#but WWX never will say any of that aloud or even think it clearly

[beartes22]

Constantly thinking about how WWX thinks about JC how he thinks JFM thought about YZY but mostly as how he denied and yet carelessly commented JFM thinks (disregards) about JC

It is so, so, so fucked up and one of the reasons why chengxian is so doomed by the narrative bc no matter what JC does or says, WWX already "knows" what is about. Bc JC is his shidi and WWX knows best. And still, pre masacre, pre core exchange, it could have work. It could have, because they love each other so much but JC lost his core. WWX thinks he chose his parents. He thinks Jc choose the dead bodies of his parents, a filial duty, over survival, over him. And he never forgave Jc for it.

Bc now is WWX turn to assume the consequences of his shidi actions, now it is his turn to bear the pain for him. And he does not do it with reluctance, he does not, he does it bc he loves Jc so so much, but still. Still. The hurt it caused it. The hell it send to him. The hopelessness.

And then to see his shidi thrive were he can’t no longer. To see him shine when he is but a shadow. To see him reach for the impossible time and time again as if it was not WWX who never gave up before, who rallied his shidi over his (small, imagined, greedy) woes. To see all that and know envy, envy he had denied his whole life and envy he will repress into resentment, into sth useful bc WWX is not like yzy or Jc he is not, he does not hurt the ones he lives with his jealousy and sense of inferiority. Bc how can he not envy, when one says his dad doesn’t love him but he still has a dad? When one says he is not enough for his sect when he has such a inheritance, such a clear path at life. And WWX never cared never ever ever, how could he? He loved his shidi best, in spite of all the bad things.

And somehow, Jc himself is a thing he has to be loved in spite of. And it’s heartbreaking.

#but WWX never will say any of that aloud or even think it clearly #this man has been running form negative emotion like he’s sprinting his whole life #also that would make him the bad guy and WWX has enough guilt to carry and not talk about already try #also I love Jc and it shows sorry #this is not to say he is a perfect shidi or anything the man is a mess #but all his doubts about WWX character have it reason. it’s proof #and maybe the proof was forged but it was there #he does not deal with a single emotion gracefully but he does deal with them. he lets them simmer for eternity #which is. not ignoring them. #bad but at least real. idk how to say it. #anyway it fucks me up how much agency WWX denies Jc and how much complexity he refuses to see #like. WWX would do the impossible to make Jc the person who hates him irrationally so that he is not the bad guy in the relationship #(which is more complex than good or bad guys but I digress) #I love when they reconcile but I also hate it. bc it is never acknowledged how much WWX daily shits on Jc as a person) #you can love a person you don’t like. it happens. #but the Jc in WWX head is not the real Jc and the sad thing is that WWX loves the real Jc not the inherited prejudice from jfm #but he can’t perceive him he refuses to he can’t bc then he has to deal with what he did to him. #he lied. he lied. he lied to Jc’s (and himself) so much he can’t no longer distinguish the truth of them and is so fucking sad #mxtx #chengxian #grandmaster of demonic cultivation

[robininthelabyrinth]

how do you think things would have went if lwj had confessed to wwx in the cave that they go stuck at

Yu Ziyuan was not going to start laughing, and neither was Jiang Fengmian, no matter how much he was clearly being tempted to.

She gave him a dirty look to remind him when it looked like he was weakening.

The Lan boy – they called him the Second Jade of Lan, and he certainly seemed very admirable – was being very earnest at the moment, after all, and it would undoubtedly ruin relations between their two sects if they were to laugh in his face.

And, yes, Yu Ziyuan will admit in the privacy of her own mind – she also finds this solemn little monologue absolutely adorable.

It was as if a pure white rabbit encountering its first springtime had abruptly taken human form and come to petition them for permission to frolic in the fields.

Wei Wuxian’s fields, to be specific.

Lan Wangji’s confession – it could really only be described that way – was a little oblique, but the facts of the matter were still fairly clear: he believed that he had taken advantage of Wei Wuxian during their time during the Xuanwu cave, at a time when the latter individual was not in sound mind, a matter that was causing him some great distress. He wished to make clear his faults and would accept any punishment they wished to bestow upon him, while at the same time seeking to make clear that his feelings were no less real because of the ungentlemanly way he had gone about expressing them.

Really, it was a well-fashioned apology in every way, shape, and form.

The only problem was that the “taking advantage” to which Lan Wangji referred was, apparently, a love confession and a single stolen kiss.

Not even fully on the lips, no less.

Wei Wuxian had apparently responded with, “Cool,” before promptly fainting from blood loss.

That sounded very much like the ridiculous head disciple Yu Ziyuan was familiar with.

The one who’d been talking their ears off about Lan Wangji for – she didn’t want to know how long.

Lan Wangji, of course, had taken it as a devastating rejection, but was soldiering on regardless.

He’d gotten to the part of the speech where he emphasized once again that he was willing to take responsibility –

“What if responsibility meant marrying the person you have dishonored?” Yu Ziyuan wondered aloud, and this time it was Jiang Fengmian’s turn to give her the dirty look.

Lan Wangji was now the color of a tomato, but again, very earnestly, indicated that he would be more than willing, but that he would never go against Wei Wuxian’s wishes, no matter what the situation.

“Don’t worry,” Jiang Fengmian said. “It –”

“Tell me he hasn’t gone –” Wei Wuxian burst through the door shouting, only the immediately change to “Oh, Lan Zhan! You’re still here! Good!” as if he thought that was in any way smooth.

Yu Ziyuan was not going to laugh.

“…yes, he’s still here,” Jiang Fengmian said dryly. “As I was saying, Lan Wangji, stealing a kiss and confessing your affections does not count as a transgression so severe that it requires marriage –”

“It totally does,” Wei Wuxian interrupted, his eyes suddenly very bright. “Sorry, Lan Zhan. It’s the rules. And we all know how the Lan sect feels about rules –”

“Wei Wuxian,” Yu Ziyuan said, making a sincere effort to sound stern. She folded her hands together in front of her. Willpower, Ziyuan, you can do this without breaking into giggles. “One man’s punishment cannot be another’s, whereas a marriage is a mutual pact. For a marriage to be a suitable punishment, it would be necessary for the crime to be committed by both parties, while here the only person who has done anything is Lan Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian had always been a bright boy; he understood her meaning immediately.

He immediately turned to Lan Wangji, grabbed his hands, and said, “Lan Zhan, I like you,” and then he kissed him right on the lips.

At least he had better aim than the Lan boy did.

Jiang Fengmian looked at Yu Ziyuan with an amused expression, which she returned – no matter how much they fought, they had been married for the better part of two decades – and they politely waited a few minutes for the blushing and staring into each other’s eyes and sweet whispering to subside.

“Lan Wangji,” Jiang Fengmian said after a while, “while I know that you are eager to return to your family, perhaps you should consider either staying a little longer –”

“Or going and returning with an elder of your family as soon as reasonably possible,” Yu Ziyuan said dryly. The Cloud Recesses had been burned, but the Lan sect was far from depleted. “Someone suitable to arrange a marriage.”

It might be wartime, yes, but certain matters should be arranged at once.

(Jiang Fengmian might need to put off that shopping trip he’d been planning, but that would be fine. They could send Jiang Yanli on her own, while he stayed behind…)

#mdzs #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #madame yu #yu ziyuan #jiang fengmian #my fic #my fics #the reference to the yao fic is incidental #thedeathlyscar

[stiltonbasket]

A couple little prompts for the soulmate au: How does the post-resurrection reunion between Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning go? And how would the Twin Jades react to seeing him again and learning the Jins kept him prisoner for years?

the reunion between wwx/wen ning doesn’t differ significantly from canon, so take some twin jades reacting to it!

---

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Wangji entreats, as his brother sits frozen on the floor across from him. “Wen Ning was seen by over a hundred cultivators including myself. I am not mistaken.”

“I was not doubting you, Wangji,” Xichen says quietly, motioning to the open door. Lan Wangji obeys the mute instruction and slides the door shut, sinking down on the mat by the tea table while Lan Xichen stares into his white-jade cup; the ropy scar skirting his brother’s hairline is more evident than ever at this angle, starker and paler than the scar at his breast from Nie Mingjue’s dao, and the sight of it brings Lan Wangji back to Qiongqi Road all over again.

“Jin Guangshan said that Wen Ning had been slain. Burned, and his ashes scattered,” Lan Xichen murmurs. “So that too was a lie.”

Lan Wangji pours him another cup of tea. “What did Lianfang-zun say on the matter?”

“A-Yao? He was not present then, I believe. It was he who discovered Jin Zixun had taken our cultivators, and he sought Jin Zixuan out in the hopes that he could keep his cousin from attacking Young Master Wei. And after he heard that we had been wounded, he came to the Cloud Recesses.”

Though he has little reason to think in such a way, Lan Wangji is rarely sympathetic to his brother’s fondness for Jin Guangyao. If Jin Guangyao had not informed Jin Zixuan about the ambush on Qiongqi Road, Jin Zixuan would never have died, and Wei Ying would have lived; and if he had not obeyed his father’s orders and led a force of Jin cultivators upon the Burial Mounds, Lan Wangji would never have had to stand against them all to protect A-Yuan. And if his own clan elders had not been summoned to bring him back home―again, upon Jin Guangyao’s request―Lan Wangji would not have been forced to fight them off, or submit to the discipline whip to atone for his transgression.

Jin Guangyao might never have intended any of that to happen, but it had happened all the same, and Lan Wangji has never forgiven him for it. He will especially never forget the fact that Jin Guangyao was the one at his brother’s side when Jingyi was born, because Nie Mingjue was dead and buried and Lan Wangji was still too frail after the whipping to leave his bed for longer than ten minutes at a time.

“Wangji?”

“Mm?”

“Where is Wen Ning now?” his brother asks. “You said that he seemed to have lost his intelligence, but perhaps your intended could bring him back again?”

Lan Wangji winces, and the light in his xiongzhang’s eyes dims a little in concern. “A-Zhan? What’s wrong?”

“Wei Ying has not―” His lungs tighten, and he feels a single tear roll down his cheek as Lan Xichen gets up and hurries around the table to clasp his shoulder. “He has not spoken of our betrothal at all. And he has not accepted a single touch or kind word from me, even though he knows I―that I still―that I have never stopped loving―”

His brother’s hands drop back to his sides. “What?”

It takes a while for Lan Wangji to recount the events of the past two days, beginning with how Wei Ying fled from him in Mo Village and then attempted to do so again at the hunt on Dafan Mountain. He skips the part where Jingyi fought with Jin Rulan and silenced him for his rudeness towards Sizhui (the poor child already has a month’s worth of punishments waiting for him, since he should have known better than to push a fellow night-hunter into a cave without knowing what was in it) but then he tells his brother about Wangxian, and how Wei Ying had played it aloud without caring that the song was theirs, before running away and denying his identity until Lan Wangji unmasked him in the jingshi.

“He no longer wants me,” he chokes. “There is no betrothal, Xiongzhang. Not anymore.”

“Did he say so?” Lan Xichen says gently. “Wangji, you must not jump to conclusions before he has spoken. And depending on how long it has been since Mo-gongzi resurrected him, he may not yet have recovered from the time he spent believing that he had killed you.”

“He knows I do not blame him,” gasps Lan Wangji. “The last thing I asked of Wen Ning, that day―I begged him to protect Wei Ying in my stead, and they both heard!”

“Yes, and then he died, after Jin Guangshan raised an army against him in the mistaken belief that we were dead,” his brother reminds him. “Or else he lied outright, since he clearly did not burn Wen Qionglin as he said he did. The first thing we must do is find out what Wen-gongzi remembers of the last sixteen years, and where he was before Wei Wuxian summoned him.”

Slightly shamed by his outburst, Lan Wangji inclines his head. He knows a little of what his beloved must have suffered during the siege, though only through the meager pieces of gossip he heard after Wei Ying’s death; there were no Lan or Nie cultivators at Bu Ye Tian, and even Jin Guangyao could not tell Xichen much because he was tasked with protecting his father instead of pursuing Wei Ying.

“Very well,” he hears himself say. “Wei Ying and I will set out to search for Wen Qionglin after he has rested, and in the meantime I will send A-Yi to give you his report.”

Lan Xichen’s lips quirk up into a smile. “There is no need,” he laughs, before tilting his chin at the door. “A-Yi, baobei, come in. Your shufu and I have finished talking about your conduct at Mount Dafan, so there is no need to worry.”

Lan Wangji barely has time to dodge out of the way before a tall figure in white leaps up the hanshi’s porch steps and into his brother’s arms, dancing from foot to foot like a puppy going out for a walk.

“A-Die!” Lan Jingyi cries, squeezing Lan Xichen around the waist. “I can still go on the winter hunt with the Ouyang disciples, right? I don’t have to miss it?”

“Yes, you can,” Lan Xichen says fondly, giving his son a kiss on the forehead. Lan Wangji hides a small grin behind his sleeves, since he knows that his brother’s punishments never sink in with Jingyi; his xiao-shushu Nie Huaisang has been a very lively influence over these last fourteen years, and his indulgence erased any chance of Jingyi learning Lan discipline almost from the day he was born. “As long as you remember not to go running ahead of everyone else again. Promise?”

“Yuan-ge will keep me in line,” Lan Jingyi promises. “A-Die, you should have seen the way he scolded me for trying to fight that young master Mo.”

Lan Xichen closes his eyes in a silent plea for patience―though it fails to have any effect on Jingyi, because the boy is still happily clasped in his father’s arms―and begins a lecture on the virtues of mildness and thinking before speaking, while Lan Wangji slips out of the hanshi with his mood strangely uplifted by his nephew’s exuberance.

Talk to him, Lan Xichen says wordlessly, gazing at him over Jingyi’s head as he takes his leave. You have your beloved back, after all this time. Do not let this chance go by because of a misunderstanding.

A-Zhan, there will be no second chance for me.

For a moment, Lan Wangji wonders at his tactlessness. When his soulmate died, he had the good fortune to fall in love again and build a life with Wei Ying--and now Wei Ying has returned to his side, after leaving the plane of the living for over a decade and a half.

His brother will never be so lucky, and Lan Wangji refuses to squander the good fortune his xiongzhang would have traded his life for: so he marches right back to the jingshi, and resolves to speak his heart to Wei Ying the moment he opens his eyes.

But his resolve does not last the day, because scarcely two shichen and some change later, Lan Xichen discovers that the demonic arm from Mo Village belonged to Nie Mingjue.  

#wangxian #nielan #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #soulmate au #my fic