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guqin-and-flute · 5 months

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Holding Me Holding You–Ch. 7 [3zun Raise Jingyi Prequel]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6]

[Ao3 Link]

[Holy shit, how has it been 2 years since I last updated this fic?? ANYWAY HELLO HI I MISSED YOU. We're keeping the baby, guys. CW: Disjointed, slightly nonlinear narration; negative self talk; more talk of battle aftermath, bodies (gross but no more graphic than prev chapters), and death; focus on lots of trauma to do with death and grief; general Twin Jade parental trauma; vaguest mention of child death, in that he repeatedly tells himself there isn't one and remembers part of his nightmare about Wangji/A-Fu dying]

Who are you?

‘Wen Baiqi.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Say goodbye. Tell her goodbye.’

It’s raining in Qishan. It’s nothing like the rain in Gusu.

Who are you?

‘Hei Xuecen.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘All my fault all my fault ALL MY FAULT--’

This rain isn’t crisp, but disconcertingly warm. It doesn't bring life. It soaks into the ground, milling the dirt back into the blood and gore bloated mud of that night, sucking at their feet. Reeking of putrefaction. It coats Xichen’s tongue and throat.

Who are you?

Each time, there is a chance he will receive a reply from the Yiling Patriarch himself.

‘Ye Qian.’

He never does.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Never apologized--’

What would he do if he did?

Who are you?

What would Zewu-jun do? Clan Leader Lan?

What must be done?

Would he soothe his spirit?

Who are you?

Ghostly fingers pluck at his sleeves constantly.

Who are you?

‘Nie Zixing. Never knew him, tell them--’

When he had first arrived, the bodies of Wei Wuxian’s Wen contingent still hung from the gate to the battleground. Or what remained of them. After scavengers, time, and the elements had had their turn. Swaying in the warm, wet breeze along with carrion birds’ cries and the distant tunes of the guqin language. Grisly pendulums. Dripping.

There is no small boy among them. He had hoped against hope, but now he knew for sure. This secret is tucked deep, deep down beneath his heart.

Who are you?

The corpses on the ground are Wen. They are Lan. They are strangers. They are Da-ge, lying bloody on the floor of the Scorching Sun Palace. They are A-Zhan.

"We should burn them like they did to our people. Scatter their ashes, so they will never rest." A venomous whisper from his own disciples, a young man, face twisted in rage.

(“They’re killing everyone,” he had choked his sobs into A-Yao’s arms. “My people--my family are all dead and I did nothing.”)

A-Yuan had been so, so pale against the sheets. So tiny compared to the infirmary bed.

“These people?" Xichen’s voice is quiet. "These cultivators that studied healing? Miles and miles from Qishan?”

Silence.

“Did they destroy our home? Did we fight them in Sunshot?”

Too little, far too late.

There is no small boy among them. There isn’t.

A-Zhan, gray and slack, eyes glassy, head lolling--

He pushes the dream-memory away.

Who are you?

‘Jin Mingni.

My father--’

"We will bury them and hold the proper rites, as we have the rest of the fallen. And I will ask you to swear yourselves to secrecy regarding their exact resting place. In case anyone later shares your thinking.”

‘Zhou Sanniang. Never wanted to come. Save me.’

“Help me bring them down.”

There may be no small boy among the Wen, but he sees corpses all day, every day. They're in his dreams. He cannot stop seeing them. And he cannot stop seeing a boy (Afuyuanzhan) among them, from the corner of his eye.

He can never quite catch the face before he realizes there is no one actually there.

A skeletal hand is unearthed when they lift a body--a remnant of the Sunshot Campaign, years before. There were plenty of partial skeletons from that time that the Yiling Patriarch had raised to fight them. It seems some didn't have the strength to fight their way out from the mud. The death here has layers. A slow growing mountain of violence and dead and blood instead of stone. The building of the Burial Mounds’ successor.

Do the Burial Mounds have as many crows? Is it a feasting ground, as this has become?

They carry the quiescent dead, cover them with cloth, lay them in rows. Those whose spirits have passed on easily. They lie with their Sect members--when they are able to discern who they are. Still, fields of undyed cloth mounds, waiting to be retrieved by their loved ones, if they still live. Somewhere out there, there must be people still alive, families whole and happy, living in the sunshine. Somewhere.

Who are you?

His fingertips bleed from days playing Linhai and Liebing.

What must be done for you to rest?

Even those here that are living shamble like the dead--the rogue cultivators, his Lan disciples, the handful cultivators from other Sects, all here for the same goal, all hollow eyed and pale. He is supposed to be here for morale.

They work deep into the night, far from familiar, ingrained rules about schedule and tidiness, here. Adrift.

What must be done--?

The fierce corpse is not a powerful one, merely tenacious. Shuoyue snakes out. It crumples immediately with a muted splurch into the muck, halved.

‘Tell her I loved--’

The top half of the corpse writhes, still scrabbling for him. The sound it makes from its ruined face is horrid. It's a wonder it can sense his yang qi at all; no eyes, no nose. Its robes are a splotchy black and rusty brown-red, but the Lan ribbon around its forehead manages to show a ragged white through it, here and there.

The talisman sears, blinding. It is enough. The body slumps for the last time. He can settle into that mud, summon Linhai from his qiankun bag for the Songs of Rest.

Who are you?

‘Lan Ruicai.

Show them all--’

The blood of the walking dead is no longer life-hot, but the same, unnerving lukewarm as the rain. He cannot feel it. He can’t tell where it’s stained him until he reaches his tent each night.

He is efficient. He is in control.

The rain here doesn't cleanse anything. It hasn’t stopped for days.

Everything is the same color; the sludge, the thick haze of lingering resentful energy, palms, boots, the hems and knees of robes. That old clotted wound color. Dirt repelling talismans can only do so much before they are overpowered by the sheer weight of yin energy permeating everything. Stained.

There's no use cleaning. He tries anyway.

‘I was so scared, so scared--’

Who are you?

Sometimes, the spirits do not answer. Sometimes, they speak first, before he can even start the questions, raking the strings repeatedly in their anguish. Sometimes, they try to tear the guqin from him, try to rend his clothes, squeeze his throat. Sometimes, banishment is the only way.

The sudden shrieks and roars at night startle everyone from sleep. If Wangji was well, he would be here. He is known for going where the chaos is.

Is that what had led him to this? To Wei Wuxian? An affinity for soothing chaos? For chaos itself?

Who are you?

‘Don’t know. Want to go home--’

"I can't anymore, zongzhu, I-I--"

"It's alright. Return to the Cloud Recesses. You’ve done enough."

Sometimes, he wakes in the night to find that he is in the middle of dressing, having no memory of doing so, a clump of cleansing talismans clutched in his numb hands. He has cut down so many fierce corpses, he’s lost count.

Who are you?

Food is tasteless glue in his mouth.

Who are you?

Every night, he is sure to take the medicine that gives him no dreams.

‘Oh gods oh gods ohgodsohgods--’

Every night, he prays that he has not left Uncle overwhelmed, that his people are being cleansed and healed back home, that Wangji has stopped bleeding, that A-Yuan is healing, that A-Fu is….

Who are you?

(What right do you have?)

What must be done?

He has been here for days that run into one, long, dark, meaningless drain.

‘Son. Baby. Where is he?'

Who are you?

‘Pan Liu.’

His raw fingers pause on Linhai’s strings, still humming. Rain patters quietly on the hat that shields his face from it.

He knows that name. How does he know that name.

There have been plenty of others he had recognized among the dead, from different Sects and his own, from childhood, from Cultivation Conferences, from class. But each time, he must pull himself back to that life to remember, away from the rain and the red and the dead.

He can’t place it.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘My baby. Safe.’

The spirit is a thin wisp of light, playing about the strings, shining on the dark wood. Focused. Waiting.

Who is your son?

‘Lan Fu.’

His mouth is dry.

("A-niang?" A hopeful little voice. The memory of a crumpled form in the blood-churned muck, a shoe print between shoulder blades….)

It is cruel, endlessly cruel that he is the one alive. That he is the one sitting in the mud across from this poor young mother’s spirit. That he is the one with blood enough in his hands to leave rain blotted stains on the strings as he tells A-Fu’s mother; He is safe.

(Shrieks of raw sound as they carry him away. Echoing off the trees. Reaching back for him.)

A hesitation. Then, ‘Who are you?’

Lan Xichen. Zewu-jun.

‘Zongzhu.’

He will be safe. I swear.

‘...Safe.’

Rest, now.

‘...Rest….’ The notes are quiet, exhausted. Longing.

Then, silence. That pale light is gone.

She is gone.

He sits, still and silent as the soft caverns in the clotted mud continue to patter around him. His face is wet--mist and rain and blood. He almost wishes it was tears.

He aches in a new, terrible way, now.

Oh, little one. You were so loved.

He has been witness to both sides, now, of this small, destroyed family reaching for each other through the dark. And how useless he has been in the task of bringing either of them lasting peace.

To bring anyone lasting peace.

(Useless.)

And do you serve anything so fiercely that it would be your last thought, taken across into death?

It is irrelevant. The soul quieting ceremony had been performed on them as children, with all the other inner disciples. He will not linger as a ghost, even if he were to be struck down by a fierce corpse this instant.

He finds himself trying to remember if his mother had ever mentioned having had such a ritual performed on her….

Selfish. You would have your own mother suffer and linger as an unquiet ghost for some sort of twisted confirmation that you were loved?

Xichen remembers childhood before the death of his parents. The infinity of all of it. It probably never crossed A-Fu’s mind to beg her to stay with him. (“No, no go! P’ease!”) She had always returned before.

The memory of A-Fu clinging to his hands so tightly he had drawn blood with his nails is inescapable.

During that final farewell at the Jingshi, A-Huan too had had no idea it would be the last time he would ever see his mother’s face. He didn’t know what creeping death looked like, then. She was simply her, smiling, twinkling at them. He had kissed her cheek and taken Wangji’s hand and waved to her through her ornately carved window screen as Uncle led them away. Wangji had always been the one to pull back, to fuss over leaving. Uncle had always made sure that Xichen set a good example for him.

The snowy day she had left this world, cold and dry, so far from the warm wet muck he was in now, something in him hadn’t believed it. Hadn’t believed that someone could just…no longer exist, just as suddenly as a storm might blow over the mountain summit with no warning.

He saw her so sparingly, it seemed impossible that she wasn't just simply waiting in her front room for them to visit with a smile and open arms.

How? he had asked. When? Why?

Uncle had said that it was not for children to know. This pulled it even farther into the unreal, stretching his comprehension. It felt like a dream, a lie. A story. But if he could just see her…if he could just prove that this was some sort of…misunderstanding--

(Xichen had never asked again after that first refusal sat in his gut like a chilly stone. He suspected that Wangji had not either. Even now, decades later, he still did not know how his mother had actually died.

He suspected enough, however.

He knew it was sudden. He knew it was unexpected. He knew no one spoke of it. He knew it had broken his father beyond any hope of repair. Uncle had not volunteered the information, even now, when they were both grown. And Xichen will not allow useless rumination. Rule 60.)

He remembered he hadn’t been able to stop crying. A-Huan had always hated crying--he always tried to hide away and not bother anyone with it, but this had been constant.

Uncle had squeezed his shoulder and spoken softly, and reminded him after hours of stopping and starting that he must not grieve in excess, that he would make himself sick, that he was agitating Wangji, that he needed to calm himself, death was a natural passing, like the moon or a river, one must not let their emotions control them.

But still, that something in him that just knew it wasn't true waited until it was dark, until curfew set in and the snow lit the night full-moon-bright, reflecting the stars and lanterns. He had pulled on his boots and slipped from his window, cautiously darting across the paths of the Cloud Recesses in just his pajamas and his blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders, shivering from more than the cold.

This had to be a trick that he didn’t understand; a joke or a punishment for something he had done wrong. When he figured out what to apologize for, he would be able to see her again.

The fear of being caught breaking the rules was washed away when he crossed beneath the familiar bower wound with skeletal winter vines. His mother’s house stood dark. All around it, snow was churned and broken, as if many people had been there. In all his memory, no one else had ever visited the Jingshi. The door was unlocked.

It opened onto emptiness and moonlight.

Everything was gone. Her plants. The blue cushioned couch. Her desk and papers. Her dragon incense burner. Her tall candlesticks. Her big, thick, round rug they laid on and played games. The pictures he had painted for her.

He had drifted, stunned, through the shell of his mother’s home. The only proof that she had ever even been there were the scratches on the floor from where furniture had been dragged. That, and the scent of her that still lingered underneath the smell of whatever they had scrubbed the floor and walls with. They had erased her completely. Like she was never there in the first place.

Then it had settled on him like a cloak of lead, dropping him to his knees; the understanding, the true deepness of what this meant.

She was really gone. Forever.

The ‘always’ was gone. The ‘next time’ and promises. That warm, constant presence on the rim of the Cloud Recesses, the visit that marked his days as cyclically and surely as the sun had simply...vanished. In just one moment, the world was made completely lightless. Incomprehensible. It had a hole ripped in its center, cold and inescapable.

She would never brush back his hair and kiss his forehead. She would never pout when she lost a game. She would never squinch up her nose and do an accidental snort-laugh.

If he had only known that it could happen so fast…if he had only known that people could leave so quickly and completely, he would have taken something. A set of her dark, weighty chopsticks, one of her bracelets, a letter; anything. But there was nothing.

Somehow, he had found himself in front of the Hanshi, his feet numb, his face and hands frozen. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember what his 6 year old self had planned. He wasn’t sure that there had been a plan. Maybe he had just wanted a parent. Maybe he had been seeking out the one adult that might have cared as much as he did that his mother was gone. Uncle didn’t understand--A-Huan and A-Zhan had always known that he didn’t like her. He was always polite, because that was important, it was in the rules--but he was always stiff and short. He frowned the whole time--every time--picking them up. He hated talking about her.

But the father he had hardly met, that distant, hidden figure--he had married her. He had loved her.

He would care.

The Hanshi, too, had been dark--and he panicked. Had his father left--or died like his mother and no one had told him? He had yanked the door handle--and to his shock, it slid open. He had been expecting a lock like the one that he saw being done up behind them when he and A-Zhan left the Jingshi. (A choice, not a prison, he had realized as he got older. Not in the same way, at least. Other things kept Qingheng-jun bound.)

It was dark inside, curtains drawn, vague shapes of things illuminated by the light creeping in behind him. He stood in that doorway, frozen in body and mind, unable to trespass that much farther. It smelled unfamiliar and sharp. He had never been in his father’s home before.

It was so dark.

He had called into that darkness, choked and quiet; “Fuqin?“

Silence.

“...Diedie?”

(“They made choices. These are consequences,” is all Uncle had told him when, younger, he had asked why both of his parents were locked away from him and refused to say more.

Afterward, A-Huan had always been afraid that he might accidentally make those same choices, that he would be kept from his brother and his Uncle and nannies for it. Because no one would tell him what those choices were, he studied the rules obsessively so he could be sure to follow every single one. So he would never be locked up.)

There was a rustle, a clink. A shape had formed in the shadows, someone sitting up from being slumped on a table. A pale hand swayed into the pool of silver moonlight, pointing. The voice that followed had been rough, slurred like a mouthful of rocks. “You are not supposed to be here. Go.”

A-Huan had fled as fast as his numbed legs could go. Stumbling, breaking through the crust of snow, falling and rising and falling, back up through his window to collapse on the floor. His breath had burned in his lungs as he coughed and sobbed as quietly as he could, hot tears stinging his frozen cheeks.

Not quietly enough, though. A-Zhan had eventually crept into his room and curled up next to him on the floor without a word, arm wrapped around his middle. When A-Huan had rolled over and held him more tightly than he had ever held anything before, he realized that A-Zhan was the only part of his mother he had left in the entire world.

And now, what did A-Fu have left of his parents, of a life he knew?

A story, at the very least. A reason. A goodbye. The truth. It was all he could offer. It was all he had left for the boy. These other spirits and their wishes can only be passed along to others, if they were attainable at all. But this, this he can do; this, he can set right. To make absolutely sure that her will is found and executed, that the family who cares for her son is told the story of her last farewell, so he will know, too, in time.

So a son will never have to wonder.

This much peace, he can provide. With those who can bear this place no more and an endless caravan of cloth draped bodies, he returns to Gusu, leaving behind Qishan’s bleeding sky.

The quiet of home stuns him. There are no screams, no groans echoing down the mountain. The trees don’t muffle sounds of sword or talisman sizzle, merely birdsong and wind. There is beauty here, something he hadn't known his soul craved like water in a drought until he saw it in rich blues, blooming whites, lush greens. The coolness, the clarity of the water and the touch of leaves. Nothing here is red-brown. All that bleeds is hidden away behind pale bandages and pale walls.

It's almost too much.

(His hands feel filthy, no matter how many times he scrubs them. Discontent among such blessings is an insult to those that can no longer come home to them. He will kowtow in the shrine for this disrespect later.)

Time has meaning once more. In theory. There are places to eat, to rest.

(It hardly makes sense to him anymore, despite the schedule being as familiar as the stone beneath his feet.)

Home, in the Hanshi, surrounded by familiarity and comfort, sitting at his desk as the incense burner next to him delicately permeates the air with sandalwood and the trees outside rustle and no one screams at all, he holds Pan Liu’s will in his hands. It is a brief, frail little thing in the face of such sorrow. It must have been hastily written after her husband’s death, as she willed A-Fu and her remaining possessions to the care of her younger sister. Who upon brief investigation of his ever growing list of the dead was found to have been killed in the battle against Wei Wuxian as well. The sister, yet unmarried, had no will of her own--probably too young to have begun to even consider death as a real possibility before life and Wen and war swept their way in. Their house had been one destroyed in the Wen’s sacking of the Cloud Recesses, their personal possessions few. No one else remained of their immediate family.

Pan Liu clearly had not expected to die before she could update it.

In his heart, somewhere, he had known that something like this was the case; that A-Fu was truly alone. Xichen had carried him for days and no one had come looking? No one had wondered where he was, wanted him home safe, with them?

He had not wanted to look directly at this, at the time, knowing he would have to give A-Fu back to that loneliness, that uncertainty. Even though A-Fu is not the only child in the Cultivation World or even the Cloud Recesses with the same fate, it had been…different. He couldn’t have said why--still can’t--but it had felt like a betrayal to the boy. A loss, savage and personal. Even when he knew any other choice came nowhere close to making sense.

Still. Even he and Wangji had had their uncle and the small, rotating cadre of minders that were familiar to them. He saw his mother once a month and knew his father was there, somewhere, out of sight. There had been a thread connecting them to their parents and the life they could have had with them.

A-Fu has none of this.

And yet he still cries, still calls out, because he trusts that someone he knows will come. Of everything in these last few days, this is what is almost too much to bear, a knife stuck in his ribs that gouges with every breath. He does not feel sadness or regret; only pain. Everything else has been out of reach for a while now.

The rattle of his door opening onto seeping sunshine and fresh, bloodless air has him looking up. His Uncle steps over the threshold. “You’re back,” he says warmly by way of greeting as Xichen rises.

“Shufu.” He bows, then offers him his customary seat, more out of habit than necessity; this teatime visit was a familiar ritual in a life not too long ago.

They take their places at opposite ends of the low, square table at the center of his sitting room as Xichen opens his tea cupboard. “It’s been a while since we have been able to simply sit and have tea together,” Uncle observes, easily.

Yes; nothing has been right or normal for a long time. “Mn.”

When he continues to set out the cool porcelain cups and the dark pot with no further elaboration, Uncle watches him work, expression a thoughtful blur in his periphery. “...The library is not where I expected your first stop to be.”

He sounds only mildly curious, but Xichen knows that it is unspoken approval that he had not gone straight to Wangji.

He hesitates, then continues his methodical ritual of movement. “There was a time-sensitive matter that I wanted to attend to.”

In truth, after the bath he had taken upon his return--where he had had to call for 3 rounds of water (Do not be wasteful, Rule 23; broken) before it was no longer clouded dark with dried blood and mud and rot--Xichen had stood on the Hanshi’s front porch, staring down at the blindingly white path before him, forking off through the trees.

His heart had tugged him one way and his cowardice in the face of pain another. The thought of seeing more bodies just lying there, of seeing those dear to him--Wangji, A-Yuan, those in the infirmary--suffering while he could do nothing to prevent it was….

It was not something he was capable of, at present. Just for now. Just for these first few hours. It was selfish, but true. And so, he had gone to their records room in the library to request Pan Liu’s will. Pain had won. His heart was weak, choosing the easier duty.

Unable to stop himself, though he knows it will cloud his uncle’s relaxed and pleasant demeanor, he asks; “Is Wangji…?” He trails off.

Awake? Improving? Well? …Alive? A sharp internal rebuke at this last. Do not exaggerate. Rule 671. Uncle would not be so calm if things were dire. He is angry, not cruel. He would have been told.

(A heavy hand on his shoulder. An empty house. Churned snow.)

He would have been told.

Uncle’s face does, indeed, darken. “Hmph.” A mirthless, scornful snort. “He wakes on occasion. He refuses to speak, refuses to acknowledge anyone. He is simply lengthening his own punishment.” Uncle eyes him, adding, “You should be able to talk some sense into him. He always has listened to you best.”

‘And so how could you have let this happen? How could you have let him do this?’

(When will you stop being angry and start being afraid for him?)

Xichen lowers his gaze to the dark wood of the table and scoops the tiny, furled up leaves of the tea into the pot, the smokey green scent tickling his nose

It’s true. Of everyone--their caregivers, teachers, and relatives, Wangji has always responded to him best. He would not always necessarily disobey outright, but he might frown or hesitate before complying or pretend not to hear--especially if he were called to come away from Xichen’s side. “Your class is this way, xiao-gongzi,” the minder would call and A-Zhan would continue his resolute little stride beside him, hand squeezing tighter around Xichen’s fingers the only indication he had heard anything at all.

It was when Xichen squeezed back and knelt down to straighten his robes, smiling up into his serious face, saying, “It’s alright, ZhanZhan; I’ll ask if I can come out early to pick you up, mn? Go on, be good,” that he would allow himself to be led away with no further fuss.

He had been the only one who could finally convince him that kneeling in the rocky ground every month when they should have been visiting their mother would not force anyone to bring her out to them. The first time, he had asked him to come in, come home. But knew his brother. He was not surprised when he silently refused to even show he had heard him.

And so he hadn’t asked again, never having the stomach to fully destroy the hope that he would be let back into the Jingshi if he just waited long enough.

But Uncle had become frustrated, their teachers and nannies muttering. They were impatient with his refusal, seeing it as disobedience. They didn’t see his mourning, only his stubbornness. So A-Huan had had to protect his brother's soft heart from those that didn’t understand. “We can kneel together, back at home,” he had whispered, his fingers screwed tight around A-Zhan’s cold hand. “I’ll wait with you as long as you want. But niang would--” his throat had caught and he had wrestled his tears from his voice. “Niang would hate if you got sick, sitting out here in the cold all day.”

A-Zhan’s dark eyes had bored into him, thinking. Reason and punishment and demands from adults had not moved his stubborn frame one inch, month after month after winter-to-spring month.

Then, finally, this second and last time, A-Zhan had listened to him. Whatever it was about him was what finally got his little brother slowly, stiffly to his feet to hobble back home with him. Xichen remembered that he hadn’t felt relieved at all. He just felt like he had taken their mother from him all over again.

“I will speak with him, shufu.”

Uncle nods, then heaves a sigh. “What news is there from Qishan?”

Mechanically, as if operating his own mouth from across the room, Xichen relays numbers, movements, and times. He almost reflexively scolds himself for lying; the mundane description of dry duty and the lived horror so far from one another that they were entirely irreconcilable. Just words passed across a shining table over fragrant tea, cool wind brushing the sun-pale windows serenely with tree shadows

When he reaches the final fate of Wei Wuxian’s executed Wen contingent, Uncle approves. “It was wise to swear the disciples to secrecy. This has all gotten so inhumane. Denying them burial was an unnecessary cruelty,” he says heavily as he shakes his head, eyes closed in weariness. “I pray that we are done with this madness at last, with that Wei Ying finally taken care of. What a mess.”

There is silence. Xichen cannot fathom what his response to that could possibly be. Should possibly be--as Wangji’s brother, as the Lan Clan Leader, as his uncle's nephew. As Wei Wuxian’s…what. Friend?

…As one who cannot delight in his death, in any case.

Despite the period of kneeling before the Jingshi, Wangji had never been a troublemaker growing up. He was always the Jade who grasped the Lan way of life more easily, molded himself to the rigidity of the rules with that same stubborn tenacity.

It was Xichen who failed in that, who smudged the black and white lines to gray, bent them so they were slightly more comfortable around him; bearable--once he discovered that they could be.

He was the one who accidentally got drunk trying to see if he could filter out alcohol with his core, he was the one to kiss Mingjue first in the Jin Gardens during a Cultivation Conference. The one to urge his brother to befriend a talented teenager who was gleefully and repeatedly stomping all over their Clan’s ancestral rules.

He was the one who had told Wangji to step outside his rigid view of the world, to see people for their hearts. And then Wangji's own heart had been torn out. As his uncle said; Wangji had always listened to him best. This much would never have happened without Xichen's deliberate meddling.

All those years ago, when Wei Wuxian had first cannonballed into their lives, Xichen had just wanted Wangji to be happy. To have friends. Alone didn’t always mean lonely, but he knew he saw it in his brother. Saw Wangji with peers who were merely in awe of his talent, who respected but did not like him, love him, know him, want to spend time with him. He knew the difference, no matter what Wangji showed the rest of the world. The older he got, the less he smiled--the soft, secret ones that so many others failed to see. Xichen had missed them, dearly. And so he had pushed.

Everything that has happened sense feels as if it’s unshakably all his fault.

As the tea is poured, they speak; it passes over him like clouds. Which elder is still in which stage of recovery. The smith they called to repair swords and assess the spirits of those now without a handler.

Something touches him.

“Xichen!”

His hand burns. He is on his feet. Shuoyue’s naked blade buzzes, ready in his hand. He does not remember moving. Every fiber of cloth on his skin feels alive and writhing. Blood courses. Scalding tea is cooling, dripping from his knuckles.

The touch had been spiritual, not physical. From the corner of his awareness and the Cloud Recesses boundary wards at once; a warning, tasting of wild metal (close to blood, so close).

The Western Wards, crossed.

“Do not unsheathe your blade in a residence!” Uncle’s face crinkles from shock to a wince. “And contain yourself, this is not a battlefield.”

It takes a moment. His killing intent is up, streaming from his core like a river of blades, of blood.

Sucking in a breath, he takes the torrent in internal hand and yanks it back, firmly, like the reins of a horse, winding the silk rope of it over again and again in the palm of his concentration, until the thrum of it eases. The pressure that had filled the room with the promise of death ebbs. Shuoyue hums warm, expectant. When he does finally sheathe her, the connection between them flickers, confused.

Above his hammering heart, he hears Uncle continue, frowning, “I felt it, too. Was it someone passing outward or inward?”

His tongue, his mind is mud-stuck slow.

Focus. There is no battle here. You are home. Get a hold of yourself.

“...Outward. Less resistance. Nothing powerful.”

Oddly, at this Uncle’s frown deepens, shadows of concern replacing mere puzzlement. “Hmm. Those were in the West…far….” After a moment of thought, he rises.

As he steps out the door and calls for a servant from the Hanshi’s porch, Xichen continues to try to pull in slow, deep breaths.

Have you regressed to being such a novice that you cannot control your own qi? Your own battle intent? Are you a child? Though his uncle's voice is low and his attention is divided, the words ‘searchers’ makes it through the pounding blood in his ears. Strange.

When Uncle slides the door back open, Xichen asks, “Searchers?”

His silhouetted form hesitates, framed by the sunlight that pours in behind him and dazzles Xichen’s eyes, leaving his expression briefly in shadow. “...Yesterday evening, a child managed to wander into the woods alone.” A spike of cold worry threatens to heighten the wild surge of energy within him once more as his uncle continues, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “We have had several teams scouring the backhill and the whole of our land since then. They are young enough that their spiritual signature isn’t strong enough to register on normal tracking talismans.”

“Why was I not told?!”

It burst from him, harsher from shock than he had meant and Uncle blinks, pausing in settling himself back onto his seat, brow furrowed.

But he cannot bring himself to care about disrespect, just now. Any child alone and lost is terrifying, awful. There is something, though…something about his tone, his expression that has breath caught in Xichen’s throat as slow, glacial horror creeps up from the depth of his gut. He is avoiding specifics.

Why.

“It is being handled already; why would I distract you from your duties? You’ve only just returned and you must--”

“Who. Which child.”

He huffs in irritation, brow furrowing further. And he shuts his mouth, lips compressing.

Xichen no longer needs an answer.

Behind him, he can hear Uncle’s voice raised in startled alarm, but he is already out the door, already leaping from the porch onto Shuoyue. The wind howls in his ears as shoots upward, speeding west to where he had felt the wards ring within him. To where A-Fu has just crossed beyond their safety.

He knows. He doesn’t know how, but he knows.

Xichen can barely breathe around the air battering his face and his own terror. The shrieking sky threatens to rip him from Shuoyue’s blade. Everything at once feels heightened, his awareness expanding to notice how chilly it is despite the sun, how the damp of the wind tearing at his hair and clothes tells of rain in the past day, how dark the woods look beneath the thick canopy blurring by below his feet. He had been alone and cold and terrified, out all night. Had the boy been trying to find his mother? Xichen? The thought made his gut writhe within him.

(They peel his little fingers from Xichen’s sleeve as he clutches and screams…)

Please please please please please

How could this happen? How could he have ever allowed this to happen? There were rivers, cliffs, steep slopes of scree, ponds, caves, animals--gods, animals alone would--

He is well enough to move, to cross the wards.

If it was him. If it were not a strong enough spiritual animal to trigger the alarm.

There is no boy hanging among them THERE IS NO--

The invisible boundary rears up in his senses, mere seconds full tilt sword ride from the Hanshi but so, so far for a tiny child, wandering in the night. Beneath the canopy, before Shuoyue even manages to drop to a reasonable height and speed, he has already leapt off, landing at a sprint. Internally, the memory of the disruption in the web of the spell warps around his spiritual awareness like a broken arch as he crosses in that exact place. The ground is not suddenly more treacherous, the trees no more menacing, but beyond the relative safety of the Cloud Recesses, his hammering heart sees the whole world is a death trap for this little child.

(He cannot bear to see a tiny body, he can’t, he can’t--)

Skidding to a stop, he wheels in place, eyes scouring everything at knee level and below. “A-Fu!” his throat is pinched, his mouth bone dry. “A-Fu?!”

The ground cover is thick with bushes, shrubs, trees both young and fallen. The sun shines spots into his eyes through the swaying leaf cover above, dappling the floor with shadow and light, dancing, blurring. Silence. Even the birdsong had stopped when this strange being had suddenly crashed into their peaceful little clearing. He sucks in a breath to call again--and then he hears it.

There is a small child crying somewhere nearby.

Quiet and hoarse but unmistakable.

He isn't slow, gentle, or cautious or anything that a terrified child might need right now; something else has a hold of him, now. He blindly crashes through the brush towards the sound, half skidding down a slope until--until! There!

A blur of white amongst tree roots halfway down, a curled shape and-- “A-Fu!”--a little face, smudged and red cheeked and tear stained raises and his little eyes light with recognition and he scrabbles, fumbling and crawling out as Xichen tears back up the slope--slips, rights himself--and reaches and the boy throws himself off the lip of the hollow and into his arms, colliding hard with his chest like his heart coming home.

He staggers, momentum and sudden weakness buckling his knees. A gnarled tree catches his side and he slides them down into the huddle of its roots, curled around him. Against his chest, wrapped in his arms, A-Fu is damp and chilly. He is covered in muck and sticks and burrs but he’s alive--alive--safe and hiccuping and piteously hoarse, tangling his hands through Xichen’s hair as he clutches him back, gasping.

He can breathe. He can finally breathe again.

Some unnameable agony, like some wild beast, is thrashing, welling up, bursting from his chest. It shakes him, tearing at his throat, his heart, his lungs, burning. It’s not relief. It's not fear. It’s…

Heedless of stitches cracking and bursting, he yanks his thicker outer robes open and over the child, tucking him deep into the pocket of warmth. He can feel him shivering, his tiny heart speeding.

He had forgotten that his head is so warm, that his hands are so tiny, just how real his weight is in his arms. When he buries his nose in the baby fluff of his hair, under the dirt and musty forest chill is that wild-sweet child smell he remembers from carrying him for days beneath his chin--and long ago from when Wangji was young.

He tries to pull back to check him for injuries, for bruising, but he latches onto his neck and sobs. Mere minutes before, Xichen had never wanted to hear another scream again--but now he wishes A-Fu’s cries were as loud as the first day he held him, deafening and demanding, sure and strong in their conviction. These sobs are private, weak, exhausted little things. Not calling for attention. No longer certain of a trusted adult’s return.

“P’ease,” he croaks and that pain, that pressure bears down on Xichen and it feels like drowning; it feels like dying.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m here,” he whispers back, thick and choked (that thing inside him that aches, that wails, that loves is strangling him), and he draws up his knees, he wraps his robes tighter and rocks and rocks them both as it breaks--all of it, calving and crashing and surging and molten and ugly and broken--and he wants to beg ‘scream, little love, scream your heart out; someone is coming, someone will always come,’ but he doesn't have enough breath as it tears from his locked throat in silent sobs, because with unworthy hands and heart, he holds this blameless little life that has wandered through the halls of his heart leaving muddy fingerprints, and does the cruelest, most selfish thing he can ever recall doing.

He realizes that he cannot let him go again.

#'Xichen has emotions and wishes he didn't' is the name of THIS chapter!#3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #my fic #my stuff #untamed fanfic #mdzs fanfic #SORRY FOR THE LONG ASS WAIT AND THE INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF ANGST HE HAD TO WORK THRU SOME STUFF #I'll try to post happier fluffier things next #Maybe some 3zun fluff in Snowed In. Or the next chapter of And A-Fu Makes 4 which has fluff #Or the next chapter of In Your Hands because I PROMISE we're working things out #ANYWAY LOVE YOU G'NIGHT

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bloopitynoot · 28 days

Text

9 "Older" Lan Zhan WangXian Fics

Another rec list created for @yiling-laozu-is-loml but everyone pls enjoy!

Note: all of these fics are tried and true; meaning I have vetted, read, and cherish all of them.

There were some specific requests for WangXian fics featuring "older" Lan Zhan (I also added a little extra allowance).

Request parameters:

Must feature WangXian ONLY

bottomXian only (If applicable)

Book canon only (if applicable)

Can include: age difference as little as a year up to lifetimes.

Can include: age difference for reals but also in spirit (ex: Accidental Sugar Daddy Lan Zhan, intentional Sugar Daddy Lan Zhan, gratuitous usage of gege, immortal Lan Zhan)

Can also include: (if there isn't much of an age difference) a power differences in which the power difference is in Lan Zhan's favour (ex: employer/employee or professor/student)

I have a little mix of all of the above in the fics below.

If you'd like a personalized rec list- feel free to DM me! I love putting these together.

1 We Were Never Strangers (36728 words) by NeverEnoughWangxian

Chapters: 3/3 Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Modern Cultivators, POV Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, (mostly), College Student Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Rogue Cultivator Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Immortal Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Immortal Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Dreams, Pining, Sharing a Bed, brief mentions of wwx's past death(s), WangXian.mp3, Getting Together, I guess getting back together technically, Happy Ending, No beta we die like wwx, added tags for last chapter:, Sexual Tension, Sexual Content, Hand Jobs, Biting Summary: The dream shifts. They’re back home now, tangled up in bed, buried under a mountain of blankets and, at least in Wei Ying’s case, sore in all the ways he doesn’t mind being sore in. His husband is radiating warmth, and Wei Ying burrows into his arms happily. He presses his still-freezing toes to his husband’s calves and muffles a snort of laughter against Lan Zhan’s chest when he feels the muscles tense momentarily from the shock. Lan Zhan nips at his ear in retaliation but continues to run his fingers soothingly through Wei Ying’s hair. He melts into the touch. The only thing keeping him from turning into a puddle is the strong familiar arms around him, holding him together, holding him close. When Wei Ying wakes up, he’s full-body shivering. His hand slides across the bed, reaching instinctively for the warmth of someone who was never there to begin with. Wei Ying is an art major by day, cultivator by night. After a seemingly routine night-hunt, he starts getting these strange, vivid dreams of a man in white he’s never met before yet somehow feels like he’s known his whole life…

NOTES: Starting this list off with a bang- soulmate AU, reincarnated WY, and an immortal Lan Zhan who is really just out here living to find his man. I love this one so much because it has such good descriptions of WY's past experiences with Lan Zhan. I love the art imagery and WY being an artist. This was just a fantastic fic with a solid ending.

2 Professor Lan, Babysitter Extraordinaire (4367 words) by Eleanor_Fenyx

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Additional Tags: Fluff, Single Parent Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, professor lan wangji, Mature Student Wei Wuxian, background 3zun, Really just wanted an excuse to write baby a-yuan and LWJ bonding, Modern AU Series: Part 3 of Wangxian One-Shots Summary: “He’s got snacks and his sketchbook and a couple of quiet toys in there, and he can go to the bathroom by himself if you take him to it, and he likes to ask questions in new places, and-“ “Wei Ying.” “Right! Okay! God this is so weird. A-Yuan this is Lan-laoshi, be good for him please, he’s very nice. I’ll come pick you up as soon as I’m done, okay?” “Okay Baba,” A-Yuan says and then - so quickly it’s a surprise that his passing doesn’t make an audible swishing noise like a cartoon - Wei Wuxian darts into the lecture hall, leaving Lan Wangji alone with the scruffy bag and the not-nearly-as-scruffy toddler. Lan Wangji looks down at the boy, who looks back up at him, and he’s still far too adorable for his own good. “Your father is perhaps too trusting,” Lan Wangji remarks. A-Yuan seems to consider this for a long moment before he nods resolutely in a way that tells Lan Wangji he has no idea what he means. “May I carry you?” A-Yuan is quick to let go of his leg to reach up instead, so Lan Wangji reaches down to pick him up under his arms and hoist him onto his hip where he settles heavily like a sentient sack of potatoes.

NOTES: This fic is tooth rot sweet. The speed in which Lan Zhan goes from "kids- indifference" to "I WILL adopt this child and his father" is staggering. It's very short, very cute, and mostly not WangXian but end game wangxian and an excellent cleanser of a fic.

3 running around, chasing each other on the rooftops of China (53898 words) by Verity

Chapters: 5/5 Rating: Explicit Additional Tags: Fox Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Immortal Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Mystery, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji and Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian Have a Breeding Kink, Female Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, But only for like a chapter and then he gets stuck as a fox, Uhhhhhh this was only supposed to be 15k, Help me i dont know why it keeps expanding Summary: Wei Wuxian, like every other person living in the dazzling era of technology and the modern age, knows that there's a hidden world tucked between society. It reeks of magic, wonder, horror, and everything in between, hidden in the shadows unless one dares to look. If one chooses not to see, they will never find a single hint that something different is amiss. As someone enamored with smartphones and laptops, Wei Wuxian never thought he would stumble upon the mystical. Until one day, his landlord couldn't see him. Or: Wei Wuxian dives headfirst into a shadowy world of magic, where he falls for a mythical figure and discovers a forgotten past.

NOTES: I honestly didn't expect to like this fic as much as I did- I was warry of the tag "Female Wei Ying" as it's not my speed usually BUT it ended up being a solid fic. I do love Foxxian fics and that paired with an eclectic hotel of magical beings ended up becoming sneakily endearing. This fic also has a solid "thawing ice prince/cunning fox" dynamic that is perfection.

4 Be around for the next day (10996 words) by Song_of_Storms

Chapters: 2/2 Rating: Explicit Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, New York City, Bisexual Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Top Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Bottom Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Mentions of WWX plus others, Slutty Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Trans Nie Huaisang, short king NHS, Hand Jobs, Anal Sex, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji Talks Dirty Summary: Wei Ying owns a lucky red leather jacket that’s gotten him laid countless times. When he wears it out, someone’s going home with him. He doesn’t care who. He’s not picky. What matters is the jacket works, every time. Then he meets Lan Zhan. [Or, the leather jacket AU.]

Notes: So full disclosure this fic doesn't really have an age difference? maybe it does? unclear -BUT the dynamic between the two gives off very much that. It is filthy but also cute. Intentional bachelor WY has something coming for his sworn oath of singledom named Lan Zhan. Also- this fic features leather jackets!

5 All Old Things are New Again (51656 words) by The Feels Whale

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Reincarnation, Modern Setting, canon still happened, extreme post canon, Sugar Daddy, Kink Negotiation, gentle dom!LWJ, canonical levels of consent play, Modern Cultivators, cultivators can recognize important people from previous lives, vaguely, this started out as a cute sugar fantasy and got just incredibly horny very fast, blame LWJ Series: Part 1 of All Old Things Are New Again Summary: Full-time necromancer and part-time cam boy, Wei Wuxian, finds himself unexpectedly homeless. An enthusiastic patron comes to his rescue. Conversely: Immortal Cultivator Lan Wangji has been waiting a long time for his deceased husband to be reincarnated again. In retrospect, he should have anticipated that this is how it would go.

NOTES: What do you do when you, an immortal, finally find your reincarnated soulmate on a cam site. Obviously- become their secret sugar daddy. The premise of this is wild but it's a good vibe. I do love when Lan Zhan is READY to rescue his man.

6 A Sure Thing (40280 words) by ElDiablito_SF

Chapters: 7/7 Rating: Explicit Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pretty Woman Fusion, Prostitution, Unsafe Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Attempted Sexual Assault, You'd think this would be wild and kinky, but actually they're soft and gross, past Zhancheng and they're still friends, Prostitute!WWX, rich asshole!LWJ, fashion bitch!LWJ, Shoe Porn, background attempted Xiyao, Drinking to Cope, physical assault, Villain JGY, Angst with a Happy Ending Series: Part 1 of Pretty Woman AU Summary: Lan Wangji's business trip isn't going very well. On top of it all, his fiancé dumps him, leaving him without a date to all the boring social functions he's expected to attend. Luckily the rentboy he accidentally picks up while stopping for directions seems to be the answer to at least his temporary problems. Yes, this is the Wangxian Pretty Woman AU.

NOTES: Okay I will state that this fic is very crackish but it was so good. The pretty Woman AU ft sex worker WY and sugar daddy divorcee and absolute BITCH Lan Zhan. Okay I believe there is mention of Lan Zhan's ex but it clearly is not a love match at all and so wildly ridiculous that it didn't phase me (it is NOT a pairing I ever read or seek out either), so I hope that doesn't ruin this fic for you @yiling-laozu-is-loml.

7 Players gonna play (68541 words) by Scrippio

Chapters: 6/6 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Theater AU, Kinda, Director Wei Ying, Faculty advisor Lan Zhan, grad student Jiang Cheng, Baker Yànlí, grad student Wen Qing, for all intents and purposes, wanxian are in a teaching au, chengqing is in a school au, and xuanli is in a bakery au, Fluff, First Meeting, Getting Together, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Depression, but like coming out of it, No beta we die like wwx Summary: In which the Gusu University theater club is looking for a new beginning, starting with a new faculty advisor (Lan Zhan) and a new director (Wei Ying).

NOTES: This is one of the fics in which there isnt an age difference really, but Lan Zhan is technically WY's boss so that dynamic comes to play here. This fic is so damn wholesome. It has the junior squad, a bit of college au, brilliant WY, and Lan Qiren wishing none of these things ever came to pass (affectionately). A very wholesome adorable fluffy fic.

8 Overboard (51434 words) by celerydragon

Chapters: 11/11 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Misunderstandings, Temporary Amnesia, Comedy, hopefully-freeform, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship Summary: Wei Ying, carpenter and single parent (he's doing FINE!) goes in for a repair job on a fancy yacht. After the rich-bitch owner of the yacht falls overboard and loses his memory, Wei Ying completely honourably, and with zero ill intentions, swoops in to save the day by lying about their relationship. There's no way this could go wrong. (based on the 1987 movie)

NOTES: In which Wey Ying (idiot and carpenter) sort of kind of kid naps rich bitch lan zhan post a boating accident and convinces him (badly and not really) that they are in fact married. This is less age difference and more sugar daddy/gege energy BUT if you liked the film overboard, this is even better. Please watch while WY simultaneously sweats and falls in love with the man and hot mess he's created.

9 sunstruck (64376 words) by vesna

Chapters: 8/8 Rating: Explicit Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, what lan wangji did on his summer vacation, Background LXC/NMJ Summary: Lan Zhan nods as the boat nears the dock and the figure becomes clearer. It's a young man with dark hair down to his shoulders and a wide smile. He is also Asian, and as he turns his gaze to Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan finds himself robbed of breath for the second time that day. The young man is beautiful. He could, Lan Zhan thinks, be Lan Zhan's age, possibly a bit younger. He's tan, wearing a bright pink shirt with the restaurant logo on it, and cargo shorts. He has a small mole under his lower lip. "Hey, guys!" he greets with a wave. "Need a hand?" "Yes, please, if you don't mind," Lan Huan shouts back. He gets up and begins the preparations for docking, handing the young man several ropes. "Thank you, Wei Ying." Wei Ying. That's the boy's name.

NOTES: Lan Zhan has a summer he will never forget and falls for the Hot Boy working at the restaurant. There is a very slight age difference but mostly this is a status difference fic- Lan Zhan has big money money and is technically a customer so the dynamic is there. Anyways- solid fic, good ending :)

#wangxian rec list #wangxian fics #wangxian #wei ying #wei wuxian #lan zhan #lan wangji #older lan wangji #older lan zhan #power dynamics #I seriously enjoyed all of these fics #I wish I had more to rec here!#I know i've read them but have not bookmarked them RIP #anyways enjoy!#a03 fanfic #a03 recs #a03 #bloopitynoots wangxian recs

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achilleasfury · 9 months

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from the WIP ask game: 3zun mythical creatures sound FASCINATING please talk more

okay so!!

Currently im very undecided about what specific creature they are, because i keep moving it around lol

But tbe first idea is; Jiggy is half a fox spirit, half human. My notes on rhat are "BIG MAMA MENG is the fox spirit, a-yao is the precious treasure" i think im gonna stick with fox spirit, bc yes, but also?

NMJ was supposed to be like a bull-hybrid or something, but Im making him a minotaur/msht like that now bc I Can. (Shout out to NPC Bluud the minotaur from my dnd campaign who pushed me into fixation on minotaurs and centaurs. Love the guy.) Also i think i really want to give him the labyrinth symbolism. Like the haunted saber flesh cave thing from [nie-centric movie] but specifially for Him.

LXC is a dragon. I love dragons. I have zero (0) notes on him except "DRAGON, MATE MATE MATE" and half a note on egg-children. Love them.

The fic starts with a Xiyao meet cute with vaguely reversed dynamics? A-Yao is getting chased and caught by hunters and Xichen eats them :) what is one supposed to do, when a pretty, hurt fox is near your cave?

It felt like his spine would snap any second. It was bent and twisted in impossible directions. His joints were pulled apart and squished together again, like he was just a tiny stress toy, for someone so much larger than him.

His innards were sloshing around, being made to fit all positions he was forced in.

Voices were screaming at each other, yelling commands, or maybe encouragement. He couldn’t tell anymore, for his ears had long since given up on functioning, trying to shield him from the cruelness of the hunter's words.

A high pitched sound came from somewhere above him.

He tried to get his eyes to open, to figure out which threat would come for him now. His eyelids fluttered, but refused to open correctly, for dried blood was gluing them together.

The sound stopped.

No more screeching.

The hands on his body pulled away and he could feel his body trying to snap together again.

A presence still lingered above him.

It seemed to bask him in shadow and cold, in silence and fear.

Something sharp tapped on his back, somehow caressing his body carefully.

“Are you alright?”

(Again, just a draft And god i hate the word sloshing but i also refuse to look up synonyms out of spite.)

now that i think about it, Hydra!LXC is a fascinating concept. Or Hydra!JGY. He fits a hydra nicely maybe. Or hydra!wrh. Ohh, that'd be funky.

After LXC saves MY they spend Yunping-like time tgt in the cave :) cave buddies. They discover the joys of companionship and homoerotic woundtending. Technically also homoerotic companionship but i typed out the word cock once and had to close the tab, so.

i do really wanna get into the nesting instincts of both dragons and *handwave* fox-ish creatures because boy do i love a good nesting.

Meng Yao watched with half lidded eyes as Lan Xichen moved around. The dragon was collecting softer material and piling it atop the bed.

It ranged from blankets, over robes to simply linen sheets, that were softened from being washed a lot.

He carefully made his own way across the room, running his fingertips over the blankets, then the pillows, already at the headrest of the bed. He could feel his own instincts lurk under his skin, begging to be let out. Begging to be let loose, free to arrange, mix and match the fabrics, make his own nest, a safe spot for what was to come.

Slowly, Meng Yao lowered himself onto the mattress, immediately drawing his legs closer to his core, when he was seated.

Lan Xichen shot him a short glance, his gaze softening, impossibly full of affection, before turning away again, just to press a robe - light blue, with fine embroidery - into Meng Yao’s hand.

When the fox spirit regarded the robe further without doing anything with it, the dragon made a slightly unhappy noise. Immediately after he looked like a deer in the flashlights, frozen, surprised with himself.

“My apologies, A-Yao.”, he muttered, gaze falling to the floor in embarrassment. “I simply meant- will you maybe -”, he closed his eyes and took a breath, unsure of his own desires and ability to express them. “Would you wear the robe? I think you’d look splendid in them.”

An almost mean little smile flashed over Meng Yao’s lips, but he nodded and began unceremoniously to strip himself and exchange robes.

“If that is what the almighty Zewu-Jun wishes, who am I to decline?”

(I do feel like i have to add that both exerpts were written like. In september LMAO its been a bit, whoops)

I was originally planning for them to just. Have a neat little fluff thing going on, where egg-nant jgy meets nmj and they bond somehow and *handwaving* wuuh 3zun, but now its more of a. Xiyao finds NMJ in the Labyrinth/Castle thing and either they play curse breaker (which actually would be a fun thing to get into, if one goes into the direction of "dragon blood solves/cures everything" or they get trapped there for a long time all tgt, and its like. Forced proximity but because they all have like. Specific things which i forgot cause its 8pm and my bedtime (/hj i need atleast 10 hours otherwise i hit a downphase agter 3 to 6 hours of being awake LMAO).

they get eggs. Rusong. Children. I need Xichen (who did NOT give birth to the eggs, rip him) to be likem. Snake-style coiled aroind them all the time. But not in snake-egg version, im goinf with hardshell eggs bc snake eggs are so cool and fascinating but im not having them "need to be up and not too close so they dont stick tgt and also dont flip bc otherwise the babies die"- thing going on. Snakes <3 so interesting and cool. Hensheng should be a snake that 'imprints' on MY and gets into hissy fights wirh lxc. They deserve it.

#mdzs #ask game #3zun #Cw mentions of pregancy??#Idk if it counts lol #I went so off travk like 4 times im so sorry #Wip #I kinda want to jist say fuck it and make it a greek myths(beings) AU /write thay but also #I think it eould just. Be me rambling about the myths and droppig so much funfacts that it doesnt count as a fic anymore #And would just be me talking about my favorite rhing ever (greek mythology and how it connects to society/literature and also hera <3)

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admirableadmiranda · 2 years

Note

Saw that Nie Huaisang post. How he needs "someone with considerable weight and status in words and deeds" to reveal NMJ case, and that person is LWJ (he threw the arm in Gusulan junior nighthunt guarded by LWJ, not YMJ or even JinLing's who must also be guarded by JC).

Then, thinking that all along, NHS didn't even consider "that reliable person" To be JC is just... Hilarity at its finest. Especially when people keep reminiscing the Gusulan trio at their youth, and it's even funnier when we consider the fact that NHS and JC supposedly spent 1 year together compared to WWX's 3 months, or to LWJ whom he has never been close with at all.

To add more salt, NHS still didn't chose him, even when considering that a Sect Leader of one great sect "should have" more weight and privilege, than just a famous senior cultivator Hanguang-Jun. Or considering that JGY has Xue Yang etc, shouldn't the infamous sandu sengshou who has been upholding justice and arresting villainous demonic cultivator, be called to the scene? Rather than LWJ, the supporter of demonic cultivation who let his disciples using WWX's inventions, and even taught them WWX's quotes about dividing the class of evil spirits.

Wanna guess why NHS didn't even give him a role? LMAO

Well I'm sure that part of picking Lan Wangji over Jiang Cheng had to do with their respective earned reputation, he needs someone who people are going to listen to, and as we see even when he's correct about Mo Xuanyu being Wei Wuxian, no one actually believes him. He's completely squandered his reputation in those thirteen years that Wei Wuxian was dead and he has no one to blame but himself.

I really don't think the lectures were supposed to be a year long? I've never seen anything in the book that indicated that, though it is a common interpretation. But we do see very clearly during the lectures that the trio is really Wei Wuxian being super cool and fun and charismatic and everyone else putting up with Jiang Cheng so they can hang out with Wei Wuxian.

But yeah, a lot of JC stans arguments fall apart when you look at the things he isn't involved in and doesn't stand against. And it isn't things like him being shut out because 3Zun are best friends, it's that he makes it very clear that he's just not useful for these sorts of things. He doesn't mete out justice, he doesn't keep his word to people, he's got a bitter, rude way of talking to people and he doesn't go out of his way to even talk to people most of the time we see him. You can't just stand there and expect others to do all the work and like you for it. It has to be some level of give and he just doesn't.

NHS may have not been friends with JC, nor more than fair weather friends with WWX, but he does know who honors their arrangements and who doesn't and that's as much as he needs for deciding on who's more likely to help him out.

#mdzs #nie huaisang #canon jiang cheng #asks #anon #anon asks #spending my birthday catching up on asks

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mostlikelytofangirl · 10 months

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I have a stupid little plot bunny in my head here listen (VERY sorry if you're squicky about cannibalism)

(This turned out to be way longer than intended)

So like LXC comes too late and NMJ kills JGY at the staircase. NMJ doesn't really feel guilty about it and wasn't being controlled by the saber spirit while doing it (though it def exarcebated the nager at JGY), but he doesn't want to lose LXC, and so never bothers to correct him when LXC convinces himself it was fruit of a completely resentment addled brain

LXC falls into depression over JGY's death (not anywhere nearly as bad as in canon, no seclusion, still up to his duties, NMJ only thinks he looks terrible bc he knows LXC well enough to notice, very few else would notice it). He still doesn't really feel guilty.

So like one day there are disturbances around Lanling. It's not the kind that actually harms people, just some inconviniences at worst, but every Jin cultivator sent to deal with it never comes back, so eventually NMJ and LXC go investigate.

Turns out it's JGY's doing, JGY who was stewing in resentment so much he became a wrath right away (idk if you've read TGCF but it's basically the second strongest level of ghost). Then he went through Mt. Tonglu (the trial to become a devastation, aka the strongest) and came out as one.

However, he went half mad from it. Turns out the Jin cultivators that never came back were getting eaten by JGY

So like, JGY easily kills NMJ, and then rips off his arm.

Now LXC was already very deep into mourning and very depressed, and at the moment not in the right mind over seeing JGY again. JGY is wielding a huge amount of power over LXC

So JGY somehow coaxes LXC into eating NMJ aswell. LXC is crying the whole time and extremely disturbed, but it's A-Yao and he's there, and LXC is just unwell. JGY has LXC eat the whole arm and the lets him go (?) Never actually had him captive but yeah.

He's vaguely aware that he's hurting someone he used to love, but as said before, he's half mad and resenting LXC a little for dismissing his concerns about NMJ

And now LXC is as bad as canon

Once he sobers up mentally, JGY sends a very guilty apology letter to LXC (he is ashamed and feels genuinely awful about what he did) but the damage is done and LXC is fucked up probably for life

Hi there! I'm ok with some cannibalism XD

You are really out there throwing knives, I see. But let's be honest, 3zun is just so rich in angst potential --I mean, it is angsty already in canon, but you know. The posibilities are huge!

They all ruined each other's lives and the feels are so beautiful :')

#replies #mdzs #cannibalism #they are feral and there's so much to explore there!

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madtomedgar · 1 year

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umm genderbend 3zun (obviously) and yanli? (maybe lan qiren?)

unfortunately sometimes my genderbend thoughts on a particular character are "no." And to me, Nie Mingjue's character is so intrinsically wrapped up in toxic hyper-masculinity that I just can't make it work. Like. Part of my philosophy of gender-bends is that a character's relationship to gender should be mirrored. So a very gender-conforming character should stay gender conforming. A character that is perceived as effeminate should in a genderbend be seen as kind of manly or unladylike or like. crude/harsh/rough in that particular "failing at woman" way. And with Nie Mingjue and characters like him, they just can't fill the same role in the story as a devotee and enforcer of the worst aspects of femininity. I know a lot of people love "butch" f!Nie Mingjue, by they mean "big muscly woman with an undercut," and like. I hate that. To me it's reminiscent of a particular type of butch fetishization where we are seen as like. Big, hypermasculine canvases to project fantasies onto, and also a collection of negative stereotypes where we're angry, violent, kind of dumb, gruff, pushy, negging, dominant, with no real feelings or desires beyond the erotic fantasy and the psychosexual repulsion etc. So. Those are my feelings on r63 3zun. Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao as women is the best, but he just... he can only be a guy. I could get behind a trans guy Nie Mingjue who has bought into the worst parts of masculinity and thinks by going as hard as he can in that direction he can completely rid himself of any lingering trans-ness, but that is definitely not my story to tell or explore, yknow.

In terms of Yanli. I also don't love taking the one or two women in a cast of men and... making them men also. What, were there not enough men here already? But, ok. Madam Yu's firstborn, and he's... ah. He's ill. He's weak. He's sweet and sensitive, and he wants... oh no. He wants to be a Scholar. Where did those genes even come from what the fuck. I think a lot about how this goes though depends on whether or not Jiang Cheng is also gender-bent, and if Jin Zixuan is gender-bent, and what's going on with Wei Wuxian. Because sickly nerd m!Yanli and f!Jiang Cheng who is... Jiang Cheng and canon Wei Wuxian is basically Madam Yu's personal nightmare and that'll be a Whole Fun Thing. But if Jiang Cheng is still himself, and Wei Wuxian is still himself... I think Wei Wuxian might be more annoying to her but less threatening. I don't think m!Jiang Yanli would be a Mei Changsu mastermind type, he's just a fucking nerd in a family of jocks. He's writing poetry to praise Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's exploits and doing really interesting things with it that you only get if you know a lot of literary theory. He is like. Mr. Older Brother but has no interest or ability to be the heir. Idk Jiang Yanli is also hard because so much of her character is just... feminine domesticity and passivity. And like. You could keep that but that's just a bodyswap OR it's a very different character because then they have Gender Issues bigtime, as opposed to having issues of like... conforming too well. Idk if that makes sense.

... Actually I could get behind trans woman Jiang Yanli. That would be AMAZING. Like. oh man. ok. Her brothers are both like "yes this is our sister duh. do you need glasses are you stupid do you want to die." Jiang Fengmian is like... well he can either have a failson or he can have a daughter who is... fine. So sure, let the kid be happy. Yeah ok it burns out the golden core a bit to make their body conform to their spirit like that but whatever, this kid was never going to be a great cultivator, this way she's happy. Jin Zixuan is like. A mega dickhead about it and the Yunmeng brothers are Going To Murder Him in this life and the next :D. (Jiang Yanli wishes they would stop because all it does is draw more attention to this and she just... she just wants to be a normal girl.) Jin Zixuan comes around post-sunshot and realizes he was a mega-dickhead and that Jiang Yanli is the best woman alive, actually. And Madam Yu. Oof. The thing is she would be much cooler, proud and happy even, if Jiang Yanli took after her. But from her perspective, Jiang Fengmian let one of her sons become weak and useless on purpose to insult her specifically, and now her daughter is setting herself up to be a defenseless laughingstock and doormat, and everyone will blame her for it. So she is awful about it. And like... Jiang Yanli was just never going to be a warrior, or a hero, or a strong assertive person, because that's just not who she is. She just wants to love people and have her family close, and make food, and take care of kids, and it's... not about gender but it kind of is, but not like her mother thinks. She gets exactly what she wants in the end, and nothing bad ever happens to her or Jin Zixuan or Jin Ling (Wei Wuxian created a method to have magic babies just for shijie). Yeah. This, I love.

#untamed stuff #rule 63 #every day i lose more respect for nie mingjue #i like. rarely do stuff with making characters trans #mostly because like. it's not my story to tell and #i worry about fucking it up yknow #so if i have indeed fucked it up i am very sorry #and if you feel up to it please let me know so i don't do it again #yeah

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rosethornewrites · 1 year

Text

NR, E, & M reading since 6/27

The usual

Finished

Not Rated:

5+1 times Lan sect members tried to marry NMJ in front of LXC's salad (LXC/NMJ), by nirejseki

Prompt: A 5 + 1 idea? Untamed verse: 5 times people flirted with NMJ and he Did Not Realize, and for the one, either the one time he Did Get It, or the one time he tried to flirt with someone else.

assassin!JGY, by nirejseki

Prompt: AU where MY doesn't fight in the sunshot campaign but JGS sees the use of a bastard who's eager to please him and employs him as a spy/assassin for himself. JGS still wants NMJ dead but without the Lan songs or any previous ties NMJ proves to be a man that's annoyingly hard to kill (some 3zun or Nieyao would be nice)

NMJ ascends to godhood, by nirejseki

Prompt: NMJ’s mother really was a War Goddess. Instead of dying from JGY’s poisoned song, NMJ ascends instead.

Explicit:

Reproductive Intent, by Admiranda, Rynne (4th in a series)

When Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian rescue a lost child on a nighthunt, it leads to conversations about the future and a reaffirmation of just how much they love each other. Also the opportunity to discover new and exciting kinks.

Mature:

Aunt Knows Best, by misbehavingvigilante

In which Yu Ziyuan and Wei Wuxian manage to have a less turbulent relationship in due part to genderfuckery.

Or a what if au where Yu Ziyuan accidentally becomes a better parent and how that fixes things.

Unfinished

Not Rated:

For you, I’d dive into the depths of hell, by lightsfillthesky

Wei Wuxian travels back in time with a vengeance.

you can have the best of me, baby, by stiltonbasket

Twelve hours after Jiang Cheng and the others escape from Mount Muxi, Wei Wuxian risks wading into the lake and discovers that the underwater passage to the stream in the maple wood has been blocked behind the tortoise’s body.

“It’s sleeping right beside the opening,” he whispers, when he and Lan Zhan are safe in a tunnel of rock too narrow for the Xuanwu’s neck and head. “Judging by the current in the water, that passage was the only way out.”

Trapped in the Xuanwu's cave with no means of escape, Lan Wangji suggests a surprising course of action to strengthen himself and Wei Wuxian for battle: dual cultivation.

The session proves successful, but despite their best efforts, Wei Wuxian's golden core yields unexpected consequences for them both.

Explicit:

Blood Harmony, by Christinapere, Director_XuanWu, Lia_Rose

"Yunmeng Jiang accepts this alliance, with a condition that this marriage is an equal marriage, as it is between two sought youths, the Second Heir of Gusu Lan Sect and the Head Disciple of Yunmeng Jiang Sect.

Both will *not* marry into the other sect.

Instead, they both will be members of both sects," Sect Leader Jiang confirms.

Is the distrust among sects is at stake that they are willing to sacrifice him and Wei Ying to soothe it?

--------

An arranged marriage AU, canon divergence.

Not a fix-it, more like a different kind of angst

Discarded, by teawater

Children in Cloud Recesses are succumbing to a dark curse. There's one person who may be able to help.

Mature:

【银劍探心】| Silver Jian Seeking Hearts, by stiltonbasket

“A ghost bridegroom?” Wei Wuxian asks, when he receives his latest night-hunting assignment from Uncle Jiang. “Have women been going missing?”

If brides have been going missing, this is the first that Wei Wuxian is hearing about it; which is strange, because the systematic kidnapping of brides should have quickly been recognized as spirits’ work and reported as such to the nearest cultivation sect as soon as possible.

“Three women and ten men have gone missing so far,” his uncle tells him. “Jinshan town is out of our jurisdiction, and the records say there hasn’t been a hunt in the area since before my grandfather’s time. But no one from Jinshan thought to report the disappearances until today, so the victims must be long dead by now.”

Four hundred years after the Sunshot Campaign, a reincarnated Wei Wuxian dresses himself in wedding red to defeat the ghost of a bridegroom.

Deep within the forests of Jinshan Mountain, the mourning calamity Yin Jian Tan Xin waits to marry his beloved.

Alternate, by Hanashi_o_suru

No one is actually sure what happened, or why it happened. No one died. No one made any whacked up array that backfired --to their knowledge--and no one wasn't necessarily in discontent for where they were in life...

So, why is it they're suddenly in the past to the day they had just got to the Cloud Recesses?

Impossible Remains, by Jengabears

Jiang Cheng wakes slowly to the feeling of spiritual energy swimming through his veins. Not just swimming. Singing. Flooding. He was filled with it. He didn't know if it was because he had been without any for so long or if Baoshan Sanren had chosen to make him stronger, but he had never felt so powerful in his life. It was glorious. It was everything. He felt alive again. Whole. Better than whole. He had to thank her. He had to scream his joy across the mountain. He was so infinitely grateful.

He ripped off his blindfold, turned to look around him, praises and gratitude resting on the tip of his tongue. Yet what his eyes rested on was a face he never expected to see. His joy and gratitude instantly snuffed into ashes in his mouth. His eyes widened in horror at the sight which greeted him. He wished he could take everything back. Every thought which had passed through his mind since he'd woken.

How could this happen?

Wei Wuxian dies in the core transfer.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #cql #chen qing ling #untamed fanfiction

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shardofsun · 3 years

Text

It’s about the ✨tragedy of what could have been✨

#mdzs #tgcf #3zun #beefleaf #yes this is about both of them #yes I have a type apparently and that type is angst #beefleaf doesn’t murder each other but the spirit is still there #mxtx fans who always fall for the B plot characters instead rise up

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motivationisdead · 2 years

Text

I swear the more I think about 3zun the more unsettled I am about their sworn brotherhood and how it worked.

Like, have you ever noticed that while Lan Xichen takes Jin Guangyao’s words over Nie Mingjue’s he also consistently places Nie Mingjue’s general wellbeing over Jin Guangyao’s? Seeming to brush aside the harm (and multiple murder attempts) Nie Mingjue commits towards Jin Guangyao.

And not to discount what Jin Guangyao has done but if you look at this purely from Lan Xichen’s perspective then Lan Xichen literally walks in on and has to stop Nie Mingjue from murdering Jin Guangyao on two separate occasions:

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Even in the end, the saber couldn’t fall on him. Baxia unsheathed. Nie MingJue walked away and never turned around.

- Chapter 49 of the EXR Translation

If Lan Xichen hadn’t interfered here Jin Guangyao would literally be dead.

And can’t forget:

Lan XiChen, “Brother, sheath your saber first—your mind is in turmoil!”

Nie MingJue, “I am not. I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

Lan XiChen jolted in surprise, “Brother, what are you talking about? These past few days he has constantly been rushing to and fro between Lanling and Qinghe. Is it only in exchange for your comment that he is beyond hope?”

- Chapter 49 of the EXR Translation

Verbally Lan Xichen is taking Jin Guangyao’s side but in practice Lan Xichen sees Jin Guangyao being assaulted and somehow doesn’t come to the conclusion that the two need to be as far apart as possible for Jin Guangyao’s own safety. In fact even after Lan Xichen sees this he still lets Jin Guangyao go to the Unclean Realm to play Clarity instead of assigning someone else.

Now our perspective is limited to Nie Mingjue so Lan Xichen could have tried to talk Jin Guangyao out of going but we’re also given no reason to think he did because the next conversation we get between Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen is this:

Lan XiChen, “Since Brother chose to make the oath with you, it means that he has indeed approved of you.”

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

Lan XiChen sighed, “His anger was simply too great for him to have thought before speaking. Brother’s temper cannot compare to how it was in the past. You must not provoke him again. These past few days, he has been deeply troubled by the saber spirit, and HuaiSang has argued with him again. They still have not made up yet, even today.”

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis?” …

- Chapter 50 of the EXR Translation

Now we, the audience, know Jin Guangyao is manipulating the situation to his benefit but Lan Xichen doesn’t know that. To him Jin Guangyao is literally just discussing a legitimate concern for his safety and saying that Nie Mingjue is mistreating him. Literally straight up says that and even points out that Lan Xichen has seen it himself.

And still, Lan Xichen isn’t hearing Jin Guangyao’s concerns but rather trying smooth them over. He’s not addressing how to fix the issue, he’s talking around it.

And while Lan Xichen seems to put down the majority of Nie Mingjue’s actions and anger as symptoms of the Nie’s cultivation does that negate the harm Nie Mingjue has done and could do to Jin Guangyao? Jin Guangyao is not a strong enough cultivator to truly defend himself against Nie Mingjue should he lose control as we’ve seen previously. And yet Lan Xichen does not seem to take the very real threat Nie Mingjue poses to Jin Guangyao’s life very seriously.

Even though right after this Nie Mingjue literally tries to kill Jin Guangyao again before losing control and going into Qi Deviation:

Seeing him enter, Jin GuangYao immediately panicked and darted behind Lan XiChen. Standing between the two, Lan XiChen didn’t even have the chance to speak as Nie MingJue lunged with his unsheathed saber. Lan XiChen blocked the attack with his sword, shouting, “Run!”

Jin GuangYao dashed out the door. Nie MingJue shook Lan XiChen off, “Don’t get in my way!”

He chased outside as well. As he passed a long corridor, he suddenly saw Jin GuangYao stroll toward him. He slashed with his saber and blood splattered out within an instant. But Jin GuangYao had clearly been running for his life. How could he have been walking back with such leisure?

- Chapter 50 of the EXR Translation

I… truly am at a loss. There was no way for Lan Xichen to be oblivious to how serious this was.

Like how on earth was Lan Xichen surprised when he learned one of his sworn brothers had killed the other? I’m only surprised it took one of them so long.

#mdzs novel #quotes #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #toxic relationships #their brotherhood is so bad #and seems to get worse at every angle you look at it

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poorlittleyaoyao · 2 years

Text

OKAY SO

Having just rewatched Fatal Journey, I rescind part of my earlier plot-based objections to NHS being brought into JGY’s scheme. The movie does indeed establish that JGY gives NHS a spiritually-charged dizi and teaches him to play the Cleansing/Turmoil Club Remix and ONLY the Cleansing/Turmoil Club Remix, so that explains how he was able to do it despite not having much musical cultivation training.

(I still maintain that its efficacy would be limited since musical cultivation isn’t NHS’s specialty, but we do see Wen Qing play an effective soothing spell on some type of woodwind instrument in that episode where she and Jiang Cheng rescue the Roadtrip Trio from Dafan Mountain, so there’s precedent. Plus, Fatal Journey implies heavily that while NMJ did successfully become powerful enough to defeat the Blade Spirit, he’s done so at the expense of his own life, so NHS’s contributions ultimately don’t make much difference.)

HOWEVER.

THE THING HAS BEEN SOLVED

BUT NEW PROBLEMS HAVE APPEARED!

NHS figures out JGY’s plot because a music score flips open to Cleansing and he realizes that the part where the bass drops (i.e. the part he played right before NMJ killed NZH) isn’t in the original score and doesn’t match the portion he heard JGY play in front of people to calm NMJ at the beginning of the movie. Which would all be well and good, and a great testament to the importance of funding arts and music education

EXCEPT

WHY DOES HE EVEN HAVE THAT BOOK?

If JGY did indeed teach him Cleansing/Turmoil Club Remix and ONLY Cleansing/Turmoil Club Remix, he must have taught it by ear, since the absence of a Turmoil score is a fairly major plot point. Even if he did write down notation for the corrupted song, it’d be on its own sheet, not in a preexisting text. JGY wouldn’t give him that book!

Conversely, if NHS had the book ALREADY because he’s been dabbling in musical cultivation (weird that he’s got a Lan sect text just sitting there in his room, but maybe LXC gave it to him?), he’d already be familiar with Cleansing and would have known sooner that something was off with the one JGY taught him.

Again, I don’t hate JGY teaching NHS the song; while it’s not going to necessarily hasten NMJ’s decline in unpracticed hands, having another trusted person play it helps establish it as a Totally Normal Song if someone overhears (provided that someone isn’t a Lan). But the logistics of it! Do not mesh! This book thing just makes NHS and/or JGY look dumb!

The reveal that I’d want (in a universe where the movie’s budget allow for more actors) would be this:

NHS is sitting in his room, wallowing in grief, awaiting a visit from the remaining two portions of 3zun. LXC arrives first, tries to reassure him, and offers to play Cleansing to help calm him. As LXC plays, NHS realizes that this is not the song JGY taught him. He interrupts and asks LXC if he’s sure that this is Cleansing? LXC replies that yes, this is the Lan sect’s go-to song to soothe troubled spirits, and expresses regret that it didn’t work for NMJ.

NHS is about to say something to him when JGY arrives. As he greets LXC, JGY comments to NHS how beneficial it is to have LXC playing for him; after all, he’s the best musical cultivator there is, and he taught JGY everything he knows.

NHS looks between the two of them, decides that JGY’s for sure a murderer and there’s a non-zero chance that LXC is complicit, and says nothing. He still does that Kubrick Stare bow, but this time he includes JGY and LXC.

DUN DUN DUNNNN~

#IMO the ending in the Death Gazebo would've gone down the same way even if NHS hadn't played anything #bc while Turmoil undoes whatever positive impact Cleansing conferred... NHS played it in the first place bc NMJ was about to kill NZH #and conceivably even hearing actual regular Cleansing from NHS wouldn't have been enough to bring him out of Beast Mode #since he is WAY deeper into qi deviation powerup fugue state than we see him at any other point (save for when he's actively dying)#and even at the start of the film with a less-extreme situation and a more skilled musician playing it STILL takes a moment to calm him

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layzeal · 3 years

Note

lan xichen 👀 for the ask thing

GIVE ME A CHARACTER;

Lan Xichen

LAN-DA YES YES YES THANK YOUUU!!!

How I feel about this character

LISTEN.... LISTEN. OKAY. so mdzs has a buuunch of characters that i'm like "i think he's neat, though i can understand why some people don't like him". that's cool! BUT LAN XICHEN IS NOT ONE OF THEM!!! i've tried ok? i've scrolled through blogs and twitter accounts of people who dislike xichen, i read the reasons why they call him spineless, hypocritical, mean-spirited, fake, whatever. i've tried!!! i did my homework, BUT I STILL DON'T GEEEET IT how could ANYONE dislike that guy???? what's his flaw huh? loving his brother too much?? not trusting the guy who broke his didi's heart over and over again??? not believing that his closest friend of over 15 years who had been constantly harrassed and humiliated for existing now had other rumors surrounding him? having too much belief that people can get better and change?????

look, the one thing he should absolutely be criticized for is allowing the Lans to join the First Siege, even if he didn't lead them, he was still sect leader and no amount of elders would be enough to break his orders. he did that, and that was messed up, but THAT'S NOT EVEN WHAT PEOPLE CRITICIZE HIM FOOOR.

i just love lxc okay ;-; that man has done everything that he thought was right for his family, his clan, his sect, and the people around him. he's a bit naive and easily-manipulated and unfortunately proves that you either have to corrupt yourself to be part of the cultivation world or you'll be stepped on by everyone else. i don't blame him for being protective of his brother, i don't blame him for not trusting wwx, and i don't blame him for believing in jgy. HE IS JUST TRYING HIS BEST BUT HE'S STILL HUMAN OKAY???

All the people I ship romantically with this character

so.... okay. i'm a 3zun enjoyer (and all of its paired variants), everyone knows that, but funnily enough i don't see it as "shippy", mostly bc unlike wangxian and songxiao, i can't see a world where either of them work out together.

for nielan, i LOOVE to think that they had a bit of chemistry, maybe messed around together a lil when they were teenagers/young adults, very puppy love, childhood friends & lovers!! that... until nmj's dad gets killed, he hardens, picks up the sect leadership, starts cultivating his saber more. they're still good and close friends, but something has changed, and that softness they had between them is gone. they don't even address it, but a thread has been broken and neither of them know how to fix it (or whether it even should be)

for xiyao, i LIVE for the unspoken moments between them that we know happened. their time hiding together from the wens, their times fighting side by side during sunshot, the secret correspondences they traded while jgy was infiltrated, and subsequently the entire decade of close friendship they had during the timeskip. it's all very vague, but we know from the way they look at each other and say each other's names that there is something deep between them. that only makes it hurt so much more when it falls apart. the betrayal, the lying, the manipulation... you CANNOT divorce xiyao from all that, it's the icing on the cake, it's the tearful eye contact on the guanyin temple as xichen plunges a sword into his chest. it's tragic, and ugly, and wrong, it was a miserable ending for a friendship that should have lasted a lifetime and left two people fighting for eternity in a coffin as the other lies broken. man, i love tragedy so much

My non-romantic OTP for this character

TWIN JADES TWIN JADES TWIN JADES!!! idk man i feel like i've talked so much already, but i just love how they know each other so well, how xichen is the one person wangji can trust with his deepest fears and secrets (brother i want to take someone back to the cloud recesses. take them back and hide them, but they're unwilling. brother you're the only other person who understands what this means to me, to us, and i'm scared.) he always treats wangji with the utmost kindness and understanding, letting him keep the rabbits wwx gave him, smiling and saying "it's a good name" when wangji says he's naming a-yuan "sizhui" despite his own grievances towards the person he's honoring. this is a lxc focused post BUT WE CAN WRITE ESSAYS ON HOW LWJ LOVES HIM BACK TOO and just. ugh... twin jades..... they're so good

My unpopular opinion about this character

"the only mistake wangji has ever made was you" is a banger line that lxc was NOT wrong for snapping at wwx, even if he was a bit misinformed. do i agree with him? not at all, standing by wwx was an extremely right thing to do, but lan xichen yelling that after realizing that wwx likely had broken lwj's heart AGAIN is the most human and understandable thing he could have done at that time

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

man i just wanted to see more of him post-canon :(( the last we see of him is in the banquet extra where he is depressed and distracted and clearly broken. i wanted to see at least a glimpse of zewu-jun recovering but....,,, well, the extras don't rly cover long after post-canon, and such trauma would take years to heal. i get it i get it but ahhhh ;-; Lan-da,,, i hope you're okay

#THIS TURNED OUT LONG #I HAVE A LOT OF LFEELINGS ABOUT XICEHN #love that man sm #TYSM ANFUU!!!!#modao #ask #lace speaks

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guqin-and-flute · 3 years

Text

Modern 3zun/A-Fu Verse--Baby Acquisition Continuation

[Part 1] [Modern A-Fu Verse] [AO3 Series]

[Crediting @little-smartass with a lot of the characterization/story beats because I’m positive we’ve had a conversation about this at some point]

“He really is as bald as a little cue ball, isn’t he?”

It took Meng Yao several seconds to register that words had been spoken, another to parse the words, then another to tear his gaze up from the pile of early childhood development books he was accumulating in his lap, color coded tabs bristling from the edges. Da-ge was sprawled in the corner of their enormous sage green couch in his slacks and undershirt, bathed in the ghostly, swimming glow of the TV on mute. He was looking down fondly at the newborn tucked into the crook of his arm, fast asleep with his fist shoved up against his face.

A newborn that was, in fact, very bald. And so very tiny.

“Is that normal? Is that a sign of something?” Meng Yao began to anxiously dig around in the plush crevices of the armchair he was folded into for his phone, preparing to search something along the lines of ‘is baby baldness bad??’

On the other half of the L of the couch from Mingjue, Xichen sucked in a shuddering breath through his nose, making them both freeze and look over. But all he did was sigh in his sleep and return to his motionless sprawl where he had collapsed about an hour and a half ago when Mingjue forcibly removed the baby from his arms and insisted he lay down. “Just for 5 minutes,” Meng Yao had also reasoned in a two pronged attack. “No one says you have to nap. Just close your eyes for a bit, then you can take him again while Da-ge makes dinner, if you want.”

Of course, he had fallen asleep immediately as they all had known he would. But one had to give Xichen explicit permission and then a backup compromise and then incentive before he considered doing something so selfish as making sure he wasn’t dead on his feet, even after a day of running errands with an 7 day old who was still suffering from stomach upset from travel. Meng Yao and Mingjue were long since practiced in being able to maneuver around his particular aversion of self care.

When their eyes met again, Mingjue’s were crinkled and he teased in a lower voice, “Being bald is a sign of being an infant, A-Yao. You really know nothing about babies, do you?”

Meng Yao aggressively squashed back the automatic bridling that happened every time a flaw in his...anything was pointed out. Instead, he primly brandished a pastel yellow book with curlicue flowers around the edge. “I am learning.” It’s not my fault I obtained all my siblings after adolescence. Not for lack of trying...

“I’m telling you, most of those are gonna be useless. Everyone’s got something to say and it’s all going to be different. You’re better off just winging it,” Mingjue stage whispered dismissively, rolling his eyes. “It’s just until Xichen’s uncle gets the custody stuff all worked out, so he’ll be gone before you know it. Just enjoy the baby-head smell while he’s here.”

The what? He narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

For some reason, a grin spread over Da-ge’s face--a delighted, self satisfied grin. “Oh.” He got up--(”Don’t wake him up--” Meng Yao hissed, stiffening, remembering his disconcerting little mewling cries from Xichen’s return from the store)--and easily cupped the infant up to his shoulder as he crossed the thick cream carpeting.

“Make room, come on,” Mingjue whispered, grabbing a stack of books in one large hand and carelessly tossing them onto the basket of neatly folded throw blankets beside the armchair.

Lips pursed and fully harassed, now, Meng Yao neatly piled the remaining books down by the leg of the chair. “Why do you insist--” When he sat back up, he immediately almost fumbled the armful of baby that was thrust into them. But Mingjue seemed to have been ready for this, because he just kept pressing him into his chest until Meng Yao’s hold came up automatically to support him.

The baby was warm and very soft, with no tension in him at all as he slept. And so light--almost like some sort of doll. It was hard to believe he was a real, living human being instead of some sort of strange hairless animal. Baxia had more heft, for god’s sake and she was a cat.

For some reason, Meng Yao’s heart rate immediately spiked as if he were being chased. His palms and neck began to sweat. It’s not like he hadn’t held the child in the day that he had been here, he just...well, he actually hadn’t. He hadn’t held any child before--his nephew wasn’t quite born yet and he had never been in a foster home with a baby. All yesterday and last night, he had shadowed Mingjue while he changed the diapers, observing techniques such as ‘The Turkey Hold’ and ‘Tissues Before Wet Wipes’. He had noted the ease with which Xichen just palmed him belly down like a fragile little football while packing the lunches Mingjue had assembled for him and Meng Yao to take to work, or patiently maneuvered his little sausage limbs in and out of clothes like he wasn’t afraid of breaking him.

And they certainly weren’t keeping him from Meng Yao--but he was still researching and information gathering while they had plenty of experience. And the stakes seemed absurdly high to chance a failure with this particular subject He hadn’t been avoiding it, just...he was sure the opportunity would present itself. Eventually.

His face was round and slightly alien in its minute proportions; a perfect miniature of a proper nose, a fine dusting of eyebrows above completely smooth little eyelids, a tiny squinch of a mouth that had fallen open in sleep. And he sort of smelled like...slightly sour milk and the floral baby detergent Xichen had bought. Nothing that special.

Cautiously, Meng Yao attempted a gentle joggle with his arms, then froze when those little fingers flexed and the baby made a noise, halfway between a snort and a grunt, but so tiny. How on earth did anything this tiny and helpless even exist? How was he allowed to hold something that had this much potential? This much importance? His father wouldn’t even let him touch his fountain pen at the office--how would he ever let Meng Yao hold his heir? “A-Yao, breathe,” Mingjue’s whisper was nearby and amused and when he looked up at him, Meng Yao saw his face was close, leaning down, hands braced on both arms of the chair. Blocking escape.

“I think you should take him back,” Meng Yao hurriedly whispered back. “I don’t think he likes me. He’s going to wake up and cry.”

Mingjue shrugged. “He might.”

Anxiety, old and choking, rose up in his throat like bile, like failure. “Then take him back.”

The asshole just raised his eyebrow. “No. If he does, it’s not the end of the world. Calm down, smell his head.”

“I can smell him just fine from here, I--”

“Smell his head, I’m telling you--”

“Mingjue--” he hissed, baring his teeth, instinctively looking over at the sleeping Xichen to be the tie breaker and peacemaker, but Mingjue just put the back of his fingers to Meng Yao’s cheek and (gently. Always gently.) pushed his face toward the tiny round head tucked to his shoulder.

Stiffly, he gave a grudging, perfunctory sniff, intending to follow the exact letter of the order and not the spirit, because if he was going to be forced--

Oh. Oh. What? Pressing his nose closer, he breathed in properly. What on earth...

His head did smell different from the old spit up and detergent. Warm and--and--almost sweet but not, somehow mild and calming? It felt familiar, even though it wasn’t. How was this unwinding something in his chest? Without intending to, he breathed out through his mouth in order to hastily draw in another breath, deep and slow. It smelled like... sleep and home and softness. Comfort. And he did have hair, actually--downy little fluff, close to the scalp, soft like velvet when he pressed his lips to it to take a third breath. How did the top of his head smell so good? Was it the baby soap they had used? No, it wasn’t, because he could smell traces of that, soapy and artificial. This was something completely organic that somehow exuded from his scalp?

Mingjue chuckled above his head and Meng Yao opened his eyes--that he didn’t even remember closing. He knew he should probably feel more annoyed at his partner’s smugness but the tension that had been humming through him seemed to have utterly bled away. “There, now, was that so hard?”

“What...is it?” he murmured against the baby’s head, unable to tear his nose away.

“Baby-head smell.”

“Baby-head smell?”

“Mm.”

“Do they--do they all smell like this?”

“More or less. It’s so we don’t eat them when they wake us up in the middle of the night, probably. Hormones and shit.”

“Has someone bottled this? Made it into a candle?” He whispered, affronted. “Is this known?” None of the early childhood development books he had read even alluded to the fact that baby heads apparently smelled like magic. “Does Xichen know?”

Mingjue snorted. “Of course you consider marketing. Yeah, most people who’ve handled babies know about the baby-head smell, so now you do, too. Instant stress relief.”

It was. It was like a drug, how instantaneously it worked. Meng Yao greedily breathed in again, cupping his tiny head closer to him. He could feel the thrum of his heart through his back against his forearms.

Mingjue huffed a fond laugh through his nose and smoothed his hand heavily down Meng Yao’s hair, swaying them both gently as one. “See? Not so scary. Now sit there and relax with baby. I’ll make us all dinner.”

Meng Yao could do that--and quite happily.

#modern 3zun #jgy #nmj #lxc #3zun #also yes the baby is A-Fu he just doesn't have a name yet #I wanted to give them a baby and give them a chance to name him because they don't have either opportunity in the other AU #ALSO GOD I MISS BABIES ;A;#Well it wouldn't be a JGY POV without the shadow of a panic attack but I FIXED IT QUICK #THIS IS A FUN AU. FUN FUN FUN #my stuff #my fic #'he's just here for a little while' suuuuuuure Mingjue >.>

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