#can sect leader jiang get a break for one moment please

[clownxian]

jiang cheng antis always acting as if they'd do different in his shoes. as if losing your entire family, sect and home was just something you could brush off and get over. as if there wouldn't be an anger and a need for vengeance, that your entire bloodline wouldn't need avenging and more. they seem to struggle with humanising him and realising that all grief comes in different shapes. jiang cheng simply couldn't curl up in a ditch somewhere and accept his fate, he couldn't put himself in solitude and have someone else take charge — jiang cheng was the only one left to restore the yunmeng jiang sect, he was quite literally the surviving hope for his home and people. there's an immense sense of pressure on his shoulders, combined that with survivors guilt and then followed by the loss of jiang yanli and wei wuxian, jiang cheng really was going through the works.

[cheetahsprints]

Lingyi fic rec list!

In case anyone floats into the tag and needs this. Personal and without review/explanation because brain too rotted. I just adore this tragically non-canon pairing almost as much as our main guys.

💌 trust my love - panpipe - E - Chapters: 1 - Jin Ling confesses his feelings, and Lan Jingyi has to muddle through the aftermath. (The aftermath is they're in love.)

🕊️ best friends forever - varnes - T - Chapters: 1 - Jin Ling and Jingyi get engaged. Things spiral from there.

⚔️ Can’t Keep Holding My Breath - singingintheshower48 - T - Chapters: 2 -  Two post-canon snippets about Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi enduring growing pains, enduring a war, and somehow finding their way together.

🔥 how can i find the words to say (love has surely shifted my way) - annadream - G - Chapters: 6 -  Jingyi’s steely eyes blazed brighter than the flames surrounding them and in that moment Jin Ling knew he was in love with this loud, obnoxious fool.

📱 the song stuck in my head - poefucker (drbubblegum) - E - Chapters: 7 - Waiting until his third year of college to finish off his last actual gen ed class is absolutely a mistake, and Jingyi proudly admits to it. Public speaking is an unfortunately necessary evil. Or: the juniors have that college experience like the movies show us.

🧞‍♂️ over, sideways, & under - poefucker (drbubblegum) - T - Chapters: 10 -  Jingyi goes nighthunting. It should be that simple. But somehow, after a fateful encounter with a rude, runaway boy and getting trapped in a cave, he's strongarmed into bringing disaster upon the whole of the cultivation world by summoning the infamous Yiling Laozu for unknown purposes. Except now he grants wishes and is actually really funny for an evil spirit. Weird.

🙇‍♂️could someone call a referee - poefucker (drbubblegum) - T - Chapters: 1 -  The one where they go to prom.

📦 all there’s left to do is run - poefucker (drbubblegum) - T - Chapters: 1 -  Lan Jingyi helps his professor move in with his husband. The day doesn't end up like he expected.

🐇 what must it be like to grow up that beautiful? - taetaeloveschimmy - Not Rated - Chapters: 6 -  Jin Ling is in love with Lan Jingyi and he's not exactly thrilled that he's finding this out about himself. Meanwhile, Jingyi is also grappling with his own emotions and complicated history with Jin Ling, leaving both of them unsure of where they stand with each other.

📑 A Guide to Dumbasses Getting Together - Midori_99 - T - Chapters: 5 - Lan Jingyi pines, in poetic melancholy fashion like a true Lan, bemoaning his fate of falling in love with someone as difficult as that Spoilt Mistress Jin. Too bad his love would forever be unrequited and there's no way Jin Ling would ever look at him that way! Lan Sizhui and Ouyang Zizhen would like to disagree. "Mission: Get an overworked Jin Ling to rest and an idiotic Lan Jingyi to stop pining and just confess already, commence!"

📝 Jin Ling’s Heart Is So Big Because It’s Full of Bad Poetry - corduroyserpent - G - Chapters: 1 -  If Jin Ling had learned anything about love in his sixteen years of being alive, it was this: love made people crazy. Sometimes love made you do things like write horrifically bad poetry. It happens!

💝 Oh no- Jiujiu!!! - You_know_yeah - M - Chapters: 1 -  Jin Ling takes a break and fucks off to the Cloud Recesses to "study". Jiang Wanyin follows with the threat of paperwork and leg breaking. All Jin Ling wants to do is kiss his boyfriend and chill :(

🦊 Chasing Gold - albsyant (transtobio) - T - Chapters: 9 -  Jin Ling expected this to be just a regular night hunt, but it didn’t even last a day before disaster struck.

Lan Jingyi, meanwhile, had no idea what to do with the fox that seemed determined to cuddle against him 24/7. What had done this to Jin Ling, and could he please get his prickly cru-friend back?

🌧️ bending the clouds - Jenki - G - Chapters: 1 - Jin Ling's father left him destined to become a leader of the earthbending sect but he didn't leave him his earthbending skills. On the other hand, his mother's waterbending talent was the reason for all of his problems. But he had learned how to isolate himself and hide his secrets and feelings from everyone.Until one day an airbender from Gusu discovered his secret and, with the help of his friends, began to do his best to make Jin Ling feel loved.

👨‍🏫 just because you’re an idiot doesn’t mean you can’t go to college - theinkquiry - T - Chapters: 1 -  “So Lan Jingyi asked you for help to get Professor Wei and Professor Lan together. Does… does he not realize they’re already married?”

“No.” Jin Ling rolled his eyes. “Because he’s an idiot.”

[ephemeralgalaxies]

The Untamed has only made me cry twice, but dear god the times it did--

I've gotten close to sobbing a lot (like with jyl, that one killed me. but still didn't cry). But the two times I actually did wind up crying was with Jiang Cheng after their parents died and with Jin Ling on the pier when he breaks down.

maybe it's the repressed childhood trauma but those two moments remind me of why I love this series so freaking much.

Saving your dashboards: analysis under cut

With JC, specifically, it was after he fights wwx in the field -- when he collapses in the grass and starts sobbing and screaming "I want my mom, I want my dad, I want my people/friends/clan..." because in that moment, after he's just blamed wei wuxian for everything that's happened, wearing zidian on his wrist, jiang yanli waiting for them unaware of what's just passed. After that, he just breaks down and becomes a little kid again. He's lost so much, doesn't know if he'll ever get to go back home. He watched his mother beat wwx, watched their father leave them behind, feeling more alone than ever despite still having his siblings by his side because he was supposed to be able to protect them all. He's supposed to be the future clan sect leader, how can he not even hold his own ground? His own home? He's broken and confused bc now it all depends on him and he's never been good enough for all this. "cultivation is his life," but when you have a brother like the great future Yiling Patriarch... he just wants his family all together again, calling out for his parents like a child waking up from a nightmare in the dark, trying to regain their surroundings.

Then with Jin Ling, he's on the pier heading to Yunmeng and he should be okay, he should be fine because he has his uncles still -- he does, he does. He won't admit anything about jin guangyao yet. But... now he has another uncle? The one who named him, never got to meet him, killed his dad and his mother and hundreds of others in his family and the other clan sects-- but Oh god, here's The Ghost General who killed his dad and he's talking to Lan Suzhui and he's getting so close. Jin Ling doesn't have friends, but LSZ has always been kind; he backed him up in the Burial Mounds, always ready to see all sides of things, maybe the only one left who would understand if Jin Ling could admit all the turmoil in his mind, the feelings he refuses to address towards the people he's been raised to hate -- people that could've been his family. But Wen Ning tries to touch LSZ and no, no no no not again, I can't do this again-- and he tries to draw his father's sword because even if he will never know that peacock, jl knows he's always protecting him. because it's too much to think about his mother protecting him through the yiling patriarch. But then the other juniors gang up against him to protect LSZ bc he just pushed him and oh god he just pushed him, he was supposed to protect him and now the Yiling Patriarch is here and he's looking at LSZ like that, like how he should look at jin ling but he can't because they're not family, not anymore. And Wen Ning calls him Jin Roulan and no, don't say that name, don't remind me but Wei Wuxian looks back at him and calls to him, warns him but doesn't glare or scream or hurt him. He just tells him to put the sword away and no no no this is all I have left of him, please don't so he holds the sword in its sheath and sobs. He collapses on the pier and cries, wailing without humiliation because all he can think about it how everyone must hate me for things to be this way bc he's just a kid that grew up without parents. Just a kid with Jin Guangyao as his father's memory and Jiang Cheng as his mother's (which, really doesn't do either of them justice no matter how much jc and even jgy might try, bc they can never be their siblings). Because he pushes everyone away. Because he doesn't dare get close to anyone else just to lose them again. Because his uncle might be the cause of all this suffering. Because his other uncle -- that he's never claimed -- was supposed to be behind all this, all sixteen years of his life spent hating him. Because his other uncle is hurt and crass and desperate to protect him but can never really give him what jiang yanli would have. But he's all jin ling has left, so he runs to him and away from all the others even if it burns him.

TLDR: Idk, just really sobbed at those spots where they both just act so much like little kids because Jiang Cheng just lost his childhood while Jin Ling never got to have one.

[tangledinmdzs]

Your talent for writing is a blessing! It makes my day a bit better reading your content. if your not busy (please take a break if you are) is it ok to request how LXC, JC, WWX and LWJ react to their s/o who is very stoic and cold smile for the first time? Like they never see them smile in canon au? Advance Thank You

hi!

thank you so much for your sweetness 

this such a cute and familiar concept. i’ve feel like i’ve written something similar before for song lan...; if i find that post again i’ll share it here, hehe.

please enjoy this concept with some more characters!

to you~

*:..｡o○　　○o｡..:*

Lan Xichen

it is not coldness, as much as it is pure seriousness

you didn’t really ever smile 

you were very work oriented, straight forward and focused

so smiling, laughing, stronger (happier) emotions were mostly pushed to the side

not when there was so much work to be done, as the leader and protector that you were 

but in the instance that Lan Xichen catches a smile on your face

that being, when you are giving him a tour of your one of the outer villages of your sect

and a child comes running up to you,

the smile that you give the toddler is absolutely radiant,

so loving, caring

and it isn’t hard to see why the children of your sect love you so much 

watching your serene profile as you pick the young boy up, nudge his cheek as he laughs at you

Lan Xichen knows that you will be a great leader,

and he’s in awe, a little love struck, by the warmth of happiness, spread on your face 

Jiang Cheng

honestly, Jiang Cheng would have just thought that you didn’t know how to smile

your presence at sect leader meetings was similar to the frost on the branches in winter

cold, biting, freezing

you were quiet, serious and rarely ever laughed

which is why the expression that you wear now makes him quite winded

this soft, laid back expression on your face, as you sit with him on one of the higher floors of the shops,

overlooking the riverside port of his town

it is the first time that you have ever accepted an invitation to dine with him, 

working with you, he understood that you rarely ever made time for anything that wasn’t business

he doesn’t know why you’d agree to meet him tonight,

but he’s grateful that you did

“thank you,” he hears you tell him, as you lift the cup of liquor to your lips and down it 

when you put it down, a bit heavy handedly 

he watches this small smile grace your face, a mixture of intoxication and melancholy as you stare at the cup in your hands

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what to think of your expression

doesn’t think he can ever forget it

Wei Wuxian

Wei Wuxian has never seen you smile

and he didn’t think that he would ever get to 

your natural disposition was quite cold, closed off ever since he met you 

now that he’s known you for a few months,

it is still much the same

though instead of coldness, he understands the serious look you wear is more out of shyness than anything

he’s getting to know your emotions little by little

remembering your squeezed eye and light shout when you’re surprised, or scared

knows the smirk that you sometimes don when he does something stupid 

but still yet to see a full smile 

“c’mon, smile for me, won’t you? it’ll probably help the birds sing,” Wei Wuxian teases you, now that he’s so easily walked over past the line of acquaintance and into friend

and you hate to admit it, but you think of him as a friend too

and it’s after the probably hundredth time that he teases you on your walk that you finally

stop, turn over to him and give him this full blown forced smile, 

and you look like a kid, a five year old

it gets a loud laugh out of Wei Wuxian, one that colors your ears and cheeks red as you quickly stop ahead of him on the dirt path

your face is so bright, so cute even with such a forced smile

and as Wei Wuxian follows your lead,

he gets even more curious, of how bright a real smile would look on you

Lan Wangji

honestly seeing a smile from the Hanguang-Jun himself, was also a feat in and of itself

but where Lan Wangji just usually didn’t smile 

you, yourself, didn’t like to smile

and it was the oddest idea that Lan Wangji had ever come across, ever since you had told him about it,

“people won’t take me seriously if i smile,” you had said, when the topic comes along after a long night of scroll reading and advisement and boring work

and that had been the end of that

you don’t smile, at all, ever really and keep that little bit of yourself secret

until a few months down the line of your friendship with Lan Wangji

when he finally sees you smile, 

he is quite taken back

because you look so happy, carefree from your normal seriousness,

it throws Wangji for a small loop

and he thinks maybe the real reason why you don’t smile

is because any one who saw it would be so easily distracted, smitten

Lan Wangji knows he himself is, 

from the first look 

“why are you looking at me like that?” you ask him, looking away from the bunny you’re bouncing in your arms for a moment

Lan Wangji simply stares,

doesn’t quite respond

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng start hooking up post-canon and Wei Wuxian assumes it's part of a scheme on Nie Huaisang's part. Possibly it was actually a scheme but Nie Huaisang got into it anyway. Or if sadness is more your thing, he didn't, and Wei Wuxian is left being like "see Jiang Cheng? I knew he couldn't have been hanging around with you for fun!"

ao3 (short)

“You need to stop,” Wei Wuxian said, his eyes narrow and expression fierce.

It was a lot less effective on Mo Xuanyu’s face than it had been on his original features. No one had yet told him, presumably out of a desire to avoid being murdered by Lan Wangji for making his lover sad.

Nie Huaisang frowned at him. “Stop…what?”

“Whatever it is you’re up to!”

Oh, were they doing this again?

Nie Huaisang opened up a fan and hid his face behind it in a single movement – he’d gotten really good at it over the years – and started idly fanning himself. “Wei-xiong, really, you’ll need to be more specific. I’m up to so many things, don’t you know…?”

Normally Nie Huaisang wouldn’t bother playing along, but he could see Jiang Cheng coming down the hallway at an angle that put him directly in Wei Wuxian’s blind spot – if there was one thing Jinlin Tower was good for, it was not seeing people – and he could already see Jiang Cheng starting to smile at his nonsense, which was obviously far more important than whatever it was that Wei Wuxian thought he’d figured out.

Hmm. Maybe Nie Huaisang was being too hasty in judging Lan Wangji’s rudeness – love really did make you do the stupidest things…

“I meant in relation to Jiang Cheng.”

Nie Huaisang stopped fanning and stared blankly at him. A few steps away from the turn, he saw Jiang Cheng come to a halt as well, already scowling.

“Jiang – Cheng?” he said hesitantly. “What exactly does Wei-xiong think I’m doing with Jiang-xiong?”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms. “I’m not sure,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Nie Huaisang blinked at him. “But if I knew that, Wei-xiong, I wouldn’t have asked you, would I?”

The main problem Wei Wuxian had with confronting Nie Huaisang about anything, really, was that he genuinely found Nie Huaisang terribly funny. The twitching lips made the glaring more difficult.

(Behind him, Jiang Cheng was rolling his eyes, a full-body production that involved a great deal of heaving of shoulders and clutching at his head at the rampant stupidity on display. Nie Huaisang appreciated his lover's dedication to the art.)

Still – and this part was worrisome – Wei Wuxian’s smile faded away soon enough, replaced by a solemn expression.

“We may not be on the best of terms right now,” he said. “But he’s still very dear to me. I won’t put up with you using him as part of one of your schemes.”

“I don’t actually have any schemes,” Nie Huaisang said, mostly because Jiang Cheng was frowning now and Nie Huaisang did not want Wei Wuxian to mess up his budding relationship. “Really, Wei-xiong! I had one scheme, and it took me over a decade – I’m hardly the shadowy puppet-master mastermind you seem to sometimes seem to take me as. Why would you think that I’m using Jiang-xiong?”

“You’re deceitful,” Wei Wuxian said. “You made Jin Guangyao think that you were weak and dependent on him for years even as you plotted to bring him down. And now you’re pulling the same thing on Jiang Cheng – what am I supposed to think?”

Wei Wuxian must have seen them in the market, Nie Huaisang thought. He’d been carping around, playing up his good-for-nothing self – Jiang Cheng liked it when he did that. Mostly because Nie Huaisang really was a bit of a good-for-nothing, his one scheme claim to fame being firmly in the past; his cultivation was weak, his achievements few, his personality…questionable…

(Jin Ling had, upon discovering them spending time together, told Nie Huaisang that he fit everyone one of the criteria that Jiang Cheng had set out for a wife, right down to the weaker level of cultivation and the proper family background. Nie Huaisang had bought him some candy on the basis that ‘be nice to Jin Ling’ was on the list, and told him to think about the type of mileage he could get out of something like that. Jin Ling had looked appropriately thoughtful, after.

Nie Huaisang was a very good influence – or possibly a bad one, he wasn’t sure.)

At any rate, Jiang Cheng liked indulging him, liked and was reassured by the contrast between them. No one looking at them would ever put Jiang Cheng second – Nie Huaisang wasn’t even prettier! – except maybe in terms of insults, and even Jiang Cheng had to admit that he didn’t really want the privilege of being called the worst Great Sect leader, even if it was a superlative.

Wei Wuxian must have seen.

Wei Wuxian must have totally misunderstood.

“Jiang-xiong was at the Guanyin temple as well,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “It’s not like er-ge at all.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “Do you really have the right to call Lan-da-ge that?”

“My brother’s no less my brother because he’s dead, and he kept his oath to the end,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “Why should the other two be released from the obligations of their oath just because they chose to foreswear their side of it?”

“Stop getting away from the point,” Wei Wuxian said, probably because Nie Huaisang was right. Bitter and mean and resentful, but right. “Whatever you’re scheming that involves Jiang Cheng, stop it.”

“No.”

Wei Wuxian blinked.

“I’m not scheming, but even if I was, the target would be Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang explained. “You don’t understand, Wei-xiong. You see, I like Jiang Cheng.”

“I’m sure you do,” Wei Wuxian said. “But I also think you liked Jin Guangyao, a bit.”

Maybe he had. A bit.

But it wasn’t the same at all!

“I especially won’t tolerate you using him for sex while also –”

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng bellowed, and Wei Wuxian jumped a chi into the air.

Nie Huaisang fanned himself. “Oh good,” he said. “I was about to be worried that you’d misunderstand, Jiang-xiong, but luckily Wei-xiong decided to take all the awkwardness onto himself.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jiang Cheng snarled at Wei Wuxian, who blanched but scowled back.

“I was just trying to help –”

“By embarrassing me?”

“How is it embarrassing to you?!”

“You think I’d be – what – led around by my dick like some new model Jin Guangshan –”

“Oh, that’s a good insult,” Nie Huaisnag said approvingly. “I’m going to need to use that in the future. What do you think the odds are for Lan Wangji biting me if I said it to him?”

That got both of them to stop fighting and turn to look at him.

“What? Does he only bite people he likes now? He used to bite everybody.”

Blank staring.

“That was back when he was five,” Nie Huaisang allowed. “It’s been a while.”

“You have stories about baby Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian said at once, as one might’ve expected. “I want them. All of them. Now.”

“Weren’t you threatening him a moment ago?!”

“That’s different! That was for you!”

“Right, because you don’t think anyone would actually like me,” Jiang Cheng said.

He sounded hurt.

Unacceptable.

“I’m sure Wei-xiong just meant that you were so unbearably attractive that people would compete for the opportunity to manipulate them into your bed,” Nie Huaisang assured him while Wei Wuxian was still trying to find words. “And since Wei-xiong thinks I’m the best schemer, obviously I won hands down, and secretly eliminated all my love rivals to boot. It's all my fault. Alas! I've been caught red-handed!”

“Are you actually capable of saying a single word that isn’t complete nonsense?” Jiang Cheng asked him, his tone having returned to exasperated and fond, which was worlds better than hurt.

Nie Huaisang considered the question seriously and then shook his head.

“You…! Good-for-nothing!”

Nie Huaisang nodded happily. “Your good-for-nothing,” he said cheerfully. “I’m going to make you do everything for me from now on.”

He was, too.

Wei Wuxian looked between them. “Wait,” he said. “Is this – a thing?”

“If you mean Jiang-xiong and I, yes,” Nie Huaisang said. “He’s been courting me for years, and I refused.”

“Only on the basis of a secret murder plot which you didn’t want to get me involved in.”

“How was I to know that everything would turn out well in the end? I thought there was every chance san-ge would find a way to drag me down with him. I couldn’t let that happen to you, of course.”

“Of course,” Jiang Cheng jeered, but he looked pleased and smug the way he always did when Nie Huaisang admitted to having been won over by the very first day of his courtship, years ago. He liked being successful at things.

“No,” Wei Wuxian said. “Not that. The – good-for-nothing thing. It’s a thing. For you two.”

“Fighting words,” Nie Huaisang remarked, even as Jiang Cheng flushed red. “Coming from the dreadful Yiling Patriarch that needs to be defeated by the mighty and righteous Hanguang-jun and then taken away for a good ravishing –”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Uh - listen – I can explain – actually, no, I can’t. Nie-xiong, you have my blessing, just don’t break his heart, bye.”

“Come back here you -!”

Yes, Nie Huaisang decided, watching Jiang Cheng chase Wei Wuxian. This was the best possible result.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

May I request a MDZS prompt, please?

Jiang Yanli isn’t stupid.

She knows her brothers. She knows Wei Wuxian, knows when he’s about to leap before looking, so she does what she’s always done.

She gets ready to catch him.

Practically speaking, this means she corners him and gets the whole terrible plan out of him. She talks to Wen Qing and looks over the book then says, “You are not giving your core away to A-Cheng.”

“Shijie,” he starts, weary and desperate and bleeding out in front of her, not physically, but in every other way. She’s not going to let him.

“I will give him mine,” she continues. “It’s not doing me much good anyway.”

Wei Wuxian argues, tries to talk her out of it, but she doesn’t budge. She walks into Jiang Cheng’s room, sits by his side, and calmly tells him Wei Wuxian’s terrible plan and her much better one.

Jiang Cheng tries to refuse both of them, just like Jiang Yanli knew he would, but she smooths out his blanket and takes his hands and hers and says, “My core is a small thing. You can make it stronger. It does almost nothing for me. But one day you can regain what you’ve lost.”

“No,” he says stubbornly. “I won’t take it from either of you. Do you think I let them take me just so I could lose you both all over again?”

There’s a moment of perfect silence, then Wei Wuxian repeats, “Let?”

He flushes, but just like she pried the truth from Wei Wuxian, she does the same to Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian paces the room angrily, breath coming in to quickly, and Jiang Cheng gives her a helpless look and she can’t stop herself from smooth out his hair and saying, “A-Xian, be reasonable. You were willing to give up your core for A-Cheng. Why do you think he’d do any less for you?”

“It’s – that’s not – I’m not worth that!” he shouts, eyes red and lips trembling.

“Who the fuck are you to decide what you’re worth to me?” Jiang Cheng snaps. “You’re my brother. You and A-jie are the only family I have left now. I’m not losing either of you. I don’t care what it costs me.”

“A-Xian,” she says, opening her arms. “Come here. This is where you’re supposed to be. With us.”

He flinches away and she tries not let it show that it hurts her. Then Jiang Cheng sighs and raises an arm, long suffering, and Wei Wuxian breaks, going over to both of them and clinging, an arm going around both her and Jiang Cheng, and they stay that way for a long time.

Jiang Yanli gets her way, in the end. The surgery is too big a risk to her on it’s own, but, well, they’re not on their own.

They have Wei Wuxian.

His golden core is powerful enough that he can feed spiritual power into her the whole time, that he can press his hands into her wrists and ensure the shock of losing her golden core doesn’t kill her, he can ensure that her body manages the adjustment in a way that keeps her heart beating and lungs moving. In a way, it’ll be easier for her than it would have been for him. Her golden core is so small that it’s never been something her body has relied on, after all.

The surgery is a success, but it will take several years for Jiang Cheng to cultivate her core back to his old levels.

They don’t have a couple of years. They’re in the middle of a war, their remaining people are scattered, and they have work to do.

Jiang Yanli can’t help but be grimly satisfied that what her mother feared most has come to past.

Wei Wuxian tries to refuse, but Jiang Cheng can’t both nurture his new, weak golden core and lead, and Jiang Yanli now has no golden core at all. It’s their only option.

Wei Wuxian takes the place of Sect Leader Jiang and leads their sect with both her and Jiang Cheng at his side.

[bloody-bee-tea]

Have a fluffy thought for distraction: discussion conference at Cloud Recesses, sect leader Jiang has not returned to the talks after a break and no one can find him. Hours later someone goes to feed the bunnies and finds him in the meadow, covered in bunnies. Maybe he's asleep, maybe he's awake, either way he can't move because that would disturb the bunnies and you don't disturb animals that picked you as their seat :3 he lives in the meadow now.

A field of rabbits

Well it certainly distracted me into writing XD <3

When everyone files back into the conference room and Jiang Wanyin is nowhere to be seen, Nie Mingjue doesn’t immediately panic. 

This is the Cloud Recesses after all, and it’s highly unlikely that he got attacked or ran into some trouble here. After Wen Xu managed to burn the Cloud Recesses, they made sure that it’s one of the most fortified places right after the Unclean Realm and possibly Lotus Pier.

Jiang Wanyin might be a magnet for trouble, and he might look for fights more than anyone else Nie Mingjue knows except himelf, but the chances that he found either here are slim to none.

It’s much more likely that there was an emergency with his Sect that he has to deal with before he can come back to the conference. 

It happened before and it will happen again; after all, they are all Sect Leaders here and there are always issues the second in command can’t deal with on their own.

Nie Mingjue has the utmost understanding for that.

But when Lan Qiren steps into the room and frowns, before worry visibly clouds over his face that’s the moment unease makes itself known in Nie Mingjue’s belly.

If Jiang Wanyin had to deal with something else, then he would have notified Lan Qiren, there’s no doubt about that.

Jiang Wanyin has the utmost respect for Lan Qiren and he would never be late or miss a meeting intentionally, not without telling Lan Qiren or informing him otherwise.

But it doesn’t seem like Lan Qiren knows what happened to Jiang Wanyin either, and that’s cause to worry.

People are already starting to whisper about his absence and Nie Mingjue clenches his fist.

Jiang Wanyin has been leading his Sect for over three years now; bringing it back from the brink and restoring it to much of its former glory and still people are talking about him as if he’s a helpless teenager who doesn’t deserve their respect or fear.

Nie Mingjue hates it with every fibre of his being, because Jiang Wanyin has stepped up for his Sect in a way not many would have been able to and it itches him to snap at all of them.

It’s only Lan Qiren who catches his gaze that stops him.

“Sect Leader Jiang has been delayed by an important issue. He is requesting for Sect Leader Nie’s assistance, so if you would, please,” Lan Qiren says with a meaningful glance towards Nie Mingjue and Nie Mingjue nods his understanding.

Lan Qiren has no goddamn clue where Jiang Wanyin is and he wants him to look for him.

Nie Mingjue will more than gladly do that.

There is no real danger here that could have befallen Jiang Wanyin, but Nie Mingjue still worries.

He has never seen anyone with eye rings that deep or black, especially since Jiang Wanyin is otherwise almost deathly pale and the concern that he might have just dropped dead is a real one.

Jiang Wanyin is pushing himself far too hard.

Nie Mingjue asks every disciple he sees if they have seen Jiang Wanyin but he only gets vague answers in return.

It seems like Jiang Wanyin vanished like a shadow.

Nie Mingjue feels frustration rise in him when he makes his way through the entire Cloud Recesses with no sign of Jiang Wanyin.

“You think the rabbits will be mad that we didn’t feed them?” Nie Mingjue hears a disciple say suddenly and he frowns. 

“I think better the rabbits than Sect Leader Jiang,” another voice replies and before Nie Mingjue can inquire about what they mean, they are gone.

But he finally has a lead and so he follows the path that leads to the meadow with the rabbits.

He used to come here a lot with Lan Xichen when they were both younger and less burdened but ever since the Sunshot Campaign neither of them have the time for this anymore.

His feet still remember the path well though, and it’s not long before the first rabbits come into view.

The rabbits and a figure clad in purple.

Nie Mingjue breathes a little bit easier just for having found Jiang Wanyin but then it registers in his mind that Jiang Wanyin is splayed out on the ground, not moving or talking, and the worry comes back with a vengeance.

Nie Mingjue stealthily makes his way over to Jiang Wanyin, but as soon as he gets closer he realizes that Jiang Wanyin is breathing easily and deeply and he seems more relaxed than Nie Mingjue has ever seen him.

He just fell asleep then. That’s good.

Nie Mingjue has to bite back a smile when one of the startled rabbits makes its way back onto Jiang Wanyin’s stomach, where it promptly falls back asleep.

Nie Mingjue is unsure if the rabbits climbed on Jiang Wanyin and prevented him from leaving, causing him to fall asleep, or if Jiang Wanyin fell asleep and the rabbits claimed him as their bed, but it doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that Jiang Wanyin finally got some rest.

Nie Mingjue carefully sits down next to him, but of course Jiang Wanyin startles awake. It seems like the war and the stress are still too close.

“Relax,” Nie Mingjue lowly says, taking care not to startle the rabbits any more than Jiang Wanyin’s violent waking up did and Nie Mingjue watches fondly as the same rabbit as before makes its bed on Jiang Wanyin’s stomach yet again.

It seems to be a particularly good spot for sleeping.

“What are you doing here?” Jiang Wanyin asks him and his voice is rough enough to suggest that he at least slept for most of their break.

That’s good.

“Looking for you,” Nie Mingjue lowly gives back and puts a hand to Jiang Wanyin’s shoulder when he tries to get up. “Relax,” he says again and Jiang Wanyin does sink back into the grass, but there’s tension in his face now.

“The break is over,” he whispers, sounding horrified and Nie Mingjue nods.

“It is, but don’t worry. Lan Qiren has your back.”

“What did he say?” Jiang Wanyin asks as if he fears the answer.

“That there has been an important issue. You asked for my help, if you’re wondering,” Nie Mingjue says easily and then lays down on the grass as well. “And I like what you’re doing so I’ll join you.”

“Sect Leader Nie—” Jiang Wanyin starts but Nie Mingjue doesn’t let him speak.

“Mingjue. Nie Mingjue if you must,” he corrects him and then closes his eyes as the first curious rabbits start to explore him.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Wanyin whispers after a long moment and Nie Mingjue blinks over to him.

“What for?”

“Missing the conference. Making you miss it, too. You can go back if you want to, and I’ll follow soon.”

Nie Mingjue eyes first the rabbit on his own stomach and then the numerous ones on Jiang Wanyin and raises an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t think either of us will. You don’t move if an animal has chosen you as their sleeping spot. It’s just not done. Believe me, I know. Huaisang has many birds who like to sit on me and you’re simply not allowed to disturb them. It’s an unwritten law,” Nie Mingjue tells him and reaches out for another rabbit to add it to the ones already on Jiang Wanyin.

“And would you look at that, another one chose you. You can leave even less now.”

Jiang Wanyin is staring at him with wide eyes and Nie Mingjue is absolutely unprepared to see tears well up in them.

It seems like Jiang Wanyin wasn’t prepared for that either if the panic in his eyes is any indication and Nie Mingjue does the only thing he can think of.

He plops a rabbit onto Jiang Wanyin’s face.

The rabbit doesn’t struggle like Nie Mingjue expected it to and instead stays on his face for long, long moments, and Jiang Wanyin doesn’t make a move to dislodge it either.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Cheng finally croaks out again and Nie Mingjue sighs, before he crosses his arms behind his head.

“There is no need to be. You’re pushing yourself too hard. Lan Qiren and I worry. It’s good for you to take some time off and where better to do it than here. Lan Qiren will inform us if there’s anything important, but you should know how these things go by now. Sect Leader Yao will think he’s the most important man in the room until Jin Guangshan reminds him that he is in fact the most important man in the room and by then it will be evening. It’s not like we’re going to miss much.”

“True,” Jiang Wanyin says with a snort, which finally makes the rabbit move off his face.

There are no more tears in his eyes, but Jiang Wanyin seems bone-deep exhausted.

“Rest some more. I’ll make sure no one disturbs us,” Nie Mingjue lowly says and Jiang Wanyin closes his eyes with a sigh.

“I shouldn’t be this weak,” he mutters under his breath and Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes.

“You’re human,” he gives back. “And your body has needs. Sleep is one of them.”

“I don’t have time to sleep,” Jiang Wanyin whispers but he closes his eyes.

“You do now. So make the best of it,” Nie Mingjue advises him and he’s pretty sure Jiang Wanyin falls asleep before he even finishes talking.

Nie Mingjue stares at him for a moment longer—he didn’t quite realize that Jiang Wanyin was so tired that he would basically drift off in the middle of a conversation—but it’s not really a surprise, not with how exhausted he looks.

He watches Jiang Wanyin for a while, looking for any kind of movement, but he seems to be deep into sleep already and so Nie Mingjue turns his head back to look at the sky.

He’ll have to talk to Lan Qiren so they can figure out how to efficiently help Jiang Wanyin lessen the burden of leadership.

Jiang Wanyin is one of the good ones and it would be a shame to lose him to stress and sleep-deprivation this soon.

Nie Mingjue will make sure that he leads a healthier lifestyle than Lan Qiren and Nie Mingjue did back when they took over their respective Sects.

And the first step for that is to let Jiang Wanyin sleep in a field of rabbits. It seems like a good start.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

[antebunny]

Lan Wangji: Damsel-in-Distress

If Lan Wangji had known it was this easy to get Wei Ying to do what he wanted, he would’ve put himself in mortal peril a long time ago.

He has this realization when they’re retreating from the Wens. Despite Wei Ying’s new, dangerous powers successfully turning the tide of war in their favor, the Sunshot Campaign still loses battles and takes losses. But Nie Mingjue rarely loses battles, and Wei Ying has never lost a battle he participated in, which makes this battle a special case. 

Their intelligence underestimated the number of Wens in this region, so when Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin launch an attack shortly after sunrise, leading the Lan and Jiang cultivators into battle, their forces falter under the onslaught of Wens. 

The Wen supervisory office is bathed in blood when Wei Ying arrives. He collapsed after the last battle, and Jiang Wanyin elected to head into battle anyway, under the premise that it would allow Wei Ying more time to rest. Lan Wangji very much disapproves of Jiang Wanyin’s decision to let Wei Ying continue demonic cultivation, even if it is winning them the war, but he has to admit that he does care for Wei Ying in other ways. But Jiang Wanyin’s plan backfired, because instead of winning the battle and successfully giving Wei Ying the day to rest, the battle instead dragged on, until the day sunk into night and they were forced to admit they were losing.

Lan Wangji is knee-deep in dead bodies and blood, guarding the retreat of their forces, when he steps into the array. He misses it because of the sheer volumes of blood, running from an endless number of sword wounds. He stands facing the entrance of the supervisory office, back to the retreating Lans and Jiangs. Jiang Wanyin is ten paces behind him, Zidian one violet blur around him. 

The shrieking of Chenqing heralds Wei Ying’s arrival, and Lan Wangji is just as displeased as he is pleased. He spares himself one glance back, and sees Wei Ying standing on the roof of a nearby building, corpses already rallying to his song. Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin make brief eye contact.

“Go,” Lan Wangji tells him. “Wei Ying and I will cover the retreat.”

If Jiang Wanyin resents being told what to do, he sees the sense in Lan Wangji’s words and nods sharply. The Lans hesitate to abandon their Hanguang-jun, but a sharp gesture from Lan Wangji sends them after Jiang Wanyin and his contingent of cultivators. 

At the same time, Wei Ying advances, jumping off the roof and joining his ranks of corpses. Lan Wangji pushes down his usual revulsion upon seeing Wei Ying walking amongst the corpses. He retreats to the top of the steps while the corpses of Wen and Jiang alike line up at the bottom, Wei Ying at their head. The Wen cultivators hesitate to chase after the retreating cultivators, scared by the presence of Wei Ying. Instead, they cluster outside the main door but before the stairs, surrounding Lan Wangji in a loose semi-circle.

Lan Wangji’s fingertips are bloody on the strings of his guqin when he feels the array flare up around him. 

Immediately, Lan Wangji tenses, and inspects the array for weaknesses. Wei Ying runs up the stairs, but red light flares up when he tries to break the array, and Wei Ying is pushed back, hissing in pain. A moment later they both realize that the array is a repurposed protective array, meant to keep out demonic energy. This includes, of course, demonic cultivation, and by extension, Wei Ying.

Lan Wangji’s mind is already racing with possible solutions, and clearly Wei Ying’s is doing the same, if the grim smile that settles on his face is any indication. It takes the Wens a further five seconds to recognize the array, at which point they all level their swords and begin to run towards Lan Wangji. 

There’s only two meters between the Wens and the array, and about two seconds before the Wens reach the array. During those two seconds, time for Lan Wangji slows to a near standstill. 

The array trapping Lan Wangji is perhaps one and a half meters in diameter. Wei Ying can very easily direct his corpses around it and kill all the Wens at the top of the stairs. But the Wens, unlike the corpses, can enter the array. Wei Ying cannot enter the array, and Lan Wangji cannot leave. The only way Lan Wangji can leave is if someone enters the array and takes him out–these arrays are nominally made by cultivators to protect non-cultivators who find themselves in the middle of a night hunt or some such danger. 

This means Lan Wangji will be fighting however many Wens can fit inside the array, which by his estimate is up to twenty at a time. Although Lan Wangji is confident that he can defeat twenty Wen cultivators, he knows that he cannot fight the entire army, especially not after having fought for the entire day. 

In other words, Lan Wangji is about to die.

This all passes through his mind in less time than it takes the Wens to realize what the array even is, which means that he’s turning back to look at Wei Ying one last time when the Wens actually start running. Wei Ying, having come to the same conclusion perhaps faster than Lan Wangji, has set his corpse army into motion by the time Lan Wangji turns back to look at him. The corpses flood past Lan Wangji, roaring and snarling, but Lan Wangji already knows that they won’t slow the Wens down enough. 

So instead of turning around to defend himself, he finds himself staring at Wei Ying’s face, even though Wei Ying’s familiar silver eyes are instead demonic red, and his pretty face is twisted in a dangerous smile.

Wei Ying presses a hand to his chest and then draws it away. Shadows follow, swirling all around his body like Wei Ying’s very presence causes resentment to the world. They hiss and shift like writhing snakes, lashing against Wei Ying’s control until his face twists with effort. 

“Here,” Wei Ying says. “Catch.”

And then he hurls the resentful energy like the world’s deadliest toy. The massive cloud of demonic energy quickly seeps into the Wen soldiers, who freeze in place, suddenly battling an invisible energy. Soon, screams split the air, as grown men crumple under a fraction of the power Wei Ying wields. 

Used to wield. 

Wei Ying looks so much smaller without his deadly aura. His eyes shine a familiar silver as he takes the one step he needs to cross the array. A shiver runs through him as he does, and he staggers on the other side of the array. His fingers wrap around Lan Wangji’s wrist, and his grip is much weaker than Lan Wangji thought it would be. 

“Well, don’t take your time, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying chides with dark humor. “It’s not like we have all day.”

He pulls Lan Wangji out of the array, and collapses nearly the moment he’s out. Lan Wangji doesn’t waste a moment before scooping Wei Ying up in his arms. He steps onto Bichen, guqin on his back, and flies off as fast as his shaking limbs can carry him, leaving the Wens behind to deal with the corpses.

Lan Wangji arrives at camp with spots dancing in his vision, and Wei Ying in his shaking arms. Wei Ying, who is free from demonic cultivation. 

Drunk on this victory, Lan Wangji promptly faints.

-

Lan Wangji curses his body’s limitations when he next wakes up and discovers that during the time he was unconscious, Wei Ying woke up and promptly picked up demonic cultivation again. He witnessed firsthand how weak Wei Ying was in the moments after he removed all the demonic energy from his body, so he has no doubt that Wei Ying was scared. But if only he hadn’t fainted, if only he’d been there when Wei Ying woke up to support him through this temporary weakness and encourage him to pick up Suibian instead of Chenqing–

It’s no use, he tells himself. What’s done is done. What he focuses on instead is the moment he looked back at Wei Ying and saw his face set in grim determination. He knows that Wei Ying realized everything he did, which means he looked at Lan Wangji trapped in the array and made a choice: Lan Wangji or demonic cultivation. Of course, he did it knowing that he could pick it up again, but still, Lan Wangji’s heart does funny little rabbit thumps every time he remembers how Wei Ying’s overwhelming gaze focused on him as he casually drew the resentful energy out of his body and chose Lan Wangji. 

It seems that all of Lan Wangji’s lectures and arguments about the danger of demonic cultivation had a much simpler solution. Wei Ying threw it all away because Lan Wangji needed help. Now Lan Wangji finds himself in a strange situation, in which the way to help Wei Ying involves something Lan Wangji has never done, not once in his life: asking for help.

-

Naturally, he turns to his brother for advice.

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen says, his smile strained to the point of breaking. “No.”

Lan Wangji frowns. It sounds perfectly reasonable to him.

“You are not putting yourself in mortal peril on the off-chance that Young Master Wei will choose to abandon his method of cultivation,” Xichen says flatly.

“It is not an off-chance,” Lan Wangji argues. He’s almost never argued with his brother before, merely choosing to run away from conversations (such as “I see you’ve been staring at the Jiangs’ Head Disciple a lot, Wangji–Wangji, come back–”)

“Assume that he does, then,” Lan Xichen allows. “Did you not say he immediately picked it up again?”

“Giving up demonic cultivation caused him to collapse,” Lan Wangji says. “As I was injured at the time, I was not there to help him through its loss, and Jiang Wanyin–” He allows himself a small scowl, so furious is he at the carelessness of Wei Ying’s brother. “–did not say a word to stop him.”

To be fair, he doubts that Jiang Wanyin discouraging Wei Ying from using demonic cultivation would stop him. Lan Wangji must admit that he’s taken advantage of Wei Ying’s lack of respect for his new sect leader’s orders. Once he understood that Jiang Wanyin would make no move to prevent Wei Ying from using demonic cultivation, he turned his entreaties to Wei Ying instead, knowing that the only way to help Wei Ying would be getting through to Wei Ying himself. And because with the war keeping him exhausted and on the verge of losing his temper, he’s afraid that if he talks to Jiang Wanyin for too long, he’ll snap and beat him bloody, which is not the support that neither Lan Xichen nor Wei Ying need right now.

Lan Wangji eyes his brother expectantly, hoping that Lan Xichen will offer to guide and support Wei Ying on his behalf, after Wei Ying has narrowly recused Lan Wangji from mortal peril once more.

If he’s being completely honest with himself, it would be far easier to engineer a scenario in which Wei Ying must give up demonic cultivation for either of his siblings. But Lan Wangji’s morals won’t allow him to put others in danger in such an underhanded scheme, and Lan Wangji very much likes the thought of Wei Ying running to his rescue. The truth that Lan Wangji does not want to admit to himself is that the second reason is far more compelling to him than the first.

Lan Xichen’s face makes a strange motion that indicates that he would be sighing at Lan Wangji if he was just a slightest bit meaner. “Wangji,” he says patiently, “from what you have told me, Young Master Wei purged himself of resentful energy because you needed his help. Why do you not just ask for his help?”

That, Lan Wangji has to admit, sounds far simpler than orchestrating a scenario in which Wei Ying is the only one who can help him, specifically by setting aside demonic cultivation. 

It’s also far less compelling than Wei Ying dashing heroically to his rescue, but Lan Wangji was raised to be straightforward. 

He was not, however, raised to need help, so he frowns and asks; “How?”

Lan Xichen still refrains from sighing at him, because he knows why Lan Wangji finds the concept of asking for help so baffling. “Well,” he says, “here’s one thing you can do…”

[songofclarity]

so i’ve been reading through some of your metas, and i’m confused by a few things.

why do you attribute jin guangshan’s decisions and endeavors to jin guangyao? jgy lacked the authority to make those decisions, and even trying to object would have meant ostracizing himself as unfilial to his father (*and* his mother), or provoking far worse consequences.

specifically, you attributed the tingshan he situation, the imprisonment of the wens, the campaign against wwx, and the decision to keep xue yang around to jgy, when all of those decisions were made by jin guangshan

the other thing that confuses is me is that when the topic of nie mingjue’s conflicts come up, it seems like you argue that nie mingjue is some combination of rational, justified, and/or (morally) correct every time, even though one of the core themes of the book is that no one is always in the right, and that everyone is capable of, and *does* do harm, whether they mean to or not.

is that actually how you feel, or am i missing something? i promise i’m not trying to pick a fight, im just trying to understand your thought process.

I really don't know where to begin with all this, Anon, so this might take a moment lol

Jin Guangshan is even more pitiful (derogatory) than Jin Guangyao in my eyes. That man literally can't do anything on his own and we see it over and over from how he doesn't know how to handle the breaking of the marriage arrangement between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli to how he's having to desperately ask for help at Langya during the Sunshot Campaign to how he's cowed into silence when faced down by Wei Wuxian's boldness and later by Nie Mingjue's wrath. That man is afraid of his own wife because he can't keep his business in his pants and yet his solution is just to hide in more brothels.

Do we really think Jin Guangshan is the evil mastermind of this operation?

Jin Guangshan is a coward at heart, but he's a wealthy and handsome and successful cultivator who is busy chasing one honeymoon phase after another with all the woman who are willing to flatter him because he's also Sect Leader Jin. So you can bet he has dumbass ideas of grandeur floating around in his head, and it's only made worse when the Wen are gone and the skies are clear for the taking. He's dangerous in the way rich, indulgent men are dangerous in that he doesn't think about the lives he ruins in his misadventures, but no way does this man know how to actually achieve anything real or build things.

Jin Guangyao though? Jin Guangyao has been working hard all day every day of his life. He knows how to get shit done. He knows how to turn vague ideas into something tangible.

And Jin Guangyao is desperate, and desperation can make people do really awful, horrible things.

We see how he is in the Nie Sect and the Wen Sect. No one has to give him orders. He volunteers and picks tasks for himself just fine before they are given.

Jin Guangyao has also revealed that he doesn't care what lows he descends into if it means getting what he wants.

Please remember that it was popularly known by everyone that Jin Guangshan never wanted Jin Guangyao or any of his bastards in his life, and yet Jin Guangyao worked very, very hard to push himself into Jin Guangshan's life regardless.

So, "Trying to object would have meant ostracizing himself as unfilial to his father (*and* his mother), or provoking far worse consequences" doesn't make much sense to me. Jin Guangshan never wanted Jin Guangyao's filial piety and Jin Guangyao's reasons for going to Koi Tower come from a place of entitlement, not obedience, with the idea that he deserved to be treated with equal respect as Jin Zixuan and live at Koi Tower and be Jin Guangshan's heir. Jin Guangyao felt he was owed these things because he was born as Jin Guangshan's son, not because he was a dutiful one.

So what worse consequences are you talking about, exactly? Jin Guangyao's reputation was already rock bottom at the start. His life was certainty never in danger except for when he made choices that got people killed and even then Nie Mingjue was the only one trying to hold him accountable until the cultivation world caught wind nearly two decades later.

It's also important to observe that Jin Guangyao claims he doesn't have power or authority only when he's been caught red-handed of wrong doing and needs a quick defense. Because if he truly had no authority or power in the Jin Sect, then we should be crediting Jin Guangshan with helping Lan Xichen rebuild Cloud Recesses, not Jin Guangyao.

And one of our key pieces of evidence to Jin Guangyao's autonomy under the Jin is Chapter 118 (villainous friends extra).

He Su spun around, only to see a group of Lanling Jin Sect cultivators drag inside sixty or seventy people all wearing the same uniform. There were men and women, old and young. Every one of them was a cross between shock and fear, while some were already crying. Both tied up, a girl and a boy kneeled on the ground as they wailed at He Su, "Brother!"

He Su was shocked speechless, his face instantly as white as paper, "Jin Guangyao! What are you doing?! It's enough if you kill me--why drag my entire sect along?!"

Jin Guangyao looked down and fixed his sleeves, still grinning, "Weren't you yourself the one who reminded me just now? Even if I killed you, I wouldn't be put eternally at ease. The Tingshan He Sect teams with talent, and from now on, you'd unite and never surrender--I was quite frightened. After much thought, this was the only thing I could come up with." (ch. 118, ERS)

So, in a scene very reminiscence to the mood when Jin Guangyao murdered those Nie cultivator in the Sun Palace, he admits to his victims that this was his idea. Do we really think Jin Guangyao was truly frightened of these people as he explains all this with a grin on his face?

The only people here to witness are the Jin subordinates and Xue Yang, who is a subordinate to Jin Guangyao.

[Jin Guangyao,] "Will you be free the next few days?"

Xue Yang, "Won't I have to do it no matter?"

Jin Guangyao, "Go to Yunmeng for me and tidy up a place for me. Make it clean."

Xue Yang, "They say when Xue Yang attacks, he leaves behind not even the chicken or the dog. Do you have any other misunderstandings as to how clean my work is?"

"Won't I have to do it no matter what," Xue Yang says, because Jin Guangyao gives the orders to him. Xue Yang was founded by and recruited by and trained up by Jin Guangyao. But just as Jin Guangyao gives a task to Xue Yang and leaves it up to Xue Yang to interpret how to implement it, by all means Jin Guangshan does the same to Jin Guangyao:

Jin Guangshan always threw his tasks whether big or small onto Jin Guangyao's shoulders, while he indulged himself nights in a row, making Madam Jin throw her rage all around Koi Tower.

Jin Guangyao gives the order for Xue Yang to kill everyone at the brothel where he grew up. Are the people at the brothel doing him or anyone else any harm? No. But these are people Jin Guangyao wants dead. Jin Guangshan is not involved in this order as Jin Guangyao specifies it is for himself.

Even though He Su was framed for a fake assassination, which is possibly and rather likely one of Jin Guangshan's big tasks--get rid of He Su who keeps voting No on making Jin Guangshan Chief Cultivator--it is Jin Guangyao who decides to drag in and murder the rest of He Su's family.

So Jin Guangshan gives the task of murdering one person, and Jin Guangyao turns it into sixty--and then adds some torture in there for sport, because Xue Yang requests it of him.

And this is only one situation. Judging by the ease of it all, it's certainly not Jin Guangyao's first rodeo with causing great harm to a group of innocent people.

But in any case, while some orders came from Jin Guangshan, not all of them did, and Jin Guangyao had authority on interpreting and implementing them as he saw fit.

As for Nie Mingjue, of course he isn't always in the right, but considering his actions tend to focus on protecting and helping people rather than sacrificing them for his own personal gain, I do feel he is more right than Jin Guangyao in all their encounters.

That Jin Guangyao even confesses that he knows the things he does are wrong but he is OK with doing them if it means grasping onto personal and political power doesn't make me inclined to see his actions as justified or morally correct.

One of the core messages in MDZS is that everyone has a choice. Wei Wuxian chose to help Lan Wangji in the cave, he chose to give his core away to Jiang Cheng, he chose to torture the Wen in revenge, he chose to rescue the Wen Remnants, he chose to take his secrets to the grave. Nie Mingjue chose to give Jin Guangyao second chance after second chance. Jin Guangyao chose to stab the Jin cultivator, he chose to marry his sister, he chose to poison Nie Mingjue. Lan Wangji chose to protect Wei Wuxian in the face of his family, and then chose to abandon his side. Qin Su chose to protect the identity of the person who gave her the letter. Song Lan chose to confront Xue Yang first before teaming up with Xiao Xingchen. Nie Huaisang chose to bring Jin Guangyao's crimes to light.

We see how some of these choices weren't easy. We see how some of these choices were done under duress. We consider how maybe some of these choices were the wrong one. Maybe a choice came too early or too late. Maybe someone might have been saved if another choice was made entirely.

The reason Wei Wuxian asks for them all to stop talking and just start fighting at the temple is because even our weary protagonist has had enough of Jin Guangyao's excuses.

Jin Guangyao had the ability to make choices just like everyone else. He had authority in the Nie and the Wen and the Jin to exercise his own will and stretch his legs or run away. But he wanted what he wanted and his choices clearly tied in with his ambitions and desires.

When Jin Guangyao claims to Nie Mingjue at Koi Tower that he can't do anything about Xue Yang because of Jin Guangshan, thus claiming he doesn't have authority to act, please think about his options at that moment: to protect Xue Yang or to kill Xue Yang.

What would happen to Jin Guangyao's ambitions if he were to lose Xue Yang, the demonic cultivator he has been training up to appease Jin Guangshan's interest of power?

It was never about Xue Yang. It was always about Jin Guangyao. When Jin Guangyao killed Jin Guangshan, he was quick to get rid of Xue Yang, who wasn't needed anymore.

Jin Guangyao's interests were aligned with Jin Guangshan's until they weren't, and then Jin Guangyao had the authority to not order the rape-murder of a bunch of innocent women in his revenge scheme.

And yet he still picked rape-murder.

So really, is the idea of Nie Mingjue being the more rational, justified, and/or (morally) correct one in the face of Jin Guangyao really that confusing at the end of the day?

[nillegible]

It wasn't supposed to hurt him. Ouyang Zizhen had used the talisman before, on his sister and his sister's idiot fiance (Now he was her fiance. Before the talisman, he'd just been a shixiong who absolutely refused to confess his feelings to her). In retrospect perhaps it was unkind. A talisman that was meant to force you to confess what you were hiding from the other person? Jiujiu would have smacked him for even thinking about using it.

Jin Ling would punish himself if it would help, would do anything, to snap the talisman, or to get his stupid uncle to just say his stupid secret, because right now?

Right now, his uncle is choking on his secret, literally forcing it down by strength of will alone while Wei Wuxian flutters around desperately, trying to destroy the talisman and Hanguang Jun plays his guqin. The spiritual energy from the Lan musical technique is so heavy that Jin Ling's skin buzzes with every note, and it's even more concentrated on the three older cultivators, visible threads of it sparking over their skin.

Jiujiu still looks like he is in agony, breaths harsh and ragged, choking, his face screwed up, twisted, awful.

"Jiang Cheng please, please, just spit it out, I don't care what you still blame me for, I don't care just say it," Wei Wuxian begs, but it's no use, his uncle shakes his head no, and Jin Ling covers his own mouth to stifle a sob. He hadn't listened when Jin Ling begged, either.

It's such a simple talisman, so terribly simple a compulsion that it's not meant to be fought or broken. Powered by the strength of the secret and the spiritual energy of the person it was affixed to… Jin Ling hadn't known it was possible to even try.

"Jiang Wanyin," says Hanguang Jun. He has to say it again to get his uncle's attention. "Let me help." His uncle stares blearily for a few moments, then nods again. Abruptly, even the gasping choked off noises break off, and Jin Ling rushes closer, but he's okay. He's still okay, slumping a little and leaning onto Wei Wuxian in exhaustion, but alive.

"Wei Ying," says Hanguang Jun, and apparently that means something to his other uncle, because Wei Wuxian immediately turns his attention back to paper he'd been scribbling on, and continues.

It takes Wei Wuxian a full hour more to break the compulsion, for his uncle to collapse sideways like a broken puppet onto him, and cough up mouthfuls of blood while Wei Wuxian rubs his back. "Thank you, Hanguang Jun," says Jiujiu.

Then he looks up at Jin Ling, who is frozen in place, not sure if he should run or fall to his knees and apologize, and holds out a hand. Jin Ling throws himself forward and hugs his uncle sobbing his apologies. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

“Stupid,” Jiujiu says, voice hoarse, but he doesn’t let go of Jin Ling until he falls unconscious, and Wei Wuxian disentangles him from the half embrace – Jiujiu’s other arm was clutching Wei Wuxian’s robes, tightly – and lifts him into his arms.

“He’ll be okay, right?” asks Jin Ling, a bit pathetically. This was all his fault, after all.

“Jiang Cheng will be fine,” says Wei Wuxian.

When Jin Ling thinks back to this moment, he will realize that Wei Wuxian sounded oddly broken, not just tired.

*

It turns out that Jin Ling had actually ruined everything. He’d been sure that his uncles cared for one another, he’d watched the weird way they held each other at arm’s length but seemed desperate for more, and only wanted to help them out. Whatever it is they were keeping a secret couldn’t be worth it right? Wei Wuxian was back from the dead. He was, not Jin Ling’s mom or dad or anyone else. Jin Ling had only wanted them to make the most of it.

Instead, all Jin Ling does is show Wei Wuxian that Jiujiu has some giant terrible secret that he would rather tear his lips bloody trying to suppress than admit to, and Wei Wuxian seems to give up. He’s cautious around Jiujiu after that, He’s polite. And that only makes Jiujiu angrier and frostier in turn.

This is not what had happened to Ouyang Zizhen’s sister and her husband! (They’d gotten married in the spring, Jin Ling had even gone to their wedding.)

Perhaps Jin Ling should have considered what would happen if the secret was a bad one.

“Would you tell me?” asks Jin Ling. He’s treading on dangerous ground here. Jiujiu hasn’t punished him for the stunt ( “You’re a Sect Leader now, brat, you pick your own consequences,” he’d said, and Jin Ling had assigned himself a lot more make sure Jiujiu is recovering okay missions, whenever he could make the time) and he doesn’t want to remind him to.

“Of course not,” he snaps, Zidian sparking in hollow threat on his finger. At least he scowls? When Jiujiu isn’t busy being angry, he’s been strangely melancholy, recently. Jin Ling hates that, too.

*

It’s Hanguang Jun that Jin Ling approaches in the end. Oddly, he’s the one who’s angriest at him, Wei Wuxian had just waved off his apologies and asked him to introduce him to the maker of the talismans, and never mentioned it again.

“I really am sorry,” Jin Ling tells him. “I want to know how to fix it.”

Hanguang Jun is silent for a long time, and Jin Ling braces himself for dismissal, to be told he can’t, that it was his fault in the first place, he should stay away from Hanguang Jun’s husband.

“It is hard to speak when you are afraid,” Hanguang Jun observes. Which, what? Yes, of course. But why now? Jin Ling nods uncertainly. “Why should Jiang Wanyin be afraid of Wei Ying?”

Oh. Huh? “He’s not, he’s never…” Jin Ling trails off, uncertain. He’d grown up secure in the knowledge that Uncle Jiang would protect him from the evil Yiling Patriarch. That he wasn;t afraid of him. Things were apparently far more complicated than that, but Jiujiu had never been afraid of Wei Wuxian. So why wouldn’t he tell the secret. What did he think his secret would do, that hasn’t happened already? They barely even look at each other anymore! Hanguang Jun just keeps his steady gaze on Jin Ling, waiting for an answer. “Um. He was afraid… to hurt him?” asks Jin Ling.

He gets a slight nod in affirmation.

“You’d think Senior Wei would know all the awful things already,” Jin Ling says, quietly. Wei Wuxian’s life kind of sucked.

“Sometimes, it isn’t the terrible things that hurt,” says Hanguang Jun.

Jin Ling peers at him closely. “Does Hanguang Jun know my uncle’s secret?” he asks.

“No,” he says, and explains nothing further. “And Wei Ying does not.” He looks up then, over Jin Ling’s head, towards the door. “Wei Ying does not need to know, if he trusts Jiang Wanyin.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, lightly. “Who would have thought Lan Zhan would be defending Jiang Cheng some day, hm?”

“He’s right, Wei Qianbei,” Jin Ling hurries to say. “Jiujiu cares for you. He says awful things, he’ll say, ‘You’re a stupid brat, who raised you, I should break your legs’ but he doesn’t mean any of it. Except maybe the stupid part.”

Wei Wuxian laughs again, then drops a hand to Jin Ling’s head. “I know, A-Ling,” he says, the name sounding so fond when he says it. “He’s my brother, and that part of him hasn’t changed.”

“He hasn’t changed,” says Jin Ling, fiercely. Jiujiu is the only constant in Jin Ling’s life, he wouldn’t just become something else.

“He has though,” says Wei Wuxian softly. “He’s all grown up, now. The last time I saw him, he was little older than you. And look at him now, keeping secrets from his shixiong.”

“I don’t believe he ever called you that,” says Jin Ling, because his nose is sour and he doesn’t want to cry.

“No, no, you’re right, he didn’t,” says Wei Wuxian, a little more cheerfully.

*

They put themselves back together slowly. Wei Wuxian makes an effort to reach out again, far more determined this time. With some pointed nudging from Jin Ling, Jiujiu tries his best to meet him half way.

It’s not easy. There is. There is so much between them that Jin Ling will never understand, broken promises and dead family, and debts that can never be repaid.

It shouldn’t be possible, to put all of that aside and start anew. Especially not for Jiujiu, who held his grudges forever, and didn’t quite believe in second chances.

They had once been the twin prides of Yunmeng though.

They don’t care that it shouldn’t be possible.

They do it anyway.

[Inspired by this post because holy shit I love Yunmeng Pride reconciliation fics so incredibly much, but it’s not always about divulging that secret really, is it? I just wanted to write one which is definitely about that secret but also not if that makes any sense. I’m not sure if I succeeded, if I confused you I apologize.]

[stiltonbasket]

for the qin su!wwx verse: i would love to the either the conversation where wangxian decide to have a biological kid, or the conversation where they find out they’re Having xiao-yu, whoops 😄😄😄

After Lan Xichen gives them the news, Wei Wuxian sits mutely on the sofa and tries to wrap his head around the three words that just left his would-be dabaizi’s lips. Next to him, Lan Zhan looks like a stunned fish, gaping at Zewu-jun like a trout out of water, and even Nie Mingjue blinks in astonishment before glancing back at his husband.

“Xichen, you’re absolutely sure he’s--?”

“We have five children,” Lan Xichen says in a strangled voice, sounding as if he would dearly like to scream. “Trust me, I can recognize the symptoms better than most. Wei-gongzi, do you remember when you last had your monthly courses?”

Wei Wuxian jerks back to life and shakes his head. “I’ve never had them,” he says faintly. “Qin Su never needed to keep track of her cycles, so she took thistle tea to stop them from happening, and I kept on drinking it after she summoned me. I thought--Zewu-jun, don’t women need their monthly courses to conceive? How could I have possibly...”

“It only stops the bleeding,” Lan Xichen corrects him. “That particular medicine is usually prescribed to young girls, not married women, lest a pregnancy go unnoticed for longer than normal. It’s not a contraceptive.”

Wei Wuxian fights the urge to claw at his robes and shriek. Of course he always knew that Qin Su had no need for contraceptive teas, since Jin Guangyao never came to her bed, but surely it was reasonable to think that preventing the monthly blood would also prevent a--

A baby, he thinks dumbly. Lan Zhan and I aren’t even married, since the year of mourning for Qin-guniang isn’t up yet, and I’m expecting a child in her body.

“You must go to the healers as soon as you can,” Lan Xichen urges, while Wei Wuxian has a miniature breakdown on the sofa before putting himself back together again. “There are certain foods that must be consumed while with child, and some things that you must not touch at all, like alcohol and raw meat. Young Master Wei, are you listening to me?”

“Hah,” he croaks. “Lan Zhan, I need--some fresh air, I--”

Hardly a split second later, Lan Zhan picks him up and whisks him out of the hanshi, carrying him down the hill towards the jingshi so he can catastrophize in peace and quiet. Or at least quiet, since Wei Wuxian supposes he won’t be getting any peace for the next twenty-odd years, now.

“Why do you think so?” Lan Zhan frowns, bringing a basin of cold water for his feet. “Wei Ying, talk to me. Are you well?”

Wei Wuxian tries to wrestle his tongue into something resembling coherent speech, and fails. Beside him, Lan Zhan’s cheeks go a chalky white, and he suddenly looks as if someone had slapped him across the face--and then Wei Wuxian hears him take a great gulp, as if to strengthen his will for the conversation ahead.

“If you do not want this child,” he whispers, “I know you are not--this is a difficult thing for women, let alone men in bodies unsuited for their souls. It cannot be too far along yet, since we--I mean, it can only be three months at the very latest, so perhaps--”

The very idea of it is enough to stop Wei Wuxian’s breath. “Are you mad, Lan Zhan?” he demands, in a near-shout. “How could you say such a thing? I would never--Lan Zhan, that’s your child! Our child! Say you’re sorry, right now!”

Lan Zhan frowns. “You want the baby?”

“Yes! Yes, of course I do!” Wei Wuxian cries, valiantly trying to blink back a tear as Lan Zhan takes his hand. “Haven’t you heard me talking about adopting more brothers and sisters for Sizhui? I’ve certainly been thinking about it ever since you told me he was still alive! How could you think I’d ever want to get rid of--do you not want our little one, Lan Zhan?”

“I loved this child the moment Xiongzhang told us of its existence,” Lan Zhan says, his voice breaking like a piece of sugar candy snapping in half. “But I had to tell you, Wei Ying, even if it killed me to do so. I can bear anything but the thought of you suffering, now.”

“Well, I’m not suffering,” Wei Ying chuckles wetly. “We’re going to have this little cabbage, and A-Yuan will have a didi or a meimei, and Lan-xiansheng will have another niece or nephew to try to shave his beard off. All right?”

(As it turns out, it is very much all right, and the look Lan Zhan gives him is full of such radiant happiness that Wei Wuxian falls head over heels in love, all over again.

Half of that love is for the new tiny person sleeping under his heart, and Wei Wuxian suddenly wants more than anything to hold his child in his arms.)

___

Cloud Recesses, Gusu Lan to the Jinlintai, Lanling Jin

Peacock,

I know for a fact that Shijie didn’t choose Ling for A-Ling’s birth name, so you must be pretty good at picking names for babies. What would you name a child that was half of Yunmeng Jiang and half of Gusu Lan, and due around the middle of this fall?

  Your best brother-in-law,

     Wei Wuxian.

___

Jinlintai, Lanling Jin to Cloud Recesses, Gusu Lan

Wei Wuxian, you utter menace--

  Please tell me this isn’t for your child. If it is, Jiang Wanyin will hunt me down and beat me to death with Zidian for failing in my duties as a chaperone, and then I’ll have been killed by both of A-Li’s brothers.

  Yours in great distress,

     Jin Zixuan.

___

Cloud Recesses, Gusu Lan to the Jinlintai, Lanling Jin

Sect Leader Jin:

  My husband spent the whole morning crying after receiving your letter. Count yourself lucky that he did not let me read it, or I would have been making you a visit later today.

  Regards,

     Lan Wangji.

___

The Hanshi, Cloud Recesses, to the Jingshi, Cloud Recesses

(delivered by Young Master Nie Yunhai, minus the rice-paper envelope--which was probably eaten on the way, according to Lan Jueying. No one knows what happened to the enclosed sweet buns, and Lan Jingyi and company cannot be reached for further comment.)

A-Xian,

  Will you come up and have tea with me? The little ones miss their Xian-shushu, and all of us are worried for you.

  All my love,

     Xichen-ge.

___

“Lan Zhan?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to tell your brother that you haven’t let me out of bed for the past three days? He probably thinks I’m still crying over that letter from Jin Zixuan.”

“Mm, if he asks. But Wei Ying needs to rest and eat nourishing foods, and remain still until the dizziness passes, so Xiongzhang will understand. Go back to sleep, my love.”

[sincerelystranger]

not enough 5

Wei Wuxian proves himself to be good.

Good and kind and diligent.

And like his father, his goodness breaks Jiang Fengmian’s heart.

“They saved me, uncle,” he says, his eyes dark and wide and desperate. “The only mark against them is that they are Wens. They’ve never killed or hurt anyone. I can’t – What the Jin’s are doing is not justice.”

Jiang Fengmian can’t do anything but look back at him.

They’re in the cursed Burial Mounds, a group of Wen’s shiver behind Wei Wuxian. All of them, hiding behind this young boy as if he can save them.

Jiang Fengmian wants to hate them, but he sees too much of himself in them. He’s no better than them, after all. He’s been looking for salvation in Wei Wuxian for years.

“This will make you an enemy out of the entire cultivation world,” Jiang Cheng snarls angrily, stepping forward to grab Wei Wuxian’s arm and shake it. “They already talk ill of your cultivation. You protecting the Wen’s… Wei Wuxian… Our sect cannot afford to protect them.”

“That’s why I will protect them,” Wei Wuxian replies seriously, “Tell everyone that my actions are mine alone – that the Yunmeng Jiang do not approve.”

Jiang Cheng turns to him. “Father – tell him!” he says desperately, “Tell him he cannot do this!”

Wei Wuxian turns his head to look at him as well.

“Wen Ning is the only reason I was able to get you and Yu-Furan out that night, uncle,” he says softly, “If for that reason alone, I cannot abandon them.”

This is the first time Wei Wuxian has really stood up against Jiang Fengmian, and it breaks Jiang Fengmian’s heart that it is to defend his honor.

If only they weren’t Wens.

If they were from any other family, Jiang Fengmian would happily protect them for the rest of their lives.

But his son is right.

And his wife is right.

And Wei Wuxian is right.

“We can’t protect you, A-Xian,” Jiang Fengmian says softly, and his voice comes out surprisingly even, even as his heart crumbles in his chest. “Is this really what you choose?”

Wei Wuxian stares at him for a long while before he nods solemnly. A stray tear falls down his face and Jiang Fengmian turns before he sees any more fall.

“Father,” Jiang Cheng calls out desperately, “You can’t let him – father!”

“With this decision, you are no longer part of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect,” Jiang Fengmian says calmly. “You are no longer under our protection and we will no longer claim you.”

He doesn’t know if Wei Wuxian replies or not, because walks away.

Jiang Cheng catches up to him when he’s already more than halfway down the mountain. “Father,” he says desperately, and Jiang Fengmian can already tell by the sound of his voice that his son is crying. “A-Xian – Wei Wuxian, he’s just – he’s just—“

“Hush,” Jiang Fengmian says not slowing down at all. If he stops now. If he stumbles even just one step. He knows that he will run back there and drag Wei Wuxian back to Lotus Pier. He knows this. So he can’t stop.

“Please father,” Jiang Cheng sobs, “You can’t throw A-Xian away like this. Look around you – a person cannot survive here. You’re sentencing him to death. Please—“

“This is Wei Wuxian’s decision!” Jiang Fengmian shouts, his eyes looking forward, his back straight and his steps steady.

“But he’ll die,” Jiang Cheng sobs, “Why won’t you save him? Don’t you care?”

I do love him, Jiang Fengmian thinks numbly. It’s because I love him that I cannot save him.

That boy. That poor boy. He never had a choice anyway.

From the moment Jiang Fengmian found him on the street, Wei Wuxian was destined to ruin himself for him.

He was just like his father after all.

---

His wife is surprisingly furious with him.

“You should have dragged him back here by his hair if you had to,” she seethes, Zidian crackling on her fist.

“He would not leave without the remaining Wens,” Jiang Fengmian explains calmly, “I did as much as I could.”

“Then you should have brought the Wens along as well,” she snaps back.

Her reply shocks him.

“You know as well as I do that bringing them back is not an option,” he says.

She scoffs at his answer. “Why? Are you so afraid of those arrogant old men and their gossip?”

“It’s more than gossip,” he says, “Protecting the Wens would mark us as traitors.”

“Protecting old women and children would mark us traitors?” his wife asks sarcastically. “How cowardly you are.”

“Do you not care of how our sect is spoken about?” he asks, his voice rising with his temper. He had expected this from Jiang Cheng but from his wife? He had secretly thought she would be delighted to finally be rid of Wei Wuxian.

“If I cared how we were spoken about, I would not have let that orphan live with us for so many years,” she yells back.

Her answer silences him. It makes him sit back on his seat and just look at her.

She’s strange, his wife. And just when he thinks he knows her… she…

But then again, Jiang Fengmian has always been a fool.

His problem is that he always thinks he knows.

He sighs deeply and lowers his head in defeat. “I cannot bring him back now,” he says tiredly, “His separation from our sect is already common knowledge.”

“You’re an old fool,” she says, her mouth turning down in disgust. “Without a sect, everyone in the world will be after that talisman of his. With your cowardice, you’ve sentenced all of them to a miserable end.”

“If you’re right, then I’ve just saved our sect from certain annihilation,” he says, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

He’s not sure anymore what the right thing to do was.

He had been sure when he was on Burial Mounds, but now…

“I do not understand you,” she says coldly. “Once you were prepared to jeopardize all of us to save him. Now, you send him off like a sheep for slaughter. Has your sentimental love for his mother finally come to an end?”

Jiang Fengmian stands and walks out of the room, unable to stand his wife’s words any longer.

I just wanted to free him, Jiang Fengmian thinks desperately.

But maybe he’s lying to himself.

Maybe.

Maybe Jiang Fengmian had just wanted to free himself.

---

They call him the Yiling Patriarch.

Wei Wuxian becomes the topic of many fearsome tales. They claim that he is half man and half demon. They say that he can kill a thousand men with one note from his flute. They say he performs dark magic with the Wens on the cursed Burial Mounds.

People speak endlessly about him and Jiang Fengmian finds that he just… misses him.

Not even just his face or the way he reminds him of the man he lost.

Jiang Fengmian finds that he just misses Wei Wuxian.

Time passes and things seemingly start to settle down and Jiang Fengmian begins to think that perhaps his decision to let Wei Wuxian part from his sect wasn’t the death sentence his wife and Jiang Cheng made it up to be.

Maybe… Maybe for once, Jiang Fengmian has made the right choice.

He finds solace in the thought.

He knows Jiang Cheng goes up to the Burial Mounds every so often. He thinks he’s being sneaky about it, but Jiang Cheng is just as subtle as his mother – which is to say not at all.

Jiang Fengmian turns a blind eye to it and comforts himself with the knowledge that if Wei Wuxian were really in trouble, Jiang Cheng would say something to him.

It’s an odd feeling, but he feels that Jiang Cheng has outgrown him somehow.

At one point, he had believed Jiang Cheng to be too much like him. Unable to love correctly and always hurting the person who least deserved it.

Now…

Now Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to be like him at all.

“He’ll be a much better sect leader than me,” Jiang Fengmian says to his wife.

His wife turns her head to watch Jiang Cheng. He’s training disciples in the main courtyard. “At the very least, he will be more decisive than you,” she says.

Jiang Fengmian watches her watch her son. It’s hard to remember why he always thought her so indifferent. So cold.

He knows now that there is an inferno that she keeps tightly trapped inside.

She loves so fiercely that it scares her to let it out.

He’s sorry that it took him twenty years to realize it.

“I’m glad he is so much like you,” he says softly, and the truth of it weighs heavily on his chest.

She doesn’t react to his words, but she lowers her eyes and he can tell she’s touched.

“Old age has made you soft,” she says after some time.

Maybe before, Jiang Fengmian would hear the coldness in her words, but now all he can hear is the affection.

It’s strange how things change.

---

His daughter gets married.

She’s stunning in her wedding attire and her smile is bright enough to light up all of Lanling.

Jiang Fengmian had been uncertain about her marriage at first – the last thing he wanted to do was curse her to an unhappy marriage – but looking at how Jin Zixuan dotes on her, he feels safe enough to send her to Lanling…

…And after Jiang Cheng’s long ‘talk’ with Jin Zixuan, Jiang Fengmian feels rather confident that Jin Zixuan will not be like his father.

His wife has a rare smile on her lips during the wedding celebrations.

“If you hadn’t stupidly broken up their betrothal, they would have gotten married much sooner and we might be grandparents by now,” she says, but her tone is too happy for her words to have any real sting.

“I think this may have worked out better,” Jiang Fengmian replies easily with a smile of his own. “A little hardship is good fuel for a man’s love.”

His wife rolls her eyes and huffs a laugh. “Perhaps that is where I went wrong,” she says, “I was too easy.”

Her words are a sharp jab at Jiang Fengmian’s heart.

He knows that their marriage has been a cold one. A meeting of two people unwilling to understand one another.

He often thinks that if they had met under different circumstances, they may… well it might have never been love, but they would not have hurt each other as they did.

Because… he understands now that he hurt her too.

He reaches over and puts his hand over hers.

She doesn’t look at him, but he can tell that she’s surprised by the way she freezes.

“The best a parent can hope for is a better life for their children,” he says softly. “You’ve raised her well, and for that she will have a better marriage than ours.”

His wife blinks rapidly and turns her head slowly to look at him. Her eyes are wide and deep and they look surprisingly vulnerable on her stoic face.

He gives her a soft smile. “But I don’t think our marriage is too bad, either,” he says, and he squeezes her hand in his.

She turns her face away quickly and does not reply.

She’s quiet for the rest of the banquet.

But she doesn’t remove her hand from his.

[whatisalifeihaveablog]

Like Real People Do

Ship: Jiang Cheng/Wen Ning Rating: T Summary: This is an expansion upon/continuation of 'Warmth', a drabble I posted in June where Wen Ning and Jiang Wanyin have begun to spend their nights together. It isn't necessary to read that to understand this but it is only 100 words, so why not?

AO3 link

If Wen Ning had any circulation to be cut off, he's quite certain his arm would be asleep right now with the way Jiang Wanyin was sleeping on it. He squeezed his hand into a fist and opened it again as if it had and he needed to get the blood flowing. If he were being honest, this was not very comfortable. Wanyin had been laying on his chest before, that was comfortable, but then he had to roll over and pin Wen Ning's arm to the bed. He wanted to move. There was no real reason to move, it's not like staying like this was going to hurt him, so he looked over at the man causing the dilemma and sighed, deciding it wasn't worth potentially waking him.

It was nearly morning anyway so he wouldn't have to wait too long, there was no way this arrangement of theirs was going to be completely comfortable for him all of the time anyway. When it first happened nearly three months ago he never expected it to become a nightly routine. The two of them often found themselves in the same places and while they made a valiant attempt to ignore each other completely, they had too many shared connections in this world and those connections were determined to bring them together. The first time they talked, really had a conversation, was the night Wei Wuxian got married. Wanyin was feeling melancholic and happened to find the same spot in the Cloud Recesses Wen Ning always went to be alone. It didn't take long to figure out he was extremely drunk. In retrospect that was probably the only reason why the conversation happened, it probably didn't even matter who he was talking to, but Wen Ning felt honored to be trusted with the feelings Wanyin voiced that night.

That was also the first night they slept together. Or, Wanyin slept and Wen Ning held him. It was nice, Sandu Shengshou wanting to be held was a surprise and Wen Ning was sure he was going to be yelled at and kicked out in the morning, but Wanyin was warm and it felt nice to be with another person and to have a physical connection. On the other hand he was also filled with anxiety, fully expecting things to turn bad. But the morning came and Jiang Wanyin opened his eyes and though it was covered quickly Wen Ning was sure he saw something like relief in them.

"You're still here." Wanyin said in a groggy, still halfway asleep kind of voice.

It wasn't angry or an accusation like Wen Ning would have expected so he just nodded, gave an awkward smile and said "I'm still here."

A month after that Wen Ning accompanied Wei Wuxian to Lotus Pier and it happened again. Only this time Jiang Wanyin wasn't drunk, and Wen Ning stayed. His excuse was that he wanted to stay with Sizhui, who was staying with Jin Ling, who was here. But then a week passed and Sizhui left and he stayed and there were no more excuses. It was odd. It was sudden. And was still odd if he thought about it for too long. They never talked about that first night after it happened and they never talked about these nights here. It almost felt as if speaking about it would break the spell. All of the progress they have made interacting peacefully, or as peacefully as possible with someone like Jiang Wanyin, would shatter and he would be hated again and he would be forced to leave Lotus Pier. These nights of warmth would end.

So Wen Ning just seemed to be living here for the last two months and no one knew why and since the clan leader said nothing, neither did anyone else. There was one exception, Wei Wuxian knew why now. It was about a week ago when Wei Wuxian showed up suddenly to Yunmeng and decided on a whim to enter Lotus Pier in the middle of the night and surprise his brother by barging into his room to announce his arrival. He was most likely treating it like some sort of prank, expecting to be yelled at in a way he found entertaining. What he was not expecting was to find Wen Ning in his brother's bed. Wei Wuxian froze and stared for a moment, giving Wanyin enough time to wake up and process what just happened, and then burst out laughing.

"Shit, I'm so sorry" Wei Wuxian choked out in between laughs, "I shouldn't laugh, I shouldn't, sorry!"

Still laughing of course.

"GET OUT!" Jiang Wanyin looked ready to kill someone and might have acted on that if Wei Wuxian hadn't nodded and left, managing to hold what was left of his laughter in

Wanyin avoided the both of them the next day and Wen Ning was scared, more scared than he had been prepared to be, that it was over now. Wei Wuxian promised not to tell, but did want to talk to Wen Ning about it. That conversation was excruciating.

"Jiang Cheng can be intense and I know you're both lonely but I just want to make sure this isn't hurting you. Either of you" Wei Wuxian said, sincerity mostly replacing his amusement

Wen Ning was mortified, talking too quickly and stuttering as a result, "Wei-gongzi, please, this isn't what you're thinking!" He managed to get out, "It's just something that happened and it's just sleeping. Nothing else! It's just-"

"Just what?" Wei Wuxian asked.

Wen Ning didn't know how to answer. It was a good question. What the hell was this?

"I don't know what. I do know I don't want it to stop. I know we've been getting along much better-"

That made Wei Wuxian suddenly laugh again, "I would hope so! He's letting you in his bed with him every night, he definitely likes you now."

"I don't know about that" Wen Ning argued, "We argue, he yells all of the time."

"Jiang Cheng yells to express his affection" Wei Wuxian smiled.

"He yells to express everything."

That got another loud laugh before Wei Wuxian leaned forward, grabbed his hands, and when their eyes met he could still see some amusement there "Ah, Wen Ning, don't be stupid like me, okay?"

Wen Ning did not have the slightest idea what he meant by that but looking over at Wanyin sleeping soundly crushing his arm, he knew he couldn't bring himself to move. And it wasn't for convenience, it was because Wanyin slept so soundly. It was because he was the only person who ever got to see Wanyin like this and he wasn't going to give up a moment of it.

What were they doing?

What the hell were they doing?

What the hell was he doing?

A groan and some shifting next to him told him this night was over. Wanyin turned back toward him and sat up slowly. This was...different? Wanyin stared at him for far longer than was comfortable with a contemplative expression.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked, direct as ever even this early.

Wen Ning blinked, "What?"

"Don't 'what' me! You look like you're about to cry. What's wrong with you?" He shouted, brows furrowing as he became more frustrated.

Wen Ning took in a sharp breath. He hadn't realized he was letting his emotions show like that. He certainly did not want to have this talk right this second. He looked at Wanyin's face and thought about how immediately his features became much harder when he woke. He looked so much older this way. He looked angry but Wen Ning was slowly learning to see behind the anger. Once upon a time Wanyin's tone in his questioning would make Wen Ning shrink back and feel attacked but now he can hear the concern in it. Jiang Wanyin was worried about him. That realization hit him in a way he couldn't have seen coming and if he could cry he might have started.

"It's nothing." Wen Ning lied, "You've slept in some, get dressed and go have breakfast."

Wanyin stared at him for another agonizing second before deciding to let it go for the moment.

"Don't tell me what to do" He barked as he got up from the bed and began to get dressed.

Wen Ning smiled softly and only let it drop when Wanyin left the room. Not now. He couldn't have that conversation now. He couldn't risk breaking this.

"Don't be stupid like me, okay?"

Wen Ning groaned and let himself fall back on the bed as he suddenly realized what Wei Wuxian was talking about. He let himself fall in love without even realizing. He was so fucked. Their conversation implied Wei Wuxian believed Wanyin loved him back but there was no way he could know for sure. He wanted to call Wanyin back in and tell him everything he realized overnight. He wanted to run and hide and never see Wanyin again. He wanted to know how Wanyin felt. He absolutely did not want to know how Wanyin felt. He hated this. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before sitting back up and deciding to meditate. There was nothing he could do right now, so why was he panicking? Wanyin would be taking care of sect business most of the day and he would have time to collect his thoughts.

Despite his attempts not to worry, it started getting dark without Wen Ning realizing how much time had passed. He'd been hiding in Wanyin's room all day, knowing he wouldn't come back until dark, but now it was getting closer to the time he wouldn't be able to avoid. Talking to Wanyin. He looked around the room and took it all in just in case. Made sure he memorized every detail he could in case he was right all along and talking about it was going to ruin things. As prepared as he could be he stepped out of the room. It took some looking but he found Wanyin in a secluded area of Lotus Pier. A beautiful spot with a view of the water where they both sometimes went to enjoy the peace.

Not giving him a chance to turn back Wanyin looked over at him immediately, "Oh, so you're done avoiding me now?"

Wen Ning did flinch at that tone. He hadn't meant to hurt him but he remembered how it felt to be avoided the day Wei Wuxian found out and felt guilt set in.

"I'm sorry" Wen Ning started, "I've been thinking about things, we should talk"

Wanyin visibly steeled himself, "About what?"

Wen Ning took a deep breath, "Wanyin, what are we doing?"

Silence. Definitely not the worst answer he could have gotten but it did nothing to quell his anxieties. He took several steps closer so that they were standing face to face. From here he could see clearly he wasn't alone in that anxiety. He guessed Wanyin wanted to scream right now since that was how he usually dealt with things and Wen Ning felt grateful he wasn't doing that now.

"Wei Wuxian freaked you out, didn't he?" Wanyin was gritting his teeth, holding something in Wen Ning couldn't place, "No one is forcing you to be here. You can just go if you want."

"Do you want me to go?" Wen Ning said with a shaky breath, taking another step closer.

"Why would I care?"

But Wen Ning could see it. Behind the clenched jaw, and the frown, and the angry furrow of his brows, he was just as afraid as Wen Ning had been. Maybe he would never understand how this started, why Wanyin wanted him here, but he was here now and had no intention of leaving. Wanyin was fooling no one by saying he didn't care and it was time to call his bluff. Wen Ning let the silence go on as he built up his nerve and closed the distance between them, bringing their lips together softly at first to give Wanyin a chance to back out but kissing him fully when he did not. He cupped Wanyin's face in his hands and pulled him in deeper, smiling lightly when he felt Wanyin's hands flail a bit, not seeming to be able to decide where to land. He settled for holding on to Wen Ning's arms.

It was awkward and brief and the most thrilling experience Wen Ning had ever had. He had never kissed anyone before. When they pulled back his head was spinning and all he wanted was to go back for more.

"I'm staying right here."

They fell into bed that night still kissing and letting their hands explore. Wen Ning kissed from Wanyin's mouth to his jaw, and relished in the gasp Wanyin gave when he got to his neck. He was sure he could do this forever, the rest of their talk could wait. They eventually had to roll back over, Wanyin laying on his chest slowly falling asleep. Wen Ning held him firm and watched his breath even out, closing his eyes and letting his own breath sync with it and it almost felt like sleep. He could feel Wanyin's heartbeat on his chest, he could feel the ghost of Wanyins lips on his, and now more than ever, he felt warm.

[paradife-loft]

three sentences of jiang cheng and jin guangyao's co-parenting adventures :)

(“three sentences”. yeah, well, there sure are three sentences here. and then a bunch more sentences. I guess you could consider the extra sentences like interest for the wait time? :’D I don’t know what I’m doing with myself any more. oh well, I hope the disaster grape pov is enjoyable (’:)

-----

Even though it would’ve been perfectly acceptable to receive Clan Leader Jin at the gates to Lotus Pier proper, Jiang Cheng had decided today to take advantage of the lack of other guests arriving at all hours to meet Lianfang-zun and their nephew down at the docks in the town, instead.

He doesn’t have to wait long; the boat carrying the Jin clan retainers comes into sight on the river within a quarter shichen, and is soon unloading a stream of pale gold out into the lakefront market stalls. Lianfang-zun is one of the last out onto the pier, but Jin Ling rushes past much quicker – the child clambering out through the benches and onto the dock, then turning back to peer in over the railing. He calls an impatient “xiao-shushu!” into the boat, trying to wave him further along without letting go of the ornate, adult-sized sword he held clasped in both hands.

A moment later, he’s apparently given up waiting for his other uncle and flung himself toward Jiang Cheng instead, skidding to a halt and almost overbalancing a few feet in front of him, where he then nods into a perfunctory bow that’s maimed from the start by the way he keeps the sword hugged to his chest. “Uncle Jiang-zongzhu.”

Jiang Cheng feels a small stone at the pit of his stomach, remembering how last time it had simply been jiujiu (when they were in private, he reminds himself, just the three of them that were his remaining family, without all the rest of these disciples and townspeople around) – but he nods anyway, eyeing the sword. Jin Ling scurries around to his side, and Jiang Cheng drops an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tightly.

It’s a familiar sword, moreso in its spiritual aura than the profile of the hilt and sheath which runs toward the sort of Jin gaudiness whose distinctions he’s never made a particularly intent study of – oh. He understands, abruptly, why Jin Ling must be clinging to it so tightly.

He glances up to where Lianfang-zun is finally emerging from the boat, holding the train of his robe up in one hand and the proffered arm of a Jin disciple in the other. Throughout the elegance of his arrival, he seems to spare a few soft glances at Jin Ling – until he straightens up on flat ground, and the expression melts off his face with a keen fleck of his eyes up toward Jiang Cheng.

“Xiandu.”

“Jiang-zongzhu.” His greeting is effortless and graceful in all the ways Jin Ling’s was not; and afterwards, his mouth quirks in an amused smile for the seven-year-old currently leaning into Jiang Cheng’s side. “I recall you mentioning a desire to show me Lotus Pier’s marketplace in your last message – but it seems a-Ling perhaps has other ideas?”

“I wanna go watch the sword practise,” Jin Ling confirms, burrowing his head and shoulder further in toward Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng looks down at him. His hair is studded with tiny ornaments and tied up into a pale embroidered gold Jin ribbon. He holds Suihua (where had he gotten it from?), and cajoles two uncles in place of a mother and father.

(Had Jiang Cheng ever clung to Yanli like this, when they were children? Of course he had. The recognition tears something unsettling in his throat.)

“You can have one of the senior disciples take you to watch the drills, and then Jin-zongzhu and I will come see how well you’ve learned once we’re done here,” he says – a passable enough recovery of his usual authority, he hopes. He turns and beckons one of his own seniors in Jiang blues with a nod of his chin.

Jin Ling looks back at Jin Guangyao when the Jiang disciple leans down to take his hand. “It’s okay to go ahead?”

Jin Guangyao smiles again, the broad one that crinkles his eyes and dimples his cheeks and always makes Jiang Cheng feel irritatingly patronized, or seen through, or… something. All he knows is it gives him an unsettling clench in his gut half the time he sees it, even if it’s not directed at him.

“While you’re at Lotus Pier, you’re free to do whatever you please within Jiang-zongzhu’s guidance,” he says to Jin Ling, before ending with a glance up, meeting Jiang Cheng’s own gaze with the same smile on his mouth but a different look entirely in his eyes.

That’s a premonition of a conversation to come, Jiang Cheng figures. He’s only been Jin-zongzhu for less than a year by now, but Jiang Cheng’s been met with enough looks amidst discussions with the previous clan leader, followed by Jin Guangyao catching his sleeve after he’s left for running another variation on the topic without his father present, to understand the same one now.

Whatever. He’ll deal with it whenever Lianfang-zun decides to make it his problem and no sooner. If he doesn’t like Jiang Cheng using his own authority with his own nephew in his own sect, he can bring it up on his own time.

Once Jin Ling and most of the disciples have gone ahead to the main complex, though, Jiang Cheng ends up reminding himself of exactly why Jin Guangyao has a tendency to be pleasant company. He asks after the relationships Jiang Cheng has been overseeing with the minor sects in the region, and offers up a couple suggestions for other contacts outside Yunmeng that he might be able to offer them to ease some of their trade problems. He listens to the impromptu tour Jiang Cheng gives of the Lotus Pier market, as he introduces the various familiar faces he’s looked at with a certain pride of responsibility ever since they’d been waving at him as the sect’s young master; as well as the newer faces he’s come to know in the rebuilding process, as they brought in replacements for the pieces of Lotus Pier’s foundation that had been lost during the war.

He asks just the right questions to let Jiang Cheng segue into a topic he can feel genuine pride at, and manages to look genuinely interested in the answers. When they stop to speak with the stall owners, he smiles at all the aunties and uncles and grandfathers oh so charmingly, and compliments their wares as if he’d been shopping in Lotus Pier his whole life.

(“Oh, and here I’d been hoping you might serve some of that delicious wuchang fish you had prepared during the last cultivation conference while I was here again,” he’d exclaimed when they came across one of the fishermen hauling in the day’s catch from a nearby lake. “I remember it being sliced so beautifully as well – but one could hardly expect anything else in Yunmeng, could they?”)

And Jin Guangyao is indeed such a flawless conversationalist, that after another half-shichen in his company, Jiang Cheng has begun to find it almost grating. He’s got a pinched feeling in the base of his stomach that’s only grown as they’ve wound their way back up to the Jiang sect’s compound, vaguely listening to Jin Guangyao update him on recent news from other corners of the cultivation world.

They’re almost to the gates when the sound of sword drills reaches Jiang Cheng’s ears, and he remembers in a sudden rush back of emotion the thing he’d been meaning to get answers on before they rejoined the rest of their sects.

“Lianfang-zun,” he interrupts, unable to help the tension he can feel creasing his brow from taking up its usual home in his face. No use trying to be delicate about it – he’d see through it anyway, and then Jiang Cheng would just feel like a fool again for having tried. He squares his shoulders and refuses to be moved to apology by the questioning surprise in Jin Guangyao’s glance.

“Jin Ling was carrying Jin Zixuan’s sword when you arrived here,” he says. He tries at least to make it sound less like an accusation than it feels. “You gave it to him?”

In return, Jin Guangyao smiles at him briefly. “I did. Not for practicing with, of course – not until he’s older and his core has formed properly.” He’s using a soothing tone of voice, Jiang Cheng can recognise – as if he himself is the yet-coreless child who needs to be reassured that way. He bites the inside of his lip.

“It’s merely… I’ve been intending on installing honors for my elder brother within Golden Scale Tower recently as well, since presumably this position would’ve been his if not for… well. But it seems the renewed discussion of Zixuan-ge has gotten a-Ling missing his father, and I thought giving him something he had so treasured during his lifetime might provide a small comfort for what I can’t replace. And he has been working quite diligently on his sword forms, so it seemed fitting.”

Jin Guangyao is looking up at him, while Jiang Cheng is trying to sort out what his feelings are doing and keep the reflexive scowl off his face, and – it’s almost astounding how a person can manage to look both apologetic and thoroughly unwilling to give any ground away at the same time. He glances down to where Jin Guangyao has clasped his fingers together, almost hidden beneath the sturdy silk of his sleeves, and then breaks away entirely.

“Oh, well. If that’s what it is, then good. He should have something of his father’s to remember him by.”

The people at Golden Scale Tower still tell plenty of stories of Jin Zixuan, Jiang Cheng knows – he’s heard some personally on visit, and also about them, via Jin Ling’s resultant questions and boasts, as reported to him by none other than Jin Guangyao himself. But he wonders how many people still left there knew Jin Zixuan in the way a child ought to know his father, instead of as a distant figure worthy of gossip now and again because he’s the sect leader’s only (acknowledged) child.

He wonders whether anyone at all has seen fit to tell Jin Ling anything meaningful about his mother whatsoever.

Around the hilt of Sandu, his knuckles clench white and painful, as he tries to make himself stop letting that line of thought grow, before it can take over and loom over his head entirely. A stupid waste of effort, usually, but if there’s one thing he doesn’t want, it’s letting his emotions so obviously getting the better of him in front of Jin-zongzhu, Lianfang-zun, ever-accommodating perfect host Jin Guangyao.

Jiang Cheng takes a couple of hopefully-understated breaths to try and steady himself, and then scowls despite it all when it only does about as much good as ever – but he lets the last out audibly through his nose, and then turns back to look at his guest beside him. Waiting patiently, as always.

“Well? Let’s go, then. If he’s been practicing his sword forms as much as you say, he should’ve picked up something passable here by now since we’ve been gone.”

Jin Guangyao only inclined his head politely, and follows Jiang Cheng inside to where the rest of their disciples – along with their shared nephew – are waiting.

As he enters the main courtyard, he hopes for the first time in a while, childishly and without much real conviction, that if his sister is watching over any of them, himself or Jin Ling most of all – that she will grant him the strength missing from his heart these past several years, to make part any of this easier for him. Even just a little bit would help.

[robininthelabyrinth]

CQL-verse! The characters have the same age gaps between them as their actors and actresses! Wwx and Jyl are the same age, jc is 5 years younger than them. Lxc is 3 years younger than wwx&jyl and lwj is 3 years younger than him. Nmj is two years older than wwx&jyl and nhs is 8 years younger than him and the same age as lwj. (1/2)

Meng Yao is 2 years older than nhs and jzx is 2 years older than MY. I'm leaving the Wen Sibs out of this because otherwise WN would be the same age as wwx and WQ would be 4 years younger than him. But hey! If you want to go with that, go crazy! I was thinking more of Yunmeng Sibs focus, but I will be happy with anything! (2/2)

ao3

Untamed

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect to the point of death and war, but he had always had trouble hating sad and gentle Wen Ning.

Wen Ning was technically his peer – there were only two years between them in age – and therefore capable of the same sorts of responsibilities and duties towards righteousness as Nie Mingjue, meaning that he ought to hate him as much as all the rest. But at the same time, Wen Ning was only part of the main branch family indirectly, a ward of Wen Ruohan; he was constantly suppressed and even tormented by Wen Chao, the eldest son of that family. If anything, it seemed almost as if he’d been brought into the family just to act as the family’s scapegoat, the inferior copy that was so hapless that he made that self-indulgent hedonist Wen Chao appear somewhat competent in contrast.

Nie Mingjue couldn’t imagine treating any of his own cousins that way.

He and Wen Chao were often compared, both being about the same age, and their young brothers were of similar age as well, both of them only fourteen; this juxtaposition made sure that every single person in the cultivation world talk of them in the same breath. Nie Mingjue always came out the better in the comparison, and Wen Xu the same for his, which in the minds of most people balanced out, but which caused Wen Chao no end of rage. He knew he couldn’t take out his anger on the talented Wen Xu and so took out on poor Wen Ning instead.

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect.

He did not hate Wen Ning.

Wen Ning, who should not be here.

“Please,” Wen Ning said, nearly in tears, as he threw himself down to the floor in front of Nie Mingjue. He’d burst into the room in the inn Nie Mingjue was staying at, the guards that no sect leader could do without no matter what they wanted following close behind in alarm until Nie Mingjue had waved them off with a gesture; he’d been panting so hard that he’d only just now caught his breath. “Please help this useless older brother do one good thing with his life.”

Alarmed, Nie Mingjue reached out and caught Wen Ning by the shoulders, pulling him to stand and even forgetting himself enough to reach forward with a sleeve to dab away the tears staining the other man’s face.

“What is it?” he asked, feeling anxiety curdling in his gut. He’d spoken with Wen Ning before during the discussion conferences, both when he was younger and even, in a few stolen moments, after he became sect leader; he knew Wen Ning had a steady personality, if a weak one from all the bullying he endured, and that he was not given to unnecessary hysterics. If he could tolerate Wen Chao’s endless torment with a faint smile and a don’t worry sect leader Nie once you’re used to it it’s more funny than anything else, then what could make him act like this? “What is that you need help with? I do not understand.”

Wen Ning looked tired. He always had, his health had always been poor, but now it seemed worse than ever; there were circles under his eyes, and Nie Mingjue had no idea how he’d managed to get away from the Nightless City to come find him. The town he was currently in was close to the border the Qinghe Nie shared with Qishan Wen, but it was still an effort, especially for someone like Wen Ning. He might be a member of the Wen family by name, but his freedom was significantly curtailed, and it wasn’t only because he was sickly.

“My little sister is going to be attending the lectures at the Cloud Recesses,” Wen Ning said.

“The - Lan sect lectures?” Nie Mingjue repeated blankly. It was a stupid thing to say; of course it was the Lan sect’s lectures, who else would give lectures at the Cloud Recesses? And yet, at the same time – “The Wen sect hasn’t gone to them in generations.”

“Sect Leader Wen asked A-Qing to look for something,” Wen Ning said. “I don’t know what. He talks to her more than he talks to me, when she’s treating him with acupuncture and other such things – he only wants blood relations treating him now, so she’s passing along what she can do, the doctors all say she’s talented – he told her something, I think, but I don’t know what, he doesn’t talk to me…and she doesn’t talk to me, either.”

“She’s sixteen, they’re like that,” Nie Mingjue said, trying to offer comfort, but he didn’t like the sound of that – Wen Ruohan growing reliant on the medical skills of a teenager, talking with her as if she were an adult…it didn’t speak well to the Chief Cultivator’s state of mind. “So she’s going to go spy on them?”

“She is. And maybe more. There’s – there’s something back in the Nightless City, something Sect Leader Wen is refining in order to increase his power. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and evil.” Wen Ning looked paler than usual, somehow. “It was something that was kept in a cave near our village when we were younger, once. Sect Leader Wen took it away to study, and it made something go crazy, I got hurt, and my parents – anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can’t go near it without losing my senses, so I really don’t know anything about it. But I know that Sect Leader Wen only has a piece – and the Lan sect has another.”

Lan Xichen had never mentioned such a thing, but then again, he wasn’t really old enough that Nie Mingjue would expect him to know everything about his sect – he was after all a full five years younger than Nie Mingjue, three years younger than Wen Ning; he was still only seventeen, having only just graduated from his uncle’s classes the year before. He was only very technically sect leader, in the same way Nie Mingjue had only been technically sect leader after his father’s death, although unlike Lan Xichen Nie Mingjue had fought his way to step up to the task for real early on. He himself was only barely considered an adult at the age of twenty-two; it was no surprise that in the Lan sect, which had Lan Qiren to rely on, Lan Xichen might not know it all.

Or perhaps he knew, and simply didn’t say. Each sect was entitled to its secrets.

“What are you thinking?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“I’m thinking that my sister is constantly afraid for me, even though she’s younger than me,” Wen Ning said solemnly. “I’m thinking that she will break her own principles into pieces to protect me. I’m thinking that she’ll find whatever it is, or find a hint to it, and then Wen Chao will take his forces to burn the Cloud Recesses to the ground in search of it.”

Nie Mingjue could see that.

He didn’t want to, but he could.

“My brother is attending those lectures,” he said blankly. Nie Huaisang was there right now. He could be in danger – no, he would be in danger. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a good cultivator, and at fourteen, he was just a baby. Nie Mingjue had sent Meng Yao with him, nominally as his attendant, but in fact to get the benefit of the classes himself and also bully Nie Huaisang into actually learning something – he’d brought Meng Yao into the Nie sect after Jin Zixuan, full of guilt over how his father had treated a boy only two years his junior, had sent him a letter beseeching him for help following Meng Yao’s public and humiliating rejection from Jinlin Tower – but Meng Yao was only sixteen, of age with Wen Qing; what could he really do?

Moreover, sending Wen Qing and not Wen Xu, even though Wen Xu was the same age as Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji, indicated that Wen Ruohan didn’t want his more promising son to get involved in whatever it was that he was planning, or maybe in whatever consequences followed. If Wen Chao really were to try something violent, they couldn’t afford to have a weakness already there…

“I need to get A-Qing out of the Wen sect,” Wen Ning said, and Nie Mingjue turned to look at him in shock. “Permanently. I’ve begged her to go, but she won’t leave me, she won’t leave our family of the Dafan Wen, but she has to. Something bad is going to happen soon. I know it. I don’t mind trading my life for hers, but she has to live.”

“Is there any way you can go to the Cloud Recesses as well?” Nie Mingjue asked, his mind already racing. He’d long ago given up on helping Wen Ning because he knew the other man wouldn’t turn traitor against his family, being an upright and filial child, but if his family had reached such a depth of corruption as that, then it was only right to leave them behind. If Wen Ning was finally accepting that, maybe there was something he could do. “You’re sensitive to the – whatever it is. Right? Maybe Wen Qing can suggest bringing you around to help her find her way to it.”

“How would that help?”

“It gets you somewhere safe, while I can rescue Dafan Wen – without a threat to you or to them, your sister would have no reason to insist on staying,” Nie Mingjue said, though it wouldn’t be him, exactly, that did the rescue – he’d need a firm alibi lest Wen Ruohan use it as an excuse to start something with his Nie sect. He might have prepared for war as much as he could, but the Wen sect was still stronger; if war broke out, he needed to make sure that he had the moral high ground.

Luckily, Wei Wuxian, that walking calamity of a head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, had of late developed the habit of wandering over to visit various other sects, including Qinghe (and Nie Mingjue in specific), at his leisure, and no one ever would think to blame him for such a strange thing as a subsidiary sect of distant Wen sect cousins disappearing.

After all, Wei Wuxian had no reason to know or care about the Dafan Wen, and everyone knew he abjured politics completely, violently and repetitively, so as to make no mistake about anyone who might otherwise see him as competition for the Jiang sect’s true heir, Jiang Cheng. The five-year gap between their ages kept them from being compared – you couldn’t expect a child, and at fifteen Jiang Cheng was still very much a child, to keep up with an adult just turned twenty like Wei Wuxian – but there had always been whispers given everything with Cangse Sanren, and Wei Wuxian had had to work very hard to put a stop to them.

Wei Wuxian’s wandering habit had started back when he’d been trying to find Jiang Yanli a new fiancée to replace the engagement he’d broken by fighting with Jin Zixuan, however shameful it was for him to fight with a boy two years his junior. It was for that that he had come to Qinghe to meet Nie Mingjue, leading to them hitting it off as friends despite Nie Mingjue expressing that he had absolutely no interest in getting married to Jiang Yanli, or indeed to any nice young lady at all; then, in turn, Nie Mingjue had brought him to the Lan sect to meet Lan Xichen. They’d gotten along as well, although the most notable outcome of that visit had been little Lan Wangji developing a crush on his elder brother’s new friend while Wei Wuxian remained blissfully oblivious. His wanderings had continued even after Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan had found their way back to each other, affianced once again through their own choice rather than their parents’.

Said parents had not yet been informed of this new situation, as they were waiting for the right time to mention it. Or perhaps more accurately, the right situation to exploit with it…

Now, Nie Mingjue thought. Now was the time. It would work perfectly.

And not just as a distraction.

“Are you sure…?”

“I am,” Nie Mingjue said. “Whatever it is, Wen Ruohan must be kept from obtaining all of the pieces; he’s already too powerful, and more power will only make him more arrogant. I’ll speak with Lan Qiren. Once I take the Dafan Wen back to the Nie sect, your sister will be able to testify to whatever it is that she was asked to search for, which will give Lan Qiren the evidence he needs to get his sect’s approval for retaliatory measures. Moreover, using Wei Wuxian to help me will force Jiang Fengmian to support me as well; there’s no way he’d ever refuse to back him to the hilt.”

“The Jin sect –”

“Will join us,” Nie Mingjue said, thinking of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan’s yet-to-be-announced engagement. Once Jin Guangshan realized that he would be pulled into the same boat as the rest of them whether he wanted to or not, any resistance he had would crumble like a structure made of sand being beaten down by the tide. “They won’t have a choice. Is there anything else I should know?”

“There’s a child,” Wen Ning said, biting his lips. “Around the same age as your brother or my sister, or maybe the Jiang sect heir, I don’t know, around that. He helps Sect Leader Wen with whatever he’s doing.”

“A child helps him?”

Nie Mingjue didn’t like the sound of that.

“I don’t know. Some secret his family knows, I think…his surname is Xue.”

Nie Mingjue frowned.

“I don’t know much about him,” Wen Ning added. “Only that he has some history with the Yueyang Chang clan. Bad history.”

“That’s a good start,” Nie Mingjue said. He realized that he hadn’t yet released Wen Ning’s shoulders, and gave them a small squeeze before doing so. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will do everything I can to help you.”

Wen Ning looked at him with admiration in his eyes, making Nie Mingjue feel a little hot under the collar.

“Thank you, Chifeng-zun,” he murmured, and Nie Mingjue shook his head.

“Call me by name,” he said, and tried to smile. “You’ll be here a lot in the future, if all goes well.”

Nie Mingjue hated the Wen sect, but he didn’t hate gentle and sad Wen Ning.

He didn’t hate him at all.

[aurora077]

The Value of Recognition Chapter 2

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13934252/2/The-Value-of-Recognition

Chapter 2 - Who’s your shufu!????

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” cried mini jiujiu.

“Ahhh please jiujiu, don’t cry!” said a distraught Jin Ling.

“A-niang….a-die” sobbed the baby.

Jin Ling was now close to tears himself.

“Young Master Jiang,” cooed Healer Zhang, “Look what I have here. If you stop crying, you can have some.”

She waved a sweet-cake in front of him.

He paused his crying, peeking at the Healer tentatively. At the same moment his stomach rumbled. He looked very much like he wanted the cake. But then he shook his head and said, “Jiejie said A-Cheng mustn't take food fwom stwangers.” He sniffled miserably. “A-Cheng wants jiejie,” his eyes started watering again. This time Jin Ling’s eyes were watering too.

“It seems like Jiang-zongzhu has not retained his memories,” concluded Healer Zhang, “So it’s not just his body but his mind as well that has reverted.”

Jin Ling nodded in understanding. It would hurt but he couldn’t lie to his jiujiu about this. Though he couldn’t quite say the truth either. ���Jiejie isn't here,” he ended up saying. The others were watching quietly and felt their own hearts hurt for the both of them.

“No. Want jiejie. Jiejie won’t leave A-Cheng,” he sniffled, big baby eyes staring accusingly at them as if to say ‘you’re lying’.

No, they were not tearing up. They weren’t!

“Hey look who’s here!” said Ouyang Zizhen, bursting into the room with Wei Wuxian following behind him. The infirmary was now very crowded.

They all turned to look at him, and he stopped short in his tracks upon seeing the somber looks on their faces. “Oh no! What happened? Is Sect Leader Jiang okay?”

“Where’s Jiang Cheng?” said Wei Wuxian, abnormally serious.

“He’s right here,” said Jin Ling, lifting the baby slightly.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened. “A-Yuan.. Did you maybe... forget to mention something?”

“No! He wasn’t like this yesterday!” Sizhui defended.

“Huh, well how did this happen then?”

But before anyone could answer him the baby gave a short cry, his eyes lighting up at the sight of Wei Wuxian. He struggled in Jin Ling’s arms stretching out his own towards Wei Wuxian in the universal baby gesture for ‘pick me up’.

“I thought he didn’t remember anything?” said Lan Jingyi.

Healer Zhang looked just as confused as they did, “He shouldn’t… from what we’ve heard so far.”

“But he seems to recognise Senior Wei though.”

“I mean to be fair he might just think Senior Wei looks the least intimidating or something, cuz that’s not usually how he looks when Senior Wei is around,” said Zizhen. To be frank, none of them had ever seen Sect Leader Jiang looking openly happy to see anyone.

Xiao Jiang Cheng seemed to get fed-up of waiting on Wei Wuxian to come get him though and with a burst of strength he pulled away from Jin Ling and tried to hop off the bed to go to him himself.

He seemed to be at an age where he could come off of the bed by himself but he wasn’t wearing clothes in his size, he was merely wrapped in adult-him’s inner robe, which tripped him up and he would have face-planted if not for Jin Ling’s good reflexes.

Seeing as he was thwarted, his eyes began to water again. Raising his arms once more he looked pleadingly towards Wei Wuxian, “Shufu!”

Wei Wuxian choked on his own spit. “Shu… who???”

Seeing fat tears start to drip down Xiao Cheng’s chubby cheeks he hurried over and picked him up. “Alright. It’s okay. You’re okay,” he soothed, as the baby snuggled into him.

His tears petered out and he looked up at Wei Wuxian hopefully. “Wei-Shufu, whewe’s A-die an A-niang? Flower-gege (Lan Jingyi snickered in the background “Flower-gege hehe” “Shut up idiot” “But it suits you”) said jiejie is not hewe. It’s not twue, wight shufu?” he frowned.

Oh. Oh no.

For some reason, Jiang Cheng was calling him uncle and seemed to be okay with his presence, unlike all the other people in the room. But...how was he supposed to answer that question. The guilt hit him acutely because if only this child remembered that it was thanks to saving him that his jiejie was no longer around, he would hate him once more.

But how could he tell this child that his parents and sister were dead?

He couldn’t.

“A-Cheng, do you know why Wei-shufu is here? It’s because your A-die, A-niang, and jiejie had to go on a trip. So Uncle Wei is here to keep A-Cheng company. And all of these friends are here too.”

“Twip? Witout A-Cheng?” And oh no how could a baby look so heartbroken? He’d made a grave mistake.

Jin Ling glared at Wei Wuxian. “They left A-Cheng here because A-Cheng is going to be Sect Leader one day. Do you remember what a Sect Leader does?” he said hastily, trying to fix his colossal screw up.

“The Sect Weader has to pwotect the Sect,” said A-Cheng, as if he had memorised that fact.

“That’s right. And who is the Sect Leader” “A-die!”

“Mhm. But when A-die and A-niang are not here, who will protect the sect?”

“A-Cheng?” he said questioningly.

“That’s right! A-die trusts A-Cheng to watch over the sect when he is not here. And A-niang trusted Uncle Wei to watch over A-Cheng.” Well, that was entirely the truth and way too bittersweet. He pushed down the feeling to focus on the child in front of him, “So will A-Cheng allow Uncle Wei and these friends to help him?” He set his little face determinedly and nodded seriously. An expression that was so Jiang Cheng that he couldn’t help but pinch his little cheeks in response, making the child squirm and pout at him.

His movements made the big robe that was wrapped around him loosen slightly and halfway fall off. Wei Wuxian fixed it but decided they would need a plan of action, especially as the child’s stomach rumbled once more and he blushed, hiding his face in his Uncle Wei’s chest.

“Alright, so here’s what we’re going to do,” he said decisively.

“A-Ling, if I know anything about Jiang Cheng, it’s that he’s really a big sap, and I assume he still has some of your baby clothes lying around here somewhere. See if you can find any. If you can’t, use that nice Lanling gold of yours to go to the tailor’s and order some. We don’t know how long he will be like this and we can’t keep wrapping him in these *he indicated to the huge robe* things. He needs proper clothes.” Normally Jin Ling would protest being given an order by Wei Wuxian, but this was for jiujiu and he didn’t want anyone else poking through his uncle’s things anyway, so he left right away to find some of his old baby robes.

“Have you all had breakfast yet? “No Senior Wei.”

“Okay, right, next order of business is breakfast. This little one is hungry. By now the kitchens must be busy. Lotus Pier has breakfast ready by 6:00am so we don’t have to wait very long. Though I don’t know if A-Cheng can wait, maybe we need to find something for him until then.”

“I offered him a green bean cake,” said Healer Zhang, “But his jiejie rightfully taught him not to eat from strangers. Maybe he will eat it from his Uncle Wei though, to tide him over until breakfast is served.”

“Hmm A-Cheng, do you want the cake?”

He nodded shyly.

(“This is so weird,” said Lan Jingyi. “Yeah… I never thought Sandu Shengshou would have been such a cute child,” said Ouyang Zizhen gleefully. He’d been aching to pinch those cheeks since Senior Wei did it and drew his attention to them. So. Cute. Zizhen was gonna die.)

Healer Zhang held out the cake to him and he took it, bowing halfway from Wei Wuxian’s arms and saying a quiet Thank You.

Zizhen was having cuteness overload. “He’s so polite.” *sniffs*

“Now while the Young Master eats that cake, I’d like to do a checkup,” said Healer Zhang seriously.

“Yes, I was about to suggest it myself. A-Cheng, will you let Healer Zhang do her job? I promise it will be okay, Healer Zhang is a doctor and you can trust her.”

A-Cheng looked sceptical but he nodded and Wei Wuxian handed him off to her. “Uncle Wei is right here, A-Cheng, don’t worry.”

He turned back to the juniors while Healer Zhang did her inspection, “A-Yuan, your message said that he was only unconscious. How did he become this way instead?”

“We don’t know Senior Wei, Jingyi and I were woken up by a baby’s cry. When we came to check on Sect Leader Jiang, we found out the baby was him! Senior Wen and Jin Ling spent the night with him so maybe they will know. We didn’t get a chance to ask before you came because Sect Leader Jiang was very upset. He only really stopped crying when he saw you.”

“Wen Ning?” “Yes Master Wei?” “Aiya stop it with that Master Wei I told you.” Wen Ning blushed, as much as a fierce corpse could blush, he’d gotten better at not calling him master but it was a habit and those were hard to break. “What happened last night?”

“Nothing much at all, but this morning just before 5am Sect Leader Jin woke up and said Sect Leader Jiang felt hot like he had a fever, and he asked me to get Healer Zhang. When I came back with Healer Zhang, we just walked in and there was a huge flash of light and where Sect Leader Jiang was, there was a baby.”

“Huh. I haven’t heard of anything like it. We’ll have to do some research but if it’s related to the night hunt you went on maybe.. Hmm.. A-Yuan after breakfast, if you’re up for it you can play Inquiry and see what the spirit has to say. If we don’t solve this soon I might have to ask Lan Zhan to do it because they can’t lie to him.”

“How come Hanguang-Jun didn’t come with you, Senior Wei?” questioned Lan Jingyi.

“Ah well you know Lan Zhan and I just got back from travelling. Since old man Lan has been doing all of the sect leader duties it’s Lan Zhan’s turn. He couldn’t just leave again, it would be unfair. My core is strong enough now to make the trip from Gusu to Lotus Pier so I told him not to worry about me, I’ll be fine. I should probably shoot him a letter though, he’s probably going to worry until he hears from me.”

“I don’t care if you’re writing to Hanguang-Jun, but Wei Wuxian, this news better not be spread outside of Lotus Pier, or else,” threatened Jin Ling, walking back in with a few robes bundled in his hands. It would be a prime opportunity for jiujiu’s detractors to try and kill him as a defenceless baby.

Wei Wuxian raised his hands in surrender, “I know, I know. I won’t even put what the problem is in the letter. I’ll just say he’s been cursed.”

“Good.”

Jin Ling dumped the robes on Wei Wuxian’s lap. “You can dress him since he seems to like you the most.” He was not salty at all.

Wei Wuxian laughed sheepishly; it wasn’t like he could help that! Not that he wasn’t enjoying it of course, baby Jiang Cheng was adorable and looked even more fun to tease than big Jiang Cheng.

“Right,” said Healer Zhang, garnering their attention. Wei Wuxian’s levity fell away. “What have you determined?”

“Sect Leader is a healthy toddler.” Said toddler was already reaching out for Wei Wuxian, who cooed and cuddled him close.

“He seems about three at the moment. His memories of course, are of the three-year old him. He does not have a core at the moment so it’s likely that the curse actually transformed him to how he was exactly at that age, memories and all. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him, other than the obvious of course. The issue here is that we don’t know if this is permanent or not. I can’t say if this will wear off or if he will have to grow up once more.”

Jin Ling made a wounded noise. As cute as xiao jiujiu was, he wanted his normal jiujiu back.

“We’ll find a solution,” said Wei Wuxian resolutely. “Yeah if anyone can find it it would be you Senior Wei!” said Zizhen supportively.

“Don’t worry so much Young Mistress,” Jingyi poked at Jin Ling’s furrowed brow, “Your pretty face will get premature wrinkles.” Jin Ling turned red and batted away his hand, scowling just like his uncle.

“Alright, breakfast should be ready by now. Let’s go kiddos. We’ll need to eat to keep up our strength. We have lots of work to do,” said Wei Wuxian.

Healer Zhang cleared her throat, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Eh?”

The robe slipped further down the baby.

“Ah hehe, oops. A-Cheng, be good and let Uncle Wei dress you.”

But the toddler took one look at Wei Wuxian’s disheveled robes (in his defense he’d come straight to the infirmary after flying to Lotus Pier okay, he didn’t have time to freshen up!) and screwed up his cute little face.

“Flower-gege help A-Cheng,” he said decisively.

Jin Ling, of course, was impeccable despite being in yesterday’s robes. Wei Wuxian pouted. “Figures he’d want the peacock’s son to dress him,” he mumbled.

Jin Ling was quietly delighted.

“Xiao-jiujiu, you have good taste,” he said, promptly taking the baby away to have a bath and get dressed.

“Well,” he said, overcoming his disappointment, “We should probably find whoever’s in charge while Jiang Cheng is away and brief them on the situation.” There was a twinge of hurt when he realised he didn’t know who that was. He and Lan Zhan had travelled for a while, only stopping for brief periods in Cloud Recesses as things were still a bit uncomfortable for him. The rule against interacting with him was still carved into the stone after all. It was easier to just...not remain there, and since Lan Zhan was known for going where the chaos was, it wasn’t unusual that he himself wasn’t often there. But with Lan Xichen’s seclusion, Master Lan had been running the sect once more. Since at the moment Lan Zhan was the heir, it really should have fallen to him if the Sect Leader was indisposed. As much as Master Lan was upset at his nephew’s choice of partner, he still gave him the freedom to wander about. Master Lan had fallen ill recently, nothing major but still, Lan Zhan had realised how much leeway his uncle was allowing him by taking on all the duties himself and had asked if Wei Ying would go back with him. They hadn’t expected that Wei Ying would be leaving on another trip on his own this time, to face the demons of his past (or in Lan Wangji’s eyes, demon). Lan Zhan couldn’t come with him no matter how much he’d wanted to. It would have been supremely unfair to Master Lan now that he’d accepted the responsibility of acting sect leader, to just up and leave again. But being here on his own really reminded him that this was no longer the Lotus Pier that he knew. Once upon a time he would have been the one who would be in charge if the Sect Leader was indisposed. He would have been Jiang Cheng’s right hand man. But he’s also the one who stuffed it all up so he had no right to feel bitter. It was his idea to defect. Jiang Cheng hadn’t wanted him to. He’d been doing his best to put the past in the past like he’d told Jiang Cheng to do, but he wouldn’t be able to escape it, would he? Jiang Cheng was now quite literally in the past….and Wei Wuxian would never be able to abandon him again. He didn’t want to. He’d find a way to restore Jiang Cheng, and failing that, he’d take care of him as much as possible.

“Indeed. I’ll get our Second-in-Command to speak to you. You should follow me, Sect Leader Jin will know where to find us for breakfast.” Healer Zhang’s voice brought him back to reality.

He nodded and they all followed, the juniors behind him like a row of ducklings.

Healer Zhang arranged for them to meet with the Second-in-Command, who introduced himself as Pan An. “Hehe rhymes with Lan An,” Jingyi joked quietly behind them. Wen Ning wanted to excuse himself since he didn’t need to eat and Pan An was staring at him rather intensely, but they insisted he was needed for the discussion and so he sat down reluctantly.

Luckily, breakfast was set out in a private room so that they could discuss matters freely and keep the mini sect leader with them. “I have already briefed the disciples on the importance of staying silent about Sect Leader’s indisposition,” said Pan An, “However, now Healer Zhang has said there is another problem?”

The aforementioned problem finally arrived and he was looking cute enough to eat in his mini Yunmeng Jiang robes, walking in on his own now, holding Jin Ling’s hand. Both uncle and nephew had taken a bath and Jin Ling had thoroughly enjoyed seeing xiao-jiujiu playing and laughing in the tub like he had no cares in the world. It was bittersweet because as much as he liked it he wished his jiujiu would be able to smile like that as an adult. It hurt his heart to think that this innocent little boy would have to go through so much pain in the future.

“Ah yes, here’s our problem now,” said Wei Wuxian, smiling at the toddler.

Pan An’s eyes widened. “I..is that who I think it is?”

“Yup,” said Lan Jingyi cheekily, “There’s the fearsome Sandu Shengshou in the flesh.”

“Jingyi..” reprimanded Sizhui.

“What,” he grinned, “It’s true. Children can be terrifying.” He shuddered thinking about the baby’s ear-piercing cries. A crying child was almost as scary as a ghost.

Wide-eyed, A-Cheng looked at the stranger and hid slightly behind his Flower-gege’s leg.

Jin Ling pat his head and picked him up. “Don’t be afraid, this is Pan An. Pan An is here to be your second-in-command while A-Die’s gone. You know that Sect Leaders have second-in-commands right?”

Xiao jiujiu nodded.

“Of course he does. A-Cheng’s a smart boy,” praised Wei Wuxian. The tot blushed and hid his face in Jin Ling’s robes. Jin Ling carried him over to the table and set him down in between himself and Wei Wuxian who began teasing the child immediately, squishing his cheeks to see his cute expressions of annoyance.

The juniors looked on in envy; the toddler had not warmed to them yet.

“We’ll debrief you after breakfast,” said Jin Ling, “Xiao jiujiu’s hungry. The rundown is that he’s been cursed and is now a three year old with no memories beyond that time.”

“And Pan-qianbei…” Jin Ling looked at him sharply, “Young Master Jiang’s family is currently on a trip. They have, of course, left him in charge because someone needs to protect the sect while they’re gone. We are all here to assist him.”

“Understood Sect Leader Jin.” The man was quick to catch on, after all Jiang Cheng would not leave just anyone in charge of his sect. Pan An was also secretly proud of the young boy in front of him. He was handling this situation well and sounded every inch the Sect Leader. His jiujiu would be proud, though he would mask it with grumbling if he wasn’t… three.

They all set about eating though Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian both fought to outdo the other when feeding mini Jiang Cheng. One would be spooning congee and the other breaking up buns to feed him...until-- “A-Cheng is big boy. A-Cheng eat like shufu and gege!” And what do you know, he really could eat by himself. That put a stop to their competition and they both pouted. Lan Jingyi didn’t even make fun of Jin Ling for it because...he got it.

Pan An could cry. Who knew his tsundere sect leader was so precious as a child?

Wei Wuxian sighed in pleasure. Yunmeng’s food was the best! It had been so long since he last ate at Lotus Pier.

“Wei-shufu like spicy?” asked A-Cheng, upon seeing him reach for the chilli to add to his already spicy dish.

“Mm. Wei-shufu likes spicy very much. A-Cheng is a good host. The food he serves his guests tastes the best! Wei-shufu has to visit more often.”

Mini Jiang Cheng nodded seriously at this. “Wei-shufu must bwing A-Ying an Aunty ‘angse. Wei-shufu pwomised to bwing A-Ying to play with A-Cheng next time. But now is next time an no A-Ying. A-Cheng want to meet A-Ying.”

And all of a sudden, he felt as if he’d taken a hit from Zidian. Wei Wuxian was struck dumb. Because he’d simply been going along with Xiao Cheng, thinking that some part of the child’s subconscious memory must have remained. But that wasn’t what it was, was it?

Because it was now obvious that Jiang Cheng thought...

Jiang Cheng thought he was Wei Changze.