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sasukimimochi · 1 year

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Hey there! originally this post had art for 1-9 in it but i've turned it into the cover art post that'll be kind of like a masterpost for GOM now that the art for Chapters 1-9 are posted separately.

This post has information regarding my plans. i also have this post which shows some removed parts from the fic! (i may post these on Tumblr in the future with updates).

Do not Repost/Upload/Use/Alter my art/writing, Thank you!

Masterpost Updated ( 10/5/23 )

Ghost of Mine

RATED EXPLICIT – ONGOING (more under reading line)

Updates Bi-monthly (Last updated 9/2/23) at (any hour) of Sunday US CST- Latest is Chapter [ 26 "The Frost on Autumn Leaves" ] on my Ao3.

Next Chapter [Ch 27 “Visitation”] uploads on the Oct 8th.

See the full masterpost for GOM here.

A R T :

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10

Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 Chapter 16 [mature] Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20

Chapter 21 / Chapter 22 / ficlet (22-23) (with art) / Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 … (OCT 8th)

End of Empathy (preview and second art for 22) Softer than Clouds (Canon ficlet for between 22/23) End of Empathy 2 (preview art for 23/24) Removed art asset for 23/24 When I Grow Up (ficlet set Shortly after LWJ’s gift of earrings in GOM.) Aftercare (Ch 26.5)

Other GOM art / related

Chapter 1 Remake art / Chapter 1 Remake art (bonus) Chapter 2 Remake art / Excerpt art (1) (art not used in GOM from pre-ch 10)

Chapter 14 WIPS & SHITPOSTS

MXY Concept art WIP / WWX as MXY first Concept

10k Thank you WIP!

Emoji writing prompt - In Autumn You Lie (canon compliant)

GOM WWX (with pencil and coffee) GOM Wangxian for kiss day (with fineliner and coffee)

A Grandmother’s Memory (TBA) - Wen Popo ficlet In Memory of You (TBA) - (Ficlet for events during/after CH 4)

Non-Canon to GOM / AU's of GOM

Our Open Hearts - GOM AU ficlet (one of my favs i love it sm) Suns Out, Buns Out! - GOM Bunny/Happy AU. BunXian design here. To The End - Coming Soon (TBD) Timeline: burial mounds settlement era, probably shortly after ghost general is awakened.

My GOM music playlist can be found here, and updates sometimes. One of my favorite GOM songs is this one, "To Be Enchanted" by Sleeping At Last.

GOM TIMELINE!

Find more MDZS art/projects on my masterpost! ❤

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gravitywonagain · 1 year

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My Writing Masterpost

Here's a working list of all of the MDZS (mostly WangXian) fics I'm writing and am currently posting and have completed. Anything that makes it to this list has actual words in a google doc somewhere, I promise. (But there are also many google docs that haven't yet made it to this list. See here for all of that.)

~Series~

Starts with a Spark, Then it's a Wildfire (Modern Triad AU Series)

Words are Gonna Bleed from Me: [ao3] [excerpts]

My Friends are Degenerates (The Juniors): [ao3]

The Devil's Worst Nightmare (QingMian): [ao3] [excerpts]

The Killing Kind (A Prequel): [ao3] [excerpts]

[Spotify Playlist]

[Series ao3]

Sign Your Name Across My Body (Unrelated Porn Snapshots)

[Series ao3]

Hands: [ao3]

A Mess: [ao3]

Hit Me: [ao3]

*

~Chapter Fics~

Blackouts (Modern AU + Roofies): [ao3]

Breathing You In (I Don't Wanna Stop) (Cultivation Gym AU): [ao3] [1][2][3] [excerpts] [inspiration]

Can't Cheat Death While You're Digging Your Own Grave (NHS comes to the Burial Mounds prompt): [ao3] [1][2][3]

The Water's Right, It's Sinking In (Summer in Yunmeng AU): [ao3] [1][2][3][4][5][6]

Beating Like a Hammer (WLW Enemies to Lovers AU): [ao3] [1][2][3]

I Am Not a Vessel for Your Good Intent (Immortal WWX AU): [ao3] [1]

Fresh Powder in the Pine Trees (Ski Resort AU): [ao3] [1] [excerpts]

Sympathy for the Devil (The Blacklist AU): [ao3] [1][2] [excerpts]

Hand in Hand with a Brother (Demonic Shuangjie AU): [ao3] [1] [inspiration]

Boy Meets Sword (MXY does Empathy on Suibian): [ao3] [1][ask]

*

~One Shots~

Hold You Like a Hand Grenade (a canon-divergent pain-relief fantasy): [ao3]

Power Over Me | 欢迎 (the repository for the purplest of my prose, also vampire/faerie au): [ao3] [excerpts]

Your Shadows in My Room (a qingxian moment in the burial mounds; aka Tombmates): [ao3]

Echoes, Feelings, Yet to Disappear (an exploration of wwx's thoughts about lwj's discipline whip scars): [ao3]

Thick Blood Warms Cold Strings (the first time lwj plays inquiry while still healing from his punishment): [ao3]

What You Hear is not Silence (there is a ghost in the burial mounds who hears music: [ao3]

Younger than the Sun (immortal lwj and undead wn sharing a moment centuries after their loved ones are dead): [ao3]

Inquiring Minds (core reveal because wwx gets compelled by inquiry during sunshot): [ao3]

Dreams Unwind (wei changze/cangse sanren meet cute ugly): [ao3]

*

~Shorts and Drabbles and Other Stuff~

Gui Daifu | 鬼大夫

A Necessary Evil, WWX's POV, LWJ's POV | [ao3]

Frog!xian (double drabble) .🐸. [ao3]

Lan Yuan curses in front of his dad (4x drabble) .🤬. [ao3]

NHS and LWJ walk in on their brothers (4x drabble) .👀. [ao3]

[gilmore girls au nonsense]

[various musical inspiration]

#my-writing | #my-nonsense

#this was starting to feel like it needed to be its own post that i can link to by itself and manage by itself #so here it is #project list #my writing masterpost #also that title is in glittery gel pen like i'm writing this down in the back of my history notebook if anyone is wondering

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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tagged by @lansplaining!

rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it.

I feel like this is really making me confront just how many projects I have going on (too many) and how many I’ve abandoned (also too many) lol so I’ll break them up into two categories.

Starting with projects with some actual meat to them that I am either actively working on or else intend to get back to soon:

Ghost WWX

Jingyi

Sick WWX Claim

SPK Ch. 11

MXY & LJY

WWX dies

Ilk Ch. 11

2022 Outtakes

Dreams post fic extra

Sculptor Extra - LWJ & a-yuan

JGS gets his

Plans To Make 5

The Bridge Is Crossed (Excerpts)

And now projects that I’ve either long-since abandoned or that only have a sentence or two/a vague idea and I have no idea if or when I’ll flesh them out:

Xuanli

Idk

Morning

SPK Xuanli Drift

S.P.K. Extra

SPK 3zun extra

BOTW snippets

Prison WWX

Untitled Document (x3) [extra mysterious lol]

Nieyao hexie mountains

Soldier Poet King [*this is my planning document for the whole fic so like the fic isn’t abandoned of course but I’m not working on the outline anymore - it’s in the list for anyone who wants to know where the story’s gonna go]

Wangxian Haulers

For Becca

Vampire Lans

That was so much more than even I anticipated, oops! But anyway...ask away 😂

And of course no pressure to share, but i’ll tag @wishthatiwasnessiesgirl, @threephasebird, @rhysiana, @nbvagabond (hopefully you’re the NBvagabond from AO3 lol), @omgpurplefattie, and anyone else who sees this who wants to share some wips! I’m really really bad about knowing who’s who across AO3 to tumblr and who I interact with that writes (just ask nessie, it was embarrassing how long it took me to realize we were already AO3 mutuals lol). But anyway - ask away! and if anyone wants to participate themselves please do ♥

#the untamed fanfic #ask game #lansplaining #damn the need I feel to explain all of them immediately without waiting for people to ask is ridiculous lol #also just for reference the one named 'Jingyi' is my LQR raising Jingyi fic

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llycaons · 9 months

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good news, I've been cancelled again so I don't have to work and I'm going back to that author who wrote an enthralling comedy about jzx trying to set up wwx with nmj (here) and I've just read their fic about a demon wwx trying to romance a mortal lwj without knowing that much about how humans work, despite watching a lot of demon porn about humans. just really silly and off the wall. they nail lwj being kind of a weirdo and this makes him really compatible with non-human wwx. based on the title you'd think there are weird sex things going on but it's actually rated just T. nhs is great and there's a ton of really funny family stuff too. unfortunately the other main couple is jgy/lxc 😔. link here. excerpts below

fully supportive and one hundred percent interested. Lan Wangji, who is not interested in very many things, finds this habit of his brother alien and faintly disturbing.

this is EXACTLY what it's like though. I feel so seen.

Since he watched Wei Wuxian vanish into thin air mere hours ago, he has received precisely three texts, all sent within seconds of each other: just went to the bathroom haha quick trip to the grocery store, back soon i love u xx

yeah, right. lol

Today is no different: he has already announced that later, he’ll be taking Lan Wangji to the cinema. Lan Wangji has never been to the cinema, so he is looking forward to it.

lwj has never been to the movies??? 2. they're so out of touch with modern slang that they both say 'cinema'

“Forgive me,” he says, “but have you not been dating for – what was it, five months?” “Four,” Wei Wuxian says triumphantly. What he is triumphing over, Meng Yao dares not guess. Five years, he thinks. It’s been five years [for himself and Lan Xichen]. And then, like he can read his thoughts, Wei Wuxian stops ghosting soft kisses over Lan Wangji’s upturned palm for long enough to look at Meng Yao and says, “Don’t let us make you feel bad! I guess true love just moves a little faster. Right, Lan Zhan?”

WHAT A DICK MOVE. god I love him

Lan Wangji is a model. That doesn’t sound like a real job to Jiang Cheng, but it seems to pay the bills well enough. That’s good. Wei Wuxian should have someone who can afford his flimsy lifestyle. Of course, being rich and handsome means that it makes no sense for Lan Wangji to settle for Wei Wuxian in the first place, and probably Wei Wuxian will return to Hell with his heart broken and his spirit crushed soon enough, but until then, at least he has someone who will buy him like, karaoke machines or whatever else he likes.

jc's classic pessimisn mixed with his canon-accurate low opinion of wwx's worth as a partner. love it

But he’s not actually met him since that one time he tried to intimidate him through mirror magic which, to be honest, is not a great starter to a good relationship between brothers-in-law. He knows this because his sister has stated it numerous times.

I WISH jyl showed up in this one she sounds great. jc and wwx are fabulously obtuse here

#happy ending too obvi #I don't usually like AUs where wuxia characters are placed in a non-taoist or buddhist context #but the setting is really just set dressing. it doesn't matter to the themes or anything it's just a vehicle to have the characters do sill #stuff. and they only mention satan like once #closest I can say is like a good omens type of deal but I cannot stress this enough it is even LESS serious #ficblogging

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nillegible · 3 years

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Hua Cheng, with the ennui of an immortal whose reason to live had vanished from the face of the three realms, takes refuge in what little in the world still reflects his Crown Prince’s glory. He seeks out powerful, near mythical swords, and remembers the sharp eyes that would enjoy testing them. He seeks him in wayside flowers, and spring rain, and finds it strange that a world so empty of his prince could be so full of him. The god who had reached out to Hua Chang and commanded him to live.

The people have long since forgotten. The kingdom of Xianle is but a forgotten memory, a sidenote in history scrolls maintained by the larger library collections. Most of the Crown Prince’s shrines are also long gone, fallen into disrepair. Hua Cheng tries to make up for it with the resplendence of his own shrine to His Highness.

And then one more shrine to His Highness, appears.

Reappears, perhaps; there had been one there before. Hua Cheng spares it a glance, but when it is clear that His Highness had not returned, and that it was merely the work of a young Wen disciple, Hua Cheng ignores the site once more.

Well, he can’t resist keeping half an eye on him. Hua Cheng occasionally observes him – there’s so little else to do – and notices him giving medicine to civilians, watches him completely fail at bargaining and pay too much for every little thing, watches him return to the little shrine again and again, and stare at the words carved into the lintel, and repeat the words to himself, sounding confused.

The boy never kneels, but he prays.

His Highness would have adored this child, would have supported his almost inhumanly accurate archery, would have looked at his sword forms for barely five minutes before intervening to tell him that he needed a different sword for his stature and temperament.

Two believers. His God now had two believers; Hua Cheng, the Ghost King who had ascended to heaven and then turned them down, and little Wen Ning, a fifteen-year-old child of Qishan Wen, a ruthless cultivation sect that didn’t suit him at all.

(Hua Cheng watches Qishan Wen sect, knowing that like Xian Le, like Yong’An and hundreds of other kingdoms, they too would inevitably fall.)

Rarely, very rarely, Hua Cheng takes a child’s form and visits the other shrine and tells Wen Ning stories about His Highness, the crown prince of Xian Le.

*

And then Hua Cheng all but forgets about the little Wen, his Highness ascends a third time and Hua Cheng has finally found him again, this time, this time Hua Cheng would not lose him, would not be parted from him.

It’s when His Highness says that he has no believers that Hua Cheng remembers that it’s not true.

Two believers is not many more than one, and Wen Ning could never match the depths of Hua Cheng’s devotion.

(But when he leaves His Highness on that cursed mountain, it is good to know he would not be alone.)

*

And then one day there’s a prayer. Prayers sound different to heavenly officials, depending on who is making them. They are usually stronger from within a shrine, stronger with humility, and stronger by far depending on the strength of their faith. (Hua Cheng does not know why Wen Ning believes so steadfastly, when he did not know the man gege had once been, had not been saved by him, been told to live for him, and died for him, twice.) Wen Ning’s prayer echoes, and gege turns to him. San Lang, please. Would you take me to Yunmeng?

Yunmeng is burning down, and Wen Ning prays, “Daozhang, help them.”

His Highness loves Wen Ning.

*

Hua Cheng leaves a few butterflies to watch him, watches him dance around the fighting, never taking a life himself, returning the bodies of the deceased to the rightful places with respect, a battlefield medic, only seventeen, who sits beside the dying with empathy and grace, tries to lessen their suffering. His sister, Wen Qing, is remarkable, she pulls people back from the brink of death, produces miracles with her own two hands. Wen Ning follows after, easing the pain of those mangled bodies that Wen Qing cannot reach in time, or judges impossible to cure.

Where do they go? Wen Ning asks once, bathing in icy waters, washing off the blood of his day.

“I don’t know. The ones who stay are still here. I do not know what comes after,” he admits. “But I hope it’s somewhere peaceful, before they return again.”

Wei Wuxian does the unimaginable. If anyone of this current crop of cultivators deserves to ascend it’s him. But he’s carved out his golden core to give to his brother, and Hua Cheng thinks that if he does ascend, it might be downwards, like him.

*

And then Wen Ning is taken to a work camp run by sadists. “San Lang, can you take me to see Wen Ning?” asks XIE LIAN, and he seems frightened.

“What happened? Has he stopped praying?”

“He is only repeating ‘Body in hell, heart in paradise.’”

Hua Cheng has seen the young man repeat the words a thousand times, but this time must be different. Wen Ning has finally learned what that means.

“I can’t go, I have to protect my family, Daozhang, Please. I can’t go,” are Wen Ning’s last words, though his mouth only shapes the words. His lungs have caved in from the beating and then the push off the cliff edge, and he can’t breathe enough to speak. Can only mouth the words as blood dribbles from his mouth.

His Highness kneels beside him. “Oh child, what have they done to you,” he whispers, resting a hand on his chest. The power flows from his hands, but he’s not a god of healing. All he does is ease his pain.

Wen Ning smiles.

“Can you watch them until I come back?” strangely, he’s looking at Hua Cheng, not XIE LIAN.

“I will,” he says softly.

“Thank you for everything, Daozhang,” Wen Ning whispers to his god, and then his spirit untethers. A small green flame, dim and exhausted from what he’s been through. Hua Cheng leans over and gathers the small spirit into carefully cupped hands.

“San Lang,” says Xie Lian, and he looks weary. Hua Cheng would gather him into his arms were they not occupied. “What are you doing?”

Some spirits don’t leave. Can’t. Wen Ning is a mild mannered, silly child and yet in this, he is no different than Hua Cheng; Wen Ning will not go.

There aren’t many places for lost, stubborn spirits, but Hua Cheng has carved one out painstakingly.

“I will take him home.”

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #little ghost Wen Ning #hua cheng #xie lian #wen ning

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nillegible · 3 years

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[More from the ghost!LWJ verse, still dealing with the aftermath of LWJ’s death. See the rest of the posts here.] “There were toys and spare robes,” says Jin Guangyao. “I’ll bring them here, perhaps it will be suitable as a relic, if there’s no luck seeking Wen Yuan’s body. A well-loved toy may have enough energy left over to establish a connection with his spirit.

“There were children’s things at the burial mound?” asks Lan Xichen, looking up at Jin Guangyao. “Why didn’t you tell me? You knew there was a child there!”

“Er-ge…”

“You knew. You could have stopped them.”

This expression is not one that Jin Guangyao ever expected Lan Xichen to turn towards him. It shows betrayal.

I never betrayed you.

(Liar.)

Don’t look at me like that.

(What would he do if he knew it was your fault his brother died?)

No! I didn’t mean for Lan Wangji to interfere! That’s not my fault!

(You betrayed him. He trusted you.)

Jin Guangyao cannot stand the accusation in Lan Xichen’s eyes, not from the only person who’s had unwavering faith in him still. For the first time, he raises his voice at Lan Xichen, cries “Of course, I knew! I knew all of them, not just Wen Yuan! I worked with them for four years, Er-ge! The Wen clan is big, but not that big. I knew all of them.”

Lan Xichen’s expression only sharpens. “And yet you didn’t even try to stop them, A-Yao,” he says.

Them? shouldn’t he be saying us?

“For what? Everyone already thought that my loyalty was suspect! Who would have listened to me? You think my Father would have listened, when he blamed WWX and the Wen for the death of his son and nephew? Was I supposed to tell him, that the Wen did nothing wrong? To tell Da-ge that? If I had defended the Wen remnants, I’d just be ONE MORE BODY left on the burial mounds when you all came for everyone there!” He stresses the you, even knowing how much it would hurt Lan Xichen, even though it twists deep inside Jin Guangyao’s own throat to do it. “If you think there was anything I could have done-”

“MENG YAO, ENOUGH!” says Nie Mingjue’s voice, and Jin Guangyao whirls around to see him walk into the room looking incandescently furious. Jin Guangyao flinches back in terror.

What am I doing? What have I done?

Lan Xichen was the last person who cared at all what happened to him, to strike at that friendship, what was Jin Guangyao doing? (Why did it hurt so much, to see Lan Xichen look at him like that?)

Only, instead of punching him for the words he’d spewed in anger, or worse, drawing his saber, Nie Mingjue just sets his hand firmly on Jin Guangyao’s shoulder. “Calm yourself, Meng Yao,” says Nie Mingjue, and there is something almost like kindness in his voice. “It was not your responsibility to hold the sects accountable.”

What? Jin Guangyao stares at Nie Mingjue incredulously, but the man says, “Xichen is distraught, he did not mean his words.” He looks over Jin Guangyao’s shoulder, expression sharpening. “Apologize, Xichen. That was inappropriate.”

What?

“I’m sorry! A-Yao I’m sorry, you’re right. You couldn’t have done anything, I shouldn’t have implied–”

Jin Guangyao turns back around to see that Lan Xichen has gone white, he’s stepped closer, hand out like he wishes to reach out and hold him, but can’t decide if he’s allowed to step closer or not.

“–I know you always try your best, I didn’t…” and then. Lan Xichen just. Crumples.

Outstretched arm wrapping back around his stomach as he falls to knees with a broken cry.

“Er-ge!” “Xichen!”

“…not your fault. Was mine. I just…”

Jin Guangyao is the first to reach him, kneeling in front of him and supporting him, keeping him from falling further. “Er-ge, please, I’m sorry,”

“No,” says Lan Xichen vehemently. He’s trembling faintly, but there’s a thread of steel in his voice as he speaks, as he says, “Even if, if you’d said. Would I have listened? Wangji told me and yet I only told him to try, I didn’t believe… I don’t know if I would have listened to you, A-Yao.”

“Xichen, you’re not to blame either,” says Nie Mingjue, also kneeling beside them now. His voice is gentler than it had been when he was scolding Lan Xichen just moments before.

“Aren’t I, Da-ge? The deaths of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli compromised the Jin and Jiang sects, we should have, I should have looked into it, but I just agreed, didn’t check. It’s my fault.”

Something’s wrong, something’s very very wrong, and it takes Jin Guangyao several moments to realize that Lan Xichen is breathing too fast; shallow, gasping breaths as he tries to hold himself together. “Er-ge, slow down, you’re going to hyperventilate!” he says, placing a palm on Lan Xichen’s chest.

“I - I. I stepped. As-side, and. and let. them k-kill, kill my b-b-broth-er. I ki-killed him, A-A-Yao, just for. For do-ing the right. right thing. I–”

“Er-ge please,” Jin Guangyao begs, “Don’t do this to yourself, it’s not your fault, you didn’t know! Please control your breathing, you’re frightening me.” Lan Xichen doesn’t though, although maybe he cannot; his eyes widen more as he seems to choke on his gasped breathing, short, sharp gasps that seem to catch in his throat, and Jin Guangyao has no idea what to do. He’s never seen Lan Xichen fall apart like this before.

“He-he’s go-ne. Not supp. supposed. to. I w-want. him. back. want. M-my fa-fault. Pun-ish me.”

Lan Xichen shows no signs of becoming less hysterical, and before Jin Guangyao can plead further, Nie Mingjue pulls him into his arms, tucking Lan Xichen into a hug, his head nestled beneath Nie Mingjue’s chin.

“Xichen,” he says, “Breathe. You can cry, but you have to breathe,” and somehow that gets through to him, he gasps and splutters some more but he tries, and when he finally starts sobbing into Nie Mingjue’s chest, broken and desperate, at least Jin Guangyao is no longer afraid he’s going to hurt himself.

Nie Mingjue holds Lan Xichen as he shakes apart and cries, and when Jin Guangyao meets his eyes over Lan Xichen’s head, he sees some kind of reflected grief there.

Nie Mingjue mouths, ‘Water.’ Nodding, Jin Guangyao gets up and fetches some, coming back and asking quietly, “Er-ge, would you like some water?” Three hands, from three different people help steady the glass as Lan Xichen sips slowly from it, every one of his hitched breaths still tugging at Jin Guangyao.

Why does it hurt so much?

You were never supposed to be hurt.

It takes some time, but eventually the glass is empty, and Lan Xichen is only crying silent tears into the collar of Nie Mingjue’s robes.

“It’s not your fault alone,” says Nie Mingjue, after the long silence. “I was hasty too. The blame belongs to all of us.”

“I disgust myself,” Lan Xichen whispers, after he lets go.

“It’s fine. They’ll have moved on, perhaps be reincarnated. Isn’t that why-”

“They wouldn’t have. Wen Qing’s ashes were scattered at the Nightless city, and the rest were thrown into a pool of resentful energy at the burial mounds. Their souls would not have escaped,” says Nie Mingjue.

Oh.

It’s at times like this that Jin Guangyao remembers just how cruel cultivators are.

“I’ll find them all, and put them to rest,” says Xichen. “Not just A-Yuan.”

“You’re a sect-leader, Xichen. You can’t just leave everything to do this. Assign it to your cultivators, not-”

“I won’t hurry. But I will give them all rest. I swear.”

“Xichen-”

“Maybe then Wangji’s soul will forgive me, and deign to speak to me,” says Lan Xichen, and Nie Mingjue stops protesting.

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #ghost!lwj verse #3zun #lan xichen #jin guangyao #jgy pov #nie mingjue

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nillegible · 4 years

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Jiang Cheng finds his way to Yunmeng’s night market almost by accident. His tolerance for paperwork - his first defence against his memories - had reached an end around sundown, and after an extra half hour that he spent trying and failing to compose a simple letter, he’d given up and started wandering. Jiang Cheng had had no real heading, he’d come here in a series of heel-turns, and avoidances, he couldn’t look at the little pier with the personal boats without remembering his mother’s arms, couldn’t look at that tree, or go down that path…

He’d lived a life here, and the memories aren’t always so solid, so heavy but today is a bad day, and rather than grit his teeth and forcefully bring himself to the present, Jiang Cheng takes his odd meandering route through Lotus Pier and Yunmeng, and ends up at the marketplace.

There are sharp memories of Wei Wuxian and A-jie here, too, but there are also so many people, and colourful lights and other things to distract from the happy voice of his siblings echoing in his head. Jiang Cheng, look at this! A-Cheng, A-Xian, don’t run, you’re going to hurt someone!

Jiang Cheng wanders aimlessly, not quite browsing, but observing the wares and other shoppers. He thinks he feels a tug on his sleeve, but when he turns it’s only snagged lightly on a rack displaying ribbons. He releases his sleeve and walks away, ignoring the catch of his throat because for just one half of a heart-beat, he’d expected to see Wei Wuxian’s fingers tugging on purple fabric, about to drag him towards a food stall that caught his attention...

He notices a strange flash of blue light, and a muffled curse from what looks to be a closed stall. That’s strange in itself, because a place in the market was pretty hard to come by, and few would waste theirs by closing their stall up when it was open. Walking closer to investigate, Jiang Cheng realizes that the stall isn’t truly closed; heavy tarps have just been thrown over it to make it appear so. He knocks on the wooden frame, and hears movement inside – there’s at least one person there – but no answer. Blue light flickers wildly from within and Jiang Cheng tears the tarp down.

There’s an old man inside, white haired and bent with age, and he has lit lanterns with him. This close, it’s obvious that they’re filled not with lighting talismans or night pearls, but ghost fire. There’s terror on the man’s face.

“Sect Leader!” he says, dropping into a bow. As he does, the heavy cloth he’d been trying to wrap around one such lantern falls away and Jiang Cheng sees what had caught his attention; this lantern is glowing unnaturally bright, a pure clear blue brighter than any spirit fire Jiang Cheng has ever seen. It flickers within the lantern as if to get his attention, and Jiang Cheng reaches out to it. When his hand touches the lantern, it flares even brighter, then dims again as Jiang Cheng takes his hand away and tries to blink away the after image left in his eyes.

“Are you aware that trapping and selling spirits is illegal in Yunmeng?” asks Jiang Cheng, glancing again at the old man. There are at least fifty spirit lanterns here, though none of the others are even half so bright as the one that led him here.

“Yes, Sect Leader, but I didn’t trap them here.”

“It is still illegal. Spirit lanterns are borderline demonic cultivation, and no righteous sect would allow this. Your wares will be confiscated. As I’m sure you were aware; you tried hard enough not to catch my attention.” Stepping back two steps, Jiang Cheng releases a signal flare into the air. The old man looks like he wishes to argue or plead, but Jiang Cheng’s reputation has clearly preceded him, and this man is too much of a coward to try.

“Where did you catch them?” asks Jiang Cheng. He hopes that it wasn’t in Gusu, he doesn’t want to have to deal with them over this, but dozens of restless spirits that were not properly laid to rest had to be reported to whichever Sect was responsible for the region.

“I… I took them from the battlefields in Qishan and Yiling, Sect Leader. There were so many.”

Jiang Cheng has to clench his hand and concentrate to keep Zidian from flaring out, breathe deep to hold his temper. Two cultivators dressed in Jiang purple approach quickly, the market-place crowd separating quickly to let them through, and Jiang Cheng nods at them.

“This person has been selling lanterns filled with captured ghosts. You are to look into it, and then set the ghosts to rest.” he says.

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

That should be the end of it, and yet.

“The bright spirit,” says Jiang Cheng, addressing the old man again. “Did you find that one at Yiling?” His chest aches, and he doesn’t know if he wants to hear him say yes or no.

“Yes, Sect Leader. But it was only a small one, then. Like those,” he gestures to a few of the fainter lanterns. “Been getting stronger by the day. But didn’t light up all flashy-like until you came near right now.”

“Confiscate the other lanterns, and take them back to the Pier for the final rites,” says Jiang Cheng. “I will take the brightest one.”

“Sect Leader is that – ?” starts one of his men, and the other elbows him.

“Yes, Sect Leader, we’ll take care of it,” he says. Jiang Cheng nods sharply to them, and leaves with his lantern.

*

Taking his personal boat, Jiang Cheng rows out into the lake, far enough away from shore, and the cleared water-routes for complete privacy. Then he takes the lantern with the ghost fire, and releases it into the night. Rather than dissipate, it floats just above the boat, like a tiny star fallen to earth.

“Wei Wuxian! Is that you?” Jiang Cheng cries, hand gripping tightly to Sandu’s hilt.

The spirit-fire flickers at the name, then floats down, coming closer.

<Wei Ying?> it asks, softly. <Wei Ying?>

“Yes! It is you, isn’t it?”

<You are Wei Ying?> it asks, coming closer, and Jiang Cheng holds out a hand with Zidian sparking warningly to halt it in its path. The flame bounces a little in place, as though anxious. <Wei Ying?>

“What? No. I am Sect Leader Jiang. Jiang Wanyin,” he says.

<Where is Wei Ying?> asks the flame, flickering and circling like it’s getting agitated.

That’s what Jiang Cheng would like to know, too.

“Who are you?”

<Need to find Wei Ying! Where is Wei Ying?> and the spirit has shrunk in on itself now, it’s voice is pitiful. Pleading. Not quite knowing why, fully aware that this is probably a really dumb move, Jiang Cheng twists Zidian off his finger and holds his hand out to the little ghost fire.

It must be the spirit of a Wen cultivator, to have been found in Yiling. One who knew his brother well, to sound so pitiful. It nestles close to his hand, skimming his skin like a handful of starlight, strangely warm and fizzling to the touch.

Look how far he’s fallen, reaching out to comfort the ghost of a Wen dog.

Yet this ghost is the first person to mourn Wei Wuxian in Jiang Cheng’s presence since his brother vanished in a burst of light during that battle at the Burial Mounds. The four sects could celebrate the death of the Yiling Patriarch, but what about Wei Wuxian, what about his brother, why doesn’t anyone care, why do they think that Jiang Cheng is the one who killed him?

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is. Do you have a name, spirit? Are you a Wen? Wen Ning?”

Jiang Cheng’s heart sinks at the lack of answer. Perhaps the spirit is injured somehow, to be repeating itself like this? He’ll probably have to find a way to heal it, before he can push it into the afterlife.

“It’s all right, I’m looking for him too,” he says quietly to the flame cupped in his hand. “We’ll find him.”

[One more snippet, because I just remembered how much I love this AU! I hope you enjoyed it!]

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #ghost!LWJ verse #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng bros #mdzs

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nillegible · 4 years

Note

"Lan Xichen has the blood of innocents on not just his hands" ?

Oh Hello! So this one is the WIP document for ghost!LWJ verse, or well, I’ve been calling it a variety of things; it’s also one of my two TGCF crossovers. There are already a few snippets of this verse up on tumblr! I’ll link them here for your convenience:

Lan Xichen: The death of LWJ

Lan Xichen: LWJ’s funeral

Lan Xichen: LXC finds Wen Yuan’s ghost

Jin Guangyao: Trying to find a solution for little Wen Yuan

JC and ghost!LWJ: golden core reveal

Huh, so I’ve actually put up more LXC stuff from this fic than anything else. But plot-wise it’s actually mostly ghost!LWJ and JC becoming friends, looking for WWX’s missing soul, ending up at Hua Cheng’s Ghost City where Wen Ning is working for him... it’s a bit involved. XD

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #tgcf crossover #lan wangji #jiang cheng #lan xichen #asks!

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

Jiang Cheng leads the spirit into his private quarters, powers the silencing arrays inlaid into the room’s walls, and then demands, “What are you doing here, Hanguang Jun?”

Instead of responding as usual, the flame grows, unfurling into the shape of Lan Wangji, as tall and imposing as he had been in life, though a bit transparent and luminous. He’s the brightest thing in the room.

Unlike when he was alive, he looks furious, gold eyes promising death or worse, as he asks, “What did you do to Wei Ying?”

“I didn’t do anything to him! He died!” says Jiang Cheng .

The spirit stalks closer, “Do not lie to me. Sect Leader Jiang defeated the Yiling Patriarch. They sing it in the streets.”

“Well I didn’t,” says Jiang Cheng . “How dare you enter my home, and make such accusations?” he demands, and tugs Zidian into whip form. And then Lan Wangji is in his face, Jiang Cheng flinches, backs away reflexively, but that just brings him up against the wall, and a strange ghostly hand presses his wrist, somehow holding it and Zidian to the wall. His other hand lies threateningly on Jiang Cheng ’s chest.

“Jiang Wanyin,” says Lan Wangji , and it’s like an inhuman fury that fills his voice, that burns in his eyes. “What did you do to Wei Ying?”

“I didn’t–” he breaks off with a sharp inhale as the not-solid hand on his chest presses, presses through cloth, and flesh, and bone, and it’s cold, freezing, and he can’t breathe. He’s staring horrified into angry gold eyes, before a wildly sparking Zidian drops from his nerveless fingers; wrist freezing cold and his hand unresponsive.

Stupid. So stupid. Killed by a crazy Lan ghost in his own bedroom, how could he have been so stupid?

The ghostly cold curls around the warm pulsing core of him, his second one – No, no please, don’t take it from me. Please, I can’t – and he can feel it tremble. JC would scream in pain, in fear, in rage, if he only had the breath for it, as Lan Wangji’s ghostly fingers tighten coldly around his golden core.

“This doesn’t belong to you,” says Lan Wangji .

He’s right, this isn’t the core that Jiang Cheng carefully built up with years of careful effort. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t his now. It was given to me. Does that not make it mine? Jiang Cheng would ask, if he could. He can feel warm wetness on his cheeks, doesn’t know when he started to cry but he wants LWJ to let go, wants him to back off, wants to live, wants to keep his golden core, the precious blessing of a second chance that he’d been granted, and can’t bear to lose like this. Not so soon. (Not ever. It had been so empty, so frighteningly, painfully, empty without it.)

Then suddenly Lan Wangji is pulled away from him, those cold fingers withdraw from within his chest, and Jiang Cheng inhales with a desperate gasp and pushes both his hands to his chest, it’s still there, it’s there, he has his golden core, it hasn’t been plucked right out of him. Hasn’t disintegrated into powerless flecks within him, shattered. Jiang Cheng falls to his knees, and folds over, curling in on himself.

He can’t stop the tears, the hitching of his breath. Jiang Cheng should stand. Should hold Sandu to the spirit’s throat and demand answers, should use Zidian to dispel him forcefully from this plane. It takes him a few minutes of helpless weeping before he can even sit up again. When he looks up, Lan Wangji has been restrained by Zidian of its own accord, wrapped around him tightly like it had once held him and Wei Wuxian while Lotus Pier was destroyed. Unlike them, Lan Wangji does not struggle, only stares down at him coldly from within the sparking violet binds.

There’s a small curl of anger within him, a sliver of how dare you, Lan Wangji, and JC focuses on it, lets the rising fury lend him the strength to stand up again and look him in the eye. His sword is not with him, but Zidian is enough to keep Lan Wangji away. “This core,” says Jiang Cheng , “Was given to me by Baoshan Sanren. After Wen Zhuliu destroyed my first,” says Jiang Cheng .

“You would claim,” says Lan Wangji, “That Baoshan Sanren gave you Wei Ying’s golden core?”

No.

“It’s not his. It’s not.” It can’t be.

But Lan Wangji’s spirit had sought him out, had called him Wei Ying, had been so confused when Jiang Cheng insisted upon his own identity.

Wei Wuxian, no. Please.

It really had been such a flimsy story. If Jiang Cheng hadn’t been half mad with grief he wouldn’t have believed it (sometimes he still can’t believe it, dreams of being cold and empty and powerless and wakes up gasping, his hand over his chest, feeling the warmth of the qi within his core). Never would have believed that story if not for the warm golden core pulsing within him, right now, that gave irrefutable proof to the bizarre claim.

You blindfolded me, and sent me up alone.

You vanished after.

You never. Oh god, Wei Wuxian.

You never used your sword again.

That had been the last time; flying them both to the base of the mountain, where he’d told him what to do and sent him on his way…

It can’t be true. You didn’t.

(How dare you?)

That’s not what I wanted, how could you?

I wanted to save you.

(I’ve always wanted to save you.)

Jiang Cheng wants to tear it out of his chest as badly as he wants to seal it into him so that no one can ever take it away. He never wants to give someone a chance to take it from him, but he can’t bear it – Wei Wuxian how could you do this to me.

“Jiang Wanyin, release me,” says Lan Wangji.

“I didn’t know. I was blindfolded… someone knocked me unconscious. He never said… he was already missing when I…” says Jiang Cheng, and with a gesture Zidian returns to him, warm and familiar in his hand. He doesn’t fold it back into a ring, wary that Lan Wangji would try to attack again. “He never told me that… his own core… The voice. Wen Qing…” and then Jiang Cheng is sliding down the wall, no longer able to keep himself up, crying again.

Did it hurt? Were you always so cold?

How did you survive it for years?

“Wei Wuxian…”

How could you bear to take it out yourself?

I wasn’t worth it, Wei Wuxian.

I’ve never been worth that, but after.

I was so ungrateful to you, afterwards.

“Wei Wuxian, how could you…”

(Did you regret it until you died?)

“…just die, and leave me with this?”

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #jiang cheng #lan zhan #wei ying #yunmeng bros #jc #lwj #wwx #golden core #jc finds out early

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

This is the second time that Lan Xichen has come to Yiling. He finds it to be a cheerful, normal town. Perhaps Lan Xichen gets more suspicious stares than admiring ones here, but aside from that it’s no different from most small towns.

He stops at a small bun shop to ask, “I was informed that Yiling was having ghostly troubles. Could you tell me about them?” He smiles at the young woman running the stall, but she glares at him.

“There’s nothing wrong here, Young Master. No-one’s hurt, or dying, and nobody asked for your help. Just leave us alone, and tell the other cultivators to stay away, too,” she says.

It strikes him anew that the people of Yiling had known the Wens, had been living well under Wen Qing, and traded regularly with them when they were hiding from the rest of the cultivation world. These civilians, ordinary people, who had witnessed the cruelty of the cultivation sects first hand, must think that they led armies to destroy defenseless farmers and took pride in it.

“May I purchase a bun?” he asks her.

“Which one?”

He points to a plain one without filling, and pays her for it when she wraps it and hands it over.

“Did you know any of them?” he asks, while she counts out change.

“This one doesn’t know what the Young Master is asking about,” she says, handing him some coins. He puts them away without counting.

“You do understand, Young Miss. The Wens, did you know any of them?”

“They’re all dead now, they won’t do anything to you,” she says.

“But they wouldn’t have, even when they were alive, right?” he asks softly. He’s asking too late, should have asked this before, but he hadn’t.

She stares at him for a long while, and finally she says, “I knew a few. Only the ones who ever came down the mountain, Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and the child. They were good people. But they’re gone now, and so you can go too, Young Master. We don’t need you here.”

But that doesn’t make sense. A child? What child?

“There was no child,” says Lan Xichen sharply. They hadn’t stooped that low.

“There was. Little Wen Yuan. Maybe four years old, and even with how hard they worked, he didn’t always have enough to eat. We’d give them our leftovers when we could, so that the child didn’t have to sleep hungry.”

“I was there. There was no child! Maybe he survived? Or escaped?” asks Lan Xichen.

For the first time, he sees something other than anger on her face. It’s pity. “Young Master, he’s dead. I’m sorry,” she says, and turns away, dismissive.

He leaves without saying goodbye. He’d planned to speak to more shop keepers, but most of them look just as hostile as the woman selling buns. And they have to be lying to him, he can feel the resentful energy here. It’s subdued, but it feels fresh. And also… layered, like newer trails had been laid over older ones, and they didn’t all coincide. A ghost has been wandering through Yiling.

(He can only pay attention half-heartedly to this ghost he seeks. Wen Yuan. There had been a child there, and Lan Xichen and his sect were now complicit in a four year old child’s death as well. Lan Xichen wonders which of the towns-people had found Wen Yuan’s body. No wonder these people thought that we’re monsters. We are.)

Lan Xichen pauses when the resentful energy suddenly feels stronger. Perhaps he’s getting close. He’s concentrating so hard that he misses the presence of a child until the little one trips and falls against Lan Xichen’s leg, grabbing his robes to keep himself upright.

Lan Xichen leans over to steady him. “Don’t move,” he tells the child quickly. “It’s not safe here.” He keeps one hand on the boy’s shoulder and slips a talisman into his other hand, looking around quickly, trying to find the source of the energy.

“Let him go!” cries a voice, and Lan Xichen turns in time to see a young woman wielding a beaded purse try to beat him on the arm holding the child in place.

“I wasn’t going to hurt him!” he says, releasing the child at once.

“Rich-gege?” asks a soft, piping voice.

“RUN, child!” says the woman, and the child scarpers.

The resentful energy fades in the same direction. That child was being stalked.

“Leave him alone!” the woman cries, but Lan Xichen sprints away, the child has vanished into the crowd, and the people of Yiling have suddenly become even less helpful than before, getting in his way and shoving their wares in his face.

“You would let a child draw away the evil to protect yourselves?” Lan Xichen snarls at the old man who waves a bunch of woven toys in his face, claiming he can get them for half off if he buys them right now. Disgusted with all of them, Lan Xichen leaps for the rooftops. It’s almost easier like this, he runs towards the source of resentment, and finds the child hiding in an alley. He closes the ends off with barrier talismans and then drops down beside the child, extending his senses outwards to seek out the danger.

Oh.

He hadn’t realized, in the middle of the crowded street, but here, like this, it’s obvious.

Young master, he’s dead. I’m sorry.

They hadn’t found the child’s body. They’d found his ghost.

“A-Yuan?” he asks softly, looking at the small child before him. He kneels down so he can see better. Wen Yuan seems to be considering him just as carefully.

“Rich-gege?” he asks again. It sounds more like he’s asking after a specific person, rather than a street-child’s name for any rich young man as he’d assumed earlier.

“I’m not him,” he says softly.

“But,” the child stares at him some more, and reaches out and pats Lan Xichen’s forehead ribbon. He forces himself not to flinch back.

He forgets to breathe. It can’t be. That Wangji looked so much like him means nothing, the child must have met his brother ages ago, and had experienced so much since. It didn’t have to be Wangji that he calls Rich-gege.

(And yet he knows, he is certain, without the slightest tangible proof, that Wen Yuan had known his brother.)

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #A-Yuan #LXC #Lan Xichen #AU

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

Lan Xichen has the blood of innocents on his hands. His sword. Standing on that battlefield, corpses old and new thick on the ground, while the news filtered out that the Yiling Patriarch was dead, killed by the Sandu Sengshou… he’d known. There hadn’t been cultivators here, no army of demonic cultivators in training, there weren’t even able-bodied civilians, just the elderly and injured, farmers who had been trying to eke out a living on the most inhospitable place on earth.

It hadn’t been difficult to see that they had been misled – no, that they had been wrong, that they had acted without thinking without caution, and all that blood would not be washed away.

We were supposed to be the righteous ones, thinks Lan Xichen as they mount their swords in a mostly shocked daze. But we did that.

“At least we put them out of their misery,” Lan Xinyang says, when they’re walking away. Lan Xichen looks at him sharply, and the older man shrinks back a little. “They wouldn’t have lived long, Sect Leader Lan. Not without Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian.”

He has a point. Even if they’d been left to starve to death, their deaths would still be on their heads. Lan Xichen wishes he didn’t feel guilty for Wei Wuxian’s death. He had killed too many, gone too far to be saved as Wangji seemed to hope. Even Sect Leader Jiang didn’t seem to recognize the man he had grown up with anymore, not after Nightless City. Not after that massacre, where so many more had died.

Cloud Recesses is still wreathed in white, mourning for the disciples that they lost. Several of the survivors are still, even three months in, at the healing ward, with only a life of pain and disfigurement to look forward to. Lan Yingshi has not breathed a word since he returned to the Cloud Recesses. It was the corpse of another Lan disciple, his fiancée, that Wei Wuxian had reanimated, who had killed three of their junior martial siblings, and Lan Yingshi had stopped her himself, had carried her home when Wei Wuxian's spell finally fell apart.

There is no reason to regret Wei Wuxian’s death, not when he caused such suffering, deliberately or otherwise, and yet. An injustice cannot remedy a previous injustice. They cannot absolve themselves of all the blame by piling it on Wei Wuxian.

Because we didn’t listen.

Wei Wuxian had asked them, repeatedly, just to leave them alone.

Why didn’t we listen?

Wangji listened to him.

Wangji had listened, and look what that had led to.

Wangji had stepped between Wei Wuxian and their clan, alone. Had raised his sword to them, and saved Wei Wuxian, before returning, unrepentant, to accept his punishment. He had burned with righteous fury as they beat him down. His flesh had taken the punishment, but his soul had not cowered. Wangji had been sure he was right.

Lan Xichen doesn’t know. After the massacre… after the massacre had been too late, but Lan Xichen should have supported Wangji before then. Should have kept the Jin clan from pushing and pushing. Should have asked that Wen Qing’s life be spared.

He had done none of those things, and the weight of so much innocent blood lies heavily on him, he can hardly breathe.

On his return, Lan Xichen should fall to his knees before his brother and beg his forgiveness. It shouldn’t have been Wangji alone to see the righteous path, to do the right thing even when the politics made it unseemly. Are we not Lan?

Dismounting in the Cloud Recesses, he feels only shame. The home that Lan Xichen had lost, that he had been rebuilding every moment of these last long years, he has failed completely. The buildings had been replaced, the trees healed. But the heart of the Lan clan? That had been burned and broken during the Sunshot campaign as well, and he had not even seen the damage that needed to be fixed.

“Sect Leader Lan! Sect Leader Lan!”

Two disciples run to meet them, raising their voices. Something terrible must have happened, to make them react so. Lan Xichen musters up strength from the fog of exhaustion to hurry towards them. (No rest, he doesn’t deserve to rest, everything is his fault and he must set it right.)

“What has happened, Lan Yizhen?” he asks, looking to the elder between them.

“Sect Leader Lan, you are wanted at the healers. Sect Leader Lan,” there are tears in the teenager’s eyes.

“What happened?”

“They’re saying,” the boy’s voice cracks, and he tries again, voice shocked and quiet, “They’re saying Hanguang-Jun is dead.”

Lan Xichen stumbles, vision blacking out. When he blinks away the darkness, Lan Xinyang is holding him up from falling with one hand around his arm, and one at his waist. From the way he’s slumped Lan Yizhen’s face is actually higher than his. “No,” says Lan Xichen, looking up at him. Please. Please tell me he’s alive. Please tell me I didn’t kill him.

But Lan Yizhen says nothing, and Lan Xichen finds his feet, stumbles toward the medical building, Lan Xinyang at his side supporting him when needed.

His brother lies there on a bed, still and unmoving, an empty shell missing the warm presence of his qi to prove he lives. Lan Xichen falls to his knees beside Uncle Qiren, kneeling beside the bed, reaching out a trembling hand for the pale still one at Wangji’s side.

The explanations, the cause and time of death, the way the fever had been too fast and Wangji too weak still, even three months after his punishment, to have any strength at all that they could bolster. That Uncle Qiren and some of the elders had poured in qi until they had none left to give but it just didn’t work. The words are spoken around him, to him, the healers trying to explain just how this had happened. As if it could be explained. As Sect Leader, he should be listening, but Lan Xichen does not hear.

As a brother, the only words that he knows are:

Wangji wake up.

I wouldn’t.

Wangji I didn’t know, please.

Wangji, I.

I killed you.

Wangji.

More unimportant words; Lan Xinyang informs the healers and elders quietly that the Yiling Patriarch is dead and the Wen remnants at Yiling destroyed.

He’s dead, Wangji. Wei Wuxian is dead.

Why did you save him? Why did you- but he can’t ask that. Lan Xichen knows his brother, and he knows why.

We killed him, like we killed you.

Wangji, I can’t.

Wake up.

I was wrong.

I’m sorry.

Wangji, wake up. Please.

Wangji.

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #tw: character death #lan xichen #lan wangji #angst

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

(AN: Probably super a-historical and not!chinese, but I’m more familiar with cremation than burial rites, apologies. If anyone can direct me to proper resources about how funerals would work, and what people would wear, I’d be pretty grateful! Otherwise I guess I’m sticking with this for the ghost!LWJ fic)

The swords of Lan clan members who die in battle are stored in the ancestral vaults, but their instruments are burned with them on the funeral pyres. Battle is something the Lan choose to excel in, their music is what they are.

(There is a reason every Lan child’s courtesy name is the same as their first true guqin)

Lan Wangji’s guqin, Wangji, wrapped in white silk, just like its namesake’s funeral robes, is offered to Lan Xichen to lay beside Lan Wangji. It is his right as the closest living kin.

He doesn’t set Wangji down, stares at the dark, well cared for wood, and then stores it in his qiankun music case in his left sleeve.

There are no shouts of horror, this is still Lan sect, but he can hear the sudden flurry of whispers. From the same space, he takes out his own guqin, Xichen, and sets it beside his brother. “Xichen! You must not do this!” says Uncle Qiren, but Lan Xichen ignores him. He takes out Liebing as well, and places it on top of Xichen, and then steps back.

The elder who was bringing the torch, freezes. Stares wide eyed, instead of saying his part and passing the torch to him and Uncle Qiren so that they may continue. This isn’t the first funeral he’s presiding over, there have been far too many, recently, but the elder hesitates as though unsure how to continue. “Sect Leader Lan?” he asks, sounding worried.

“Proceed,” Lan Xichen tries to say, but he can’t speak. He gestures for the elder to carry on.

“Sect Leader Lan’s actions are inappropriate,” says one of the other elders. Lan Xichen ignores them and stares until the presiding elder steps forward.

The whispers continue but Lan Xichen watches in silence. He isn’t going to back down on this. “It’s alright,” says Uncle Qiren, after nearly a minute. “Let him do this, if he wishes.”

*

The torch is heavy in Lan Xichen’s hands, the heat somehow scorching his skin but not warming him in the slightest as he steps towards his little brother, and lets the flames catch on the sandalwood and silk of his brother’s pyre.

There’s nothing more to be done.

He stands as long as he can bear it, and then draws away. Wangji is just as lost now, when Lan Xichen stands beside his pyre as he had been in the medical building being prepared for his cremation, as he had been once he was punished beyond what even his body could stand to suffer and succumbed to the fever.

I let them kill you.

I killed you.

Wangji.

A familiar arm curls around him when he nearly falls on his way to the Hanshi. A smaller one takes his arm. Lan Xichen had not expected the news to reach Lanling or Qinghe before the funeral but somehow Mingjue and A-Yao were here.

He lets them lead him to the Hanshi, barrels of water ready to wash off with placed ready outside. His sworn-brothers. They’re all that he has left because Wangji, his real brother, is dead.

#ghost!LWJ fic excerpt #cremation #major character death #funeral

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wangxianficrecs · 3 years

Text

❤️The One-Body Problem by metisket

❤️The One-Body Problem

by metisket

T, 29k, lan jingyi & wei wuxian, wangxian

[PODFIC] The One-Body Problem by SeaNoodle

Summary: The good news is that Lan Jingyi has found a mentor, friend, and constant companion through the difficulties in life.

The bad news is that that’s because he’s been accidentally possessed by the Yiling Patriarch.

My comments: ohmygod ohmygawd, I spent too much of this story just... laughing out loud and disturbing my cat and my husband. It's a HOOT. the combo of Jingyi and wwx (self-acclaimed shit-stirrers) is just pure effervescence. Of course, there's tons of tragedy, as a matter of fact, ljy gets all of wwx's horrific, tragic life second-hand and spends a good bit of time crying because SAD and it just makes him more determined to make him happy. But. His brain-roommate is dead, so hooking him up with lwj is right out.

They're just, an adorable team and Sizhui goes with it, and it's a partnership ljy is honestly happy to have last forever, but maybe a year is all he'll get....

This is such a favorite. I love it to bits: Lan Jingyi and Wei Wuxian, two of my favorite people.

Excerpt 1: When Jingyi sleeps, so does the Yiling Patriarch, because apparently they really are sharing Jingyi’s brain in some weird way. That freaks the Yiling Patriarch out, but Jingyi’s not unreasonably tired or headachy or anything, so he decides not to be bothered.

The Yiling Patriarch can also do that “nap” thing, where he blips out totally for a while—though he has to be awake to do it, which seems weird. He says it’s like he’s hiding in a cabinet in Jingyi’s mind. Jingyi didn’t know he had cabinets in his mind. He’s learning all sorts of stuff lately.

…Theoretically he could shove the Yiling Patriarch into the cabinet himself, but he thinks that thought very quietly, and doesn’t plan to do it ever. So far the Yiling Patriarch’s been a very pleasant brain guest. Unless he loses it and goes on an unprovoked murder rampage, Jingyi has no intention of sending him to brain prison.

All things considered, it could be much worse. Like, what if the Yiling Patriarch really was the way he’s painted in class? Man, Jingyi’s body would be a puppet and he’d just be floating in jelly forever.

Excerpt 2: “Is he ordering you to say that?” Zewu-jun asks, still with the suspicion.

“He’s been begging me not to say a single thing I’ve said so far, actually.” Jingyi hesitates. “Well, that was true at first. Now he’s just kind of crying from embarrassment in the back of my head.”

Zewu-jun’s mouth does a weird thing like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

“Anyway, he’s a giant mess who can’t admit to his own emotions and has all the self-esteem of seaweed,” Jingyi explains, ignoring Sizhui’s judgmental sigh. “They sure don’t teach you that about the Yiling Patriarch.”

Hey, seaweed might have great self-esteem. You don’t know.

Jingyi wonders if you can perform an exorcism on yourself by banging your head against a wall for a while.

sharing a body, lan jingyi & wei wuxian, humor, really really funny, sharing a brain cell, possession, light angst, ghost wei wuxian, (sort of), friendship, lan sizhui is the best friend, lan sizhui is the best boy, wei wuxian’s avuncular powers, matchmaking, oblivious wei wuxian, lan jingyi & lan sizhui, adorable juniors, teacher wei wuxian, happy ending, feel good fic, fic for a bad day, podfic available, favorite, @metisket

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wangxianficrecs · 3 years

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hills and rivers by LtLJ

hills and rivers

by LtLJ

T, 70k, wangxian, series complete with 4 works

Summary Part 1: As the two groups parted again and Jin Ling led his disciples back to pick up their packs, Jin Chan said, "So we're not going to murder him but did you consider that he might murder all of us?"

***

Word has it that the Yiling Patriarch is back up to his old tricks somewhere in the woods of Tingshan. But the truth is, it was Jin Ling's idea.

My comments:

Part 1: Wherein Jin Ling looks for a way to make things better between him and his weird Uncle after the whole 'stabbing' thing, and settles on giving him an old outpost in a ruined city so he'll have somewhere to live (because he won't stay for long in Cloud Recesses) after an enlightening conversation with Lan Jingyi. But it all falls apart when the outpost is already claimed by a pair of demons, and Jin Ling learns a lot by watching the Lans battle them, and learns even more about his uncle.

*** This excerpt from Part 1 is such a beautiful concept, I loved it: ***

"It helps to know what you're looking for. Here." He bit his thumb and sketched a talisman on Jin Ling's forehead, then turned him to face the courtyard.

And Jin Ling saw it: a writhing map of painful death, of unfinished lives, of resentful wronged spirits burned into the earth and the wood and the stone. Living spirits, too, glowing out of the disciples. Hanguang-jun was too bright to look at. Wen Ning had a glow too, but his was off-color, not quite centered in his body, and hazed around with ward talismans. The breath caught in Jin Ling's throat. "Do you see this all the time?"

"I used to. Now I see it when I look for it. Wen Ning sees it." Wei Wuxian raised his voice. "Wen Ning! How many ghosts in the well?"

Wen Ning, dragging a larger dead spider demon across the court, said, "Eight, Senior Wei!"

_______

Part 2 shows how much ostracism and hostility wei wuxian has regularly been exposed to since his return. There's a scene in the middle where lan wangji delivers a DELICIOUSLY SATISFYING smackdown to sect leader yao during a banquet that will live on in my head rent free for years. Mostly POV wwx and lsz.

_______

Part 3 is mostly POV wwx with flashes of lwj and lsz. In which they discover a sliver of Yin iron and in trying to destroy it, wwx is snatched through a portal straight into great danger and mystery. (Of course those that remain behind - lwj, lwz, wn - are not about to let him face that alone.

post canon, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, domestic fluff, family feels, reconciliation, wei wuxian’s avuncular powers, family bonding, case fic, bamf wei wuxian, romance, family drama, family issues, yiling patriarch prejudice, protective lan wangji, protective juniors, adorable juniors, ptsd issues, body horror, bad lan qiren, love confessions, getting together, The Living Dead spoilers, yiling patriarch wei wuxian, kidnapping, trauma, bamf wen ning, action/adventure, curses, corpses, baoshan sanren, POV jin ling, POV wei wuxian, POV others, whump, hurt wei wuxian, lan sizhui, wen ning, jin ling, happy ending

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wangxianficrecs · 4 years

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Wearing Down Every Bone

by CSHfic, VSfic

E, 31k, wangxian

Summary: “Sizhui, tell me,” Wei Wuxian says. “Does this feel... familiar to you?”

or After running into Lan Zhan on a night hunt, Wei Wuxian is cursed to live the same day over and over and over.

My comments: Oh, goodness, this is hard. Wwx encounters the Juniors while on his post-cql walkabout and hooks up to solve an issue for the town. They're joined by lwj, and go out to the manor where the ghost of the woman in question... fights back and hurts wwx before they're able to banish her spirit.

And then he wakes up the next morning and does it all over again. And again. And again. He spends six months or a year this way: long enough to learn a whole other language from a foreign traveller in the bar that evening. Sometimes he hangs with the Lans, but for a long time he avoids them, drinking in corners and trying to drown himself because he. can't. get. out. No matter what new things he tries, he just cannot find out what it is the spirit needs to release the curse.

Everyone else is caught in the loop with him, of course. But wwx is the only one who is aware of it. and he keeps not telling lwj because he's afraid that changing things so much will make it even worse.

Excerpt: Lan Zhan is solidly in mother-hen mode. He dismisses the juniors to their rooms with instructions to see Lan Susu for their injuries, as he’s had some training in the medical arts. In truth, even the worst off of the juniors escaped with only a few nasty splinters, and that reason alone is why Lan Zhan leaves them to Lan Susu’s attention, instead of supervising the whole affair himself.

Normally, Wei Wuxian would make a joke to lighten the mood. He might point out that the scratches barely even qualified as a cultivator’s injury. They might have been from any overenthusiastic woman, he’d say, and quirk his eyebrows to really get his meaning across, and then he’d bask in Lan Zhan’s annoyed (but not angry, not these days, maybe even fond) accusation that he is shameless.

But Lan Zhan is wearing the pinched, worried expression that he always gets when Wei Wuxian has been lightly stabbed, so he only sidles up to him as he talks quietly with the hostess to request water for tea, and to clean Wei Wuxian’s scratches.

case fic, groundhog day au, time loop, time travel, night hunts, curses, post canon, adorable juniors, excellency lan wangji, insecure wei wuxian, hurt wei wuxian, hurt/comfort, empathy, lack of communication, depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms, pining, getting together, love confssions, first kiss, first time, @klabautermanns and @voidcenturyscholar

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wangxianficrecs · 4 years

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Heavy as the setting sun

by snoozingkitten

E, 24k, wangxian, pre Junior OT3 zhuilingyi

Summary: Wei Wuxian is amused to find that their son takes after his father. While on a night hunt to a remote village to investigate a ghost hunting brides they find Sizhui right in the middle of where the chaos is.

My comments: Oh, this one was lovely and interesting. Half focused on wwx/lwj and half on the Three Juniors. Whereas the adults have figured their romantic shit out, the Juniors need to do a little more self-analysis and communicating. (Sizhui dressed as a beautiful bride just might help them with that.)

Excerpt: (I love this description of wwx/lwj:) When he was walking, his Lan Zhan gave off the impression that there was nothing which could stop him. It would be pouring rain with screaming wind and he would still be holding the reins and calmly walking.

He was an immovable object in the same way Wei Wuxian was an unstoppable force.

Wei Wuxian was only now getting to feel the real tempest that raged just under that stoic surface, an inferno behind a face he had spent years assuming was only ice.

post canon, night hunt, case fic, family feels, falling in love, crossdressing sizhui, adorable juniors, bottom lan wangji, top wei wuxian, (although it’s implied that this is rare), hurt lan sizhui, hurt/comfort, lan wangji is a good dad, wei wuxian is a good dad, doting dads, @lipstickprint

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