#future 3zun hinted at

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

War Manners

My housemate requested I write Meng Yao losing control for one (1) fucking second and kissing Nie Mingjue when they're not together, and the fallout from that/how Meng Yao would have to navigate knowing he'll never get Jin Guangshan's favor now. So this is (hopefully) that!

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Meng Yao has had very many Thoughts (the emphasis is more than appropriate) about Nie Mingjue. Nie-zongzhu. Chifeng-zun. These Thoughts can be reasonably and broadly categorized into two main sections — Professional and Unprofessional — and then further sorted into their appropriate little drawers in the mental cabinets Meng Yao has consigned these Thoughts to for his own sanity.

Within the Professional drawers there are mundane thoughts (no emphasis needed) such as troop deployments, war meetings with whom and when, missives and assignments to keep track of, and all the hundreds of little daily tidbits that go into successfully keeping an army out in the field. True, things like kitchen tents and bandage replacements and armor repairs and the like are all things that he happily delegates to the appropriate authority figures on such niche matters, but he still has to think about them. All of that sort of thinking is neatly and tidily sorted away and carefully labeled so that he can continue to be the competent and trusted vice-deputy Chifeng-zun needs him to be.

Within the Unprofessional Thoughts drawers there’s quite a bit more…variety. Those drawers are for rummaging through in the privacy of his extremely limited free time, mainly when he’s either falling asleep or just waking up to face the day. Let it never be said that Meng Yao allows himself to be distracted during important meetings by idly flicking through memory after memory of Nie Mingjue’s face from every imaginable angle and in every light. (Meng Yao’s favorites are from the times where it had only been the two of them alone together in the gentle candlelight of Nie Mingjue’s personal tent, the pair of them kept up long into the night poring over maps and reports and strategies together until Nie Mingjue is all fuzzy and sleepy around the edges. It happens a lot, which is wonderful for Meng Yao’s ever-growing catalog of such moments.)

These two categories of Meng Yao’s are not, under any circumstances, allowed to overlap. They exist in wholly different spheres. There is Chifeng-Zun, who requires one set of his very real services. Then there is Nie Mingjue, who is by now half-imaginary, and in the imagining he welcomes Meng Yao’s other services that have nothing to do with how well he can memorize the rosters of their commanding officers and the squadrons they represent. Two very very different things. Two different people. Meng Yao does not let their paths cross.

He’s sleep deprived and still riding the wave of his usual post-battle cocktail of emotions — something like fear and relief and triumph and exhaustion and world-weariness for the evil of men — when this is no longer true.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t actively participate in every battle, that would be absolutely impossible, but he fights in plenty of them, citing that if he isn’t willing to fight then why should any of their soldiers do so on his orders? So – he’d gone out today and he hadn’t returned with the rest of the soldiers when they’d stumbled back into camp, bloody and footsore but victorious. No one has been able to tell him where Nie Mingjue had ended up, as they’d been separated by enemy lines – though for some reason they’re all utterly confident that Nie Mingjue is fine. Meng Yao doesn’t doubt his General, but nor does he think leaving the man to fend for himself in the midst of a battle (or its aftermath) is the wisest decision when one wishes to keep said General both alive and well enough to lead the army, possibly as soon as tomorrow if necessary.

Which is how Meng Yao finds himself tromping through blood-churned wilderness until he finds a ring of dead bodies piled three-men deep with Nie Mingjue in the middle of the destruction, kneeling hunched over Baxia in either pain or exhaustion, nearly every inch of him splattered with mud and deep red gore.

“Mingjue!” Meng Yao exhales just loudly enough to be heard, the impropriety of such an intimate address his first (unnoticed, unheeded) warning of the dangerous slip he’s about to make. Nie Mingjue lifts his head to look at him, eyes weary and unfocused until the moment they meet his and relief seeps through, unmistakable. Soft around the edges. Meng Yao hurries forward, picking his way without thought over swords and splayed limbs and viscous puddles of indeterminate substances until he can crash right into Nie Mingjue, grab his blood-flecked face in both hands, and yank him into a too-hard kiss, the man still on his knees in the mud and therefore, for once, easily accessible.

Meng Yao has pictured kissing Nie Mingjue so many times now that at first he barely registers what he’s done. His extremely unprofessional admiration for the man frequently manifests as sexual desire, and Meng Yao sees no reason not to indulge in harmless fantasy to sweeten long sleepless nights alone. He kisses Nie Mingjue in one of the many ways he’s always wanted to, hard and yearning, teeth nipping sharp at his lip and a quick inhale to brace himself as he curls over him, Nie Mingjue’s head tipped back by the insistent press of his hands beneath his jaw.

“Meng Yao?!” It comes out startled, muffled against his mouth, and Meng Yao jerks back as if stung, eyes wide. 

He doesn’t lose control. He doesn’t. But he did, he has, and now Nie Mingjue is staring up at him equally shocked, no doubt by his completely inappropriate and downright presumptuous behavior. Meng Yao is politeness and manners personified, he is the sort of elegant gentleman his mother always hoped he’d be, and yet here he is, kissing his commander (and personal savior) as if they’re a young couple freshly in love, too anxious to hold themselves apart any longer than they have to.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. Nie Mingjue has never once looked down on him for his origins, has never acted like Meng Yao is dirty simply for existing, but despite the very real mess covering Nie Mingjue from head to toe Meng Yao can’t help but feel, in that moment, that what he’s done is the filthiest thing of all. “Chifeng-zun, please forgive this humble one-“

Strong hands yank him up from his hasty bow and Meng Yao has less than a heartbeat to realize Nie Mingjue has gotten to his feet before it’s his turn to tip his head back at the bruising press of fingers under his jaw so Nie Mingjue can lean down and drag him into another almost-violent kiss. He gasps around the sharp nip of teeth and tastes iron on the tip of his tongue when Nie Mingjue’s brushes it, the tang of blood and the sharp rot of mud thick in his nose, the back of his throat. There’s no softness at all, nothing like those nights spent with their heads close together in Nie Mingjue’s tent, but Meng Yao has imagined it like this, too. Violent, desperate, adrenaline-fuelled, thoughtless need. There’s no art or finesse to it, just raw animal want, and that’s just as good. Better, even. It’s perfect.

-/-

The nice thing about the Nie - in theory if not exactly in practice - is that they don’t bother to worry about someone’s lineage and instead allow their talents to speak for themselves. It’s why Meng Yao had come to the Nie after his violent expulsion from Jinlintai, and it’s why Nie Mingjue had promoted him on the spot upon hearing a group of his disciples blatantly disobeying this first and most important sect rule – though of course he wouldn’t have if had Meng Yao not earned it first through hard work. Unfortunately, the reality (that Nie Mingjue does not seem to realize he lives in) is that those disciples had been the rule, not the exception.

In practice, then, Meng Yao is still looked down on by nearly everyone in the sect for who and what he is. It’s a fact of life that burns in his blood every single day and makes him yearn to claw his blood-soaked way back up all those stairs in Lanling if he has to just so he can stand in his rightful place at his father’s side. So he can prove to the world that his mother’s legacy gift to him was not “bad blood”, but instead her hardworking dedication and her ability to learn everything necessary to support herself and her son in a cruel world.

But maybe this is why, at first, Meng Yao doesn’t notice much is amiss.

A hiss of, “Filthy trash,” as he passes by a group of men huddled around the cookfire one overcast noon barely registers as more than the usual grievances he has to deal with for committing the crime of existing. He whisks his way past them straight into Nie Mingjue’s tent, where he absolutely Does Not kiss him again, but instead devotes himself to copying maps for the evening to send with each of their commanders leaving in the morning for the next leg of the campaign.

“Conniving whore, just like his mother,” is the next audible barb hurled at him just two days later, the vitriol spit at him from someone he can’t easily pick out of the group practicing with their sabers on the outskirts of the Nie camp, where stray blades can’t do as much damage. That one is…significantly harder to ignore, specific as it is. Still. None of it hurts as badly as that impromptu flight down the stone steps of Jinlintai, so he pushes it away with an effort to simmer in the back of his mind – not forgotten, of course, but set aside for the time being – and returns to his duties with only a single hitch in his step to betray that he’d heard.

Only this time, it doesn’t stop. Murmurs and derision are common, expected, normal, and they continue on as usual. But heaped on top of them, like so much shit in a wheelbarrow, are scathing remarks about not only his mother but his own behavior. Suddenly, where none had been before, there are so many remarks about him using his body to get to his position that within two weeks it’s not only an accepted fact amongst the Nie – but among the camps of the other Sects in the field. Apparently. 

“Excuse me – what did you say?” Meng Yao asks as politely as he can manage when he can’t shake the rage trembling in his hands or the terror twisting his gut into knots. “I must not have heard correctly-“

Unfortunately, he had heard the man just fine, he knows he had, but rather than taking the generous opportunity to backtrack, the Jin soldier sneering at him only doubles down harder. “I said that Jin-zongzhu was right not to let the bastard son of a scheming bitch so much as step foot in his home. Barely a year later and you’ve shown your true colors haven’t you? Fucking your way into Nie-zongzhu’s good graces so you can try to corrupt another righteous Sect since you couldn’t get at ours! Whores never produce anything but devils-“

Meng Yao stays perfectly still as the Jin soldiers around their cookfire jeer and hawk their wine-sharp spit at his feet, some of it hitting the hem of his silver Nie robes, impeccably clean save for the mud stains around his ankles that will likely never come out. When he feels he can move again through the nauseous bile climbing up his throat he turns on wooden legs to march back out of the orderly ranks of pale gold silk, through the empty ground demarcating their camp borders, and back into the stark deep gray corridors of the Nie encampment. It offers absolutely no relief, no sense of being welcomed home, but at least it holds the flimsy protection of his own personal tent. He can’t really stop anyone who tries to cross the threshold of it of course, but with Nie Mingjue’s own command tent a mere row away – within shouting distance for sure – no one has yet dared to try.

Meng Yao’s mind is utterly blank as his feet take him through the camp using nothing but muscle memory. He can feel eyes on him – as unwanted a presence as groping hands – burning with their judgment and their commitment to despising his very existence. Shadows are gathering in the hollows between the tents with the oncoming evening, heavy behind bloated clouds that threaten rain, and Meng Yao can’t help but feel like each gap between the tents hides another hateful glare, another set of eyes watching him and waiting to see him fail. 

Meng Yao thankfully only loses the battle with his rising bile once he reaches the confines of his own personal space. It feels as if it’s still not private enough to reveal so much weakness, but there’s nothing else for it. His shallow wash basin serves now as a convenient bucket to empty his stomach into, and there’s nothing he can do to keep from heaving up his rations for the day into the wooden bowl.

It’s all over, he already knows it. His hands clench around the urge to go find the soldiers who had sneered at him and split them from groin to throat – the Nie are still butchers in many ways, and Meng Yao has seen the absolutely savage way they fight one-on-one when their lives are at stake. He’s seen it done more than enough times to be fairly sure he can mimic it, might even be able to copy the particularly gruesome style of killing utilized by the most vocal of his critics to pin him with the blame but –

But if a common Jin foot soldier has already caught wind of his indiscretion, it’s only a matter of time before the flame is fanned in the direction of the man he still harbors dreams of impressing, if it hasn’t already reached his ears. There’s nothing Meng Yao can do to stop it – no boon or honor he could earn, no underhanded trick sly enough to win the spot he so desperately craves in spite of what Jin Guangshan has done to him. He’s laid at the bottom of the stairs of Jinlintai, Jin Guangshan standing at the top to lord it over his broken body one more time before he’d turned to head back in to see to his beloved son’s birthday celebration, but still Meng Yao has never felt further from his approval and acceptance than he does now. 

He judders through another dry-heave and clenches the edges of the basin until his nails bite into the wood and his knuckles turn white with the aching strain, and none of it changes the fact that he’s lost everything. One moment of weakness in a lifetime of denying himself everything selfish, and already he’s been forced to reap the consequences.

Even as he stands hunched over the basin Meng Yao’s mind begins working, flinging through plan after plan until his thoughts are littered with half-remembered scraps, all discarded. They all rely on him maintaining some degree of reputation, enough to carry him into the halls of any of the other Great Sects, or even some minor one. There are many that pledge allegiance to the Jin, and to work his way up to Jinlintai through one of them would be an even more arduous process than going through the Nie, but once upon a time they could have been his last-ditch emergency attempts to achieve his goals. Now, though, they mock him from where they lie scattered on the floor of his mind, all hope he might have had at gaining respect anywhere in the cultivation world lying discarded with them. He certainly feels filthy and miserable enough that he thinks not even Wen Ruohan, maddened tyrant playing at joining the immortal gods though he is, would deign to accept him now. What good is a conniving, scheming whore to anyone, after all, even the insane?

In the end, there’s really only one plan left that has any hope of succeeding. It’s truly his last-ditch attempt, and it leaves a sour taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with his rising bile. He will steal what he can carry, and he’ll run. It’s in direct opposition to what Meng Shi had wanted for him, it’s not what he wants for himself either, but if his life will consist of nothing but scorn and mocking at every turn then he can force himself to admit defeat, to run somewhere no one knows him. Start over. Earn respect all over again somewhere new through the hard work he’s never once shied away from.

Meng Yao gives himself two more deep breaths to accept the new direction of his life before he stands up straight and stirs himself into action, ignoring the roiling mass of emotions still tugging and stabbing in his gut in favor of beginning to stuff the mobile contents of his tent into his single qiankun pouch - a gift from Nie Mingjue. He doesn’t stop to appreciate the silver brocade or the cool weight of the silk against his skin, the slight tingle of the magic he doesn’t have enough qi to cast himself but can make use of, considering Nie Mingjue has so much qi to spare for such things. (It could sell for a fortune, but Meng Yao already knows that he’ll sell anything else, even his body, before he’ll part with such a treasure no matter how hungry he gets.)

It takes less than half an incense stick for Meng Yao to empty his wardrobe into the pouch. He turns next to his desk, intending to take anything at all even remotely worth saving (read: selling) – and immediately bounces off a solid wall of leather and muscle.

“What are you doing?” Nie Mingjue demands as he steadies him with a hard grip around both of his biceps, fingers digging just this side of too hard into the meat of his arms. Meng Yao swallows down a fresh bout of nausea and slowly raises his eyes to meet Nie Mingjue’s, unsure of what he’ll find.

“I..Did you…hear-” Meng Yao feels his throat tighten around the rest of the question but he can see anyway that Nie Mingjue already knows.

“Jin Zixun couldn’t even wait for the strategy meeting to start before he decided to let everyone know what he saw. So yes.”

Ah.

Meng Yao closes his eyes against the fact that this is somehow worse than he’d feared. Nie Mingjue’s hands tighten painfully around his arms but Meng Yao doesn’t bother protesting – at this rate he’ll be lucky if Nie Mingjue lets him leave camp alive for all that he’s done to drag not only Nie Mingjue but also the Nie Sect through the muck of the world alongside him. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a friendly face in all of the Nie encampment, or that Meng Yao has done anything and everything they’ve asked of him since the moment he joined the Sect as a lowly servant to these same disciples.

None of it fucking matters.

“This humble one apologizes for such an insult,” Meng Yao manages to say around the knot in his throat threatening to stop him breathing altogether. “It was never my intention to bring shame upon the Nie, nor to - to-“ Meng Yao chokes again on the words hurled at him like daggers, his little remaining pride unwilling to bend into humiliation even for the sake of apologizing (and potentially saving his own neck in the process).

“To what?” Nie Mingjue’s voice is as hard and unyielding as Meng Yao could expect, but just because he’d been expecting it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. He can’t imagine that Nie Mingjue hasn’t heard what people are saying about him, the assumptions that he’s sleeping around to get where and what he wants. Nie Mingjue might be a stern man but he’s never been cruel – Meng Yao readjusts that opinion a hairsbreadth to the left, since the man seems determined to make him say such horrible things about himself instead of allowing him the easy out.

“To sully you with my…association.”

It burns on the way out, his throat thick and stinging with it even as he forces himself to say it. Nie Mingjue’s eyebrows – always so severe anyway – mash down into a straight line over his bright eyes, and even now Meng Yao adds this expression to his mental catalog of such things to be reexamined later, likely when he’s forced to survive somewhere far less than pleasant, and he’ll take any good memory at all. Because even now, even like this, being with Nie Mingjue is better than the quickly-approaching future in which he will not be anymore.

“Your association with the Nie began the moment you joined my Sect! What should we care what the Jin have to say about…what we..did.”

Meng Yao, against his better judgment, can’t quite stop the snort of hollow amusement for the way Nie Mingjue’s blustering abruptly drops into awkward hesitation at the mere hint of the kisses they’d shared that afternoon weeks ago. They haven’t mentioned it again, either of them, but Meng Yao’s hope that that would mean the lapse in judgment would just fade into awkward obscurity is now very clearly – detrimentally – in vain.

“How can you not care?!” Meng Yao tries to ask, but it comes out much closer to a demand, desperately feathered around the edges. “The things that they say matter, though perhaps they don’t affect you!”

“If Jin Zixun is the sort to slip through the woods so he can stay and watch a private moment only to then gossip about it during a war meeting says far more about him than it does us!”

“We -” Meng Yao gestures frantically between them with one hand - “are not an ‘us’ !!” He’s definitely desperate now, frantic to make Nie Mingjue understand that whatever part of this he thinks will blow over absolutely will not do that! “We are the most respected cultivator of the generation and the general of an army, and the bastard son of a prostitute who has defiled him to seemingly better his station in life! Tell me again what that does or does not say about me!”

“But it isn’t true!”

Meng Yao does not scream, nor does he rip his hair out at the roots in anxious handfuls, but by the gods are both options tempting. 

“I wish I could live in the world that you do. You have no earthly idea how much I wish I had the luxury of the truth mattering! They don’t care what the truth is, they only care that people like me remain in our place and don’t shatter all the fine illusions you gentry paint for and of yourselves! The truth is that Jin Guangshan is my father, and yet such a man who dotes on one son saw the other thrown down the foot of his throne. The truth-” he practically spits that hateful word as he finally vents the anguish that always seems to weigh him down - “Is that your own soldiers spit on me and steal any rewards I manage to scrape past their attempts to stop me from accomplishing anything in the first place! You have elevated me to the highest position in your Sect besides your own, but all that’s done for me is paint a bigger target on my back because you still – in your arrogant expectation that the world must operate exactly as you see – will not help me!”

Meng Yao is breathing as heavily as if he’d just run through their entire encampment corner to corner, his chest heaving and his shaking hands curled so tightly into fists at his sides that he can feel blood welling beneath his nails. He isn’t scared, though. Nie Mingjue could kill him outright for such horrendous disrespect and no one would bat an eye, but Meng Yao truthfully has nothing to lose now. He’d prefer not to die, he thinks, but if Nie Mingjue wants to kill him at least he could die feeling like it was justified. To be struck down by the man who had picked him up from the dirt in the first place, the man who is, as he’d said, the most feared and respected cultivator of their generation…it would not be a shameful death. Even in the circumstances they’ve found themselves, it wouldn’t be embarrassing to face his mother in the afterlife like this. He can tell her he tried. He will tell her he did everything in his power to win what she’d wanted, and he’ll pray for a few more lifetimes as her son to attempt to make up for his failures.

Meng Yao drops to his knees almost woodenly when Nie Mingjue’s hands release him as suddenly as if he’d been burned, and in his mind’s eye he can see the man reaching up for Baxia on his back. He’s lost count of how many times he’s watched Nie Mingjue practice with her, finding excuses to squeeze in a glimpse or two between all his other duties simply to admire the raw, untamed beauty of the way man and saber work together. She’s an extension of Nie Mingjue, as much of an appendage as an arm or a leg. The only way he can think of for Nie Mingjue to kill him more intimately would be to climb atop him and strangle him with his own hands, so he sees no problem in settling for Baxia’s cold touch rather than Nie Mingjue’s too-hot grip.

“You’re wrong,” Nie Mingjue rasps, and it sounds like it’s coming from a li away though the man hasn’t moved, Meng Yao kneeling close enough to his feet for the splayed skirt of his outermost robe to brush against Nie Mingjue’s boots. “There is one position left above yours that isn’t Sect Leader.”

Meng Yao opens his eyes reluctantly, stops imagining the whistle Baxia would make as she’d split the air between her razor-sharp edge and the soft give of his bared throat. He looks up, up, up at Nie Mingjue, towering over him like that first day they’d met, and he finds an eerie calm overlaying his usual temper, for once tightly reined in. Meng Yao would honestly prefer it if he were shouting like usual.

“What?” he manages to croak in response, his voice just as hoarse. “There’s not, you can’t –”

“I can.”

Meng Yao’s thoughts are more than a little scattered at the moment, but his mind is still as agile as ever. He meets Nie Mingjue’s gaze, lets the intensity of it burn him, pin him in place and force him to acknowledge what Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem willing to say directly.

There really is, in fact, one more rank between his current status as Nie Mingjue’s deputy and the man’s own status as Sect Leader. As things currently stand, the only person he actually answers to is Nie Mingjue, but that’s mostly because anyone who fools themselves into believing Chifeng-Zun has time to meet with the matchmakers is very swiftly and sternly disabused of such a ridiculous idea. Sometimes by him.

It wouldn’t be difficult at all to play the secret lovers card, if they were so inclined.

“No,” he protests to both Nie Mingjue and the traitorous direction his thoughts are happily careening towards. “Absolutely not! You cannot possibly believe that making me…Nie-furen would solve this?” 

Nie Mingjue glares down at him from under the harsh, unyielding furrow of his brows, looking as serious as he ever does. Meng Yao sort of wishes Nie Mingjue had just killed him instead of whatever the fuck this has turned into. Is it possible this is a stress-induced hallucination?

“It would help.”

“How?!”

Nie Mingjue huffs and finally moves, though sadly not to grab for Baxia in a sudden change of heart to just put him out of his misery and let him start everything over, a blank slate. Instead he begins pacing in tight circuits, back and forth across the center of Meng Yao’s tent, his leather shoulder pauldron brushing the center support pole with each abrupt pass.

“Jin Zixun has told everyone who will listen that he caught us kissing in the woods.” Meng Yao’s ears are suddenly far warmer than they have any right to be. “He’s only talked about the part where you kissed me. No one seems to know that I also kissed you.” Which he had most certainly done. Passionately. “It’ll be easy enough to turn the tide of gossip in our favor. You already wear inner family braids, you’ve been at my side since I promoted you, your word is my word in every way that matters. Or it should be, at least, and anyone who doesn’t treat it as such now will have no choice but to change their ways or leave once you become furen.”

“I haven’t actually agreed to that,” Meng Yao feels compelled to point out, still kneeling there on the beaten dirt floor of his own fucking tent, gobsmacked and a little dizzy with everything happening far too quickly.

“If you become furen then,” Nie Mingjue dismisses easily with a wave of one massive hand. He’s in full battle-planning mode now, Meng Yao recognizes the signs, and there’ll be no getting him out of his track until he’s walked this thought all the way to the end of it. Best to just walk alongside him and see where it takes them.

“And am I to believe that you will suddenly be so much more compelled to defend my honor after this? If spreading my legs for you were all it takes, then the men will wonder why you’ve suddenly elected to discipline them now for the behaviors they never bothered to stop even after you first promoted me. They will never believe that we’ve been hiding a relationship for so long that it’s produced an affectionate engagement, since you haven’t stirred yourself once to defend me yet.”

As far as accusations go, this is far too sharp and pointed to be anything but insubordination and disrespect of the worst sort (except maybe for grabbing Nie Mingjue and kissing him like he’d done. That ranks fairly high as well). But Nie Mingjue simply shoots him a look that is half apology and half irritation, nothing at all close to the murderous rage he likely deserves for such a display.

“If you would tell me these things then maybe that wouldn’t be the case!”

“Should I have to beg you over and over again for the protection you promised me when you brought me to your side?”

Nie Mingjue practically growls at that, clearly incensed, but apparently he still won’t be distracted from this new…tactical endeavor.

“What they say won’t matter so long as you’re furen, is the point I’m trying to make! You’ll be just as much the commander of Bujing Shi and the Nie as I am, your word will not be backed by me, it will be mine. It’s the best protection I can offer you, and it would cut these gossiping hens off at the knees. So they want to accuse you of sleeping your way to the top and refuse to believe differently? Fine. Then we’ll make sure you’re actually at the top! Any disrespect to you, then, will be no different than if they’d said it directly to me! I can respond to each insult with as much force as I want, then, and damn the consequences.”

Meng Yao’s breath catches in his throat and his fingers curl into fists again on his knees, the bites from his nails stinging slightly as he presses on them. As far as solutions go, it’s not precisely the best. Actually turning the rumors into truth will do very little to take the sting out of them, but it would mean power and – at least from Nie Mingjue – respect. Rather than retreating in disgrace, with his name a curse on everyone’s lips, there could be some small comfort. There could be Nie Mingjue.

When Meng Yao stays silent, Nie Mingjue suddenly stops and sighs gustily, eyes bright as he looks down at him still kneeling there waiting for death. He reaches into the fold of his robes at his chest and pulls out, of all things, one of their precious letters with a hard cover and the Nie seal. Most of their correspondences have long since been scrawled on whatever sorts of loose paper they can find, but whatever Nie Mingjue is holding has been written on their proper stationary, silver and deep grey flashing between his fingers as he holds the letter for a long moment before he passes it down to Meng Yao.

“I had intended to..give this to you, after the meeting. Before Jin Zixun decided to make a mess of everything.”

Meng Yao opens the letter warily, darting a questioning glance up at Nie Mingjue and his uncharacteristic hesitation. 

It is, he finds, a letter of recommendation, written carefully in Nie Mingjue’s neatest calligraphy.

“I know that you still wanted to be recognized by your father. You’ve made a good name for yourself here, good enough that you should have been able to find the same or a better position in any of the Great Sects – including the Jin.”

Meng Yao’s vision swims a little as he stares down at the letter, not actively reading it, just…marveling. The sting of rejection is waiting in the wings, he can feel it even as he sees how much Nie Mingjue appreciates him, how high he holds him in regard, in order to spell it all out so plainly for anyone else to see.

“If you want to, you can take that letter anywhere you wish to go and try again with someone else. I thought…if you stayed here, what I could offer you would never be what you truly wanted. I don’t want you to go, but I don’t want you to stay if it will only make you miserable. Obviously things are a bit different now, but my…feelings haven’t changed.”

Meng Yao can see it so easily. He could take the letter, he could walk away hurt by Nie Mingjue’s dismissal of him but eager to prove himself in Lanling anyway. He could leave the Nie for the Jin and attempt to earn his father’s attention again (he isn’t foolish enough even in his daydreaming to imagine he’ll ever earn Jin Guangshan’s love). 

If things were even slightly different, he would do it.

Meng Yao studies the letter for one more long moment, silent. With a deep breath he carefully folds it back between its covers to tuck such a precious thing into the front of his robes, safe and close to his heart.

“Any chances my father may have some day given me were ruined the moment Jin Zixun saw us. Even had we never kissed at all, he would have eventually found some way to ensure I would never find a place at my father’s side. It could never have gone differently, in the end,” Meng Yao says, calm and steady. Because he knows himself, and he knows that he would always find a way to love Nie Mingjue, so there would always be the possibility of him slipping up and damning them both. Now, or later, it doesn’t matter. Meng Yao tips his head back to look up at Nie Mingjue again and is unsurprised to find that his eyes are red-rimmed, though his cheeks are still dry for the moment.

Meng Yao inhales deeply again, sets aside the maelstrom of his feelings to tell him, “I want to stay. I want to be worth something to you. I want your respect and your power…and your affection. I want all of it. Don’t..don’t make me go somewhere else. Please.”

Meng Yao’s twisting heart begs silently for Meng Shi’s forgiveness as Nie Mingjue crosses the small distance between them to haul him up straight into his arms. Meng Yao hides in his chest and mourns for the loss of everything he’d dreamt of one day having - and Nie Mingjue holds him so tightly his tired body aches just right.

-/-

Nie Mingjue - in a move that would most likely shock every matchmaker in Qinghe - is a wonderful husband. Their engagement had essentially lasted only as long as the war, their wedding the first major (non-victory related) celebration of any kind amongst the Great Sects after its end. Meng Yao had thoroughly enjoyed rubbing the reality of their wealth even after a war in the faces of the rest of the Great Sects - particularly the Jin (perhaps..exclusively the Jin. He respects the Lan too much and cares about the Jiang too little to bother trying to make them jealous).

Still. It had been one thing to flaunt their power at a wedding in their own home, and now it’s another thing entirely to be attending their first cultivation event as the dual masters of the Unclean Realm – a group hunt. In Lanling.

Nie Mingjue, still his best source of unwavering support, stands at his side stern and silent at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to Jinlintai. Two lines of disciples stand behind them in neat rows, just as silent and imposing as their leader and – as they’d all been personally recruited by Nie Mingjue to replace some of those they’d lost in the war – wholly loyal to Meng Yao as much as they are to Nie Mingjue. With so many powerful people on his side, there’s no logical reason for him to fear ascending the steps in front of them. Mercifully, in spite of that fact there’s still no hint of impatience from any of the Nie while Meng Yao takes a deep breath in and looks up the mountain of stairs, the golden rooftop of the tower just barely visible over the steep slope of them from here.

Meng Yao takes another deep breath in when Nie Mingjue rests a hand subtly on the small of his back, a firm support that does nothing to attempt to propel him forward. He leans back into the press of it with a tiny smile up at his husband, who he finds is already looking down at him from the corner of his eye, brows furrowed into a concerned frown.

“Let’s go,” Meng Yao finally says. Nie Mingjue does him the courtesy of not asking him if he’s sure. Instead, they simply step forward as one and their disciples fall in smoothly behind them, their swords and the silver ornaments in their hair clinking softly as they ascend.

“Qinghe Nie Sect!” one of the guards at the top of the stairs announces when they reach it, and Nie Mingjue’s entirely proper hand on his back slips around to curl around his waist instead, his arm warm and sturdy around him as they approach. It’s inappropriate – practically bawdy by the standards of the Lan who have just gone into the banquet hall ahead of them – but Meng Yao manages to keep his head high and even smirk a little as they stop in the courtyard, ready to be greeted.

“Nie-zongzhu,” Jin Guangshan says with his usual (utterly fake) jovial smile and a bow that’s just this side of too shallow to be a proper greeting. The well-practiced smile on his lips sours into something ugly and pinched at the edges when Jin Guangshan turns to him and forces his spine to bend in an identical bow, his shoulders visibly tense to the point of faint trembling as he holds it and says, “Nie-furen.”

“Jin-zongzhu,” Nie Mingjue greets for both of them as they return the bow even more shallowly than they’d been offered; by now, with the both of them unequivocal heroes of the war and the Qinghe Nie not only rebuilding but flourishing already under their combined efforts, it’s no secret in the cultivation world that their reputations and wealth far outstrip the money Jin Guangshan has been throwing at everyone’s rebuilding efforts in an attempt to hide how little he did for the war effort when it mattered most. Their barely-polite greeting is no more nor less than anyone present would expect them to offer.

After all, everyone knows by now that even while embroiled in a war the Jin had somehow found the time to launch a smear campaign within the ranks of their own allies with the intent to drag their General’s beloved partner through the mud. They won’t be able to buy their way out of such shameful behavior until the Jin coffers are echoing empty, Meng Yao thinks with a savage sort of glee.

Despite the anxious roiling in his gut, Meng Yao sweeps past his father the moment it’s acceptable, head held high and the bright sunlight glinting off the silver guan threaded securely through his intricate loops of braids, the crown a match for Nie Mingjue’s. He spares Jin Zixun – standing just inside the door and aggressively flirting with one of the serving maids – enough of a passing glance to see his cousin’s eyes widen upon catching sight of him looking every inch a Sect Leader, and the nausea churning in his gut abates a little under another flash of pleasure.

Nie Mingjue, a man of his word through and through, has done precisely as he’d promised that day in his tent. Meng Yao answers to nobody – not even his husband who is his equal – and though he’s sure there must still be some in the cultivation world who will look at him and sneer, who will never believe that the son of a prostitute could be a valuable leader, the success of the Nie Sect speaks for itself already, and will continue to do so under their combined guidance.

And his husband is fully prepared to gut anyone who criticizes him in their hearing anyway.

“Married life suits you two quite well,” Lan Xichen tells them both with an amused little smile once the banquet is well underway, music and dancing and chattering filling the opulent hall. Meng Yao doesn’t duck his head, or blush shyly, or attempt to deflect. He simply smiles up at his and Nie Mingjue’s best friend (and most vocal supporter) and tries to look a little less smug. It clearly doesn’t work judging by the laugh Lan Xichen hides behind a genteel hand, but Meng Yao doesn’t mind one bit.

“We’re still willing to swear brotherhood with you, you know, even though we’re married,” Nie Mingjue says as he slings his arm around Meng Yao’s waist like he had earlier. The comment could be completely innocuous, a clumsy nonsequitur, but Meng Yao takes a delicate sip of the wine in his hand to hide the smirk that creeps across his lips when the offer lands precisely as it was meant. Lan Xichen coughs delicately and does an admirable job pretending that his ears aren’t glowing red at the tips.

“Three heroes of the Sunshot Campaign,” Meng Yao muses before Lan Xichen can get his metaphorical feet under him. “Three of the strongest leaders in the cultivation world bound together in an alliance between the Nie and the Lan, to stand across from the Jiang and Jin making their ties through marriage. It’s a good political move, and an even better personal one.”

Lan Xichen clears his throat and offers them a nod that, for him, is practically begging for relief from their teasing. “I have thought about it,” he confesses. Meng Yao wonders if it hurts for his ears to be blushing so fiercely. “And I accept.”

Nie Mingjue’s hand tightens on Meng Yao’s waist, possessive and excited in equal measure. Meng Yao sips at his wine again, pleased with the fact that soon he won’t have just one powerful man in the palm of his hand, but the two most powerful cultivators in the world. Sect Leaders, to boot.

It’s not anything close to what Meng Shi had in mind for him, he thinks, but it’s also so much more than she’d ever taught him to expect from his life that he also likes to think she doesn’t mind too much.

[soursoppi]

Btw, if you ever have more mxtx or bnha recs you’d like to share just know,,, you reccomend such nice stuff and I would not complain 💕👀

Most of the BNHA fics I’ve been following haven’t updated in some time ;_; but I don’t think I’ve done a general MXTX rec so I’ll do that haha!

Talking to myself by velithya

(MDZS: XiCheng hints) Short but HITS HARD ;_; Basically a young Jiang Cheng gets a visit from his future self, and he gets to hear the words he so badly needs but never hears from his own family.

Status: Short one! Seems to be a series? Either way velithya always writes such good stuff ;_;

A Bit of Ruthlessness by jirluvien

(MDZS: XiCheng) Similar in premise to The Beginner’s Guide to Moving On (which has been deleted ;_;) but paced better and with punchier dialogue imo! I love the character voices in the letter writing, there’s a nice balance between the humor and the drama which is what I like best.

Status: Finished! At 110111 words it actually feels like a surprisingly fast read!

Ah, it all makes scents now~! by theWanderingHeart

(MDZS: Xicheng) If you like the soft fluffy parts of ABO but could do with less of the spicy stuff or angst- this is the ABO!AU for you! I’ve also done some art haha for Jo’s adorable ABO series! Very cute and funny hehe

Status: A series! A fluffy ABO series!

Poison in Your Veins by 2501987

(MDZS: Xicheng) An AU where Jiang Cheng is raised by his mom as the heir of Meishan Yu instead! Features mildly spicy JC and besotted LXC! Pretty interesting premise, and the first act of the series seems to be done, with hints for more!

Status: A Series, with the first act wrapped up! Probably with more to come!

tsundere sect leader gets papapa (times five)! by oh_fudgecakes

(MDZS: AllCheng) An all out glorious PWP that features JC getting the d every which way possible by WangXian and the 3zun. The only non-Xicheng spicy that tempted me enough to continue reading. Features some tender Xicheng moments if you’re a sucker like me hahaha.

Status: WIP! But goddamn is it juicy.

the blackest of rooms by cwnran (manatsuko)

(SVSSS: BingLiu) Basically a retelling of the original SVSSS where Liu Qingge becomes Luo Binghe’s Teacher instead. My FAVOURITE SVSSS fic tbh. Because of the perfection of the pacing and the writing. It is not a very light story though it does have a happy end!

Status: Finished! Pretty short, but it made me cry ;_;

Dual Cultivation series by acernor

(SVSSS: BingLiuShen) EXTREMELY SPICY. But also very cute follows LQG’s slow acceptance of the “feelings”. I am completely unable to read BingQiu now because of the glorious tsundere sexiness that is Acernor’s Liu Qingge, I keep waiting for them to woo LQG instead.

Status: FINISHED! Acernor writes a lot of tasty spicy stuff, my favs are her BingLiu(s) hehe

A War God From Another World by 月氣 (TheUmbraphage)

(SVSSS: Eventual BingLiuShen, currently LiuShen-ish) Liu Qingge is the one transmigrated this time, I LOVE THIS. The character voices feel really IC, and the world-building is really good (i.e authentic). It feels like something MXTX could have written! It’s fairly early in the story but still an extremely entertaining read!

Status: WIP, early in the first act and I’m crying a little because it’s been some time since the last update. But still a good read.

Same Deep Water As You by krypkaktus (Regndoft)

(TGCF: HXxSQX) Post-canon Beauty and the Beast-esque slowburn!!!! Beautifully written, slow, tender and full of healing ;_; I love the catfishes so much.

Status: 14/90..... it says haha... recently updated at least! Just take it a chapter at a time!

Returning Earth《天地緩緩 》 by iskendaris

(TGCF: HXxSQX) Exploration of He Xuan’s and Shi Qingxuan’s relationship from how they might’ve met, to what they might’ve felt for each other. An in-depth character piece, also very spoilery. No healing, mildly spicy, very nice world building and lots of pain.

Status: WIP! But the world setting does feel very authentically Ancient China-ish! I love that!

making a home to come back to by macdotexe

(TGCF: LQQxQR) Post-canon! Lang Qianqiu and Qi Rong figure out how to parent Guzi together! Slightly spicy, and very cute! I love the domestic-ness in this, and the slowly building UST between LQQ and QR haha.

Status: WIP, been a while since the last update but it’s still a satisfying morsel

So Says the Shapeshifter by foxflowering

(TGCF: LQQxQR) Post-canon spicy! Lang Qianqiu has Qi Rong in his hands at last, but before the spicy must come the character dissection (kinda literally lol)! This fic fleshes out Qi Rong’s character and motivations beyond the scraps we get in canon, really like the dialogue in this!

Status: Fairly short but fulfilling read!

[gingersnapwolves]

Follow up fic-related post to my Untamed primer, for those who specifically read this whole thing in order to be able to read my fanfiction! Firstly, I’m flattered. Y’all are amazing. Secondly, here’s a handy dandy list of my fics that might help you get started. (There’s tons and tons of great fanfics in this fandom, though, so you should explore if you feel so inclined!)

First of all, um, I feel compelled to write a disclaimer about all my Xiyao fic lmao. Writing the last two sections of this I was like ‘ugh, Jin Guangyao is the worst’ but like ... he wasn’t always? It feels weird to say, but I ship Lan Xichen with Meng Yao but not Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao. Meng Yao was genuinely treated very poorly all his life and had legitimate reasons to be bitter and resentful, but he didn’t turn into a monster until after his father got a hold of him. I know that not everybody will agree with that! But I just want to say, after writing those last two chunks I wanted to clarify, yes, I write a ton of Xiyao, but it is all based around the idea that although Meng Yao is morally ambiguous and can absolutely be ruthless when necessary, with actual love and support he wouldn’t end up being so terrible, and I love the idea of turning all that conniving cleverness for good instead of evil.

Anyway, moving on!

I’ve written two fanfics that are complete AU, fusions with other media. These might help you get used to reading in the fandom without worrying about all the plot nuances and politics and such.

Like a House on Fire – loose fusion with 9-1-1, characters as first responders, Wangxian and Xiyao

The Weight of the World – fusion with Pacific Rim, Wangxian and Xiyao

Here are the others, by canon divergence point. Worth pointing out, I have actually only written one fic that take place in the latter half of the show (in fact, it’s post canon). Although some of my fics have young Wen Yuan or Jin Ling in them, I don’t generally deal with the 16 year gap because it’s just too damn depressing for me. So sadly, I don’t really write about the juniors. The juniors are great! And I’m sure there are great fics about them! But I’m invested in fix-it fic, which means making sure that 16-year-gap doesn’t happen.

Also probably worth pointing out: the older the fics are, the more likely I was to make factual errors in them. Like in my first fic, I didn’t realize Meng Yao’s mother was dead, because it’s never explicitly mentioned, and in several of my earlier fics I got the pieces of yin iron confused all to hell and back lol. Be kind. XD

Canon diverges prior to or right at the beginning of the timeline:

An Atypical Courtship – Meng Yao becomes a prostitute after his mother dies. Additional bonus AU because Wen Ruohan isn’t evil and there’s no war because I didn’t feel like dealing with it. Mainly Xiyao, background Wangxian.

The Third Young Master of the Qishan Wen – Wei Wuxian is adopted by Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s family, instead of the Jiang sect. This might actually be a good one to start with as it covers almost the entire canon (pre-death canon) but just slightly to the left. Wangxian, Xiyao, Chengqing.

somewhere to belong (WIP!) – Meng Yao stays in Cloud Recesses for the lecture and makes friends. 3zun (the pairing name for Nie Mingjue/Lan Xichen/Meng Yao) and background Wangxian.

Canon diverges prior to the Sunshot Campaign:

hope dangling by a string – Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up psychically connected and it prevents a whole host of misunderstandings. Also covers a lot of canon but slightly to the left. Wangxian and Chengqing.

Canon diverges after the Sunshot Campaign:

No More Masks – Meng Yao isn’t legitimized and goes to live at Cloud Recesses after the war. If you want to know why I’m obsessed with Xiyao, this is the fic to read as it’s the one I wrote to specifically indulge. Mainly Xiyao, some Meng Yao/Xue Yang, background Wangxian.

Aftermath – Jiang Yanli kills Jin Guangshan in self defense when he tries to assault her. Without him around after the Sunshot Campaign, everything goes much better. Mostly focuses on the sibling relationships, but also has Xuanli, Wangxian, and a little light Xiyao and Chengqing.

The Lost Cause – Nie Huaisang and Jin Guangyao team up to murder Jin Guangshan. It’s more fun than it should be. Mainly gen, background Wangxian.

the cycle of regret – Lan Wangji gets stuck in a groundhog day loop of trying to save Wei Wuxian just before his death. Wangxian only.

 Canon diverges after Wei Wuxian’s death:

picking up the pieces (WIP!) – Jiang Cheng is killed at the massacre of Nightless City instead of Jiang Yanli. She then convinces Lan Wangji to come live with her at Lotus Pier and raise their kids together. Actually fairly gen, Wangxian later.

The Way it Wasn’t – Jiang Cheng wishes that Wei Wuxian had never existed, only to find out that without him, they lost the war. Wangxian, Xiyao, Chengqing hints.

where do we begin (the rubble or our sins) – Wei Wuxian survives falling off the cliff, resurrects Jiang Yanli, and ends up with amnesia. Wangxian only.

Post canon:

the hardest part of ending (is starting again) – Wen Ning and Lan Xichen comfort each other after going through hell. Mainly gen, hints at future Ningchen, background Wangxian.

again, if you have any questions, either while reading the summaries or while reading any of my fics, feel free to ask me! <3

[multsicorn]

book-and-show

My preferred mix of the two canons is basically ‘The Untamed, but Wei Wuxian lost control of his zombies by his own goddamned self, and also plot/logic holes are taped over by explanations from the book when needed and possible.  And we know that wangxian are together and will be married, but we're left with spaces to fill in the details.’  (One of the cool/interesting things about having multiple versions of a canon is that one can mix and match!)  But there are definitely things that I prefer, separately, about each.

[two very long lists.  all of which are all about personal opinions/preferences, and none of which are looking to start discourse!]

Eight Things I liked better about the show:

1. "Who am I to you?"  "I had thought, that you were the one who knew me for my whole life."  "Still, I am." is *twenty zillion times* more romantic than a stolen blindfold kiss, in a way that pretty much encapsulates why I so much prefer show to novel wangxian overall.  And in this TED talk - I mean, in another post, hopefully, in not too long, I will.

2. Lan Wangji's explicit questioning of and overturning his understanding of 'what is right, and what is wrong,' rather than simply being motivated by 'if loving Wei Wuxian is wrong, then screw everything else.'

3. Introducing so very many characters earlier in the chronological timeline, and showing us more about them and their relationships prior to Wei Wuxian's death - and outside of the key moments in which they're involved in the plot.  Wen Qing and Wen Ning, Jiang Yanli, Mianmian, Songxiao, Xue Yang, Meng Yao - this list could also be its own post.

4. More focus on the Sunshot Campaign and its aftermath, pre-death, specifically on the period when Wei Wuxian is the feared necromancer, and he and his loved ones are dealing with that, against a background of war and then possibly more war.  It's by far my favorite part of the narrative, just because of my preferences re: genres, so I appreciate it being foregrounded rather than just a backstory that's shown in flashbacks.

5. The successive confrontations between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji over 'leaving the right path'!  In the courtyard, when Lan Wangji pulls Bichen on Wei Wuxian to make him listen; in the sad umbrella rain, when Wei Wuxian holds Chenqing out in front of him, defying Lan Wangji's efforts to rein him in.  These things probably fall under the umbrella of the TED talk from the first point, but they're the beating heart of WHY I LOVE THIS STORY.  And they're not even in the novel...!  I thank the CQL team for my life.

6. Also, THE COMB STORY.  I'd never have thought either that 'how do we improve an m/m romance novel?  By adding a het romance subplot, of course,' but the fact is that I love the dimension it adds to both Jiang Cheng's and Wen Qing's stories.  Highlighting their shared loyalty to their clans - except not shared, because they're from different clans! - but their shared *understanding* of what righteousness, justice, etc., is, and the way it leads to their tragedies, and the way it's a counterpoint to Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's different and ultimately shared understanding of 'what is right' and the way *that* brings *them* together is just... so good.  I am getting over it approximately never, and, again, it's show-original.

7. And I think the last big thing - other than, the acting's wonderful, imo, the visuals are great, (even the 'bad' special effects? I like 'em kinda ridiculous?), and when the prose-in-translation of all versions is iffy at best, (not judging MXTX's prose! or the scriptwriters'! but I unfortunately cannot read or understand it) it's REALLY NICE to have other major dimensions of the story that aren't lost or diminished in translation.  Honestly, I am only watching cdramas and not reading cnovels (I only read MDZS so I'd know what's in it) for that reason alone.  But in terms of *story* stuff -

8. I think that censoring wangxian's relationship down to the '(really really loud) subtext' level counterintuitively also makes the rest of the story seem considerably gayer.  If wangxian exists in hints and looks and narrative parallels etc., then likewise, so do the 3zun and Yi City triangles.  Not as much as wangxian, but they're more minor characters, and they're on the same continuum... to the extent that I legit thought that songxiao and xiyao would also be novel canon.  (They are not.)  If Wei Wuxian shocking Lan Wangji by showing him gay porn in the library, and commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, is because he is actually into guys, then maybe Nie Huaisang lending Wei Wuxian that same porn, and also commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, means the same thing, if that's all we have to go on. etc.

Nine Things I liked better about the book:

1. There's something about Wei Wuxian's narrative voice, the running commentary that he gives about others and most of all himself that is... funny?  Yes, it is, but that's not the part I love.  It's hard to pin down, but the pattern of the things he judges and the things he doesn't judge at all, even though maybe he should, but he really has so much empathy - in the literal sense, I mean, as well as the magical - is very specific and endearing?  He's exactly like that in the show, too, but we hear much less of it when he's not telling the story.

2. Getting to hear A-Qing in her Empathy fleshes out her cleverness and her bravery, again, in a way that's not easy to replicate seeing it from outside of her head.  (I think we may have more of all of the ducklings/juniors, actually, but I'm just not all that interested in their friendly banter.  Not when there's life-rending trauma in the OG of the same story!)

3. From the chronological start of the story, the Wens' domination and power-hunger is portrayed in a realpolitik way that's both more interesting and fits the rest of the story better, with the Jins later filling that same vacuum, and fearing Wei Wuxian's potential to do the same sort of thing to them, etc., as chronologically following and competing different takes on the struggle for power, without any need for the flat fantasy mcguffins of the Yin Iron or the 'spirit snatch.'

4. Wei Wuxian ~appreciating~ Nie Mingjue's dead body parts is hliarious. I love him hanging out with the corpse girls.  I love the Wens risingout of the blood pool for him ;___;.  Overall his relationship withthe corpses that he magics is such a cool weird fun part of the book,that is missing in the show except his friendship with Wen Ning for'let's make a show about necromancy but pretend it's not' reasons.

5. The fact that Wangxian don't split up and go their own ways at the end of the story, even temporarily!  I could go either way on 'Lan Wangji becomes Chief Cultivator' - I like the way that it moves into 'the future will be better than the past, and we'll work to make it that way', in the same way that 'the kids are alright' does, and the fact that Lan Wangji hates diplomacy and is bad at it can make for good amusing stories!  But I also approve of the fact that the personal win condition for so very many of these characters is to peace right the fuck out of sect politics, (like Mianmian our true hero does <3), and I believe in that as a happy ending.

6. Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's complementary ~ravishment~ kinks.  I don't like the exact way they're written in the novel (and extras), but I *will* take and run with the existence of them, nevertheless.

7. The post-resurrection plot makes, um, sense?  Let's not forget the importance of that!  (But, honestly, 'must a plot make sense'?  It's not all that important to me, lol.)   Going from one place to another to collect the pieces of 'our dead friend's' body rather than seemingly at random makes the journey feel purposeful rather than direction-less, and gives an indication of progress that's not simply 'amount of the story read as per chapter count.'  Though it's still not clear to me why the juniors squad needs to be in Yi City!

8. It has more of Wei Wuxian's inventiveness.  Whether founding the Diabolic Path rather than 'just' inventing some tools and talismans within and also outside of it, or figuring out/explaining how some sort of magic works, whether lecturing to the juniors or working it out for himself, or something like that one night-hunting extra where he's being a supernatural consulting detective... it's fun to see more of his ~mind at work,~ in a way that doesn't fit as well either into an audiovisual medium or under the constraints of 'what is happening? definitely not corpse magic!' that censorship imposes.

9. The structure of revealing what happened in (what I can't help thinking of as) the main portion of the plot - who Wei Wuxian is, what his life story is, and Lan Wangji's part in it - through interleaved and not even necessarily in-order flashbacks is... so interesting?  Unfortunately I can't tell how well it would've worked for me in terms of changing my understandings of characters etc., because I watched the show before I read the book, so I came to it knowing the outlines of the story.  But it's a cool idea, and I wish that I could experience it properly!  (Though I would never have read the book without watching the show first, I would've failed out at the start due to translation issues and then if I'd persisted past that due to all the gay chicken stuff.)

[theuntamednarrator]

Hi. I've always been curious. I didn't read the mdzs novel, just the drama adaptation, so i do not know how the ah-cheng/xichen pairing came to be. I asked someone this before but idk if they answered, and about a year to this fandom, i still don't understand how it started. I love the ship tho. 10/10 on-board of it. But the live action mostly just showed JGY and Xichen's interaction. Or maybe I just missed the hints? I just want to know the history. Thank you in advance if you'll answer.❤️

Anon I will always happily answer any questions about this show! However I must confess that I, like yourself, am a CQL only fan.

That said, honestly if there is one thing I've learnt about fandom in my decade and a half playing about in it it is that people can (and will, and do) try out any and all pairings to see what works, with very limited exceptions (you dont, for example, really see fics breaking up WangXian because, well, canon gave us something pretty much perfect why would we mess with that?). That's one of my favourite things about being in fandom. I do think sometimes all it takes for a ship to become The Fanon Ship™️ for particular side characters is for that one author/artist to write/draw something that grabs the rest of us so hard and wrings such a delighted collective squee! out of us we collectively kind of agree to forget it's not canon?

Now, why XiCheng in particular? Well, from what I know of novel/donghua timelines JC stayed behind at Cloud Recesses after WWX got booted for punching JZX. From what I gather a lot of fics that start the relationship early put it here; one young Sect Leader taking a future Sect Leader under his wing, which turns into something more.

The time skip period generally features a lot of LXC helping JC through the rebuilding post the deaths of JYL and WWX as one of the closest Sect Leaders geographically but also someone JC knows and trusts. The flip side is JC helping LXC deal with LWJ's punishment and isolation.

Post-canon fics tend to play on their parallels and shared grief, the 'I know what it's like to lose a beloved sibling (NMJ/JYL) because of the actions of another beloved sibling (JGY/WWX) and to be responsible for their (JGY/WWX) death. Basically, XiCheng is an interesting dynamic to play with for lots of reasons. Narrative wise both have pretty bad parental examples of love, become sect leaders too young, have their secta burnt down and their beloved brothers go missing. Personality wise there's a bit of opposites attract; JC would do well with someone who was gentle and unrelentingly kind and LXC could do with someone who will get angry on his behalf. Who doesn't love it when the grumpy character is soft for the sunshine character, and the sunshine character only? Heck maybe people just think those are two jawlines that deserve each other?

But I have also seen XiCheng described as a bit of an exercise in "pair the spares" which, uh, I honestly don't get at all because, uh, everyone apart from WangXian is kind of a spare? Discounting XuanLi and the CQL-only almost (but never really) ChengQing there's no canonical romantic relationships to be seen amongst the main protaganists' generation we're not calling JGY/QS a romatic relationship because on this blog we're living in our MianMian and QS ran away together and live as cultivation partners far far away from Jin Lin Tai happy bubble which, again, give the fandom a sandbox ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally, I see just as much NieLan and SangCheng as I do XiCheng, and you're right that XiYao has some strong in-text support and is pretty popular (perhaps more so with CQL fans? Lingering public hand touches anybody?). Heck I've even read and thoroughly enjoyed some really good fics with MingXiCheng and ChengYu. I've seen (aged up) XiYu. NingCheng, SangYu, and SangYao aren't super rare, 3zun is everywhere. I've even seen cute ChengYao hcs about them being the most awkward co-parents to ever co-parent one bratty jin heir.

Leaving ALL of that (which is admittedly a lot) aside my own top peronal hc for JC is that he's somewhere on the aro/ace spectrum with a sex-postive leaning because I am invested way too heavily in dad!cheng with two dozen adopted and biological children and only he knows which are which leave me alone.

I just realised I didn't really properly address the point you made about XiYao having more textual support in CQL. Oops, sorry! I guess I would tend to agree. As to why there isn't then more XiYao than XiCheng? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Might be that the XiYao crowd is torn between NieYao, NieLan, 3zun, and XiYao? Might be that people don't want to ship JGY with LXC because they think he doesn't "deserve" to get what he wants? Might just be that the novel/donghua didn't give XiYao that much chemistry and the CQL fandom haven't had time to tip the scales? Short answer, I just don't know.

Did that in any way answer your question anon? I have no idea! Probably not? I apparently have more feelings about the fleets sailing these waters than I thought I did. But hopefully it helped somewhat? If anyone else has anything more concrete please chime in!

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Life Is Short, Do Art

MXTX Reverse Trope Fest - Day 10

College Dropout AU

Lan Xichen study - AO3

Inspired by my very real post-graduation goal of founding a ceramics co-op with some friends and going out to live in the countryside with some other friends.

Lan Xichen has never been accustomed to being a disappointment before. He’s still not, despite the fact that he’s decided to become one. It makes his hands shake and his breathing come too harsh and fast. No one in his family knows what he’s done yet - one of the many benefits of going to a university that his uncle does not run nor guest lecture at. He had thought briefly of telling Wangji his plans, but his brother is so…straight-laced. Despite Lan Xichen’s gentle prodding, his brother has never unbent enough to break the rules, to see how far Uncle’s rigidity will actually bend and sway before he breaks. It’s further than one would think, Lan Xichen knows that from experience.

He’s pretty sure it won’t bend far enough to accommodate this.

He packs the last of his boxes into the modest station-wagon he’d bought off a friend with the money he was supposed to spend on his accommodation for next semester. He gets in, checks his mirrors, fastens his seatbelt.

And leaves university behind.

Lan Xichen exhales as he crosses from the parking lot out onto the main drag in front of campus, and he studiously avoids looking at the imposing facade of it as he drives away. His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel only eases up when he can’t see the rooftops in his rearview mirror anymore, and he’s suddenly struck by the freedom of the road ahead, the simplicity of existing in the middle of the day amongst the rest of society out enjoying the sunny afternoon. No classes to hurry to, no tests to study for, no professors breathing down his neck to ensure he’s living up to the Lan reputation (because that’s inescapable on the west coast no matter how far he leaves Uncle behind).

It’s an illicit thrill the likes of which he’s been microdosing on for his entire life with his little half-truths, his minor mischiefs, his rule-bending that falls just short of breaking. This much of it all at once is downright heady, and with a grin he can’t quite suppress he turns and takes a road that will lead him to the ocean. The afternoon is warm, as they usually are, and the sun is bright overhead, as it usually is, but for the first time in far too long he’s going to appreciate it by sitting outside, and taking his shoes off, and rolling the hems of his pants up so he can step in the warmth of the Pacific Ocean. So he can, for the first time he can remember, revel in the feeling of having absolutely no demands on his time.

The sand is soft and warm under the soles of his feet when he crosses the beach to the water. He smiles when he reaches the tideline where the sand is instead wet and firm, and for the hell of it he runs a few hundred yards down the surf. He knows he must look ridiculous - he isn’t dressed for running, and he’s running, not jogging - but this is California and the few patrons that dot the beach have no doubt seen weirder, probably even today. He stops when he feels like it, and he sits down where he feels like it, and he doesn’t even care that he’s going to be fishing sand out of the pockets of these trousers for at least the next few washes.

Lan Xichen watches the surf and he doesn’t think of anything much at all, his mind emptying so easily like it never does when he attempts to meditate. He supposes it’s likely never been a him problem, but rather a symptom of living a life in which there are always things to think about and never enough time to think about them in, even without setting aside an hour or two to attempt to be blissfully checked out.

He stays right there until the sun begins westering and his skin is sticky with salt spray, his long hair tangled and unruly from the wind. Even then the only reason he moves is to get up and walk back down the beach to where he’d parked so he can fish his phone out of the center console. It’s still mercifully quiet, with no new notifications - no one back home will know what he’s done for a while at least - but he has a call he needs to make.

Nie Mingjue picks up on the third ring, his gruff voice a warmth to add to that of the afternoon.

“Hey Xichen, what’s up?”

“I did it.”

The silence from the other end of the line is heavy and then there’s the clank of a knife being set down on a countertop.

“Oh, are you cooking dinner? I apologize, this was a bad time to call-”

“It’s never a bad time to call and did you just say what I think you did? You did it? You left?”

“I left.” He’s grinning as he says it, and before Nie Mingjue even responds he knows his best friend is smiling just as widely.

“Well fuck me!! I never thought I’d see the day. When are you coming out here, then? Should I cook for four?”

“Oh, is A-Yao there as well?”

“Yep, just got back this afternoon. A-Sang snagged him for a ‘tea-spilling’ session, apparently, but he’s here. Come over for dinner, we can all celebrate. And…I mean not just for dinner. Come stay as long as you want, you know there’s always room for you here.”

Lan Xichen breathes out a happy sigh and closes his eyes against the early evening breeze. “I couldn’t have done this without you, you know,” he says, feeling oddly weightless. “If you hadn’t done it first I don’t think -”

“I know,” Nie Mingjue cuts him off, but it’s gentle and warm in his ear, the audible version of one of Nie Mingjue’s bear hugs. “And A-Yao will be next, mark my words. We all deserve the chance to find what it is we want. We can talk about what you want to do next when you get here if you want, or we can do nothing at all. But you’re free to do anything from now on.”

“Dinner tonight sounds great,” Lan Xichen hums. “We’ll figure it out as we go from there?”

“Sounds good. I’ll let the others know you’re on your way, drive safely.”

Lan Xichen agrees and says his goodbyes, gets in his car, takes the Pacific Highway as far south as he can before he has to turn east to head out towards Nie Mingjue’s place out in the desert. Off-grid and nigh-on untraceable by conventional methods, it’s the perfect place for him to hang out and relax for a bit while he decides the direction he’s going to go in next. It’s terrifying and exhilarating and he knows that the shit’s going to hit the fan at some point - it did for Nie Mingjue when he dropped out of his program to pursue life as an artist, and he knows it’s not always going to be happiness and roses to join him - but that’s a problem for the future.

For tonight, he’s driving with the windows down and the wind in his hair carrying the scent of sand and the ocean, and he’s as free as he’s ever been in his entire life. He knows when to cherish the moment and put the worries for the future aside for long enough to sink into the bliss of it.