#lowkey incorporating some CQL canon here because I need Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian to be separate for plot purposes

[least-carpet]

hello!! 👀 (for the au ask game)?

Hello!! This is so extremely belated, I'm very sorry.

One AU I will never write is one I've outlined loosely in its entirety (so maybe I should just post the outline?) and it's the AU where Jin Ling is a cis girl. This is one of my earliest attempts to answer the question "what would actually make Jiang Cheng happy?" and it involved the conclusion of "Jin Ling living in Lotus Pier and inheriting without the sect being absorbed into the Jin." And I felt like I could make it happen for girl!Jin Ling!

Because the Jin Sect especially sucks, Jin Ling being a girl removes her from the line of succession. She's still given to Jiang Cheng to care for, and like canon Jin Ling, she splits time between both sects with the understanding that she still technically belongs to the Jin, despite them being unwilling to make her sect heir. After Jin Guangshan dies, Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng come to an unofficial agreement that she will marry a Jiang disciple of suitably high cultivation and rank and inherit the sect that way.

Jin Rusong, the only available male heir who's not Mo Xuanyu, is watched like a hawk and doesn't get murdered. (I am agnostic re: whether Jin Guangyao had him killed or not. Either way, needing a direct heir and there being more of a reason to expect Rusong to be at risk are both elements that could change the outcome there.) He's a very sweet kid, and much, much smarter than he looks, but he is spoiled to pieces, including by Jin Ling. That's her cute baby cousin! Of course he can have everything he wants!

Qin Su, having her son to protect, does not commit suicide despite finding out about the incest (although she ain't doing too good). The incest is also not revealed publicly. Unfortunately, an Evil Jin Elder—Jin Chan's grandfather—finds out about it somehow.

When Jin Ling returns to the Jin Sect to protect Jin Rusong and investigate Jin Guangyao's secret room, she gains access to—among other things—a treasure trove of blackmail material about the Jin elders.

The Evil Jin Elder, not wanting to be blackmailed or publicly dragged up on charges, blackmails Qin Su into using Jin Ling to fulfill an old written offer of marriage from the Lan sect. This solves a number of different problems for him: no more secret sect investigation, weakens Jin Rusong's faction, reaffirms now-shaky relationship with the Lan. So many birds with one stone! Qin Su is not about this but is also very, very desperate to remain in her position in order to protect Jin Rusong.

Jin Ling wakes up, bound hand and foot, in a carriage to the Lan sect, without her bow, Suihua, or Fairy. (Despite being all tied up, she still resists strenuously with her teeth. "Why does she even need that dog," says one of Evil Jin Elder's henchmen bitterly, as they haul her from carriage to palanquin.) Once there, she learns that the offer specifies a member of the inner family, but not who; and that a certain faction of elders is proposing that she be married to Lan Xichen, i.e. her uncle's secret boyfriend who killed him.

Jin Ling has never gone along quietly with anything she didn't like in her entire life. Her escape involves Lan Qiren, Lan Jingyi, Wei Wuxian, and Li'l Apple on a boat.

Story 1 is the story of how Jin Ling becomes the (still unmarried) heir to the Jiang sect, and it's pre-lingyi. Story 2 involves her eventual marriage, since, as Jiang Sect heir, Jin Ling needs to find a husband. She proposes (like the great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan) that any potential husband has to beat her in a contest that she chooses. Then she has to frantically brainstorm a contest of martial prowess that Lan Jingyi can beat her at. (Wrestling. It's wrestling. This is 100% because Lan Jingyi sucks at so many things and not an excuse for her to get wrestled to the ground by the goofy Lan boy with the very nice arms, Jin Rusong, how dare you insinuate things of that nature—)