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eleanorfenyxwrites · 2 months

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The Waves are Rising and Rising

|Beginning| |Previous|

Chapter 15

It is time 😌

--//--

Jin Guangyao is roused gently (and utterly tenderly, and his heart aches at the fact that being woken with a warm embrace and soft whispers is now something he can rely on as a constant when he spends the night at his er-ge’s side) at five in the morning by Lan Xichen. He tugs on his robes — glad, now, that he took the time to fold them in the heat of the moment — and after he and Lan Xichen press matching goodbye kisses to a groggy Nie Mingjue’s sleep-warm stubble-scratchy cheeks, and after they share their own somewhat lingering goodbye kiss, he ventures back out into Jinlintai.

Just like he had when he had left Nie Mingjue’s guest room the day before, he takes the servants’ passages back to his quarters, and manages to avoid being seen by anyone idle enough to wonder what he might be doing in this part of the tower at such an early hour. When he gets back to his room he settles into the now oddly familiar routine of putting himself to rights; he strips out of his robes, gives himself a perfunctory wash at his basin (does not think about how good those large, warm, calloused hands had felt on his skin, does not search for any visible evidence of their night together), then steps into fresh robes and runs a comb through the ends of his hair before adding fresh oil and replacing his hat. He checks his vermillion dot in the mirror and, satisfied with his appearance, he sets about his duties.

First and foremost, before any festivities begin, he needs to finish the paperwork he had fetched from his father’s study the night before. His mood sours somewhat as he looks down at the pile on his desk; the reports are supposed to be read and signed by the sect leader, but Jin Guangshan prefers him to do the reading and use his prodigious memory to summarise everything. When his father had first given him this duty it had felt like a compliment, but as he settles down onto his knees at the desk and opens the first folio, it seems more like paternal laziness.

He grinds himself fresh ink as he reads, though it’s unusually difficult to keep focused; at some point his father will summon him so that they can ‘discuss’ the situation with Nie Mingjue being poisoned, and what story they will give to the rest of the guests about what happened. Jin Guangyao will need to find some way of spinning the whole thing to make Nie Mingjue’s survival a net positive for the Jin sect, and given that Jin Guangshan has wanted the man dead since probably even before the war, it is going to be… difficult. Anxiety churns his stomach as he chews his bottom lip and tries to force his mind to stay on track.

He is going to suffer ramifications for this, one way or another. He is not looking forward to finding out what they are. He has worked his way through about a third of the pile by the time the knock he has been dreading sounds at his door.

A servant has come to take him to his father.

A flash of panic bursts in Jin Guangyao’s chest as he climbs to his feet and slides the door shut behind him, following after the ominously silent servant. It’s still so early, he thought he would have more time! Jin Guangshan is so rarely up at this hour, and even more rarely on the day after a celebration feast. Jin Guangyao’s mind works frantically to try and formulate plans and excuses he can offer up to placate the temper he is doubtless about to face.

He is distracted enough that it takes him several minutes to realise that the servant is not leading him to his father’s office, as he’d assumed, but away towards the public areas of Jinlintai. Fragrance Hall, perhaps? Could his father have begun drinking and feasting already? It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him.

But no, he is led right past all of the halls, and-

Jin Guangyao’s heart lurches into his throat as he sees Jin Guangshan standing at the top of the grand Jinlintai steps, and it takes every drop of his willpower not to freeze where he stands. After he joined the Jin sect, it had been weeks before he’d been able to use the steps or even be near them without having to fight the urge to vomit; he mostly tries to avoid them by flying into Jinlintai and landing in one of the receiving courtyards, though when he is forced spend time greeting guests on the landing, he retreats back inside his mind, far enough that the bone-deep fear can’t reach him, and lets his body operate on automatic.

He cannot do that now. He will need to be entirely present to get through a conversation like this with his father. Jin Guangshan keeps his back to him as Jin Guangyao approaches — looking out at Lanling city glinting in the low winter morning light, the mountain range on the border of Qishan and Qinghe just visible in the distance — doing nothing but raising a hand in acknowledgment when the servant announces his presence.

The servant leaves. They are alone. This early in the morning, the area is deserted.

If this is an attempt to intimidate him, it is certainly working. Dread curdles Jin Guangyao’s stomach as he stands behind his father, rigidly holding a low bow stance even as his back begins to twinge and his knees ache.

“I sent for you last night,” Jin Guangshan says, voice low, “and the servant reported you were not in your room.”

A bolt of fear shoots through Jin Guangyao like lightning. His father turns around slowly, and Jin Guangyao can smell wine sour on his breath; to still smell of it at this distance, Jin Guangshan must have drunk his way through most of the night — and probably isn’t sober yet. For the average person, Jin Guangyao would consider this an advantage for himself, but for his father… it just makes him unpredictable.

Jin Guangyao tries to wrestle down his fear and keep a neutral expression. “This humble son apologises, fuqin, at what time did you send for me?”

“Does it matter? I sent for you and you could not be found in your rooms, or any of the halls, or the kitchens, or the dungeons.” Jin Guangshan tilts his head, eyes narrowing, “Where were you?”

Shit. Shit. Jin Guangyao fights down the rising panic, frantically running through excuses in his mind but he cannot find a plausible lie that his father will not see right through.

“I… I was in Chifeng-zun’s rooms, fuqin. I was informed that he had suffered a relapse, and so Zewu-jun and I went to play Song of Cleansing for him…”

Jin Guangshan’s lips purse. “I see. So it is true. You helped save his life.”

He turns away to look back over the city and Jin Guangyao is granted a brief moment of unguarded reaction; he squeezes his eyes shut, but his mind is still reeling in panic and he cannot find a response. All he can do is force himself to hold his ground as best he can and pray that the reprisal is not so severe that the resulting injuries keep him from his duties. There’s still several days of Jin Ling’s celebration feasts to go and there’s still so much for him to do—

“I have been telling you since the day that I legitimised you that I want that man out of the picture, and yesterday I delivered you an opportunity right into your hands and you do what?” Jin Guangshan’s voice is hard, spoken through gritted teeth. “You save him!” He whirls around, robes flapping as he stabs a finger in Jin Guangyao’s face, “Useless, unfilial idiot!”

So it was Jin Guangshan who ordered the attempt on Nie Mingjue’s life. Jin Guangyao had been fairly certain before, but the confirmation hits like a blow to the gut. He swallows heavily against the horror (his father wants his lover dead and he will be forced to choose between them) and the terror (this is the angriest his father has ever been towards him, and if it gets much worse then Jin Guangyao might not get the opportunity to choose), and forces out coherent words. “Fuqin, Zewu-jun was there the whole time, there was no way I could-”

“Were you not Wen Ruohan’s torturer? You’re telling me you could not find one single discrete way to do away with him? Not in the afternoon, and not in the evening?”

His mind fails him, too swamped in a sea of devastation, and all he can do is gasp plaintively, “Fuqin, I-“

Jin Guangshan storms forward, face going purple-red in his rage, “Useless! What’s the point of you! You cannot do one thing I ask? Are you telling me you prize your sworn brothers over your own father?”

Jin Guangyao drops to his knees, ignoring the sickening jolt of pain that ricochets through them and up to his hips and back, and presses his forehead to the floor. It’s humiliating, but his mind has been cleared of everything but the desperate drive to survive.

“Please, honoured father, forgive this humble son,” he begs.

Jin Guangshan is silent. Jin Guangyao can feel himself trembling — whether it is in fear or from the muscle strain he cannot tell. He kneels there, prostrated, and waits, stewing in misery and fear.

“Oh, stop it,” Jin Guangshan says, eventually, and his voice is calm enough that Jin Guangyao risks lifting his head to look up. “It seems I can get another use out of you now.”

Jin Guangyao climbs slowly to his feet, hairs on his neck standing on end at the awful smile on his father’s face. “Fuqin…?”

“You can take a more direct route of assassination. You can get him whilst he’s sleeping.”

A cold sweat breaks out on Jin Guangyao’s back.

“Whilst… whilst he’s sleeping?” He croaks. “I don’t understand…”

Jin Guangshan plays idly with one of the beaded golden tassels hanging from his belt, and Jin Guangyao watches helplessly as it hangs from his hand and spins.

“Don’t play coy, I know you’re sharing his bed.”

Jin Guangyao stares blindly at the tassel spinning, spinning, his own mind spinning too as panic rises up to throttle him. He wrenches his gaze up to stare beseechingly at his father. “There must be some kind of misunderstanding, fuqin, I don’t know what you-”

“I cannot believe it took me so long to realise. I should have known that a son of a whore would spread his legs for anyone,” Jin Guangshan’s smile widens, showing teeth that glint in the low morning sun, and Jin Guangyao’s blood runs cold. “Although even I didn’t expect you’d be so eager as to take two at a time.”

Two at a time.

His father’s words echo around his mind and he is frozen in place.

“The servant who went to search for you last night, well… he searched very extensively. And he found where you were. You spent the night in Nie Mingjue’s rooms — you and Lan Xichen-” Jin Guangshan’s smile turns cruel and sharp, “-and there certainly wasn’t any guqin playing going on.”

What-?

How-?

Jin Guangyao frantically runs through the night's events in his memory, examining each moment for anything that might have given them away and then he stutters to a halt as he realises —

Privacy talismans. He took down the privacy talismans.

He took them down before the servants arrived with the bath because he thought they might look suspicious, and then he-

He did not put up any more privacy talismans.

Anyone could have heard them — and apparently at least one person did.

Oh gods. This is his fault. He’d tried so hard to keep them all safe, always suspecting that if anyone found out it would be because one of the other two let something slip, and now the worst possible person knows and-

And it was his fault.

His vision spins. He’s certain he’s going to vomit. It was his fault. It was his fault. He forces words out through his lips. “Fuqin, it- it isn’t what you think. We’re dual cultivating, it’s for Nie Mingjue’s health, because my sworn brother vows-”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Jin Guangshan’s relaxed, smug demeanour vanishes immediately. “For his health? How long has this been going on? You’re telling me you’ve been helping him this whole time? You treacherous little-!”

A crack of pain flashes in Jin Guangyao’s cheek as his father backhands him, and it doesn’t hurt too terribly but it catches him off guard badly enough that he staggers; the steps of Jinlintai lurch before him, his vision swimming, the urge to vomit rises dangerously as he recoils away, pressing his back flat against a pillar, hands splayed against the marble, and gasping for breath as the world sways sickeningly in front of him. His heart is pounding so loudly in his ears as he squeezes his eyes shut that he can barely hear Jin Guangshan speak.

“-knew I couldn’t trust you. I thought if I extended some goodwill towards you, gave you a bit of leeway, you might get results — but you’ve been working against me this whole time!”

Jin Guangyao pries open his eyes. Jin Guangshan is pacing back and forth at the top of the steps. He turns sharply and wags finger towards Jin Guangyao.

“Well, don’t think that I won’t put your tendencies to good use, my boy, oh yes,” he laughs, low and dirty, and a shudder goes down Jin Guangyao’s spine as he clings the the pillar with his fingertips, “there are many sect leaders who could be persuaded by a fine piece of ass and don’t much care if there’s a cock or a cunt attached to it!”

Oh god.

Nothing more coherent forms in his mind

He is drowning in a sea of revulsion, horror and terror.

He should say something. He should beg or barter or- or something, but it is like his brain is utterly disconnected from his mouth and he cannot speak.

Jin Guangshan laughs again, curling his upper lip. “Oh don’t look so surprised, A-Yao, if you act like a whore you’ll damn well get treated like one!” He scoffs, shaking his head. “You think you’re so smart but at the end of the day, you’re nothing more than the spawn of the brothel. Your mother was just the same.”

Jin Guangyao’s ears are ringing. His lips form the shape of the words ‘A-niang?’ but he isn’t certain whether he speaks aloud until his father nods in response.

“Ohhh yes, she had a pretty face, but there’s nothing more pathetic than a whore who thinks she has brains. She liked to talk about books and music and philosophy, like she knew anything about anything at all,” Jin Guangshan props his hands on his hips and laughs, low and long, and Jin Guangyao wants to scream, “and then I gave her that worthless pearl and she fell for the same old story as all the others. So much for brains.”

Jin Guangyao feels physically winded by the words. The world is rocking around him. Someone is screaming, he can hear shrill screaming coming from somewhere, but he does not know where. His own mind, perhaps. He pushes himself fully upright away from the pillar. “Take that back!” He cries, but the words get stuck in his throat and it comes out as a strangled croak that his father doesn’t even hear, turning away from him to look out over Lanling with another horrible laugh. The glinting roofs of the city swim around his father’s figure, almost silhouetted at the top of the great stairs, yawning out below him like the abyss.

“She honestly believed that I would come back for her — her! Like there would be any place for an aging whore here at Jinlintai! I came back from Yunping and found out my wife was pregnant with my heir, and I did not think of her once again.”

Jin Guangyao’s whole being focuses in on one fierce, sharp, pinpoint of rage, centered on his father. Nothing else in the world exists.

He blinks.

He blinks again.

He’s standing at the top of the stairs. Instinctively, numbly, he staggers back — but it’s too late, already he’s seen it, the crumpled pile of golden silk far down at the bottom.

What have I done? He thinks, sick with horror. He tries to search back in his memory but his mind recoils violently. There is nothing but blankness.

The world wobbles and sways and he feels his knees give way-

“A-Yao?”

There are warm hands supporting him and Lan Xichen is there — when had Lan Xichen arrived? — talking to him in a low, gentle voice, helping him over to a bench so he can sit.

A-Yao, Lan Xichen’s lips make the shape of his name but all sound is muffled. He blinks, trying to focus his vision, and for a moment there are three Lan Xichens, then two, then he blinks again and there is just one, frowning anxiously down at him.

And then not — he is shoved out of the way and then it’s Jin Zixun’s face, red and furious. “You killed him! You fucking bastard, you killed him!”

Jin Guangyao shakes his head weakly, squeezing his eyes shut. He hears Lan Xichen’s voice, sharper than usual and recriminating, “Jin-er-gongzi, do not throw around such accusations so lightly! I am sure this was just a terrible accident.”

“Accident?? You’ve got to be shitting me, you’re saying you think he just fell down the stairs by accident?” Jin Zixun barks a loud, slightly manic laugh. “No way! That little freak killed him!”

“Were you there, Jin-er-gongzi? Did you see it happen?”

“Well, I…”

“If you have no evidence you cannot accuse him.”

Jin Guangyao squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He feels untethered from his body, numb, far away. He can hear talking, whispers, all around him. There must be a crowd. He… he ought to be concerned about that, oughtn’t he?

“Ha! Our sect leader, my uncle, is dead, and this bastard son of a whore is here standing over him! I’ll accuse him all I like, this is none of your business, Zewu-jun-”

“I saw it. I saw the whole thing.”

The voice is different. Feminine. Jin-shao-furen? He opens his eyes and sees her, a small figure in pinks and golds with a bundle clutched to her chest. As she moves closer he sees how calm she looks, how resolute, her pale face lit perfectly in the low winter morning sun, the baby in her arms only accentuating her sweet, guileless visage.

“Jin-shao-furen,” Lan Xichen says, “Please, will you tell us what you saw?”

Jin Guangyao ought to be afraid (ought to be terrified) because if Jiang Yanli tells everyone what she saw then she will be telling them that he killed his father — whether he pushed him or kicked him, no matter that he does not remember, he knows deep in his bones that he killed his father.

But he feels nothing but empty numbness.

“I was standing on the upper landing. A-Cheng had gone into the city at first light to pick up some lotus, so that I could make soup for lunch — with there being rumours that Chifeng-zun was poisoned yesterday, I did not wish to risk using potentially contaminated ingredients — and I was waiting for him to return. I saw Jin-zongzhu and Lianfang-zun talking at the top of the stairs. They were too far for me to hear, but I saw everything.”

Jiang Yanli turns towards him, as slow and inevitable as the tide.

“Jin-zongzhu must have still been drunk from last night’s feasting, as he was swaying quite considerably. Something made him agitated, and he began to pace up and down at the top of the stairs,” she looks around at those assembled, meeting each person’s eyes one by one, “and then his foot caught on the hem of his robes, and he tripped down the stairs.”

Tripped? Jin Guangshan was drunk, yes, but not so badly that he would trip down his own tower’s stairs. That’s a lie.

Jiang Yanli saw what happened. Jiang Yanli saw him kill his father.

And Jiang Yanli has lied to protect him.

Why?

He’s vaguely aware of people moving around him. There’s a crowd and they’re speaking, but their voices blur together and he can’t follow what they’re saying. All he can do is watch as Jiang Yanli is ushered away, and listen to the one thought that can make it through the static in his mind.

Why?

He is coaxed up back onto his feet, and gently led away himself, back into the corridors of Jinlintai. It must be Lan Xichen, no one else touches him with such care.

Well. Almost no one.

He blinks, and he’s being eased down to sit on a bed — his bed, he’s fairly sure. A blanket is being draped over his shoulders and tucked around him. A face is in front of him, and when he blinks again it becomes Lan Xichen’s face. He’s pressing a cup of tea into Jin Guangyao’s hands, and his fingers reflexively close around it.

“Drink your tea,” Lan Xichen is saying, “you’ve had a terrible shock, but you’re going to be alright.”

Mechanically, Jin Guangyao raises the cup to his lips. He cannot taste anything but he feels the heat of the drink go down his throat and begin to seep into his body. He hadn’t realised he was cold, though he must have been, to feel the heat so keenly.

The cup in his hands is being gently prised out from between his fingers, his hat is being carefully eased off his head, and he is being gently pressed to lie down.

“Sleep, A-Yao,” Lan Xichen says, “I will come and check on you later.”

There’s really nothing for it but to obey, at least as far as lying down. That sounds sort of nice, actually; the world has gone a bit…strange around the edges, and lying down staring at the relatively blank canvas of the ceiling sounds like a better prospect than watching his few things in his room sway ever so slightly, not so different from the gentle rocking of a boat.

Sleep is far from possible, however. He will simply have to disappoint Lan Xichen.

That thought, of all things, leaves his eyes burning and his throat thick. The ceiling warbles and he must still be cold because his vision clears and the pair of tears that slip free of the corners of his eyes leave burning-hot tracks down his temples before they become lost in his hair. His next inhale is a gasp that shivers in his chest, humiliatingly pathetic even in the privacy of his own room, if Jinlintai has ever heard of such a thing as privacy.

Er-ge is going to be so disappointed in him. Er-ge is going to find the truth eventually, he will, he must, and when he does he’ll leave. Jiang Yanli lied for him, and with the strength of her reputation and the favor of Jin-furen it might even be enough for people to believe her — or at least express their doubts far away from any of her many supporters. He isn’t foolish enough to believe it will absolve him. His reputation is not yet so high, his origins not yet outweighed by his own hard work, that he can survive a scandal like this.

He gasps again, lightheaded, and struggles not to act on the panic tightening his chest.

Da-ge is going to despise him.

Whatever support his sworn brothers might be able to offer, whatever the strength of their reputations may add to his, it will only work if they actually support him. Nie Mingjue will never support this. He doesn’t even know if he’s been forgiven for the things that had driven the wedge between them in the first place, certainly patricide will only drive it so wide that they never come together again.

And Lan Xichen will go with Nie Mingjue, and they will leave him behind, and everything he’s done, everything he’s worked for, will have been for nothing.

Jin Guangyao closes his eyes against the beams of morning light beginning to creep across the wood and he presses his lips together in a weak attempt to prevent the sobs he can feel coming like a tidal wave. What is he to do?

What can he possibly do?

He is no closer to either an answer or to sleeping to avoid having to continue searching for the answer when he hears the careful rap-rap-rapping of a knuckle on the door. He is in absolutely no position to field any queries or handle any ‘emergency’ from the servants of the sort that he typically handles, and so he stays silent, trembling with the force of doing so.

The door slides open and Jin Guangyao flinches upright, his heart in his throat and hand darting down to the gutting knife hidden between the lining layers of his boot.

“Sorry-” the intruder stops in his tracks, hands half-raised in surrender, and Jin Guangyao takes a few beats too long to realise who it is who feels so entitled to come into his room uninvited. It’s really just Nie Mingjue’s good luck that he’s one of two people in the entire world whom Jin Guangyao can forgive for such a trespass.

Jin Guangyao’s voice is a tear-thick croak as he asks, “Da-ge? What are you… what’s wrong?”

Nie Mingjue stares at him like he might be insane and that’s… alright, yes, that’s probably fair.

“I feel like I probably shouldn’t answer that question.”

The unspoken, ‘What’s wrong is that your father is lying crumpled up in a bloody heap at the bottom of his own stairs and it’s all your fault and good people are lying for you to cover it up’ sits heavy in the air for a long moment. Jin Guangyao spends that moment attempting to get himself under control, but by the time Nie Mingjue has shut the door behind him and activated a privacy array he still feels like he’s one breath away from shattering into a million little pieces, destined to be scattered at the whims of the wind.

Nie Mingjue approaches him not unlike one would an injured animal, slow and with his hands visible, held out a little where he’s keeping them low at his sides. Jin Guangyao watches his approach with a wary eye. He doesn’t… look furious. He doesn’t look two seconds away from running him through with Baxia. He doesn’t even seem to have Baxia with him, which is… noteworthy, even through the mush that his brain has become. Nie Mingjue without his saber in the middle of Jinlintai the day after he’d been clearly poisoned, almost to death? The world might be ending. Jin Guangyao’s world certainly feels like it is.

“It’s alright, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue murmurs when he’s close enough to be heard, and he kneels beside the low bed to look up at him, and he cautiously lifts his hands to take one of Jin Guangyao’s between them both. Jin Guangyao stares down at their joined hands and maybe, sort of, hyperventilates. It’s not alright. Nothing is alright. Nie Mingjue is touching him, Nie Mingjue isn’t screaming at him or trying to punish him, Nie Mingjue doesn’t know.

Nie Mingjue is going to have twice as many reasons to spit on his grave if he believes Jin Guangyao has not only killed again but had, once again, attempted to lie about it to save himself. (It’s different, he tells himself, only it’s not really, and certainly Nie Mingjue’s worldview is strictly black and white at best; there is simply no chance of him sitting still and quiet long enough for Jin Guangyao to even begin to articulate how they got here, and that’s always the problem isn’t it? Nie Mingjue has the luxury of imposing his will on the rest of the world and damn anyone who doesn’t meet his standards no matter how disjointed from reality some of them are, as a man who has never been small or weak or tainted simply by existing-)

“A-Yao-” Nie Mingjue calls probably not for the first time, rattling Jin Guangyao’s hand between his own like a pair of dice and Jin Guangyao startles, eyes snapping up to meet his surprisingly calm, if slightly concerned, gaze.

“Da-ge?”

“What do you need? I know this is a… difficult time… for you. What can I do to-”

“I killed him.”

Nie Mingjue stops short. Jin Guangyao is fairly certain he’d vomit if he could force himself to actually move instead of freezing in place in wide-eyed horror.

He hadn’t meant to say that. Certainly that was not the answer Nie Mingjue was looking for, he can recognize that even through the way he feels very much like he’s not even in his body, let alone in control of it. (It is not a sensation he enjoys.)

“You… killed him.”

The argument is there on the tip of his tongue. Yes he just said it but there’s still time to laugh it off. There’s time to twist it into something else. He could have killed anyone! He didn’t kill his own father! He doesn’t even remember what happened! It’s just a gut feeling!!!!

The only faster way to die at Nie Mingjue’s hands than to admit to murder is to lie to him, so when he opens his mouth his entirely-too-robust self-preservation instinct pushes him towards the lesser of two evils.

“I- I- he was… the things he said to me, the things he wanted me to do-” Jin Guangyao presses his free hand over his eyes and only notices that he’s clutching Nie Mingjue’s fingers with all the force of his desperation to be understood when Nie Mingjue carefully readjusts his hand so that Jin Guangyao is at least not smashing his knuckles against each other quite so hard.

‘… put your tendencies to good use,’ he’d said. Fresh bile rises up the back of Jin Guangyao’s throat but he manages to speak again instead of vomiting. “He wanted to whore me out,” he spits and Nie Mingjue flinches, though he still doesn’t let go. “He knew, and he said-he said… a-niang was pathetic. He didn’t even think of her enough to hate her and she loved him-” it comes out as a sob and he barely notices as Nie Mingjue lifts the hand he isn’t strangling to swipe a thumb against his cheek, brushing away a tear “-and he said I was no better, just- just a whore like her so I should be used as one —”

Jin Guangyao stops to suck in a deep breath and he squeezes his eyes shut so he can’t see if Nie Mingjue believes him or not; if it’s enough of an excuse to escape his justice. Nie Mingjue doesn’t not see in shades of gray. This is the man who told him that the solution to all of his problems in Qinghe was to work so hard he would be above reproach, but now does he see? There is no one in this world who would look at his work and think it anything other than the pathetic son of a prostitute grasping so far above his destined station in life as to be deserving of hatred and ridicule for even trying, and can’t he see?!

“He wanted me to kill you in your bed. He wanted me to fuck you and then finish what he started, and then he wanted to use my body for- for political gain-”

Nie Mingjue’s voice is biting as he finally interrupts the stream of word vomit with, “What he started?”

There’s anger there and Jin Guangyao flinches from it even as he clutches harder at Nie Mingjue’s hand as if he can squeeze understanding into him, as if he can just hold on tightly enough for Nie Mingjue to miraculously forgive him his crimes simply because he’ll get it now, why Jin Guangyao must do anything to maintain what small amount of respect he’s fought tooth and nail to win.

“He had you poisoned, and I was supposed to... I was supposed to let you die since I hadn’t killed you yet myself. He got tired of waiting.”

Nie Mingjue takes a deep, slow breath in, and as he exhales again Jin Guangyao watches him set the worst of his anger aside, and even through the haze of his panic he finds a way to be so proud of what Nie Mingjue can do now because of Lan Xichen. Because of him.

“We’ll... we can come back to that… later,” he says through his teeth. “And we will, you mark my words. But did he say anything else?”

Jin Guangyao’s chin trembles as he tries to keep from sobbing. His perfect memory has been a helpful boon for so long that he’d nearly forgotten that it can be a knife as well. Jin Guangshan’s sneers and the way he’d nearly spat his virulent dismissal of Meng Shi are burned forever into his mind; he can’t help but relive them in crystal-clear detail, and he loses the battle with his tears as the only thing he can think to say is, “She thought he loved her enough that he would love me.”

The world wobbles again but then rights itself, finally, as he’s tugged right off the bed and into Nie Mingjue’s steady embrace. He exhales sharply in relief as he finally feels like he’s on solid ground again, no longer adrift in a little boat about to capsize. Nie Mingjue presses a hand to the back of his head and carefully untangles his fingers from Jin Guangyao’s slackening grip to wrap that arm around his waist, and if Nie Mingjue wants to kill him now would be the time. Jin Guangyao almost hopes, in a twisted way, that Nie Mingjue really will kill him this time. Maybe it would be a mercy, to die swiftly before he can learn just how far he’s fallen, before he can feel the hatred of anyone except the first powerful man to show him kindness and respect in this life. He could do it so easily like this, take the blade out of Jin Guangyao’s boot and plunge it into his back under the guise of comforting him.

Nie Mingjue kisses his temple and Jin Guangyao curls up tighter in the vain hope that he can become small enough to climb inside Nie Mingjue’s robes, tuck himself into all the empty spaces of him and live there forever. Nie Mingjue shifts to allow it, readjusting his hold and sitting down properly instead of kneeling to let Jin Guangyao settle in his lap while he tries to get himself under some semblance of control again.

Will Nie Mingjue accuse him of manipulation? He doesn’t want to be a sobbing mess on the floor of his own room, but now that he’s there he can’t just stop. It would seem that talking about it — reliving it — was a blunt enough instrument to bash right through the shock protecting him from the worst of it all, and though there is still a (mercifully) blank gap in his mind between Jin Guangshan’s gloating and the crumpled ball of silk and shattered bones he’d made at the base of the steps, the rest of it is as clear in his mind’s eye as if he were right there at the top of the steps all over again.

He tries to focus on his immediate surroundings instead; Nie Mingjue’s arms are a grounding weight, squeezing him tightly and holding him together when by all rights he feels like he should be flying apart. He still smells like Qinghe despite having been in Jinlintai for a day, leather polish and sun-baked dust under the lighter, floral fragrance of Jinlintai’s soaps from his bath last night. His breathing is even and regular, his heartbeat equally so under Jin Guangyao’s cheek, and Jin Guangyao finally manages to slow down his own breathing when he tries to match it.

“Good, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue murmurs against his hair. He strokes a hand slowly down Jin Guangyao’s back and presses another kiss to his temple. It’s a strange way to kill him but it still feels a little like he’s dying, so perhaps it’s some sort of… mental game to toy with him, make him let down his guard before the final strike. He wants to ask if that’s the case. He wants to tell Nie Mingjue, not for the first time, that if he wants to kill him then Jin Guangyao will die without any regret for having known him.

Nie Mingjue holds him tighter, sighs, rests his chin on top of his head, and says, “For what it’s worth, I love you.”

Jin Guangyao blinks.

Blinks.

He inhales, lips parted, and can think of absolutely nothing to say to that.

Nie Mingjue… loves him?

That can’t… that isn’t right. He’s hallucinating. He’s been approaching his breaking point for weeks — months. He’s finally reached it. He’s in shock. That’s not something people just say, and certainly not Nie Mingjue.

He leans back just enough to look up at Nie Mingjue and he looks… normal. Perhaps ever-so-slightly flushed. Perhaps a little apologetic.

He certainly doesn’t look angry, or murderous, or like he was joking. He does have a sense of humor, on very good and very rare days, but that isn’t the sort of joke he would make even then.

“I mean it,” he says, and quite frankly just the proof that he did actually just say that is comforting in its own weird way. “I love you. I know… you wanted your father to recognize you. And I’m not that. It’s not the same, I know. But… I was thinking about it. Last night, and this morning. And I love you.”

Jin Guangyao finally finds the right combination of muscles to say actual, human words. “Yes you… so you’ve said. Three times.”

Nie Mingjue shrugs.

He shrugs.

Like it barely even matters, like it’s just a thing to say, because he’s an absolute ass-

“I think it’s important information for you to have. It… could maybe change a few things, don’t you think? Maybe it should, and we should probably talk about it with A-Huan too. He deserves… more than what I’ve been able to give him before.”

Jin Guangyao stops mentally kicking and biting the man currently holding him and gnaws on that thought instead, a dog with a bone he absolutely cannot drop in favor of thinking about anything else or he really is going to lose his mind. This is far too much information for one day; this is the strangest day, and that’s quite impressive considering the sheer volume of wildly strange days he’s had of late (many of them also thanks to Nie Mingjue, coincidentally).

“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” Nie Mingjue allows (nice of him, the very large, sardonic side of him snorts), “but that’s where I am. You and A-Huan are… vitally important to me. I just wanted you to know.”

There is not a single thing that could have possibly prepared Jin Guangyao to hear such things at all today, let alone from Nie Mingjue. He’d have thought — if pressed to imagine being confessed to on what is objectively one of the worst days of his life — that if anyone could ever one day admit to having tender feelings for him it would be Lan Xichen. Surely the only person mad enough to love him and mean it with his whole heart would be Lan Xichen, who’s already come so painfully close to saying it and is possibly even now learning the truth of what happened, but who Jin Guangyao is certain will still find it in his heart to defend him until he can ask for the truth from Jin Guangyao himself. He may even now be lying on his behalf again to cover for what he’s done, protecting him to the detriment of his own moral values, the teachings of his clan, and in doing so taking advantage of the well-earned trust the entire world has in him and his reputation, including Nie Mingjue —

“I think er-ge is lying about fuqin for me.” Hardly the love confession he should probably offer Nie Mingjue in return after all of that, but considering a confession of his own is entirely out of the question at the moment and Lan Xichen’s unassailable reputation is far more important, it’s certainly the more urgent matter to address. In the moment of Nie Mingjue’s silence, likely trying to figure out how he got there from ‘I love you and I think that changes our situation’, he adds, “Jin-shao-furen certainly is as well. She told them all he tripped.”

Nie Mingjue does the thing again where he takes a deep breath in, holds it, and exhales slowly with the air of a man tabling his anger to be addressed later. Jin Guangyao, against his better judgment, curls a little closer and nearly devolves into sobbing again for some reason when Nie Mingjue shifts his arms to hold him tighter.

“You’re certain they’re lying?”

Jin Guangyao nods, his cheek smushed and sliding against smooth grey silk, but then shakes his head no. He isn’t certain, it all still feels like such a blur and he can’t even begin to hope to put forth the effort to try to figure out why Jiang Yanli would do such a thing for him, but… he hasn’t been dragged down to the dungeons yet despite how much he’s sure Jin Zixun would like to see it done. Someone is lying to buy him some time, and Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli are the only two with the authority to do it.

“I don’t know,” he finally makes himself whisper, miserable and exhausted and shivering through the adrenaline crash that’s finally catching up to him. “Nothing makes any sense anymore.”

Nie Mingjue sighs as he ducks down to press a firm kiss to the top of his head, then a second one for good measure. Jin Guangyao blinks and tries to figure out whether he wants to beg for more or beg for Nie Mingjue to give him time and space to breathe so he can attempt to make sense of all of this along with… everything else.

It turns out he doesn’t have to decide.

“You should get some sleep, A-Yao. A-Huan sent me in here to make sure you were resting.”

Jin Guangyao clenches his teeth so hard he accidentally bites his tongue rather than blurting out the incredulous, ‘So you decided that meant telling me you love me?!’ that instinct would have him shout.

What he actually says is, “Alright,” because he can’t think of anything better. Nie Mingjue kisses him again and then stands up without any visible effort, Jin Guangyao still cradled carefully in his hold for a moment before Nie Mingjue helps him stand under his own power. He’s glad for Nie Mingjue’s hands under his elbows as his knees shake for a moment before he gets himself under control enough to stand, and he offers Nie Mingjue what he hopes is a reassuring nod. Dredging up one of his usual smiles is not really in the realm of current possibility, but Nie Mingjue doesn’t like his placating smiles anyway so it doesn’t matter.

He stays still and lets Nie Mingjue duck down for a moment to look him in the eye, assessing, and breathes a sigh of relief when Nie Mingjue finally nods back at him.

“You’ll be alright, A-Yao. We… we have time, just sleep for now alright? Let A-Huan and I handle things. I’ll figure out what he knows and just go from there. Alright?”

Not in the least.

“Alright.”

Nie Mingjue cups his face in both hands for a moment and Jin Guangyao wonders if he’s going to kiss him again, but all he does is meet his eyes for one more moment, press his palms a little tighter against his jaw in a way that’s strangely grounding, and then turn to go with the quiet clack of the door sliding home behind him.

Jin Guangyao stares at the simple geometry of paper-and-wood for a long time, standing in the middle of his room feeling somehow more lost than ever but unable to settle his mind on any one thought, any one problem to work through to a solution. There are simply too many, and all of them too strange, that he finally decides that perhaps his sworn brothers have the right idea.

He lies down again and somehow, eventually, manages to let sleep drag him under.

|NEXT|

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #The Waves are Rising and Rising #Jin Guangyao #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen

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i-will-cry-you-a-river · 7 months

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Lan Xichen jumped off Shuoyue, trying to get down where he had seen the flash of gray amongst the green forest as soon as possible.

"Nie Huaisang?" The younger Sect Leader was curled up, breathing heavily like he had been the one fighting off the yao instead of Lan Xichen. He whined, and Lan Xichen dropped onto his knees to gather him in his hands.

How could he let this happen to A-Sang?!

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," Nie Huaisang whined, folding into himself as if he wanted to take the least amount of space he could.

"No, no, it wasn't your fault! I should have paid more attention to you!" He pulled the younger cultivator closer, warming up his almost frozen body.

"I can't do anything right," Nie Huaisang sobbed. "I'm sorry, I ruined- I'm not worthy- I... I'm sorry!" The young man in his arms looked so pale, so distressed, it broke Lan Xichen's heart.

"What? No! A-Sang, you are so good! It is my fault for not paying more attention to you! It is my fault that I took you here instead of staying in your room as I promised you!"

"You don't mean that," Huaisang sobbed, "I don't deserve you, I don't deserve to be a Sect Leader, I don't deserve anything good! I always mess up everything! Da-ge's right, I'm not good enough. I'll never be good enough!" He tried to move, he tried to hide, but Lan Xichen didn't let him go. There was no way he could let him go.

"A-Sang," the Lan Sect Leader whispered, heartbroken and desperate. How could he think like this?! Nie Huaisang was so precious, so lovely and the only person the Nie Clan would ever accept as their Sect Leader after Nie Mingjue. He was loved and adored and they - all of them - did something very wrong if he thought otherwise.

"Nobody wants me, nobody even likes me," he muttered, miserable.

Lan Xichen was shocked. He never- nobody who knew A-Sang and wasn't jealous of him ever thought of him as unlikable. He had some difficulties with accepting his new role after Nie Mingjue's sudden death, sure, but he was so good! He knew when he needed support, and he helped his people so much! Knowing how to delegate was an important part of being a leader, and even if he couldn't handle things himself, he chose the right people to do in his stead.

He was liked. He was loved. He was wanted.

"No, A-Sang, that's so not true!" He slipped an arm around Nie Huaisang, ready to carry him home. "You are loved. You are loved so much, and I'm here to tell you. Always. I've got you," he murmured into A-Sang's ear. The younger cultivator was whimpering, eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids, and Lan Xichen was afraid that the gas the monster spewed affected Nie Huaisang more than "just" bringing forward his fears.

"'m not...," the Nie mumbled, his bottom lip trembling, tears sliding down his cheeks. Lan Xichen wanted to kiss them away, he wanted to give the world to Nie Huaisang, but first, he had to take them home, safely.

Standing up with his precious cargo in his arms, protected and loved, he said, "You are so good! This is only the monster's power talking. You are loved and I will do anything in my power to show it to you how much people care for you."

The fierce protectiveness he felt towards Nie Huaisang was nothing new. He adored him ever since the first time he saw the tiny little boy with huge eyes peeking out from behind his much bigger Da-ge, so cute and curious. He loved him since the first time A-Sang dragged him to his aviary, showing him all the pretty birds he patiently cared for. He had been in love with him since his first time in Cloud Recesses, where he had been so lively and mischievous, always getting up to no good, yet always managing to avert the attention from himself. He had been protective over him ever since they were children, and he knew it was never going to change. Not his want to protect him, nor his need to make sure nothing and nobody could ever hurt him.

He softly crooned as Shuoyue flew them towards the Unclean Realm, until the sobbing stopped and Nie Huaisang's breathing evened out. It didn't take long to reach the fortress, Lan Xichen hurrying to make sure his beloved was safe amongst his people, warm and comfortable in his room.

"I have you. No one can hurt you, not anymore. I will protect you, I will keep you safe," he promised to the sleeping man, his fingers tightening on the slack body.

"L'Huan..." Nie Huaisang mumbled his name as they finally arrived to Nie Huaisang's room with the help of the worried Nie disciplines who made sure they would get to there uninterrupted, trusting that Lan Xichen would protect their leader.

"Sssh," he shushed the sleeping man, "I'm here."

"Don't leave me," he whined, his slender, yet strong arms dragging Lan Xichen down into the bed, so he could cuddle up to him, while still sleeping. "Love you. Please, don't leave me alone. I'm so lonely."

The confession broke something in Lan Xichen. He stared at him for a while, his previously abandoned wishes and ideas came back with tripled force, knowing that what he was going to do was selfish, but he didn't care. He only cared about Nie Huaisang. And if he wanted Lan Xichen to stay with him? He would stay with him.

"I love you too, A-Sang. I love you and I'm not leaving you. Never again."

#nie huaisang #lan xichen #xisang #xisangweek2023 #fear toxin #mdzs

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allthelittlecreepycrawlies · 4 months

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With A Flap of Wings, Part 4

With his cousins making sure his little sister doesn't get nosy and his parents and aunts occupied talking about some urgent thing or another that may or may not be related to their ghost, the only difficulty Nie Mingjue has sneaking out is getting past the guards. But he manages, and sets off for the family tombs just after moonrise.

Their ghost –his brother– is right in the same spot as before, kneeling in front of the huge stone doors as if sent there as punishment.

The moonlight washes so much color out of him that he looks like an ink drawing come to life.

Nie Mingjue has to take a few moments to run through a quick breathing exercise and pull himself together before he leaves the trees behind and approaches.

Up close, the first thing that strikes him is how worn his brother looks.

The pale green eyes that are the only color on him are made even more prominent by the dark circles under them. His mouth is a tense slash across his face, and the whole line of his body is bowed by grief and exhaustion.

Nie Mingjue has seen cultivators come home from night hunts that ended in horribly violent failure who still had more energy to them.

It only adds to the questions buzzing in his brain, but... First thing first.

"Didi?"

Nie Huaisang jerks as if Nie Mingjue had backhanded him across the face, turning his head away as he hunches in on himself.

The air between them twists and, seized by the sudden fear that his brother will simply vanish, Nie Mingjue lunges forward without thinking-

-and his hand meets solid cloth where it should have simply whiffed through air.

They both stare at where he is clutching his brother's robes. He can still see right through to the ground underneath, as if looking through steam or smoke, and yet-

He takes a deep breath, then lets go and shifts to reach out instead towards-

His brother flinches away before he can touch his face. His hair hides his expression, but this time Nie Mingjue can decipher the emotions that churn in the space between them.

Fear.

Shame.

His chest tightens and he swallows past the lump forming in his throat, then he carefully lowers himself to sit across from his brother.

"Tell me-" he starts, then has to stop for a moment. "Tell me," he says again once he has recovered. "What were we like?"

Nie Huaisang doesn't respond, head still turned away and bright eyes closed as if in pain.

Nie Mingjue takes hold of his hands, then tightens his grip in an attempt at reassurance when his brother flinches. "Didi... please."

Nie Huaisang still does not speak, but Nie Mingjue once again feels the bond between them open. Unlike the flood from before, the feelings flow between them now in what he recognizes is a passage of years.

Affection. Annoyance. A dozen other emotions gently moving in currents and eddies that are perfectly normal for brothers growing up together.

There are... he can only describe them as rocks in the stream, sudden bursts of sadness or pain or fear or worry that he instinctively recognizes as things like losing people around them, close to them, but for the most part the flow remains steady even as it winds and curves around what must have been important, stressful, even daunting events.

Until the stream suddenly becomes rapids.

Nie Mingjue inhales sharply at the confusing change. Where there had been occasional exasperation on his shore, there is now anger; where there had sometimes been frustration on his brother's, there is now resentment.

What- what had-

The seething roil reaches a waterfall of rage on his side and terror on his brother's, and when it crashes at the bottom in a mix of fearworryregretguiltlovepain-

-only his brother is left.

"I died?" Nie Mingjue asks in a soft wheeze, a little breathless from how much tighter the feeling in his chest has wound itself. "No... I was killed. And I hurt you as it happened."

He swallows hard, trying to fully process that.

It was impossible for him to tell how old he would have been during specific moments in the flow, but... it had felt so short. He couldn't have been even as old as their father was now.

Still recovering from that revelation, he almost misses when the stream begins again, it’s such a tiny trickle of emotion..

Guilt. Longing. Anguish.

A deep, gut-wrenching mix of Regret and Loneliness.

And then Shock that gives way to Anger. Fear and Determination. A sense of waiting for something. Something big. Waiting for... for...

Revenge.

Nie Mingjue involuntarily shudders at the sheer depth of the feeling but gamely hangs on to his brother’s hands, feeling like he owes it to him to reach the end of the river.

There is a brief wave of Anticipation and then-

-Emptiness.

If the moment of Satisfaction had come, it had passed by so quickly that he hadn't caught it. Instead, he finds himself metaphorically looking at an open, flat, lifeless sea. Small waves of Determination, a desire to fix something in particular swell up, but are quickly smoothed back into Nothing by Failure and Despair.

Until that's all there is.

Nothing.

When Nie Mingjue opens his eyes again, there are silent tears trickling down his brother's face, and his own eyes are wet as well.

Nie Huaisang starts to pull his hands away, but Nie Mingjue refuses to let go. Unable to spit out the words that bubble up in the back of his throat, he instead jerks the surprised ghost of his brother into his arms and holds on tight, heedless of the fact that it still shouldn't be possible to do so.

–As his sons meet for the first time in this life, Nie Haoran drafts a letter to send to Qishan. He still hasn't figured out what to make of Wen Ruohan's strange demand for a visit, but he apologizes that he won't be able to make the trip.

Seeing no reason to lie to his old friend, he writes that by some circumstance that they don't yet have an explanation for, their second son has been returned to them as a spirit… possibly a spirit of protection, given what they do know so far, and that this revelation takes priority.

He has no idea that this letter will save his life.–

#mdzs #nie sect #nie family #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #papa nie #fanfic #with a flap of wings

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just-another-oikawa-kinnie · 8 months

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I was watching some Yuri On Ice and I started thinking about how much Victor actually reminds me of Lan Xichen! Imagine a modern au where the Lans are ice skating prodigies and the Nie are hockey stars.

Meng Yao’s mother had a short-lived skating career where hockey legend (🤢🤮) Jin Guangshan preys on her and leaves her pregnant and with a ruined career. Meng yao tried to join the Jin hockey teams but was refused and shamed, eventually coming to Nie Mingjue’s hockey place by complete accident and making his way up the ranks until he’s a starter on the Nie team.

Of course, this bliss couldn't last as their rival team, the Wens, sent Xue Yang to trip up NMJ and end his career. Meng Yao sees this and takes the hit instead, being sent right back to the bottom because of the injury. He breaks from the humiliation and messes with the skates of one of the Nie starters who'd always fucked with him, but gets caught out by a distressed and heartbroken NMJ who sends him away.

Meng Yao is devastated not only from his injury but even more so his now fucked relationship with NMJ. He meets LXC while he's trying to retrain his body at a rink in his hometown of Yunping. LXC helps him heal some of his wounds and teaches him figure skating while running from cruel tabloids.

I haven't figured out how the reunion would go but ill probably think of something, definitely 3zun endgame though

What do you think? Fic worthy? 🤔

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motivationisdead · 2 years

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I swear the more I think about 3zun the more unsettled I am about their sworn brotherhood and how it worked.

Like, have you ever noticed that while Lan Xichen takes Jin Guangyao’s words over Nie Mingjue’s he also consistently places Nie Mingjue’s general wellbeing over Jin Guangyao’s? Seeming to brush aside the harm (and multiple murder attempts) Nie Mingjue commits towards Jin Guangyao.

And not to discount what Jin Guangyao has done but if you look at this purely from Lan Xichen’s perspective then Lan Xichen literally walks in on and has to stop Nie Mingjue from murdering Jin Guangyao on two separate occasions:

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Even in the end, the saber couldn’t fall on him. Baxia unsheathed. Nie MingJue walked away and never turned around.

- Chapter 49 of the EXR Translation

If Lan Xichen hadn’t interfered here Jin Guangyao would literally be dead.

And can’t forget:

Lan XiChen, “Brother, sheath your saber first—your mind is in turmoil!”

Nie MingJue, “I am not. I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

Lan XiChen jolted in surprise, “Brother, what are you talking about? These past few days he has constantly been rushing to and fro between Lanling and Qinghe. Is it only in exchange for your comment that he is beyond hope?”

- Chapter 49 of the EXR Translation

Verbally Lan Xichen is taking Jin Guangyao’s side but in practice Lan Xichen sees Jin Guangyao being assaulted and somehow doesn’t come to the conclusion that the two need to be as far apart as possible for Jin Guangyao’s own safety. In fact even after Lan Xichen sees this he still lets Jin Guangyao go to the Unclean Realm to play Clarity instead of assigning someone else.

Now our perspective is limited to Nie Mingjue so Lan Xichen could have tried to talk Jin Guangyao out of going but we’re also given no reason to think he did because the next conversation we get between Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen is this:

Lan XiChen, “Since Brother chose to make the oath with you, it means that he has indeed approved of you.”

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

Lan XiChen sighed, “His anger was simply too great for him to have thought before speaking. Brother’s temper cannot compare to how it was in the past. You must not provoke him again. These past few days, he has been deeply troubled by the saber spirit, and HuaiSang has argued with him again. They still have not made up yet, even today.”

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis?” …

- Chapter 50 of the EXR Translation

Now we, the audience, know Jin Guangyao is manipulating the situation to his benefit but Lan Xichen doesn’t know that. To him Jin Guangyao is literally just discussing a legitimate concern for his safety and saying that Nie Mingjue is mistreating him. Literally straight up says that and even points out that Lan Xichen has seen it himself.

And still, Lan Xichen isn’t hearing Jin Guangyao’s concerns but rather trying smooth them over. He’s not addressing how to fix the issue, he’s talking around it.

And while Lan Xichen seems to put down the majority of Nie Mingjue’s actions and anger as symptoms of the Nie’s cultivation does that negate the harm Nie Mingjue has done and could do to Jin Guangyao? Jin Guangyao is not a strong enough cultivator to truly defend himself against Nie Mingjue should he lose control as we’ve seen previously. And yet Lan Xichen does not seem to take the very real threat Nie Mingjue poses to Jin Guangyao’s life very seriously.

Even though right after this Nie Mingjue literally tries to kill Jin Guangyao again before losing control and going into Qi Deviation:

Seeing him enter, Jin GuangYao immediately panicked and darted behind Lan XiChen. Standing between the two, Lan XiChen didn’t even have the chance to speak as Nie MingJue lunged with his unsheathed saber. Lan XiChen blocked the attack with his sword, shouting, “Run!”

Jin GuangYao dashed out the door. Nie MingJue shook Lan XiChen off, “Don’t get in my way!”

He chased outside as well. As he passed a long corridor, he suddenly saw Jin GuangYao stroll toward him. He slashed with his saber and blood splattered out within an instant. But Jin GuangYao had clearly been running for his life. How could he have been walking back with such leisure?

- Chapter 50 of the EXR Translation

I… truly am at a loss. There was no way for Lan Xichen to be oblivious to how serious this was.

Like how on earth was Lan Xichen surprised when he learned one of his sworn brothers had killed the other? I’m only surprised it took one of them so long.

#mdzs novel #quotes #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #toxic relationships #their brotherhood is so bad #and seems to get worse at every angle you look at it

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ao3feed-xicheng · 2 months

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KINTSUGI

by mirage98 Jiang Cheng's life shattered completely when Lan Xichen broke up with him over a misunderstanding, without even once listening to him. He went to China to live with his mother and nurse his heartbreak into anger. Almost two years later, when the misunderstanding has cleared up, he is forced to come back to USA to plan and attend his brother's wedding to Lan Xichen's brother, Lan Wangji. Jiang Cheng is determined to evade every attempt at reconciliation from Lan Xichen. And Lan Xichen is determined to win back the love of his life before he leaves the country again. Nothing could go wrong, right? Words: 735, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: F/M, M/M Characters: Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan, Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Lan Qiren, Jin Ling | Jin Rulan, Jiang Fengmian, Yu Ziyuan, Mo Xuanyu Relationships: Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin/Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli/Jin Zixuan, Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin & Jiang Yanli & Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin & Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen & Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, Post-Break Up, Musician Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Cute Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín Needs a Hug, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín Needs Love, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín-centric, Bottom Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin/Top Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Back Together, Reconciliation, Established Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Wedding Planning, Men Crying, Childhood Sweethearts, Memories, Misunderstandings, Evil Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Makeover, YouTuber Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin, Actor Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Musician Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Supportive Niè Míngjué, Falling In Love, Starting Over via https://ift.tt/JYkLpUD

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #xicheng #jiang cheng #lan xichen #mdzs #cql

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lansplaining · 1 year

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One other thing: Guangyao & Mingjue meaning bright jade do parallel the twin jades (Chifeng-Sun & Lianfang-zun sound similar to Hanguang-Jun & Zewu-Jun) & their relationship does parallel NMJ’s & NHS, which highlights the kinship ties afforded by their sworn brotherhood. But nieyao also parallels Meng Shi & JGS. JGY resembles Meng Shi, & her face is mistaken for his. NMJ comes looking for JGY when JGS never came back for Meng Shi, but ends up kicking him down the stairs in the same way he did.

...I didn't share this one initially because I admit I don't have a lot to say. I think you're just wrong.

The point about the Twin Jades wasn't me, first of all, it was this post (not tagging just in case you don't want to be dragged into the discussion haha). I don't hear the aural similarities between the four titles, but I don't speak Chinese so there's probably something I'm missing.

I am so sorry for this but you have unlocked the English teacher-- you've started to make a point, but what actually happens when you try to push it a step farther? Okay, Jin Guangyao looks like his mother, that's something that gets a lot of attention in the story, so it probably does carry some importance. There are two parallel stair kicks, that's definitely interesting, there is probably some shared meaning there as well, a line we're supposed to draw between these two events and the participants in them.

But NMJ looking for JGY is the inverse of Jin Guangshan not looking for Meng Shi? Because they look alike? Even if we accept that for some reason that's a parallel MXTX is trying to draw... why? What does it mean? They are definitely two pole figures in JGY's life, two powerful men who abuse and torment him in different ways, but we don't need nieyao to be paralleled to JGS and Meng Shi to know that. Jin Guangshan is a careless, selfish person who had an affair with a sex worker and then immediately lost interest in her. How does Nie Mingjue occupy a parallel position in JGY's life? Is the implication that NMJ used and abused JGY, but because he... looked for him... and, idk, wouldn't forget about him whereas JGS said "just forget it" about him, that's... the opposite but in a way that's equally damaging for JGY and makes him equally miserable...? I'm honestly struggling to construct even an imaginary argument here. Parallels don't just exist for the sake of existing, and it isn't enough to just point out a similarity between two things in a book. They have meaning when that similarity carries a deeper thematic purpose.

Let's look at the two stair kicks. They are both attempts to remind JGY of his place. JGY has attempted to rise-- first by trying to claim his birthright, then by doing all the things Nie Mingjue is so angry at him for-- and the people to whom he is appealing kick him down the stairs as a form of humiliation and an attempt to hurt or even kill him. Symbolically, it is stairs because his attempts to rise in the world are being rejected. He wants to be at the top, he is forced back down to the bottom by people who believe that he has no right to rise. This means a couple things: it shows that the people society tells JGY he should be able to rely upon, his father and his sworn brother, will never help him. It also indeed draws a parallel between JGS and NMJ by suggesting that their feelings about JGY are, at the bottom, the same: dismissive disgust. The two events are the exact same rejection twice.

We don't need to add a parallel to Meng Shi in for this to be true-- in fact, that just muddies the water. The parallel is about JGY's repeated betrayals by the men who their society says should help and support him, and who others have told him will care for him. It's an image of repeatedly crashing against the same glass ceiling: a self-protecting elite that will always kick outsiders back to where they 'belong.' This connects in turn to one of the novel's larger themes, which explores how an outsider's place in elite society is always contingent and never safe. The most obvious example of this is Wei Wuxian, who is embraced when his talents are useful and are deployed within socially acceptable boundaries as Jiang Cheng's future subordinate, but is immediately turned on when he begins to transgress society's expectations.

Parallels and comparisons don't just sit there. You need to dig into how they actually interact as story elements with the broader story, and also how they branch out to connect to the story's themes and key ideas.

#ask answered #nieyanon #i am SO sorry

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haunted-radishes · 2 years

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I think...... some people confuse the total annihilation of the He sect and Jin Guangyao blaming a-Song’s death on a sect leader who opposed the watchtowers. But that creates some misconceptions......

From sect leader Yao on a-Song’s death and where the blame landed (chapter 86):

Sect Leader Yao continued, “And the one who killed Jin RuSong just happened to be the sect leader who opposed his construction of the lookout towers—how could there be such a coincidence?” He snorted, “Either way, no matter what, Jin GuangYao didn’t need to keep a son who’d likely turn out to be an idiot. He killed Jin RuSong, framed the sect leader who opposed him, and crusaded against sects that refused to accept him fair and square, in the name of revenge for his son—although it was heartless, it killed two birds with one stone. What tactics, LianFang-Zun!”

Note that he doesn’t say which sect opposed him, or what the punishment was.

Jin Guangyao and He Su talking about the excuse for annihilating the He sect (villainous friends extra):

He Su felt as though a fist had been shoved down his throat. He couldn’t manage a thing. A moment later, he raged, “To wipe out my entire sect without a reason—are you really not scared of being condemned by all?! Are you really not scared of what would happen if ChiFeng-Zun found out?!”

Hearing him mention Nie MingJue, Jin GuangYao raised his brows. Xue Yang laughed so hard he was about to flop over his chair. Jin GuangYao gave him a look before he turned around and replied calmly, “That’s not the way to go about things, is it? The TingshanHe Sect rebelled and schemed to assassinate Sect Leader Jin with all its forces before it was caught red-handed. How could that be called without a reason?”

The ones over their cried, “Brother! He’s lying! We didn’t, we didn’t!”

He Su, “Utterly nonsense! Open your eyes and fucking look! There are nine-year-old children here! Old men who can’t even walk! How could they rebel against anything?! Why would they assassinate your dad out of nowhere?!”

Jin GuangYao, “Because you made a mistake and committed murder, Young Master He Su, while they refused to accept Koi Tower’s conviction of you, of course.”

He Su finally remembered the accusation for which he was transferred to such a creepy place, “It’s all made up! I never killed a cultivator of the LanlingJin Sect! I’ve never even seen the person who died! I don’t even know if he was really a cultivator from your sect! I… I…”

Jin Guangyao explaining the real reason he was annihilating the He sect (earlier in the villainous friends extra):

Jin GuangYao responded with a kind expression, “You don’t have to look at me like that. I also had no choice. To elect a chief cultivator is an irresistible trend. What was the use of stirring up trouble and seeking argument everywhere? I’ve already warned you again and again, yet you were determined not to listen to me. Under these circumstances, things are already beyond redemption. From the bottom of my heart, I, too, feel utmost pain and regret.”

TLDR; we don’t know who opposed the watchtowers and was blamed for a-Song’s death, and we do know that He Su opposed the implementation of the chief cultivator position, and was thus framed for attempting to assassinate Jin Guangshan.

Why is this relevant? Well, first and foremost, it means it’s not a canon detail that Jin Guangyao framed a political opponent for the murder of his son and annihilated their whole clan for it. We can still only make educated guesses about who killed Jin Rusong. Maybe sect leader Yao was right about the “two birds with one stone” situation, maybe Rusong was actually killed by one of his father’s political opponents (which really isn’t a stretch), and Jin Guangyao made the best of it by telling himself “well, now no one will realize that my son is inbred,” maybe it was a different situation entirely. And any guess at how the one who took the blame was punished is pure speculation.

Second, it reinforces that the annihilation of the He sect wasn’t a show of Jin Guangyao’s power, but just another atrocity under the category of “dirty work for my father.”

#jin guangyao #jin rusong

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rosethornewrites · 1 year

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Fic: the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break, ch. 22

Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Secrets, Crying, Masks, Soulmates, Truth, Self-Esteem Issues, Regret, It was supposed to be a one-shot, Fix-It, Eventual Relationships, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, wwx needs a hug, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Filial Piety, Handfasting, Phobias, Sleeping Together, Fear, Panic Attacks, Love Confessions, Getting Together, First Kiss, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Family, and they were married, Bathing/Washing, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Feels, Sex Education, Implied Sexual Content, First Time, Aftercare, Morning After, Afterglow, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Hand Jobs, Chronic Pain, Biting, Conversations, Self-Sacrifice, POV Third Person, POV Lan WangJi, Bugs & Insects, Adoption, Ancestors, Ancestor Veneration, Golden Core Reveal, Top Lan Wangji | Lan Zhan/Bottom Wei Wuxian | Wei Ying, First Time Blow Jobs, Multiple Orgasms, Switching, sex-related injury, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī Stays at the Burial Mounds, Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī is a Wèi, Good Sibling Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Dissociation, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Disability, Scheming Niè Huáisāng

Summary:

Notes: See end.

AO3 link

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

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Lan Wangji only realizes he fell asleep when he wakes to Xiongzhang’s voice softly calling his name from beyond the curtain, his voice edged with a lilt of concern. He eases out from under the blankets, careful not to wake Wei Ying and A-Yuan, and steps out to greet his brother, leaving the curtain open so they can see him if they wake.

Xiongzhang is relaxed, a good sign that the rest of the discussion went well.

“Nie Huaisang roped Wei Qionglin into helping write the poem,” is what his brother opens with. “They’re writing a yuefu using baihua, so the Jin are likely to ignore or dismiss it as some peasant obsession.”

The strategy is brilliant—folk music, particularly that which is written using baihua, is sneered at by the gentry, which would enable it to spread right under their noses, speaking to the common people and possibly even appearing written by common people, which would obfuscate the issue further for the Jin and add to the delay in trying to counter the narrative.

Nie Huaisang is clearly hiding a brilliant mind, to so quickly plan so many steps ahead, and Lan Wangji resolves to never play weiqi with him.

Xiongzhang lays out what occurred after they left, basically a repeat of his own experiences learning of conditions in the work camps, only with the addition of Nie Huaisang being distraught and Nie Mingjue’s fury. Now while Nie Huaisang has roped Wei Ning into writing epic poetry, Wei Qing is taking Nie Mingjue, his second, and Jiang Wanyin on a tour of the settlement and safe parts of the Burial Mounds.

“They wish to strategize what aid will be most useful,” he finishes.

It’s clear Nie Mingjue intends to offer more than expected or hoped for, then, perhaps happy Nie Huaisang’s sworn siblinghood will permit him to do so now that he has seen the truth.

Before he can consider a response, he feels a tug on his hanfu.

“Baba?” a sleepy voice asks. “Nap over?”

Lan Wangji picks the boy up. He can see from Xiongzhang’s expression that he finds the scene adorable, but he turns his attention to A-Yuan.

“You may sleep longer if you wish,” he says.

A-Yuan mulls it over, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand, and then he yawns and nods.

He takes A-Yuan back to the bed and tucks him in again, watching for a moment as he curls closer to Wei Ying and falls back to sleep, still a little amazed he gets to have this, before rejoining his brother.

Xiongzhang seems unbothered by the interruption, perhaps even a little amused by it, but he quickly turns to more serious issues.

“Shufu will not come see you. He insists you will face punishment when you return to the Cloud Recesses,” he says softly, his voice regretful.

Even though Lan Xichen is clan leader, he is expected to abide by the counsel of his elders, of which Lan Qiren is one. Xiongzhang is warning him he may not come home, at least until Shufu changes his mind.

The pain he feels over it is somewhat brief; after all, he decided upon staying in the Burial Mounds that his home was Wei Ying, has been making plans to live with him and their son at Lotus Pier. He will always love the Cloud Recesses, though for now it will not have him.

Xiongzhang holds out a qiankun pouch.

“I’ve packed some of your possessions from the jingshi, some necessities that may make things better here for you and Wuxian. I’ll speak with Jiang Wanyin about transferring anything else you wish to Lotus Pier.”

Lan Wangji can only nod, a bit overcome. Was this how Wei Ying felt when Jiang Wanyin expelled him from the sect, however much that had been for show—as though the world had tilted, bile in the back of the throat, swallowed like a bitter draught?

He cannot regret what he has now, the fact that he has a husband he has loved since the moment they met, a sweet son whose continued existence is a credit to Wei Ying’s honor, who would have died terribly without his intervention.

But the sting is there, and Lan Qiren is a stubborn sort, unlikely to admit to wrongs and likely to hold grudges, having unjustly judged Wei Ying based on the mother his husband barely knew; Lan Wangji knows his own stubbornness is come by honestly, at least, and if Shufu thinks he will abandon his husband based on his misconceptions, he will gladly persevere and show him how it’s done, even if it’s petty.

“I will give you a list,” he says finally, aware Xiongzhang is waiting for an answer and agonizing over this new family strife. “Any furniture Jiang Wanyin feels would help furnish our quarters at Lotus Pier would be welcome, though that may be a more unrealistic undertaking.”

Qiankun pouches can only hold what could fit in the opening, after all, and the level of activity would alert Shufu, which Xiongzhang may not want if he’s doing this surreptitiously.

“It is no trouble,” Xiongzhang replies, telling Lan Wangji that he is either openly defying Shufu, or that Shufu is amenable to his permanent removal from the Cloud Recesses.

Lan Wangji doesn’t particularly want to know which is the case at the moment—regardless, his brother is supporting them, which is the part that matters right now.

Xiongzhang takes his leave shortly thereafter, likely to join the tour of the Burial Mounds and help troubleshoot how the rest of their stay will be made more comfortable, and Lan Wangji retreats to the alcove and pulls the curtain closed.

While he should see what Xiongzhang brought and work on a list of what he wishes to have transported to Lotus Pier, Lan Wangji chooses instead to set aside the qiankun pouch and rejoin his husband and son in bed, though he knows his mind is too troubled to sleep. Holding them both close settles his mind a little, and he tallies a mental inventory of the jingshi until Wei Ying stirs.

His husband somehow immediately knows something is wrong, his hand coming up to smooth worry-lines on his brow and then straighten his forehead ribbon before he asks what happened, and although Lan Wangji knows it will deepen the enmity he holds toward Lan Qiren, he tells him anyway, softly so as not to wake A-Yuan.

Wei Ying tries to apologize, as Lan Wangji knew he would, despite none of it being his fault, and he shushes him gently with kisses.

“But your home…” Wei Ying protests, and Lan Wangji knows he is thinking about the loss of the Lotus Pier he grew up with, and the temporary loss of the rebuilt one, a loss he thought was permanent.

“My home is Wei Ying,” he says simply, honestly, because no place can replace him.

As is often the case, this sort of open declaration of love makes his zhiji bashful in ways their physical intimacy doesn’t, and he murmurs something about his heart and needing warning, a blush spreading across his cheeks.

With A-Yuan still asleep between them, Lan Wangji redirects instead of seeking to make him blush more, telling him of the qiankun pouch he has yet to open, and Xiongzhang’s plan to send the contents of the jingshi to Lotus Pier.

“We will make a list together, but it need not be everything,” he tells Wei Ying, not wishing his husband to fill their home to be with only his possessions out of a sense of guilt or obligation.

Wei Ying opens his mouth, likely to protest, but A-Yuan stirs from his nap in time to prevent any argument. Lan Wangji resolves to sneak extra dessert to him, now that they have plenty of food and will likely receive more from several sects.

The boy rubs at his eyes and yawns, but is already much more cognizant than he was the last time he woke, as he remembers their visitors and immediately wants to go play with them, giving Lan Wangji a rather amusing mental image of Nie Mingjue crouched in the dirt with a grass butterfly playing with A-Yuan.

Though he knows Wei Ying will likely argue to bring the whole jingshi to Lotus Pier for his comfort later, the reprieve is welcome, as they dress and rejoin their guests in the great hall.

Unsurprisingly, Nie Huaisang immediately ropes Wei Ying into the poetry project Wei Ning is helping with—and Wei Ning has undergone a transformation visually, his hair sleek with hair oil and up in a proper crown, the guan of a Nie design, and in fresh robes rather than the tattered ones he has been wearing. But for the pallor of his skin, he could be mistaken for someone who survived corpse poisoning, and the transformation is striking, the young man looking almost as he had at the Cloud Recesses before the war.

Clearly Nie Huaisang has been busy, as he waves Lan Wangji over and explains the others are still outside touring the Burial Mounds.

“I’m sure Dage found some ferocious yao to play with,” he says with no small amount of amusement. “Lady Wei mentioned there were some areas warded off with worthy prey.”

Wei Ying lets out an amused snort, already glancing through and somewhat distracted by the sheets of parchment on the table and idly spinning Chenqing.

“He’s welcome to them. I just haven’t had enough time to tackle that issue yet—farmable land has been the priority here. Hell, if he wants to bring Nie disciples on training missions to those areas, he’s welcome to it, so long as no one hurts Wei Ning.”

Or energy or health, Lan Wangji knows, though he doesn’t comment—his husband’s health is no one else’s business.

A-Yuan seems to understand he won’t be allowed to go play with their guests and will instead need to wait for them to return, and Nie Huaisang helps matters by gifting him a little fan to play with, which almost immediately best friends with the grass butterfly.

Lan Wangji is somewhat torn over whether to stay and engage in poetic discussion or to seek their other guests in case Wei Qing feels overwhelmed, but then he remembers Jiang Wanyin is with her and decides his place is here.

Wei Ning excuses himself to refresh the teapot, taking the packet of tea Nie Huaisang presses on him before leaving at a pace that could almost be considered fleeing, A-Yuan toddling after him asking for a snack. It quickly becomes apparent why when Wei Ying goes still, nearly fumbling Chenqing.

“You’re putting it in there?” he asks, his voice tight with anxiety.

Lan Wangji goes to him, glancing at the parchment to see the poem discusses the golden core transfer—even the duration and pain—and then his capture by Wen Chao and subsequent plummet into the Burial Mounds. This explains Wei Ning’s haste to leave.

“Jiang-xiong insisted,” Nie Huaisang says defensively, his fan fluttering.

Wei Ying lets out a sound between a sigh and a groan, and Lan Wangji moves closer to him under the cover of peering closer at the papers, letting him lean close for comfort. He won’t go against Jiang Wanyin on this decision, he knows, and he can see the Jiang sect leader’s logic—none could know of Wei Ying’s sacrifice and call him evil.

After a few deep breaths, leaning into Lan Wangji less than subtly, Wei Ying eventually sighs.

“Jiang Cheng has the right to decide.”

Lan Wangji sits beside him, taking his free hand and rubbing his thumb against his knuckles.

“Wei Ying’s honor should be known,” he murmurs.

He knows his husband didn’t do it for honor; they’ve had that conversation before. However, his actions show how truly honorable and caring Wei Ying is, and Lan Wangji, selfishly, wishes to hear the common people speak this truth instead of the despicable lies that have spread.

Wei Ning returns with tea, A-Yuan toddling after him with a tray of snacks for all of them. While he pours for them, Wei Ying shoves Chenqing in his belt, grabs the brush from the inkstone and alters a line slightly. Nie Huaisang leans over his shoulder and makes an approving noise.

“Ah, you’re right. That would be more what the common folk would say, Wei-xiong.”

Wei Ying nods, taking a sip of tea.

“I used to sit near the tea and wine houses. They were warm and had nice music to listen to, and sometimes they’d let me have leftovers.”

His voice is distant as he changes a few bits on another line. Nie Huaisang glances at Lan Wangji, who knows his husband rarely speaks of his time on the streets as a child. He squeezes Wei Ying’s hand and is met with a wan smile.

“The baihua needs to be believable or someone might catch on that members of the gentry wrote it. We want it to seem organic, right?”

“Right,” Nie Huaisang echoes, nonplussed.

Ultimately he joins them on Wei Ying’s other side, thanking Wei Ning for the tea before watching as more changes are made, occasionally rewriting entire lines or shifting idioms to be those more in line with commoners’ language.

A-Yuan climbs onto Lan Wangji’s lap, eager for his snack, red bean mantou, happily occupied. Also available are zongzi with jujube filling, drizzled in honey, which he feeds to Wei Ying while he works, earning an appreciative hum.

Wei Ning excuses himself to start cooking the evening meal, taking a qiankun pouch Nie Huaisang presses on him.

“We’re imposing, so we should provide the food,” he says when he sees Lan Wangji watching. “And anyway, we’re descended from butchers, so we’ve brought plenty of meat to last you a while.”

Nie Huaisang could not have known their intention to invite him and his brother here, so he must have either had the qiankun pouch ready and intended to get it to them somehow, or he filled it in Lanling.

Lan Wangji privately hopes he cleaned out the larder at Koi Tower.

Regardless, the food is welcome, and they will have little need to scrape and go hungry given how much has been provided to them, which will be good for Wei Ying’s help.

He focuses on feeding Wei Ying his snack, then wiping off A-Yuan’s hands and face, brushing crumbs off his mini disciple uniform, before eating his own zongzi.

It’s comfortably calm as he reads over Wei Ying’s shoulder, as he makes minor changes to the baihua and altered wording in places for various reasons. Nie Huaisang challenges him on a few of them and they debate poetics. Often Wei Ying wins by pointing out the difference between commoner poetics and gentry poetics, but Nie Huaisang wins a few.

Lan Wangji is happy to hold A-Yuan on his lap as he plays with his grass butterfly and the fan Nie Huaisang gave him, making them hold a little murmured conversation, and let the discussion wash over him. But he notices a factual error himself and points it out, and is drawn in that way on the merits of poetic license versus a need to be close to the truth. (He wins that one.)

By the time Wei Qing and their guests join them, the rest of the Wei clan filing in for dinner, they’ve added lines in places, removed them in others, and have drafted a fair bit of the rest.

They only notice they have an audience when Jiang Wanyin clears his throat, and Lan Wangji feels like a child caught doing something naughty until he catches Xiongzhang trying and failing to hide a smile—perhaps they’ve been watching for a while, since he and Nie Huaisang only just finished a debate over certain details describing himself, which he can guess Lan Xichen would find amusing, and Nie Mingjue seems similarly amused.

Honestly, Nie Huaisang is far too interested in flowery language and making use of symbolism referencing his title, and Wei Ying was little help against it, agreeing vehemently that he should be described in the way the common people see him.

A-Yuan squirms down from his lap, abandoning his grass butterflies on the table, to run to his Jiang-shushu and ask to be picked up; Jiang Wanyin obliges with a soft smile on his face.

“Just in time, Dage—we’ve almost got the whole thing drafted!” Nie Huaisang crows, apparently unbothered by their audience. “Wei-xiong’s so much better at baihua than I am, it’s unfair.”

“Aiya, Nie-xiong, you’re better at the poetry part, with all that symbolism, so don’t put yourself down,” Wei Ying teases, his voice warm and amused, and Lan Wangji can almost imagine they’re back before the war, him catching the two of them up to shenanigans at the Cloud Recesses.

Wei Ying’s modesty is false, given the number of times Lan Wangji has heard him reference poetry in ways so subtle one not trained in the arts might miss, but he is letting Nie Huaisang save face.

Jiang Wanyin hands A-Yuan to Wei Qing and comes over to check the sheets of parchment, then nods in satisfaction.

“Good, you didn’t take it out. Nie-xiong, be sure to put a lot of symbolism in that implies my idiot shixiong is a self-sacrificing idiot.”

Nie Huaisang laughs.

“Oh, I took artistic license, so Wei-xiong managed to grow white lotuses in the Burial Mounds.”

They debated over that detail for a while, with Wei Ying feeling the implied connection with Guanyin was a bit much, and Nie Huaisang pointing out that his sacrifices for his brother and the now-Weis justified the imagery.

Wei Ying’s last-ditch argument was that lotuses would never grow in the Burial Mounds, at which Nie Huaisang snorted and pointed out that he was the exemplification of the Jiang sect motto and the common people would believe he could after he survived being tossed in the Burial Mounds.

The casual reference to what Wen Chao had done to him stopped the argument in its tracks. Wei Ying went quiet, his eyes distant, in a way that made Nie Huaisang fret, assuring Lan Wangji he won’t make that mistake again. That time is something his husband has not opened up to him about, which he knows likely means it was so bad he can’t yet put it into words.

The white lotus has its own symbolism, beyond the association with Guanyin. The lotus itself is a symbol of purity and enlightenment in art. While white is often associated with death—Wei Ying’s jokes about Gusu Lan robes come to mind, as well as Lan Wangji’s own fears for the future—the color represents metal in wuxing and is also used to reference innocence or honesty. White lotuses themselves imply purity and enlightenment, and with the poem woven as it is, it adds to the implication that Wei Ying himself embodies those elements.

In Lan Wangji’s opinion, he does, but he also knows he is a little biased. The goal, though, is to convince the common people.

He can see the way Xiongzhang’s mind follows a similar logical progression.

“Isn’t that… blatant?” he asks.

Wei Ying exchanges a look with Nie Huaisang and shrugs.

“It’s for the common people—many never learn to read, so most commoner works imply less and say more. There are different levels, of course, but this will be more understandable to the least educated among them.”

“Wei-xiong argued against it, and lost,” Nie Huaisang says, sounding far too pleased with himself.

“I still don’t think they’d grow here,” he mutters, still a little petulant.

“Somehow I get the feeling if you tried, they’d grow,” Wei Qing tells him with no small amount of wryness; after all, Wei Ying has pushed the boundaries of impossible in simply still living. “It’s not like we’re on the verge of starvation anymore, so I don’t have a problem with you trying.”

“I’ll send some seed varieties—there are some that aren’t edible, but are more hardy,” Jiang Wanyin cuts in.

The gesture seems to surprise Wei Ying, and Jiang Wanyin huffs as though put out, looking away and crossing his arms.

“You should have a piece of home with you if you can’t come home right away,” he adds gruffly.

Wei Ying goes still and silent, his eyes shimmering with emotion a bit even in the dim light of the cave, and he just nods.

The atmosphere is too hushed for a moment, but it’s thankfully broken by A-Yuan asking Nie Mingjue about his mustache—or, more accurately, if he can call the Nie sect leader ‘Huzi-gege.’

Nie Zonghui fails to hold in a snort, and it instantly shifts the mood. Nie Huaisang giggles behind his fan, Xiongzhang smiles widely, and even Jiang Wanyin can’t keep his lips from curving upward.

“You know,” Nie Mingjue says, kneeling so he’s at A-Yuan’s height, “my didi is going to be your die’s sworn brother. So I think it’s okay for you to call me Bofu.”

A-Yuan looks delighted by this, and Lan Xichen pats the boy on the head.

“Your baba is my didi, so you may call me Bobo.”

The boy grins. He tilts his head for a moment, then points, to Nie Mingjue, then Xiongzhang, the Jiang Wanyin, and then finally Nie Huaisang.

“Bofu, Bobo, Shushu… Shufu?”

Nie Huaisang waves his fan almost frantically.

“Aiya! You make me sound old. Maybe call me Xiaoshu… Ah, no, that’s Wei Ning. Ershu?”

Wei Ying nods, looking overwhelmed again; Lan Wangji knows it’s likely because he’s been claimed family by the Nie, before the ceremony, even. Family is important to his husband, as he has lost far too much of it. He feels it as an orphan himself.

“Ershu,” A-Yuan parrots and nods, then looks at Jiang Wanyin again. “Dashu?”

The Jiang sect leader nods and beckons to the boy, who is all too glad to come be picked up.

Popo wanders in, stopping next to Nie Mingjue and patting his arm affectionately, which tells Lan Wangji the conversation they slept through was very fruitful.

“A-Ning’s nearly finished with dinner,” she tells them. “He said we have Qinghe to thank for the meal.”

Nie Mingjue shoots a somewhat incredulous look at Nie Huaisang, who shrinks behind his fan.

“You knew we’d be coming here,” he asks.

“I don’t know! I just had it with me, just in case. Like maybe I could pass it to Jin-shao-furen, and she could get it to Wei-xiong. I hoped.”

Nie Mingjue just shakes his head and turns to Popo.

“Lao-Wei, we are honored to provide. I look forward to sharing a meal with you.”

The address alone indicates respect, and is an acceptance of Wei Ying’s adoption of the former Wen remnants, and it eases a concern Lan Wangji didn’t know he had.

The rest of the remnants trickle in as dinner time approaches, some carrying steaming plates and tureens, and Nie Huaisang bundles the parchment with the unfinished poem into a pouch in his sleeve, while Wei Ying sets the inkstone and brush aside.

One of the main dishes for dinner is a stewed long feng pei, often served at wedding banquets, which leads to a whispered discussion between the Nie brothers.

“It’s like a wedding banquet,” Wei Ying murmurs to him, soft and only for him, giving him a dark look that is a tantalizing promise for later.

Nie Huaisang’s gentle message through food is touching, as he is clearly throwing them a banquet. Nearly all of the dishes feature meat, from mutton to beef to duck, and even a platter of fish. The sauces are rich and savory.

The dishware is unfamiliar, much better quality than what they have been using.

There’s no possibility that Wei Ning prepared all of this, meaning Nie Huaisang brought cooked dishes placed in stasis talismans. Somehow he knew he would be coming to the Burial Mounds, and had prepared this in advance, all without his brother’s knowledge. Nie Huaisang has been watching, and he wants them to know—and from the way Wei Qing and Wei Ying exchange subtle looks with him, it lands.

He resolves to taste every dish, even those with meat, out of respect for the dual messages being sent.

Lan Wangji is relieved that Nie Huaisang is helping them. With what this implies about his network, the poem’s distribution will be swift, and the work to shift Wei Ying’s reputation among the common people will soon begin.

Dinner starts off awkward, but Nie Mingjue helps break the ice by discussing his ideas for handling the warded areas—and he’s only too happy with Wei Ying’s offer to use them as a training ground.

“Jiang disciples would benefit from such training, as well,” Jiang Wanyin comments.

“The Lan would be pleased to join intersect night hunts,” Xiongzhang adds. “Strengthening ties is logical now that our sects will be tied through brotherhood.”

The message is that aid will be delivered regularly, and there will be the protection of three sects. It will eventually catch the attention of the Jin, but by that time hopefully Wei Ying’s reputation will be rehabilitated and Jin Guangshan will be powerless.

Dinner eventually turns perhaps predictably raucous, given that Wei Ying, Nie Huaisang, and Jiang Wanyin are together and wine is available. Older now, Lan Wangji can find some humor in their routine, meant to entertain both themselves and those around them, but it’s more in the nostalgia of simpler times, before the war and all it had wrought. Wei Ying turns to him occasionally with a fleeting bittersweet expression, as though he feels similarly.

Wei Qing, he notices, is watching on with a sort of fondness, particularly as they bring Wei Ning into it, though perhaps it’s his newly groomed appearance and the reason for it. She has spent dinner at the same table as Popo and Nie Mingjue, discussing the finer points of golden core and meridian research. Lan Wangji was not aware that was one of Chifeng-Zun’s interests, but given his father’s death by qi deviation makes some sense.

The conversation peters out when A-Yuan asks if he could ride on his bofu’s shoulders, and Nie Mingjue was powerless to his charm—though he wasn’t so charmed as to not to clean the boy’s hands, sticky with a dessert of jellied date candy.

His earlier mental image does nothing to prepare him for seeing Nie Mingjue actually playing with A-Yuan and his grass butterfly and fan. He doesn’t seem to mind, which makes sense given the sect leader dotes upon his little brother and partially raised him.

With A-Yuan engaging Nie Mingjue, Wei Qing is able to observe as he has been, for a little while, at least until Xiongzhang slips into the vacated seat next to her.

As hai shi approaches, Lan Wangji can see Wei Ying’s energy flagging, likely from a combination of factors. The good and heavy food, combined with his general need of healing, and the fact that they had not done his evening musical acupuncture treatment, perhaps. The wine increased it all. He can’t quite keep himself from wincing when he moves in certain ways, is hiding the shakiness of his hands by keeping his wine bottle on the table between sips.

Just as Lan Wangji is considering how to step in, Nie Huaisang gestures to Nie Mingjue, who brings over a sleepy A-Yuan.

It’s a socially acceptable reason to retire, so Lan Wangji steps forward and intercepts Popo, telling her they will ready him for bed, and she can retrieve him in a bit. Readying A-Yuan for bed will allow her to enjoy the gathering a bit longer, and she deserves to enjoy it. Wei Ying will need to soak, likely longer than usual, providing ample time to see to the child’s nightly routine.

He collects his husband and son, stopping Wei Ying from trying to lift the boy into his arms and instead doing it himself. With the busy day they’ve had, he’d rather not add to the strain on his body.

Nie Huaisang nods at him, and he realizes his soon to be sworn brother has been monitoring Wei Ying just as he has, and is accommodating his needs by anticipating them, even bringing Nie Mingjue in on it.

An effort to work together toward a common goal of restoring Wei Ying’s health, perhaps.

As he lets Wei Ying lean against him, taking part of his body weight, and they head through to the cave, Lan Wangji thinks, whatever his old classmate’s plan, whatever conversation occurred while they slept, if it involves helping Wei Ying, he approves wholeheartedly.

--------

Taking a short break from final grading to post this. Thanks to adrian_kres for the beta!

Yuefu is a style of narrative poetry that basically borrows from Chinese folk song traditions. The Ballad of Mulan is an example.

Baihua is written vernacular Chinese, which would be looked down upon at the time compared to Old Chinese, which was more formal. It’s definitely not something the gentry would typically engage with.

Most people know weiqi as Go. I suck at that game. The strategy eludes me, so I bet I’d get killed quick in a zombie apocalypse.

Wuxing is the Five Phases, or Five Elements, which is very prevalent in Chinese culture.

Bofu and bobo are both terms for father’s older brother, but the first is more formal.

Long feng pei translates to dragon and phoenix and is stewed fish and chicken, at least in Hebei cuisine. Since dragon and phoenix imagery is rife in weddings, it’s no surprise this dish often features.

Of course Popo is taking A-Yuan for the night. Nie Huaisang just recreated a wedding banquet.

Other Chinese pinyin translations:

baba = dad

dage = eldest brother

dashu = eldest uncle

didi = younger brother

ershu = second uncle

gege = elder brother

hai shi = the 9-11pm time period

hanfu = robe

huzi = mustache

Lao-Wei = Elder Wei

mantou = steamed bun

shao-furen = younger madam

shixiong = elder martial sibling

shufu = uncle (father’s younger brother), formal

shushu = uncle (father’s younger brother), informal

xiaoshu = youngest uncle

xiong = brother (in this case an indication of closeness)

xiongzhang = elder brother

zhiji = one who knows you best in this life

zongzi = glutenous rice stuffed with filling and wrapped in bamboo leaves

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qinghe-s · 2 years

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happy zewu-june ♡ 8/8

[id: four gifs of lan xichen from various episodes of cql/the untamed. the top two have a purple-white gradient on the outer edge, and the bottom two have a white-green gradient. in the first gif he is looking to the left, just past the viewer, and nodding with a small smile. in the second he's looking to the right with his mouth slightly open, listening to an offscreen nie mingjue who can just barely be seen close to the border. in the third gif he's playing his qin, though it can't be seen, and moves his head while watching what his hands are doing. the final gif shows him smiling and taking a breath before speaking. caption reads "happy zewu-june ♡" in a gradient matching the border. end id]

#lan xichen #cql #the untamed #theuntameddaily #mxtxnet #zewu-june #last one! for my gq friends ♥♥#or people who hc him as such. anything goes #anyway happy pride love u. kiss kiss #lxc #cqlgif #mycql #cql: all #gif

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 23 days

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WIP curiosity question: I would like to know more about JC's no good very bad day!

Okay so! 'JC's no good very bad day' is a SangCheng fic that's kind of part of the Orville Peck Cinematic Universe! The next summer after the main installments, Nie Huaisang goes back to Montana, and this time he decides to bring Jiang Cheng with him to try to cheer him up even though NHS doesn't quite know what's been upsetting JC lately. (The answer is that JC is feeling left behind and abandoned by the people he loves most [including NHS] and feels very much like he's stuck in a rut running the family company on his own, so a bonding trip with NHS sounds like a nice way to spend the summer.) Of course it's not that easy and they've got some shit to figure out between them considering JC is ace and NHS very much is not and that causes some major communication bobbles, but of course they'll get there in the end 😌 Here's a snippet!

--//--

They don’t have dinner nearly as often as Huaisang would like to during the spring, but it really can’t be helped. He always puts his head down and actually works in the spring, getting new textiles and designs ready and ensuring everything in his atelier will run smoothly while he visits Montana for the summer, as he has every year since Mingjue left. Jiang Cheng is infinitely patient with him in this respect, waiting for Huaisang to have a free evening to get together and putting aside anything he might have planned for himself at the drop of a hat if Huaisang texts him.

He’s really just…so good. Their routine is dependable in a way so many things in Huaisang’s life aren’t, which makes it all the more surprising the day Jiang Cheng breaks routine and texts him a simple request: Drinks tonight?, and the address of a bar that serves nice cocktails that he knows Huaisang likes.

Huaisang dithers over answering for long enough that a second message comes through, another curt one: If you can’t, it’s fine.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard for another long moment, his mind crowded with a river of apologies he should definitely make; he’s meant to work late tonight on a photo shoot that’s already been pushed back once, and Jiang Cheng is always so good about forgiving him when work gets in the way of hanging out…

He hardly ever asks to see him when he knows Huaisang is so busy, so it must be important, but he’d already said it’s fine if Huaisang misses—

Ahhhh A-Cheng I can’t tonight I’m so sorry 😭😭😭 can I have a rain check???

Huaisang sends it before he can overthink it, bottom lip caught under his teeth as he watches the read receipt light up, and the typing bubble bloop up right after —

Yeah, of course. Whenever you’re free.

Huaisang exhales a sigh of relief and sends back so many heart emojis they bump down to the next line as well, and he can just picture Jiang Cheng rolling his eyes (affectionately!) as he goes back to whatever it is he was already doing. Huaisang smiles to himself and gets back to work, reassured. Jiang Cheng really is just so good; the best, actually, and it’s ridiculous that he doesn’t even believe it.

-/-

Jiang Cheng goes alone to Huaisang’s favorite bar this side of town and scrolls through his own brother’s engagement announcement on fucking Instagram of all places, and drinks until it stops stinging that the post, made at 11:37 that morning, is the first he’s heard of it.

#the untamed fanfic #sangcheng #wip #wip ask game #opcu #there are probably going to be a couple of sangcheng fics set during this 2nd summer but they're going to be inspired by different music #so there's the 3zun orville peck universe and then this Sangcheng arc is like. parallel to it? While also within it??#I don't know how to describe it 😅#but either way it's basically an excuse for me to dump all my hurt ace feelings into a fic and make JC deal with them lol

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truly-morgan · 8 months

Text

[Kinktober 2021: Student/Teacher + Sex Toy + Lingerie (18+)]

MingCheng + RenCheng + XueCheng | Mo Dao Zu Shi Modern AU 31-10-2021

Day 31: [Student/teacher] + [sex toy] + [lingerie]

Xue Yang wants his teacher Mister Jiang, so he tries seducing him. In his attempt, they are found out by Nie Mingjue and Lan Qiren. Jiang Cheng is now stuck in a misunderstanding.

====

The last class of the day was finally over and Jiang Cheng was waiting at his desk for everyone to be out, Xue Yang sitting in the back also waiting, looking smug. Everyone was stealing glances between them, wondering what xy had done this time for their teacher to ask him to stay after class. What had he brought to school for him to be asked to stay after class?

When everyone was out jc closed the door, taking the bag from behind his desk as xy stood on the other side of the desk. “What is all this?” jc asked as he took out one sex toy at a time, lining them up on the table.

“I didn’t expect jiang-laoshi to be this innocent” xy chuckled.

At this the older man rolled his eyes, reaching for a remote in at the bottom. He jumped when he accidentally pushed the slider, xy suddenly yelped as his knee buckled under him, using the desk for support. Only once the sound of strong buzzing reaches his ears did jc realise what was happening, quickly shutting the toy down.

“Laoshi should really go easy on me~~” xy said, walking around the desk, erection pretty obvious through his pants, “Warn me next time, but keep going” he said, quickly trapping the man against the desk by pressing against his front, hand reaching for the remote.

“Xy quit messing around, I am being serious right now,” jc said. “Come on, let's play a little bit more” xy laughed as he grabbed the hand that was holding the remote, pushing against the button again, moaning against his teacher.

Jc was about to push him away, only to freeze when he heard the door open, realising he had not locked the door despite what xy had brought here with him. “Fuck” xy swore while hiding against jc as he realised people had come in, letting go of his teacher's hand. With this jc was allowed to shut it off again, pushing xy off of him.

He turned rather panicked towards Lan Qiren and Nie Mingjue, unsure how to explain the situation that looked pretty bad right now.

The two men had come to see what xy had done this time, knowing he was giving him an especially hard time to jc.

“What is happening here?” lqr asked calmly as his eyes landed on the row of colourful toys, making jc even more nervous as xy tried to act as if he was shyly hiding against him. “T-This isn’t what it looks like!” he quickly replied, “xy had these in his bag” he explained. “Teacher is so mean, throwing a-yang under the bus” xy mumbled loud enough for the two other teachers to hear him, making jc even more panicked.

“Is it why you have the remote of a toy xy seemed to be having in on him?” nmj asked with an arched brow.

Jc tried to push xy away, feeling his hands shaking. He knew his life and career were going to be ruined with this, especially if it got out that he “had a relationship with his student and forced him to wear sex toy in his class”.

He tensed when he heard the door be closed and locked, “There is no need to be so panicked” nmj said as he approached, qr nodding at this. “I am sure we can come to an agreement here, I am sure xy also doesn’t want his dear teacher to be expulsed from the school right?” lqr said, as he stopped directly next to them, eyeing them both.

The two of them knew very well jc would never lay a hand on one of his students, but they wanted to play with him a little bit.

Even xy got a bit nervous at this. He never wanted for his teacher to go to jail either!

“Why not let jiang-laoshi feel what he was doing to xy as repayment” nmj suggested as he picked up a toy. Jc glanced at it, a blush quickly creeping down his neck at the sight of the rather large toy.

“I-I can’t... we shouldn't” he tried to say, only for lqr to hum sadly, “Then I suppose we have no other choice but to-”

“Okay, okay, I-I'll do it” jc quickly said, grabbing lqr sleeve when he saw him move away. He looked down to the ground, missing the satisfied smile both older men had, and the sudden excitement in his student eyes.

“Then we shall start by undressing you” nmj said. Jc panicked again, grabbing his large hand by reflex, not daring to look at them. “Come on laoshi~” xy giggled, coming from behind to open the dark purple shirt, nearly ripping all the buttons off.

Then everyone got quiet when he was a bit more exposed, jc looking down ashamed and beat red.

A harness bra was nicely hugging his chest, a pretty purple lace flower hiding his nipple from them. Poking from his slack was the top of what was clearly panties, fitting with the bra. The three other men were looking at him, more than enjoying the view.

“I didn’t know a-cheng had such an interesting hobby” nmj finally commented, a large hand grabbing him by his small waist, pulling him closer, his bare back hitting the broad chest. This made jc feel things in the pit of his stomach. Good things. He liked those large hands-on him.

“Look at this, laoshi and I match~” xy commented as he pulled down his pants, showing his pretty black panties, skilled hands quickly undoing the belt as lqr held jc wrist, not letting him stop the young man. Soon jc was fully stripped, only leaving him in his lingerie.

“Such a pretty boy” lqr commented near his ear, making jc shiver and moan. “Will a-cheng be a good boy and let us punish him for being a naughty boy with his student?” nmj whispered against his ear.

Jc knew he should have been panicked again at the reason why they were in this situation, but this deep voice only made him melt even more against the two older men.

Soon he was bent over his own desk, a large vibrator being slid into him slowly. Xy would have never expected to enjoy his teacher being fucked by /his/ sex toy so much, looking at the way his teacher would simply melt under the hand of these two older men. Jc looked so pretty as he moaned and trusting back against the toy.

He moved to the other side of the desk, leaning on it to grab his teacher's face not wanting to be forgotten either. He didn’t care that this was really taking it too far, he wanted to be in the fun too.

So he kissed his teacher, jc letting a surprised gasp escape him before kissing back, forgetting who exactly was kissing him.

The kiss was broken when the vibrator was suddenly turned on, making jc moan loudly, a large hand coming to muffle his voice. “Don’t be too loud, we wouldn't want for the other teacher to see how sluty our a-cheng is”.

Xy pouted at the loss of his lips, kissing against lqr hands instead to try and make him take his hand away.

He decided it was not enough to simply wait, moving to the other side again, kneeling under the desk so he could pull his teacher’s hardened length from the lacy panties, taking it into his mouth. This only made the man even more vocal, especially as the toy was put on an even stronger setting.

“I see we cannot keep you quiet, why don’t you take this into your mouth to help you keep quiet?” nmj suggested as he presented his dick to jc, the man not even hesitating to take it into his mouth when lqr took back his hand. “What a good boy you are” he praised, feeling more than hearing jc moan around him.

Jc was fucked and pleased like this, forgetting why this started, where this started and with whom he was doing all this. They tried every toy xy had brought with him, from large dildos to vibrators. He even had a sound!

“Please, give me the real thing” jc begged as he spread his already abused ass, presenting his twitching hole. He wanted a real cock inside of him. He didn't who it was, he simply wanted the real deal.“I supposed a-cheng was indeed a good boy, we can give it to him now” lqr said.

Jc moaned when the older of the three men finally put his dick into him, feeling as full as when the biggest dildo was into him. He was quickly reduced to a moaning mess as lqr trusted into him.

“I want it too” xy whined, as he went to kiss his teacher again, a bit surprised when he felt strong hands move him around. He was placed in front of jc, feeling his favourite teacher's cock against his ass, grinding against it when he realised nmj had pulled him where he wanted to be.

He didn’t hesitate to let the cock slide into him, enjoying the even better moan coming from behind him now that jc was being pleasured from both sides.

“Our good boy is being too loud again” nmj commented, pulling the man into a kiss as he was fucking into another orgasm again, spilling inside his student this time who came soon after.

After this jc fell into nmj arms, feeling himself be pulled into his lap too, moaning as a cock was put into him again, lazily grinding inside of him. “We will fuck you until you pass out,” nmj said as he slightly bites his neck, “Isn’t that what a-cheng want?”.

“Yes, Yes! Please fuck me until I pass out, I will be a good boy, please fuck me more” jc moaned, not even hesitating anymore when xy came back to him again for more kisses, pulling him closer to him.

They didn’t go back on their words, fucking jc silly until he wasn’t even able to stand up anymore. Then he was cuddled by them, whispered sweet praises for his good work.

====

(here, have what I had in mind for jc lingerie😏, gotta enjoy our pretty purple grape into nice lingerie🥵🤪)

(for sure now it is a common thing for jc to be taken advantage of by his two colleagues, daring to put on lingerie even more often than he did before)

What if xy buys him pretty lingerie and toys for him to wear in class now they can match

Original - AO3

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