#and wwx had to walk on eggshells around him

[llycaons]

it's very sweet when wwx is like 'aw jin ling is just like his uncle' in postcanon fics but I have to laugh because in canon he's literally like 'ugh, jin ling is JUST like his uncle 🙄'

[ninjakk]

A friend who, unfortunately, likes JC defended him a lot to me when I was first watching the donghua then read the novels. Perfectly honest, I thought he was a loser but my friend kept defending him for being able to pull the Jiang sect together after the LP massacre but...I don't know? Did he really? wasn't it more WWX's reputation that pulled the sect up and high? Is JC actually a good leader? I have trouble seeing that

Hi anon 😊

Ah yes, I have been there as well unfortunately!

Although I was respectful of their opinion, it seems we no longer talk haha 😆 Perhaps it was something to do with the time they claimed JC hunting down and torturing innocent people who used guidao was "just a baseless rumour" - to which I casually responded with proof it was certainly not a rumour. I mean, JC literally encouraged JL to kill them and feed them to his dog for a start 😂 I don't think that was a joke in the slightest lmao. Honestly, I didn't expect them to take offence at the evidence proving otherwise, since we enjoyed discussing the novel and debating such things anyway! But, hey-ho!

Hmm, the whole "restoring the Jiang sect to its former glory" debate is a major source of discourse between MDZS fans! I mean, JC did join forces with the Twin Jades of Lan and launch a surprise attack on the Wens in order to secure their confiscated swords. Which I have to say, I always found so hypocritical and two faced of him to do... You know, considering he not only unjustly blamed LWJ for everything that happened to LP, but even wished WWX had left him and JZX to die in the cave prior to the attack as well! And he calls WWX shameless...

But even so, JC seems to have worked hard in the three months WWX was missing. Attacking the Wens supervisory offices and hunting down WC alongside LWJ and the respective cultivators under their command. Even WWX praised his efforts when they were all reunited. So credit where credit is due, I guess.

That being said, it works both ways! WWX's efforts should not be ignored either - which I often find the case whenever JC is praised for his accomplishments regarding the Jiang sect. WWXs new cultivation path is what helped them gain an upper hand during the Sunshot campaign, he garnered much praise and admiration during the war - it was only in the aftermath that people began to turn against him, especially seeing the obvious lack of loyalty or protection from JC. But WWXs guidao most certainly helped rebuild the sect's reputation and enticed new disciples as well. JC even gave his blessing for WWX to showcase his cultivation during the Mount Baifeng night-hunt, in order to recruit even more disciples! So I agree with you, WWX's new cultivation path was one of the driving forces in helping elevate the sect to its former glory, perhaps even beyond.

As for whether JC is a good sect leader? Honestly? No.

Evidence would suggest otherwise, in my opinion. Some like to pretend JC is the beloved sect leader of Yunmeng - but that's far from the case. He's made the sect less approachable, closed its doors to the public and scared away those seeking help on matters he doesn't deem worthy of his attention.

The general public seem frightened of him because of his awful personality and the fact they have witnessed him torturing innocent people. His own disciples seem to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around him and be careful of his famous temper. He seems more focused on pushing JL beyond his limits and imposing his own insecurities on the poor kid than actually helping others with their problems. When he's not doing that, he's off hunting down his latest unsuspecting victims to torture and do god knows what to!

So no, I don't consider him to be a particularly good sect leader, his priorities do not align with what I (or I would assume most others) would consider as such. A great leader is able to get along with others and inspire their disciples. They should also be able to secure backing from the general public by being present and approachable when issues arise.

Let's put it this way - LWJ was given the title 'Hanguang-jun' a title befitting of how the public perceive him, righteous and willing to help others. JC also has a title, that of 'Sandu Shengshou', which is in relation to a Buddhist saying regarding the three poisons - the root of all turmoil. Certainly not a good public image to have! Even the general tone of anyone talking about him isn't overly respectful - people rarely call him by his courtesy name unless they are addressing him directly. Otherwise, it's his birth name, which of course, is highly disrespectful unless you are very familiar with said person. MXTX made a deliberate choice for the public to call him 'Jiang Cheng' instead, so it is certainly significant and shows us that he is not well respected or liked by the general public and even other cultivators! This is in the first few chapters as well! All in order to set the tone of how JC is perceived. I mean, even the narrator (which is of course a stand alone entity/person and not WWX as many wrongly assume) calls him JC instead 😂

Overall, I think JC did put effort into building his sect up again, but WWX certainly deserves equal credit for that as well. That being said, it doesn't alter the fact he's not a very good leader in the sense I would consider, and I think that's been made more than apparent in the text as well.

[pumpkinpaix]

Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother’s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下，而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭刚才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

[vrishchikawrites]

WWX's canonical abuse is horrific and so many people underestimate it. WWX brushing it off is ok because he's the victim and his personality is formed like that. He is just that resilient. But fans brushing it off is odd to me.

Like, even if you say YZY didn't whip him except that one time (there's canonical evidence telling us otherwise), can you imagine living under that much pressure? People think that's not abuse? These people have never had to walk around eggshells constantly in the presence of a parent, I guess.

YZY's constant verbal harassment and berating, along with JFM's rather weak and tired protests, along with the responsibility of soothing his martial brother, and trying to always smile for his martial sister...

Doing so constantly, day in and day out, with his only relief being when he's out on nighthunts or in his room resting, can you imagine? Poor baby, I forgot he doesn't even have this as @plan-d-to-i rightfully points out ;_;

Even if he wasn't physically abused (which he absolutely was) this is enough. It is enough to make life supremely unpleasant. And he has to live with the knowledge that these people aren't his. When push comes to a shove, they'll always choose each other over him. Each and every Jiang family member proved that without exception. In canon.

Just because the victim of the abuse is a hardy boy with a positive approach to life doesn't mean the abuse didn't occur and we shouldn't be bothered by it.

[righteousinadversity]

Hi! I read your post about JC's possible redemption in the Burial Mounds arc, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? What did you mean?

Ah, I think you mean this post? God, I wrote this quite a while ago and had tons of notions I should probably correct. So many of my views developed and this was probably one of my more Jiang Cheng Friendly posts so it's cringe just thinking about it.

The thing is, I seriously started looking into their relationship after I read some 'metas' which... were just really uncomfortable to read? I mean, sibling abuse is an actual, real thing, and even then, JC and WWX's relationship was never even that of brothers. I can give you my thoughts on JC and WWX's relationship, which I developed from a thorough and comprehensive reading of the novel?

(Indented is from the post you mentioned)

Post-canon reconciliation for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is impossible. There's too much between them, and it is imperative for both their journeys to be separated from each other here on out.

Honestly, yes. If JC should have some semblance of growth, which honestly I doubt with the way he treats WN, he needs to stop centring his life around WWX. For him, In WWX's first life, WWX is the insurmountable mountain that is just there for him to beat and overcome, and in his second life, WWX is his justification for the horrors he inflicts.

And in WWX's case, absolutely. WWX canonically excuses many of JC's actions. This is because of his upbringing undoubtedly, because he'd never let anyone else do that to him. With JC, he is always walking on eggshells around him, always making sure to appease him, and even then JC constantly disparages him- so yes, WWX's journey absolutely requires him to no longer be near JC or his poison.

But I think, more importantly, Post-Canon reconciliation is impossible because JC led a fucking siege against WWX and the innocents he protected; Because JC actively tortured anyone who even allegedly practised demonic cultivation (Come on, couldn't he have killed XY? The actual demonic cultivator?); Because JC uses WWX's childhood trauma, the one thing he is terrified of, the thing he promised to protect WWX from, against him.

Burial-mounds arc reconciliation for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is possible, but only with lots and lots of therapy. And not by going back to lotus pier. I firmly believe that leaving lotus pier is needed for Wei Wuxian. However, in a world where qionqi path doesn't happen, and things are better, I think, with time, they could have remade their relationship.

So, First thing, I don't say redemption and thank gods for that. Redemption for JC turning away from a life debt would be to actually fulfil it, which he goes on to actively not do. About Reconciliation, I probably wrote this with regard to JC bringing JYL to see WWX and WWX getting to name JL.

But, it wouldn't be reconciliation. It is the exact bullshit relationship we see of the trio in their first interaction: JC does something wrong, JYL plays mediator, WWX says it's no big deal, no one digs into the serious issues. Doing this when they are kids hiding from adults is one thing because a lot of kids bond like this. It's a whole different scenario when there are literal lives at stake when you actively turn the world against (your brother-friend-martial relation-what the ever-loving fuck is he-) the man trying to repay the debt you owe.

The entire Lotus Pier Trio is a mess of Children From Abusive Households: WWX with his bar for treatment so low it's a tripping hazard in hell, JYL with her conflict shy nature and willful naivety about the bad things in the world, JC with his incredibly low self-esteem and resentment issues. The contrast between the three is quite interesting: JC continues the cycle of abuse and resentment, JYL does not understand that the way JC treats WWX is not okay because she's seen the way YZY used to treat him, and WWX breaks the cycle, never allowing for that to affect how he treats others.

I do believe that JC and JYL could have broken that cycle. You can actively choose not to be an asshole, surprisingly enough. They could have become better. I truly believe JYL, as a mother, would have realised how terrible her childhood was, how terrible it was for all of them, but WWX especially so.

But again, it is a matter of choosing.

JC, was in a position out of abuse, in a position of power. This was where he could have actively chosen to be better, to look beyond the poisonous words his mother told him, and for the sake of either his own debt or to live up to the sect's legacy or even his care for WWX, stand by WWX's side as he protected the Wens.

Honestly, no Qiongqi Path is a pipe dream at best. Even without it, the Sects would have attacked WWX eventually, because JGS and JGY were actively plotting to make it so; because JC as the person who knew WWX and went to the Burial Mounds declared him an enemy of the cultivation sects and did nothing to discourage the rising rumours; because other people in power like LXC and NMJ decided that they would rather listen to the wagging tongues than look for actual evidence.

The entire situation was a rigged system against WWX.

There would have to be lots of yelling, angst, and both of them coming to the realisation that Wei Wuxian owes YunmengJiang nothing. There is a small, tiny, possibility, that they could leave the traumas of their past and Yu Ziyuan's influence behind to build a new, better relationship.

Gods I regret ever writing that first line! Yelling and angst would just be JC screaming, like in Guanyin Temple. There'd be no yelling from WWX's side. WWX was practically groomed to excuse everything JC said or did, and handle the consequences of it. So, let's please not do that.

Also, I don't think WWX needs to come to the realisation that he owes YMJ nothing. Like, he gave his golden core for that. I think any debt is paid in full. But JC, boy JC needs to have a lot of realisations regarding this.

JC's relationship with WWX is embroiled in jealousy and resentment and competition from the time WWX arrives at Lotus Pier.

JC consistently demonstrates is that he neither shares nor is he able to understand WWX's point of view, motivations and priorities. JC is incredibly self-centred with regards to WWX, and subconsciously believes every one of WWX's actions to be somehow to show him up, or to incite some emotion in him, which is... just not true?

And JC, much like his mother and probably largely because of her, believes that WWX owes the YMJ for taking him in. He subconsciously at least blames WWX for YMJ's massacre, which turns into true belief with 13 years of rage and resentment.

Okay. Now. This is... complicated. As a person, I believe that you have the ability to unlearn what you are taught as a child. But, here's the thing. WWX can't teach JC to be better. Both JYL and WWX actively excuse JC's bad actions throughout the canon.

Since neither JYL nor WWX will tell him he is fucked up, JC would have to come to that realisation on his own. Which... again, he is in a position of power, with no authority figure over him. He makes active choices that are terrible, never has a sense of remorse for them. So, it's a stretch to believe JC would realise his own terrible behaviour, and by a stretch I mean it's as long as the fucking Thames. He needs a whole ass once-in-a-lifetime revelation to stop being an asshole for like, one night.

But, again, I do say, tiny possibility, which I suppose does exist. Again, I quite possibly wrote this with reference to the Yiling Visit JC and JYL pays WWX, which if you look at the dialogue seems fine because JC asks about WWX's injury, they talk about the stage fight quite humorously, and it seems fine.

But then you realise JC gutted WWX in the staged fight to the point his intestines were hanging out. You realise JC saw the village WWX was at and didn't even think of bringing them some sort of aid.

But again, I don't think Twin Prides of Yunmeng will happen. Wei Wuxian will want to stay with the Dafan Wens, and Jiang Cheng won't let them come to Lotus Pier due to both political and personal reasons.

I said Dafan Wens to refer to the Wen Remnants, which was an honest mistake I made since I did enter the fandom through CQL. Just to be clear, I discuss novel canon in this blog. CQL for me while enjoyable did a great disservice to the book, the characterization, the plot and a lot of other stuff.

Also, JC not letting the Wens go to Lotus Pier has no political reason. If he properly claimed the life-debt excuse, he could easily have ensured their safety. He doesn't and actively does things that turn the cultivation sects against WWX.

Twin Prides/Heroes of Yunmeng was something WWX says to appease JC when JC says JFM doesn't like him for reprimanding JC when he basically said WWX should have let LWJ and JZX die. And JC turns it into this solemn oath of loyalty that WWX can never make and cling onto it. And yet, at the first opportunity, he drops WWX just like that. Loyalty is a two-way road, JC, and WWX owes you nothing after the bullshit you pulled. JC wants his relationship with WWX to be on his skewed version of loyalty and demands WWX's obedience, which is... really just fucked up.

I hope this clarified my view on JC and WWX's relationship, anon!

[fakeikemen]

After seeing this gifset of Mo Xuanyu something has awoken in me and now I must rant about it. 

Here's what I think: Jin Guangyao lied about Mo Xuanyu harassing him.

Not really gonna comment on whether he was actually queer or not because that is completely up in the air. And the things in the story that do point to mxy being queer (all in a negative light) can be disproved. This is speculative yes, but in the same way we speculate about jgy killing Jin Rusong. Jgy kept this entire incident hidden from Lan Xichen. And that’s a little weird because making himself look like a burdened suffering soul in front of lxc was one of his priorities. I don’t see why he wouldn’t weaponize this. Not saying that he has to tell everyone about how he was sexually harassed or that he is obligated to tell it to the people close to him. But lxc was a frequent guest at Lanling. And everyone and their mother at Lanling knows about the fiasco and they don’t try to hide their knowledge of it. Word had spread far enough for rogue cultivators to know. So its a little weird that Lan Xichen has no idea who Mo Xuanyu even is. 

Following further in the vein of even lxc not even catching a whiff of mxy; jgy possibly isolated him from the others. Assuming that mxy was in Lanling for a year atleast and that he was brought there to make him the primary choice for succeeding Jin Guangshan it becomes just much more weirder that lxc doesn’t know him. If he had been someone who was indeed flaunting his attraction to men, (like many believe) he’d have been known.

But mxy was 14 when he was called to Lanling. He had to leave his home and go to a completely foreign place where he would be definitely looked down upon. The Mo family already had a bad public opinion. Mxy’s mother was the daughter of a servant of the Mo family. His social status might have been a bit better than jgy but not by much. I am pretty sure that mxy felt like he was walking on eggshells the whole time. It would have been way too easy for jgy to win over his trust and to isolate him from the others as someone who had a nice and reassuring presence and was also from the lower strata of society and wasn’t looking down at him. Lanling’s hostile environment would’ve definitely helped jgy with this. 

And after cutting off mxy from all the other people, how easy would it have been for jgy to turn around and lie about mxy to everyone else? Jgy may not have been highly regarded by his “family” but he was keeping everything working and talking and making "connections" with other people for years now. Other people noticed and appreciated him (including Wei Wuxian in his first life time.). Jgy can also put on a good show. People would listen to him and believe him. We also know that jgy was already wary of jgs bringing in other illegitimate sons to prevent him from becoming the heir. Jgy would have definitely planned to drive mxy away since the moment he set foot in Carp tower. Mxy probably never stood a chance.

And mxy would have no one to support him or to clear his name. Because he would have only been around jgy (more reason for people to believe that he was into jgy). There was no way for people to believe that mxy was innocent.

But going back to the speculations about mxy being open/loud about being into men being the factor that makes people believe jgy; it's not possible.

The society in MDZS is homophobic. Let’s leave aside historical accuracy because MXTX clearly mentioned in the author’s note that MDZS wasn’t supposed to be historically accurate. Even Wangxian, who seem to be completely unbothered by the homophobia around them, elope and get married. As one does when their marriage is likely forbidden. Not to mention that they are both powerful individuals with immense popularity and are revered or feared by so many and no one would dare oppose them, except close family. (No but fr imagine walking up to the inventor of modao and being “eww u like guys??” and thinking that you can survive that given the reputation that the Yiling Lazhou has. And I think its pretty self explanatory by the way that no one questions Lan Wangji when he drags “mxy” around that no one dares to bring it up.) And later they are shown being apprehensive about the acceptance of their marriage. The banquet extra shows that their marriage is accepted by Gusu Lan because Wei Wuxian sits beside Lan Wangji in it, but before that lwj was called in by Lan Qiren and most probably given another earful along with the grudging acceptance and neither do the other people at the banquet look very happy about wwx’s presence there. Yes, there is also the possibility that all of this was because wwx is the “big bad” who invented modao (and this definitely contributed to the Lan clan being against the marriage as well) but if it was only that, then the prime objective should have been clearing wwx’s name and making people believe that he’s changed for the better, or something idk. But the way wangxian deal with the unacceptance of their relationship seems like the more dominant issue is homophobia.

We also have wwx using the cover of being gay to act up based on the misguided opinions that other people have about queer people (queer people being pervy predators, etc) to make others feel disgusted and make them stay away from him so that he can avoid suspicion. And it works! Because the people are homophobic.

Anyway, that leaves no room for someone from mxy’s hierarchy to walk around freely proclaiming that he likes men without being shunned. It would cut his ticket to the throne real quick as well. Whatever he was doing at Lanling, he wasn’t doing that. (Sidenote: no one in Mo village calls mxy slurs or talks about him being a predator they all seem to be preoccupied with his lunacy and not his sexuality. Which is certainly interesting to note.)

 (Also there is a very neat irony in jgy lying about his half brother harassing him while he’s the one who is married to his own half sister. So yeah.)

[stiltonbasket]

Please write a follow up for the laughing soulmates au! WWX growing up thinking his true chance at love was gone before he knew what he lost, oh man oh man.

Wei Wuxian was ten years old when he first began wearing mourning.

“Jiang Fengmian,” Madam Yu hissed, when she returned to Lotus Pier after a brief vacation in Meishan to find her adopted ward practicing his sword forms wearing robe of the palest, most dirt-resistant white linen that money could buy. “What is Wei Ying doing in white? Where are his red robes? Or his purple ones?”

“It has been more than four years since he felt his soulmate laugh,” Jiang-shushu replied--calmly, but with a low, challenging hum to his voice that meant his mind was firmly made up. “He has decided to wear mourning for them.”

“He is a child,” Yu-furen retorted. “He never met his soulmate, and if you are encouraging melancholy in the boy before he even comes of age, then--”

“His manner has not changed, San-niang. He laughs as much as he always does, and attends to his studies with diligence. Surely allowing him to honor his mingding zhiren’s passing would be no trouble to you?”

“Me? What trouble is it to me? As long as he does his duties and doesn’t disgrace our family, what should I have to say about it?”

And with that, she swung her long purple train behind her and stalked off to her private pavilion, leaving Wei Wuxian to finish his drills on the training field and pretend he had not heard. 

There was nothing out of the ordinary about how quickly his adoptive parents settled the argument about his mourning clothes, even if such a thing would never have happened during his first few years in Yunmeng. The whole world changed when he realized his soulmate was dead, and Madam Yu’s refusal to punish him or scold him in any way (she only ever took out her frustrations with him on Jiang-shushu, and even that never lasted longer than a few minutes) was hardly the strangest alteration Wei Wuxian had to come to terms with. His tutors tried to go more easily on him, Jiang Cheng was always gentle with him, and Yu-furen never protested when he got the same treats and privileges that her own children did--and of course, Shijie doted on him more than ever, though that was more out of love than pity. Even the vendors on the streets of Lufeng plied him down with sweets and snacks before he had a chance to steal them, to the point where he had to stay home when his shidis went to raid the market because all their ill-gotten spoils would be free of charge if he went along with them. 

“You’d better stay back and help Jiang-shijie with the kites,” one of his junior brothers told him once, while Jiang Cheng promised to bring back his favorite strawberry tanghulu from the candy-seller near the blacksmith’s workshop. “It takes all the fun out of it if you go, Wei-shixiong! We don’t even get to steal anything!”

And now, even Lan Zhan treats him like something made of glass, something that could break if spoken to harshly, and Wei Wuxian is sick of it. It’s different when Jiang-shushu does it, because Jiang-shushu’s soulmate is dead too, and it’s different when Madam Yu does it because she thought she would never have one until Yanli-shijie was born--but Lan Zhan has a soulmate who makes him happy, and he treats Wei Wuxian with the deference due a widow whose husband was barely cooling in the grave. 

Lan Qiren just treats him like a loud, unpleasant slug, though, so at least that’s some comfort. 

“You know, you could stop wearing mourning,” his brother says, when Wei Wuxian pours out his woes in their shared guest quarters that evening. “You’ve been wearing it for the past eight years, Wei Wuxian. Even widows don’t do that. Of course Lan Wangji treats you like a trembling flower, he thinks your heart is broken.”

“It’s not broken,” Wei Wuxian protests, more than a little offended. “I miss my soulmate, but I’m not pining into the grave like some bereaved maiden!”

“How’s Lan Wangji supposed to know that?” Jiang Cheng returns. “You look all tragic every time we pass those girls in the Caiyi river market to make them give you free food! Lan Wangji saw you do it, twice! He didn’t even scold you for flirting because you looked so sad!”

Wei Wuxian scratches at his nose and pouts; because Jiang Cheng is right about that last one, but Wei Wuxian isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.“But what am I supposed to do to make him treat me normally?” he wails, screaming into his pillow. “He’s already seen me wearing white before the rules made me do it, and he’s already seen me tear up at one of the loquat vendors because it was evening and the evening was my fated one’s favorite time of day--”

“Was it?”

“Huh?”

“Was evening their favorite time of day?”

“They used to laugh a lot in the evenings, so I guess it must have been,” Wei Wuxian shrugs. “Or maybe they just got really excited about dinner. But forget about that--how am I going to convince Lan Zhan that I’m fine, and show him that he doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around me?”

“Break more rules,” his brother suggests. “Then he’ll punish you, and he’ll have such a good time doing it that he’ll forget why he ever tried to ignore your nonsense.”

“Tried that already,” Wei Wuxian says dismally. “All he did was ask Shijie to make me soup, because I had to be in distress if I couldn’t see the merit of obeying the sect edicts for the sake of my own betterment.”

Jiang Cheng winces. “Barge in on him in the cold springs?”

“I did that too! All he did was turn his back and tell me that I shouldn’t expose myself in public, even if I was so honorable in my grief for my fated one that I would never do anything untoward, or entertain the forwardness of others.”

“Entertain the forwardness of others?” His brother frowns. “What does that even mean?”

“Beats me. Hey, do you think I should ask Nie-xiong for help?”

Jiang Cheng yawns. “Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”

__

“I don’t see why this is supposed to work,” Jiang Cheng mutters, about a week later. He and Nie Huaisang are hiding in the bushes near the library pavilion, keeping an eye on the open door--and Wei Wuxian is sitting inside, writing out all the lines Lan-xiansheng assigned him under Lan Wangji’s supervision. “Lan Wangji didn’t even react to Wei Wuxian stripping in public.”

“The cold springs are hardly public, Jiang-xiong,” Huaisang says vaguely. “And I swore it would work! You should trust me!”

And indeed, scarcely five minutes later, they hear the loud, splintering crash of a table being overturned, and Wei Wuxian comes pelting out of the library with ink splashed all over his robes and torn paper stuck in his hair--and Lan Wangji is hot on his heels with his hand on Bichen’s hilt, roaring Wei Wuxian’s name like a younger version of his uncle as they speed towards the lanshi.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji screeches. “How can you--I trusted--shameless!”

“I warned you, Lan Zhan! Should I lend you another one?”

“What have we done?” Jiang Cheng moans, when the two boys finally move out of earshot and vanish down the stony path. “This is all your fault, Nie Huaisang.”

“I know,” Nie Huaisang laughs, sweeping his fan across his lips. “Don’t worry, Jiang Cheng. I’ll take full responsibility.”

[crossdressingdeath]

“JC has trauma of course he’ll struggle with looking after a kid!” Yeah well WWX was eaten alive and torn apart and remembers that trauma very vividly yet his first instinct being around kids was make sure they’re all safe and learn how to handle dangerous situations and not take out his trauma on them. Just because JC’s struggles with his trauma is valid doesn’t mean his first reaction to take it out on everyone is.

“JC never had a good parental role model and has been through a lot of shit so raising JL well is harder for him than it would be for someone who did have a good role model and odds are he’ll make more mistakes than someone who was raised in a happy, healthy home”: good. Valid. Very true and understandable.

“...and so JL should just accept that being threatened with serious physical harm or disownment whenever he makes the slightest mistake or isn’t what JC wants him to be is a sign of love and being so scared of JC’s anger that he’ll run halfway across the fucking country to get JGY’s protection when he does something he knows will piss JC off is normal and he just has to stop being so spoiled as to want to be treated with kindness”: not even a little valid!

The thing that the people using JC’s childhood as a justification for everything he does seem to be forgetting is the age-old adage: his suffering is an explanation, not an excuse. His trauma does not mean it’s up to everyone else to walk on eggshells their whole lives and take everything he throws at them with a smile. It is, at the end of the day, his responsibility to not let what happened to him push him to hurt other people, especially not people he supposedly loves, and especially especially not his teenaged nephew who is reliant on him while under his care. And if he fucks up, as will inevitably happen because fucking up is part of being human, it’s his responsibility to apologise, not the other person’s responsibility to justify his terrible treatment of him with “oh he suffered” or have to comfort him for his poor treatment of them. And yeah; compare him to WWX, who makes a point of never letting his suffering spill over and hurt others (sometimes even taking it too far; I don’t doubt that part of his reason for not asking for help is because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone with his baggage), and JC starts looking very bad.

[bettydice]

I didn’t expect you to be lonely (too)

Xicheng, Modern AU, JC&WWX reconciliation, E-Rated 

[Read on AO3]

Chapter 3

Saturday

Jiang Cheng gets up early the next day, opens his window, clothes his eyes, breathes in the cold air, then says: “Fuck.”

Today, Jiang Cheng will meet with Lan Xichen again. After everything that happened yesterday. Him crying. Lan Xichen being understanding and nice and wonderful. Both of those things are going to be issues. The crying is an issue because Jiang Cheng did eventually feel that promised catharsis. He could sleep a little better, dream a little lighter after letting it all out for once. Maybe it wasn’t so much the crying as Lan Xichen being fucking nice about it afterwards. Taking care of him… Which is a problem, because Jiang Cheng can’t have such things. But he wants it.

He wants to talk with someone about it, but he can’t talk with his sister, because she’d be enthusiastic about Jiang Cheng expressing interest in someone and encourage him to pursue it, which is not the advice he wants. This is the kind of thing he’d talk with Wei Wuxian or Nie Huaisang about. But he can’t talk with Wei Wuxian - for obvious reasons.

And Nie Huaisang…

Jiang Cheng opens his messenger and scrolls through his conversation history with Nie Huaisang. There’s a bunch of party invites from Nie Huaisang, all unanswered by Jiang Cheng. Further up, there’s “What, are you going to ignore me too?” and “You’re a fucking idiot, Jiang Cheng.”

It’s true, he’s a fucking idiot. And everyone knows it. Yet they aren’t the ones who stopped replying first. They aren’t the ones who just assumed that if Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng stopped talking, it meant they’d have to stop talking to Jiang Cheng too. He is the one who did that.

The day goes by horribly quickly, so very soon he finds himself lying on Lan Xichen’s massage table again. Lan Xichen smiles at him and wraps him up as though nothing’s ever happened. The unwrapping and the following massage go by without any incident this time. Well, at least without a crying incident. Jiang Cheng does let out what could be considered almost a moan at one point but Lan Xichen only asks, “Painful?”, and Jiang Cheng nods instead of saying what he actually thought, which was: “No, it felt fucking amazing, your hands are magical, put them all over me.”

Once he’s dressed again, Lan Xichen takes a few minutes to go through some stretches for his neck and shoulders with him, so he can do them at home. A few very embarrassing minutes, during which Lan Xichen shows him how far a normal person can tilt and turn his head, and Jiang Cheng demonstrates that he’s not even half as flexible.

After, Lan Xichen invites him to the living room for tea again. Jiang Cheng wants to ask whether this is something he does for all his clients, but it’s better he just assumes so, even if it’s not true.

“How are the bunnies today?” Jiang Cheng asks as soon as he sits down. Bunnies should be a safe topic - right?

“Great! I seem to have offended neither. Do you… do you want to meet Cloud today?” Lan Xichen asks haltingly as though Jiang Cheng would ever say no to that.

“I’d love to!”

A few minutes later, they’re sitting on the floor, each with a bunny in their lap. Cloud had eyed him suspiciously for a while, but when she realised Jiang Cheng was very happy to provide her with attention and petting, she allowed him to do just that.

“You should feel honoured that she accepted your presence this quickly.” Lan Xichen nods at Cloud, amusement crinkling the skin around his eyes.

Jiang Cheng looks down at the bunny, who has her eyes closed while Jiang Cheng rubs her head. “I do. I actually read up about that yesterday, how bunnies have a high sense of… well, manners basically. I didn’t know that!”

Lan Xichen straightens up when he hears that, visibly excited. “It’s true! I also find it very fascinating. Though I think Cloud has an usually unpronounced sensitivity for such things. Or maybe she’s just realised she’ll get treats that way. My brother and I have a spreadsheet where we collect all of the bunnies’ - mostly Cloud’s - rules.”

Jiang Cheng looks at Lan Xichen to see whether he made a joke or whether such a spreadsheet actually exists. It seems to be true, he can detect no hint of a joke in Lan Xichen’s eyes or in his smile. Jiang Cheng laughs. “I’d be interested in reading that. I wouldn’t want to accidentally offend Cloud by not stroking her head enough, or too many times.”

Lan Xichen blinks at him a few times without saying anything. Uhm, has he said something wrong?

“I didn’t mean you have to show me,” Jiang Cheng rushes to say. He’s probably being too pushy, implying he’d spend more time with Cloud. He’s just a client, he shouldn’t assume such things. “Just uh…”

“Oh, no, of course.” Lan Xichen shakes his head, his gentle smile back on his face. ”I don’t think Wangji would mind. In fact, I know he’s already tried to get your brother to read it.”

Jiang Cheng really needs to learn how to stop showing a reaction whenever Wei Wuxian is mentioned. He quickly plasters on a smile, tries to smooth his frown.

Lan Xichen doesn’t seem to have noticed him tensing up and leans forward, whispering conspiratorially: “Cloud actually bit your brother a while ago. Nothing bad, just a warning. I think he was too enthusiastic in petting her.”

Wow, amazing. That’s… yes, that’s exactly the kind of information he needed to hear today. Jiang Cheng snorts a laugh. “Of course. I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”

Lan Xichen laughs softly as well, then cocks his head. “Is it okay if I mention your brother? I know your relationship seems to be a bit… strained… at the moment.”

Jiang Cheng grimaces slightly, then tries to hide it by lowering his head to focus extra hard on petting Cloud. “It’s fine. I have feelings about that whether or not anyone mentions Wei Wuxian.”

As soon as he says that, he realises how true it is. He’s such an idiot. Making his sister walk on eggshells around him. Why? For what? It doesn’t make a difference. Even if nobody says Wei Wuxian’s name for a week, he still misses him every day.

Lan Xichen nods, as though he knows exactly what Jiang Cheng means, humming his agreement, but not saying anything.

“Wei Wuxian was here then?” Jiang Cheng eventually asks. He can’t help himself.

Lan Xichen doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng never directly asks about Wei Wuxian, so he doesn’t react surprised and answers readily. “He comes by sometimes with Wangji. He’s very excited about the bunnies, but I’m afraid Cloud isn’t his biggest fan. Jade tolerates him.”

Jiang Cheng knows it’s silly to feel smug about Cloud sitting peacefully in his lap whereas she bit Wei Wuxian, but he’s done sillier things, so he’ll let himself count this as a win. “You’re a very smart bunny, aren’t you?” he whispers to Cloud. She rubs her chin on his thumb and he continues stroking her.

“We used to have a dog, but Wei Wuxian is deathly afraid of dogs, so we had to give it away. My mother didn’t allow us to have other pets. She said dogs at least had a purpose.” Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why he said that. Just like he never mentions Wei Wuxian, he also never talks about his mother. He blames it on Lan Xichen’s soothing presence - he feels like he could tell him anything and it would be okay.

“Why would animals need another purpose than existing?” Lan Xichen frowns as though he’s actually offended. Jiang Cheng is suddenly glad he won’t ever be able to meet his mother, because he can’t stand the thought of his mother saying one of her mean things that cut straight to the bone in the presence of Lan Xichen.

And isn’t that thought just a can of worms on top of a boiling volcano? Better not get any closer.

“No idea. Look at you, Cloud, you’re so cute. Nothing else is needed, right?” He lifts her up a little and smiles at her. When he looks back to Lan Xichen, he finds him staring at him again. Is he holding her wrong? He’s always making sure to support her hind legs and -

Cloud pees on him.

"Fuck!" Jiang Cheng stares at the bunny in horror, who only stares back at him as if daring him to do anything. While she fucking pees on him! But there is nothing he can do, is there? Standing up or putting down the bunny would only make things worse - he doesn’t want to ruin Lan Xichen’s beautiful hardwood floor. So he just… keeps holding her and lets her pee on his shirt and jeans. Fucking hell.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry! Don't move! I'll -" Lan Xichen jumps up, bunny still in his arms, and rushes out of the room. Then he rushes back, plucks Cloud from Jiang Cheng’s arms and brings the bunnies back to the balcony. Jiang Cheng can hear him say: "That was very rude of you! We'll talk about it later!” If he wasn’t currently covered in bunny pee, he might find that adorable.

While Lan Xichen hurries across the flat to get cleaning supplies, Jiang Cheng is just sitting on the floor, bunny pee soaking his shirt and jeans, trying not to move. All in all, he thinks, it’s an improvement over yesterday.

Lan Xichen returns with kitchen towels and normal towels and wet wipes. They both begin patting Jiang Cheng down, but… well, it’s pee.

“I’m really, really sorry. I… you should take a shower. I’ll give you a change of clothes and of course I’ll wash yours.” Lan Xichen keeps apologising and feels so obviously bad about the whole situation that Jiang Cheng in turn can’t even be mad anymore. He agrees to the shower and fresh clothes, because 1. he’s covered in pee and 2. he wants Lan Xichen to stop feeling guilty.

In the bathroom, Jiang Cheng feels like an intruder. He’s standing naked in Lan Xichen’s shower, right next to his shampoo (a very pretty and expensive looking bottle with jasmine fragrance), using his shower gel (a matching set with the shampoo). He’s going to smell like him, wear his clothes. As though… Nope, not like a boyfriend. He shouldn’t even think that. He’s just someone that got peed on by a devious bunny.

When he returns to the living room, everything is clean and tidy again. Lan Xichen is sitting on the couch, drinking tea, and lifts his head when Jiang Cheng enters the room. He starts smiling, then freezes… simply looks at him, head to toe. Probably because Jiang Cheng looks ridiculous, sleeves too long, pant legs drowning his feet.

Jiang Cheng’s neck feels hot anyway and he clears his throat. "Can you promise me to never tell Wei Wuxian about this?"

"Jiang Wanyin, nobody will ever hear a word about this," Lan Xichen solemnly promises.

Jiang Cheng sits down on his chair and sighs. Lan Xichen puts down his teacup and their eyes meet. For a second, neither of them moves. Then, Lan Xichen’s lips twitch, one corner of his mouth drawing up. Yeah… it actually is fucking funny. A laugh bubbles up Jiang Cheng’s throat and bursts out of him. Lan Xichen soon joins him. His laugh is bright and clear and probably the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.

"I guess Cloud doesn't like me after all." Jiang Cheng decides to fall back on the Safe Topic, instead of staring at the marvel that is a laughing Lan Xichen.

"Oh, on the contrary! It can be a territorial thing. It's quite possible she's just claimed you. I saw that she rubbed her chin on you earlier. She definitely thinks you belong to her in some way."

"That's… I guess I should feel honored I got peed on?"

"Absolutely. There are people who'd be jealous of your status." Lan Xichen laughs and gives him a little wink. Jiang Cheng thinks this is very unfair to his feelings.

"So… What does belonging to a bunny entail? Any duties I have to fulfill? Cleaning out her cage or feeding her hay?"

"She's quite high maintenance, so it'll be all of those things. Many petting sessions will be required of you, too."

"I can do that." He knows Lan Xichen is just joking, but he certainly wouldn’t mind coming over often to spend some time with Cloud.

“She’ll be pleased, but won’t show it.” Lan Xichen laughs.

“Ah, well, I suppose it’s something we have in common.”

“You do?”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to react. Has Lan Xichen not noticed how… well, how Jiang Cheng is or is he too polite to mention it? His confusion seems genuine though.

“Uhm, yes.”

Lan Xichen blinks, taken aback, then laughs awkwardly and takes a sip of his tea. Well done, Jiang Cheng, you fucking idot.

After a few seconds of horribly awkward silence, Lan Xichen clears his throat. “Would you... Do you want to stay for dinner again? It’s the least I could do after... I’m sure Cloud would be pleased to have you around longer, too. You could feed her a post-dinner treat later. Of course I’ll drive you home, too. You don’t have to take the subway in these clothes.”

Jiang Cheng nods, a little stunned. This is unexpected. “Oh, thank you. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m always troubling you and taking up your time...”

“Not at all, not at all! If anything, I’m imposing on you. It’s always nice to have company for dinner.” Lan Xichen smiles, completely genuine and sincere, though there’s an undercurrent of nervousness Jiang Cheng can’t really make sense of. “I’m afraid there’ll be no amazing soup today, though - just a plain vegetable stir fry. Would that be okay?”

“Oh, yes, sure. Anything is fine, really.”

“Right, I’ll... go prepare then.” Lan Xichen clears his throat again, stands up, gestures towards the kitchen, then walks in said direction.

“I’ll help!” Jiang Cheng follows him quickly, seeing no reason not to spend this time together while he has the opportunity.

A few minutes later, Jiang Cheng is sitting at Lan Xichen’s dinner table, chopping vegetables. Lan Xichen has turned on the radio and is humming along to the music, even though he keeps saying he doesn’t know the songs. Jiang Cheng... falls in love a little more.

Soon, the delicious smell of the stir fry fills the kitchen. Jiang Cheng has missed this. He’s always liked cooking with other people, hates cooking on his own. When he’s visiting his sister, he sometimes helps her prepare dinner, but lately he’s usually been playing with his nephew while Jiang Yanli is in the kitchen. And his visits have grown fewer, haven’t they. Because he’s afraid to run into Wei Wuxian. Which is stupid. (Like pretty much everything Jiang Cheng does.)

It’s nice to sit here in this kitchen, chatting while cooking, knowing he’ll share this meal with someone.

It’s bittersweet, of course, because this is a rare exception. There won’t be a repeat performance. Lan Xichen feels bad Jiang Cheng got peed on by his bunny. After his sessions are over, they’ll probably not see each other again. Well... what if this boyfriend of Wei Wuxian is something permanent... what if Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian actually make up eventually... he might see Lan Xichen at his sister’s for dinner or...

Fuck, he can never see Lan Xichen when Wei Wuxian is around, his brother would know. Instantly. His stupid smirk would unfurl on his face and he’d make insinuations and Jiang Yanli would catch on and say things like “Lan Xichen really is handsome, isn’t he” and ... wait, she already said that on the phone. How did she know? No, she was just stating a fact, she wasn’t...

“Would you like something to drink? I made some lemon water earlier.”

“Sure, thank you,” Jiang Cheng quickly accepts, happy to be distracted from his musings.

Lan Xichen pours him a glass of lemonade. Jiang Cheng nods his thanks, takes a sip and... starts choking immediately.

Lan Xichen looks alarmed, gets up and rubs his back while Jiang Cheng tries not to die.

"I'm okay… Ugh… everything… Fine!"

Lan Xichen keeps rubbing his back until Jiang Cheng looks up at him and Lan Xichen hastily returns to his chair.

"Ah… Is it too sour? I added more lemon juice this time. Wangji let me know Wei Wuxian found it a bit bland, so I thought -" Lan Xichen takes a sip and crinkles his nose, the most displeased he's ever looked. "Oh. Oh, that's very… I'm sorry."

"Of course it's Wei Wuxian's fault again," Jiang Cheng murmurs. Lan Xichen laughs, thinking he made a joke, and Jiang Cheng can't help but laugh too.

The food tastes delicious. Lan Xichen lines up a bunch of herbs and spices in front of him, because "We Lans usually eat our food pretty bland, I'm afraid. Sensitive stomachs". Jiang Cheng doesn't want to be rude, so he only adds a little bit of pepper. It tastes fantastic, and he tells Lan Xichen so.

After dinner, Lan Xichen drives him home again. Jiang Cheng could get used to this. To all of this. Drinking tea, snuggling bunnies, having dinner together. Seeing Lan Xichen every day. They agree to set the next session for Wednesday, however, so this time he’ll have to wait a few days.

"Thank you again, for dinner today and yesterday. And the clothes. And driving me home." Jiang Cheng turns to Lan Xichen, who is already looking at him, hands still gripping the steering wheel.

"Oh no, I really don't mind. Thank you for indulging me."

Indulging… that's quite the word choice. Jiang Cheng doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he gets out of the car, waves and returns to his flat.

Jiang Cheng spends the next couple of days realizing once again his life is really sad. The time with Lan Xichen has been the nicest thing to happen recently and it’s basically a doctor’s visit. Sort of.

On Tuesday, Lan Xichen writes him a message, asking him to postpone the next session. He writes back, “No problem!”, but wasn’t prepared for the extent of his disappointment.

The disappointment continues during his classes that day, because he hates them all. They’re so fucking boring and he does not care about his stupid ‘business’ degree whatsoever. Yet he keeps on going, keeps learning this bullshit, because… He’s too afraid to quit. And what else would he do? He wanted to do it for his dad, wanted to do what was expected of him. Even though his father never expressed the wish that Jiang Cheng should work in his business, probably never even thought he’d be good enough for that.

And now it all doesn’t matter anyway. Someone else is CEO and Jiang Cheng really, really does not want to work there. They could sell their shares, as Jiang Yanli has suggested often. And then what...

This is what he’s mulling over, forehead thunderous, headache equally as thunderous, wishing for a soothing massage and tea with Lan Xichen, stomping through the halls of the university building when…

Nie Huaisang.

He sees Nie Huaisang around uni, occasionally, but usually, Jiang Cheng turned around and fled, before Nie Huaisang could spot him too.

This time, there’s no escape. There’s no one else in this hallway. Nie Huaisang is looking straight at him.

They both stand still for a few seconds, simply staring.

“Jiang Cheng.” Nie Huaisang’s eyebrows rise slowly, as does one corner of his mouth.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what to do.

“Are you not running away this time?”

Fuck.

Nia Huaisang approaches him slowly, as though he’s still expecting Jiang Cheng to bolt. To be fair, he desperately wants to.

“How are you?” There, he’s the first to speak. That’s a good thing, right?

“How am I?” Nie Huaisang scoffs, then shakes his head and sends a very, very fake smile his way. “Well, I’m wonderful. Thank you for asking after a whole fucking year.”

Jiang Cheng clenches his entire body. Fuck. “Fuck, I’m sorry! I had to say something!”

Nie Haisang stares at him… then he laughs. “So, are you over it?”

“What-”

Nie Huaisang cocks his head and scoffs. “Come on.”

“I… I’m working on it, okay?!”

“Well, that’s something.” Nie Huaisang narrows his eyes for a second, then shrugs. “Come on, let’s go grab a drink.”

“It’s 2 p.m.!”

“Exactly.”

Nia Huaisang takes him by the hand and drags him out of the building. Jiang Cheng follows as in a daze. He feels like he missed a step going down the stairs, stomach jumping weirdly.

They end up in some kind of fancy ass lounge that is very much Nie Huaisang and very much empty, because it’s fucking 2 in the afternoon. Nie Huaisang greets the bartender like an old friend, while Jiang Cheng stuffs his backpack under the table, since it looks terribly out of place here. Nie Huaisang only has his phone with him. How has he not flunked uni yet? Has he taken notes even once?

Jiang Cheng orders a water, but Nie Huaisang laughs and orders them two cocktails.

“Don’t worry, Cheng-Cheng, my treat.”

Jiang Cheng has so many feelings about hearing his hated nickname he doesn’t even yell at Nie Huaisang that he’ll set his Gucci purse on fire if he calls him that again. Nie Huaisang of course notices the absence of any threats, and grins.

“Reunited and it feels so good, eh?”

“Shut up.” Jiang Cheng scowls but he can’t help but smile a little, too.

“So… How’s life?”

“Uhm… it’s… well…”

“I figured.” Nie Huaisang replies, as though one look at Jiang Cheng tells him all he needs to know about his miserable life.

The waiter brings their gigantic, colourful cocktails and a glass of water for Jiang Cheng. Nie Huaisang toasts him (‘To day drinking’) and Jiang Cheng tries a sip. It’s… tasty.

“This actually tastes very good, I can’t even taste the alcohol.”

“Because yours doesn’t have any, you dipshit. Do you think I want to have to deal with your maudlin drunk ass later? No thank you.” Nie Huaisang gives him a look. His eyebrows are still too powerful - they only need to twitch a little and Jiang Cheng feels seen and judged for what has been seen.

“Hey, I cried one time when I was drunk! One time!”

“You mean you only remember one time.”

“Whatever.”

Nie Huaisang takes a sip from his bends straw, then says, very casually: “So… have you talked to Wei Wuxian?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?” Nie Huaisang isn’t even looking at him, he’s playing with the fruit skewer of his cocktail. Jiang Cheng is grateful for that.

“... I’m thinking about it.”

“Alright,” is all Nie Huaisang says, nods, then changes the topic. “So, how are your massages going?”

“What the fuck? How do you know about that?”

“I have my sources.” Nie Huaisang smirks. “So? Is it relaxing? Getting worked over by Xichen-ge?”

Jiang Cheng chokes. He wasn’t even drinking anything, he’s choking on his own spit. “Fuck… ugh… why… why do you have to say it like that!?”

“No reason.” Nie Huaisang bats his eyelashes and takes a sip of his drink. “Is he loosening you up?”

Jiang Cheng buries his face in his hands. “Please don’t… I can’t believe I… Ugh.”

“My, my, why is your face so red?"

"No fucking reason, Huaisang."

"Mhm, do you still have a crush on him?"

Jiang Cheng puts his head on the table. Nie Huaisang cackles.

The next time he sees the waiter, Jiang Cheng waves him over and orders shots.

An hour or so later, they’re leaving the lounge and Jiang Cheng has put his arm through Nie Huaisang’s to support him while walking. Huaisang drank so much, he needs someone to lean on. Huaisang. Jiang Cheng can lean on Huaisang. A-Sang. Didi. A-di. Sang-Sang.

“This is why I didn’t want you to drink,” Nie Huaisang whines as he leads them over to a park bench. When did they enter the park?

“You’re the one who drank!”

“And you’re the one who got drunk!”

“Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. No. I’m not.” Jiang Cheng tips his head back. “I’m just a little tired.”

“Whatever you say. Anyway, I’m not gonna drag you all the way to your flat, I’m not getting all sweaty for you. So either we sit here until you sober up or I’ll call you a cab or something.”

“I am sober.” Jiang Cheng whips his head up to glare at Nie Huaisang and… his world spins a little. “Mostly. Fuck.”

Nie Huaisang grins at him. “Or I could call Xichen-ge to come pick you up.”

“Do you think he would come?!” Jiang Cheng asks. Fuck, he really is drunk, isn’t he? “I mean… Don’t you dare! He has better things to do, why would you… also, I wouldn’t want that. To see him. Outside.”

There, he totally saved that.

“Riiiiiiight. So, on a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want to make out with him?”

“Twelve.” Fuck. “I meant… Just in a… theoretically, you know? Like, if I were someone else and… Do I, Jiang Cheng, want to make out with Lan Xichen? I mean, yes, but no, I meant no… more like, would I, a human being, make out with Lan Xichen? Of course the answer is yes, because I am a human being, you know? But me, personally, Jiang Cheng… that’s, that’s something different, like if I were not also a human being, you know? So, there. That’s your answer!”

“Sweetie, you have it bad, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang, unlike Lan Xichen, has no problem with making super clear when he thinks you’re pitiful.

Jiang Cheng drags his hand down his face and sighs. “I don’t have it. I don’t have anything. This is no different. Just… I’m just weak and lonely and he’s nice and warm.” Jiang Cheng puts his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands. Suddenly, all energy leaves him. It’s true. He doesn’t have anything at all. No one.

“Oh no, here we go…” Nie Huaisang mumbles next to him.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t reply, because he’s too busy trying not to cry. What is wrong with him these days?

Suddenly, a warm hand comes to rest on top of his head. Starts stroking his hair.

“Jiang Cheng, listen to me.” Nie Huaisangs voice is calm and serious. That’s very rare. “You may be lonely, but you’re not alone. There are many people who love you, who miss you.”

Yeah, now he’s crying. Fuck.

“Xian-ge misses you, too.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if I’ve ruined it forever?” At least he’s not sobbing this time.

“You haven’t.”

Huaisang keeps stroking his hair. Jiang Cheng wants to tell him to stop, it’s embarrassing, he’s not a child, he’s…

“Why are you even here, with me? Shouldn’t you hate me?” He presses his hands closer against his face, too scared to look at Nie Huaisang.

“A-Cheng. Nobody hates you. Nobody. Least of all Wei Wuxian.”

“I hate me.” There, he said it. It’s the truth. Then he starts sobbing.

Nie Huaisang keeps stroking his hair until he’s calmed down. Why does he keep doing this? Completely losing it in front of other people? First Lan Xichen, now Nie Huaisang…

“I told you that you’re a maudlin drunk. You didn’t believe me.”

Jiang Chang can’t help but laugh. It sounds pitiful through the sobs, but it’s a laugh.

“Even more reason to get over yourself and call Wei Wuxian. You’ll find that he doesn’t hate you after all and maybe you can hate yourself less after.”

Nie Huaisang sounds so… pragmatic. As if it really was that easy. Maybe it is. Jiang Cheng wipes his face with his sleeve and finally dares to look at him.

Nie Huaisang gives him an understanding smile, a sincerity that lasts only for a second. Then he grins. “Damn, you look awful.”

“Thanks ever so much.” Jiang Cheng has to laugh again.

Nie Huaisang wipes a few more tears from his face, also using Jiang Cheng’s sleeve. “Don’t worry, you’re still pretty.”

“What a relief.” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. But he’s also grateful to Nie Huaisang. For being himself. For being here. “A-Sang, I…”

“Oh no, no way. Don’t do that to me. We’re going to forget this ever happened, okay? I didn’t see anything, you didn’t hear anything.”

Jiang Cheng pulls him close and gives him a crushing hug.

“Hey, what did I just say?!”

“I missed you,” Jiang Cheng mumbles into Nie Huaisang’s hair. There’s an awful lot of hair, some getting into his mouth. Nie Huaisang won’t be happy about that.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake… Just don’t cry on my shirt, I have a hot date this evening.”

Jiang Cheng eventually returns to his flat, mostly sober. It’s not even time for dinner yet and he feels as though this day has had 36 hours.

Nie Huaisang Cheng-Cheng all sober now? just wanted to say if you like Xichen-ge then you don’t have to do it quietly you’re very sweet when you’re in love don’t worry you deserve it, too just go for it if you reply to this message, I’ll kill you

[catravandece]

Oh my god ok wangning au based on this incredible art by @alfheimr​ (cql canon cuz im most familiar w/ it)

Knowing that lwj would probably rather spontaneously combust than willingly return to koi tower it’s sizhui who comes back from a guest lecture at 11 years old and says “hanguang jun, jin ling’s family has a corpse chained up in the basement?”

A few days later said chained corpse shows up on his dads bed looking extra morose and tortured while lwj heals various cuts and pops his leg back into place

they try to keep sizhui away at first, stop his memories from triggering to protect him from the realization that the world he loves made him an orphan twice over. but the kid is doggedly persistent and after a few visits it seems like nothing will happen. lwj introduces wen ning as “someone who needs us”

(sizhui is newly seventeen when he makes the connection- this is wen ning. hanguang-jun was friends with the yiling laozu who controlled the ghost general. both hanguang-jun and wen ning act like they’ve lost someone they loved. sizhui dreams that night of a blurry, charcoal covered face feeding him soup but the hands are so familiar. he spends the next day in the cold pond and vows never to bring it up to either of them)

Wen Ning lives in a long forgotten shrine just inside the border of cloud recesses closest to the jingshi. it’s only big enough for a few mats and most of the roof tiles are broken but it’s safer than bringing wn to the jingshi. When they find out who the martial god is that the shrine was built for they take care to always make sure his idol statue has a white flower to hold.

in beginning visiting is mostly just sitting in companionable silence. its easier when hanguang-jun brings sizhui, who asks some hard to dodge questions but is content knowing his dad has a friend. wen ning helps him with talismans (all of wwx’s work that the cultivation world still dares to use). 

wen ning makes a fire pit so at least lwj can have tea. maybe it’ll entice him to stay longer...

jin guangyao comes by soon after the stealing. he makes noises about visiting xichen but wangji sees his eyes darting around corners and past the treeline. A paper man trips the outer wards of the jingshi

lwj goes to the temple after escorting jgy out to find holes punched in every wall, broken tiles scattered over the floor and wen ning crouched terribly still amid the wreckage (a normal man would be heaving with sobs but wen ning is dead and can only smash out his feelings)

wangji sweeps everything into a pile and then starts playing his qin. he only plays wei ying’s songs. wen ning doesnt move for hours until he suddenly just falls over on his side. 

wangji hadn’t known until then whether or not wen ning actually needed sleep. turns out he doesnt need it but can be persuaded into it

lwj lays out two mats and they sleep through the night (fitfully, wen ning reaches out in his dreams and grabs the front of lwj’s robes. lwj holds on to his wrist the rest of the night)

Lwj was never resentful toward wen ning. Wen Ning kept wwx safe when wangji could not. Wen Ning is obviously in love with wei ying but at this point it’s a blessing to be around someone who doesn’t hate the love of lwj’s life. It takes a few days to get the words out (which wen ning spends constantly fearful lwj is gonna kill him for real for failing to keep wwx from dying, which would be just what he deserves) but lwj knows now to tell the people he loves what is important. So he doesn’t let this misunderstanding lie for very long

lwj feels guilty. even though he was enthralled, if lwj hadn’t intervened then wen ning could have spent this time in blissful ignorance, unaware of the miserable fact of wei wuxian’s death. but at the same time lwj is comforted by having someone to weather the grief with. someone else who loved wei ying (he doesn’t know it for a long time, but wen ning thinks the same)

one night wen ning follows lwj out on a night hunt. he makes sure to follow unseen- but ends up intervening when lwj takes on many more ghouls than he can handle. 

wen ning understands that this is lwj’s coping mechanism, throwing himself into the chaos, but he’s already watched one person he loved drive himself to ruin so he does everything possible to keep hanguang-jun in one piece, physically and mentally

so they night hunt together. wen ning gets to help a-yuan grow up (although he’s walking on eggshells the whole time). every year he helps lan wangji make a fire outside the temple and they burn joss paper. the rabbits love wen ning possibly even more than they love lan wangji and like to chew on his robes (wen ning lets them bc he is a noodle)

the art happens here bc only healing around the bunnies

grief and moving on family ;~;

Bonus wangningxian 

lan wangji would never let wn accompany him on night hunts when other sects are involved, but something about both jiang cheng and jin rulan and sizhui being at dafan mountain makes wen ning follow. he felt a major disturbance in the world just a few days prior. worrying never did wen ning wrong yet

he pretends to still be enthralled so the others don’t suspect wwx summoned him intentionally (of course he knows it’s wwx under the mask bc power of love and also nobody else is strong enough in demonic cultivation to control him)

when wwx asks next time they meet in yueyang, wen ning pretends to not know who broke him out of koi tower. he can save face for lan wangji that way. and besides, anyone can see that lwj and wwx are the kind of soulmates wen ning will never be to someone. 

lwj lets it slip anyway while he’s wasted. wwx accurately guesses at wen ning covering for lwj but is still an oblivious idiot

after the golden core reveal wangji and wen ning both carry wwx away

wei wuxian wakes up in a boat with his head in lan zhan’s lap and his feet tangled with wen ning’s boots. theyre nice boots- like something lan zhan would buy in white

they go to the guanyin temple. wwx is thankful that wen ning and lan zhan have had each other all the years he’s been dead. he wonders aloud if sizhui would be friends with wen ning now that they’ve all met, because obviously wen ning didn’t know any of the juniors until yi city

this is getting long so everything else happens as usual, wwx still goes on his lonely mental healing vacation, he runs into sizhui and lan zhan and wen ning on a night hunt on his way back and realizes watching the three of them interact that they’ve already been 3/4 of a family just waiting for him to come back

and it was all Gay and Good the end

[tatselk]

The Untamed (陈情令) Review: Ep 21

!!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Previous episode review: 1 and 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,17, 18,19, 20.

Some quality Yunmeng Jiang Siblings Fluff now that WWX is back from the dead. The teary reunion! The hugging! WWX’s (bittersweet on hindsight) promise that the three of them would never be parted again! :):):)

I have to bring up NHS randomly bursting in on WWX and telling him how worried everyone was in looking for him, ESPECIALLY LWJ and JC. Hey, NHS, why did you mention LWJ first? Are you secretly a WangXian shipper too? Hahaha. 

All the pining and estrangement btw WWX and LWJ was just-! I swear I could literally feel the secondhand awkwardness through the screen at that bit whereby WWX and JC suddenly came across LWJ and LXC in the corridors and had no way of avoiding them.

While this episode was technically about the 4 great cultivational sects trying to bring down WRH/the Wen sect and gossip swirling around WWX's miraculous return from the Burial Mounds, it basically just felt like a romcom whereby everyone else in a friend group was walking on eggshells due to the tension between certain members of the group (coughWangXianbreakupcough). XD  Like JC demanding to know why WWX wanted to look for LWJ after the falllout between them in episode 20, what was going on with WWX and LWJ, whether WWX planned to never communicate with LWJ again etc. 

I kinda like the symbolism of how JC and JYL are now consistently dressed in purple, as per the Jiang sect’s colours. Like now that their parents are dead and they have have been reunited again, the two of them have become the “face” of the Jiang sect.

Oh shit, WWX seems to have already started losing control of the demonic cultivation thing. AND JYL kept detecting traces of this. We already know all of this isn’t going to end well but isn’t this happening abit too soon?!

Oh shit X2, WRH looks like he is cooking up some diabolical zombie-related plan in his Villainous Abode. I... hope it wasn’t MY/JGY who helped WRH come up with that plan (see my review of episode 19). 0_0

Ok, I’m kinda loving WWX’s dramatic entrance (complete with special wind effects!) as he entered the meeting room where the others were having a discussion on how to attack WRH and how he casually dropped a few cryptic lines before leaving again. But I can also definitely see how/why this might piss the other characters off. Lol. 

My favourite part of this episode was probably that philosophical discussion between the Twin Jades about how one can tell right from wrong if there are no set rules in the world to follow; how one would not necessarily know the answer to everything just because one reads many books etc. 

The ending scene between LWJ and WWX killed me. Like why are they so bad at communicating with each other? Why does LWJ have to resort to drawing his sword to prove his point?! Why does WWX have to grin and evade LWJ’s questions/pretend not to know what LWJ was driving at??? GAHHH.

Overall: 8/10. I really liked how this episode fleshed out how WWX struggled and coped with dealing with everything after his return from the Burial Mounds. So this score would have been even higher if I weren’t so affected by all the underlying tension and potential for angst. Haha. 

[crossdressingdeath]

Ah, the WWX's mistakes that 10 message anon was speaking about that JC fans are accusing people of glossing over is not the pledge conference stuff at all, but more personality points that are actually entirely dependent on people's interpretation of the characters. Like iirc WWX is accused of being arrogant because he doesn't obey JC and it's bad because doing things on his own even to save people is actually giving JC anxiety (as it should honestly while JC is busy ignoring a genocide)1/6

about his capacity to be a leader and makes him feel infantilized, so WWX really should stop doing that and displaying any non pre-approved initiative around JC, though at the same time they also recognize that JC is an inept leader, or that WWX tries to do things without anyone's help, as if there were many people offering him help at any time in the story, (when offered in a way that isn't conflicting with his other previous commitments, like LWJ wanting to bring him to Gusu, WWX accepts2/6

help readily, WN at LP frex?) or that WWX thinks he's more competent that others, which he really is sometimes, it's not a sin to recognize that and act in consequence or should he pretend he's not and make sure no one is feeling left out? Basically digs at WWX for not asking JC's help or input while it was always 100% crystal clear that JC will never do anything about the Wen refugees because he doesn't want to and is generally anti-helping people while WWX actually avoids asking JC directly3/6

to prevent JC from having to refuse and maybe feeling bad about it for 10 minutes. Some parts of the fandom actually believe that if WWX only found the correct way to ask without triggering one of JC's 100 complexes, JC would do it and there is a belief, often at the same time that WWX is too skilled and autonomous, that WWX is a hard-to-love disaster child and JC, in his great generosity, is moping over his disasters. I'll let them have that WWX is not trusting JC as a leader and more4/6

especially not trusting him to take decisions that are not morally bankrupt as it's the starting point of their riff and why they would never have worked as a leader/subordinate in the first place, but having morals unlike the rest of the cultivation world is not a mistake that WWX has to fix. And of course, the good usual dis-core-se (a crime then WWX repeatedly lied about, not a sacrifice on WWX's part) or that WWX has a martyr complex that hurts others more that he helps them (he made JC5/6

worry for him and stuff, so who cares about people he really saved the lives of) but I really don't think that WWX sets up himself to die but neither the world nor his debt to the Jiang family that at least 3 members of said family rubbed in his face left him any choice in that. So yeah, it's a parallel world with a parallel WWX that is in heavy need of being redeemed, but a very nice JC that sometimes just says mean words but who only needs to be understood and appreciated and deferred to. 6/6

Sorry for putting that in your askbox haha, but I really did try to understand the other side's opinion, and I'll got in the end was pithy comments about it. 7/6

Yeah, there is this huge thing with a lot of pro-JC meta where it feels like they’re saying “If WWX just did what JC wanted and never went against his wishes like a good little servant everything would’ve been fine!” and... that’s not how it works. WWX shouldn’t have had to bow and scrape and walk on eggshells to convince JC that these innocent civilians (including a child) didn’t deserve to die! JC could have offered to help, if he only refused because WWX asked in the wrong way! It’s this thing where they’re acting like WWX should’ve just... let JC tell him what to do and never argue even when that meant letting people die, when let’s be honest here, that would have destroyed WWX. JC’s feelings aren’t the only thing that matters!

And the whole thing where it’s like “WWX is a disaster child and JC is a saint for putting up with that!” is like... WWX isn’t a disaster child. I mean, he kind of is? But not the way it’s frequently portrayed. He messes around, pulls pranks, jokes, but when it actually matters he is deadly serious. Name a single time when WWX messes around and actually gets people hurt or causes serious problems. Meanwhile JC’s “funny jokes” around WWX are frequently things like threatening to send dogs after him, which... yeah, no, not funny. There’s a reason why pretty much all their peers are at least on friendly terms with WWX, while no one seems to speak to JC if they can avoid it!

And yeah, WWX doesn’t seem to trust JC as a leader... but why would he? What has JC done that wasn’t largely handled by WWX or actually got people killed? JC is a terrible leader and WWX recognizing that and trying to avoid involving him in anything involving planning or leading is... perfectly understandable.