#by yet i mean songxiao will be a thing. OBVIOUSLY.

[wifiwuxians]

it’s your fault for having such comforting energy and also such an annoying family

xingchen you indulge these rascals far too much. i am only letting you stay because i love like you

idk what universe i had in mind for this but everyone ended up like this. nobody is dating anyone (yet) but this is the ideal world in my mind

[theleakypen]

Fic Writer Interview Game

Thank you for the tag (almost 2 years ago) @gusu-emilu!

I am tagging literally anybody who sees this and wants to play :D

name: Puck

fandoms: multifandom! although Untamed/MDZS continues to be my main

two-shots: I never understand this question but it looks like it means to rec your own two-chapter fics so here we go: Stories More Beautiful Than Answers (CQL, Mianmian gets to meet Jin Ling post-canon) and Rhûnlanders (I published it as a series of 2 separate fics, but it's basically 1 thing: Songxiao in Middle Earth - Xiao Xingchen is an Elf and Song Zichen is a Man, both from Rhûnland so they're still Asian)

most popular multi-chapter fic: Obviously Yunmeng In-Laws (my and @iamwestiec's CQL modern AU groupchat fic which had bafflingly runaway success) has to be the answer to this. But if we're only going by ones written solely by me, it's But, After All, I Am A Wen (incomplete Wen Qing canon divergence wherein she actually takes and uses the comb Jiang Cheng gave her to commit treason and save her family's lives)

actual worst part of writing: having the fucking brain space to fucking write, fuck. it's been really hard bc i have so many other obligations and they eat my brain so even if i have ideas i can't get them to turn into prose :(

how you choose your titles: in order of likelihood: first, quote from the fic itself; joint second place, something kinda descriptive of the fic or lines from a poem or song

do you outline? not generally. I did outline my multichapter Wen Qing fic bc it's so much more ambitious than anything else i've ever worked on and I occasionally do something resembling in an outline in the doc of my one shots when i know what happens in the sections but don't have the prose yet; it's usually, like, a series of bracketed statements.

ideas you probably won't get around to, but wouldn't it be nice? oh god so many lmao. i have an entire channel in my writing discord that is just these ideas. One idea I have is a Songxiao no eye transfer AU because BSSR doesn't open the mountain back up to XXC and how they have to deal with that. Also I have yet to write any Witcher fic but I've been playing Witcher 3 and I really wanna write a Vesemir POV fic that's 5+1 "5 times Geralt sent some random-ass stranger to Kaer Morhen and 1 time he came home" inspired by all the times in Witcher 3 when you can help someone and then be like "Oh yeah you'd be welcome at Kaer Morhen"

spicy tangential opinion: not that spicy but i wish more people would comment, especially on the smaller/less popular fics. i see your kudos! it makes me happy! but i'd love to know your thoughts if you have any!

callouts @ me: none of my self-callouts are writing-related, it's all just - clean your room, go the fuck to sleep, you're not a teenager any more and your body hurts less when you do basic life maintenance tasks. (honestly i'd probably also write better/more if i did basic life maintenance tasks so it counts lol)

best writing traits: Westie once said I'm good at making soft things hurt and I hold that compliment close to my heart <3

[veilchenjaeger]

Incomplete list of things that intrigue me about the mess that is Songxiao:

Their divorce and its implications. Song Lan loses everything and, grief-mad, sends Xiao Xingchen away. This might not be the nicest thing to do to the person who is taking you to be healed on their immortal master’s secret secluded celestial mountain, purposefully ignoring all the “Do not enter if you’ve ever been to the regular mortal realm” signs, but given that he’s just lost his entire family, I don’t think we can blame him. Think about what Jiang Cheng - who is, after all, Song Lan’s mirror - does in the same situation and for how long he holds that grudge. Song Lan’s doing great in comparison. But, see. Xiao Xingchen not only takes the blame and gives Song Lan his eyes in repentance, but actually leaves, so thoroughly that Song Lan ends up looking for him for years. Xiao Xingchen disappears off the face of the world. This speaks of his sense of guilt re.: Baixue Temple, but it also kind of implies that he isn’t used to fighting like that. It hurts a little to think about Songxiao never really fighting about anything and Xiao Xingchen thus being completely overwhelmed with Song Lan being hurt and furious, and subsequently being unable to recognise that some of the things Song Lan says are entirely grief-induced instead of truly meant. Because it means that they, in their time together, never got to stick with the other when they were at their worst. (Which is very different from what Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng have going on - while Wei Wuxian reacts similarly to Xiao Xingchen, taking the blame and giving Jiang Cheng an important piece of himself (and accepting that he might die doing so), he doesn’t voluntarily leave until way later. He doesn’t accept that this confrontation is over after Jiang Cheng blames him for his parents’ death, and they do make amends later. That has a lot of reasons (Wei Wuxian is far more tied to the world he lives in than Xiao Xingchen is), but part of it is likely because he’s used to Jiang Cheng lashing out and saying things he doesn’t fully mean when he’s angry. They’ve been (play)fighting all their lives.)

Xiao Xingchen’s loneliness and what it means for Songxiao both before and after their divorce. The latter is a bit more obvious in its significance: Xiao Xingchen, having lost the only person he was close to in this world, turns a (literal) blind eye to the fact that the rebound family he builds is likely made up of criminals. That might also have to do with his aforementioned guilt - it’s fitting company - but for someone who still cares about his principles so much, it’s interesting that he completely ignores the shady backstory Xue Yang most likely has. Xiao Xingchen is desperate for someone to stay with, and he likes Xue Yang, so really, why should his past matter? But this does also tell us a thing or two about Xiao Xingchen before the Songxiao divorce. He is not a naturally solitary person. He might not be a social butterfly in the way, say, Wei Wuxian is, but he still obviously yearns for company. Which is understandable, considering that he left everyone he knew, his home, and the world he understands behind and can never return to it. I’m not saying that Xiao Xingchen’s decision to stick with Song Lan is just as rashly made as the decision of an older, significantly more broken Xiao Xingchen to stick with Xue Yang. Song Lan is a good person, they get along very well, and they share their ideals to the point of trying to found a new sect together. And I doubt that A-Qing and Xue Yang are just the first people Xiao Xingchen ran into after the divorce - his judgement may be influenced by his loneliness, but he does choose company he actually likes, probably even more so when he is not yet a disillusioned divorcee. What I am saying is that Xiao Xingchen maybe accidentally picked his soulmate as his first off-mountain companion, but he would definitely let imperfections slide rather than risk losing Song Lan, because then, he’d be lonely again. And we know that they were far from perfect for each other! After all, Song Lan didn’t make Xiao Xingchen laugh. Getting into what this would mean specifically is too speculative, but I can see this tie into the first point - Xiao Xingchen might not address what he is unhappy with, what maybe (unwittingly) hurts him, what he’s putting up with because he has no other options. And Song Lan might not always pick up on these things.

Song Lan’s mysophobia mixed with Xiao Xingchen’s aforementioned loneliness. I know the mysophobia bit is glossed over a lot in fandom (and not mentioned in CQL at all - Song Lan, why are you touching so many people. And things. There are germs on those), but it’s a character trait that would influence him quite a lot, beyond a simple inability to touch others. And I say inability, because mysophobia-induced touch aversion =/= dislike of touch. I guess he’s not yearning to touch people and mourning that he can’t with everyone he meets; he seems to be generally uncomfortable with it and not agonised over this discomfort. But if there were someone he’d like to touch - say, and this is of course a completely random example, Xiao Xingchen - he wouldn’t just be able to switch off his phobia and touch. It’s not a choice. Wei Wuxian is not just gonna cuddle Fairy, no matter how much he’d like to make Jin Ling happy. But, well, he might try to stay calm in Fairy’s presence. Likewise, Song Lan might try. Might want to touch. Might succeed. (Xiao Xingchen does, I think, touch him in the Villainous Friends extra and Song Lan is okay with that!) But especially more intimate touching will likely require effort, no matter how nice kissing Xiao Xingchen might be. (Touch-starved Song Lan, anyone?) On the other hand, we have Xiao Xingchen, who, with all his loneliness and having no one to touch, might like some physical contact. He’d never blame Song Lan for not being able to provide it, of course. And it’s not Song Lan’s fault that he has a phobia. But it might make for an interesting dynamic - especially on Song Lan’s side, because we know he is a little prone to feeling guilty about things he has little to no influence on (see: Xue Yang’s words to him in Yi City), and if my mysophobia web deep dive has taught me anything, it’s that this is not a fun phobia to have. (MXTX probably thought about this way less than I did. What can I say, I love Song Lan.)

Since we’re on the topic of Song Lan feeling guilty already, let’s enter the realm of Songxiao in Yi City (AU) scenarios. Things obviously get more complicated there, with both their own history and Xiao Xingchen’s disastrous state after the Xue Yang reveal, but let’s leave Xue Yang be and focus only on the Songxiao dynamic for now. More specifically: Song Lan being absolutely consumed by guilt. It’s very significant, I think, that Song Lan is kicking Xue Yang’s ass in Yi City, wounding him multiple times and coming quite close to winning this fight, fuelled by pure rage, until Xue Yang brings up the eye thing and blames Song Lan for the divorce, upon which Song Lan crumbles, loses his focus, and gets his tongue cut out. Xue Yang is rubbing salt in a wound that Song Lan has been nursing for years, and while we know that Song Lan is only to blame for what he said when consumed by grief and not for the bonkers coincidence of Xiao Xingchen running into Xue Yang, or Xue Yang’s deception, or really even Xiao Xingchen’s blindness because it’s not like Song Lan made him give his eyes away - while we know that, Song Lan evidently believes that Xue Yang is right. That all of this is Song Lan’s fault, because he said some awful things to Xiao Xingchen and left him blind and all alone in this world he doesn’t fully understand. (Again, he’s a Jiang Cheng mirror. Is Jiang Cheng to blame for Wei Wuxian, without Jiang Cheng’s knowledge, giving him his core? Is he to blame for Wei Wuxian’s cultivation path, or the disasters it leads to? No, he’s not, and he’s much less ready to shoulder all the blame than Song Lan is. But I do think that deep down, Jiang Cheng feels guilty as well.) In a world where Song Lan gets to make amends with Xiao Xingchen after all the years of single-mindedly looking for him just so he can apologise (which implies some damn devotion, both to doing the right thing and taking responsibility and to Xiao Xingchen), this will influence them. Would Song Lan be more careful not to hurt Xiao Xingchen? Probably. Would he more readily accept Xiao Xingchen doing things he doesn’t agree with, because this relationship feels more fragile now? Would he see all the ways in which Xiao Xingchen changed and feel guilty about every single one? Would Xiao Xingchen pick up on that, and how worried and how uncomfortable and how guilty would it make him feel, in turn? After all, he’s also prone to blaming himself for a lot of things.

Let’s stay in AU territory: What about a Songxiao reunion after the events of the Yi City arc? Or, generally, after Xiao Xingchen dies and Song Lan becomes a fierce corpse controlled by Xue Yang? How fucked up would Xiao Xingchen feel about being restored and (in this case) resurrected, when the weight of what he had done crushed him so thoroughly he took his own life? Would he be able to live with it, or would he take resurrection a little worse than Wei Wuxian does? On the other hand, how does Song Lan adjust to being dead, and how does he deal with what Xue Yang made him do? How do they both deal with the fact that Xiao Xingchen killed Song Lan? They are both fundamentally changed post-canon, and while I can see them getting back together and think they could work it out (if Xiao Xingchen manages to walk the whole fragmented soul thing off), I can’t see a post-canon Songxiao relationship of any kind that isn’t deeply complicated.

TL;DR: Yes, Songxiao are very aesthetically pleasing and neither of them voluntarily becomes a mass murderer, but their relationship is just as imperfect as all the relationships in MDZS/CQL are, and the potential for dysfunctionality is there. I find that thrilling.

[razberryyum]

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The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 10, Part 1 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 29, 30 and 48…again, only kinda because things happen differently in the drama...I guess that’s why they call it an adaptation….]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰+ 🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰

(Each WangXian scene automatically gets one 🐰 even if they’re just thinking of each other; one scene can earn up to five 🐰 depending on intensity of WangXian-ness. Each scene is separated by an “+”)

When I first watched this scene where Wei Ying was equating himself and Lan Zhan to Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, I simply thought Wei Ying was just being flirty and adorable and didn’t attribute much significance to it beyond that, but now, after all that’s happened, it’s become so much more meaningful, especially to Lan Zhan, that not only do I love the moment so much more, but it also makes me feel that much sadder for Lan Zhan because of the almost careless way Wei Ying made the association.  Originally I think he did it as a means to gain Lan Zhan’s favor because Wei Ying sincerely wanted to be his friend and break through that cool exterior that Lan Zhan put up all the time. The romantic in me would like to think it’s also because Wei Ying was also starting to crush on him, butat the same time, realistically, I really don’t think Wei Ying in this point in time was even aware of his true feelings yet so while I don’t doubt his sincerity, his intentions were probably more simplistically platonic.  However, in contrast, for Lan Zhan, who was already “falling” for Wei Ying, the idea automatically embedded itself into his mind, so naturally he began to see Song Lan and XXC’s partnership as a goal in life.  Not only did the two cultivators embody their ideal of living without regrets while helping people, but growing up in a highly regulated environment, Lan Zhan probably also envied their freedom to live freely as they wanted.  

I really appreciate how Team CQL steadily lays down the bricks early on for the foundation of not only Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s relationship but also for Lan Zhan’s character development so certain moments can build upon each other over time. This scene is a prime example of that: even though Lan Zhan didn’t react much to Wei Ying’s words at first, later on, as they were bidding farewell to Song Lan and XXC, the wistful expression on his face as he watched them leave followed by the deliberate way he looked at Wei Ying, again with that same expression, was a pretty good indication of just how much of what Wei Ying said earlier actually resonated with him.  

As time went on and he started to question the principles of his own sect and the cultivation world, I can only imagine how much more he longed to live the life that Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen did, with Wei Ying by his side. Therefore, when everything went so horribly wrong for the two cultivators, it’s no surprise that Lan Zhan took it to heart since it no doubt reminded him of happened to him and Wei Ying.  

Staring Contest

I just love all the many little times the two of them make eye contact, especially since, again, we went from Lan Zhan not even wanting to look at Wei Ying to this, where he almost can’t stop himself from looking his way. Again, brick building. Love it.  

You’re on your own, bro

Wei Ying instinctively protecting Lan Zhan from Xue Yang’s poisonous powder wasn’t surprising, but what did surprise me a little was the fact that he completely left poor Jiang Cheng to fend for himself. Didn’t even attempt to reach out to pull him back. If Jiang Cheng was keeping track of all the times Wei Ying was choosing Lan Zhan over him—and he probably was—that would definitely make his list (along with the aforementioned moment since it did sound like Wei Ying was giving up his place in Lotus Pier to go cultivate with Lan Zhan).  

SongXiao

When I first watched this episode, I remember thinking, “wait, they’re a couple too? How many gay couples are there in this show??” Seeing the way Song Lan swept down to protect XXC, how they called each other by their first names and referred to each other as good/close friends, naturally made me wonder if there was more to their relationship than meets the eye.  Of course the official MDZS answer is no, WangXian is the only gay couple in the story, but obviously Team CQL either didn’t get that memo or decided to ignore it so they can ship to their hearts’ content, or supply enough fodder to let us ship to our heart’s content. Whatever the reason, bless them for giving us these precious morsels which were unique to the drama since by the time we met the two of them in the novel, their lives had already gone to hell.  

I spend most of my time lamenting the suffering that WangXian had to go through before they were finally able to get their happy ending but truth of the matter is Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen probably suffered much more, especially since their ending was so much worse. Because they are called dao zhangs, I have to assume they live as Daoist priests and therefore have the vow of celibacy imposed on them as well, so whatever feelings they have for each other can only be emotionally consummated through chaste companionship and never through carnal fulfillment of any kind. Basically, unlike Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, everydaying could never be an option for them because of their lifestyle and beliefs. Being of much higher cultivation mindset (or so I assume since they’re much more revered), just being able to enjoy each other’s company was probably more than enough for them, and yet, even that they were denied. It’s like, they’re asking for so little and yet they are deprived of that in the most absolute way possible. So now, seeing the image of them walking away together, only fills me with immense sadness for them—I actually got a little teary-eyed over it tonight—knowing they will never be able to even enjoy something as simple as walking side by side with each other like that ever again.

Xue Yang

For how much I feel for SongXiao, again, I really should HATE Xue Yang, but dammit this evil monster is so damn hard to hate. If he was Lucifer in human form, my soul would be totally screwed. Every time I see Xue Yang again I can’t help but like him and want to see even more to him. Wang Haoxuan is very easy on the eyes, so that helps a lot, but it’s not just his looks, it’s also his very effective performance. He just looks like he’s having so much fun and by osmosis Xue Yang becomes fun to watch as well; it’s almost as if his joy at murder and mayhem is infectious. Everything he does works for me, like, I even got delicious excitement chills from just how he appears on the scene at the Yue Yang Chang sect...

...like some kind of sexy, malicious gargoyle of doom. The only other time I felt the same way is when Wei Ying first appeared as the Yiling Patriarch when he returned from the Burial Mounds. I said before that Xue Yang constantly has this DTF aura about him that makes him shippable with just about anyone and everyone, which makes this moment one of my favorites because I think his sexy evil energy was at maximum output while Wei Ying was feeling him down. It’s almost unfair how alluring he is, like all the time. I know his detractors absolutely don’t feel that way, and honestly, I envy being able to so resolutely dislike him.  

XueXiao

Considering all the pain and suffering he caused Xiao Xingchen I sometimes think Xue Yang doesn’t deserve to even be shipped with such a pure angel, but the two actors have such good chemistry it’s hard to resist. I mean, when Xue Yang said that to XXC, I seriously couldn’t wait until they met again and I was hoping we would get to see their future interactions (again, this was when I hadn’t read the novel yet and didn’t know what horrifying things were in store). And I felt this way even though I was already fully supporting SongXiao. I seriously don’t want to know what would have happened if Xue Yang had more interactions with Wei Ying; my WangXian-devoted heart is too afraid to even go there.

To be continued in Part 2...posted

[theleakypen]

OYZZ/A-Qing, AU where they meet while she's alive, kiss meme?

(uhhh so this accidentally turned into a full-on fic. Unfortunately, it's only a fix-it for A Jing, not for Songxiao 😭; I’m going entirely by book canon here, except my brain has settled on CQL aesthetics for OYZZ and A Jing, hence the “burgundy robes.”)

Kissing prompt

"Excuse me, are there any powerful people around here? Powerful people who cultivate?" Ā Jing swallowed hard as yet another passerby shook her off. She wouldn't cry! Her dàozhǎng needed vengeance and so did Song dàozhǎng; she had to keep trying to find someone.

"Excuse me, gūniang," came a voice from behind her—a young voice, a boy about her age. "I'm a cultivator. Perhaps I can be of service?"

--

It took some doing to convince first the boy — Ouyang Zizhen — and then his father that Xue Yang was indeed in Yi City and not dead as he should have been these last many years, but in the end Sect Master Ouyang had reached out to his patron, the master of the Jiang sect, who was known for his hatred of demonic cultivators, and the full might of both Baling Ouyang and Yunmeng Jiang was brought to bear against Xue Yang. Ā Jing insisted on being allowed to accompany them — she had to see this through.

Ouyang Zizhen seemed to have decided that she was his responsibility and he stuck close to her while his seniors prepared for and then fought the battle. "I'm not allowed to night hunt unsupervised, anyway, so I will be your protector, Jing gūniang!"

Ā Jing wasn't going to say no to protection. Ever since she saw her dàozhǎng killing people under Xue Yang's guidance she had felt an overwhelming terror. It was lessened now that she had an entire army between her and Xue Yang, including this strangely earnest boy, but until she saw Xue Yang's dead body with her own eyes, she wouldn't feel able to truly rest.

--

She took one look at the dead bodies laid out in a row, the two Daoist priests and their murderer, and flung herself weeping into Ouyang Zizhen's arms. He stroked her back, while she shook and wet his burgundy silk robes with her tears, and murmured soothingly in her ear. She liked that he called her "Jing gūniang," as if she really was somebody, and not just an urchin with no family name to speak of.

"What will you do, now that it's over?" he asked, when they were all seated in an inn, waiting for food to be delivered to their table. He kept his arm around her and seemed to be daring his seniors to say anything. Ā Jing was still feeling shaky and uncertain, so she wasn't going to complain. She clutched the little pouch that the cultivators said held Xiao Xingchen’s soul close to her chest, afraid to let it out of her sight even for a moment. They said his soul was shattered into little bits, but that it might heal with time. The least she could do was take care of it until it did. Every time she thought about her poor dàozhǎng, shattering himself to pieces because of his horror at what Xue Yang had made him do, she felt fresh tears prickling her eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "I was traveling with Xiao dàozhǎng so long, I don't think I know how to travel alone anymore." This was probably not true, but all these people knew that she was sighted — she had to play up her helplessness somehow!

"You can come with us to Baling," Ouyang Zizhen suggested. "You could learn to be a cultivator, like us."

"Aren't I too old?" she asked, looking at him sidelong.

"You'll probably never be exceptional," he agreed, "but that doesn't mean you can't learn to use a sword the way we do."

It sounded appealing. It sounded like a lot of work. Well, if she didn't like it, she could always leave. Traveling alone in Baling couldn't be any different from traveling alone in Shudong.

--

Baling was nice. They let her call herself Xiao Jing, to keep her dàozhǎng's name alive, even if he was now dead. They gave her a room and nice clothes and they didn’t try to take away the two bags that held everything that mattered to her in this world — the wallet she had stolen from Xiao Xingchen, and the Spirit Capture Pouch that held his soul. They added her to the rolls of junior disciples. She had to practice next to seven year olds, and it was hard work, but she never had to worry about her next meal and Ouyang Zizhen came by all the time to see how she was settling in. One time a couple of his big sisters came by and told her to tell them if he was bothering her.

"We'll beat him up for you, don't worry," said the second young mistress of Baling Ouyang. Xiao Jing thought that maybe that was backwards — shouldn't they be threatening her on his behalf? After all, she was a swindler and a thief. But, then, they didn't know that part of her past.

Everyone knew she was a tragic orphan, victimized by the horrible Xue Yang, and she'd played that up as much as possible. Pity was good — people mostly didn't want to hurt you if they pitied you. Mostly people were patient with her uneducated speech and her inability to read and that she picked up cultivation concepts slowly, except the physical ones. The exercises came easily — she'd had to be deft to steal without people noticing, and that came in handy now.

"He's not a bother," she said aloud. "I like Ouyang gōngzǐ."

"Oh?" The fifth young mistress pounced on that, smiling like a cat. "And in what way do you like xiǎodì?"

Xiao Jing blushed at that, and did her best to deflect.

--

"Your sisters came to see me today," Xiao Jing told Ouyang Zizhen. She pulled a couple of sweets from the wallet she still kept close by, the one she stole from Xiao Xingchen all those years ago, and offered one to him. Their fingers tangled briefly as he accepted the sweet and she flashed back to Ouyang Ruoyin's question. In what way do you like our little brother? She shook herself, willing her cheeks to stop blushing. Back to doing the teasing; that was way better than being teased. "They said they'll beat you up if you keep bothering me."

"They told me the same thing," Ouyang Zizhen laughed. "Am I bothering you, Jing gūniang?"

"Obviously not," Xiao Jing retorted. "I don't give sweets to people who bother me."

"Well, that's a relief, then," he said, smiling at her as he popped the sweet in question into his mouth. He had a very nice smile, distractingly nice. She realized she was staring at his lips, which was definitely inappropriate, and dragged her gaze up to his eyes, which were crinkled in that same smile. Hell.

“Jing gūniang, I—” he began, before she cut him off. Oh well, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been impulsive before.

“Ouyang gōngzǐ, do you like me?”

Now it was his turn to blush and stammer, which filled her with an obscure satisfaction. “I— yes, I— yeah?” he said. His voice steadied as he took up his thread. “I like you a lot. Your courage in the face of extreme adversity, your devotion to your dàozhǎng, the way your eyes flash in the sun when you train—”

“Okay, okay,” Xiao Jing cut him off again. There was no stopping Ouyang Zizhen when he got poetic. She wasn’t anticipating the danger of letting him get poetic about her, the way it made her skin feel hot and prickly all over. “I get it, you think I’m admirable. Do— Would—” She swallowed hard. Get it together, Ā Jing. “Would you like to try kissing?” she asked, the words coming out all in a rush.

Ouyang Zizhen stared at her, mouth falling open in a pretty silly-looking way. Xiao Jing almost laughed at it, except for how her stomach was turning somersaults. Did she misread things? Ouyang Zizhen did get poetic about all sorts of things, but she did think he showed her particular attention! She scuffed her foot on the floor of the pavilion. “I only meant...” She looked down. “I like you, too, and I thought...”

“Yeah.” His voice was breathless and Xiao Jing looked up with new hope. He was still blushing, and his eyes seemed almost to sparkle as he stepped nearer to her. “Yeah, can I kiss you?”

Xiao Jing smiled and took one of his hands and tilted her face up to his. She’d hit a growth spurt recently—probably all that good Baling food—but he was still taller than her. He tilted his head consideringly, and then lowered his face until their lips met. She felt his nose brushing her cheek and the little sigh of his breath on her mouth. His lips were soft on hers and just the slightest bit sticky. He tasted a little of the candy they’d both just eaten. His hand tightened its grip on her hand, even as his other hand came up to cup her cheek, and she felt that same heat and prickle on her skin as she did when he had been complimenting her.

When they parted, Xiao Jing stepped forward and buried her face in his collar, hiding her flushed cheeks. Ouyang Zizhen wrapped his arms around her almost automatically. “That was nice,” he whispered into her hair.

She nodded and then murmured, “Yeah,” in case he couldn’t tell what her movement meant.

“Do you... want to do it again?” he asked.

“Give me a minute,” she said.

He chuckled quietly; she felt the wind of his breath ruffling her hair. “As long you need,” he said.