#meng yao is......he's so eager to know he just wants to know that everyone worked out for him like he wanted...............

[tvxcue]

i can feel myself returning to who i was in early 2020...............

#just reread a nieyao fic that ruined me before and remembering when i just wanted things to be nice for them >.< #like they aren't people that are meant to survive what they have is not smth that is meant to survive. #like they just cannot work together fundamentally but also if they could......they could work so well. #they DID work so well and that's the thing. they know they can be so good together bc they used to be something. #but now they're nothing and also they're something worse and they can never get that back. #i really enjoy toxic nieyao but sometimes someone makes them sweet in a way that computes in my head with who they are #and it makes me wanna cry bc nie mingjue literally cried as he threw meng yao out of qinghe. #he was furious and he was betrayed and he was heartbroken and he was crying. and then the first time he sees jin zixuan after he asks how #meng yao is......he's so eager to know he just wants to know that everyone worked out for him like he wanted............... #like they could have genuinely maybe recovered from the captain killing if it hadn't been for the spy thing. #but also if it wasn't for the spy thing they all probably would have died. it was literally impossible for them. #speaking

[noenvyy]

HOW did vicious baby, (aka Meng Yao), and Tall Daddy, (aka Lan Xichen), actually meet??

Okay I’m really curious to hear everyone’s take on this because I just watched the donghua and listened to the audio drama and each way is a little different! 

And BECAUSE each way is a little different each way could have many different interpretations and implications for the way I see Meng Yao and Xichen’s relationship.

Exhibit A: The Live Action Version aka Love at First Pinky Stroke OR Is it Actually Just More of Meng Yao’s Conniving Ways?

So in the live action Vicious Baby and Tall Daddy meet after Tall Daddy very ala Jane Austin rescues Meng Yao from the nasty social comments of some random hoes. 

Meng Yao seems both genuinely grateful and genuinely smitten at Xichen’s chivalry...

Whereas soon as Xichen sees him smile he literally makes this face. 

Poor Daddy Lan Legs is literally struck dumb by the sight of Meng Yao peering up at him all doe-eyed from beneath his dark lashes. But alas Meng Yao puts the kabash on any possible romantic entanglements much to the audience’s disappointment. Meng Yao is after all, at this point in the show, a taken bottom and his loyalty to Nie Mengjue seems sincere.

 At the very least the face he makes when looking at him in this scene shows that he and Nie Boss Daddy are definitely fucking and Meng Yao is definitely into it. 

Too bad for ol’ Xichen who immediately compensates by trying to vicariously live a romantic life by becoming way too invested in his younger brother’s. 

Then Meng Yao fucks up in front of Mingjue, compensates by getting stabbed for him...

---- BUT knows he’s still on the hook when he hears this.

So here’s my thinking: if this is the real way they met it seems obvious there was some sort of attraction. Therefore, when Meng Yao hears about the burning of Cloud Recesses, he must be genuinely concerned and wanting to help Xichen. 

That’s what I WANT to believe. OR is Meng Yao just already doing the math in his head and figures he might be banished and thinks that if he’s gonna have a rebound it might as well be a rich, powerful, hot and kind one. What is it they say about sociopaths again? How they’re always able to single out the kind people?

I don’t know. Thoughts anyone?

Exhibit B: The Audio Drama aka Xichen is Adorable Helpless Rich Boy and Meng Yao is the Girl Next Door

In a cute extra in the audio drama we see an overly eager Xichen trying hard to pull his weight at the (inn? whorehouse? Meng Yao’s house?) by doing a set of laundry which he proceeds to accidentally tear to shreds. Meng Yao shoes Xichen away from the clothes before Xichen can create more sewing work for him. Xichn laments being a helpless, rich boy who doesn’t know his own strength, expressing regret that now Meng Yao has twice the work on his hands having to care for the both of them. 

Meng Yao however tuts this away, saying he’s used to doing chores. He finds Xichen’s fumbling endearing. However, as he leans over to scrub Xichen’s robes he notices the distinct pattern of the Gusu Lan clan. 

First off, WHAT THE HELL XICHEN?? You’d think the leader of the Lan clan would be a little brighter than this and think to hide his clan robes when he’s on the FREAKING run from the Wen clan.

Meng Yao however, doesn’t call him out but does gently hints that he should keep the robes out of sight.

Meng Yao: These patterns...

Xichen: Hm?

Meng Yao: Nothing! I just think they’re pretty...um young master, these robes are important aren’t they?

Xichen: Yeah I suppose so! ^__^

Meng Yao: Then it would probably be a good idea to keep them stored safe somewhere right? 

Xichen: ^___^

Meng Yao: Like out of sight....

Xichen: ^___^

Meng Yao: Away from prying eyes....?

Xichen: ^____^

Meng Yao: Hide your f**king robes you beautiful simple man!

The whole scene ends with an adorable exchange as Xichen stubbornly gives laundry one last try and fail and Meng Yao gently and playfully teases him for it. 

Okay so if this is the true way they met then once more there is evidence that there was a genuine attraction between them at first and one without any of Meng Yao’s schemes! He truly hadn’t known who Xichen was before deciding to help him. 

This is another version I want to believe.

Exhibit C: The Manghua Version aka Xichen: Meng Yao Would Take a Bullet For Me I Swea---no, no, stop shaking your head Wangji

So this version is the most questionable because its told from Xichen’s POV and he’s biased because he really BELIEVES in Meng Yao. 

We know Meng Yao rescued Xichen, that much is true. 

But Xichen claims Meng Yao rescued him only out of the goodness of his heart without knowing who he was. That he did it because he despised the tyranny of the Wen clan. 

Okay so does that sound a little hollow to anyone else’s ears or is it just me? First off, when has Meng Yao ever just done something out of “the goodness of his heart?” That boy is a calculating bitch! 

Second off, Meng Yao is clever enough to most likely at least know the way Gusu Lan cultivators dressed. Even if he didn’t recognize Xichen as the clan leader he’d still be smart enough to know that having a connection with any member of the Lan clan might benefit him in the future.  Also when do we EVER hear Meng Yao criticize the Wens?? Not once!

I feel like this version makes Meng Yao out to be more sus especially since we see Xichen talking him up later on to Nie Mingjue. This makes Xichen and Meng Yao’s relationship out to be a lot faker than the others as its not a far leap to think that Meng Yao decides to rescue Xichen to gain his favor, only pretending to not know who he was. 

It would fall in line with other bit of the show such as when Meng Yao COMPLETELY manipulates Xichen’s emotions by giving him back the Lan Jade talisman. 

I actually don’t hate this because I think that the donghua is definitely making Meng Yao out to be a lot scarier and evil and I kind of still dig that. 

Exhibit D: The Novel aka I actually don’t really remember this one...

 I don’t remember this one guys. I don’t think we ever actually see it do we? Like don’t we just hear Xichen say that Meng Yao helped hide him when the Wen’s were after him? But we don’t know exactly how they ran into each other or wether they had known each other before or anything? 

Again. IDK. 

Anywho, I’d love to hear people’s take. I do confess I was not in my right mind while writing this post and I apologize for my midnight ramblings. Peace Amigos. 

#meng yao #Jingungyao #lan xichen #xichen #3zun #nie mingjue #zewu jun #er ge-ge #sworn brothers #the untamed #mdzs #cql #untamed theories

[ibijau]

Would you consider continuing that A/B/O XiSang fanfic where a pregnant Huaisang agrees to marry Meng Yao? It's one of my favorites!

relating to this fic

been blocked on that one for a while tbh but hey, have the next bit I'd written!

Lan Xichen startled when Nie Huaisang entered the room with a determined air, saw him, and immediately turned around with a grim expression, leaving without a word. If he’d had any less self control, he would have risen from where he sat and hurried after his former lover and…

And…

“Don’t take it personally,” Nie Mingjue advised without looking up from a report he’d received. “He’s been moody lately, and he’s still mad at me because I couldn’t get him lychees. I don’t care about his cravings, winter is winter, I can’t work miracles.”

Lan Xichen nodded, his eyes still fixed on the door. There had been something odd about Nie Huaisang just then, and it took him a moment to realise what.

“Wasn’t that robe a little small at the waist?”

“That’s his own damn fault,” Nie Mingjue retorted. “He doesn’t want to wear hand-me-downs, because he refuses to understand that I can't spend money on new robes for him when we’re at war. That damn brat… actually, I wouldn’t mind if you tried to knock some sense into him. Him being pregnant is no excuse for making my life so hard. He’s so… are you unwell?”

“Yes,” Lan Xichen said, supporting himself with one hand on the table between them. “Huaisang is pregnant?”

“Very much so, and making it everyone’s problem. I hadn’t told you yet?”

Lan Xichen shook his head. “How far along is he?”

“Five months, give or take.”

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said.

So much had happened in the last half year, it was almost hard to remember that merely five months earlier, Nie Huaisang had come to find him one night, with a sweet smile and a sweeter scent, begging to be let in, whispering about what fun they might have while he was in heat, and how much better it would be to make love like that. Lan Xichen had given in, the way he always did, eager to enjoy everything his dear A-Sang was willing to give him, only mildly guilty to be breaking rules because it’d be only a matter of time before Huaisang graduated, before Lan Xichen went to ask for his hand.

He’d thought they were in love, until Nie Huaisang had broken off their affair with a smile some days later, so cheerful about it that Lan Xichen had then realised, too late, it had never meant to his lover what it meant to him.

And now, Nie Huaisang was pregnant with his child.

It had to be his. They hadn’t let go of each other once for the entirety of Nie Huaisang’s heat.

“Do you know whose it might be?” Nie Mingjue asked, finally looking up from his reports, looking mildly aggravated. “I’ve tried asking him, but he won’t tell me. Won’t tell Meng Yao either, even though he’s agreed to marry him.”

“No.”

“Too bad. I’d have liked to…”

“No, Meng Yao is not marrying him,” Lan Xichen said in a voice so cold he hardly recognised it as his own. But the thought was simply unbearable. His omega, his child…

Or was this always the plan? Meng Yao was a beta and thus unlikely to ever get an omega pregnant. If Nie Huaisang had just used Lan Xichen as a stud… but that would only explain one of the nights they’d spent together, and they had shared many, outside of Nie Huaisang’s heat.

It had felt so real at the time. Nie Huaisang’s sweet kisses, his eagerness, the slick heat of his body, his moans as Lan Xichen fucked into him the way they both liked, the tenderness after, the way they would fall asleep holding each other, and…

Lan Xichen jumped to his feet. He thought he heard Nie Mingjue calling his name, demanding an explanation, but he ignored it all. Nothing mattered but his lover, his omega, their child.

So he ran after Nie Huaisang, determined to learn the truth so he could know, at last, just how much of a fool he'd been.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #couldn't find the first part for a while and that's because I'd forgotten it's cql verse not novel verse and thus tagged like that lol

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'd like more Baxia/NMJ bodyswap please and thank you!

Close - extra 3

-

It wasn’t actually, strictly speaking, necessary for Nie Mingjue to spend two weeks as a saber after he got a nasty concussion on a deliberately sabotaged night-hunt, but he was tired of being in charge – he’d refused the Chief Cultivator title on principle, but he seemed to somehow have gotten stuck doing all the work, possibly for lack of other options – and, well, he could. So why not?

Obviously Baxia wasn’t capable of leading his sect, much less the cultivation world, but he did have one sworn brother left of the two, however distracted the remaining one was by Meng Yao’s plight, and anyway his brother needed to figure out the details of running things sometime before Nie Mingjue actually did die of qi deviation.

“You’re not going to die, stop being so dramatic,” Nie Huaisang grumbled. “The sect healers said that your meridians are clearer than they’ve ever seen in our family and that you may well have solved the problem in our clan’s cultivation method to the point that they don’t see any reason you can’t cultivate straight into immortality.”

Nie Mingjue did not respond. He was, after all, a saber.

“I can feel you being smug in there!”

It was a natural state for sabers. That was his story, and he was sticking with it.

Baxia laughed inside his mind and reached out with a human hand to pat Nie Huaisang on the head, her action still a little overly rough by the look of his face. She’d seen a parent do it to their child and been charmed by the action; she seemed to think it was the human equivalent of being polished.

“Ugh, da-jie, stop that, I’m a grown-up – more to the point, I’m a grown-up that’s going to be running the sect for the next few days until da-ge’s concussion is better!”

Baxia held up two fingers.

“…two days?”

She shook her head.

“Two weeks?”

A nod.

“I – but – da-ge, you can’t do this to me!”

Yes, he could, Nie Mingjue thought with a smile that had some bite in it. And he would, too.

“But there’s a discussion conference about to happen!”

It was all planned out already – Nie Huaisang only needed to attend in his place. What was the problem?

“Da-ge! You get out of that saber this instant and talk to me!”

No.

“Da-ge!”

-

It wasn’t so much that Nie Mingjue had overlooked the question of the discussion conference, but rather he didn’t think it was especially relevant to him as a saber, and of course Baxia would just sit there and scowl at everyone, her aura so intimidating that no one would dare come near.

He overlooked only a single problem: that a discussion conference meant guests, and guests meant swords.

Talkative swords.

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

Nie Mingjue had grown accustomed to the strange way of seeing things that sabers had, more qi detection than actual vision; he had learned to adjust to the strange way that he could almost taste evil, the way his blade was a single jagged tooth eager to drink down blood; he had become familiar with having a body made of sharp steel, immune to pain but vulnerable to dents.

Despite that, hearing the other swords converse was – utterly bizarre.

It was one thing when all around him were the sabers of his Nie sect, since obviously Wei Wuxian didn’t carry one and the Wen sect didn’t either, and Lan Xichen was far too polite to carry his sword openly in the halls of the Unclean Realm. Those sabers surrounded him like a raindrop fallen into a well, familiar and comforting and just the same as him – the same implacable hatred of evil, the nuances of their personalities in greater or lesser degrees, often echoing their masters. They rarely conversed, merely affirmed each other upon meeting, a low subvocal purr of contentment to be around the like-minded.

(Aituan sounded like a rusty door, squeaking and yawning, but however weirdly good-naturedly he was, he was still a saber, with his share of bloodlust and hatred and rage buried deep inside his metal.)

The swords, however…

Shuoyue was a rippling brook, gentle and clear and perhaps a little shallow, a little too flexible, while Bichen in contrast was steady as the earth – more saber-like, despite the double edge. They emitted a feeling like the curved vowels of Gusu and the straightness of their sect rules, the serene mountains and the generous plains, pristine and perfect right up until they met some of their neighbors (the newly formed Su clain, for example) at which point it was all screech-screech-screech.

The rule against gossip in the Cloud Recesses apparently didn’t apply to their swords.

Nie Mingjue would have expected the Jin sect swords to be flashy and bright, as gilded on the inside as they were on the outside, but they were actually a fairly quiet lot. He wasn’t sure if it was their masters’ poor cultivation – though it could be, they were weaker as a general rule than the other sects – or something else lurking behind, some secret of cultivation that he oughtn’t know.

Suihua was fairly pleasant, though: bright and almost maternal in the way she fussed about her wielder, secretly adjusting herself to compensate for any weaknesses in his form. She got along surprisingly well with Aituan, which Nie Mingjue wouldn’t have guessed, and Baxia hummed a reluctant note of approval as well.

Perhaps he should consider cultivating more of a relationship with the young Jin Zixuan, with such an excellent recommendation. Sure, he wasn’t his sword – unlike sabers, which reflected their masters in full, swords seemed to be more of a concave image, similar but distorted to more or lesser degree depending on the distance between master and sword – but the sort of person who would cultivate a sword like that probably needed all the real friends he could get.

Sandu, in contrast, was something of a disaster, something that Nie Mingjue hadn’t expected and, in hindsight, really should have. The sheer amount of power that the sword exuded was impressive, and he was stalwart and true, another saber-like one, but unlike his combative, grumpy, and uptight (but generally well-meaning) master, he was aimless and gamboling, mischievous in a vague unintentional sort of way, liable to make trouble more by accident than on purpose.

Reminded him of Aituan, actually. Children among swords…

It was really a fascinating insight, he thought to himself, amused. He could use this to his advantage in the future, even though he wouldn’t, politically; it seemed an unfair advantage. But perhaps as a means of making friends…

Hmm.

Speaking of friends –

-

“I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian said, looking from Baxia to Nie Mingjue and back, eyes so notably not darting towards his Suibian that it had to be intentional. “Suibian isn’t a saber.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, already regretting having returned to his human form simply because of the skull-wracking migraine the concussion had left behind. Plus, if Nie Huaisang ever found out that he’d been willing to return for this but not to do the paperwork, he’d find a way to stab him no matter how great the difference in their cultivation.  “She isn’t. But she’s willing to compromise.”

“…what?”

Nie Mingjue wasn’t sure how to explain it. “You’ve interacted with Baxia when she’s - uh - upright, yes?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that it was mostly her during the conference – she nearly made Sect Leader Yao cry, and didn’t say a word the entire time. I want to know her secret method.”

“I’m fairly sure her method is ‘be a saber’,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “Still, my point is – would you say that you have an understanding of her? Baxia, as opposed to me?”

“I don’t think anyone can really understand –”

Nie Mingjue leveled him with a look.

“Okay, fine, yes. She’s got a lot of personality, your Baxia. What does that have to do with you wanting me to cultivate Suibian with your sect’s technique?”

“A variation on my sect’s technique, since I’m obviously not teaching you the main technique itself. My point is, during the conference I had the opportunity to converse with a number of different swords –”

“Hold up!” Wei Wuxian held up both his hands. “You talked to the - to people’s swords?!”

“It’s not really talking,” Nie Mingjue admitted. “They’re mostly not as sentient as Baxia, especially for the younger generation. But they still have spirits; they wouldn’t be spiritual weapons if they didn’t. Anyway, it occurred to me that you weren’t using Suibian because of –”

“That incident we do not discuss.”

“…yes, that. Without a golden core, it’s impossible for you to cultivate in the traditional Jiang sect sword style -”

“Wow. You just completely missed the hint that I didn’t want to talk about that.”

“It’s not missing a hint if I ignore it deliberately. Anyway, the fact that you’ve cultivated Suibian in that style for all these years means that they are accustomed to that style, but since by coincidence I was able to converse with the other swords, I thought it worthwhile to feel out if they would be willing to consider adopting a style variation on the Nie sect style, with more emphasis on utilizing resentful energy as swordsmanship.”

Wei Wuxian looked stricken. “You – think that’s possible? I – no, I tried, it doesn’t –”

“You trained your sword to resist outside influences, I know. You can’t not teach a sword that; obviously no one wants Suibian being controlled by any ghost, corpse or yao that happens by. But I think with me in the saber and you on the outside, we might be able to work out a method by which Suibian could distinguish between resentful energy generally and resentful energy being wielded by you. That woudl allow them to respond to that energy as if it was your own…”

Wei Wuxian was hugging him. Why was he hugging him?

“I’m going to switch to Baxia if you don’t let go,” he warned, and Wei Wuxian let go at once.

His eyes were teary.

“I would like that,” he said. “I would like that very much.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #close #memprime

[madtomedgar]

since i’m not done grumbling about meng yao and i’m procrastinating on cleaning the sink

a large part of the reason i’m so adamant about not reading jin guangyao (especially later-show jin guangyao) backwards onto meng yao is because i think doing so flattens and cheapens the entire narrative.

Setting aside for a moment that I don’t think teenagers can be Irredeemably Evil because they aren’t done cooking yet, it really makes everything less interesting.

If Meng Yao is the scorpion in the frog and scorpion story, ie, it’s in his nature, then that destroys what could be an important theme about the way society’s insistence that marginalized backgrounds necessitate a lack of morals acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy and also makes it impossible for people to see warning signs, understand what’s happening, or prevent it, because they are adamant in their belief that this is an inborn trait, and not a reaction to circumstance.

It makes Lan Xichen into a fool, which he is not. In a similar way to how I hate it when people come away from Othello going “wow Othello was so stupid, it was so obvious that Iago was evil!” I really hate this interpretation of Xichen. If we the audience only saw what Othello or Xichen saw, we would be just as shocked at the end as they are. That’s the point Iago and Jin Guangyao are master manipulators. Their targets never stood a chance, precisely because they do not have the same information that the audience has. It’s a huge misunderstanding of how dramatic irony works. The point here is that we, the audience, are shouting at the character that there’s a monster in the room with them that they can’t see. Think about watching a horror movie, when you know that the character is about to get attacked, but they literally can’t see that. That helpless feeling, of shouting at this person who can’t hear you, to watch out, and knowing that they can’t hear you and watching them make horrible missteps because they don’t have the full picture is the point! It’s also supposed to make the audience question their own certainties in their daily lives. What information don’t you know you’re lacking? How would your perceptions of those around you change if you knew different? How well can you really know a person?

And to look at that and go “wow this character is so naive, couldn’t be me” is just a sad defense mechanism against the real horror of these narratives, imo. Grow up.

If Meng Yao is a lying betrayer incapable of basic human empathy from the get-go, it absolves everyone around him, from the captain he kills to Nie Mingjue to Jin Guangshan to Jin Zixun, of their part in his transition from over-eager disadvantaged youth to cold super-villain. It takes a village. I think there is an important theme here that the hypocrisy, elitism, and skewed values of this society both create tragedies like Wei Wuxian and tragedies like Jin Guangyao. If he would have done all these horrible things even if his father had paid Meng Shi’s contract and brought her to live at Jinlintai and raised Meng Yao as an acknowledged son with decency, then the element of evil containing the seeds of its own destruction for characters like Jin Guangshan, Jin Zixun, and cultivation society as a whole is lost, as is opulence containing the seeds of its own destruction. I’m not a huge fan of Dickens, but Jin Guangyao (and Xue Yang) strike me as similar thematically to the specters of Ignorance and Want in A Christmas Carol. As others have pointed out, they’re the hideous shadows cast by a gilded society. That falls apart if their flaws are inherent, innate, and inborn.

Nie Mingjue’s perspective, that he was duped and then everyone else was duped by those doe-eyes and dimples, and that Meng Yao pretended to be delicate and poor for Some Nefarious Purpose from the get-go, is in no way objective! It can’t be, partially because the exhibits he pulls as evidence don’t support that. Nie Mingjue is reading the Jin Guangyao who killed him backwards onto the Meng Yao who was getting bullied at the office barbeque and trying to argue that he was a snake from the get-go. It is important that Nie Mingjue’s perspective is just as flawed and biased as Lan Xichen’s. One of them sees only the good in Jin Guangyao, the other sees only the bad. Both therefore miss important things that could have allowed them to steer Jin Guangyao (and the narrative) in a different direction, because, rather than seeing the whole person in all his glorious and horrible complexity, they’re starting with their assumptions (Jin Guangyao is misunderstood and a good person/Jin Guangyao is a snake and evil) and finding evidence to shore those assumptions up. Lan Xichen, at least, lives long enough to understand and rectify his mistake here. It erases Nie Mingjue’s and Lan Xichen’s complicity in doing more than they were socially expected to do for Meng Yao, but not in any way all they could have done. They did their due diligence, sure, but we can see that it was in no way adequate.

I fail to see how Meng Yao wanting his dad to acknowledge and love him, and being mad at his dad for letting he and his mother live in horrendous circumstances and letting his mother die in poverty when he could have made them comfortable without noticing the money was even gone, and then kicking him down 1000 steps for the audacity of showing up and saying “hey, I’m your son,” can make committing war crimes, murdering his dad, his sworn brother, his son (?), etc inevitable. Most mistreated teens have a whole “i will do such things... what they are i know not yet, but tHEY SHALL BE THE VERY TERRORS OF THE EARTH!!” schtick. That’s not evil, that’s normal. If this makes Meng Yao evil, then that means wanting more than you are given when what you are given is barely survivable evil, and that standing up for yourself against people who have more social capital than you is evil, and that is just facile.

If Meng Yao is simply evil, it justifies Jin Guangshan’s treatment of him, rather than Jin Guangshan’s treatment of him being what turns him into the fratricidal and patricidal monster her becomes (though I’m not really even mad that he took out the rest of the Jins, just. His methods were pretty bad. He could’ve just like. Stabbed them.). It flattens and cheapens Lan Xichen’s and Nie Mingjue’s characters. It takes away the wonderful Stoppard-esque slow, almost imperceptible slide from Meng Yao (who deserves the world) to Jin Guangyao (who deserves what he gets in the end). You aren’t left with the plaintive “surely there must have been a point where we could have done something different” that will never be definitively answered, and that you the audience might be able to pin-point but that the characters never could because they were too close, too enmeshed to have the necessary distance. You don’t get the ticklingly dreadful implications for your own life, your own larger societal narrative. You can’t have any of that if it was just in his nature. 

You also lose the aspect of, to quote Deep Space 9, “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise.” Lan Xichen is the shining moral paragon. He can be, because his position allows him to both be that and live in relative comfort and safety (excluding the time he was on the run). He can afford to be kind because kindness costs him nothing. He is never called on in his personal life to make decisions between two evil paths, and the one time he has to choose between his own survival and that of others, his uncle makes that call for him. Jin Guangyao does not live in paradise. I’m not saying Lan Xichen’s life is perfect or that he never has to make difficult or ethically fraught decisions, but he’s got a much better and more secure situation than Jin Guangyao, right up until Jin Guangyao ascends as sect leader and chief cultivator. Nobody beats Lan Xichen, nobody makes him their fall guy, nobody orders him to commit war crimes as the price for his place in his family, nobody has him watched or followed, nobody prevents him from holding his nephew because he’s unclean or assumed to be untrustworthy, nobody insults him to his face or in front of others. Lan Xichen enjoys every benefit of the social contract, while Jin Guangyao lives either outside of it or on its outskirts. You lose the theme of morality as luxury and morality as a scaffolding to uphold the status quo if Meng Yao is just a sociopath from birth.

This got a lot longer than I meant for it to and I really should go clean the sink.

#untamed stuff #long post #sorry for your dashes #madtom attempts litcrit #madtom as a director has little respect for audiences #shameless jiggy apologism #not really but kind of #anyway jgy is closer to r3 than don john in this essay i will

[hitodama3]

The Nie Sect Matriarch

My OC x Nie Mingjue.

Character death but it's Wen Xu so who cares. I don't know if this is graphic or not. I say blood and grey matter but not much else. Be warned anyway.

Please excuse the grammer.

Lan Xichen was pleased for the opportunity to excuse himself from Wen Xu's "company" upon noticing the entrance of the Nie Sect members.

Lan Xichen smiled at the sight of the newly declared Nie Sect Leader and his sworn brother Nie Mingjue. Nie Mingjue's face was drawn into it's habitual scowl his eyes staring resolutely forward before locking with Lan Xichen's. Lan Xichen could guess the new Sect Leader's nerves by how white his knuckles were clutched around the reins.

After all that is why they were here. To have the current chief Cultivator acknowledge the new head of the Nie Sect. Unfortunately the chief cultivator was the much revered and heavily feared sun god, Wen Ruohan. Thankfully this was all a formality and the chief cultivator had no say in who would become the next head.

But that didn't stop him from exercising his power to force them all into his domain, and do his bidding. It was supposedly a feast to honor the new Sect Leader with a tournament to entertain. But everyone here knew what it was really meant for.

Hours had past and tense pleasantries had been exchanged. Bland smiles and subtle politics passed back and forth like candy between children's hands when Lan Xichen remembered the Nie Sect's new matriarch.

It always startled him how little presence the new matriarch had in comparison to their husband. Lan Xichen knew the couple had been matched young. Some kind of coming of age competition the Nie Sect held, but little else. He had never bothered much with them as his sworn brother never spoke of them much just occasionally asking to be reminded to pick something up for them and Nie Huaisang, his little brother, after a night hunt. Nie Mingjue seemed content with the arrangement, and never spoke ill of having an arranged partner no matter how much Lan Xichen and Meng Yao prodded, just a quirk of the lips occasionally and a vague reference to Nie Sect customs.

With the sudden death of Nie Mingjue's parents the betrothed couple had gotten married quickly and with little fuss. Definitely not the marriage most thought would occur for a Sect Leader. No one outside of the Nie had been invited and the cultivation world assumed they would have another public ceremony once matters settled down.

The Nie Matriarch was very beautiful, but in an androgynous way so that the beholder could not tell their gender. Lan Xichen had never heard their name either, Nie Mingjue always referred to them as his betrothed and Nie Huaisang called them by a nickname, so Lan Xichen could not even guess. They faded seamlessly into the background and we're very calm and soft spoken. Though they also would not suffer fools lightly either. Easily taking the reins and directing disciples as needed without raising their voice once. When the Nie Matriarch spoke you listened.

It wouldn't be till the following day that Lan Xichen would get to truly see them when they truly lost their temper, and why they fit so well at the side of Lan Xichen's fierce sworn brother.

Though the Lans rose earlier then most clans, and Lan Xichen had long been awake he still wanted to sigh that it was to early for this.

Wen Xu was once again making a fool of himself running his mouth infront of the new Nie Sect Leaders. Though Lan Xichen had been startled at first to notice the Matriarch as they seemed to blend in with Nie Mingjue's shadow.

Wen Xu was digging into the wound about the open secret that Wen Ruohan was the cause of Nie Mingjue's father's death. Wen Xu was probably trying to goad Nie Mingjue into throwing the first punch so that Wen Xu could punish him for breaking hospitality.

Lan Xichen was stepping forward to try and defuse or divert Wen Xu's attention else where when a Nie Sect token hit Wen Xu squarely in the chest. Wen Xu sputtered before picking it up.

"Thank you for accepting my request to duel. You're disparaging comments upon our honor could no longer be tolerated." The Nie Matriarch stepped smoothly between the two men.

Wen Xu stumbled back still clutching the token flicking his eyes between the Matriarch and the item. Before he could speak they began again, "After all the heir of the Wen Sect would know when they were presented with a token for a duel, and wouldn't just pick it up unknowingly showing a clear lack of education, would they?" Though each word was said calmly the Matriarch's smiled dripped saccharine sweet.

"Of course not.", A voice boomed over the whispering crowd full of thinly veiled menace. "My son is vigorous in his studies and only wanted to start today's tournament off with some excitement. Hence why he accepted your duel. Though it is a bit early to begin, though I am a magnanimous host, and would be willing to start monetarily. You just didn't allow me to explain the rules. To avoid permanent injury all participants will wear qi sealing cuffs, and the first to draw blood will be the winner. I'm sure the Nie Matriarch will be accommodating since they were so eager to fight?" At this Wen Ruohan paused staring straight into the Matriarch's eyes a smile plastered on his face but only emptiness behind his eyes.

The Matriarch nodded without issue as Wen disciples stepped forward placing the cuffs on their wrists. "Your son has been quite rude and ignored propriety. If I wished to make this duel a duel to the death---What do your rules say about that?" The Matriarch's voice was still perfectly even, but was cold as steel.

Wen Ruohan's face didn't even twitch at the outright threat. "The winner will be called after first blood is drawn." Here he paused smile pulling at the edges to become closer to a smirk. "Regardless of what the injury maybe." The threat was clear.

Especially when both combatants stepped onto the platform that had been prepared for the tournament, Lan Xichen saw Wen Xu's qi suppressing handcuffs spark before deactivating allowing him the full use of his qi in a match against the sealed Matriarch.

Lan Xichen turned to Nie Mingjue to warn him that they intended to cripple or maim his marriage partner, but Nie Mingjue was already looking at him before slowing shaking his head and turn back towards the ring.

Wen Ruohan settled into his throne, relaxing into a sprawl showing his inattention and confidence, high above the platform to act as "mediator" and solemnly called, "Begin."

Wen Xu puffed out his chest pointing his sword towards the Matriarch, "If you apologize now I'll only scar that pretty face of yours! Accidents happen all the time in competitions we'd hate if you got run threw before first blood could be called!"

The Matriarch pulled out a fan, one Lan Xichen knew had been gifted by Nie Huaisang, and settled into a fighting stance fan pointed towards Wen Xu. "If the Wen Sect has such "training" accidents often they must have terrible teachers. The Nie Sect would be willing to provide pointers if you are having such troubles."

Wen Xu's face twisted in rage before charging them, visible qi infusing his sword. Nie Mingjue grabbed Lan Xichen's arm when he tried to move forward towards the ring.

The angry sound of metal tearing through metal made the nearby observers flinch back as Wen Xu's sword tore through the apparently 'metal' fan. But the Matriarch only needed for the stupid boy to get close...

The sword now immobilized within the fan was used as leverage to yank him further forward and towards the Matriarch's grasping hand. The Matriarch seemed to unfurl becoming larger though they truly gained no height only presence. Lan Xichen never really noticed but they always thought the Matriarch was smaller then him.

The Matriarch towered over Wen Xu easily as tall or taller than Nie Mingjue. Hand clasped firmly around the flailing boy's face as he was dragged kicking into the air with only one of the Matriarch's hands.

Wen Xu dropped his sword desperately yanking at the hand as it tightened around his face shivering as blood lust filled the arena strong enough to drive many to their knees. He thinks he heard his father attempt to call the match, but was rebuked by the monster in front of him.

"Didn't you say the match would not be called until first blood was drawn, regardless of how bad the injury." The voice was still as cool and calm as it had been earlier when they'd challenged him to a duel, but he couldn't breath past the blood lust filling his lungs and looking into eyes with pupils the size of pin pricks staring unblinkingly into his. Wen Xu's head was screaming in agony and fingers tightened around his temples. His ears wear starting to buzz he couldn't hear anything anymore. What was going...?

'Crack'

With a resounding crack Wen Xu's skull shattered under the force of the Matriarch's fingers the body unattached now falling limply to the tournament's platform blood and grey matter spilling everywhere.

The Matriarch turned calmly towards Wen Ruohan flicking their fingers in an attempt to clear them of gore. "I believe you can call first blood now. I'll be retiring to my room after this to rest after all this excitement. Of course," They paused for a moment, "only after your disciples release me from the qi blocking cuffs."

That's right! Lan Xichen's eyes widened in both horror and awe. The Matriarch had functioning qi suppressing cuffs on and had just shattered a man's skull with only their fingertips. He turned towards his sworn brother to observe the unholy amusement and arousal in Nie Mingjue's eyes. Lan Xichen could see why the calm Matriarch worked so well with his angry sworn brother. He would need to be more watchful of any Nie Sect traditions.

#lan xichen #wen xu #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #nie huaisang #meng yao #wen sect #nie sect #gusu sect #character death #i like make OCs for characters that could bench press me #i might make more later if you want #mdzs #mo doa zu shi #nie mingjue x oc

[imaginaryelle]

Would you do anything with Wei Ying and the 4 main Juniors like either a fic or just how they interact in the show compared to the older generations

(Many thanks to @miyuki4s for the awesome beta work!)

*

It’s a banquet. A banquet Wei Wuxian was not, technically, invited to, but which he is attending nevertheless because no one in charge figured out he wasn’t supposed to be there until he’d already been offered food.

Such kind servants the Yao Sect has. Such a contrast to their sour Sect Leader, who keeps staring into his wine as if it’s turned to vinegar on his lips.

Wei Wuxian decides not to test his welcome too long—yes, he had been rather useful on the night hunt this afternoon, and yes, his role in Jin Guangyao’s downfall and the known fact of the Chief Cultivator’s favor do buy him a certain amount of social standing with the major Sects, but he’s not going to sit in a man’s hall all night mocking him with his very presence.

Well, he might.

Okay, he definitely would, except the wine is merely decent and the conversation is stilted and, frankly, boring. It would be bearable if he was getting to watch Lan Wangji endure it as well, but alas, the Chief Cultivator has pressing business in Yunmeng, apparently, which must be quite pressing indeed for Jiang Cheng to ask for him and which Wei Wuxian is certain would only be made more difficult by his own presence, even if he does still worry about Jiang Cheng, somewhere in a not-so-secret corner of his heart. So instead of making small talk or setting off into the night he takes his wine and bows out of the hall to Sect Leader Yao’s disgruntled nod of acknowledgment and goes in search of better entertainment.

He finds it just around the side of the disciples’ dormitories, behind a stand of magnolia trees.

Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen and several other vaguely familiar young members of various clans are sitting in what looks to be a small garden, huddled around what is quite probably either illicitly procured food or, more probably, wine. There’s a flash of gold near the center, and Wei Wuxian is able to answer the slightly-nagging question of where his nephew disappeared to halfway through the feast. Fairy, thankfully, is nowhere in sight. He wonders, for just a moment, whether they purposefully left Lan Sizhui’s reasonable voice out of this clearly ill-advised venture before he catches sight of him half-hidden behind Lan Jingyi’s shoulder, a look of fond exasperation on his face.

Wei Wuxian takes a drink of his own wine and prepares to keep walking—there’s probably a rooftop somewhere with a good view of both the garden and the waning moon to keep him entertained without disturbing anyone else’s fun.

“Ah! Wei-qianbei!” It’s one of the ones Wei Wuxian doesn’t quite remember who greets him, which is a little embarrassing, but the boy’s wearing Yao sect robes and looks like he lost a fight with a thorn bush—ah. Young master Liang Fai, who got a little too up close and personal with a malevolent spirit this afternoon. He beckons Wei Wuxian closer, either ignoring or not noticing those of his companions who freeze in place—Lan Jingyi and two other Lans try valiantly to look as if they have not touched alcohol and Lan Sizhui offers up a slightly chagrined smile—or those who are making only mildly obvious efforts to stop him. Jin Ling looks for a moment as if he might bolt through a nearby bush. “Wei-qianbei, can you teach us that talisman you used today? The one that banished the mist.”

A few of the others actually do look interested in that, even Jin Ling, at least until Wei Wuxian shakes his head.

“You can achieve the same effect with a basic spirit-repelling talisman,” he informs them. Blood is stronger than ink, of course, but he remembers their eagerness in Yi City. Best not to mention that. “It’s nothing special.”

“What about your ward-breaker then?” Lan Jingyi asks. Wei Wuxian arches an eyebrow at him.

“Hanguang-jun did a lecture on it,” Lan Sizhui puts in, soft-spoken and reasonable as ever. “On your inventions, like spirit-attraction flags. He said you had a ward-breaker talisman.”

“I might,” Wei Wuxian allows, though it was never really a secret. “How good’s your brushwork?”

The next half hour is a delightful rush of fresh ink, waving paper and bright enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, of course, is key in the creation of this particular talisman. Enthusiasm, focus, and delicate control of a brush. A few of them can produce a handful of sparks in their first tries. Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui each manage one butterfly, to their evident glee and Wei Wuxian’s lavish praise. Ouyang Zizhen manages a quietly smug three, to general acclaim. They finish the wine, and someone steals more, and an hour goes by and the moon rises higher and then Jin Ling, a little flushed but entirely determined, asks:

“Can you tell us about the Sunshot Campaign?”

Everyone goes quiet. Wei Wuxian laughs, too loud in the long shadows. He is burningly aware that Lan Sizhui—Wen Yuan—is sitting somewhere on his left.

“Surely you’ve learned all about that already,” he says. His smile feels stretched too-thin across his face.

“Not really.” Jin Ling frowns. Wei Wuxian can’t decide if the expression makes him look more like Jin Zixuan or Jiang Cheng, but it’s familiar frustration either way. “Jiujiu won’t tell me anything and—” he stops, lips pressing tight together.

“There are a few stories,” Ouyang Zizhen says in a sort of hushed whisper that makes everyone lean in closer. “but it’s strange, they’re always—”

“It’s always the same stories,” Liang Fai says. “No matter who you ask. It’s always about how awful Wen Ruohan and his sons were, and then the Yin Iron, and the razing of Cloud Recesses and Lotus Pier. Then the Sects rise and Lian—and Meng Yao goes undercover, and Chifeng-zun lays siege to Nightless City.”

“My father always says the Wens reached too far,” Ouyang Zizhen adds. “That they were arrogant and thought they held the authority of the Heavens themselves. But when I ask what happened before the war, or why they attacked Cloud Recesses, he just talks in circles. Sometimes I’m not even sure he knows the answer at all.”

“There’s not much detail,” says Lan Jingyi. “Honestly, I’ve gotten more out of merchants and kids playing in the street than most cultivators. There are more stories about you, really. After. When you were at the Burial Mounds.”

Wei Wuxian sighs. Of course there are. Just as now, when there are so many stories of Jin Guangyao, once more Meng Yao to the vindictive and impressionable, and how people always knew he was up to something. Even at the time, when the events were fresh in everyone’s mind, no one had wanted to remember who the Wens were before the war. If they had, Wei Wuxian might not have been the only one standing by the survivors.

He finds Lan Sizhui’s eyes in the dim moonlight, but Lan Sizhui only stares back at him, as calm and composed as if he’s waiting for a lecture in Cloud Recesses. All the young faces around him are intent and watchful. Waiting. Waiting for him to prove, as he has so many times before, that he’s different from their parents. Because he is, just—maybe not as different as they think.

“It was a war,” he says. “There are better things to talk about. Like—oh, the clouds, the clouds are very nice tonight.”

The clouds are nice. For the record. Worthy of poetry even. But of course these are determined young cultivators. They aren’t just going to let this go.

“It’s when most of them earned their titles,” Jin Ling says. Insists. “And they weren’t—you weren’t—that much older than we are. Not really. What’s so bad that we can’t know it?”

Wei Wuxian remembers a sudden flash of sky, of grass scraping at his scalp and cheek as his brother’s hands closed around his neck. He remembers his sister’s hands, raw and swollen from scrubbing and boiling cloth for bandages. The way Lan Wangji had turned away when he’d asked, and your brother? Your uncle? in the Xuanwu cave. The taste of corpse-dirt in the back of his throat.

There are many, many things that no one should ever have to know. And yet … Jin Ling asks so little of him, in the usual way of things. And not every memory is a weakness their elders will resent.

“What do you know about the Yin Iron?” he asks. It’s a safe enough subject—for one thing, he’s something of an expert, and that’s something he made his peace with long ago. For another, it doesn’t reach too deep into the scars lurking under his skin, and he knows that it has to be part of what Jiang Cheng doesn’t talk about: watching his new recruits, cultivators who trusted and believed in him, become mindless foes with the same face. These young cultivators have seen corpse puppets, but they’ve never seen someone turn before their eyes. Someone they knew and fought alongside. Someone they called brother or sister. He can’t imagine Lan Wangji or anyone else from that time talking about it either.

“It can be used to control corpses,” Lan Jingyi says promptly. “To make them stronger. And used too long, the Yin energy can be damaging to the spirit.”

Wei Wuxian snorts. Of course the Lans would teach that second part. He wonders if they also teach of Lan Yi’s sacrifice, these days. He picks up his brush again and sketches an incomplete array—unbalanced and open ended. Energy ever re-directed against its source.

“Have you thought about what control of corpses means, on a battlefield without Yin Iron of your own? Where every fallen ally can become an enemy?”

The sudden stillness around him would indicate that no, they haven’t. More than one looks like his wine is not agreeing with him.

Wei Wuxian picks up another piece of paper and starts a new talisman—fire, to burn away impurities. “There’s a lot I really don’t remember.” He laughs a little and lights the paper with a twist of his fingers. “My memory has always been bad.”

There is quiet as the paper burns to ash and the night breeze sweeps even that away. Wei Wuxian reaches for the wine and pours himself another drink, and that seems to break the moment at least a little. Jin Ling looks particularly disappointed, and Wei Wuxian is debating telling the one or two actually decent stories he has of Jin Zixuan when someone else speaks first.

“But, Wei-qianbei …” Ouyang Zizhen looks around at his friends and Sect brothers, and then back to Wei Wuxian, determination hardening his features. “If we don’t know how it happened, how will we know how to stop it happening again?”

There are nods around the circle, and Wei Wuxian takes another drink to swallow back the tightness rising in his throat. “I’m really not the right person to ask,” he says.  It’s a very noble sentiment they’re nurturing of course, but the world had turned on him much the same way it had on the Wens, and —ahah. He gestures at Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui, triumphant.

“Hanguang-jun,” he says. They stare at him.

“Hanguang-jun doesn’t talk about the war either.” Lan Sizhui’s gaze doesn’t waver, trained on Wei Wuxian.

“There are innumerable things our esteemed Chief Cultivator never puts into words,” Wei Wuxian agrees with a languid wave of his hand, “but does that really mean you don’t know what he thinks?”

Lan Sizhui blinks, then smiles at him.

“The seminars,” says Jin Ling. “He’s setting up—I don’t know, really, lectures and trainings and things, in Gusu and Caiyi, inviting people to speak or visit from all over. Jiujiu says he’ll probably be pushing the rest of us to do that too, soon.”

Ouyang Zizhen nods. “The watchtowers were Jin Guangyao’s project after the war, right? My father says Hanguang-jun wants something better than watchtowers. That he’s working on a new talisman, like the Jin Clan’s butterfly messengers.”

Jin Ling frowns, his hands tightening around his sword. “He hasn’t mentioned the butterfly messengers to me.”

“It’s Hanguang-jun. I don’t think he said anything about it to anyone, Father just saw him writing talismans that turn into pigeons after that conference focused on the towers.”

“Sect Leader Yao doesn’t like how he’s treating the smaller sects.” Liang Fai turns his helmet between his hands, his expression thoughtful. “He says the Chief Cultivator will recognize even just two people as a new sect, if they own so much as a single house to train out of. It’s making the bigger sects nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” says Jin Ling, scowling at him. “And neither is the Jiang Sect.”

“Ah, ah!” Wei Wuxian interrupts before tensions can draw any higher and waves his hands in the space between Jin Ling and Liang Fai. “Let’s talk about something else. Right?”

Jin Ling looks away, but the conversation doesn’t change. 

“He’s worried about communication and response time,” says Lan Jingyi. “He’s always said it’s a cultivator’s job to go where the need is.”

“If more people can identify a problem, or know the right techniques, it won’t get out of hand,” Ouyang Zizhen agrees. “And with more sects, there are more cultivators in more places. It makes sense.”

“He travels.” All eyes shift to Lan Sizhui, who looks only at Wei Wuxian. “That’s part of what you mean, isn’t it? When Lianfang-zun was Chief Cultivator, everyone went to Lanling to speak with him. To the home of the Jin Sect. But Hanguang-jun doesn’t accept as many visiting parties. Most of the time, he goes to them.”

Lan Jingyi’s face scrunches up, doubtful. “I thought that was because he didn’t want to host so many banquets.”

“He still has to attend just as many,” Lan Sizhui points out. “Maybe more, even.”

“He’s staying neutral,” Jin Ling says, sudden and with an expression like he’s even surprising himself. “He can’t speak for Gusu Lan. That’s why Grandmaster Qiren is still at every conference. Because he’s Chief Cultivator, but not Sect Leader.”

That seems to be some sort of breaking point—several people start talking at once, and Wei Wuxian slowly eases himself out of the circle; he’s not needed anymore, and he should probably see himself out before Sect Leader Yao feels forced to offer him a place to sleep. Also, he’s out of wine.

Lan Sizhui meets him at the gates.

“Tell him we’re happy to help, with anything.”

Wei Wuxian frowns at him, confused. “Tell who?”

“Hanguang-jun. When you see him.” Lan Sizhui smiles and pets Little Apple’s nose. “Tell him we want to help. Even Jin Ling, though he might grumble about it.”

Wei Wuxian feels a sudden pang of homesickness—for the familiar walls of Lotus Pier, and for Lan Wangji’s steady presence at his side. But traveling to Yunmeng is no better an idea now that it was this afternoon.

“Ah, A-Yuan,” he says, “you can tell him yourself. You’ll probably see him before I do.” 

Lan Sizhui looks doubtful, but he doesn’t argue. He seems to hesitate a moment, and then he sort of lunges into Wei Wuxian’s side and hugs him. 

“What—”

“Thank you,” Lan Sizhui says as Wei Wuxian tries to figure out what to do with his hands. They’ve only done this a few times, still, and he’s not entirely sure what’s allowed when, and he’s desperately anxious to not mess it up.

“For what?” he asks, settling his free hand on Lan Sizhui’s back. 

“For helping us,” Lan Sizhui says, almost at a whisper, and Wei Wuxian is sure they’re not talking about the gaggle of young cultivators in the garden anymore. He tightens the curl of his arm.

“You don’t need to thank me, A-Yuan. I—”

“Ning-shushu told me a little,” Lan Sizhui interrupts him, the words half-muffled in his collar. “And I’ve heard—I know all the same stories as the rest of them. I mean it. Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian shakes his head, but he doesn’t protest aloud again. Instead he wraps his other arm around Lan Sizhui as well, and tucks his chin over Lan Sizhui’s white-clad shoulder. He watches the gauzy clouds drift slowly across the brightness of the moon and makes a silent promise: 

This time, they’ll do better.

#the untamed #chen qing ling #wei wuxian #lan sizhui #jin ling #ouyang zizhen #lan jingyi #the juniors #alex writes #Anonymous

[lexiegirlstuff]

Untamed Winter Fest - Day 3: Goodwill

Did I use the cooking show approach where I didn’t know what to do with the secret ingredient so I just sprinkled it on top as a garnish? why, yes! yes I did.

Day 3 – Good Will

A Helping Hand – Age 27 and 31

 Lan Xichen should have never gotten married, and certainly not for the stupid reasons he did: that he was almost 30 and everyone around him seemed to be tying the knot.

His own brother – in love since the age of 15, and old married man by the time he was 20 – had been eager to marry his Wei Ying since forever. His best friends had gone through a very tumultuous on again/off again relationship in college, before settling into quiet domesticity (according to Meng Yao, they had simply gotten all the fighting out of their system first).

So that left him, and when his Uncle approached with the proposal from her family, Xichen had said yes, and over the protestations of everyone who knew him, married 6 months after their initial meeting.

It hadn’t been so bad, at first, even as the disquieting realization that they had nothing in common began to settle in, but he was determined to make it work… and then she had gotten pregnant, which plunged her into a deep depression: she never wanted to have kids. She wanted out.

Having lived through the hell of his parents own marriage, Xichen agreed to a quick divorce and to take sole custody of his child once it was born, terminating the mother parental rights mere three days after the birth. She had left town the following week and no one had heard from her since.

So now here he was, 31, divorced and with a 6-month-old son and a mountain of responsibilities on his shoulders.

-*-*-

Jiang Cheng stood at the door of the only house in the street that had yet to decorate for Christmas – not an unwelcome sight after spending some time at his brother’s home, where Christmas exploded soon after Halloween – for full two minutes before bringing himself to knock on the door.

In another lifetime, he would have been in a fancy office downtown, getting ready to take over his family’s company, putting his international finance degree to good use. Instead he was standing outside his brother’s brother-in-law door, working up the courage to knock.

They had never been close, Lan Xichen was older and though Jiang Cheng had been aware of him for years, their paths rarely crossed, a few family events here and there, and that one time he had been stuck on a project for his Microeconomics class, and Wei Wuxian had had the brilliant idea to drag him to the Lan’s house and have Xichen take a look at it.

And they had sat together at their brothers’ wedding, the only two singles at the time. And they might or might not have had a quick fuck in the bathroom at some point during the reception. Everything was a bit fuzzy; the champagne had been flowing freely and EVERYONE and their grandmother knew the Lans were lousy drinkers – since Xichen never mentioned it, Jiang Cheng never brought himself to ask.

But now here he was. Everyone had seen Lan Xichen flounder during his marriage and divorce, the man needed help, and since Jiang Cheng was currently taking a break from all his responsibilities, Wei Wuxian had asked him to be that helping hand- a show of familiar goodwill around the Christmas time.

Waiting for the door to open was a slow torture but finally, a very rumpled Lan Xichen filled the doorway, it was a strange contrast how his usually impeccable suit currently had a large spit-up stain on the shoulder, while a baby cried his little head off.

“Jiang Cheng? I’m sorry, I’m expecting someone, your brother said he had found someone to help me for a while? Are they with you?”

“Live in Manny at your service.” Jiang Cheng said, taking the baby. “You better soak that or it’ll never come out.” He pointed to the stain and walked right in.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Look, I’m currently unemployed, my mother is not too happy about it and I need a place to stay. My idiot brother said you needed some household help, so here I am.”

“How are you unemployed? Your family owns a whole company!”

“Working there wasn’t a good fit. I was having panic attacks all the time, so my therapist suggested I took a break from it. Officially, I’m working on my doctorate dissertation, unofficially, I’m unemployed.”

“I-I, are you sure? Like, how do we even discuss salary.”

“I’m good moneywise, just need a place to stay, and something to do. I’ll take care of your kid and house while you work and, I’ll work on my dissertation around that. I’m in no rush,” he was thinking he might drop his dissertation all together, actually, but no need to tell him that.

“Well, Jingyi seems to like you.” Xichen said in wonder, noticing that his fussy baby had settled calmly.

“Kids love me. Dogs too. It’s the goodwill in my heart, Yanli says.”

“You are going to need a lot of goodwill if you are going to take this on.” Xichen said, gesturing widely at the mess the house was in. Not to mention his life.

“It is the season,” Jiang Cheng said, “Besides, I shared an apartment with Wei Ying during college, this is nothing.” He was also calling a cleaning service in the morning; an idiot he was not!

#Untamed Winter Fest #Untamed Winter Fest 2019 #the untamed fanfic #The Untamed #Day 3

[bloody-bee-tea]

Hi! I was reading through the prompt thing. #51 I’m not weird, you’re just basic. It made me think of Nie Huaisang. What do you think?

51. I’m not weird, you’re just basic

Mo Xuanyu groans as he flops down on Nie Huaisang’s bed.

“What has you in such a mood?” Nie Huaisang wants to know and lightly kicks Mo Xuanyu’s shin.

“You,” he gives back. “It’s all your fault that I had to witness the most disgustingly sweet love confession, followed by the most disgustingly graphic make-out session,” he complains and suddenly Nie Huaisang is leaning over him.

“Who?” he demands to know and Mo Xuanyu knows that glint in his eyes by now.

“How many people are you plotting to get together?” Mo Xuanyu wants to know and pushes Nie Huaisang away from him before he can do something stupid, like lean in and kiss that manic smile right off his damn kissable lips.

“My brother and Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang starts listing off and Mo Xuanyu nods.

“Obviously,” he agrees, because Nie Huaisang would never allow his brother to be anything less than completely happy and Lan Xichen makes him even more so.

As was witnessed by half the university today, not that Mo Xuanyu will immediately tell him that.

“Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang goes on and Mo Xuanyu groans.

“Can you please work on that faster? Their UST is killing everyone in their vicinity.”

“I am working on it, but they are exceptionally thickheaded,” Nie Huaisang replies and Mo Xuanyu has to agree that he has a point there.

They are.

Mo Xuanyu has never seen two people so obviously, obviously in love and yet think the other doesn’t feel that way.

Well, maybe Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen come close.

“Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen,” Nie Huaisang says next as if he can read Mo Xuanyu’s mind.

“Just as difficult as Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian for some reason. I thought at least they would have some common sense.”

“Not,” Mo Xuanyu tells him because he is so sick of Xiao Xingchen making eyes at Song Lan.

He always has this sad aura around him, as if he already knows Song Lan will reject him, when Song Lan clearly wants to do nothing more than just sweep Xiao Xingchen off his feet.

Mo Xuanyu promised months ago that he would never be as oblivious as them. Not that he has yet managed to tell Nie Huaisang about his feelings.

“Xue Yang?” Mo Xuanyu asks, but Nie Huaisang shakes his head.

“Too psychopathic to ever be matched with anyone. I might have a plan for Meng Yao, but we’ll have to wait and see,” he cryptically says and Mo Xuanyu rolls his eyes.

“But that’s not all,” he says because he knows Nie Huaisang.

“Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing,” Nie Huaisang says with a shrug.

“What? Wen Qing is going to eat him alive!”

“Yes, but it will give Mianmian the push she needs to finally go after her girl,” Nie Huaisang says with a broad smile,  and okay, yes, Mo Xuanyu can see that.

“And that’s it?” he wants to know and Nie Huaisang nods, but there is the barest fraction of hesitation, so Mo Xuanyu knows he’s lying, but trying his best to hide it.

“So, tell me, who can I cross off now?” Nie Huaisang asks, suddenly all eager anticipation again and Mo Xuanyu smiles, relishes in the feeling of knowing something Nie Huaisang doesn’t yet.

“Tell me,” Nie Huaisang whines when Mo Xuanyu stays silent, and Mo Xuanyu has to admit that he loves that he’s the only one who gets to see Nie Huaisang like this, even if it is just because they are friends.

“Your brother and Lan Xichen,” Mo Xuanyu finally admits and then shakes himself when his mind flashes back to just how shamelessly they had been in the hallway.

“Yes,” Nie Huaisang hisses in glee, but he immediately gets that calculating look back in his eyes.

“What is it now?” Mo Xuanyu asks with trepidation.

“Time to start part two of the plan,” Nie Huaisang declares and suddenly it all falls into place for Mo Xuanyu.

“Meng Yao,” he breathes out and Nie Huaisang nods. “God, you’re so weird. Isn’t it enough that your brother has one person that makes him happy?”

“He deserves all the people who make him happy,” Nie Huaisang declares.”And besides. I’m not weird. You’re just basic.”

“Basically in love with you, maybe,” Mo Xuanyu mutters and then slaps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late, he knows.

Nie Huaisang definitely heard him.

“You’re what?” Nie Huaisang asks and he sounds so completely caught off guard that Mo Xuanyu decides that maybe now is the time to just confess his feelings.

“I’m in love with you,” he admits, though he’s unable to meet Nie Huaisang’s eyes. “Have been for a while, actually, not that you’d have noticed,” he goes on, with a small self-deprecating smile, because he knows he will never be enough to catch Nie Huaisang’s eyes.

He has made his peace with that.

“It’s not time yet,” Nie Huaisang blurts out and frantically checks the calendar.

“What?” Mo Xuanyu asks with a frown.

“You were supposed to ask me out at my brother’s graduation party!”

“But that’s weeks away!” Mo Xuanyu complains, heart racing with the knowledge that Nie Huaisang wants this, wants him, and aches to pull Nie Huaisang into his arms.

“This is not the plan!” Nie Huaisang says again and he sounds so completely upset that one of his plans fell through that Mo Xuanyu just has to laugh.

“If it upsets you that much we can just pretend nothing happened and you get to stick to your devious little plan,” Mo Xuanyu suggests and Nie Huaisang’s eyes go wide.

“Absolutely not! You’re gonna say it again and this time I’ll react properly.”

“Okay,” Mo Xuanyu agrees with a small smile and pulls Nie Huaisang closer, until he can rest his hands on his waist. “Nie Huaisang, you little devil, I’m in love with you.”

“I’m in love with you, too,” Nie Huaisang replies and leans down to brush a kiss over Mo Xuanyu’s lips.

“Good. And next time maybe just talk about your feelings instead of making a month-long plan,” Mo Xuanyu advises and then promptly blushes when Nie Huaisang exclaims “Months? Try years!”

Maybe he is just as bad as Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian and Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, after all.

[Drabble Challenge]

#bt writes #the untamed #nie huaisang/moxuanyu #sarahehr #whatever their shipname is #getting together #adorable idiots

[deliciousscaloppine]

Unclean Realm

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Little short story about Meng Yao becoming Nie Huaisang’s attendant in their childhood. The dynamic duo goes on vacation, until Meng Yao spirals hard into adolescence and Huaisang feels like he is losing a friend. 

A man has died. So he shouldn't be glad. But going away is such an exciting development. Who would think Nie Mingjue would have such a great idea. Unclean Realm being slightly more unclean than usual, it has been decided that the heir of the Nie Clan should be moved to a beautiful, secluded mansion in the woods, where he is to study for his first seminar with the Gusu Clan. It's still in Qinghe that he has to stay, but anywhere is better than their stuffy fortress. And come New Year he has to look forward to going to Cloud Recesses for the first time.

“You do know the Clan obeys three thousand rules, and everyone that goes there must know by heart each and every one of them” says Meng Yao who might or might have not have killed a man.

This is the great difficulty for someone so young as he, who has known the world only through books. It's very difficult to know what is reality and what is just an overactive imagination blending stories into dreams. In this he is not very determined to keep suspecting Meng Yao of murder. Although if Meng Yao who was so gentle, and so melancholic at times, was actually a ruthless assassin, well that would have been an exciting turn of events!

Logically, however, a fourteen year old could not subdue two men at the same time, or make them assault each other. Could he kill one in his sleep and frame the other for murder? Possibly! But Nie Huaisang was not ready in any way to part with Meng Yao's otherworldly ability to extort favors and procure snacks at the strangest of times. Plus he would need some help to memorize those three thousand rules.

“Just so you know, I think you are innocent” Nie Huaisang says on their way to this fantastical mansion he and his retinue are going to be staying.

Meng Yao doesn't say much at that. He only looks at him quizzically underneath his lashes  before uttering “Thanks.” as if he has been given some great admonishment.

“You have this classical beauty. A fair countenance for fair deeds. For that reason I won't allow you to pretend like you know more than me.”

“I study your homework with more diligence than you. Of course I know more. You memorize things at the pace of a snail. Just by virtue of that I am more knowledgeable than you.”

“Alright, Meng Yao, say you are more knowledgeable than me. Then how come you are the attendant and I am the Master?”

“That's just how fortune is.” he says with not a trace of sadness in his voice.

He has heard what others have said. The painful truth that has never been discussed between them. Meng Yao's story seems like something out of a vulgar book. So he doesn't know exactly how to say this to him. Perhaps Meng Yao would have been better to think that his father wasn't rich, or powerful. But maybe it doesn't need to be said. Maybe being together like this, walking at a grassy path through the mountains to a beautiful sun-kissed mansion in the forest with a retinue of educated and pleasant people is a statement in itself. 

                                                         ......

Nie Huaisang has never lived such luxury. It must be past ten in the morning, but no one has come to wake him. “Oh, the young Master must be so tired from the journey, my heart weeps at the thought of having to wake him up. He looks as cute as a mouse nestling in silk in his fine bedding” a maiden says outside of his rooms while the cicadas rattle and a brook resonates through the garden surrounding his wing of the house. This is the life. Now if Meng Yao could receive some sort of telepathic message to bring some breakfast.

 “Your hair is so messy, there are twigs in it.”

“I was looking at the moon on the porch and it was windy to say the least.”

“You are lucky you didn't catch a cold.”

“Don't you watch the moon, Meng Yao?”

“I like to sleep early, so I can rise early and bring the Young Master his breakfast.”

“Have you already cleaned out what you like”

“They feed you excessively, Young Master, surely you would not begrudge me a bite.”

“No, I do not begrudge Meng Yao anything. He has had such a difficult life.”

Meng Yao nudges him at that, but not really with any resentment.

“How do you make your hair like that? Is that why you wake up very early in the morning?”

Meng Yao doesn't answer. He likes to keep little silences like that.

“Will you make my hair then?”

“Wouldn't you have a maiden do it. Maidens have soft and tiny hands, they make quick work of braids and every one of them coos when she sees the poor orphaned Master. Oh! how I would want to console the poor, delicate boy, they say and flutter they eyelashes so.”

And Meng Yao flutters his eyelashes to demonstrate.

“Oh, you are the perfect illusion of a maiden, Meng Yao! You can braid my hair too if you want.”

But Meng Yao can't be convinced. At least not before he receives some honest flattery, which Huaisang doesn't know what shape that takes for Meng Yao.

“Do you know how to whistle with blades of grass in your mouth?” he asks.

“No” Meng Yao answers, and although he is very close to him, their shoulders could be touching, he seems distant like he is suddenly somewhere else.

“Do you know how to catch birds? Places like these always have interesting birds. I want to catch as much as I find.”

“You like catching birds?” Meng Yao asks. He is going to be fifteen next month, and already he looks so much older than Huaisang. It's difficult for him, like Meng Yao is pulled by some force away. As if he no longer has an interest in being a child and doing things like a child. He often sees him lately put on a sorrowful countenance, and scowl silently to himself.

“I grew up in a dirty town. All the birds were already in cages. Unless for those that were eaten by cats in the streets.”

“But you are not in a dirty town anymore. You are in a beautiful forest with me.”

Meng Yao looks at him like he really is an idiot. As if the forest that chirps and sighs with the first ray of the sun, is not here with them. As if Meng Yao really is somewhere far away and this morning when they are sitting so close on the silken quilt is nothing but a shade, or a dream about to be forgotten.

“You can't possibly know how to catch birds” Meng Yao says. “You are awfully clumsy. You can't even make your own hair.”

“If I catch you a bird, you will eat your words” he says.

Meng Yao doesn't smile, but he reaches for a comb.

Being pampered so is so envigorating.  

“A nightingale” Meng Yao says.

“Nightingales don't sing in cages. They have to have been bred in captivity. How about a blackbird! They sing sweetly too and they are easier to catch.”

“Are you going to entice it with food?”

“I am not going to reveal my secrets” Nie Huaisang says.

                                                           ....

Meng Yao who seats by the brook watches him with a sort of bored curiosity. His duties here are not very exciting. Just sleep by the Master's chamber, then bring him food and drink all day until it's time to play. As for studying there is always a headache at Huaisang's disposal. He does peruse his books sometimes. But if he is to learn everything there is in one summer what would be the point in living a long life. Then after a while, he hears some rustling. It's Meng Yao who has cut up some young reeds, and is weaving a basket. He didn't know Meng Yao could do things like weave baskets. His hands are so skilled. 

Then in the evening he gives him that basket.

“You'll need it to catch the blackbird” he says.

Clever Meng Yao.

                                                            ....

It was little frustrating in the beginning to have Meng Yao stray here and there. Without the strict masters of the Unclean Realm, he has become indulgent and rude. Only the other day he tried to get him to hike up a path with him and he refused. And what did he do? Did he pick up a book, or weave a basket, or practice swordmanship? No. All he did was perch up on a silly bridge and look at a young fisherman below catch fish. He did that all day. Looking at the young man with some strange wistfulness in his eyes. 

It was as if Nie Huaisang never existed. Only Meng Yao and his silent sighs.

But Huaisang is clever too and birds are prettier than fish.

                                                           ....

It's so early in the morning that he climbs up Meng Yao's quilt that the sun hasn't even come up. The country though is tinged in the purple glow of the retreating night. It's so pleasant and warm, but even warmer is the quilt Meng Yao sleeps under. He doesn't look cute. He looks fair. Like a dreaming deity covered in a cloud. He places the basket on his peaceful face, and it balances right between the bridge of his nose and his brow. It makes Huaisang laugh.

The little blackbird inside it flutters and the basket loses its balance, and falls down Meng Yao's face. He is so surprised that Huaisang can't help but laugh, but Meng Yao does not take it to heart. He hears the bird fluttering in its makeshift cage and rises up in an instant eager to see it.

“Wait” Huaisang says and fishes a thread out of the basket.

“Don't hurt it” Meng Yao asks with bated breath.

“Why would I hurt it?” Huaisang asks and wraps the thread around Meng Yao's finger. “I caught it for you.”

Then he opens the basket and the little blackbird, suspended by the thread, jumps fluttering right into Meng Yao's perfect hands. It must be worth to live just to see this kind of thrill overtake him. Meng Yao looks like he is holding a little beating heart, and not a bird. So overjoyed he is that with his smile, the two dimples appear again on his cheeks. He hadn't seen those in a while.

                                                         ....

Tomorrow his brother is coming. It's not that he doesn't want this visit. It's that Mingjue will most certainly want to test him on his studies. And he hasn't been studying almost at all. Which means tonight he has to study everything at once. It's not just Meng Yao there to keep him company. It's also his elderly tutor who already knows what a fiasco tomorrow is going to be, and also a couple of young maidens that fill his glass with cold sugary drinks made of pressed fruit so he can have the energy to pull this all nighter. But both the maidens and the tutor, at some point fall asleep. It's only Meng Yao, sitting perfectly across him, asking him a catalogue of questions and providing the answers as well, when Huaisang becomes too sleep deprived to reply.

“How do you remember all that! It's only an hour since we opened this book” Huaisang exclaims.

“I have seen it so I remember it.” Meng Yao remarks as if its nothing. As if trapping words with your mind is a lesser feat than trapping birds with baskets.

It's really late in the evening when his brother arrives. It's already night, so Huaisang breathes, maybe there won't be an examination today. He arrives with one or two men, and just asks for a drink and to see him- the young heir of the Nie. There is a lady to wait them, but he sends her away, asks her not to trouble herself. Meng Yao is there however, and without calling his name, he asks him to the table where they sit and makes him pour his drinks. Nie Mingjue does not bother with “How you've been?” and “Pleasant Weather”. He sits heavily across him and asks “What is rule 52 of the Lan Clan.”, “What is the difference between a ghost and a monster.” “Who was the founder of the Wen”

He knows he has read about these things, but can't summon the words to his mind. Mingjue would like to be angry. That's why he sent the lady away, but kept Meng Yao. Rude as he is, he wouldn't scold him in front of an innocent woman. The scolding begins mildly. He just remarks on how many weeks it has been since he had the peace and quiet to study and better himself. But then it turns and becomes so vicious, Huaisang wants to cry. “Is it that you want to be useless?” Mingjue asks so quietly that it feels like he is whispering it straight to his soul.

He has a few words to say himself, but before they can burst out of him Meng Yao bows deeply before his brother, his brow touching the floor.

“The Young Master studied all night to please you, Clan Leader” he says with bated breath. “Please do not be angry at him that the words do not come to his lips.” And he is crying. Meng Yao is crying. He can see his tears like jewels falling from his eyes right on the wooden floor, becoming one with the old stains. “Ask me anything” he says with a stuffy nose. “My eyes followed his pages, I have seen everything he has seen. I will prove to you that he has studied.”

Mingjue looks at a loss. He feels silly, actually. He has that same expression Huaisang has when he feels silly. He probably thinks how unbecoming of a man it is to make two boys cry so late at night, so close to bed time.

“Alright” he says at the end. “I believe you. You don't have to pour your knowledge on me tonight. We can just stay like that.”

Meng Yao lifts himself from his elegant bow, and wipes his eyes with his sleeve. He looks so handsome, like he is the prince. Mingjue doesn't see him. He doesn't really look in the eyes of his subordinates. He just offers his empty cup, and Meng Yao with those impeccable manners of his pours him wine. Huaisang could look at Meng Yao pouring wine forever now. It is the most beautiful thing he has seen.

“Isn't it a little too late for you?” Mingjue asks. “Why don't you go and lie down?”

He rises to leave. Meng Yao has such a weird look on his face. He sits still, his posture perfect as if he is a bound little bird, and looks before him like that day on the bridge, when the fisherman was catching fish. He doesn't ask him to come with him. He leaves. It's only behind the curtain that he is going. Mingjue is going to sleep next to them. He can lie on his bed and look at the ceiling, and feel them both as near as the stains on the beams above.

Mingjue stays for so long, drinking from the cups Meng Yao pours him until for some reason he laughs to himself. He has never heard Mingjue laugh. But he does, and when he turns, Meng Yao, behind the transluscent curtains smiles, a fuzzy smile like a dream.

The next morning his brother is gone. Back to Unclean Realm it is. Huaisang seeks Meng Yao's quilt, so warm in the cool morning. His eyes are wide open as if he too counts stains on the ceiling.

“If you really look at them, you'll start seeing things” he says. “This one looks like an elegant teacup, don't you agree?”

Meng Yao nods so solemnly, as if indeed he sees.

“How about that one?” Huaisang asks and points at another indeterminate shape.

“It looks like a kiss” Meng Yao says.

“How do you know what a kiss looks like?” Huaisang asks.

“It's like when you let me hold the blackbird” Meng Yao replies, but he doesn't smile like that day. He just looks like he did in the night, when Nie Mingjue asked him to pour wine.

#the untamed #cql #nie huaisang #meng yao #nie mingjue #the untamed fic #unclean realm fic

[ibijau]

Concubine nhs pt4 / on AO3

Because there is a war to organise, because the emperor is a busy man, it is a full two weeks before Nie Huaisang gets formally summoned to the imperial palace to play weiqi with the emperor. But there can be no doubt that such an invitation is still planned, because Nie Huaisang receives two different notes stating that the emperor hasn’t forgotten about it. Those notes are carefully put away in a small box, alongside a few pieces of jewellery that belonged to his mother, and a jade hairpin that Nie Mingjue gave him.

While waiting for his next encounter with the emperor, Nie Huaisang keeps busy. He doesn’t have an official position in the house, and his cousin refuses to give him one for the time being, stating he’s waiting to see how things will go. Without any clear instructions, Nie Huaisang either helps Meng Yao with his duties, or reads up about the Wens, or plays weiqi against himself so he won’t disappoint the emperor when they play together.

Then, at last, the much awaited invitation arrives, requesting Nie Huaisang’s presence at the imperial palace a few days later.

Nie Funyu intercepts the letter and reads it before giving it to his cousin. He immediately sets out to ruin any joy Nie Huaisang might have felt with a list of strict instructions regarding the way he should behave. Considering the things Nie Huaisang admitted to saying on that very first meeting with the emperor in Qinghe, he supposed his cousin can’t be blamed for being worried. He tries to explain that he’d just been surprised that day, that he hadn’t realised who he was talking to, but Nie Funyu won’t hear it and orders him to be on his best behaviour.

What he wants, in short, is for Nie Huaisang to pretend he isn’t himself, that his personality is so mild as to be nonexistent, that he doesn’t have any humour. He is allowed to be good at weiqi if he must, but not too good.

When he helps him prepare to go meet the emperor, Meng Yao has some very different advice to offer.

“Master has many qualities, but he doesn’t understand the heart of young men,” he says, neatly tying into place the last layer of Nie Huaisang’s outfit. 

It is a gorgeous robe in a soft green that makes Nie Huaisang look nobler than he is, in a cut that gives the impression he’s not as short as he is. Meng Yao selected the fabric, chose the sash to go with it, decided the way it ought to be worn, and turned Nie Huaisang from a country boy into the perfect picture of a fashionable young man.

“If His Highness took notice of you that day, then it must mean your behaviour pleased him,” Meng Yao adds, motioning for Nie Huaisang to go sit so his hair can be dealt with. “So don’t change your manners too much, and don’t be too serious.”

Nie Huaisang promptly obeys, and abandons himself to the clever hands of Meng Yao. 

“I don’t know why my cousin worries anyway,” Nie Huaisang says, closing his eyes to enjoy the pleasant sensation of hands on his hair. “The emperor probably only wants to make sure I’m comfortable so he can tell Mingjue that he’s a good friend.”

Meng Yao’s hands slow down to the point of stillness, then start working again.

“Maybe it is so,” Meng Yao cautiously says. “But there are many people who have sent their relatives to the capital because of the war, and this humble servant doubts the emperor is making time for them, or apologising when he doesn’t have that time. Young Master Nie must have pleased him.”

“Don’t say that, I’ll get ideas,” Nie Huaisang mumbles, his cheeks burning.

“This humble one will keep quiet if Young Master Nie orders it,” Meng Yao retorts with a smile. “But this one won’t stop thinking that he’s right.”

If Nie Huaisang were a real noble, he’d scold Meng Yao for speaking so insolently. But of course it is because they both know what they are and where they stand that Meng Yao allows himself to chat so freely.

Still, it’s a little unkind to encourage him in his delusions, and he wishes Meng Yao wouldn’t do that.

-

That afternoon with the emperor goes well. It wasn’t supposed to be a whole afternoon, but one game of weiqi turns into three, until some ministers come knocking at the door, insisting that the emperor really must attend to certain business now. Only then do they separate, and with great reluctance. Nie Huaisang is brought back to the gate of the imperial palace, where his cousin waits for him. 

Strangely enough, Nie Funyu doesn’t seem in a bad mood, in spite of being made to wait longer than was planned. He does however insist that they head home directly, even though Nie Huaisang is now starving and would have liked to stop somewhere to grab some food. But a letter from Father has arrived, Nie Funyu explains, and it contains some instructions for Nie Huaisang that must be discussed in private.

In spite of his growling stomach, Nie Huaisang doesn’t protest and lets his cousin take him home. Perhaps there are news from Nie Mingjue in that letter. It would be nice. Nie Huaisang wishes he could talk to his brother, because they’d have more to say to each other than ever before.

But when they get home, Nie Funyu doesn’t share the contents of Father’s letter. Instead he takes Nie Huaisang to his private room, orders every servant to keep away, and locks the door.

“Tell me everything that happened,” Nie Funyu orders. “You were there for over a shichen, surely something must have happened. Tell me.”

Nie Huaisang, startled by the demand, the tone in which it is made, the locked door, hesitates.

It feels wrong to share what happened, especially with his cousin for whom he has little affection and only as much trust as is required toward a relative. What happened isn’t to be shared with just anyone. The emperor opened up to him over the afternoon and spoke, not as a son of heavens, but as a young man almost his age, lonely and in need of a friend, of a companion, in need of affection. 

Nie Huaisang isn't stupid, he can tell the emperor was flirting. 

The most powerful man in the world, flirting with him. It should be something to boast about, and instead Nie Huaisang wants to keep it secret. The knowledge that out of everyone in this world, out of every scholar, every beautiful man and woman, he’s the one whom the emperor might want at his side feels like a treasure. It is something to be kept away from prying eyes and enjoyed in private. He wants to take that realisation and put it away in his little box, alongside memories of his mother and brother, to be kept safe forever.

It is not something Nie Funyu deserves to hear about.

So Nie Huaisang tries to hide what he can. He describes the three games they played, praising the emperor for his skill, mentions that he tried to lose but was scolded and forced to play seriously, proving that the emperor is a wise man who values honesty. 

Nie Funyu isn’t satisfied with that. He asks question after question, demands details for every answer he gets, slowly forcing his young cousin to reveal everything, how the emperor smiled at him, how he laughed even as he scolded Nie Huaisang into playing well enough to beat him, his excitement as they spoke of poetry. Nie Huaisang can’t keep anything to himself, not even the way the emperor took his hand and squeezed it with such tenderness after making him promise he would visit again. 

When everything has been laid out, Nie Funyu is satisfied while Nie Huaisang feels ashamed. He wasn’t asked to keep any secrets, but this still has the aftertaste of a betrayal.

"It's as I thought then," his cousin says when he’s decided that he’s heard everything there is to say. "I'm glad I immediately wrote to your father. He's already answered that he also sees the advantage to be gained in this."

"I'm not sure I understand?" Nie Huaisang replies, too tired to keep his tone polite. He’s starving, and feels a headache pressing behind his eyes… or it might be that he just wants to cry.

"Your duty is to obey, not to understand," Nie Funyu snaps. "You will continue seducing the emperor, and ensure he doesn't turn on our family. Everyone knows his uncle is against this war, we can't have that young idiot change his mind. But what the brain can't achieve, the heart will do. So do your duty, and serve your family in the way you can."

“Seducing?”

Nie Funyu glares at him, and hands him Father’s letter at last.

Most of it regards ordinary business, a few requests regarding the war, some news from Nie Mingjue. The most interesting part comes last, when Father states that he sees no objection to letting the emperor have Nie Huaisang in whatever way pleases him. It is important, Father says, that Nie Huaisang doesn’t balk at his duty, whatever the personal cost. Everything must be sacrificed for the good of the empire… and what’s good for the empire is to make sure the emperor listens to the Nie family.

Nie Huaisang doesn’t cry. It would make his cousin angry, he thinks, and he’d rather not deal with that on top of the rest.

He doesn’t cry but he desperately wants to.

That afternoon with the emperor was so good, he had so much fun. Aside from Nie Mingjue, he doesn’t think anyone has ever been so warm and kind to him, so eager to get his good opinion. Nie Huaisang was so happy, and now it’s all been ruined, because he’s not allowed to just enjoy the fact that this gorgeous, powerful young man likes him.

He’ll do what Father asks, of course. He has to. It’s for the good of the empire, Father says, and it’s to make sure that Nie Mingjue gets all the support he needs while fighting the Wens. Nie Huaisang can’t take part in that war, but if he can help like this… He has to be a good son, a good brother.

It’s fine to be doing this. He’s not lying to anyone. Nie Huaisang wants to continue meeting the emperor, wants to see if they can be friends, if they can be more.

It’s fine to be doing what everyone wants if he also wants it, right?

#xisang #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #concubine au #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #I'll probably have at least one more chapter for that AU for sure #and then it's anyone's guess if it still holds my attention

[ibijau]

concubine nhs pt8 / on AO3

It’s always nice when Nie Mingjue comes to visit, and it’s always awful.

Most days, Nie Huaisang can pretend that he’s doing fine. Three years is a long time to get used to living like this, and he doesn’t miss the world outside the imperial palace, because there's nothing beyond those high walls. As long as he can believe that, he's fine. 

On the first year of his life as a concubine, the emperor took him along when he went to the summer palace for the hotter months of the year, but that went poorly. In the summer palace it was too hard to avoid imperial relatives, ministers, and all manners of people eager to get in the good graces of Nie Huaisang, hoping it would give them influence over the emperor. Nie Huaisang had to ask to return to the capital, to hide in his little house where nobody can use him for their own schemes. The year after, the emperor eventually gave up when Nie Huaisang refused to return to the summer palace. 

It's easier like this. 

There's nothing outside Nie Huaisang’s little house. 

There's nothing, until Nie Mingjue comes to visit and brings the world with him. 

In those last three years, Nie Mingjue has visited five times. It is always the most exquisite of tortures when they are alone together. Nie Mingjue won't put up with his brother's attempts to cut himself from everything that's outside the palace, and tells him about what life is like out there. 

He talks about the war, about home, about the people Nie Huaisang once counted as his friends. The Jiang siblings are doing well, he'll say, and Meng Yao, whom he stole from Nie Funyu, is the best personal servant he's ever had and will get promoted. The Wen have besieged Yunmeng for two month and nearly got in, until Wei Wuxian came up with another of his stratagems and saved the city. Last month, Nie Mingjue captured Wen Xu, who chose to kill himself with poison rather than be dragged in front of the emperor or used as a hostage. And just like Nie Huaisang suggested last time, they're sowing discord among the Wen's ranks, which might give them a chance to weaken them, and then perhaps they'll be able to get to the Nightless City before the end of the year. 

When Nie Mingjue arrives, Nie Huaisang is always subdued at first, and reluctant to hear about these things. It no longer concerns him, he's already doing his part, he can't get involved, concubines who do politics never end well, and… and Nie Mingjue doesn't care. He continues talking until Nie Huaisang, his curiosity awakened, finds himself asking questions because Nie Mingjue is the worst storyteller, always leaving things so vague, forgetting important details. 

Maybe he does it on purpose, so Nie Huaisang will become hungry for more, hungry enough to ask about this world he's become so good at forgetting, his question growing more and more precise as the afternoon passes. He needs to know what Wei Wuxian did exactly, how dangerous it was, whether it can be reproduced somewhere else. How was Wen Xu captured? What became of his wife and son? Are they really hoping to get Wen Zhuliu to their side? And what about that city they’d captured last year, do they still have it? Why not use it then?

Nie Mingjue smiles and answers everything, so Nie Huaisang continues asking more questions. Like every good caged bird, he knows more than one song to please those around him, because not everyone wants to hear the same tune.

There is only one topic that Nie Mingjue normally avoids, it might truly hurt his brother. At least, he usually avoids it. But not this time. This time, perhaps because the end of the war is finally on the horizon, Nie Mingjue asks his brother if he’s happy.

The question takes Nie Huaisang by surprise.

Of course he’s happy. He’s well fed, he has everything he can ask for, clothes and ink and books, he’s even going to have birds, his very own birds, all because he mentioned in passing his childhood love of them, and so the emperor decided to build him a whole aviary, all for himself, one where other people won’t be allowed to pester him.

Who wouldn’t be happy? Who wouldn’t be satisfied?

Nie Huaisang would have to be stupid to be unhappy.

But he can tell, also, that this isn’t what Nie Mingjue wants to hear. Nie Huaisang has become a little too used to reassuring people and being what they want him to be. The emperor likes to have a loving little songbird who worries about nothing. Nie Mingjue likes people to be clever and determined, to be independent.

It’s so easy to be what Nie Mingjue wants him to be. To say that no, he’s not quite happy, but willing to endure it all for the good of the empire. It’s not even a lie, Nie Huaisang is glad to be useful, and he’d do this even if he hated it, as long as it can help his brother.

“I’m going to take you back home someday,” Nie Mingjue, so fierce that it startles his brother. “The day Father dies, I’ll ask to have you back, I swear.”

Nie Huaisang hesitates. Home is an odd concept. Home is here, in his perfect little cage, living his perfect little life, happy in the arms of a perfect man who would give him the moon. This is home. It has always been home. It will always be home.

Home, he vaguely remembers, is also a great house where he was always busy. A place where people talked to him just because he was there, or because they had a task for him to do, and it was all they expected of him. He remembers laughing and sharing gossip, he remembers going fishing with some other boys. He recalls his aunts and uncles, working in his father’s home or in the nearby town, feeding him candies, asking after his studies, reminding him to be a good obedient son. And there were also evenings spent with Nie Mingjue when he was there, listening to his tales from the border, sharing jokes, being comforted by him when he missed his mother.

Home was all this, once, but now that feels like someone else’s dream.

Nie Huaisang scolds his brother for speaking like this, for not understanding that, much like wild birds kept too long, he’s not sure he could survive outside his cage anymore. He’s happy here. He’s home here.

Nie Huaisang knows he’s lucky, and he knows he must protect his brother, so he quickly changes the conversation to something safer, and waits for the emperor to return. Then Nie Mingjue will see that Nie Huaisang is, in fact, happy enough, that the emperor is good to him, that this little cage is a great place to live.

Everything always feels better when the emperor is there. 

It's odd that the emperor isn't there yet. 

Eventually, some servants arrive carrying a meal for Nie Huaisang and his guest, as well as an apology from the emperor who cannot join them. Something came up, as happens sometimes. Nie Huaisang is sad, as he always is when the emperor cannot join him, but Nie Mingjue's company makes up for it. They chat some more about the war, using weiqi stones on a map to imagine how things might go. Nie Huaisang, who plays the Wens in black, almost wins that little game. 

"You're really wasted as a concubine," Nie Mingjue says as they tidy everything. 

"Maybe, but the food here is better than in the army," Nie Huaisang laughs. 

-

Nie Mingjue doesn't come the next day, and neither does the emperor. The two facts are linked, since they and some other ministers are stuck in a council that lasts until nightfall. Nie Huaisang misses both of them, but knows it’s already lucky either of them has any time at all to waste with him.

-

Nie Mingjue does come the day after, but it's to say goodbye. He really only came to the capital to ask for more funds and more men. The war is going well, but if the Wens find out that he's gone they could try to take advantage of his absence, so he cannot linger. 

Again, the emperor cannot join them. Three days without a visit is unusual, but not unheard off. Nie Huaisang tries not to show that it depresses him, for Nie Mingjue's sake. His brother understands when this whole thing is about duty, but gets puzzled or angry whenever Nie Huaisang tries to explain that he truly enjoys the emperor’s company because it is also about love.

He thinks Nie Huaisang is lying. 

Nie Mingjue doesn’t like being lied to.

It's easier to just say the right things, to be what others expect him to be. It's the best way to ensure that people never stop loving him. 

There's no lying in that, Nie Huaisang figures. Not really. He really is the loving little bird who loves poetry and painting. He is also the dedicated little brother who studies the war and guesses at its outcome. 

He's never lying, and it's his own fault if he's too complicated to be loved as his entire self. 

-

The emperor doesn't come. 

Four days is a long time, unheard of. 

The emperor doesn't come. 

Five days now. 

The emperor doesn't come. 

But his brother does, on that sixth day, because the prince has never yet missed one of their weekly meetings. 

"Has anything happened recently?" Nie Huaisang asks him, trying to sound calm and collected. 

The prince likes the quiet. Usually Nie Huaisang respects that, copying the behaviour of his guest, silent and elegant, wanting the prince to like him. They rarely ever speak while having tea togethr. But today, Nie Huaisang is too worried to keep his mouth shut. 

The prince throws him a puzzled look. He puts down his glass of tea, slow and elegant and irritatingly perfect. 

"You don't know?" the prince asks in a voice devoid of emotion. 

"Know what?" Nie Huaisang asks, wishing for once that he'd made more connections . He doesn't even trust his servants with any confidences, worried they might turn against him given a chance, but maybe that was a mistake. He's relied too much on the emperor as his only source of information about the palace, and now… 

"I don't know either," the prince clarifies. "But he stopped visiting you. It has been noticed. A dispute?" 

Nie Huaisang shakes his head. The last time they saw each other, the emperor was in an excellent mood. He seemed so happy that Nie Mingjue was coming to the capital, so excited to see his old friend again. It had been a happy night, they had chatted and laughed, they had gone to sleep holding each other close… in a rare stroke of luck, Nie Huaisang had even briefly woken up early enough to see the emperor as he left the bed the morning after, begging for a kiss before going back to sleep.

“Did he have an argument with my brother?” Nie Huaisang wonders, before shaking his head again. “No, da-ge would have said… Could your uncle have been pushing him to get a wife again?”

“He would visit you more, not less,” the prince calmly argues, starting to look puzzled as well. “I hope it does not last.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Nie Huaisang says with a polite bow. “When I find what I have done wrong, I will endeavour to improve myself so I do not disappoint again.”

The prince says nothing. He picks up his tea again, finishes it, puts down the empty glass again.

“It will not last,” the prince says. “Brother cares too much.”

That’s the end of their conversation. The prince has obligations, and cannot stay. Nie Huaisang, ever the polite host for his brother-in-law, thanks the prince for coming, apologizes for bothering him with private matters, and promises again to do better in the future and avoid worrying anyone.

He’s then left alone again, and feeling lonely in a way he hadn’t in a long while. The emperor isn’t visiting on purpose, then. The prince did not say it exactly like that, but if the emperor had merely been busy, he would have said so. Has Nie Huaisang done something? Did he fail to do something? But it’s so odd. They’ve never had an argument, not really. The closest they’ve been to that was disagreeing here and there on the value of a poet’s work, and even then they’d always made up again before the evening was over.

It makes no sense.

Still there is that hope, however frail, that the prince might talk to his brother. Maybe he will complain against being dragged into their private life, and demand that the emperor sort this out so he doesn’t have to deal with Nie Huaisang’s emotional outbursts again. Or perhaps he’ll be nicer than that. The prince did seem concerned, and apparently he likes Nie Huaisang, or at least gets as close to it as he can ever get, so perhaps he will put in a kind word to his brother about that poor neglected little bird, all alone in his pretty cage…

But the emperor doesn’t come that night, and Nie Huaisang, alone in a bed too cold, struggles to fall asleep.

-

Then, after a week, while Nie Huaisang is reading the commentary to a military treaty, there is a knock on the door.

When he opens that door, the emperor is there, severe and distant like a true son of heavens, showing no hint of the gentle and tender man Nie Huaisang is used to seeing inside his little house. He is terrifying and distant, almost reminding Nie Huaisang of his father. Reminding him, also, who this man he loves truly is, when he's not playing pretend with him in their little house.

“We must talk,” the emperor says in a cold voice that tolerates no defiance.

And just like that, Nie Huaisang knows that it’s over.

#xisang #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #concubine au #well now we're all caught up to the first chapter yay #and all this just because I'm procrastinating on my time travel fic lol #but also yeah this au might go quiet again as I try to figure out where this all goes next

[robininthelabyrinth]

If you're still taking prompts could you do Jiang Yanli/Jin Guangyao?

Four Worlds in which Jin Guangyao Marries Jiang Yanli

1

Yunping was a bit out of the way for the Jiang sect, but it was still a city in Yunmeng, so when there was a large enough night-hunt in their region, that was where the Jiang sect usually stayed.

It was always an event for the city’s children, that loved to run over to marvel at all those beautiful purple-clad cultivators walking through the streets – they usually didn’t fly within city limits, much to the disappointment of all.

Meng Yao loved watching them most of all.

After all, his mother told him that his father had been a cultivator, even a Sect Leader; one day, he would return to claim him, or perhaps Meng Yao would need to go present himself to him, but one day, she promised him, one day, he’d have his father’s name and no one would look down on him again.

That promise was everything to him, and yet that wasn’t what really drew him over to the Jiang sect.

No, what he went for was all Jiang Yanli – the girl he’d bumped into by accident, then shown around at her request. He’d shyly told her about his father being a cultivator, and she’d looked so happy for him; she’d even promised to bring him a proper introductory cultivation manual the next time she came so that his mother could stop spending all her money on fakes.

He hadn’t really expected her to remember actually do it, but she had. She’d confided in him that she’d met her future fiancé for the first time, that he was young and spoiled and didn’t seem to like her much, but that her mother wanted the marriage – and saying no now would be a slap in the face of the Jin sect.

“Jin?” Meng Yao said, dazzled. “Oh – that’s the sect my father’s from. If you have to marry someone from there, why don’t you marry me instead?”

2

Everyone had expected the young lady from the Jiang sect to have taken refuge with the Jin sect. After all, the engagement between her and the heir might be broken, but Madame Jin had still been her mother’s good friend – it would be comfortable with them, and safe…although people would whisper about it.

Perhaps that’s why she didn’t go there.

Meng Yao found himself unwillingly sympathetic. Who knew better than he did how much whispers could corrode the soul? Who knew better the idea of being faced with the disappointment of Lanling, and decided instead to turn to Qinghe, where merit was prized over blood?

The iron-hearted Nie Mingjue agreed to allow Jiang Yanli to stay in the Nie camp only if she agreed to work, but she was willing – even eager – to lend a hand to the war effort, whether by helping nurse the sick, mend clothing, or help in the kitchens.

One day, she brought him soup.

“Sect Leader Nie has already retired,” he said, blinking down at it.

She laughed. “It’s for you. Sect Leader Nie speaks so highly of his hard-working deputy – it would be a shame if you collapsed from hunger because you were too busy working and forgot to eat.”

No girl had ever made anything for Meng Yao before.

“Mistress Jiang,” he said, staring down at it. “Is this – I’m not the right son, you know.”

“If I wanted to make soup for young master Jin, I’d be in Lanling,” she pointed out, eyes curving with a smile. “This has nothing to do with that.”

He’d almost hoped it was; it would spare him the need to say the other part of it. “I don’t know if you haven’t heard,” he said, and if he didn’t know better he might almost think it could be the case – Jiang Yanli was not the type to gossip. “But my background…I wouldn’t want the taint to spread to you.”

“The circumstances of your birth were not your fault, and should not taint you,” she said gently, and she meant it, too; he’d always been good at reading expressions. “It’s just soup, Deputy Meng; don’t think about it too much. Eat it and regain your strength.”

She brought him one every night from that point on.

(“Sect Leader Nie,” Meng Yao said one night, some time later, bold in his desperation. “If I were to propose marriage to Mistress Jiang, would you back me?”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes widened. “I thought you were going to wait until you were reestablished in the Jin sect for that,” he replied, which wasn’t a no, and that’s what Meng Yao cared about right now.

“Sect Leader Jin would never allow a bastard son to have something that should have gone to his legitimate heir, even if his heir has already discarded it,” Meng Yao said. He wouldn’t even allow for sharing, and Meng Yao had had the bruises from falling down the stairs to prove it. “The only way it would work is if there was already an agreement in place before I go to Langya. Sect Leader, please –”

“Don’t beg,” Nie Mingjue said hastily. “I will, I will; did I ever say I wouldn’t? You’re a good man, Meng Yao; I can see no reason for you not to petition for her hand. If the lady agrees, I’ll speak to Jiang Cheng on your behalf.”

“I won’t let you down,” Meng Yao swore, and for the first time since he came to Qinghe, he meant it.)

3

Meng Yao was good at remembering names and faces, but he had grown up far away from the cultivation world – he was always behind the others in etiquette, having to learn everything all at once when even Jin Zixun, who didn’t care about anyone, could recognize most of his peers on sight.

So when he asked the kitchen girl at Langya her name and she looked surprised, he resigned himself to another embarrassing incident and having to apologize for not knowing what everyone else did.

Instead, she laughed lightly. “Why don’t you call me A-Li?” she said with a smile. “And I’ll call you A-Yao, and we’ll be friends.”

“I can always use friends,” Meng Yao said, and smiled back.

He expected it to be little more than a joke, but she seemed to take it seriously: she spoke warmly to him whenever he came to the kitchens, and in the rare times they were both free, she would come find him and they would spend time wherever there was a refuge from people.

“People gossip about me rather a lot,” she confessed when he asked her why. “I had an engagement to someone in the Jin sect, and it was rather publicly broken, and then I came here anyway…it was very nice to meet someone who didn’t know about all that.”

Meng Yao could understand that very well. She knew who he was, of course, but she pretended she didn’t, and that suited him very well.

And so they were friends, anonymously, right up until Jin Zixuan humiliated A-Li in front of the entire camp, accusing her of stealing another girl’s credit, and she ran away in tears – it would have been impossible for him to pretend he didn’t know she was the young mistress of the Jiang sect after that.

“He’s an idiot,” he told her, voice unusually fierce, having found her in their usual spot. Even Qin Su, who liked his face, treated him with a touch of pity for his poor background; Jiang Yanli, who was of even higher birth, had never done so, not once – perhaps the unlikelihood of that was why he had managed to stay ignorant of her identity for so long. “One day he’ll know it, too.”

“I don’t want him to,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t even mean it like that! It was only that our mothers were friends, so I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Meng Yao said. He hadn’t planned on telling anyone his plans, not even A-Li, but after a scene like that… “I’m leaving the camp tomorrow, with a plan to earn fame and merit enough to force my father to recognize me. It’s risky, and I may not survive, but if I do, would you marry me? We could rub it in his face.”

Jiang Yanli smiled at him. “Meng Yao, I would marry you even without that.” She thought about it a minute. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t feel nice, though.”

Meng Yao laughed.

4

Jin Guangyao wasn’t expecting the knock on his door.

Jiang Yanli was still wearing mourning clothing, all in white; with her pale face, she looked like a ghost, and only the rosy-cheeked baby in her arms indicated that she was alive.

“Sister-in-law,” he said, not quite sure if a smile was appropriate at this moment. “It’s late – how can I help you?”

“You want to be Sect Leader, don’t you?” she asked, direct and to the point, and the pleasant expression on his face stiffened. “Don’t deny it, I won’t hold it against you. You weren’t the one that killed him; all you did was tell him about the situation, which even I would have done.”

“Why do you ask?” he replied, still unwilling to commit himself.

“Because I don’t have much else to offer,” Jiang Yanli said simply. “Your father is gathering up cultivators to go to the Nightless City, where he’ll demand A-Xian’s life, and never mind that it was just a horrible accident. I don’t want that to happen, but no one will listen to me – but you’ve never needed anyone to listen to you to get what you want out of them.”

Jin Guangyao hadn’t known that Jiang Yanli was so perceptive. If he had, he might have been more cautious around her. “You want me to find a way to save your shidi’s life,” he said slowly. “Even after he killed your husband, and turned the vast majority of the cultivation world against him. And in return, you’re offering…what?”

“Legitimacy,” she said. “You’re the obvious next heir at the moment, yes, but Sect Leader Jin has dozens of children outside; he need only go and get one to put your inheritance in doubt. But if you marry me, even Sect Leader Jin won’t be able to resist the pressure of making you the heir.”

He stared at her. “I’m – engaged.”

“I don’t object to you taking Qin Su as a concubine,” she said. “Sect Leader Qin will be open to the idea if you’re the heir. But as a matter of dignity, I would insist that you refrain from intimacy before marriage during the time that you’re engaged to me – I know the two of you have been considering forcing your parents’ hands that way, but it would leave me with no face at all if you persisted with that approach.”

Yes, Jiang Yanli was far more perceptive than he’d previously believed.

Marriage to her would be – interesting.

“Very well,” he said. “I accept.”

#mdzs #jiang yanli #jin guangyao #meng yao #my fic #my fics #couldn't decide which one #so I wrote them all #Anonymous

[madtomedgar]

ok so i have unpopular but totally correct opinions about the trajectory of meng yao/jin guangyao’s relationship to and thinking on nie mingjue. Basically, I don’t think Meng Yao is the one who ruined that relationship, and in this essay I will--

so first of all i think it’s important not to read jin guangyao backwards onto meng yao. it is my opinion that everyone, or almost everyone, can be pushed to extreme acts of violence with the right amount of sustained pressure, so i tend to view jin guangyao’s later character as in large part a reaction to how he is treated by others. Could he have handled his reactions better? Sure. But considering how well I’m handling my reactions to life lately, I’m not going to judge.

So. Meng Yao. To me, Meng Yao seems like an overly earnest young person who at once is putting all of his hopes into the belief that, even if the rest of the cultivation world isn’t like this, Qinghe is something of a meritocracy and if he just keeps working hard and impressing Nie Mingjue, he can achieve great things and be rewarded with Nie Mingjue’s paternal affection respect and admiration. He is also someone who knows that this is not how the world works, or how people work from bitter experience. But admitting that would be admitting that he has no control over his own life trajectory and can’t make people love him, and that’s not something he’s prepared to do, because that’s not something most people are prepared to do.

The first time we meet him, Lan Xichen tells him that Nie Mingjue is just and fair and will reward good work, and Meng Yao smiles all big and thanks Lan Xichen copiously and says he’ll remember his words, and walks out with more confidence than he had walking in. In the scene in the Unclean Realm where we see him interact with Mingjue, again, he seems extremely eager to please, and a little proud of himself for how good at this he is, offering intelligent suggestions and backing them up with solid arguments in a tone that is gentle and persuasive. He gets mocked for hanging on Mingjue’s every word and likened to Mingjue’s dog. When he’s trying to persuade the captain to cut the bullshit, he specifically says that Mingjue will be angry with him (Meng Yao) if these orders aren’t obeyed. It’s possible he was just trying to be pitiful to get the captain to, idk, do his fucking job there, but I think, based on everything else and my egregious bias, that he genuinely, genuinely is invested in performing in such a way as to make Nie Mingjue have a good opinion of him. 

On my third watch of the banishment eps, and second watch of the Mingjue flashback, I think I’ve finally come up with a logical explanation for why Meng Yao frees Xue Yang. There’s no way he’s working with the Wens at that point, I can’t figure out how he’d be working with Jin Guangshan, and while he knows about the Yin iron, he’s extremely loyal to Mingjue at that point, and the idea that he could curry favor with his father, who had him kicked down the stairs, by bringing him some Yin iron just seemed weak.

However, when Wen Chao shows up, he says Nie Mingjue has a choice. He can either hand over Xue Yang, or he, and everyone else in the Unclean Realm, will be killed. Mingjue’s like “not if I kill you first BITCH” and starts fighting Wen Zhuliu, who everyone in this universe has a healthy fear of, except for, apparently Nie Mingjue and Madam Yu. And Nie Mingjue is holding his own, but the Wens don’t fight fair, and “holding his own” is not really what you want to happen against Wen Zhuliu, who only has to get one touch in to end you. So our boy Meng Yao runs the odds, and decides it’s a good bet that they’re about to get their asses kicked, and Mingjue, specifically, his replacement dad mentor and commander, is about to die. And then he runs off to get Xue Yang to placate Wen Chao (he’s Really Good at placating angry, powerful men. It’s kind of his Thing) and save Nie Mingjue from himself. There is no way Meng Yao thinks he’ll be thanked for this or not at the punished severely. But at that point in his life, he viewed himself as an acceptable sacrifice if it meant keeping Mingjue (and, by extension, Huaisang) safe. Jin Guangyao’s obsessive self-preservation doesn’t exist yet in Meng Yao.

I think that particular captain just happened to be the one guarding Xue Yang, OR saw Meng Yao heading that way and followed him to start shit. Either way, he tries to stop Meng Yao, and Meng Yao, who has been begging this man to give him an excuse and fantasizing about killing him or otherwise hurting him every day since the harassment started (as you do, when you are getting physically assaulted and sexually harassed at work every god damned day! There is only so much a body can take! I’m frankly shocked he didn’t cap the guy sooner!) sees his chance and takes it. It’s like his birthday came early this year. Die, bitch. And while he’s enjoying himself, Xue Yang runs off, Mingjue shows up, and everything goes to shit. This was not a well executed plan. And now Mingjue, who he has definitely seen get Big Mad and kill people before, whose wrath he’s definitely been on the recieving end of before, is coming at him with Baxia. 

And even knowing that he’s lost Nie Mingjue’s respect entirely right there, Meng Yao’s response to this is to take Wen Zhuliu’s sword for Nie Mingjue. There is no way Meng Yao thought he’d live through that. But somehow, he does! And Mingjue’s response to him is to drag him into Blade’s Hall to face justice, while still bleeding from the stab wound in his chest. Yes, Meng Yao tries to explain himself in that scene, and I don’t believe he’s lying, I just think that Mingjue has decided to never believe a word that comes out of his mouth ever again. (also: he beat me, insulted me, humiliated me every day-- So YOU KILLED HIM?!?! ..........yeah, why?) However. Twice in that scene, Meng Yao thanks Nie Mingjue for the opportunities he’s been given (seriously, “i don’t regret having met you in this life,” as your expected last words to the person about to kill you? that is acceptance of both your own actions and the consequences that are about to separate your head from your body on a frightening level!), and sticks out his neck so that Nie Mingjue might have an easier target, and smiles in a very at-peace kind of way. 

Meng Yao, at the point of banishment, cares enough about Nie Mingjue’s opinion that, if Nie Mingjue decides he deserves to die, even if Meng Yao doesn’t follow the logic there, he accepts it. If Nie Mingjue thinks he deserves death, then he deserves death, and not in a self-depricating “i deserve bad things” way, in a “if I am to be killed by you, then it would have been worth it” way. At this point in his life, there is nothing Meng Yao would not do for Nie Mingjue, up to and including disobeying direct orders and getting himself executed for treason to ensure Nie Mingjue’s survival. He tries to save Nie Mingjue’s life at the expense of his own twice, and is fully prepared and fine with dying for Nie Mingjue or by his hand three times in one afternoon. The devotion is frightening. And for his troubles, Nie Mingjue banishes him without even allowing his wound to be treated first (which, imo, is just the honorable way of saying “go die somewhere else. i don’t want you bleeding on my carpet.”)

Meng Yao’s lines to Huaisang hurt, and, again, show a continuing a) total acceptance that this is What He Deserves, but not in a self-depricating way! and, b) devotion to the Nie family and their well-being/ability to function. And then after being cast out to die and told “i don’t care where you go. go to the jins or anywhere else, just never come back here,” his response to this is not to curl into a ball and die, or to try joining another sect, or to go over to the enemy, or to even go back to his sad life as an ordinary pariah, it’s to go find, save, and shelter for three months a fugitive sect leader who may never be in a position to help or thank him, depending on how the war goes. 

And then, because he’s still Meng Yao and still invested in a) proving himself and b) serving his adopted clan (and new friend!) well despite their casting him out, he decides to go undercover and infiltrate the Wens to help turn the tide of the war, an incredibly high risk/low reward task.

My take on the whole Nightless City incident is that Meng Yao did not intend to lead the troops into a trap, but couldn’t get a message out to warn them. It doesn’t make sense for him to do all that work just to do that. If he was going to betray Xichen for his own gain, it would have made more sense to deliver him into Wen Ruohan’s hands when he was on the run. I think he was waiting for the opportune moment to take out Wen Ruohan once he was distracted with his puppeteering, because if you try to take out someone like Wen Ruohan, you get exactly one shot and you better not miss. Meng Yao is loyal and devoted, but he’s not a hero. And then Nie Mingjue comes in like a wrecking ball and completely ruins his shot. Now he’s gotta set up another shot (difficult! risky! may not be possible! fuck!) while dealing with both Wen Ruohan and Nie Mingjue (yikes!) 

Does Meng Yao have a little too much fun taunting and lording it over Nie Mingjue there? Yes. Should he have put some fun back? Absolutely. But. Hear me out. If you’ve ever had some customer being absolutely heinous to you, and then they demand to speak to your manager, and you get to say, in that moment, the magical phrase “Actually, I am the manager :).” Look sex is great and all, but that feeling? That is the best feeling in the world. And so I don’t blame Meng Yao for having a little fun there. Also! Meng Yao learned young and learned bitterly how to take it when people more powerful than him who thought nothing of hurting him were taunting, lording it over, and yelling at him. And in my experience, something snaps in your brain when you realize that other people haven’t been traumatized in the same way as you by watching them react brazenly to a situation where that same reaction from you would have imperiled your safety. I watched my favorite little cousin, who I love, mouth off to my grandmother and put her fingers in her food at the same time, and I had to go outside to stop myself from screaming at her, because when I did that as a kid, my grandmother whupped me and washed my mouth out with soap, literally, and I was furious that that happened to me, but wasn’t going to happen to her. And because he’s ostensibly working for Wen Ruohan when Meng Yao watches Nie Mingjue react brazenly to being in the position he put Meng Yao in earlier, and something snaps in Meng Yao’s brain, he can’t really take a deep breath, take a walk, and remind himself that the person he’s mad at here isn’t actually Mingjue, and that traumatizing Mingjue like he’s been traumatized won’t actually help anything. Instead, it’s highly appropriate and encouraged for him to give vent to his worst impulses, so he does.

But!

While he’s having his fun, he also keeps trying subtley to warn Nie Mingjue that he can’t take this too far, that he should just stay down and shut up. Of course, Nie Mingjue doesn’t really do subtlety and also takes one look at Meng Yao and decides that he’s a traitorous lying liar who lies, which is what he’d decided when Meng Yao stabbed the captain anyway. (Seriously though Mingjue. Use your brain. Xichen told you he had a man on the inside high enough up to get y’all good intel. And then you see your old aide-de-camp there. Do the math man. Do the math. Who the fuck did you think the spy was? Wen Chao? Come on, man.) Meng Yao is out of line with teasing Mingjue about how his father died and breaking Baxia, but it’s also a veiled warning, one Mingjue is too angry to pick up on. “If you keep this up, not only will you be killed, but it will be in a very awful and humiliating manner. We have your saber, and Wen Ruohan can and will break it to break you. Stop running your mouth.” After his nasty little speech, Meng Yao knocks Nie Mingjue out, once again saving him from himself. He can’t run his mouth and get himself killed if he’s unconscious!

After Mingjue wakes up, he tries to kill Meng Yao twice more. Other than hiding behind Xichen slightly one of those times, again Meng Yao doesn’t resist. He explains himself, he apologizes, and then he closes his eyes and accepts Nie Mingjue’s judgement, once on his knees, neck again outstretched so that Nie Mingjue might have an easier shot. Even after what he said and did in Scorching Sun Palace, Meng Yao still implicitly trusts, accepts, and is willing to live or die by Nie Mingjue’s judgement. 

I think the moment this starts to sour, and Jin Guangyao (no longer Meng Yao) starts really questioning that devotion and letting his anger and bitterness at Nie Mingjue and the lie of Nie Mingjue as just and fair direct the line of that questioning is after they’ve sworn their brotherhood, and Nie Mingjue is still treating him like he is contemptible and untrustworthy. It’s when Xichen tries to help and puts his foot in his mouth by saying that Mingjue just despises evil and Jin Guangyao replies, with his heart in his throat, “Is that what I am then? Evil?” or “Am I really so evil then?” depending on the translation. Nie Mingjue has tried to kill him four times. He’s saved or attempted to save Nie Mingjue’s life three times (four, if you count killing Wen Ruohan). He’s apologized and submitted himself for lethal judgement twice, and sworn brotherhood with Nie Mingjue, and in Nie Mingjue’s eyes, he’s still exactly that evil and will always be exactly that evil, because Nie Mingjue neither forgets nor forgives, and Jin Guangyao knows this.

And the thing is, we the audience are like “yeah, Jin Guangyao, you are that evil! Your war crimes are bad and you should feel bad!” but that isn’t why Nie Mingjue thinks he’s evil. Nie Mingjue is very pro-war crimes. Nie Mingjue argued, and continues to argue against Xichen when it comes to mercy for the Wens. The reason Nie Mingjue thinks Jin Guangyao is evil is because he killed one abusive captain, and two (in the show it’s only two) Nie cultivators in an espionage context, when the Nie cultivators where shit talking both him and Wen Ruohan to Wen Ruohan’s face. I think if you asked Jin Guangyao at that point in his arc what he considers his most shameful act, he’d go with executing the Wen prisoners and lying to Lan Xichen about it. I think he does consider the lives of thirty or so ordinary people (like himself! like his mother!) to be more valuable than the lives of two cultivators. And he knows, because Nie Mingjue just agreed on this with Jin Guangshan, that Nie Mingjue doesn’t agree, that he thinks that the lives of cultivators matter more. And for killing two of them under very specific circumstances, Jin Guangyao is evil in his eyes. 

And that, in my opinion, is when their relationship becomes irreparable and takes a sharp turn towards the ultimately fatal. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#untamed stuff #the untamed #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #long post #i did this instead of sending my ED an email that starts #i hope this email finds you before i do #and ends with #if you do not respond by x time you will be hunted for sport #so that's how my week is going #shameless jiggy apologism

[ibijau]

part 10 of the Nomad Nie AU // On AO3

Huaisang has a surprise for his husband, who tries to surprise him in return

It took nearly another week after Cunzhi’s little adventure before the Nie finally arrived at their winter camp. The entire time, Nie Huaisang stuck close to his husband, in case Lan Xichen had developed a taste for confronting wolves unarmed and needed to be stopped. Lan Xichen was both amused and touched by this, and didn’t complain. 

He thought that Khan Mingjue too seemed rather entertained by this turn of events, and acted perhaps a little less angry toward him these days. When they arrived at the winter camp, Lan Xichen was bossed around by the Khan just the same way as everyone else as they rebuilt the gers, and he was trusted with helping Huaisang and a few others check whether any of the animals had sustained wounds during the long journey. He also was a little warmer when the three of them retired for the night, and constantly teased him about the wolf. This greatly annoyed Huaisang, which seemed to be the aim, but Lan Xichen found he rather enjoyed the Khan’s dry humour. It reminded him of Lan Wangji.

When they reached the place they would spend the winter, it took very little time to set everything up, at least in Lan Xichen’s opinion. In less than a day, there was a whole village standing, looking exactly as if it had always been there. The herds were then separated, which led to a few small disputes here and there. The Khan ordered his brother and Zonghui to take care of those if they could. As for himself, Mingjue was only giving the horses a chance to rest a little, and then he would head with a few men toward the other camp, to make sure that everything was alright with them.

Mingjue left early the next morning, just as Lan Xichen was starting to wake up. He groggily bid his brother-in-law a safe trip, then decided it was really too early to be up yet and tried to pull Huaisang back under the covers with him to cuddle for a while. Huaisang indulged him at first, but before long he was escaping to eat something, saying he had a busy day ahead. He was clearly very proud of having been tasked with helping settle any disputes that might have arisen due to the migration, and refused to let his brother down when Mingjue was finally trusting him with something.

Any hope Lan Xichen might still have had about a quiet morning together was fully ruined when Meng Yao came to check on them. Huaisang and Lan Xichen were still having breakfast, but invited him to sit with them if he wished and share their meal. Lan Xichen was delighted to see his friend, as always. So was Huaisang, though he still left before long, eager for this chance to prove how very useful and mature he could be.

“We’ll chat later,” Nie Huaisang said in Hanyu, his accent much better than it used to be. “Keep my husband company, Menyao. Make sure he does nothing stupid. No more wolves for him!”

Meng Yao laughed, and promised to keep an eye on Lan Xichen. Satisfied with this, Huaisang dropped a quick kiss on his husband’s forehead and hopped out of the ger. Lan Xichen watched him go, unable to refrain a fond smile as he passed some cheese to Meng Yao.

“Do you think he minds that we are friends?” Meng Yao asked as he took the food.

Lan Xichen shot him a surprised look. “Of course not. Why would he?”

Meng Yao appeared to hesitate, the way he sometimes did when he feared he had some unpleasant information to share. He stalled a moment, nibbling on his piece of cheese, before diving in.

“These barbarians can be rather possessive,” he explained. “And I am right in guessing you are still refusing him his marital rights, are you not?”

Lan Xichen nodded and looked away, heat rushing to his face. It really wasn’t a matter of refusing anything at this point, and just that the occasion for it couldn’t be found. With Nie Mingjue gone for a few days, Lan Xichen was hoping they’d seize their chance at last… but of course he couldn’t have said that to Meng Yao, it was too private a matter.

“Huaisang is much sweeter than the others,” Meng Yao said, “but even he could get jealous. Lan gongzi should keep that in mind, and tell me if I create problems for him.” He sighed, his expression pained. “Lan gongzi is dear to me, but I will distance myself if it is needed. I do not want to provoke Huaisang into anger.”

Lan Xichen laughed awkwardly, and drank to hide his embarrassment.

“It’s fine, it’s quite fine,” he said. “Huaisang doesn’t mind at all. You’re his friend too, in spite of his brother.”

Meng Yao looked unconvinced. “These people will turn on their friends over anything. Even among brothers there is strife sometimes. If Huaisang weren’t so indolent, he would probably have been killed a long while ago, just so he wouldn’t pose a threat to the Khan’s power. Their grandfather killed his own father for power, it runs in their blood. So please, be careful, and tell me if I can ever do anything for you. You’re the only true friend I have, I don’t want for any harm to come to you.”

The story of Huaisang’s grandfather wasn’t unknown to Lan Xichen. Huaisang had told it to him, not without some pride, because the murdered father had been a cruel man who abused people and animals alike. Mingjue, who had been with them in the ger, had added that an unjust Khan could not be allowed to rule, and he would expect the same if he took a turn for the worse.

It had disturbed Lan Xichen at first, that anyone could talk so lightly of killing one’s father, one’s superior. In the end, he figured that perhaps the Nie too had a version of the Mandate of Heaven at play, and that Huaisang’s great-grandfather had lost heaven’s favour with his misconduct.

“I’m glad Meng gongzi feels this way,” Lan Xichen said. “I also see you as a true friend. If you had not been here to help me, I don’t know what I would have done. And I hope you know that I would be happy to help you as well, should you ever require it.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “For example if there might be a way to mend things between you and the Khan…”

Meng Yao failed to contain a slight grimace, and shook his head.

“No, the chance for that has passed,” he sighed. “He hates me too much now, and is too ready to blame me for everything that goes wrong in the clan. I’m sure he blames me for what happened with Cunzhi too, wouldn’t you say?”

Lan Xichen, quite awkwardly, didn’t know what to answer. 

It wasn’t that Meng Yao had caused that situation on purpose, of course. Still, Lan Xichen had become quite convinced that Cunzhi had escaped his mother’s care and hidden this way specifically because he had been so upset at losing Meng Yao’s company, and somehow hoped that making his displeasure obvious enough would allow him to get his way. It was likely that Khan Mingjue had come to the same conclusion, but was less kind with regards to Meng Yao’s intentions in that situation.

“Misunderstandings have happened in the past,” Lan Xichen said at last. “They can be corrected. I’m sure there must be ways to let the Khan see that you’ve never had ill intentions, only bad luck.”

“You think too kindly of the Khan,” Meng Yao scoffed.

And you think too ill of him, Lan Xichen thought with some disappointment. 

Khan Mingjue could be somewhat unreasonable when worrying for his brother, but even in his dislike he wasn’t unjust. He treated Meng Yao coldly and refused to deal with him more than necessary, but he didn’t go out of his way to be cruel to him, nor did he allow for him to be treated poorly by others. Aside from Huaisang, nobody was forbidden from associating with him. Lan Xichen was certain that if both parties had only made a small effort, they could have reconciled and returned to the friendship Huaisang told him used to exist between them. At first he’d thought all the efforts would have to come from the Khan, but he now saw that Meng Yao too would have to be a little more forgiving.

It would take time, Lan Xichen knew, and no small amount of work. 

“It’s fine anyway,” Meng Yao insisted, chewing on the last of his cheese. “I’m only biding my time until I can go home. I know someday my father will return for me, just as you must hope your family will do. When my father comes to get me back, it won’t matter much what the Khan thinks of me.”

The barely restrained fierceness in Meng Yao’s voice surprised Lan Xichen. His friend rarely spoke of his father, or indeed of anything about his life before joining the Nie. Lan Xichen was under the impression he had perhaps been less well treated in their home country than he was among nomads. From some of the things he said, Lan Xichen suspected that Meng Yao was either the child of a concubine or a servant who had been noticed for his intelligence and given an education, but never treated as truly part of the family. If so, it was unlikely that his father would ever bother to attempt to buy him back from the Nie, not the way Lan Xichen thought his own family might attempt once they’d built enough of a fortune with this new trade route opened to them.

It wouldn’t be for a few years at best, but Lan Xichen was unsure what he’d do if this happened. Of course he missed his home and family no less than Meng Yao did, yet he wouldn’t want to leave Huaisang behind. But it might be a pointless question anyway. Meng Yao might hope for his father’s return, Lan Qiren might attempt to buy back his nephew, but Khan Mingjue probably wouldn’t want to let anyone go who knew too much about his people.

Overtaken by a mild melancholy, Lan Xichen changed the topic and quickly finished eating so Meng Yao and him could go out and take care of their chores. Busy hands helped him empty his mind, though his mood remained a little off all morning. It was only when he returned to the ger for lunch that he started feeling better again, knowing he would see Huaisang.

Just as he had hoped, Lan Xichen found himself smiling happily as he entered the ger and started preparing for lunch. That smile only widened when Huaisang finally joined him, holding a bowl of dumplings in one hand, and carrying a dark wooden box under his other arm. The dumplings were carefully set aside, and the box presented to Lan Xichen.

“It’s for you!” Huaisang announced. “A gift for my husband.”

Lan Xichen glanced at the box, then at Huaisang’s excited face.

“Where did you get this?”

“I made a trade with old Xianjun,” Huaisang explained, handing the box to his husband. “Foals for three of his mares from my best racing stallion in spring, and he gave me this. It’s a Han thing, right?”

Inspecting the box more closely confirmed it was of Han origin. Its style had a southern flair to it, and Lan Xichen wondered how it had arrived so far north. It wasn’t a luxurious box, a little rough here and there, but still beautiful and made with obvious care by a competent artisan, and seeing this trace from home tugged at his heart. To distract himself from this renewed melancholy Lan Xichen opened the box while Huaisang peered curiously over his shoulder.

Lan Xichen gasped.

“Is it bad?” Huaisang asked, a note of worry in his voice.

“It’s very good,” Lan Xichen replied, sitting down to more comfortably admire his present. “Why did they have this?”

Huaisang chuckled nervously. “Old Xianjun followed my father on a raid against Han people when he was young,” he admitted. “He traded away many things, kept a few. Nobody wanted this and he found it pretty, so he kept it. What is it?”

“The four treasures of the study,” Lan Xichen said, only to be met with a blank look. “Ah, hm. It is used to write things, like in my books?”

Among Lan Xichen’s few possessions when he arrived with the Nie had been two books he’d taken with him. A caprice, his uncle had called it when they were getting to leave home, telling him he wouldn’t have any use for poetry, nor for that short history treaty he’d picked up some weeks earlier and never made time to study. A few months later and he knew those books by heart, as did Meng Yao who had nearly cried from joy upon being allowed to borrow them. As for Huaisang, he showed little interest in the books themselves, but enjoyed having the poetry read to him and explained, and he liked also the few printed illustrations.

“You can make a book with this?” Huaisang asked, looking doubtful.

“If I had something to say. I could also paint something,” Lan Xichen suggested, guessing that might amuse his husband more. The paper was of good enough quality that its age hadn’t made it too fragile, and the ink still seemed good at well. The inkstone was intact, its square shape simple but elegant. Only the pair of brushes wasn’t perfectly to Lan Xichen’s liking, since they were clearly made for writing rather than painting, but their quality was good, and his skill wasn’t high enough that the wrong tool would really hinder him.

“Paint something for me!” Huaisang predictably demanded, eyeing the box’s content with more interest now.

“Gladly. What should I paint?”

Huaisang barely hesitated. “Something you would miss if you went home.”

Hearing this, Lan Xichen’s smile faltered. It seemed he really couldn’t avoid thinking of home that day. At the same time, this had the advantage of being an easy request to fulfil, because there was only one thing he could think of painting after being asked this.

“I will do that. But it has to be a surprise. You can’t look at it until it’s done, Huaisang.”

“But I want to see how you do it!”

“After this, I teach you how to paint,” Lan Xichen offered. There were about three dozen sheets of paper in the box, which didn’t feel like much, but it would be enough. He’d just have to ask his family to bring him more next time he saw them. “This one will be a gift for you, so you can’t see.”

Huaisang went from pouting to grinning in an instant. Lan Xichen took a moment more to admire his own gift, then closed the box and asked his husband about his morning. They sat down and ate together, chatting about this and that, making plans for the rest of the day. When they were done with food, Lan Xichen took his box and started carefully preparing some paper and ink. Huaisang watched with fascination the process of grinding ink, asking questions about it that Lan Xichen answered as well as he could. Once he started actually painting, Huaisang was chased away to the other side of the ger where he worked for a while with leather.

Lan Xichen found it quite nice to be together like this, each of them occupied with their own work, occasionally trading a few words, but mostly silent and focused on what they were doing. He had never expected that it would be so comfortable to be in someone else’s company this way, least of all under such circumstances, but it made him glad once more than Huaisang and him had been brought together. Fate had really found him a perfect partner.

All too soon though, this moment of peace was interrupted. Someone came to ask Huaisang to help them with a dispute regarding cattle, and Lan Xichen had his own chores to attend. They both put away their work and went out, knowing they would meet again for dinner.

When afternoon reached its end, Xichen returned to the ger and found it empty. After tidying a bit, he took this chance and went back to working on his painting. It was no masterpiece, not when he had never received the education to create great works and hadn't touched a brush in months, but Lan Xichen was still happy enough with his work. He was putting the finishing touches when Huaisang returned, dusted with snow that had started falling, and carrying again some food. 

"Can I see soon?" Huaisang asked, staring toward the sheet of paper but keeping his distance, as he'd been asked. 

The painting wasn’t quite done, there were a few details to add, but Huaisang’s barely contained curiosity was too adorable. Lan Xichen motioned for his husband to come closer, which Huaisang immediately obeyed, rushing to his side and dropping on his knees right next to him.

“Here it is,” Lan Xichen announced, revealing the painting and handing it to Huaisang.

Just as he had hoped, Huaisang’s initially excited expression quickly turned to astonishment as he discovered that on the paper was a portrait of himself, painted as faithfully as Lan Xichen’s skill would allow. Huaisang’s face took on a very sweet pinkish hue that grew more intense the longer he gazed at the portrait, while his eyes shone with emotion.

“Something you would miss,” he mumbled, tearing his eyes from the painting to look at Lan Xichen. “Really?”

“Really,” Xichen said, putting away his brush in its proper place, telling himself he would clean it in a moment. First, though, he needed to kiss his husband. Huaisang, seeing him lean closer, hurriedly set aside the painting and threw his arms around Lan Xichen’s neck.

It wasn’t rare these days for the two of them to get passionate while kissing, and like many times before, Huaisang quickly ended up straddling Lan Xichen’s lap as he licked into his mouth, his hands wandering under the layers of his husband’s clothes. Usually that was the moment Mingjue would pick to come home and glare at them, but… 

But Mingjue wasn’t there at all this time, and at this time of day nobody would come looking for them. So Lan Xichen let himself fall back on the carpeted ground, and looked up at Huaisang, still straddling him.

Huaisang let out a strangled noise, but didn’t move. “Do you want…”

Lan Xichen quickly nodded. However much it had once terrified him to be wanted by Huaisang, he���d more than made his peace with it, his desire now matching his husband’s. There was no one else in the world he could imagine wanting as much as he wanted Huaisang, no one he would trust as much.

That nod was all the invitation Huaisang needed. He leaned down to kiss Lan Xichen with renewed passion, clumsily trying to untie his husband’s clothes while Lan Xichen did the same for him.

It was, to put it mildly, a fun night for both of them.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #jin guangyao #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #Nomad nie #jau writes