#I post all wei wuxian and then a poetry every two years. and art of my ocs that gets one and a half notes. sorry.

[trans-xianxian]

people who don't like cql but still follow my art account are so brave

[ibijau]

Part 2 of Lan Xichen refusing to listen when Nie Huaisang tries to tell him about Jin Guangyao’s crimes, this time post canon. As a quick warning... don’t go in there expecting a reconciliation ahah :D

In all his years of acquaintance with the Nie sect, this is the first time that Lan Xichen is made to wait at the gate, and the insult smarts. This is how a merchant or the servant of a noble family begging for help might be treated, not the leader of one of the Great Sect, and certainly not an old friend. Then again, it has been many years since Lan Xichen last came to the Unclean Realm alone. Perhaps he would have received such a welcome all along, after he and Nie Huaisang...

They never broke up, not exactly, not in such a manner that Lan Xichen could pinpoint an exact date to mark the end of their intimacy. But Nie Huaisang became more closed off in the months after his brother's death, more reluctant to tolerate any sort of affection, and Lan Xichen, tired of being denied again and again, stopped visiting alone. He only came alongside Jin Guangyao, in whose company Nie Huaisang was always a little less cold. For a while, Lan Xichen even wondered if his former lover's affection hadn't shifted toward a new target.

He wishes now that it had been something so easy. The truth, he fears, might be more unpleasant yet.

After nearly a shichen of waiting at the gate, Lan Xichen is brought inside by a disciple. Not Qinghe Nie's first disciple, but one of lesser importance who takes him to a sparse room and offers him subpar tea. He is then informed that the sect leader is currently busy, but will make time for him as soon as possible.

In a way, Lan Xichen finds this already answers the questions he has come to ask. Just a few weeks ago, Nie Huaisang would never have dared to be so rude to anyone, least of all one of Nie Mingjue's sworn brothers. He used to always drop everything for Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao, throwing himself at them with heavy tears... but then again, he was always the one begging them to come as well, whereas Lan Xichen is now here uninvited.

Another shichen passes, and then some. The tea Lan Xichen was offered is worse cold than warm, but he still finishes it as darkness creeps on him. Night, outside, is coming close, and Lan Xichen regrets not booking a room at some Qinghe inn. He has never had to before, and quite foolishly he hoped this wouldn't have changed. A mistake he will not repeat, if he ever visits again.

At long last the door opens, revealing Nie Huaisang who looks...

It would be only polite for Lan Xichen to rise up and bow to his host, or salute him in some manner. If he doesn't it isn't in protest of the long wait, but only because he can hardly recognise Nie Huaisang. The man in front of him might as well be a stranger. It might just be that it has been so long since Lan Xichen has had cause to truly look at the man he once loved. It might also be that for the first time in nearly a decade, Nie Huaisang isn't playing a role. Either way, Nie Huaisang seems taller than Lan Xichen thinks he ought to be, even accounting for the fact that one of them is standing and the other sitting. That might be because he is standing so straight, his shoulders squared rather than hunched. He looks, as he has for this past decade, a little too thin, but rather than making him frail and delicate, Lan Xichen finds the other man's features now bring to mind a carefully sharpened blade. Nie Huaisang's eyes are certainly as cool as steel, his narrow smile threatening in a way his sabre never managed to be.

“Er-ge, I'm surprised you've come here,” Nie Huaisang calmly states, looking down at Lan Xichen as he puts down a candle on a chest near the door. “I suppose I should ask the reason of your visit.”

“I think you know it already,” Lan Xichen replies without thinking, too startled by this stranger bearing a face he once adored to be polite.

Nie Huaisang smirks. “Do I? I don't think I do. Please do tell me, Er-ge. I am but a stupid man, I need things stated plainly.”

Not so long ago, Lan Xichen might have unkindly agreed.

“I'll ask this before all else: the other night, did Jin Guangyao really move?”

Nie Huaisang's smirk curls a little higher. “I've said already that I can't be sure, haven't I? Maybe he moved, maybe he didn't... I was tired, and I was wounded, and I was so terribly scared,” he explains in a mocking tone. “Weeks after the accusation was first made, I just had it confirmed that one of my very dear friend had murdered my da-ge, and you expect me to have been clear minded enough to remember every inconsequential detail?”

“You already knew he had killed da-ge,” Lan Xichen retorts.

Nie Huaisang's mouth slowly opens in a artful 'Oh' of surprise too deliberate to be anything but artifice, while his hand sets on his heart as if wounded by the accusation. He looks right out of a picture, beautiful and elegant and insincere.

“Er-ge, I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying.”

Lan Xichen frowns. He had not expected this to be easy, of course, but he hadn't prepared himself for such coldness either. In his mind, Nie Huaisang ought to have been shouting at this point. But then, he was thinking of Nie Huaisang as he lives in his memory, young and spoiled, rather than the man he became while Lan Xichen wasn't paying attention.

“I am saying that I have given due consideration to what Wei Wuxian said last month in that temple,” Lan Xichen says. “I believe that he might have been right.”

Even an actor as talented as Nie Huaisang can break character. For a brief instant, he appears to struggle to contain a smile, though that problem is solved when he quickly opens a fan with a sharp yet graceful gesture. Lan Xichen is left breathless when he recognises the fan. It is one he bought for Nie Huaisang, when they were young and not yet crossing the line between friends and lovers. When they finally did, they wrote together a few lines of poetry on that fan, because Nie Huaisang, so sweet at that time, wanted to do like the couples in those stories he so enjoyed reading, and Lan Xichen of course couldn't have done anything but indulge him in this caprice.

It cannot be an accident for this particular fan to have been chosen as Nie Huaisang's shield.

“Er-ge... no, sorry, Zewu-Jun, that is a serious accusation you're throwing at me,” Nie Huaisang saying, almost sounding hurt. Almost. “So, I must ask... do you have any proof? You can't say this without some serious proof.”

Something in Nie Huaisang's tone is a little odd, as if it matters to him whether Lan Xichen has anything concrete to show.

“No more than you probably did when you started all this, Huaisang.”

“But if I had done that, I would have had proof” Nie Huaisang retorts, his eyes burning from behind his fan. “Plenty of it. If I were to have gone on the path of revenge, it might have been because Baxia had become restless in the weeks after her master's death, and started causing problems in the sabre's hall,” he explains, dropping the fan to reveal a feverish expression. “So of course I would have checked my brother's tomb, and found it empty. That's when I might have become suspicious of foul play, and turned to you for help. I wonder, would you have listened to me, or would you have rushed to defend someone you clearly valued more than me?”

Lan Xichen's eyebrows rise high in surprise. He knows for a fact that Nie Huaisang never mentioned his brother's corpse being missing, he certainly would remember that.

“If this is your excuse for never letting me know the truth...”

The fan comes up again. “Er-ge, this is purely hypothetical of course,” Nie Huaisang says pleasantly, as if they were discussing the weather. “I suppose if those things had happened, I wouldn't even have had a chance to make a case against Jin Guangyao before you'd make it clear on whose side you were. You've always been so quick to defend him, haven't you? Even when da-ge was alive... they were both your friends, but you only ever seemed to side with one of them, didn't you?”

It is an unfair statement. Lan Xichen used to defend Jin Guangyao in front of Nie Mingjue, yes, but he made no less efforts to mend that relationship on both sides. Many times he tried to explain to Jin Guangyao how their sworn brother's personality worked, how Nie Mingjue meant no harm by speaking the way he did, how he was truly trying to help by offering chance after chance for Jin Guangyao to prove his good faith, especially in that business with Xue Yang, and how Nie Mingjue's education and personal experience made it hard for him to understand that Jin Guangshan wouldn't be swayed by the demands of a bastard son he half openly despised.

Lan Xichen had done all that he could to be a bridge between two men whose affection was so disturbed by deeply different worldviews. Many things had escaped his attention at that time, but he had never been so foolish as to think every problem in their friendship came from Nie Mingjue alone.

Just because Nie Huaisang had borne witness to only one side of his efforts didn't mean the other side never existed.

“Someone had to defend him,” Lan Xichen coldly points out. “I realise now that some of his enemies were right to hate him, but how could I not dismiss them when their first impulse was always to attack him for his birth?”

“But I didn't!” Nie Huaisang explodes, closing his fan to furiously point it at Lan Xichen. His hand trembles with rage, and there's not art to his expression now, only raw emotion of unexpected intensity. “I didn't come to you calling him a son of a whore!” He cries out. “I didn't call him a bastard, or a servant unworthy of his title! All I said was that I suspected murder, and instantly you defended Jin Guangyao, before throwing it to my face that maybe it was my fault if da-ge had been so unbalanced!”

Nie Huaisang waves his fan at Lan Xichen, heavy tears staining his face.

“Do you know how terrified I was to share this with you? You'd been on Guangyao's side so often, you'd been the reason he'd had access to da-ge even in his unstable state! Everything was telling me that you could have been complicit in da-ge's death, that you and Guangyao could have been working together! But I loved you!” Nie Huaisang shouts, his voice breaking on the words. “I loved you, you were the only thing I had left and I loved you, certain you loved me as well, so I trusted you and tried to come to you with my discoveries, and for what?”

Laughing hysterically, Nie Huaisang reopens his fan to hide his tears.

“You don't even remember that day, do you?” he croaks. “Everything changed for me that night, and it wasn't even worth remembering for you.”

Lan Xichen stares down at the table in front of him, desperately trying to recall the conversation that left such an impact on Nie Huaisang. It must have been before they drifted apart, he guesses. To his shame, he truly cannot remember.

He tells himself that he too was grieving, that Nie Huaisang doesn't remember well, that he was perhaps less clear in his accusation than he now thinks he was. Lan Xichen easily finds many excuses for not remembering, but he knows them for what they are: excuses. The truth, ugly as it might be, is simply that he paid little attention to what Nie Huaisang had to say at that time. His grief, raw and exposed, had been uncomfortable to witness, and Lan Xichen had only held on to the good parts of his lover while waiting for the bad ones to go away on their own.

“So Wei Wuxian guessed right, then,” Lan Xichen whispers, unwilling to dwell on his past failings at the moment. “You did all this...”

“Did I?” Nie Huaisang asks, regaining control of himself, his expression turning distant again in spite of the lingering hoarseness in his voice. “Everything I said was hypothetical of course. Who knows what I did or didn't do? After so long, who knows what could have been prevented if you'd only trusted me half as much as I might have trusted you? But I will say this...”

He lowers his fan, revealing a sharp smile, more like a beast baring its teeth than anything.

“Er-ge, supposing I did any of the things Wei Wuxian accused me of the other day, then you would bear as much fault in my supposed crimes as you do in Jin Guangyao's,” Nie Huaisang says, almost sweetly. “The mighty Zewu-Jun, so pure and good, so untouched by dirt and blood, having enabled so much pain and chaos just because it's easier to look away when things are unpleasant.”

Lan Xichen doesn't answer. It is an unfair accusation, he tells himself. Jin Guangyao's actions were never under his control, and neither were Nie Huaisang.

What happened wasn't his fault, and he refuses to react to Nie Huaisang's very obvious taunting. It is clear now that the other man will not give him a straight answer regarding anything that has happened. Perhaps it was foolish to ever hope that he would, considering what Wei Wuxian said he might have done.

“It's getting late, Zewu-Jun,” Nie Huaisang remarks, glancing out the window as if he only now realises how dark it has become around them. The candle he'd brought with him offers little light. “You should get going. I hope you'll understand why I don't offer to let you stay the night.”

“I wouldn't accept even if you offered,” Lan Xichen replies as he stands up. “I suppose we'll meet again some other time, Nie zongzhu.”

“Only if I have no other choice, Zewu-Jun,” Nie Huaisang says. “I'll call for someone to take you back to the gate. I've already wasted enough time on you.”

With how often he has been here as a guest, Lan Xichen doesn't need a guide to find his way inside the Unclean Realm, not even in the dark. He keeps that remark to himself, unwilling to deal with Nie Huaisang longer than necessary.

Soon enough he is outside the gates of the Unclean Realm, free to breathe again, and starts walking into the night, toward Qinghe. Lan Xichen knows he could fly, but walking gives him a better chance to think and consider what he has just learned, and to analyse this conversation with Nie Huaisang.

It is the first time in many years that he gives this much thought to his former lover's words and actions, he realises, and something like guilt curls coldly into his chest. Perhaps this really could have been avoided, if he had paid more attention to the changes in Nie Huaisang's personality... but in those years after the Sunshot Campaign he'd seen too much grief, accepted too well that it manifested in odd ways, that someone people would wallow in it and let it become the core of what they are. Nie Huaisang had seemed only another example of this. Having always been so expressive in his joys, it felt unsurprising that he would fall as eagerly into his despair.

Lan Xichen, busy with his own trouble, with a sect to run, with his brother's punishment only then lifted, cannot be expected to have dedicated all his energy and time analysing the changes in a lover who kept pushing him away.

Can he?

He also cannot be blamed for the crimes of others, Lan Xichen eventually decides. All he did was consider the information at hand, and trust people based on their actions. Anyone else would have done the same, his actions were measured and reasonable, and though he was wrong in his judgement, everything he did was in good faith.

What happened wasn't his fault.

Was it?

[uweiy]

They were roommates part. 7

They easily fell into a routine.

7 AM

Lan Xichen was nowhere to be seen on mornings, the only reminders of his presence being the little post-it notes Jiang Cheng found every day.

They read "Have a good day Wanyin."

"I discovered a nice spot by the pond. Have a nice day"

"enjoy your day"

and every variation thereof. And well no one had to know if he kept them.

9 AM

During the day, his brother was always scheming some prank or the other with Huaisang, mostly involving Lan Wangji, Wen ning trailing after them.

Of course he still dragged Jiang Cheng along, but it sometimes made him feel like an outsider in a group running too fast and too far ahead for him.

Times like these he really missed his sister.

She had always managed to keep them together, in this gentle way of hers, and he had really grown used to their trio. But now she was building a life of her own, Wei Wuxian was beginning to do the same, and it seemed like he was the only one clutching to the past.

12 AM

He didn't see Xichen during the day either, the other being a third year from another major.

At most he would get a glimpse of him during lunch break, but Xichen was always surrounded by various honor students, or busy with student council meetings and whatnot.

6 PM

The first time of the day Jiang Cheng caught sight of Xichen was when he came back to their room, and that prospect always managed to lighten his mood a little. Which was strange.

Xichen was often sitting at his desk with a cup of green tea, reading some book or the other, or playing instruments Jiang Cheng had never seen before. He'd greet Jiang Cheng with a smile, and the two of them would easily chatter away.

He learned that the Lan family were eminent professors. Philosophy, litterature, law, and so on. They had them all.

Xichen however was a music student. He loved a good piece of poetry, novel or art in general, and Jiang Cheng surprisingly started to enjoy those things when Xichen read some aloud.

Sometimes Xichen would explain some painting or piece of music to him, while gesturing animatedly and with sparkling eyes.

On some evenings though, Xichen seemed very far away and didn't talk at all. Jiang Cheng didn't know how to reach him.

At least, when this occured, Jiang Cheng got a lot of work done.

8 PM

They often cooked their evening meal together, their arms brushing together just a bit more than necessary in the small kitchen.

Xichen's cooking was incredibly tasteless. So, Jiang Cheng introduced him to grilled cheese, and made it his duty to get Xichen to try every dish he could think of.

Which mostly succeeded, with Xichen always stealing bits of food from his plate.

In return, Xichen was mostly appalled by his choice of drinks. He tried –in vain–to get Jiang Cheng to drink tea.

"It's not 'lukewarm moss-soup' Wanyin." Xichen always insisted.

Jiang Cheng knew better.

9 PM

It's not that Xichen went to bed at 9 PM. At 9 PM, the other had already showered, done his schoolwork, packed his bag, tidied his stuff and was dead asleep.

It was then time for Jiang Cheng to turn on his desk light. After throwing a quick glance at Xichen and making sure it didn't wake him, he got to his own homework.

First part//previous/next

[forlorninquiry]

Lan Wangji and his bond with Lan Xichen? ❤️

Send me a topic and I’ll write my take!

So, I personally have a deep affection for characters that are brothers - Turgon and Fingon (and Argon but he half-exists) as well as Feanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin from Tolkien, Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian (they count), and Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen are no exception to my general rule. 

The Twin Jades function at a high, intuitive level. I hate to resort to the twin trope, but that’s really kind of what I’m going to compare their brotherhood to. In a childhood largely absent of their mother and their uncle Lan Qiren standing in for their father (which I have ideas about, but they are forming), they have each other primarily. Their childhood was never wanting for anything in a tangible, material sense - but the Lan Sect’s Daoist tendencies don’t make for an upbringing that is perceived as normal by other groups, and it may not even be seen as healthy by them. Certainly for Wei Wuxian, who had much of his childhood with Jiang Cheng doing things that are boisterous and active and loud and confrontational… fundamentally different in ways that absolutely affect how everyone perceives the Lans and their self-imposed restraints (see: the wall of rules). But I think where their childhood lacked in some emotional growth that almost all children experience, they had each other for it. That isn’t to say Lan Qiren is emotionally withdrawn - but I think he wanted to raise what he thought were model concepts of the Gusu Lan disciple, someone who minded every single rule at all times. And if Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen wanted to live up to their uncle’s expectations, they would rather ‘confide’ (in a form that was their own, I can’t imagine their conversations being heavy on words or outpouring of emotion) in each other than in their father figure. I think their emotions were expressed in abstract ways - poetry, art, calligraphy; methods that encouraged a certain brand of beauty in harmony… never directly with whom it concerned. 

The brothers knew each other intimately because they are very familiar with each other as a result of their experiences. To my knowledge, this is 100% accepted in fandom, as evidenced by their Twin Jades title that they seem to have grown up with. Though they are separated merely by years, they could have been very reliant on each other in their cultivation training, philosophical/gentlemanly arts education, and in night hunts. I think another part of why they’re nearly identical is because of Lan Qiren’s education: if he raises them with identical methods, then much of their formative experiences are identical and they are nearly the same. 

I’m going to theorize on the post-novel, so here’s my disclaimer - I have not read anyone else’s translations besides Exiled Rebels Scanlations, and I don’t intend to. I’m currently up to chapter 82, and so while I have been relatively spoiled on what happens, these ideas are incomplete at best and they will change. 

That said, I think the relationship between the two changes in that Lan Wangji becomes more independent of the main Gusu Lan Sect. He never leaves them (meaning he’s always a member of Gusu Lan), but I think he certainly is more independent than he was before. As an extension, I think that while he becomes geographically separated from his brother he never wants their bond to diminish even if Lan Xichen has his own struggles to deal with (*cough*Jin Guangyao). Whatever troubled waters laying ahead for the rest of their lives will be worked out the way all Lans do. Such is how it always has been, and such as it will always be. It might be a tragic cycle of fate, but as of late I’m not convinced it’s a terrible thing.