#nie huangyin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stiltonbasket · 3 years

Note

stilton pls humour me, all these LQR was a babe posts have me intrigued, in tmaaf what was the ranking of the young masters in the parents generation? (did QHJ get overshadowed by his little bro?) (was JFM the One to Watch?) (What about the Wen?)

Lan Haijing (Qingheng-jun) and Lan Qiren were on the younger side of the parents’ generation, so they entered the list a little later, but the ranking went mostly as follows:

1. Wen Ruohan

Due to his wealth and power, he was a highly desirable bachelor until he committed patricide, after which potential wives tended to avoid him. Wen Ruohan was said to have an exemplary face and body and a very cheerful manner, though a number of young ladies insisted that his shoulders made his head look small. He was also the “dangerous” kind of charming, which many judges liked to swoon at.

His cousin Wen Ruyong (Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s father) would likely have placed close to him, but he bribed the girls running the official ranking to leave him off the list because he was already secretly engaged to his future wife and didn’t want to deal with marriage inquiries.

2. Jiang Fengmian

Though Jiang Fengmian was often lauded as a “wistful beauty,” he lost the top spot to Wen Ruohan due to the Jiang sect’s lifestyle not being as luxurious as the Jin and Wen clans’ (the Nie and Lan clans were more austere in general, but Lotus Pier only employed the bare minimum of servants needed to keep the place running smoothly). However, his calm and gentle personality and hardworking nature resulted in several serious matchmaking inquiries despite the perceived “status comedown” of being his wife, none of which he accepted due to being yi shen. He hoped to marry for love or not at all, and was devastated when he was pressured into marrying Yu Ziyuan.

3. Nie Huangyin (NMJ and NHS’s father)

Nie Huangyin had a brash and straightforward personality, but was especially admired for his consideration towards women (Jiang Fengmian, coming from a more gender-neutral culture, often offended foreign girls by treating them as if they were fellow young masters). Qinghe Nie also had strict marriage laws governing acceptable behavior within a marriage, and women were drawn to Qinghe to find husbands because they would easily able to seek legal recourse in case of mistreatment: however, Nie Huangyin married a shijie from his own sect, and was removed from the list before Lan Haijing and Lan Qiren joined it. In terms of appearance, he resembled Nie Mingjue, but lost points on the looks front because thick mustaches and beards were considered unfashionable at the time.

4. Jin Guangshan

Jin Guangshan was considered to be very good-looking and charming, since he liked to frequent women’s company and knew what to say to please them. The wealth of his sect (mostly in gold, instead of iron and copper mines like Qinghe or natural resources in Yunmeng’s case) made him a hot commodity in the marriage market, since since most of the women in his age group imagined that being his wife would be highly romantic even several years after they had been married. However, his father decided that the most advantageous bride would be the future Madam Jin, and ordered Jin Guangshan to make her fall in love with him. He did so, and she was heartbroken when she discovered his first (overt) affair while she was pregnant with Jin Zixuan.

Wen Ruohan and Nie Huangyin were both off the list by the time the two Lan brothers were put on it, but they were placed as follows:

2. Lan Haijing (at the time, second to Jiang Fengmian)

Qingheng-jun’s personality greatly resembled Lan Wangji’s after meeting and falling in love with Wei Wuxian; he often “went wherever the chaos was” instead of seeking out advantageous night-hunts, and assisted in several daring rescues of young non-cultivating women, making him a favorite among the people of Gusu and the surrounding regions. Though he had a cold resting expression, his beauty was said to surpass that of the moon when he smiled, which was often. He was also known to dote on his younger brother, and the judges noted down that he would surely be a good father one day; his hasty marriage and imprisonment broke several hearts, and many girls wrote anxious letters to the Lan sect before having the notes sent back to them by the Lan elders in charge of handling Lan Haijing’s correspondence.

4. Lan Qiren (after Jin Guangshan, but ahead of Yu Hengshan and Nie Huangyin’s younger male family members)

You said it: total babe. Lan Qiren was known as a once-in-a-lifetime beauty and ended up being slapped onto the list before he was old enough to start considering proposals, and he was terrified. He only maintained the ranking for a month, as this is how long it took him to grow out a sizeable mustache and goatee with the help of several hair-growing tonics.

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs meta #tmaaf meta #reference #wen ruohan #jiang fengmian #lan qiren #asks

118 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 3 years

Note

More insights on different child rearing cultures between the sects. Like Yunmeng is the literally “It takes a village to raise a child”, what about the other sects?

Also thoughts on how Now Mingjue basically raised Nie Huaisang and how his parenting styles differs when he enters committed parenthood with Lan Xichen?

In the Unclean Realm, children are usually raised solely by their parents when they're very young, and then partly by their cultivation masters after they start training. They shift from a familial setting straight to an academic one, with some of the burden placed on older disciple siblings when it comes to martial training.

Re: the Nie brothers, NHS was twelve when Nie Huangyin passed away in TMAAF, so Nie Mingjue didn't do as much raising as just being an older brother. He doesn't have an actual parent-child experience until his little godling twins come along, so he was mostly winging it. 😂

#asks #nie mingjue #the unclean realm #tmaaf meta

17 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 3 years

Text

chancellor of the morning sun: burdens, mingjue (youth)

In which being a woman in the cultivation world is difficult, and Nie Mingjue comforts a friend.

On the night after the welcoming banquet, Nie Mingjue wakes to the sound of someone crying outside his door.

This was by no means unusual when he was younger; Huaisang often had night terrors after his mother died, and refused to sleep without Nie Mingjue for the next three or four years. But A-Sang is thirteen now, far too old to come crying to his da-ge after dark, and the person on the other side of his door seems to be a woman.

“Who’s there?” he calls, lighting one of his dream lanterns before getting out of bed. “A-Sang, is that you?”

“No, it’s me!” a familiar voice shouts, nearly sending Nie Mingjue to the ground as he scrambles to keep his footing. “A-Jue, let me in!”

Nie Mingjue drops his lantern and tries not to panic. The crying is still going on, but the person who called his name was Lan Xichen, without a doubt; and if she had come to his chambers this late, with the Unclean Realm full of foreign cultivators who would gladly take any chance to see her reputation ruined, then she must have come to seek his help with some kind of emergency.

And Nie Mingjue has not forgotten that the son of his father’s murderer is sleeping under his roof, or that Wen Ruohan openly sought Xichen’s hand in marriage for Wen Xu, and would have forced the two to meet if Nie Mingjue’s own fuqin had not intervened.

“I’m coming!” he says frantically, throwing the door open and grasping Lan Xichen’s arm the moment she crosses the threshold. “Lan Huan, I’m—”

And then he looks over Lan Xichen’s shoulder, blinking at the miserable line of young maidens trailing down the corridor behind her. Jiang Yanli is standing at Xichen’s side, crying into her sleeves, and Qin Su and Jin Zixuan’s first shimei are there, too; and Wen Ruohan’s young niece is standing in the back, holding Qin Su’s arm to keep her from falling over. All five girls smell of liquor, even Xichen, and Nie Mingjue gapes at them in bewilderment as Xichen fists her hands in his tunic and shakes him from side to side.

“Jiang-jie won’t listen to us!” she complains, sobbing drunkenly into his chest: which sets Jiang Yanli off again, and then Luo Qingyang starts weeping, too. “A-Jue, tell her!”’

Mingjue frowns. “Tell her what, A-Huan?” he says gently, wiping his intended’s face. It will be ruin for them both if anyone spots her here in the middle of the night, let alone with four other girls in front of his private quarters, but Nie Mingjue would rather cut his own hands off than turn the girl he loves away in such distress. “What’s wrong?”

“Jiang-guniang thinks she’s not worthy of Zixuan,” Luo Qingyang wails. “But just look at him! He prances around like a prize stallion, and he keeps making a fool of himself everywhere he goes! It’s pathetic! And he keeps talking about how wonderful he is, almost as much as Zixun! Nie-zongzhu, I have to beat him up twice a month to keep him in line, and it’s not even working!”

“Not worthy of Jin Zixuan?” he snorts. “Jiang-guniang, it’s Jin-gongzi who isn’t worthy of you. A-Huan, didn’t you tell her so?”

Jiang Yanli only cries even harder, and Xichen gives him a reproachful look and pinches his stubbly cheek. “She won’t listen to us when we tell her she’s more than enough. Yanli thinks we have to say so, since we’re her friends, so I brought her to you so you could tell her instead!”

“Jin-gongzi should count himself lucky that a maiden like Lady Jiang would give him the time of day,” Nie Mingjue says promptly. “He’ll get over himself in time, and Luo-guniang will beat him into the ground if he doesn’t. Right, Luo-guniang?”

Luo Qingyang nods fervently before listing straight into one of the walls. “I will!” she yells, as Wen Qing reaches over and puts her back on her feet again. “‘N then I’ll put itching powder in Jin Zixun’s pants, and, and…”

“Steal his wine again,” Qin Su suggests, letting out a loud burp. “That peach-blossom brew was delicious. Don’t you feel any better after drinking it, A-Li?”

“No, I don’t,” Jiang Yanli murmurs. “Good night, Nie-zongzhu. I’m going back to bed now.”

“Yanli!” begs Xichen, throwing herself at the shorter girl and almost knocking both of them backwards onto the floor. “Yanli, don’t go! You’re worth a hundred of Jin-zongzi, you—A-Jue, help!”

“What am I supposed to say?” he asks, thoroughly bewildered. “I can go challenge Jin-gongzi to a duel myself, if you like. Would that cheer you up, Jiang-guniang!”

But to his surprise, Jiang Yanli only goes to her knees and trembles like a kitten left out in the cold, sobbing about her fears for her future at Koi Tower and her dread of being bound to a man who will never respect her, her terror at the prospect of having no allies past her wedding day save for her mother-in-law, and then about having to spend the rest of her life within reach of Jin Guangshan.

“Mother keeps telling me that I should try to do better, so that Jin-gongzi likes me,” she chokes. “And one of my Yu aunties told me once that Jin-gongzi has to like me, since that’s going to be the only thing keeping me safe from—from—”

“Why haven’t you spoken to your parents about this?” Nie Mingjue demands, aghast. He knows very little about how his own engagement was settled on Xichen’s side; but not long after his ascension, he discovered that neither she nor her uncle were consulted on the matter, and that the sect elders only informed Lan Qiren of his niece’s engagement after the betrothal papers were sealed and signed and the bride price was already paid.

Nie Mingjue’s father made the agreement believing that Lan Qiren was amenable, and would have dissolved the betrothal in a heartbeat if Lan Xichen ever said she was unhappy with it—even in the months just before his death, when his greatest regret was that he would likely not live long enough to see his grandchildren. But he never disapproved of Lan Xichen’s decision to remain unwed until Wangji was at least eighteen, though the wedding was originally set to take place just after Xichen turned eighteen, and he would even have accepted a divorce if his daughter-in-law initiated it.

And Jiang Fengmian is widely known to dote upon his daughter, just as Nie Mingjue’s father doted on Lan Xichen, so why would he not offer the same choice to his child that Nie Huangyin gave to A-Huan?

“Father would break the engagement if I asked, but Jin-furen is mother’s best friend,” Jiang Yanli weeps, in answer to Nie Mingjue’s unspoken question. “It would make things so difficult between them if Jin-furen ever knew I felt this way. And A-Xian and A-Cheng already hate the idea of me marrying into Lanling, Nie-zongzhu. It would be so much worse for them both if they found out I was afraid.”

“It is better out now, than ten years from now, when you are wedded into that house and bound there by a husband and children,” Nie Mingjue says somberly. “Jin Zixuan is not a bad sort, but if he can look upon a maiden who spends her days tending to her family and teaching in orphanages and finding apprenticeships for street children, and call such a girl unworthy because of her looks and low cultivation—then he is not worthy of any wife, let alone one like you, and I pray he will come to recognize it without some great tragedy to bring him to his senses.”

“But—”

“If A-Huan were to lose her cultivation, I would still count myself as the luckiest man in the world to be her husband,” he declares. “And if she were not beautiful, that would be nothing to me. Whatever the strength of her golden core, and whatever she looks like—her heart has nothing to do with either her face or her jindan, and I love her for that above all things.”

Jiang Yanli’s jaw drops open, and she stares up at Nie Mingjue in open disbelief. Xichen is far too drunk to register what he just said, and Wen Qing seems to have stuffed bits of cloth into her ears to keep herself from listening to anything Jiang-guniang would not have confided while sober—but the word love still burns on his lips like the hot filling from Lan Xichen’s sweet bean cakes, flooding through every inch of his body until he can think of nothing else, and he spends a good two minutes in a kind of stricken trance before wondering if saying such a thing before Maiden Jiang might have hurt her feelings.

“It didn’t,” she says softly—because apparently, Nie Mingjue said that last aloud. “I think I see now, Nie-zongzhu.”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth to ask what she means, but a small purple blur interrupts him before he can get the words out. The blur skids around the nearest corner, screeching in indignation at the sight of Yanli’s tearstained face, and then it turns upon Nie Mingjue and demands an explanation.

“What did you say to my Shijie?” Wei Wuxian cries. “Shijie, did he bully you?”

“Silly A-Xian,” Jiang-guniang smiles, ruffling Wei Wuxian’s hair. “Nobody bullied me, but Nie-zongzhu made me feel much better.”

“By making you cry?” Wei Wuxian says doubtfully. “Should I get Suibian?”

“A-Xian, no!” Jiang Yanli is giggling now, kissing her brother all over his puffy cheeks. “Come on, let’s go back.”

Wei Wuxian drags her off down the hallway, casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, and Wen Qing charges herself with the duty of escorting Luo Qingyang and Maiden Qin back to their own quarters. However, she declares in no uncertain terms that managing three drunk girls is beyond her, and that leaves only Nie Mingjue to look after Lan Xichen.

“Your uncle’s going to kill me if he finds us,” he whimpers, as he struggles up a flight of stairs with his betrothed yawning in his arms. “And then A-Sang will spend the rest of his life on birds and fans, and never catch up with his lessons in time to attend your clan lectures.”

“Shufu likes you,” Xichen assures him, patting the tip of his nose. “He would never do such a thing.”

“He would if he thought I’d been improper towards you,” Nie Mingjue groans. “A-Huan, have you had anything to eat after you started drinking?”

“Mm, A-Su brought snacks. And Wen Qing kept slipping headache medicine into my wine.”

Nie Mingjue sighs in relief and hugs her a little tighter. “Good. Will you try to drink a little water after we get back to your room?”

Xichen nods drowsily, nearly stopping Nie Mingjue’s heart as she nuzzles against his shoulder, but he manages to get her up to her bedroom in one piece and helps her get into bed, making sure she lies on her side to prevent choking in the morning. He also puts a few pieces of rice candy on her nightstand since he always carries a handful in his pocket for Huaisang, and fetches a glass of water for her to drink when she wakes.

Lan Huan is fast asleep by then, breathing quietly in her nest of blankets with her hand tucked under her cheek, and Nie Mingjue makes it as far as the door before remembering that she is still too drunk to be left alone.

But she doesn’t have a maidservant, Nie Mingjue thinks desperately, staring wildly out of the room as if one might climb out of the nearest cupboard. And Wangji didn’t come along this time, and I can’t wake Lan Qiren—

Oh, no.

Oh, this is very bad.

Anything could happen to Lan Xichen with so much alcohol in her blood, and she might even stop breathing during the night and smother. But there is no one to fetch except for Lan-xiansheng, and that means Nie Mingjue will have to stay with her until she wakes. And given the fact that Lan Qiren will be looking for his niece by mao hour tomorrow, while Lan Xichen will probably sleep a shichen longer than usual—

Nie Mingjue sinks down beside the bed and puts his head in his hands.

Well, that settles it, he despairs, pulling the thick blankets away from Xichen’s face. Lan Qiren is definitely going to kill me.

But he would be lying if he said that the sight of Xichen’s peaceful face was unworthy of death by uncle-in-law, so Nie Mingjue accepts his demise with grace and starts planning his funeral instead.

___

When Lan Xichen opens her eyes, the first thing she notices is the dull pain in her head.

The second thing she notices (after gulping down the water and candy on the nightstand) is that someone seems to have left a heap of something dark near her bed; probably a bag, or a pile of clothes, though she can’t see well enough to tell what it could be.

And the last thing is that her uncle is sitting on a chair by the door, tapping his foot loudly enough to make her head pound.

“Shufu,” she croaks, struggling upright with the aid of one of her pillows. “What are you—”

“Disciples of the Lan clan must not consume alcohol,” he says, strangely calm despite the enormity of her transgression. Her clothes still smell like Baling mead, sweet and spicy and fruity all at once, and she nearly dies of shame at the thought of how shocked Shufu must have been when he found her. “They must not go out of doors after haishi. And they must never share chambers with any member of the opposite sex to whom they are not married, unless they are a relative.”

Lan Xichen freezes. “What?”

“Should I not be asking you that?” her uncle reminds her. “What is Nie-zongzhu doing in your bedchamber?”

Thunderstruck, Lan Xichen stumbles out of bed and stares at the dark heap on the floor, which yawns at her touch and stretches like a cat before springing up in horror.

“Lan-xiansheng, it’s not what it looks like!” Nie Mingjue cries, making Lan Xichen shrivel at the memory of how shamefully she must have behaved last night. “I only wanted to make sure Xichen was safe, I would never—”

“And you did not think of waking me?” Lan Qiren lifts his eyebrows at them. “Even if you wanted to ensure that my niece was well, how could you risk being seen leaving her rooms in the morning? My own quarters are just on the other side of the hall.”

Mingjue ducks his head in shame, and Lan Xichen suddenly wants nothing more than the comfort of his hand in hers. “I didn’t want her to get in trouble, xiansheng,” he mumbles. “She only came out last night for someone else’s sake, and I couldn’t have borne to see her unhappy just for that.”

“You are a sect leader, Nie Mingjue. Don’t look down when you speak to me,” Shufu scolds. “As it is, I am glad that you did not leave her. But as her uncle, I must order you to go now before the breakfast bell, lest you ruin both of your reputations at once and force her to marry before she is ready.”

Mingjue takes the hint and flees, leaving Xichen and her uncle alone. Shufu says nothing more for a while, merely studying the ceiling as if the laws of the Lan sect were inscribed there, and then he clears his throat and points to the stack of parchment on her desk.

“Copy each precept you broke, a hundred times each. The tenth, eighteenth, and seventy-first laws. Go.”

And then, after a moment’s lull:

“I think he will be a good father someday, A-Huan,” Lan Qiren reflects. “Your little ones will want for nothing, what with how he cares for you and how much he coddles Huaisang. I could not have found you a better husband if I chose for you myself.”

Lan Xichen drops her paintbrush.

“Shufu!”

#nielan #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan arranged marriage au #my fic #long time no update #it's been 84 years

56 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Text

a short nielan au

(uhhhh i might continue this... or i might not but this is a standalone for now lol)

When Qingheng-jun’s wife gave birth to a daughter, the sect only lamented that there would have to be another child some day, because how could the infant Lan Huan--who would spend her life in the women’s compound, and away from the teachings of anyone who held any real power in the Cloud Recesses--hope to lead the clan when she was older?

(Because no one ever said that Lan Yi had been a competent sect leader, or remembered that the division between men and women was ordered after her death because her own cousins so hated the thought of a woman--an unmarried woman, who had three strong sons with her cultivation without any need for a husband to father them--being stronger, and wiser, and quicker than they were.)

But Lan Qiren knew, all of nineteen years old when the clan elders ordered the newborn baby to be taken away from his sister-in-law and given to a nurse instead, and he dared protest the decision, too; both on his imprisoned brother’s behalf and for the mother who had cried herself sick when the child was removed from the jingshi, but knew there was nothing she could do to keep her.

“Our clan has brought forth many strong cultivators, male and female alike,” he said, with the little warm bundle clutched against his bosom as he stood before the council. “My niece will not go to a nurse, and nor will she go to the women’s residence when she passes her fifth year. She must stay with me, and I will rear her, for she is the only kin I have left.”

And with much grumbling, and whispering about impropriety, the council of elders had agreed; Lan Huan was Lan Qiren’s to raise, and he would not relinquish her.

Four years later, Madam Lan bore her second child, who was whisked away from her just as quickly as A-Huan had been despite Qingheng-jun’s pleas for leniency from the house where he was confined close to hers. The baby was a boy this time, a son who was named Lan Zhan, and went straight into his uncle’s care to be brought up alongside his sister--and he cried for his mother as Lan Huan had done, but in the end there was nothing Lan Qiren could do but paint a portrait of her, and prop his nephew up in front of it until the tears passed.

“This is your mother,” he told the baby, whose little eyes brightened at once as they roved over the painting. “Her name is Chen Mingyan, and she has been wrongfully stolen away from you, like your father was.”

“This is our A-Niang,” Lan Huan whispered, when her teething little brother could not be soothed with anything but A-Huan’s delicate fingers to chew on. “She belongs to us, even if we can’t see her very often, and she loves you.”

And all seemed well with them, for a while; the children grew older, and learned to be content with seeing their mother only once a month, and forgot that their father existed at all, since he had taken on a sentence of life imprisonment in their mother’s place. But then Chen Mingyan died of a winter sickness and Qingheng-jun died of grief, and the clan elders took the chance to betroth Lan Huan outside the Cloud Recesses and strip the young girl of her birthright.

They would not listen to Lan Qiren, no matter how he contested the decision, and in the end all the head of the council would say was this:

“Who will marry Lan Huan from within the clan when she has spent her whole life among men, and learned none of the patience and mildness that Lan maidens are supposed to know? If you wished to keep her, Second Young Master, you should have let her go with the other girls--is it not so?”

“Our young mistress is more suited to her betrothed’s clan than this one,” someone else had the gall to say, standing up and looking down at Lan Qiren as if he were granting a favor, and not delivering the worst news he had ever heard in his thirty years of life, including even the deaths of his sister-in-law and his brother. “He will not mind her brashness, or her lack of respect for the principles of silence and reflection. It may be difficult to part from her when the time comes, Er-gongzi, but surely even you can see that she will be much happier there, and secure her clan an alliance by marriage, besides.”

It was true that Lan Huan was more outspoken than any Lan had ever been, save her own father and uncle. It was true that she laughed freely, like her mother, and tempered her endless gentleness and humility with plain good sense, even if it meant abandoning womanly grace and modesty, sometimes. It was true that she never, never once lowered her head in the presence of men--and why should she? These were all virtues, Lan Qiren insisted, but all he heard in return was that the engagement was to the first son of another major sect, and to break it now would be a sore blow to their own clan, which was still in turmoil after its previous leader’s imprisonment.

When Lan Qiren brought the engagement contract back to the meishi where he lived with his niece and nephew, Lan Huan only nodded her head in resignation and asked him for her intended’s name. Apparently, A-Huan had expected something to be arranged for her, though not quite so soon; but there was no reason to be surprised by it, she told him, because everyone knew that the Jin clan’s young master and Jiang Fengmian’s only daughter had been betrothed since the year Jin Zixuan was born.

It was clear that she expected to remain in the Cloud Recesses, since Yunmeng was too far from Gusu to consider a marriage bond between them and Lanling’s sole heir was already spoken for, and of course no one would ask a maiden from the Lan sect to wed into the stronghold of beasts and butchers that was Qinghe Nie--but now it had fallen Lan Qiren to shatter his niece’s hopes, and tell her that someday she must leave the home and the baby brother she loved, even though she had almost nothing else to bring her joy at all.

“They have chosen to wed you away from the sect, A-Huan,” he choked, his voice cracking in despair as the little girl’s face went pale. “Lan Qiusheng and the others have promised you to one of Nie Huangyin’s children--to his first son, Nie Mingjue.”

#nielan #the untamed #the untamed fic #nielan arranged marriage au #lan xichen #lan qiren

88 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Text

chancellor of the morning sun: burdens, xichen (youth)

In which being a woman in the cultivation world is difficult, and Jiang Yanli has a secret.

Luo Qingyang, second-ranked disciple in her junior class and a clear shoe-in for the Jin sect’s head disciple position once she turns eighteen, has spent most of her fifteen years chasing after Jin Zixuan.

It is both very tiring and very thankless work, in her opinion, especially when he opens his mouth and lets all his Jin prejudice pour out over some poor outer disciple, or worse, Jiang Yanli. He’s not a bad sort—and Luo Qingyang will defend that statement to her last breath, because Zixuan has always been one of her best friends—but he has plenty of room for improvement, which is why she values the rare chance to spend time with other girls so much. It’s also why she insisted on coming along to Qinghe for the latest discussion conference rather than remaining behind at the Jinlintai under Jin-furen’s care, because she hasn’t seen any of her friends in months or even left the tower at all except for night-hunts.

Tonight is one of the rare nights she gets to spend with her second best friend, Qin Su, and Luo Qingyang was determined to make the most of it—so she smuggled a qiankun pouch full of expensive wine flagons from Lanling, and then waited for Qin Su to sneak into her guest bedroom with snacks.

“Just make sure you don’t pass the Lan quarters on your way here,” she hissed, when the two of them parted ways after dinner. “Lan Qiren’s over there, and everyone says he can smell rules getting broken in his sleep.”

But when Qin Su arrives, she has three more girls with her, and all of them are high-ranking young mistresses from all the major sects except Lanling and Qinghe. Jiang Yanli is trailing behind her, and a glance over her shoulder proves that A-Su clearly disregarded Mianmian’s instructions to avoid the Lans because Lan Xichen is there too, hugging her quilts and pillows to her chest and looking guiltily interested at the prospect of sneaking around after curfew.

However, the guest Mianmian never expected to see in her quarters is none other than Wen Qing, younger cousin to Wen Xu, who came representing Qishan Wen in his father’s place. Wen Ruohan has not set foot across the Qinghe border since the previous Nie-zongzhu’s death, and Mianmian was surprised to see even a single red robe in the Unclean Realm at all.

“You don’t have to drink anything, Xichen-jie,” she hears A-Su say, when she finally stops frowning at Maiden Wen and lets the small party into her bedroom. “And even if you do, it’s weak stuff—just mulled honey wine with peach juice, the kind Jin-furen uses for ladies’ parties.”

“Oh, I know!” Lan Xichen assures her, beaming from ear to ear as she takes Jiang Yanli’s arm. “I’m just here to spend more time with you and Yanli, and get to know Maiden Wen and Luo-guniang!”

“I already know you,” Wen Qing points out. “We’ve met six or seven times. I was there when my uncle tried to pitch that betrothal between you and Wen Xu last year.”

Mianmian winces as the memory of that spring tournament flashes across her minds, along with a picture of the stark relief on Lan Xichen’s face when the late Nie-zongzhu stepped in front of her and reminded Wen Ruohan that her bride price had already been paid, and her engagement set in stone by the time she was old enough to begin using her courtesy name in public.

“I know it was not the proper defense on my part, my dear, to say that I paid so many golden taels as a gesture of good faith to your clan,” Nie Huangyin said to Lan Xichen, after Wen Ruohan gave him a tight-eyed smile and left with Wen Xu at his side. “But men of his ilk do not listen to a woman’s family, and certainly not to a woman. You saw how he brushed your uncle aside when he said you were already betrothed, and that you would never wish to go so far from Gusu.”

“I don’t mind, father-in-law,” Lan Xichen had replied. “It was only an insult, and I doubt he meant anything else.”

Everyone knows that Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are perfectly content in their betrothal, which was probably why Wen Ruohan tried to threaten their happiness in the first place. But false or not, Wen Ruohan’s request for Lan Qiren to consider Wen Xu as a bridegroom for Xichen made all the girls who were present sick to the stomach, and the way Lan Xichen avoided him at the conference earlier that day was more than obvious to everyone with a working pair of eyes—especially Mianmian, who spends most of her time within sight of Jin Guangshan.

“Wen Xu won’t lay a hand on you,” Wen Qing says aloud, speaking for the first time. “I’ll gut him if he tries.”

Lan Xichen laughs and shakes her head, making her pearl earrings click cheerfully as she reaches forward to pat Wen Qing’s hand. “I’d gut him first, Wen-guniang,” she vows. “There wouldn’t be enough of him left for Mingjue-xiong to break, if he ever dared.”

The liquor comes out embarrassingly fast after that, passing from hand to hand as Mianmian and Wen Qing drain a flagon apiece in less than five minutes. The two of them can burn off their drink with their golden cores, so they don’t bother counting the bottles as they empty them, and Qin Su and Jiang Yanli know how to handle alcohol, despite their low cultivation—Qin Su even gets up and does a dainty Laoling dance while the rest of them cheer her on, balancing a pair of wine jugs across her forearms, and Lan Xichen is so enchanted by the spectacle that she claps until her hands go sore before trying to imitate the dance herself.

“I’ve never learned how to dance,” she says wistfully, her eyes resting on A-Su’s patterned jugs as her friend yanks her back down to the floor. “Uncle wouldn’t let me. Do you think you could teach me sometime, A-Su?”

Jiang Yanli frowns, clearly puzzled by the thought of Lan Qiren denying his precious niece anything. “What’s wrong with dancing? Don’t the maidens of Gusu Lan practice the Suzhou dance style themselves?”

“That’s why,” Xichen confesses, propping her chin up on her knees as Yanli opens a jar of Tianzi Xiao—one of only two, stolen from Jin Zixun’s hoard because he, unlike Mianmian, does not deserve nice things in life. “I don’t know any of the things girls learn, because the elders wouldn’t take me seriously if they did. All he let me learn besides the male disciples’ course of study was how to cook and sew, because I might need to cook for myself or sew my own clothes while traveling, but dancing was, well…”

“Too maidenly,” Wen Qing guesses, stuffing a bit of lotus cake into Lan Xichen’s hands to steady her—because even Xichen is tipsy by now, despite having drunk only a few swallows from Yanli’s first bottle. “It’s the same for me in Bu Ye Tian. It’s not safe to be a woman there, especially not when I’ve got A-Ning to look after.”

“And Wen Chao,” Qin Su points out. She tips a mouthful of Emperor’s Smile down her throat, as if to wash the taste of the name out of her mouth; because the Second Young Master Wen is well-known for the disgraceful way he looks at women, even if he is only eighteen. Mianmian has even heard rumours hinting that Wen Ruohan plans to marry his son off by twenty, like an unwanted daughter, simply to ensure that any grandchildren of his blood are legitimate instead of scattered around the five sects like Jin Guangshan’s heirs will be.

And then, as if everyone else had heard that last thought (which they did, Mianmian realizes, because she seems to have drunk enough to loosen her lips by now) three pairs of eyes turn as one towards Jiang Yanli, who freezes with a fried youtiao in her mouth and bursts into tears.

“I don’t want to marry Jin Zixuan,” she sobs at last, crumpling into Lan Xichen’s arms and crying against her shoulder. “I don’t, Mianmian. I don’t.”

______

“Jiang Cheng?” a small figure on the other side of the Unclean Realm hisses much later that night, tangled up in a bedsheet and hopping around on one foot in an attempt to shake himself free. “A-Cheng, wake up! Shijie’s gone!”

“Jie’s not gone,” Jiang Cheng mumbles sleepily, burrowing further under his blankets. “Go back to sleep. Her room’s next door, that’s all.”

“Fine,” he hears his brother sniff, preceding the sound of a pair of bare feet padding towards the door. “I’ll go look for her myself if you don’t want to. But if I’m not back in half an hour, wake up Jiang-shushu!”

“All right, all right,” Jiang Cheng yawns. “Now shush, A-Ying.”

And then he hears the door open and close, followed by a set of quiet footsteps sneaking towards the Jin guest wing as Jiang Cheng falls back into a peaceful sleep.

#nielan #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #lan xichen #nie mingjue #chancellor of the morning sun #my fic

28 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Text

chancellor of the morning sun: lecture (adulthood)

In which Lan Xichen throws down with Jin Zixuan; or, part 6 of the nielan au that has completely taken over my brain.

At the risk of offending her little brother, Lan Xichen often reflects on the fact that Wei Wuxian would probably love to break every last one of the Lan sect precepts, simply for the sake of doing it.

Wei Wuxian—Jiang Fengmian’s ward and adopted son, and coincidentally the same little boy who threw roses at Wangji’s head during that discussion conference in Qishan—is exactly the sort of person her uncle would run a li or two in very tight shoes to avoid, still not ready to contemplate the fact that Cangse Sanren was no longer among the living. An unfortunate incident in Caiyi (with some tea served in a cup that had previously held heavy liquor, and not been washed well enough later) had told Lan Xichen all she needed to know about that, especially when Shufu revealed that he still saw the flare of Cangse Sanren’s bright sword in his dreams when he thought of her before sleeping.

“Why did you not declare your suit then, Shufu?” Xichen asked, praying that her uncle would forget the conversation entirely when he sobered up in an hour or two. “You loved her, didn’t you?”

“I was seventeen, and she was four-and-twenty,” he replied. “I was a child to her, as Jiang Fengmian was, and I was unsuited in another way, though I did not know it then.”

But Lan Qiren had truly grieved on that dark night thirteen years ago when word came from Yunmeng Jiang announcing the deaths of Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze, and it was the only time save the morning of her mother’s passing that Xichen ever saw her uncle cry.

(He had not cried a drop when her father died; his brother’s fate had filled him with such wrath at the men who forced it on him that all Lan Qiren said after Qingheng-jun was buried was that he would not let the elders touch Lan Huan, or little A-Zhan, even if he had to tear himself apart for it.)

Lan Zhan is much like their uncle, now that Lan Xichen thinks about it. He has the same intolerance for lawlessness and disorder, the same helpless weakness for people who are bold, and brash, and free—so is it really any wonder that he seems to have fallen desperately in love with Wei Wuxian?

Xichen believes that it isn’t, especially now that her precious didi is doing the Wangji equivalent of wringing his hands—that is, white-knuckling his sword, whose hilt usually suffers most whenever her brother is out of sorts—and pleading with her to speak to their uncle and lessen Wei Wuxian’s latest punishment, which seems to have been the result of an all-out brawl with Jin Zixuan the previous evening.

“I was informed that Young Master Wei ‘left a bruise the size of his fist’ on Jin Zixuan’s face, and struck him unprovoked,” she says, lifting a curious brow at him. “Last I heard, all Shufu told him to do was kneel in the courtyard outside his receiving chamber and reflect on his ill temper. What is so harsh about that?”

“Shufu has summoned Jin Guangshan and Jiang-zongzhu here to discuss the matter with them,” Wangji insists. “And—I was not there, but Wei Ying’s third disciple brother reported that Jin Zixuan slighted Lady Jiang before his whole delegation, and that Wei Ying began fighting with him for that reason. Surely that cannot be such a grave offense that Wei Ying must be expelled from the Cloud Recesses, Jie?”

Lan Xichen feels her heart melt. “No, it is not. But since Jiang-zongzhu and Jin-zongzhu are both here, then it must be about the marriage between Jin Zixuan and Jiang-guniang, and not anything to do with Wei Wuxian. We had already invited Jiang-zongzhu, remember?”

Her brother nods. “Yes, A-Jie. This brother shall take his leave now, then, and disturb you no further.”

“Wait, Wangji. You mentioned that Wei Wuxian’s third shidi witnessed the encounter between the boys?” she asks, her mind already on other matters now that Wangji seems to have cheered up a little. “Would that be Yu Zhenhong, or Dai Lingyi?”

“Yu Zhenhong, I believe. He is in your cultivation history lecture, is he not?”

“I had rather hoped it would be him,” Xichen confesses, rising to her feet. “Wangji, I must trouble you to go and fetch the boy at once, and then bring whomever among the Jin disciples you deem most trustworthy. I would hear an account of it all from them, if it is possible.”

Wangji bows before hurrying off, as he began doing the very day she was instated as Sect Leader Lan four years ago; Xichen had tried to argue with him, insisting that he was still her precious baby brother and ought never to bow to her except when they were in public, but their uncle claimed that Wangji must not fail to show her full deference even when they were alone. The elders would leap upon even a spark of discourtesy from Wangji or even from Shufu himself and use it to undermine her, he said, or press her into yielding her seat to Wangji before she married and moved to Qinghe, or worse, before Wangji was ready, which would leave the council in power yet again.

But what none of the council knows is that Nie Mingjue has been the recipient of many midnight letters detailing Lan Xichen’s predicament, and that he even asked his father to move their wedding from Xichen’s eighteenth year to the seventh year after that. Nie Huangyin wanted to see his son with a child of his own as soon as Gusu Lan would permit it, not knowing that they would have sent Xichen away before she turned eighteen if he dared voice his wish—but Mingjue begged him to postpone the marriage on bended knee, telling him that it would break her heart to leave Wangji behind when he was only fourteen, and to never have the chance to lead her clan when she fought so valiantly to earn the standing a man would have commanded by the fact of his birth.

It was this last that softened Nie Huangyin’s resolve, since his respect for the place Xichen would someday have (as his heir’s wife, and the mother of his grandchildren, as well as the future of his line) was surpassed only by his regard for the place she already held as the first heir to Gusu Lan and its future sect leader.

And then Nie Huangyin died two years before Xichen ascended as Lan-zongzhu, and Mingjue’s first state journey as Sect Leader Nie had been to the Cloud Recesses, to demand that the betrothal contract be altered to permit him to wed Lan Huan as soon or as late as he liked.

“But your father stipulated that it should be no later than—”

“I am in mourning. It may take a very long time before I can emerge from my grief well enough to look after a wife and children,” Mingjue interrupted, stopping the first elder who dared voice an objection dead in his tracks. “Perhaps it will be ten years from now, instead of nine. Or maybe twelve. I have not yet realized the depths of my sorrow, for it grows worse every day.”

“Surely you would not leave the most precious flower of our sect unwed for so long!” another elder jumped in, looking completely outraged. “Wedding her at twenty-five was bad enough, but for you to come asking to wait longer still! What is wrong with Lan Huan, in your eyes? Would you have her watch all the maidens her age gain the titles of wife and mother, while she must remain an old maid until you see fit to marry her?”

“I think far too highly of Sect Heir Lan to bring her to a household still darkened with the pain of the previous Nie-zongzhu’s passing,” Nie Mingjue said flatly, throwing Lan Xichen a conspiratorial look that none of the council but Shufu could see. “When I bring her to the Unclean Realm as my bride, it will because I, and she, have both agreed that it is the proper time.”

What a blessing of fate it was, that I was promised to Mingjue-xiong, Xichen thinks now, pondering over the matter between Jiang Yanli and her intended, who seems to struggle with showing the poor girl even the barest courtesy. If it had been anyone else—anyone, at all—

“A-Jie?” Wangji calls from outside the door, pulling her out of her musings as she hurries to let him in. “I have brought Yu-gongzi and one of the Jin disciples, as you requested.”

But for some reason, Wangji seems to have brought three disciples along instead of two. One is Yu Zhenhong, who looks like a paler, sharper-faced version of Jiang Wanyin, and the second is the Jin clan’s head disciple, Luo Qingyang; but the third is a young girl from the Jiang clan, who seems to be the only one among the three with a weapon at her waist. Xichen quickly places her as Wei Wuxian’s first shimei, Li Shuai, and realizes with amused surprise that this is the maiden who smuggled Emperor’s Smile into the Cloud Recesses last month so that her da-shixiong and er-shixiong could have a forbidden party with it.

“Lan-zongzhu,” the disciples chorus, making her a deep, formal bow before Yu Zhenhong steps forward. “Zewu-xianzi, how may we be of assistance? Second Young Master Lan informed me that you needed us for something.”

“I do,” she says, inclining her head. “I would have your account of the disagreement between Young Master Jin and Young Master Wei, up until the point they were interrupted by Wangji and Maiden Jiang.”

The three accounts coincide exactly, though Luo Qingyang has more to tell regarding the remarks Jin Zixuan made about Jiang-guniang before Wei Wuxian arrived on the scene. Xichen listens to them all in some distress before sending the disciples back about their business, and then she fights the temptation to down a whole pot of tea before turning back to her brother. “Where is Jin Zixuan now, A-Zhan?”

“Kneeling in a courtyard across from the one where Wei Ying is,” Wangji says, confused. “What of him?”

“Go bring him to me,” she orders. “I rather fancy his betrothal will be dissolved before the day is out, but I must speak with him first.”

Wangji makes off without a word, reappearing again five minutes later with a very irate Jin Zixuan beside him. It is impossible to tell that the two of them are three years apart, by now; Wangji and Jin Zixuan are of the same height, and Wangji’s collected calm belies his age to the point where he looks closer to Lan Xichen’s two and twenty years instead of eighteen.

“You may go, A-Zhan,” Lan Xichen says gently, favoring her brother with a tender smile as he bows and slips out again: probably to comfort Wei Wuxian, if she had to guess. “And you, young master Jin—you may sit at that table there, and reflect while I brew some tea.”

Much confused, Jin Zixuan does, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the table in front of him while Lan Xichen heats a pot of water and lays out her favorite xiangqi board. Once the tea is ready, she calls Jin Zixuan up to her table and watches as he fills her cup and the one she put aside for him—and then she moves her first piece and directs him to do the same, trying not to sigh as he glances uncertainly at the board and moves his chariot.

“Um, Lan-zongzhu, what—”

“I was informed that you have some objection to your future marriage to Maiden Jiang,” she interrupts, cutting him off so smoothly that he scarcely seems to notice. “I find myself curious as to your reasons why, since I have known Jiang Yanli for many years and never run across any defect in her character at all.”

Jin Zixuan’s face goes purple. “Zewu-xianzi, that…”

“Is it that she is too kind for you?” Xichen muses aloud. She moves another piece, and looks at Jin Zixuan with lifted brows until he does the same. “Or, perhaps, that she smiles too much?”

“I—”

“I would like to hear you out fully, Jin-gongzi. What objection do you have to Jiang Yanli?”

His cheeks go even darker, and he lowers his eyes back to the xiangqi board before speaking again. Lan Xichen knows all his reasons in full, of course, and finds herself thoroughly disappointed in them; she began to have a better opinion of Jin Zixuan when he treated Meng Yao with courtesy the last time he visited Qinghe Nie, despite knowing full well that he and A-Yao are half-brothers and that A-Yao is the elder between them, but if matters proceed as Xichen fears they will, that good opinion might not even last the day. “Jin-gongzi!”

“Zewu-xianzi, I…”

“I will spare you the disgrace of having to speak such words again, then,” she says, motioning him to pour her another cup of tea. “Yu Zhenhong of Yunmeng Jiang—your intended’s cousin, and nephew to her mother—has already been to tell me about them, along with your own head disciple, who has always been devoted to you, from what I know of her.”

“Mianmian was here?” Jin Zixuan asks, finally looking up with something close to shame in his eyes. “She—told you everything?”

“That you think Jiang-guniang is too plain for your tastes, that her cultivation is too low for you, that her character is too timid and too weak, that she is too foolish over her brothers, that she is too attached to you, despite having known you since infancy, and that you would be her husband for exactly as long,” Lan Xichen counts off. “Luo-guniang told me all that, and more, but I would rather not say such things myself. Especially not about such an admirable girl as Yanli is.”

Jin Zixuan shuts his mouth again. A wonderful improvement on his usual state, Xichen thinks, even if she won’t say so.

“Jin-gongzi,” she says instead, “surely you must know that Jiang-guniang has no more choice in this marriage than you do, since it was contracted by your mothers even before they were married?”

“She likes it!” Jin Zixuan protests at last, goaded past the bounds of courtesy. “All our lives, she—even when we were children, she was always trying to make me soup, and get me to play with her brothers, no matter how much I tried to put her off! It might as well be a marriage of choice, on her part, and even though my mother will not hear of me breaking the engagement, Jiang-zongzhu would do it in a heartbeat if Jiang Yanli asked him to! She knows I want nothing of it—she has always known—but never, never has she had the courtesy to say so!”

Lan Xichen only raises her eyebrows at him. “Lan-zongzhu,” Jin Zixuan appends hastily.

“I see,” she observes. “What is it that Jiang-guniang likes about you, then?”

“...What?”

“Luo-guniang told me what you dislike about Maiden Jiang. So I must ask, Jin Zixuan—what does she like about you?”

The boy seems more confused than ever, somehow, and Xichen holds back a sigh before framing the question differently. “What advantages do you believe she would gain upon marrying you?”

“She would become Young Madam Jin, second mistress of the wealthiest sect after Qishan Wen,” Jin Zixuan replies at once, looking stunned that Lan Xichen even asked. “Once I took my father’s place, she would become the wife of a sect leader.”

“And?”

“She would...never want for anything?” he says uncertainly. “Not jewels, nor silks, nor any of the things that are dear to women. Her children would want for nothing, and she would be assured of their future.”

“How is that any different from what she is assured now?”

Jin Zixuan only looks bewildered again. “As the Young Mistress of Yunmeng Jiang, she…”

“Jiang Yanli has little fondness for material things,” Lan Xichen dismisses him. “She wears only plain jewels and a single ornament in her hair, and I have never seen her pass a beggar in the street without giving out enough coin for a day’s food. Nor has she any desire for power, since most of her work in Yunmeng concerns the education of children whose parents cannot teach them, and apprenticeships for women without family to care for them.

“And even if she did care for gold, and for power...her brothers worship the ground under her feet, as does her father, and I doubt there is anything Jiang Fengmian has ever denied her. Or that Jiang Wanyin ever will, when he becomes sect leader. With things between you two as they are, does she not have more power in Yunmeng Jiang, with her family supporting the ventures she chooses, than she could ever hope for as the mistress of Lanling?”

“Mother would give her that power, she wouldn’t have to ask me for it,” Jin Zixuan protests weakly. “Mother adores her, because she and Yu-furen have been friends since they were children.”

“But when the reins of the Jin sect lie in your hands alone, what then? Would she humble herself so, to ask anything of a husband whom she must know dislikes her?”

Jin Zixuan opens his mouth and then shuts it again. He looks very lost, somehow, as if he had wandered into a forest expecting to find rabbits before being accosted by a flesh-eating tiger instead.

Xichen drains the last of her tea and pointedly clears her throat. “So now that we have established that the greatest virtues of Lanling Jin hold no charm for Maiden Jiang, what do you have to offer her?”

“I...I…”

She finds herself losing her patience, then. “Do you remember the day we first met, Jin Zixuan? I had just recited twenty minutes’ worth of poetry at a discussion conference, as part of an elocution contest held among all the maidens past ten years of age who were present. Jiang Yanli performed first—and did very admirably, I might add—and she glanced towards you once hoping for a smile or a nod to encourage her, which she did not receive. But she held her own and finished her recitation magnificently, and I took the stage after her—and then I saw you looking at me, and I thought you were enchanted by the piece I had chosen. It was a fine one, written by my uncle when he was a youth, and I was glad that someone approved of it, even if it was only a boy of nine who would not even try to be friends with his betrothed.

“And then, after the contest was over, Qin Su invited me to come and take tea with her and her mother, so I stepped into the room next door to attend them,” Lan Xichen says icily, watching Jin Zixuan quail before her with a savage sort of pleasure. “The moment I was gone, you turned to your father, and asked if you could marry Maiden Lan, since you thought she suited you better than Maiden Jiang. Can you imagine what reason you gave him, Jin-gongzi?”

“Zewu-xianzi, please—”

“It was not the elocution I was displaying that night, or any perceived superiority in character. Rather, the only reason you gave for wanting a new maiden over the one you had known for years, and who had been nothing but kind to you, was that you thought the second one was pretty. Two girls, both feeling and thinking and breathing beings, reduced to nothing but the comeliness of their features, and the worst thing was that you said it as if it were the most natural idea in the world.

“I was called the jewel of Gusu Lan, accomplished beyond anything my sect had hoped—or even wanted—for my age, but when I heard you ask your father for me, like I was a bauble on a shelf and not a person, I nearly buried my head in my arms and cried. And then I admired Jiang Yanli even more than I already did, for having stood such treatment time and time again from the boy who was meant to be her husband and the father of her children, for all the rest of her days—without so much as a tear, or a frown.

“You forgot the thought of marrying me soon enough, thank Heaven, and you were always respectful towards me after that. But your treatment of your intended never improved, though it has been twelve years since then—and you would have me believe that Wei Wuxian was in the wrong, for challenging you?”

Jin Zixuan bows his head and says nothing. His lips are quivering, Lan Xichen notices, and his cheeks are flushed in sheer mortification; if he were five or six years younger, he might have burst into tears on the spot, and she feels her heart twinge a little at her harshness as the quaking of his mouth grows more obvious.

But then she remembers the look on Jiang Yanli’s face last night, and Wei Wuxian’s insistence that he only forgot his entrance token that first afternoon because the Jin delegation had ejected him and his martial siblings from the inn they were staying at, despite the fact that there were five or six empty rooms after the Jins were accommodated.

If Wei Wuxian spoke truly—and Lan Xichen highly doubts that he did not—Jin Zixuan turned his own betrothed out into the street when there were no inns remaining but the one he had taken rooms in, simply because he did not wish to share an entire house with her, and Jiang Yanli bore it with nothing but a reminder to her brothers to maintain their dignity before outsiders.

“Your betrothal contract will be dissolved by tonight, if my knowledge of Jiang-zongzhu holds true,” she says at last, pouring herself a fourth cup of tea. “Any change in heart will be too late for Maiden Jiang, or your engagement with her. But you will marry someone sometime, so perhaps that maiden will have better luck with you than Jiang-guniang did.”

Lan Xichen looks at the candle-clock burning on the table, and then at the sky outside her window. Jin Guangshan ought to have finished discussing the betrothal now, which means that it must be time for her to go explain the appearance of the Yin iron to Jiang Fengmian—but there is still something more she must say to Jin Zixuan, though it might just go over his head entirely.

“You are dismissed, Young Master Jin. But before you leave, consider this—when Nie Mingjue was betrothed to me, the engagement was settled by my clan and the previous Nie-zongzhu, and neither Chifeng-zun nor I had any choice in the matter. We had not met at the time, but all he wanted to know about me was whether I would be kind to Huaisang, and once his father said that I would be, Nie Mingjue was content.

“Perhaps you will have a good answer for what you seek in a wife, when the time comes for you to find one again.”

And then she gets up and sweeps off down the corridor to her uncle’s chambers, leaving Jin Zixuan frozen at the xiangqi board in her wake, and hopes that he will remember at least something of what she has told him—for his sake as well as Jiang Yanli’s.

#nielan #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nielan arranged marriage au #chancellor of the morning sun #my fic

29 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Text

chancellor of the morning sun: lessons (youth)

(Aka the fem!Lan Xichen au that spiraled out of control way too quickly.)

Part 1 | AO3

When students in the Lan sect reach their tenth year, they must listen to a day of lectures that are carried out in utmost secrecy, in a warded room so none of the younger children can listen in by accident, and absolutely no one warns the boys about it beforehand. This is to prevent them from hearing things they are too small to hear, the qianbei in charge of the lesson says, before launching into a long, horrible lecture that leaves some of the boys fighting back giggles, a good handful fighting back tears, and one of them, Lan Jing, stretched out cold on the floor in shock before the teacher pokes him awake and props him back up in his chair again.

Lan Wangji is simply confused. The diagram in front of him makes no sense—because what could ever be gained by doing such a thing? Lan Bolin had asked if married couples only practiced dual cultivation (and what a deceptive name it is, for something so very strange) to have babies, and the teacher replied that no, they didn’t—the act was pleasant enough, he said, and perfectly right between married couples as long as measures were taken to ensure a wife’s health.

One of the more curious disciples puts his hand up. “What does that mean? Can you catch colds by dual cultivating? Or pox?”

“No, but it is not easy for a woman to carry a baby,” the lecturer explains. “Some men—especially non-cultivators—have no regard for their wives’ wishes in this manner, and demand martial relations by force or long persuasion, if they are of such base character. This often leads to a woman becoming with child more often than she would like, especially if she cannot take medicine to ensure that she does not conceive, and increases her chances of dying in childbed.”

There is an outcry at this last revelation—a quiet outcry, of course, but an outcry nonetheless, and one of the boys stands up in stark terror. “Women can die having babies?” Su Ying asks, terrified. “My a-yi is having one next month, will she—”

“How could any man risk his wife so?” Lan Lihai whispers. “And for that? How cruel!”

“Boys, quiet down—”

In all the chaos, Lan Jing slumps over and faints again; and as for Lan Wangji, he stares at his hands with his blood thundering in his ears, and manages to sit through the remaining hours of the lesson without hearing a single word.

* * *

After Lan Wangji finally escapes from the lanshi, only three things are rattling around the inside of his suspiciously empty mind, and all of them have to do with the books he had to look at earlier that afternoon. First is the unfortunate truth that dual cultivation is necessary to make a marriage valid, a process called “consummating” it, because dual cultivation isn’t supposed to happen before the marriage at all. Secondly, only the Lan clan teaches its sons restraint in such matters; it is a crime of the highest degree for a man to force his wife, or not find her the requisite medicine if a couple wants to dual-cultivate but doesn’t want children—but since no one but the Lan has rules about it, bad things can happen to maidens in other sects, and non-cultivating ones. And thirdly, married women can die because of the consequences of marital relations, even when their husbands do everything right.

Lan Wangji’s A-Jie will have to—to dual cultivate, he realizes, because she has been promised to the first Young Master Nie in marriage since she was just Wangji’s age. Nie-gongzi is not of the Lan, and his clan doesn’t teach restraint, or what must be done to safeguard a wife’s good health—but Wangji’s A-Jie won’t have any choice but to have at least one baby to secure the Nie sect’s future, so what if she—

What if—

What if his A-Jie dies?

(And that terrible thought is why A-Jie finds him crying quietly behind the meishi two hours later, trying to muffle his sobs in his long white sleeves until she bundles him up in her strong, safe arms and carries him back inside.)

* * *

“Mingjue-xiong and I have an agreement,” Lan Xichen tells her poor baby brother, after he calms down. “After he and I are married, he will follow all the Lan principles about marriage, since I’m going to wed into his clan even though I’m the first heir, like he is.”

A-Zhan only grips her robes tighter. “But Nie Mingjue will want a son, and Teacher said—”

“That won’t happen to me,” she says firmly. “My cultivation’s already passed most of the elders in the clan, so I’ll be fine if I ever have a baby. Uncle says I’m like Mother that way—he says her golden core was stronger than Cangse Sanren’s, and she was one of Baoshan Sanren’s disciples. Don’t cry anymore, A-Zhan.”

“But, Jie…”

“And I won’t have to have any babies at all, unless I want them. Mingxue-xiong says he won’t mind making A-Sang his heir if he has to. There needn’t be any dual cultivation either, if I don’t want it.”

She and Mingjue had had a long talk about their future together during one of her visits to Qinghe, and he had assured her in no uncertain terms that the marriage would proceed on her terms and her terms only, even if it meant that they would have separate rooms, or never have a child, or even that she might keep living in the Cloud Recesses and be Madam Nie only in name.

Women in the Nie clan are treated no differently from men, after all, and Qinghe law will favor her in marital matters even if her husband is the sect leader. No one ever makes her have a chaperone or keep a respectable distance from her intended while she roams around the Unclean Realm, for example—not even Shufu, who only sniffed and asked the elders why they thought a maiden who could beat them in a sparring match needed a chaperone in Nie Huangyin’s household, even if she was only fourteen.

(“She is still Qingheng-jun’s first heir,” he had warned, “and will remain so until the marriage has gone through—and if it does not, she will take much of the council’s power and become the next Lan-zongzhu either way. Do not undermine her.”)

It wasn’t as if Shufu’s arguing ever stopped the council from undermining her, though. Whenever any of them find her making sweet red-bean buns for her brother and uncle, they make a point of saying how wonderful it is that Lan-xiaojie has finally taken up more maidenly pursuits, and whenever she leads the disciple boys on a junior night-hunt instead of the disciple girls, someone is sure to say that surely, surely Nie-gongzi will expect you to let him lead his own men after you are married, Lady Xichen.

Even the matter of her courtesy name took a year to be fully settled, and it took her complete refusal to answer to Lan Huan (unless it came from her uncle or her four closest friends, of course) for them to give in and start using Lan Xichen instead. The elders protested the amendment to her name in the records for over six months, claiming that a young girl had no cause to unsex herself so blatantly when she was the dearest treasure of the Lan clan and would remain so all her life—but Shufu told her that Xichen was the courtesy name her father chose before she was born, and that was enough for the eleven-year-old A-Huan to fight tooth and nail to keep it.

And when she and Nie Mingjue finally met, she was introduced as Lan Xichen, and found herself just a little smitten when he told her how strong and fitting it sounded, because Xichen’s three greatest secrets are these:

She does not want to marry out of the Cloud Recesses.

She will never make peace with the thought of leaving A-Zhan behind, even if she cultivates to immortality.

(But no matter what comes with being married, Lan Xichen will never regret that her husband is Nie Mingjue.)

#nielan arranged marriage au #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan #lan xichen #nie mingjue #lan wangji #the untamed #my fic

37 notes · View notes