#because where was all this stuff when HE was acting sect leader

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

dueling banjos but it’s Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng whipping out increasingly complex and researched reports and spreadsheets during a discussion conference

Lan Xichen is delighted ‘oh a-Yao, you’ve made a friend!’ Jin Guangyao has NOT made a friend. Jin Guangyao has made a BITTER MORTAL ENEMY and what’s more the feeling is extremely mutual

[serialadoptersbracket]

Full propaganda: Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu

1, Wen Kexing: Look this man shouldn't be adopting kids because he's kinda evil and also the leader of an army of criminals and outcasts, a position where he killed his way to the top at a young age, BUT when he was still just a kid he found Gu Xiang and knew that if he didn't take care of her that she would die and became her father/brother/master (it's complicated). And then many years later when he's off doing his revenge quest he basically ends up adopting Chengling who is freshly an orphan which was kind of Kexing’s fault (it's complicated), but Chengling doesn't mind that his new dads are a little evil (his other dad is Zhou Zishu who basically created the CIA in fantasy ancient China). And then Gu Xiang falls in love with Cao Weining which puts Kexing into protective father mode and he goes all overbearing father-in-law on Weining, but he comes around when he's sure that Weining will treat her right. And then when Weining's family/sect turns on him, Kexing becomes one of the few people left he could call family (also with the rest of the group).

2, Both: Wen Kexing- the man has his entire life planned around an evil revenge plot yet somehow while becoming the Ghost Valley Chief he manages to take Gu Xiang (who must of been a young girl at that point) under his wing. Sure the woman in the unfaithful manor probably helped him out with her, but still she manages to come out of the Ghost Valley probably the least messed up out of anyone. Also he goes total protective dad the second Cao Weining starts courting her, literally nitpicks everything the man does, yet in the end he gives them his support in the marriage and even holds it on his turf, opening up the Ghost Valley to normal (warrior/cultivating) people for their wedding. His positive interactions with Zhang Chengling are to a less extent, especially as the boy is so embroiled in his revenge scheme, but none the less he teaches him and treats him decently especially as the spend more time with each other.

ZZS- He gets tangled up in WKX’s whole revenge plot because he promises to protect and escort the boy, Zhang Chengling, to the safety of one of his martial uncles, and yet before we even hit the halfway point in episodes (at least I think it is) he’s taken the boy under his wing as what is essentially a disciple, even though he is the last member of his sect and was ready to let it die with him. Not to mention the fact that his whole plan was to waste away mostly unnoticed and yet he somehow gets dragged into the biggest drama of the decade and repeatedly puts himself in harms way to save the kid! And he planned on passing over the legacy of his sect to him! His relationship with Gu Xiang is less intense, but if I had to describe how they act it’s a constant back and forth, he annoys teases her and she gets all frustrated. She spends the first couple episodes literally thinking he’s a weird old man, cause their whole relationship is just like that. He’s also much more sympathetic to Cao Weining’s continuous courting struggle though that’s not to say he doesn’t pull a fast one or few on him.

3, Zhou Zishu: former assassin who literally just wanted to drink himself to death in peace but then in the span of like 2 day he suddenly obtained 2 kids and a husband(stalker)???? poor man Did Not want this and proceeds to spend the next few weeks/months in denial about it before finally coming to terms with the fact that he cares about all of them (not that he's gonna tell them that) and then he gets a son-in-law too??? the universe really refused to let him die alone and miserable and decided to drop and entire family on him out of nowhere

4, Both: “Submitting as a couple for maximum kid coverage. Also I saw that you already got show versions, so: this propaganda might sound contradictory to what you've got, but that's just because they changed stuff for the show.

In a vaguely chronological order: when Wen Kexing is about 12-13, living in a sort of no-laws land for people exiled from normal society, he picks up an orphaned infant girl, Gu Xiang, and decides to raise her (which btw to this day drives me severely insane because. he was just a kid! he was barely keeping himself safe!! he gave her a childhood he himself couldnt have!!!). Elsewhere, Zhou Zishu, also a teen at the time, gets saddled with looking after this kid, Liang Jiuxiao, by his shifu/teacher. Both Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu act as a sort of parent/older brother figure to their respective kids. (Wen Kexing even puts it this way to someone, saying "we grew up together, so I'm a bit like her brother, but I also brought her up, so I'm a bit like her father too".)

Much later, when both Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing are in late twenties, they happen to run into each other. At this point, Liang Jiuxiao died in war a few years prior, but Zhou Zishu gets handed another kid - Zhang Chengling, a very recently orphaned 14yo. Zishu originally maintains that he's only helping the kid get to his extended family (kid's father's friend who's supposed to be like an uncle to him), but everyone gets attached. Zhang Chengling decides to become Zhou Zishu's disciple no matter what; Zishu is kind of seeing Jiuxiao in him, but also himself - because of how everyone is pressuring Chengling into taking responsibility for restoring his family's name/school while he is just a kid, when Zhou Zishu himself was only 15 when he had to take over his own school/organization because his shifu died - and Zishu is only now realizing this was maybe a lil bit non-ideal; Wen Kexing also partially sees himself... though a large part is also him just vibing with how much he, Zishu, and Chengling look like a nice lil' family together (he and Zishu are actually villain4villain but they rp normalcy so hard Chengling actually grows up well-adjusted); Gu Xiang and Chengling also develop a friendship.

So eventually Zhou Zishu goes "fuck it" and takes Chengling away, and he and Wen Kexing raise him together. They have a nice family vacation in the middle of the book and everything. The new year chapter is just *chefs kiss*

Zhou Zishu also looks out for Gu Xiang, and gives her some good advise. She doesn't spend as much time with the family because she's an adult at the time of the novel (by setting's standards) and is doing her own things, but Zishu clearly does take her as one of his own too.

The last two are not as clearly adopted but I figure I should mention them for completion's sake.

Cao Weining is a guy WenZhou run into on their travels, who they find a little silly but endearing. (the guy learned gay ppl exist and became an ally within like one conversation XD) He later falls in love with Gu Xiang, and she reciprocates after a while, so he is more son-in-law than outright adoptee - but at this point whos counting, hes also theirs in a way.

Meanwhile Gao Xiaolian is a girl whose dad was killed by the same people who killed Chengling's family, and she herself was kidnapped. Gu Xiang, Zhang Chengling, and Cao Weining rescue her and bring her to the family. She doesnt get a lot of interaction with WenZhou, but she becomes an important fourth member of no-braincells quartet with the rest of the 'children'. And she and Zhang Chengling also kill a guy together in a way that wasn't very honorable (deserved though), so clearly the influence of this particular found family is there 👍”

[silverloreley]

Watching till the end of the moon is just making me appreciate LBFAD so much more, the conflict between those two made so much sense and xiao lan hua struggled with it but stood by DFQC and understood him and loved him. The way YXW is acting is driving me insane, it doesn't make sense in the context of the show, idc about the novel,things should make sense in the context of the drama on it's own,this is supposedly an epic love story but one half is constantly betraying the other

LBFAD is amazing and I don't think I would have started TTEOTM if the first had not stolen my whole heart. But they're completely different on so many levels: one is a fairytale, the other is a high fantasy bloody drama, one is a cheerful love story that has some heavy moments and deep themes at the heart, the other is a tragic romance that starts with blood and will probably end the same way, they are not the same at all, I can't compare the two.

Don't get me wrong, I love both in their own way, but they start from different standpoints and their FLs are deeply different too. We don't quite know much about LSS before she became YXW, while we have the whole life and backstory of XLH unraveled for us, their differences are in character also.

I still think TTEOTM is a love story, but a twisted one, the kind where love isn't enough alone, where there is no right thing to do, where one must lose more than the self to win because there is too much at stake. LSS is ready to give up her everything for the greater good, her identity, her love, her life... noble, sure, but the right thing would be for her to fight for her love and the world all the same, to communicate more (and wasn't that the same mistake MY and SJ made?), to try and find a middle ground and she doesn't. Which is probably due to her upbringing, we can't forget she was the daughter of a sect leader, the values they must have instilled in her since childhood are radicated deep down. We did see XLH grow from her prejudices and I really wish LSS will do the same, but I can't see it happening anytime soon and I worry there won't be the chance for her to, if the spoilers I found around are true.

But you're right about some things making no sense without the novel being involved, as someone who didn't read it either I was very confused when LSS went to XL, why would she do that? I can understand LSS jumping to the worst conclusions about TTJ's actions over and over again because she saw him at his worst and most powerful and she's constantly waiting, terrified, for the other shoe to drop and him going full on the dark side, I get it and don't blame her, yet I can't see why would she root for the Shang royal family when she knows they are scum (in the drama, again, which is the only thing that truly matters, the story must make sense on its own!).

In this respect, Qingyu is way more reasonable, he switched sides to save his men and is watching for proof of having made the right choice (and gets them, time and time again), while LSS is slowly starting to look at what's going on with more objectivity... but too slowly! While the time constraint she has (the 300 days that must be less than 200 by now, more or less) makes her antsy! I don't know if the demons being free en masse will mean the Evil Bone will react to them and activate or what (this is the only explanation I could imagine for it) but she's in a rush and that's never good when in delicate situations (that's what tragedies are made of, that's why I can't see a happy ending here, although I hope I'm wrong and there will be one).

Anyway, I still like the show with all its flaws (I liked way lower-quality stuff over time and I'll never deny it) and will follow it until the end, hoping the mistakes so far will be explained/fixed later on. Otherwise, I'll just do what I did before, fics and fandom support.

;)

[jaimebluesq]

A-Yao is having a hard time to deal with the feelings he still have for his ex, especially because these feelings seem to be stronger than what he feels for his boyfriend. Huaisang, as his confidant, ex-brother-in-law and an enthusiastic for his best friend and brother to get back together, is definitely finding a way (with help or not). ((Sorry, Xichen)).

The setting is up to you.

Can also be found now on AO3

All right, no Xichen in this one - I'll admit that I'm not a big love triangle person (unless it's to turn it into a throuple), but what I AM a sucker for is I would not have loved thee less had I loved not duty more ;)

Either way, I hope you like!

~~~

This will not end, my brother, my friend... not if I can help it

~*~*~*~

“This is wrong,” Nie Huaisang muttered from behind his gently waving fan. “Absolutely, completely wrong.”

“You're standing in front of the roast pheasant,” was the only thing Jiang Cheng had to say in response.

Nie Huaisang sniffed at the lack of sympathy from his friend. “Didn't you hear a word I said?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Jiang Cheng finally slipped around Nie Huaisang to grab what he wanted from the buffet table. “It's the same thing you've been saying since the announcement was made.”

“Well, it's just as real now as it was then.”

He looked to the front of the hall where Jin Guangyao (what a stupid name, there hadn't been anything wrong with Meng Yao) stood, smooth-talking a handful of sect leaders with his newly betrothed hanging off his arm. He and Qin Su looked absolutely, ridiculously happy together – and Nie Huaisang couldn't stand it.

“I'm going to do something about it.”

Jiang Cheng heaved a pained sigh. “Please don't.”

“I am.”

Jiang Cheng gave him a look. When Nie Huaisang didn't change his answer, his friend huffed and turned to return to the seats for the Jiang delegation.

Making a few quick mental calculations, Nie Huaisang grabbed a bottle of wine and drank half if it without taking a single breath, making certain enough dribbled from the mouth of the bottle to drip onto his clothing – not enough to look like he'd soaked in the stuff, but enough to give the impression that he'd certainly had too much to drink – then began purposefully weaving through the crowd toward Jin Guangyao. When he was close enough to his target, Jin Guangyao spotted him immediately with a look of utter disappointment.

“Shan-ge,” he slurred, shuffling over to Jin Guangyao's side. “Oh Shan-ge, everything'sh shpinning. How did you get the room to shpin like that? Was it talishmansh?”

Jin Guangyao sighed and gave Qin Su an apologetic smile before turning his full attention to Nie Huaisang. “The room isn't spinning, A-Sang. Come, why don't we go someplace and sit for a bit.”

“And how'd you get the lightsh sho bright?”

“That's the late afternoon sun, A-Sang.” Jin Guangyao escorted Nie Huaisang away from the hall and toward a quiet corner of Koi Tower, stopping when they reached the door to Jin Guangyao's quarters. “Come, I have some tea you can drink to get a little more clear-headed.”

Nie Huaisang sat where he was led and watched his friend move about the room to prepare the tea. “I really missed you, San-ge.”

Jin Guangyao paused, a soft smile at his lips before he shook it away. “I miss you too. But you know where I am, and you're always welcome to visit.”

“No I'm not.” Nie Huaisang put on his best pout. ���You're going to be married soon, and I won't be able to just come over anymore. I don't even think she likes me much.”

A warm cup of tea was placed between Nie Huaisang's hands. “That's not true. A-Su adores you – at least when you're not acting overly dramatic.”

Nie Huaisang took a sip, appreciating the taste of the tea. “But it's not the same. Things will never be the same.” He lowered his head. “Not like when you were in Qinghe, when you loved Da-ge and me. Why don't you love us anymore?”

“Oh, A-Sang.” The seat dipped next to him as a comforting hand brushed along his back. “I never stopped loving you, either of you.”

“Then why didn't you come back to Qinghe after the war?”

Jin Guangyao clicked his tongue. “You really are drunk today, aren't you. To bring all of this back up...” He sighed. “This is my home now. I have family-”

“-that don't care about you, not like we do.”

“Whether or not that's true, I have a duty to them, to support my father's efforts to help rebuild the jianghu, to ensure our ties to our allies. I made the decision to stay, and I will abide by it.”

“But are you happy?” There was a tightness to Jin Guangyao's face that made Nie Huaisang push forward. “Do you even like Qin Su?”

Jin Guangyao looked at him as if he'd said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Of course I do, A-Sang. I adore her! She's beautiful and kind and sweet, perhaps a little simple, but when the world is so complicated, a little simplicity is very welcome.”

“But do you love her?”

“A-Sang, I just told you-”

“Do. You. Love. Her.”

Their eyes met and Jin Guangyao's narrowed. “You're not drunk.”

“And you're evading my question. You're marrying someone you don't love-”

“Since when do such things matter in our world? This alliance is more important than you know, and Qin Su is a wonderful woman who deserves better than she would get with most cultivators out there. I saved her life, A-Sang-”

“But that doesn't mean you have to take care of her for the rest of yours, A-Yao.” Jin Guangyao grimaced and stood up. “Da-ge never stopped loving you.”

Jin Guangyao spun, face twisted in anger. “Don't think for one second you can lie to me about that-”

“I'm not!” Nie Huaisang stood up as well, stopping once he was face-to-face with one of the few cultivators who didn't tower over him. “I'm not saying he feels sorry for the things he's done or the choices he's made... but he still loves you.”

Jin Guangyao shook his head. “So what, Huaisang? What does love matter if he still distrusts me? If all he sees when he looks at me is a traitor, someone who killed his disciples in front of him?” He huffed out a breath in frustration. “And even if he did forgive me, even if he could see past what happened and accept that I did what I had to do at the time... do you expect me to leave my family and my responsibilities? To abandon Qin Su to some corrupt politician who thinks he can use her as a pawn to get closer to Sect Leader Qin? To ruin this alliance between us and her sect? Even if – and that's a big if, Huaisang – even if Da-ge came to me on his knees and begged me to come back, and if I wanted to get on my hands and knees to crawl back to him because he's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I dream of at night... what do the things we want and need matter in the greater scheme of things?”

“But if you love him, it does make a difference. Don't you want to be happy, A-Yao?”

Jin Guangyao placed a tender hand on Nie Huaisang's cheek. “Very few of us ever get to be truly happy, A-Sang. Your brother has given up much in his life so that you could find some happiness. You shouldn't waste it arguing with the likes of me.”

“I would give all of it up to give him a chance to be happy with you again.” A real, genuine tear trickled down from the corner of Nie Huaisang's eye. “You made him happy. If it's about an alliance, then I'll marry her for you. If it's about being filial, your father doesn't even deserve it! Please, A-Yao... don't do this, just come back home.”

A gentle thumb brushed the tear away, and Jin Guangyao leaned up to place a fond kiss upon his brow. “Whatever happens between your brother and I, you will always be my dear friend and a brother in my heart.”

Nie Huaisang wanted to argue, to kick and scream that Jin Guangyao was making the worst mistake of his life, but instead, he merely sighed. “And you will always be my San-ge.”

“Now let's get back to the party, all right?”

Nie Huaisang nodded and allowed himself to be led back to the main hall, all the way thinking one prominent thought.

Well, it's time to pull out Plan B.

~*~*~*~

Where the first day of the conference had been joyous with food and wine and good humour, the second day was absolute pandemonium.

“Who would have thought Jin Guangshan would rape his friend's wife?” a scandalized Moling-Su disciple whispered.

“Are you really surprised?” replied a white-clad Lan disciple. “This is Jin Guangshan, after all.”

“I just can't believe he tried marrying his daughter to his son,” the Jiang disciple snorted. “Just when I thought I couldn't think lower of Jin-zongzhu.”

“But how did it even come out?” The Jin disciple looked more perplexed than anything. “It happened decades ago, and I don't think even Jin-zongzhu remembered it.”

“I have no idea,” replied a gleeful He disciple. “But this is the best cultivation conference ever.”

At the back of the room, Nie Huaisang sipped from a glass of wine as he watched the action from over the edge of his folding fan. Nearly a dozen cultivators were holding back Sect Leader Qin from leaping at Jin Guangshan if only because it was believed that a duel in the middle of the great hall was tacky, and they should take it to the training yard where the blood wouldn't stain the marble floor. The Jin Elders were already discussing the benefits of prematurely promoting Jin Zixuan to sect leader, and poor innocent Qin Su was sobbing in her mother's arms.

A Jin disciple, one who had a great deal of loyalty to Jin Guangshan – in other words, an utter fool – stomped toward Madame Qin and her daughter and grabbed the elder woman's arm, demanding she recant her story and stop spreading lies about their sect leader.

The disciple's ravenous words were cut short by the crackling of a purple whip nearby.

Ah, Jiang-xiong looks so handsome coming to someone's rescue.

He watched Jiang Cheng's gruff face check in on Madame Qin and her daughter before turning back to the main action. In his wake, Qin Su's tears stopped as she watched his back with a look of awe, much like what she'd had on her face in the weeks after Jin Guangyao had saved her life.

Nie Huaisang's fan stopped.

Jiang Cheng called over his disciples and began to lead them out of the great hall. Qin Su left her mother's side and began to follow them.

Nie Huaisang's eyes narrowed.

He began subtly making his way around the edges of the great hall and wove his way between various disciples until he reached the huge double doors. He slipped through, intent on finding out where Qin Su had gone, when he was distracted by a pair of familiar voices talking softly from a closed side room.

“This can't be easy for you,” Nie Mingjue said with a rare compassionate voice.

“I'm all right, Da-ge.” That was Jin Guangyao. “It was a shock, but considering the truth... It's good that it happened sooner rather than when it was too late.”

“But it's understandable to be upset. Loving someone isn't something you can just turn off easily.”

There was a pause. “I did care for her, but... I did not love her, not truly, not as she deserved.”

Nie Huaisang's eyes widened in hope as he pressed his ear against the nearby wall.

“But you were betrothed to her.”

“She is a good woman, and Father wanted to ensure the alliance. I may be newly brought into the family, but I'm still filial.” Nie Huaisang couldn't see what was happening in the room, but Jin Guangyao's next words made him think his brother must have made some sort of grimace. “I know what you think of me, Mingjue, and there's nothing I can do to change that. But whatever you think of the things I've done, I've always known where my loyalties lied. If nothing else... you were the one who taught me the importance of duty to one's sect even above our duty to ourselves.”

Then there was silence long enough to tempt Nie Huaisang to pop the door open if only to make certain nobody was dead, but just as he was about to do so, the voices spoke again.

“All right, maybe I've been a little... rigid.” Nie Mingjue sounded like the words were being extracted from him like pulled teeth.

“I understand why you still question me, Mingjue, and I can't really blame you. Not after the war and everything that was lost... Were you to respond in any other way, you wouldn't be the man I once loved.”

“Once?” Nie Mingjue hesitated. “No longer?”

Nie Huaisang stuffed his fist in his mouth to stop himself from keening in excitement.

There was the sound of soft footsteps in the room. “A-Jue, please, you know what I mean.”

“You're not betrothed anymore.”

“I know that, but-”

“And I suspect the Jin will have a new sect leader by the end of the day.”

“That's true.” Jin Guangyao sighed. “But where else should I be?”

“In Qinghe, with me. With Huaisang. There will always be a place for you with us... if you still want it.”

“I...” Jin Guangyao's voice broke. “I thought you hated me.”

“I hated feeling betrayed by you, I hated seeing what you did and what the war did to you, how it changed you...” Nie Mingjue's voice dropped to a whisper. “But no matter what you did, never in a million lifetimes could I ever truly hate you, A-Yao.”

A hand suddenly clapped onto Nie Huaisang's shoulder, making him jump and yelp in surprise. He spun, his heart nearly beating out of his chest, only beginning to calm once his eyes fell on the familiar face of Jiang Cheng.

“What kind of trouble are you getting into?” Jiang Cheng accused, but despite his gruff words, his eyes were soft, almost fond.

“Ah, nothing, absolutely nothing.” Nie Huaisang lifted his fan to cover his lower face.

“Why don't I believe you?”

“Well... Oh! I thought I saw young mistress Qin leaving the main hall. Did you happen to see her?”

Jiang Cheng grimaced. “She chased me down to thank me for standing up to that Jin asshole. I sent her back to her mother.”

“Oh. Good.” Nie Huaisang's face flushed. “I was worried something might have happened to her.” Like deciding you were the next hero to imprint upon like she did A-Yao.

“She's probably fine.” Jiang Cheng's lack of concern brought a smile to Nie Huaisang's face. “I'm glad I found you, though. I'm betting there won't be a banquet this evening, and even if there is one, it'll probably be full of gossips wanting to do nothing but talk about what happened today. I gave my disciples leave to go wherever they wanted and I was going to have dinner in town. Join me?”

“Well, I'm not sure.” Nie Huaisang made a great show of hemming and hawing. “You know how much I love to gossip, and to miss the best of it?”

Jiang Cheng lifted an eyebrow; Nie Huaisang's fan snapped shut as he grinned.

“All right, twist my arm, why don't you. Besides, who am I to say no to Jiang-zongzhu?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes and took a step down the hall. “Please don't call me that.”

“What about... Jiang Wanyin,” Nie Huaisang teased, matching his friend's stride.

“Do that again and I'll break your legs.”

“Well we already know I can call you Jiang-xiong.” Jiang Cheng nodded. “But what about... A-Cheng?” he asked in a flirtatious, breathy voice.

Jiang Cheng said nothing in reply, but his face grew beet red, the colour going from the tips of his ears down to his neck and beyond. Nie Huaisang took a risk by placing one hand in the crook of his friend's elbow, feeling a thrill when it wasn't shaken off.

“You're ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng muttered.

Nie Huaisang smiled and decided to let up on the flirting – for now. Later, however...

Well, now that his brother's happiness was almost assured, perhaps it was time to focus on his own.

Fin

[superiorjello]

The Untamed Not Me AU

The Twin Jades are Black and White, obviously. Lan Qiren took Xichen away to Russia when they were small because of the twin connection and has trained him to be a diplomat. Wangji stayed behind in Cloud Recesses with their father, but he ended up butting heads with him over how their mother was treated before she died and he ran away. He stayed with an old family friend, Meng Yao, for a while, but eventually joined a gang and got his own place.

Lan Wangji is the leader of the group, but Wei Wuxian and he are close and Wei Ying's brilliant mind helps him plan. Wen Qing's family own an old warehouse in Yiling that's left empty as a tax write-off, so they use that as a base with no one the wiser. Jiang Cheng joined their merry band to tear down the Wen who killed his parents, and Nie Huaisang is an artist driven to their cause by the Jin who employed his brother and whose negligence (at best, malice at worst) left Nie Mingjue crippled.

Wei Wuxian is completely oblivious to Lan Wangji's crush on him, instead trying to pair his friend up with MianMian, a dancer friend of his and Jiang Cheng's sister. Yanli is an art student and grafitti artist that supports their cause, but her brothers are determined to keep her out of their illegal activities.

Wangji discovered that Meng Yao was up to some shady shit, and starts investigating his connections with the Jin by himself.

When Xichen comes back to the country after graduating college, he's only just started to meet some of Lan Qiren's government friends for dinner (Sect Leaders Yao and Ouyang among them) when he has an episode. After going to the hospital to be checked over, he gets a call from old friend Meng Yao telling him his brother is in the hospital, in a medically induced coma to help him recover from massive injuries, including a freshly-flayed back. He convinces Xichen to masquerade as his twin and infiltrate his little gang to try and find out who hurt Wangji.

He's hilariously bad at it. He hasn't seen his brother in a decade. Wangji was never one for many words, but he's apparently become much ruder than he used to. He also wears entirely white, none of the blues that they both used to wear, he's got several piercings in his ears, and he rides a massive motorbike that he named Bichen.

On Xichen's first night with the gang, they burn down one of Wen Chao's vacation houses. They see someone on the third floor as they're leaving, and Xichen runs in to save them but gets turned around in the smoke and Jiang Cheng ends up saving him. Huaisang does save the interloper, and it ends up being Mo Xuanyu, an internet-famous grafitti artist (who works for the Jin, but hates them).

Xichen starts spending a lot of time around Jiang Cheng, because since he and Wangji never got along before, he doesn't expect anything from Xichen (Xichen finds acting like Wangji to be exhausting- why can't his brother just be nice to people?). Except now they DO get along, and Jiang Cheng is very confused by it all.

Xichen also starts to see the cracks in the shining political world he was raised in, the darkness beneath starting to become more and more evident as he sees the world through his brother's eyes. He eventually tells his uncle where to stuff the Lan legacy, and leaves home- joining the gang full-time and letting his identity as Xichen fade.

Both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian start to figure out that Wangji isn't Wangji, though coming at it from different sides. Wuxian is used to how Lan Zhan treats him, the reverence and care he showed silently. Now that is has become polite indifference, he misses it terribly. For Jiang Cheng, being actually able to stand the guy when before all he wanted to do was punch his face has clued him in.

Everything coming into the open is messy and uncomfortable, but the Twin Jades work everything out, and in the end everyone's got a boyfriend and the Jin and Wen both take massive hits to their reputations, so it works out.

Bonus cql plot to add: a-Yuan, Wen Qing and Wen Ning's orphaned cousin. They don't trust him with the rest of their family, so Wen Ning brings him by the warehouse pretty often, and Wuxian and Wangji adore him. The kid can somehow tell that Xichen isn't Wangji, but he can also tell that Xichen doesn't mean any harm and accepts him as an uncle.

[llycaons]

ep24 (pt3): sibling time <3

this line makes me go insane...she doesn't even know what she said with this

jyl doesn't come up in fics enough for me to gauge how she's written during this time period, but let it be known that she openly speaks about jc's bad temper

the fact that I mostly read postcanon stuff or AUs is the reason for that, btw. I don't like, avoid reading about her. I just don't read much fic in this time period, at all. I just think it's all far too well-done to bother with fic. the closest I got was a few where wwx and lwj get together earlier and none of them are better than canon. also nobody seems interested in exploring her canon character during this arc, it's all 'badass clan leader jyl with zidian' and such

this is the second time he says this 😭

HE'S HUNGRY! this is maybe the first time THIS shorthand comes up, and jyl knows it! she doesn't immediately run off and get food, she stays with him and plays around and offers him comfort and affection in ways that are easy for him to accept. vulnerability and asking for affection is really hard for wwx given his personality, his interpersonal dynamics with others, and his status in the sect. but he knows he can tell his sister he's hungry and she'll play along with him and shower him in love. ough

I kind of wish they had left her response out...it looked like she know what was going on with lwj but this makes it look like she has no idea

REGARDLESS. regardless. wwx's reluctance to pursue his feelings or even acknowledge them is very in-line with his characterization, especially right now. this isn't a crush who's fun to tease anymore, it's about real, serious feelings that he's attempting to distance himself from because he knows he can't act on them. or looking at it another way, he's scared of getting further in because he values his freedom and connections with others brings with them obligations. so. final scene wwx leaving extremely important thematically and character-wise and shows tremendous growth on lwj's part, and wwx's excited reunion with lwj at the end shows that even after taking his freedom, he's still eager to start his life with lwj because he came to terms with loving him and is no longer afraid...

oh this was just so silly. jyl you goof. this is such big sister baby sibling joking around

this is also really funny. their banter here is SO good, god I truly get why ppl are obsessed with them. when they're not on the outs, they have a great dynamic and are on the same page about almost everything

literally one of the funniest scenes in the show, help

so so funny, jc adjusting his collar to look more dignified and he and his siblings laughing. one of the pure scenes where nobody's being attacked or hurt, and they really are just having a good time with each other

and this was very nice of wwx

prettyyy

and this is decent communication too! hey, I have obligations here to the clan, can you behave yourself?

jc's casual acceptance of jgy's social status isn't really a surprise for anyone in his postion, but it is still kind of sad. even after being legitimized, jgy will only ever be lower than his half brother? this is something I wished was more present from the book. jc clearly judges people by their birth, but in the novel it'd explicitly clear that lwj doesn't. I don't think it came through very well tho

wwx himself was the son of a servant. how would jc have reacted if he wanted to marry a family member of the great sects? well, he does, but I mean. if you ignore everything else that makes that situation complicated...probably would never have accepted wwx leaving, and maybe would have been excited about the political benefits. MAYBE happy for wwx too, but doubtful. it takes him fully 20 years to get to a place where he can honestly wish him well

so classic of flashback wwx. tho postres he is remarkably forgiving

so true, jc. #feminism

OHHHH HIS FIRST TRANSGRESSION. breaking into the library at night for read secret books hehehe

ahh this scene <3

wwx back in a boat on LP with his sister and sect siblings, having the time of his life, realizing that maybe he can be happy after all? maybe things will be okay? maybe he can put the horrors of the past behind him and actually live? this scene is so important in his journey but it's so shortlived. it's only next episode that he meets wen qing and everything changes

personal highlights

this episode was so fucking rich. I ate well

jfm teaching young wwx how to fire an arrow

LXC AND WWX BROTHERS IN LAW CONVO!!!! there are people who care about you!! I know my brother's heart!!! wwx drinking as fast as he can trying to get out of that conversation!!!

lwj starting his long journey to totally just doing what he feels is right regardless of the rules

very sweet jyl and wwx convo

BORN WITH A SMILING FACE

very funny yunmeng sibling convo about throwing up soup and acting like a clan leader

happy ending...🥺

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

[rarepears]

Omg youngwife Shen jiu is living a good life!!

Im really curious what happened next I. Young wife SJ in his wedding day?

Because Im just imagining a prosesion of SJW's army shadows carrying boxes and boxes of dowry for SJ. (The sect only get partial course, SJ got 80%--) Just everyone losing their shit because the powerful and elusive SJW is there, apparently marrying their Martial BROTHER!??

The reaction of the other succeeding disciple would be great! 🤣

TO be more accurate, dowry is the stuff the bride brings into the groom's family. Bride price is what the groom pays to the bride's family, or, in this case, Shen Jiu.

There's no need for Shen Jiu to be giving this bride price to the sect, but he does give a few exquisite pieces to the Qing Jing peak lord as a gift. Most of the "bride price" really ends up just paying for the expensive and luxurious wedding.

But yes, the shadow summons are in a very large parade bringing the dowries to the sect and then back to Sung Jinwoo's manor (lmao). (Sung Jinwoo is the one providing most of the dowry. Cang Qiong sect throws in a few things to show their goodwill towards Shen Jiu otherwise they would look stingy and uncaring for their student.)

Anyways, back to Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu's reputation isn't as bad as in canon without the whole cheater/backstabber accusation, but it's still not good either - favoritism, bribery, spoiled reputation ain't a glowing review. So, he's still just as disliked by his peers, particularly as Shen Jiu isn't willing to get to close to even the male disciples, acting as though everyone around him is trash.

(Nah, Shen Jiu just doesn't want Sung Jinwoo to misunderstand a friendship as a budding love affair and try to back out of this marriage.)

With Shen Jiu primarily associating with females - they are far harder to chase away and once they learn that Shen Jiu is just a paper tiger, they flock to surround and coo at Shen Jiu's face - he's still seen as rather... questionable in conduct. Needless to say, Qi Qingqi isn't reaching out a hand in friendship.

Sung Jinwoo is one dramatic motherfucker when he wants. So a shadow summon bows in front of Shen Jiu, lifts an arm to create a portal and bam, out walks out Sung Jinwoo.

(Insert shocked gasps from the audience at seeing how good looking Sung Jinwoo is. This guy is nothing like what the rumor said he was going to look like - where are the wrinkles, pimples, yellow teeth, and ancient grandpa face?)

Anyways, given Yue Qingyuan's feelings about and for Shen Jiu, the Sect Leader makes sure to keep YQY in the dark until the very last minute, so it's just Yue Qingyuan staring in shock at seeing Shen Jiu in red being led into a sedan and departing to married life.

Shang Qinghua knew all about this marriage - who the fuck do you think had to arrange most of the Cang Qiong wedding decor? - but he didn't care about the gossip or the people involved, being too busy setting up the freaking thing to think much else in between naps. If anything, Shang Qinghua is ready to Sleep for A Week because Shen Jiu's wedding is over and done with. Hallelujah.

[robininthelabyrinth]

i've been keeping a list of possible prompts for you and there's one i have no memory of adding that just says "courtesan nmj????" so i guess that's the prompt you're getting lmao

What Does the Fox Say - ao3

“Second Madame Nie!” a disciple shouted, rushing into her little garden. She didn’t recognize him, but he was solidly built and well-muscled like most of the others – truly, the Unclean Realm was a rapturous feast for one with eyes to see it. Yum, yum. “Second Madame Nie, I have bad news!”

Boo. She hated bad news: bad news meant she’d have to do something, usually, and right now she was seated very comfortably in a pleasant piece of sun in the garden path that’d been made up just for her and to her preferences, with her feet up on a chair and a full plate of fruit from the kitchen on the table in front of her just begging to be devoured, morsel by delicious morsel.

Her schedule was packed!

“I regret to tell you, but your husband has been killed!”

“Oh,” she said, frowning slightly. “Has he? How obnoxious of him.”

How unreliable. Men.

She sighed.

“Second Madame – Second Madame – you don’t understand!” The disciple was all red-eyed and weepy, which was a look she liked, especially in big, stout men like this. The salt added a bit of spice to the whole thing. “You must flee at once! He was killed by Sect Leader Wen in an act of outright aggression – Sect Leader Wen has declared war – the Wen sect is invading!”

She nodded and picked up another lychee to start peeling it. She’d get around to fleeing in her own time. As long as this Wen sect or whatnot was being led by a man, she wasn’t terribly concerned.

“They intend to wipe out the inheritance of Qinghe Nie! They will rip out the child in your belly!”

She hummed noncommittally. Really, how attached was she to having a child of her own? Really?

“They will slaughter civilians – execute Nie-gongzi –”

Her hands stilled.

“What,” she said, and the disciple took a step back automatically, proving that he, at least, had something more of a survival instinct than her late husband did. “Hurt my little meat bun? My darling rice roll? My savory zongzi?”

She stood up, diminutive height and over-large belly and frilly clothing doing absolutely nothing to diminish the vaguely menacing aura that darkened the sky around her. She bared her teeth.

“Who does this upstart Wen dog think he is?!”

The disciple blinked owlishly, but nodded, seeming relieved that she’d finally accepted his concern, though she could see on his face that he was thinking that her reasoning was – characteristically – a little strange. But then again, and she could see this thought process on his far too honest face, it was well known that the second Madame Nie been quite strange ever since Sect Leader Nie had found her in some lonesome place with no family or background and brought her back to be his new wife nevertheless.

Such a charming man. Pity about his loss, really.

“You have to flee at once, we can’t possibly fight so many people,” the disciple said once more, and this time she nodded in agreement. “We can escort you to a hidden exit –”

“No!” a little voice called. “We can’t go.”

She turned to look, and there was the little pork-and-shrimp dumpling himself, chubby-cheeked and earnest-eyed, looking as delicious as always.

“What do you mean, fish cake?” she asked. “Of course we have to go. Didn’t you hear what this strapping young man said? This Wen person wants to kill you!”

“If Father is dead, then I’m the sect leader,” her stepson said. He was serious and solemn in a way that made her want to pinch his cheeks and bury her face into his belly to blow raspberries, and also possibly to eat him right up, flesh and marrow and gristle and all. “That means it’s my responsibility to preserve the Nie sect.”

“Nie-gongzi, no!” the disciple cried, throwing himself to his knees in a dramatic display of loyalty. “You would only die – far better for you to run, and live!”

“Then isn’t the same true for everyone else?” the tasty little dish asked, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. Possibly he was trying to put on a fierce expression, maybe, she couldn’t quite tell sometimes. He was so cute. “Why should I live, and them not? I refuse to buy my life with their deaths!”

“But – Nie-gongzi –”

Her charming little honey cake shook his head and held up a hand to stop the disciple, turning to look at her instead.

“Second Mother,” he said, and he had that wholesome trusting expression again that was such a perfect little one-shot-kill to the heart, ugh. “You always said you’re the best at hiding. The best in the world, no one better among all the gods or demons!”

She was, too. She couldn’t help but preen a little, proud.

“– can’t you do something?”

“Oh, darling cabbage bun,” she said, not without fondness. “I can hide myself from even the net of Heaven itself if I so choose, from gods and demons alike, and I can most certainly hide a small group from any mortal eyes that dare to look, if you don’t mind being a little tiny bit dishonorable about the business. But an entire sect? That’s a bit much, even for someone as talented and skilled as me.”

Her stepson looked up at her, all straight-steel sincerity and upright righteousness wrapped into a perfectly edible little snack-sized package. “If we split them up, the sect could be small groups,” he said eagerly. “Couldn’t you do something then?”

He was so cute, and he trusted her. He trusted her, believed in her, felt that she could perform miracles with a wave of her sleeve if only she so wished.

It was awful.

She couldn’t bear it.

“Oh all right, you nummy little slice of roast pork belly,” she said, yielding. “But I’m telling you now, it won’t be the least bit honorable! There’s only so many excuses you can come up with for having a lot of strong men with wide shoulders and women with thick thighs hanging around, and not a single one of them has the slightest bit to do with what you people consider to be appropriate.”

“That’s all right. Preserving human life comes first, always.”

The disciple looked between them, clearly completely confused. Clearly all his effort had been spent on developing the muscles in his arms (quite nice) rather than his brain (quite slow).

“What?” he said. “What’s happening?”

“We’re saving the sect,” Nie Mingjue announced happily, clapping his hands together. Too precious, too precious entirely; she’d have to make sure no one else even thought about going near her darling little snackling. “Tell everyone to prepare to evacuate.”

“That will take too long,” she said, and smiled, with teeth. “Let me call some friends to help.”

-

When the Wen sect arrived at the Unclean Realm, they found the gate open.

That was unexpected enough, but when they entered, they found that the entire place had emptied out – not just of people, but of everything else, too. There wasn’t a single intact chair or table in the entire place, not a scrap of cloth nor a bit of food, like it’d been swept clean by locusts or wild monkeys come to pilfer whatever they could.

Even the paving stones where arrays had been laid out by the Nie sect’s ancestors had been pried up and carted away.

Sect Leader Wen ordered a search, but there wasn’t any trace of it – of the people, of the stuff, anything.

No one ever found out what happened.

-

Jin Guangyao despised social events, he’d found.

It was one thing when it was something he’d planned himself, where the work was interesting enough to distract him, but when he was an honored guest for someone else…miserable. Utterly miserable.

The only thing more miserable was when the host was his erstwhile father, from whom he’d forcefully extracted recognition. With Wen Ruohan as his backer, indulging his favorite torturer as if a beloved pet, there wasn’t much Jin Guangshan could do to refuse, and neither could he force Jin Guangyao to do anything on his behalf, either. And so Jin Guangyao, sitting as always by Wen Ruohan’s side, right beneath his sons, was now an honored guest at his father’s house, getting offered his pick of prostitutes as if the man had no notion of the irony.

Maybe he didn’t. Jin Guangyao couldn’t quite tell if his father had just forgotten his origins, thinking his bastard son too unimportant to remember the details of, or whether it was meant as a deliberate insult – who could tell?

“Oh, right,” the simpering idiot in front of him, a nephew or cousin of some sort to the sect leader, said. “Our dear Jin Guangyao is known not to like the gentle flower queens, even when they come from the finest houses in Lanling. Isn’t that right, cousin?”

Jin Guangyao’s fists clenched. A deliberate insult, then.

Despite that, his face remained neutral. Instead, he chuckled and said, “The appeal is limited. After all, I have seen the best of them.”

Beside him, Wen Ruohan nodded and smirked. He appreciated Jin Guangyao’s devotion to his mother, though Jin Guangyao suspected it was because he thought it funny that Jin Guangyao would bother to honor such a lowly woman – but what he thought didn’t matter, not really. All that mattered was that he let Jin Guangyao pay his respects to her to his heart’s content.

“Well, you’re in luck!” the idiot Jin Zixun said, looking absurdly smug. “We have something of a different flavor than the usual tonight – we’ve invited entertainment from the local branch of Splendid Spring.”

Jin Guangyao barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes.

The Splendid Spring Palace was a series of brothels that had popped up fully formed just about everywhere some years back, with madams and girls and musicians and bodyguards of all sorts. It was so patently a political move that Jin Guangyao had barely bothered to pay attention to it once he’d become actually powerful, and Wen Ruohan hadn’t paid attention to it at all. After all, in the unlikely event that the business really was backed by a cultivation sect that didn’t care about its face any longer, anyone who needed to use such a façade to gather power was clearly beneath notice.

Jin Guangyao had paid only very little attention, but to different and unusual aspects of the place: by all accounts, they were surprisingly decent employers as far as places like that went. They didn’t steal girls or accept unwilling goods – they had some connection with the merchant caravans, or at least one of the companies that helped coordinate routes and provide protection to such things, and they were as meticulous about checking things over as they were about seeking refunds if they were dissatisfied – and they did accept married girls fleeing unhappy marriages, which not everyone did. They did buy up all the girls in the local markets wherever they were, but they swept them away and brought them back transformed, even the ones that wouldn’t sell because they were too ugly; Jin Guangyao assumed that meant they had people who were talented in make-up and clothing, since the usual rumors of the girls being blessed with a yao’s enchantment were obviously ridiculous and nothing more than the usual marketing gimmicks that brothels since time immemorial had tried.

Even once they had the girls in hand, the places were pretty decent: they had physicians on staff to help with the usual side effects of the business, made sure their girls were clean and healthy, and were said to even limit the number of customers a girl would be obliged to take on in a given evening…honestly, knowing as he did the brothel business, Jin Guangyao sometimes wondered how they’d managed to bespell enough people to even make money in the early days. At any rate, whatever they’d done, it’d worked, because by now they had a solid enough reputation to trade on.

In short: a decent enough place, far better than the usual run of the mill. Once he’d had the ability to do so, he’d even pulled a few strings and arranged for the better of his mother’s old compatriots to end up there, since he couldn’t convince them to leave their old professions behind entirely.

Anyway, if they also seemed to have a sideline in information brokering and assassinations, well, let them. In the cultivation world, where the only thing that mattered was strength, real strength.

A little thing like that wouldn’t make any real difference.

Or so Jin Guangyao had thought.

He found himself re-thinking that, though, when the entertainment in question came out. There were the usual set of attractive (albeit in a wider variety of shapes and sizes than usually seen) dancers, dressed up in silks that seemed actually high quality, and plenty of strapping young men carrying sabers – dancers as well, once assumed, to provide some spice to the entertainment, and implicitly on the offer for men who cut their sleeves or women with more flexibility, like widows or ones with especially permissive husbands. Wen Ruohan’s wives were in that latter category, and they were already whispering to each other excitedly, looking at them.

They’d even brought in the local madame, who was…

Well, she was actually breathtaking, even by Jin Guangyao’s extremely jaded standards. She had hair that fell almost all the way to her ankles, shimmering in the light, and dark eyes shining with liveliness, a smooth and ageless face that simultaneously suggested youth and health but also winked at knowable experience, the features characteristic of what his mother’s employers had called the ‘fox-face’. As if to emphasize that, the lady was wrapped in fox-fur and draped in embroidered brocade, with little stylized foxes running up and down the hems of her clothing and along the gazy silk draped on her shoulders.

It ought to have looked absurd, looked gaudy and overwrought and overdone, but it didn’t.

She was a thousand dreams of wealth and beauty and power and sex appeal all wrapped up in one, and even Jin Guangyao – who was in his personal preferences quite firmly a cutsleeve – couldn’t help but intrigued by her, wondering what it might be like to touch the hem of such a glorious creature.

And next to her…

The lady was accompanied by two men that seemed completely different from each other. One was a slender and winsome young man, fluttering his eyelashes from behind a fan with a charming smile, emanating the appeal of softness and weakness, ready to be indulged. While the other…

Jin Guangyao swallowed.

He was the exact opposite of the first man. Clearly strong, muscular and powerful, and tall to the point of towering, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, a chest that you could lean your head against and an ass that begged to have someone’s hands on it – and there were his hands, big and broad, perfect for holding someone down or up if they so wished and of a size that was very promising as to what was only hinted at under his clothes. His face was hidden behind a veil as if he were a woman, marking him, like his comrade, as one of the available courtesans of the Splendid Spring, but his body was visible under clothing clearly cut to put it to the best advantage.

And oh, what advantages it had…!

“It seems we found something to the tastes of dear cousin Guangyao after all,” the idiot said mockingly, sniggering and snorting like the pig he was, and for once Jin Guangyao didn’t even care.

“Who’s the woman in front?” Wen Ruohan asked, ignoring their interplay. He seemed utterly fascinated, almost spellbound, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t blame him one bit. If this woman had been at the same brothel as his mother, there wouldn’t have even been room for jealousy or shame; his mother would have gone straight up to her to ask for some tips. “She seems…familiar, somehow.”

“That’s the madame of the Splendid Spring,” Jin Zixun said proudly, as if he’d done anything at all in relation to this – nonsense, of course. Everyone know which brothels were backed by the Jin sect, and Splendid Spring wasn’t one of them. He was acting as if he deserve a pat on the back just for the introduction! “That means she’s not for sale.”

His smile faded a little, twisting in a small bit of bitterness. “Or so she told my uncle, anyway…although I’m sure if it were Sect Leader Wen asking, the answer would undoubtedly be different.”

Probably because Jin Guangshan couldn’t slaughter prostitutes with impunity if they said no to him, whereas no one could stop Wen Ruohan from doing any damn thing he pleased.

Wen Ruohan grunted, pleased by the answer – he was a possessive man, in the rare events that he did exert himself in the realm of women, and there had been more than one instance where he’d stolen away some girl his sons had been eyeing first just for the joy of having had her first – and raised a hand, catching the lady’s eye and gesturing for her to come over, which she did.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She laughed. “You can call me Hu Jiuwei. With the ‘Hu’ being the character for fox.”

Jin Guangyao tried not to choke. There were false names and then there were false names – the lady’s theme was already clearly related to foxes, given her fox-face and fox-fur lining and the foxes embroidered onto her robes. Was the over-the-top name really necessary?

“It’s a fake name,” she added, unnecessarily.

“I see,” Wen Ruohan said, sounding a little choked himself. Possibly it was the woman calling herself ‘Foxy Ninetails’ and then kindly reassuring them all that the name was false as if she thought them too dumb to figure it out that was tripping him up a little. Jin Guangyao couldn’t tell if she was doing it deliberately in order to make her frankly inhuman beauty a little less frightening, or maybe she was blessed with so much beauty that she hadn’t bothered to cultivate her brain at all. “Are you our entertainment for the evening?”

She smiled, and any complaints Jin Guangyao (or indeed Wen Ruohan) might have had about her intelligence faded away at once.

It was that type of smile.

You could wreck nations with that type of smile. Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but wonder: how had a woman this extraordinary ended up in a brothel, of all places? How had no one snatched her up to keep her all for himself before now?

“My sons and I –” she gestured at the two behind her, “– would be more than happy to provide you with all the entertainment you could possibly want.”

Her smile widened.

“We’ve been hoping for an opportunity like this for a long time.”

[thebiscuiteternal]

Ahahaha, after telling Nonnie I was gonna post this, I completely forgot to actually post this and just left it sitting in drafts. Whoopsie. So! More little snippets and such from my twitter.

- Everybody mocks the sect descended from butchers until a boar demon the size of a city grain warehouse goes down and nobody else can deal with the carcass because it’s just too fucking big. By the time the thing has been taken apart and properly dispersed, the entire jianghu has had an Awakening to the fact that Some People (even the small cute one) are at their hottest when mostly covered in demon blood.

- Bitty!Huaisang tags along with his brother on some sect business to Yueyang and while he and his minder are eating lunch in the markets, he notices a street kid staring at the food like a starving wolf. Without thinking, he puts a plate of duck buns in easy reach and watches it and the kid vanish. By the end of the day, he’s practically forgotten about the whole thing, distracted by other stuff. But even more bitty!Xue Yang has just found himself a mark.

- Thinking about Nie Bros and how Huaisang decided early on that annoyance and exasperation were better than condescending pity and started playing up his lazy behavior to cover for his body’s failure to keep up and how Mingjue knows this, but has to make himself believe that Huaisang could do better if he actually tried, because otherwise he would constantly be swamped with guilt over the fact that he will inevitably be leaving his sickly brother to handle the sect.

- AND ON THAT NOTE, thinking about the fact that for all Huaisang is considered a pathetic cultivator, literally none of the adaptations have him “showing his age” more than cultivators who are supposed to be leagues more powerful than him, and even the novel just describes him as being pretty. Therefore, thinking of the possibility that all his desperate efforts to find Da-ge’s missing body pieces and/or soul wound up strengthening his golden core considerably (and he was Not Happy when he realized this) but no one noticed because he was that effective at keeping up the hapless idiot act.

- Rule 63!Huaisang where literally none of the Nie family dynamics have changed and everyone else is very ????? about it. Some Rando: “Shouldn’t your brother be getting you married instead of throwing a saber at you?” Huaisang: “Have you met my sect?”

- Nie-er-furen and Lan-furen were both yao, but Mama Nie was a cat and Mama Lan was a rabbit. Therefore, when the older brothers tried to introduce Nie Huaisang and Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan’s new instincts went “Predator!” and that is why Nie Huaisang has bite scars.

- Mo Xuanyu escaping Koi Tower and going to live with the (extremely grudgingly acknowledged) Yiling Wei sect, featuring Wei Wuxian being an absolute gremlin about his disciple’s crush on Nie Huaisang while still oblivious/in denial to Lan Wangji’s crush on him. WWX: “Follow your dreams and get your man!” MXY: “...Okay. So when are you gonna take your own advice and let Hanguang-jun court you?” WWX: “Haha, what? That’d never happen, Lan Zhan likes girls.” MXY (to NHS later): “So my sect leader might actually be an idiot.”

- Wei Wuxian in a Number Five situation. Fucks up an experimental talisman and winds up chucked  into an apocalyptic future (maybe even one demonic cultivation caused?) and is trapped there for decades before being slung back into his "just started raising corpses" age. Bonus points if it is a zombie apocalypse, but he doesn’t realize it because what evidence he was able to find pointed to the Sunshot Campaign having lost, so when he gets back to his present time, he starts working even harder at building up enough of an army to fight the Wens...

- So my personal headacanon is already that all of Jin Guangshan’s kids look more like their mothers than him because he doesn’t deserve anything good. But. Imagine the emotional/social fuckery if every single one of his bastards had at least some of his features, while Jin Zixuan is a male carbon copy of Jin-furen.

- The assumption that the original soul would be obliterated during the body sacrifice ritual was just that: an assumption. Wei Wuxian doesn't realize this until the first sect conference after Guanyin Temple when he sees his own reflection glare at him and then wrap the exhausted-looking reflection of Nie Huaisang into a reassuring embrace as the man discusses something or other with a minor sect leader.

aaaand everything else I was thinking about pulling over would be long enough for their own “Things I will probably never write” posts, so that’s all for this go round!

[neverdoingmuch]

"who knew the truth about the wen remnants" by karmiya is a compilation of all the quotes from the novel regarding wen remnants, turns out everyone knew, yet they still chose to hurt them..

Thanks for sending this in to me anon! It was a really interesting read and I do agree with a lot of the stuff op wrote. They tackled a lot of stuff that tends to get warped by the fandom lens or just straight up ignored, so it was quite important in that regard. That being said, there are some interpretations that I don't quite agree with. It's well-written and formulated but I find that it lacks a certain … nuance? I suppose that's the best way I can put it.

I also don't wholly disagree with Karmiya; it wasn't just the Jins who were involved with the camps. Whether everyone knew is a separate point, but they are definitely right in saying that it wasn't just the Jins who were at fault.

(I've never done a meta like this before so please forgive me if my structure is wrong! Also, just a quick disclaimer that all of the quotes will be taken from the exr translation, simply for convenience.)

(also this gets quite long so i put the whole meta under the read more!)

The first direct mention of other involvement, as far as I'm aware, comes when Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing try to find Wen Ning.

The inspector was round and chubby. He gave an obsequiously apologetic grin, “Maiden, don’t worry. Actually, it happens a lot that other sects come to us for cultivators. Maybe somebody else took him during the past few days? When we do roll calls, we’d sometimes find that someone ran away as well…”

While we could take this to be the inspector lying to shift blame and save his own skin, this sentiment of external involvement is echoed by Jin Guangshan later.

What Jin GuangShan wanted, however, wasn’t his apology or his compensation, “Sect Leader Jiang, at first, for your sake, the Lanling Jin Sect didn’t intend on saying anything. However, some of these inspectors weren’t from the Jin Sect. There were a few from other sects as well. This makes it…”

The implication of the first quote is that the camps are run by the Jins but that other cultivators will occasionally stop by while the latter makes it clear that their involvement in the Wens' treatment goes beyond simple ignorance or the occasional visit. We know this because when Jin Guangshan claims that there were other inspectors present there's no opposition. Theoretically the other sects could be staying silent out of fear of making an enemy of Jin Guangshan, but the way this is written – flowing smoothly from Jin Guangshan's casual mention of the inspectors back to pressuring Jiang Cheng – does imply that such a scenario isn't the case.

As such, we can almost assuredly assume that yes, other sects were involved in the treatment of the Wens after the Campaign and the Jins were not alone in their acts.

The question then becomes which sects were involved?

Now this is where nuance comes into play. These characters are not acting within the banquet scene free from the influence of the rest of the novel. It's not as simple as saying that a man came into the room, declared that he needed to save an innocent man from poor treatment and was thus declared an enemy. Especially when said man is Wei Wuxian.

When it comes to Wei Wuxian, and more specifically his reputation, there are many aspects that contribute to it. While his birth and upbringing do factor into his treatment and reputation among cultivation society, firstly, it would lengthen the meta too much to go into it, and secondly, isn't the driving force behind what the cultivators think of Wei Wuxian at this point in time. The banquet happens right after the Sunshot Campaign, the very place where Wei Wuxian made his return as the master of demonic cultivation.

There's the occasional mention of the consequences of Wei Wuxian's path but I'm lazy and I'm working off a PDF so I haven't been able to add any bookmarks or quotes. So let's just look at the one, shall we!

One against two, Lan WangJi still refused to back off. He gazed at Wei WuXian, “Wei Ying, for cultivating an evil path you would eventually have to pay. Throughout time, there has not been a single exception.”

Wei WuXian, “I can pay.”

Seeing how unconcerned he seemed to be, Lan WangJi lowered his voice, “The path would not only damage your body, but your heart as well.”

Wei WuXian, “Damage or not, how much damage, I know it the most. As for my heart, it’s my heart after all. I know what I’m doing.”

Lan WangJi, “Some things you cannot be able to control at all.”

Displeasure flashed across Wei WuXian’s face, “Of course I can control it.”

Lan WangJi walked a step closer. He seemed to be about to speak again when Wei WuXian closed his eyes, “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?”

Okay so there's a lot to break down here. While in CQL, they gave the title of original inventor of demonic cultivation to … some guy. I don't remember his name, and it isn't important tbh. What is important is that in MDZS (the canon we're looking at), Wei Wuxian is the inventor of demonic cultivation as it is now. He may not be the first person to cultivate his path, but he is the first to do it successfully. This is really important because it means that, although there is some knowledge about Wei Wuxian's path, it isn't fully applicable. When every other person dies within the week, what do you know about the person who's still alive after eight days? The information you have from before isn't fully useful any more once you're working beyond the bounds of your knowledge, but it is still relevant. To Wei Wuxian, he's better than the other attempts, but to the rest of the world, he's just a man who's survived a bit longer – still destined to die, just taking his time about it.

With that being said, Lan Wangji spends most of this conversation warning Wei Wuxian about the risks of his cultivation, and Wei Wuxian doesn't actually refute anything he says. He doesn't say that their risks aren't his, instead that he's willing to take them on. It's a strange sort of arrogance, to be aware of all of the ways you will fail and to still think you're above it all. There are two ways to interpret this: either Wei Wuxian has already found his temperament starting to be affected by his cultivation path, thinking himself above such mortal risks, or he's pushing Lan Wangji away.

The loss of his golden core is one of the biggest secrets in the novel, and Wei Wuxian does absolutely everything he can to push away anyone who could get close enough to discover it. And, given the way that his core had been and still is such an intrinsic and significant part of who he is, being 'too close' is a very broad definition indeed. The best way to keep everyone away from him and to stop anyone from looking too close is to lean into the reputation of demonic cultivators. There have been several wonderful metas on here that have looked in depth at the fact that Wei Wuxian leant into the his reputation as a demonic cultivator to draw attention away from the fact he no longer can cultivate the way he had before. His refusal to use his sword is not seen as a point of concern or questioning when he portrays it as arrogance and confidence in his abilities in demonic cultivation. This arrogance and cruelty that he weaponises to hide his secret can be clearly read as his “heart being damage[d]”.

This becomes important when it comes to his reputation after the war – namely how he deals with any accusations or questions about his behaviour.

Jin ZiXuan laughed with a ha, as though he found it ridiculous, “What you’re depending on is just a crooked path. They’re not what you’re really capable of. You’re just playing a few tunes on the flute. How could it count as showing our real abilities?”

Wei WuXian sounded confused, “It’s not as if I tricked or schemed, so why not? You can play a few tunes on the flute as well and see if any corpses or spirits would like to follow you?”

Jin ZiXun, “With how much you disregard the rules, it’s not much better than tricks and schemes!”

Hearing this, Lan WangJi frowned. Madam Jin seemed as though she had just heard the quarrel that was going on over here. Her voice was indifferent, “ZiXun, that’s enough.” Wei WuXian was too lazy to argue with him. He laughed, “Fine, then I don’t know what could count as real abilities. Please take it out and win against me so that I can see what it is.”

If he could actually win, Jin ZiXun wouldn‟t be as frustrated as he was now.

I mean even Jin Zixuan recognises that Wei Wuxian's talents in cultivation were enough that he shouldn't need to resort to his crooked path. In response to his query Wei Wuxian immediately diverts attention by antagonising Jin Zixun. He plays dumb and then flippantly hands over his weapon to Jin Zixun. He continues this by ignoring Jin Zixun's next accusation of rudeness and thanking Lan Wangji instead. We see this sort behaviour time and time again: where Wei Wuxian leverages the assumption that his temperament has been negatively influenced by his cultivation in order to push others away and to prevent them from questioning his actions too much. When he's so arrogant as to presume himself above others, why would they wonder why he's doing what he's doing? They've already been provided the only answer they need.

Wei WuXian smiled again, “Do you know why I’m not carrying my sword? It wouldn‟t make a difference if I told you anyways.”

He turned around, stating one word at a time, “Because I want you to know that even if I don’t use my sword, with nothing but what you call a “crooked path”, I will still rise unparalleled and leave all of you staring at me from behind.”

With his words, all of the people present were shocked speechless.

No disciple had ever dared say such lofty words in front of so many people.

Here we can really see just how arrogantly Wei Wuxian is acting. It's one thing for him to use his crooked path in a war, but it's another to use in what is basically a sporting event. It's crass at best, and downright disrespectful at worst. Wei Wuxian's path is loathed by society and for good reason too; Wei Wuxian's acts in the Sunshot Campaign may have won it for them, but it was still wrong. There's no ifs about it – culturally he's committed terrible taboos and, from what the others know of his state, Wei Wuxian has done so willingly when he's had the choice not to. The fact that he uses his power here, when the war is done and peace is the focus, is already contentious, but then he turns around and says what he said. It goes beyond mere rudeness and it really sums up who Wei Wuxian is presenting himself as at this point in time: powerful, arrogant, and almost disloyal. I say disloyal because of the last line I've quoted. Referring to him as a disciple isn't only a mention of the fact that Wei Wuxian is looked down on for his birth and status in life, but also for the fact that a mere disciple, who's meant to be representing his sect, is willing to say what could potentially ruin the sect's relationship with the other sects, or at least significant members of other sects.

This is the man who walks into the banquet to demand the freedom of Wen Ning – not a hero or a stranger, but a man who is deadly, arrogant, disrespectful, and potentially disloyal to his sect.

When it comes to the banquet itself, there's a lot to look at. As context though, I believe that our understanding of a character should be shaped by canonical events and scenes, but that our interpretations of such scenes should also be driven by character. By that I mean that it's not enough to simply look at a scene and interpret it without taking into consideration the characters in that scene. While our “current” interpretation of a character shouldn't prevent that interpretation from evolving as we learn more about them, that interpretation should still form that foundation of what we know in most cases. The character's personality, their history, relationships, or whatever are all important to consider and should be factored into any analysis. This is particularly important when it comes to the banquet, and it's why I included what I did about Wei Wuxian post-Sunshot Campaign.

Someone exclaimed in a hushed tone, “When did he come?!”

Wei WuXian put down the cup. With one hand, he fixed his lapel, “Just a moment ago.”

Just a moment ago? But, just a moment ago, clearly nobody notified the room, much less greeted him. Although surprising, it was true that not a single person noticed when he managed to slip into Glamor Hall. The crowd couldn’t help but shiver in disgust at the mere power of his abilities.

Jin GuangYao was quick to react, his enthusiasm still warm, “I wasn’t aware of Young Master Wei’s arrival at Koi Tower. The lack of a welcome was my fault. Would you like to be seated? Oh, right—do you have an invitation?”

Wei WuXian didn’t make small talk either, getting straight to the point, “No thanks. I don’t.” He nodded slightly at Jin ZiXun, “Young Master Jin, could I please have a word with you?”

Wei Wuxian is introduced in this scene by appearing suddenly, by sneaking in undetected by some of the greatest cultivators the world has to offer, or at least those with influence. This immediately sets the tone where Wei Wuxian is a threat to them; they're already uncomfortable with his acts and abilities, and such a flippant demonstration that he's good enough to avoid detection from them is similarly discomforting.

Jin Guangyao, for all that he's being polite and welcoming, does immediately highlight the fact that Wei Wuxian was not invited. He is not wanted nor actually welcome here, and is instead forcing his presence upon them. Yes, he's absolutely doing the right thing by confronting Jin Zixun, and yes, he couldn't afford to wait, but when it comes to Wei Wuxian's reputation and relationship with the other sects, it is important to note this.

Now, when Wei Wuxian responds, he's not bothering with pleasantries, which is not to say that he isn't being polite; despite cutting straight to the point, he still addresses Jin Zixun politely. Not only that, but he was also willing to step aside and deal with matters privately. It's only when Wei Wuxian is pressed that he decides to deal with matters in public.

This is where things get more interesting, because we know that Wen Qing came to Wei Wuxian for help rescuing her brother, but when Wei Wuxian confronts the Jins at the banquet, I got the sense that Wei Wuxian doesn't actually know that the Wens were innocent. He was going in there for Wen Ning and Wen Ning alone.

Wei WuXian, “Fine. I don’t mind explaining it in greater detail. You couldn’t catch the bat king and happened to run into a few of the Wen Sect’s disciples who were there to investigate the same thing. And so, you threatened them to carry spirit-attraction flags to be your bait. They didn’t dare do it. One person stepped out and tried to reason with you. That’s the Wen Ning I’m talking about. After some delay, the bat king got away. You beat up the Wen cultivators, took them away by force, and the group disappeared. Do I need to say any more details? They still haven’t returned yet. Apart from you, I don’t know who in the world I could possibly ask.”

Wei Wuxian explicitly refers to the Wens as disciples and cultivators. This either suggests that Wei Wuxian is under the same perceptions as the rest of the sects are of the contents of the prison camps, or that there wereWen cultivators with Wen Ning and that, by the time Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing reached them, the cultivators had all died and/or been moved elsewhere. I'm more inclined to believe the former as Wei Wuxian later says that “Wen Ning’s branch doesn’t have much blood on their hands”. If he'd been aware that the Wens in questions were the Wen remnants, he would've likely absolved them of all guilt – there's no way Wei Wuxian would hold Granny to the same standards as a young and able-bodied cultivator involved in the war, but he doesn't. Wei Wuxian explicitly says that they don't have much blood on their hands, not that they have none.

Regardless of whether Wei Wuxian is wanting to rescue just Wen Ning or all of the Wens at the camp, there is still a complete dissonance between the Wei Wuxian presented to the world and the Wei Wuxian who stands before the sect leaders demanding Wen Ning's location. Prior to this, Wei Wuxian staunchly despised the Wens. His presence in the Sunshot Campaign began with his single-man rampage killing countless Wens in incredibly sadistic and cruel methods. He then proceeds to fight in the Sunshot Campaign with a similar sort of zeal. For him to go from happily torturing Wens as he experiments with his new powers to advocating for them, it would be quite concerning to the other sect leaders present at the banquet. I mean concerning not in the sense where they are concerned for Wei Wuxian, but in the sense that they are concerned because of him.

And, despite this seeming change of heart, Wei Wuxian still doesn't seem to be that passionate about the safety of the Wens.

Wei WuXian continued, “Since anyone whose surname is Wen can be used an outlet of anger as one pleases, no matter if they’re innocent or not, does it mean that it’s fine even if I kill all of them right now?”

Before he even finished his words, he placed his hand on his waist where Chenqing hung.

Instantly, it was as if a piece of memory was stirred up in the minds of everyone within the hall, as though they returned to the battlefield where darkness became the sky and corpses became mountains.

Although this is Wei Wuxian trying to prove a point about the Wens and the hypocrisy of the sects, he is still incredibly flippant with the lives of the people he's currently advocating for. It really doesn't give any sense of comfort that Wei Wuxian is trying to do the right thing. Combined with the fact that Wei Wuxian drops his hand to his weapon, and it's clear to see how the other cultivators could misconstrue this. This could be read as a threat against the sect leaders in the room, as a reminder of what Wei Wuxian had done to the Wens in the past, or as a promise of what he wants to do once he finds the Wens. Whatever he means to do by this, he's only proving himself as a violent and arrogant threat to the cultivation world. Previously, I'd described him as potentially disloyal, but Jin Guangshan explicitly brings Jiang Cheng up, and this tips him from potentially to probably, at least in the eyes of the sect leaders.

Jin GuangShan stood up as well, his face a mixture of shock, anger, fear, and hatred, “Wei WuXian! Just because… Sect Leader Jiang isn’t here doesn’t mean you can be so reckless!”

Wei WuXian’s voice was harsh, “Do you think that I wouldn't be reckless if he were here? If I wanted to kill someone, who could stop me, and who would dare stop me?!”

This really isn't a good look for Wei Wuxian. Before, when he'd been arrogant and deadly, he'd at least still been controlled. He'd been somewhat of a rabid dog, but one with a collar still around his neck and a master whose commands he listened to (somewhat, at least). Now however, he's chewed off his collar and wandered away from his master, ignoring his instructions to heel. Or however this analogy should go. Regardless, it's clear that Wei Wuxian is no longer controllable and is willing to openly admit such. Not only will Wei Wuxian follow his own desires over the desires of his sect leader, but he's also grouping Jiang Cheng with the other cultivators in the banquet. If anyone wanted to stop him – including his sect leader – who could stop him indeed. By flaunting his own strength along with the fact that he's not beholden to his sect, Wei Wuxian is only worsening his position with the other sects.

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

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

Jin Guangyao does his little thing and then we get to the Lan sect. Lan Xichen's response is purely to Wei Wuxian's behaviour and not at all to his accusations. Looking at the scene by itself without the context of the rest of the novel, this would be a cause for concern. Is Lan Xichen not concerned about the Wens because he already knew about them and their circumstances? It's a possibility.

However, if we consider the rest of the novel – if we remember the Wei Wuxian who had stormed into the room and presented himself as the infamous Yiling Laozu that is later sold to the cultivation sects, the arrogant upstart who believes himself above consequence and his betters, and whose morals and beliefs sway easily – then it's not quite so easy to condemn Lan Xichen. A man whose very temperament and mind has been twisted and contorted by his powers – a problem Lan Xichen is well aware of, and a change that Lan Xichen has been able to watch unfold – comes in demanding to know the location of the people he loathed so deeply before, then it's easy to see why Lan Xichen focused on what he did. Wei Wuxian has little to no credibility, due to a mix of his past behaviour regarding the Wens, the fact that he's just one cultivator speaking against a well-regarded and respected sect (which contains Jin Guangyao as well), and his cultivation style and what that entails. So, it's the fact that this incredibly dangerous and unpredictable man is arrogantly standing against the sects that cements itself in Lan Xichen's mind as the main concern, over some accusations that are likely baseless.

So, we have a Wei Wuxian who specifically cultivated a reputation that would protect his greatest secret. This same Wei Wuxian is now feeling the consequences of this reputation which has turned him into a flighty and fickle person trying to convince a group of people who fear him to trust him over their allies. Specifically, he is asking them to trust him over a man who has been in power for longer than some of the sect leaders have been alive, never mind the way he's tried to go about it. It's honestly no wonder that none of the other sect leaders believed him, or at least cared enough to check. It's no wonder why Lan Xichen had other concerns.

But what about afterwards? After Wei Wuxian storms out and rescues the Wens, do we get any other indications about who knew about the Wens?

I think it's still kept ambiguous! If we're focusing on the main four sects, we need look no further than this interaction:

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few of times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

Lan XiChen knew that because of what happened to his father, Nie MingJue abhorred Wen-dogs more than anything, especially with how intolerable he was toward evil. Lan XiChen didn’t say anything else.

There are several ways to interpret this little conversation, but to me it reads very clearly as Lan Xichen trying to keep Nie Mingjue's mind open regarding the situation. While Lan Xichen has been doubting Wei Wuxian's temperament for a decent amount of time now (as we clearly saw in the banquet scene and likely even before then), he's still somewhat open-minded. Where the minor sect leaders immediately acted as if Wei Wuxian's betrayal had been long coming, Lan Xichen pauses. He brings up Wen Qing and her role in the war – and this may be because of parallels between Wen Qing and Jin Guangyao, both being 'gentle' people forced to work with Wen Ruohan for one reason or another – and advocates for her.

Nie Mingjue shuts Lan Xichen down immediately, repeatedly, and harshly; we're told that it's because of his own misgivings (legitimate with solid foundations) and because Wen Qing didn't act against Wen Ruohan. To be completely honest, Nie Mingjue has a point. Without any context to the Wen siblings, Wen Qing's lack of action reads as, in the worst light, support of Wen Ruohan's actions, and in its best, a lack of moral integrity and desire to do right. The only reason the readers are sympathetic towards Wen Qing is because of the time she saved Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, an event none of the cultivators are aware of until Jiang Cheng mentions it in this scene. Even when he does though, he says that he and Wei Wuxian “owe [Wen Ning] and his sister Wen Qing gratitude for what happened during the Sunshot Campaign”, which is the vaguest way of possibly saying that they risked their lives to save the pair of them and even nursed them back to health. I'm not sure if there's some significance to the word that Jiang Cheng uses to convey “gratitude” that is missing in the translation, but in English at least it could imply anything from a simple favour to a life debt.

So, lacking any context as to why the Wen siblings acted as they did, what they did for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, and the sort of people they truly are, is it any surprise that Nie Mingjue lacks any sort of leniency towards their actions? When the whole cultivation world is at war, is a lack of action a valid action? From Nie Mingjue's point of view, no. Where this gets interesting is where we can also see that Lan Xichen would likely believe yes. (I won't go too far into this, but Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen both parallel each other in a way that is so similar and starkly different). We see Lan Xichen trying to convince Nie Mingjue to give Wen Qing some leniency before giving up. A less forgiving interpretation is that Lan Xichen is simply putting in a token effort to seem fair to all sides before giving in to the common belief, but I think it's pretty clearly more a matter of Lan Xichen conceding a lost battle; he knows Nie Mingjue and he knows how he feels about the Wens and he knows that he won't be able to sway his mind on the matter, not on this. Instead of pushing an issue that he has no chance of winning, he concedes and falls silent.

Does this prove one way or another that Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue were involved in the camps? No. I'd say that it suggests that they weren't involved. We're told that Nie Mingjue is intolerable towards evil and, while we aren't shown how he would act if his own misgivings towards the Wens would clash with his beliefs of righteousness regarding just which Wens have been captured, we do see a similar situation with Jin Guangyao. Nie Mingjue obviously doesn't like nor trust Jin Guangyao and yet he still agreed to become sworn brothers with the man despite his own misgivings towards him. Given this, I'd say that if Nie Mingjue had known the truth, he wouldn't have stood for the Wens' punishment. Lan Xichen is a bit simpler – he's a righteous man who believes in justice and equality – and the thing stilling his hands in this matter isn't the identity of those stolen from the camps, but simply the fact that Wei Wuxian was the one to take them from the camps and that it was the Jins that had been running the camps (read: Jin Guangyao was involved). When forced to choose between the Yiling Laozu and Lan Xichen's dear and trusted friend A-Yao, who is so sweet and earnest, it's clear who Lan Xichen would believe.

I think it is very important to note that in this chapter, the most vocal voices against Wei Wuxian and the Wens are unnamed cultivators and sect leaders. Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan provide just enough to push things along, but not enough to be the leading voices in this hatred. With a small push in the right direction everyone else falls into place easily enough, cementing Wei Wuxian's status as the next enemy of the sects.

Another thing to note is Jin Guangyao.

After the gathering ended, all of the sect leaders felt that they received a terrific topic for conversation. They walked quickly as they discussed with all their might, their passionate hatred still burning bright.

Behind the sea of Sparks Amidst Snow, the Venerated Trio gathered.

As soon as the discussion finishes, the Venerated Trio gather together to chat and Lan Xichen is, as per usual, incredibly sympathetic and gentle to Jin Guangyao. Their relationship, being the one between the three of them, is incredibly important in explaining why there would be any Nie or Lan cultivators present at the camps, if any. While it seems pretty evident than neither Lan Xichen nor Nie Mingjue are involved in the camps, it is possible that Lan and Nie cultivators were. If Jin Guangyao were to mention to Lan Xichen that the Jins were facing difficulties managing the Wen cultivators after the war, Lan Xichen would readily volunteer the aid of his cultivators, and Nie Mingjue would eventually follow in suit. With the three of them being as close as they are (or in Nie Mingjue's case: with him being close to Lan Xichen who is close to Jin Guangyao), there would be a sort of implicit trust where they would lend a few of their cultivators to one another without requiring in-depth explanations and justifications of their goings-on with Jin Guangyao. So, it's possible that even though Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue were uninvolved, Lan and Nie cultivators still could have been.

And what about Jiang Cheng?

To be completely honest, I think it's very evident that he wasn't involved, but for argument's sake let's still discuss it. One of the main things about Jiang Cheng in the post-Sunshot Campaign era is that he is distanced from the rest of the sects. He's the latest sect leader and, while he's already rebuilt Lotus Pier fully by this point in time, he's not close with the other sect leaders. There's the sworn brotherhood connecting Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangyao, and Lan Xichen, of course, but there's also countless years of interaction between all of the other sect leaders in the parents' generation that Jiang Cheng isn't privy to. He's a powerful and influential man, but Jiang Cheng is also difficult and easy to manipulate. When Jin Guangshan seeks to use Jiang Cheng, he doesn't bother appealing to his desires or fears, simply needing to send a few pointed comments to awake his ire.

And this is very important to note because Jiang Cheng's strength is largely powered by the fact that Wei Wuxian stands behind him; if Jin Guangshan seeks the power that Jiang Cheng currently has, leaving him off-kilter by keeping him largely uninvolved in inter-sect affairs and bringing up old sore points is an excellent way to do this. While this doesn't have its founding in text, I do think it would be highly likely that Jin Guangshan would have ensured a measure of distance between the Jiangs and the rest of the sects to 'give them their own time to rebuild' but mainly to weaken Jiang Cheng so he would feel more threatened when the ire of the other sects turn against him.

Still, we can confirm that Jiang Cheng was unaware of the happenings of the camps when he visits Wei Wuxian in the Burial Mounds.

Jiang Cheng mocked, “Those sect leaders thought you gathered some leftover forces and crowned yourself king of the hill. So, it’s only the old, the weak, the women, and the children.”

In general, it's pretty clear that Jiang Cheng hadn't been aware of who Wei Wuxian had rescued as he would've likely used it to defend himself in front of the other sect leaders if he had known. While MXTX doesn't linger on Jiang Cheng's feelings towards the Wens too much, focusing more on Jiang Cheng and his feelings about how Wei Wuxian is impacting the sect, we do get the above quote. It doesn't quite read as surprise so much as acknowledgement, as if Jiang Cheng had been expecting something else to be at play beyond Jin Guangshan's aspersions. The fact that it's that the Wens are innocent doesn't really seem to matter too much to Jiang Cheng so much as the political pressure that Wei Wuxian has placed Jiang Cheng under. Once again, this doesn't point to Jiang Cheng being involved in the camps at all.

So, in summary: I'd say that while other sects were certainly involved in the capture and punishment of the Wens, the involvement of the sect leaders of the major sects cannot be determined. Nie Mingjue, for all that he hates the Wens, isn't the sort of man to watch idly as the elderly and infirm are punished, and Lan Xichen, for all that he trusts Jin Guangyao, also isn't the sort of man to allow such cruelty to pass. The only logical explanation I can think of for why Lan or Nie cultivators would be there is if they'd been sent there to help Jin Guangyao and thus acted on his commands. Jiang Cheng, I think, can safely be categorised as definitely not having been involved due to his circumstances at the time and his own personality. When one of the inspectors mentions that other sects are involved, it is likely that they're talking about minor sects allied with the Jins (which does further strengthen the way that MXTX has framed the Jins as the next Wens, from becoming the Chief Cultivator to having a retinue of minor sects under his influence, Jin Guangshan becomes the next Wen Ruohan).

Or at least that's how I'd interpret this topic!

(This is just a little aside, but just as a little bonus let's go for it! If we step away from the text and look at the characters in terms of their purpose within the story, I think it's pretty clear that them being involved in the prison camps contradicts that purpose. This is a bit more abstract and I don't want to focus too much on this aspect of the meta because it requires a deeper level of analysis to provide evidence than the rest imho and I haven't done that, but the gist is this: when a character is created they must serve a purpose; this could be to facilitate particular events in the story, to fill in the blanks in the world or story, or to convey a particular message. As a reader I can't do more than hypothesise MXTX's intentions in creating her characters as she did, but there are a few things that are clear. While the characters of Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are not explored in anywhere near as much depth as some of the other more central characters, they still do serve a purpose.

Lan Xichen appears in two circles, so to speak, when it comes to his character and how he adds to the story. First, he appears in relation to the Wangxian relationship. I've touched on this in this post here (Tldr mxtx explores how forgiveness and understanding based on context and personal experience will never be absolute through the example of a completely genuine and good person and how their limited information/understanding colours their interactions with specific individuals). This extends on into the second circle, which is his relationship with Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao.

Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue, as I mentioned before, parallel each other; MXTX uses this dynamic of having our primary antagonist (of sorts) surrounded by two incredibly righteous men with a strong sense of morals, and good and evil. The differences between Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen lay in how they commit to their decision of what is right and what is wrong; where Nie Mingjue is quick to form opinions and is set in his ways once he has, Lan Xichen tends to be more forgiving and passive when he is unsure of whether the person is good or not, giving his opinion more time to form and is more forgiving of errors and missteps. This guides the way the Venerated Trio's relationship evolved throughout the novel and how their side-story came to pass. It is very much hinged on the fact that Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are both 'good' characters who exist at opposite ends of a spectrum and that such extremes is what drove those characters to ruin. Having Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen having a flexible morality – being able to torture and kill the Wens after the war, directly or indirectly – contradicts everything they've demonstrated within the novel and undermines the purpose of the characters within the novel.

MXTX already provides us with characters with dubious morality – Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng for example – so it doesn't make sense for her to pervert her morally righteous characters to fill a space that's already been filled, especially not when it sacrifices an important message about how it's not enough to simply exist as a good person and that one has to actively pursue such a life (and several others that depend on them being good people who wouldn't commit crimes such as the Jins did to the Wens after the war).

Even Jiang Cheng, who is one of the characters who has a more flexible morality that has formed around his own personal sense of retribution and benefit over anything else, would be sacrificing a lot of his own character's purpose if he had been involved in the camps. Jiang Cheng's establishment as an antagonist is largely spurred by the misunderstanding surrounding the camps and Wei Wuxian's reputation, and involving Jiang Cheng in the camps would only muddle the waters unnecessarily. There'd be no misunderstanding – only intentional cruelty – and Jiang Cheng would have no basis for his actions at all, as there would have been a direct cascade of events that would have led to Jiang Yanli's death starting from his own involvement with the Jins. The balance of the falling apart of the twin prides would shift in a irrevocable way and their entire post-resurrection relationship would have had to been modified to accommodate this.

Similarly, if MXTX had intended for Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue to be involved in the Jins' crimes, she would've put effort into making it obvious. Resolution would not necessarily have been granted to that particular storyline, but it would have been introduced and concluded in some capacity if that's the path MXTX had wanted to go down. Additionally, if everyone had known about the camps (and had been aiding the Jins too), Wei Wuxian would have been turned into a victim who was wronged by the world. The Wei Wuxian we actually have in the novel, while certainly a victim, is not entirely blameless in his end. This would have also had significant impact on the story that's being told which would most likely contradict the story that we've been presented with.

So, from a writing point of view, having Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue or Jiang Cheng involved in the camps only detracts from the story (and it's also why I hate the Lans-aren't-actually-good takes) and cheapens the story. The unnamed minor sects on the other hand would only further the stories and critiques that MXTX presents us.)

[notzilon]

Heeey

Thank you for blessing us with the good ferriswheelshipping stuff

I have one question though, in your AU what happened to Anthea and Concordia?

Hope you're having a good day!! 💖💖

Thank you for the kind comments!! To answer this question, I'm gonna ask you to get on board with a conceit: Team Plasma is a new-age commune turned dangerous cult under the leadership of Ghetsis. With this in mind, I would argue that in N's absence, a religious schism occurs among Team Plasma members, and we see this happening in BW2. While N is a puppet leader/Ghetsis is the one that was really pulling the strings, it's pretty clear that a lot of Team Plasma members have faith in N's vision of the world. A majority of the Sages in the BW postgame talk about how they favor N's vision and BW2 is littered with NPCs that are ex-Plasma who still are trying to live under N's ideals. We see Ghetsis's Team Plasma, but we also see Anthea and Concordia at the center of the ex-plasma members who are trying to repent for their actions. I would argue that while N is off finding himself, Anthea and Concordia have taken over temporary leadership over the non-Ghetsis sect.

I also think it would be really funny for Anthea and Concordia to orchestrate transferring all of Ghetsis's assets into N's name. Ghetsis disappeared, oh no, what a tragedy. Time to get everything he owns into the name of his next-of-kin!!

(Off screen, a shadow triad member informs Ghetsis that his card has been declined.) As an aside, I dislike the idea of N as this permanent wanderer, if only because he's explicit about loving Unova and still wanting better equality between humans and pokemon. One of the greatest revenges he could have is to be wildly successful where Ghetsis was not - not as a tyrant but as a kind leader. With the amount of people who have faith in N's vision and Ghetsis's resources, I can imagine him setting up an Aether Foundation-esque society with the assistance of Anthea, Concordia, and the Sages that remained loyal. You know, philanthropy without the desire to destroy the whole region to be friends with a cool jellyfish.

Anthea and Concordia are stuck in a balancing act between two roles - the caretakers for a young "king" and adoptive older sisters, and neither is easy when your prophet-little brother is an ooga booga boy that is letting bug pokemon nest in his hair because they're his newest friends.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 24, first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Banquet Proposal

Manspreading Champion Jin Guangshan is trying to pressure Jiang Cheng into marrying Jiang Yanli into the Jin clan.  Because this is the cultivation world, where everyone reflexively agrees with the most powerful man in the room like he's Frank Sinatra and they're the Rat Pack, the whole room starts pressuring Jiang Cheng to agree.  

Then Wei Wuxian comes striding in and suggests the radical idea of asking a woman's opinion about her own marriage. He tries to pressure Jiang Cheng into agreeing with him. Today is Pressure Jiang Cheng Day. Every day for the next several months is going to be Pressure Jiang Cheng Day.

Jiang Cheng stands up and agrees that it should be left up to his sister, citing his late father's beliefs so that everyone will know that this unconventional behavior isn't his fault. This is a pickle for him; he knows his sister wants to marry Jin Zixuan, but it's not a good political alliance for the Jiangs right now, which is the opposite of the situation when his parents first made the match. While saying all this he takes the opportunity to get in a dig at Wei Wuxian for meddling.

Jiang Yanli sadly says, thanks for the offer, but the Jiang Clan is just coming back from being massacred, and I have, like, SO much laundry, I can't even. It's not that I don't want to be with you, Jixuan honey; I would just rather scrub blood off of the courtyard.

Jin Zixuan suddenly realizes that being dumped in front of a bunch of your peers is not as fun when you’re catching instead of pitching.

Clan Leader Yao is completely flummoxed by this whole "let young people decide things" concept and hopes it goes out of fashion soon.

The only really happy person in the room is Jin Guangyao, who is looking for a scapegoat for his upcoming villainy. Wei Wuxian will be a perfect fit.

(more behind the cut!)

Chillin Like a Villain

Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan have a villany-plotting conversation that's mostly as boring as every other villainy-plotting conversation.  

Jin Guangyao starts the ground work for blaming stuff on Wei Wuxian, saying that Wei Wuxian was alone with Xue Yang back when the 4th chunk of Yin Iron went missing. This kind of harks back to that moment when Wei Wuxian searched Xue Yang (not, incidentally, alone) and XY asked if he wasn't worried about what people would say if they heard about it.

Jin Guangshan is pretty ready to think badly of WWX, who just crapped on his marriage plans, so he quickly decides that Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger amulet is made out of Xue Yang’s Yin Iron, not that it actually, like, matters where it came from? It’s all the same dang metal.

Back to Lotus Pier

Then we get an establishing shot of the dock in Yunmeng and the subtitle unhelpfully says QISHAN. Not because the scene is in Qishan, but because there are red Wen banners flying that say 岐山 on them, so the subtitle is for the banner, not for the location. Not only are there Wen banners still flying despite their defeat, there are at least six Wen guards standing guard at the dock. Perhaps there is a teensy continuity error here.

The Yunmeng trio return to Lotus Pier with a group of disciples in tow. Leaving aside the boys' (apparent) stealth trip to the ancestral hall in Episode 20, this is their official return to their home and the seat of their clan, having survived the Wen clan's attempt to exterminate them.

They are battered, bloodied, but not broken and one of them is also broken. But still persevering. I get choked up at this scene every time. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian would be pleased with all three of them. Jiang Yanli has supported both of them through all the turmoil, giving them an emotional home even while they were homeless. Jiang Cheng has done the impossible, even more than he himself realizes. And Wei Wuxian has acted as a faithful servant, sacrificing a precious part of himself to save his clan leader.

The place is a mess, with the evidence of a final battle against the Wens all over the place. As they look around Wei Wuxian thinks back on one of the many times that Jiang Fengmian paid attention to him instead of to Jiang Cheng, and smiles affectionately.   Wei Wuxian is consistently able to remember the good things and smile about them, even when those memories are overlaid by endless trauma.

The three of them look at the Wen symbol on the roof line and the boys get identically angry...

...starting with the teeth of anger...

...followed by the fist of anger.

It's a powerful moment; they still do have an awful lot in common, despite everything. Jiang Cheng uses his mother’s weapon to smash the Wen symbol and reclaim his home.

Jiang Yanli:  The fuck!? Are you trying to slice my face off?

Back to Gusu

Next we get a nice fly-through of the Jingshi, where Lan Wangji is sitting in the side room playing guqin.  In later years he will move the guqin to the living room, while this room gains a wine-drinking table.  

The Lan clan do love their knick-knacks, and this room features several. There's a teapot suspended from a chain over a brazier, with a tied-up fish sculpture for a counterweight, which is definitely not an indication of any future kinks. The brazier is surrounded by Zen sand with some surprisingly untranquil lines raked into it.  

Lan Xichen has dropped by to tell Lan Wangji that the disciples are gossiping about him, saying he’s been checking out books from the library and practicing music. Seriously? The Lans are a sect that focuses on musical cultivation. Practicing music, verrry suspicious. Also, gossip is forbidden, but sure, check up on him.

In response, Lan Wangji jumps right to "I want to enter the forbidden chamber of the Library"  Lan Xichen asks him why, and he says he wants more music scores.  Lan Xichen, who knows about the secret murder music book, isn't delighted with that answer.  Just then, Lan Qiren summons them, so they table the conversation to go see him.

Lan Qiren talks about the battle they just went through, and says "I've heard about Wei Ying."  Everybody makes significant faces without clarifying what LQR actually heard about Wei Ying. Lan Qiren then philosophizes about how war is hell, particularly for idioms about eggs and nests. They need to go clean up the leftover resentful energy, but he's sending Lan Xichen on his own, while Lan Wangji gets to stay home and repair/rewrite all of the Lan rules.

Lan Qiren says a bunch of stuff to Lan Wangji about rules, being super hinty without actually coming to the point. He refuses to let Lan Wangji speak or ask questions, while he’s doling out punishment for, basically, thought crime. He wants LWJ to reject Wei Wuxian but he wants him to do it without being directly told.

To make sure Lan Wangji is extra frustrated, he snarkily refuses to give him permission to read the forbidden books, asking him if he’s already read all of the books in the regular library. Surprisingly, he hasn’t yet; I guess he was busy winning a war while you were in a coma, jerkface.

Lan Xichen is super on edge during this conversation--scared, even. He's trying to keep the peace, trying to keep Lan Wangji out of trouble, and avoid a confrontation. Lan Wangji is increasingly uninterested in peace, but he follows his brother's unspoken commands, and shuts up.

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen both really fail as teachers here. Lan Wangji believes that resentful energy is bad. He believes this VERY STRONGLY.  He broke up with his boyfriend for a while because of it. They are punishing him for having doubts, and they’re not giving him any opportunity to talk through those doubts with them. I say “they” because Lan Qiren is the one giving the punishment, but Lan Xichen is silently assenting, and making sure Lan Wangji doesn’t argue.

As they leave, Lan Qiren stops them to ask Lan Wangji if he understands why he's grounded, and Lan Wangji just looks at him without answering, which would be counted as sass when I was growing up.

He face says he’s appropriately chagrined, but he’s not. Before the end of this episode, he's going to directly disobey Lan Qiren, and he’s going to go on disobeying him in the future, over and over again.

Later, when Lan Wangji is alone with the pristine, definitely not in need of repair, rule book, he seems genuinely chagrined. He loves these rules, and has depended on them; that’s why he’s been a model disciple for so long, not because he fears his uncle’s punishments.

But now he also loves Wei Wuxian. So some of these rules will have to be broken.

Clan Leader Jiang

The Jiang Clan are having the ceremony to install Jiang Cheng as leader.

Wei Wuxian is sitting alone, away from all of the other disciples, watching the proceedings rather than participating. His placement in the ceremony is very strange for a head disciple.

But it’s perfect for a ghost.

Later, Jiang Cheng is practicing his "yelly boss" leadership style, and being extra grumpy because Wei Wuxian is slacking off all the time. Jiang Yanli is having trouble deciding if she should be more worried about the brother with the drinking problem or the brother with the anger problem.  

Jiang Cheng is miserable and feels completely unsure of himself but he's plowing the fuck ahead.

You might put your love and trust on the line It's risky, people love to tear that down Let 'em try Do it anyway Risk it anyway And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead Go on and Do it anyway Do it anyway

Help Me to Help You

Wei Wuxian is hanging out in a tavern window, being a thirst trap and hitting on passing Lans.  

Lan Xichen joins him for a drink and a lecture. Things start off fairly well, with Wei Wuxian being impressed with his ability to drink wine, and attempting his usual flirt-tease-charm routine, bragging about smuggling wine into Cloud Recesses.

Where Lan Wangji would be adorably flustered and hostile/sexy in responding to that, Lan Xichen just shuts him down with a look, and Wei Wuxian suddenly realizes that he's talking to an adult clan leader who isn't here for his shit, and is a lot more worldy than Lan Wangji is.

Wei Wuxian knocks it off and apologizes. Then he talks fondly about Lan Wangji, saying he wants to come visit him, and daydreams cutely about dominating him  supervising his rule-copying work.

LXC says that he should come listen to new music that LWJ has composed, and the tone of the conversation changes completely. Wei Wuxian is on his guard, and he's getting ready to throw down.  He asks if LXC came to Yunmeng specifically to hassle him, and LXC...kinda says no?

Wei Wuxian smiles sweetly while he asks if everyone in the Lan Clan is a meddler.

Lan Xichen has never encountered the nasty version of Wei Wuxian before, but he's a grown up, and he's very, very hard to provoke, unlike his brother. He cuts to the chase and says he's got something to say, whether WWX listens or not.

He says Wei Wuxian shouldn't be self-centered because the people he cares about are affected by his choices. This gets through to him, for a second. But then LXC offers to help him go back to sword cultivation, and Wei Wuxian is done listening.  

He tells Lan Xichen he doesn't want to go back to sword work, and LXC is stunned into silence for a moment as Wei Wuxian takes his wine and starts to walk away.  Lan Xichen makes a last ditch attempt to warn him about the dangers of the yin tiger amulet, and WWX says he knows, but he wants to try to master it anyway. Then he leaves with a rude little wave, and no bow.

This whole conversation seems like a disaster but Wei Wuxian does, in fact, remember Lan Xichen’s words, the next time he meets up with Lan Wangji.

Soundtrack: Do It Anyway by Ben Folds Five

[theworldinclines]

Title: family matters Pairing: Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi Excerpt:      “You’re almost like another son to him anyway,” Sizhui points out.      “So you’re the favourite child while I get tossed to the wayside?” Ao3 link

Read below the cut.

     The first time Jingyi meets Sizhui, they are each five. Zewu-Jun himself delivers the boy to lessons and asks that the children treat Sizhui with exceptional respect and consideration. That in itself isn’t anything new, as the Lans have written rules that explain why giving others kindness is one of the many keys to leading a decent life and acting as a role model to those in- and outside the sect. What was different, however, was the moment before Zewu-Jun took his leave from the students.

     He gave a downturn of his chin to the boys and the teacher, but was unable to take more than two steps before little Sizhui had grappled to his robes, arms held fast around the Sect Leader’s left leg. Jingyi has never been known for necessarily obedient behaviour, but even he had never dared such an act toward Zewu-Jun, let alone in public. To the entire room’s astonishment, the man didn’t look put out in the very least. Rather than reprimand the child, Zewu-Jun put a gentle hand to his head and guided him out into the gardens. Jingyi knew he would be scolded were he to peek at them, and did it anyway when Laoshi’s back was turned.

     Outside he saw Sizhui and Zewu-Jun, the Sect Leader in his immaculate robes bent to a knee as though they were in the cleanly confines of a hall rather than stood on a dusty path. Sizhui was staring at the ground, rubbing at his nose, and Zewu-Jun gave him a gentle chuck beneath the chin, murmuring words Jingyi couldn’t possibly hear. Sizhui’s nod prompted a smile from the Sect Leader that Jingyi, even at his young age, could tell held something more behind it.

     He was quick to be facing the front of the room by the time Sizhui was led back into the class, much more collected and prepared to learn for the day. Jingyi understands, sort of; although he hadn’t wanted to begin lessons either, it’s just what is expected of children their age in the Cloud Recesses. He’d still stomped and whined, of course, but here he sits.

     And he’s rather glad to have come once Laoshi dismisses them, because he gets to trot after Sizhui’s slow movements and say, “Hey!” He recalls in a split-second Zewu-Jun’s request that they show Sizhui respect, along with the rules, and adds quickly, “Welcome to Cloud Recesses. I haven’t seen you before.” Sizhui stares at him, uncertain. “Did you just come here? Where’d you move from?”

     Sizhui gives a helpless shrug that is interrupted by the Sect Leader’s prompt appearance by his side. Jingyi immediately dips into a polite little bow that makes Zewu-Jun smile and he returns the gesture. Jingyi grins before he can bite it down and says, “Zewu-Jun, where’s Sizhui from?”

     The Sect Leader hesitates a moment before his expression smooths into something less telling. “He is an orphan, A-Yi,” he says simply. “I trust that you will show him kindness.”

     Jingyi looks at Sizhui with slightly widened eyes, nodding vigorously. “I will!” he promises the older man. To the boy, he says, “I’ll protect you. Don’t worry.”

     For the first time, Sizhui’s lips quirk into the hint of a smile. “You don’t need to do that. I’m okay.”

     “Too late,” Jingyi says firmly. “Tell me if anyone is mean to you and I’ll deal with them.” Zewu-Jun lowers his eyes to hide his amusement and Jingyi barrels on, “Better yet, I’ll stick by your side to save the trouble. Okay?”

     Sizhui allows a little nod before Zewu-Jun murmurs that they should be heading home. The boy nods and Jingyi gives a wave, which Sizhui repays with a shy, squint-eyed smile. Jingyi beams. It may be Zewu-Jun’s request, but keeping Sizhui safe won’t be an arduous task at all, he thinks. Maybe they’ll even become good friends!

     Jingyi finds Sizhui by the rabbits. It’s his friend’s favourite spot in the Cloud Recesses and if ever there’s a time when Jingyi can’t seem to find Sizhui in the main pavilion, he knows where he’ll be. Today is no exception.

     Sizhui had disappeared just before he and Jingyi were meant to meet. They had each taken their meals as quickly as possible without appearing impolite to their families before the usual rendezvous by the rock garden’s bridge for a short break together, a daily update of all things Cloud Recesses. But when Jingyi arrived, Sizhui was nowhere to be seen and he’d known that something must have happened for his best friend to abandon him without warning.

     Seeing Sizhui now, surrounded by soft rabbits, Jingyi hopes that he’d perhaps fallen into a brief mood as he sometimes does and all is in fact well, though he’d had to come here to get away from it all. He wouldn’t fault Sizhui that. However, when he calls out for him in approach, Sizhui wipes at his face like he’s been caught, and Jingyi begins to frown.

     “A-Hui,” he says, coming to a stop beside him. Sizhui won’t look at him, gaze focused on the ground as he soothes a rabbit in his lap, and Jingyi can see that his eyes are red, cheeks tear-streaked. “A-Hui,” he repeats.

     “I’m alright,” Sizhui says. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

     “It’s been four years and you still think I care,” Jingyi replies, the slightest sarcasm in his words. “What happened?”

     “It really isn’t a big deal.”

     “So some non-issue made you come here and cry?” Jingyi deduces dryly.

     “They…” Sizhui stops.

     Jingyi sombers and can feel his frown deepening. “They who?”

     “Mingyu. And Pengfei. Rumours about where I’m from.”

     “Sizhui, what’d they do?”

     “They said…” Sizhui’s hands shake only slightly where they hold the rabbit, but it still makes Jingyi’s stomach hurt. “Just that they think I’m from that old sect that was eradicated years ago for their evil ways, and how it’s strange I’m not dead like the rest of them. A-Fei said if I’m evil it’s their duty to — ” Sizhui doesn’t complete the sentence as his voice catches, but Jingyi is already on his feet. “A-Yi!” Sizhui’s hand reaches for Jingyi’s ankle, though he’s too far to catch. “What are you doing?”

     “What’s it look like?” Jingyi demands. “I’m going to challenge them to a duel and shame them in front of the gods and the Four Families. What else?”

     “Jingyi, don’t,” Sizhui says tiredly.

     “Why not?”

     “We’ve only just begun sword-work, for one,” Sizhui quips, aiming for a joke. Jingyi crosses his arms over his chest and Sizhui sighs as he gently sets the rabbit aside to stand. “We’re barely 10,” he says. “You can’t fight another kid to the death, Jingyi.”

     “I disagree,” he mumbles.

     “Well, that’s allowed. I don’t expect us to agree on everything. But you’ll only get in trouble and I don’t want that.”

     “They said horrible things to you!” Jingyi exclaims. “And I said I’d protect you. ‘Our word is our oath,’ remember? Never break a promise. If I don’t confront them, I’m betraying one of our rules. A punishable offense, you know.”

     “Coming here to find me is enough,” Sizhui says, fond but immovable, per usual. “I’m not even crying anymore, thanks to you. I’d say you did your duty.” Jingyi grumbles his dissent, arms still crossed, but Sizhui just bumps their shoulders together as he stands by his side, twining an arm through Jingyi’s out of habit. “Let’s get back to class.”

     “They’re lucky they didn’t say that stuff in front of me,” Jingyi says while they walk. “Those brats. Don’t think I won’t do it next time.”

     “Yes, A-Yi.”

     “Don’t ‘Yes, A-Yi’ me; I mean it!”

     “Okay, A-Yi.”

     “Sizhui!” comes the expected whine.

      Because it is their shared space, another day finds the boys with the rabbits. Zewu-Jun had apparently shown it to Sizhui when he first arrived and was feeling lonely, and although Jingyi dislikes that Sizhui had felt sad, he’s happy that it had at least brought them a special hideaway that so few know about. There’s nothing like an afternoon of hideously dull lessons to remind Jingyi why he so prefers not being in class. As if he ever forgets.

     “There’s no way Laoshi Qiren isn’t trying to kill us,” Jingyi deadpans. “I swear, leaving his class I’m always sapped of both energy and will to live. Not a coincidence.”

     “You say this nearly every day.”

     “And it’s true! A slow-burn murder.”

     “I feel certain that if my Grand-Uncle was trying to kill me, there’d be more concern from my father and uncle.”

     Jingyi  makes a face and holds a rabbit up to meet her dark gaze. “What do you think? Who’s right, little one?”

     Sizhui rolls his eyes, taking the rabbit gently from Jingyi so that he can return her to the grass with her family. “She can’t talk,” he says, “but if she could, she’d agree with me.”

     “One of our numerous Sect rules is to reserve assumptions until proper evidence is drawn,” Jingyi recites, “yet here you are. What would your esteemed uncle say? Or your father, for that matter?”

     “Zewu-Jun would say it’s worth it to tease you. Baba would say… I’m right,” Sizhui concludes proudly. “Because I’m his son.”

     “Nepotism! Utter bias!”

     “You’re almost like another son to him anyway,” Sizhui points out.

     “So you’re the favourite child while I get tossed to the wayside?” Sizhui laughs at Jingyi’s affronted expression, and for that Jingyi takes his free hand where it rests across from him on the grass. “You know, that’s fine. If he already accepts me as a son, there won’t be any trouble when I request formal permission to court you.”

     Sizhui turns red and pulls his hand back to pet the rabbit, glancing around as though someone might be watching all of a sudden. “You’re silly,” he says to Jingyi.

     “We’re already going to be 15!” Jingyi pouts.

     “Why are you so interested in discussing it today?”

     Jingyi tugs a little at a few strands of grass. “Just the lesson earlier about cultivation partners.”

     Sizhui’s cheeks haven’t lost their blush but he does look pleasantly surprised as he says, “You paid attention in class after all! A-Yi!”

     “Only for today because it applied to me,” Jingyi insists. “To us, I guess.”

     Sizhui seems to remember his shyness and ducks his head. “You want me to be your cultivation partner?” he asks.

     “Don’t you want to be?”

     “I never said I didn’t!” Sizhui says quickly, seeing that Jingyi appears disheartened. He carefully reaches for his hand despite his own red face and says, “Would I spend all my time with you if I didn’t want to?”

     “Well, how should I know?” Jingyi asks, but he’s sitting up like he’s got less weight holding him down now. Back to his usual self, which is a good sign. “Some cultivation partners are platonic, you know.”

     “Rarely.”

     “A-Hui, are you questioning Laoshi Qiren?”

     “I’d prefer to avoid lashing by oar if I can avoid it, thank you.”

     “I thought you said you have nepotism on your side!”

     Sizhui shakes his head and, somehow graceful even here, stands up from the ground. “We should head back, A-Yi,” he says, brushing invisible dust from his robes. “It’s getting late now.”

     “Can’t we just stay here forever?” Jingyi asks dramatically, falling onto his back. At Sizhui’s look, he sighs and extends a hand upward for Sizhui to accept.

     Instead of allowing him to help Jingyi to his feet, Jingyi tugs Sizhui down so that he tumbles back to the ground, half against Jingyi’s side. Jingyi laughs aloud in amused delight while Sizhui’s blush returns with a vengeance.

     “Lan Jingyi!” he scolds, twisting away from him. “Shameless!”

     “You sound like your father!” Jingyi laughs again.

     Sizhui huffs and hurries to stand, putting distance between himself and Jingyi. “And if you don’t want him to give you the oar, you’d better just do as I say. Let’s go.”

     “Bossy, bossy,” Jingyi says, though he’s following Sizhui obediently for the path. He sneaks a glance to his left and can’t help but grin at Sizhui’s flushed cheeks and the way his ears have gone pink at the tips. According to Sizhui, Hanguang-Jun’s ears do the same.

     He gives a little poke to the skin of Sizhui’s ear, just to mess with him, and Sizhui huffs another breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Completely shameless!” before abandoning Jingyi altogether to hurry ahead of him.

     If Wei Wuxian had been asked as a teenager whether he could ever envision making a life for himself in the Cloud Recesses, he’d have laughed in your face. He did, actually, when Jiang Cheng made the passing joke all those years ago, assuring his brother that this place would never feel like home to someone with Wei Wuxian’s habits. Now, what’s closer to two decades ago than Wei Wuxian would like to think about, he has to admit that his younger self hadn’t been nearly open-minded enough.

     Circumstances that he couldn’t have foreseen changed his view of Cloud Reccesses, and he knows that he will be here for as long as he can be because being here means keeping his place beside his husband and son. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else these days and the certainty of that sometimes takes him by surprise, when he considers just how different things are now but in a way that feels right, like it’s what always was meant to be.

     He feels himself smiling when he sees A-Yuan and A-Yi in the woods near the rabbits. He knows that Lan Xichen had brought A-Yuan years before when he’d been new here, sure that giving the child a piece of Lan Wangji would bring him comfort in his three-year absence. It’s still Wei Wuxian’s favourite place in the Cloud Recesses — except for the rooms he shares with Lan Zhan, of course, but that’s a given — and it makes him even happier that Lan Sizhui had found solace here as his fathers had done at his age.

     He watches from afar with a fond smile as the boys stand to be on their way home, but Wei Wuxian’s smile freezes when he can tell even from here that Sizhui is smiling sweetly with a hand in Jingyi’s, and his smile decidedly disappears when he realises their faces are far too close together. Wei Wuxian trips backward, a twig or five snapping as he does, and it must alert the boys to an outside present for when he regains his footing against the tree, they’ve fled the scene. A hand to his chest, Wei Wuxian stands there in astonishment.

     This lasts for only a moment before he is all but sprinting for the Library Pavilion where his husband is sure to be writing this early afternoon. He forces himself to slow down so as to not alarm Lan Wangji, though he comes to a sliding stop inside the doors anyhow with heaving breath.

     “What’s happened?” Lan Wangji asks, not lifting his eyes from his work. When it’s obvious that Wei Wuxian is still having trouble speaking, he looks up at him. “Wei Ying?”

     “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. He goes to him across the room and drops onto the floor to clutch at his husband’s arm. He stares at Wei Wuxian with the slightest concern and Wei Wuxian says, “I don’t mean to be dramatic — ”

     “Debatable,” Lan Wangji answers. “Say what you have to say.”

     “Did you know A-Yuan is — that he and Jingyi are — ”

     “They are what?”

     “I’ve just seen them with the rabbits, which is ordinary, but afterwards, Lan Zhan — ”

     “Baba? A-die?”

     Both men look for the entrance where their son has appeared, hands folded in front of him and looking for all the world their dutiful, sweet boy. Wei Wuxian’s heart stops, a feeling he’s never enjoyed, and jumps to his feet.

     “Sizhui!” he exclaims.

     “I need to speak with you both. Is this a bad time?” he asks. He’s walked in on more than one longing glance between his fathers to know when he should make himself scarce, but Wei Wuxian waves his son’s worry away like a pesky gnat.

     “Come here,” Lan Wangji invites him, and Sizhui does. He sits across from Lan Wangji, who looks up at his still-standing husband. Wei Wuxian hurriedly settles beside him and nods at Lan Sizhui in assurance.

     “I wanted to tell you on my own, before anyone else, so that you would know I’m sure of my decision,” Sizhui begins. “With your formal permission, I… I will begin publicly courting Jingyi.” Sizhui’s ears have begun to redden but he doesn’t hesitate as he goes on, “We’d like to be married.”

     The library is silent enough that a pin’s dropping would prove thunderous.

     As calm as he normally is, Lan Wangji simply asks, “How long have you known?”

     “A-die, you know he and I have been friends since almost the day I arrived here. He’s been there for me without my ever having to ask, and we… we’ve been certain of how we feel for over six years now.”

     “Six years?” Wei Wuxian blurts aloud. Lan Wangji gives him a warning side-eye and Wei Wuxian tries to remain collected. “Sizhui, if it’s been so long, why haven’t you told us until today?”

     Sizhui’s flush deepens but he forces himself to meet his father’s eyes. “Before all else, Jingyi and I are friends. We didn’t want the hassle of chaperones or rumours. I understand if our keeping this secret is upsetting, Baba.” He bows his head. “I… I’m soon to be 18, and I know we’re young. But I can’t help wanting to make the most of whatever time A-Yi and I have. You and A-die — ”

     A pause. “From what I’ve been told of your story, it has kept in my mind that I shouldn’t live with this sort of hidden feeling any longer than necessary.” Sizhui looks up at them. “Jingyi loves me, and I love him. Will you allow our marriage?”

     Wei Wuxian is crying, which he’d be embarrassed about if he cared, and he throws propriety to the wind in favour of opening his arms for his son, who gladly and in relief stands to accept the embrace. Lan Wangji is sort of smiling in a clear indication that he’s happy with these events, and Wei Wuxian leans to poke at his cheek just to tease him.

     “I’m thrilled you’ve told us,” Wei Wuxian says to Sizhui. “I assume Jingyi is informing his parents?”

     “Well, we wanted to wait until we had your blessing,” Sizhui admits. “It would be easier to tell them once we know Hanguang-Jun and the former Yiling Patriarch are on our side.”

     “You little schemers!” Wei Wuxian says, giving Sizhui’s cheek a light pinch. “Go on, then. Tell Jingyi the good news.”

     Sizhui beams and looks at Lan Wangji. His smile strengthens under his son’s eyes and he gives the slightest nod, which Sizhui knows to translate as wholehearted approval.

     He bows to his fathers and disappears from the library. Wei Wuxian falls against Lan Wangji’s arm as soon as he’s gone.

     “Ah, Lan Zhan. I rushed here to tell you about how I saw them kiss in the woods, but A-Hui beat me to it. I suppose they’d just decided at that moment to tell us, you think?”

     “Mn.”

     “If I didn’t already know Jingyi to be a good boy, I’d have to kill him.” Wei Wuxian sneaks a look at Lan Wangji, who doesn’t look amused. “No fun, Lan Zhan, no fun.” He taps a finger on the table and at Lan Wangji’s prompting expression says, “Well, I suppose they’ll be needing a chaperone now, eh? Can I volunteer to keep an eye on Jingyi? Break a leg or two?”

     “Wei Ying.”

     “Ah, Lan Zhan, I’m kidding,” Wei Wuxian says with a half-pout. “Huh. Maybe this is how Grand Master Qiren feels about me defiling the soul of his youngest nephew. I think I understand now.”

     “You did not ‘defile’ anything,” Lan Wangji says without pause.

     “My good husband.” Wei Wuxian presses a kiss to his cheek, followed by a gentle pat to the other. Although he’s smiling, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Lan Wangji covers Wei Wuxian’s hand carefully with his, wordlessly asking for Wei Wuxian to speak his mind.

     “It’s nothing. Only what Sizhui mentioned about our past. I don’t want to marry away our son but I… I am grateful that they don’t have to endure… all we had to endure. No mortifyingly long wait to reach their happily ever after. I’m glad for it.”

     Lan Wangji nods his agreement and brushes a kiss against his husband’s hand, making him blush. “A-Zhan!” he says with feigned astonishment. “Not in the library! Shameless.” Wei Wuxian knows he isn’t imagining the amused, pleased look on Wangji’s face, and he can’t hide his own smile at the sight. He still pulls out of Lan Wangji’s grip and says, “I don’t want to be responsible for any damage here, Gods forbid Qiren’s wrath finds me! Later?”

     “Mn. Later.”

     Wei Wuxian dimples at Lan Wangji, firing off a wink, before hightailing it for the Gods know where.

     Lan Wangji returns to his writing, but pauses as he thinks about the hour’s events. His son will be married surely within a year, perhaps have children of his own. The thoughts of a new baby to hold and Sizhui being loved so dearly bring such an unexpected wave of warmth to Lan Wangji that he decides, for today, he can put work to the side. He goes off to find his family growing, or perhaps the ‘later’ he’d been promised.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

I just saw a post saying nhs has an inferiority complex and I'm?? Confused?? I always thought he was fine with being weaker in terms of cultivation, maybe I missed something

Hi anon,

I have to say, I struggle as well to figure out where people are getting this from the text. I think, oftentimes, people don't actually pay attention to what the text provides us in terms of characterisation as a whole, but take elements of what makes the character or which happens to them and simply extrapolate how they themselves would feel in that situation as a means of understanding the character. I can easily imagine how a reader would think: wow, if I had low cultivation in a world that values it (and within a clan that values strength even more so!) and a brother who was not only super strong and admired but who wanted me to fit into that role, and then found myself having to fill his shoes after his sudden death, I'd feel some sort of inferiority complex. I think that's the same reason you see so much people insisting WWX has self-esteem issues.

The thing about NHS is that, as a youth, we never saw him value high cultivation or "academic" achievements (not sure how to otherwise call his time at CR but there is probably a better word for it) or brute strength. He's afraid of consequences from his brother for failing at the CR, as we see here:

Although the brothers were not born from the same mother, their relationship was quite solid. Nie Mingjue had always taught his younger brother with extreme harshness, particularly caring for his studies. This was why, even though Nie Huaisang respected his older brother, he was the most scared of Nie Mingjue mentioning his schoolwork.

and here:

Although he didn’t understand a single bit as he listened in class, Nie Huaisang worked as hard as a slave when the date of the test approached. He copied Virtue two times for Wei Wuxian, and begged before the test, “Please, Wei-xiong, if my grade is lower than yi, my brother would really break my legs! Stuff like telling apart direct lineage, collateral lineage, main clan, clan branches… For us disciples from big clans, we can’t even distinguish our relationships with our own relatives, randomly calling everyone who are more than two tiers away from us aunts and uncles. Does anyone have enough capacity in their brain to remember those of other clans?!”

After thinking for a few moments, an expression of envy and yearning appeared on Nie Huaisang’s face, “To be honest, Wei-xiong’s words were quite interesting. Spiritual energy can only be obtained through cultivation and taking great pains to form a golden core (金丹). It would take I-don’t-know-how-many years to do, especially for someone like me, whose talent seems as if it was gnawed by a dog when I was in my mother’s womb. But, resentful energy are from the fierce ghosts. If they can easily be taken and used, it would be beyond wonderful.”

[...] . If disciple from a prominent clan forms the core at a later age, it would be a disgrace to tell other people of it, yet Nie Huaisang didn’t feel ashamed at all. Wei Wuxian also laughed, “I know, right? No harm comes from using it.”

The only moment that I can find that could tangentially be used to suggest that NHS has an inferiority complex could be this one, where NHS wants to avoid LXC's questioning about how his studies are going (and WWX picking up on his cues like a good friend to redirect the conversation). However, when you consider the whole context of the scene, it’s not because NHS feels self-conscious but because he’s afraid LXC is going to report to his brother that he’s not working hard at his studies:

Lan Xichen turned to him, “Huaisang, a while ago, as I returned from Qinghe, your brother asked of your studies. How is it? This year, will you be able to pass?”

Nie Huaisang replied, “Generally speaking, yes…” He seemed like a wilted cucumber, looking at Wei Wuxian in a helpless way. Wei Wuxian grinned, “Zewu-Jun, what are you two going out for?”

[...] Nie Huaisang also wanted to join in, but he had been reminded of his older brother as he met Lan Xichen. Cringing silently, he didn’t dare to have fun, “I’ll pass and go back so that I can review…” With this act, he hoped that Lan Xichen would put in some good words for him to his brother.

NHS seems very industrious at finding ways not to have to do anything that relates to cultivation or to leading a sect, and that is linked once more to the fact that he does not want to do these things (so not a case where we could say he’s self-sabotaging because he fears failure):

Lan Xichen took Nie Huaisang’s saber into his qiankun sleeve, “Huaisang has been using the excuse that he left his saber at home. Now he will have no excuses for lazing around.”

or here

“Nie Huaisang!”

Nie Huaisang fell at once.

He really did fall to his knees from the terror. He only staggered up after he finished kneeling, “D-d-d-da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue, “Where is your saber?”

Nie Huaisang cowered, “In… in my room. No, in the school grounds. No, let me… think…”

Wei Wuxian could feel that Nie Mingjue almost wanted to hack him dead right there, “You bring a dozen fans with you wherever you go, yet you don’t even know where your own saber is?!”

Nie Huaisang hurried, “I’ll go find it right now!”

[...]

In a hurry, Nie Huaisang dropped a few fans on the ground. Jin Guangyao picked them up for him and put them into his arms, “Huaisang’s hobbies are quite elegant. He’s dedicated to art and calligraphy, and has no propensity for mischief. How can you say that they’re useless?”

Nie Huaisang nodded as fast as he could, “Yes, Brother is right!”

Nie Mingjue, “But sect leaders have no need for such things.”

Nie Huaisang, “I’m not going to be a sect leader, though. You can be it, Da-ge. I’m not doing it!”

or here

Nie Mingjue was on the school ground, teaching and supervising Nie Huaisang’s saberwork in person. He did not acknowledge Jin Guangyao, so he stood at the edge of the field, waiting with respect. Since Nie Huaisang was quite uninterested and the sun was bright, he was rather half-hearted, complaining that he was tired after just a few moves. He beamed as he got ready to go to Jin Guangyao and see what presents he brought this time. In the past, Nie Mingjue would only frown at such things, but today he was angered, “Nie Huaisang, do you want this strike to land on your head?! Get back here!”

If only Nie Huaisang were like Wei Wuxian and could feel how great Nie Mingjue’s rage was, he wouldn’t grin in such a bold way. He protested, “Da-ge, the time is up. It’s time to rest!”

Nie Mingjue, “You rested just thirty minutes ago. Keep on going, until you learn it.”

Nie Huaisang was still giddy, “I won’t be able to learn it anyways. I’m done for the day!”

He often said this, but today Nie Mingjue’s reaction was entirely different from his past reaction. He shouted, “A pig would’ve learnt this by now, so why haven’t you?!”

Never expecting Nie Mingjue to burst out so suddenly, Nie Huaisang’s face was blank with shock as he shrunk toward Jin Guangyao. Seeing the two together, Nie Mingjue was even more provoked, “It’s been one year already and you still haven’t learnt this one set of saber techniques. You stand on the field for just thirty minutes and you’re complaining that you’re tired. You don’t have to excel, but you can’t even protect yourself! How did the QingheNie Sect produce such a good-for-nothing! The both of you should be tied up and beaten once every day. Carry out all those things in his room!”

The last sentence was spoken to the disciples standing by the side of the field. Seeing that they had gone, Nie Huaisang felt as though he was on pins and needles. A moment later, the row of disciples really did bring out all the fans, paintings, porcelain from his room. Nie Mingjue had always threatened to burn his room, but he had never actually burned them. This time, though, he was serious. Nie Huaisang panicked. He threw himself over, “Da-ge! You can’t burn them!”

Noticing that the situation wasn’t good, Jin Guangyao also spoke, “Da-ge, don’t act on impulse.”

Yet, Nie Mingjue’s saber had already striked. All of the delicate objects piled at the center of the field erupted in roaring flames. Nie Huaisang wailed and plunged into the fire to save them. Jin Guangyao hurried to pull him back, “Huaisang, be careful!”

With a sweep of Nie Mingjue’s hand, the two blanc de chine antiques shattered into pieces in his palms. The scrolls and paintings had already turned into dust in a split second. Nie Huaisang could only watch blankly as the much loved items that he had gathered throughout the years vanish into ashes. Jin Guangyao grabbed his hands to examine them, “Are they burnt?”

He turned to a few disciples, “Please prepare some medicine first.”

The disciples answered and left. Nie Huaisang stood at the same place, his entire body trembling as he looked over at Nie Mingjue, pupil encircled by veins. Seeing that his expression wasn’t right, Jin Guangyao put his arm around his shoulders and whispered, “Huaisang, how are you feeling? Stop watching. Go back to your room and have some rest.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes brimmed red. He didn’t even make a sound. Jin Guangyao added, “It’s alright even if the things are gone. Next time I can find you more…”

Nie Mingjue interrupted, his words like ice, “I’ll burn them each time he brings them back into this sect.”

Anger and hatred suddenly flashed across Nie Huaisang’s face. He threw his saber onto the ground and yelled, “Then burn them!!!”

Jin Guangyao quickly stopped him, “Huaisang! Your brother is still angry. Don’t…”

Nie Huaisang roared at Nie Mingjue, “Saber, saber, saber! Who the fuck wants to practice the damn thing?! So what if I want to be a good-for-nothing?! Whoever that wants to can be the sect leader! I can’t learn it means I can’t learn it and I don’t like it means I don’t like it! What’s the use of forcing me?!”

I'm not saying he didn't have a hard time during the first moment of him taking over a leadership role in the sect after the sudden death of his brother (ultimately we can wonder whether the yiwensanbuzhi persona originated then, as he could have felt overwhelmed and actually didn't have the answers needed for the position he didn't prepare for--or whether it was always a pure fabrication to serve his goals), but I don't think we can chalk it up to an inferiority complex.

In the past, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang studied together, so there were a few things he could comment about this person. Nie Huaisang wasn’t an unkind person. It wasn’t that he was not clever, but that his heart was set somewhere else and used his smarts on other areas, such as painting on fans, searching for birds, skipping classes, and catching fish. Because his talent in terms of cultivation really was poor, he formed his core around eight or nine years later than the other disciples of the same generation as him. When he lived, Nie Mingjue was often exasperated by the fact that his brother didn’t meet his expectations, so he disciplined him strictly. Despite this, he still didn’t improve much. Now, without his older brother protecting and supervising him, under his lead, the QingheNie Sect declined day by day. After he grew up, especially after he became the sect leader, he was often troubled by all kinds of affairs unfamiliar to him and looked for helpers everywhere, mainly his brother’s two sworn brothers. One day he’d go to Jinling Tower to complain to Jin Guangyao, and the next day he’d go to the Cloud Recesses to whine to Lan Xichen. With the two leaders of the Jin and Lan Sects supporting him, he still barely managed to settle on the sect leader position. Nowadays, whenever people mentioned Nie Huaisang, although they didn’t say anything on the surface, the same phrase was written on their faces—good-for-nothing.

And after NHS pieced together what happened to his brother and set out on a path to revenge, I don't see how someone who is so sharp and deceptive and able to reach his goals while hiding behind a facade the entire time would feel "inferior".

[stiltonbasket]

Hi!! Could I perhaps request LQR baby-sitting A-Yu and A-Lan for the renouncement verse? Thanks, love you <333

(brief author’s note: please please reblog if you can, since that’s how we get prompts for future chapters!)

Lan Qiren’s nephews keep overworking themselves. 

This wouldn’t be a bad thing if they hadn’t been doing it for the last several years, but it’s beginning to wear on them. Xichen’s eyes are always red and swollen from writing letters by candlelight, and Lan Qiren doesn’t remember the last time he saw Wangji without trade reports in his arms and spit-up milk on his robes, so he finally puts his foot down and decides to give all three of them a break in early autumn. 

“Xichen, go take a soak in the hot springs,” he orders, sweeping into the hanshi and shoving everything on Lan Xichen’s desk up one of his sleeves. “Now.”

Lan Xichen is so exhausted that he tries to paint a line of calligraphy onto the expensive wood of his writing table. “Shufu?” 

“You heard me,” Lan Qiren scolds. “Go on! I’ll finish the petition forms by tomorrow.” 

Somewhat bewildered, Lan Xichen ambles out through the hanshi’s back door and splashes into the hot spring, leaving Lan Qiren to march down to the jingshi and confiscate all of Wangji’s trade contracts. He also confiscates baby A-Lan, who is lying in Lan Wangji’s lap and trying to eat his jade pendant. 

“What are you doing?” Wangji asks, watching him tug the rest of his letters out of Wei Ying’s hands and stuff those up his sleeves, too. “Uncle?” 

“You and Wei Ying need a rest,” he announces. “I am taking your work to the meishi, and I am also taking your children. Do not come to fetch them until sunset.” 

And with that, he straps Wei Shuilan to his chest and takes Lan Yu by the hand, bundling them off to his own residence before their parents have time to do much more than blink at him in confusion. 

“Huh,” Wei Wuxian says, after he leaves. “I think your uncle has a point, actually. Let’s go to bed, Lan Zhan.”

__

When Lan Qiren gets back to the meishi, he settles A-Lan down for a nap and gives Xiao-Yu a snack and some silver puzzle rings to improve his hand-eye coordination. “It almost reminds me of the old days,” he sighs, as Shuilan kicks her chubby little feet before falling asleep with her thumb in her mouth. “Even if Wangji never went down for naps without a fuss.” 

Lan Qiren was nineteen when he became acting sect leader, and he was also nineteen when he received custody of Xichen: not coincidentally, because the clan hoped that taking charge of the sect would prevent him from raising his nephew and allow one of them to take over his care instead. But Lan Qiren was nothing if not stubborn, so Lan Huan went with him everywhere—to meetings, discussion conferences, and even the odd wedding now and then, and was generally such an amiable baby that he adjusted to his uncle’s fraught travelling schedule without a fuss. In fact, the first time Lan Huan met Jiang Yanli had been during a week-long cultivation event at Lotus Pier, yawning in a sling on Lan Qiren’s back while Jiang Yanli napped on Jiang Fengmian’s chest, and Jiang Fengmian had even mentioned the possibility of a betrothal between the two babies when they were older. 

“My wife wants to contract an engagement between Xiao-Li and a son born to her sworn sister, but Jin-zongzhu and Jin-furen have not yet had a child,” Jiang-zongzhu had sighed, letting his daughter’s little fingers wrap around his. He looked heartbroken at the mere thought of parting from her, Lan Qiren remembers—which was probably why he named her yan li, to hate separation, because Jiang Yanli’s premature birth nearly stole her away from her parents the moment she entered the world. 

“Lanling is closer to Gusu than Yunmeng,” Lan Qiren pointed out. Yunmeng Jiang would make an excellent alliance by marriage, and he was fairly certain at the time that Jiang Yanli would grow up to resemble her mild-mannered father rather than her hot-tempered mother. He was right, of course, since Jiang-guniang took after Jiang Fengmian in both looks and character, but contracting a betrothal with her for Xichen would have done both of them a disservice—because Xichen could never have loved her as she would have wanted to be loved, and he could never have given her children, either. 

“Shugong?” a little voice says at Lan Qiren’s elbow, distracting him from the possibility of a world where Lan Huan married Jiang Yanli and crippled Lanling Jin’s influence after the Sunshot Campaign. “Xiao-Yu is done with the puzzle. I have another one?”

“Already?” Lan Qiren asks. This is yet another trait Xiaohui inherited from Wei Wuxian despite not being related to him, and Lan Qiren feels his heart swell with pride at his great-nephew’s intelligence. “Then you may play with the wooden blocks on that shelf, and see how high you can build your tower without letting it fall over.”

Xiao-Yu settles down on the hearthrug to stack up the fine-carved building blocks, and Lan Qiren goes through his nephew’s papers in peace for another hour before A-Lan wakes up from her nap and wails for her milk at the top of her lungs. 

“Do not cry,” Lan Qiren soothes, securing the child in her swaddle before heating a bottle with a warming talisman. “Here is your supper, and your xiongzhang is there on the mat.”

He has to keep A-Lan in his arms after that, since his tiny great-niece is so used to being held that putting her down would break her little heart; and Lan Qiren would rather die than let go of her, because he dearly misses holding his nephews, and not so long ago he was certain he would never have the chance to hold a baby again. 

And then, as if cuddling A-Lan to his chest wasn’t wonderful enough, Xiao-Yu pulls one of Wangji’s old picture books out of Lan Qiren’s storage trunk and runs over to sit in his lap, pushing the trade contracts aside and replacing them with the fable of the magic lotus lantern.

“Shugong, read to Xiao-Yu?” the little boy begs, snuggling into Lan Qiren’s overgown next to his cooing baby sister. “A-Die likes this story best.”

Of course he does, Lan Qiren thinks, as he flips the cover open and starts to read. The tale of the magic lotus lantern was written about a child whose mother was stolen away from him, taken back to the heavens by force when her godly brother discovered the magic lantern that illuminated her way to the mortal world—and for a while Wangji believed that his mother was like the immortal Sanshengmu, who loved a human man and had a child with him before returning to the realm she came from. Sanshengmu’s story ended with her being reunited with her husband and son, and the little Wangji never gave up hope that his own mother might come back in much the same way, even after he was old enough to stop believing in fairy stories. 

“Why did they fight?” Xiao-Yu asks, leaning closer to see the picture of the goddess’s lover with his brush and scroll. “That’s against the rules!”

“Sometimes people who love one another fight because they cannot understand their feelings,” Lan Qiren tells him, tapping the point of his soft button nose. “So it was with Sanshengmu and Liu Yanchang-gongzi, and when he awoke, she revealed her true identity, and explained why she sent a rainstorm to plague him after she read his poem. 

“Both apologized profusely. Days went by, and Liu Yanchang finally recovered. By then the goddess and the scholar had fallen deeply in love, and marriage naturally ensued. Encouraged by Goddess Sanshengmu, Liu Yanchang continued with his journey to the capital to take the imperial examination, and months later, the goddess gave birth to their son, whom she named Chenxiang.

“At the same time, the goddess’s celestial family had learned about her marriage to an earthly man. Her brother, known as Divine Erlang, found his unruly sister and demanded that she renounce her new family and return with him to their heavenly home, but Sanshengmu refused, and battled him with the power of her magical lotus lantern…”

__

“I want to paint a portrait of this,” Wei Wuxian whispers, when he and Lan Zhan creep into the meishi after sunset to find Lan Qiren fast asleep on the floor, with A-Lan snoozing on his chest and Xiao-Yu curled up in the crook of his arm. “They’re so sweet, Lan Zhan!”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan murmurs, his eyes softening as he looks at the open book on his uncle’s desk. Lan Qiren clearly just finished reading it before he fell asleep, because the book is open to the very last picture; a color painting of a goddess embracing a youth and an older man with a lotus-shaped lantern hanging at the crook of her elbow. “Bring a blanket and a pillow, Wei Ying. We should let them sleep.”

(Lan Qiren often finds himself toting his little great-nephew and niece around the Cloud Recesses after that, and Xiao-Yu’s favorite place to play in his parents’ absence is always the house where his shugong lives.)