#mingjue's mother

[thebiscuiteternal]

Can we have some more on what Nie Dad and Huaisang's relationship was like? Or what happened with Nie Dad and Mingjue's mom?

So, like, when I did the first Reverse Nies timeline, the relationship I pretty much had in my head was Stoick and Hiccup, you know the whole "No more of... this."/"You just gestured to all of me." only with the added angst of Huaisang's mama having died in childbirth.

Nie Haoran... he loves his son. He does. But at the same time, he finds himself struggling with that, wondering if maybe he's just fooling himself, because sometimes he can't help looking at Huaisang and thinking "Leiyun died for that?"

So he doesn't step in to defend Huaisang during a lot of times he should, and he can't stop expressing his disappointment in Huaisang's general everything even though he knows he's not being fair or a good parent and Huaisang doesn't deserve this.

Finding a mutual hobby in falconry and the care of the birds helped considerably, because it more or less forced Haoran to actually see that Huaisang did have things he was very, very good at, and would even be beneficial to a sect leader!

But Huaisang was never going to properly bond a saber or be capable in a battle, and Haoran just couldn't accept the affront to their ancestors that presented.

He loved Leiyun. He was trying to love Huaisang.

He went looking for a more fitting heir anyway.

Enter Linsong! Unlike Leiyun, she was a tall sturdy woman who also loved training falcons and hunting in general and was very good at it. She was practically already a Nie, except she'd been born to Lanling gentry. After never being able to secure a husband there, she'd taken to living on the road and doing as she pleased.

It was almost love at first sight for both of them, but Linsong had grown too accustomed to the wanderer lifestyle to ever settle down for very long. So when she got pregnant, they both agreed that, boy or girl, their child would go live with Haoran in the Unclean Realms, with all the proper papers to show they were a fully legitimized heir.

He never told Huaisang.

His last lucid thought as he lay in the infirmary, before the rage took him over for good, was that he should have told Huaisang.

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

With A Flap Of Wings, Part One

(okay. here we go.)

Warnings for the overall story: Implications/mentions of suicide, miscarriage.

Tags: Nie-family centric, alternate timeline, time travel fix-it, ghosts, suicide, everybody lives (I know how weird it sounds having both, you gotta trust me here), no-war timeline

----------------

Nie Huaisang sits and stares at the closed stone doors of the tomb that contains the bodies of nearly all of his family, or at least their sabers.

All except for his brother, who remains trapped in that heavens-damned coffin.

The pile of aged papers in his lap rustle in the chilly breeze, but he barely pays attention, even though the pages are the answer to one of the many questions that had been plaguing him since the first time the ritual to purify his brother’s soul had failed. 

Since the first time the time-jumping ritual had failed.

He can't remember how many times he's cast it, using his own blood to dive into the past, only to inevitably be flung back here no matter how deep he went or which events he changed.

But now he understands. 

All of the monsters and ugly twists of fate that had targeted his family... they had only been symptoms of the disease. 

He is the cause. 

He, the ill-omened child who killed his own mother with his first breath, is the one who brought calamity on all who ever knew him, death and misfortune dogging his steps before he could even walk.

This, all of this, is because of him.

But he can still fix it. 

Maybe none of the other attempts had worked, but that was because he hadn't known where to weed out the rot threatening the garden. 

Now, he does. 

Closing his eyes and bracing himself, he draws the knife from his belt for what he desperately hopes will be the last time.

–- 

Nie Leiyun is six months into her pregnancy –one month away from what would have been her death from hemorrhaging during an arduous childbirth– when she staggers and has to catch herself on a table, suddenly overcome by a horrible throbbing pain in her guts. 

But it's when the pain stops, everything inside her going unnaturally still, that she actually starts to panic and sinks down to sit on the floor, trying to call out and unable to make her voice work. 

A maid rushing to help her back to her feet is the first to see the blood starting to stain her robes and the stone beneath her, and she’s the one who screams for the healers when Nie Leiyun can’t. 

Despite all their efforts, the healers are only able to save one life. 

Once, in a timeline that has just been erased, it was the child. 

This time, it's the mother.

---

The grief that falls over the sect is heavy. 

No one seems to be more crushed by it than Nie Mingjue. 

All of six years old, he had been adamant that he didn't want a sibling and had complained to anyone who would listen. Babies were stinky and dumb and boring and either cried all the time or made messes everywhere. Gross.

And now the baby is dead, dead and gone, and no amount of hugs or kind words can convince the boy that he hadn't somehow wished his little brother away. 

Nie Haoran and Nie Linsong are gentle with their wife and son's grief -it had been Linsong's own struggles with having another child that had prompted the second wedding, after all- and it's Linsong who makes a fateful suggestion one night as the two of them are sitting by the fire one evening, Linsong spoiling her falcon with some extra preening assistance and Leiyun mending some clothing. 

"The only reason you put your search on hold was because the pregnancy was becoming too harsh on your health, wasn't it? Why not pick it back up again now once you've recovered a little?" 

---

Three and a half months later, Nie Leiyun hears rumors of a high-ranking courtesan in Yunping who has been making waves among the cultivation gentry. This by itself is nothing new, she has investigated over a dozen other women who ended up in the brothels like she originally had and have since risen to some level of fame, some even attracting the attention of sect leaders like she had. 

But none of those women had been outright carrying her long-abandoned surname of Meng. 

She does her best not to get her hopes up, but luck is on her side for a change, and three days after she first hears the whispers, Nie Leiyun -Meng Xiu- clutches her sister Meng Shi in a tearful embrace. 

She doesn't know how to feel about the tiny boy that her sister introduces her to. He is not yet two years old, so close to her Sang-er. 

They could have grown up cousins. 

Friends. 

But now- 

She wipes her eyes and puts aside her selfishness. Yao-er can still be a cousin and friend to Mingjue, and he and her sister both deserve far better than this place. 

She takes them home.

[tavina-writes]

I have been recently thinking about NHS and JGY's relationship, especially as it pertains to how much they understand each other, and I'm pretty sure the conclusion I'm coming to is that JGY doesn't actually understand NHS at all except like, in vague superficiality?

This is not an argument about whether or not JGY cared about NHS (though he seems to have some pretty big blind spots on what is actually good for NHS or what he actually desires, which, again come back to not really understanding what makes NHS tick) because I don't think you can spend well over a decade cleaning up someone else's problems without caring for the person in question. But more like, the events of the Temple and the Discussion Conference prior to the Temple and indeed anything leading up to the Temple at all would not have occurred if JGY actually understood? NHS? at all?

Like, obviously NHS was concealing the truth and acting while he proceeded with his revenge scheme, JGY (who presumably had some amount of time to think about who could possibly want him dead/disgraced/fleeing off to Dongyin) doesn't even begin to suspect that the person who wrote the letter and arranged all of this might be NHS until LXC's already stabbed him.

That's a pretty big fucking blind spot considering the whole thing is being unearthed because of NMJ's murder corpse put together shenanigans. Like he knows to hide Chifeng-zun's head but not to suspect Chifeng-zun's brother???

Like I think this might go beyond "doesn't understand anything about this other person besides on a very superficial level" to "might genuinely have some pretty big MISconceptions about who this person is or what they're like."

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

boss makes a dollar

i makes a dime

so i draws owl-dage

on company time

or; smushing together owl-NMJ w/ meerkat JGY for dopamine generation!

[dayurno]

who are your favorite mdzs characters??

(falling over myself panting and screaming) JIN LING ITS JIN LING JIN LING IS MY FAVORITE i will say i havent watched cql so i don't know anything about him in that but i love jin ling in the books and i loved that he was angry and that he was scared and that he was confused and i loved how hard it was for him to accept affection from wwx when he knew it was wwx, i love that he's the world's saddest and loneliest little boy, i love that his life is shaped by so much grief and trauma and that the adults around him have failed him constantly ever since the day he was born. and my only beef i'll ever have with wangji is that he has beef with jin ling. he's not a monster he's a 16 year old who misses his parents. so there!

other than that i'm easy and simple obviously i love wwx and lwj..... i'm a ride or die for xichen as well i think first of all there is something so kevin day about xichen in the sense that they're both positioned at the crux of so many issues and entirely unaware of it. the way jin guangyao and nie mingjue were passing xichen back and forth and xichen had no idea of the game they were playing because he wasn't invited into it at all. ugh! i love the jades of lan really, i think their relationship as brothers is so interesting and i think about their mother all the time. madam lan :(!

this is surprising even to me because on my first read through i didnt care if jiang cheng lived or died but now i actually think about him a lot. usually i don't enjoy jealousy plots but i think jiang cheng is so interesting and detailed and flawed and human..... he gets misunderstood a lot in my opinion so he's my friend now too. i know he'll never be happy but that's ok. he has jin ling and that will be enough. and also i love wen ning but i cant think too much about him or i start to get ill and sick. but i hope wen ning jiang cheng and jin ling can go out for dinner one day

[lady-of-the-spirit]

do people have headcanons for how the Nie mothers died? Is there a non-canon but widely accepted fandom headcanon? I'm curious, we got a death story for their father but not their mothers.

[mdzs-fanon-exposed]

MDZS Fanon VS Canon: 9/?

Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue are from different mothers

Rating: CANON

Although Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue are depicted as half brothers in much of fandom, the source of this information can be hard to catch, as their relationship is only described twice in the books. One instance is during Huaisang's introduction in the Cloud Recesses arc, and the other happens in the final battle:

“Although the brothers were not born of the same mother, they shared a close relationship.” (Seven Seas Ch. 4)

and

"Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue were half brothers, born of different mothers but sharing the same father." (Seven Seas Ch. 22)

However, the history of their family – whether their father was a widower, had multiple wives, had a child out of wedlock, or if all three were a polyamorous couple – is never stated. So while the exact dynamic of the Nie parents remains unknown, it is canon that the Nie brothers had different mothers.

Unfortunately I cannot offer more solid speculation into what relationship the Nie parents may have had, because I am unfamiliar with the social norms that may have dictated how (re)marriages would have been handled in the dubiously-accurate time period that MDZS is set in. If anybody has a theory to share I'd love to hear it!

[momzawa-5]

Hear me out…

Ok. So. In the world of MDZS, sect leaders and their heirs are determined based on lineage following a fairly common order of succession.

Jiang Fengmian dies, it goes to his son.

Nie Mingjue dies, it goes to his brother.

And so on and so forth…

This is also true of the Jin sect, with the caveat that any child born of the sect leader’s blood seems to have a shot at becoming sect leader, not just those born of the sect leader and his wife (Also just realized this applies to the Nie sect, too, considering the Nie brothers have different mothers). Which is how “son of a whore” Jin Guangyao became sect leader, bypassing next-in-the-order-of-succession Jin Ling, who was still a child.

So, because Jin Ling is still a child when Jin Guangyao dies, leadership of the Jin Sect *should* theoretically go to the next adult in the sect leader’s bloodline.

And who would that be?

Mo Xuanyu.

…and that’s the story of how Wei Wuxian got the last laugh and became leader of the Jin sect.

[shanastoryteller]

Hi Shana, happy holidays! Would you mind writing something about the Nie brothers, maybe with time travel? (Your time travel AUs are always so so amazing <3)

a continuation of 1 2 3 4

Father is courting.

Nie Mingjue is trying not to be resentful about it but he's mostly failing.

It's been over a decade since his own mother died and nearly five since Huaisang's had. It's not improper, or unexpected, even. Their father is still young, just over forty. Why shouldn't he marry again? A larger family is more security for their clan.

Except it's not even more heirs he's after, because the person he's pursuing is a man and maybe the most improper thing about it is that he's some random wandering cultivator that no one has heard of.

Wei Cheng looks too young for their father except the way he acts and moves doesn't feel match his face, which means some random cultivator has achieved a level of cultivation sufficient to slow down the aging process.

There are full senior disciples that can't do that. Father hasn't even achieved that. Why should this nobody be able to do it?

His and Huaisang's mothers were young and powerful and beautiful, selected from the strongest families within their clan and offered to the clan leader.

They both died.

"Are you still out here brooding?" Huaisang asks.

Nie Mingjue regrets telling Huaisang about this place more and more every day. "Missing your shadow?"

He rolls his eyes. "You have to be nicer to A-Ying." Why should he be? He's just waltzing into their lives with his stupid dad and Huaisang is just a kid, he doesn't know what any of this means, he just knows that Wei Ying is fun and likes getting in trouble with him and encourages all of his worst habits, why wouldn't they get along - "He's going to be our brother and Dad is really not going to put up with you being mean to him once he tricks Wei Cheng into bowing to him."

Nie Mingjue stares. "You - how did you - did someone say something?"

He wrinkles his nose. "Who would need to? Look at him. Wei Cheng spent like twenty minutes yelling at him about the junior disciple archery curriculum and Dad just say there and nodded. If Wei Cheng had any family besides A-Ying he'd probably just save himself the time and approach them with a marriage contract." He tilts his head to the side. "Maybe he should do that anyway. A-Ying would totally sign it."

Nie Mingjue has a headache.

And at this rate, he's going to have two.

[greenandhazy]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in conclusion: I love them, your honor.

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

Okay, so, trying to get into this less refined thing.

As I said before, I actually have an outline for how the Butterfly Effect AU is supposed to go past the point I couldn't keep writing. If y'all don't mind spoilers, I'd be interested in your thoughts.

(But I'm putting it behind a cut for those who don't want spoilers.)

By the time his parents and brother and cousin get close enough to get Huaisang's attention, both Papa Nie and Mingjue are suffering pretty horrible nosebleeds, maybe even bleeding from the eyes too, and Linsong and Zonghui are not doing much better.

Understandably, since this is the day Mingjue died in the old timeline, the blood only makes Huaisang panic more, which makes the shockwaves worse.

Mingjue has no idea how to reassure him, just holding on to him in the hopes that will help somehow.

Suddenly he feels the cold shock of ghostly hands reaching into his body, something that had never happened before since Huaisang had always been partially solid.

While he's still stunned, he can feel something like layers and layers of grime being burned off his core as Huaisang clutches it. As the shockwaves die down, he finds himself feeling... better. A lot better. Even though he was nowhere near the qi deviation he'd experienced in the old timeline, the resentment was still starting to accumulate, and now it's just gone.

Huaisang seems to be just as surprised that whatever he did worked, at least as a temporary fix.

He starts to reach for their dad to do the same to him, but then he... flickers a little bit, like a struggling candle flame.

Oh. Shit. Papa Nie immediately realizes that they are now very short on time and orders everyone else to go get Huaisang's mama, the other siblings/extended family members, and every healer and strong cultivator they have, because they can't hold out hope that Huaisang will hang on long enough for Lan Qiren and Wen Ruohan to arrive. They have to execute the saber preservation plan now and pray it doesn't destroy him for good.

It takes the entire rest of the day and almost all the way through the night to finish the ritual, and by the time it's done, Huaisang is more like a smoke wisp than a glow. Pretty much all of his family is in tears, but he's... smiling.

It worked. Generations of Nies will be able to use the pear tree as a place to cleanse their sabers when they start getting too demanding, and the pears to cleanse themselves.

His brother's alive. His parents are alive. His cousins are alive. He has a sister now. The war never started. He has no more regrets.

Realizing that they really are going to lose him now, Mingjue makes him promise he'll come back somehow, so that they can eventually reincarnate as brothers again.

And then he's gone.

Three months later, Mingjue turns thirty and takes on the sect leader role, his father being the first Nie leader ever to be able to peacefully retire.

Six years after that, a circus caravan is passing through, and is invited to perform for the locals in the courtyard of the Unclean Realms. Nie Xunyao is the first to notice something strange, and immediately goes to get Mingjue.

There's a small boy among the performers, caring for the trained bird flock with surprising ease. He's happy and healthy and greets Nie-zongzhu with a huge grin and an offer to hold one of the colorful parrotlets.

He has bright green eyes and a very familiar face.

[bloomeng]

One thing I will never understand is why most mdzs fans are so pressed about Jin Guangyao. I understand disliking him if you’re a huge fan of the canon characters he’s hurt, but so many of the people who hate him are only here for wangxian. And like wtf did he do to wangxian? To me, his biggest offense is killing Nie Mingjue who was literally already dying. But if you see any discussion online from people who don’t like him it’s only about how he married his sister. And it drives me insane.

Lemme spell it out (I say arguing with the wall)

1) When he is introduced to Qin Su he has no idea and accepts the engagement because it's expected of him to marry.

2) His father is a horrible abusive man.

3) Jin Guangyao sleeps with her once for the sake of propriety before he knows.

4) He finds out right before the wedding meaning that calling it off would be suspicious.

5) If he called out his father the best that would happen is him getting thrown out and losing everything he’s worked towards and the worst is his father killing him and Qin Su and even maybe her mother.

6) He never touches her again.

Whether MXTX meant it or not Meng Yao’s struggle is a foil to Wei Wuxian’s. This idea of severe classism controlling who gets to survive and prosper in this world is integral to the story. Wei Wuxian is lucky because he happened to be brought into a sect due to connections he had before his birth. Meng Yao isn’t so lucky. His mother being a sex worker is crucial to his whole story. Because of his mother Meng Yao suffers from this anti-sexwork rhetoric and I don’t say this lightly but a lot of his struggles in life are rooted in the misogyny towards his mother. So when people pick on him for marrying his sister— something he was forced into— and mock him for it… it feels tone-deaf. It’s similar to the way real-life misogyny effects the way people hate Madame Yu, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

To be clear it is not misogynistic to dislike Jin Guangyao that would be a crazy thing to say. It’s the way people go about it. When factors of his birth, his mother, and classism, in general, get mixed in, is when the conversation goes sour.

Jin Guangyao’s actions are not excused because his life was hard but neither are Wei Wuxian’s. People get so wrapped up in the POV of the novel they forget it’s biased. If the story were from Jin Guangyao’s POV I bet people would not loathe him to this extent. Which is so frustrating. Blah Blah Blah reading comprehension buzzword.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i have been obsessing over this extremely short moment post-sunshot campaign for weeks now trying to put together a lengthier post about it, but i think the screenshots themselves arranged chronologically speak for themselves. so i will just post them and then talk about the framing, because i’m insane about it.

just about everyone else on this side of the banquet hall within the scorching sun palace is looking towards jin guangshan as he speaks—everyone except for:

1) jin guangyao, who is staring straight ahead with a startlingly flat and resigned expression on his face, despite being seated in a position of honour beside his brother, and

2) nie huaisang, who is obviously TRYING to pay attention, but his attention keeps wandering between looking at nie mingjue, and looking at jin guangyao

(also he gets no further commentary/acknowledgement from me but look at jin zixun back there just lounging in his seat like a smug spoiled brat. ugh. step on legos forever jin zixun.)

the camera shifts its focus while jgs keeps talking to zero in on jgy’s expression. this deliberately highlights and provides us the chance to see his expression in more detail. and it is so hard to discern what he is feeling specifically beyond “not great,” but what stands out for me is: he isn’t wearing his usual polite, customer service mask, the one he managed to keep in place both during the introductory sequence at the cloud recesses in the face of so much mockery from the jiang sect disciples.

so what is that expression? what is going on in his head that he can’t play the part that he’s perfect for years now, when he has supposedly almost achieved everything he ever dreamed of accomplishing for himself and his mother? i mean, i have my suspicions of course, because we know what is going to happen very soon.

and then—

—the focus of this scene changes, drawing our attention away from jin guangyao towards nie huaisang where he’s seated just behind nie mingjue. because nie huaisang is not paying attention to jgs’s speech or watching his da-ge. unlike everyone else in this banquet hall in this moment, nie huaisang is looking at jin guangyao, observing him in this moment where his polite mien has failed him, and god what i wouldn’t give to know what is going through his head!! because:

1) i don’t for a moment believe nmj told nhs the details of what transpired between him and jgy during their confrontation in the scorching sun palace. i don’t think he did this as a favour to jgy or to lxc, either. imo this decision would be consistent with nmj shutting down any discussion of what caused him to exile meng yao from the unclean realm back in… uhhh, episode 10?? when nhs, wwx and jc all converge in the unclean realm throne room to ask about meng yao’s fate. (yeah it was episode 10.) anyway for all we know this is the first time nhs has seen his old body guard/babysitter since he watched meng yao totter feebly into the wild blue yonder all those months ago, and now here he is seated in a place of honour between jin zixuan and his da-ge, looking perhaps even more miserable than he did while bleeding from a giant sword wound in his chest. it is entirely consistent with nhs’s character to be like ‘???? what is up with this??’ but not even he is bold enough to ask jgy what is up in the middle of this banquet, not with da-ge right there.

2) his expression is ALSO harder to read than it would have been when they were last together!! but there are clearly gears and cogs shifting and ticking and whirring behind his eyes, and the fact that the framing calls attention to nhs noticing jgy in this moment when it’s quite clear no one else does is one of many hints the show is dropping for us that nhs is more than just a lackadaisical and absent-minded second son. he notices things that no one else does—but, as with jgy, we are left to guessing as to what he is thinking, and what conclusions he is drawing.

well okay it looks like i managed to write a lot of words down about this after all!! go me.

[asksythe]

Ah? What do you mean mpreg is built into the setting of MDZS?

I mean exactly what I said. It's part of the setting. Mpreg is part of MDZS setting.

Or rather, mpreg is part of any and all xianxia or Chinese fantasy settings. Mpreg is not impossible... or even truly rare... in xianxia setting. There are at least three different regular ways for men to get pregnant in this kind of setting, even for low xianxia like MDZS.

Xianxia is Chinese fantasy. Cultivators cultivate until immortality. The upper level of cultivation, an immortal becomes a facet of reality and bends the world to their will. Some can even create an entirely new world wholesale. What's getting pregnant compared to that?

Sure, the setting of MDZS is low xianxia. But we know at the very least a lot of MDZS cultivators are at the Jindan stage. Do you know which stage comes right after the Jindan stage?

元婴 Yuanying. The common English translation for this stage is Nascent Soul. But its real meaning is nascent / origin child/baby/infant.

How does yuanying come about? Well, a cultivator at the end of Jindan stage will go through tribulation. If they pass through tribulation successfully, the jindan (golden core) in their belly will collapse and out comes a baby. This baby then takes over the task of the jindan, circulating the cultivator's chi and feeding off of it. The baby will grow alongside the cultivator's progress, eventually maturing and potentially becoming a separate person should the parent allows it.

(Game interface from a Chinese cultivation game)

This stage is very well documented in actual real-world ancient texts by Wu Liupai, dating back to the 16th century. It's not a modern concept made up for entertainment. It's part of actual real-world Daoist practices and beliefs.

...And xianxia is the brought up to eleventh fantasy version of real-world Daoism. Think about it.

So in truth, every single high-level Jindan stage cultivator in MDZS is just one stage and one successful tribulation away from getting preggo whether they want to or not. (Yes. Every single one of them. Not just Wei Ying or Lan Wangji, but also Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, Xiu Xingchen, Song Lan, Nie Mingjue... if he didn't die, etc... Not Jin Guangyao, though. He's too weak to get pregnant. Jin Zixuan, maybe)

You don't even have to be a cultivator or in a xianxia setting to get pregnant (whether you are male or female or whatever). Artificially induced pregnancy has been a thing in Chinese folklore since the Summer and Autumn period (BCE). Several different classics mention a fruit called 孕果 yunguo (Lit. Pregnant Fruit). This fruit bestows the ability to get pregnant to anyone who eats it, regardless of gender. Sexual activity with a man is still required, though. Can't make something out of nothing.

And the most famous and widely known in Chinese folklore: water from the River of Mother and Child 子母河. Anyone who drinks this water becomes pregnant, regardless of gender (or even species, actually). You know the most famous person who drank it? The monk Tan Sanzang... and his disciple Zhu Bajie (a male pig), and Sha Wujing (a male fish). It's been made into several TV series and movies. In one of those movie adaptations, Tang Sanzang even carried the pregnancy to term as he wasn't willing to terminate a life and saw this as an opportunity to experience the female side of life.

In the same story, Journey to the West, a rock was pregnant with Son Wukong and gave birth to him.

You have to remember this. Ancient Chinese didn't really think of pregnancy as a biological process requiring sperm and eggs like we do today. They thought of it as a concentration and condensation of qi (breath of the world) until the 'mother body' was saturated with fetal qi and gave birth.

Real-world folklore texts are chockful of such instances where things got pregnant with the breath of the world and gave birth. And that's just regular folklore, not the brought-up-to-eleven version that is xianxia.

[lgbtlunaverse]

The women Jin Guangyao uses to kill Jin Guangshan are NOT from the brothel he grew up in

Except for Sisi, obviously.

But, crucially, Sisi MOVED brothels after her face got slashed.

That's why Jin Guangyao only recognized her after Jin Guangshan was already dead. If he had sourced the women from the brothel he grew up in, you think he wouldn't have made sure beforehand that they wouldn't include the one woman who was explicitly nice to him and his mother? He couldn't bear to kill her even after she was already a witness, but that meant he had to imprison her instead. Not exactly an ideal scenario! You think he wouldn't have thought to avoid that?

Well, that's all hypothetical anyway, because he couldn't have sourced anyone from the brothel he grew up in anyway, because that brothel had already been burnt down. By Jin Guangyao! This is the order he gives Xue Yang at the end of the villainous friends extra, which also contains Xue Yang meeting Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. Which means this is way before Xue Yang kills the Chang clan, Xiao Xingchen eventually catches him, and Nie Mingjue kicks Jin Guangyao down the stairs which leads to his death 2 months later. And Jin Guangshan doesn't die until after Nie Mingjue is already dead, so while this is definitely where Jin Guangyao starts planning to kill his father, it's well before he actually executed that plan. By the time he does, that brothel is ash.

I say this because there's been several time now where I've seen people attribute Jin Guangyao using sex workers to kill his father, and killing them aferwards, to some kind of revenge scheme? A way to get back at the other women in the brothel who mistreated his mom at the same time as he gets back at his father. But all those women died when it burned to the ground. We see their ghosts in guangyin temple! Every single woman Jin Guangyao uses to kill his father and then later executes was a complete stranger to him. It has nothing to do with who they are and everything to do with what they are (older 'ugly' sex workers) Whether you think that makes his actions worse or better or generally has no moral impact i'll leave up to you. But it's important to remember that while the violence he enacts on his father is deeply personal, what he does to the sex workers is not.

[fanfictionroxs]

The way Lan Sizhui gives off vibes of that kid who will burn out by 25. The return of Wei Wuxian and a-yuan's memories of the Wen remnants are practically confirmation of his brewing inner turmoil, the beginning of the emotional exhaustion that's going to fuck up his mind as he keeps returning to memories of his grandma & those bodies in the blood pool.. and the destruction of 'Lan Sizhui'. Maybe he'll revert to being Wen Yuan or perhaps forge his new identity as Wen Sizhui. After all, 'Sizhui' is the gift he cherishes by his rich-gege, but his enmity lies with the Lans, the Jiangs, the Jins and other cultivation sects who wrongfully murdered his family. Most of the main perpetrators are gone, fate already having avenged the Wen remnants by disposing off Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangshan, Jin Gunagyao, but many still remain. Jiang Cheng and the people who raised Sizhui.. Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren. The fact that Sizhui will have to deal with the mental burden of the realisation that he was raised by his would be killers.. who did kill his loved ones, the fact that he will have to battle with the rising conflict in his mind of being filial, but to whom? His grandma who carried him on her weak back and ensured his survival through the worst of the camps which killed his uncle Wen Ning himself? His aunt Wen Qing without whom not even his Xian-gege would have come to help them? His original sect whose leader didn't give a shit about poor farmers like a-yuan's family or his current sect who killed those poor farmers? His fathers who saved him time and again or his birth mother and father whose memories were forever lost to him? Who should he be filial to, whose injustice should he start with? So much veangeace to take, but only one Wen left to fight because Sizhui knows that Wen Ning has fought for a lifetime. It's all down to him.. It's all down to The Last Wen.

Oh how ever will you survive a-yuan?