he works hard he could be quite an astounding cultivator," the man says.

"Will you come to Gusu?" LWJ asks, drawing WWX's attention to him.

They stare into each other's eyes for a heated moment before WWX turns to look at the other two in the room. Slowly, he nods. He could have a home. Food. Shelter. People to talk to.

He could have a friend.

"Yes, please. I would like to go to Gusu if you will have me." WWX bows as much as he can while LWJ still has a hold on him, the movement shifting LWJ's grip from wrist to hand. Neither of them change that when WWX rights himself.

"I will speak to your guardian while you pack."

WWX blinks at the man. "Oh, uh... I don't have a guardian. Or anything to pack."

Again, the room falls into a heavy silence. "I see," is all the man says.

"He can stay in the room with Wangji," the older boy says. "I can stay with you, Shufu."

"Very well, Xichen."

The older boy—LXC—nods and smiles at WWX. "We are here for a night hunt but you may stay in the room and order whatever you need, we leave to return home tomorrow."

WWX stares at him with wide eyes. Whatever he wants? That's too much. He bows his head. "Thank you."

"Wangji, why don't you show him to your room, I'll get a bath sent up."

"Mn." LWJ grips WWX's hand and pulls him out of the room, WWX follows easily, mind still reeling. Perhaps he died and this is all a fantasy to make his life seem nicer before he moves on.

They enter another room and only then does LWJ release his hand. WWX finds he misses the warm contact more than he would have expected.

"So..." WWX starts. "Do I call you Wangji?"

"Mn... Lan Zhan, courtesy Wangji."

That's... not really a response, WWX notices.

"Lan Zhan," he says, testing the boundaries.

LWJ looks at him with a glare, but it's softer than the glares he sent his way when they first met. He doesn't tell him to not call him that, so WWX will take it.

They stand in silence for a while until there's a knock.

The bath is set up swiftly and before LWJ exits the room, he pulls out a set of robes from his pouch, holding them out to WWX. "You may wear my extra set."

WWX feels his eyes widen, he's never worn white. Or sect clothes. Or proper cultivator's robes.

He feels like he'll only dirty them in more ways than one, but he would really rather dress in proper clean clothes after bathing, so he takes them thankfully and LWJ slips out.

The bath is lovely, the clothes are weird but heavenly, and he even orders a bowl of rice to eat.

When LWJ returns later in the night after their night hunt, WWX is perched stiffly on the edge of one of the beds, waiting for him. He feels out of his depth.

"How was it?" he asks.

LWJ hums. "Too simple."

WWX laughs. They get ready for bed together and lie down.

"Night, Lan Zhan," WWX murmurs from across the room.

"Goodnight, Wei Ying," LWJ replies.

WWX smiles to himself. He has a good feeling about his future now. For the first time, he has hope.

----------

Link to thread

#xiantober #wangxian #mdzs #threadfic #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #lan wangji #lan zhan #wei wuxian #wei ying #from twitter #wisedawn13 #fanfic #fanfiction

[stiricidewrites]

All the Things We’ll Leave Behind: ch 30, pt 10

Previously

~

wwx’s smiled up at them from the screen of jzxuan’s phone, which had apparently not just called him, but video called him. “Hello, little sleepyheads~” he cooed. “I wonder, when was the last time a Lan slept in this late?”

lwj glanced at the time, which he hadn’t willingly acknowledged until now, realizing it was almost noon. “Do not tell shushu,” he said sternly, smiling when his mate laughed, his eyes crinkling into little slits, the light wrinkles and smile lines on his face showing even through the phone. He really was the most beautiful, happy man lwj had ever met.

“I promise not to inform the great and terrible lqr of his nephew’s day of sleeping in, after running around gathering up bunnies all night.”

lwj blushed at the reminder, even as jzxuan disappeared beside him. “What are you doing?” he asked, turning to find his friend’s ass flashing him as he peeked over the edge of the bed.

“I’m looking for that little bunny bastard. Dude, there is nothing under there! What’s with the obsession with being under the bed!?”

“Perhaps he has figured out that under the bed means food to get him out,” lwj said, settling against the headboard to talk to his mate.

jzxuan’s legs kicked against the bed for a moment, before he popped back up. “Maybe,” he admitted, wiggling around until he was pressed into lwj’s side. “Just means we’ll have to leave him under there until he comes out on his own. We shouldn’t reinforce bad habits. My cousins did that with our dogs and—”

“Please, don’t talk about your dogs,” wwx said through the phone, his smile growing shockingly tight and strained.

“Not a fan?” jzxuan asked, pressing himself in closer to lwj.

lwj gave him a look of exasperation, then turned it onto wwx, when the older man cooed.

“You two are too cute,” he sighed, before breaking into a yawn.

“You are tired,” lwj noted, ignoring the way his friend snorted and muttered, “Obviously.”

“Yeah,” wwx tried to say, before he yawned again. “Fuck. Yeah, didn’t sleep much. Just like, three hours? Yesterday evening? Which was… not a good sleep. Uh…”

“Did you sleep before that?” lwj asked severely, pushing half-heartedly on jzxuan’s head when he said, “Ooh~ ZhanZhan’s mad now~ Xian-gege’s in trouble now.”

“Uh… maybe?”

That was a no.

“Enough about me, though! What about you two? And all the bunnies?”

lwj glared at his mate, before admitting that they had only briefly checked on them. “Is there a pet store in Yunmeng? Or somewhere else we can get supplies?”

“There is,” wwx said nonchalantly, as though he knew nothing more than that it existed, even as his lips twitched and his gaze averted.

lwj did not trust something in that smile.

“Xian-gege—”

“A-Zhan~” the older man cooed back, “or, should I call you ZhanZhan.”

“No way, ZhanZhan is mine.”

“Doesn’t that make Xian-gege his?” wwx asked, smiling sharply and a bit… oddly at the Jin heir.

lwj frowned, looking between them. What in the world had gone on between the two of them last night? As far as he knew, they had barely—if ever—interacted before this summer, and even that had been minor. Yet, now they seemed friendly—almost more than friendly.

It was concerning.

#fanfic #mdzs fanfiction #wangxian #stiricidesbottomji #omegaverse