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fannish-karmiya · 2 years

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Was Lan Wangji Deterred from Wei Wuxian by Familial Disapproval?

Lan Wangji's failure to stand by Wei Wuxian in his first life until it was too late is often discussed. He struggled with defying his family and society in order to do the right thing, and he had to learn the importance of following your conscience rather than blindly obeying the rules. All this is true, but I think there's another angle to this which hasn't really been considered: familial disapproval.

After arguing for years over his cultivation and gaining a reputation for hating each other, in reality things were starting to improve between Wangxian in the last few years of Wei Wuxian's life. And yet after the Yiling date, where they got on well and never argued, Lan Wangji vanishes from Wei Wuxian's life until nearly the end.

I'm starting to wonder if a significant factor in Lan Wangji leaving Yiling and not returning for a year or more is actually his growing awareness that his family disapproved of Wei Wuxian, and that he felt there was no way forward for their relationship.

I do want to note that I'm theorising here; we're never given a good look into Lan Wangji's head during this part of the story. But I do think that this theory has textual backing, and will try to explore that here.

Improving Relations

First, I want to lay out that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's relationship was improving during this period. Lan Wangji seems to have been consciously aware of the romantic nature of his feelings for a long time, unlike Wei Wuxian who was much more confused about his sexuality. They also have a history of arguing over Wei Wuxian's cultivation, which was well-known. But their last three interactions before Nightless City are actually increasingly positive.

First, there is the night hunt on Phoenix Mountain. Wei Wuxian is playful and flirtatious, tossing a flower at Lan Wangji along with the maidens:

The more daring ones, however, had already run to the edge of the watching towers, tossing over the buds and blossoms that they had prepared beforehand. A rain of flowers immediately scattered down from the sky. To toss flowers at beautiful-looking men and women in expression of admiration was a tradition.

[...]

However, Lan WangJi suddenly raised his hand, stopping a flower tossed over from behind him.

He looked back. Over at the side of the YunmengJiang Sect’s riding formation, which hadn’t departed yet, Jiang Cheng clicked his tongue impatiently, seated at the front. However, the person beside him sat on a horse with black, gleaming hair. His elbow was at the head of the horse as he looked to the side as though nothing happened, talking and laughing with two slender-bodied maidens.

Lan XiChen saw that Lan WangJi had drawn the reins and ceased to move forward, “WangJi, what happened?”

Lan WangJi, “Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian finally turned around, face full of surprise, “What? HanGuang-Jun, did you call me? What’s up?”

Holding the flower, Lan WangJi seemed to be quite cold. His tone seemed cold as well, “Was it you?”

Wei WuXian immediately denied it, “No, it wasn’t.”

The maidens beside him spoke at once, “Don’t believe him. It was him!”

Wei WuXian, “How could you treat a good person like this? I’m getting angry!”

Giggling, the maidens pulled their reins and went to the formations of their own sects. Lan WangJi lowered the hand that he held the flower with and shook his head.

[...]

When they slowly rode into the distance, carrying with them the clouds of petals and fragrance, Jiang Cheng glanced at the colourful sea of handkerchiefs waving on the watching towers before turning to Wei WuXian, “Why are you throwing out flowers along with the girls?”

Wei WuXian, “I think he looks nice. Can’t I throw a few as well?”

(Chapter 69, Exiled Rebels translation)

Up next, Lan Wangji seeks Wei Wuxian out while he's blindfolded and kisses him. Wei Wuxian actually rather seems to enjoy it, even though he doesn't know who it is.

From the kiss, Wei WuXian’s entire body felt limp. Energy came into his arms only after he leaned against the tree for some more time.

Raising his hand, he ripped the ribbon away only to be stung by the glare of the sudden sunlight. He finally managed to open his eyes, but nothing was around him. Bushes, trees, grasses, vines—no second person.

Wei WuXian was still somewhat confused. He sat on the branch for a while longer. When he jumped off, he felt weakness under his legs, almost light-headed.

He supported himself on the tree trunk at once, cursing at how useless he was in silence. He had been kissed so hard that his legs were giving out. Looking up, he glanced around the area, but there was no trace of another person. The previous scene seemed to be an absurd yet erotic daydream. Wei WuXian couldn’t help but think of the legends of those mountain creatures.

But he was certain that it wasn’t some mountain creature. It had to be a person.

Recalling what it had felt like, formless tickles crawled up all the way to the tip of his heart. Wei WuXian touched his chest with his right hand, but found that the flower that had been there was gone.

He searched the ground for a while. It wasn’t there either. It couldn’t have disappeared out of thin air, could it?

Wei WuXian remained paused for a long while. He touched his lips unconsciously, finally managing to say a while later, “How could this be… This was my…”

(Chapter 69, Exiled Rebels translation)

He's extremely flustered, and even tries to search for the person who kissed him...and clearly not in anger.

The tension between them continues later when Wei Wuxian comes across Lan Wangji:

He stood still for a while, clenching his sword. His grip was tight, exerting so much strength that his knuckles grew white. As though he had somewhat calmed down, he suddenly looked over again, his gaze pinning Wei WuXian.

Wei WuXian felt a strange, unexplainable sensation. His eyes had been covered by the ribbon for over two hours. The sunlight was still a bit too dazzling for him. After he took off the ribbon, his eyes keep on tearing up. His lips were somewhat swollen as well. Wei WuXian felt that what he looked like right now must be terrible. Being stared at so hard, he couldn’t help but touched his chin, “Lan Zhan?”

“…”

Lan WangJi, “Nothing.”

[...]

Seeing that his expression was finally returning to normal and that he was most likely fine, Wei WuXian finally stopped worrying. Although he was curious about what had happened, it wouldn’t be good if he intervened in it too much, and thus he began to chat. Lan WangJi refused to talk in the beginning. Afterward, he finally replied a few short words.

A hint of heat and a swelling sensation on Wei WuXian’s lips kept on reminding him he had just lost the first kiss that he had been guarding for twenty years. He was kissed until his head was dizzy, but he didn’t even know whom the other person was and what she looked like. Just how could it be?

Wei WuXian sighed slowly. He suddenly spoke up, “Lan Zhan, have you ever kissed someone?”

[...]

Wei WuXian grinned, face full of understanding. He closed his eyes, “You haven’t, have you? I knew it. I was just asking. You don’t need to be so angry.”

Lan WangJi, “How do you know?”

Wei WuXian, “What do you think? With such a stiff face wherever you go, who’d dare kiss you? Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to initiate a kiss either. I think that you’ll have to keep your first kiss until the end of your life, hahahaha…”

He gloated alone. Lan WangJi’s face was still expressionless, but he seemed to have relaxed somewhat.

After he had laughed enough, Lan WangJi spoke up, “What about you?”

Wei WuXian raised a brow, “Me? Of course I’ve had lots of experience.”

Lan WangJi’s face, having relaxed a moment earlier, was immediately covered in a layer of snow and frost.

(Chapter 69, Exiled Rebels translation)

Even though Lan Wangji is still being quite tsundere, there's definitely an improvement in their conversation here over, say, when they were teenagers. And Wei Wuxian also reveals that he doesn't know it was Lan Wangji who kissed him, since he says that he thinks Lan Wangji has never kissed anyone.

After this they run across Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, and things get sidetracked. However, two months later, Lan Wangji decides to visit Wei Wuxian in Yunmeng, and finds himself inundated with flowers:

Suddenly, however, from ahead of him came a young, grinning girl dressed in vibrant colors. In a hurry, she brushed shoulders with him, but suddenly tossed something toward his body.

Nimbly, Lan WangJi caught the object. He looked down to find the bud of a flower as white as snow.

[...]

One after another, Lan WangJi had already gathered a bundle of colorful flowers, though he still stood expressionlessly in the middle of the streets. [...] As Lan WangJi pondered with downcast eyes, he suddenly felt something weigh onto his head. He raised his hand. A pink medicinal peony, at the peak of its bloom, had landed flawlessly on the side of his head.

From on top of a building came a grinning voice, “Lan Zhan—ah, no, HanGuang-Jun—what a coincidence!”

Lan WangJi looked up to see an airy pavilion lined with layers and layers of gauze curtains. A black-robed man lay on his side over a red lacquer divan. One hand of his slender body dangled down, holding a fine liquor jar made of black clay. Half of the jar’s crimson tassel wrapped around his arm, while the other half swayed back and forth in the air.

Lan WangJi didn’t leave with a cold face, contrary to their conjectures. He only said, “It is you.”

Wei WuXian, “It’s me! Someone who does such a ridiculous thing has to be me. Where did you find the time to come to Yunmeng? If you’re not busy, come up here and have a drink?”

A few girls encircled him, all cramped onto the divan, laughing at those down below, “Yeah, Young Master, come up here and have a drink!”

The girls were the ones who tossed flowers at him earlier on. There was no need to say who was the person that told them to do such a thing.

Lowering his head, Lan WangJi turned around and proceeded to leave. Seeing that there was no reaction, Wei WuXian wasn’t surprised at all. With a click of his tongue, he rolled down the divan and drank a mouthful of the liquor in his jar. Yet, a few moments later, a series of footsteps came, lighter than heavy, calmer than rushed.

With steady steps, Lan WangJi walked up the stairs and parted the curtains as he entered. The bejeweled strings clinked crisply, almost melodically.

He placed the bundle of flowers that had hit him onto the small table, “Your flowers.”

Wei WuXian slanted his body until he could reach the table, “You’re welcome. I’ll give them to you. These are your flowers now.”

Lan WangJi, “Why?”

Wei WuXian, “Why not? I just wanted to see how you’d react to such a thing.”

Lan WangJi, “Ridiculous.”

Wei WuXian, “Ridiculous is exactly what I am. Or else I wouldn’t have been so bored as to get you up here… Hey, hey, hey, don’t go. You’re already here. You won’t have a few sips?”

(Chapter 71, Exiled Rebels translation)

Up next, though, Lan Wangji starts getting on Wei Wuxian's case about his cultivation again:

As he expected, Lan WangJi said, slowly, “You should not accompany yourself with inhuman beings for so long.”

The smiles of the girls who were tittering around Wei WuXian immediately disappeared.

[...]

Lan WangJi turned around and walked a step closer to him, “Wei Ying, it is still best if you come back to Gusu with me.”

“…” Wei WuXian, “I really haven’t heard this in a long time. The Sunshot Campaign is already over. I thought you’ve given up long ago.”

Lan WangJi, “Last time, during the hunt on Phoenix Mountain, have you noticed certain signs?”

Wei WuXian, “What signs?”

Lan WangJi, “The loss of control.”

[...]

Lan WangJi, “It is not too late yet. In the future, even if you regret…”

Without waiting for him to finish talking, Wei WuXian’s expression changed. He suddenly stood up, “Lan Zhan!”

Behind him, red light had begun to glow within the eyes of the girls. Wei WuXian, “Stop it.”

Thus, the girls lowered their heads and retreated, but still they stared unwaveringly at Lan WangJi. Wei WuXian turned to him, “What can I say? Even though I don’t think that I’ll regret it, I don’t like it when people take guesses at how I’m going to be in the future, either.”

After a while of silence, Lan WangJi replied, “I am the one who was out of line.”

Wei WuXian, “Not really. But, indeed, looks like I shouldn’t have invited you up here. Today was because of my presumption.”

Lan WangJi, “It was not.”

Wei WuXian smiled, his words polite, “Really? That’s good, then.”

He finished in one gulp the half cup of liquor that was left, “But, no matter what, I should still thank you. I’ll take it as you’re concerned for me.”

Wei WuXian waved his hand, “Then, I won’t bother HanGuang-Jun any longer. Let’s meet again if the chance comes up.”

(Chapter 71, Exiled Rebels translation)

There's a lot going on in this conversation, and Lan Wangji still makes a mess of it. But he does, I want to point out, recognise that he went too far and apologises, which is a significant improvement over past arguments. He also responded positively to the flowers Wei Wuxian tossed at him. Back when he was a teen, he would have probably stormed off in a huff at this flirtation; instead now, he walks upstairs to greet Wei Wuxian and hand him the flowers back, in almost a reciprocal gesture.

While he still has a long way to go, he really seems to be trying to correct his behaviour.

Finally, their next proper meeting is in Yiling, a few months after Wei Wuxian's liberation of the Wens from Qiongqi Path. Lan Wangji buys A-Yuan a bunch of toys and then is dragged into having lunch with Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan. Their interactions over lunch are all very positive and friendly, and then when Wei Wuxian's warning talisman goes off, he accompanies him to the Burial Mounds to check on things. He then helps him with the released corpses and Wen Ning.

As though he was hit by a large boulder, Wei WuXian flew back from the force, crashing onto a tree. He felt warmth rise up his throat and cursed. Lan WangJi saw this happen just as he returned. His expression changed at once and he rushed in front of him. Wen Qing had just shoved Wen Yuan into another’s arms. She wanted to check on Wei WuXian’s injuries, but he got there before she could. She paused with surprise. Lan WangJi was almost embracing Wei WuXian as he held his hand and passed spiritual energy to him.

(Chapter 75, Exiled Rebels translation)

In the end, the combined playing of both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian helps Wen Ning awaken, and while he reunites with his sister, Wangxian go into the cave to talk. At this point, Lan Wangji expresses concern for Wei Wuxian's cultivation again:

Whether it was because of the lighting or not, Wei WuXian’s complexion seemed unusually pale. His smile seemed to have some eeriness to it as well. Lan WangJi gazed at him quietly, “Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian, “What?”

Lan WangJi, “Can you really control it?”

Wei WuXian, “Control what? You mean Wen Ning? Of course I can. Look, he’s already returned to consciousness.” Wei WuXian gloated, “An unprecedented fierce corpse.”

Lan WangJi, “What would you do if he lost consciousness again?”

Wei WuXian, “I already have experience with dealing with him when he’s out of consciousness. I’m the one who controls him. As long as nothing happens to me, nothing will happen to him either.”

After a while of silence, Lan WangJi asked, “But what if something does happen to you?”

Wei WuXian, “It won’t.“

Lan WangJi, “How could you be sure?”

Wei WuXian’s voice was firm, “It won’t, and it can’t.”

Lan WangJi, “Do you intend on staying like this from now on?”

(Chapter 75, Exiled Rebels translation)

Now, some other interesting things go on here: there are quite a few hints that Lan Wangji is starting to suspect something about Wei Wuxian's core, for example. But that's not the focus of this essay, so I want to skip ahead a bit.

Just as everyone is cheering up and chatting, and he is invited to stay longer, Lan Wangji instead decides to leave:

Laughter was just starting to fill the Demon-Slaughtering Cave when Lan WangJi turned around without saying anything and proceeded to walk out of the cave.

Both Wen Qing and Wen Ning paused in surprise. Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan?”

Lan WangJi’s footsteps hesitated. No emotions could be distinguished from his tone, “It is time for me to return.”

[...]

Lan WangJi stayed silent.

Under Wei WuXian’s arm, Wen Yuan looked up at him, “Brother, you won’t be eating here?”

Lan WangJi glanced at him. He reached out and stroked his head softly.

Wen Yuan thought that he was going to stay. His face brightened up, whispering, “A-Yuan heard a secret. They said that there’ll be lots of good food today…”

Wei WuXian, “This brother here has food waiting for him in his own home. He won’t be staying.”

[...]

A moment later, Wei WuXian spoke up, “Lan Zhan, you asked me if I intended on staying like this from now on. To be honest, I’d like to ask something as well. What can I do apart from this?”

He continued, “Give up the demonic path? Then what about the people on this mountain?

“Give them up? I won’t be able to do it. I believe that if you were I, you wouldn’t be able to do it either.”

He continued, “Nobody can give me a nice, broad road to walk on. A road where I could protect those I want to protect without having to cultivate the ghostly path.”

Lan WangJi gazed at him. He didn’t reply, but both of them knew the answer in their hearts.

There was no such road.

No solution existed.

Wei WuXian spoke slowly, “Thank you for keeping me company today. Thank you for telling me the news about my shijie’s marriage too. But, let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on. I, too, know what I should and shouldn’t do. I believe that I’ll be able to control it as well.”

As if he’d anticipated such an attitude since a long time ago, Lan WangJi nodded slightly and closed his eyes.

And that marked their farewell.

(Chapter 75, Exiled Rebels translation)

Here, Lan Wangji may still not accept Wei Wuxian's cultivation, but he acknowledges its necessity, which is a significant improvement over his prior stance. He also tacitly agrees when Wei Wuxian says that Lan Wangji would do the same in his place, and that he thinks he is doing the right thing. The two part ways, and Lan Wangji honestly seems...quite pained.

I always wondered why he never visited again after this, even though at least a year must have passed between Jiang Yanli's marriage (a week after this visit) and Nightless City. Especially since their prior two interactions had been significantly improved over their years during the war, and are also very romantically and sexually charged. Why the sudden shift in tone?

And that's when it occurred to me; perhaps Lan Wangji was saying goodbye, just like Jiang Yanli when she visits later to show Wei Wuxian her wedding dress.

Familial Disapproval

We know, of course, that Lan Qiren has always disliked Wei Wuxian, from the very first day he showed up at Cloud Recesses for the lectures at fifteen. Not only does he dislike him, though; he actively disapproves of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji being friends or indeed interacting at all.

After Lan QiRen left Qinghe and returned to Gusu, he didn’t make Wei WuXian go to the Library Pavilion to copy the Lan Sect’s sect rules again, but simply gave him a harsh scolding in front of everyone. Without the parts where he quoted ancient scriptures, it all boiled down to how he had never seen someone so unruly and shameless before, so please get lost, as soon and as far as possible. Please don’t go near the other pupils, and especially refrain from tainting his favorite one—Lan WangJi.

(Chapter 18, Exiled Rebels translation)

Furthermore, Lan Qiren eventually instructs Lan Wangji to stop attending classes; specifically to keep him apart from Wei Wuxian:

On the second day, Lan WangJi finally stopped having classes with them.

Wei WuXian’s seat changed three times. [...] When Lan QiRen was teaching in the front, Lan WangJi sat as straight as a wall made of iron. Behind him, Wei WuXian would either sleep like a log or draw scribbles as he pleased. Aside from Lan WangJi occasionally blocking the crumpled pieces of paper he threw toward other people, it was an excellent place to be at. However, soon afterward, Lan QiRen became aware of this trick, so he switched their seats. Ever since then, whenever Wei WuXian’s sitting posture became a bit tilted, he could feel a cold, sharp gaze staring at his back. Lan QiRen would also throw him a glowering look. It was extremely uncomfortable for him to be monitored by the old one and the young one all the time. Moreover, after the Pornography Case and the Rabbit Case, Lan QiRen was certain that Wei WuXian was a basin full of jet-black dye, and feared that his favorite pupil would be stained, which was why he hastened to tell Lan WangJi to stop going to lessons.

(Chapter 18, Exiled Rebels translation)

Meanwhile, I've actually discussed Lan Xichen's feelings on Wangxian's friendship extensively in another essay, so I won't repeat myself and instead will direct you there. The gist of it is that while he starts off being supportive of a friendship during the lectures, he becomes more ambivalent afterwards and seems to eventually come to dislike Wei Wuxian.

However, Lan Xichen tends to cover his feelings with a smile, and I don't think Lan Wangji was aware that Lan Xichen didn't like Wei Wuxian and would disapprove of a relationship between them...until the banquet at Koi Tower when Wei Wuxian arrives to ask Jin Zixun to tell him where Wen Ning is.

Before Wei Wuxian arrives, the Twin Jades have this conversation:

With a twist of his wrist, Lan XiChen swept over one of the snow-colored flowers, its petals in full bloom. The motion was so gentle that not even a dewdrop fell. He spoke, “WangJi, is there something on your mind? Why have you been so tense?”

Of course, in most people’s eyes, the ‘tenseness’ probably looked no different than Lan WangJi’s other expressions.

Lan WangJi’s brows sunk low as he shook his head. A few moments later, he replied in a low voice, “Brother, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan XiChen was surprised, “Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?”

Lan WangJi nodded, his expression pensive. After a pause, he continued, “Take him back… and hide him somewhere.”

Lan XiChen’s eyes immediately widened.

Ever since their mother passed away, this brother of his had gradually become more and more withdrawn. Apart from going on night-hunts, he’d shut himself in his room all day long, reading, meditating, practicing calligraphy, playing his guqin, and improving his cultivation. He never talked much to anyone except for him, his elder brother. Yet, this was the first time that such words found their way outside of his lips.

Lan XiChen, “Hide him somewhere?”

Lan WangJi frowned softly. He began again, “But he is not willing.”

(Chapter 72, Exiled Rebels translation)

Given their parents' marriage, it's likely that Lan Xichen at this point may have even started to suspect that Lan Wangji felt more than friendship for Wei Wuxian.

After Wei Wuxian obtains the information he needs, he leaves, and this exchange happens:

Lan XiChen was the only one who exclaimed, “Brother!”

Jin GuangYao, “I’m fine, I’m fine. Brother, please be seated.”

It was unsuitable for Lan XiChen to comment on Jin ZiXun, so he took out a snow-colored handkerchief and passed it to him, “Go retire and change your clothes.”

Jin GuangYao took the handkerchief, wiping away as he forced a smile, “I can’t leave, can I?”

He was the only one left to clean up the mess. How could he leave the scene? He reassured the crowd as he ranted, completely exhausted, “Young Master Wei really is too impulsive. How could he speak in such a way in front of so many sects?”

Lan WangJi spoke coldly, “Was he wrong?”

Jin GuangYao paused almost unnoticeably. He immediately laughed, “Haha. Yes, he’s right. But it’s because he’s right that he can’t say it in front of them, correct?”

Lan XiChen seemed as if he was deep in thought, “Young Master Wei’s heart really has changed.”

Hearing this, pain flashed across the light pair of eyes under Lan WangJi’s knitted brows.

(Chapter 72, Exiled Rebels translation)

There are quite a few things to note here. Firstly, of course, is that Lan Xichen speaks negatively of Wei Wuxian in front of Lan Wangji, also expressing disapproval of his actions. Lan Wangji reacts to this with pain, and his earlier cold challenge to Jin Guangyao ("Was he wrong?") shows that he is not this time pained because he agrees with Lan Xichen or is worried about Wei Wuxian's cultivation. He thinks that Wei Wuxian was right to make the accusations he did (about the mistreatment of the Wens and the hypocrisy of the cultivation world).

Instead, it seems to me that Lan Wangji is pained...because his brother expressed disapproval of Wei Wuxian.

His uncle has always been disapproving, but as far as Lan Wangji knew, his brother was at least vaguely supportive. But suddenly, after they had a conversation where Lan Wangji intimated that he wanted to bring Wei Wuxian to Cloud Recesses (and given the parallels to his parents' marriage, conducted to save Lan-furen's life, this clearly has an undertone of romantic intention), Lan Xichen then turns around and openly expresses disapproval of Wei Wuxian.

It is entirely possible, I think, that at this point Lan Wangji realised, to his dismay, that both members of his nuclear family disapproved of Wei Wuxian. If he had the support of his brother, perhaps his uncle could be persuaded. Especially since, as sect leader, Lan Xichen technically has more authority. But now it has become clear to Lan Wangji that he cannot rely on his brother's support, either.

Perhaps he feared that there was no way forward for him and Wei Wuxian, hence the sense of finality to his visit in Yiling, and his lack of any subsequent visits.

At this point, there would have only been two ways forward for him in the face of familial disapproval: pursuing a clandestine affair, or leaving his sect entirely in order to join Wei Wuxian in the Burial Mounds.

I don't think that Lan Wangji at this point in his life was ready for either one. Both are things his family would heavily disapprove of, which could damage or ruin his relationship with them. Lan Wangji is only twenty one right now, and he's had a far more sheltered life than Wei Wuxian. To that younger Lan Wangji, things must have seemed very hopeless.

So, I posit, he visited Wei Wuxian in Yiling only to see him once more and check how he is doing. He didn't visit again because he never intended to visit again; he thought any chance between them was lost.

Of course, then Wei Wuxian's life was endangered, and finally his priorities shifted and he realised what really mattered: standing by the man he loves, no matter what. His actions at Nightless City show that.

And Lan Xichen's rant at Guanyin Temple shows that indeed, Lan Wangji's family likely would not have approved (the deaths at Nightless City irregardless; Wei Wuxian acted in self-defence and defense of the fifty innocent Wens the sects gathered there to kill in the first place, and need I note that the Lans were in attendance at the pledge conference with that agenda?):

“Thirty-three whip scars! He was punished in one go, once for each person. You should know how much it hurts when it lands on your body, for how long you have to rest to recover! After he went out of his way to send you back to Burial Mound and returned in such low spirits to receive his punishment, how long he kneeled before the Wall of Rules! I told him when I went to see him, Young Master Wei had already made a grave mistake, there was no use augmenting it. But he said… that he could not say with certainty whether what you did was right or wrong, but no matter what, he was willing to be responsible for all of the consequences alongside you."

[...]

“With the ways in which he looked and talked to you when he saved you and hid you in that cave, even someone who was blind or deaf could perceive his feelings, which was why my uncle was in such anger. WangJi was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. In his whole life he had been honest and righteous and immaculate—you were the only mistake he made!

(Chapter 99, Exiled Rebels translation)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #fandom essay #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan sect

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drama--universe · 2 years

Text

Wei Wuxian x Wei!reader

Requested by anonymous: Hello! I can ask Wei Wuxian x reader where he discovers he has a twin sister (they were separated after birth) and he goes to look for her. WWX finds out that her little sister (reader) was raised by the Wen clan and she is very close to Wen Qing and Wen Ning. Being kind, she is often bullied by Wang Lingjiao. How will WWX react when he meets her and she finds out about her family?

Pairing: Wei Wuxian x sister!reader (platonic)

Warnings: I feel like Wang Lingjiao is a warning itself

Word Count: 951 words

Your eyes were closing slowly, your whole body tired from the constant training you had to go through. Wen Ning was beside you, completely oblivious to your exhaustion as he drank from his water flask before offering it to you. You took it, taking a big swig from the flask before handing it back.

"Since when do you practice sword fighting so much." You asked the younger and he looked at you, smiling brightly.

"Wuxian-ge taught me!" He said happily and you frowned.

"Who?" "Ah, Wei Wuxian-ge." He explained and your eyes widened.

"Wei?" You asked and he nodded, a pout forming on his face in confusion. "Do you know him?" He asked and you nodded softly, but not continuing the conversation any further than that.

Wuxian sighed, twirling his sword in his hand as he held onto the letter, reading it slowly before freezing on the spot as he read the first sentence.

"What are you doing?" Jiang Cheng said, pushing his brothers shoulder softly before looking at the letter.

"Who's is that?" "I have a sister..." He mumbled, still staring at the letter with a slight smile now.

"You have a what now?" Jiang Cheng asked again and Wuxian smiled more brightly, looking at his brother.

"I have to go! See you later!" He exclaimed, running off and leaving a confused Jiang Cheng behind.

Wei Wuxian ran into his room, grabbed his bag and filled it with some stuff before racing back out of his room and out of Lotus Pier, only receiving glances from his youngers and some even snickered, thinking that he was pulling some shenanigan's once again.

By horse, it only took him 5 days to get there and soon enough he was standing at the gates, Wen Qing smiling slightly as she had just returned from something with a bag in her hands.

"You should've told us you were coming. Wen Ning wouldn't shut up about you." She spoke and Wuxian smiled back brightly as he dismounted his horse.

"Well, I wasn't going to wait after finding out I have a sister." He said, smile brightening once more as he walked inside by Wen Qing's side. It was only 3 minutes when Wen Qing suddenly paused, her eyes moving to a figure in the distance. Wuxian followed her gaze and it landed on a girl in black and red clothes, much like himself. He couldn't help but stare, feeling like he knew her from somewhere.

The girl was held back by two men as another woman in purple was screaming in her face before slapping the girl. The girl lunged to the side, but the 2 men that held her up pulled her back. She was basically hanging down in their arms, glaring at the woman in purple before being slapped once again.

Wei Wuxian didn't know why, but he felt anger bubble up in his chest. Wen Qing noticed, but didn't seem to care as she was already marching towards the 4. Wuxian followed her, the yelling becoming more clear before he watched Wen Qing glare at the guards, making them let go of the girl.

You felt your knees buckle from underneath you as the guards let go of yours arms, but you didn't hit the ground as someone helped you back up. You looked up, seeing a man with long black hair and black and red robes much like you. You stared at him for a few seconds before standing on your own and letting go of his arms. He gave you a small smile before looking at Wen Qing, who was glaring at Wang Lingjiao with a passion.

"Don't touch her." She said before turning to you, ignoring Lingjiao's screaming. Wuxian couldn't help it when he heard the name Wei fall of her lips and suddenly everything clicked. You were his sister, that's why he felt familiar around you. The three of you walked off, Wen Qing leading you both to her house.

"So, who is he?" You asked, pointing at Wuxian behind you and Wen Qing chuckled. "Your brother, of course." She explained and you frowned before looking at the man who was standing right behind you. He was smiling at you with a dashing smile and you looked back at Wen Qing.

"You're sure?" You asked before laughing at Wuxian's expression.

"Don't stay there, come on in. I'm just joking." You said, pulling him in and he turned even more confused.

"Are you not surprised at all?!" "Not really. A-Ning talks about you all the time, you're his role model." You said with a small smile and he awkwardly laughed back.

"That being said, we should go out of here since A-Qing has to work." You said as you noticed Wen Qing gathering ingredients and such. Wuxian nodded and followed you out.

"So, where did you end up?" You asked as you followed the road in front of you, walking backwards so you could look at your brother.

"Yunmeng. They took me in when I was about 5 years old..." He said before looking at you again, stopping and leaning forward.

"We don't really look alike even though were twins." He said and you shrugged, slowing your pace as well.

"At 5... Lucky, I only got found when I was 9. They dragged me here since I didn't want to follow. I screamed the whole way. here" You laughed at the memory, looking down a bit embarrassed as you told the story.

"I was found by my sister. And Jiang Cheng had to lose his dogs because of me, he hated me for a few years but we're pretty close now." He said, giving you yet another smile. You grinned at him before throwing your arm around his shoulders and pulling him down to your height.

"So, do you like pranking people?" You asked and he just answered with a wicked smile.

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besanii · 3 years

Text

paper-thin

[ WangXian ; XiXian ]

The war is won!

Gusu is victorious!

Hanguang-wang is alive!

A sizeable crowd has gathered on the streets outside of the palace gates by the time Lan Wangji arrives, freshly bathed and changed out of his travel-weary and battle-worn armour into his formal robes. He dismounts as the guards approach, keeping the reins in his hand as he shows his pass; they grant him passage with a low bow, moving to the side as he leads his horse through the gates as quickly as decorum will allow.

The maids and eunuchs he passes on his way to the Hall of Mental Cultivation pay their respects with low bows and bent knees, lowering their gazes as they murmur his title with something akin to awe. He nods curtly in response but otherwise does not halt in his progress—it would not do to keep the Emperor waiting, war hero or not.

It's been over a year since he went to war, defending Gusu's coast against the invading forces of Dongying. The war had been harrowing and brutal and there were many times Lan Wangji where hadn't been sure he would survive. But he'd fought on with grit and tenacity, acutely aware of his role as a member of the Imperial family to lead and inspire his troops by example. That is, until a well-aimed arrow caught him in the shoulder between the plates of his armour, and sent him overboard in the midst of battle.

He’d survived. Barely.

The doors to the Imperial study are open when he arrives, and the eunuchs kneeling on either side of the door touch their foreheads to the ground in greeting. He walks up to the eunuch standing closest to the door.

“I am here to see the Emperor,” he says.

“Yes, Wangye,” the eunuch replies. He gets to his feet and turns to the door, raising his voice to announce: “Huangshang, Hanguang-wang begs an audience.”

They do not have to wait long for a response.

“Enter.”

The Emperor is still dressed in his court robes despite the lateness of the hour—the afternoon court session had been over for at least two shichen already—the black silk sleeves stark against the embroidered gold draped over the desk where he works. He puts his brush down as Lan Wangji parts the beaded curtain hanging from the archway leading into the main chamber, a smile already forming on his lips as he watches Lan Wangji kneel in the centre of the room.

“Your humble servant greets Huangshang,” Lan Wangji says, touching his forehead to the floor. “May our Emperor live for ten thousand years.”

“You may rise, Hanguang-wang,” the Emperor says. "We are very pleased to see you returned to the capital alive and well. Your service to the Empire will be duly rewarded."

Lan Wangji rises to his feet, sweeping over the invisible creases of his robe and shaking out his wide sleeves.

"Huangshang gives your subject too much credit," he replies. "I live to serve the Empire and will gladly give my life a thousand times over in its protection."

"Your devotion is recognised, Hanguang-wang, and appreciated," the Emperor says. "Nevertheless, a great victory such as this should be rewarded. Come, brother, is there anything you would wish for? Name it and it shall be granted."

Lan Wangji's hands curl into fists by his side.

"Huangshang would grant anything your subject wishes?" he asks quietly.

The smile on the Emperor's face freezes. A muscle twitches in his jaw as he swallows; he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly. The smile smooths into something cooler, but no less genial.

"Anything within reason," he clarifies.

Lan Wangji exhales and bows his head.

"Your lowly subject dares to presume Huangshang knows what it is I wish for," he says, keeping his voice carefully level. "There is only one wish—one request—your lowly subject would make."

He hears the Emperor sigh, a low, disappointed sound, and his stomach sinks with realisation. But he had not dragged himself out of the depths of hell and back here to give up so easily. In the three months he had allowed himself to be presumed dead, laying feverish and close to death with an infected wound, it had been this one hope, this one wish that had kept him clinging to life. If he survived the war, won the war, then nothing would stop him from coming back and finally—finally—asking for the one thing he's wanted more than life itself.

When he chances an upward glance, the corner of the Emperor's lips are drawn in tight and the crease between his brows have deepened. Lan Wangji has had years to learn the shape of the Emperor's moods, even the ones he hides behind pleasantries and polite smiles, and he knows the Emperor is displeased.

"We would advise Hanguang-wang to make another request," he says finally. Do not continue to pursue this.

Lan Wangji drops to his knees. "Huangshang, you know there is nothing else I would ask for.”

“Wangji, enough!” The room stills. A sigh. “Leave us.”

The eunuchs and maids turn in unison and bow, backing out of the chamber without a word; the door to the study shuts behind them. Lan Wangji curls and uncurls his fists against his thighs, breathing heavily through his nose as he struggles to get his heart rate back under control. He hears the rustle of fabric, followed by footsteps from behind the desk coming towards him, but he dares not raise his eyes.

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen says in an odd, stilted tone Lan Wangji has never heard before. “There is something you should know.”

Eunuchs and palace maids alike cower in the wake of his fury, scattering to the winds as soon as he passes. No one stops to question why a male member of the Imperial family aside from the Emperor and his sons is here, unaccompanied, within the gilded walls of the inner palace. Perhaps word had been sent ahead of his arrival, perhaps they had been expecting him--whatever the reason, Lan Wangji knows he would cut down anyone who dares stand in his way right now.

His mind is still reeling as he turns the corner along the once-familiar path that winds through the Imperial gardens, his feet following the route ingrained into him as a child still living within the palace walls.

He hasn't walked this path in close to fifteen years. Not much has changed: the trees and the flowers are the same--still the delicate gentians favoured by the previous mistress of this particular courtyard—only now there are also lotuses surrounding the small pavilion in the heart of the man-made pond, filling the air with their sweet fragrance. And inside that pavilion, an entirely different person is silhouetted against the afternoon sun.

A skirmish arose between Yunmeng and Qishan involving Qishan-hou's second son.

Wen-er-gongzi was injured in the confrontation.

He takes a step forward, his feet suddenly heavy as though weighed down by boulders, dragging along the gravel. The person in the pavilion is still too far to have noticed him, but Lan Wangji has a clear view of the long black hair twisted up into a half-knot to expose the line of a long, slender neck, held in place by a fanzhan made of silver and set with blue sapphires. The sight of it makes his throat run dry.

Qishan demanded retribution for the injuries inflicted on Wen-er-gongzi. The life of his attacker.

Both Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen were each presented with a set the rare jewels at their coming of age, a mark of their status as members of the Imperial family. To see the same jewels adorning the familiar head of hair—

We believed you dead, Wangji.

He drags his feet another step forward, the breath catching in his throat as the person in the pavilion half-turns at the sound.

We needed to protect him.

“Who goes there?” a eunuch calls, hurrying around the corner along the path around the pond. “This is Wei-xuanyi’s private garden, outsiders are not perm—”

“It’s alright, let him through.”

A lump forms in his throat so large he can barely breathe around it without pain; whatever hope of this being a cruel joke is crushed at the familiar voice. How many times in the past year has he heard it in his dreams? How many times has the memory of that voice called him back from the gates of Hell itself, when the rest of the world thought him dead?

The eunuch drops to his knees on the side of the garden path and bows his head; Lan Wangji takes this as a sign to proceed.

As a child, the garden path had always seemed wide and inviting; it had always led to his mother, the late Empress, the only source of light and happiness and home in his childhood. And yet now all he feels is dread, cold and dark, seeping out through the cracks in the surface of his façade with every step.

Lan Xichen’s words ring in his ears.

Wangji, it was the only way we could save him.

He stops at the bottom of the steps leading into the pavilion. Four steps. Just four steps, and yet his legs refuse to move, to take even just one more step forward; it is as though his body is fighting with everything it has against it. He can't move.

He is unsure how long he stands there at the bottom of the steps boring holes into the paved stones—it is difficult to keep track when one's mind is filled with the deafening roar of one's own heartbeat. It is not until the sound of footsteps, followed by a rush of activity in his periphery as the palace maids and eunuchs fall to their knees in unison, does he finally raise his eyes.

There, standing at the top of the steps, clad in soft, flowing robes of Gusu blue and Yunmeng purple, with Lan Xichen's jewels in his hair—

Wangji. Wei Wuxian—

Wei Wuxian lowers his head and bends at the knees, his fingertips clasped lightly by his hip. A demure greeting, wildly unsuitable for a member of the gentry.

“Hanguang-wang,” he murmurs. He raises his eyes slightly, enough to peer at Lan Wangji from beneath his lashes. Demure. Restrained.

The ground crumbles beneath Lan Wangji’s feet.

—I have taken Wei Wuxian as a consort.

Translations

Wangye (王爺) - equivalent of a Duke, usually Emperor’s brother or uncle

Huangshang (皇上) - the Emperor; as per usual, I only use the pinyin when the term is used when directly addressing LXC

hou (侯) - equivalent of Marquis, second highest rank after 王

xuanyi (宣儀) - lit. ‘Propagator of Deportment’, a variant of the Tang dynasty concubine ranking pin (嬪) that doesn’t use feminine qualities; the second highest rank after furen/zande (夫人/贊德), used between 662-670 (possibly under Wu Zetian’s influence)

fazhan (髮簪) - hair ornament/pin

Notes

Title is taken from the Chinese phrase boming (薄命), which means to have an unlucky fate (usually in reference to women). It literally translates to “thin life/fate”. Inspired by a line in the song 雪落下的聲音 (the sound of snowfall; Story of Yanxi Palace OST): 此生如纸般薄命 - this life, my fate is as thin as paper.

For those of you wondering where the hell I’m going with this—I have no fucking clue lmao. I just wanted to write WangXian angst with a dose of XiXian that doesn’t involve Dark!LXC for once. I also cannot be bothered to look back on this anymore, so any mistakes are purely cos I’ve given up working on this any further hahahahahaha *dies*

Inspired by a mish-mash of Story of Yanxi Palace (Fuheng x Yinglou reunion anyone???) and Empress of China (mostly the OST, but also the gorgeous costuming and setting of the Tang Dynasty).

Will I continue it? Maybe??? It took me weeks to even get my ass into gear to write this one snippet, I honestly don’t know if I will get around to writing more. But if it interests you, send me an ask about the ‘verse and I’ll try and expand more on it, even if it’s just headcanon form and not fic.

buy me a ko-fi!

#my writing #wangxian #mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #薄命 #王爺機 x 妃子羡 #lan xichen #xixian #consort!wwx #emperor!lxc #duke!lwj #lan wangji x wei wuxian #lan xichen x wei wuxian #🔪🔪#harem au #imperial au #set in the Tang Dynasty if we REALLY have to specify lol #paper thin fic

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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Content note: This episode has a lot of lightning, but this post does not have lightning flashes--I’m using mostly stills for those parts, or I’ve snipped out the unfriendly frames before giffing.

Qing-Jie

Having successfully ruined Jin Guangshan’s party plan to get the Yin Tiger seal, Wei Wuxian dashes off to tell Wen Qing where her brother is. She hops up to hit the road with him, but then sorta-faints because she’s starving. In a rare moment of tenderness between these two, he catches her and gently sits her down again.

Normally they’re busy out-toughing each other, both before and after this moment, but right now Wen Qing is openly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian responds to that, predictably, with all of his kindness and with his usual slew of unwise, impossible-to-keep promises.

As she eats the bread he’s brought her--a parallel to an important piece of bread in his early life--he says they have to believe in Wen Ning’s survival. Cut to: Wen Ning, not surviving.

I mean, yes, yes, he’s only mostly dead, but he’s never going to be fully alive again, so.

24 Hour Party People

Back at the party, Jin Guangyao, deliberately, I think, goes to offer his pops a drink while his pops is still super furious and looking for someone to take it out on. The servant lady is like, better you than me, pal, and helps JGY get his drink ready. Pops, predictably, knocks the drink onto Jin Guangyao.

(more behind the cut)

Lan Xichen is standing by with a hanky and a face full of worry. Lan Xichen is so Lanny that he thinks JGY needs to go change clothes after getting clear alcohol spilled on him, rather than just letting it evaporate and smelling pleasantly of booze for the rest of the evening like a normal party guest.

JGY launches into a criticism of Wei Wuxian, which Lan Wangji listens to very carefully, frowning. Lan Xichen, Nie Huasang and Jiang Cheng listen as well, and don’t speak up.

A Clear Conscience

Then Lan Wangji *literally* steps out of his brother’s shadow, and speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian. This right here is Lan Wangji’s turning point, as far as I’m concerned. Xichen is gazing at JGY, totally on board with JGY’s spin of the situation, and his shadow falls away from Lan Wangji’s face as LWJ steps forward.

Lan Wangji says, isn’t what WWX said true? JGY puts on his customer service smile and says that the truth isn’t something you’re supposed to go around saying out loud.

I’d like to say this is what’s wrong with cultivator society but this is really a universal human thing; every society has rules about upsetting the social order, and they are very frequently at odds with basic compassion and morality.

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng stay silent but Lan Xichen goes and throws Wei Wuxian under the bus carriage, saying his character has changed.

Lan Wangji nods decisively at this, and bows to Lan Xichen, silently asking permission to follow Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen grants permission, telling Lan Wangji to do his best. Lan Xichen probably thinks he and Lan Wangji are in agreement, in this moment, but that nod of Lan Wangji’s was nothing of the kind.

That nod was Lan Wangji agreeing with himself; he is going to try to bring Wei Wuxian back but he is also going to listen to him. Meanwhile Lan Xichen is tying himself in knots to appease Jin Guangyao. The divergence between the brothers will just grow, from this point onwards.

Lan Wangji leaves to go follow his boyfriend conscience, while Jiang Cheng continues to silently listen to the commentary of others, and gets so mad he crushes a wine cup.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night.

Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian arrive at the prison camp, and the first person they encounter is Granny, with a defaced Wen Banner in her hand and Wen Yuan on her back.

Whenever I read a meta or a fic that talks about how the juniors are so sweet partly because they are “untouched by the war” I want to point to this moment. A-Yuan endures an absolute truckload of war trauma by the time he’s four years old, and while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both deserve a lot of credit for saving him at great risk to themselves, Granny and Uncle Four are the first heroes of A-Yuan’s story. His kind, mellow personality has a lot in common with theirs.

This is followed by an eternity of Wen Qing running around asking if anyone’s seen her brother. Eventually Wei Wuxian gets tired of this and gathers the guards together, threatening them with Chenqing.

He doesn’t need to play it; just holding it up has every Jin dude instantly kneeling and scared.

The guards send him and Wen Qing go to a giant field of corpses, where Wen Qing runs around checking to see if any of them is her brother. Wei Wuxian starts off kind of detached and angry, but eventually snaps out of it, tucks away his flute and starts helping her to search.

Wen Qing finds Wen Ning, mostly-dead with a lure flag speared into his belly. Wei Wuxian grimly takes in the situation from across the field of corpses.

When he arrives at Wen Qing’s side he sees this talisman in Wen Ning’s hand.

This is the talisman that Wei Wuxian made for Wen Ning back in Gusu summer school, before the war. It’s the one that Wen Ning was wearing at his waist when they met up after the massacre of Lotus Pier. It’s supposed to literally protect Wen Ning from having his spiritual consciousness snatched, as well as being a symbol of Wei Wuxian’s sense of responsibility for, and affection for, Wen Ning.

Wei Wuxian, understandably, loses his shit at this point. Less understandably, he is about to decide that the best way to express his sorrow and rage is to re-animate the corpse of his friend, right in front of the corpse’s sister. Like, seriously, dude. Dude.

Ghost General

This super-questionable decision leads to one of the most badass sequences in the show, which is unfortunately chock full of lightning flashes, so not everyone can watch it. Wei Wuxian and his flute and swirls of resentful energy come marching out of the darkness of the corpse field, back to the guards.

The guards have decided to slaughter all of the prisoners and then run away, which would be a good plan except they should really have skipped right to the running away part of things. When Wei Wuxian accuses them of killing the prisoner in the corpse field, they claim that the Wens have a habit of falling off of a hill and dying. Wei Wuxian can relate.

At this point Wei Wuxian summons up Wen Ning 2.0, ultra badass edition, who comes flying through the air with his odd, straight-armed fighting stance and cool solid-black eyes and rock-and-roll hair.

Soundtrack: *Four Sticks*

Wen Ning proceeds to whale on the guards and scare the shit out of his relatives.

Then Wen Qing shows up and begs Wei Wuxian to stop. She explains that Wen Ning is only mostly dead. Like, if he was fully dead would she be okay with this?

Wei Wuxian tries to reel Wen Ning in and realizes that he is not actually in control of Wen Ning. Ok, see, right from the first day of Wen Ning 2.0, WWX is aware that his control is iffy. Why does he think he’s going to be able to control him later?

Anyway, this is where we learn Wen Ning’s grown-up name is Wen Qionglin. Wei Wuxian yells this name, and Wen Ning looks up like a cat hearing the “food noise,” and then proceeds to get control of himself.

This is such a nice symbolic moment, that will be replayed later in the temple, when Wen Ning saves Jin Ling from Baxia.

Wen Ning has a remote-code-execution OS vulnerability throughout the story; his soul is at risk of being stolen, and he is magically controlled by Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, Su She, and Baxia. Meanwhile Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and random kids on the street mostly treat him as a child, despite his clear adult capabilities. Wen Ning’s journey in The Untamed is at least partly about asserting his full adulthood, and his ability to overcome magical control is directly connected to that journey.

After getting Wen Ning to chill, Wei Wuxian calls the floating resentful energy back into his own body, which looks about as comfortable as swallowing a burp.

On the plus side, apparently resentful energy keeps your hair dry even when it’s raining.

Wei Wuxian should take a page from the guards’ book and slaughter all the Jin witnesses to this situation, but he decides to be the better person and let them live. They go running off down the road, where they encounter Lan Wangji and give him the 411, saying that Wei Wuxian resurrected dead people.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian collects Wen Qing--half-fainted, again, in an echo of the start of their journey--and collects the Dafan Mountain Wen group, who are hiding, wisely. When they see Wen Ning, Uncle Four and some others start to freak out, but Wei Wuxian tells them that fierce corpses are cool, and they all grab horses and mount up.

Where Are You Going?

Lan Wangji is waiting for them, nonconfrontationally indulging in some visual poetry while he waits.

In a show where every prop is exquisitely, carefully designed to enhance our understanding character, his Gusu-toned umbrella reveals surprising red and yellow threads woven in, right above his eye line as he looks at Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian speaks first, saying “you came to stop me?” Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but asks him where he’s going. Then Lan Wangji warns him that he’s about to abandon orthodoxy forever, if he follows through.

Wei Wuxian challenges this idea of orthodoxy, asking if Lan Wangji remembers the promise they made together, back in Gusu. It’s worth noting that they both appear to think of it as a co-promise, even though Lan Wangji didn’t speak aloud at the time.

The conversation will continue in the next episode, because what’s better than a rainy romantic cliffhanger?

Soundtrack: Four Sticks by Led Zeppelin

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #wen ning #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #episode 26

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jiangwanyinscatmom · 3 years

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Hi! So first of all I want to clarify that I'm not in any way saying jc isn't a homophobe, because I mean, it's pretty obvious. However back when I read the mxtx interview I read her answer as 'wwx acted all of a sudden very different with lwj, to the point where it was jarring for jc who had not seen him act that way before.' I do not think jc understood at all wwx's affections towards lwj, and this did not think it was disgusting because he saw it as flirting. (1/2)

I find it weird that people use it as a 'proof' that jc is homophobic when it's not straightforwardly telling us it's homophobia, and also since you know, the novel is right there and tells us far more clearly that jc is, in fact, a homophobe. (2/2)

So, here, I agree the interview isn't a stated full explanation in itself and not to be used as evidence alone.

I think that at the time it was not fully homophobia on his part when he had first noticed Wei Wuxian's attention for Lan Wangji in Cloud Recesses. Jiang Cheng had never understood Wei Wuxian's penchant for wanting to be around Lan Wangji and I think that his surprise of Wei Wuxian flirting with a man (He himself talks about how he never thought it odd with Wei Wuxian flirting with women all the time) Lan Wangji was always the strange outlier for flirting. It steadily devolves into more overt homophobia as they get older.

Cloud Recesses when they're 15,

Wei WuXian replied, “Yeah, I also thought that he should be praised for having the courage to come see me. He was probably told by his uncle to come check if I was kneeling properly.”

Jiang Cheng instinctively felt a foreboding sensation, “Were you kneeling properly?”

Wei WuXian, “I was kneeling properly. After he was some distance away, I found a stick and started to dig in the dirt. The pile beside your foot. There’s an ant hole there that I went through tons of trouble to find. When he turned his head, he saw that my shoulders were shaking, and he definitely thought that I was crying. He even came back to ask me. You really should have seen his expression as he saw the ant hole.”

“…” Jiang Cheng spoke, “You should get lost and go back to Yunmeng as soon as possible! I don’t think that he wants to see you ever again.”

The part that sticks out here is the fact that Jiang Cheng feels any sense of foreboding at all for a silly situation that Lan Wangji had walked away from seeing Wei Wuxian was actually okay. It's the first seed of him continuing the line of thought that "He hates you". He is already feeling strange about Wei Wuxian's flirting and chooses to sort of project this hate into Lan Wangji for Wei Wuxian.

Lotus Pier summer after Cloud Recesses lessons:

I just thought of someone.”

Jiang Cheng, “Who?”

Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan.”

Jiang Cheng, “Why would you think of him for no reason? Reminiscing what it felt like to copy sect rules?”

Wei WuXian spat out a seed, “It’s fun to think of him. You don’t even know—he’s just too amusing. I told him, ‘Your sect’s food is disgusting. I’d rather eat stir-fried watermelon peel than eat your food. If you have time, come have fun with us at Lotus Pier…'”

Before he even finished, Jiang Cheng slapped his watermelon off, “Are you mad? Inviting him to Lotus Pier—are you trying to torture yourself?”

Wei WuXian, “Why are you so upset? My watermelon almost flew away! I was just being polite. Of course he wouldn’t come. Have you ever heard of him go anywhere by himself to have fun?”

Jiang Cheng had on a stern expression, “Let’s make this clear. I don’t want him to come, anyhow. Don’t invite him.”

Wei WuXian, “I never knew you hated him so much?”

Jiang YanLi sat down between the two, “Who are you talking about? A friend you made in Gusu?”

Wei WuXian responded happily, “Yeah!”

Jiang Cheng, “What a shameless ‘friend’ you are. Go ask Lan WangJi and see if he wants you as one.”

Wei WuXian, “Fuck off. If he doesn’t want me, I’ll bother him to the point that he does.” He turned to Jiang YanLi, “Shijie, do you know Lan WangJi?”

Jiang YanLi, “I do. He’s that Lan-er-gongzi whom everyone describes as handsome and talented, isn’t he? Is he really that handsome?”

Wei WuXian, “He is!”

Jiang YanLi, “Compared to you?”

Wei WuXian thought about it for a moment, “Maybe just a bit more handsome than me.”

He formed a tiny bit of space between two fingers. Taking the plate away, Jiang YanLi smiled, “He must be truly very handsome, then. It’s a good thing you made a new friend. In the future, you two can visit each other in your free time.”

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng spat out his watermelon. Wei WuXian waved his hands, “Forget it, forget it. All that’s at his place is bad food and a whole lot of rules. I’m not going again.”

Jiang YanLi, “Then you can bring him here. This is a good opportunity. Why not invite your friend to come stay at Lotus Pier for sometime?”

Jiang Cheng, “Don’t listen to his nonsense, Jie. He’s super annoying in Gusu. Lan WangJi would never want to come home with him.”

Wei WuXian, “What do you mean!? He would.”

Jiang Cheng, “Wake up. Lan WangJi told you to get lost, didn’t you hear? You still remember that?”

Wei WuXian, “What do you know!? Even though he told me to get lost on the surface, I know for sure that he secretly wants to come play with me in Yunmeng—in fact, he would love to.”

Wei Wuxian is still in the belief that Lan Wangji does like him. Jiang Cheng of course isn't amused by Jiang Yanli's indulgence in Wei Wuxian's daydreams. Wei Wuxian continues to, well, essentially pine innocently about Lan Wangji, his fellow disciples even encourage it leading to... Jiang Cheng sulking even further over the fact that Wei Wuxian is in fact pining over another boy. He puts two and two together as Wei Wuxian is flirting with the girls on shore later on and he talks of the things he will do with Lan Wangji as he visits. He talked of training with Lan Wangji in the same way he invited the girls to watch him train.

Phoenix Mountain Hunt

Lan WangJi suddenly raised his hand, stopping a flower tossed over from behind him.

Lan XiChen saw that Lan WangJi had drawn the reins and ceased to move forward, “WangJi, what happened?”

Lan WangJi, “Wei Ying.”

Wei WuXian finally turned around, face full of surprise, “What? HanGuang-Jun, did you call me? What’s up?”

Holding the flower, Lan WangJi seemed to be quite cold. His tone seemed cold as well, “Was it you?”

Wei WuXian immediately denied it, “No, it wasn’t.”

The maidens beside him spoke at once, “Don’t believe him. It was him!”

Wei WuXian, “How could you treat a good person like this? I’m getting angry!”

Giggling, the maidens pulled their reins and went to the formations of their own sects. Lan WangJi lowered the hand that he held the flower with and shook his head. Jiang Cheng spoke, “ZeWu-Jun, HanGuang-Jun, apologies. Don’t pay attention to him.”

Lan XiChen smiled, “That is fine. I will thank Young Master Wei’s kindness behind the flower in place of WangJi.”

Wei WuXian, “I think he looks nice. Can’t I throw a few as well?”

Jiang Cheng pointed his nose into the air, “How old are you? Who do you think you are, still playing tricks like that?”

Interestingly enough, this flower scene is similar to what had once occurred during the summer of Lotus Pier. This is after it had been established that Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji now dislikes him morally. Yet he still reaches out to tease and flirt with him, leading Jiang Cheng to continue asking why well into their early 20's is Wei Wuxian still doing this. It was excusable when they were younger but now this is inexcusable and troublesome for someone who is supposed to be his righthand acting on whims still and flirting with a man of reputation. Jiang Cheng actively had encouraged the rift between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji after the return from the Burial Mounds. He agreed very readily that Lan Wangji wanted to imprison Wei Wuxian instead of extending any help in regards to Wei Wuxian's volatile disposition that went on for years after this altercation, convincing himself and Wei Wuxian of Lan Wangji's supposed hate.

Wei WuXian was in such a state of distress that he couldn’t remember whether or not he called someone’s name at all. He only managed to pull himself together after Jiang Cheng commanded the dog to back away. After a moment of hesitation, he abruptly turned his head away. On the other side, Jiang Cheng left his seat. There was a whip attached beside his waist. With one hand on it, he bent down to look at Wei WuXian’s face. After a pause, he straightened up and asked, “Speaking of it, since when have you been so close to Lan WangJi?”

Wei WuXian immediately understood whose name he had unconsciously called out.

Jiang Cheng smiled menacingly, “It really is quite curious how far he went to protect you, back on Dafan Mountain.”

A moment later, he corrected himself, “No. You weren’t necessarily the one whom Lan WangJi was protecting. After all, the GusuLan Sect couldn’t have forgotten what you did with that loyal dog of yours. How could someone so celebrated for his righteousness tolerate the likes of you? Maybe he’s familiar with this body that you stole instead.”

His words were cruel and sinister. Every sentence seemed well-meaning on the surface, but was actually derogatory. Wei WuXian couldn’t bear hearing it any longer, “Watch your language.”

Thirteen years later his taunts have become more refined as he is well off into hating Lan Wangji himself now that Wei Wuxian had been dead. He taunts that Lan Wangji is more promiscuous than presented as well as using Wei Wuxian's old goodwill for Lan Wangji for him to go on the defense. Jiang Cheng however thinks using the fact these men are gay is only a tool, he does not believe they are as his disgust of Mo Xuanyu being gay does disgust him. His suspicions have turned into bigotry instead finally in the years that Wei Wuxian was gone.

When Jiang Cheng accused him, Wei WuXian couldn’t defend himself at all, but he just couldn’t bear it when those words were being directed at Lan WangJi.

Wei WuXian reprimanded, “Jiang Cheng, just listen to yourself. What are you saying? Is it appropriate? Don’t forget who you are. After all, you’re the leader of a sect. Insulting a renowned cultivator in front of Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu’s spirits—where is your discipline?”

His original intention was to remind Jiang Cheng to at least hold some respect for Lan WangJi. However, Jiang Cheng was always sensitive. From those words, he managed to make out the notion that he wasn’t fit to be a sect leader. Immediately, darkness crawled up his face, bearing an eerie similarity to how Madam Yu looked when she was angry. His voice was harsh, “Who is the one insulting my parents in front of their spirits?! Could you two please understand whose sect you’re in? I don’t care if you act so shamelessly outside, but don’t you dare fool around inside our ancestral hall, before my parents’ spirits! After all, they were the ones who brought you up—even I feel ashamed for you!”

Wei WuXian never expected such a huge blow to crash down on him. He was both shocked and furious, blurting, “Shut up!”

Jiang Cheng pointed outside, “Mess around outside however you want, whether under a tree or on a boat, hugging or otherwise! Get out of my sect, get away from anywhere my eyes can see!”

Hearing him mention ‘under a tree’, Wei WuXian felt his heart skip a beat—could Jiang Cheng have seen the moment where he crashed into Lan WangJi’s arms?

His guess was not wrong. Jiang Cheng did indeed go out to find Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. He chased after them in the direction that the street vendors pointed at. A voice in his heart seemed to tell him which places Wei WuXian would definitely go. He caught up to them in just a while. Yet, he just so happened to see Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi enveloped in a tight embrace under a tree, unwilling to let go of each other even after so long.

Goosebumps immediately ran down Jiang Cheng’s body.

Although he’d made guesses at the relationship between Mo XuanYu and Lan WangJi before, they were only attacks trying to offend Wei WuXian, not that he really suspected anything. He’d never thought that Wei WuXian would have ambiguous ties with a man, because after all, when they grew up together, Wei WuXian had never expressed any such interest. He’d always loved good-looking girls with a passion. On the other hand, it was even more impossible for Lan WangJi. He was famous for his asceticism, seemingly interested in neither men nor women.

But hugging like that seemed intense no matter what. At least, they didn’t seem like normal friends or brothers. He immediately recalled that Wei WuXian had always stuck to Lan WangJi ever since he came back. Lan WangJi’s attitude towards him was also different from what it was before he was reborn. At once, he was almost certain that the two really were in that kind of relationship. He couldn’t turn around and leave, yet he didn’t want to say a single word to the two, so he continued to hide himself as he followed them. Every single look and movement that passed between them seemed different in his eyes. For a while, the shock, absurdity, and slight disgust that he felt combined to overpower his hatred. It was only after Wei WuXian brought Lan WangJi into the ancestral hall that the long-suppressed hatred was awakened again, devouring his courtesy and rationality.

Wei WuXian was holding something back, “Jiang WanYin, you… apologize right now.”

Jiang Cheng mocked, “Apologize? For what? For exposing your thing for each other?”

Wei WuXian raged, “HanGuang-Jun is only my friend—what do you think we are?! I warn you. Apologize right now—don’t make me beat you!”

Hearing this, Lan WangJi’s expression froze for an instant. Jiang Cheng laughed, “Well, then I’ve never seen “friends” like that before? You warn me? Warn me against what? If you two had the slightest trace of integrity left, you wouldn’t have come here and…”

Seeing the change in Lan WangJi’s expression, Wei WuXian thought he must have felt insulted by Jiang Cheng’s words. He was so angry that his entire body was shaking. He didn’t dare think about what Lan WangJi would think after being shamed like this.

Obviously in the penultimate scene Jiang Cheng himself is being "the unreliable narrator" that fans love to accuse Wei Wuxian of. He says he never expected this of the two, but all the years of his behavior shows that he had always gone out of his way to keep the two away from each other and had always been mildly homophobic when the two did express interest in the other however innocent it had been in their youth.

All of this is to say, when it comes to how MXTX worded that interview answer, I think it was meant as a careful nudge for those who had still tried to insist that Jiang Cheng didn't mean to be homophobic, actually wasn't homophobic and was just angry at any other actions of Wei Wuxian and lashing out about that etc, it was her telling people to simply pay attention to the underlying shadowing of Jiang Cheng and how he exasperated his own pre-existing biases that morphed into an uglier hate.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #anti jiang cheng #but not really cause i love him #Jiang Cheng's canon homophobia #so so long I am so sorry this turned into a massive breakdown of your one question #but that's what happens with a day off lol #don't mind me #asks

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morifinwes · 3 years

Note

Lauraa I finished all the fics, apart from decay (currently reading that now) and I love it sm! Especially the lip gloss one lmao the whole thing was so hilarious to me XD but also like the concept of lwj wearing lipgloss is >>> -yibobibo

@yibobibo then i'm going to rec you some more!! the lip gloss one was !!!!! ajsksks yes!! lwj wearing lipgloss is just so!! good!!

modern

this one is the painful one i talked about:

visitations by var_abelasan (12K, wip, divorced wangxian, post divorce, most of this is angst, uhm lowkey don't but also do want wangxian to end up together, it's messy, the jiangs & lans are shitty, wwx was in prison (brief mentions of that but it's kind of a major plot point), mxy & xy are the little brothers he never wanted but wwx picked them up anyways)

"Wei Ying-" Lan Zhan says, stutters, "I'm sorry."

And now Wei Wuxian sees it, the red rimming Lan Zhan's eyes, the rumpled edges of his blazer. There is an old, familiar urge for him to reach over, to hold Lan Zhan's hand and smooth his hair, to tell him that everything will be fine.

"We're all a bit sorry about this, I think," he says instead, and finds that he means it. For Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji and everyone else in that Guanyin temple, the pain must be unbearably fresh, like skin just flayed open. But Wei Wuxian's chest had been cracked open a long time ago, his wounds licked and cauterized and sewn shut over five long years - Ever hurting, but a dull, constant ache, "It's really alright, Lan Zhan."

Five years after being accused of corporate espionage and losing everything, the Guanyin Scandal breaks open and Wei Wuxian finds a familiar face at his door.

please don't let me be misunderstood by sysrae (3K, partly deaf!wwx, lwj notices, nobody else does though, idk wwx is like made out of fucking steel or some shit)

Lan Wangji has known Wei Ying for a fortnight, the first time he sees him get hit by a car.

light by redkosmos (10K, blind!lwj, which causes angst, but they manage it, best friends to lovers, fluff, lwj being insecure and feeling like a burden, college au kind of? but it doesn't matter too much)

The realization slowly dawns on him.

He can never again see the brightness of Wei Ying's eyes, the way they crescent when he smiles, never again see the rich black of his hair, the mess of it in the early mornings, never again see the beautiful tan of his skin, the beauty of the scars and marks adorned on it, how he wears his clothes, how it hugs his frame beautifully, how he looks like he's adorably swimming in cloth when he wears Lan Zhan's, and-

(Lan Zhan loses his vision in a car accident and learns to cope with it.)

don't leave me by trippinonskies (19K, brief very brief mention of lwj cheating, he doesn't but wwx is afraid lwj is cheating on him or just wants to break up with him, (he doesn't), marriage proposal, lwj acting distant = wwx's insecurities show up, fluff, angst and comfort)

Lan Zhan! Where are you lost today?” Wei Wuxian finally asks, at the end of his patience.

Lan Zhan looks a little guilty as he looks at Wei Wuxian, “Sorry, just a lot of work to deal with.”

Lie.

If there is one thing Lan Zhan can’t do, it’s lying. Especially to Wei Wuxian. But he doesn’t question Lan Zhan. He just accepts the reply, too scared to know that he is right. Too scared to know the truth.

// or where Lan Zhan is too hung up in planning the perfect proposal and ends up accidently ignoring Wei Wuxian making the other think that he wants to break up //

want you closer by xiaobucephalus ((3K, HORSES, only in the background tho, but wwx is an equestrian vet, which is so fucking valid bro, the lans own horses, a sick bunny, lwj the bunny parent!, super cute, dark bay throughoutbred chenqing is honestly so valid)

“Thank you,” Lan Zhan said, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Don’t thank me, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying laughed again, his voice warming the chill of fear that had settled in his chest. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to get into your hutch for a while anyway.”

safe in your thoughts by anonymous (20K, it's a cherry magic au???? (i haven't watched it, but you have i think?), horny lwj but only for wwx (always for wwx))

Wei Wuxian learns three very important things on the night of his twenty-seventh birthday.

One, that Lan Wangji is ridiculously funny, which Wei Wuxian had known before but what Wei Wuxain hadn’t expected was Lan Wangji to be funny at his brother’s expense.

Two, that Wei Wuxian had finally gone mad, absolutely mental at the ripe age of twenty seven because nothing else would explain the third thing he had learnt.

Third, and the most unbelievable of the lot, that Lan Wangji wants to fuck him.

iura by yoo_im_finally_writing (1K, only added bcs op is right and wwx would've the cutest german accent, it's more fun if you understand german so hit me up if you want translations for the german sentences)

Wei Ying calls in the middle of the night to talk about German law, and Lan Zhan tries very hard not to fall asleep. Or at least, not to let Wei Ying notice he's falling asleep. (As best friends do.)

breathe in the air, the last of its kind by wereworm / @neverdoingmuch (27K, getting together, jealous!lwj, but also kind of supportive, brief mention of cheating bcs of miscommunication, no actual cheating tho, college au, lwj pov)

Following Wei Ying’s line of sight, Lan Wangji can barely prevent a smile from crossing his lips when he sees the short row of rabbit statuettes placed at the front of the display. Silver, with bright gems for eyes, they look elegant yet lively and animated.

“A-Yuan would love one of those,” Wei Ying murmurs, almost as if to himself.

Lan Wangji frowns; the rabbits, while cute, don’t seem like a suitable gift for Wei Ying’s A-Yuan.

...

It’s only when he glances back at the rabbits and notices what has been placed on display behind them, that the pieces fall into place. They’re engagement rings, there’s no doubt about it. Lan Wangji feels his heart sink – Wei Ying isn’t just dating A-Yuan, he wants to propose to him.

Or: the five times Lan Wangji thinks that A-Yuan is Wei Ying’s boyfriend and the one time he learns the truth.

paint smears on sunny days by snowshadowao3 / @angstsexual (53K, getting together, art teacher!wwx, single parent!lwj, they're rich if i remember right, wwx & lwj are both good with kids!!!, this is so good actually, fluff)

To say that he runs to his car would be incorrect, as he is a Lan, and running is both undignified and unnecessary unless in immediate danger. Nor does he slam his key into the ignition, or aggressively swerve around the cars on the freeway, or have a mild panic attack at the fact he is picking A-Yuan up late from school for the first time ever.

He comes close, though.

By the time he arrives, it’s 4:35PM, and he has imagined about fifty different worse-case scenarios. The door is partly open when he gets to it, a messy label of 104B—Art Room scrawled with chalk on a placard next to the faded wood. As he opens it fully, he expects to see a wailing, terrified child, or perhaps a scene of utter misery and betrayal.

What he finds is his son, hands covered in paint, being sung to by a beautiful, dark-haired stranger.

“Ducks live in the pond, yellow ducks, happy ducks!”

Lan Wangji stops in his tracks.

(Or: Falling in love with your son’s art teacher, in five parts)

no bunny compares by gusucloudbunny (4K, god this is cute, fluff)

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian cornered his friend one week before his birthday. “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”

Lan Wangji furrowed his brow at Wei Wuxian, not exactly sure how to answer that question in a truthful manner that didn’t involve confessing his undying love for his best friend.

Wei Wuxian is on a mission to get Lan Wangji the perfect gift for his birthday. What Wei Wuxian doesn't know is that the only thing Lan Wangji truly wants is him.

wei wuxian's week of realizing things by photojenny (12K, i have read this multiple times, i always forget what happens, idk why but my notes say it's good, the tags say drunkji makes an appearance and i'm always up for that)

"Lan Zhan, do you like Mianmian?" asked Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji blinked, and stared. It was not the first time Lan Wangji had questioned the perceptiveness of the boy he had a crush on. Wei Wuxian had been smart in the class they had taken together. Yet time and time again, Wei Wuxian had tested the old wisdom that there are no stupid questions.

---

Lan Wangji must figure out how to confess when Wei Wuxian is the most oblivious person he's ever met.

are you my wisdom tooth? because i'd like to take you out by yellowcarnations (1K, crack, fluff, lwj stop flirting with a stranger, even if he is your husband, drunkji but make it to max level)

Lan Zhan wakes up and he has no idea where he is.

There are bright lights and his jaw hurts, he doesn't who this man next to his bed is but oh he might be in love, maybe, probably, definitely.

–

based off that guy-forgets-who-his-wife-is-and-hits-on-her vid but its wangxian.

beep! goes his heart by wearing_tearing (3K, fluff, lwj is like "he, he likes me right? he likes me" and everyone is like "yes, yes he does")

“Wei Ying’s heart monitor,” Lan Wangji starts.

Wen Qing blinks at him. “Yes?”

“It beeps.”

“That’s… what they generally do, yes.”

“The beeps change,” Lan Wangji continues, “when others are around.”

Wei Ying’s heart only sings for Lan Wangji.

canon

obedient and bellicose by thunderwear (19K, lwj is cursed by the lan elders, they notice too late, fix-it fic kind of?, lqr being a good uncle and lxc is a good brother, wwx accidentally uses the curse but he doesn't know about it)

It took Lan Wangji a long time to realize he was cursed. Too long really, anyone else would have noticed so much sooner. The problem was, he liked following the rules.

Ella Enchanted AU that no one needed but I wanted.

hello my old heart, how have you been? by ravenditefairylights (10K, amnesia, fluff, wwx taking care of lwj, so much fluff and softness, angst too but not that much)

The issue is, Lan Wangji brings his thoughts back before they stray too far, that it is impossible for someone to be in his bed, unless Lan Wangji himself invited them. He has not. He would remember doing so, and besides, all his night clothes are still on and there is no headache to imply that he was inebriated last night. No, the situation is simple.

There is someone in Lan Wangji’s bed. It is impossible for anyone to be in Lan Wangji’s bed, and yet that doesn’t seem to have stopped the stranger.

or lan wangji wakes up, and wei ying is there. he doesn't understand how or why, and he can understand even less why his hallucination of wei ying is so insistent on bathing him, and braiding his hair, on holding him and fixing his clothes. why the hallucination of wei ying seems so happy to see him.

teach me the way by likeafox (58K, rogue cultivator!wwx, horny wangxian, lwj wants wwx to teach him how to be a good lover, ....wwx is a virgin, the porn is the plot, but there's less of it than i thought)

"I do not wish to leave my future spouse… dissatisfied with my intimate knowledge,” Lan Zhan says, very seriously. “I am hoping to find an instructor, to better prepare myself for such matters."

Wei Ying feels his mouth drop open. He's pretty sure the Second Jade of Lan just told him he's a virgin who wants to learn how to do sex good.

Rogue Cultivator Wei Wuxian is the stuff of local legends. Some of those legends are even true! The ones about his tremendous experience in bed, on the other hand, are not so true. Which becomes a problem when Lan Wangji, on the verge of an arranged marriage and worried he won’t know how to please his future spouse, enlists Wei Ying's help to teach him the art of love-making. Wei Ying's great at improvisation, though, and is pretty sure he's got this sex mentor thing under control. What could possibly go wrong

other aus

of god: my love unholy by tunnelodfawn (3K, tw blood / war, dark!lwj, god!wwx, kind of poetry)

Lan Zhan takes everything as a sign from his god. The blood staining his fingertips—a holy anointment. He sanctifies himself through blood. The strings of his guqin gleam red in the sun—a divine blessing. This is an instrument of destruction. A single note—a cry of power—and in this note the voice of his god unravels the earthly threads tethering man to earth.

The Yiling Patriarch blesses Lan Zhan with war. Wei Wuxian blesses Lan Zhan with agility. Wei Ying blesses Lan Zhan with love.

The base of the Yiling Patriarch’s shrine is the home of Lan Zhan’s knees. He worships. There is something of the blasphemous and the unholy in his prayers. He prays not for victory but for the sight of Wei Ying. Bless me with your presence, he begs.

Or, wherein, Lan Zhan bridges the gap between the mortal and the divine—the worshipper and the god—with blood.

the river and the sea by sasamelons / @sasamelons (7K, soulmate au, arranged marriage (wangxian with each other), they're both kind of dumb but i love it)

Lan Wangji gritted his teeth, wishing to just be left alone. "I am looking for my soulmate," he ground out.

"Oh."

It took Lan Wangji a few moments to realize that Wei Wuxian had stopped following him. When he looked back, the other boy seemed to be frozen to the spot, eyes wide and lips still parted. He quickly looked away when he saw Lan Wangji looking back. "I see. Well, have a good trip!"

At six years old, Lan Zhan met his soulmate on the streets of Yiling and promptly lost him again.

At sixteen years old, Lan Wangji met his betrothed and was determined not to like him.

#so...i realized i forgot to check the things i already listed but? i tried to avoid listing fics twice?#yes i've mostly been reading oneshots these past few weeks idk why but i can't seem to find any long fics #or at least not ones that i like #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #wangxian fics #mdzs #mdzs fic #cql fic #the untamed #aamna tag #we're almost through the rec list now? i have so much open but idk why i add so few #i'm just really picky when it comes to which ones to write down and which ones not #and then this became a kind of comfort list?#idk?#but also ANGST #not Angst but ANGST #fun fact: Angst means fear in german

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Text

Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3

Sometimes, Lan Wangji would weigh the various downsides of being injured against each other to see which one was the worst.

It was not, in Lan Wangji’s opinion, the pain.

After all, he’d long ago learned to cultivate through suffering, subjecting himself to discipline and the bite of the Cold Springs. Yes, the wounds of the discipline whip took a long time to heal, a constant throbbing agony, but Jiang Cheng faithfully applied a salve to them twice daily (sometimes after kicking the bed to get Lan Wangji’s attention if he happened to be in a stupor, because the man had no notion of grace) and prepared for nourishing soups and bitter medicines to help ease the feeling.

It took Lan Wangji months and an unfortunate incident with Jin Ling sliding himself forward on his belly towards the kitchen with remarkable speed to realize that Jiang Cheng prepared the food and medicine himself. It was supposedly to protect Lan Wangji’s privacy and better keep the secret of his existence, according to a flustered Jiang Cheng upon being confronted, but Lan Wangji knew that he was lying.

Lan Wangji had good hearing, after all, and Jiang Cheng sometimes left the door to his room open a crack, especially if Jin Ling was asleep in his crib in the corner, and, well –

Jiang Cheng talked to himself when he cooked.

(“Damnit, jiejie, did you have to pick the world’s most finicky recipe?” he’d grumble under his breath. “So many onions! I swear you secretly increased the number just to make me cry more – is that why it never tastes like yours?”

A pause.

“I didn’t mean it, jiejie. I know you’d never mess with your recipes, you always said that making us food was how you showed your love for us…what do you mean the soup’s just like me? I’m not finicky.”)

That had eased the pain even more. To know someone cared enough to –

Lan Wanji didn’t say anything about those conversations, or the worrying things they suggested about the state of Jiang Cheng’s mind. After all, a man was entitled to his own grief; wasn’t that how they’d ended up in this situation to begin with?

Anyway, if he were to start hallucinating Wei Wuxian, he’d probably talk with him, too. He’d never stop talking to him.

Of course, he thought, no one would notice it if he did. The conversations would entirely consist of him listening and occasionally grunting in acknowledgment while Wei Wuxian chattered on and on –

He didn’t hallucinate.

No, no matter how bad the pain got, Lan Wangji remained painfully lucid, excessively sober.

There had only been once that it truly got to be too much for him, and he asked Jiang Cheng to bring him wine to drink in an attempt to not think about it –

Jiang Cheng refused to tell him what he’d said or done that night, telling him that nothing of interest occurred, but he never brought him any more wine, either, so Lan Wangji didn’t believe him in the slightest.

He didn’t ask again.

(No one ever answered Inquiry, either)

So no. It wasn’t the pain that was the worst – whether the physical pangs of his body or the mental lashing of his endless heartbreak, he could, and would, survive.

Nor was the worst part the forced bedrest.

After all, staying still for long periods of time was nothing to a member of the Lan sect, and the immobility allowed him time to contemplate his thoughts, turning them around and around in his head until they were as smooth and polished as a stone washed by the river.

He had a lot of thoughts.

Very few of them were good ones.

It might have been too much, if he’d been alone and in seclusion – if Jiang Cheng wasn’t always blowing into his room like a hurricane, loud and always blowing hot and cold; if he didn’t have A-Yuan coming to him for lessons, regular as clockwork; if he didn’t get Jin Ling dropped into his lap whenever Jiang Cheng was otherwise occupied. But even when they weren’t around, there was always fresh paper and ink if he wanted to write, his guqin close at hand and a never-empty pot of incense…even a weiqi board that they sometimes unmercifully tortured.

There were books as well, of course; all the books that the Jiang sect’s recovering library had to offer. By being conquered, the Jiang sect had escaped the fate of the Lan sect, and while their official library had been plundered of all its manuals and textbooks, many of the personal books remained – especially the ones hidden in the walls or ceiling by mischievous children.

Sometimes mischievous adults.

Lan Wangji read the stories to a fascinated A-Yuan and Jing Ling. Sometimes, if it was a good day, Jiang Cheng would come by as well to tell stories of memories that the stories evoked – that this one was the one Wei Wuxian had insisted on hearing every single night until they were all sick of it, that that one had been purchased on an outing to an especially boisterous market town downriver, that yet another had been read to him first when he’d been sick with a cough and Wei Wuxian had never let him forget how he always seemed to cough whenever the love interest’s name was mentioned.

(If it was a bad day, Lan Wangji would read the stories at a louder volume, trying to drown out the sound of sobs from the room across the way, and ignore as best he could the smell of bile and blood.)

Yes, the bedrest was manageable. Fine, even.

No, Lan Wangji thought, reaching the same conclusion as always – the worst part of being seriously injured was, without a doubt, the getting better.

“Time for physical conditioning!” Jiang Cheng crowed, looking far, far too cheerful about it.

It wasn’t even as if he had any room to complain about Lan Wangji as a patient! Even in the worst days of the injury, Lan Wangji hadn’t once complained about needing to turn over to avoid getting sores or to the endless sessions of acupuncture designed to help maintain his internal stability, he’d submitted to Jiang Cheng helping him stretch his arms and legs without anything more than a grunt of pain – he’d even carefully maintained a regular circulation of qi throughout his body to prevent his muscles and bones from deteriorating too much no matter how bad his mental state would sometimes get.

Lan Wangji had always intended on subjecting himself to a harsh physical regimen to regain his fitness once his wounds were not so dire that excessive movement would rip them open or cause his qi to become unstable. Yet Jiang Cheng took a truly gruesome joy in (unnecessarily) forcing Lan Wangji to do things, things like walk around the room, or lift weights, or – now that he was doing better – exercise.

And he was being such a pest about it, too.

He’d forced Lan Wangji to start by doing the horse stance again, like a child.

In fact, he seriously suspected that A-Yuan’s conditioning training routine and his own were identical, a suspicion supported by the way A-Yuan would mimic him and claim he was just practicing.

“It’s good that he’s so diligent,” Jiang Cheng said with a suspiciously straight face. “And has such a reliable role model.”

Lan Wangji glared at him, exhausted and pushed past his limits from the last hour of performing the most painfully basic sword exercises to re-habituate himself to it now that his back was most of the way healed. “Get lost.”

Jiang Cheng exaggeratedly brought his hands to his chest as if in shock. “It can’t be! Have I reached Wei Wuxian levels at last?”

Lan Wangji, who’d been trying to slowly execute a maneuver he’d had down since he was younger than A-Yuan was now, missed a step, then turned and glared to cover up his amusement.

(Any mention of Wei Wuxian had once immediately summoned a flood of sorrow and regret, but Jiang Cheng simply brought him up too often; Lan Wangji had by now become somewhat inured. He thought that Wei Wuxian’s spirit, wherever it was and however resistant to his summons, might enjoy that.)

Jiang Cheng squinted at him with a suspicious expression. “I think you found that funny, but with an ice-block like you, it’s impossible to say.”

“Feel free to chisel an expression you prefer.” Lan Wangji finished the maneuver and started it over again. The scars on his back pulled, but held without breaking or bleeding anew; it had been nearly two years since the discipline whip had fallen on his back, and while he was still far too weak to risk going out, it meant – irritatingly enough – that Jiang Cheng was correct and this level of exercise was indeed appropriate.

That didn’t mean Lan Wangji had to like it.

“Can I? You mean that you come in an option other than ‘mildly peeved’?”

“‘Faintly murderous’ is also available. Continue on your present course to see it.”

There was a snort from the door, a voice so familiar that Lan Wangji continued another five steps in his current maneuver before realizing that the voice shouldn’t be there, that it was familiar from his memories of Gusu rather than his present day at the Lotus Pier.

His fingers tightened around Bichen. “…Brother.”

Jiang Cheng had finally told Lan Xichen that he knew where Lan Wangji was, and apparently the entire thing had been a fiasco of such epic proportions that he refused to speak of it again.

(The few hints he’d given of the situation suggested that tears might have been involved, and possibly a black eye or two.)

Of course, he’d then followed it up by banning him from the Lotus Pier until Lan Xichen felt that he could come visit without immediately demanding (or requesting, which was more likely) that Lan Wangji return to Gusu with him.

Lan Wangji hadn’t been especially impressed with that requirement, given that he’d already told Jiang Cheng that he would not succumb to any such requests; it had led to several days of cold war between them until Jiang Cheng broke and confessed that he assumed that Lan Wangji would want to leave the second he laid eyes on Lan Xichen and so was postponing it as much as possible.

Lan Wangji had magnanimously forgiven him, since in truth he’d been a little concerned about the same.

He turned around.

Lan Xichen’s eyes were wet and glistening, his body a little thinner than Lan Wangji remembered, but it was still him in all the important, fundamental ways. His elder brother, who loved him, and Lan Wangji was suddenly full of so many feelings that he couldn’t even begin to understand them, much less express them.

“You know, I think I hear someone calling me urgently,” Jiang Cheng – who must have known that Lan Xichen was visiting, since entering the Lotus Pier required reporting his presence to the Sect Leader – said, turning and fleeing from the room at once.

“Coward,” Lan Wangji said mildly, knowing that Jiang Cheng’s cultivation was sufficient to let him hear the word without him having to raise his voice.

“Don’t blame Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Xichen said, and his voice was warm as the summer days of their childhood. “I came several days ago; he had no idea of which day I would finally work up my courage to see you.”

Lan Wangji blinked, surprised. “Courage?”

Why would his brother require courage to see him?

“Wangji…” Lan Xichen’s hands were clasped together in front of him, a sign of anxiety. “I was worried you were still angry at me. That I would come, and you would turn me away.”

Lan Wangji would not have extended the invitation if he hadn’t been willing to see him. “I would not have turned you away.”

“But you’re still angry,” Lan Xichen said wisely.

Lan Wangji shrugged, meaning a little, meaning the love of my life died alone and you lied to me about it, meaning that I understand why you did it does not lessen how I feel about it.

“I am sorry,” Lan Xichen said. “I was wrong.”

Lan Wangji was surprised. He knew his brother well enough to know he would never say the words merely out of guilt or convenience or a desire to make peace; to say them aloud, he would have had to think over his actions, truly think them over, and to decide that he had in fact been wrong.

Lan Xichen saw his surprise and ducked his head a little. “I confided in my sworn brothers, and each one of them told me, in very different terms and for very different reasons, I was an idiot,” he said. “Even if I feared for your life, even if I doubted your choices – you are an adult, and I treated you like a child. I broke your trust. It was wrong, and I should not have done it.”

They were still in dispute as to the quality of Wei Wuxian’s character, then, but – Lan Wangji could live with that. It seemed more real, somehow, than a complete turnaround would have been.

“You are forgiven,” he said, and mostly meant it. The remaining part of that ‘mostly’ was only a scar, and could be – and would be – ignored by strength of will. And then, because he did love his brother no matter how much pain he had caused him, he added, “I missed you.”

Lan Xichen rubbed his eyes, which caused a dull ache in Lan Wangji’s chest. “I missed you too, Wangji. I – oh, I was so worried!”

Lan Wangji took an automatic step back from the unexpected exclamation, but he supposed it was reasonable. He had disappeared with his back still torn open from the discipline whip, and he had become feverish to the point of fainting – yes, worry was a reasonable reaction.

Especially since Lan Wangji had stubbornly remained missing for two entire years.

“I meant you to be,” he said honestly, because Lan Xichen deserved to know that his perfect little brother had an unexpectedly spiteful side to him.

Lan Xichen smiled at him, unbothered. “I figured as much, when we couldn’t find you no matter where we looked – the cultivation world is not so large that you could go unnoticed, even hurt and suffering; you must have found a place to shelter. We were fairly sure you weren’t dead, and that meant it had to be intentional. I was angry, for a while, but eventually – well, in the end, I’m just happy to see you.”

Lan Wangji was happy to see Lan Xichen, too. He’d missed his big brother, so calm and gentle; that he was angry at him did not mean that he did not love him, that he didn’t want him around.

It was a sudden breath of wind on a pleasant day, a sudden gust of Gusu tranquility in the middle of the now-familiar ruckus of the Lotus Pier.

“Can I serve you tea?” Lan Wangji asked, suddenly full of the desire to show his brother his room here – to show him that he hadn’t suffered during this time. He wanted to show him the weiqi board so that he could laugh at the appalling (and yet disturbingly successful) way Jiang Cheng played, to show him the books and the sandalwood incense that reminded Lan Wangji so much of Gusu that there was no way that Jiang Cheng hadn’t ordered especially for him, to let him meet A-Yuan and get punched by little Jin Ling who was too small for his version of his uncle’s temper to be anything other than cute.

To show him that the Lotus Pier was not merely a shelter for Lan Wangji, but a home.

Lan Xichen nodded, and they went.

Lan Xichen seemed pleased with Lan Wangji’s room, nodding in approval as Lan Wangji showed him around. But when there was nothing else to be pointed out, he looked sidelong at Lan Wangji and murmured, “Sect Leader Jiang informed me that I was not to raise the possibility of you returning. Was that your will, or his?”

If he’s keeping you here by force, I will put aside all etiquette to fight for you, he meant, and Lan Wangji was touched.

“Both,” he said. “I am not ready to return to the Cloud Recesses.”

They both knew that it wasn’t his injuries that were preventing him.

“You like it here, then?”

“I do.”

A pause, and then – “I’m glad.”

They had tea, then, and spoke of other things. Lan Xichen, always the more talkative one, told Lan Wangji of the way life in Cloud Recesses had at long last started to resemble the days before fire and war, of the rambunctious child that their uncle had adopted and couldn’t seem to bring himself to scold, and even of the way his sworn brothers who could scarcely tolerate each other had managed to come together in agreement to help him search for Lan Wangji.

“I may have let them search a bit longer than I needed to,” Lan Xichen confessed. “Things were getting bad for a while there, very bad – did you hear about Xue Yang?”

“Mm. Disappeared before trial.”

“Yes, in the end. Before that, though, there was a period when da-ge’s temper was getting worse and worse, and A-Yao was doing everything he could to irritate him while pretending he’d never done anything wrong in his life, which of course irritated da-ge even more…I honestly thought one of them might try to kill the other. But then I ended up having a small fit while the two of them were bickering, and by the time I recovered they’d somehow managed to get over the worst of it.”

Lan Wangji raised his eyebrows.

“I think they realized that I couldn’t handle losing either of them at that time,” Lan Xichen said with a shrug, indicating clearly that the fit in question was not a subject that was open for discussion. “I’d had the abrupt realization that I really might never see you again, if not even they could locate you...it really was a surprise that Jiang Cheng turned out to be such an accomplished liar.”

“Did he actually lie?” Lan Wangji asked, truly curious. The Jiang Cheng he knew was a horrendous liar, but surprisingly good at omitting details.

A Yunmeng trait, according to Jiang Cheng. It made Lan Wangji wonder what secrets Wei Wuxian might have been keeping hidden behind his smile.

“Well, he was very good at misdirecting away from any direct questions, at any rate,” Lan Xichen said with a smile that was a little tense around the corners. Lan Wangji suspected that he hadn’t quite forgiven Jiang Cheng for his part in hiding Lan Wangji, for all that Lan Xichen would never permit himself to seek revenge for the slight. “Often with anger, or with bluster…do you truly enjoy his company?”

“Very much,” Lan Wangji said, and almost chuckled at Lan Xichen’s somewhat disbelieving face. “Was his confession to you as much of a disaster as he made it sound?”

“There were tears,” Lan Xichen said. “And not just mine.”

Lan Wangji hid away a smile.

In return, his brother’s eyebrows went up. Lan Wangji didn’t blame him; he knew that Lan Xichen was not accustomed to his ever-serious younger brother smiling, even a hidden one.

Lan Wangji did not know how to tell him that the only way to put up with Jiang Cheng for any period of time was to learn to find his antics funny – how to tell his brother that he’d smiled more, here in the Lotus Pier, than any period of his life to date.

Even the parts with Wei Wuxian in them had been too full of confusion for smiles, confusion and love and denial. He dearly wished that Wei Wuxian could see him now, occasional smiles and lowering himself to engage in banter with Jiang Cheng – he thought Wei Wuxian would like it.

He thought, perhaps over-optimistically, that Wei Wuxian might have liked him. This version of him.

There was a familiar creak, then, and Lan Wangji shook his head, even more amused.

“He’s about to kick the door open,” he told Lan Xichen, who looked even more surprised at the unexpected prediction. “He always does.”

Sure enough, a moment later, Jiang Cheng burst into the door like a blast of the south wind, hot and blustery; his arms were unsurprisingly full of children.

“You forgot to stretch before you left the training field,” he said conversationally, which was a tone that, to judge by Lan Xichen’s expression, sounded to a normal person like an angry, dismissive growl. “You get an extra hour of acupuncture as penance. Also, I hope your bonding time has been enjoyable, because it’s over now - I need you to watch the kids before they ruin my trade agreements.”

It was a demand, not a question, and Jiang Cheng didn’t wait for an answer: a moment later and he was gone again. But now there was Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui there, looking curiously at Lan Xichen, and Lan Wangji nodded at them to indicate that his presence had been sanctioned.

Lan Xichen, in turn, recovered himself quickly and smiled at them. “My name is Lan Xichen,” he said, opting for a far more informal introduction than would normally be appropriate. “You can call me Uncle, if you like. What’s your names?”

“I’m Lan Yuan, uncle,” A-Yuan said formally, and tried to salute the way Lan Wangji taught him. “And he’s Jin Ling. He’s not yet two, so he doesn’t bow yet. Hanguang-jun, should I take him to paint?”

Lan Wangji nodded his permission, so A-Yuan took Jin Ling by the hand – not hard, since Jin Ling was not-so-subtly trying to hide behind him to block Lan Xichen’s curious gaze – and led him over to the corner of the room where they’d stored all the children’s supplies.

“Lan Yuan,” Lan Xichen echoed, and turned his eyes on Lan Wangji. “I’d heard of him before. The stories made him out to be the product of some sort of tragic love affair or a mistress of Jiang Cheng’s. I hadn’t put it together with your presence here before. Does that mean…?”

Lan Wangji nodded, confirming Lan Xichen’s suspicions that he was the one raising him – that he’d agreed to share his surname with him.

“Where did you find him?”

Lan Wangji shook his head, refusing to answer.

Lan Xichen nodded slowly. There was a little pain in his eyes: they had once been so close that there had been no questions that wouldn’t be answered, or subjects that couldn’t be discussed, like Lan Xichen’s breakdown or Lan Yuan’s origins. “You’re right; it doesn’t matter. If you say he’s a Lan, then that’s enough for me…I’ll have him included in the family register at home, if you’ll consent.”

Once in the register, Lan Sizhui would have the right to wear the cloud-patterned forehead ribbon. It would give him the backing of being a member of the Lan clan, with all the responsibilities that came with it – the ones Lan Wangji was trying to teach him, and which he could learn better in the future if he went to the Cloud Recesses to learn.

It would be good for him to have that option.

“How will you explain it?” Lan Wangji asked, meaning I don’t want them to know I’m here.

Lan Xichen smiled faintly, and that was agreement – reluctant agreement, but agreement nonetheless. “I wasn’t planning on explaining it.”

For once in his life, Lan Wangji was almost looking forward to hearing the gossip.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #lan wangji #lan xichen #lan sizhui #jin ling #my fic #my fics #delight in misery

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captain-apostrophe · 3 years

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Hi! I hope the prompts are still open.

21. Knights. I don't know if you remember in the drama, there is this scene of everyone mobilizing from the Unclean Realm for the Sunshot Campaign and on the crenelations is Huaisang waving good-bye to WWX. It always struck me as a lady from medieval romances waving her knight off. You can use someone else instead of WWX, if you like (but that scene made me headcanon that NHS had a bit of a crush on him when they were young)

49. Bodyswap. Xiao Xingchen & Xue Yang in original canon Yi city time. You can make it shippy or not, however works best for you.

Another excellent prompt for me (well, two more - XueXiao body swap is up next)! Thanks for sending them in and I hope you enjoy it!

(also on ao3, if you prefer to read there)

[gen; SangXian; Knights]

- The Hunt -

Huaisang watched from the wall as the warriors gathered outside the gates. They were going Hunting, and some of them might not return, for the beast they sought was mighty enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most stalwart of men.

Not a Nie, of course, but others: the Jiangs, with their bold purple banners, and the Jins under shining cloth-of-gold, and the Lans resplendant in the sunlight in their blue and white, and every minor sect with wealth enough to send a champion to represent them. Huaisang liked that the Nie flags were dull, by comparison to those gaudy displays. A Nie didn't Hunt for glory but for survival.

Still, the display was grand, and even if he wasn't at all interested in joining them Huaisang liked to watch them embark. If he shaded his eyes from the sun he could pick out his brother from the crowd, clearly the most impressive of them all despite (or, well, because of) the obvious scrapes and scratches on his armour.

It wasn't his brother that Huaisang really wanted to see, though.

The Jiang sect's champion, the renegade knight dressed all in black, rode under a banner that married his family crest to the sect's colours. There was no lotus on his purple but an ass, said to symbolise patience but, Huaisang knew, chosen by Wei Wuxian especially because it was a beast of burden looked down on by noble men atop their fine horses. The Wei family had had no crest before that, servants as they were, but when the Jiangs had taken Wei Wuxian as ward he'd earned glory alongside their son.

That was where Huaisang had first met him - riding beside the Jiang heir, as handsome and easy on horseback as he was on foot, as he was in the lakes of the Jiang family home, as he was in the training courtyard, as he was on a battlefield... he excelled at it all. If Huaisang had been fated to marry, he would have wanted it to be to someone like that.

He wondered sometimes how long the fight would last, if he and Wei Wuxian were to face each other. Could it go on for more than a few moments? A minute? He hoped he never had to find out.

He waved, as the assembly marched out - and he saw Wei Wuxian rise in the stirrups, turning to look back, looking up; he waved back, and Huaisang felt a little flutter in his belly. Wei Wuxian had looked back at him! Had looked back for him!

Mingjue was a mess when he returned home, days later, muddy and scratched and weary with the travel and the fighting and the sleeping out in the wilderness. Huaisang fussed around his brother as he unpacked, waited impatiently for him to come back from bathing, and clucked his tongue as he checked over the various wounds his brother had accumulated.

He didn't quite dare to raise the question: Mingjue did it for him, as he rubbed a soothing salve onto the cut on his brother's arm.

"I think that they were convinced," he said, with a sigh, not even wincing at the ointment's sting. "But it's getting harder to keep them from the truth."

"Well, if they'd just mind their own business -!"

"Enough," Mingjue said. They'd had the argument before: it got them nowhere. The sects would never cease their meddling, so it was pointless to act as though they might. "We were lucky this time, but my status only gains me so much of their trust."

Now it was Huaisang's turn to sigh.

"So I need to change where I feed?" he asked. "Again?"

"Unless you want to be hunted, didi," Mingjue said, tone as soft as it ever got. "As your mother was. And since I've no intention of allowing that..."

"I'll find somewhere else," Huaisang promised.

#prompt fill #fic-iversary prompts #the untamed #fanfic #knight au #sangxian #cap' writes

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stiltonbasket · 3 years

Note

AHHHHHH your “this betrayal unpercieved” is so tragic and so so SO good and I’m so excited for it but also a little afraid of what else is going to go wrong 😭 thank you so much for sharing! 💙

“This would have been a lot easier if Zewu-jun could answer to Inquiry,” Wei Wuxian sighs, stowing his flute away in his belt. “But he can’t, can he? He’s not even refusing, he doesn’t know how.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “I have often seen him in my dreams,” he says slowly. “And I hear the answers to Inquiry there. But I have no way of knowing whether it is truly him or my own mind deceiving me.”

“Oh? What does he say, then?”

“Answers to the usual things one asks of spirits,” Lan Zhan replies. “If I ask him whether he is at peace, he says that he is. If I ask him whether he has left his resting place, he tells me that he has not. Sometimes I ask if he knew that healing Chifeng-zun would kill him, and he always says that he did.”

“The Zewu-jun I see in my dreams is just like the yuangui we keep seeing everywhere, though,” Wei Wuxian objects. “He looks like Wen Ning did when he had those skull-piercing nails in his head, Lan Zhan! And he keeps haunting the library pavilion, but sometimes I see him burning down a house in Moling, and sometimes I see him killing Jin Guangshan.”

His friend digests this with a faint shudder and gets onto his horse. “Then we will go to Qinghe,” Lan Zhan directs, watching Wei Wuxian vault up onto his mount with the characteristic grace of most noblemen born to the Jiang clan. “Perhaps we will even reach Tangshan before dark, if we are swift.”

---

Later that night, at the inn in Tangshan, Wei Wuxian dreams of blood splashing onto the floor of the Jinlintai’s banquet hall, and a ghostly scream blowing out the glass in the walls of the guest wing when a little boy in golden robes breathes his last in his mother’s arms. He dreams of two figures in blue and white, one with vengeful black eyes and clawed hands while the other bleeds to death in the Unclean Realm with tears staining his face, and he watches the yuangui cradle Zewu-jun’s corpse and caress the sweet smile on his lips, so distraught by its own demise that it begins to weep, too.

I killed what I most loved, it sobs, in the strange echoing way of ghosts that could no longer speak. Dead, dead, dead. My Lan Huan is dead.

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian shouts into the darkness, as the memory of Lan Xichen’s last moments finally fades away. “If the one Lan Zhan keeps seeing is him, then what are you?”

His avenger, the ghost with Zewu-jun’s face wails. His protector while he drew breath, and his murderers’ worst nightmare now that he is gone.

The realization strikes him like a rampaging bull, and he opens his eyes a split-second later and kicks Lan Zhan out of bed. “Lan Zhan!” he cries, shaking his friend by the shoulder until he opens his eyes properly. “You’re right, you were always right! We haven’t been chasing Zewu-jun, or his fierce corpse. It’s never been him, all this time we thought--”

“Slow down,” Lan Zhan orders, remarkably alert for someone running on half an hour of sleep. “What do you mean, it is not him? His face has been seen several times, by hundreds of witnesses on no less than thirty occasions.”

“No, you don’t understand! After Zewu-jun died, he must have...”

Dead, dead, dead. My Lan Huan is dead.

Wei Wuxian swallows.

“Lan Zhan, after your brother died...what happened to Shuoyue?”

#wangxian #nielan #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #my fic #this betrayal unperceived

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chnqin · 3 years

Text

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I was tagged by @wendashanren to show my process for two of my minimalist posters, thanks for the tag! (also I cannot believe how organised you are, all my ideas are scribbled in my notes app at speed before I forget them, and then I take ages to find what I'm looking for).

For the people I’m tagging please don’t feel any pressure (especially if you’ve already been tagged), but if you have time I’d love to see the process for:

This WOH post by @gusucloud because I’m honestly in awe of the layers, especially the first picture with the fan This lovely art of Wei Wuxian by @risoria because his face is amazing and the colours are so unusual but look so good This gifset by @mylastbraincql - the text effect looks so cool, and all the gifs are so crisp I want to know how you did it This TGCF post by @lan-xichens because the colouring is stunning And this post by @leonzhng because the amount of layers are amazing and it must have taken so long to make

sorry if you’ve already been asked to do any of these!

Process beneath the cut

Ok, so in some ways my minimalist posters are much easier to make than something involving pictures, where you have to locate good screencaps, remove backgrounds, smooth edges of pngs, correct the usually dreadful colour and brightness etc before you can even begin making something.

The first minimalist poster I made was the Sunshot Campaign trio. I don't really know what made me do it, the general idea just popped into my head to show a narrative through images only, and then I worked out shapes etc later. The subsequent posters have been framed from those original three.

The Yi City poster took the longest of all the minimalist posters because I struggled to decide how to represent the characters in it.

I tried out a lot of different things for the main three figures, but what I knew was that I wanted a cross for szc, a dash for xxc, and something to represent blood for xy.

I also liked the idea of the three characters literally standing in the shadow of the gate, and so gave them what cold be shadows, but could also be robes for the body depending on how you interpret it. In the end I went with the most simplified version - my only regret about that is that I lost the black/white sharing for szc and xxc, and therefore the sort of noughts and crosses idea I was going for.

^ Here are all the layers of different types of figure representation I tried - you can see how many different iterations it took to to become something so simple (each folder has at least two or three versions of that particular style). It took me so long to decide how to represent the three figures, so I'm actually really glad to be able to show people some of the earlier versions.

Most of the shapes I make using the lasso or pen tool. For the cross, dash, and tear/blood I used one of the brushes which comes with photoshop because I have never worked out how to get fancy new ones. The gate I sourced from a free png because I couldn't be bothered making something so ornate, and then I added "Yi City" on it.

I then had to decide how to represent A-Qing, and thought a white, bloodstained bird worked well for how we first see her in the series. The red went on her wings to represent them being clipped (removing her sight and ability to speak) - it also echoes the red of xy, who is the one who killed her.

For the Qiongqi path poster I knew I wanted a blue umbrella and thought a circle might represent it best, and then added the rain. I made the middle line bigger for no reason at all, I just liked the look of it. The umbrella made me think of Kandinsky paintings, which are all very minimalist with shapes and lines, so I added the two lines at the side in white (copied from the middle line of the umbrella). This immediately made me think of LWJ and WWX walking the main path together. WWX's line starts higher, because he's the main character and we are introduced to him first in the narrative. I also left it at the same height as the vertical line in the umbrella, which then echoes a) the downward motion of the umbrella as it is dropped to the ground (an action which is caused by wwx) and b) the literal falling of lwj for wwx ( if that makes sense).

I then struggled for ages over how to represent the Wens and WWX leaving. I was going to try and make silhouettes of them at the bottom on the horses, but nothing looked good - so I went with another line, this time in red, then connected it with his white line. The first wave is the beginning of his demonic cultivation (going by the book, rather than the drama), i.e. leaving the straight orthodox path. You can see that the white line could still turn around here and return back to its original trajectory. The break between the white and red lines which represent wwx is him falling into the burial mounds. The subsequent wave is the upheaval of the sunshot campaign and aftermath, but also can be interpreted a bit like those heartbeat machines in hospitals. The line going straight is when he takes the Wens - a path he cannot return from. His trajectory is now set.

If you've read all of this well done, it's super long, so I will give you an edits tip which helped me with these as a reward for making it this far: If you're ever unhappy with something you've made, take stuff away, don't add it. As can be seen with the minimalist posters, every time I wasn't sure something worked, I made it more simple and ultimately it looked a lot better for it.

#showyourprocess #@qinghe-s i have seen your tag and will do that next!#honestly no joke apart from working out the red line the qiongqi path one literally took me like 5 minutes #i feel like there wasn't a huge process because i was just like oooh lines/metaphors/rain

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guqin-and-flute · 4 years

Text

Are You Here to Stop Me? (Peony to Lotus!verse)

[First post/Setting of Peony to Lotus]

[Ao3 Series]

The sky was dark with night and the storm by the time they reached QiongQi Way, rain pelting down like arrows into their faces until they were left nearly gasping from the stinging cold. As Lan Wangji landed Bichen, Jin Guangyao splashed off into the ankle-height slurry of mud and water, sheet white and knees nearly buckling--probably from flying through a sky filled with lightning and ear shattering thunder as much as the height. Lan Wangji should have inquired as to his well being, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t focus on anything but getting to the camp, finding Wei Ying, stopping him before he could do anything that would further ostracize him from the rest of the Cultivation World.

From him.

In any case, the smaller man gathered himself upright and simply followed him as they climbed up the path, squinting through the rain and stunning flash-bangs of brilliant light, then utter darkness. There were people already fleeing down the rocky embankment, covered in blood and mud, eyes white rimmed, faces terrified and that icy clench around Lan Wangji’s heart tightened. Deftly, he caught a gold-robed man in his middle with Bichen’s sheath, demanded, “What happened?”

“Someone came to their rescue!” He babbled, pointing back the way he had come. “He resurrected the dead to kill people!”

The storm crashed in a sick parallel to the horror that flashed its way through Lan Wangji, and Bichen’s ornamentation cut into his palm. Jin Guangyao muttered something beneath the deafening hiss of rain--a curse, an exclamation, something in disbelief--Lan Wangji didn’t know, for he was already moving, taking the path to Wei Ying in long, ground eating strides, blood pulsing in his ears for every step, for every thought that was just one word repeated--no, no, no, no. He didn’t know exactly where the camp was, but he didn’t need to. He just followed the trail of escaping people, frantic from animal panic. Running from a predator.

No. He musn’t think that. It couldn’t be too late to call him back. It couldn’t.

He stopped when he saw it, reached out to catch Jin Guangyao’s elbow when he nearly lost his footing to the thick mud--hulking, undulating shadows, moving down the path toward them, backlit in silver relief with every lightning flash through the sheets of pounding rain. The shadowy forms resolved themselves into horses, then people huddled on horses. A familiar, slim figure at their head, clad in black, burning in the night with a fierce purpose. It felt like fire just to look at him in such a state, eyes alight, face pale as death. Wei Ying. The Wens.

Surely if he had broken such a core rule, he should look it. He should look stained, should feel tainted to Lan Wangji’s trained senses--but for all that he was bright with rage and intent, he looked cold and bedraggled, sopping. And scared. Familiar as he ever was to him.

The horses stopped, dancing from foot to foot with anxiety and Wei Ying looked down at them, mouth tight, eyebrows pinched. “Lan Zhan. Jin-xiong. Are you here to stop me?”

“Wei Ying….” Lan Wangji’s breath caught, searching, aching for the words that were right, that could fix this, that could convince him to stay. And if there were no words, his limbs hummed with the tension to simply pull Wei Ying off his horse, to pin him to the ground, keep him until he saw sense--but he couldn’t make himself move. “Where are you going?” Away. You’re going away, aren’t you?

Jin Guangyao looked over at him sharply, then up at Wei Ying, face pinched and unreadable. Wei Ying’s hands tightened on the reins as he shook his head. “I have no idea. But the world is wide. There must be a place for us.”

Lan Wangji’s hands were numb, his stomach a void of cold. “You need to think again. If you go, it will be considered a rebellion against orthodoxy with no way back.”

Wei Ying’s face darkened and he demanded with the hint of an trapped, disbelieving smile, “Rebellion against orthodoxy? What kind of orthodoxy is that?”

Jin Guangyao took a step forward, his hands coming up in placation as he grimaced against the onslaught of the rain. “You may be right, but this isn’t the time for ideology--”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t this about right and wrong? Who has done what and why? The Jin Clan has done this, Jin Guangyao, Lan Zhan. They killed Wen Ning--they skewered him with a lure flag and left him to die in a field, alone and in pain and--” Wei Ying broke off as his horse gave a harried half trot to the side, spurred by his wild energy and the broken sob of a bedraggled older woman from the crowd. “They tortured them. Toyed with their lives, murdered so, so many. I don’t regret killing them.” He looked straight at Lan Wangji as he said it, face tight. “They deserved what they got. Payment in kind. It was justice, carried out by his own hand.”

“Wei Ying...they’ll hunt you.” Lan Wangji’s voice was low, the air squeezed from him, but Wei Ying heard it, because his chin raised, jaw growing hard.

Beside him, Jin Guangyao shot Lan Wangji a look that he didn’t parse beyond extreme displeasure before he lunged forward to latch 2 hands onto either side of the bridle of Wei Ying’s mount, holding the thing’s head as it tried to step around him, his face all at once earnest and pleading. “Wuxian, think about A-Li. What will she do if you leave? Jiang Wanyin? What will you do?”

“I don’t know,” Wei Ying snapped back, seeming locked between shaking him off and listening. “I don’t--”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. Take a moment. Take a breath. We can fix this.”

Wei Ying shook his head, jaw tightening as he sucked in a breath. “No. No, I….”

The horse tossed its head again, trying to shy away, and Jin Guangyao braced his feet in the mud, hauling it back down, insisting, “We can talk about this, Wuxian; what’s happened? What did you do?”

“Nothing I wouldn't do again. What should have been done long before this. I’m not going to leave them,” Wei Ying landed fiercely on this last. “I won’t.”

His expression smoothed into wide-eyed, placating understanding, Jin Guangyao shook his head. “No one says you must. What happened?”

Lan Wangji felt frozen in place as rain pounded down on his head, rushing down his back, his neck, spray invading each inhale. He didn’t want to hear because he knew. They knew already what he had done. He could see in the smattering of pale faces behind Wei Ying, one paler even than bone, laced with blood and black as only a fierce corpse puppet could be, dormant and propped on a horse. Wen Ning. Who he said had been killed.

Wei Ying has done it again, but not for war, not for defense. The night felt as if it was slipping away beneath his grasping fingertips, water over metal, no handholds. Uncle will find it unforgivable. He will be ostracized. He will be imprisoned.

It was wrong. He knew it was wrong.

But it was Wei Ying.

“I made Wen Ning a puppet. I killed them all. The overseers. I can’t...they are not going to forgive this and I don’t want them to. If this is their world, if this is what they’ve made of this peace, I don’t want any of it--”

Jin Guangyao hissed something under his breath, face hard, before he released one hand to reach up and grip Wei Ying’s knee, staring up at him. “Let us help. Let me help. Trust me.”

Something passed over Wei Ying’s face, then, a strange tangle of relief and panic and he looked at Lan Wangji with wide, scared eyes. Then at the huddled Wens, watching him with terrified awe. “I don’t….” he said again, quieter, with less bite to his tone.

“Wei Ying….” bled from Lan Wangji and the man looked back over to him again, this time, his face full of frozen grief.

Then, his gaze went down to Jin Guangyao, grief slowly inching into the fear of a child in the presence of an adult. Relinquishing control. “Jin-xiong, I don’t know what to do.” His voice was a choked whisper barely audible over the rain chatter.

“Then wait,” he insisted. “Just wait a moment and let me….” He trailed off, his mouth set, brow furrowed, eyes tracking back and forth in the nothingness of the mud.

Everyone flinched at the splitting crash of thunder and lighting right overhead and, for a moment, Jin Guangyao’s face curled into a snarl of frustration as the horse tried to half rear in its panic. Wei Ying waited, frozen and staring down at him as if he was an anchor in the sea. Lan Wangji stepped closer in a daze, staring at him, the urge to simply latch onto his ankle with an iron grip, ensure that he could not run, he could not leave--

Jin Guangyao sucked in a breath. “You need to come to Lotus Pier,” he said, finally and Wei Ying bristled.

“I told you, I’m not--!”

He was shaking his head, “We’re bringing them.”

“I...what?”

Lan Wangji tore his eyes away from Wei Ying to stare at Jin Guangyao, squinting through the rain running into his eyes, threatening to sink his waterlogged headband down his forehead. What?

“We have to go quickly; news will reach Koi Tower soon and my father will send people after you all, but if we reach Yunmeng, they have to address Jiang-zongzhu first before they take any action on his territory, if we send someone ahead to ensure Jiang disciples are waiting at the border to receive them.”

Lan Wangji forced himself to speak. “To what end?” Talking to Jin Guangyao was easier than trying to talk to Wei Ying, where the words were compressed, bottlenecked by their own foreign pressure to be released. Don’t leave me, don’t do this, don’t go.

“Hanguang-jun, these are not abnormal conditions for their prisoners to be kept in and if they reach them before we get out of Lanling, they will be slaughtered as escapees, not recaptured.”

“To what end are you bringing them back?”

The smile that Jin Guangyao flashed him through the rain was edged and slightly manic. “Distance. I don’t have a better idea, at present, than to get far enough away to think of one.” He raked his gaze back over the refugees, then stopped and stared. “Is that Wen Qing?” he raised his voice over the din as the sky released itself fully, pounding down with a deafening fury that blurred the scene to silver-gray darkness, smudging the outlines of everyone and everything.

Wei Ying looked where he pointed, what Lan Wangji could see of his face rigid with confusion and fearful hope as he shouted back. “It is. Why?”

Jin Guangyao stared into space, before he nodded slowly. “Alright. Alright. You have to go; now. Hanguang-jun!” He wheeled on Lan Wangji. “I need you to take me back to Koi Tower.”

[Part 2]

#And that's how it happened #CODE: Wen Rescue #JGY's got a plaaan #I had to write this before I put up other stuff because I am annoyingly chronological #There's gonna be a second part from JGY's perspective but I wanted to chuck this out here first #AU #Peony to Lotus #my fic #my stuff #yaoli #<--there is no overt yaoli besides JGY being WWX's brother in law in this one the cute stuff is for later #wangxian

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lady-of-the-lotus · 3 years

Text

Xue Yang, still alive and disguised as Xiao Xingchen post-canon, pulls a vulnerable Lan Xichen into his destructive orbit with the promise of raising Meng Yao from the grave. Did somebody say #friendship goals?

“We got him back,” he says. His voice is hoarse, as if he’s spent all night screaming. “That pocket-sized prick is back, and that deluded blue idiot will do anything to keep him here.” Nothing from Xiao Xingchen's spirit-trapping pouch. He reaches over to where his robes are jumbled beside the bed, pulls a few closely-written pages from his inner robe’s qiankun sleeve. “See, I have it all here, you know I do—” Still nothing.

Tumblr Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Read on AO3! - M - XueXiao and XiYao

Chapter 3

Xue Yang is waiting for Lan Xichen when the Clan Leader steps back inside the manor.

“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen is murmuring to himself. “A-Yao. A-Yao. A-Yao…”

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

“Not if you don’t get back in here.” Grinning, Xue Yang waves him into the courtyard. The warmth has faded from his qiankun sleeve, the past half hour is a blur, but he feels more like himself than he has in months.

Happy, too, in a bright, marrow-deep way, which isn’t something he’s much used to.

Lan Xichen glances over his shoulder at the road. Xue Yang steps around him and closes the manor gates.

“Where did you run off to?” he asks, bolting the heavy doors. His arms and legs are still tingling, blood rushing in his ears. “The main event is about to begin.”

Lan Xichen follows him into the hall. His eyes widen as he drinks in the naked body. Chang Ping is an oozing mass of red and pink and yellow, exposed bone and ruptured fat and flayed muscle, a beautiful monstrosity glistening wetly in the lamplight.

The corpse’s eyes are missing.

“Not bad, if I do say so myself.” Xue Yang wipes his blade on Chang Ping’s inner robe, still grinning. “Considering how out of practice I am.”

“Did you have to—have to—”

“Give him the full experience?” Xue Yang laughs. His laugh is a bit too high and a bit too long. “I needed that resentful energy, my friend. Do you think I enjoyed torturing the good Chang Ping?”

Lan Xichen glances at Xue Yang’s left hand.

Xue Yang wags a playful finger at him. He feels like he’s glowing, still filled with that sharp clear brightness. “What his father did to me had nothing to do with any of this. But believe me when I say he was just as guilty.”

“His father? I thought it was Chang Ping who…” Lan Xichen shakes his head. “Never mind. What do you need the resentful energy for?”

Xue Yang points to the floor beneath the swinging corpse. Drawn in blood on the floor is a large, complicated array. “Three guesses. Now, I’ll be back in just a minute; I have something to take care of—”

“I sent the servants away.”

The grin slips from Xue Yang’s face. “You what?”

“I sent them away.”

The brightness fades. “And why did you do that? Pang of conscience?”

“I needed someone to deliver a letter to my brother. That’s all.”

“Suicide note?”

“Suicide is forbidden—”

“So is murder.”

“I could never do that to my family, or demean the gift of life given to me.”

A gust of laughter escapes Xue Yang. “We’ll get there eventually,” he says, shaking his head. It was foolish to think Lan Xichen would have let him kill the servants.

One more reason to bring Jin Guanyao back. Lan Xichen, he knows, will not be able to say no to his precious A-Yao.

“What do you mean?” Lan Xichen asks.

“Not the suicide, my friend. Don’t worry. I want you whole and healthy...” Xue Yang pats his arm reassuringly. “We have time.”

“Time for what?”

Xue Yang flashes a smile. One of his innocent ones this time. “Time to bring back your friend, of course .”

“What now?”

Xue Yang takes Jin Guangyao’s spirit-trapping pouch from Lan Xichen. “Your hand.”

He pricks Lan Xichen’s finger and uses his blood to draw a number of talismans, festooning Chang Ping’s body with the thin slips of yellow paper.

He picks up the spirit-trapping pouch he’d used to capture Chang Ping’s resentful energy, grips it in the same hand as Jin Guangyao’s pouch, and produces his copy of the Stygian Tiger Amulet.

Lan Xichen almost keels over. “That’s—”

“We know what it is.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry. I don’t use it often enough to go the way of Wen Ruohan or Wei Wuxian.”

“But—”

“Do you want me to continue or not?”

Lan Xichen ducks his head and steps back.

Black smoke twines around Xue Yang’s fingers. He sends the amulet flying at the corpse, drawing a rapid-fire sequence of glowing red symbols in the air, then opens Chang Ping’s spirit-trapping pouch and reaches inside.

A blast of resentful energy burst free of the bag, sending Lan Xichen flying across the room. He knocks over a brazier, sending dozens of candles rolling across the bloodstained floor, and slams his head on the stone tiles.

Xue Yang releases a second burst of dark energy so strong he blacks out for a moment. Every bone in his body feels like it’s been turned to soup, a giant fist crushing his skull. Any second now there’s going to be a pop and the floor will be splattered with gray pulp and white shards of skull—

A murmuring sound.

He looks up.

A small white body lies curled inside the array.

Lan Xichen is beside the figure. “…A-Yao?”

Jin Guangyao sits up. He’s shivering and naked in the lamplight. “...Er…er-ge? Zewu-jun….?”

It worked it worked it worked—

Lan Xichen drapes his outer robe around Jin Guangyao. “It’s me, I’ve brought you back—”

Xue Yang sneers. His heart is hammering against his ribcage and his hands and feet are numb. “Actually, you just stood there and goggled at me and passed out.”

“You’re back, you’re back—”

A-Yao slumps forward.

Lan Xichen’s eyes are wide, face white. “What happened? What happened?!—”

Xue Yang shrugs. “How should I know? The last time I did this I killed the man as soon as I confirmed I could do it. Was just trying to see if I was doing something wrong.”

Lan Xichen draws in a deep, shaky breath. “He’s fine, I know he’s fine—”

Xue Yang shrugs again. “I’ve done my part. The rest is up to him.”

Lan Xichen carries Jin Guangyao to one of the bedrooms and settles down beside the bed, eyes never leaving the little snake’s face.

“How many days will it take for those servants you let escape to reach Cloud Recesses?” Xue Yang snaps his fingers in Lan Xichen’s ear. “Are you in there? How long do we have until those servants tell the Lans where we are?”

Lan Xichen starts. “With no detours, on foot, two weeks.”

“Then we have that long until anyone comes after us on their swords. Unless they meet Lan cultivators on the road—”

“I told them not to speak to anyone.”

“As if they’d follow your orders if it were convenient not to?”

“I’m the clan leader.”

“Not of their clan… Doesn’t matter. We need to get moving anyway. As soon as your dimpled little friend is on his feet, we’re out of here. Wake me if anything important happens.”

There’s another bedroom down the hall. He locks the door behind him, removes his robes and shoes and lies down on the bed in just his trousers. Rests Xiao Xingchen’s pouch on his bare chest. Lays Shuanghua out beside him, pressed up against his side. Sets Jiangzai within grabbing distance.

“We got him back,” he says. His voice is hoarse, as if he’s spent all night screaming. “That pocket-sized prick is back, and that deluded blue idiot will do anything to keep him here.”

Nothing from the pouch.

He reaches over to where his robes are jumbled beside the bed, pulls a few closely-written pages from his inner robe’s qiankun sleeve.

“See, I have it all here, you know I do, you were with me when I found it, when I copied it all out—”

Still nothing.

“Daozhang?” He sits up, back to the wall, staring down at the pouch. “I know you can hear me…”

Still nothing.

Worn out from the ritual, he eventually falls asleep, propped up against the wall with the papers scattered across the bed and Xiao Xingchen’s pouch cradled in his lap.

He’s up at dawn. His body aches as if he’d been trampled by a dozen horses, but his head is clearer.

Ridiculous, any worry. He had simply been too tired to focus on the pouch last night, too exhausted to pick up on the subtle motions of the pouch, to sense Xiao Xingchen’s reassuring warmth…

It’s not that Xiao Xingchen disapproved of what he had done. How would Xiao Xingchen even know, if Xue Yang hadn't told him?

(Besides, he’s done far worse over the past eight years.)

And it certainly isn’t that Xiao Xingchen can’t communicate with Xue Yang. For years now he’s felt the pouch hum, felt its warmth—

Years.

He drags himself out to the discussion hall in time to watch Jin Guangyao evaporate in the pale morning light.

“A-Yao!” Lan Xichen leaps forward, snatching at him, but it’s too late.

Jin Guangyao is gone.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned.” Xue Yang yawns. He’s known this moment was coming, known Jin Guangyao would fade with the morning sun, knows that he’ll be back that night, but he takes no pleasure in Lan Xichen’s anguish. Odd, that. He’d expected this all to be more amusing. “He say anything interesting?”

Lan Xichen seizes him by the throat, hoisting him off the floor with his tremendous Lan strength. “You little rat, what did you do, you promised me A-Yao back—”

Xue Yang desperately struggles to pry Lan Xichen’s fingers from his throat, but Lan Xichen’s grip is like iron.

“U—gh—uhg—”

Lan Xichen flings him out the door so hard he bounces twice and rolls down the discussion hall steps. The Clan Leader’s handsome face is a nightmarish mask of itself, twisted by rage and hate and panic.

Xue Yang stands slowly, choking on his swollen Adam’s apple.

Lan Xichen flies down beside him. “What did you do, you repugnant little liar—”

Jiangzai appears in Xue Yang’s hand. “I brought him back!” Blood spurts from his tongue as he speaks. “I swear!”

“You bastard, you lied to me—”

“I told you, I’ve never done this before! I swear I did my best! Do you think I wanted this? I need that dimpled little madman too!”

Lan Xichen hits him so hard that Xue Yang is knocked on his back. He draws Shuoyue, but Xue Yang has Jiangzai up, pointing at Lan Xichen’s throat.

“Lay one more finger on me,” Xue Yang rasps, “and it will be the last thing you ever do.”

“As if I care—”

Xue Yang spits blood. “I’m the only one who can get him back, and you know it!"

Lan Xichen freezes, then slowly sheaths his sword. “You have until tonight.”

Rubbing at his bruised throat, Xue Yang grins, a grin full of teeth. “Anything for you, my friend.”

* * *

Xue Yang locks himself in the discussion hall all day to work on getting “A-Yao” back. Spends most of the day napping on the Clan Leader’s chair. The corpse has begun to rot, but he doesn’t mind. The smell of rotting meat, combined with the familiar surroundings, brings him back to happier times at the Chang Manor.

“We’re almost there, daozhang,” he mumbles as he falls asleep. Not directly to the pouch. He doesn’t dare take it out. “Just a little bit longer…”

He wakes at moonrise, just in time to add a few more lines to the array, forcing Jin Guangyao to reappear in the empty hall with Xue Yang instead of beside Lan Xichen, to whom he’s been bound. (A mistake, the binding, but it’s too late to rectify now.)

Jin Guangyao reappears in a shower of silvery sparks, still wearing the oversized clothes he’d borrowed from Chang Ping’s wardrobe.

“You did this,” he says to Xue Yang. Only his timbre and over-enunciation are as Xue Yang remembers. The old cloying obsequiousness, the sticky politeness, have been scrubbed away. “You brought me back.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Why?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Zewu-jun’s fault, really. You know, if you want to apologize for trying to kill me, now would be a good time.”

Jin Guangyao ducks his head at him. “I explained that to you when you returned to me to beg for help in restoring Xiao Xingchen, Chengmei. You know I had no choice, and that I ordered my men to let you survive the beating.”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. As if he’d bought that bullshit eight years ago, either. “Whatever. You still owe me, big time.”

Jin Guangyao ignores that. “Zewu-jun seems rather out of sorts.”

“Zewu-jun stood by and watched me a torture a man to death, if that’s what you mean. Let me kill a good dozen others, too. What’s with that look? I thought killing people made you happy.”

A slight return of Jin Guangyao’s old fussily polite manner. Xue Yang had always thought that Jin Guangyao had been relatively open around him, hadn’t been afraid to snap at him on occasion, to complain about Koi Tower’s bottom-feeding snakes, but now Xue Yang sees that the face he’d shown him during their partnership had merely been another of the former clan leader’s masks.

“If I wanted you dead, you would have been dead,” says Jin Guangyao, granting him a full bow this time. “I thank you, Xue Chengmei, for granting me renewed life.”

Xue Yang snorts. “Blow it out your blubberhole, Lianfang-zun. Save it for that blue fool out there.” He flings open the discussion hall’s doors. Lan Xichen is pacing back and forth before the hall. He was already too thin to begin with, but he seems to have lost another ten pounds over the past twelve hours.

“Your little friend is back,” Xue Yang says shortly. “I’ll be packing. We need to leave this place.”

He turns and heads off. The melting way that dimpled little scorpion turned his stupidly huge eyes on Lan Xichen makes him want to run them both through with a sword.

Lan Xichen, daring to lay a hand on him—

“What did you do, you repugnant little liar—”

He should have known that was coming. Shouldn’t have been so surprised at Lan Xichen’s treachery.

Xue Yang rubs at the bruises on his throat. The Lan Clan Leader had to have been part of the decision to beat Xue Yang to death all those years ago. It was foolish of Xue Yang to ever think otherwise. Stupid, stupid—

They reach Yueyang at dawn, slowed down by Jin Guangyao, who is far weaker than Xue Yang had expected.

The little snake disappears as the sun’s first rays touch him, his face a mask of pain.

“It hurts him,” Lan Xichen says, turning to Xue Yang.

Xue Yang tosses a candied peanut in the air, catching it in his mouth. “So? What do you want me to do about it?”

“Anchor him here. Do something !”

“You’re the scholar. You’re the expert on ghosts.”

“On getting rid of them! You’re the one who knows how to—to work your wicked tricks—”

“Ah, the second they’re no longer working in your favor, they’re ‘suddenly wicked tricks.’ ”

Lan Xichen frowns as if he has no idea what Xue Yang means.

Hypocrite . He wants to punch himself in the face for ever thinking Lan Xichen was any different than the rest. Hypocrite, hypocrite—

A stab of fear. What if this all means that Lan Xichen is not, in fact, a suitable subject—

No. No. Lan Xichen is still “pure.” Still “good.” He can’t help being born so high that the execution of a criminal meant nothing to him, can’t help being raised by the Lan to think that any cultivation deviating from the norm is “wicked”—

He knows he should take Xiao Xingchen out, tell him about his progress. Knows he should ask Lan Xichen to leave their shared room to give them some privacy, but instead Xue Yang goes to the innkeeper and orders several jars of wine.

He’d spent the trip to Yueyang coming up with an alternate explanation of Jin Guangyao’s return for the daozhang. Xiao Xingchen, he knows, would not approve of the lingchi.

He knows that’s why Xiao Xingchen had abandoned him the other night. The daozhang must have sensed something. That was all. Simple disapproval.

Xue Yang can explain everything. Explain how whatever Xiao Xingchen thought he’d sensed, it had been wrong…

But instead he orders the wine.

“I thought you don’t drink,” says Lan Xichen.

“Everyone has to start sometime. Besides, if you think I can put up with you and that dimpled weasel making eyes at each while sober, you are gravely mistaken.” He takes a deep drink from the wine jar. “Just go and ask him.”

“I beg your pardon. Ask him what?”

“ ‘I beg your pardon,’ ” Xue Yang mimics. “Just ask the dimpled little freak what he needs done.”

“Needs done?”

“Are all of you Lans this dense? This is demonic cultivation. Everything is the opposite of what you know. The thing that would normally set his spirit at rest will instead bind him to this world. No more disappearing and reappearing.”

“No more pain?”

“I can’t answer that. But I’d guess not.” Xue Yang finishes his first jar of wine. It’s disgusting dry wine, but he’s not drinking it for the flavor. He takes a sip from the second jar. It burns his bruised throat and he chokes, coughing up a mix of wine and blood from his pierced tongue.

Fucking Lan.

“Not that we can fix what’s wrong with him up here,” he adds, tapping his head. “Guess being locked up for a year with an angry ghost who hates your insides isn’t a lot of fun.”

“What do you mean?”

Xue Yang ignores him, just stretches out on his bed and closes his eyes. Just have to wait for him to fall asleep, then I can take out Xiao Xingchen, explain everything to him—

But when he wakes in the middle of the night to a quiet room, he instead unsheathes Shuanghua and lays it beside him, heating the metal to body temperature using a Wen talisman, and goes back to sleep, pressed closely up against the blade.

They tell him the news in the morning: “A-Yao” has selected Wu Shen, a Yunping merchant as the target of his revenge, the thing Lan Xichen believes will anchor the little freak to the world of the living.

Xue Yang knows he should be happy, knows this is exactly what he’s been wanting, knows this is important progress, but the joy he’d felt at the Chang Manor is gone, and there’s no recapturing it.

It takes a week to reach Yunping City.

Seven nights for Xue Yang to sit with a cold lifeless pouch in his hands while Jin Guangyao lies warm and breathing next to Lan Xichen.

It’s not that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t want to communicate with him.

And it’s not that he can’t .

Xue Yang is certain of this.

For years he’s felt Xiao Xingchen stirring in his pouch, communicating with him, listening to him—

It’s simply that now that they’re so very, very close, Xiao Xingchen is preserving his strength so he can assist Xue Yang when the moment comes.

That’s all.

He doesn’t say much to Jin Guangyao during this time. He talks, of course. A lot. But that’s different than truly saying anything.

Except for one conversation they have on the third night, when Jin Guangyao is still communicative, before the clan leader fades fully into himself and stops speaking.

“What do you plan to do after Wu Shen is dead?” he asks Jin Guangyao. The little weasel is lying beside Lan Xichen, who’s fast asleep. Jin Guangyao’s hands are clasped tightly over his chest, as if lying still and corpselike on his back brings back bad memories.

Jin Guangyao darts a quick look over at Lan Xichen as if to make sure he’s truly asleep. “What do you mean?”

“Shall I repeat myself and wake him up?”

Jin Guangyao frowns slightly. “I heard you. But you know good and well what will happen to me.”

“And yet you asked that deluded blue fool to kill that merchant for you.”

Jin Guangyao is staring straight up at the ceiling, knuckles standing out white and sharp on his tightly clasped hands. “He won’t do it.”

Xue Yang snorts. “If he doesn’t, I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Xue Yang stretches, running his fingertips down Shuanghua’s textured white hilt. “Bringing you together, I mean.”

“That makes no sense.”

Xue Yang gives a silent little shrugging laugh. This is the first time Jin Guangyao has really sounded like his old self. He’d never been fooled for a moment by the other man’s cloying, ingratiating manner. Jin Guangyao is a condescending, vicious, arrogant bastard, and Xue Yang appreciates that.

It’s the false humility and veneer of politeness that he can’t deal with. Beat someone half to death and leave them bleeding out in a ditch—behead his sworn brother—assassinate his father—this Xue Yang can understand. But show your face while you do it, is how he sees it. Don’t hide behind a mask of gentility!

“It doesn’t matter,” says Jin Guangyao when Xue Yang just keeps laughing. “He won’t do it.”

“Are you certain?”

Jin Guangyao glances over at the man asleep beside him. It’s sickening, the way he’s been making eyes at Lan Xichen. “He won’t.”

“And if he does?”

“Then…” Jin Guangyao trails off. “He won’t.”

Whatever. Better for Jin Guangyao to believe the utter bullshit he’s spouting. Wouldn’t do to have him trying to stop Lan Xichen.

Just a few more days now.

* * * *

“Dinner first, I think,” says Xue Yang as they settle into their inn in Yunping. “Can’t practice demonic cultivation on an empty stomach, now, can we? Zewu-jun? No? Suit yourself. Meet back here in an hour, and we’ll head out.” Xue Yang heads downstairs.

The smell of fried vegetables and dumplings wafts from the inn’s kitchen, but Xue Yang is too nervous to eat.

That’s a first. Being too nervous for anything is a first.

Instead he shaves and fixes his hair, braiding it like Xiao Xingchen used to for him and looping it up to be bound by the silver hairpiece he’s saved all these years. Puts on his best robes. Cleans his nails and teeth and polishes his sword.

He looks in the small, grainy mirror stuck to the room’s wall, then looks away.

He’s still not sure why he avoids mirrors. You’d think he’d want to see Xiao Xingchen’s face—

He turns away and heads out to the address Jin Guangyao had given him.

But not before taking a small detour.

A risk, the detour. But a necessary one.

It’s snowing out. It coats his hair and robes, but he barely notices the icy wetness.

So close. So close—

The name “Xiao Xingchen” gets him through Wu Shen’s front door, but he has to wait a good fifteen minutes before anyone actually sees him.

He paces the small, over-furnished study as he waits. Dark red curtains, dark red floor, dark red hangings. Like slitting open a monster’s belly and crawling inside , Xue Yang thinks. He fidgets with the brush set on the desk, spilling ink on a stack of letters. He’s debating whether to sweep the whole thing onto the floor or just leave it there when Wu Shen bustles in.

“And what can I do for the daozhang?” he asks, bowing.

Normally Xue Yang would enjoy his, take his time playing with the mouse he’s caught, but he hasn’t the time or inclination tonight. Within seconds there’s a silencing spell slapped over Wu Shen’s thick blubbery lips and he’s tied up with a spirit-binding rope, being hauled out the window up into the snowy sky.

Xue Yang makes straight for Guanyin Temple with just one more detour. Lan Xichen and his precious A-Yao are there, as expected.

Xue Yang dumps Wu Shen in the snow at their feet.

Lan Xichen stares at the purple-faced man on the ground and then looks quickly at Jin Guangyao, who stands utterly still without a trace of emotion on his small pale face.

“Let’s go inside,” Xue Yang suggests. Jin Guangyao, it seems, is ready to stand there frozen all night, and Lan Xichen is more than happy to stand there staring at him.

The temple’s ceiling is half cratered, the entire place turned upside-down, but the damage isn’t as extensive as it could have been. Humming, Xue Yang limps around the temple, lighting the surviving candles with his Wen talismans. Normally cold and damp weather means pain, but tonight he barely notices the stiffness in his leg.

He’s still doing this when Lan Xichen, like an idiot, removes the silencing spell.

“—sue you all! Unhand me at once! What is the meani—”

Lan Xichen, in a rare display of good sense, replaces the silencing spell.

“ ‘Unhand me at once’?” Xue Yang snickers. “If you don’t kill him, I will. Dammit, get back here—” Wu Shen is rolling quietly towards the door. Xue Yang flies after him and shoves him flat on the ground with his foot, sending a stab of pain up his bad leg.

“He’s all yours,” he says to Lan Xichen.

They’ve been building to this point for a full week, but Lan Xichen still manages to look stunned.

“Our dimpled friend can’t do it, or it would just create more resentful energy,” he lies. “You know about these things from your studies, don’t you, Lianfang-zun? Tell the man.”

Jin Guangyao ducks his head in agreement, eyes still fixed on Wu Shen.

Xue Yang prods Wu Shen’s belly with the tip of his sword. Wu Shen gives a silent eep of indignation. Strangely, he seems more angry than scared. “Better hurry, Zewu-jun, before I give it a shot myself. ‘Unhand me at once’—”

Jin Guangyao looks up for the first time. “Er-ge?”

Lan Xichen’s sword is in his hand.

“Take my advice,” says Xue Yang, leaning on one of the few surviving columns, “and get it over with quick. Don’t try to have fun with it this time. I mean, I did my first time, but—”

He jumps as Lan Xichen takes Shuoyue and rams it through Wu Shen’s heart. He’d expected to have to do a lot more talking.

Lan Xichen releases the hilt, leaving the sword sticking up out of the dead man’s chest, and staggers backwards. He’s shaking all over, as if he’s about to pass out—

Jin Guangyao turns to Lan Xichen.

“I didn’t think you would actually do it,” he says, very softly. “Xichen, I…” He grips Lan Xichen’s sword hand. “Goodbye, Xichen. Find m—”

And then he’s gone, a handful of sparks fading into the flickering dimness of the temple.

Lan Xichen’s mouth falls open, arms dangling limply at his sides, a wooden puppet with no strings.

Xue Yang looks up from where he’s using Wu Shen’s blood to draw an array on the floor. “What went well.”

“Did you know?” Lan Xichen grabs Xue Yang’s throat. “Did you know he’d disappear? You told me it was different for demonic cultivation; you told me it would bind him here—”

“Better question to ask is if he knew,” Xue Yang chokes out.

“If—if—”

Xue Yang pries Lan Xichen’s nerveless fingers from his throat. “It was a test. You failed it. Gave in right away, as I understand.”

“I—”

Xue Yang’s bruised throat aches as he laughs. “You were the better part of him. Supposed to be the better part of him. Moonlight in the darkness and all that bullshit.”

“You—you lied to me!”

“I suppose all the beads were put in the looks bucket when you were made,” Xue Yang grins, “without a lot left over for brains.” He clicks his tongue. "What else did you expect from someone as repugnant as me?"

Lan Xichen collapses to his knees, clutching at the tiles as if trying to ground himself, his fingernails scraping the stone.

And then he’s back on his feet, swaying, a paper funeral doll hanging from a string. His knees buckle slightly, as if the melting snow has soaked his paper limbs.

“Why did you do this?”

“About time you asked.” Xue Yang removes a torn book page from his qiankun sleeve, waves it at Lan Xichen. “You really should have asked more questions, my friend.”

Lan Xichen snatches at the page, stares at them with unseeing eyes.

“The ritual calls for the corruption of a soul of so-called equal purity in order to create a proper vessel,” Xue Yang explains. “Not exactly easy to find a person like that in this stinking world. Not to mention access to the Lan library and Inquiry.” He shrugs. “You were the very obvious choice. Too bad you didn’t intentionally kill those Lan cultivators when we left the Cloud Recesses and those Nie guards, or I could’ve saved a lot of time.”

Lan Xichen’s voice seems to come from somewhere outside himself. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Kill Zewu-jun?” Xue Yang twirls a strand of hair around his finger. “I can’t take you down on my own. But I figure they can, which is why I invited them. Right on time, too—”

He takes the page back right before Lan Xichen draws Shuoyue and flies at Xue Yang. His movements are erratic, nothing like his usual impeccable swordsmanship, and Xue Yang easily spins out of the way with a laugh.

“Clan Leader!”

Six Lan cultivators have come floating down through the ceiling. They drink in the dead body, the frenzied look on Lan Xichen’s face, the blood on the floor—

One produces his guqin and begins to play.

Lan Xichen bares his teeth and turns on him, slashing the air with Shuoyue.

An arc of blue light, and the cultivator and his guqin lie in pieces on the ground.

“Zewu-jun! This is not you—”

Lan Xichen attacks.

Xue Yang stands back, watching the battle. His own swordsmanship is good but, despite his time with the Wen and Jin Clans, it lacks polish, and he knows he’s no match for Lan cultivators.

And they, it seems, are no match for Lan Xichen.

But it’s still six against one, and Lan Xichen is not himself. Holds his own well enough, parying and thrusting like a graceful blue whirlwind, but he’s bleeding heavily—

Xue Yang squints in the flickering lamplight. Not all of the blood blooming over his gauzy blue robes are from wounds inflicted by the Lan cultivators. Blood is spurting from his mouth, streaming from his eyes, squirting from a hundred little wounds appearing suddenly over his body as he—

Oh, for heaven’s sake. That’s all he needs right now; an honest-for-goodness qi deviation when he’s so close —

A stab of panic. The ritual would heal all inflicted wounds, but what if it didn’t heal qi-derived wounds—?

What if Xiao Xingchen woke up in a body that was bleeding out —

Forced to relive that nightmare a second time—

The last Lan cultivator falls but Lan Xichen continues to hack and slash and spin at the empty air, whirling and swinging and roaring, a beautiful, savage creature in blue and white, fighting phantoms until blood loss forces him to his knees.

It’s almost...pathetic.

Xue Yang can’t remember the last time he’s used that word to describe something other than Lan Xichen.

Pathetic.

He looks down at Lan Xichen. The man kneels at his feet, bleeding heavily.

“Shall I do it, my friend?” he asks Lan Xichen. His voice is almost soft.

Lan Xichen stabs upward with his sword, slashing Xue Yang’s side open like a gutted fish.

The floor rushes up to meet Xue Yang, slamming itself against his skull.

Fuck, the bastard must have struck an artery—

Wet heat, spreading over his side, his leg—a rapidly-spreading puddle of red as his pounding heart pumps the blood from his body—

Lan Xichen is kneeling, staring down at his hands. The hands that killed his precious A-Yao.

Waiting.

“You’re welcome,” says Xue Yang, blood spurting over his chin, and he plunges his knife deep into Lan Xichen’s chest.

Lan Xichen sprawls out on the stone tiles.

His vision blurred, he can just make out Lan Xichen gazing up at him, blue robes soaked with crimson, sword lying just out of his grasp in the pool of red.

Still. Peaceful.

Desperately he claws his way over to the center of the array on his hands and knees, slipping in the blood. He’s bleeding out fast—both him and Lan Xichen—

—and if Lan Xichen is already dead this has all been for nothing—

All for nothing, all for nothing—

He flops down on the array, struggling to focus, keep his rapidly fading thoughts from drifting down into the darkness rising up around him.

Warm. Too warm. And cold. Too cold.

He might still be able to heal himself yet; seal his gushing veins, seal his meridians, keep himself from bleeding out, use the last of his spiritual energy on that—

No point. No point. No point in surviving this without Xiao Xingchen. This is it—this is his last chance—

A kaleidoscope of colors burst through the darkness. He struggles to breathe, to inhale the colors into his lungs as if they’ll give him the strength to drag himself forward, but he’s lost all awareness of his mouth, his throat, his lungs, lost all control of his limbs.

A loud cry from somewhere in the misty darkness, startling him back to himself.

Summoning the last of his strength, Xue Yang reaches deep inside himself, seizes every last scrap of spiritual energy, and releases it into the array, choking out the words of the incantation—formless, gibbering words as his tongue flops uselessly in his mouth.

The warmth intensifies.

Heat, now. Uncomfortable, burning heat. Or it would be, could he feel anything—

His eyes have gone almost completely dark, but he can see a vague blue-and-red blur in front of him.

The blur moves. Sits up, then falls over, heaving itself towards him.

“Daozhang?” gasps Xue Yang with the last of the air in his lungs.

“Chengmei?”

A looming face appears in the misty rainbow-shot darkness, a pale white splotch streaked with red.

“Ch-chengmei? I heard your voice—Xue Yang!”

Xue Yang tries to drag himself towards the face, but his body won’t respond. The face is almost gone now, subsumed by the whirling rainbow lights, a thousand dancing, dying fireflies.

“What did you do to Chengmei? Is this his blood? I can’t remember anything—”

Numb limbs quivering, Xue Yang raises himself up onto all fours and struggles blindly towards the voice. He needs to speak to the face, needs to know he’s whole again. Needs to explain, needs to reach him, needs to—to—

He dies before he gets there.

* * *

Thanks for reading! tbh I never know if anyone reads these tumblr posts so a kudos on Ao3 would be much appreciated <3

#mdzsnet #Control #xue yang #lan xichen #xiyao #xuexiao #jin guangyao #meng yao #cql fanfic #mdzs #the untamed #the untamed fanfic #tw blood #tw gore #cw blood #cw gore

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