#liansanjiao

[difeisheng]

[nutcasewithaknife]

I don't think we talk enough about how instantly Di Feisheng was game to settle who would wear the wedding dress with a game of stone-paper-scissors

[peridot-tears]

The year is 2024 and a team of archeologists have excavated a strange grave in an old seaside village. The verdant green skeleton of a man who died in his 50s next to the bones of a dog. Alongside them are the bones of two men who passed well into their 90s. DNA testing shows that at least one of them was the ancestor of several prominent imperial families throughout the dynasties, and yet he was buried in this unmarked grave instead of with his family. None of them were related. All of them were buried decades apart.

[mx-myth]

Liansanjiao is so wild. One of them is a dom and also a pillow princess. Another one is a brat tamer and a submissive. The other one is a service top and a brat. They're all asexual. They're all horny all the time. They're all aromantic. They're all battle-sexual. They're all dating. They're all fighting. They're all in a qpr. They're all friends. They're all oh whoops you looked away for one moment now they're taking down the jianghu and they're going to remake it. Oh nevermind they're leaving.

[murderedbyhomework]

Watching Minister Fang sajiao at his wife has made me realise that Fang Duobing probably inherited that from his father lol.

The scene in question is when Fang Duobing and his dad half argue about fdb not wanting to get married to the princess, and Minister Fang repeats "Furen (wife essentially but with his tone it might as well be wifey)" in the most soft but wronged sajiao tone ever and asks her to deal with fdb.

Anyways who wants to think of fdb going "furen~" at llh whenever dfs pisses him off and he's complaining. Like just imagine him going "夫人~老笛欺負我 哼" (Furen~ Lao Di is bullying me hmph) at llh in the most sajiao tone ever.

(obviously he would not call dfs Furen it would be 老公 husband haha /OK I will leave)

[lyselkatz]

拋去江山如畫•換他笑面如花•抵過這一生空牽掛•心若無怨愛恨也隨他•天地大情路永無涯•只為他袖手天下

Throwing away the (power over) picturesque rivers and mountains(realms) in exchange for his* flower-like smile is greater than a lifetime without anyone to worry for. • If the heart has no resentment, let love and hate go as it pleases him. The world is great and the path of love endless. • For him only, staying away from the world ('s power struggles).

Jason Zhang Jié 張傑 - 天下 (Land Under Heaven/the World)

*since the pronoun "ta" by ear only could be either 他她牠祂 or 它, it's easy to twist and pick the masculine one 他 instead of the original lyrics' feminine 她 here.

(The original doodle of the previous work I shared actually included Fang XiâoBâo but DFS didn't want to share so I was forced to turn it into two pieces... Thanks a-Fei! 😑)

...☕?/commission

[eirenical]

Once again it's long past WiP Wednesday, but I started work on a new fic that was supposed to be short and is looking like it will be... not that. 😅 So, have a snippet of a belated birthday fic for Li Lianhua. Enjoy? ^_^

*

The package was clumsily wrapped, brightly-colored paper folded about it in ways that let the wind pass through as easily as Lianhualou's walls once had.  Before Fang Duobing with his endlessly clever mechanic's hands and Di Feisheing and his boundless strength and stubborn good will had inexorably mended what had once been so haphazardly done.  This package showed none of that care, none of that attention to detail, left sitting on the kitchen table for Li LIanhua to find as if its giver couldn't be done with the thing quickly enough.

A warm hand landed on the small of his back, the bright staccato of an excited voice breathless in his ear belied that impression almost immediately thereafter.  "Aren't you going to open it?"

Li Lianhua rolled his eyes sideways to find Fang Duobing's gaze fixed on him, a wide smile on his face as he all but bounced in place beside him.  Li Lianhua turned his eyes back to the gift, sighing softly as he said, "What on Earth is it for?"

The warm hand left his back as Fang Duobing reached out to grab the package and dump it in his hands.  Half the wrapping paper fell to the floor.  "Happy birthday!"

Shaking his head, Li Lianhua shifted the package between his hands, the weight and warmth of it comforting, though he had no idea what it was.  "Xiabao, it isn't my birthday."

Fang Duobing gave him a nudge until he sat down at the table, package in hand and motioned him to open it.  "Well, it could be, for all you know.  So stop fussing and open your gift."  As Li Lianhua finally started pulling the paper apart, Fang Duobing loomed over him, watching him like a hawk waiting for the right moment to strike.  Sure enough, the moment the last of the paper fell away, Fang Duobing reached forward and pulled the gift from Li LIanhua's hands to hold it up to its full size.

A blanket.

A warm, thick blanket, the likes of which were common in Tianji Hall and had been at Sigumen but that Li LIanhua had never been able to afford for Lianhualou.  It was easily large enough to cover three.  He rose and reached out a hand to run down the front of it.  It was even softer than it looked.

Another hand came to rest at the hollow of his waist, its owner's warmth pressing lightly along his entire back.  With Di Feisheng behind him and Fang Duobing waiting eagerly in front of him, a flutter started in his stomach, then moved to beat against the inside of his ribs in a way that left him shaking. Fang Duobing stepped closer, half wrapping the blanket around him as he pressed their foreheads together.  Smiling, he said simply, "I'm glad you like it."

[the-surreptitious-albatross]

"Would it be enough to live on if my love could keep you alive?"

My new fanvid for Mysterious Lotus Casebook- "Enough to go by" by Vienna Teng, featuring Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing, and Di Feisheng

~

Shoutout to @potahun for coming to the same conclusion as I did that this song is perfect for fanghua. Even though I added Di Feisheng to make it difanghua, because the lyrics of verse 3 are very DFS to me, I hope you like it regardless!

~

This is my second fanvid for MLC- my first (featuring Li Lianhua sad hours) is here.

[yletylyf]

I just realized I never advertised this fic on tumblr! It's been up for a while, though anon for a time, so it's fun to claim it.

Strike Three, Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua, soulmates/soulmarks AU. Rated Teen. 3700 words, complete.

They say dual cultivation with your soulmate can cure any ill. Unfortunately for Li Lianhua, his soulmate is the head of the demonic alliance that poisoned him and killed his shixiong. Even more unfortunately, Li Lianhua is not Di Feisheng's soulmate in turn. So he is simply out of luck... until Fang Duobing shows up.

I have never written a soulmates AU before, but the wonderful prompts by @marquisguyun were irresistible. Poly soulmates marks + identity shenanigans = lots of confusion. With a happy ending, even though Li Lianhua has to be dragged there kicking and screaming!

[read on ao3]

[difeisheng]

I need you all to know that Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing, and Di Feisheng had official Weibo accounts posting while MLC was airing, and there's too much to post it all here but some of these interactions are wonderful:

Li Lianhua: Today I wanted to go to the kitchen to cook, but it turns out Fang Xiaobao locked the kitchen doors?!

Di Feisheng: I've never eaten such unpalatable dishes in my life, @ Fang Duobing how did you survive before?

Fang Duobing (reply to DFS): Finally someone understands me

Li Lianhua (reply to FDB and DFS): I'm driving Lianhualou away, you two can sleep in the open tonight

Li Lianhua: I got woken up early this morning by Zhan Yunfei's sword practice, then dozed off again until now. Business is closed again today

Di Feisheng (reply to LLH): Who? Another person wants to duel with you? Make him line up behind me!

Li Lianhua: Let's celebrate tonight, I'll give the other two two extra dishes

Fang Duobing: Some people in the comments are saying Di Feisheng has been locked up by some Niuma Gang. What kind of gang is this and how have I not heard of it? How could Di Feisheng be so easily captured by a small gang?

Di Feisheng (reply to FDB): I can still hold out a little longer, come quickly you brat

If you want to scroll through these yourself, here's Li Lianhua's account, Fang Duobing's, and Di Feisheng's (it's not a great one but if you have the app, Weibo does have a translate function for posts which should give you the gist of some messages)

[nutcasewithaknife]

Underrated difang moment: In ep 39 when a visibly upset Fang Duobing leaves by himself after Shan Gudao and the Nanyin forces are defeated, and Di Feisheng not only notices, but also asks Li Lianhua why he isn't going to check on Fang Duobing. There's just so much in that one single moment. The fact Di Feisheng is paying attention, that's he's clearly concerned about how Fang Duobing is doing and has no hesitation in showing it, undisguised. The way he still doesn't go check on Fang Duobing himself. The simple acceptance of the fact that if there's anyone who should go after him, who may be able to comfort him at this time, it's Li Lianhua. He takes Li Lianhua’s word for it and gives Fang Duobing the space he needs even though he stays visibly concerned.

It's a small moment. It even shows how, despite having grown from their initial meeting, Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing still have some ways to go before understanding each other. But it's striking because so far, Di Feisheng has barely shown this sort of concern for anyone. Of course, he's had eyes only for Li Xiangyi for the most part, but even with him Di Feisheng doesn't state his worry like this! Cannot help but think about what shape this concern may take without Li Lianhua as an in-between, while they both grieve him. No wonder postcanon difang makes me want to chew on walls

[thesilversun]

Wip Wednesday time once more and more from the much delayed part 5 of Before the Dawn.

Writing of it is still happening - it’s about 80-85% done now, so soon. Really I want to get this one done - I’ve got a lot of other stories I wan to work on too.

So for this week, the news of what’s happened with Shan Gudao and the Emperor has been broken by Yang Yunchun. Fang Duobing worries about how he can keep everyone he cares for safe, Li Lianhua is resigned to the fact that he must be the one to end Shan Gudao - and Di Feisheng, not wanting to be left out of a fight, makes a less than great decision.

[mx-myth]

Okay hear me out red string of fate mlc au (rough timeline) (you only see your string(s) and who they connect to but no one else's)

(This is long as fuck actually)

Li Xiangyi who grows up in the streets with two strings. One is red and sometimes he thinks about following it to see where it leads but he never does. He meets shan gudao and eventually gets picked up by his shifu (I forgot what he calls him in the show, so) and at some point learns that the grey string tied in a bow on his opposite hand means his other zhiji hasn't been born yet.

(Lxy doesn't think anything about this until one march morning years later the string bursts into colour and unravels forward when he's training (you can fight me on this but fdb is ABSOLUTELY a spring baby born in the morning. Something about the coming of new life and the dawn of a new day and how that's what he symbolises). Because of the mostly-romantic connotations of strings he's guilt-ridden over his zhiji being a decade (or thereabouts? I don't remember the actual age gap in the show) younger than him before he forcibly puts it out of his mind)

Fast-forward to when he meets qiao wanmian. They become close friends and basically everyone thinks they're fated. But a-mian sits him down to quietly tell him that she has no string, none at all, that they really aren't fated and never will be. And lxy, who, in the nights he lies awake, still is guilty about being ten years older than his youngest zhiji (he doesn't know whether his other one is older or younger than him, the string was already red by the time he was old enough to retain memories), lies and says he doesn't have a string either. But he wants to court her because he loves her. That part, at least, is true: li xiangyi loves qiao wanmian.

And then he starts the sigu sect and eventually meets di feisheng. Their first meeting is only in passing but they lock eyes and lxy sees not only the moment when it registers that they're zhiji but also the moment when dfs sees that he's walking arm in arm with a-mian. They both walk away none the wiser to each other's identities.

It's only when they meet for the first time as di-mengzhu, leader of the jinyuan alliance, and as li xiangyi, the number one swordsman in the jianghu, and cross swords does lxy truly realise what this means. Their string spools out between their bodies, fluttering away between their swords, as he realises that he and this zhiji of his are on opposite sides. That their string is the only thing that connects them across their unfathomable chasm.

(It isn't. Lxy doesn't know it but dfs admires his swordsmanship. Dfs thinks they have a lot in common via neili and fighting techniques and their devotion to their crafts but he thinks that lxy knows this. He doesn't say anything about it because he assumes that lxy knows this and also because it's common knowledge he and qiao wanmian are going to get married. So lxy never knows)

Afterwards lxy becomes consumed with red strings of fate. He obsessively starts searching for stories where the zhiji turn out to be enemies. He finds almost nothing (most of what he finds is enemies to friends, or worse, enemies to (friends to) lovers, and all of it he throws out in disgust) and in his frenzy he begins neglecting his relationship with a-mian.

The ultimate betrayal comes when lxy learns that dfs killed shan gudao. A-Mian just recently broke up with him and that combined with his zhiji killing his shixiong is what does it. It spells the beginning of the spiral of li xiangyi.

Switch to di feisheng. He'd thought they had an understanding and sigu sect and the jinyuan alliance were approaching peace talks but suddenly lxy is killing his members left and right. He has no idea what this is about until jiao liqiao congratulations him on killing shan gudao. He grunts in confusion but everyone talks it to mean he did it. So dfs just had to roll with it.

There's nothing he can do about it. Dfs sends people to investigate sgd's death and trains. There is a real and oncoming war soon and so he issues a challenge to duel lxy on the eastern sea.

(The war comes anyway)

(Di Feisheng loses something on that ship anyway)

He spends the next ten years while he's in seclusion recovering thinking about it. About lxy, the bright, brilliant zhiji who was never his. About the fact that he killed his own zhiji. About the moment when, as he sank into the water, he'd closed his eyes and thought that following his zhiji to the underworld wouldn't be so bad.

Execpt that li xiangyi isn't dead. His string isn't white, is still as red as the robes he wore, and it still leads somewhere he doesn't know. Dfs takes a sort of pride in this. Of course lxy wouldn't die in their duel. Of course he's strong enough to come out of it alive.

He doesn't really think about his xiao-zhiji at all, except when he touches that string and wonders if lxy is also connected to this person. He wants to meet them someday to test their skills, to take them to meet lxy. In seclusion dfs makes that deal with himself - he'll make his zhiji meet, and then he'll leave them with each other, because for all he knows, li xiangyi still hates him.

(I picture it going dfs > lxy/llh > fdb age-wise, with dfs only being a some months older than lxy/llh. But neither of them know that because of their childhood circumstances)

He leaves seclusion with this goal in mind.

And then he figures out - as a six-year-old, no less - that his zhiji have already met each other. That they've been traveling in tandem for months and have been solving cases. That li xiangyi is for some reason li lianhua (he knows why. The first thing jiao liqiao had said to him was congratulations on killing li xiangyi). That this stupid naïve little puppy named fang duobing is his xiao-zhiji.

Llh treats fdb kindly. He's mischievous and he teases fdb about inconsequential little things and dfs burns, because he still remembers lxy vividly wanting to kill him. He burns because this is side of him he's never seen and he burns because his xiao-zhiji is already used to this and he burns because he wants that too.

Whether he forgets that after he writes li lianhua's name on his hand doesn't matter then.

Switch to fang duobing. He's really fucking annoyed by the fact that no one is telling him anything. He's been traveling with llh for months, but despite the fact that they both know they're zhiji he won't talk about it. He won't even answer any questions about that kid.

Fdb isn't an idiot. His strings have been red ever since the day he was born. No way is some kid not even half his height his zhiji. The math doesn't work out.

(This is terrible, llh thinks. Of course he knows dfs has been alive because his string never turned white. Of course he recognized that little face as dfs' before he even saw the string connecting them. Of course he realised what was up as soon as fdb started pestering him about that kid and whether or not he has another string. Of course he knows dfs must've clocked it too.)

Fdb is severely skeptical when the Iron Head Slave or whatever llh claimed he was shows up and llh tells him they're old friends. But he's delighted to meet his other zhiji formally - right up until the point when they have their first chopstick battle over the food. At that point he becomes exasperated, and then he becomes ready to throw down once they begin arguing over who gets the guest bed.

(Fdb believes in respecting your elders but dfs is showing him absolutely no respect so guess what? He can sleep on the floor. Not even his handsome looks will help him win the fight)

(They end up squished together on the bed, both of them fuming because llh told then to just share)

(He and dfs never talk about their string, but they both observe enough to be able to tell that they're both connected to llh. They don't talk about this either, but sometimes llh will do something especially stupid or crazy or clever and they'll Look At Each Other)

(And then they can't about it, because A-Fei is learning from scratch)

But then he learns that A-Fei (who used to correct him when he playfully called llh da-ge, saying that he was er-ge and that fdb should be calling him da-ge, and fdb had gotten so tired of him and llh fighting with their eyes that he just straight-up called him gege with his most shit-eatting grin, to which dfs stared at him before dragging him outside to beat his ass) (who, after he lost his memories, would sleep in the bed with him with their backs against each other, and fdb loved feeling like his zhiji thought he could watch his back, and even if A-Fei was a stupid early riser and his half of the bed was always cold when he woke up it meant that he could always smell breakfast cooking downstairs) (who, after all, fdb felt like he was finally understanding) is actually di feisheng, villain of the jianghu, he feels like everything they'd had together was built on lies. He asks llh if he knew, if he knew that his (their, their zhiji, but llh still won't talk about it) zhiji was dfs, and then he has to go on with the knowledge that he was the only one kept in the dark.

And then when he learns that li lianhua was li xiangyi all along it really dawns on him then. His zhiji have known each other for years (and everyone thought they had killed each other on the eastern sea, and something about that is so wrong that fdb can't even think about it) and never told him the truth. They said that they were friends (llh said that) and that they knew each other for years (llh said that) and everything he knows about them is based on lies of omission and half-truths (that llh told him). He's torn and he's hurt and he's angry, angry at himself and everyone else.

(If he had known though, would things have stayed the same? Would he have laughed the same way if he knew the man he was wrestling in the dirt with was dfs, would he have still made the same suggestions on how to improve in cooking if he knew the man making the food was li xiangyi?)

(it isn't until li lianhua/li xiangyi are gone, though, that he realises that dfs was used by llh in the same way that he was)

Except that when li lianhua dies, there's two people who have to look at a red string that's supposed to be white.

(Switch to li lianhua. He crawls back from the underworld but what does he have left? The strings on his fingers are red, red like happiness, and aren't those two better off without him anyway? He's finally burned all the bridges of all of his relationships. It's time that he start over again.)

(Except that he stumbles upon the Lotus Tower anyway. He stumbles upon Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing and even as he asks them why they still even want him, he's crying, reaching for them, and there's tears on all their faces.)

[murderedbyhomework]

So in most mlc fics there’s three outcomes in regards to canon ending and the wangchuan flower. Either it follows canon (llh doesn’t consume the flower and dies of the poison), a fix it where llh consumes the flower and is cured, or a fix it where llh is cured some other way.

I think it’s interesting to note that in canon it’s stated that there was only ever a 30% chance of success that the wangchuan flower would cure llh’s poisoning, so here’s a fic idea i haven’t seen people explore much: llh who finds some other way to appease the emperor and let the Fang Family and him go, and he consumes the flower (read: his boyfriends half tie him down and make sure he eats the damn flower), but it doesn’t work anyway. He’s been poisoned too long and the damage is just too great to be reversed. I think it’s a pretty interesting storyline? Honestly i just think it’ll be fun to have dfs and fdb know that they’ve literally tried so hard but they’re still too late to save llh and how they’ll come to terms with it and grieve instead of chase after his shadow like in canon, as well as a llh who mostly called it and knew he’d been dying too long to be snatched back to life just like that, but has to deal with actually saying his goodbyes and comforting his boyfriends

[bocje-ce-ustu]

okay but what in the heavens are even eps 25-26? you can't tell me li lianhua isn't constantly leaving fang duobing and di feisheng alone together to set them up and then nodding approvingly from the sidelines as they eyefuck

[missfangirll]

Li Lianhua is coming home. I refuse to accept that ending, so have a fix-it..