#even xiao xingchen gets in trouble

[wifiwuxians]

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

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

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

[greenandhazy]

okay but it's the fact that CQL is in large part about what you would sacrifice for the people you love, and in almost every other instance in the show, that sacrifice is portrayed as, if not necessarily the Right decision, at the very least evidence of fundamental goodness. the Yunmeng trio, Wen Qing for her brother and Nie Mingjue for his (Fatal Journey counts 100%), Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, they make difficult choices for love and that makes them Good even if it doesn't make them happy.

and then there's Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang. whose identities are so fundamentally wrapped up in being His Mother's Son and The Little Brother, respectively, and they are so singularly devoted to the legacy of their relative that they will continue to fight for it long after death. they will sacrifice others in a heartbeat. they will lie, they will scheme, they will cause others pain. they will endure humiliation after humiliation. they will put on a persona that makes their true selves unrecognizable even to the people who know them best. ultimately they will sacrifice their own morality, their own goodness, in a way that would probably horrify the people in whose names they make this sacrifice.

I am falling asleep and these are random disjointed thoughts but other things that drive me feral about them is:

the backstory CQL gives, Meng Yao being at the Unclean Realm for (?) a length of time, and allll the visual signifiers of a close, basically familial relationship between them

(I know fanon likes to talk about "the Nie braids" as a sect-wide thing but they ARE NOT. they are a HUAISANG AND MINGJUE AND MENG YAO THING. litcherally no other Nie disciple wears them, not even Nie Zonghui! that's so significant!)

CQL/FJ leaning hard into the suggestion of the brothers being more or less on their own, very little discussion of their parents, leaving room to lean into the idea of NMJ fulfilling a parental role as well as a brotherly one, and the parallel between him and Meng Shi being even stronger

the final flashback to Meng Yao and Meng Shi, and how it's framed to suggest that as coming from Huiasang--a cherished memory Meng Yao passed on to him?

I've seen this floated around on tumblr before, about how it's very likely that Jin Guangyao underestimated the depth of Huaisang's love for his brother, based on how his love manifests as overachieving. so that moment of revelation in the temple being not just "oh, you're the one who was behind this the whole time" but "oh, you and I have this same sickness, this same depth of feeling."

the character songs. I'm obsessed with them. the fact that Jin Guangyao's is a constant litany of questions, uncertainty, revolving around "How many people are willing to know your true face?", while the Nie brothers' song has their relationship as this unshakeable foundation, to the point that they're the only two characters represented by one vocalist. the Unclean Realm being unquestionably "a place of deep love" and the only uncertainty being "when will we see each other again?"

(...and that being answered in part by the title, the repeated use of farewell with connotations of permanence. Huaisang defying death, wanting his brother back in any form possible, while Jin Guangyao literally meets his doom because he is so concerned about earning his mother an easier time in her next life.)

mutual obsession over Nie Mingjue. Meng Yao keeping his head in his treasure room. there are lots of jokes about how LXC is left out of the get-along coffin, but can we talk about the fact that Huaisang sacrificed his moral compass, the reputation of his sect, the life of a troubled teenager, and 10+ years of his life all so he could free his brother's mutilated body from Jin Guangyao's clutches... and at the end of it all, Jin Guangyao is the one who will be with him for eternity?

in conclusion: I love them, your honor.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Pride!!!! Living Blood or Lady Mo please!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Xuanyu disrobes unashamedly, hesitating only at the last second with the sleeve covering her left arm.

Jiang Yanli laughs. “Bit late to be modest, I think.”

“Modesty is overrated,” she returns, which is something that Zixuan would say and A-Yao would think. She slips the rest of the robes off and steps into the steaming bath, letting out a deep sigh of satisfaction.

The changes her body has undergone are even more obvious without the thick layers of the robes obscuring her form. The extra weight seems to have settled in ideal places, not only thickening her waist and limbs but settling heavily along her hips and breasts, which hadn’t exactly been small to begin with.

She sits behind Xuanyu, filling a bowl with water and then pouring it over her hair to rinse it of blood and dirt that had been hidden by her dark hair. Acting as a bathing assistant is far below her station, but Xuanyu had sent all the servants away and she doesn’t mind, really. Xuanyu is her sister, likely the only one she’ll ever have considering A-Cheng’s track record with matchmakers, and she’s been worried about her. This gives them time to speak alone. “How has your marriage with Lan Wangji been? Has he been kind?”

Xuanyu pulls a face, which isn’t encouraging. “I guess. He mostly left me alone, and then we had a couple fights and he was a jerk, and now I think he’s trying to make up for being a jerk, but it’s a little – well, it’s nice that he’s making an effort. I suppose.”

Not as good as she’d hoped, but not as bad as she’d feared. “Sect Leader Lan seems fond of you.”

“Oh, Lan Xichen is great,” she says easily. Better than reaction to Lan Wangji, but still not what Jiang Yanli had been hoping for. Then her eyes light up. “Sizhui is wonderful! I’ll give Wangji one thing, he’s raised a good kid. He’s so sweet, and a great cultivator, and he’s always trying to help out everyone around him. I’m glad Jingyi’s always hanging around – without him, I think everyone would just take advantage of Sizhui’s good nature.”

Well, that’s something. Surely Lan Wangji can’t resist Xuanyu’s charms for long, not when she dotes on his son and gets along with his brother.

“What trouble did you get into on the road?” she asks, running her hand over the wound on Xuanyu’s shoulder. It looks nearly fully healed already and there’s another mostly healed wound on her hip, a thin slice on her left arm, and the shadow of various bruises that were likely much worse a couple hours ago. It’s of course a good thing that Xuanyu has a strong golden core, but Jiang Yanli can’t help a moment of wistfulness.

Her own core never lived up to her mother’s expectations, or her own. If she’d had a stronger core, she could have given A-Ling siblings. A child should have siblings. She would have had a calmer childhood without two little brothers underfoot, but a lonelier one too.

Xuanyu shrugs, lazily scrubbing herself down. “Looks like Xiao Xingchen picked up the girl, A-Qing, while he and Song Lan were separated and was trapped in this place that was basically a ghost town.” How could he be trapped by a place that had no people? “And I’d heard some rumors so when we ran into Song Lan I helped him find Xiao Xingchen, but there was a bit of a fight with someone who didn’t want him to leave. I just happened to get caught in the crossfire, so to speak.”

She’s stretching the truth to outright lying. Before Jiang Yanli can call her on it, her stomach growls.

“Didn’t get a chance to eat on the road?” she teases.

Xuanyu flushes, ducking briefly beneath the water to hide her flaming cheeks before resurfacing. “Things were a little hectic. It may have slipped my mind.”

How has she managed to put on weight while also forgetting to eat? Perhaps Lan Wangji deserves more credit.

“I think I have some candies in my room, if you want something before the banquet,” she offers. “I know the speeches take forever.”

Her eyes light up before dimming and she slumps in the bath. “Thanks, Yanli-jie, but I better not. Sizhui gave me some on the road and I usually love them but just putting it in my mouth almost made me sick. It was awful. And weird! They’re my favorite.”

Jiang Yanli blinks then gives Xuanyu’s significantly larger chest a considering look. It could be nothing. It’s probably nothing. She hasn’t even been married a year and it doesn’t sound as if she and Lan Wangji have been seeing eye to eye.

Then again, the same could have been said about her and Zixuan.

“Can I ask you something personal, Meimei?”

Xuanyu nods. “You can ask me anything, Yanli-jie.”

“Are you and Lan Wangji having sex?”

She turns bright red and ducks beneath the water for so long that Jiang Yanli is starting to get concerned before she resurfaces, still red faced. “Um. We did once. Well – I guess, technically, it was three times, but it was only one night.”

Well. Apparently Lan Wangji has stamina on and off the battlefield.

“One moment,” she says, briefly squeezing Xuanyu’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

It takes one whispered conversation with the servant outside the hall and approximately ninety seconds before her personal healer is standing in front of her. Jiang Yanli ducks back inside to see Xuanyu out of the bath, in a thin bathing robe that’s clinging to her as she wrings her hair out. “I’d like my healer to take a look at you, Meimei.”

Xuanyu freezes, slowly standing straight with a wary look on her face. “That’s really not necessary. The wounds were just superficial and they’re basically healed already.”

“It’ll be quick,” she says, because if she’s right then she can’t let Xuanyu go down to the banquet without letting her know. “She’s very discreet – she’s been my personal healer since I was a child.”

“Jiang Xingyi?” Xuanyu asks, some of her tension draining away.

Jiang Yanli nods, trying to think of some reason that Xuanyu would know her healer’s name, or her reputation, but all the servants are terrible gossips and her health is a frequent topic of derision. “Just your wrist, okay? Your golden core has changed a lot. I just want her to take a look.”

She feels bad about lying, but Xuanyu had lied to her first.

Xuanyu relaxes even further. “Okay, Yanli-jie. If it’ll make you feel better.”

“Thank you,” she smiles, then opens the door to usher Jiang Xingyi in.

The old woman doesn’t smile, but Xuanyu grins back undeterred, and says, “Hi, Granny,” before paling and adding, “uh, um. Sorry.”

Jiang Yanli feels a familiar pang of grief go through her. A-Xian had referred to Jiang Xingyi as Granny, the only disciple both bold and beloved enough to get away with it.

Jiang Xingyi ignores her, instead reaching for her wrist and pressing her fingers against it. Xuanyu fidgets, shifting from one foot to the other, but says nothing as the moments stack on top of one another.

Finally, Jiang Xingyi drops her wrist and steps back. Her stern visage breaks, a smile stretching her mouth across her face. “Congratulations, Madame Lan.”

She knew it!

“Thanks,” Xuanyu answers before wrinkling her nose. “Um. For what?”

“You are expecting,” she answers. “At least a couple months along, I believe, although I’d have to do a more thorough examination to be sure.”

Jiang Yanli moves to embrace her, but Xuanyu’s face drops and she turns dangerously pale. “What? No. That’s not possible. I can’t be.”

“Three times,” Jiang Yanli reminds her, trying to goad Xuanyu into laughter.

But instead she just shakes her head. “No, no I can’t, I – this can’t be happening,” she whispers to herself, grabbing her own arms in a white knuckled grip. “It’s not. It’s impossible. I can’t be.”

She’s young, and this wasn’t a marriage of her own choosing, and it’s so new. Of course she’s surprised and nervous. Jiang Yanli touches her elbow, intending to say something soothing, but Xuanyu collapses into her arms, gripping her waist and hiding her tears in her shoulder.

“Xuanyu!” she says, hugging her back just as fiercely, her heart breaking for the younger girl’s anguish. “Meimei, it’s okay, I know this is scary, but it’s going to be fine.”

“It’s not,” she says, voice thick with tears, “A-jie, this is awful, this is – it can’t happen! It can’t, Wangji is going to be so mad, he’s going to hate me, and everything is ruined and awful, I can’t be – I can’t! I’m going to die!”

Jiang Yanli’s whole body goes cold and she grips Xuanyu even tighter against her. “You’re going to be fine,” she says, pushing her conviction into every syllable.

No matter what Jiang Yanli has to do, Xuanyu is going to be fine.

[lansplaining]

I’ve decided to consolidate my brainrot

SO YOU’VE BEEN TADPOLED au

characters are chosen not so much for personality matches as for who would best pick their plot threads

Wei Wuxian is of course a necromancer wizard who needs to snack on magic artefacts because of a teeeeeny little mistake that wasn’t even his fault really!! except all the ways it was! I’m sure he won’t be tempted by either self immolation or the chance to grab the power to reunite with his family.

Jin Guangyao is a trickery cleric of Shar, who comes to learn that the Father Superior is in fact his real dad, holding his Selûnite priestess mother captive.

Jiang Cheng is of course a disgraced scion of Baldur’s Gate, who soul his soul to a devil to protect the city but can’t tell anyone about it, and definitely isn’t still desperate for his dad’s approval.

Lan Wangji is a devoted Githyanki fighter whose faith in his whole world is shaken when he discovers that the power behind Jin Guangyao’s mysterious artefact is none other than his own mother, imprisoned by his father. He decides to work together with his uncle to free her and overthrow his father. Incidentally, he was in Hell looking for…

Lan Xichen, kidnapped during a mission gone wrong and sold to the archdevil Zariel. Being in Avernus corrupted his powers so now he is a wild magic barbarian with an infernal engine for a heart. Also Zariel turned him into a tiefling idk.

ok here’s the ones I’ll get in trouble for

Xiao Xingchen is a vampire spawn who has spent 200 years being tormented by the vampire Xue Yang, who forces him to seduce and kill innocents. Maybe if he gained infernal power, he could silence this hunger and begin to atone for his wrongs…?

Nie Huaisang is a lore bard with some… memory issues. He comes to learn that he is Bhaalspawn, and used to be heir to the Cult of Bhaal until his older brother, in a fit of their hereditary murderous rage, decided he was an unfit heir and attacked and left him for dead.

[memory-lane-and-back-again]

A Thought About Wei Wuxian's Death

Spoilers for... I don't remember which book it is (Book 3 I think)

When WWX is captured by the Wens and tossed into the burial mounds he is so full of rage and anger that it is a terrifying possibility that he will come back as a fierce corpse full of resentful energy. (Arguable he does, but that's a point to make for after exams when I can actually have fun and analyse the heck out of these)

I find it an interesting parallel that when he actually does die he is an incredibly 'well behaved ghost.' as in, he's well... if not moved on, at least not inclined to try and act and in some state of peace: not happy but at least tolerating how things have ended. WWX's character is permeated by a deep, inextricable sadness and I think, though it is not ever blatantly acknowledge, this is foregrounded right at the beginning with the story: he doesn't know why he's been brought back, does not understand and is incredibly fixed on the fact that it was not his choice. To infer... he didn't really want to come back.

I found his present mellowness, that contrasts so brutally with his fury and anger and ability to feel such intensity before he died, to be a bit strange---not unbelievable but strange. That kind of anger burns incredibly brightly and is incredibly hard to tamper down and yes, he grows and matures but it feels a bit strange to me that this comes on from spending ten years without a body. I think it is more an extension of his grief and guilt: after Wen Qing and Wen Ning go to die on his behalf is when he gets truly angry... his anger gets out of control and Jiang Yanli is hurt and then dies for him. Jiang Cheng takes his anger out on him. As far as WWX can remember even LWJ is disgusted by him... is it so hard to believe that he too is disgusted with himself. Present day, he cringes at his past arrogance---the illusion of omnipotence and control he thought he had.

I am of the opinion he's the sort of person with the mindset that if he can make the world a better place, fix one problem, even if it is at the expense of his own, he'd do it. He is raised to protect JC, doesn't even bat an eye at losing his core because if it can help JC it is good; he doesn't fear dying if he can come back as a fierce corpse to still help destroy the Wens; he doesn't care to humiliate himself to try and give Wen Ning a chance at archery; his public image does not matter if he is helping people. This carries forward where he is willing to sacrifice discovery to protect Jin Ling; he turns himself into a spirit attraction flag for people who hate him; the moment LWJ freaks out about sleeping with him, WWX first priority is to take all the blame for everything and then leave and go do the stupid mission all by himself because he doesn't want to force LWJ to put up with him, even though it leaves WWX himself incredibly wrought. And then of course, he doesn't even bat an eye at luring Nie Minguie away by himself.

My point is he's a willing martyr, happy to get himself into trouble and deep water for pretty much anyone (mianmian, LWJ, JC, the Wens) so it must feel like hell when his efforts only succeed in getting everyone killed, when he's kind of forced to confront that he is loved and had people willing to stand by him that he did not consider when he made his plans and that they are dead because of to an extent his actions. I truly believe him trying to destroy the Yin Tiger Tally is his last attempt to try and rectify things and he is a bit like Xiao Xingchen in that regard, trying so hard to follow his principles and failing abysmally. At that point his jiejie is dead, who is like the very symbol of innocence and unconditional love in his life at that point and he knows they are coming to kill him. His big character difference I think has a lot to do with the three months after the nightless city and before his death because he feels the world is better off with him dead.

A lot of people compare Xue Yang and WWX and whilst I think that is valid, I think a lot of people forget his inherent connection to XXC through his mother. I think it is important to acknowledge that they share a very similar mindset: naively wanting to change the world with their beliefs alone as if people will see altruism and kindness as the best path whilst most people are out searching very selfishly for their own greatness and success---something neither WWX adn XXC need to think about because A) the are already powerful and successful and B) they were never raised to think themselves as needing to be supremely powerful to be successful and Good.

Anyways, it does make me wonder how much of WWX's characterisation present day is put on. He slaps himself in the face when no one is around to see it after he finds out who Jin Ling is, he lets Jin Ling stab him and feels he deserves it---that by proxy is when he's most open with LWJ: 'you don't need to come with me, your reputation will be ruined.' It so, so clearly speaks of self-loathing that he is so so good at hiding.

I think actually when LWJ and WWX first sleep together the physical undressing is also a metaphor for an emotional undressing on WWX's part because he strips himself of his insincerity and arrogance and allows himself to be vulnerable. The only other times we see his vulnerability is when he's passed out unconscious and when he realises to stop hurting LWJ he needs to kind of bare his soul to him in book 5 after LXC reveals the truth about nightless city.

Gosh, I love these characters so much.

[veliseraptor]

when in canon do you think xue yang realises he loves xiao xingchen and/or when do you think would be most interesting for him to realise. I like to think it's just after he dies when xue yang realises he can't resurrect him like he planned because that adds an even more painful layer to the situation imo.

the thing about Xue Yang and feelings realizations though, particularly feelings realizations about loving Xiao Xingchen, is that...Xue Yang does not examine his own feelings very much, and he is absolute shit at identifying them. thinking a lot about that one text post meme that has him with the "*realizes I'm experiencing a genuine human emotion* ok, troubling" and like. that's it! it is not that Xue Yang does not have human emotions it is that Xue Yang doesn't spend much if any time introspecting on his human emotions, what they are, and what they mean, on, like, a specific, articulate level.

so all of this is to say that I don't know that Xue Yang ever realizes that he loved Xiao Xingchen, per se. I think Xue Yang's emotional journey around Xiao Xingchen transitioned from "nemesis I'm going to destroy emotionally and physically" to "nemesis I will destroy emotionally and physically, eventually, when this stops being fun" to "person whose company makes me happy apparently so we'll roll with this until that stops being the case" to "person whose company makes me happy and I'd like to keep it that way" and, after Xiao Xingchen dies, more or less a blue screen of "wait what this isn't what I wanted and now I feel bad about it D: and I really really really want him back and would do a lot to make that happen and will not stop trying, ever."

but I don't think he looks at any of those and goes "huh, guess I'm in love with Xiao Xingchen" because I just don't think that's something he thinks of himself as doing. it's not a part of his emotional vocabulary; it's something other people do, or so he has read. and he doesn't have a sense of what it would feel like for him in order to identify it as such.

slfskdjfls to quote my own fic I wrote in our love would live a half-life on the surface Xue Yang thinking:

I loved you, Xiao Xingchen had said. Xue Yang didn’t know what that meant, or what it was supposed to feel like, but he knew nobody else had ever mattered like Xiao Xingchen did, nobody else was real like Xiao Xingchen was, that he’d never felt like this about someone else, like he wanted to never let him go, like he wanted to open up his ribcage and keep him inside. Like he wanted to tear them both into strips and weave the pieces together so every part of him would be touching every part of Xiao Xingchen all the time.

So maybe it was like that.

and that's kind of what I think he would come to, eventually, if he thought about it. but while I think before Xiao Xingchen dies he gets as far as "I want to keep this and I don't want it to end and I like spending time with Xiao Xingchen and living with him, weird but okay" and after Xiao Xingchen dies he gets "oh this is bad, this feels real bad and I don't like it and I want him back and I'm more miserable than I have ever been in my entire life" I don't think he necessarily does the precise math to articulate that into "I loved Xiao Xingchen."

but I definitely don't think he realized just how much Xiao Xingchen mattered to him until after he was gone and not coming back; before that I think somewhere Xue Yang had still convinced himself that he had an exit strategy and could always end this whenever he wanted and walk away. after that...not so much.

[admirableadmiranda]

Wei Wuxian continues to be such an interesting, fun character to explore for me. Today on Wei Wuxian brain rot…

I know we’ve talked about the CQL scene where Wei Wuxian is in trouble and Lan Qiren brings up his mother and his first response is to ask Lan Qiren to tell him something about her before, and how despite Jiang Fengmian having grown up with Wei Changze and known Cangse-sanren, Wei Wuxian still knows nothing new of them from him, only his own faded childhood memories.

But a little scene got me in the heart in just how simple it is to make him happy and how much down the line he still misses his parents.

It’s in the middle of the A-Qing flashback, when Xiao Xingchen is attempting to tell a story by talking about the disciples of Baoshan-sanren.

“After Xiao XingChen finished mending the basket, he felt it a few times. He made sure that it wouldn’t hurt the hand, put it down, and continued, “The second disciple was a girl and also very outstanding.”

Wei WuXian’s chest felt warm.

She was ZangSe SanRen.”

Exiled Rebels Translation, Dew, Chapter 40.

Just the very fact that even though Xiao Xingchen seems to know less than he does (and also A-Qing is complaining that his parents story is boring), just the very mention of her is enough to make him happy. Not even by name, just by reputation, but that’s still enough for her son who only has a few faded memories of her words and laughter.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t hold onto sorrow or regrets, he doesn’t begrudge others what they have or wish that things had been different, but those hurts are still there. Well hidden, well protected, but there for a careful eye to see them and it just gets me sometimes how well he’s crafted as a character that a line like this can just gut me because the simple action of him being happy about such a small thing can say so much in itself.

[deathbyoctopi]

“Don’t tell the daozhang anything unnecessary”

says Song Lan, and he follows after Xue Yang. 

What if he had actually killed him? Say he’s successful, fights off Xue Yang’s attack with no ill effects or poisoning, and later gets rid of the corpse and goes back to Xiao Xingchen, who is none the wiser. 

Imagine the tearful reunion! Two long-lost friends finally making amends, Xiao Xingchen warmly welcoming him to his home, eager to introduce him to his new-found family. He knows a-Qing already, that’s how he found him to begin with, but he will meet soon his new friend, a young little rogue always so full of life, that makes him laugh so easily and makes his days so happy. 

...A friend who is never coming home. 

What would Song Lan do? He knows the truth about the “fierce corpses”, and knows this kind of truth would utterly destroy Xiao Xingchen. Just as much as knowing who that “friend” of his really was... So does he stay silent? Does he just watch Xiao Xingchen wait past dinner-time, past bed-time, waiting to hear for him to come back? Does he offer reassurance, does he suggest that maybe he just left out of the blue? 

And what does aQing do?? She saw what happened, she saw Song Lan kill that asshole and dump the body and lie through his teeth (through words or silence) about the whole thing. She knew that guy was trouble and probably had it coming, but every passing day without news of him is making daozhang more and more miserable, which she really can’t abide. 

How long can either of them keep up with the charade, with the lies? Specially since coming out with the truth will feel more and more like a betrayal with each passing day. It seems Song Lan and aQing both underestimated what a deep effect this loss would have on him...

And Xiao Xingchen is miserable. Just as he is reunited with Song Lan, at long last, he all too suddenly loses one of the three persons he cared most in his life. The hope is still there, that he simply went away for a while and will come back as carefree and cocky as always, but the dread is ever present and growing, the dread of him just growing tired of that dull life and leaving. The dread of him having come across trouble from which Xingchen couldn’t have protected. 

Of him being dead.

Whether Song Lan or aQing eventually tell the truth or they stay silent, Xiao Xingchen will always keep this wound deep in his soul. 

And here’s me thinking that, even in the best-case-scenario for the “good guys”, Yi City was always going to end in tragedy. 

[madtomedgar]

still thinking about an au where Jin Guangshan tells Jin Guangyao to kill Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao sleeping-beauties him instead.

this i am assuming happens early, around the time that Jin Guangshan in canon decides Nie Mingjue has outlived himself. It happens because of a combination of things. Jin Guangyao has convinced him to give the Lan sect a lot of money and resources. Lan Xichen is not actually being all that supportive or grateful, in his mind. In fact, Jin Guangyao is wasting a lot of time “overseeing the rebuilding” and Lan Xichen is encouraging him to dream above himself and helping him come up with, and push, this watchtower garbage. And then there’s the eyefucking. Lan Xichen is being annoying, but also, it’s a test of loyalty. Is Jin Guangyao a good and filial son, loyal to his father, or is he the Lan clan’s little whore? So.

Jin Guangyao drags his feet and does everything he can to prove that Lan Xichen is a valuable ally, but this makes his father dig in even more, because all it’s showing is that Jin Guangyao is too attached to, and too loyal to, someone who is not him. He wants him obedient, subservient, disposable.

And Jin Guangyao doesn’t want to do this! This is his nightmare! But Jin Guangshan has sent Xue Yang along to follow, and watch, and make sure that either Jin Guangyao finishes the job, or he can die along with precious er-ge. So Jin Guangyao is in a bind here. (We are assuming that Xue Yang finds this kind of funny, because he hasn’t shacked up with Xiao Xingchen yet and so doesn’t get it yet). It has to look real. But he can’t. But he has to.

So. He doesn’t tell Lan Xichen anything before hand. He seals his cultivation, saps his energy, poisons him. He holds him while he “dies” and weeps and apologizes and weeps some more for a long time. Then he delivers the body to Lan Qiren. In fine Jin Guangyao fashion, he throws himself at his feet and explains that this was the only way to keep Lan Xichen (who is not dead but very much appears dead and will continue to appear dead until he’s given the antidote) safe. He is telling him this so that Lan Qiren will know to keep his body safe and cared for, until Jin Guangyao can wake him.

Lan Qiren wants to know why Jin Guangyao is doing all of this. Why he is going to such trouble, and disobeying his father, for Lan Xichen. He knows they are close and, now, that Jin Guangshan is a wicked man, but Jin Guangyao is taking a great risk here. So Jin Guangyao has to explain what Lan Xichen’s kindness and friendship and affection have meant to him, and how in light of all that he could never, ever harm him. How much even that gesture at the salute ceremony meant, and how of course after that he saved him from the Wen, and he will save him as many times as he needs to.

They come up with a strategy together for how to handle things while Jin Guangshan remains alive. If he decides to hang Jin Guangyao out to dry for killing Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren will insist that he be delivered to the Lan sect to be punished. He will drink the same poison he used on Lan Xichen. Their bodies will be kept together, until Lan Xichen can be safely woken up. Lan Qiren will explain what happened, and allow him to decide Jin Guangyao’s fate.

Four years pass. Jin Guangyao discovers a poison which only activates during intercourse, and slowly saps the energy of the victim over a long period of time and many couplings. He allows Madam Jin to become aware of it as well. It is a test. If his father can listend to him or to his wife, and not continue going to brothels and assaulting servants, then he will live. If he continues as he always has, he will die within a year.

Jin Guangshan dies within a year.

Lan Xichen is awoken by Jin Guangyao. On seeing Jin Guangyao, he is enraged because the last thing he remembers is being betrayed and dying while Jin Guangyao told him how sorry he was. He will not listen to him. Lan Qiren has to explain everything. He and Jin Guangyao talk a few days later. He’s still angry, but he understands why Jin Guangyao did what he did. But he is so angry. Because it hurt so much, to have (as he thought) his love betray him like that and kill him (slowly, painfully) like that. Because Wangji spent the last five years believing he was dead and he’s not well. Because he’s lost five years while his sect struggled, asleep in a cave for his own safety, and doesn’t that feel familiar.

And so while they are talking and walking, he tells Jin Guangyao he understands but he’s not sure he can go back to how they were. For now he doesn’t want to see him anymore. Maybe that will change, but he can only speak for what he feels right now. And Jin Guangyao, who is so very upset, grabs his sleeve and starts with “er-ge” and Lan Xichen snaps “don’t call me that” and flings him off with too much strength because he’s still out of balance from having just been woken up, and Jin Guangyao goes sailing down the stairs-path that leads up to the Cloud recesses.

Lan Xichen yells out “A-Yao” in distress (up until then it had been a cold Jin zongzhu) and runs to help him up. He’s clearly injured. But he shakes Lan Xichen off, bows, apologizes again for the great distress he’s caused him, and leaves. They don’t see each other again until the next discussion conference. It takes them another 5 years to get back together.

[gloriousmonsters]

comprehensive list of every MDZS character that has made a ‘are we in a relationship/is this gay??’ post in an au where everything is the same except reddit exists and people use modern terminology when it’s funny

obviously, wei wuxian. ‘i’ve been playing gay chicken with this guy and sleeping in the same bed as him and he’s really quiet but he hasn’t been telling me to quit it like he used to and also he looks at me strangely sometimes and buys me drinks and we actually wound up having sex the other night--’ responses tend: ‘you’ve had sex how many times? yeah, that’s not technically a bromance’

lan xichen makes one while on the road with meng yao, lovingly detailing how they’ve been doing chores together and meng yao thoughtlessly called him a ‘good boy’ while doing laundry and it made him blush really hard, omg, and he wants to believe something might be there but meng yao is just so smart and talented and the situation’s difficult so he doesn’t want to presume even though meng yao keeps touching his hands while teaching him to mend clothes and seems to have a special smile just for him, etc etc. responses: people going ‘op just go for it’ and a bunch of people just calling him a sub

xiao xingchen and song lan make posts at the same time about their amazing friend that they share a common dream with and we kind of casually hold hands sometimes and call each other endearments but like, platonically? i think? reponses: ‘oh my fucking god *posts screenshot of the other one’s post*’. they wind up having a good laugh over it and making an update post about how they’re together now

years later xiao xingchen makes a post about how he’s been cohabiting with this guy who keeps on making jokes to make him laugh and teasing him by calling them ‘married’ and like, they are living together and sort of raising a teenager, well mostly she’s raising herself, but anyway - he thinks he’s getting signals but he’s had some trouble with relationships ending messily before, and he doesn’t want to presume something and make his friend uncomfortable, what they have is so precious... responses: a-qing’s burner account saying the guy is sus, don’t go for it. xue yang’s burner saying ‘he’s 100% into you. jump his bones’

jin guangyao makes a post asking ‘if a guy you really like and sort of had a summer romance with asks you to be sworn brothers, but like... also sworn brothers with your ex, what does it mean?’ and deletes the post after accumulating a bunch of responses demanding more info

jiang cheng demands to know that if you’re best friends with someone and they’re sort of your adopted brother but definitely your sect brother and they PROMISED with their OWN MOUTH to stay by your side and then they dump you to go off and cohabit with ANOTHER MAN and a bunch of refugees but that bit’s not important, that’s like, a breach of contract, right? because you’re in a relationship, right? responses: a number of people directing him to r/AITA. ‘op is this even a romantic relationship or is it a bro thing’ jc replies saying IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT IT IS and deletes, but not before screenshots are everywhere

xue yang makes a post about how he was like, sort of faking being into this guy for lulz but now he’s kind of caught feelings and the flirting-to-make-the-other-guy-uncomfortable has escalated to morning kisses and the dude keeps leaving candy on his pillow and like... do you guys think he’s just playing along with the joke, or is it serious? responses: ‘oh my fucking god op’ ‘yeah you’re dating. you’re like 75% married’ and a-qing’s burner account telling him he’s reading too much into it

su she makes a post detailing how he’s had a crush on his boss who’s also his friend for a while and so he doesn’t want to let his hopes make him assume anything but his boss is extremely touchy-feely with him sometimes and asks him to work late alone together on... projects, it’s not important what, and maybe he gets playfully called a ‘work boyfriend’ a lot and his boss goes out of his way to compliment him sometimes, etc... Multiple responses point out he’s listed like 80 kinds of HR violations. su she replies it doesn’t matter. responses assert that yeah, it kind of does, also did you mention your boss already has a boyfriend? red flag op. sms gets pissed at nobody addressing his actual question and deletes the post

jin guangyao makes a post asking how many times you have to ‘jokingly’ call someone your boyfriend and spend late nights working on projects while finding excuses to touch before you acknowledge maybe something is going on. he gets a few OH MY GOD IT’S YOU... MR HR VIOLATIONS responses before swiftly deleting

wen ning has attempted to write a post several times throughout his life and undeath and always chickened out and deleted what he wrote at the last moment. he finally just makes a post about regrets and wishing you’d asked things outright and shared your feelings on r/offmychest or something. it’s very moving and gets shared a lot. wwx absolutely sees it and comments ‘man the dude in this story must be an asshole to not realize op’s feelings’ with 0 self awareness. for my own happiness this absolutely is the start to an endgame ningxian postcanon au

lan wangji makes an account post guanyin temple to ask ‘if a man tells me ‘I like you, I love you, I whatever you, I want to fuck you every day’, does that mean we’re in a relationship?’ he ignores every response except the first person to just say ‘yep’, replies ‘thank you’ to that person and then never returns to xianxia reddit

[the-untamed-obsession]

When Someone Flirts With You!

Hello! Little disclaimer: This is the same format used on two different blogs, they’re both mine (if you’ve seen them). This is just a really fun thing to do, so I always try to do them for new fandoms I join and whatnot. I hope you like it! 

Sidenote: Normally, I have banners just cuz they look nice but I’m not sure if I wanna make em for this blog, yet.

Includes: Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Wen Ning, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang.

Come one, come all! See what happens when someone flirts with you in front of your mans!

Wei Wuxian:

One day, you were at a tavern waiting for your boyfriend to get back. He had left for only ten minutes and someone had already swooped in to bother you. No matter what you said or did, they just wouldn’t back off.

Like people don’t know who he is-

Normally, he won’t jump in immediately. He’ll stay back and just let you handle it if you can. If you can’t handle it, just look at him. He’ll know the second you make eye contact.

He prefers to stand next to the person and joins them. Of course, they’re uncomfortable and ask what he’s trying to do and he’ll respond with something like “flirting with my partner, they’re cute, aren’t they?”

Yeah, that usually doesn’t work. Unless people KNOW him and are scared of him, they would just brush him off.

He doesn’t like that. Not one bit, especially when you’re getting more uncomfortable by the minute.

He’ll try to do the same thing again, but the SECOND someone tries to touch you, he slaps them with his flute. No, he ain’t playing it, he’s swinging it. In one whole second, he’s in front of you and the person is most likely on the floor. 10/10 would recommend.

“Don’t ever touch my (y/n) ever again, ok?”

Lan Wangji:

You followed Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji on their adventures often and always tried to stay close to the duo. The ONE TIME you decided to go off on your own, you found yourself cornered. Thankfully, both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were just around the corner.

Oh dear.

He glares. He just idles at glaring at everyone. So even before you ask for help, he’ll just glare at the person. But if you need help, feel free to call him.

He’ll immediately stand between you and the offender. He’s not scared, he’s not arguing, just glaring silently.

50/50, he’s actually pretty scary so most people are freaked out.

In the unlikely event it doesn’t work out and they continue to push you, he’s fighting. But it’s Lan Wangji, he doesn’t have to try. It’s just… smack and they’re down. 10/10 would recommend.

“...”

Wen Ning:

During his adventures with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, Wen Ning often tends to go off by himself. You always followed him, trying to keep as close as you could. There was one day where you were hungry, so you went to buy some snacks. Wen Ning didn’t come with you and you definitely regretted not asking him to join you. Someone had cornered you and they just wouldn’t let you leave so you had to call out to your boyfriend.

Even as fierce corpse, he’s pretty hesitant at times. So normally, he’d just wait it out to see what you do, mainly because he doesn’t want to be THAT boyfriend... you know the one who just does too much.

If you need help, just call him or look at him. He’ll be in front of you in a second, hiding you behind his form. He’ll at first just ask someone to leave you alone.

0/10. Never works, he just LOOKS nervous. So people will either try to push him out of the way or just roll their eyes and ignore him, while still trying to talk to you.

Wen Ning doesn’t care if people ignore him, it’s not the first time. What does really bother him though is when people can’t take a hint. He hates when you’re uncomfortable, so if someone is making you feel like that ON PURPOSE, he hates it.

The thing is, they can’t shove Wen Ning out of the way. He’s actually pretty strong and so the second they try to (especially after they ignore him), he just grabs their arm and twists it, holding them in place until they apologize to you.

8/10, usually very effective but if it still doesn’t work, he’ll just throw them out of the establishment. He warned them TWICE, he ain’t doing it again.

“Are you ok? I’m glad... I was worried I was too late.”

Lan Xichen:

He had invited you to an event with him, one where you did your best to stay close to him. You’d already seen some weird stares, ones that made you very uncomfortable. Unfortunately, Lan Xichen was called away for one second, but that’s all it took for someone to immediately come bother you.

He’s very observant, so he’s always got his eye on you. He worries more than he likes to admit, only because he doesn’t want to overdo it. You’re an adult, who can handle themselves.

However, if you do need help, just call for him. He’s on his way. He’ll immediately stop them by grabbing their arm and pulling them away, claiming they’re making you uncomfortable.

50/50 and it depends on whether they know him. Most don’t so they’ll kinda brush him off, which he doesn’t appreciate.

He’ll try again, not wanting to resort to violence. There are times where people just quit, finding him bothersome, but there’s always ONE person who wants to try again.

One person even tried to touch you once, roughly grabbing your arm and yanking you away from Lan Xichen.

Oh boy, he had his sword out faster than you’d ever seen. The person immediately let you go and you hid behind your boyfriend.

“Do not touch people without their permission.”

Jiang Cheng:

You were with Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng on one of their numerous adventures. They had left for maybe thirty minutes and you were keeping busy doing your own thing, when you felt a hand grab you. You thought it was Jiang Cheng, but boy were you wrong. However, your boyfriend wasn’t too far away.

He is PROTECTIVE.

The last thing he wants to see on your face is discomfort, especially when it’s caused by some creep.

He’s in front of you in a second and he’s usually pretty aggressive. The last thing you want to see is him fight, so you often just grab his arm and hide behind him.

Just that alone, usually makes people back off. It’s kinda obvious you’re already his. BUT. There’s that one fool…

They often move closer to you, ignoring Jiang Cheg, and ask if you’d like to “upgrade” to someone better. Before you can even answer, they’re on the floor.

“Yeah, like you’re any better. Come on, (y/n).”

Xiao Xingchen:

Normally, you’re glued to the hip with Xiao Xingchen, since you two were so close. There was one occasion where you stepped away from him to gather some flowers. He wanted to talk to someone about something, nothing you often concerned yourself with. That’s when someone took their chance and swooped in.

So he can’t see you, but he can hear you. All you gotta do is call for him and he’ll be at your side faster than the speed of light. He’s not immediately jumping to fight and often prefers to talk things out, instead.

0/10. It never works. Not one time has that ever worked. People just don’t back down, especially those who tend to bother you.

They usually just shove Xiao Xingchen aside, thinking he’s just a blind man who can’t do anything.

This is one of those things that just… bothers him. Xiao Xingchen can’t understand why, but when someone bothers you, it really makes him upset.

He’ll once again try to stop the offender through a more pacifistic way, but there was one time when someone roughly grabbed your hand and yanked you away from Xiao Xingchen. The squeal that left your mouth was something that just made him draw his sword.

It really was an accident. No one was hurt, but the person was scared away. 69/10 would recommend.

“Are you alright? Good, I’m sorry they hurt you.”

Song Lan:

You had often followed him and Xiao Xingchen on their adventures, doing your best to stick close to them both. One day you saw a flower that intrigued you more than it should have. So you walked over to it and you were gone for maybe ten seconds, but when you turned around, you couldn’t see Song Lan or Xiao Xingchen, but you did see another person blocking your path. He found you pretty quickly.

He’s usually always on high alert. He’s extremely protective of you, sometimes surprising himself.

He’ll usually step him, keeping you hidden behind himself so the other person can’t see you. If someone is holding your wrist, he’ll use his sheathed sword to separate you two. He mentions you’re uncomfortable and tells the person to leave.

2/10, it’ll work sometimes but rarely. Usually offenders shrug him off and just pretend as if he’s not there. Even if you hide behind him, they’ll walk around and try to get at you that way. If they touch you, it’s almost as if they touched Song Lan and he really doesn’t like that.

The second they try to grab you, they’re on the floor unconscious. They don’t stand a chance.

10/10 works every time. They’re not unconscious EVERY SINGLE TIME it’d about 90% of the time.

“Let’s go. No they’re fine, don’t worry about them.”

Xue Yang:

Xue Yang is obviously protective and he doesn’t like it when people touch/bother you. You belong to him, nobody else. There was one day you strayed too far and got in some trouble with 4 people.

LMAO

Xue Yang usually laughs when he steps in, telling everyone they should leave before he kills them.

Of course people don’t listen. Usually, they just brush him aside and go back to “impressing” you.

Xue Yang warns people ONCE. One warning and that’s IT. If they don’t listen, their funeral. Literally.

The worst occasion was when someone shoved Xue Yang away and pushed you against the wall. You screamed and felt something touching your chest. When you looked down, it was Xue Yang sword poking you which had been stabbed through the offender’s chest.

10/10 they’re literally dead?

“I warned you about touching what belongs to me.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nie Huaisang is the cutest thing monsters have ever seen, they can be yao dragons or giant turtles one look at nhs and they want to feed hug or kidnapt him nmj trainning involved recovering his baby brother from every monsters nest around qinge

ao3

“I’m sorry,” Nie Mingjue said, his teeth gritted together and his arms shaking from the strain of holding Baxia up. “He’s mine.”

The massive tiger glared down at him over Baxia’s blade, currently stuck in its teeth, and growled something.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said. His legs were shaking now, too. “I know, trust me, I know! I’m human, he’s – young, yes, yes, I know. But he’s my little brother! I’m not giving him up!”

The tiger spat out the blade, knocking Nie Mingjue backwards on his ass.

“And when you change your mind?” the tiger demanded. “Will you abandon him then?”

“No!” Nie Mingjue exclaimed. “Never! He’s my brother!”

“Mark your words,” the tiger said ominously. “Or else.”

It turned and stalked off, its tail waving arrogantly in the air, until its towering white form disappeared into the distance.

Nie Mingjue sighed in relief. “Huaisang?” he called, and a small head popped out of the nest the tiger had started building, blinking owlishly at him. “Come on, come to da-ge. It’s time to go home.”

“But Master Tiger said we were going to play…”

“Yes, well, he wanted to play for too long,” Nie Mingjue said. “Only a few centuries, give or take. Let’s go.”

-

It started back when Nie Huaisang was born.

No, more accurately, it started when Nie Mingjue’s father fell in love with someone he probably oughtn’t have, which according to the sect was not a terribly uncommon problem for him to have, and decided to bring home a bride.

Nie Mingjue could still remember the first time he’d seen the Second Madame Nie. They’d all been lined up to greet her, all the sect and close members of the clan in rows according to rank, Nie Mingjue fidgeting in the inside of the house proper in his first tangle with formal clothing outside of the discussion conferences. She had come sweeping in with her head held as high as a princess, seductive and bewitching.

Every movement had been perfect, the eyes of all the men fogging over in lust and the women in admiration – or visa versa, depending on their personal preferences – and a wicked smile had lit up her face when she had stepped across the threshold, officially becoming the sect leader’s wife, and maybe everything would have gone along with whatever plan she’d had back then if she hadn’t next seen him.

“Oh, look at you,” she exclaimed, rushing over to pinch Nie Mingjue’s cheeks between her hands. “What a delectable little morsel you are!”

“Uh,” Nie Mingjue said, staring up at her with big round somewhat-worried eyes.

“You charming little dumpling,” she said. “You adorable mouthful of meat! Spoonful of egg yolk!”

Nie Mingjue cast his eyes around to see if anyone would be willing to help him.

“My eldest son,” Nie Mingjue’s father said, not without pride – albeit perhaps a puzzled sort of pride. “He’s probably just about old enough to come to the forecourt, if you don’t want him to live with you –”

“Oh no,” she said. “He’s definitely living with me.”

And so she stayed, and Nie Mingjue stayed with her, and she doted on him in a way he found pleasant if mildly disconcerting. Within a year, she was pregnant, and irritated with it; six months after that, she was round and complaining, even though Nie Mingjue solemnly assured her that she was as beautiful as ever.

“This is your fault, you know,” she told him, and he blinked at her. “It is! Don’t get me wrong, your father’s a charming bull when he wants to be, and of course he fucks like a champion stud, but I stayed here for you, my little cabbage roll, my charming chunk of liver.”

She patted her belly.

“That means this here is all because of you. So you’d better take responsibility!”

Nie Mingjue considered the issue for a little. The argument seemed plausible, so he raised his hands and put them on her rounded stomach. “I will take care and watch over him for all my life,” he vowed, and the baby inside kicked his hand in response, sealing the pact.

“Oh you are so cute,” she said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “My darling pork bun! My little fish cake! I could eat you right up, if only you were just a little bit older!”

When Nie Huaisang was born, she disappeared in a welter of blood, but Nie Mingjue’s oath remained.

The trouble started after that.

-

“You can’t raise a cub like that properly,” the winged lion argued, bating its wings as if that would help it make its point better.

Nie Mingjue glared at him. “Watch me!”

“It’s for your own good, little human. He needs his own kind –”

“I’m not listening to a treasure-seeker!”

The lion scowled at him. “I’ll have you know that most humans think I’m good luck!”

“You’re not trying to steal most humans’ little brothers, are you?!”

The winged lion sighed, a deep sound, so very noble and long-suffering that Nie Mingjue couldn’t resist the urge to lift his foot and kick the lion right in the paw.

“Brat!”

“Don’t care!” he shouted. “You leave my brother alone! He’s my responsibility, not yours! Piss off!”

“You can’t even feed him properly -”

“I’ll figure it out!” Nie Mingjue bared his teeth and wished he was old enough for a saber.

“You little…fine. Fine! I’ll bring you a book on how to feed a huli jing kit, and you keep to it, you hear me?”

“I will,” Nie Mingjue said. “But don’t you even think of taking him away!”

“On your own head be it,” the winged lion grumbled. “Not everyone’s as understanding as me.”

-

“Why are you wet?” Nie Mingjue’s father asked him.

“Water monkeys,” Nie Mingjue said shortly. “There was a nest.”

“Water monkeys? Don’t they normally stay away from people…? Or, I suppose, were these ones feral?”

“Thieves.”

“Ah. Well, nothing to be done about it, I suppose…bad luck for you to run into them here, of all places. But good experience! How many people your age can say that they fought water monkeys?”

“Can we go home?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintively, and rubbed his nose. “How much can you really have to say to the Jiang sect, anyway?”

His father chuckled. “More than either of us would like, unfortunately. But if you’ve had enough of water, which no one can blame you for, maybe you and Huaisang can go shopping in the pier instead?”

That would work, Nie Mingjue thought, and nodded happily.

(Sect Leader Jiang was extremely embarrassed about the ghostly rats in the night-market – he claimed they’d never seen neither nose nor tail of them before the Nie brothers had accidentally tripped over their trap and had to flee from the swarm...)

-

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nie-er-gongzi,” the white-clad cultivator from the mountain said, smiling broadly and saluting deeply.

Xiao Xingchen had made himself famous during his first half-dozen night-hunts alone for his extraordinary grace, bearing and strength, and he said he was on a mission to help the world. He was beautiful, virtuous, and matched each ideal of gentlemanly arts.

Sects throughout the cultivation world were drooling at the thought of enticing him to join them, fighting for the opportunity to put in a good word with him.

Not all sects.

Nie Mingjue stepped forward, purposely putting Nie Huaisang behind him.

“Don’t you even think about it,” he said, hand on the hilt of his saber. “Buzz off, birdbrain.”

Xiao Xingchen might wear white, but Nie Mingjue knew a zhuque chick when he saw one.

-

“I found something for my aviary, da-ge!” Nie Huaisang, seven years old and delighted with his clumsy autonomy, announced.

Nie Mingjue, less than a full year into his new role as sect leader, rubbed his eyes. “Oh?” he asked, only somewhat wanting to scream endlessly into the void, which was better than usual. “That’s nice, Huaisang…”

“Come look! It’s so pretty!”

“I’m a bit busy –”

“But da-ge!”

Nie Mingjue sighed and got up, following Nie Huaisang to the door only to come to a complete stop.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said to the fenghuang currently pretending to be a rooster in a cage, as if anyone would actually mistake phoenix flames for regular feathers. “Do you have no dignity left?!”

-

“You can’t adopt the bashe,” Nie Mingjue said to Nie Huaisang, who pouted. “It eats elephants; we’d be broke within three months.”

He turned to the giant python.

“You can’t adopt Huaisang,” he said. “I will literally murder you.”

-

“Why can’t I go watch the eclipse?” Nie Huaisang complained. “Everyone else is going!”

“I’m not risking a tiangou.”

“The…dog that eats the sun? Really, da-ge, is that even real?”

“You know what,” Nie Mingjue said, “you’re grounded just for saying that.”

Nie Huaisang grinned.

-

“Maybe I want to go and live among the qilin!” Nie Huaisang screamed, fourteen and hormonal about it.

“Well you don’t get a choice!” Nie Mingjue bellowed back.

“You’re not my father! I don’t have to listen to what you say!”

“I’m your fucking sect leader and yes you do!”

“I hate you!”

“I don’t care if you hate me! You still aren’t going to go live in a field with some magic pointy deer and that’s final!”

The qilin herd wisely chose to withdraw.

-

“Da-ge,” Jin Guangyao hissed, and Nie Mingjue looked up from his work at him – he hadn’t heard Meng Yao this upset since he’d shoved him into a closet to get him out of way during the whole dangkang boar hunt debacle. “Da-ge, there’s a dragon outside.”

“Again?” Nie Mingjue said, standing up to stretch and feeling oddly unbalanced. They’d just finished another session with the song of Clarity, so he really shouldn’t be feeling like this; he would need to write to Lan Xichen again about his fears that the treatment really wasn’t working. Lan Xichen would probably only say to give it more time, another chance, but still… “Let me go talk to them. Dragons are the worst.”

“No, da-ge, you don’t understand,” Jin Guangyao said. “It’s not a water-serpent or – or even a jiaolong – it’s a dragon.”

“A flood-dragon is a type of dragon,” Nie Mingjue said, following Jin Guangyao outside. “You know that, it’s in the name, what’s the big – oh, I see. It’s a celestial dragon.”

Jin Guangyao glared at him with an expression suggesting that he was under-reacting, but Nie Mingjue really didn’t have the capacity in him to reach with appropriate fervor at the moment. He and Nie Huaisang had been fighting a lot recently, every little thing escalating into a giant argument, and he was no longer sure if he was doing the right thing in trying to force Nie Huaisang onto the path of his ancestors. After all, unlike Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang had – somewhat different ancestors, on his maternal side.

And, he supposed, Nie Huaisang was old enough to decide otherwise, if he truly wished…

Still, Nie Mingjue was as stubborn as a mule and had no intention of giving up his baby brother without a fight, so he braced himself and went over to the frankly massive creature draped over the entrance gateway and much of the training yard that the entirety of the Nie sect was doing its utmost best to pretend that they weren’t seeing.

Nie Huaisang was sitting on the thing’s five claws – an imperial celestial dragon, apparently – because of course he was.

“Excuse me,” Nie Mingjue called up to the dragon, which turned its head to regard him, an entire production that took nearly a quarter ké to accomplish. “The brat there is mine, please return him.”

“Da-ge!” Jin Guangyao hissed again, but Nie Mingjue waved him away.

“You have raised him well,” the dragon said, which was…a good deal nicer than most of these interactions usually went.

“…thanks?” Nie Mingjue said suspiciously, ignoring Jin Guangyao’s splutters of “It talks?!” “I think?”

“I have chosen to grant you a boon,” the dragon announced.

“…right,” Nie Mingjue said. “If this ‘boon’ is that you’ll take him off my hands, I’m afraid I’m going to have to refuse. He may be trouble, but he’s still my brother.”

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, indignant. “Don’t be rude. I asked him for this!”

Nie Mingjue frowned at him, unable to resist the feeling of hurt even though he’d already told himself to expect something like this. “…you want to leave?”

“No, da-ge, don’t be ridiculous. I asked him to improve your health!”

Ah.

“Huaisang –” he started to say.

“Don’t you ‘Huaisang’ me!” his little brother shouted. “I know you’re trying to hide it, but it’s getting worse, isn’t it? San-ge told me so! He said I should get ready!”

Nie Mingjue made a mental note to strangle Jin Guangyao, who had no right to say something like that to Nie Huaisang even if maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world to emotionally prepare Nie Huaisang for the upcoming bereavement and inheritance he would need to face.

“Anyway, he said to get ready, so I did!”

“You can’t just ask a divine dragon to fix me, Huaisang. That’s not how this works.”

“Uh, it totally does, and I did, and he agreed. So there!”

Nie Mingjue crossed his arms and glared. “And what did he want in return?”

“The boon is a reward for your past merit, not a trade for the deeds of the future,” the dragon said, not even slightly hiding how its whiskers were shaking with suppressed laughter. “You have travelled a difficult road, and borne the weight of it well. And besides…”

“Besides?”

“If you were to die, he would undoubtedly petition the creatures of the underworld to return you.”

“Well, fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, having not considered that. “Fine. Whatever. Heal me and I’ll try to keep an eye on my health going forward.”

Maybe more Clarity? He could try to free up his schedule, get in a few more sessions…

“I just give up,” Jin Guangyao said behind him. “I just fucking give up.”

Nie Mingjue, assuming that he was talking about Nie Huaisang’s nonsense, agreed whole-heartedly.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Drink, No Drink

xuexiao - M for violence - 4.9k - AO3!

In which Xiao Xingchen drunkely flirts with an oblivious Xue Yang ____________________________

They come by once a month on average, sometimes twice. Once, about eleven months after Xue Yang came to Yi City, three come at once, but that's a group and Xue Yang, always fair, counts them as one.

Still three times the fun to kill, of course.

The men step into the Coffin House courtyard at noon, just ten minutes after Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing had left to buy groceries.

Xue Yang is busy dumping fresh dirt into a raised bed. He and Xiao Xingchen have built raised beds throughout the courtyard to plant vegetables in. Xiao Xingchen had wanted flowers, but Xue Yang had vetoed the idea, flowers being useless, and the daozhang isn’t one to argue.

He looks up as the men step into the courtyard. “Who are you?”

The leader of the group, a tall, brutish-looking man with a cauliflower ear and broken nose, seems almost angry at the question. “Where is he?”

Xue Yang dusts his hands off. And here he thought he’d be bored until the daozhang returned. “Who is this ‘he’?”

“The blind cultivator in white! Xiao Xingchen! We know he lives here!”

Xue Yang taps his chin. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

The musclebound man on the right steps forward, seconds away from grabbing Xue Yang by the collar and losing a hand. “We were told there’s a blind cultivator living here!”

“Ohhh, I thought you meant the other blind cultivator in white. I lose track. What do you want from him?”

“To take a strip out of his hide!”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “Let me guess, you committed some crime once upon a time, and he got you in trouble for it, and now that he’s blind you want your revenge.”

“How did—”

“It’s all very original.” Xue Yang’s knife is in his hand. He tosses in the air, catching it deftly. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

The skinny little man on the left shrugs. “Not reall—”

He never finishes his sentence. A flash of silver blade, and Xue Yang’s knife is sprouting from his eye. Shrieking, he falls backwards into a vegetable bed, yanking the knife out of his face.

Xue Yang shakes his head. “Don’t you know not to pull a knife out of a wound? Trust me on that one, I should know. Look, now you’re bleeding all over the place.” He produces a second knife and turns to face the other two men, who stand gaping at him in slack-jawed shock. “How about you two? Up for some first aid practice?”

“You—you—”

“Got any weapons? Get them out. It’s more fun that way.”

Still looking confused, the leader draws his own knife out and stands there, blinking, while the other man drops to his knees beside his companion, who’s writhing in the dirt and shrieking like a wounded fox.

Xue Yang makes a face. “Can you shut him up? He’s going to give me a headache at this rate.”

“He—he—”

Xue Yang floats over and slices the man’s tongue out with a practiced twist of his blade, but the man continues to emit bone-chilling scream from deep inside his throat.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” Another twist of the blade, and the man falls silent. Permanently. “You’d think he’d never been stabbed in the eyeball before.”

“You killed him—”

“Like you were going to do to the daozhang?” Xue Yang flies back over near the leader. “And for what, arresting you? You clearly escaped whatever the charges are. Grow up and let it go.”

The leader’s hand tightens on his knife. “The magistrate beat me so badly I couldn’t get honest work again as a porter—”

“Your back, your arms, your legs, what was the problem?”

“My left leg was broken so badly it—”

Xue Yang jams his heel into the man’s left kneecap, shattering it. Howling, the man collapses, knife falling from his spasming fingers. “Like I want your life’s story?” He hauls the man up by his collar and flies him over to one of the raised beds, dumping him in the dirt. Dislocates the man’s shoulder, just to be safe, and nicks the side of the man’s throat so that he bleed out into the soil.

Best kind of fertilizer, or so he’d been given to believe.

Then he turns to the third man, who’s cowering on his knees, forehead pressed to the dirt. “How about you? Going to put up more of a fight, I hope? I mean, what were you three arrested for, anyway? Couldn’t have been anything requiring actual fighting skills. Tax fraud?”

“Forgive me—forgive me—I won’t harm Xiao Xingchen! I swear I’ll leave here, I’ll never speak of this—”

“A bit late for that, I’d think.” Xue Yang tilts his head down at him. He likes seeing the man grovel. Kowtow, really. A trembling heap of peasant clothes and greasy hair, not half as good as if it had been the daozhang or one of the self-righteous cultivators who’d dogged him half his life, but it still fills him with heady tingling pleasure. “You should never have come here.”

“It wasn’t my idea—I swear it wasn’t!”

“Great, a spineless lackey. Even better. Now, the question is how to kill you.” He crouches before the man, patting his trembling cheek with his knife while he thinks. “I usually go for something more creative, but we need to wrap this up before the daozhang gets home, and more than two beds needs fertilizing, so here we go.”

The man makes a feeble effort to resist, taking an easily-dodged swing at Xue Yang's jaw. A flick of his hand, and Xue Yang’s knife is suddenly plunged deep into the man’s throat. Grabbing him by the hair, he hauls the man into the neighboring vegetable bed and gives the knife an experimental jiggle, then wiggles it a bit farther up his throat. A delicate balance, this—he needs the man alive to pump out as much blood as possible, but can't resist playing with him a bit. Of course Xue Yang could always rip out his intestines and bury them in the dirt, but that would be messy, and Xue Yang hasn't time to clean up.

A sigh, and the man bleeding out from his eye socket expires.

Xue Yang hesitates, then removes his outer robes and flies the man over the back wall of the courtyard, dumping him in the forest outside the city.

The second man has died by the time he returns. Xue Yang flies him out, then the third man when he too dies.

He stands beneath the trees, eying his handiwork.

Not a bad day’s work.

If only the daozhang knew that Xue Yang, his worst enemy, had been saving his life for the past eleven months. Knew how deeply indebted he is to the delinquent from Kuizhou.

But the daozhang can’t know.

Not just yet.

He’d probably make me stop, Xue Yang thinks, no matter what the personal risk. He’d insist on arresting all these opportunistic degenerates and bringing them to justice, as if such a thing exists.

The idiot. Xue Yang finds himself smiling at the thought. The sanctimonious idiot, blind in more ways than one. For all Xue Yang knows, he might even hear the men out—“Oh, your leg was broken? The scoundrels!” and embark on a journey to track down the magistrate who’d wronged the criminal degenerates—

A vulture approaches, drawn by the scent of blood, startling Xue Yang out of his thoughts.

“Wait your turn,” he tells the bird. “It’s first come, first serve around here.” Chuckles to himself—too bad the daozhang is completely unsuited for the day’s activities. He knows Xiao Xingchen would have appreciated the afternoon’s humor—maybe even relished the irony of watching Xue Yang, the man who was going to one day kill the daozhang, protect him—

Well, perhaps not that. But he could have gotten a few laughs, at least.

Xue Yang cuts a lock of hair from each of the men, just as he has for the last thirteen criminals who’d come after Xiao Xingchen, removes their tongues, and flies back over the wall.

He can take care of the bodies later, if the vultures don’t handle them for him.

He places the tongues in jars he sets inside a coffin painted with preservation sigils. Then, grabbing a rake, he begins mixing the blood-soaked earth, evenly dividing it among the dozen raised beds that take up half the courtyard and patting the soil down in preparation for tomorrow’s sowing. He’s just finishing up when Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing return.

The first thing out of the daozhang’s mouth is, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Smells like blood,” says A-Qing, who can always be counted on to say the wrong thing.

Xue Yang fights the urge to tell the daozhang the truth, see the look on his face. “I got bored without you, and went for a walk in the woods, and found a fierce corpse.”

Xiao Xingchen’s face softens at the words without you. Xue Yang is still at a loss to explain how readily Xiao Xingchen displays his feelings. Surely letting another person know that you value their companionship is a dangerous show of weakness?

Xue Yang has learned to reveal nothing that can be used against him in the future.

What Chengmei says to the daozhang is different. His esteem for the blind white fool is all an act, and there is no way a lie might harm him.

“I have the beds all ready for planting,” he tells Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen moves towards him as A-Qing runs inside with the groceries. “Were you wounded?”

“By what, tripping and falling on the rake?”

“The blood smells fresh. Did the fierce corpse manage to hurt you? That’s unlike you, Chengmei.” He lays a hand on Xue Yang’s chest, eyebrows rising slightly at the feel of Xue Yang’s thin, silky inner robe beneath his hand instead of his textured outer robes. “I know you, Chengmei. You wouldn’t tell me you were hurt, even if you were.” Slowly, he runs his hands over Xue Yang’s chest, pats his arms, feels his waist.

Xue Yang swallows hard, freezing.

From the touching, he tells himself. Not from the display of concern. It’s hard not to tense up when touched, given how often past touch has been something bad.

Truly it means nothing, the daozhang’s concern. Xue Yang knows this. Has always known it.

What good is the compassion of a man who only cares because he doesn’t know the truth?

Xiao Xingchen rests his hand briefly on his hip, but seems unwilling to go any lower and check Xue Yang’s legs. “You’d tell me if you were hurt, right?”

Xue Yang’s heart is pounding. “….I wouldn’t lie to you…”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Seeming to realize how close they're standing, Xiao Xingchen moves away. “I’ll go help A-Qing make dinner. We'll keep the seeds from tonight’s vegetables, we can plant tomorrow…”

Xue Yang slips his outer robes back on but doesn’t head back into the house. He’s cursing himself for having lost his composure for even a second, especially in front of Xiao Xingchen, of all people.

It’s not like he noticed. You sounded normal, and he’s blind, for fuck’s sake.

The reddish gold sun has sunk beneath the courtyard walls when Xiao Xingchen comes out onto the porch. He looks blue in the twilight, slender and beautiful and somehow soft despite the boniness of his long slim body.

“Chengmei? Dinner’s ready.”

Hesitating, though he’s not sure why, Xue Yang heads inside. Xiao Xingchen hands out the bowls and chopsticks while A-Qing serves.

Xue Yang is silent during dinner, mechanically shoveling rice into his mouth.

Xiao Xingchen does most of the talking, as if sensing Xue Yang is in a strange mood. He talks about the past, places he’s seen, people he’s met. He’s a poor storyteller, with a laughable memory of details, but his tendency to ramble from one story to the next without finishing any of them is amusing in its own way, and A-Qing's interjections of her own more colorful experiences keep any heavy silence at bay.

After the meal, Xue Yang removes Xiao Xingchen’s horsetail whisk from where he keeps it on a shelf in the corner.

“Just combing it,” he says when A-Qing, who has even better hearing than the daozhang and an uncanny knack for getting in his way, asks him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. “It’s getting tangled.”

“Tangled. Right.”

Normally Xue Yang would bicker back, but he doesn’t have the energy tonight. He sits on the steps, the horsetail whisk in his lap, while A-Qing lies on a blanket, staring up at the dazzling carpet of stars as if she can see, and Xiao Xingchen polishes his sword beside him.

Xue Yang knots the locks of hair he’d taken from the three convicts into the flowing mane of the whisk, streaks of black staining the pure white.

A little ritual he’d developed after the first would-be murderer had come to Yi City. Watching the daozhang parade around with a murder trophy tucked under thin white arm was endlessly entertaining.

Now…

It’s still a good joke, Xue Yang tells himself. Still good fun to see the streaks of black against the white. But it’s become a symbol of something else, now, too.

Of what, Xue Yang isn’t entirely sure.

But of something.

The eggplant is starting to sprout when, five weeks later, another convict comes to the Coffin House searching for Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen is inside the house making dinner with A-Qing. Xue Yang had just stepped outside to fetch more water when he sees a shadow detach itself from behind a coffin and slither across the courtyard, a flash of silver in its hand.

Jiangzai is out before Xue Yang can even think.

Footsteps.

Xue Yang flies across the courtyard and grabs the shadow by the throat. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Xiao Xing—”

Xue Yang cuts his throat before the man can finish, flying him over the wall before so much as a drop of blood can splash onto the stones of the courtyard.

A shame to waste the fertilizer on the trees of the forest, but Xiao Xingchen is expecting him back any second now.

He’ll fetch the tongue later.

“Thank you, Chengmei,” Xiao Xingchen says when he returns, accepting the bucket of water. “Do you mind chopping the potatoes? The oil should be hot enough any minute now.”

“Fried potato? Not boiled? Do my ears deceive me?” His pulse is reverberating through his skull, so that’s very possible. The quickness of the kill had done nothing to diminish the euphoria that always accompanies it. If anything, it had heightened it, a half-hour’s torture compressed into an intense dose of power and pleasure and blood.

“I figured I would fry it, as a treat. It’s been a year since…well, it’s been a year since we all came to the Coffin House.” Xiao Xingchen turns to the stove, blushing slightly, as if almost ashamed to have kept track of the anniversary, as if he doesn’t think it's as important to Xue Yang as it is to him.

Xue Yang doesn’t speak. A-Qing is glancing at the floor, looking uncharacteristically solemn.

“I know it’s foolish—” Xiao Xingchen begins again, but Xue Yang shakes his head, forgetting for a moment that he can’t see him.

“It’s never foolish to fry potatoes,” he says emphatically. “That boiled stuff is for the dogs. Anything else?”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “I bought nian gao at the market today.”

“Now you have my attention.” He slices the potatoes swiftly, hand shaking slightly. Lingering euphoria from his recent kill, most likely. “The sweet cake kind, right? Not that vegetable stuff.”

Xiao Xingchen affects chagrin. “Do you take me for an amateur?”

Xue Yang discovers that he’s grinning.

Still from the murder, no doubt. It’s been a while since he’d killed anything larger than the rats that sneak into the Coffin House.

It’s not that he needs to kill. Enjoys it, yes. Who wouldn’t enjoy holding complete and utter power over another human being? Being the most important thing in their world, if only for those final moments? The pleasant exercise of the fight, the witty banter, the desperation in the victim’s eyes as they bleed out?

But, if he’s being entirely honest, he hasn’t thought about it much these past few weeks.

A-Qing turns in early that night, having eaten too much fried food and nian gao, leaving Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang alone on the porch. Xue Yang plays with the dead man’s hair in the horsetail whisk while Xiao Xingchen sits beside him, just a little too close, knee almost touching his, having misjudged the distance. It’s odd, how the daozhang can spin through the forest to sever a fierce corpse’s throat without disturbing a single leaf or blade of grass, but he’s rather clumsy around Xue Yang, stumbling into him at times, brushing his hand with his while handing him something, mistakenly letting his shoulder touch his as he passes.

“I have a surprise,” says Xiao Xingchen.

“We’re getting a puppy.”

“We can, if you want."

“Just joking.” Briefly, Xue Yang wonders what a dog would make of the corpses popping up around the Coffin House.

Well, it would be one way to dispose of the bodies, and save on buying dog food.

He grins to himself at the idea. It's a real shame he can’t share some of his best thoughts with Xiao Xingchen.

Who’s tilting his head at him expectantly. “Chengmei?”

“You’re buying us a new house. A-Qing found a husband. We have an invitation to Jinlintai.”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “I feel quite inadequate, now. I bought some of this.” He draws two wine jars from his sleeve. “Or rather, traded some protection talismans for it with the local weaver.”

“Is the daozhang a secret wino?” Xue Yang accepts the small white jar. He’s not one for drinking, but he can’t turn Xiao Xingchen down. “Is that what you’re really doing during your private meditation sessions?”

Instead of being offended, Xiao Xingchen smiles. “Given how many great poets were drunks—going by their poetry—I could do well to follow their example.

‘Life in the world is but a big dream;

I will not spoil it by any labor or care.

So saying, I was drunk all the day,

Lying helpless at the porch in front of my door—’ ”

“A tripping hazard for A-Qing.”

“ ‘When I awoke, I blinked at the garden-lawn;

A lonely bird was singing amid the flowers.

I asked myself,

Had the day been wet or fine? ’ ”

Xue Yang struggles to keep a straight face despite the fact that Xaio Xingcheng can’t see him. “Baoshan Sanren teaches cultivating by way of winemaking? No wonder she has to hide on her mountain. Every cultivator for miles around would be trying to sign on with her.”

Xiao Xingchen laughs. “Given how many classic poems are about drinking wine, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a thing existed...at least the poems in Shifu’s collection. She didn’t focus much on classical poetry.” He pulls the stopper from his jar, sniffing it. “So…I just…drink it? Is there some kind of…I don’t know…”

“A wine-drinking ritual? Like you walk in a circle three times, flapping your arms—”

“…do you think we can forgo it, just this once?”

Xue Yang is the one to laugh this time, though he’s not sure if Xiao Xingchen is joking. “You just drink, from what I’ve seen.”

“From what you’ve seen?”

“I don’t drink.” He instantly regrets his words at the look on Xiao Xingchen’s face. “I mean…”

“It’s fine. I wouldn’t want to make—”

“I mean—” And suddenly he hears himself saying, “I could never afford to be…impaired in any way. For…my own safety, I mean. I was just never…look, it’s…” And then, just as suddenly, he’s uncorking his jar and taking a deep draft.

It burns unpleasantly in his throat, but it’s worth it for the smile on Xiao Xingchen’s face at the silent admission that he feels safe here.

That Chengemi does, at any rate.

“How does it taste?”

“Good, I think,”Xue Yang lies.

Xiao Xingchen sips delicately at his jar, then wrinkles his nose. “The poems made me think it would be a lot more like drinking moonbeams and lotus blossoms.”

“More poems about passing out on the lawn?” Xue Yang asks. Poetry is just as useless as he’s always imagined it to be, but it sounds nice coming from Xiao Xingchen. Melodic. Kind of like singing...

...Must be the wine, that idiotic thought.

" 'A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

I drink alone, for no friend is near.

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three men.’ ”

Xue Yang frowns slightly. “I’m sitting right here, daozhang.”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “So you are.”

Xue Yang shakes his momentary pique away. “Four men, then. Five, counting my shadow. You know, I don’t think those poets knew what the hell they were talking about, like with anything.”

“That’s not true…well, not entirely…there are some very pretty poems about nature…”

“How about a drinking game: I say something untrue, and if you correctly guess that it’s a lie, then I have to drink.”

“Alright.” By Xiao Xingchen’s amused smile, it’s clear he doesn’t think Xue Yang can successfully lie to him.

“I’m ugly. Hideous. Ladies pull their skirts away from me in the street and I frighten children and old people.”

Xiao Xingchen laughs, misjudging the distance between them again and touching his arm by mistake. “Not going by what I’ve heard.”

Smirking, Xue Yang takes a drink. “Your turn.”

“I…I have two heads.”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “That the best you can do?”

“I’m not accustomed to falsehoods!”

The pretentious way he put that should have made Xue Yang roll his eyes again, but the strong wine has mellowed him. “Drink. I hate candy.”

“Drink!”

“See, it’s not fun if it’s something too obvious.”

“Fine. I want that puppy you mentioned.”

“…drink?”

Xiao Xingchen raises his jar. “No drink! I wouldn't mind a puppy."

“You seem more like a cat person.”

“I like all animals. Would you rather a cat? You seem like a cat person. Like…” Xiao Xingchen hesitates. “Takes a while to warm up, independent, but loyal once you know you can tru…” He trails off, as if sensing he’s gone too far.

Biting his lip, Xue Yang looks out over the beds of budding vegetables, silver in the starlight. He’s never imagined anyone examining him in any way other than to evaluate him as a threat. Certainly not to comment on any traits in a tone Xue Yang tells himself is definitely not one of fondness, no matter how much it sounds that way. “Well, I have always liked cats better.”

“My favorite food is congee.”

“No drink, for reasons I’ll never understand.”

“You can add anything to it, and you have a nice warm meal!”

Xue Yang shakes his head. “I killed a man today for trespassing.”

“Oh, that’s terrible, Chengmei! Drink….”

It’s late when Xiao Xingchen's wine jars are empty. He'd had another two tucked away in his long white sleeve, and grown melancholy as the night wore on.

“I did everything I could to ruin my friend’s life,” he says, raising the last of his wine to the moon.

Xue Yang glances at him sharply. He’s kept his head better than Xiao Xingchen, only pretending to drink most of the time. “You what?”

“Song Lan. Zichen. The destruction of his temple was all my fault…” Head drooping, he slides sideways, cheek resting on Xue Yang’s shoulder. “All my fault, his eyes, all me…”

Xue Yang sits very still. Xiao Xingchen is warm against him, his breath soft on his neck. Then, very delicately, he pries Xiao Xingchen’s fingers from the wine jar and sets it beside them on the step.

“That was not your fault,” he says, and feels a thrill at his own words, because of course it was Xiao Xingchen’s fault, it was all his fault, and one day Xue Yang will get to throw it all in his face—

But not tonight.

“You did more than most would,” he says instead. “You gave him your eyes.” And he took them, the fucker! he wants to add. You do-gooding moron, mutilating yourself in service of that plodding lump of self-righteousness—

“My fault, my fault…”

“For what, doing your duty?” Xue Yang’s throat is beginning to tighten. He’s not sure why Xiao Xingchen would be telling him something so personal. For all his friendly, open nature, Xiao Xingchen is guarded when it comes to anything too revealing, to the point that Xue Yang sometimes feels as if he only half knows him. “You’re not responsible for that madman’s actions.”

Xiao Xingchen moves slightly, eyelashes brushing Xue Yang’s throat. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” says Xue Yang, and then, mentally, Drink!

And suddenly Xiao Xingchen is all smiles again, straightening up. “You always know just what to say to cheer me up. You—you wouldn’t leave me like Zichen did, would you? Not even if…I…” He hiccups. “I’d…I’d miss you too much…”

“Drink,” Xue Yang says automatically.

“No drink.”

Xue Yang glances away. Xiao Xingchen chooses this moment to pitch forward, to be caught by Xue Yang moments before he sprawls forward onto the stairs.

“I might be a little tipsy,” he mumbles into the hollow of Xue Yang’s throat.

Xue Yang tightens his grip. It feels…it feels wrong to be holding a person that isn’t a corpse.

A warm, living person, who seems to want to be in his arms.

Not hate being there, at least.

Or so he thinks. Xue Yang has never embraced another person before and isn’t quite sure how people are supposed to behave. Surely Xiao Xingchen would have pushed him away if he found his touch detestable—?

“You really can’t hold your liquor, can you,” he says before he can think into it too much. Gently, he scoops up Xiao Xingchen and half-carries him into the house. He weighs almost nothing, and Xue Yang thinks, I should get him to eat more, then chases the ridiculous thought away and bleaches the spot it had rested.

Xiao Xingchen grips the front of his robe as Xue Yang lays him down on the Coffin House's single bed. “Stay with me. Talk to me.”

Xue Yang hesitates, glancing over at his coffin in the corner of the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Xiao Xingchen almost pouts. Drunk daozhang is a petulant daozhang, it seems. “Just for a little while.”

The feeling of wrongness increases as Xue Yang crawls into bed beside Xiao Xingchen, keeping on top of the covers.

It shouldn’t be like this.

It’s not as if he hasn’t pictured sharing a bed with the daozhang. Who wouldn’t, if they had only a claustrophobic coffin to sleep in? But he’s never imagined an inebriated Xiao Xingchen curling into him, picking up his good hand, playing with it. Tracing the scars, running his fingertip between his fingers, brushing the palm with his thumb.

Soft, harmless touch that makes Xue Yang freeze, every nerve in his body screaming at him to snatch up Jiangzai.

“You have nice hands,” says Xiao Xingchen, voice thick with alcohol, almost giddy, and Xue Yang, focusing on the familiar voice, feels himself relaxing.

He’s safe, here. Safe with the daozhang.

The daozhang would never hurt Chengmei. And Xue Yang is Chengmei, for now.

The daozhang cares about Chengmei.

And in turn—

And in turn, the daozhang belongs to him.

Xiao Xingchen, the man who despises Xue Yang more than anyone else, now owes him more than he can ever repay in a single lifetime. He has saved Xiao Xingchen’s life a dozen times over without him having so much as suspected his life was ever in danger.

True, Chengmei could have killed the unsuspecting daozhang hundreds of times over the past year.

But this is different somehow.

Better.

Xue Yang is the guardian of the man he hates most in this world. Has held his life in the palm of his hand and chosen not only to let him live, but to actively destroy his enemies.

A delicious perversion of what he knows will come on the day he tears off his mask and reveals everything to Xiao Xingchen.

Finally takes his life, after preserving it for so long.

Xiao Xingchen rolls over, soft black hair in Xue Yang’s face, still holding Xue Yang’s hand in his.

Xue Yang wonders what Xiao Xingchen will say in the morning. If he’ll be embarrassed or realize that this was all simply the wine. If Xue Yang should pretend to have been too drunk to remember, or if he should say something, maybe crawl under the covers tomorrow night before Xiao Xingchen gets into bed, see what happens…

The bed is far more comfortable than the coffin, after all.

Will be warmer in winter, too…

He winces at the thought. He should go back to his coffin, stop whatever this is.

"You don't really want me here," he says.

“Drink,” Xiao Xingchen mumbles, and drops off into slumber.

Xue Yang takes a deep breath. He wants to free his hand but is afraid of waking the daozhang. As if sensing this even in sleep, Xiao Xingchen tightens his grip on his hand.

Xue Yang stares up at the ceiling, mind settling, the last of his tension fading.

He thinks he’ll go into town tomorrow and buy some flower seeds.

_______________________

thanks for reading! Spare a reblog? AO3

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Birthday grandma! How about BFF WWX LXC and NMJ? Or female!MXY? Your choice🌻🌻🌻🌻🎉🎉🎉🎉

Ps. Made it?!?!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Lan Xichen arrives to his brother and Xuanyu in the middle of an argument.

They’re surrounded by corpses, Xue Yang inexplicably among them, and the missing Xiao Xingchen is standing there huddled against Song Lan’s side, looking strangely small, while a blind girl stands on his other side.

Sizhui and Jingyi are staying several steps back in an attempt not to get caught in the couple’s argument.

He almost regrets leaving A-Yao behind with the rest of the disciples. It had made sense at the time, with the low but present chance that they’d run into trouble, but now he wishes he could be the one dealing with their siblings instead of him.

“-not just going to – XICHEN-GE! GET DOWN HERE!”

The disciples, who’d demanded to come along, cringe away and even send him sympathetic looks.

She only calls him Xichen-ge when she wants something. He’s pretty sure A-Yao taught her that.

He descends, jumping off his sword, and frowning when he gets a closer look at her. She has wounds around her waist and shoulder even though they seemed to have stopped bleeding and there’s a variety of colorful bruises on the bits of skin he can see on her, which means there’s even more hiding beneath her robes. “You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing,” she says dismissively. Wangji’s eyebrow twitches. “I want Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and A-Qing to accompany us to Koi Tower.”

He assumes A-Qing is the blind girl. “Ah.”

“It’s not proper,” Wangji says, enough irritation bleeding though that this is clearly not the first time he’s said that.

She sends him a scathing look. “We can’t send them back to Cloud Recesses, Lan Qiren will eat them alive, and we can’t leave them alone. Look at them! Look around! They need help.”

“Ah, Madame Lan,” Song Lan says tentatively, “you’ve already done-”

“Shut up,” she says and his mouth snaps shut. Lan Xichen stares. He’s encountered Song Lan many times and has never seen him act like this. “Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You deserve rest, all three of you, and while I would hardly call the Jin restful, it’s at least better than having to watch you back on the road.” She frowns. “Also, what’s with Madame Lan? I told you to call me Xuanyu. If you fight an army of the undead together, you don’t have to use titles. It’s a rule, or something.”

Wangji’s eyes narrow and Song Lan smiles at Xuanyu before he catches sight of Wangji’s expression and then his lips thin out into a straight line.

Lan Xichen can already feel a headache building.

She’s only been missing for a few hours. How did any of this even happen?

If he wants to find out, then he’s going to have to give in to her. She won’t tell him anything otherwise, he assumes, because A-Yao definitely wouldn’t. Besides, he has no reason to deny her. She is Madame Lan and Lady Jin and she’s more than entitled to add people to their traveling party and to invite wandering cultivators to Koi Tower.

“The rest of our party is nearby,” he says finally. “We’re happy for you to join us.”

His brother glares at him, but what does he expect him to do? She’s Wangji's wife.

[lansplaining]

Why didn't the murder of Chang Ping cause more shockwaves? Someone murdered in the most cruel way possible the last surviving member of a dreadful case concerning Xue Yang (which JGY believes to be dead), a demonic cultivator (which might get Jiang Cheng's attention), who was presumably executed by the Chief Cultivator precisely for the crime of murdering said Chang clan (so Nie Huaisang may want to snuff out a bit to get dirt on him). Lan "goes where chaos is" Wangji is presumably out of the ice by then, so he might want to take a look as well.

And even after the "investigation" concluded the sword used for the crime was Shuanghua, wouldn't that still cause a lot of talking? The last male disciple of Baoshan Sanren became a dark evil overlord, and if Xiao Xingchen really is the man responsible for this snafu, they might as well start looking for him to make sure he won't cause trouble in the future!

It does seem to have been a pretty massive deal! But I guess there are a few factors here.

Chang Ping had already been pressured into recanting, which I think can't be overlooked as a factor that would have taken the pressure off, first because some people would probably just accept the recantation, and those who were suspicious of it would probably recognize that it happened because somebody pressured him in a very compelling way, and what if they decided to turn that pressure on anyone else who spoke out about the matter? There's also Chang Ping himself turning down the pressure (quote from the wiki, I think from the official translation): "What can I do aside from this? If I don't tolerate it, the rest of our clan's people wouldn't be safe for long. I'm really grateful, Daozhang, but… please don't help me anymore. Now, helping me would be harming me. I don't want the Yueyang Chang Clan to end yet."

So Chang Ping has deliberately turned attention away from the case by the time he's murdered, and presumably brushed off anyone who tried to raise it or help in the interim. Suspicious, obviously, and he doesn't even try to hide it! But see above-- what would happen to anyone else who tried to push?

The fact that it's supposedly Xiao Xingchen does seem like it should be compelling, and I actually do kind of like how the donghua frames the whole thing as this "what the hell, why did Xiao Xingchen murder somebody?" mystery at first. But the fact that he's this wandering rogue cultivator seems really key-- nobody knows where to find him, nobody is responsible for him, and now there's nobody alive to pressure anyone to do anything about it. And then he doesn't seem to cause any further problems, so it's easy to forget.

It's intended in large part, I'd argue, as commentary on the society at large: without someone as blunt and righteous as Nie Mingjue applying pressure, cases like this just... disappear. Xiao Xingchen took revenge on the guy who recanted his accusation on a murder XXC really stuck his neck out to uncover, seems a bit out of character, but oh well, people change. Seems like he got it out of his system, not our problem.

I do think documented Bright Moon and Gentle Breeze stan Lan Wangji of CQL could easily have gone to investigate, but it does seem like this may have been relatively recently after he left seclusion. And honestly one of my favorite performance moments in CQL is how even just talking about this whole situation clearly just makes Lan Wangji so, so sad. At the end of the day, maybe he was showing a bit of side of him that's more like Lan Xichen: he couldn't change it, so he just didn't want to know.

[fixaidea]

So about that headcanon of mine... how whenever Hua Cheng gets wind of a selfless, white-clad, notoriously unlucky cultivator getting into trouble he has no choice but go and check out the situation? And how, over the years that led to several false alarms?

Yeah. Here he is with his latest batch of rescues: Shen Qiao, Chu Wanning, Xiao Xingchen... and A-Qing, who came as a package-deal with Xiao Xingchen.

A well-meaning but somewhat misguided rescue-party is already on the way... Whether they even reach Ghost City largely depends on if Song Lan finally snaps and stabs Mo Ran in the face on a Taxian-Jun day, or if Yan Wushi (who can’t stop emphasizing that he’s only in this for the show) annoys the other two into ganging up on him first.