#and the way wwx backed him into a corner where he had no good choices

[whetstonefires]

You know, I've been thinking about it, and it is absolutely essential to the narrative that Jiang Cheng is a dick and a trash fire. (Affectionate.)

Like, first of all, if he was a sainted little angel of a shidi the way Jiang Yanli is a shijie, Wei Wuxian's choices would become obvious, sort of impersonal, and boring.

Sure, lots of people wouldn't tear themselves apart for such a person in such a scenario, but they're not the protagonists of novels, are they; in a book you have to justify not doing that. So white lotus Jiang Cheng is off the table.

Jiang Cheng who isn't fragile-and-insecure but also stubborn-as-hell and violently reactive also won't wash.

If he wasn't the kind of person who sincerely tries to die under these circumstances, Wei Wuxian would have had the option of loyally supporting him in a less self-destructive way; if he was someone who could be trusted to handle the revelation without suffering a ruinous fracture of identity, Wei Wuxian wouldn't have been forced to distance himself after the war, because he could have come clean.

If Jiang Cheng wasn't the kind of person who centers on his own pride and hurt feelings and lashes out about it, it would be very hard to set up the lategame scenario where they're 'enemies' in a real, meaningful way, despite still loving each other and Wei Wuxian never wishing Jiang Cheng any ill. Even with Jiang Yanli's death.

And I mean, you could get most of the plot without doing this interesting thematic examination of the classic 'bond between martial brothers severed by one going to the dark side' trope, but I'd argue you'd lose an enormous chunk of the story.

And without Jiang Cheng's weaknesses, Wei Wuxian's motives don't cohere. His weaknesses form the foundation of at least two of the backstory's major turning points.

There's the tantalizing possibility that Wei Wuxian wouldn't have done it, if Jiang Cheng hadn't strangled him while blaming him for everything.

Probably he would have, all else being equal! But neither we nor Jiang Cheng can be sure.

Jiang Cheng sucking a lot, and knowing his own flaws perfectly well without that granting him the ability to do much about them, is heavily load-bearing. Which gives him such a fantastic implied point of view!

[drwcn]

《 Without Envy 》 storyboard 9 - concubine/sleeper agent!wwx & prince!lwj [Master List], you should also have read [6] [6.2]

Lan Qiren coming to visit Hanguang-fu effectively put an end to Wei Wuxian's time as Lan Wangji's servant. He wanted to send Wei Wuxian back to Jiang-fu, but luckily, Jiang Yanli interfered.

Jiang Yanli has been slowly recovering since her drug-induced miscarriage, and while Wei Wuxian had slowed her progress with sedatives, he's been careful to keep an eye on her intake to make sure Jin Ziyan hasn't been messing with her again. As well, with Wei Wuxian occupying Lan Wangji's time and keeping the Jiang family in his good graces, Jiang Yanli had the time she needed to recover fully without needing to push herself to entertain Lan Wangji for favour.

“妾身见过太师，给太师请安。” “阿离啊，听说你小产后一直身体不好，这下着雨，你怎么来了。起身吧, 孩子。” “承蒙太师与陛下惦记，殿下垂怜，阿离的身子已经大好了。阿羡本是妾身院里的，是妾身的陪嫁，一直都安分守己，对王府对殿下忠心不二。是妾身无用，身子一直不见好才让阿羡到王爷身边侍奉。刚见阿羡被太师训斥，相比是阿离平日里管教无方，无心顶撞了太师。有什么过错，都是妾身的错，还请太师责罚。” ~translate~ Jiang Yanli dipped into a proper curtsey, kneeling before Lan Qiren, "This humble concubine greets Taishi. I pray that you've been well." "A-Li, I've heard that you've not been well since your miscarriage. It's raining today, what troubled you to come? Rise, child." Lan Qiren's stance softened upon seeing Jiang Yanli. His late sister-in-law had no daughters, and so often summoned the daughters of nobles into court to dote on and mentor as her own. Jiang Yanli, gentle and proper, has long been known to be a favorite of the late empress. She may not be the greatest beauty in her generation, but was second to none when it came to etiquette and grace. "Thanks be to His Majesty and taishi for remembering, and thanks to dianxia's for his care, my health is much improved now. A-Xian was once a member of my court, my peijia. I've always known him to be obedient and conscious of his place, and loyal to wangye and this princely manor. It is only on account of my poor health that he's been summoned to serve at wangye's side. Earlier, I heard Taishi chastising him; surely it must be A-Li's fault for failing to teaching him propriety and thus causing his unintended offence. The fault is with A-Li, and so I humbly submit myself to your discipline, taishi." Lan Qiren sighed. He did not wish to stir up trouble over a servant. If Jiang Yanli was willing to stand up for this Wei Wuxian, then he must have his uses. At the very least, he'll be a confidant for Jiang Yanli against Jin Ziyan. Lan Qiren so hoped that one day Wangji would choose the Jiang girl as his legal spouse and secure his marriage once and for all. If sparing one lowly servant was the price then so be it. "Very well, A-Li. Since the servant is yours, then his training and discipline shall be your responsible. He is unsuited to serve at the prince's side. It is good that you have recovered; Wangji should not be without a caring partner."

And so, Wei Wuxian returned to Jiang Yanli's side as a servant. Lan Wangji had to watch him go and could not interfere. The next several days was depressing for both of them on multiple fronts.

Xue Yang was very unimpressed:

"So you're tell me that you got to spend quality time with Lan Wangji for months and then... didn't get anywhere?" "I was getting there okay? How was I supposed to know his stupid uncle was gonna barge in like some nosey busybody and ruin everything!? I haven't seen Lan Zhan in days..." I miss him. How horrifyingly embarrassing. He probably forgot me already. "Don't tell me you actually miss him??? That you - barf - fell for him? Whatever happened to standards??!" "You watch your mouth, Xue Chengmei! I'm still your shixiong! And I have standards; Lan Zhan is...very good." Xue Yang: ( ˘︹˘ ) whatever.

Lan Wangji, the sulky boy that he is, brooded for days until Lan Xichen finally sought him out for some good ol' brotherly heart to heart.

"I hear Uncle took away your shiny new toy." "Wei Ying is not a toy." "Wei Ying is it?" Lan Xichen wiggled his eyebrows. "Ah, didi, you have to think a little more creatively. So your Wei Ying has gone back to his mistress, but is his mistress not your concubine? Jiang-furen is still unpregnant, I might add. Visit her. Then surely you'll get to see him." Lan Wangji grimaced. The thought has occurred to him, but the idea of bedding anyone not Wei Ying is intolerable. "Yes, Yanli is lovely, but I'd rather not...you know..." His brother was too polite to roll his eyes. "You've done it before, Wangji." "I would not have had to, if xiongzhang simply did his duty." Lan Wangji bit back icily, and instantly regretted it. Lan Xichen's eyes widened, his cheerful-teasing expression stuttering and crumbling in seconds. "Yes...yes that's true." "My sincerest apologies, huangxiong - no - bixia." Lan Wangji rose to his feet and then bowed down deeply. "I forgot my place. I accept any punishment." Lan Xichen sighed and extended a forgiving hand to pardon him. "Not necessary, Wangji. You're right. I haven't done my duty for Gusu." He pulled the younger man to sit beside him again. "You are doing this in my stead, stepping up where I have let the country down. I should not make light of your sacrifice. The matter of a harem is inevitably complicated, which is why I never cared for one. Neither did Father. His harem had always been sparse, and his first empress was not one of his choosing. When she died in childbirth and our unborn sibling along with her, he elevated our mother's rank to Empress and visited no one else henceforth." "Mother was never popular with the ministers for that reason." "Yes. They suspected that she had something to do with...well, in any case I imagine they were quite relieved when she passed." Lan Xichen shook his head. "The harem is not a happy place, Wangji. You were born after Mother was already Empress, you would not have remembered a time when she was consort. But I do. Like you, your concubines did not get to choose their fate. The fault, ultimately, lies with me." "Huangxiong -" "It's true, Wangji. The fault is mine." Lan Xichen patted him on the arm placatingly. "You cannot love them, and clever as they are, I don't think your concubines would expect you to. However, you can ensure their happiness in other ways. Jiang-furen seems the kind to very much want a child of her own. It will make the rest of her life in your harem more bearable."

After some deliberation, Lan Wangji went back to his routine of visiting different concubines regularly, but never more than just sharing a bed-space. With the exception of Jiang Yanli. Lan Wangji could see it in her eyes; she knew who he really wanted, but those words never needed to be said aloud. Jiang Yanli was kind to him, and he was kind to her in return. All things considered, it wasn't awful being with someone who wasn't your preferred, but who knew you for yourself and shared your struggles.

"Dianxia, you must've heard, that before I married into your wangfu, I was betrothed to Jin Zixuan." She mentioned one evening over a game of weiqi. Of all his concubines (which he has 4) and friends (which he has few), Jiang Yanli's skill on the weiqi board was unparalleled. Lan Wangji half wondered how the Marquis and Marchioness of Yunmeng could have buried this talented daughter of theirs under the shadow of their son for so many years. "Yes I am aware." "I loved him." "...." For a minute Lan Wangji did not know how to reply. He stared at the chessboard. Jiang Yanli's black pieces had surrounded his white ones and forced them into a corner. "Why are you telling me this?" "Your court, my clan: we are their creatures." Jiang Yanli 's smile was knowing. "I am not A-Xian; I can see what he cannot." "Which is?" "You've fallen for each other. Completely. He denies it, heaven knows why." Jiang Yanli took a delicate sip of tea. Fleetingly, Lan Wangji imagined that if he could not have Wei Ying, if he were forced to take a legal wife to make empress, that she would make a magnificent one. "Father loved Mother. Loved her as a wife even when she was only a consort -" "And his love spurred the hate of the royal court." "They blamed her for his loving a woman more than his country, as though she should have persuaded him to love her less. I do not want the same to happen to Wei Ying." "Nor I." "Huangshu says I would need a legal spouse one day, someone virtuous and from a strong pureblood family." "Is that what dianxia wants?" "I want it to be Wei Ying, though I know it to be impossible. Barring that, I'd want to keep him safe in the harem, the size of which will only grow after I succeed the throne." "For that, dianxia will need a spouse who will reign over the harem as you rule over the country." Lan Wangji contemplated his choices and the options available to him. After some time, he placed the white piece he fiddled between his fingers back into the bamboo bowl, conceding that he'd lost this round. Jiang Yanli waited patiently for him to come to terms with the offer she already knew he would make. He wondered how long ago she had foreseen this moment, whilst simultaneously realizing that if his uncle had any idea just how intelligent she truly was, he would not be so quick to suggest her as a candidate for princess consort. A weak emperor and a strong empress never boded well for the stability of the realm. This was dangerous waters Lan Wangji was wading into, but he knew beyond doubt that the only way to survive was to keep straight ahead. He had no other path to take, none which maximally balanced what he wanted with what he needed. Jiang Yanli was his only solution, his only ally. "Huangxiong suggested that we have a child together." He finally said, staring her squarely in the eyes. "You and I can agree that the son of Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang would certainly be a strong contender amongst his brothers." "She could be a daughter." "Then I'd cherish her more. A child and a crown - would they make you happy, Yanli?" "If I said yes?" "Then they're yours." Jiang Yanli smiled.

Two months after Wei Wuxian was dismissed from Lan Wangji's service and the prince began visiting Jiang Yanli, good new was delivered to Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. The message was this: Hanguang-wang's Jiang-furen was with child yet again.

[suoyou]

[wip] 凤凰涅槃; phoenix rising

incomplete wip. 9034 words, rated t.

wangxian court intrigue + wuxia + wingfic au, in which wwx is the lost phoenix and lwj is royal scholar. this is actually a collection of scattered scenes through the first act of the fic!

dwell too long in the fire and even the phoenix will burn.

Wei Wuxian holds a rotting mango in his hand. 

Pungent, slippery as an oiled wok and twice as dangerous, it’s just a few days too old for optimal flavor—but he does not plan to eat it. No, he’s going to throw it. 

A well-aimed piece of fruit and the right audience and a stomach just empty enough that the metallic edge of hunger has begun to bite makes for a good show. Wei Wuxian teeters like a gargoyle on the upturn of a roof, all his weight balanced in a crouch, waiting for the fishmonger to pass by beneath him. The market teems with citizens who have come early to buy the freshest kills and produce that the morning has to offer, the smell of frying jianbing wafts in thick curls up to Wei Wuxian’s perch. His belly rumbles. His last meal had been during sunrise the day before. 

“Fresh fish!” shouts the fishmonger. His mule’s head bobs dark and feisty as it tugs his cart along. Behind them, their wagon is crammed with quivering tubs full of water and writhing fish. “Fresh from the docks this morning! Fresh caught! Carp and eel and shrimp! Killed and scaled and gutted if you ask! Fresh fish!”

Wei Wuxian rocks up onto the knobs of his knees. The tiled roof digs into his skin--what are you doing here, flightless bird? His weapon of choice bleeds a thin, honeyed line of juice from his wrist to his elbow. He takes aim. 

A little commotion in a crowded market goes a long way. One spooked mule, one fishmonger, and a wagon full of uncovered tubs of live catches? What could go wrong? The sun hammers on his back, asking him what he’s waiting for. The mule’s flanks are exposed around its saddle and harness. Wei Wuxian screws one eye shut and sticks the tip of his tongue between his lips as he raises his mango, and--

“I’ll bet my daughter!”

A disturbance rises above the cheerful twang of the market below. It comes from the gambler’s stall, tucked away by the liquor stand. What a smart, slimy placement. 

“Is this man crazy?”

“What kind of father are you?”

“How disgusting, to gamble with your daughter’s life!”

Wei Wuxian frowns. Below him, the fishmonger passes, and the crowd molds around his wagon like ants around a snail. A pustule of a man hunches over the gambler’s stall with a girl of no more than nine or ten in his grip as he snarls in the proprietor’s face. His clothes are stained and dirty, and his eyes are yellow with jaundice. Anger flares hot as a kicked hornet’s nest in Wei Wuxian’s belly, muting the hunger, when the drunkard yanks on his daughter so hard that she trips into the table. 

Without thinking, Wei Wuxian shouts, “Hey, you, ugly dog at the gambler’s table!”

Dozens of heads turn to stare. 

Wei Wuxian lobs the mango with all his might. 

It whistles over the street like a lumpy, bulbous pigeon, dripping as it goes. The man is too drunk, or too hungover to move out of the way--he simply watches, jaw slack, not seeming to realize that he’s in the way until it splatters him square in the face and explodes in a shower of golden muck. He howls, clawing at his skin, and in the process lets his daughter go. She falls because she’d been unbalanced, hard into the street on her elbows. Some of the mango carnage had splattered onto her. Orange-brown bits drip off her chin like fat, gummy tears. 

The drunkard points a trembling, furious finger at Wei Wuxian. “You--!” 

“Me? What about me? Worry about yourself first. Worry about your daughter!”

A small crowd has gathered to watch the spectacle--this man, covered in sticky mango goo and attracting flies, and this vagrant shaking with laughter on the roof. He is so close to the edge, yet balances in place without any unsteadiness, with the surety of someone who is always in high places. 

“You are a coward, staying on the roof! Get down here and fight me with your fists, like a man!” shouts the drunk. His daughter tugs on his sleeve behind him as the crowd thickens.

“A-die, A-die, let’s go--”

“Let go of me, you useless girl.” He shakes her off. “Good for nothing, waste of space. Not even good enough for gambling money.”

Wei Wuxian frowns. A hushed gasp races through the bodies below as he stands and tips from his perch on the roof, tumbling once before alighting in the street. His shoes stick to the pavement from the tack of juice. The man barely makes it up to his chin, and his skin is splotchy from alcoholism; his clothes are patches which means he had family members whose kindness he did not deserve at home. 

“What,” says Wei Wuxian, tucking his hands behind his back. He’s not above mango-throwing, but he’s not going to fight a man in front of his young daughter. Now that’s just bad manners. “You really want to fight me? Just take my advice, sir. Go home. Take your daughter and your money and buy some food, and go home. Don’t make me throw another mango at you. That was going to be my lunch.”

“I’m not scared of men like you. Arrogant and scornful, just looking for a fight! I ought to break your--”

Wei Wuxian intercepts the man’s fist before it can connect with his face.

He fights like a commoner would, crude and unpolished, with his thumb tucked inside his fingers. Rookie mistake. His eyes bulge like a frog stepped on as he tries to force his way through Wei Wuxian’s grip, face turning the color of puce as he fails comically. Wei Wuxian digs his nails into the back of the man’s hand, trembling with the effort of holding him in place, and then he shoves him back. 

The man goes sprawling in the street, and the crowd shuffles back, as if to avoid a particularly filthy swine. 

“A-die,” says his daughter, trying to help him up, but he swats at her. “A-die.”

“Go.”

Not without spitting at Wei Wuxian’s feet. He simply laughs, because it’s such a silly, juvenile thing, and then, like an infection clearing, the citizens around him scatter back into the day. 

Wei Wuxian claps his hands together, then wipes his palms on the seat of his robes. “You really ought not to entertain patrons who have clearly started to lose their control,” he says to the proprietor of the gambling stall. They wipe down the edges of their table with a dusty rag where the carnage of fruit clings. “Soon he will trade his whole family away for nothing but a nugget of gold.”

The proprietor scoffs. “And who are you?”

“Someone nice enough to clean his mess up. Sorry for this, by the way,” says Wei Wuxian. He starts straightening sacks full of supplies--coin bags, a set of rings, vases clinking fluted and musical against each other. They must run a games stall elsewhere in the city; Wei Wuxian has seen these prizes before. 

“Who asked you to be a vigilante, anyway.” The proprietor shakes his head. “You look for trouble, boy.”

“The only thing sweeter than trouble is justice,” says Wei Wuxian, laughing at the distaste the proprietor levels at him. He chases a few escaped scrolls that have tumbled from their sack.  “Ah, don’t be like that. I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere with business, okay? I just don’t like to see--”

One of the scrolls has unfurled enough for Wei Wuxian to catch a glimpse of the ink painting. Beneath the glimmer of midday sun the paper is so buttery that Wei Wuxian expects for his fingers to come away slick when he picks it up, letting the scroll’s weight pull the painting the rest of the way open. 

The brushwork is unfamiliar. Mountains studded with frosted clouds, a lake, a tiny figure of a man at the silver waterline. A spray of peonies cradles the scene in its petals, done with a brush so fine that the artist could have drawn it with a single human hair. Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognize it--not the art. He hadn’t opened it for the art. 

A red seal dots the corner of the painting like a button of blood. Wei Wuxian would recognize it anywhere--anyone should recognize it anywhere. Being in possession of something with a seal like this, without explanation, could earn an axe to the neck. 

“Sir,” he asks, staring at the painting, “how did you come across a painting done by the imperial family?”

The proprietor’s eyes widen, and they make a wild lunge for it. Wei Wuxian is taller, though, and jerks it out of reach, rolling the scroll back up so the paper won’t tear. “Give it back!”

“Aha! What is it? Tell me. How did you come across a treasure like this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Hmm. So if I simply walk away with it, you will also simply shrug, and let me be on my way?” Wei Wuxian raises his eyebrows when the proprietor glowers. “Ah, so it mustn’t be nothing. Not with a look like that. Do tell.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Wei Wuxian chews on his lip, smiles. His stomach rumbles, already two cartwheels ahead, but he needs to slow down and think. “Can I pawn it from you?”

“I’d like to see you try, boy. Give it here!”

Wei Wuxian sighs. “I would not try. I would give it back to you, if you asked nicely, but oh--oh, the danger of another person knowing that you have a painting with an imperial stamp on it, with no way to explain how. Unless you’d like to tell me. But you’ve made it clear as day that you’re not interested in letting me know, so you’ll just have to let a stranger go, knowing he carries this secret, not knowing who he is, not knowing what he’ll do.” He holds the scroll out now. “But of course, I cannot take what’s mine. Shame. Here you are.”

The proprietor had listened to him speak with a vague, mounting fear in his eyes, and when Wei Wuxian shakes the scroll at them, they shrink back as if he’s shaking a dismembered arm at them.

“What, don’t want it now? Didn’t you want me to hand it over?”

“What are you playing at,” the proprietor asks. “Are you a palace spy? What do you want?”

Laughter leaps from Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “Me, a palace spy? Oh, no, no, no. I’m afraid not. Palace spies have much more important things to do than to sniff out thieving proprietors. Tell you what. I take this off your hands and you don’t have to worry about your neck, or your family’s necks, and in return, I won’t tell them where I found it. Hm?”

“You plan to give it back to the imperial family?”

“Of course,” says Wei Wuxian. “All things return to where they belong in the end.”

So as it goes, Wei Wuxian is one mango poorer, but one imperial painting richer, and he cannot tell if he is better off for it. He tucks the scroll into his knapsack and the key that hangs around his neck back into his collars and scans the market for weak spots, opportunities to win more food than he has money for. The rotten mango had been stupid luck, and luck is a finite resource which Wei Wuxian does not have much of to begin with, so he’s going to have to work for the rest of his food today. 

A surreptitious scrap of pink peeks out from behind the liquor stall and Wei Wuxian only catches a glimpse of the girl before she tucks herself behind the wooden beams again. Oh--the drunk’s daughter. She’s alone now. Irritation bubbles in the pit of Wei Wuxian’s stomach when he pictures the man shaking her off, lumbering towards another gambling stall that will entertain his time, and he has half a mind to--

“Fresh meat buns! Made this morning. Pork and chicken and mushroom!”

Wei Wuxian catches up to the bun cart, falling into step with the vendor. “Shifu, how much for one?”

“One bronze piece for three.”

“Can I get five for one bronze piece?”

“Are you deaf or just stupid? No. Get lost.”

“Please, shifu,” Wei Wuxian says, he gestures behind himself in the direction he’d seen the little girl, “my daughter, she hasn’t eaten in days, and we’re here to see the doctor and he turned her away on account of the fact that we have no money, and she’ll only get sicker if she doesn’t have any food in her system, our family is still waiting at home, please have mercy--”

“Heavens! Good heavens, fine, here! Take these misshapen ones, they’re an eyesore, anyway.”

“Thank you!” Wei Wuxian fishes the bronze piece out of his money pouch, fingertips poking through the holes in the bottom like eyes, and collects his spoils. “Thank you, Shifu!”

“Get outta my sight.”

Wei Wuxian holds his armful of buns to his chest, and their heat warms him through his clothes down to his bones. It’s a relatively cool day, even for autumn. When he turns around again, the girl scrunches herself back into the safety of the shadows, and he chuckles to himself. The liquorist eyes Wei Wuxin warily when he approaches, but he simply seats himself on the other end of the stall and opens his carrying cloth full of lopsided buns. Ugly, unwhole, but still good for hunger. Still good. 

“Could I interest you in a bottle of rice wine?” 

“Ah, no, it’s fine,” Wei Wuxian flaps his hand. “I am not wont for liquor, but perhaps some company to share these buns with. I have far too many to finish on my own. But I don’t know who’d want these ugly buns. Certainly not you, Shifu, I’m sure?”

The girl peeks out from behind the stall, and Wei Wuxian smiles. “Want one?”

She scampers to sit down in front of him, reaching out with sooty hands for a bun at the top of the bile. The skin of it is pearly in the noon sun, giving under touch, the way only fresh steamed buns are. Then she hesitates, looking into Wei Wuxian’s face as if expecting to be struck.

“Go ahead,” he says, holds the bun out. “Eat.”

She snatches it and crams half of it into her mouth, and Wei Wuxian chuckles again. He knows hunger like this, and takes his own portion to tear into. The sweet smell of pork and mushroom and oil floats up into his eyes, and for a moment the meat sears on his tongue before it settles into a taste. 

“Is it good?” he asks.

She nods. 

So it’s good.

“Where have you been? Wei Wuxian, I ought to cut you off at the kneecaps! A-Jie’s been worried sick, you were supposed to be back over a shichen ago.”

“I ran into a friend, Jiang Cheng. Lighten up, will you? Here, I got buns.”

“Keep your stupid buns. Where’s the fish you were going to get?”

Wei Wuxian scratches at the back of his neck. “Ha. Well, about that.”

“Seriously? I can’t believe you. If it weren’t your birthday, I really would cut you off at the legs.”

“But it is, so instead, you need to be nice!” Wei Wuxian crows triumphantly. 

Jiang Cheng sighs, a gust of hot summer wind that picks up stinging sands. A wisp of his hair flits with his breath. He’s wearing his nice clothes, no doubt because A-Jie made him, with a polished belt tucked around his waist like the coil of a sleeping snake. It’s a formality that they hardly ever bother with anymore, not in such a provincial town as this, leading a life as threadbare as theirs. The shine of the buckle comes off of him in bright flashes. 

“Whatever. Come on, A-jie made noodles. Where’d you get buns?”

“Oh, so you do want one. Here, I know you like chicken.”

“Don’t tell me you managed to snatch all of these,” Jiang Cheng asks, but he takes the one Wei Wuxian offers anyway. “Who likes chicken,” he mutters, mostly to himself.

“I just harnessed a talent that you have never quite mastered, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says. “Charm.”

“I ought to smack you.”

“There was a hungry kid. I didn’t want her to go hungry.”

Jiang Cheng is quiet. “We all are, why go help a stranger?”

“Wouldn’t you have wanted someone to help us back then?”

At this, a grunt. Which, coming from Jiang Cheng, is as enthusiastic a yes he’ll give, so Wei Wuxian smiles to himself and slings his sack of food over his shoulder. He’s down to two now, and he figures he’ll just give both of them to A-Jie who deserves much more than two pork buns, but it’s the best he has. One day he’ll get her expensive candied mangoes and hawthorn berries that the baker makes in the market in the next city over--the one that glitters.

“A-Cheng, A-Xian! You’re back!”

“Found him scaling the wall back into the hutong,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “Punk.”

Jiang Yanli, too, is wearing her nicest set of robes today, with a hair ornament that Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen her with since the new year. Her face clears of worry when she sees them, and she reaches up, straightens a lock of Wei Wuxian’s hair where it’s caught over his ear. “A-Xian, you’re not--you know that you shouldn’t--” 

“Scale walls, climb to great heights, jump off roofs, I know, I know,” Wei Wuxian says, vividly recalling that he has done all of the above and then some today. “Sorry to make you worry, A-Jie, I’m fine! I got you buns. You can have them both.”

“But what about the fish? A-xian, we were going to make one for dinner for you.”

“Ah, fish or no fish, it’s no matter. Noodles are good enough. As long as I can live a long life, luck will always come back around.” 

“What if your whole life is plagued with bad luck?” asks Jiang Cheng as they duck back into their hut of clay and brick. The curtains are open, a rare moment of Jiang Yanli letting daylight peek inside, and it lights up their matchbox home in a wash of sunset. Bowls of steaming noodles are set out on the rickety slice of table, with the biggest in front of the seat where Wei Wuxian always sits. His heart swells. He’ll be forcing mouthfuls of noodles into his siblings’ bowls when they sit down, he’s sure, but for now his heart is the pulse of afternoon sun in the window. 

“Then my next life,” says Wei Wuxian. “My next one won’t be nearly as bad.”

The Lost Phoenix is lost. I think that’s the point. No one will ever find them. You will die looking for them.

Wei Wuxian is built from broken things. 

He sees rubble and thinks, that is a home. He sees blood and thinks, that is a heart. He sees himself reflected in the slow meanders of swamp-green lakes lazy with dragonflies and skeeters and tries to remember, that is a human, that is a human, that is a human.

“You may not be human, but that is what makes you worth loving,” is what A-Jie says. 

“You? A human? With an appetite like that? It’s like trying to feed a void with you,” is what Jiang Cheng says, which is basically the same thing. 

Wei Wuxian is built from broken things, but the uglier, eyesore-pork-bun truth is that he is born from destruction. He is born from the fire of things, and the ashes of himself; his body waits for the wither. 

The Lost Phoenix is dead. His ashes were scattered in mountain, sea, and sky.

The Lost Phoenix is alive! Everyone knows that leaving behind but a single ember can spark a wildfire. Fire has wings.

No human, ghost, or demon has ever seen the Lost Phoenix. If they had, wouldn’t we have heard by now? They are only a legend.

There are scars on his back to prove what he once was and never will be again, and Jiang Yanli tells him, The world was not ready for you. The world, perhaps, will not be ready for the Lost Phoenix to return for as long as we still walk upon it, A-Xian, but maybe when one day when everyone is gone, when A-Cheng and I are gone, you’ll--

He always cuts her off there. Usually he can’t see her face, because she’ll be sitting behind him and rubbing oil into the muscles that can never seem to loosen around his shoulder blades, the ones that line the edges of the scars like mottled mountain peaks. Just two of them, in straight lines as long as a hand, glaring at each other over the expanse of his back, the winding groove of his spine. Phantom pains. Human or not, the body will miss limbs when they are gone. 

Tonight, Jiang Yanli does not tell him the world isn’t ready for him. It hurts to listen to her say it, because it’s not a pain that Wei Wuxian can beat away with his fists or even his words. There’s a quiet noise of the bottle being unstoppered, then the cloying scent of liniment oil wreathing around him as he sits with his back bared to her, hair swept over his shoulder. 

“A-jie,” he says. 

“Hmm?” Her hands are small and warm against his back, and he hisses in pain when her finger catches on a tight knot immediately. “Sorry, Xianxian.”

“It’s okay. Uhm, I have a stupid question.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. Ask.”

“Which birthday did we celebrate tonight?” he asks quietly. 

The inside of their hut is a dark, uneven indigo now, the fires of the village filtering in through their window. Jiang Cheng has gone to bathe, so the only answering noise above the sound of a city settling in evening is Jiang Yanli’s soft laughter. 

“Your thirty-first, A-xian.”

“How many years have passed in this life?”

Her hands disappear as she dabs more liniment oil onto her fingers. “Since your reincarnation?”

“Yeah.”

“Thirteen.” 

“Thirteen,” Wei Wuxian repeats. “Thirteen.” He rolls it over his tongue, trying to figure out how it tastes. Bitter, a little. like medicine. Maybe it’s the liniment. Jiang Yanli runs her thumb down the edge of one of the scars, massaging out a few particularly gnarly knots there. 

“Is there something wrong?” she asks. 

“Not wrong, exactly.” Wei Wuxian pushes his fingers into his folded robes in his lap, pretends the fabric is sand and silt at the bottom of a lake. He almost expects handfuls of snails when he pulls them back out. “It’s just that, with every passing year, I think maybe this is it--this is the year I’ll remember. This is the year I’ll remember the things about my life before this one. Remember when I tried to teach you and Jiang Cheng how to catch fish with your hands, in the river, A-Jie? You said you could see them beneath the surface, but when you’d reach in to grab it, it was like the fish were never even there.” 

“I remember,” says Jiang Yanli. She is quiet, waits for him to go on. 

“Trying to recall my first life is like that. I know it happened. I can see it right there, flickering under the water, but. But each year comes and goes, and not only do I not remember anything, it feels like more and more of what I thought I could remember slips away,” says Wei Wuxian. “I was excited in the eighth year of this life. Then I was excited in the twelfth. Thirteen is no good, is it, A-Jie? I’ve run out of lucky numbers to count on.”

“Would it make you happy to remember, Xianxian?”

“I think so. When I think about it--it’s funny, you know. Maybe you know. I can’t recall memories from it, exactly, but when I think about my first life, I think I remember being happy. Like when you roll over and the sun is already up. You can feel the warmth on you even if you don’t see the light.” Then Wei Wuxian snorts. “That doesn’t make any sense. Sorry, ignore me, A-jie.”

“It makes sense. Of course it makes sense. Is that all you remember, a feeling?”

They’ve been over this before. A hazy, murky image of something from Before, dredged up from packed soil. Jiang Cheng will always say, “Who knows? Why do you think I would remember?” waspish, and Jiang Yanli would always give him a soft, “Perhaps it was, A-xian.”

“I remember,” he says, “that we were in a noble family, once.”

This is an easy one. She always says yes to this one. “We were.”

“I remember that the palace walls were lined with bronze, not gold like a lot of the common folk think.”

“Yes, they are.”

“The accident.” The one that has turned him into this. 

“I wish you did not,” says Jiang Yanli.

“I don’t--not really. I just remember the pain. My body does, anyway.”

“Muscle has memory,” she says. “But because you are who you are, so does your blood and bones.”

Wei Wuxian fiddles with the gap-toothed key that swings from his neck. It thunks hollowly against his bare chest without the robes to hold it in place, and he tugs the deerskin rope that loops around his neck so that the knot tying it together comes down, down, down, through the hole in the key, up, up, back up again, a miniature comet’s orbit. 

“You were a princess,” he says, quiet again.

“Princess is a strong word.”

“But you were.”

“In my own way.”

And then, the most solid memory he has—a figure in white, with hair that fell to their waist, holding a smudge of pink in their hand. Solid, but blurred, like Wei Wuxian is trying to see them through a sheeting waterfall. The lines of their body were straight and crisp, except for the pink. The pink was always soft, parting the mud of his memory. 

He doesn’t mention this one, usually. Wei Wuxian holds it close to his heart where it has roots. Year after year, no matter the rains, nothing has flowered. Seasons have passed. 

“A person,” Wei Wuxian murmurs. 

Jiang Yanli’s hands slow. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” says Wei Wuxian. “Just a person. Their back is to me, so I can’t see their face, but it’s too blurry for me to see them, even if they’d been right in front of me. And they were just standing there--just standing. Nothing else. I don’t even really know if they’re real, but it’s the best memory I have.” He digs his nail into an indent in the key’s teeth. “Do you think they were real, A-Jie?”

“As real as the Lost Phoenix is.”

Wei Wuxian laughs weakly. “The Lost Phoenix is as good as myth.”

A myth meant to scare people.

A cautionary tale.

“The Lost Phoenix needs to stop squirming, or I will poke the sensitive parts of his scar, and I know he hates it when I do,” Jiang Yanli says. 

A story about a monster.

“Maybe it’s better to forget some things, A-Jie.”

“A-Cheng and I only want you to be happy, Xianxian. Whatever that means to you. Whether that means remembering or forgetting.”

“I want to remember, because your happiness is my happiness,” Wei Wuxian insists, turning around. Jiang Yanli lifts her hand away as he rearranges his legs in a half-lotus, one foot stretched out onto the floor. “I want to remember because I know this life isn’t one you and Jiang Cheng would have chosen if you both had a choice. You can’t say I’m wrong about that. No noble family member would choose to live in a rundown hutong if they had a choice.”

“A-Xian--”

“I know you won’t tell me what happened before my reincarnation,” says Wei Wuxian. “I know you want to forget. But if anything ever happens that means we can go back to it--you have to say so, okay? You both are the only family I have left. Let me do something for the people who have somehow kept me alive for thirty-one years. I can’t remember eighteen of them. As if I started reading in the middle of the story. There are things I know without knowing how I know them.”

Whether it be a story, a tale, legend, or myth, one thing was certain: the Lost Phoenix is the last known survivor of the Phoenix Rising, once the most revered noble family of the imperial city, the warrior family that protected the throne. 

Forged from the Sacred Fires of Scarlet Mountain, the Phoenix Rising once was so formidable that simply meeting one of them in their true form was a sign of luck and good fortune. They were, as their family name suggested, bewinged humans who lived and died and rose again from their own ashes. They were skilled in combat, nimble in war, with the ability of flight. They harnessed Taoist magic that was only spoken of in books. 

A secular world did not have room for magic.

“Our A-xian,” says Jiang Yanli, shaking her head, “always hurts himself trying to make us happy before he remembers he has a heart, too.”

“Ah, what good is a heart if I can’t deal it out in pieces for my didi and my jie?” says Wei Wuxian. “It’s not like anyone else has any use for it.”

“That’s not true,” Jiang Yanli murmurs. 

“Hm? What’s that?”

“Nothing, Xianxian.”

“You have my promise, A-Jie,” says Wei Wuxian. “It’s us three until the end. Never apart. If I can bring you and Jiang Cheng back to the glory days before this life, then I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She’s quiet, then dabs a light gauze over his skin to absorb the excess liniment oil. Both of them know it won’t be possible--even if they were a lower noble family, there wasn’t a ticket back into the royal city unless you saved the emperor from death or something equally as momentous. Save the empire, or something. Wei Wuxian dreams big, but he’s realistic. 

“Thank you, Xianxian,” she says, finally. 

“It smells like old people in here,” Jiang Cheng announces, as absurdly loud as new year firecrackers when he comes back inside. He smells of freshwater and sand, and he tracks an inky line of water where his wet shoes stamp footprints into the floors. “I know you’re another year older now, but you’re really getting started early.”

“If I’m so old, then you better talk to me with respect, punk,” Wei Wuxian says. Jiang Cheng may be loud, may be messy, but he chases away the strange, yearning sadness that tugs like a deep saltwater current on Wei Wuxian every time his birthday comes and goes. He loves his stupid, loud brother for it. “Hey! Where’s my kowtow? Where’s my ‘ge,’ then? Where’s my ‘Wei qianbei,’ huh? I’m so old, Jiang Cheng, pay your respects!”

“Screw you, Wei Wuxian. I’d sooner call you Old Man Wei. You’d have to rip out my tongue first.”

“Okay, come here then, my hands are free.”

“Gross! What’s wrong with you?”

And so night falls on another day, another year, and Wei Wuxian feels a little empty and a lot full, like a planet is breathing inside him. Jiang Yanli tugs on Jiang Cheng’s hair, makes him sit down so she can wrestle the tangles out of his drying frizz, and Wei Wuxian holds the lantern for light.

It’s enough. 

So what happened to them, the Phoenix Rising? Why have they disappeared?

Because they had power. Because they were loved, feared, and respected, all things an emperor should be.  

In the beginning, it was an honor to be the emperor that controlled the Phoenix Rising, for it took an equally distinguished ruler to command such a family, and for generations, the Phoenix Rising served the throne with grace. For generations, the empire was a glowing, golden city upon which the sun glittered, and the common folk called it the City of Gods. 

But at the end of a weak dynasty, the throne was seized by a bloodthirsty family that feared the Phoenix Rising and the power they held. People, monsters, kings, or gods? Did the citizens respect the throne? Or did the loyalty of their hearts lie with the strange, winged family that had for centuries been revered as the beacon of luck and fortune?

 Humans fear what they do not understand. Humans seek to destroy what they fear. 

And so the Phoenix Rising paid the steepest price.

“Did he mention it to you at all yesterday?”

“No! He never brought it up. That punk. I’m gonna wring his sorry little neck.”

“A-Cheng.” A rustle of wind through paper. Then, “We need to ask him where he found this. He could’ve been caught. He could’ve been killed.”

Wei Wuxian wakes to his siblings whispering. Whispers always come through dreams like shouts, and he’s having a very strange dream about walking through wire, except instead of coals at his feet, there is ash, and in the ash there are hundreds and hundreds of keys glinting red as squirting cherries. His feet are burnt and blistering, but he can’t run, can’t turn back, can only walk forward. 

There are no secrets in a single-room shack. No matter how quietly Jiang Yanli whispers, Jiang Cheng speaks loud enough to wake the whole town. 

“Nicked it, probably,” says Jiang Cheng now. A grudging respect colors his voice. “That’s probably why he took so long to get back yesterday.”

The bamboo sleep mat crackles beneath him as Wei Wuxian rolls over, then sits up. For a moment the world is a spinning top. Jiang Yanli turns, lowering something, and smiles when she sees him awake. Jiang Cheng, of course, is already swinging. 

“You dumbass! Where did you get this? If someone comes looking for it and finds it with us, do you know how dead we are?”

Then Wei Wuxian sees it--the painting that he’d charmed out of the hands of the gambling proprietor at lunch yesterday. Jiang Yanli holds it like a broken bird in her lap, and Wei Wuxian ducks when Jiang Cheng aims another swat at him. Mostly half-hearted, but he leaps to his feet and skips out of reach. 

“I was going to surprise you!” he says. “I didn’t even have a chance to tell you what I was planning. You don’t know how much money this could bring in the black market, Jiang Cheng, an imperial painting? Just think about it. I can just disguise myself, go at night--cover my face, you know--and we could stop living here. We could live in a real house, and we wouldn’t have to all share one sleeping mat.”

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli gets to her feet, too. Always graceful in a stark contrast to her two brothers, the lantern from which two wild tassels would dance in the wind. She lifts the painting up high so that she can point to the red seal in the corner. “Do you recognize this?”

“The imperial seal, right? Sure. Everyone does.”

“I’m going to puke blood,” says Jiang Cheng. 

Jiang Yanli ignores him. “You’re not wrong, A-Xian. But this is an imperial seal of a concubine.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Of the emperor?”

“Yes. Judging from the seal design, not just any concubine--she must be a consort, at least.” Jiang Yanli holds the paper closer to her face, trying to discern the characters. “Mo,” she mutters, unsure. 

“So we could sell it for even more money,” Wei Wuxian concludes.

“No, we are not going to sell it for money,” says Jiang Cheng. His face has darkened. 

“Are you crazy?” Wei Wuxian asks. “You said it yourself, if someone finds us in possession, it’ll be our heads. The faster we get rid of it, the less likely anyone is to know it ever passed through our hands at all.”

“Yeah, well, you probably should have considered that before you nicked it, genius,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “It doesn’t matter. Now that we have it, we’re going to use it.”

“Use it how, if not for money, then?” Wei Wuxian struggles to keep his voice low. Jiang Cheng is not making any gods damned sense--isn’t he the one who constantly talks about leaving this hutong under the guise of hating how cramped it is, when really, he and Wei Wuxian agree that they should move closer to the imperial city where there would be better houses and perhaps a respectable man for their sister to marry if she so wanted? 

“We’re going to use this to return to the imperial city.” 

A silence falls like a tree toppled in storm between them. 

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli begins. 

“We are?” asks Wei Wuxian. “How would that even work?”

“You’re the best at telling lies.”

“Well, yes, I’m glad you have seen the light.”

“Think about it,” says Jiang Cheng. “An emperor's consort. It means she must have been in favor with the sitting emperor, Jin Huangshang. A painting with her seal on it. How would a painting by a favored concubine of the emperor end up out here?”

“Wound up in a gambling stall, no less,” Wei Wuxian says. Now that Jiang Cheng puts it that way--it’s more than a little strange. “Fine, say that we could use it as our golden ticket back into the imperial city. We’ll be lucky if the consort is dead. She won’t be around to ask any questions if there are holes in our story. What if she’s alive? What if she’s not a consort? What if she was hated, what then?”

“A-Xian,” says Jiang Yanli, setting her hand on his shoulder, and the touch is firmer than he’s used to. “Stop. You too, A-Cheng. Returning would be dangerous for us.”

“Dangerous how?” asks Wei Wuxian. There it is--that gap of the first eighteen years of his life rearing its mangled head. Sometimes it’s like trying to read a page of text with half the words blacked out, the ones left behind still beautiful, but without meaning. “A-Jie, I thought we were…”

“We were a lower noble family then, Xianxian. But it does not mean that the court is a safe place for any of us.”

“Jie!” says Jiang Cheng. 

“No, A-Cheng. We’re not going back. It’s not just for A-Xian’s safety, it’s for all of us.”

“Would we really be in that much danger?” asks Wei Wuxian. “If no one knows I’m the Lost Phoenix but the three of us, nothing would happen.”

Right?

“Jiejie,” says Jiang Cheng, his voice quieter than Wei Wuxian has ever heard it, “the Crown Prince has never married.”

Jiang Yanli’s face, for a dizzying heartbeat, is stricken. Something like pain and longing flashes through her eyes quick as the swing of an axe in cloudy morning, but then it’s gone, and she sighs. 

“What does the Crown Prince have anything to do with A-Jie?” asks Wei Wuxian. 

“That isn’t any of our business. Not even yours, A-Cheng,” she says. Wei Wuxian has never seen his sister like this, drawn up tall with her chin held high, and for a moment he sees the princess that she must once have been. Jiang Cheng, who is easily a head taller than her and twice as broad, crumples under the weight of her gaze. “We left because we wanted to. We’ve lived by this choice and we will continue to live by it. Now, both of you listen--A-Xian will do as he planned, sell this painting for whatever sum that traders will offer, and we won’t speak of it again. Understand?”

The tension swells like a fever between them. 

Wei Wuxian should be happy that his sister is on his side for this--when is it that she ever picks sides whenever he and Jiang Cheng argue? Any other time, he’d be hooting with laughter, rubbing it in Jiang Cheng’s face, but there is a deeply strange, melancholy expression on his brother’s face that does not suit him at all. 

“Fine,” says Jiang Cheng. He takes the scroll from Jiang Yanli, rolling it up with care, then shoves it into Wei Wuxian’s chest with considerably less care. “Get this shit out of my sight. I’m going out.”

Wei Wuxian watches helplessly as Jiang Cheng moves around their hut with jerky movements, jaw set with the pulse of anger. He gathers his knapsack and what meager rations of buns left over from the day before, no doubt stale and hard by now, and loops it around his shoulder. 

Then he’s gone, without another word. 

Wei Wuxian gnaws on the soft inside of his cheek. “A-Jie--”

“Don’t think too much about what A-Cheng said, Xianxian,” says Jiang Yanli. “He won’t show it, but he worries. You needn’t take what he said to heart.”

Jiang Yanli will say no more, no matter how hard he presses. He’ll press anyone until they give, but not her. She ducks her head when Wei Wuxian turns to her with his confused, hurt silence, as if she is waiting for his anger. He’d never be angry with her. 

“I don’t understand, A-Jie.”

“A-Cheng and I simply have different ideas of what it means to keep our family safe. He thinks it means returning. I think it means to stay.”

“But why would we be in danger?” he asks. “Does this have something to do with the Crown Prince? Did he know who I was? I guess so, or else why would Jiang Cheng bring him up? Did you know him? Could he help us?”

“No, he couldn’t.”

Wei Wuxian sets his mouth in a line. “Well, I should be off too,” he says. The sun has already started to burn back the clouds; he needs to find tonight’s dinner for the three of them. Maybe he should go after Jiang Cheng, press him for more details. Their sister, despite what anyone might think, gives far less easily than either of them. 

“Be careful, Xianxian,” she says. “Oh, are you taking the painting with you?”

“There’s no way I’m going to leave it here in case anyone finds it and you’re here by yourself. Worst case scenario, I throw it away, and we can pretend none of this ever happened.” He takes Jiang Yanli’s hands in his, squeezes them ruefully. “I’m sorry, A-Jie. I just thought it would help. I didn’t want you to argue with Jiang Cheng.”

“It’s okay.” She tucks his stray hairs over his ear. “Go. Come back safe, A-xian.”

He waves at her once when he steps out, and once more when he makes it to the end of the hutong and she becomes little more than a quilted patch of terrycloth in the distance, as he does every morning when he leaves. Jiang Cheng can’t have gone far in the time that he’s gone, unless he took off at a sprint, so Wei Wuxian lets the scented chill of autumn fill his lungs.

The Crown Prince. What a strange person to bring up. Wei Wuxian rifles through what he remembers hearing in taverns and pubs, filtered through the thick veil of alcohol. The Jin family sits upon the throne now, after staging a coup against the Wens and seizing power just over a decade ago. The Crown Prince would have to be a Jin prince. The Jin Emperor was said to be quite the philanderer and had more than enough sons from too many concubines to choose from. The Crown Prince must be quite a favorite, for an emperor with so many sons would not pay any mind to choosing the Empress’s sons if he so liked one from his concubine better. 

And this Crown Prince, according to Jiang Cheng, has never married. 

The look on Jiang Yanli’s face--frozen, bruised, a bird shot from the sky before it begins to plummet--was not one Wei Wuxian expected to see when she heard this news. If they’d known this prince, then he must have been around even before Wei Wuxian’s reincarnation. Jiang Yanli must have spoken of him. 

But all his memories can offer him are vague smudges of color and a person with pink like a fire in their hands. 

It’s too early for the fishmongers just yet, but the market brims with life as it always does. Wei Wuxian narrowly dodges a cart full of fresh flowers, a toothless grandfather with a bamboo hat pulling it along weakly. One of the wheels is crooked, wood squeaking against the stone pavement. 

“Shifu, your wheel,” says Wei Wuxian, plucking the canteen of oil tucked low against the cart. It dribbles out in a black splash. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?”

“Thank you, young man,” says the grandfather, and Wei Wuxian waits for him to turn his back to the street before plucking a lotus from the back of his cart and tucking it into his knapsack. For A-Jie, as penance for upsetting her so early in the morning. 

Jiang Cheng is not hard to find. He is poor at concealing himself, both in body and in voice, and he really is very bad at haggling. Wei Wuxian sidles up to him at a fruit stall, arguing with the vendor over a particularly ugly dragonfruit that looks more like a leathery handful of meat left too long in the sun than any respectable fruit. 

 “Now I think,” says Wei Wuxian, plucking it out of Jiang Cheng’s hand and ignoring his indignant scoff, “shifu, if you let this fruit sit out in your display, it would ruin the look of all the rest of your fruits. ‘Ah, look at this lovely display of dragonfruit. But what do we have here? A misfit! A miscreant! A monstrosity, really!’ And then you lose business. So really, we’re doing you a favor.”

“A favor?” says the vendor with disbelief. “What gall.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, then tosses the fruit back and forth between his hands and gives a quick jerk of his chin. “What do you say? Half off?”

“I can’t believe you weaseled him into giving it to us for less than half off,” says Jiang Cheng five minutes later. “You could talk your way out of your own--”

Wei Wuxian tosses his dragonfruit from hand to hand. “My own what?” Jiang Cheng’s knapsack hangs flat and sad against his back, crumpled like a dead leaf, so Wei Wuxian holds it open and drops the fruit inside. 

“Nothing. Never mind. What are you doing out here with that--thing?”

“Do you think I was going to leave it with A-Jie? No way. Imagine if she were alone and someone found her with it.”

Jiang purses his lips, nods. He tucks his thumb into the strap of his knapsack, a deadknot slung over his shoulder. “Have you thought about any stories?”

“What stories?”

“About what we’d say, if we brought it back to the imperial city.”

Jiang Cheng resolutely does not meet Wei Wuxian’s stare. 

“You want to go?”

“I just think that if we have a plan, A-Jie might be more willing to go. To be honest with you, if it were just to the two of us, it wouldn’t matter as much. We could sell the stupid painting, use the money. We could eke out an existence. It would fucking suck, but we could, and I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

“Ah, Jiang Cheng. You’re finally talking sense!” Wei Wuxian claps him on the back. When Jiang Cheng doesn’t shake his hand off, his smile falters. He must actually be worried. “Okay. We have to consider multiple scenarios, then, if we want this to be foolproof. We don’t want to make up a story where the concubine is alive when she’s dead. Or vice versa. So the first order of business is to figure that out.”

Jiang Cheng nods. “And what kind of favor she’s in with the emperor. The better, the easier for us.”

So, like peddlers, they spin their stories. 

+

The night blooms blue and foggy, the moon dropping light in handfuls of glass through the forest, and Wei Wuxian straightens to see that he is not alone. 

Someone else is in the mist with him. It’s thick enough that he cannot see their feet, so they could be floating. A man--just a bit taller than Wei Wuxian himself. His sword is drawn, lowered, as if he’d been pointing it before Wei Wuxian sensed him and stopped. The folded steel blade flashes. 

Blood sheets heavily down Wei Wuxian’s leg where the muscle has torn around the arrowhead, and haze sloshes in his skull. His brain is an upended bowl of goldfish. He grasps for words, for his thoughts, but they slip through his fingers. The stranger stares at him a bit in shock, a bit in horror, mostly in surprise. He opens his mouth. He closes it. He is wearing so much white he could be glowing, a star abandoned by its galaxy, and Wei Wuxian is the only one to find him. 

They stare at each other in the gloom. 

Wei Wuxian’s scattered goldfish thoughts say, Pink.

“Are you here to kill me?” asks Wei Wuxian. His words come out slurred even to his own ears. He needs to find Jiang Cheng. They need to get back to A-Jie. He needs to get out of here. 

“No.” The stranger steps towards him. “We mistook you for a prey animal. Are you badly hurt?”

“This? No, no. I’m fine. I need to go.”

“Your leg is injured.”

“It’s fine. I need to get back to--my wards,” Wei Wuxian says, catching himself before he says anything too revealing, pats himself on the back for staying in line even as his thoughts unravel. He picks his favorite story and sticks with it, hopes to any god that is listening it won’t get any of them killed. “My wards. They were with me. I was looking for Jin Bixia.”

The stranger has come so close that Wei Wuxian can make out every stitch of his robe. “What business do you have with the emperor?”

“I have a painting,” he mumbles around the haze. It’s a dark one, now. “My mother’s painting.”

Then darkness kisses his eyelids, and the night pulls him under. 

+

The scroll unfurls with the quiet hush of paper that has gone undisturbed too long. Even mounted on fine silk, the edges of the hemp and mulberry fibers have begun to wither, time nibbling as cruel and hungry as moths. The paper stretches on forever, nearly as tall as him fully unfurled. The cherrywood stick clacks upon the floor. 

Wei Wuxian’s mouth goes dry. He stares with seeing, then without comprehending, then without believing. 

The ink color has faded, like the paper, with age. Once the red might have leapt off the page, the greens so bright that spring grew from the painting itself, but all of it has flattened. It’s a simple composition. Where Mo Fu Ren had let her human subject be lost among the trees and sweeping landscapes, this painting is only one person, draped in textured golds and silk brocade embroidered with dragons. 

Simple, perhaps, but done by the hand of someone who held them beloved. 

His fingers shake when he reaches out. They hang back, and he pulls away, afraid that touching it might make the entire painting dissolve in his hands. 

Smiling serenely back at him is his own face, thirteen years younger, thirteen years less hungry—but it is him. His eyes are downcast, with a rabbit cradled in the crook of his elbow and a bird perched upon his shoulder. Without a doubt it is him. Even if he could not recognize his own face, the characters that march in little terracotta soldiers down the paper leave no room for guessing. 

The black ink is fresh, as if someone has run a brush through the strokes every year so that they can never fade. 

Wei Wuxian, they say. 

This can’t be right. He must be misreading. He blinks hard. 

His thoughts trip over each other’s ankles. They come in a clamoring flood, each wanting to be heard first, pored over first. Wei Wuxian. Had there been another before him? It is not a common name. It is not a name that would show up twice in the royal city if every noble family had the names of their descendants planned out for generations, no matter if the Phoenix Rising had been slaughtered by order of the emperor. Why is there a painting of him rolled up and locked away in the private study of Hanguang Gexia, second head of the scholar house to Emperor Jin? 

Did they once know each other?

How could it be that a key that Jiang Yanli gave him would unlock this desk?

There are corpses sleeping under their feet. This earth has been burnt and salted. 

An old ache starts in his spine. 

We were a lower noble family then, Xianxian.

Fire without coals. 

There was a person. Just a person.

Do not exhume these bodies. 

We left because we wanted to.

Something terrible must have happened to him. 

[robininthelabyrinth]

Pastime (with good company) (ao3) (aka NMJ/WWX/LWJ) -  part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, past 5, part 6, part 7 

-

Wei Wuxian still wasn’t sure how Lan Wangji had convinced him to come to Qinghe in the middle of the night, even flying through the middle of a thunderstorm to get there.

Possibly he’d still been thinking with his lower half at the time that he’d agreed – he’d been so close to the edge, skating on it, holding himself back intentionally so that the eventual peak would be even better, and to have it snatched away at the last moment had been brutal.

Or maybe it had been the panic in Lan Wangji’s eyes. The worry, the fear.

The realization that someone knew.

He hadn’t been all that concerned with pleasure after that.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he’d begged, desperate. “Please, Lan Zhan – not anyone! No one can know!”

Lan Wangji had wavered, seeing how much it mattered to him and wanting to honor his wishes, wanting to help him - Lan Wangji always wanted to help him - but also needing to share the unexpected burden. In the end he had insisted: “One person. Wei Ying, a marriage cannot be founded on a lie.”

Nothing else in the world would have worked to convince him, given the risks of disclosure, the risk that if more people knew that the secret would get out, that Jiang Cheng would find out, but that – 

That did. 

Lan Wangji was right: it was one thing to enter a marriage for convenience, for political gain; if that was all there was to it, then Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have needed to say anything. He could have hidden it forever, refused to dual cultivate beyond acting as a passive vessel; he could have presented himself in the marriage not as Wei Wuxian but as the Yiling Patriach, with all the benefits and disadvantages that came with it, and that would be that.

But it wasn’t just that.

Maybe it started out that way, but it wasn’t that way now. Not with the way Nie Mingjue had smiled at him, the way he’d looked at him, intense and serious, after that spar – the discussion they’d had afterwards, when he’d raised his proposal again, serious this time, that they would all marry, the three of them. When he had made clear that his offer could be rejected at will without insult, that he meant it as something that was not for politics, not for need, just…to be married. To be together, the three of them, all three of them, to exchange bows and vow to live together as husbands for the rest of their lives, simply because they wanted to. 

Nie Mingjue and Lan Wangji both - they’d been clear about what they wanted, and they wanted a marriage with Wei Wuxian, and not his reputation.

Lan Wangji was right.

A marriage like that – a marriage like the ones his parents had, when his mother had picked an outstanding servant over all the other more promising or well-respected men she could have had simply because he made her laugh, the type of marriage he’d always dreamed of, the type he’d always wanted for himself – couldn’t be founded on a lie.

And so they were on their way to Qinghe.

The journey was long, even by sword, even for someone with cultivation as high as Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian had not enjoyed flying on a sword since the he’d been thrown into the Burial Mounds, refusing Wen Qing’s occasional well-intentioned offers; he tried to get some enjoyment out of the fact that his arms were wrapped around Lan Wangji’s waist, his front pressed up against Lan Wangji’s back (he wondered if Lan Wangji would let him rut up against him like this, put himself between those white thighs until they were dirty –) but even the most sexually charged fantasies faded away into the cold reality that he was going to need to talk about this.

And that was before it started raining.

The last shichen of the trip was in complete silence, and only the warmth of Lan Wangji’s hand against his, his spiritual energy flowing calmly between them, kept Wei Wuxian from true panic. And then they were in Qinghe, landing in front of the door, and the guards at the gate were letting them in and then – 

Nie Mingjue was there, waiting the entry hall.

Beautiful Nie Mingjue, who was only half-dressed, his hair unbound and with only an outer robe over his underclothing that he’d thrown on but hadn’t bothered to belt before rushing to the doorway, concern clearly written all over his face.

“What happened?” he asked.

“There’s no emergency,” Wei Wuxian said, and when Lan Wangji turned to glare at him, he raised his hands. “There isn’t! It’s been like this for months, Lan Zhan, and nothing will change if we let Mingjue-xiong get some sleep; we really didn’t have to fly here in the middle of the night –”

“To confirm – no attack has broken out, and no one is imminently dying?” Nie Mingjue interrupted.

Even Lan Wangji was forced to nod at that.

“In that case, you can come inside and have some tea while you explain,” Nie Mingjue said, waving his hand at one of the deputies that was lingering there. “I don’t mind being awake at this hour, but our sentries saw you coming through the storm and I thought it might be a situation where we would need to raise the army.”

Wei Wuxian’s shoulders hunched up. He should have thought about that, they both should have thought about that: Nie Mingjue was not merely a sect leader but a general, not merely a general but the leader of the Sunshot Campaign, the general that had given orders to generals; of course he would think first of war. “Nothing like that.”

“My apologies,” Lan Wangji said. “Our urgency was only my eagerness.”

“Don’t apologize,” Nie Mingjue said briskly. “Matters can be urgent even without a battle; it’s only a question of scale. Follow me.”

He led them to a small receiving room – it wasn’t the one usually used for guests, which Wei Wuxian had been to before, but something more intimate, warmer: the wooden furniture was sparse in the way it always was in Qinghe, with a restrained sort of charm, but there were intricate metal whorls on the walls that caught the eye and soft tapestries that made the cold stone feel less hostile.

“All right,” Nie Mingjue said as he strode into the room. “There’s tea in the corner; one of you can prepare it. Now tell me what the matter is.”

Wei Wuxian looked at him.

“…perhaps Sect Leader Nie would like to get dressed first?” he suggested, a little desperately. 

It was a stalling method, yes, but also – really. There was a certain amount of stress a man could be under at one time, and trying to actually tell someone about everything that had happened would be bad enough without having to also figure out how not to stare at the part of Nie Mingjue’s white under-robes that had started gaping open at the chest, a glimpse of supple flesh and the barest hint of pink –

Nie Mingjue huffed, though it was unclear whether it was out of annoyance or recognition of the effect he was having. “Very well. Wangji, the tea?”

The second he left, Wei Wuxian turned to Lan Wangji. “I know we’re here for a very serious reason and we’re going to need to talk about things and all that, but you saw that, right?”

Lan Wangji’s ears went red.

“Oh, you saw it all right,” Wei Wuxian said, and grinned. “Did it make you want to bite?”

“Wei Ying.”

“All right, all right, I’ll stop. And yes, I’ll – I’ll explain. To both of you.”

A marriage cannot be built on a lie.

Wei Wuxian wanted this marriage to work. He wanted it to be a partnership, like the one his parents had, not – not what Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu had.

The only way he could get what he wanted was if he told them the truth: that he had lost (given up) his golden core during the war, that he could no longer cultivate the orthodox path of the sword, that demonic cultivation was not only a choice but a mandate.

(They didn’t need to know about Jiang Cheng.)

When Nie Mingjue returned, now fully dressed and his hair pulled back in the simplest possible crown, no braids or anything, Wei Wuxian didn’t hesitate.

Nie Mingjue and Lan Wangji were mercifully silent during his explanation, interrupting only long enough to ask some questions – good ones, thoughtful ones. Some were aimed at understanding more of what he went through in the Burial Mounds, while others gently pointed out flaws in his story, sometimes embarrassing ones; if he were ever to tell this story to others, he would need to cover those up better.

They knew he was hiding something, but they let him hide it.

They trusted him.

(Maybe he would tell them about Jiang Cheng after all. But – not yet.)

When he finished, they were quiet for a long moment.

“Thank you for telling me,” Nie Mingjue finally said, and he meant it, too; he was Nie Mingjue, he didn’t say things lightly. If he was angry, he would have shown it, just as he had when Wei Wuxian had described what Wen Chao had done to him before rushing ahead and making clear that Wen Qing had helped him (a deliberate blurring of the timeline, but there was nothing he could do about it) but now there was no anger anywhere on his face, just thoughtfulness. “It explains – a great deal.”

Lan Wangji nodded in agreement, and Wei Wuxian felt the stickiness of guilt: would Lan Wangji think of all those times he’d begged Wei Wuxian to come with him to Gusu, to stop using demonic cultivation, and think himself a fool? Would he think Wei Wuxian had been laughing at him, knowing it was impossible?

He wouldn’t, of course, but Wei Wuxian felt guilty regardless.

“Not to get stuck on technical matters,” Nie Mingjue continued, “but curiosity compels me to ask. What forging are you using as the channel?”

Whatever Wei Wuxian might have expected Nie Mingjue to say, whether scolding or sympathy or even pity, it wasn’t that. 

He didn’t even understand that.

“What?” he said blankly.

“Is it that seal of yours? Or something else?”

“Forging?” Lan Wangji asked. He looked as confused as Wei Wuxian. “Wei Ying uses his flute to cultivate.”

Nie Mingjue’s frown deepened. “Resentful energy corrodes the protections of the souls if used for too long without a venting channel – without a proper outlet, the corrosion will build up in the meridians and dantian, and will ultimately lead to a backlash…are you saying you aren’t using one at all?”

“Are you saying you know about the effects of resentful energy?” Wei Wuxian asked, eyes lighting up. “I’ve never heard anything about venting, corrosion, or build-up – though it makes sense, actually, given some of the other aspects of resentful energy that I’ve observed or theorized. Gathering resentful energy has an exponential effect, the reason why a bunch of drownings in one place don’t just make more water ghouls, but a Waterborne Abyss, and why a battlefield is easier to raise than a single grave…everyone says demonic cultivation affects the temperament, but there’s never any detail. I haven’t been able to find any books on it.”

“Nor I,” Lan Wangji said. “Even in the forbidden portion of the clan library.”

“There aren’t many books,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Demonic cultivation is well known to be forbidden, so most of the knowledge is handed down orally.”

Lan Wangji’s back got even straighter, if that was even possible, and Wei Wuxian understood the implication a second later: the Nie sect had always been a bit of an outlier from the other sects, Qinghe with its reputation for oddity, with its strange rituals and bizarre customs, its pride in having descended from butchers, a bloody profession associated with resentment, rather than gentry –

“You use demonic cultivation,” Wei Wuxian breathed.

“Not the way you use it, we don’t,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “Let us not take away from the magnitude of your achievement in creating an entirely new cultivation path, Wei Wuxian, and one that can be used by those who cannot cultivate in the traditional fashion no less. We do not cultivate the ability to manipulate fierce corpses through their resentful energy, I’d never even heard of such a thing before, but we do utilize resentful energy in a fashion that other sects do not.”

“What do you use it for?” Lan Wangji asked. He looked as fascinated as Wei Wuxian was – really, he wasn’t that hard to read at all, once you had an idea of what to look for. All of his expressions were in the little things, the way his eyes curved or narrowed, the redness of his ears, the corners of his lips.

Nie Mingjue’s fingers flicked, a seemingly casual movement, but only a few seconds later the door slammed open as his saber flew into the room, hovering for a moment before whistling through the air as it made its way to Nie Mingjue’s hand.

Wei Wuxian turned to stare. 

“The personal quarters of the Nie clan aren’t anywhere near this hall,” he said slowly. “You clearly left your saber behind when you came to greet us, which I appreciate as a gesture of trust even though we wouldn’t have taken insult if you did…you summoned it all the way from here, and it came on its own? How could you guide it through all those hallways without using hand seals?”

“For something so straightforward, Baxia does not require guidance,” Nie Mingjue said, and held the saber out lengthwise for them to look at. “You asked what we use resentful energy for: this is the answer.”

“Only the most powerful spiritual weapons have enough awareness to recognize their masters,” Lan Wangji said, leaning forward. His eyes were bright with curiosity, with not a trace of judgment for the unorthodoxy they were discussing, and Wei Wuxian would spare some time to think about how beautiful Lan Wangji was in full scholar mode if he wasn’t equally entranced by Nie Mingjue’s revelations. “Much less find their way through a complicated series of hallways when their master wants them, without even a single hand seal acting as a summon…the Nie sect’s sabers have always been regarded as the finest weapons one can use against resentful beasts.”

“Very good as always, Wangji,” Nie Mingjue said, and Lan Wangji looked pleased at the recognition. “The founder of our sect was a butcher as well as a cultivator. As you know, occupations that require blood are notoriously considered bad for cultivation, the resentful energy from the work affecting their temperament and potential – take the traditional example of the fate of the executioner, who might arise as a fierce corpse despite lacking any resentments of his own. But my ancestor realized that the resentful energy of the beasts he slaughtered could be channeled not in the wielder of the saber, but the saber itself, and in doing so it would grow more powerful in its own right – power that could then be used to supplement the traditional orthodoxy of the dao of the sword and saber.”

Wei Wuxian’s brain was bubbling full of new ideas that had never even occurred to him before. The approach wasn’t as unorthodox as his own cultivation, nor perhaps would it be as reviled – the resentful energy of yao would be far less pernicious than the type he used, which came from humans, and using it as a whetstone to sharpen a sword’s spirit was far less intrusive than manipulating it directly as if it were spiritual energy – but it was fascinatingly different from everything he’d grown up hearing.

“What’s the cost?” he asked, because that was important. There had to be a cost, something the Nie sect was willing to pay that others weren’t, or else the secret would have gotten out at some point and become widespread.

“The difficulty in managing the process as the saber strengthens,” Nie Mingjue said. “The saber can store resentful energy, but we are the ones to cultivate it; it passes through us, and in time the strain will become too much unless we break through the limits of our cultivation and reach the heavens in a single bound. We trade the latter half of our lives for the power to make a difference in the first.”

“Qi deviation,” Lan Wangji murmured. All the Nie sect leaders had died of it, eventually; the fact of it was well known.

“Every generation tries some new means to mitigate it, some of which work better than others,” Nie Mingjue said with a shrug. “I had meant to make it clear to both of you before the wedding, but chances are high that the two of you will outlive me – though with luck the time is still some distance off.”

Wei Wuxian’s fingers curled together into fists in his lap, and he sees the stiffness in Lan Wangji’s spine that has nothing to do with pride; he didn’t need to share glances with him to know that they were both in violent agreement that something would need to be done about that.

After all, neither of them were interested in becoming widows, and together they could do marvelous things, unthinkable things – especially if Lan Wangji were willing, as Wei Wuxian for the very first time thought he might be, to help him research the more esoteric possibilities, to delve into the mysteries of his demonic cultivation and find out its reaches, the benefits and the costs that could be extracted from it.

If Nie Mingjue thought his husbands would just placidly accept a future without him, he would just have to wait and see what they would do.

“The tendency towards qi imbalances cause by our way of cultivating is aggravated by the hereditary Nie temper, which is said to be aggravated by the cultivation style in turn,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice a little dry; he was clearly well aware of his faults. “That’s one of the reasons I want to leave my sect to Huaisang in the future – he might not be the strongest cultivator, whether due to his naturally weaker talent or just because of how lazy he is, but he’s calm and thoughtful instead of temperamental, capable of great patience, and he cultivated a golden core using our traditional methods without losing those qualities.”

“I mean, I guess I’ve seen him with his saber,” Wei Wuxian said, a little doubtfully. “Not to be rude, but has he ever used it?”

Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes. “Not as much as he should, but yes, he’s even cultivated the spirit within it. Unfortunately, the saber and the master reflect each other, which means his saber turned out to be a lazy plonk that would rather act as a paperweight than actually stab someone.”

Wei Wuxian tried, and failed, to hide his smirk. He wondered if he could somehow use Nie techniques to regain control over Suibian, despite lacking a golden core – how wonderful it would be, if that were possible!

He thought there was a good chance Nie Mingjue would agree to teach him what he needed to know to do it, too.

“I had assumed you were using the Stygian Tiger Seal as a channel in a similar manner to the way I use my saber,” Nie Mingjue continued, frowning again. “That’s clearly not the case, and that means your demonic cultivation is even more radical an innovation than I had previously considered it to be. However, with your consent, I would like to build you a channel for you to try to start processing your cultivation through, in the hopes that it will work to ease the strain of it on you. My clan uses forging, a mixture of metal and qi, to create a base that can be built up into a saber, though I suppose in your case it doesn’t have to be. Tonight, if you’re not too tired.”

Wei Wuxian nodded. He’d known that backlash was a possibility, had already accepted that he’d likely have an early death as a result of it, had arrogantly assumed he’d be able to come up with something to prevent it, but just because he was doing something new didn’t mean he couldn’t try to supplement it with something that had been practiced for generations – especially since given how he’d used demonic cultivation so far, any backlash would probably end up with him ripped to pieces by a thousand fierce ghosts. 

Not really his ideal death.

Especially not before he managed to marry these two!

“I don’t want other people to know, though,” he said, his fingers twisting in his robes at the mere thought. The same anxiety as before: the more people knew his secret, the more chance there was of someone slipping up, of someone finding out – of Jiang Cheng finding out, and his shidi wasn’t stupid, merely too trusting to those he loved; he’d figure it out as soon as the pieces came together. “How many do we need to tell to do it?”

“None,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wei Wuxian started in surprise. “Are you not my intended husband? I can do it myself.”

He paused a moment, and then smiled. “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian blinked at him. “For what?”

“For allowing me the opportunity to finally get Huaisang off my case about picking your betrothal gift.”

Lan Wangji huffed in amusement, as if some guess had been confirmed, and Wei Wuxian thought that maybe there was a chance this whole thing wouldn’t be a disaster after all.

[angelrider13]

Alright, so I mentioned in discord yesterday that Thalassa’s been dimension hopping. (We all have that one OC.) She’s currently hanging out in MDZS/Untamed world and causing chaos - as she does. @starofthemourning asked what specifically she was getting up to. So have a ramble!

- Thalassa was just minding her business, cruising through Death’s realm as she does from time to time, visiting past children and friends, helping newly deceased souls cross over, etc., etc., when she gets yoinked into a completely different land of the living.

- Thalassa: Toto, we are not in Eos anymore.

- She’s been summoned into the body of a young woman by a group of demonic cultivators that pushed some buttons they should not have. They are a cult, because of course they are, and Thalassa has no idea what’s happening, but they are cuckoo bananapuffs and leaning WAY too hard on the cult thing - virgin sacrifices, child sacrifices, torture, lotsa bad things. Thalassa in her new, 100% human body, says no.

- Enter JC! Who, as we know, hunts down demonic cultivators with a single mindedness that is probably more than a little unhealthy. And this is...I’m saying like 3 years after WWX died, so some things as still fresh (and also, other people are still alive to react to Thalassa and her...Thalassa-ness).

- JC arrives to find that Thalassa has already solved the problem. Very thoroughly. This strange woman covered in blood, with lines of fire burning across her skin and a smile that’s all teeth and gold, gold eyes that burn with power, escorting children and missing travelers out of the smoking ruins of their former prison, carrying the dead and dying with her. Because she cannot save them, but they will die free.

- JC is immediately Suspicious. This woman is not a cultivator. She is also not human. He is sure of it. He absolutely cannot prove it. (The body she’s currently inhabiting is human, she used to be human in body and soul and still is to an extent - she’s not lying.)

- Thalassa ends up being dragged to Lotus Pier along with some of the kids she saved, because orphans and we all know that Thalassa can and will adopt everything that breathes if it stands still long enough. She has technically done nothing wrong and has earned the gratitude and good will of quite a few people, so it would look bad if JC just disappeared her. But Something Is Afoot, so JC isn’t about to let her go gallivanting across the countryside either.

- Thalassa notices pretty quick that these people bow a lot. In greeting, in farewell, to show respect. Thalassa is Not About That. She is the Sea and the Sea Does Not Bow. It’s not such a big deal at first because the circumstances of meeting are...messy. But once they’re in Lotus Pier, people start noticing that she never bows, even after they’ve bowed to her, and they are Offended. The only ones that are not are the kids that she adopted. No one says anything at first, but they all make spectacular pissy faces that Thalassa delights in. JC eventually snaps at her, snarling about respect, and Thalassa calmly replies that if she ever bows to him or anyone else, they will have earned it. (”I have only ever bowed to my Mothers, to Death and to the Light of Dawn, and no other.”) JC, knowing that she’s not human, but not knowing exactly how, doesn’t bring it up again.

- Thalassa likes Lotus Pier. It’s bright and colorful and loud and surrounded by water. It’s not as good as her waters, of course, but it’s nice to be able to swim when the mood strikes. It’s nice to be able to swim with the children, nice to know that everyone learns to swim at Lotus Pier and that they take it seriously. The first time she catches JC teaching the kids she brought with her to swim she stares because he’s not gentle exactly, but...softer. These people operate on different rules than her, but it’s nice to know that somethings always stay the same.

- It takes Lotus Pier a little while to figure out that they’ve been adopted, but they get there. Thalassa is the weird big sister/aunt/mother figure that will be getting you into trouble one moment and then helping out get out of it the next. She doesn’t bow and they don’t make her. She’s chaos in human skin, but some of them (far, far too few) remember that Lotus Pier has always had a soft spot for chaos gremlins and their antics. It brings smiles to their faces when they see this strange whirlwind of a woman trail after their Sect Leader, tugging at his sleeves and leaning into his space and laughing with a smile brighter than the sun when he swats at her, a secret grin tugging at the corners of his scowl.

- At some point, Thalassa meets other sects. It goes...well it goes. For maximum chaos, let’s say its a discussion conference. At Jinlintai. Which brings us right back to the Thalassa and bowing thing.

- JC and YunmengJiang have been dealing with Thalassa’s bullshit for - months? a year? who knows, it’s been awhile - at this point and know that it’s better to just Roll With It.

- The rest of the cultivation world has very much not learned this lesson.

- The Lan are Offended. So Offended. Depending on the Lan, at least. LXC is pretty chill and would probably also be offended, but not let it bother him much. LQR leans so much on propriety that he might just qi deviate. LWJ also leans pretty heavily on propriety but he is also that person who is So Done With Everyone’s Bullshit that he’ll just walk right out of the room so who knows.

- The rules of propriety! Broken!! Without cause or care!!! The Lans are flipping their shit. Quietly. And with great dignity.

- The Nie also kinda offended, but not nearly as much as the Lan. It’s not often that a woman will look Sect Leader Nie in the eye and refuse to bow to him, but NMJ can admire the guts it takes. He’s also the most likely to bring it up and Thalassa will calmly tell him what she tells everyone who asks - that she does not bow. Most especially not for social niceties that mean next to nothing at the end of the day.

- She absolutely bonds with NHS over the arts. He shows off his fans, she does a dance or two with them, they ramble at each other, they are now best friends. (JC is in the background being a Dispair because he knows, he knows, the NHS is an Enabler. He should never have allowed them to meet.)

- The Jin...well. Thalassa is a woman. Thalassa is very pretty. Thalassa knows she is very pretty and flirts as she pleases and moves with a grace that draws many a eye. And JGS...is JGS.

- You know that post that’s buried in my STotS story tag where Mera, literal Queen of Atlantis, breaks a man’s arm because he put his hands on her without her permission? I’m not saying that happens...but that 100% happens.

- JGS tries to be all smooth and Thalassa is Not Having It. She is well aware that 1) this jackass is married AND absolutely does not have the permission of his wife to fuck around and 2) JGS has a reputation among women. And it is not one that endears JGS to her.

- So he puts his hands on her. Pulls her close and tries to flirt. She tells him to let go. He smiles in that ‘aw you’re playing hard to get, how cute’ way that he probably thinks is charming but really wants to make women punch his face in, and gropes her. So Thalassa breaks his arm, snaps it in her hand and doesn’t let go. She uses the pain and the leverage of her grip to force him to his knees before her.

- It draws attention. JGS doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who gets in physical fights much - he probably doesn’t have much pain tolerance. He’s likely screaming. And you know cultivators are trigger happy little shits so swords are drawn. Thalassa smiles, all teeth.

- JGS is probably demanding that JC ‘put his woman in her place’. JC, having witnessed what happened and far less inclined to put up with this man than he was in the immediate aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign when all he had was the ashes of his sect, is having None Of It. He’s like well if she’s my woman why are you touching her and if she said no, why are you still touching her?

- NMJ approves. JGS deserves this. He’s had it coming for years. He is so happy he gets to witness this. As far as he’s concerned JGS brought this on himself and if he can’t handle it, maybe he should try keeping his dick in his pants.

- Thalassa is not impressed. She’s heard the titles thrown around. Sect Leader, Chief Cultivator, Your Excellency. She is well aware that leaders do not represent the entirety of the people, yet these people overthrew a tyrant and let this take his place? (”So you allow an oathbreaking rapist to lead you. This explains so much.”)

- JGY steps up and tries to smooth over the situation. Thalassa does not allow it. (”The next time he touches me, I will cut off his cock. If any woman he’s touched comes to me for help, I will rip out his intestines and strangle him with them.”)

- The Jiang are the only ones who know that she means this 100% literally. More than a few of them are okay with her following through. JC is standing at her shoulder, glowering at the whole room because Thalassa is one of His People at this point and you better believe he’s not going to let someone, not even another Sect Leader, not even the Chief Cultivator, disrespect her this way.

- JGY continues to deescalate with varying levels of success. (Thalassa is old. She is old and has lived through much. She knows what a viper looks like no matter how honeyed the words or how silver the tongue or how sweet the smile. This child thinks he can manipulate her. How cute.)

- In the end, no action is taken against Thalassa. JC is loud in his defense of her actions and NMJ and LXC side with him. JGS was in the wrong and his behavior was disgraceful. The Jin have no choice but to concede fault.

- Thalassa may or may not spend the rest of her time in Jinlintai teaching as many women as she can how to cripple a man twice their size.

[serotocin38]

MXTX Superlatives #15: Best in Adapting to Modern World

Winner: Wei Wuxian

Runner-Up: Xie Lian

[SPOILERS for MDZS, TGCF]

This may not be the placement you’re expecting at all. But give me a chance to explain. 

So this “adapting” is if they were suddenly dropped into the modern world one day without warning and must find a way to survive there, like time travel. 

First, Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian both are survivors. If you think about it, their stories are a bit similar. Both of their journeys depict a tragic fall from grace. 

WWX was one of the most promising young cultivators of his age, popular and loved by pretty much everyone he meets. He was forced into a corner when he gave up his golden core - literally, his entire future as a successful cultivator crashed and burned around him. But that wasn’t it. After that, he was thrown into the Burial Mounds to die. 

With every one of the odds against him, WWX stubbornly grabbed onto any chance he had, turning to demonic cultivation to survive. He literally clawed his way back to the top, put on a cold mask against all those who didn’t know his story and still criticized him. He tried living his life as normally as he could with everything now flipped upside down, but of course, that didn’t work out for him. Lan Wangji tried telling WWX about how demonic cultivation could destroy a person, and as readers, we focus on how rudely WWX rejected LWJ’s advice, and it’s a good angst point. 

But really, WWX probably does know the harm demonic cultivation would cause. But he had no choice. WWX would much rather live a bit longer to protect those he loved, so he threw away his good reputation and his health. While that’s a very extreme example of his ability to adapt and survive, it does prove that he’s a survivor, and he’s damn good at it.

Xie Lian is also very similar in that sense. He’s over 800 years old already, so he must have witnessed a lot of change within his life. Not to mention, his fall from grace was much more tragic than WWX’s. XL started as a prince, ascended to a god, then fell all the way down to a homeless street performer/scrap collector. 

He lost all his powers, and for the majority of those 800+ years, he had no one to rely on other than himself and his physical abilities (which given, is still a quite a bit better than a normal mortal’s). 

So XL is also a survivor. But his experience should put him higher than WWX since he experienced a greater change, right?

Theoretically, yes. But in XL’s life, there were a few low moments where the only reason he didn’t die was because he’s immortal. XL’s survival is partially thanks to his immortality and godhood. While those moments technically don’t really matter when considering whether or not he’ll survive in the modern world, I’m just being very picky since between the two of them, it’s a very, very close race (basicaly a tie, if I’m being honest with myself). 

But of course, both XL and WWX had experiences that are way too extreme to be comparable to survival in the modern world, but their experiences do go to show how well they adapt. 

Now, I want to explain why the others didn’t make the podium because they would seem to qualify, right?

Not really. 

See, Shen Qingqiu is a modern man in the first place. But he sucked at living. If I were to rank everyone from most likely to least likely to adapt, SQQ would probably be dead last. First of all, he was barely able to survive despite being born there. And then, he’s spent half a century in ancient China with cool spiritual powers, fame, and a housewife who worships the ground he walks on. If you were to plop him back into the modern world, I really don’t have much hope for him. He has no sense of self-preservation.

So why didn’t Luo Binghe or Hua Cheng make the list if trials and tribulations are what they had to go through to prove they’re able to survive? Yes, LBH and HC both underwent very drastic transformations that was filled with pain and blood and difficulties. 

But if you consider why they underwent this suffering, you’ll see why they didn’t make the list. Both of them had the goal of growing stronger so they can take care of their significant others. Both of them rely on their powers and being powerful. XL and WWX were completely powerless and forced to survive. 

And then, no offense to our Lan-Er Gege, but he’s kinda just floating around in the middle. He gets some pity points, but there isn’t much to say about him honestly.

[enbyleighlines]

Do you still take modern wangxian prompts? If you do, would you be able to do a floral shop wangxian? (Maybe wwx fked up and had to make up with flowers or vice versa? :P) thanks so much! And merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas, anonymous! Even if it’s, like, no longer Christmas...

I hope you still enjoy this drabble, though!

(And yes! I am always accepting prompts for my mdzs modern au! You can read the entire collection along with some extra context notes at ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21909901/chapters/52296226)

—

Wei Wuxian learns something new every day. Today, he learned that the phrase “a broken heart” is not exaggerated. His heart feels like it’s broken, like his entire chest cavity is criss-crossed with multiple painful, gaping wounds.

He and Lan Wangji just had their first fight. Wei Wuxian sits on the stairs outside the apartment, clutching the skin over his broken heart. Putting pressure on it doesn’t ease the ache at all.

The worst thing is that Wei Wuxian can still see Lan Wangji’s face ever time he closes his eyes.

He had meant it as a joke. In retrospect, it was never very funny. But Wei Wuxian hadn’t meant to hurt his Lan Wangji, his boyfriend, his best friend, his love.

Wei Wuxian had apologized, but the damage was done.

The world feels darker. Wei Wuxian knows Lan Wangji just needs time. Their bond is too strong to break under a single poorly-worded joke. But at the moment, this knowledge does nothing to soothe Wei Wuxian’s turbulent mind.

At least A-Yuan is spending the day with Granny Wen. Wei Wuxian would hate to have the toddler witness him like this, so witless and depressed.

Or worse, to have A-Yuan see Lan Wangji cry... Wei Wuxian has never known a more heart-wrenching sight.

Wei Wuxian hangs his head between his knees, trying not to remember the way Lan Wangji’s cheeks glistened in thin streaks down from his eyes, his lashes dotted with dew-like water droplets.

Lan Wangji is so handsome, even when he’s sad. It’s kind of unfair.

It was just a stupid slip of the tongue. A side effect of consuming so much fatalistic humor. Still, Wei Wuxian should have known better. He knows better than anyone how sensitive Lan Wangji is.

Hadn’t Lan Xichen warned him? “Take care of my Didi,” he had said, “He feels things more strongly than other people.”

And Lan Wangji does. Oh, he feels things so strongly.

It’s one of the things Wei Wuxian loves best about him. Lan Wangji is sensitive, and righteous, and so, so good. Wei Wuxian treasures Lan Wangji, because the man IS a treasure. Hidden underneath Lan Wangji’s outward taciturn demeanor is a heart that cares too much, that loves without restraint.

Wei Wuxian wants to be worthy of that love.

No. Wei Wuxian must become worthy of that love.

With his new mission in mind, Wei Wuxian uncurls from his fetal pose on the staircase. He takes out his phone and starts googling.

—

Twenty minutes later, Wei Wuxian is officially lost. He pauses at an intersection he’s already passed twice before, and rechecks his phone app. How has he still not found the flower shop? It’s supposed to be less than a minute away!

Wei Wuxian sighs heavily, and seeks help at a nearby convenience store.

Thankfully, the cashier isn’t a complete idiot, unlike him, so she’s able to give Wei Wuxian directions.

He ends up going down a side corner he hadn’t noticed before, and voila! There was the Phoenix Flower Shop, exactly where his app said it should be.

Wei Wuxian shuts off the app and shoves the phone into his pocket. He’s trying not to lose his temper, but he’s having a really bad day. Granted, he’s mostly mad at himself, but still. He can’t be just stomping around and ruining everyone else’s day.

The smell of flowers sucker-punches Wei Wuxian right in the nose as he enters. Ordinarily, he loves floral fragrances, but right now, it’s a tad overwhelming.

A young woman in an apron trots merrily over to him. “Good afternoon,” she says, “May I help you find something?”

Wei Wuxian nods. He doesn’t know anything about the language of flowers, but he suspects that Lan Wangji might. “I’m hoping to create some sort of apology bouquet,” he explains, “Which flowers mean ‘I’m sorry’?”

The flower shop employee gives Wei Wuxian a sad smile. “Gotten into a fight with your girlfriend, have we?”

“Uh, boyfriend,” Wei Wuxian corrects. He vaguely wonders if he should have just let her believe he was in a heterosexual relationship. He and Lan Wangji haven’t yet discussed to what extent they want to be “out” to people. Since this is Wei Wuxian’s first time dating a guy, he’s been trying to err on the side of caution.

Luckily, the young woman doesn’t make a big deal out of it. “Oh, okay,” she says, “Well, I would go with yellow flowers, either tulips, roses, or chrysanthemums. Tulips represent new beginnings and hope, yellow roses can represent both friendship and regret, and the chrysanthemum is a symbol of longevity. But if you prefer to avoid the color yellow, you can always go with the plum blossom. It can symbolize a refusal to give up on love.”

Wei Wuxian listens, his mind swimming with all his options. He hadn’t realized that there were so many choices! Which one would Lan Wangji like?

The woman seems to notice his stress, because she stops listing new flowers. “A dozen yellow tulips seem to be our most frequently bought apology bouquet,” she informs him, “We can even tie it with some ribbon that says ‘I’m sorry’ on it.”

Wei Wuxian relaxes. “Okay,” he says, “That sounds good.”

She nods, and waves for him to follow her. She leads him down an aisle made entirely of flowers, which is barely wide enough to fit two people. They have to occasionally duck around other customers.

At the end of the aisle, they come upon the tulip section... and a familiar face.

“Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji’s head whips up to stare blankly at Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian immediately notices two things: Lan Wangji’s eyes are still a little red and puffy, and he has a bundle of flowers in his arms.

Yellow tulips, to be exact.

The store employee looks from one man to the other. “Do you two... know each other?”

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth. No sound comes out.

Lan Wangji steps forward, and pushes the flowers he’s holding into Wei Wuxian’s hand. “Yes,” he answers, without tearing his eyes off of Wei Wuxian, “Wei Ying is my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend, huh? So they are being public about it...

Wei Wuxian smiles, but his heart throbs uncomfortably from within his throat. He doesn’t know where to even start. It’s funny, isn’t it? Bumping into Lan Wangji, who is buying his own apology bouquet?

But what is Lan Wangji sorry for?

“I’ll leave you two be, then,” the young woman says, and quickly scampers off faster than anyone should move in such a cramped space.

Silence fills the space between them.

“Wei Ying?” Lan Wangji questions, “Say something?”

And so Wei Wuxian does.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Wuxian says, reaching out and grabbing the end of Lan Wangji’s sleeve with his free hand, “I’m so sorry—“

“I’m sorry, too,” Lan Wangji replies.

“For what?” Wei Wuxian can’t help but laugh. “I’m the one who— who made that stupid joke.”

“I overreacted?” Lan Wangji says, confusion evident in his tone.

“You didn’t overreact!” Wei Wuxian tugs his boyfriend closer, so he can minimize the emptiness between them. “Lan Zhan, I said something that hurt you.”

“You were joking...”

“That doesn’t matter!” Wei Wuxian wants to crash their mouths together, he loves this man too much for his own good, but he needs to make Lan Wangji understand. “It was a bad joke! It was in poor taste, and I realized it as soon as I said it!”

Lan Wangji’s eyes are watery again. His lip trembles, just slightly, just enough to break Wei Wuxian’s heart all over again. “I just...” he chokes, unable to continue.

“I know,” Wei Wuxian says. Because he does. He knows that he accidentally touched something sensitive, something that reopened old wounds. “Lan Zhan, oh Lan Zhan. You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

Lan Wangji puts his hand on the small of Wei Wuxian’s back.

(In the back of his mind, Wei Wuxian registers that Lan Wangji’s palm is touching right where his bunny tattoo lies hidden beneath his clothes. A small part of him finds it amusing.)

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji whispers. He doesn’t need to speak any louder. Their faces are now mere inches apart. “I love you.”

And so Wei Wuxian does kiss him, because how can he resist?

They crush the flowers between them, but neither one cares enough to stop. They recommit themselves to one another, sharing the same breath. Their kiss is slow, unhurried, intimate. They linger, lips tasting every last centimeter of skin, reluctant to part.

An eternity passes between them. When they pull apart, both of them are smiling. Wei Wuxian’s smile is as bright as the sun, Lan Wangji’s as beautiful as the moon.

They hold hands as they walk to the counter. They don’t let go, even as Lan Wangji pays for the flowers they ruined.

The cashier gives them a knowing look. Neither notices.

They return to the apartment, and try to make the crumpled tulips look nice in a vase. Many of the petals are creased and folded at unattractive angles.

But Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji look at them with loving eyes. They look at the flowers for approximately a minute.

And then they go back to kissing.

[lwjstiletto]

wangxian au where lwj is a popular hand model and wwx is an independent jewellery maker [Part 1]

[Twitter thread version]

wwx is a go-getter kind of guy. he likes pretty things and pretty people. so his job is a win-win in that he makes pretty things for pretty people— well mostly

lately all his brain has churned out is designs that only the very nice old ladies in his neighbourhood indulgently buy from him

he’s grateful for it but nevertheless it’s been disheartening looking for the elusive muse for his next project

jiang cheng only sighs whenever he mentions this and rants about how if wwx just LISTENED to him and actually put effort into commercialising his bestsellers instead of hyperfocusing on one body part/gem/technique and hopping from one product to the next; and in general just making his business a chaotic mess where clients couldn’t guess what he would put out next, that he would have a better shot

but ofc wwx sighs even more at this and just goes ‘but jiang cheng~’

what kind of argument even is that? but jc lets it go bc wwx supplies him with endless half-finished projects that are complicated-looking enough to give his students a good challenge when drawing still life

so anyways, wwx is still making old lady jewellery and being generally pitiful when he stumbles across an intriguing article on twitter

—•—

lwj on the other hand has been fastening and unfastening his cufflinks for an hour straight. that’s pretty much status quo for hand models who have to spend hours on end either doing repetitive gestures or holding completely still

lwj doesn’t mind though, he has always had steady hands and dextrous fingers, practically an advertiser’s ‘wet dream’ as his agent, nhs, puts it

said agent pulls him aside when it’s finally time for his break. nhs looks harried, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but he’s also not meeting lwj’s eyes which sets of alarm bells in his head

“okay before i tell you,” nhs starts without prompting, “promise not to fire me.”

lwj doesn’t narrow his eyes, but the twitch of his eyebrow is close enough, “i will be fair.”

“that’s not a-“ nhs sighs, “good enough i guess. do you remember that photoshoot you did with da-ge a few months back?”

lwj nods. how could he forget? it had been... an experience for sure. it was a photoshoot for a book cover for a popular teen novel

and while lwj didn’t meet fellow hand models often, he had come across other ‘parts models’ as they were called

spending the better part of two days caressing nmj’s abs was... by far not the most unpleasant job he’d had as a hand model

nhs holds out a copy of the novel for him to see. the cover they used is from the second half of the photoshoot where they took a few wider shots

lwj sees nothing wrong with it. it’s a standard cover, if a bit lewd due to all the... ab touching. in fact the entire cover is just nmj’s abs and wide shoulders

lwj doesn’t think his hands serve any other purpose than obstructing the view in the poorest attempt to keep it pg. still he fails to see the problem

nhs wrings his hands together, “there was a blog post about it. do you know anyone named su she?”

lwj thinks for a moment, then vaguely recalls the name with a sinking realisation

—•—

wwx is still thinking about the article when jin zixuan comes to drop jin ling off at his apartment. unprompted, wwx asks him, “do you think i could sell feet pics?”

he can see jzx’s soul leave his body as he drops jin ling’s overnight bag on the pavement. wwx’s favourite new hobby is dropping these bombs on jzx and watching him dissociate from reality as he tries to answer wwx’s insane questions with logic

being a father has changed him. a few years ago he would have just slammed the nearest door in wwx’s face

“why... do you want to sell feet pics? is your business not going well?” jzx asks, and actually looks concerned. well, now wwx feels bad

“my business is just fine.” wwx says grumpily

“really? jiang cheng and yanli seem to think otherwise.”

“you eavesdropped on them didn’t you?”

jzx is entirely unashamed, “i’m just concerned.”

“again, my business is fine!”

“you know if you ever needed money-“

wwx turns jzx around and pushes him towards his car, “don’t you have things to do? get jin ling out of the car seat, it’s getting late.”

since the peacock has acquired immunity to his teasing by straight up being ~nice~ to him, it’s only fair that wwx sends jin ling back with so many new toys that they will take up at least a whole corner in his unnecessarily gigantic home

—•—

lwj meets his brother for iced tea at a cafe near huaisang’s office. lwj does not like iced tea but has deliberately kept this from his brother because lxc loves it and has made it his personal mission to try every iced tea flavour he can get his hands on

it is also the easiest way to lure his brother out of his busy schedule. lwj knows lxc would take time to meet him anyway, but he wants lxc to indulge in something he likes once in a while

“wangji, you seem restless.” lxc says, concerned

lwj takes a tentative sip of his black currant iced tea. it’s abhorrent

“do you remember su she?” lwj asks

lxc, “the one from your cello class?”

lwj nods

“the one who broke his string and his bow in the same day?” lxc asks, almost looking amused

lwj winces, “yes.”

“did he ever come back to the class after that?” lxc asks

lwj shakes his head, then taps the glass with a gloved finger

“has he been bothering you again?” lxc asks seriously, “if he has-“

“it’s-“ lwj sighs, “complicated.”

before lxc can make assumptions, lwj unlocks his phone and shows it to lxc

lxc reads silently for a minute or two, then his eyes widen. “he posted this on the novel’s discussion forum?”

lwj nods

“how did he even-“ lxc says, then pauses in thought, “is it because of the cello class?”

“mn, perhaps.” lwj says, “he saw the book cover i did with huaisang’s brother. he is a fan of the novel.”

“so he went and researched the models who were on the cover?” lxc frowns, “how did he even find that?”

“my name is public information.” lwj says, “it would certainly be hard to find, but it is available nonetheless.”

“are you going to be okay?” lxc asks.

“i am worried it will impact your reputation. my job is not... conventional.” lwj doesn’t meet his brother’s gaze

“wangji, that is the least of my concerns. you did not want to do conventional modelling by choice.” lxc says

he isn’t wrong, lwj hadn’t wanted to have his face photographed, it had never appealed to him. no matter how many compliments he received on his looks

his popularity started and ended within the advertising circle and nhs never offered him jobs he didn’t want. putting a face to his popular hand modelling career was not an ideal situation

especially since it had reached a lot of the novel’s fans who’d begun discussing him on other social media platforms

“i will handle this.” lxc says, “this is not right. you especially drew up contracts with advertisers to avoid this situation.”

“brother-“ lwj starts

“he should not have posted pictures of you.” lxc isn’t even drinking his iced tea, lwj notes

“it is already out. there is not much we can do.” lwj says reasonably

lxc doesn’t quite seethe but he doesn’t touch his iced coffee again

—•—

wwx finally admits to himself that he may be experiencing a slump. he hasn’t touched his tools in two months and his work bench has acquired a thick layer of dust on which jin ling drew a frowny face with his fingers then immediately tried to lick them

and what does one do when lacking motivation? harrass his brother in his cushy office at the university of course

to his credit, jc lets him prace around and poke at his things for a solid ten seconds before snapping at him. which means he and jyl must actually be worried about him

“wei wuxian” jc says through clenched teeth when wwx has pushed the paperweight on his desk to the very edge, trying to see how far jc would let him take it

ah, so not worried enough to break into his house at night, wwx notes

“so, do you think i could sell foot pics?” wwx uses his favourite new icebreaker

jc puts his head in his hands like wwx put the worlds’ weight on his shoulders. if he listens closely, he’s sure he can hear a repetition of ‘why why why why’ in jc’s head

“why...” jc forces himself to say

wwx shurgs with a grin, “i read an article about it. apparently a lot of people are into feet.”

“into... feet...” jc says

“yeah like they get off-“

jc holds up a hand to stop him, “i get it. did you come all the way across the city to ask me this?”

“yes and no.” wwx says, “i wanted to ask if you could draw me some.”

“some... feet...?” jc is going to kick him out soon, wwx can feel it

wwx places his chin in both his hands and tries to look pitiful, “isn’t it better than me buying foot pics? think of how that would reflect on you if anyone found out.”

jc feels a headache coming on, “please tell me you’re using them as reference to design anklets or something.”

wwx laughs, “of course! what did you think?”

jc glares at him, “i will ban you from campus.”

wwx bothers him a bit more and then gets thrown out more gently than he has come to expect from jc, still not sure if jc will actually fulfill his request

and maybe it’s because his luck has been down for too long that life took pity and decided to throw something good at him, he turns the corner to see one of the most beautiful men he has laid his eyes on

his attention is focused on the folder in his hands, and it’s late enough that there are no students milling the corridors. this is probably why the aforementioned beautiful, stunning, abolutely breathtaki- man manages to walk straight into wwx

several things happen at once. wwx sees it coming unlike the other person, so he reaches out to steady him. turns out there isn’t much need of that because the man gets his bearings back alarmingly fast for someone caught by surprise

the folder in his hands does not have similar balance though, and falls to the floor, splattering it’s contents halfway across the hallway

the man looks... well neutral, but the speed at which he drops to his knees lets wwx know that it’s not something he wants wwx to see

which, of course has the opposite effect. when wwx looks down to see the photographs that have not yet been put back into the folder- he is left speechless for once

the immediate and most obvious explanation is that this guy is an art student who is using these pictures as reference... but of course wwx’s first thought is Oh mY gOd this guy has a hand fetish because his talk with jc is still fresh in his head

once that thought is in his head, wwx notices a number of things in quick sequence

this dude looks uncharacteristically nervous for an innocent art student, and he’s wearing GLOVES like a CRIMINAL who’s STEALING pictures of those pretty hands from an art class for his own pleasure

art students don’t wear gloves, especially not in the middle of summer! and no one can possibly require that many pictures for just one body part

satisfied with his reasonable conclusion, wwx opens his mouth to accuse the man only to realise that he is upright once again with all his stolen pictures securely in his folder

“are you stealing those?” wwx asks straightforwardly

the man actually does seem to be caught off-guard for longer than two seconds this time

then he proceeds to walk past wwx

“hey wait!” wwx blocks his path again, “i get it, you know? we all have needs and i’m totally not judging you for it. but there are sites for this stuff.”

the man finally looks at him, and wow he’s even more attractive than wwx first thought and his eyes are so pretty and- he walks past wwx again

wwx, yet again, catches up to him and decides that walking beside him is more effective. “good quality photography like that is usually quite expensive you know?”

the man continues to ignore him so wwx grabs the folder in his hands and gives it a good yank

“what are you doing?” the man finally speaks. even his voice is nice. wwx is sure people would send him hand pics for free if he asked

“returning this to the rightful owner.” wwx holds the folder out of his reach

the man takes a deep breath, then pulls at one of his satin gloves- SATIN, how did wwx not notice that- and holds his beautiful hand up to wwx’s face

wwx’s brain immediately short circuits as he thinks ‘maybe ~I~ am the one with a hand fetish’ because that’s... one pretty hand

one... familiar hand. the same even tone, smooth skin and long, elegant fingers with perfectly manicured nails...

while he stands there, gaping like a fish, the man snatches the folder out of his hand and starts walking away with quicker strides

by the time wwx’s brain reboots and the realisation finally sinks in- he has finally found the muse he has been looking for- the man is already gone

—•—

lwj admits that he is... slightly stressed out, and is definitely showing enough signs of it that nhs has caught on

“you went to visit wen qing yesterday.” it’s not a question so lwj doesn’t answer. “did you perhaps run into an old acquaintance?”

lwj shakes his head, “it is not what you think.”

this sparks curiosity in nhs which is a toss up between better and worse than the implication that lwj’s stress stems from accidentally meeting su she at the university

“did you run into a fan?” nhs asks and it’s actually a reasonable concern since lwj wants to avoid even being /known/ at all costs

lwj shakes his head. he trusts nhs which isn’t as surprising now as it had been to him years ago when he had agreed to give nhs free reign over the work he chose for lwj

“somebody from the university knows of my identity.” lwj says finally.

nhs seems to think it over, “it was inevitable. even after taking down the blog post, people are still curious about you.”

lwj wants to tell him that it’s actually his fault but he stays silent as nhs continues his train of thought.

“you’re exciting because people have seen you without actually seeing you. you’ve worked with big brands and celebrities and it normally wouldn’t spark interest-

- but unfortunately for you, you are attractive. it will die down after a while, we just have to ride it out for now.” nhs concludes.

lwj nods, feeling reassured. nhs is usually right about these things, which is why lwj regards him so highly

he has a video shoot for some fancy kitchen installation company after that, and he tries not to think about the man who accused him of stealing his own pictures while he very slowly chops a mango on the surely unsanitary granite counter

he’s working with a photographer he knows well, one of the best in his line of work. song lan has a good eye for what would look enticing in an advert and doesn’t make him do weird, suggestive things like kneading dough in slow motion. lwj suppresses a shudder at the thought

after cutting enough magoes to feed ten people, the shoot finally wraps up and one of the PAs on the set holds out a basin for him to wash his hands in

the warm water is soothing to his aching fingers and he lets his hands soak but not for longer than a few seconds to prevent his skin from pruning. he then rubs the special concoction that is his version of the best moisturiser and puts his hands in soft cotton gloves

song lan comes to greet him after and expresses his sympathies about his pictures making rounds on the internet

lwj’s eyes widen ever so slightly, “you know of it?”

“my boyfriend is a fan.” he says with a fond shake of his head, “otherwise i’d have no idea.”

luckily before lwj can start to panic, nhs trots up to them and the conversation ends there as he’s dragged to his next shoot

—•—

“for the last time, i don’t know your ‘guy with pretty hands’.” jc says, exasperated. “what’s with you and body parts nowadays? if it’s a kink thing.. please rethink your life.”

wwx sighs. he knew going to jc was useless, but at least it confirmed his suspicion that the guy isn’t an art student

however, that makes the task of finding him and then begging him to model wwx’s jewellery harder. because yes, wwx has spent the last five days cooped up in his workshop making complex hand chains

now if he only had more than a memory to draw inspiration from...

it’s frustrating. wwx should have at least asked for his name and number. how can he be this stupid?

“very easily.” is jc’s reply to this

“jiang chengggg.” wwx whines, “i have to find him or my creativity will die a horrible death.”

jc looks like he is ageing before his eyes. “if i ask around the staff will you promise to only come to my office during emergencies? you’re freaking my students out.”

“yes!” wwx agrees enthusiastically, then frowns. “freaking them out? i’m so nice to everyone!”

“you tried to get at least five of my students to draw your pretty boy from description.” jc deadpans, “they think he’s a criminal.”

“a criminal after my heart, aha!” wwx says with finger guns.. and gets thrown out by jc for his efforts. it’s less gentle this time

a few days later, jc calls him, “apparently ‘his identity needs to be protected’. is he actually a criminal?”

“he was wearing gloves...” wwx mutters, “i’m kidding! not about the gloves, but i don’t think he’s a criminal.”

jc makes a doubtful noise on the other end. “well, whatever. so yeah, anyway, i can’t get wen qing to tell me anything. you can come bully her yourself if you dare to.”

“why does it have to be wen qing?” wwx groans, “she’ll roast me on low flame before she tells me anything. why couldn’t it be wen ning— wait. wen ning probably knows him too. jiang cheng i’m a genius!”

jc hangs up on him but it doesn’t dampen his spirits at all. he’s so close to finding him.

—•—

shoots where he has to hold objects for an extended period of time are already unkind to his muscles, but holding objects with /postures/ is even worse. his fingers are so stiff after his seven hour shoot with swarovski that when one of the assistants on set hands him a cup of warm tea, it slips right through his grip and shatters on the ground unceremoniously

everyone freezes, and then start to buzz around him, asking if he is feeling unwell or if he needs to sit down. because lwj never drops /anything/. it’s in his job description NOT to drop anything

god, lwj hates jewellery shoots the most

nhs hears about this, ofc. lwj suspects he can be at multiple places at a time. so lwj is neatly packed into a SUV and sent away to get a relaxing massage and manicure

lwj would usually put up a fight but his muscles have been aching for days and nhs has theatened to text his brother at least three times this week. he doesn’t want to risk a fourth

wen ning, the meek but kind masseuse greets him with a bow, “lan er-gongzi, are you well?”

lwj nods, and is about to ask about wn as well when he hears the door of the masseuse parlour bang open behind him

“you!” comes a shout and lwj turns around, alarmed

the man who accused him of stealing his own pictures is standing there, pointing a finger at him

“if i was unclear the last time, i did not steal those photographs.” lwj says

the man seems stunned for two seconds, then frowns. “steal.. i know that you didn’t steal them.”

lwj nods, then starts to walk further into the parlour- except for the hand that grips and brings him to a stop. lwj would usually rip his hand away, but the slight pressure sends pain shooting up his arm

and lwj definitely didn’t realise how stiff his muscles were until then. he must have made a noise, a mixture between surprise and a wince, because the man lets go immediately

“are you okay?” he asks, looking alarmed

lwj closes his eyes to compose himself

“wei-gongzi, what are you doing here?” lwj hears wen ning ask

“i came to find him.” the man replies

lwj’s eyes open in shock. find him? does he know of lwj’s identity? is he a fan of the novel? this has gotten way bigger than either lwj or nhs predicted if people are actively seeking him out

“i think you have misunderstood.” lwj says, projecting a calm exterior even though he’s feeling a little cornered. cornered.. by a single person... what has his life come to?

but today it’s one person, next... he doesn’t even want to think about it. he has never wanted to be in the public light and does not want the /crowd/ and god forbid- the /noise/ that comes with it

he had gotten comfortable in the happy equilibrium of popularity and anonymity- the only thing which had lured him into accepting this job and has kept him in it thus far

... and it seems to be crumbling right before his eyes

“what? no i haven’t. i wouldn’t forget your face.” the man says, “hey stop running away-“

but lwj is already walking past him to exit the massage parlour. he needs to call someone. nhs most probably. or a cab.

the other man is speedy though, and blocks him right at the door, extending his arms and legs to cover the width of the opening as if lwj was thinking of sneaking around him. (he was, but that’s not the point)

“okay maybe i’ve come across as creepier than expected.” the man says, “but i swear i just want your hands!”

[wen ning shakes his head furiously in the background]

the panic lwj feels must be enough to be showing on his usually blank face, because the man backtracks

“i mean- no- that came off as even creepier oh my god. i’m not a serial killer, i promise.”

[wen ning makes a big X over his head with his arms]

the man takes a deep breath and actually seems to think before speaking this time, “hi, my name is wei ying. i’m a jeweller by profession. what’s your name?”

“move aside.” lwj says.

“do you promise not to run and actually hear me out? because it was so hard to track you down, god, it took me a week!”

[wn texting nhs: pls come and save lwj i think he’s about to faint]

“a week...” lwj says, “you tracked me down for a week?”

“no! i mean yes but not in a stalker way!” wwx seems to be having a mini meltdown, “you know just nice good ol’ asking around about the cute guy i saw at the uni... not... stalking...”

luckily lwj’s phone begins to ring, cutting wwx off. [wen ning is very thankful for this. he doesn’t think having the police here would be good for business]

“brother.” lwj says, still a little strung up

“wangji, i’m almost there.”

“what?”

“huaisang told me you were ill,” lxc says, “and i was in the area so i told him i’d take you to the doctor.”

lwj turns to give wen ning a scathing look. “he exaggerated. i’m fine. you don’t have to come here.”

lwj doesn’t think his brother will take the fact that he has acquired a stalker well

“i’m outside.” lxc says

lwj resists the urge to sigh. he’s going to strangle everyone in this room, then himself

“i’ll be there in a minute then.” lwj says.

“i’m making my way to the parlour.” lxc says, disregarding him completely

“brother i can walk.” lwj says calmly. murder is on his mind.

lxc hangs up on him. lwj actually sighs this time.

“if you don’t want my brother to report you, you need to move aside.” lwj says to wwx.

wwx opens his mouth as if he wants to continue to dig himself into a hole, but then moves aside degectedly

then he removes a business card from his wallet and puts it in lwj’s shirt pocket.

“you can look me up, i’m not lying. i really am a jeweller and i’d like to work with you.” he says

before lwj can protest, lxc is already at the entrance, carrying what looks like half the pharmacy in a paperbag

“wangji.” he greets, and then pauses to nod politely at the other men, “let’s go.”

lwj follows him silently

—•—

wen ning sighs and flips the sign on the door to ‘closed’ resigning to the fact that wwx will remain a permanent fixture on his floor for a while

“so you thought he was a creepy thief and now he thinks you’re a creepy stalker?” wn asks.

wwx, who has told him all of this between groans, groans again.

“do you... want a free massage?” wn offers

“yes.”

lwj fights the urge to touch his shirt pocket while in the car with lxc.

“you need to go to the hospital wangji, you don’t look well.” lxc insists

“i will eat every medicine in that bag if you drop me off at huaisang’s office.” lwj replies

lxc looks alarmed, “you’ll definitely need to go to the hospital then.”

“i will eat every medicine in that bag if you /don’t/ drop me off at huaisang’s office.” lwj amends, neatly closing all the loopholes

“at least let me come with you.” lxc says in his last ditch attempt to find out exactly what has left his brother so rattled

“i will eat-“

“fine okay. i just worry about you, you know? you never tell me when something is bothering you anymore.” lxc says

“if it is important, i will tell you.” lwj says. he doesn’t want lxc to worry but also doesn’t want to lie.

lxc nods, accepting this, then turns the car around

—•—

“wei wuxian.” nhs raises an eyebrow at the card lwj has placed on his table. “this is the man who has been stalking you?”

lwj nods.

“are you certain?” nhs asks, looking conflicted.

lwj gives him a look.

“okay, okay! just making sure!” nhs says, raising his palms in defence.

“you know of him.” lwj states.

“well,” nhs says, “he didn’t lie to you, he really is a jeweller. he is very elusive though. he tends to drop these groundbreaking collections every fall and then disappears.”

lwj tries to align the man he met today with this talented, cryptic jeweller persona. if they really are the same person, then perhaps unhinged genius fits him better.

“if he’s serious about working with you...” nhs gets a gleam in his eyes that lwj doesn’t like. this is /not/ how he pictured this conversation going. he’s slowly but surely developing a migrane

“look, i’m never going to force you to do anything.” nhs says, “but will you let me speak to him first? i want to know if this he’s the real deal of if we need a restraining order.”

restraining order. this is escalating way past lwj’s mental capacity at the moment.

nhs seems to see that, “you need to go home and rest. i’ll have a masseuse meet you there. let me handle this.”

he says it with such firm conviction that lwj has no choice but to trust him, so he nods.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

[queenmorgawse]

a story about blood

a small piece about xy and wwx’s relationship in an au in which xy met yunmeng jiang sect quite earlier in his story. written for @baebeyza for the yiling wei server exchange. 

“Get lost, you damn brat!” 

The child scrambles off the road just in time not to get crushed by the next cart, cradling his wounded hand. Whatever reply he had dies in his throat, replaced with white-hot hatred almost too violent for his body to contain. 

When he makes to stand, a purple-clad arm grabs him and pulls him upright. “Hey, you alright?” 

Xue Yang almost spits in the stranger’s face. Who is he, to offer his pity? He didn’t stop Chang Ci’An, or shove his words back down his slimy throat. Everything else is secondary.

The boy in the purple robes doesn’t seem to share his thoughts. Either he’s oblivious to the daggers Xue Yang glares at him, or he simply doesn’t care. When he drags Xue Yang along, he has no choice but to follow. The teenager is bigger and stronger than he is ⎯ though it’s not saying much, given an underfed street rat must weight about as much as a drenched kitten. 

Before he can say anything, he’s sat down at an innkeeper’s table, facing another uniformed boy with a furrow between his brows, and the one who pulled him from the street has taken his maimed hand in his, pulling various bottles of salve from his sleeves.

Xue Yang snatches it back with a hiss. The nails of his good fingers rake across the back of the boy’s hand when he reaches for him, making him recoil in return. “Ow, what the hell?”

“That’ll teach you to pick up strays, Wei Ying,” the other grumbles. Xue Yang dislikes him on sight, with his lordling airs and the haughty purse of his lips. 

His friend - Wei Ying - has already recovered, rubbing at his grazed skin. “Shut up, Jiang Cheng,” he snaps back, though not unkindly. His eyes - gray as storm clouds - drift over to Xue Yang again. “I’m just trying to help, you know? Stop the bleeding.” 

“You’re a cultivator,” is all Xue Yang says. “Like the man in the cart.”

Wei Ying’s face falls. “Oh. Oh, no, I’m not like that.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen, if you don’t want me to touch you, it’s fine, I’ll just hand you the bandages, okay?” 

Xue Yang eyes him warily, then nods toward the steaming bowls set on the table before him. “And I want the soup too.”

Wei Ying throws his head back and laughs. “Okay, okay! Anyone ever told you you drive a hard bargain?” He slides a set of clean linen strips across the table at Xue Yang, who pounces upon them and stuffs most of them into his pockets before setting to wrapping up his still-bleeding hand. It’s a clumsy job, but better that than let some stranger move him around like a straw doll. 

When he’s done, he unceremoniously grabs one of the bowls and all but dumps the contents down his throat. The soup burns his palate, but when the hunger that’s been hounding him around starts to wane, it’s more than worth it. 

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng watch him eat, one with bright-eyed fondness and the other with mild indifference. 

“What do you want?” he asks when he’s done eating. It’s simple enough : in his life, no one has ever given something without asking for a favor in return. Though he fails to see what he could give some pampered young masters in exchange for his care, he has no doubt they have some ideas.

“Your name, first.”

“Xue Yang.” So he thinks, anyway. Whoever his mother was barely lived long enough for him to remember the sound of his own name in her voice. 

Here comes the real demand, then. He tenses, bracing himself for some other thankless task, maybe even money.

Instead, Wei Ying leans forward, drumming his fingers on the table. Jiang Cheng opens his mouth as if to try and stop him, then seems to think better of it and closes it, staring off to the side with a sullen look. “We saw you fight earlier. You don’t have technique, but you’re pretty fast on your feet, right? Xue Yang, have you ever been to Yunmeng?” 

-

Yunmeng is unlike anything Xue Yang has ever seen. The people there never sneer at him or kick him around, though that might be due to the new set of purple robes Wei Ying clumsily ties him into upon arrival. 

They're the nicest clothes Xue Yang has ever owned, though he gets blood on them less than a week later, viciously knocking the teeth of a too-touchy disciple with his wooden sword during training. Wei Ying has to wrestle him away by the neck of his clothes, loudly apologizing all the while. 

After, as he sullenly nurses the bruised cheek his opponent left him right after he got his hit in, Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng's shijie ( she's your shijie, too, Wei Ying told him solemnly, so you take care of her ) sits him down and serves him freshly steamed buns and a bowl of pork ribs and lotus soup.

Xue Yang doesn't dislike Jiang Yanli. She doesn't look like much, but he can tell being mean to her is not a wise choice – not only because he's been here long enough for him to notice her brothers glaring daggers at anyone foolish enough to be even mildly rude to her, but also because he might actually feel bad if she gets that disappointed look about her again. 

“You've got to get a hold of yourself, A-Yang,” she chides gently as she ladles another serving into his bowl. “One day, it'll have worse consequences than a bruised ego.”

“So what do I do?” He peers at her defiantly from behind his mop of dark hair. “Let people...do whatever they want? Like I'm small and–” Weak. Too weak to afford not being the first one to strike.

Jiang Yanli smiles a small, sad smile, and reaches to pat his head. She stops just short of touching his hair, her gaze interrogative. 

Xue Yang huffs and doesn't duck away. 

“It's alright, A-Yang.” Her voice is so soft, full of pity. Her hand is warm where it lays on top of his head. “You don't need to be strong all the time anymore. We'll be here to protect you.” 

He wants her to shut up. He wants her to never stop talking again. 

-

Jiang Yanli is a liar, Xue Yang thinks, as the Lotus Pier comes crashing down around him. Her words ring in his ears as he crawls through the smoke, close to coughing his lungs out, the only thing holding him back the looming presence of Wen troops among the ruins. 

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that she isn't here, or that Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng's fates are uncertain, or that the people he reluctantly started calling his martial brothers and sisters lay in pools of their own blood around him. The other shoe had to drop eventually. 

Not all of the cultivators involved in the massacre of the Lotus Pier die at the Yiling Patriarch's hands. Some breathe their last in the dark, as a sword called Jiangzai carves their flesh off their bones, piece by piece.

Wei Ying finds him again, a handful of months later. There is little left of Yunmeng in him, save for the silver bell he tied to Jiangzai's hilt in a fit of sentimentality. 

“You’ve been busy,” his shixiong remarks. When his eyes sweep over the scene - gore strewn across the floor, the white of Wen robes almost entirely overtaken by grime -, his eyes glow red as coals.

Xue Yang shrugs. “No more than you have, apparently.” His sleeves are meticulously clean, though his boots have been steeped in blood for longer than he cares to count. Jiang Yanli would point out the change in him, the cruel edge he always carried with him sharpened to a fine point.  

Then again, Wei Ying - Wei Wuxian, really, as few dare call him by his birth name now - is not the way he used to be either. Something about him reminds Xue Yang of a corpse risen from the grave, no longer afraid to die, inevitable.

He doesn't flinch when he looks down at the corpse Xue Yang made. It barely resembles a man anymore : lingchi has made a puddle of flesh out of him, white bones peeking out of the crimson wreck. 

“I’m surprised no one’s come after you yet. Does everyone approve of your methods?” Even as Wei Wuxian speaks, he sounds like he already knows what answer to expect.

“Am I supposed to care whether they do?” Their home didn’t burn, as far as Xue Yang’s concerned. Well, the Cloud Recesses did, but he’s never known the Lans to be the vengeful type.

Wei Wuxian breaks into a grin. It should have been familiar, as the same lopsided smile he sported whenever his kite flew higher than any of the other disciples or when he pulled one of them into the lake by their ankles, but it is frightening now.

At least, Xue Yang imagines it should be. In it, he can only find a mirror of his own. 

“Anyway,” Wei Wuxian continues with a tilt of his head towards the corpses at their feet, “I came to take care of these, but it looks like you’ve got everything handled.”

“I want to come with you.” The words slip past his lips before he can think them through. “That’s not all of them. Wen Chao’s not dead yet.” 

Hatred stays with you, he realizes. After so many years without truly feeling it, Xue Yang finds that he hasn’t forgotten its taste.

For the first time since the beginning of their talk, Wei Wuxian seems to waver. “Are you sure?” His gaze takes on a wistful tinge, like the words in his mouth aren’t his own. “Whatever happens, no one will ever look at you the same. You’ll be walking the single-plank bridge with me.” 

The implication hangs in the air between them : one stumble, and he will fall. And, of course, there will be no turning back from this.

“You think I don’t know that?” Xue Yang crosses his arms, chin raised, defiant. “I’ve already gone this far anyway. If you can do it, I can do it.” 

Something tugs at the corners of Wei Wuxian’s lips, almost like a smile. 

-

“Eat or I’ll pour it down your throat myself.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Wen Qing.” Still, Wei Wuxian reaches for the bowl. Up close, Xue Yang can see what the man himself is refusing to admit : that he’s grown thinner and gaunter with every passing day, crumbling into a shell of himself. 

Taking advantage of Wei Wuxian’s distraction, Xue Yang skirts around him and snatches up a page of his notes. It’s covered in scrambly handwriting, as if jotted down in a hurry, but he’s had enough practice by now to decipher the bare bones of it. 

“What’s a…” He squints. “...Stygian Tiger Seal?”

Weu Wuxian whirls towards him, wild-eyed. “Put it back!” 

Xue Yang raises his hands, cocking an eyebrow at the other. “Not until you tell me what it does.”

For a moment, he thinks Wei Wuxian might actually strike him. He draws himself up to his full height, resentful energy gathering around him quiet as thunder ⎯ and then the fight goes out of him, and he slumps onto the slab of stone he calls a chair again. “It’s supposed to help me,” he explains, running a hand through his soot-stained hair. “It should control the corpses better than I do on my own, like a catalyst.” 

Xue Yang considers the notes with newfound interest. “It could change everything.”

“If I manage to do it,” Wei Wuxian points out. “And if I do, you’ll have to keep it to yourself.” At the lack of change in Xue Yang’s expression, he adds, “I mean it. In the wrong hands, it’ll be carnage.”

And what do you plan to bring with it, if not carnage? 

He can see, though, that Wei Wuxian will not answer him. The Yiling Patriarch is already lost in thoughts again, half-emptied bowl abandoned on the side as he grabs a stick of charcoal and starts to sketch, muttering something about swords and giant tortoises.

For lack of something better to do, Xue Yang gathers a few more scrolls from under his nose, settles into one of of cave’s corners and starts to read.

-

For better or for worse, Wei Wuxian’s prediction comes true. When, under the cover of night, Xue Yang comes to see the remnants of Nightless City, he can find no other word to describe the scene but carnage. 

-

On the last day of autumn, a young man boldly strolls into the Unclean Realm. The cultivators who first run into him will remember him grinning even as his throat bobbed against a saber’s blade, upper lip pulling up over little sharp teeth, until the Sect Leader steps in to break off the fight and announce - to everybody's surprise - he will receive his honored guest in his own desk.

“That artefact you mentioned...” Nie Huaisang starts, snapping his fan shut once the door closes behind them. For a moment, two beasts seize each other up, black against gold. “Do you have it?” 

“I thought your being daft was only a facade, Headshaker,” the other snaps back. Still, he reaches into his sleeve. Nie Huaisang’s gaze follows his hand as it draws out a slab of stone shaped like a tiger’s head, crude in design yet unmistakable. 

Half of the Stygian Tiger Seal dangles from the young man’s hand. Nie Huaisang has had the occasion to see the original once - granted, from a distance, and not for very long -, but he can tell that though this is a an attempt to recreate Wei Wuxian’s invention, it’s a skilled one. “It’s rather pretty, but does it work?”

His interlocutor shrugs. “You don’t have the other half, do you? I thought you’d have it ready, since you were only in the market for half of it.”

“I will procure it,” he says, perhaps a little more forcefully than he meant to. “In the meantime…”

Nie Huaisang considers the missing half, his eyes heavy-lidded. When he looks up, his gaze has taken on a sharper glint. “It seems we’ve got ourselves a deal, young master Xue.”

[axelsandwich]

Sorting The Untamed characters

In which I have a lot of feelings about sorting The Untamed characters into @sortinghatchats​ classifications because I’m a LOSER NERD WITH FEELINGS : D

Wei Wu Xian - Gryffindor primary/Gryffindor secondary

WWX’s Gryff energy is like….what are you so LOUD for. There’s nothing he can do other than stick to his morals and principles and what his gut is telling him is the right thing to do, no matter the cost. Even if it makes him public enemy number one of the cultivation world, even if it exiles him from his family and clan, even if it goes against everything he was taught and involves helping and saving his worst enemies - see: Wen clan in Xuanwu cave, the cultivators in Burial Mound after losing their spiritual powers due to Su She. This is someone who adheres brightly and with his all to his principles simply because it is the RIGHT thing to do and he knows this with unshaken conviction and is steady once he discovers this, which has its own power. 

Honestly I was actually initially thinking between Slytherin with Claw and Claw secondary because WWX has an improvisational streak to him, managing to thrive even when thrown into the worst of circumstances with a combination of his own prodigious skill and flexibility when it comes to drastically relearning the dark arts to compensate for a lack of golden core. But here’s the passage that convinced me otherwise: “it is a Gryffindor’s stark, direct honesty makes them them feel the most secure. Lies, or even misdirects, are slippery footing. For a Gryffindor Secondary, their blunt honesty is a facet of their personality and their morality—lying about who or why you are taints the victory. A Gryffindor Secondary can and will lie if the cause is important enough— but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth the same way trusting a stranger with their honesty might terrify a Slytherin Secondary.” The blunt honest is self-evident in…well, WWX’s entire existence lmao but even when young in the Gusu Lan sect. But what convinces me is after WWX gets Chenqing and the way the great lie about why he doesn’t use Suibian anymore is framed afterwards. It kills WWX to lie about all that he is, it’s presented as one of the fundamental tragedies of his story - the ultimate betrayal of himself that he makes for a greater purpose and in pursuit of his Gryff primary ideals. The fact it’s not treated lightly or as a tool to be used to achieve his goals is what makes him a Gryff secondary. 

He models a Claw’s curiosity and intellectual fascination with questioning the world order and a Slytherin’s keen eye for motivations and people, but ultimately it comes down to that red thread of charging when backed into a corner - quite literally, he charges towards the Xuanwu, out of Chiongqi Road with the Wen prisoners, into the plaza of cultivators calling for his ashes, directly into Guanyin temple where Jingyi is in danger; he puts himself in harm’s way without a second thought when his gut is telling him he’s right to do so. He also has the classic Gryff secondary trait of amassing an accidental army in his wake of the most unlikely people, all transformed by his draw and that irresistible quality of truth to him. 

Lan Wang Ji - Gryffindor primary/Ravenclaw secondary

LWJ is a quiet version of the Gryffindor primary, raised in a culture that forces him into like…the strongest of all Ravenclaw models. He adheres strictly and obediently to the Lan clan’s system of the world because in his mind, it was the right thing to do… until WWX forces him to re-examine his morality, about what he was taught and everything he believed was right. And when his model of the world is challenged, what he ultimately goes with is…his heart. Not necessarily because his morality is guided by how WWX is his in the same way of Slytherin/Hufflepuff’s personal morality, but because WWX embodies the new insight that nothing is truly black or white in the way his clan’s system has taught; because LWJ feels that WWX is good, even when every other rule he’s been taught is saying otherwise and, little by little, he rebels quietly by dismantling those systems that once shaped his worldview. 

LWJ wrestles visibly with this the entire flashback arc of the drama, unable to bring himself to denounce WWX despite all the ‘bad’ he had done all the way until the Nightless City battle and when push came to shove, at the very end, he still chose to clutch onto WWX’s hand until WWX made the choice for him to let go. I do think he was ‘stripped’ by the experience - his internal compass, sense of purpose, and even sense of worth broken by the loss of WWX and that’s what he spends 16yrs atoning and suffering for. After WWX’s revival, he accordingly sets himself up against the cultivation world with no hesitation because he’s had 16yrs to regret not following his Gryff primary heart that said WWX’s way of seeing the world is right and he’s not going to falter again. 

Ravenclaw secondary bc……his first instinct when his boyfriend was changed by demonic cultivation was to flip the library upside down trying to find a cure and try to invent a whole ass song to cure him nghghghshf. But yes, he’ll fall back on systems, skills and knowledge he’s carefully built from the ground up when backed in a corner, drawing on what he’s known and carefully cultivated, looking through resources to try and gain more knowledge. 

Wen Qing - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

Wen Qing’s morality and driver is very simple. It’s her brother at the start, her family, and gradually expands as people help him and - by extension - her: WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng. For them, she’ll betray the wider clan with very few qualms because they’re not her people and those who are hers come first. She connects with Jiang Cheng on the basis of both their Slytherin primaries, but understands immediately that he would never have gone with her to rescue Wen Ning because while she may tentatively be one of ‘his’ people in his mind, Wen Ning isn’t, and so any future with him is tragically unaccepted. When it comes down to sacrificing even the brother she holds so dear, she does it in the hope that her people - WWX and her wider family by proxy - may be saved from the cultivation world’s wrath. She’s a Slytherin secondary because she’s adaptable and able to draw on whatever skills she needs and be who she needs to be to achieve her goals, with a knack for zeroing in precisely on people’s true motivations and what will and won’t work with a cultivation society looking to find a bad guy. You can bet she’s the one who figured out how to trick Jiang Cheng into believing he could get his golden core back. It’s telling that her most emotional moments are when she lays down all her defences and sincerely speaks from the heart - whether it’s crying over Wen Ning’s body or thanking Wei Wu Xian and apologising. ; _ ; Wen Qing is a good egg. 

Jiang Cheng - Slytherin primary/Gryff secondary

It’s clear from the start that Jiang Cheng’s morality revolves around his family who are his and come above everyone else, along with his pride (but we’re not gonna talk about thatttt...). His impassioned plea of ‘it was enough to just save ourselves, why did you have to save them’ re: bringing the Wen clan wrath upon the Jiang clan proves he could never see eye to eye with WWX’s Gryffindor primary that demands what is right be applied to all, and therein lies the source of their feud, when we get to the pointy end and doing what’s right involves a lot more sacrifice and hardship. Jiang Cheng’s very specialised loyalty is tested over and over throughout the beginning of the series by outsiders casting suspicion on WWX’s motivations, pricking at his pride and his deep set insecurities about his own position and whether he’s actually loved by the people he’s claimed as his own and also on their priority list (see: his father, WWX). 

What truly makes him give up and cut WWX out of his circle is when WWX himself says ‘I exile myself from the tribe’. In Jiang Cheng’s eyes, to betray the people who are yours is what is unforgivable and impossible to understand, and that’s what comes out as the most deeply buried point of pain in Guanyin temple and what’s driven JC’s anger the last sixteen years. That doesn’t make him any less of an extreme Gryff secondary than WWX, whether it’s charging straight into the feared Burial Mound where no one’s ever come out alive just to drag his brother out and confront him about all the problems directly, to confronting WWX directly in Lotus Cove, to marching into Guanyin temple’s front door. Which is probably why they fight. We also find out in the end that Jiang Cheng is fully capable of the same dumb self sacrifice that WWX made for him. Ironically, both of their actions boil down to ‘I must protect my brother’, except where WWX does it because it’s right, Jiang Cheng does it because that’s his brother. 

Jin Guangyao - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

WWX’s diametric opposite. I do think he seems like a petrified Slytherin - Guanyin temple arc reveals that his world once comprised at least of himself and his mother, and perhaps the idealised image of who his father would be, and he strove and strove until his father shattered all his dreams, until his world narrows until it’s ultimately and dangerously comprised of just himself. I do think Nie Mingjue, Su She, Qin Su and Lan Xichen came the closest to who he would consider ‘his’ people, but even that falls away as they ‘betray’ him and because his actions are ultimately guided by his loyalty only to himself, and warps exactly what he interprets as ‘betrayal’. This is what allows him to betray them when they ultimately fall out of line with JGY’s priorities and give them such cruel endings despite how much he professes to treasure them. It’s what creates his resentment against NMJ that festers until it leads to NMJ’s demise - in JGY’s eyes, to throw aside everything in their relationship for the sake of some lowly, subhuman captain who’s always treated JGY with contempt and to keep holding it against him is incomprehensible, unforgivable. It’s also why LXC stabbing him is met with such choking disbelief and anger - because JGY, true to his word, would have never entertained the concept of betraying a person who was proving to be his and LXC was his last hope. His secondary Slytherin allows him to transform and shift with the wind, shedding personas and layers as easily as water, the same way it pains WWX to do the same. 

Nie Huaisang - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary 

Jin Guangyao’s equal and foil, ironically also putting up a very self-entered front in the world where it seems like he only cares about his own self interests but quietly loyal to a select number of people who are his - WWX, his elder brother - and will quietly work in the shadows playing the long con to systematically dismantle everything about the person he despises. Slytherin secondary allows him to make himself a fool without any qualms about it not being a reflection of his true face or authentic self, and pull the puppet strings on even those he cares about until he gets to where he wants to be. 

Lan XiChen - Ravenclaw primary/Ravenclaw secondary

Xichen sticks much more closely to what his clan’s systems are and his carefully constructed understanding of the world and that’s what both blinds him to JGY and shakes his worldview so heavily when JGY reveals himself to be a villain. But his felt morality, guided by the system of being just and fair is also what allows him to reject JGY and entertain the possibility of his betrayal. A Slytherin primary may stubbornly cling to faith in a person that he sees as ‘his’ person, but a Ravenclaw primary will feel guilty and immoral to be sticking with them despite knowing they’re betraying the system of justice that he prides above all. It’s what allows him to be an ally to both WWX/LWJ and JGY for the latter half of the series, trying to understand and question the logical holes in WWX and LWJ’s arguments. Where WWX and LWJ don’t have evidence for JGY being evil, they can feel it in their guts and they charge towards getting that evidence based on those convictions. LXC on the other hand may sense something in his gut but he will not act against JGY without being convinced of said evidence, until he is certain of what the real truth is and will methodically keep digging and questioning the evidence being presented to him until it becomes undeniable. It’s also telling that his anger when Huaisang manipulates him into stabbing JGY is not so much about the fact he betrayed his friend (which is the key pain point that JGY angrily latches onto) but that Huaisang may have been lying, that LXC may have acted on something that was not true and he had been unable to see through that. It’s a subtle difference I think, but what separates his primary. I think his Ravenclaw secondary is pretty obvious in the thoroughness of his methods and the ways we’ve seen him dodge the Wen clan, to be willing to work with JGY during the Sunshot Campaign. It requires flexibility of thinking and drawing on a range of resources and that’s what LXC quietly excels at. 

Jiang Yanli & Wen Ning - Hufflepuff primary/Hufflepuff secondary

Both are honestly quite similar — they’ll hold onto their belief in the basic goodness of all people, regardless of allegiance and regardless of their past history and that’s the source of what endears them to people and why they manage to build an army of people who would die and care for them when push comes to shove. 

The little we see of both Yanli and Wen Ning’s way of operating from a secondary perspective revolves around being of service to others, being a source of reliability, support and consistency, quietly building, strengthening and contributing to their little community. Wen Ning quietly and diligently attends to WWX’s protection at all times, reliably taking on the roles allocated to him with a genuine commitment to performing them to his best ability. 

When they ‘fight’, they fight by drawing on their resources, through a thorough, systematic and relentless persistance. A Li’s approach to the battle of words on Phoenix Mountain is an example of this - she draws upon her position, her knowledge of what is ‘proper’ to do within the community and the goodwill she’s built with Madame Jin to subtly dismantle Jin Zixun’s arguments while still pleasantly entrapping him in the niceties of the community she’s a part of without alienating herself the same way WWX can’t help but do with his bluntness. When JC threatens to push WWX to the limits of his endurance, Wen Ning defends WWX through words, standing up again and again despite being violently thrown back and systematically dismantling all of JC’s defence mechanisms by thoroughly and sincerely pushing back on every false claim and even urging JC to call on the community to verify the truth of his words. They’re indomitable, stubborn and effective and that’s Puff/Puff energy right there.

Jin Ling - Gryff primary/Gryff secondary

Gryff primary…why are you so LOUD for Pt 2. Poor Jingyi, two Gryff secondary uncles and father…he had no chance lmaaaao. Impulsive, reckless, absolutely a ‘charge first and ask questions later’ kid and screaming Gryff secondary. Will bash a hole in a wall when he’s denied entry and get caught by the skeleton demons than like…find another way around, you know? Or charge into Guanyin temple without much second thought. His Gryff primary and his gut morality of what is right - aka. trusting WWX and treating him with fairness - ultimately wins against him being pushed hard into the whole ‘pride in your clan only’ angle by his Slytherin primary uncle, and that’s what allows him to become a WWX duckling (begrudgingly) despite all his puffery and objections. It’s also what lets him survive and accept the betrayal of seeing his other uncle revealed as a villain and how he’s able to reject JGY when his misdeeds become undeniable. I also think it’s super cute he’s the same type as WWX, honestly...it’s why I love their dynamic. He’s the young, unjaded version of his uncle.    

Lan Sizhui - Puff primary/Gryff secondary with a Claw model?

There’s a kindness to Shizui that he extends to Mo Xuanyu, Jin Ling and Wen Ning against convention and despite - in Jin Ling’s case - how hard he tries to create distance in that relationship that makes me think Puff primary and his determination to see everyone as people to be respected. I feel like we don’t see enough of Sizhui in action to really be able to determine his secondary - he has something of secondary Puff/Claw vibes in the way he comes across as quietly diligent, reliable and insightful, but he’s also got a certain amount of fire when he needs to - grabbing people’s legs as a kid, making a move towards possessed Song Lan in Yi City despite WWX telling them all to get out, brawling with the other ducklings when tied up, rushing recklessly back up the Burial Mound path to find WWX and LWJ who were holding back the ghouls etc. Maybe a secret Gryff secondary that’s normally held in place by a Claw or Puff model. 

[wei-suibian]

TCGF+SV AU

Or basically, an Au i’m never going to actually write, but post snipets off because it’s fun. I’ve seen lots of BingQiu adopting little WWX, and i raise you, XL adopting little LBH. This Au works within the assumption that all MXTX novels hapen in the same universe, but different continents. Also, this first part doesn’t tell you much, next one to follow shortly, be ware of knives.

Part 2: HERE

1- Luo BingHe's suffering 

Luo BingHe was an orphan raised by a washerwoman. He was an orphan, abandoned by the Luo river, left to be carried by the currents and meet the fate the heavens had planned for him. His adoptive mother- His mother, was a sweet and caring woman, who had not even enough to feed herself and worked to the bone everyday, but even so took him in and cherished him as her own flesh and blood.

He was raised poor, but loved.

As soon as he was old enough to understand the world, his mind was filled with the tought that he wished he could do more for her, make it so their lives wouldn't be so harsh. He owed it to her. She would bring back from the house she served in all the leftover food, given to her when she begged enough. They would give her the oldest and most worn out books and permitted her to take them home if she worked twice as hard the next few days.

She would grovel and kneel, asking for the scraps of cloth the young masters no longer used, saying she needed to make some robes for winter or she would freeze to death. The household master only agreed to stop hearing her babbling, always making sure he got something in return, of course. Everytime his mother came back with bruises on her wrists and a pale face, Luo BingHe wanted nothing more than to disappear, so she wouldn't have to suffer like this.

All the scraps of food were for him. The books, she gave to him so he learnt to read and write, hoping he could be better than her, who never had the chance to stop being illiterate. The scraps of cloth were woven into simple winter robes that he wore so as to not freeze to death, his mother's touch in every stitch and flower embroidered on his sleeves.

Everything she did, she did for him. And he yearned for the day when he would stop being a burden. That was why, when he was five, he ran to the streets and began doing anything he could to bring back whatever he could get his hands on; food, clothes, wood to fix their ceiling, anything was fine. He didn't care if he had to beg, or cry, or steal.

He was willing to do anything to help the only family he ever had.

More often than not, stores would let him take the nearly spoiled ingredients or the scraps that were about to be tossed out, and he learnt that his skills in cooking were good. Luo BingHe taught himself to write, read, and perfected his kitchen techniques over the course of a year, his books a great help.

Although he usually didn't have many ingredients, his talent was obvious. His dishes always tasted delicious, and his mother always smiled and praised him when she ate his food. It made him extremely happy. Happy enough that he didn't notice the signs that something was wrong until it was too late.

One day everything was fine, and then it wasn't.

His mother died, utterly exhausted, alone in their home when he went to beg to the household master for a bowl of congee, worried for his mother's thin body. He hadn't been able to gather any food lately, people storing even the smallest of scraps for winter, so his only choice was to cry and beg at his mother's employer for some food, even just a little.

He was denied. And when he returned home, the cold, lifeless body of his mother was what greeted him. He stood still for what seemed like hours, and then cried for so long he didn't know if it was days, or weeks. When he was clear-headed enough to steady himself, he found out his mother had left him a small letter and a jade pendant.

The letter said to sell the pendant to buy food and survive, to look for a job and do whatever he needed to do to keep on living. She told him she loved him, that he was her son, and she was really proud of him. Luo BingHe knew that this letter wasn't written by her, she'd probably paid someone to write it in her stead. And that only meant she knew she was going to die soon, and she'd said nothing.

The feeling in his gut couldn't be explained in words. It was stronger than guilt. It hurt.

He ignored his mother's wishes and tried to sell the pendant to arrange a funeral for her. The store owner just threw him out, called him a swindler, sneered at his face, and told him to get lost. Luo BingHe returned home like a drifting spirit, empty and soulless.

'I cannot even give my mother a worthy funeral.' He lamented and wept, kowtowing by her bed in repentance. In the end, he had to take her out himself, and bury her under the tree in the small backyard, with only a wooden scrap with her written name to mark the place where she would forever rest. It took him all evening to do it, and, by the time he was done, it was already night, the cold biting at his skin, the stench of his own vomit making him want to gag once more.

After that, life was harsher than even before. He was left alone, too young to properly take care of himself in any way that was useful. He was only six and a half, no one would hire him, and with time, people were less and less willing to give him food as winter came full-force, and the other street rats had their eyes on him, hateful stares in the direction of the one stealing their meals.

Still, he would try everyday, then return to his run-down house, nearly frozen by the low temperature, hungry and cold and wondering if he would survive to see spring. His hut had leaks, and the rain got in, making everything moldy and humid as he slept on the floor, unable to bring himself to lay on the bed that was his mother's last resting place.

There was always a draft when the wind blew, and the chill seemed to have gotten under his skin and into his bones. He couldn't find warmth no matter how much he tried, he was weak and powerless and tired. He thought things couldn't get worse. And then a flood came and his only home was swept away by the current, leaving him on the streets and with nothing but the clothes on his body and the jade pendant his mother gave him.

Things only got worse from there on out.

The orphaned kids on the streets were ruthless, they hit him and slandered him, kicked and punched and wounded him in every way possible, be it physical or mental. He was beaten black and blue, chased from alleys and corners, unable to rest and growing more and more weary by the day. He didn't know how he did it, but he managed to live for a year, doing things he'd never thought of doing, whatever dignity he had left trampled under his own foot as he tried to fulfil his mother's last wish: survive.

He'd managed to avoid those street rats well enough, being smarter than them and finding hiding places they could only dream off. He'd barely seen them once a week or so, moving from one end of the city to another, never staying in the same spot. After so long, he thought he'd grown numb, that nothing could hurt anymore.

And then they spoke ill of his mother, and he snapped.

Something inside him broke, like a dam, and a current swept by his body and veins, making him burn and thrum with energy, his forehead feeling like the sun was scorching his skin, but the sky was cloudy. The kids started screaming that he was a demon, that he had red eyes, and the adults came instantly running- Not out of fear for the kids that had no one to care for them, but for the possibility of someone dangerous nearby.

They brandished knives and sickles, sticks and stones, and approached him as they shouted and yelled that he was a monster, their eyes filled with hate and disgust. Luo BingHe didn't know what was going on, he turned his head and saw a mark shining bright red like blood being reflected on a piece of glass, felt the wisps of dark energy swirl around his body and felt his breath leave him.

The villagers were eager to kill him, shouting 'monster', 'demon', 'abomination'. They surrounded him as he screamed, his body littered with cuts and stabs that would begin to heal as soon as they were inflicted, only prompting the villagers to cut him more, hit him more, stab deeper, harder, not letting him time to breathe.

He cried and begged, pleaded for mercy, but no one listened to him.

It hurt. It hurt so much. He just wanted it to stop.stop.stop.STOP.

Something burst, lashing out and breaking both his body and the earth under his back. The sky lit up with flames, people screamed and shouted and ran, and Luo BingHe's vision filled with red, then black. By his side, a dark swirl gurgled and dripped, like ink slowly tainting the floor, coating it in a syrupy liquid that sizzled as it made contact. Nothing could be seen inside this space, and no sound seemed to come from it. It was just pitch black nothingness, like an abyss.

Curses came anew, the people were regaining their wits and approaching him again, ignoring the rift that floated right besides his body. Maybe they can't see it? Was what he thought. But he had no time to ponder over this. The villagers, now fueled by anger and fear, ran at him with the intention to run him through.

On one side, he had a hateful mob ready to torture and kill him. On the other, a mysterious and ominous portal that could lead to instant death. Presented with a slow and painful death filled with endless suffering and the possibility of immediate relief, Luo BingHe chose instant death, and immediately leap through the rift, disappearing without a trace.

The shadows swallowed him whole, and he blacked out.

He thought he would die, but when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a place he didn't recognize, rain hitting his face, laying on an empty alley littered with countless cloth and scraps, proof that other beggars lived there. The roofs were different from what he was accustomed to, the windows bigger and rounder, and when he staggered to a main street, he found out the faces that passed by were unknown to him, new.

He was in a city he didn't recognize, but that was a good thing. He covered his forehead with his messy hair, tried to cover his wounds with his tattered robes as he felt how they slowly healed, and plopped down on the corner of an alley, waiting for his body to stop hurting so he could go and beg for food.

His body never did stop hurting, and he rarely slept. Everytime someone tried to be gentle with him, he brushed them away and ran, hoarding his food and water and trying his best to keep himself alive, trusting no one. That alley became his home for the foreseeable future, a place to return to in which he stayed for a long six months.

One would say he adapted very fast, but after all, homeless was homeless. The streets were the streets. The city didn't matter. It was the same eveywhere.

Nothing changed.

Until it did.

[robininthelabyrinth]

eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Would be awesome if you continued the nmj&wwx sworn brothers fic! I'm not good at giving plot prompts, but I really would just love to see your take on nmj's character, and how he would interact with wwx. I found it interesting that wwx in the untamed was really respectful of nmj when they met, not like how he was in Cloud Recesses. I wanted to see more of how they might interact if they had closer relationship. (Of course also hoping that changes things for the better!)

sequel to this

Wei Wuxian hated to admit it, but being Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother made a world of difference.

People looked him in the eye now, no matter what sort of atrocities were ascribed to him; there was still fear in their gazes, but now it was more like respect – and even more like confidence. He hadn’t realized how many people looked at him as a child, lashing out wildly in all directions, maddened like a rabid dog in his search for vengeance, nor how relieved they would be to know that his sins could be answered for by someone universally viewed as capable enough to keep him down.

It wasn’t just that most people would put money on Baxia against just about everything else – Wei Wuxian counted himself among that crowd – but also, just…Nie Mingjue.

Nie Mingjue was a stern man, short in both temper and speech, but he was straightforward and decisive. He had listened to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng lay out the benefits of their position, taken an evening to consider, and accepted promptly the next morning; the ceremony had been held at a convenient moment a few days after that, and then he’d invited them both to dinner – Wei Wuxian, as his new brother, and Jiang Cheng as the brother of his brother.

At first, Wei Wuxian couldn’t quite put his finger on what changed after that – it was similar to the way Nie Mingjue had treated them both before, when he was their general and they his lieutenants, but also significantly different. He was still harsh, still fiercely opinionated, still straightforward as ever, as generous in words of discipline as he was sparse in words of praise; was it only that his eyes were softer? That he sometimes felt free to put his hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder? That he listened to him, was open to interruptions no matter what time of day or night, asked him for meaningless favors and did them for him in return?

“It almost reminds me of shijie,” Wei Wuxian told Jiang Cheng. “If she were as tall and strong as a bear, and a lot more willing to correct me…almost like Madame Yu, but not as bitter. Yet there’s something of Uncle Jiang there as well: he trusts me to do things, but he’s also there to keep an eye on it – not in an offensive way, you know? Just there in case something goes wrong…it’s very reassuring, somehow. Like having a mountain at your back, keeping you steady.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jiang Cheng said. “All that – you’re just saying he’s acting like he’s your big brother.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.

Jiang Cheng’s cheeks were red and his eyes averted. “Don’t you know you’re just the same to me?” he muttered, and shoved Wei Wuxian’s shoulder briefly before fleeing, and Wei Wuxian felt a glow of warmth that filled his entire body from head to toe that kept him floating through the next week.

He’s never had a da-ge before, which was probably why he was so slow on the uptake. Nie Mingjue doesn’t so much as blink an eye when Wei Wuxian started calling him that – warily at first, like a bit of mischief that he could play off as a joke if he was rejected, and then quickly enough with confidence, smug and arrogant the way he’d been before the war started, when he’d still had the Jiang sect to hold up the sky for him no matter what he did.

After all, who would dare get in his face with Chifeng-zun at his back?

Nie Huaisang’s frivolity suddenly made a great deal more sense. He was just spoiled!

-

Jiang Cheng benefited as well, which he wouldn’t have necessarily expected but perhaps should have. Wei Wuxian came across them talking, late one night, and sits in a tree to listen the quiet stories they shared – the burden of being Sect Leader, of needing to honor one’s ancestors and keep their traditions alive while also preserving the lives that had been entrusted to them in this lifetime; the crushing emptiness of realizing that the task for which your entire life has been a preparation had suddenly arrived and there was no one else for it but you; the need for vengeance against those who had robbed you of your parents and childhood all in one go.

Even the struggles Wei Wuxian hadn’t known anything about: the lack of respect from elders who thought they knew better because they still saw you as a child, the need to play politics with small sect leaders eager to take advantage of weakness now to benefit later, the isolating realization that almost everyone you met wanted something from you.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian said to Nie Mingjue, after, his face solemn in a way it rarely was. “He’s holding up a corner of the world, all by himself, and I didn’t know how to help him.”

Nie Mingjue nodded; he didn’t shrug things off the way Wei Wuxian did, always took things that were meant to be serious as seriously – it had been such a shock when Lan Xichen had mentioned off-handedly that he was only seven years older than they were; he’d been Sect Leader for as long as Wei Wuxian could remember. If someone told Wei Wuxian that Nie Mingjue had been carved from stone rather than born, he would have believed it, excepting only that his heart could not have been stone.

“It’s something I can do, so I did,” he said, meaning that it was nothing when it was everything. “Perhaps one day you’ll tell me what it is that I can do for you.”

Caught, Wei Wuxian gaped, then tried to turn it into a joke, but Nie Mingjue just patted him on the shoulder and went his own way.

He never pressed, never asked, just accepted things as they were. As long as Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation was used for righteousness and killing Wens, Nie Mingjue would let him keep any other secrets he might have, pursue any aims, let him do as he liked.

And yet it was that permissiveness that led Wei Wuxian to start to wonder if maybe he should tell Nie Mignjue what he’d done, the choices he’d make, the sacrifices – he didn’t think Nie Mingjue would judge him harshly for it. He might even understand it, especially when the only thing that made the man smile were Nie Huaisang’s occasional letters complaining about having to do all the paperwork back at the Unclean Realm where he was safe.

He still wasn’t sure, though, so he didn’t, holding himself back, and then one evening not long after he had finished forging the Stygian Tiger seal – Jiang Cheng had banished him to Nie Mingjue’s side at once upon realizing the appalling power of it, knowing as well as Wei Wuxian did that the cultivation world would be terrified if they didn’t believe it was firmly under control – Nie Mingjue told him about how his father had died. Not the part that everyone knew, his saber sabotaged, broken during a night hunt, the spiritual effect rebounding on him to drive him six months later into a qi deviation long before his time; but why the sabers were so important to the Nie clan.

The foremost mission of the Qinghe Nie was to suppress evil wherever they found it: to uphold justice and abhor that which stood against it, to strike fearlessly against it no matter what they faced, whether wind or lightning. But such a mission required blood to be spilled, blood and blood again – like the executioner who took upon himself the duty of sending criminals onwards, allowing the rest of the community to sleep untroubled, those who took on such a duty invariably became targets of resentful energy, the final vengeance of the evil they slaughtered to save the innocent.

Invariably, there were times – times of war, as there was now – when it was necessary to wield violence in pursuit of righteousness. For the Nie, unlike other sects, violence was a virtue, and it could not be purged through a retreat from the world, the application of countless treasures and cleansing rituals inaccessible to most; their philosophy did not allow them to close their eyes and ears to injustice.

And so they did not rest. They killed in the name of justice and righteousness, killed and killed again; they cultivated their sabers as spiritual weapons, letting them absorb the resentful energy from beasts and monsters in order to better defeat evil that other sects could not, and at last cultivated the saber spirits, rich in resentful energy of their own but devoted only to defeating evil. The saber spirits were nourished by the cultivation of their chosen master, their resentful energy filtered and cleansed and purified, but that process was a burden, sparking the infamously short tempers of the Nie clan, with both temper and saber spirit held tightly in check only by their iron discipline.

The Nie sect leaders, who bore on their shoulders not only their own karma but that of those who followed them – their lives were a sacrifice, always balanced on the edge of a blade: the need to always control the saber spirit, to appease it and tame it, made them more susceptible than most to qi deviation, and absent one of them breaking the seal of cultivation or some accident, that would be how they would die.

Wei Wuxian touched the Stygian Tiger seal, hidden beneath his clothing in its two halves: he’d only used it once so far, causing a gigantic massacre that had taken down an army nearly entirely on his own. As soon as that had finished, he’d known that the seal was too much for him, even after he’d broken it in two to weaken it – it obeyed any master that would have it, so full of resentful energy that it needed only the barest excuse to break free to kill without discrimination. His demonic cultivation used resentful energy the way a Nie saber spirit did, his soul directly exposed to human evil, not merely animal; he risked possession, corruption, or worse, and only his skill and his determination was enough to control it – that he’d thought was enough to control it, until he’d made the seal.

The seal pulsed angrily under his hand, seething with resentment, hungry for blood, and then unexpectedly there was a response: Baxia, held in Nie Mingjue’s hands to be sharpened, gave a pulse as well, fierce and unyielding spiritual energy rippling out from it like a rock dropped into a lake, and for the first time the seal went quiet, as if momentarily cowed.

“Has my cultivation affected my temperament?” Wei Wuxian asked, considering the possibility seriously for the first time. Lan Wangji had told him several times that demonic cultivation harmed both the body and the heart, but he’d disregarded it – he felt fine, he didn’t frenzy; so what if he was angry? Wouldn’t anyone be, after suffering as he had? How could Lan Wangji ever understand?

(If Wei Wuxian thought about it too long, he might think that Lan Wangji would understand, could understand, did, but that thought was too painful to tolerate. In his heart, he still hoped that Lan Wangji would live untouched by the pain of the world, even if he knew that it was far too late for that.)

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue said simply, and his unshakable simplicity was more troubling than a thousand of Lan Wangji’s pleas. “My Nie clan sacrifices the second half of our lives for the power to make a difference in the first; I find that trade worthwhile, but it is all for nothing if we do not control ourselves. That it is easier for us to become monsters is all the more reason for us to always put righteousness first, personal interest second; our instincts will lie to us, inflame us, and we must be unyielding and strict, trusting in tradition and law to guide us where our instincts will fail us. If you persist in your path, you will need be twice as cautious as you were before: quicker to anger is quicker to act – but once the act is done, it cannot be taken back. Whether that is a sacrifice you are willing to make remains up to you.”

Wei Wuxian’s breath caught in his throat like a sob.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he’d tell Nie Mingjue everything, and get his advice on what to do.

-

That night, they received word of a temporary gap in the Wens’ defenses in Yangquan, an opportunity to destroy one of their stockpile while the guard was changing; the source of the information was Lan Xichen, who they all trusted. The opportunity was limited by time and the need for secrecy: Nie Mingjue took a small detachment of Nie cultivators to launch a night attack, with Wei Wuxian following at a distance to capture anyone who ran into the forest to escape Nie blades.

He waited patiently in a tree, Chenqing spinning idly in his hands, his mind more than halfway thinking of ways to refine the compass of evil he’d been working on; he wouldn’t let them escape.

He waited, but nothing happened.

No one came running.

The Stygian Tiger Seal abruptly pulsed again, suddenly active in a way it hadn’t been since Baxia had suppressed it, and a pit formed in Wei Wuxian’s stomach. He stood up at once and abandoned his position, rushing forward – and yet he was still too late.

Yangquan was a trap. Wen Ruohan himself had been there, with all his most trusted soldiers, vastly outnumbering Nie Mingjue’s small force; they had been easily overwhelmed.

Watching from a tree not far from the brightly lit center camp, Wei Wuxian bit his fingers until they bled to keep from screaming: he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he had to do this again, to stand by as a mute witness while the Wen-dogs laughed triumphantly over the bodies of those he knew and loved. The Stygian Tiger Seal was hot under his clothing, resentful, wanting to kill, and he wanted to use it – but the first time had come so desperately close to going out of his control that he didn’t know if he could risk it.

What if he lost control? What if he killed those he wanted to save?

Wei Wuxian was accustomed to arrogance, to confidence, to recklessness even – but Nie Mingjue’s warning was so fresh in his ears that for what might be the first time in his life, he wavered, hesitated.

He had just about decided that he would use the seal, and damn the consequences, when someone in the Wen sect dragged Nie Mingjue forward: he had been very badly beaten, his body twisted in unnatural ways and his head cut open, blood blinding him and Baxia nowhere in sight, but against all odds he was still standing – it was almost a desecration in Wei Wuxian’s eyes to see the Wen cultivators put their hands on him the way they had put their hands on Uncle Jiang, on Madame Yu, on all those Jiang cultivators he’d lost at the Lotus Pier.

The way they had hurt Jiang Cheng, so badly that it still haunted his shidi’s nightmares, a hurt so bad that the only way out was for Wei Wuxian to –

He couldn’t let it happen again.

He didn’t have another golden core to sacrifice. If they were going to execute Nie Mingjue right now, in front of him, he would –

“Take them all back to the Nightless City,” someone ordered, instead, and Wei Wuxian’s fingers, which had wrapped around the Stygian Tiger Seal without him noticing, abruptly relaxed in relief. There was still time to make a decision about whether or not to use the seal, or to see if he could rescue Nie Mingjue and the others without it.

The entire troop moved out.

Wei Wuxian followed.