#I will get into my xue yang thoughts more later but...man I will always wonder how things would have gone if song lan never showed up | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Prompt: someone of the (good-ish) mdzs cast is a serial killer. Why? Who else knows? Could be modern au, could be canon verse

Serial Killer - ao3

“So what are you going to do about it, Xichen?” Jin Guangyao heard Nie Mingjue demanding, and paused, tilting his head to the side to listen rather than proceeding to enter the room.

Nie Mingjue had gotten increasingly irascible as of late, no doubt in large part to the growing influence of the Song of Turmoil that he’d been playing for him, and much of his ire was (correctly, although unknowingly) aimed at Jin Guangyao. Most of the time, given Nie Mingjue’s straightforward nature, it was directly aimed at him, rather than through an indirect method, such as trying to convince Lan Xichen to turn away from him – and yet that was a method that Jin Guangyao was far more concerned about, given that Nie Mingjue had the benefit of a very old friendship with Lan Xichen that could be used to his benefit, if only he were a little less blockheaded about manipulating people.

Jin Guangyao absolutely refused to lose Lan Xichen, delighting as he did in the man’s faith and trust and benefiting from his influence and repeated interventions on his behalf; as a result, he would treat any such attempts by Nie Mingjue to drive a wedge between them very seriously. It therefore would be better to stay outside and listen, to figure out what argument Nie Mingjue was using and design appropriate countermeasures – to convince Lan Xichen that Nie Mingjue was, as usual, making a fuss when there was no reason, and that it was safe to simply ignore him or downplay his concerns.

Lan Xichen would believe him, as he always did, and never realize that he was helping push Nie Mingjue along the road to ruin – or indeed realize that he was pivotal to Jin Guangyao’s plan. Without Lan Xichen to support Jin Guangyao and make Nie Mingjue mistrust his own instincts, it would be much harder to isolate him from the few people he was willing to turn to for help, subtly influencing him not to believe his own symptoms, to doubt himself…to not realize what Jin Guangyao was doing to him.

“Da-ge…”

“Don’t da-ge me! He’s killing people!”

Jin Guangyao tensed.

How had Nie Mingjue discovered that?

Jin Guangyao had taken every precaution, going to great lengths to misdirect attention and cover up those deaths, whether it be the clans he’d fed into Xue Yang’s noxious experiments or else the ones he’d just had quietly executed somewhere no one would notice because they represented a threat to the rising power of the Jin sect. He’d known, of course, that he’d be held responsible for those deaths if anyone ever found out, there was no doubt that he would scapegoated by his father in that case, but he knew that it was especially dangerous to him if the person who discovered the truth was Nie Mingjue. Sure, he had his excuses ready in the event that Lan Xichen ever heard about it and found some evidence – he had a plan: to first deny convincingly, and then if that didn’t work, deny increasingly unconvincingly, and finally ‘give in’ and confess that he’d been driven to it by his father, that he’d been under duress, the sort of thing that Lan Xichen would happily swallow rather than believe that he’d been so fundamentally mistaken about Jin Guangyao.

Nie Mingjue, though – he’d been concerned that if Nie Mingjue ever found out about it, even the rumor of it without any evidence, he wouldn’t bother waiting for Jin Guangyao to explain or to blame his father. No, that brute would rather just take his saber and come and execute him on the steps of Jinlin Tower, if that was what it took to satisfy justice in his own mind, and never mind the consequences or costs. That Nie Mingjue would likely commit an honorable suicide thereafter for having misjudged and then executed his sworn brother was not, in fact, anywhere near as comforting as Nie Mingjue might think it was.

If anything, Nie Mingjue going to Lan Xichen with his concerns first was highly unexpected.

Jin Guangyao hated the unexpected.

“Da-ge, please, calm down,” Lan Xichen said, and his voice was – oddly calm, really. Jin Guangyao would have expected him to be a little more agitated, a little more demanding for details…was Lan Xichen’s faith in him really so strong? “Think this through before you do anything rash.”

“Rash!” Nie Mingjue fumed. “Rash..! Xichen, really.”

“You know he’s a good person,” Lan Xichen insisted, and Jin Guangyao smiled. “He has always meant well, strived to do good, regardless of whether it was commonly accepted – even you have to admit it.”

“I don’t have to admit anything,” Nie Mingjue grumbled, but Jin Guangyao could hear the rage dying down to something more of a simmer, rather than a roaring boil. Truly only Lan Xichen had such remarkable abilities, soothing the fierce beast with nothing but his presence and voice, no magic songs required – even Jin Guangyao found himself soothed by his presence.

There was a reason he wouldn’t give him up.

“You’ve known him for years, da-ge,” Lan Xichen said, voice soft, convincing, persuasive. Jin Guangyao didn’t have to be inside the room to imagine the scene he would see: Lan Xichen would be leaning forward, the slightest curve adding softness to the rigid posture required of Lan sect disciples, his eyes curved in a smile, his head a little dropped so that he could look up at Nie Mingjue with an expression of cheerfulness livened by a touch of mischief – full of charm, the way the women in the brothel practiced all day to do, but superior to any of their petty tricks. Lan Xichen was pure as a breath of fresh air in the lonely mountaintop, a benevolent god above the concerns of the world and yet determined to reach out his hands down to the needy – truly it was no wonder that Jin Guangyao was determined to take all that benevolence and joy and keep it all to himself. “For years, da-ge. And more than that, you know how hard he’s had it – how hard things have been, how much he’s suffered, all those things that other people don’t understand. You know that even when he’s strayed and been confused, he’s always returned back to the right way of doing things in the end.”

Nie Mingjue sighed, a great exhalation of breath.

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded, and Jin Guangyao felt the sharp taste of joy on his tongue – there were few feelings in the world so great as this, to have started with nothing and risen so far, to have so thoroughly deceived these men, even Nie Mingjue who ought to know better after having seen him. “And yet, I can’t help but worry – this doesn’t seem like the rest of it. Isn’t he going too far this time?”

“Da-ge, if you have concerns, why not raise them with him directly?” Lan Xichen suggested, and Jin Guangyao nodded in approval. If Nie Mingjue came to him first with any concerns, he would be able to devise the appropriate response to those concerns – whether it was through coming up with some method of assuaging the concerns or in preemptively eliminated whoever had raised them, that was his business. Either way, it would be much easier to take action when he had prior warning, whereas some sort of unexpected public confrontation would be much more difficult to deal with.

“I don’t know, Xichen. You know he doesn’t listen to me.”

“That’s not true! Your opinion means so much to him – he’s always admired you, looked up to you. He wants you to approve of him.”

That was nonsense, of course. Jin Guangyao hadn’t cared one whit for Nie Mingjue’s opinion of him since the day the man had lost his usefulness – the Nie sect had been a necessary hurdle for him, the only Great Sect that allowed for promotion purely on the basis of merit without a thousand and one other rules, and Nie Mingjue himself was known to promote men quickly if they had skills he could use. Jin Guangyao had needed that back then, when he’d had nothing, and he’d been able to parlay it into additional use in the future: first, by getting Nie Mingjue’s recommendation letter to enter the Jin sect troops, although that hadn’t ended up working out, and then later, by using it to leverage himself a position with the Wen sect, courtesy of Wen Ruohan’s strange fixation on the Nie sect leader.

Would he like Nie Mingjue’s good opinion? Certainly, especially after he’d traded his somewhat dubious claim to a life-debt for Nie Mingjue swearing brotherhood with him; it would be extremely helpful if Nie Mingjue would support him the way Lan Xichen did. But since it didn’t seem likely that he’d be able to get on Nie Mingjue’s good side again, there was no point in expecting anything further from the man.

Well, no, that was wrong. He also expected great things from Nie Mingjue’s upcoming death, which would tally in quite nicely with many of his plans for domination in the cultivation world.

“I’d like to approve of him,” Nie Mingjue said. “I really would, Xichen, you know that. He’s smart and he’s capable and he has so much potential for goodness – I greatly admire him, really, I do. I would even go so far as to say that there are things for which I would trust his word over the evidence of my own eyes.”

Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but preen a little.

What an idiot, he thought, smiling. Truly there was nothing in that man’s brain but saber, and everything else had long ago rotted away – the Song of Turmoil boiling him alive until he was pickled with rage, leaving nothing else behind. Certainly not any critical thinking skills.

That final qi deviation must not be far away, now.

“But at the same time,” Nie Mingjue continued, presumably that last bit of self-preservation instinct trying to ring the alarms. “At the same time, I really do think that this is different in kind. It’s literally murder, Xichen. He’s murdering people. Not just killing, the way you do in wartime – actual murder. Premeditated, pre-planned murder. How can you just look away from that?”

Lan Xichen was quiet for a long moment, and Jin Guangyao tensed a little, his head tilting towards the door, awaiting the answer with both anticipation and fear.

“I think it’s a little more complicated than that,” he finally said, and Jin Guangyao’s eyebrows arched a little in surprise and wholly unanticipated pleasure. “It’s not just his actions that I look at, but those that died, too – we killed many people during the war, da-ge, didn’t we? Not all of whom had done evil against us, but who had to go because of the evil they represented…”

“Xichen!” Nie Mingjue cried, and for once Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but side with his reaction, his shock. “Are you suggesting that the victims deserved it?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?” Lan Xichen asked. Jin Guangyao had to admit that he was deeply impressed – he wouldn’t have thought Lan Xichen, the perfect gentleman, would have had it in him to side with him quite so deeply as that. “I’m with you, Mingjue-xiong. I’d believe him over even myself in just about every case – every time I’ve questioned what he was doing, he explained, and when he explained, I understood. It isn’t as black and white as all that.”

“I mean…I guess,” Nie Mingjue said, still sounding shocked and a little appalled. “But murder – so many murders…Xichen, are you sure it’s not some sort of qi deviation, something that gives him pleasure in taking lives? Are you sure each one is justified?”

“Those are two separate questions,” Lan Xichen said delicately. “I do think he takes pleasure in the act, and although I don’t understand it myself, I can understand that it helps him deal with…everything, really. Everything that’s happened to him. The tragedy, the senselessness of it…maybe it helps him feel better about it, helps comfort him. Maybe it’s some sort of sense that he’s evening the scales, perhaps? Some overall karmic balance?”

Jin Guangyao nodded along. He could certainly see Lan Xichen talking himself into believing something like that, and who knew? Maybe it was even a little true. He certainly enjoyed taking out the trash that had seen itself as above him, enjoyed stamping their lives into the mud – he wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t a necessity, a part of his power play, and he wouldn’t have described himself as taking pleasure in it, but at the same time, he certainly didn’t regret any of it. If it made Lan Xichen feel better to think that he had some sort of complex psychology driving his actions, well, so be it.

As long as he continued to support him.

“But as for whether it’s justified…” Lan Xichen sighed. “I’m not perfect at telling good from evil, Mingjue-xiong, and neither are you. No one is. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Nie Mingjue grunted. It almost sounded as if he really were agreeing.

Was Lan Xichen really convincing Nie Mingjue that Jin Guangyao ought to be allowed to murder people with impunity as long as he came up with a good enough reason for it in advance? How delightful.

Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but wonder – although he’d never actually take the risk of it – whether he could convince Lan Xichen that Nie Mingjue’s death, too, had been justified. It was an amusing enough thought to make him genuinely smile, a smile full of all the bloodthirstiness he normally kept hidden deep down: truly, if he had his choice in the matter, he’d love to see Nie Mingjue’s expression if he ever found out what Jin Guangyao was doing to him, ideally once it was too late for him to do anything about it or alert anyone to what was happening.

Maybe, if Jin Guangyao could arrange to be there to push him over the edge, he might even get to see it.

Maybe he’d even remind him of this little conversation, and ask if he found his own murder justified.

“All right, then,” Nie Mingjue finally said, exhaling slowly, and Jin Guangyao bit his lips to keep from laughing out loud. “I see what you mean, and…yes, I suppose you’re right, Xichen. I may not understand all the motives behind the murders, and I may not like the idea of just – trusting that he knows what he’s doing in killing them, but at the same time…”

He sighed.

“At the same time, I can’t disagree that if there’s one person I trust to have a good reason to kill someone in some deserted place for their undiscovered wrongdoings, it would be Wangji.”

Jin Guangyao’s smile faded away.

Lan Wangji?

What in the world were they talking about? How had Lan Wangji entered into it?

It wasn’t as if Lan Wangji were going around randomly killing people for, what, sport – killing them, and then justifying their deaths as having been deserved because they had supposedly done bad things –

A hand fell on Jin Guangyao’s shoulder, and he jumped a little, surprised: he hadn’t realized that anyone else was there with him in the deserted hallway or seen them come up behind him, much less close enough to touch.

He turned around: it was Lan Wangji himself, pale-faced and miserable the way he’d looked since the Massacre at the Nightless City, since he’d missed the Siege of the Burial Mounds on account of being confined – miserable, but upright, hale and hearty and righteous as always, his eyes bright with passion that verged on obsession.

He had his sword in his hand.

It was unsheathed.

“Wait,” Jin Guangyao said, taking a step back, his eyes going wide as he realized something. Surely he didn’t mean to – surely they hadn’t really meant – surely not – “Wait, Wangji, don’t..!”

#mdzs #jin guangyao #lan xichen #nie mingjue #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #serial killer

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ibijau · 3 years

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Futures Past pt14 / On AO3

three conversations as Nie Huaisang's time in Gusu comes to an end

Summer had finally come to an end, implacable heat replaced by a more pleasant warmth as the world took on new hues. It also meant that the final few exams of the year were fast approaching, though Nie Huaisang felt unconcerned. He’d been ordered to fail after all, not that he thought he could have succeeded even if he’d tried.

Comforted by that permission to not study, he was currently laying in the grass in the back hills of the Cloud Recesses, enjoying the afternoon sun. A history book, chosen for the promise of the many scandals it revealed about a past emperor’s reign, laid forgotten on his chest, Nie Huaisang having realised that the contents were far more serious than he felt like dealing with at the moment. At some other time he might have taken a nap, encouraged by the warmth, but he’d found it difficult to sleep since that visit of his future self a few days earlier.

Just as Nie Huaisang was about to pick up his book again, Su She finished his series of sword forms and came to lay on the grass as well. He was sweaty and looked tired, but appeared quite happy with himself. Su She had confessed that he’d made a real leap forward with his cultivation since teachers and other disciples stopped constantly putting him down, something for which Nie Huaisang felt as proud as if it had been his own progress.

They stayed silent for a while, just basking in the sun, enjoying that beautiful day, until Nie Huaisang found that his recent worries were too heavy on his chest and he had to share them.

“Su-xiong?”

Su She made a noise to signify he’d heard, but couldn’t be bothered to speak. He looked comfortable, and had closed his eyes as if he might succeed with the nap that eluded Nie Huaisang. It was almost a shame to ruin that.

“Do you think people can be so evil that nothing will redeem them?”

The silence changed around them. After a moment Su She sat up to get a look at Nie Huaisang. Finding him looking serious, Su She’s initial puzzlement quickly turned into mild irritation at being dragged into a discussion like that on such a pleasant afternoon.

“Gusu Lan’s principles state that…”

“Not you as a Lan disciple,” Nie Huaisang cut him with an impatient gesture. “You as a person. Do you think people can be so evil that there’s no going back for them, that nothing they could do or say would ever compensate for what they’ve done?”

Some of Su She’s irritation eased away, glad as always to be given a chance to voice an opinion that wasn’t that of his sect, and he laid down on the grass again.

“That’s a pretty intense question,” Su She said after a moment. “I guess there’s got to be a limit to what’s forgivable, yeah. I’m not the best to decide what that’d be though. I’ve been told I have an issue with holding grudges. But I think yeah, in general, there’s got to be a moment where a bad person becomes so bad there’s no going back and they just need to be eliminated.”

It wasn’t the answer Nie Huaisang had been hoping for, but it didn’t exactly surprise him either. He thought the same after all, if only because a person such as Wen Ruohan existed, proving to him that some people had to be beyond redemption.

“Then do you think…”

“What’s wrong with you today? Was this morning’s lecture about ethics again?”

“It was about the proper way to address people depending on family and allegiance links, and I fell asleep. No, this is something else. I’m just thinking about stuff lately.”

“Like good and evil? That must have been a pretty nasty nap you took.”

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “I just wonder what makes a person bad or good. Do you think some people can be bad from birth? Just, they’re born and they’re evil, and there’s no way they’re ever going to be anything but evil.”

It really bothered him, the things his future self had said during his last visit. About Lan Xichen, about Su She, but mostly the way he’d spoken of that Xue Yang boy, as if that child were no better than a cockroach needing to be squashed before it could proliferate.

“I think there’s definitely people who think that about some other people,” Su She said. “I’m pretty sure if you asked some of the other Lan disciples, they’d say I’m like that, just because I have a temper and I don’t hug their knees quite enough and I ask too many questions during some lessons. I guess it’s easier to hate someone if you tell yourself they’re the worst and they deserve it.”

“You’re not evil!” Nie Huaisang cried out, reaching out for his friend’s hand. “You’re not! I’ll fight anyone who says you are!”

Surprised by that outburst, Su She blinked a few times then snorted, pushing away Nie Huaisang’s hand.

“I appreciate it, but it didn’t go so well last time you tried to fight for my honour.”

“I’ll still fight all of them!”

Su She laughed, but appeared quite happy to hear that. Even now that other Lans gave him less of a hard time, he still liked being reminded that Nie Huaisang was on his side, just as he made sure Nie Huaisang knew the opposite was true as well.

That was why Nie Huaisang was telling him about his thoughts, rather than going to Lan Qiren or even Lan Xichen who surely might have more elaborate opinions on the matter of good and evil. Su She might not have read quite as much, but he was also less likely to judge Nie Huaisang for asking that kind of thing. Besides, since Su She’s opinions were often less polished, they felt more honest than if he’d quoted great thinkers of the past.

“But really, do you think a person can actually be evil from birth?” Nie Huaisang insisted when Su She had stopped laughing. “Like. Like a child, but they’re evil. Do you think that’s possible?”

Su She grabbed a strand of grass, and started twisting it between his fingers.

“Maybe. But like I said, people will mostly say that about someone they don’t like, or someone that doesn’t play by their rules, or else they’re not from a prestigious family and they’re just doing what they have to survive.”

He paused to pluck some more grass to play with, and started constructing a knot with it.

“I have a great-uncle I’ve never met,” Su She explained. “He owned a farm before he died where he worked hard, until there was a very bad drought and hard work wasn’t enough anymore. My grandfather often said that people called his brother evil because he did some bad things to feed his wife and children, and some of it really was pretty awful I guess. But nobody ever called evil the magistrate that wanted to force him to pay his taxes instead of buying food. My great-uncle was executed for his crimes and everyone said he’d always been evil and vicious even though they used to praise him as a good man before, but the magistrate got a promotion for making sure taxes were still paid and he got called virtuous. And that’s… I don’t know, I feel there’s something not right in that, you know?”

Nie Huaisang nodded, his eyes fixed on the grass knot that Su She wouldn't stop twisting between his fingers.

His older self had said that this Xue Yang he had to kill was an orphan, and a thief of some sort even though he was just ten.

It would be harder to be virtuous and noble for someone who didn’t have anyone to turn to. Nie Huaisang had his whole family behind him, all the education anyone could have, he knew about ethics and rules, and he still found it hard sometimes to make the right choices. He was too lazy and selfish to ever be really good, and apparently he wasn’t going to improve with age. So how could a child on his own, without books or wise elders, learn to be a good person, especially if like Nie Huaisang they’d been given a bad personality?

“Ok, I have another question.”

Su She sighed, and threw away his grass knot.

“Is it a weird one again?”

Nie Huaisang grimaced.

“Yeah, that one is pretty weird,” he admitted. “So, imagine there’s a very evil person. The most evil you can think of, but you don’t actually know them, it’s just that someone told you that person is very evil. And, for some reason, you’re given a chance to go back to when they were a little kid, and that person who told you this other guy is evil also tells you that you should take the chance and kill the evil person while he’s a kid to save other people. Would you do it, or would you try to… I don’t know, maybe try to make that kid grow up around better people so maybe he doesn’t turn out so bad?”

“Those questions are getting really specific.”

“Just answer. Do you think it’d be right to kill that kid?”

Su She fell silent for a moment.

“Do I trust the person who told me the kid will be evil later?”

Nie Huaisang considered that question.

“Yeah. I guess for the sake of the argument, you trust that person,” he said, even though he wasn’t quite sure how much he did trust his older self.

“And has the kid done anything evil yet?”

“No, but he’s done bad things. Maybe he stole some stuff. But also, he’s an orphan, you know?”

Su She sat up and gave his friend a sharp look.

“Really specific again. I guess… I guess it’d be wrong to kill him though. I mean, it’s like you said, why not try to put him in a better place instead? If he’s just a kid, and he hasn’t done anything bad yet… I don’t think it’s really fair to punish someone for something they haven’t even done yet.”

“Right? I think so too. People should get a chance before they’re punished. They’ve got to have a chance to learn!”

Su She nodded, but look more and more suspicious.

“So, is this all about someone in particular, or…”

“I’m just wondering stuff,” Nie Huaisang quickly said. The truth was too weird for anyone to ever believe, even if he tried to tell someone. Su She would just think he was crazy. Maybe he was, anyway. “I’ve got to think about something during boring lessons, right? I mean, don’t you start thinking about weird stuff too?”

“Sometimes I think about leaving the Cloud Recesses and creating my own sect when I’m bored,” Su She replied.

Nie Huaisang sat up, a grin on his face.

“Really? What would it be like?”

“Like Gusu Lan, but better,” Su She retorted with a smug smile. “And I’d get to sleep half a shichen later in the morning. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like, since you know how to play the guqin now. You can be my right hand man.”

Nie Huaisang’s grin only grew larger. It sounded like a delightful idea, and he eagerly dropped all his earlier thoughts about ethics and morality to instead make Su She talk about the sect of his dreams, until it was time for dinner.

That had to have been Lan Qiren’s most boring lecture to date. Quite the accomplishment, Nie Huaisang thought. Another accomplishment, and one far more impressive, was the fact that he’d managed to stay awake through all of it. It was really hard lately to pay attention, especially now that he didn’t need to. His grades during tests had been so consistently low that he couldn’t have passed even if he tried, so he really should have been allowed to skip those last few lessons and go have fun somewhere. He was going to hear all that stuff again in a year, wasn’t he?

If he hadn’t feared the Lans’ punishment methods, Nie Huaisang would have skipped all these stupid classes and ran off to Gusu for some fun.

If he hadn’t feared his brother’s wrath, he would also have stopped bothering with homework. But Lan Xichen had hinted to him, not unwisely, that Nie Mingjue might be a little less angry if he could be shown proof that his brother had really tried to learn. And considering the stunt Nie Huaisang was thinking of pulling with Xue Yang…

So, Nie Huaisang had stayed awake in class, and he’d been handed back some previous homework with a grade so high he’d actually asked Lan Qiren if there hadn’t been a mistake. Lan Qiren had told him that if the grade didn’t please him, it was always possible to lower it, so Nie Huaisang had kept his mouth shut after that.

The rest of the lesson had passed surprisingly fast after that, and soon enough Nie Huaisang was free again, with a whole afternoon ahead of him. He had new homework to deal with, sure, and it was something that would be graded again, but that didn’t feel urgent. Sadly, Su She had already warned that he wouldn’t be free to hang out that day, due to being allowed to go on a Night Hunt with some other Lan juniors, something he’d been very excited about. That meant Nie Huaisang would have to stay on his own, or go bother Lan Xichen.

The second option felt surprisingly compelling, even though they’d already see each other in three days for his music lesson. Lan Xichen was sure to praise him for his good grade after all, and Nie Huaisang quite enjoyed being praised, as he’d discovered. If more people praised him, he might start feeling like doing something to deserve it.

Nie Huaisang had just decided he’d try to see if Lan Xichen had time for him when Jin Zixun grabbed him by the elbow and started pulling him away from everyone else.

"How come you had a good grade on that essay?" Jin Zixun asked with unwarranted suspicion.

Nie Huaisang, who had briefly wondered if he was going to get punched again and was getting ready to escape, relaxed and allowed the other boy to drag him away.

"I'm actually very smart, thanks."

"You're only smart on homework and never on quizzes," Jin Zixun retorted. "Is your merchant friend helping you?"

That earned him a light kick to the shin, which he didn’t appear to feel.

"Don’t call him that!” Nie Huaisang warned. “And, no, he's said he doesn't want to think about learning when we hang out."

"Then it's Lan gongzi who does your homework for you."

That hit a little too close. Stung in his pride, Nie Huaisang’s freed himself from Jin Zixun’s grip and stopped walking, arms crossed on his chest.

"He doesn't! He just corrects my drafts! And lately most of what's in my essays is all my own, actually! I only fail in quizzes because I panic and because I don't have enough time."

It was something he’d realised during his music lessons with Lan Xichen, actually. Nie Huaisang needed to do things at his own speed, or else he couldn’t do things at all. It wasn’t a problem with Lan Xichen who allowed him to take breaks and even have a snack if he struggled too much to focus, but Lan Qiren and the other teachers hadn’t taken it too well when he’d tried to eat candies during quizzes, or when he started doodling during an exam because it helped him focus. It also fell into deaf ears when he pleaded to be given a little more time when, by some random chance, he actually did know the answer to a question and had so much to say that the allotted time wasn’t enough.

By comparison, homework was easy. Especially when Lan Xichen allowed him to come into his room and work there while he dealt with his own work. The company of a studious person really helped.

"Fine,” Jin Zixun said, grabbing his arm again. “Then you're going to help me with my essays. I’m just barely passing and if I don't get a good grade on the last set of homework, old man Lan is going to make me come back next year."

Jin Zixun started pulling again, but Nie Huaisang resisted this time.

"Why should I help you?"

"Because your grades are so bad you're sure to be sent back next year, and then we'd be stuck together again."

"I need to think. I don't care that much about being stuck with you. You're not the worst person I know."

"I'm… not?" Jin Zixun asked, sounding so shocked that Nie Huaisang snorted.

"Not even close to it," Nie Huaisang assured him, thinking of his future self. With that point of comparison, a lot of people had become almost agreeable to him.

"Oh. I'm not sure I have another argument in my favour," Jin Zixun admitted. "Usually that one is enough."

Nie Huaisang snorted again. He could imagine that a lot of people would do whatever Jin Zixun asked of them, just so he’d stop talking to them for a little while. He was, after all, a complete prick, without skill or above average good looks to compensate. Still, Nie Huaisang felt a little sorry for him.

Besides, he was convinced that his future self would hate to see him waste time being nice to someone whom he didn’t deem useful, and that really sealed the deal.

"Okay I'll help,” he sighed, as if conceding to something that cost him a lot, when in truth he didn’t mind that much. “But only because I'm sorry for you."

"Hey!"

"And I'm just helping,” Nie Huaisang warned. “You're still doing the actual work.”

“You’re just lazy,” Jin Zixun complained, pulling again on Nie Huaisang’s arm who, this time, willingly started to follow him toward the cabin where the Jin disciples stayed.

“I sure am,” Nie Huaisang agreed with a bright smile. “And I’m also thirsty, so let’s have tea while you work!”

Jin Zixun complained and grumbled and called him spoiled, but still did serve him what had to be the best tea he had on hand as they worked together.

A loud, discordant rang through the otherwise silent room until Nie Huaisang put down his hands on the guqin’s strings to silence it. His eyes prickled with tears yet unspilled. It was a simple enough melody, and he’d worked on it all week, wanting to surprise Lan Xichen with his progress by playing for him something they hadn't worked on together. Even the other Nie disciples, who fluctuated between indifference and annoyance at his new obsession with music, had praised him for playing it so well the night before.

But now he was there, in Lan Xichen’s room, trying to actually play that damn melody, and his fingers just refused to obey him.

“Give me another chance,” he begged, quickly pressing the back of his hand to one eye, just to make sure he hadn’t actually started crying. “I swear I can play it! I worked so hard on it, I’ll show you!”

“If you say you can play it, I believe you,” Lan Xichen replied. “You’ve had a rough day, it’s normal to be affected. Let’s put away the guqin for now and have some tea instead. It’ll do you good.”

When Lan Xichen got up and turned around to go boil water, Nie Huaisang felt a few tears of frustration fall on his cheek which he quickly wiped away. It was stupid, and it wasn’t fair, and he hated that things could impact him life that.

“It’s not like I thought I had any chance of passing anyway,” he hissed, hands clenching into fists. “I knew I was going to fail, it’s stupid that I’m upset about this!”

“Knowing something and actually experiencing it aren’t the same,” Lan Xichen replied. “It’s normal to be upset, Huaisang.”

Nie Huaisang shrugged, and wiped another tear. What did Lan Xichen know about failing anyway? He was always stupidly perfect, always did everything well, a favourite of every teacher, admired by all their peers, far more handsome than a boy of eighteen had any right to be, with a cultivation level that only Nie Mingjue, a freak of nature, could surpass. It was easy for Lan Xichen to say being upset was normal, when he’d probably never failed anything in his entire life.

By the time Lan Xichen returned to the table with a teapot and two glasses, Nie Huaisang was sulking, though thankfully he was too angry at himself to cry anymore. Lan Xichen took one look at him and went to fetch something else. He carefully put a little wooden box in front of Nie Huaisang, then started pouring tea for both of them.

“Take one,” Lan Xichen encouraged, nodding toward the box. “Take as many as you like, in fact. Just don’t tell anyone about them. I’m not supposed to have those.”

Intrigued, Nie Huaisang opened the box and discovered an array of cheap candies, which made Nie Huaisang grin against his will.

“What happened to the rules about avoiding unhealthy foods?”

“Wangji would have a fit,” Lan Xichen sighed, eyes glancing toward the door, as if just by mentioning his name, Lan Wangji might appear out of thin air to scold them. “But I know I can trust you to keep the secret.”

“No choice, you’ve made me an accomplice,” Nie Huaisang replied, grabbing one piece of candy. It was disgustingly sweet, almost making his jaw ache.

So he reached for another, his fingers briefly brushing against Lan Xichen who’d done the same. Nie Huaisang quickly removed his hand, startled at the sensation of warm skin.

“Lan gongzi, what if you adopted me as your new little brother?” Nie Huaisang suggested to try and pretend he hadn't had such a strong reaction just from an accidental touch. “I promise to be a very good didi. I will never get upset at you for wanting to have a little fun sometimes, and I’ll never denounce you to Lan Qiren either. And you will be my nice Lan-gege… ah ! Better yet, you'll be Xichen-ge! Always kind and patient, and you won’t mind at all that I’m bad at everything because I’m very sweet and funny.”

“A tempting offer,” Lan Xichen replied with an odd smile. “Wangji certainly never calls me ‘ge’ because he finds it too informal, whereas I think I quite like it, so I might adopt you just for that. But alas, Mingjue-xiong would be heartbroken if I stole his beloved brother from him, and so I must decline.”

Nie Huaisang took a sip of tea and sighed deeply.

“I don’t think he’ll mind at all. As it is, he might just disown me himself anyway.”

"Your brother will understand," Lan Xichen replied while taking another candy. "He'll be angry at first, but it won't last. If it worries you so much, I can write to him and tell him how hard you've been working. It's a shame homework doesn't count more toward passing, or I do think you'd be graduating."

Nie Huaisang shrugged. It was always like that: if he was good at something, it was always something which didn't matter. Even being skilled at music… what good was that to anyone, in the end?

"What if he doesn't forgive me though?"

"He will," Lan Xichen replied with confidence. "You are his precious little brother, I don't think he could ever stay mad at you very long."

Nie Huaisang thought of his older self, so convinced that Nie Mingjue despised him, and sighed.

"Maybe someday he'll get tired of forgiving me. Maybe someday I'll… maybe someday I'll do something that's too much," he muttered, thinking of his plan regarding Xue Yang. "I'll go too far, and then he'll hate me. And if he hates me, I'll…"

"Your brother loves you," Lan Xichen said. "He loves you as much as you love him. I don't think there's anything in the world that could change that."

That sounded like a challenge. As it happened, Nie Huaisang had given that topic a lot of thought lately, and he'd reached a conclusion.

"I can think of at least two things I could do that would make him hate me," he announced.

"Is that so?" Lan Xichen asked with a smile, as if he really believed such a thing to be impossible.

That gave Nie Huaisang some comfort. Lan Xichen was Nie Mingjue's best friend in the world, as close to him as he was to Su She. Lan Xichen had to know Nie Mingjue better than anyone else did, even if things were fated to start going bad between them someday.

"I could betray him to Wen Ruohan," Nie Huaisang said. "He'd never forgive that."

Lan Xichen took a sip of tea and nodded.

"Not if you did it on purpose, no. But I also think it isn't in your nature to willingly side with his enemies, and he would forgive you if you were tricked into it."

"Xichen-ge has a very high opinion of me, I feel undeserving."

"I'm only stating the truth. Now, what's the other thing you think Mingjue-xiong wouldn't forgive?"

"Marrying into Lanling Jin."

Lan Xichen chortled.

A real, honest to god, ugly laugh. He tried to hide it under a cough, but it was too late, Nie Huaisang had heard it and it delighted him. So even the ever perfect first jade of Gusu Lan could laugh like that!

"Well? What do you think of that one?"

"I think you're right this time," Lan Xichen agreed, still coughing. "It might be too much for him. In fact, I'll even say you'd deserve it."

"What? Xichen-ge, how cruel!" Nie Huaisang lamented, one hand over his heart. "Maybe I’ve found my one true love, and…”

“So all Jin Zixun had to do was break your nose and now you want to marry him?”

“Oh that’s pushing the joke too far,” Nie Huaisang said with a grimace, quickly bringing one hand to his nose, following the bone with one finger to try and feel the break. “He’s not my type at all, and anyway we’re both brats, it wouldn’t work out at all. Still, in theory, if I were to marry into Lanling Jin…”

Lan Xichen only smiled more widely.

“Would you, though?”

“Why not? There’s got to be a few that are decent. I mean, Zixun is occasionally almost tolerable, he can’t be the only one.”

“Oh, certainly there are some very fine people in that sect. I was talking more about the fact that you’d have to wear yellow for the rest of your life. Is that really something you could put up with?”

Thinking of the way those Jin disciples dressed, Nie Huaisang gasped and pressed both hands to his mouth to silence a cry of horror.

“That’s a good point! It’s not even a nice shade of yellow, either!" he cried out, trying to picture himself wearing it. It would be awful, he quickly decided. "I think it would wash out my complexion and make me look sickly. Maybe if it were a touch closer to brown, or even better a bit greenish, maybe I could consider it, but I really can’t marry into a sect that favours such a dreadful colour. I guess I’ll… why are you smiling?”

Lan Xichen, once more hiding his face behind his sleeve, turned away as if it might help dissimulate his grin.

“Because you are quite funny," he chuckled. "I don’t think anyone else would consider it a deal-breaker for marriage that they don’t like another sect’s colour.”

“Easy for you to say, Xichen-ge, you’d look good in any hue! Some of us have to be careful!”

Lan Xichen lowered his hand, his face suddenly serious once more except for a certain glint in his eyes.

“Huaisang, you really sell yourself short sometimes. I think you’d look quite good in any colour,” he eagerly said, before breaking into a fit of giggles as he added: “Any colour except Jin yellow, that is.”

It wasn’t even that funny, Nie Huaisang thought as he started laughing too. But Lan Xichen’s unexpected hilarity was too contagious to be resisted, and he’d been feeling down all day, so he just went for it and enjoyed the moment. It took them ages to ever calm down.

When they did though, Lan Xichen suggested that perhaps Nie Huaisang might try again to play that song he’d practiced.

This time, he played it perfectly, better even than he’d ever done before.

#nie huaisang #lan xichen #su she #jin zixun #xisang #some very light flirting is starting to happen at long last!#mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #double time travel

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spockandawe · 4 years

Text

So this morning, I tripped across this excellent post about Xue Yang and classism, and it shook something loose in my head. Specifically, it got me thinking about the idea of Xue Yang taking revenge for ‘only’ losing a finger. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say anything as directly dismissive as saying he only lost a finger, but I do think that is at least partially the way that Xue Yang takes the argument.

And I’ve thought a lot and said a lot of words about the way Xue Yang feels hurt and betrayed and frustrated as he tries to explain himself to someone, for once, and that person completely misses his point. And I’ve said words about how in the three years in Yi City, Xue Yang gets hooked on the quiet comfort of domesticity, even if he and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing are still, objectively, poor. But I’d never thought about this particular angle of their last argument before now.

This is going to be long, I can tell, so let’s throw a spoiler cut in here

Now, I do think it’s important that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say directly that it was only a finger. I think it would have been cruel of him to say that. But I also think that his upbringing and position in the world make him a bit… oblivious to the implications of Xue Yang’s story, and what he’s trying to communicate, and that leads to him saying some things that are more insensitive than he would have chosen to if he’d realized.

From a very early point, he knew that Xue Yang grew up without parents or money.

Unhurried, Xue Yang began, “Once upon a time, there was a child.”

“The child really liked eating sweet things. But because he had no parents or money, he could rarely eat them.”

And he was told how that child was exploited, and how hard he was beat up and used even before things reached the point where he lost a finger

[The huge, brawny man] took over the paper and looked at it, and he gave the child a slap so hard that his nose started bleeding. The man pulled the child’s hair and asked, ‘Who told you to take such a thing over?’”

[…]

“[seven-year-old Xue Yang] felt scared and pointed the direction. The man went to the liquor shop, carrying the child by pulling his hair.”

[…]

“The store was in a mess and the waiter was feeling quite cross. He slapped the child a few times, so hard that his ears were even buzzing, and chased him out the door. He crawled up and walked for a while.”

[…]

What do you think happened? Just a few more slaps and a few more kicks.”

(It’s interesting to me that he dodges even mentioning his hand being run over in this version of the story, but later goes into a lot of detail about his hand later with Xiao Xingchen, even though Xiao Xingchen has completely turned against him)

And, something that I hadn’t really noticed until I went to collect these quotes, is how Xiao Xingchen reacts to this story.

After Xiao XingChen tucked her, he walked a few steps, then asked, “What happened afterward?”

Xue Yang, “Guess. There was no afterward. You didn’t continue telling your story either, did you?”

Xiao XingChen, “No matter what happened afterward, since right now your life is fairly adequate, there’s no need for you to dwell too much on the past.”

That’s… a very high-minded approach to take, where I can see the good intentions, but I’m also kind of wincing at the accidental implications.

And then, to mix it up, let’s have some screencaps for the second half of the story, because these actors seriously knocked this scene out of the park

“The wheels of the cart milled over the child’s hand, one finger at a time. He was seven!”

And then another book quote, because it’s fascinating to me how directly he begs Xiao Xingchen to empathize with the child who was used so poorly and lost a finger in the process.

“Is it that, since the fingers weren’t yours, you guys were incapable of feeling the pain?! You guys didn’t know how horrifying screams sounded like out of your own mouths? Why didn’t you ask him why he decided to amuse himself with me without a single reason?!”

Only, right after he does this, Xiao Xingchen talks about how disproportionate Xue Yang’s revenge was. This really kills me, honestly, because this is the point where Xue Yang stops trying to appeal to him and explain himself, and takes a sharp turn towards losing control over his emotions instead.

Xiao XingChen spoke as though he couldn’t believe Xue Yang’s words, “Chang Ci’An broke one of your fingers in the past. If you sought revenge, you could’ve simply broken one of his fingers as well. If you really took the matter to heart, you could’ve broken two, or even all ten! Even if you had cut off an entire arm of his, things wouldn’t have been like this. Why did you have to kill his entire clan? Don’t tell me that a single finger of yours was equal to more than fifty human lives!”

I always just accepted that this was enough to hurt Xue Yang that much. But also… Xiao Xingchen knows that Xue Yang was a poor, parentless child, and he’s heard about how this child was callously exploited and mistreated by three separate adults. And there’s a couple class-related details in here that I want to touch on.

One, Xue Yang was again, a poor, parentless child, and I imagine he was living on the streets in a situation like that. Chang Ci’an broke (amputated) one of his fingers. And ran over the whole rest of his hand, which I have to imagine did other significant damage. Okay, so he wrecked this seven-year-old child’s hand. Now…. how much did this child have? What did he have besides his body? Did he even have a home to retreat to and recover? Because I have to imagine he didn’t. He didn’t have money for medical treatment, it’s not even clear if he knew anyone he could go to for basic medical help. Let’s not even talk about setting the bones in a shattered hand, did he even have access to anything to prevent infection? If he had any means of making a living (at age, again, seven), it would almost have had to be either begging or stealing. Having one ruined hand would have done awful things to this parentless child’s ability to survive. He made it through, clearly, but god.

And Xiao Xingchen isn’t approaching this from a position like most of our main characters, who grew up wealthy and privileged. He’s not approaching this in a way like how Jiang Cheng scolded Wei Wuxian for breaking his arm, because he had to get it all plastered up and spend weeks recovering, and that was super inconvenient. Xiao Xingchen was never wealthy, and he grew up as a feral mountain child with Baoshan Sanren. But that means that he wasn’t subject to the same social forces as a city child like Xue Yang. Even if he was injured as a child, even if he was badly injured, it wasn’t probably an act of cruelty or callousness on the part of an adult. And if he was injured, he might not have had access to formally trained doctors, but he had a teacher who was highly trained spiritually, and who would at least care for him.

In a way, I think that makes it all hurt… more for Xue Yang. Because Xiao Xingchen isn’t gentry, he never was affiliated with the great cultivation sects, and he and Xue Yang and A-Qing have been living together in a city in fairly poor circumstances for three years now. But Xiao Xingchen is an adult, and one who’s used to making his own way in the world. He has no personal understanding of what it’s like to be a powerless child in similar circumstances, without anyone. And in this moment, he’s not able to understand how awful and how serious this was for a child like Xue Yang to experience.

Like, compare and contrast. When the Wens are starting to move against Lotus Pier, there’s half a moment where Wei Wuxian makes his peace with losing a hand. He’s like ‘yeah, that sucks, but i’ll deal. i’ll just learn to fight with my other hand, whatever!’ But just imagine how serious that would have been before Jiang Fengmian found him. Without money, without a home, without anyone to care for you, without access to any real medical care, how dire an injury would that have been? Xue Yang might not have lost his hand altogether, but the cart ran over his whole hand, and hands are just full o’ bones. The consequences of that injury were significant.

And Xiao Xingchen’s initial reaction is ‘okay, so this wealthy cultivator broke your finger. why didn’t you just break his finger?’ and then he manages to escalate his way up to ‘idk, you could have even cut off his arm???’

In retrospect, it’s completely unsurprising to me that this is the moment where Xue Yang totally shuts down and starts asking why Xiao Xingchen even got involved, if he wasn’t capable of understanding.

“You shouldn’t have meddled in other people’s business. Right or wrong, kindness or hatred are not clearly distinguished, so how could an outsider possibly understand?”

“Your martial mentor, Baoshan Sanren, was indeed insightful. Why didn’t you listen to her and obediently cultivate in the mountain? If you couldn’t understand the human affairs and this world, then you shouldn’t have come!”

It makes me wonder what would have happened, if Xue Yang had leaned harder into what kind of suffering and hardship an injury like that meant for a street child, but considering how reluctant he was to share in the first place, I’m not exactly surprised he didn’t go there.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to me that when Xiao Xingchen calls Xue Yang ‘disgusting’, that’s when Xue Yang pivots into really trying to hurt him. I think it would hurt, coming from Xiao Xingchen, no matter what, but I have to wonder if he takes it extra hard in light of the way he’s just been trying to explain his history as a mistreated street child.

I’d been idly wondering if I was reading too far into this dynamic (not that that was going to stop me, but still, wondering :P), but this last addition to the conversation really caught my attention

“The people I hate the most are ones like you who say they’re righteous, who think they’re virtuous. Stupid, naive, dumb idiots like you who think the world’s better just because you did something good!”

And then I was like no, I’ve been right this whole time, haha :V

Xue Yang’s anger and hurt sense on a purely personal level, especially with the extra pain of trying to explain himself, for once, and Xiao Xingchen missing the point. But the extra frustration on behalf of his younger self makes so much additional sense.

Xue Yang likes Xiao Xingchen, he likes living with Xiao Xingchen, or he wouldn’t still be there three years after a chance encounter. It would be a whole other meta to source this claim, but it very much feels like there are things he admires about Xiao Xingchen, even if it’s kind of a condescending, indulgent fondness for his foolish, naive innocence instead of a straightforward admiration. Until it tips over here, and becomes personal.

And I think there were a lot of ways where he was prepared to disagree with Xiao Xingchen on a deep, fundamental level. They have very different values. But I don’t think he was prepared for Xiao Xingchen to be so oblivious to the class-based aspect of Xue Yang’s history. I don’t think Xiao Xingchen intended to be cruel, and I also think he had other significant things on his mind, but the seriousness of this incident doesn’t seem to occur to him. For someone with money, for someone with a skilled martial family, for even someone with a family, period, this would have been a traumatic experience, but one that could be dealt with. But then Xiao Xingchen equates the finger of this wealthy, purposefully cruel cultivator to the finger of a poor, parentless street child, and Xue Yang begins to lose control.

I already didn’t blame him for how upset he gets in this conversation, but now, even more than before, I find his reaction incredibly understandable. I mean, yes, their whole relationship is built on a foundation of sand, but he thought that he and Xiao Xingchen… supported each other, at least. They mattered to each other. And when Xiao Xingchen rejects him in the present, well, sure, that was going to happen if anyone was stupid enough to tell Xiao Xingchen the truth, that was understandable. But when Xiao Xingchen casually brushes aside the suffering of little innocent seven-year-old Xue Yang, that hurts Xue Yang more than he could have ever anticipated.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #xue yang #xiao xingchen #long post/#meta #xue yang: is it that since the fingers weren't yours you were incapable of feeling the pain?!#further speculation: xiao xingchen and lack of experience with *untreated* injuries #i really want to do something more with xue yang and bones that didn't heal right and an amputated finger that got infected #but heck if i know what

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

Not Death, but Sleep

(A 3zun fix-it fic)

‘Not death, but sleep,’ the story went. The little well spirit, too weak to break the death-curse that a greater dark spirit that had placed over the innocent baby, had pressed her hand to the infant’s forehead. She had poured all her soul into a single blessing, all her strength for one thing only; that the child would sleep, not die.

“Why couldn’t she practice and grow stronger?” Meng Yao would ask, and Mother would laugh and poke his cheek and tell him that well-spirits are very small, but she tried her best. The story always sat wrongly with Meng Yao. Back then it had, at least. It was not fair that the well spirit couldn’t fix what was wrong. It wasn’t fair that the princess had been cursed as a baby, before she’d done anything to deserve it. It wasn’t fair that the queen couldn’t find anyone but a forgotten little well-spirit to try to save her child. “It’s not fair,” he’d tell her, each time the well-spirit blessed the infant and fell short of her desire, and each time his mother would smile.

“Ah, my precious A-Yao, you are right. But the world is not fair, and she could only do what she could do.” Mother would say, smiling in that soft way of hers, pinching his cheek lightly, before she continued the story. “Because it seemed hopeless, the king demanded that every spindle in the land be…”

Meng Yao Jin Guangyao likes the story no better now, but he understands more than he did back then. Jin Guangyao was also too weak. “She could only do what she could,” Mother would say, and he now understands the heartbreak of that being not enough.

“I want you to kill Nie Mingjue,” Father had told him, two weeks ago, now. His voice had been low but pleasant, like he’d only been asking Jin Guangyao to pour him more tea.

“Father, I’m trying to get him to stop asking about Xue Yang, I’m sure that I can–”

“I have given you time. And it is not just that boy. Nie Mingjue grows troublesome in other matters as well, he seeks to destabilize me at every turn. You will remove him.” His voice had stayed pleasant. His eyes had glittered coldly with warning: Jin Guangyao was far less valuable than a Sect Leader, and would be far far easier to dispose of.

“I understand Father. I will take care of it,” Jin Guangao had said, and has not had a moment’s peace since.

It doesn’t take him long to decide on a method.

Or rather, it’s not long before the ideal method is dropped straight into his lap. Er-ge requests a favor, asks him to please learn Cleansing, a powerful Lan sect technique to clear resentment and settle an unquiet spirit. Nie Mingjue’s temper and health were in decline, and Er-ge wants Jin Guangyao to help him heal. His hope – that this would give them an opportunity to mend the broken trust and friendship between them – was transparently obvious, but Jin Guangyao has never found place in his heart to deny this man anything.

“We can help him, A-Yao. We must. Da-ge is not himself, and we need to… We cannot lose him.”

Lying is no harder than speaking, for Meng Yao, but this time the lie tears into his lungs. “Of course, Er-ge. His brothers will support him until he is well again.” I’ve been asked to kill him, Er-ge. Why would you trust me with this?

It does not matter that he does not want to do it. Jin Guangyao practices Cleansing at Qinghe under Lan Xichen’s careful tutelage. At Lanling, he spends sleepless nights perfecting a darker, foreign melody, meant to tear someone’s sanity apart.

His heart is troubled, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the lack of sleep, the discordant notes he coaxes from his guqin each night, or the cold, lingering gaze of his Father that seems to ask, have you begun? Will he die?

The answer is yes. Yes, Jin Guangyao will kill him, because he has been asked. Because when it comes down to it, he is the dark spirit that had lost its way, and would destroy someone who was undeserving of the malice. Someone who was loved.

The first time that Jin Guangyao plays the piece for Nie Mingjue, his heart pounds in fear while his hands elegantly play the butchered, chimeric tune. He’s afraid that his eldest sworn brother would notice the difference in the song, would notice that it felt wrong, even after the last note is played and lingers in the room as he looks up to meet Nie Mingjue’s eyes. But Nie Mingjue, even tenser and more ill-tempered than he was before Jin Guangyao started to play, just nods and thanks him shortly and walks away.

It’s terribly rude; Jin Guangyao would be injured by such treatment on any other day.

Today, he has begun slowly killing the man. He will not take insult.

Jin Guangyao spends his time after returning to Lanling terribly nervous, unable to focus as usual. Perhaps Nie Mingjue had not confronted him immediately, but would reached out to Lan Xichen with his suspicions?

His fears are unfounded; a letter arrives for him a week later from Sect Leader Nie. Could he trouble Jin Guangyao to return and play for him soon? He did not wish to disturb their second brother, who was still busy with the rebuilding of his sect.

Jin Guangyao promptly sends a response: He would be honoured to help, he would make the time to visit as soon as possible. (His fingers do not tremble on the guqin strings as he practices the song alone, in preparation. He wonders at the monster he’s become.)

It’s while he’s playing for Nie Mingjue the second time that it happens. His eldest sworn brother is doing his best to relax – there’s incense, and the tea they were served has calming properties – but Jin Guangyao’s music is doing as intended, and Nie Mingjue’s face is visibly tense, his jaw locked, and the longer it goes on the worse it gets.

It’s partly the music, partly the frustration that he isn’t calming down as he should be. Jin Guangyao imagines that it is not unlike the panic that insomnia brings him, the desperate desire to just fall asleep making him anxious enough to drive any semblance of rest from him as he lies awake in the dark.

His fingers fumble on the strings and he stops, startled. Nie Mingjue’s eyes open and he looks to him questioningly. “Is something wrong, Meng Yao?”

It’s the wrong name. Always the wrong name. But at the moment, for what he wishes, it may just be the right one. Nie Mingjue has wronged Meng Yao many times, but Nie Mingjue was also the one who had defended him from cultivators who taunted and mistreated him. Nie Mingjue was the first person to value him, to give him a chance to prove his worth, and then acknowledged that he did well.

It was because the queen had swept the well-spirit’s forgotten shrine, Jin Guangao remembers. That was why the well-spirit stepped up to divert the curse.

He stares a moment longer at Nie Mingjue, long enough that he frowns, and this time Jin Guangao imagines his brows are creasing in worry not anger. “Are you alright, you’ve gone pale.” His voice still betrays his temper; a barely contained inferno, but Jin Guangyao is partially to blame for that.

“Forgive, me, Da-ge. May I start again?”

“If you need a break, you can have one. You can play for me later,” Nie Mingjue says.

“No, please, close your eyes again. I merely realized something.”

Still looking faintly suspicious, Nie Mingjue does as asked and shuts his eyes.

Jin Guangyao sets his fingers to the guqin and plays again. This time the music is simple and clear, lifting and rejuvenating. When Jin Guangyao plays the last notes and looks up, the anger has melted away from his sworn brother. He’s smiling faintly, and Jin Guangyao’s eyes catch on the softness of it.

When Nie Mingjue opens his eyes, and sees Jin Guangyao watching, the smile doesn’t fade. “You figured something out, didn’t you? This time felt so much better.”

“Yes, Da-ge. I was a poor student, Er-ge will not be pleased with me for taking so long… but I understand now.”

“Xichen will never be displeased with you, that you play it so well without the Lan’s rigorous training is a credit to your skills. And I thank you,” Nie Mingjue says. He breathes deep, as if enjoying that he can. That faint smile has still not vanished. “I am much improved.”

Jin Guangao knows. The spiritual power of Cleansing is considerable, and when played correctly and regularly it could bolster Nie Mingjue’s spirit and life for decades longer.

“You’re welcome Da-ge. I promise. I promise to do what I can to help you.” And this promise is not a lie, not a vow he means to break.

Father wants Nie Mingjue dead, and Jin Guangao does not have the means to stop him.

But he can divert the curse.

Not death, but sleep.

That, Jin Guangao can do.

[Author’s Note: The particular form of the sleeping beauty story used here I got from Vathara’s fic Embers! It’s a gorgeous version and I love it.

Somehow an old post of mine, where I said I should write a fic about MY hiding NMJ away and faking his death to appease JGS popped back up? I’d completely forgotten about it. But well, it’s a lovely idea, so I thought I’d start on it! I hope you liked the fic!]

#meng yao #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #mdzs #the untamed #fairy tale castle #fix-it #3zun fix-it #nieyao #nielan #sleeping beauty

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featherfur · 3 years

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Big Knife Meet Little Blind Ch.2

Xue Yang meets A-Qing before he meets Xiao Xingchen and decides he needs a disciple. Somehow he ends up with a kid, a heart, and an absolute mess of a cultivation world.

Warnings: Gore, Blood, Murder, Questionable Child Rearing, Xue Yang and A-Qing's potty mouth, Xue Yang isn't a good person and needs to get there, will eventually be SongXiaoXue

Read me on Ao3,

Read Chapter 1

Xue Yang returned home much more relaxed and even entertained the idea of taking his next day off to travel down to Yunmeng with A-Qing to let her try osmanthus cakes. She’d probably enjoy the river boats and he could afford a trip there and back if he annoyed Jin Guangyao into paying him early.

“A-Qing, are you still crying like a baby?” He called cheerfully towards the shack, kicking open the door and blinking when he found it completely empty.

The hearth was still cold and the soup from last night was gone so A-Qing had returned after he sent her off. The blankets for their bed were still made like A-Qing insisted on doing every morning, even the hidden pouch of money was still tucked in the jar of seasonings on the top shelf. Yet A-Qing was nowhere to be found.

Where the hell had the brat gone?

Had she run off because he scared her? If she could get over a fierce corpse devouring and murdering humans she shouldn’t be such a coward just because he got pissed and stabbed someone. It wasn’t like he was going to stab her. If he did that then he’d have to go through the trouble of finding another disciple and he liked his.

“A-Qing!” He shouted, mentally convincing himself that he wasn’t worried at all. After all, he could always get another brat right?

A second later the door swung open and he spun, Jiangzai already before him. Luckily for him, A-Qing was still much too small for his stab to be in her general area.

She collided with him forcefully and he was about to reprimand her when he realized she was clutching onto him.

“Eh? Why are you crying brat? Did you think I wasn’t coming back?” He snapped even as he sheathed Jiangzai and crouched down so he could look her over. She was fine beyond a few scratches and he rolled his eyes at her dramatics, he really should have killed her and grabbed an older brat. They didn’t cry nearly as much.

“Yang-ge, someone tried to break the door! They wanted to kill me.. They kept yelling for you. You weren’t here.” A-Qing sobbed, the irritation that rose in Xue Yang at her obnoxious crying was immediately flooded with the fury that anyone would dare scare his A-Qing. “You didn’t come home… I-I-I hid… I hid where you told me too. Then I heard you.”

Well atleast, some of his words had gotten through her thick skull.

“Who was it?” He barked, groaning when she just kept crying. He smacked her cheek and she blinked blearily up at him.

“Answer me brat, who was it?”

She shook her head, trying to tug herself closer to his chest and he pushed her back with a disgusted noise. She was covered in snot and tears and he didn’t want to have to wash his clothes so soon. It was disgusting and he liked to play with corpses.

She just snuffled loudly despite his glare and hold on her shoulders, still reaching out to him.

“I don’t know, I promise I don’t know.” She swore, grabbing hold of his forearms with a vice-like grip. It would have been impressive if she wasn’t so damn annoying.

Xue Yang stared at her, wondering if he could smack her again to make her shut up but she just blinked her white eyes at him with unwavering trust. An unfamiliar feeling built in his chest and he released his grip on her shoulders.

She rocketed into his chest with a fresh wave of sobbing, clinging onto him with a strength that surprised him. He fell back onto his ass, crossing his legs under him as A-Qing curled in his lap.

He pulled Jiangzai out as a precaution, wondering if A-Qing would panic like before. To his pleasant surprise, as soon as the blade was resting on his knee in easy reach she finally started to calm.

Her small fingers were tangled in his robes and he reached up to pat them in a move of comfort that completely surprised himself. Then again, he didn’t like breaking his own toys so treating them properly was the best way to make sure they survived. Even if he was confused by his own actions, A-Qing had started to calm and her obnoxious crying had finally ceased so Xue Yang counted it as a win.

Still, a steady wave of anger was still sliding through him. Someone had tried to break into his house and scared what was his. Even if her own clumsiness was what caused her scratches, she wouldn’t have had to run if it wasn’t for those bastards. They owed him.

Xue Yang was going to get even, tonight. He’d had a really bad day and it was time to make it someone else’s problem.

He waited for A-Qing to fall asleep before he moved back to his feet, keeping one arm under her so she could rest against his shoulder. With a child on his right and Jiangzai on his left he stepped out of the house and started to make his way around the house.

There were indeed footprints that weren’t from him, two sets in fact leading back to the local village. They weren’t familiar to him, but that just meant it wasn’t anyone from the Jin sect. There were plenty of others who wanted him dead or beaten black and blue.

He returned to the house to drop A-Qing off but she woke the moment he put her down.

“Yang-ge, are you leaving again?” She asked, her bottom lip wobbling and he poked her cheek to startle her.

“Don’t start that crying shit, got it? Yes I am, stay here.”

Rather than listening she just bolted forward to hold onto his leg instead.

“Yang-ge don’t leave me, take me with you.”

Xue Yang kicked her off, waving Jiangzai between them to keep her from trying again. Yet she still just wobbled back up to her feet with that stubborn streak that made him take her in the first place.

The temptation to give her a reason to fear Jiangzai was almost irresistible, a few more cuts wouldn’t do anything other than scare her after all. Xue Yang was good at swordsmanship, a few slices like paper cuts would be perfect for getting her to remember her place. He flicked the sword up with a twist of his wrist and was about to slice down across the reaching hand.

“You’re… going to kill them… right?” She said and Xue Yang paused long enough for her to grab his robes again and reach up towards Jiangzai. “Like earlier.”

“No, not like earlier. I’m going to kill them myself. Now let go or I’ll kill you first.” Xue Yang warned with a growl but she barely even blinked.

“Take me with you.”

That made him lower the sword with curiosity, tilting his head down at the dirty little brat he’d stuck in his house. There was a sudden panic in his mind, like when he’d come home to find A-Qing missing, at the idea of her being anywhere near murderers. She was tiny! He could kill her with a half kick to the head and she wanted to go with him?

“Why?”

“You left and it was scary.” She said simply, letting go of his robes to hold her arms up to him. “Take me with you.”

“Little Blind,” He said ignoring her scowl, “you do know I’m going to kill. Like the man before. You cried like a little bitch not even twelve hours ago.”

He remembered that she was roughly five when she just blinked up at him and waved her hands. Right. She’d watched last time.

The panic started to drain quickly and he shrugged.

Whatever. If she died then fuck her, he’d burn her corpse or bring her back for his experiments. Oh that was an idea.

He hummed to himself as he bent just enough to swipe her legs out from under her with his arm and leave her perched on his hip and elbow.

If she died she could make a wonderful little subject to see about finally recreating a conscious corpse like the Ghost General. It really was too bad that he was completely loyal to Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang could have used a babysitter.

“If you start crying I’ll leave you in the chest cavity after I break it open.” Xue Yang threatened her and she just gave him that same confused blink. He scoffed and grabbed a cloak to toss over her and made his way out.

He was going to have to fix her poor vocabulary soon. She was great at playing a beggar for a kid, but she really missed the point of his threats and that wasn’t going to stand.

“Do you remember what the bastards sounded like? The ones who came looking for me,” Xue Yang added irritably when she continued her blinking habit. That jogged her memory and she nodded, looking out towards the approaching town.

Night had already started to fall and the last rays of light were quickly disappearing as lanterns were lit instead. Xue Yang grumbled to himself as he realized the footprints would soon be invisible but he couldn’t risk putting A-Qing down for a fire talisman or to sheathe Jiangzai even for a few seconds.

“He… He sounded like the… the…” A-Qing pouted as she tried to remember and Xue Yang suddenly understood why people found kid’s cute. If she wasn’t so annoying, A-Qing would be adorable for a little stray, she was just like a cat that never shut up.

“The pig man!” A-Qing finally declared happily, smiling at Xue Yang and lost the adorable look when Xue Yang just felt annoyed instead.

“I thought you said you didn’t know who they were.”

“I don’t. One of them sound like the pig man… He wasn't the pig man.”

Xue Yang jerked his arm to make her squeal in fear of being dropped. Then he realized what it was that she was saying.

“You mean he has the same accent as the butcher?”

Right, Xue Yang thought as she blinked blankly at him, she’s five she doesn’t know what accent means.

“You have the ugliest face.” He finally told her, grumbling when her thin fingers shoved into his cheek.

“Yang-ge don’t be mean to A-Qing.” She admonished like it was bath day and not a trip to kill a man.

“Okay brat, I get it, keep your hands off my face or I’ll bite them off.” He snapped his teeth in her direction and she retracted her hands quickly with puffy cheeks and pouty lips. The second time wasn’t nearly as adorable but when she reached to wrap her arms around his neck again he let her without question.

Honestly he was waiting for her to fall asleep on his shoulder so he just evened out his footsteps and made his way through the back alley’s to the butchershop.

“Don’t make any noise unless I tell you too.” He warned, waiting until she nodded that she understood before he finally stepped behind the shop itself.

The candlelight wasn’t very bright so Xue Yang slipped closer, peering through the window at the small group. At first he only recognized the butcher himself, then he realized he did know the other two.

They weren’t anyone important but a few years ago Xue Yang had gutted their sister for smacking him, he hadn’t realized he’d been seen at all. They must have been hunting him since then and only just now caught up after he got stuck long-term in this damned town. He would have to clean that up eventually anyways.

Talk about two birds with one stone, he thought to himself and turned to lower A-Qing to the ground.

“Are you going to help me? Or do you just wanna watch?” He whispered and she shrank down against the wall of the house before reaching out to pat the hilt of Jiangzai. “Good girl, wait right here for Yang-ge.”

He straightened with a grin, patting her once on the head before sliding open the door silently and strolling through.

“Hello you two, I heard you were looking for me.” He chirped excitedly, holding up the well-known blade. “Really, you could have just left a note.”

“You.” One snarled.

“Xue Yang.” The other said and Xue Yang rolled his eyes, chuckling at their posturing.

“Don’t dirty my name, I’m rather fond of it.” He hummed, almost seeming to glide over the floor towards them as they stumbled back. “Actually, let me correct myself. You should have just left a note. Then I’d maybe be able to bring myself to be a bit merciful, Jin Guangyao’s been teaching me all about it.”

“Will you just- Shut up!” The butcher’s voice joined the mess and Xue Yang glanced at the knife he was wielding.

A loud laugh bubbled up as he saw it, swinging Jiangzai to point at the taller one.

“You really think you can do anything to me?” In response the knife came flying at his head and he sighed softly. A simple lean was all that was needed to leave the blade well out of range of his head and it struck the wall behind him instead.

“Now, I need a volunteer.” He said with another step forward. “See, my kid’s still new to all of this but she needs to learn, so who wants to help me teach her the different arteries to cut? The other two I’ll kill a little faster.”

“You killed our sister, after we kill you we’ll get your little brat and return the favor.” The youngest brother yelled in outrage, brandishing his own sword. It wavered in the air almost shaking as much as his owner was.

The smile disappeared from Xue Yang’s face and he flashed forward. With two strokes blood spurted from the two others’ throats. He left only the youngest to cower with a scream that was silenced a moment later when Xue Yang’s fingers grabbed his tongue and with a single slice was tossed behind him. The wail was easily stuffed out with a handful of the bastard’s own robes, forcing them down his throat until he choked and gagged.

“Found my volunteer.” Xue Yang pulled him to his knees by his hair, waiting impatiently for the neighbors knocking to cease. When no one answered they dispersed with mumbles about rowdy visitors and summoning the guards to complain.

Xue Yang dragged the man through the bloody mess on the floor, glancing back at the corpses with a mournful air.

If only I hadn’t brought A-Qing, then I’d have two new subjects to play with.

He hummed as he stood in the middle of the room, realizing that this was one of those moments that Jin Guangyao had told him about. Ones where Xue Yang should have planned better before jumping into slaughter.

He wanted to take his time and teach A-Qing a thing or two, but the bastard crying on the floor had warned everyone. If Xue Yang brought him back home to teach, then he’d have to deal with the smell of blood in his house and the potential of Jin disciples finding the body.

Jin Guangyao should be proud, Xue Yang thought proudly as he dropped the man on the ground and promptly sat on his stomach, I’m thinking it through and everything.

“A-Qing, come here.” He called, waving her forward and holding his arms open to tempt her even further. As expected, she bolted into his arms without a care for the carnage around her.

“Good girl, now, I’m going to show you this trick.”

A-Qing flinched slightly when the man they were sitting on wailed against the robe. Then she scowled and leaned over him to smack his cheek like Xue Yang did to her earlier. This one was much harsher than Xue Yang had been but it still managed to make the man freeze.

“Good girl,” Xue Yang cheered, the vicious mood from earlier seeming to dissipate as he squeezed her cheek. “Very good, now, listen to Yang-ge.”

A-Qing nodded her head rapidly as Xue Yang moved over the struggling man to trace a nail over his carotid artery with a rather proper explanation of death by exsanguination if he said so himself. He followed the man’s neck down to his windpipe, explaining how to slice it properly. The man still writhed so Xue Yang clamped down on his throat, squeezing it until the body spasmed and stopped moving.

“And that is choking. Don’t worry about that right now, you’re too tiny to do it.” Xue Yang said, tilting his head to listen to the slow moving footsteps of whatever the villagers had managed to gather for a guard to check. He sighed, resigning himself to bringing her to one of his experiments later and scooting her off to stand.

He twirled Jiangzai, humming to himself as he felt its blood lust, and held it against the unconscious man’s neck.

“Well? Do you remember what I just taught you?”

A-Qing glanced back and forth between the two of them with visible hesitation. Xue Yang supposed this could be a little fast, she’d only seen her first murder earlier in the day after all.

I’ll read those damn child raising books when I get home, maybe I should wait until she’s atleast six before committing human murder. Jin Guangyao said that was harder for most people to do.

Even as he planned to kill the man himself, A-Qing’s hand moved to Xue Yang’s and held the hilt of Jiangzai. She pushed carefully until the sword was just over the artery just like Xue Yang had taught her, then she plunged it forward.

Her white eyes were glowing with fascination as blood bubbled around the wound and, when Xue Yang pulled out, the way it sprayed before Xue Yang covered her from it with his black sleeve. Still, she moved to peek over his arm when it finally stopped spurting over them. She blinked in her curious way at the corpse then scowled over at Xue Yang.

“Your robe is all dirty. It’s bath day.” She said seriously, just like Xue Yang would say when he came home to find her filthy.

Xue Yang was in such a good mood he could only scoop her up as he sheathed Jiangzai and laugh as he skipped to the door. He paused midway through and bounced back to grab the purse on the butcher and the package before bolting as the acting guards started to bang on the door.

“Oops.” He hummed, looking around the alley before kicking off to land on the roof next door. Perhaps he didn’t think things through like he thought he did.

Whatever, He slipped the purse into his robe and started back towards home. He jumped on three more houses before deciding that was good enough and leaping to the ground to walk the rest of the way.

“Yang-ge?” A-Qing said sleepily against his shoulder. “Can I go to work with you again?”

“Sure, kid, I’ll bring you again later.” He hummed to himself, cheerfully waving the package of whatever he’d stolen through the air. He debated on chucking it against a tree just to see its contents but A-Qing’s sleepy snuffles distracted him instead.

She’d done so well already, this disciple shit really was working out a lot better than he thought it would. He was surprised she hadn’t even sobbed but then again, he hadn’t cried after his first kill either and he was only two years older than her then.

He glanced down at her as she promptly passed out, completely comfortable and safe in the arms of a murderer.

So this is why people have kids, they’re actually kind of cute when they listen.

He would have to figure out something about leaving her alone in case other enemies showed up, but maybe if he dug at the Ghost General enough he would finally get that ghost babysitter.

He almost turned to head towards the experimentation compound but a single glance at A-Qing’s sleeping form made him turn back towards home.

That can wait until tomorrow, A-Qing needs more sleep than me.

#mdzs #the untamed #Xue yang #a qing #xiao xingchen #song lan #xuexiao #songxiaoxue #songxiao #songxue #fanfic #canon divergence #cw: murder #cw: character death #cw: gore #cw: blood

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franniebanana · 3 years

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CQL Rewatch - Ep15

I forgot this guy’s name, Yao or something? Honestly, I don’t care enough to research this, like, at all. I hate this guy. My friend and I now refer to him as the Hype Man, so I might just call him that from now on. But I wanted to say that I didn’t realize he was in it so early, so when I saw him, I was like, “That fucking guy!!” And I also totally missed that the point of Jiang Fengmian leaving was to take this worthless piece of trash somewhere. I wish he’d died haha. But then I guess there’d be less reason to hate him, and I enjoy hating him.

I can’t believe this is the first paragraph that people are going to see. If you’re reading this now, you’re like, why do I want to read this crap? And y’know what, I can’t blame you. The next few episodes are gonna be rough. I don’t even know if there will be much to say on my end. My friend, after watching these few episodes commented something like, “Huh, that really dragged.” I could only agree, pulling my hair out from the headache these few episodes were giving me.

Okay, but seriously, Yao is so pathetic here! Talking about how he never thought they’d end up like this, and, “Oh, we were just a small clan, woe is me!” It’s amazing that he turns into the biggest prick, always right there hyping up the scapegoat-blame game rhetoric. Sorry, I hate this fucker.

A rare nice moment from Madam Yu. It was sweet having her show a caring side, packing medicine for her husband, snacks for her daughter. But of course, it was because Jiang Yanli had come to say goodbye to her earlier. Jiang Cheng is really like his mother—they can’t do anything for kindness’s sake, there’s always an obligation to the kindness.

I hate Wang Lingjiao, but I love her, and I love hating her. I’m conflicted. She’s just such a fun, evil character, more fun than Xue Yang in my opinion, probably because she actual interacts with the main characters in the story. It will forever annoy me that Xue Yang gets so much attention for appearing in a long-ass flashback (via empathy) and what should have been a flashback (Chang Clan) but wasn’t because they wanted it to be padding, I guess.

Anyway, Wang Lingjiao. She’s fun, she goes completely nuts—what’s not to love about her? She’s also someone who is so similar to Madam Yu, but because she also is ambitious and wants to take over Lotus Pier, Madam Yu wants her dead. Haha!

While Madam Yu is, objectively, a horrible person, I actually really like how her bodyguards aren’t treated like servants. I like that there’s mutual respect there, as there should be when you’re talking about protecting someone. Unfortunately, I think Madam Yu treats them better than her own family in most cases. It’s cool that the Jiang Clan doesn’t rely on servants to get food and tea and whatnot. These are things that the disciples and leaders must do for themselves. By contrast, the Jins have so many servants—it’s almost obscene by comparison.

Also I want to point out how hot-headed Jiang Cheng gets here, while his mother is just cool as a cucumber. It really shows you how unready he is to actually lead (which she points out). He’s so emotional, quick to anger, yet he has none of the foundations to really lead a group of people. Even when the disciples are explaining to them what happened to the kid and the kite, it’s Wei Wuxian who is keeping everyone calm and asking the questions.

I love that his first reaction here is to insult Wang Lingjiao’s intelligence. We’re basically getting a parallel to how he reacts to Wen Chao, which is fun because you can see how his behavior hasn’t changed at all. He uses his wit in both situations and is easily able to outwit both Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. What’s kind of interesting is that Jiang Cheng will speak up now when he wouldn’t before. And I wonder is it because he is guilty for being silent earlier with Wen Chao, or is it something else? I think ultimately Jiang Cheng blames Jin Xizuan, Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian for what happens to his parents and to Lotus Pier. Even though, logically, it would have been destroyed anyway, he still wants to place the blame on someone who he can reach. All this is to say, I don’t think Jiang Cheng regrets not speaking up at the Wen Indoctrination. So I think he feels superiority over Wang Lingjiao really because he thinks she’s a stupid woman. And duh, she is not that clever. But she is smart enough to be able to use what talents she has to get ahead. She apparently is favored over Wen Chao’s own wife (who knew he was even married—not me lol), and you have to be ambitious and have some smarts to get that far. That’s not to say that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t treat a man this way too—I think he would. I think he picks and chooses who he’ll stand up to. He’s on his own turf, she’s an invader, she’s a woman—she only brought a few henchmen, right? He’s also been charged with watching over Lotus Pier in his father’s absence. Maybe he just wants to look big for once. Just a thought. Take it or leave it.

So, I think Madam Yu is enjoying this. She’s getting two things she wants: the Wens are going to leave and she gets to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian. She doesn’t even have to be prodded to punish him, right? She barely waits until Wang Lingjiao has finished speaking. This has something she’s wanted to do for a long time. I think she’s hit him before, yes? But she can go all out right now, since Jiang Fengmian, his only real protector, is gone.

Also Jiang Cheng! Man, he’s torn apart! He hates to see this happening to Wei Wuxian—yes, he blames him for all that shit, but he doesn’t want to see this happen to him. It’s actually harder to watch Jiang Cheng in all of this than Wei Wuxian, who mostly remains as stoic as he could possibly be while she’s whipping the shit out of him. And again here, we get Wei Wuxian telling Jiang Cheng not to interfere, because the last thing he wants is for Jiang Cheng to be penalized too. He’s fine receiving this punishment because it’s a “better me than him” kind of a thing. It’s harder to watch someone else suffer than to suffer ourselves, right? I’m like that, idk if you readers are, but I think a lot of people are like that. I mean, I’ve always been that way, but it’s been amplified since I became a parent. And not only is he accepting of being whipped by Zidian, he’s ready to lose his fucking right hand. The hand that he wields a sword with. His dominant hand. He is ready to lose it with absolutely no fuss. That’s how much Wei Wuxian cares about Lotus Pier. His response is, “I’ll have to learn how to use my left hand.” It’s a passing line, a line when you can’t even see his face—but do you get how big that is? Jiang Cheng is up there losing his mind, completely emotional, crying, yelling at his mother to stop—Wei Wuxian is just silently gritting his teeth and taking it. They’re both brave (I would not want to stand up to Madam Yu), but different kinds of brave, y’know?

I do love this part. I’m not gonna lie. Seeing Madam Yu slap Wang Lingjiao around is something that’s deeply, deeply satisfying. I guess it’s just nice to see Madam Yu’s anger turned towards an actual villain, since up until this point, it’s been directly mainly at Wei Wuxian and her own husband. I think this part is forever tainted if you know how the story goes, because Madam Yu is just on fire! But if you’ve seen this series before, which hopefully you have (otherwise spoilers abound), you know it doesn’t end well for her. I like this plot device here, making you think that the good guys are going to come out on top, and then reversing it so quickly as soon as the Core-Melting Hand shows up. One minute, you’re cheering, the next, you’re…not.

I also want to point out how quickly things reverse here as well. Jiang Cheng is trying to protect and comfort Wei Wuxian throughout this whole scene, which is something we’re definitely not used to seeing. This has always (and I mean always) been more of Lan Wangji’s thing. But in kind of a nice twist of fate, we actually see Jiang Cheng caring for Wei Wuxian. But then, boy, do things change! We see a complete reversal of this behavior—first Wei Wuxian has to be there for Jiang Cheng’s emotional state, and then his physical one. And the man does not complain about it at all.

I want to say that I didn’t cry in my first watch of CQL until episode 50. That is 100% the truth, so help me God. However, when I watched this scene in the donghua, I cried like a little bitch. Cried probably isn’t the right word—how about sobbed. I sobbed. I think because I knew it was coming when I watched CQL, it didn’t really affect me (plus my husband was right there, not paying attention, but still on the couch with me, so I tend to not cry as much when he’s around. I like to cry on my own, okay?). Having said that, the second time I saw this scene, I fucking cried, and I really didn’t stop until after they told Jiang Yanli, because that sweetheart crying makes me cry, okay? I have a really hard time watching things about children and parents, because I always think about my own parents and my own kid, so it just makes me really emotional. The idea of never seeing your parents again, especially in such a traumatic situation, at the age of what—17? That’s something I can’t even begin to imagine. In a word, horrific. Traumatic isn’t even a strong enough word to describe the emotional and mental turmoil that a teenager would be going through. But I can probably ramble about that later.

And my heart breaks for Wei Wuxian here too. Even though she hated him, even though she treated him so poorly, I’m sure he still thought of her as something akin to a mother. She was the only mother figure he had in his life who was still living, so there was definitely an attachment there (and this is proven later). Even being acknowledged by her here must mean something to him. She may hate him, but she trusts him to keep her children safe and to protect them. It’s honestly so sad.

Ugh, this is hard to watch. As a mother, the idea of sending your kid adrift when you know you’ll probably never see them again is so heartbreaking. The connection you have with your children is something that no other relationship can match, whether you physically bore your children or not. They are a part of you. Like, let’s be real, raising children is difficult—they can test your patience, make you angry, make you sad and hurt (toddlers don’t care about you, yeah, I said it)—but you love them in spite of it all. And for me, I can never really hate Madam Yu. I can find her attitude and treatment of certain individuals deplorable, but at the end of the day, she loved her children. Was she a good mom? No, probably not. But I don’t think Jiang Fengmian was a good dad either (although I think he tried a bit harder). But I think she loved A-Cheng and A-Li, and I think she trusted Wei Wuxian to protect them. I think she gave him that shred of respect at the end.

In case you’re wondering, I fucking cried through to the end of this episode. I mean, Jesus, Yanli just gets immediately thrown into another boat and tied up with her brothers, after finding out that her mother might be dead already, and then her dad abandons them too. I just can’t.

I’m sorry this was short (maybe I’m not sorry, depending on how much you like the episode). I’m going to try and knock out more than one episode per week because I just don’t have a lot to say. These are mainly getting through the plot episodes, if you know what I mean.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |

#wei wuxian #jiang cheng #cql #the untamed #jiang yanli #jiang fengmian #madam yu #wen zhuliu #core-melting hand #wang lingjiao #jiaojiao #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql rewatch #wwx

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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a kindness you can’t afford

[READ ON AO3]

Written for the anon prompt above, originally tried to post it as a response to an ask, then Tumblr fucked up all my formatting and I deleted the post, forgetting that I cannot just recreate an anon ask. Anyway! It’s a fic! It’s for an idea that I’ve been meaning to write eventually and ended up doing for this!

I wrote more rambly notes the first time I made this post but it’s probably for the best they’re gone. Thanks to @ameliarating for edits, as always, and to the Tumblr user who kindly indulged my request for “Chinese obscenities that could pass for a name.” The one Xue Yang uses here is literally “chrysanthemum” but also “anus.” This may be anachronistic, but I’m going with it.

content warnings: none, actually?? I don’t think??? other than, you know, the knowledge that this ain’t going anywhere good

What Xue Yang thought when the first sword went in was motherfucker finally did it.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d known for a while that sooner or later Jin Guangyao would decide he’d outlived his usefulness and try to get rid of him, or else Xue Yang would decide he was done playing Jin Guangyao’s game and cut out his tongue to feed it to him. And then kill him.

Until then he’d just figured he’d enjoy the luxury of Lianfang-zun’s boundless resources, access to the Yiling Laozu’s notes, and willingness to provide Xue Yang with the opportunity to experiment.

But with the old man dead, and Chifeng-zun in pieces, he’d figured that probably sooner rather than later Jin Guangyao would decide he was too much of a security risk and not enough of an asset to keep alive. Jin Guangyao still beat him to the punch. And he didn’t even have the courtesy to do it himself.

Bastard.

The Jin assholes cut him up pretty bad before he managed to get away; least he managed to make sure at least three of them wouldn’t walk away, and a fourth was going to be down a hand. So that was something, even if he was bleeding pretty badly, feeling it in the cold heaviness of his limbs and the spinning of his head. The wound in his leg was the worst, cutting deep into the thigh.

There was a distinct possibility that he was well and truly fucked.

Well, he thought when his body finally gave out and all he could do was slither into the grass on the side of the road so he wasn’t quite so exposed, it’d been a pretty good run, all things considered. Still sucked, and he would’ve really liked to show Jin Guangyao the color of his own intestines right about now, but you couldn’t get everything you wanted.

It wasn’t the death he’d imagined for himself. But it was better than some he could’ve anticipated. Hopefully he’d make a nasty fierce ghost and could go torment Lianfang-fucking-zun for backstabbing him.

Even if that was exactly what he’d expected him to do.

Xue Yang fought losing consciousness for a while, but there was only so long he could hold out before his body surrendered for him.

He didn’t expect to wake up alive.

When he did, still fucking hurting and with someone touching his face, at first he was just too tired and sore to try to move like he should, still feeling wrung out and half-dead and figuring maybe playing helpless would be better than trying something when he didn’t have the strength to back it up. Then his vision cleared a little and he recognized who he was looking at.

You, he thought, eyes widening in alarm, and tried immediately to scramble back regardless of the fact that his body screamed furiously at him, because some random stranger who was either trying to help or trying to loot his body was one thing, but Xiao Xingchen-

Who was assuring him that he wasn’t going to hurt him. That he didn’t mean him any harm, and was just trying to tend his wounds.

There was a white bandage over his eyes.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know.

Well, Xue Yang thought, staring at him. Well, well, well.

We’re fated to meet again, he’d said, years ago, but he hadn’t figured for it being like this.

You aren’t going to ask me my name? he asked warily, and Xiao Xingchen smiled at him, utterly clueless, and said I have my own things I’d rather not talk about.

Fucking shit. Unbelievable. The blind idiot, just taking in someone he’d found on the side of the road who he knew nothing about, not asking any questions, tending his wounds…

Xue Yang had never believed much in good fortune. Not for himself, anyway. But this opportunity just getting dropped in his lap, and when he needed it most-

It certainly seemed to qualify.

Good. Fucking fantastic.

He could work with this.

There was something funny about the girl with Xiao Xingchen - a-Qing, or whatever her name was. At first he’d thought she was just pretending to be blind, which would’ve been a problem, but she seemed to really not be able to see. She certainly wasn’t a threat of any other kind. A nuisance, it was becoming clear, and for whatever reason she didn’t like him, but she wasn’t actually dangerous.

And Xiao Xingchen... Xiao Xingchen would be dangerous, was dangerous, but he was also blind, and nice, and didn’t ask questions. Xue Yang had worked out a whole story, an elaborate lie he’d use, but Xiao Xingchen hadn’t asked. He nursed Xue Yang, helpless and useless, like he was a friend.

Motherfucking idiot.

At least it was serving him well. Xiao Xingchen took good care of him. Perfectly solicitous. Admonishing him when he tried to get up and walk too soon. You’ll make it worse, he said, with that sugar-sweet smile. Be careful with yourself. If you want to heal cleanly you need to rest.

It was all working great, absolutely perfect, he couldn’t’ve asked for better.

It wasn’t going to last.

It couldn’t, obviously. Xiao Xingchen would get sick of this magnanimous act and kick him out, or he’d figure out who Xue Yang was somehow and one of them would have to die. There was always a flip side, a catch, a trap, and that it hadn’t shown itself here yet just meant it hadn’t shown itself yet.

It would, sooner or later, and Xue Yang just had to be ready for it.

It’d be easier to feel ready for it if he could stand for longer than half a joss stick without feeling like he was going to collapse. His leg hurt like hell all the time and while he was clawing his way back to his usual strength, as far as he was concerned it couldn’t happen fast enough. It was fine, though. For now, he was safe. For now.

If he kept telling himself that maybe he’d stop feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin.

At least it gave him plenty of uninterrupted time to watch Xiao Xingchen. He was nice. He was patient. He didn’t raise his voice or lose his temper, as far as Xue Yang could tell. He was so impossibly, infuriatingly good and it couldn’t possibly be real.

“What is it?” Xiao Xingchen asked, and Xue Yang realized he’d been staring at him for a while, congee forgotten and getting cold.

“Nothing,” Xue Yang said quickly, and then narrowed his eyes and said, “you’ve got something on your face, by your nose. Big smudge of dirt.”

“Oh,” Xiao Xingchen said, and laughed a little. “Thank you for telling me. I can’t exactly check in a mirror.”

That was something Xue Yang found very interesting. It wasn’t Xiao Xingchen he’d blinded, and yet here he was. He hadn’t asked any questions about it, but he did wonder what he’d missed while he’d been working on rediscovering the secrets of demonic cultivation and creating a fierce corpse for Jin Guangyao.

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said, and then on a whim, “here, let me help you get it off.”

A-Qing scowled at him. “Xiao-daozhang can clean his own face, asshole.”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then smiled at Xue Yang. “She is right, though. I don’t need the help.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang said. “Whatever. Come on, it’s bugging me.” He got up and limped over, dropping down next to him and reaching out, using his sleeve to scrub at an imaginary smudge. Xiao Xingchen reached up and caught his arm, but he didn’t knock him away, and he didn’t seem angry. His grip was firm but not hard; Xue Yang just kept himself from yanking violently away or lashing out.

“Stranger,” Xiao Xingchen said, “Please. I can attend my own appearance.”

Xue Yang pulled back slowly. He glanced at a-Qing, who seemed smug, and then back at Xiao Xingchen, and held up his hands.

“All right,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended,” Xiao Xingchen said. He smiled, the expression warm and fuck, he really was intolerable. “But it should be clear that even though I am blind, I’m not helpless.”

“Guess that’s obvious,” Xue Yang said after a brief pause. “If anyone’s helpless here it’s me. I’m the one you had to scrape up off the side of the road, huh?”

That made Xiao Xingchen laugh. For some reason Xue Yang found that sort of satisfying; for some reason a-Qing glared at him.

“You’re not funny,” a-Qing said.

“Daozhang thinks I’m funny,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen shook his head, but he was smiling again.

Too easy. Blind - literally - fool. It suddenly seemed sort of amazing that he’d stayed alive this long.

At least it was working in Xue Yang’s favor. He’d be ready for when that changed, but for now-

He could enjoy it, for now.

The smart thing to do would be to kill Xiao Xingchen before he put two and two together and came up with Xue Yang.

He’d do the girl too, obviously, but Xiao Xingchen was the one who could really hurt him. He might be playing nice now but Xue Yang had fought him before. He knew what he could do. He wasn’t going to assume that his being blind had changed that much. The way he moved mostly hadn’t. He didn’t use a stick like a-Qing, anyway.

So, yeah. The smart thing to do.

He still hadn’t done it. Mostly because the smart thing to do was sometimes also the boring thing to do, and Xue Yang would take not boring over stupid most of the time.

“So when are you gonna leave, anyway,” a-Qing asked loudly.

“Dunno,” Xue Yang said. “Every time you ask me that it gets further away.”

A-Qing scowled at him. “Why are you even still here? Do you like living in a coffin home?”

“Maybe I do,” Xue Yang said. “Maybe I’m not even alive. Maybe I’m a really animate fierce corpse. Like the Ghost General.” He thought of Wen Ning, briefly, chained up with nails in his head. Absolutely useless. Completely uncontrollable, which had really been just the most disappointing. “You wouldn’t know, would you?”

For a moment a-Qing looked a little uncertain. Then she scowled harder. “Daozhang would know. Obviously.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” a-Qing said firmly. “Besides, fierce corpses don’t bleed.”

“How do you know,” Xue Yang said. “Met a lot of fierce corpses?”

“Have you?”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “I killed one once.” Its name was Nie Mingjue and its head is probably still in Lianfang-zun’s treasure room. He leaned back on his hands, flexing his leg and wincing at the pain that shot up into his hip. Fuck Lianfang-zun and his entire fucking life.

A-Qing shook her head. “You’re lying.”

Xue Yang shrugged one shoulder. “Believe what you want,” he said. “Doesn’t make any difference to me.”

He heard Xiao Xingchen’s footsteps a moment before he appeared and turned toward him, tensing reflexively and then scowling when that hurt, too. “What are you talking about?”

“Daozhang, do fierce corpses bleed?” a-Qing asked. Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows rose a little.

“No. Not like living people do, anyway.”

“I knew you were lying,” a-Qing said to Xue Yang. “This asshole says he killed a fierce corpse, but he didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know. I said you wouldn’t.” Xue Yang grinned at her. “If you’re going to call me names you could at least be more creative, Little Blind.”

Xiao Xingchen shook his head. “Why would you lie about such a thing, Stranger?” he asked.

“Came up when I was telling Little Blind how I’m a fierce corpse myself,” Xue Yang said.

“Don’t call me that,” a-Qing said. Xiao Xingchen seemed startled for a moment, and then smiled a little.

“I see,” he said.

“Well,” Xue Yang said. “You don’t, actually.”

A-Qing looked furious, but Xiao Xingchen let out a bright and full-throated laugh, like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Xue Yang blinked. He hadn’t really thought about saying it, and if he had he’d’ve thought Xiao Xingchen would be touchy about it. But he was smiling, and still chuckling a little, when he said, “no, I suppose not. Perhaps you have us both fooled, though I suspect my sword would know.”

Xue Yang’s ears pricked. “What do you mean?”

Xiao Xingchen set down the basket of groceries he was holding and paused, seeming to be thinking. “My sword, Shuanghua,” he said. “It is able to sense resentful energy, and thus direct me toward beings like ghosts or demons. Or, presumably, fierce corpses. It is how I can still go night hunting.”

“Huh,” Xue Yang said. That was interesting. And he had sort of wondered. He hadn’t heard of anything like that before.

He wondered suddenly how discriminating Xiao Xingchen’s sword was. Did it detect any amount of resentful energy? Or type, or concentration?

Xue Yang tucked that question away for later. It wasn’t important right now.

“How is your leg today, Stranger?”

“Fine,” Xue Yang said. Lied. “Are you just going to keep calling me ‘Stranger’? You could just pick a name and go with it. Or guess. Or use a different name every time you talk to me.”

Xiao Xingchen smiled again, obviously amused. “Or,” a-Qing said, “you could just say what you’re called. Why won’t you, anyway?”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Sometimes a man’s history is his own business.”

Wasn’t that a nice idea, Xue Yang thought. He doubted Xiao Xingchen would still say that if he knew who he was harboring.

“Yeah, all right,” Xue Yang said. “I’ll tell you my name.”

A-Qing looked suspicious. “What is it?”

“Ju Hua,” he said. Xiao Xingchen let out a strangled sound, like a laugh disguised by a fake cough. A-Qing recoiled, her face crinkling up in disgust.

“You’re disgusting,” she said.

“Hey,” Xue Yang said. “It’s rude to make fun of peoples’ names,” but he started cackling a second later, hard enough it hurt his cracked ribs. A-Qing got to her feet and flounced off, taking a swing at his head with her stick he was sure was deliberate.

Xue Yang grinned at Xiao Xingchen, who still looked like he was trying not to laugh. “You shouldn’t tease her,” he said.

“She can take it,” Xue Yang said easily. The turn of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth and the set of his eyebrows was reproachful, though both offset by the amusement that was still there.

“You still shouldn’t.”

“Ah, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, dragging out the second syllable. “Ruining all my fun.”

Xiao Xingchen’s expression faltered for a moment, eyebrows furrowing, and Xue Yang realized that his voice had slipped, a little. He held his breath, tensing, waiting, something almost eager jumping in his stomach.

Here it comes.

Then Xiao Xingchen shook himself and let out a faint laugh, though it sounded a little weak. “I know,” he said. “I’m merciless.”

Xue Yang pictured Xiao Xingchen as he’d seen him first, almost glowing in white, a pinched expression of displeasure on his face. He would’ve seen Xue Yang executed. Not done it himself - couldn’t get those pure robes dirty - but still. He thought merciless wasn’t as far off the mark as Xiao Xingchen probably believed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Absolutely. Those vegetables you bought don’t stand a chance.”

Xiao Xingchen laughed again, and smiled, and Xue Yang blinked at him, something funny twisting in his chest under his heart.

You know I’m going to kill you someday, he thought. Not yet, but I’m gonna do it. And I’ll make sure you’ll know how I tricked you, how stupid you were, when I do.

Xue Yang usually slept pretty well, if lightly. He’d learned the trick of it - a need to wring rest out of the hours he got when it was safe, but the ability to wake up fast when he needed to. Usually he could get through the night without waking up, and if he dreamed, he never remembered them.

At first he wasn’t sure what had woken him up this time, just that between one moment and the next he was awake, wide awake with his senses shrilling an alarm, something wrong. His heartbeat picked up and he started to reach for Jiangzai only to stop himself.

Then he heard it: quiet but still audible through thin walls. A soft, distressed sound from Xiao Xingchen’s room.

He held very still, waiting until he heard another. A whimper, almost. Quiet and pathetic, wounded animal. He rose, slowly, on quiet feet, and walked as silently as he could while still limping, out of his room and into Xiao Xingchen’s.

He was lying there on the bed, under a thin blanket that was now tangled around his body. One of his arms was flung outwards, his head turned to the side, face crumpled in a frown. There were red stains on the white bandages over his missing eyes. His chest rose and fell unevenly and too quickly.

As he stood there, watching, Xiao Xingchen made another sound, one of pain, and Xue Yang almost felt it in his chest, in his gut. He took a step forward, and another, and another, until he was standing right next to the bed and looking down at Xiao Xingchen, lips parted, in the grip of a nightmare, so vulnerable, so beautiful in his suffering.

What was he dreaming about? Losing his eyes?

Maybe he’s dreaming about me, Xue Yang thought, and had to bite down on a laugh.

He could see the big vein in Xiao Xingchen’s throat throbbing with his rapid pulse. It’d be so easy. He could draw his knife and plunge it in in less than a second. He could slide it between his ribs and up into his heart. He could slice him open like a pig and pull his guts out through the gash. It’d be quick. Or it wouldn’t, and he’d make Xiao Xingchen scream before he died.

Xue Yang cocked his head to the side and thought about it. What it’d look like. How it’d feel.

He pressed his tongue to his teeth and thought about licking Xiao Xingchen’s blood off his fingers.

His body snapped taut at a sleepy, “Daozhang?” and he moved immediately, dropping down into a crouch next to the bed and reaching out to give Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder a gentle shake.

“Daozhang,” he said, pitching his voice low but gentle. “Xiao Xingchen, wake up.”

Xiao Xingchen was a cultivator. He woke up quickly too, with a sharp inhale. “What,” he said, and Xue Yang let go of him quickly in case he lashed out.

“What’s going on?” a-Qing asked behind him, voice clearer. “I heard noises.”

“Your Daozhang was having a bad dream,” Xue Yang said. “I was just waking him up.”

Xiao Xingchen’s lips pressed together. “I’m sorry for waking both of you,” he said, and his voice sounded - not shaky, exactly, but shaken, and subdued. “I’m all right. You can go back to sleep now.”

“Thanks for the permission,” Xue Yang said. “But I’m good.”

“A-Qing…”

“I’m good, too,” she said stubbornly, but Xue Yang heard her yawn.

“You’re young,” Xiao Xingchen said. He sounded exhausted. It was so - human. Which of course he was, flesh and blood just like the rest of them, but there was still something sort of weird about hearing it. “You need your rest.”

“But-”

“You heard him, Little Blind,” Xue Yang said. “Go to bed. Your coffin’s going to get cold.”

“But-”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, and after a moment she made a disgruntled, frustrated noise and shuffled out. There was a brief silence, and then Xiao Xingchen said, “you, too.”

“Nah,” Xue Yang said. “Like I said, I’m good.”

Xiao Xingchen reached up to his face and touched the bandage, then stiffened with a sharp breath in and turned his face away. “Oh,” he said. “I-”

Shame, Xue Yang thought, with a little thrill. He was ashamed. Of the blood, or what it meant? How it revealed what he so carefully covered up?

“Looks like you need a fresh bandage,” he said, carefully matter-of-fact. Xiao Xingchen turned his face further away.

“I’ll - take care of it.”

“Want help?”

“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, his voice sharp, and then quickly added, softer, “thank you. And...thank you for waking me.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

Which it was. He hadn’t done anything. Wasn’t doing anything. Wasn’t going to kill him. It’d be too easy, he decided, doing it when he was sleeping. He wouldn’t know. Xue Yang wanted him to know.

Xiao Xingchen took a long, deep breath. “I’m all right. Really.”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “I know. Want to go for a walk?”

If Xiao Xingchen had eyes, Xue Yang thought he’d be staring at him. “What?”

“A walk,” Xue Yang said. “You know. That thing you do outside sometimes.”

Xiao Xingchen didn’t laugh. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Not like it makes a difference to you, does it?” Xue Yang said. “I do it sometimes. Helps clear my head.” He stood up and stretched. “Up to you. But I think I’ll go regardless. And who knows what’ll happen if I’m out there on my own.”

“Your injuries-”

“Doesn’t have to be a long walk.”

Xiao Xingchen was quiet for a while. Then he said, “all right. I need to get dressed.”

“Great,” Xue Yang said with a grin. “See you outside.”

He put on his robe and went out, stretching his arms overhead and looking up at the sky, the stars. The moon.

Now why, he thought, had he done that? Xiao Xingchen’s nightmares were none of his concern.

It was sort of funny, though, wasn’t it? Comforting him. Helping him. It’d twist the knife harder when he eventually found out. Make it cut deeper. Maybe he’d cry, blood tears running down his cheeks, and Xue Yang would trace them with his finger, lick it clean. Xiao Xingchen, he’d say. Looks like you need a fresh bandage.

“You know your roof is leaking,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen sighed.

“I’m aware,” he said.

“Just making sure,” Xue Yang said.

“I keep meaning to fix it,” Xiao Xingchen said.

“Daozhang,” Xue Yang said with exaggerated patience, “meaning to fix it doesn’t mean fuck if you don’t just do it. That’s like saying-”

He cut off before he said that’s like saying you’re going to kill someone and not following through.

“Like saying what?”

“Like saying you’re going to go night hunting and then sitting at home on your ass,” Xue Yang said.

“Are you calling Daozhang lazy?” a-Qing said. “You’re the lazy one here. Useless.” Xue Yang’s face dropped into a scowl.

“You’ve really got a talent for interrupting conversations that don’t involve you,” he said. Xiao Xingchen frowned in his direction.

“Our guest is just pointing out that I should have done something about the roof leak before now,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And he is right.”

“Course I am,” Xue Yang said. “I’m right about a lot of things.”

A-Qing snorted. “Yeah,” she said. “Name one.”

You’re an ugly little brat who ought to get slapped. “Xiao-daozhang is the most beautiful cultivator in the world,” he said. Xiao Xingchen’s face went red. A-Qing scowled.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “So I’d just have to take your word for it.”

“It’s not true,” Xiao Xingchen protested. “Our guest is just teasing.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “One against one, Daozhang. Too bad we don’t have a tie breaker.”

Xiao Xingchen’s face was still flushed bright. Like he’d been slapped, all the blood right under the skin, and Xue Yang wondered if his skin would feel hot if he touched it. If he’d bleed faster if he cut into his cheek.

He’d started to think maybe he shouldn’t kill Xiao Xingchen after all. It might actually be better to leave him alive. Dead people couldn’t suffer like living ones.

He leaned back on his hands. His leg was feeling better these days. His other wounds were well on the way to healing. He could probably leave, if he wanted to. Slip out in the middle of the night.

Maybe he’d cut a-Qing’s throat to leave a message. That’d probably hurt Xiao Xingchen worse than anything Xue Yang could do to him.

It was an idea. He tucked it away for consideration.

“Anyway,” he said. “You should definitely do it before winter or Little Blind will freeze to death.”

“Why don’t you do it,” a-Qing said loudly.

“What’ll you pay me for it? I don’t do that kind of work for free.”

A-Qing scowled harder. “You’re eating our food and sleeping in our house,” she said. “Ugh. You’re the worst.”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, “our guest is still injured. You wouldn’t want him to aggravate his injuries further.”

“Says who,” a-Qing muttered under her breath. Xiao Xingchen seemed to pretend not to hear.

“I’ll get some supplies tomorrow,” he said. “It is starting to get colder. But don’t worry about helping, Stranger. I can manage.” He gave Xue Yang a horribly gentle smile. Why are you like this, Xue Yang thought angrily.

Yeah. He wouldn’t kill Xiao Xingchen at all. Just cut up his face so he couldn’t smile like that anymore. He wouldn’t even know how awful he looked until people started recoiling from him in horror, exclaiming with disgust.

Yeah. That was an idea. Kill a-Qing and ruin that pretty face.

He’d get around to it before winter, once he was fully healed, and find someplace nice and warm to set up in for the cold months. No reason to stay in this miserable dead city when there was a whole world to explore.

Xiao Xingchen did not have any idea how to patch a roof.

Xue Yang ended up mostly doing it for him.

There was an itch under Xue Yang’s skin, in his bones. He didn’t know why, exactly. He just got like this sometimes, tense and restless and jumpy and he didn’t like it. Usually he dealt with it in one of two ways: killing someone or fucking someone. Or both.

He hadn’t killed anyone yet today, but he was thinking about it. It’d probably be a-Qing. She was getting on his last nerve, and he kept thinking if he killed her quick and quiet and dumped her body in the river Xiao Xingchen would never need to know.

Though why it’d matter if Xiao Xingchen knew was another matter.

He didn’t think he’d really kill a-Qing either, though. Maybe one of the merchants in the market. The one who’d tried to sell them half-rotted turnips. He’d deserve it. Yeah. Him. He’d make a good target.

Itch, itch, itch. Fuck. He was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t-

“Stranger?”

Xue Yang whirled around, knife in hand, and just checked the movement before he put it through Xiao Xingchen’s neck. Or, he would’ve checked it, but Xiao Xingchen caught his arm first.

Xue Yang froze. His body coiled tight, ready for the retaliation. Briefly, he wanted to laugh. The first time he really got close to stabbing Xiao Xingchen since waking up here and it hadn’t even been on purpose.

Xiao Xingchen felt down Xue Yang’s arm to his hand, his fingers wrapped around the knife. Least it wasn’t his left. He paused for a moment, then let go and stepped back.

“I startled you,” he said.

Xue Yang blinked. “I was thinking about something else,” he said cautiously.

“Apparently so,” Xiao Xingchen said. He smiled, barely, and bowed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re - for what?”

“Startling you,” Xiao Xingchen said. Xue Yang stared at him.

“I almost stabbed you,” he blurted out, and then grimaced.

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “But you didn’t. I suppose this might be a different conversation if you had.” His voice was still even, calm. Xue Yang stared at him harder, hating the confusion that was starting to overtake the itch for violence.

“Probably wouldn’t be a conversation,” he said, before he meant to. Xiao Xingchen smiled a little.

“I suppose not,” Xiao Xingchen said. “A good thing I have quick reflexes.” He paused, the smile fading. “Stranger...I know that you have...a history. That there are shadows in it you don’t want to discuss. For all your good humor, you are tense, and watchful, and wary. A man - a cultivator - does not end up on the side of a road in your condition without having made dangerous enemies.”

Xue Yang opened his mouth, then closed it, getting tenser by the second. He still had his knife in hand, but Xiao Xingchen had shown he could catch him, and while Shuanghua wouldn’t be able to sense him the way it did ghosts and the like-

“Whatever you might have done,” Xiao Xingchen said, his voice quiet and serious, “it doesn’t matter now.”

Xue Yang’s voice was locked in his throat. Speechless. He wasn’t speechless very often. There was a laugh in there, too, thinking wildly really, is that really true, Xiao Xingchen, would you still say that if I told you my name-

“Pretty generous of you, Daozhang,” he said. “I might’ve done anything.”

“Perhaps,” Xiao Xingchen said. “But you have not done anything to me, or to a-Qing, or to the people here.”

Not yet, anyway, was his first thought, and then oh. Oh, that was rich, that was hilarious, that was-

He felt sort of weird, suddenly. Not sick, and nothing was hurting, just - weird. Off-balance. The itch was completely gone now, leaving something else in its wake that he couldn’t quite pin down.

“Xiao-daozhang,” he started to say, and then stopped. Xiao Xingchen gave him a small smile.

“Most people, I think, have shadows in their pasts,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I am not a magistrate. I would rather not act as one.”

Xue Yang thought of Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan’s eagerness to deliver him to justice, and wanted to laugh. But only for a moment.

He sucked on his teeth. Cocked his head to the side.

“Call me Chengmei,” he said. And waited. Waited to see any sign of recognition, of memory, of understanding.

Xiao Xingchen smiled, slightly. “Chengmei,” he said. “Thank you.”

Xue Yang huffed a laugh. “For what?”

“For telling me your name.”

Huh. Xue Yang wanted to laugh, would’ve laughed, did laugh, a little. “That’s not telling you much, Xiao-daozhang. It’s just a name. It might not even be my real one.”

“I know,” Xiao Xingchen said. He didn’t reach out, just smiled that warm smile that Xue Yang hated, that set off that strange and twisting feeling like a worm winding through his insides. Nobody had made that face at him before. Not like that. “But at least now I don’t have to call you ‘Stranger.’”

“You still could, if you wanted,” Xue Yang said, which made Xiao Xingchen laugh. Everything made him laugh. He had a stupid sense of humor, Xue Yang was starting to realize.

Such an idiot.

Xiao Xingchen gave him one last smile and went back inside. Xue Yang looked after him, eyes narrowed.

He should’ve gone by now, probably. He was getting comfortable, and comfortable was dangerous.

But he had a good thing going, here. And he could end it whenever he wanted. The second he got sick of this game, he could finish it, and Xiao Xingchen, too.

There was no reason to hurry, though. No rush.

And he had some ideas for how to keep things fun.

He had time.

#anonymous #xue yang #xiao xingchen #xuexiao #(you know it's going there)#the untamed #the sad queer cultivators show #a wild fic appeared

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drwcn · 4 years

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I can’t wait for more of your discordance au, I’m a sucker for angsty wangxian! I’m actually really curious about what’s going on with Lan Xichen the whole time he’s gone. Is he recovering for all that time or is there some political plot he needs to take care of? I saw that courtesan Meng Yao tag too which makes me even more intrigued 👀👀👀

Awww you guys >:) Thank you so much for the encouragement.

Unfortunately, Xichen and Huaisang are not a pair. The hidden agenda of this fic is xiyao (lol sorrah), and I know people tend to feel either YAY or NAY about xiyao so I’ve totally separated the wangixan and xiyao part. You can read one without the other and it wouldn’t make much of a difference at all. At best Meng Yao is mentioned in end of the later wangxian parts once or twice.

I love Xiyao because I think it’s full of possibilities. Obviously canon!xiyao is tragic and problematic af, but this is an au, so... I do ...what I...want? Meng Yao in this au is his own worst nightmare - a courtesan, and Zewu-jun is the handsome polite gentlemanly amnesiac he saves.

Below cut are more reasons why Lan Qiren longs for the sweet release of an early qi deviation (arc synopsis of lan xichen & meng yao’s half of the story).

Lan Xichen’s Arc: where politics turned deadly.

Well, just because Wen Ruohan isn’t a thing doesn’t meant the Yin Irons aren’t a thing. Is there political bullshit waiting to happen? Absolutely. Except our protagonists are proactive this time.

For months, both Qinghe and Gusu have been getting reports of strange sightings along their Lanling borders. NMJ and LXC have been investigating, and they suspect that JGS may have had something to do with it. Prior to Lan Xichen’s disappearance, he was getting close to finding out the truth.

What happened was this:

Xue Yang (who will exist solely in other people’s narration) had killed the Changs and taken a piece of the Yin Iron. Upon capture, XXC and SL (both alive and well and doing their own thing) delivered him to the Chief Cultivator, thinking justice has been served. (Lol. no.). Once JGS got his hands on one of those, he began to plan world domination bad things with it and shit started acting fucky right away, eliciting the suspicion and subsequent investigations of the Lans and Nies.

Jin Guangshan does wonder how his secrets are being leaked, but he doesn’t get to find out until the end.

Lan Xichen, on his part, is fairly sure of what’s been causing the appearances of these so called “fierce corpses”. He knows about Lan Yi’s barrier in the Cold Cave, and suspects someone has gotten their hands on a piece of the Yin Iron. Both he and Nie Mingjue suspect Jin Guangshan, and have been quietly collecting proof.

Jin Guangshan, not about to be defeated so easily, sets up a trap and ambushes Lan Xichen during one of his investigations. LXC was in “plain clothes” as part of the investigation, because it’s dumb to go around investigating dressed as the Sect Leader of Gusu Lan, but during the ambush, Lan Xichen loses Liebing and Shuoyue in the process. The only thing he has on him is Shuoyue’s sheath when he is found by Meng Yao.

When Lan Xichen wakes up, he doesn’t remember anything or who he is. He sees a pretty young man who introduces himself as Lianfang. Lan Xichen was wearing blue when he was found, so “Liangfang” calls hims A-Lan.

Meng Yao’s tragic back story that’s actually tragic:

The bullshit - er, the story - as always, starts with Meng Yao getting kicked down the steps at Jinlintai by his Ho™ of a dad Jin Guangshan. In this universe, Jin Guangshan isn’t just a rich powerful Sect Leader, but also the Chief Cultivator. If anything, he has more reason than ever to make sure Meng Yao isn’t around to besmirch his good name (not that he has any good name to bismirch).

Claiming Meng Yao to be a liar, Jin Guangshan ordered his goons to have Meng Yao “taken care of”, but before that could happen, Madam Jin had come out to see what was the commotion. This was Zixuan’s birthday celebration after all, everything had to be perfect.

What she saw certainly enraged her, but her husband was about to kill a boy, possibly his own son, spill blood on their son’s day of birth celebration. Such cosmic bad karma she couldn’t possibly accept. ��You don’t have to kill him, you absolute buffoon, just make sure he never comes back here!”

She meant buy his silence with money but Jin Guangshan had a more permanent solution.

Before the day’s out, Meng Yao was sold to a brothel, and was told “that’s where you belong”. Once, perhaps, he had dreamed about gaining the love of his father, but no longer. Now he simply wants his father ruined and dismembered.

But first he has to live.

The madam of the brothel had a keen eye for “good merchandise”, and one good look at young Meng Yao with those big eyes, delicate frame and dimples and she knew she could make big bucks off of him.

(And before anyone asks how old MY is here, the answer is: young. One of the many reasons why I would personally like to volunteer to stab JGS until it looks like he’s been cursed with the Thousand Holes Curse.)

The first couple of years were decidedly grim for MY. He was kept away from customers (mercifully), but he was a brutally trained in the art of dance and music. They kept him fed enough to dance but not too much to “ruin his figure”. His instructors quickly found that the youth was a quick study and got up no matter how many times he was trampled on (literally and metaphorically). It was no secret that life was gruesome, but Meng Yao survived. Meng Yao made his debut. Meng Yao became famous.

The establishment where he made his debut renamed him Lianfang - to collect/gather fragrance - and so from then on, he became Lianfang-gongzi. Soon, his art (and other stuff) caught the eye of an obliging patron who purchased him from the madam.

The patron, by all accounts, was a brute of man who had more appreciation for the liquor in his cup than the arts, but he was a cultivator, wealthy enough, connected to many other cultivator gentry familiues, and most importantly, led a subsidiary clan of the Chief Cultivator. As his prized courtesan and dancer, Meng Yao served at his whim, entertained at his parties and made happy his friends, all of whom were practicing cultivators or at the very least connected to the cultivation realm.

Our evil gremlin would not be our evil gremlin if he didn’t make the best of every situation. Meng Yao quickly discovered that not only was he particularly talented at getting people to divulge information to him, but that men were significantly uninhibited after sex and alcohol. Armed with a sweet face, an eidetic memory, and a hate inside him that longed to see Jin Guangshan severed limp by limp, he began his revenge plot.

(Here, I took inspiration from Nirvana in Fire’s character Princess Xuanji of the fallen Hua kingdom who was sold into servitude but established Hong’xiu’zhao, a spy network of girls/women who either worked as courtesans or secondary spouses of noblemen. Her goal was to create chaos and dissension within the royal court and government, like mites eating away at a large tree from within.)

Meng Yao amassed an enormous amount of intels on gentry families and evidences of the many underhanded conducts of the Chief Cultivator himself. He did this through his own work and through the other women working in his network, all of whom have been wrongfully aggrieved in some way. He promised them that one day he would help them to freedom.

For five years he’s been collecting secrets of gentry families, and had been stirring discord for three, weakening their cohesiveness, and using their growing animosity to weaken Jin Guangshan’s control on his subordinates. Naturally, Meng Yao heard about Xue Yang and the Yin Iron. It was also him who had been drawing attention to it for the other major sects.

Meng Yao doesn’t know Lan Xichen is the Sect Master of Gusu Lan, but he has no interest in hurting a man from nowhere. “You can stay here with me until you are better. After that, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to be on your way.”

Physically Lan Xichen recovered quickly, but when it was clear his memories wouldn’t be coming back, Meng Yao allowed him to stay.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Meng Yao has been Lianfang, been the famed courtesan, for longer than he cares to remember. He’s been had, used, and passed around by so many men that their faces are just blurried sillouettes in his memory. And yet, he’s never felt for a moment that he belonged to any of them, not even his patron, who possessed his contract and could resell him back to a lesser establishment and ruin him in a heartbeat.

But when A-Lan held him in his eyes, warm and dark like a summer’s night, without judgement or expectations, only gentle sweetness and a fond regard, Meng Yao could almost pretend he was just A-Yao, the name whispered reverently by those soft lips. The hand that held his moved to stroke his cheek, almost shy, and Meng Yao realized with a fearful pang that if this man from nowhere with nothing were to ask, Meng Yao could most definitely become his.

The thought scared him more than he was willing to admit.

The message delivered by the pigeon was clear. Meng Yao crumbled the slip of paper in his hand, then set it aflame in the candlelight.

The man who’s been living with him for the past four months, who he knew as A-Lan, who he trusted enough to take to bed, was the Sect Master of Gusu Lan: Lan Huan, Lan Xichen.

Zewu-jun.

Everyone, even a non-cultivator such as himself, has heard of Gusu’s Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen’s young widower, left alone after not even six months of marriage.

But if even he wasn’t married, Lan Xichen could never accept him as he was, no matter now much his personal desire wanted him.

His hands shook. He balled them into fists.

Meng Yao should’ve known... he should’ve known it was too good to be true.

No matter, he told himself. This too, is an opportunity, perhaps the only one I will ever have. I will use it to destroy Jin Guangshan once and for all.

Lan Xichen made his way to the window, and gazed out into the courtyard where A-Yao was reading under the willow tree.

You should go home, a voice inside him said. Go home to relief Wangji of his burden, to release Wuxian from his mourning. Go back to the seat of Sect Master and the responsibilities waiting for you.

One more day, another voice fought back. Just one more day.

He doesn’t leave for another month.

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missholland · 4 years

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Lan Wangji (mostly, his love)

LAN ZHAN! I read somewhere that this was said 102 times by Wei Wuxian in The Untamed. It feels like an understatement, cause I’ve watched the show so many times now I could hear ‘Lan Zhan’ being called in my sleep...

My first time watching the drama, I was full on Team Xianxian. I mean, who would not be? He’s the central character of the story, he’s the first thing you see within the first few seconds of episode 1, and who could resist his sunflower aura? I was not into Lan Wangji at all. I remember this clearly because I just found an old Instagram story in my Archive on the day I first watched this show: a screenshot of Wangji’s face in episode 3 and my caption was: ‘OMG how could Wei sunshine fall in love with this dry and boring man?’. And just like how Wangji eventually swallowed all of the statements he had made about the young Wei Wuxian (’I don’t touch other people’, ‘We’re not close’, etc.), I am not the same person on that fateful day tuning in the first episode on Netflix. I am now Team Hanguang-Jun through and through!

What I’ve been enjoying so much these days is watching random earlier/later episodes just to compare how Wangji’s attitude changed toward Wei Wuxian over 16 years-ish. It’s probably so obvious for everyone that he definitely falls in love first, even when the drama purposely made their early relationship a lot more intense comparing to the novel i.e. showing Wei Wuxian somewhat feeling the same way about Wangji in his first life, with the constant flirting and mutual pining (don’t even get me started...). Now that I kinda understand what the character is like, it makes a lot of sense the way he processed his feelings for Wuxian in his youth. I wonder how different he would have reacted without the push from the best brother/wingman in the cultivation world - Lan Xichen. Sure, Jiang Cheng had a lot to say about this too, but mostly out of a slight envy (I reckon) over Wuxian’s new subject of desire. But Lan Xichen sees through his brother, and has been pretty much WangXian fanclub admin since day 1. I don’t have a brother, but man, I wish Lan Xichen could be mine.

In my humble opinion, the fact that we were given 3 versions of Wei Wuxian throughout the series kinda gifts us 3 versions of Lan Wangji too in a way - the straight face, the confused heart, and the national boyfriend/husband. Considering the number of times I rewatched the latter half of the series i.e. episode 33 onward, I just want to write down all of my thoughts about the national boyfriend/husband Lan Wangji, and not just because that version seems to have the most lines comparing to the other two.

There are several details that were not explained much in the series (although shown on screen) so I have to read from the novel later on. But oh my god, the stuff I found... I never realized that the scene before Lan Wangji went to Mo’s manor where his guqin was playing behind him standing on the balcony referred to how he used Inquiry to find Wuxian. What Jiang Cheng said to him about having gone to a lot of places for 16 years and searching for someone completely went over my head in the first watch, and imagine how I scratched my brain revisiting that part. That plus ‘oh I’ve never seen you at a cultivation conference before’ in episode 41 - my goodness, because he was spending ALL of his time LOOKING FOR Wei Wuxian.

Another thing I hope would have been addressed in the series was the hot iron mark on his chest. I thought the story of him drinking wine and giving himself a mark identical to Wuxian’s was the prime work of a broken heart. He must have thought about their conversation in Xuanwu cave, about the mark staying on his skin forever and how Wuxian was convinced Mianmian would never forget him. Was that how Wangji was making a point of never forgetting Wei Wuxian? If that scene made into the drama, I would have thought Wangji’s character song Buwang to be play in the background. The lyrics fit the situation so much.

Personally, everything from episode 33 onward was perfection for me, finally getting to see Wangji embrace his feelings and ACT ON THEM toward the romance-blind idiot Wei Wuxian (yes, he totally is). All the caring touches and details played out so astonishingly. One of my favourite (which doesn’t seem to be a popular one since I have not seen many gifs of it on Tumblr) was when, after interrogating Huaisang, Wangji comfortably moved over the other side of the table and picked up Wuxian’s left leg to CLEAN THE EVIL SPELL - think of the level of intimacy this act is! Although that came after the romantic piggyback under the moonlight, I thought that speaks volume for someone who doesn’t even physically interact with his family members, and serves as a great follow-up right after he, again comfortably, pulled up Wuxian’s trousers to check his leg.

What I thought was always presented so beautifully is every time Wangji serves Wuxian liquor. The way he carefully picks up his sleeve, prepares the cup (I know they’re probably not called ‘cups’ but I can’t find another word), pours the liquor and slides it over to his partner is so well demonstrated and shows how much he wants to properly take care of Wuxian. Would you put so much effort in such a tiny mundane act if you’re not doing it for the most important person in your life?

In a way, I feel like everything he does is making up for what he could not do the past 16 years, including remembering so many tiny details and keeping all sort of Wuxian-related things. My favourite Wangji keepsake moment, despite being a very short one, is the butterfly talisman at Yunping City which he gave to Wuxian to rescue Wen Ning. I don’t know why that moment makes me really really happy, probably because that was one of the earliest items Wangji could have kept hold of from Wuxian’s. That tells us how way long before he was developing feelings toward this little rebel. Not to mention, we did see Wangji even use this very talisman in episode 11 when he encountered Wen Chao on his way back to Cloud Recesses.

Yes, the ‘I knew he was Wei Ying all along’ while having all the swords pointed at you is highly pivotal as it’s basically the censored version of ‘I love you’. BUT, the moment all leading cultivators of all major and minor clans ran to Burial Mounds just to witness Lan Wangji standing proudly without flinch on the other side with Wei Wuxian makes me appreciate that whole arc a lot more than the big revelation in the last 3 episodes. Wangji ignoring his own Grand Master, Wuxian once again standing against every single person in the cultivation world but with so much confidence this time around - to me, is beyond satisfying. I love this arc so much so I wrote a separate piece about episode 44-45 - if you’re interested in more of my random thoughts, feel free to have a read here.

Thinking about all this, I’m absolutely in awe of how protective national boyfriend Wangji is to Wei Wuxian even before knowing he lost his golden core. They either have insanely accurate GPS, or just really good telepathy. Wangji’s constant attention to his partner (without having to verbally find out where he is) blows my mind every time. Remember how proud Wei Wuxian was having Lan Wangji come out just in time to fight Xue Yang at Coffin Town? That’s how much Wangji’s love and trust empowers Wuxian and makes him so so so secured, even when everyone was walking around in the fog hiding from the most notorious killer and his puppets.

The one detail that pushed me over the edge completely (thanks a lot Lan Xichen) was the story of Wangji’s mom. Oh my god, baby Wangji sitting in the snow really messes with my head. I cannot believe it took 40 something episodes for us to learn about Wangji’s emotionally damaged upbringing and what shapes him into a stubborn lovebird as we know today. It adds A LOT more context and sadness to his famous phrase ‘bring a man back to Cloud Recesses and hide him’, as well as Lan Qiren’s statement ‘have you not learned from your father’s lesson’. I revisit the ‘bring back and hide him’ scene with a completely new perspective and can sense Wangji’s pain and confusion that Xichen described. The desperation in that statement of Wangji was a lot heavier in my eyes now that I understand the back story. If I were Wei Wuxian listening to all of that from Lan Xichen, I would probably have a meltdown right there at the doorsteps of the Silence Room.

Now we all know the source of inspiration of the infamous ‘I want to bring a man to Cloud Recesses. Bring him back and hide him’ in episode 25:

So after all of Xichen’s effort in telling Wuxian how Wangji actually feels about him through the tear-jerker story about their parents, Wei Wuxian STILL asked Lan Wangji WHY he was willing to seal Bichen and his own spiritual power so that Jin Guangyao would not hurt him. This dense man, of course, brought up the guilt card i.e. ‘Oh you don’t owe me anything’. I mean COME ON NOW YILING PATRIARCH! CAN YOU ACTUALLY BE THAT OBLIVIOUS WHEN IT COMES TO THE MAN THAT TOOK 300 LASHES ON HIS BACK FOR PROTECTING YOUR LEGACY?

I know it went the other way in the novel, where the big confession happened. Maybe a bite from Fairy could do you some good, or just talk to Lan Xichen some more and then you can start appreciating your soulmate the way he deserves.

The silver lining after being deprived of an epic love confession is everything that happened in episode 50. It might have not been spelling-it-out clear as in ‘I love you’ ‘I love you too’ because of the government censorship, but it’s easily the most obvious yet emotional type of ending the production team has worked to hard to deliver. If you are still having trouble processing the allegedly ‘ambiguous’ finale, I can help with that - here. Just a heads up: it’s a happy ending.

Good to know Wei Wuxian has the rest of his life making up to Lan Wangji. Everyday means everyday, because Wangji deserves THAT much!

#wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #lan wangji #hanguang jun #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #gusu lan #character analysis #thoughts #yiling patriarch #yiling laozu #xiao zhan #wang yibo #lan xichen

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inessencedevided · 4 years

Text

The Untamed, episode 45 - watching notes

I'm at this stage of fandom rn where it's really hard to concentrate on anything else 😅

Every song I listen to gets dissected for how it relates to wangxian

I need to concentrate on my thesis but instead I'm pondering how the untamed raises questions about collectivism vs individualism and how my western perception of that might differ greatly from a native chinese person or even the author's intention

Can't I just write my thesis about THAT?

Alas, I digress ...

Back to our regular programming :D

Last time one Sophie watches the untamed wwx went all Sherlock on us and used his formidable skills of deduction to expose Backpfeifengesicht's plan of killing everyone and blaming it on wwx

I've heard from several people that the next few episodes are their favourites, so no high expectations at all :D

Nobody wipes the blood on their chins away. Might be about the aesthetic

I adore detective-duo-wangxian so much!! Especially because wwx does 99% of the talking but then lwj will chime in with a single word and it's 100% devastating :D

If anyone knows any well written case-fics for these two, please, I need recs! (For after the show)

Backpfeifengesicht makes good one point and that is that jgy already is at the top of the cultivation world. So what does he gain from all this?

Or is it simply that he's afraid of wwx because he's a rebel and might act against him? (Don't answer that. I wanna find out through the show ;))

Wwx just casually revealed that he's been to cloud recess and that he handles went to the restricted section forbidden chamber. What will you do about, Lan Qiren? Huh? 😂

Oooh! Backpfeifengesicht is the ghosted faced man! I thought it was Jiggy himself!!! 😱

That makes way more sense though!

Lan Sizhui! Jin Ling! Oh you brave boys! 😭

Someone hold me 😭

But why does he not take zidian now? He's done so before!

"You little fool!" Is "I love you" in Jiang-Cheng-speak :D

"We're done for! What can we do??" - wwx *strips*

Sorry

Bahahaha 😂😂😂

I just burst out laughing waaay to loudly for the fact that I've got people sleeping in the room next to mine

But look at Lan Qiren when he sees wwx strop to reveal anat is probably his nephew's undershirt 😂😂😂

He's probably questioning every decision that's let him to this point :D

This is completely inconsequential,but I couldn't keep quiet about it anymore because I every time he makes this motion, it always sends a shiver down my spine!!! Notice that wwx (or rather Xiao Zhan) is one of these people whose fingers bend in the opposite direction??? I know it's just a normal thing some people can do, but I can't watch it!! It makes my fingers hurt just looking at it 🙈🙈🙈

Is he turning himself into a demon lure flag?? 😱

Lan Jingyi 🥺🥺🥺

Also does wwx now just transfer his self-sacrificing tendencies to lwj?

Nothing is as hot as these two together in a fight scene

Jiang Cheng doesn't want to leave them behind. He does care! :') he just never unlearned how to unravel his love from his anger

Sizhui running up to greet his dads :')

Look at them! I'm soft guys 💔

He called him Yuan!! 😭😭😭

So this is it. Any doubts I ever had about Sizhui's identity are gone

Will he finally recognize him??

Why don't you say anything lwj? This one time, I beg you!!

Sect Leader Yao still at his gossip shit even 16 years later 🙄

Lam sizhyi is seasick! Why is this so cute! 😭

Oh Wen Ning!! He recognized A-Yuan? Right?

I want to hug Lan Sizhui for his openness and kindness towards everyone he meets, no matter their status or what other people say about them! (Wen Ning now or who he thought was Mo Xuanyu the supposed mad-man) and I wanna hug lan Wangji right after for raising him to be like this :')

Oh Wen Ning! 😭

That's how I'd look at Sizhui, too, if I met him - poor unadulterated wonder :')

And just think about what that means for Wen Ning! He's not the last of the Wens! All their fight wasn't for nothing. This child, their legacy, survived 😭😭😭

"Can I call you A-Yuan" "Of Course." God I'm gonna burst into tears 😭

I'm actually bursting into tears!!

Isn't this the dream of anyone who has ever lost someone? :')

"He's like a brother and father to me" :')

And he raised him from when he was 4 or 5? So ... A-Yuan was about 2 when the Wens died? Right? Then 5 would fit with lwj's 3 year isolation

Ob god, it's the butterfly-toy!!! 😭😭😭

Wen Nings smiling through his tears! I can't! 😭💔And he's got the one from the market!

Aww, wax isn't wearing the white undergarment anymore. Too bad

Oh poor Jin Ling ...

So much grieve that he could probably never process. There so many lost kids in this story, hurt by things they had no control over 😔

I mean, I get it. That's the person who killed his parents (without being in control, but he doesnt know that) and everyone is just talking to him as if it's normal and that didn't happen. But he can't forget,but he doesnt really understand either and he has no outlet. Of course he'd just ... crash 😥

And who would have thought I'd ever try at a flashback of Jin Zixuan's death :(

For once, it'd be nice if the adults actually acted like the parent figures they're supposed to be and explain things to their children 🤦‍♀️

I'm so thankful though, that no one even thinks of scolding him for crying. Jismg Cheng only asked who it was that made him cry (and looks like he'll kick their ass). Generally, thus show has a very healthy attitude towards tears. Most characters cry when they are faced with tragedy, regardless of gender. Men being allowed to have appropriate reactions to grieve (instead of a single men tear or just punching things) is really nice to see

Oh Yao dude whose courtesy name I can't remember, shut up!

Thanks Ouyang Zizhen! You get me

I live for these children standing up to their elders

Meanwhile Nie Huaisang is just on the sidelines, enjoying the show :D never change!

The Lotus Pier theme song alone is making me cry rn 😢

Why can't wen Ning come in?

Oh Sizhui!

He many times do you want to make me cry happy tears today?? :')

Little turnip-baby ❤

But why doesn't lwj say anything ??? 😭

Lan Wangji raised A-Yuan smong a bunch of rabbits??? 😭

Now he's a turnip baby with a taste for carrots, how cute is that? :')

Holy shit, wwx and lwj are really joined at the hip these days of lwj won't enter the hall if wwx isn't allowed to :D

Lwj 😑 "no misbehaviour"

Someone. Knows. Their. Husband.

Okay sorry, but as painful as these cuts must have been and yes, while you do see scars on this prostitute's face, they in no way warrant these horrified gasps as of they had all seen a monster 🙄

Xue yang. Fancy seeing you here in this not at all disturbing sub-plot 😬

Okay that's creepy. That's really creepy

Shouldn't Jin Guangyao have a bit more compassion for these women?

On the other hand, he was born to menacingly stand behind a curtain 🤷‍♀️

W. T. F. ????

Jin Guangshan??? o___O

That's the most skin we've ever seen on this show and it's in a scene like THIS? 😬

THIS IS HOW JIN GUANGSHAN DIED? 😱😱😱

How?

How can you die from sex?

And then jgy made them keep going?

UGH

These poor women :/

So there's someone who set her free on purpose, right?

Bicao has really interesting eyes!

Oh wait, took me some time to catch up. This is about Quin Su and why she killed herself, right?

WHAT??

They were siblings o_O

They just went full game of thrones on this ...

Hey Jin Guangshan, screw you for raping that woman

Wait, is that why jgy had him die like THAT?

I'm so confused about how that happened btw

But why would Jin Guangyao merry quin su anyway? Was this some kind of political marriage that he couldn't call off?

This episode answered some of my questions but raised about a dozen more 😅

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird @i-love-him-on-purpose

5 episodes to go. I'm both happy because I can't wait to brows the untamed tag without looking for spoilers and extremely sad 🥺

Right now I'm planning to watch one episode each day until friday and then watch the last two on Saturday, hopefully quite early, so I can spend the rest of the day crying my eyes out over it, without having to worry about such trivial things as being a functioning adult or a responsible student 😅

#the untamed #sophie watches the untamed #wei wuxian #wwx #lan wangji #lwj #wangxian #jiang cheng #jin ling #lan sizhui #wen ning #a-yuan #(I'm so happy i can put this tag here again 😊)#jin guangshan #jin guangyao #ouyang zizhen #the untamed liveblog

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songofclarity · 4 years

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I pity Xue Yang don't get me wrong I think he absolutely earned his ending, but he was a teenager (at least in the novel). A child that had not finished growing mentally when he committed his first crime and it's possible with the right kind of support he could have seen the error of what he did and came back from it but that's wishful thinking. He met the Jin clan who turned him into their personal killing machine, a text book psychopath. What a short pitiful life.

Hello, Anon! Since I wasn’t sure what inspired this ask, I've been mulling over it for awhile, because Xue Yang! Gotta admit, I enjoy him immensely as an antagonist even though I have a tangle of feelings and thoughts about him. So I’m going to try to iron some of them out since you brought him up!

Short version is I agree with you! Which makes me want to tread through why it is true. (And it’s a long tread so fair warning for under the cut!)

Because it was indeed a short, pitiful life. But then, he was perhaps the most pitiful character in the series. I'm hesitant to write any characters off as psychopaths, however, since this is fiction and that undermines his experiences and choices and the story he is meant to help tell.

Xue Yang was an an orphan growing up on the street. No parents, no money, no goals in life, no purpose in life. Already a very depressing start made worse by how incredibly self-aware Xue Yang is of his situation when he tells his story. Considering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Xue Yang isn’t looking any higher than the floor.

And then he was seven years old when he was used and abused by adults in positions of power. No one came to save him like Jiang FengMian did Wei WuXian. He has no one like Meng Shi who wanted nice things for him or a woman like SiSi who looked out for him like they did for Jin GuangYao. Xue Yang had only himself, so it makes sense that he grew up to only care about and understand himself--and by the time he makes a “home” with Xiao XingChen and A-Qing, he’s too far gone to mend his ways without serious intervention.

An intervention, absolution, or redemption might all indeed be wishful thinking, if only because that is a work of labor and love. Either someone needs to find value in Xue Yang as a person worth redeeming or Xue Yang needs to find a sense of security and self-confidence in himself that precludes the need to do murder from some point onward. Xue Yang has been ruined and ruined himself to such a degree that surely any attempt to “save” him would come across as an insult, would make him feel inferior, and might just make him more aggressive.

Sadly, even though he did very horrible things, monstrous things, the tragedy is that he was encouraged and empowered and effectively trained to do them. Before he was picked up by the Lanling Jin Sect, he was just an angry delinquent. He bullied street vendors, destroyed property, made a name for himself with general violence, but there is no hint or insinuation that he killed people yet. That happened later. That happened after he met Jin GuangYao. And we know Xue Yang wasn’t thought irredeemable when he first joined the Jin because of Nie MingJue:

Nie MingJue frowned, “Xue Yang of Kuizhou?”

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side. Nie MingJue shook his head and turned around.

(Ch. 49, Exiled Rebel Scanlations)

Nie MingJue lets it drop. Nie MingJue is ready to see Xue Yang executed on the spot when his mass murder crimes come out, but not now. Xue Yang is a concern, but so was Jin GuangYao. Nie MingJue is trying to big-brother Jin GuangYao into following the right path, so if the Jin recruited Xue Yang, maybe he, too, is on a better path now. Nie MingJue will realize this isn’t true later, and he’ll pay with his life for being the only one who tries to protect the common folk, which includes all the other innocent Xue Yangs out there who are poor and at risk to harm, but I digress.

Xue Yang still got what was coming to him, but it really was just the pitiful end to a pitiful life. He was treated like a dog, grew up to be feral, was not properly retrained, and then had to be put down. Did he have choices in the matter? Technically yes, but then he’s a still child when the Jin begin to use him.

Jin GuangYao, "Will you be free the next few days?"

Xue Yang, "Won’t I have to do it no matter what?" (Ch. 118)

Xue Yang isn’t unaware of his position on the hierarchy.

He was used by Chang Cian, because there are no consequences for abusing and maiming orphans. There’s some textbook psychology for little Xue Yang from Piaget and Erikson that I won’t get into, but the fact is an expectation as simple as ‘I do a task and get rewarded for the task’ resulted in him being beaten and maimed does a lot of distortion to both expectations in life and self-confidence.

He was used by Jin GuangShan, because he grew into a defensive and spiteful teenager whom people always looked down upon. He’s gone feral, but give a dog a warm bed, clean clothes, protection, and a new toy called the Stygian Tiger Seal to play with, and he won't bite the hand that feeds him.

He can be trained to bite everyone else, too, and definitely he wants to. He’s so quick to feel slighted, to wanting to avenge himself, that even Jin GuangYao, the master of self-pity, takes notice, such as when Xue Yang first meets Xiao XingChen and Song Lan:

Jin GuangYao mused, "They didn’t really do much to you, so why the anger?"

Xue Yang spat, "I find these fake, conceited people the absolute most disgusting. That Xiao XingChen was clearly not even that much older than me, poking his nose into other people’s business—annoying. And he started giving me a lecture. And that Song guy.” He sneered, “I only brushed past his arm, so what was with that look he gave me? Sooner or later, I’ll dig out his eyes and shatter his heart. Let’s see what he’ll do when that happens." (Ch. 118)

This might have grown from the seven year old who was minding his own business, promised candy for a task, and then grievously injured. This is aggressive self-defense. This is ‘I will hurt them before they hurt me.’ He’s looking for threats. Because did he know Chang Cian or the man who received the letter were going to hurt him? No. And he’s making sure no one hurts him ever again.

And yet.

He was used by Jin GuangYao, who understood Xue Yang the best as they walked side-by-side, as Jin GuangYao showed him kindness, gave him advice, offered him everything. Then once Jin GuangYao got what he wanted out of him, once what Jin GuangYao had helped make Xue Yang into was more a liability than a boom, Jin GuangYao told the cultivation world he was getting rid of him.

We aren't told what happened next, but I do have to wonder about the timeline. Xue Yang helped Jin GuangYao murder Jin GuangShan, Jin GuangYao announced to the cultivation world he was going to get rid of Xue Yang, then the next we hear about Xue Yang is that he is found, half-dead, on the side of the road by Xiao XingChen. Was Xue Yang one of Jin GuangYao's victims who got away? I wouldn’t be surprised since it fits Jin GuangYao’s methods, but that Xue Yang doesn’t storm the gates in revenge leaves room for doubt. But then a dog that has been severely beaten would know to stay away until he’s recovered, and we know Xue Yang, after he is found by Xiao XingChen, becomes distracted by this new domestic situation instead.

I also want to point out Xue Yang’s courtesy name: Xue Chengmei. I admit i don’t know the full background of when or how these Chinese names are given, but my current assumption is it was given to him by the Jin. The translations I’ve seen include "to help fulfil the wishes of others" (Exiled Rebels Scanlations) and also "help others do good deeds" (from the modao-zushi fandom wiki).

As Jin GuangYao was the one to bring him in, it’s possible that he was the one to explicitly name him. And this, to me, presents Xue Yang in the most pitiful light: Xue Yang was Jin GuangYao’s second pearl to his father. Jin GuangShan wanted a demonic cultivator and Jin GuangYao found what was needed to please him, to try to win him over. Xue Yang was not brought and kept at Koi Tower for self-improvement or self-growth. He was brought in as a useful tool. He was brought in so Jin GuangYao’s wishes could be fulfilled.

So Xue Yang's life is something that is meant to be used by others. It's no wonder he goes absolutely feral and delights in the macabre and abuse of others -- because physical power, the power to hurt, is tthe only power he understands. By the time he leaves Koi Tower he's a rabid dog with no place to belong, beaten once again by a trusted master, and harboring feelings of resentment and hatred in his inferiority. So when Xiao XingChen arrives and helps him, it’s another nice warm bed, new clothes, and new toys to play with in the form of Xiao XingChen and A-Qing's blindness.

But what of interventions? Of teaching him to do better? Remember that Nie MingJue tries to guide Jin GuangYao with good advice at their first meeting, and Xiao XingChen also tries to guide Xue Yang, by advising Jin GuangYao, at their first meeting:

Right after, [Xiao XingChen] turned his gaze towards Xue Yang, "However, even if he’s still at a young age, as he has taken a seat amongst Koi Tower’s guest cultivators, it’s still best if he learns restraint. After all, the LanlingJin Sect is one of the most prestigious sects. It needs to lead by example in many aspects." (Ch. 118)

The Lanling Jin Sect needs to lead by example -- but they don’t. Jin GuangYao has the power to be a good person, but he won’t. And Xue Yang pays for it. Everyone at Yi City suffers for it. Xue Yang doesn’t learn restraint and Jin GuangYao mirrors back what Xue Yang wants to see: someone like him. Jin GuangYao humored his macabre practical jokes. They sentenced innocent people to die together, showed their true faces to each other, and committed a most horrific fratricide together. Xue Yang was having fun, he was feeling powerful, and he didn’t feel like he had to stop when he met Xiao XingChen, whom he hated at first horsewhip-lash. Xiao XingChen can’t look down on him if Xiao XingChen is brought down to his level. It’s only a human tongue in that tea. It’s only Shuanghua in some dude’s chest. It’s hilarious, Xiao XingChen, you should see your face!

It’s nothing more than a child playing with a toy. Of course Xue Yang would end up destroying the one good thing he accidentally stumbled upon. Jin GuangYao had showed him kindness too, and looked how that turned. No one had ever done something out of charity and kindness for him, so how was he supposed to recognize it for what it was? The answer is he couldn’t, it was impossible, and then he spent the next ~7 years trying to get Xiao XingChen back and still it was for all the wrong reasons. Does he hate? Does he want? Is it love? Is it spite?

But Xiao XingChen had bandaged his wounds when no one else had. Xiao XingChen had given him the candy no one else had.

The last piece of candy Xue Yang held onto for all those years without eating...

A short, pitiful life indeed.

#asked from above #anon #xue yang #mdzs thoughts #i like xue yang the normal amount aha ha #i say as i write a dissertation about him #and admire pictures of him in the tags #and check out his actor's next cdrama #he's so awful but he's so pitiful #i love how shamelessly vicious and feral he is though #are 99% of problems rooted in the existence of the jin? maybe lol #this might be too xy apologetic but it's a starting point

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mdzsgildedfate · 3 years

Text

Gilded Fate - Chapter 3

Reincarnation AU [Chapter 3/?] Characters: Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, Original Characters. Pairings: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi

The early hours of the morning had been spent hiking along the river that flowed through the valley. MingYue and Gongzhu trailed along after Jin Ling as he briskly walked to and fro, following the guidance of a small, black compass. The needle spun back and forth, seeming to be drawn to two different sources. Jin Ling grumbled quietly to himself, too hushed for MingYue to understand anything he was saying.

By now, she was used to being kept in the dark by the older man. She stuck by him, watched after the dogs, carried bags, and assisted him however she could, but had long since learned that it was useless to try to ask him anything. He explained exactly as much as he wanted exactly when he wanted and there was nothing she could do but wait til that happened. Even after he’d led her halfway up the river, backtracked a mile or so, and then headed straight back the opposite direction, she kept quiet about it.

The compass, of course, was a spiritual tool made by Wei Wuxian to detect nearby evil. Half the time, the needle pointed back to Leng Shuang WeiFeng Temple, drawn to Song Lan’s Yin energy. The other half of the time, it led them deeper into the mountain, off the beaten trails and long abandoned roads. In the unfamiliar terrain, it was too easy to get turned around with the needle jumping back and forth, only serving to work Jin Ling’s temperament up.

“Damn this thing.” He hissed, slumping down onto a rock and slamming the box shut.

“What’s the matter?” MingYue asked, pouring water into a bowl for Gongzhu.

“Most renowned inventor of our time and couldn’t even make a compass that can differentiate between Yin energy and malicious intent.”

“Which one are we looking for?” MingYue sat down across from Jin Ling.

“Malicious intent, obviously. We’re not in the middle of nowhere to investigate harmless ghosts.”

“What are we investigating?”

Jin Ling gawked back at her. “Malicious intent. Obviously.”

MingYue pursed her lips into an irritated smile. “Obviously.”

By the time the sun had finally peaked over the mountain, the downward angle of the river had flattened out. At the end of it, the water collected into a small pond, filled with lotus plants. The stems sprung up, swaying gently in the breeze. Nothing seemed out of place or unusual about the area, but Gongzhu anxiously paced back and forth along the water’s edge. Jin Ling walked over to her and crouched, touching the surface of the pond with the tips of his fingers.

The river they followed was too wide and too deep to have such a small pond at its end. Although there was nothing especially interesting about the area itself, Jin Ling wondered about what lay beneath the surface of the pond. He reasoned the water had to be going somewhere. Without a word of explanation, Jin Ling shed his sword, bow, and quiver and began stripping the outer layers of his robes.

“Going swimming?” MingYue asked, an amused smile on her face.

“Yes. Stay here. Keep an eye on Gongzhu.”

With the excess fabrics folded neatly on the ground, Jin Ling strode into the water, clenching his teeth at the low temperature. Once he was in up to his waist, he bent his knees and ducked under the surface. Unfortunately, the water was too murky to see much, causing Jin Ling to have to search about the bottom with his hands. They brushed over mud and plant roots, the occasional rock, but nothing that indicated where the water was draining. After a while, he had to come back up.

He paused, treading water, for a moment in frustration before swimming back to shore. He reached into the pile of clothes and pulled the compass back out, eyes glued to the needle as he turned around slowly. Walking up along one side of the pond and then the other, the needle stayed pointing past the water, deeper into the woods. He huffed and closed the compass again, putting his hands on his hips and glared out into the trees.

“What’s next, boss?”

A moment of silence passed and Jin Ling slumped to the ground, sitting in lotus position. “Lunch. We’ll continue on in forty-five minutes.”

~X~

As soon as morning light poured into the valley and illuminated the temple, Sizhui and Jingyi began strolling from room to room to wake the students, herding them into the courtyard Donning their Lan Sect robes at an early hour to walk the halls of a temple had invigorated the two, their liveliness and bright energy served only to agitate the bleary-eyed teens. Once everyone was accounted for and seated at individual low tables, the Lan disciples joined Song Lan in dishing out bowls of rice for breakfast.

Xinyi kept his eyes glued to Song Lan, the events of the previous night playing in his mind. Xiao Xingchen had come out of his own volition, yet Song Lan acted as though Xinyi had snuck into his room and dragged him outside, kicking and screaming. He looked around the courtyard, unsurprised to see that Xingchen was nowhere to be seen. As Sizhui came around with his breakfast, Xinyi grabbed the end of his sleeve and gave a gentle tug.

“Jiaoshou. Song Lan Daozhang mentioned another priest that lives here, why haven’t we seen him yet?” Xinyi asked, trying to sound impartial to the matter.

Sizhui’s features twitched for a second before softening out, regaining whatever composure he’d momentarily lost.

“I’m sure he just likes his privacy. He’ll likely join us later in the day. It’s common to observe private meditation in the early morning.”

Xinyi gave a shrug and turned his attention to his breakfast, saying a quick thank you before eating.

The morning meal passed in silence, everyone either too hungry or too tired to acknowledge each other’s existence as they ate. Afterwards, Song Lan explained the schedule for the day, which seemed to just be one boring lecture after another about Taoist theologies, principles, and mannerisms. Xinyi could already feel his brain leaking out of his ears from boredom. The only thing that held his interest through the first lecture was the sight of his two, boring anthropology teachers dressed regally in white robes, accented with clouds, carrying matching blue and silver swords.

It really was a sight to behold. Compared to their usual looks, in black slacks, white button-ups, and cardigans that made them look like old men, they were both quite handsome. Jingyi still had a look of irritable anticipation, but they both seemed more at ease here than in the lecture halls. They moved gracefully with their robes billowing around them, while the students stumbled about clumsily, tangled up in the excess fabric. Such a unique display almost made listening to Song Lan’s boring, droning voice worth it.

Almost. As soon as their first break was announced, Xinyi grabbed Chen and QianHua by their collars and dragged them out the front gate. The three boys tumbled down the gentle slope to where the river cut through and stripped off the outer layers of their clothes. Now bursting with energy from sitting still through the lecture, the valley quickly filled with the sounds of three college students shouting and splashing in the river.

“Is this really what we have to sit through for the next six days? That was worse than anything Sizhui Jiaoshou put us through.” QianHua groaned, collecting rocks to throw back into the water.

“I hate agreeing with you…” Chen picked up a fallen branch to stabilize himself against the current. “But I agree with you. I thought we were gonna tour a big temple and look at old art and swords and-”

“Hey, fuck you Chen!” Xinyi picked up a clump of mud and hurled it at Chen. “You always say the art and swords at my house are creepy, but you wanted to come out to the middle of nowhere to look at someone else’s?”

“The art at your house is of ghosts and demons and battles.” Chen replied, smoothly dodging the mud clump. “And your swords are haunted.”

“My swords are not haunted.” Xinyi rolled his eyes, wading further down the river. “You’re so superstitious.”

Abandoning the other two to their conversation, Xinyi pulled a sharp-looking stick out of the water and crept down to the formation of rocks that hung over the edge of the water, eyes downcast in search of fish. Once he had one in his sights, the world disappeared around him, his focus narrowing in on this one objective. The fish flicked back and forth, darting ahead and pausing just long enough for Xinyi to get within range, then darted forward again.

He hadn’t even noticed he’d gone around the rocks and out of Chen and QianHua’s view when a voice jolted him back to reality. The fish bolted this time, disappearing into the darker parts of the river. Xinyi spat, straightening up and perching his stick over one shoulder. He whipped around to see which of the two had disrupted his hunt, shocked to see a soft, glowing face staring back at him.

“Oh! It’s you!” Xinyi grinned, sticking his tongue out between the two sharp teeth in the corner of his mouth.

“Hunting fish is prohibited in Leng Shuang WeiFeng.” Xingchen said cooly.

The man sat along the rocks, one leg hanging over casually, swinging back and forth so the bottom of his shoes just barely grazed the top of the water. He had one hand behind him, holding him up, and the other draped across a sword sheathed in white with an intricate silver accent. His expression was indifferent, as though Xinyi was just a part of the riverview.

“Who said I was hunting fish?”

The corner of Xingchen’s mouth twitched up. “What were you doing, if not hunting fish?”

Xinyi shrugged. “Practicing my swordplay?”

“Is that why you skipped my Daozhang’s lecture?”

The smile disappeared off Xinyi’s face. “Who says I skipped it? You’re not there either.”

Xingchen straightened up, letting his other leg hang over the side of the rocks now. “Would it be more interesting if I were?”

“Mm…. Perhaps.” Xinyi let the hand holding the stick drop down, swinging casually at his side as he took a few strides about the river. “I think it’s more interesting out here with you.”

Xingchen held his gaze quietly for a while as though he was thinking, as if Xinyi’s words had been infinitely more interesting than they had been. His fingers drumbed along the top of his sword, tapping rhythmically to some beat only he could hear. After a moment, he lept off his perch and slipped gracefully down to the edge of the water, walking along the shore until only a few feet remained between him and Xinyi.

“Why such an interest in me?” Xingchen asked, cocking his head slightly, though his eyes narrowed at Xinyi.

“Interest?” Xinyi smirked, taking a step forward.

Xingchen grew rigid, his jaw clenching.

Xinyi paused, scratching his thumbnail into the stick, frowning slightly. “Maybe I could ask you the same thing. You’re the one that followed me outside last night.”

“Hm…” The man looked down for a moment, considering the younger’s words. “I was surprised.”

“Surprised? Did no one tell you we were coming?”

“No one told me you were coming.”

Xinyi blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. Although the man had elicited some strange feeling of nostalgia, he hadn’t really seemed familiar- but now Xinyi questioned if they’d met in the past. Staring hard at the white-clad man, studying his features in the sunlight, the only thing that came to mind was that he looked startlingly like the figure he frequently saw in his dreams.

“Have we… Do you know me somehow?” The younger man cast a glance to the side, checking if Chen or QianHua had come searching for him yet.

Xingchen returned the question with a small, sweet smile. “We’ll see.”

Xinyi smirked, a shiver running down his spine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The priest said nothing in response, simply held his gaze a moment longer, still smiling, and turned to follow the river back up to the temple. Xinyi let out an unsure laugh, baffled by the situation. His heart fluttered in his chest and a buzz of energy sent him into a jittery flurry, half-running through the water back to where Chen and QianHua were. The resulting splash of his arrival drew their attention, the boys splashing back and hurling lighthearted insults.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Chen called, balling up a handful of mud.

“I was following a fish.” He replied, twirling his stick between his fingers.

“A fish?” QianHua scoffed. “You’ve been gone all this time following a fish?”

Xinyi shrugged, looking down into the water. “It was a really pretty fish.”

~X~

Jingyi looked absolutely starstruck, moving slowly through the room alongside Sizhui and Song Lan. The walls were adorned with intricate, hand crafted tapestries depicting iconic landmarks of Gusu, Lanling, Qinghe, Yunmeng, and Qishan. To the students in the room, they were unfamiliar paintings of made-up mountains and cities, but the skill put into them was appreciated nonetheless.

Song Lan made quiet commentary as the group gazed at each tapestry. Since it was impossible to explain the places depicted, he stuck to explaining the techniques used to create each piece, how old they were, interesting quips about how he acquired them, and small details about the kinds of plants or clouds the scenes contained. Despite all the priceless details Song Lan gave about the others, Jingyi couldn’t take his eyes off the painting of Gusu.

Sizhui came to stand beside him, his hand brushing against Jingyi’s. “Feeling nostalgic?”

“It’s hard not to.” He replied, tightening his grip on his sword. “For all the bitching and groaning I did back then… I’d go back if I could.”

Sizhui looked over the painting, quickly identifying the mountain where Cloud Recesses sat. “What do you miss the most?”

Jingyi was silent for a moment. “Not the food, of course.”

Sizhui laughed, quickly stifling it and glancing around.

Jingyi gave him an amused look. “Worried HanGuang-Jun might scold you for making noise?”

“I’ll never shake the instinct.” He replied, still chuckling lightly.

“What do you think he’s doing right now?”

Sizhui hummed thoughtfully, taking in a deep breath and turning from the painting to move on to the next.

“Probably the same thing he always did. Play his guqin. Read the same academic literature he’s already read a hundred times. Desecrate the sanctity of his headband by using it to tie up Wei Wuxian.”

Jingyi’s eyes widened in horror, immediately looking around to make sure none of their students overheard the conversation. Once he was sure no one was paying attention to him, he jabbed his elbow into Sizhui’s ribs, practically knocking him over. After he regained his balance, Sizhui looked at Jingyi incredulously and shoved him back, quickly looking around as well. Being childhood friends and companions for over 8,000 years didn’t change the deeply ingrained Lan etiquette, or the need to remain respectable in front of their students.

“I can’t believe you said that.” Jingyi muttered under his breath, leading the parade of teens back into the hall.

“Had you forgotten about it?” Sizhui asked, a small smirk refusing to fade from his lips.

“Yes! With much effort! Now I have to forget all over again!”

“Maybe I can tweak your memory a bit.” Sizhui reached his hand up behind Jingyi and tugged on the ends of his headband.

“A-Yuan!” He yelped involuntarily, loud enough this time to garner the attention of the four or five students closest to him. He clapped a hand over his mouth and shot a horrified look at Sizhui. “We’re in public!”

“Just be glad Jin Ling isn’t here.” Sizchui snickered.

The comment stopped Jingyi dead in his tracks, his blood running cold as their band of children continued past him, laughing amongst themselves at whatever funny expression the professor had on his face. Only the questioning look of Song Lan kicked him back into gear, deciding it was safer to remain at the back of the group with the black-robed cultivator instead.

The next room contained a number of assorted artifacts, displayed on tables, the walls, and in display cases. The wall opposite the entrance was covered in decorative fans, some looking so old they might disintegrate if you tried to touch them. A table along the left wall had a collection of heavy books who’s pages were sewn together with thick threads. Display cases standing throughout the room held hand-painted vases, golden hair ornaments, and objects only the cultivators in the room could recognize as spiritual tools.

The right hand wall was adorned with a display case that spanned from the floor to the ceiling. Each shelf held a sword, some displayed on their own, others still in their sheathes. Song Lan watched cautiously as Xinyi approached the shelf, looking over each of the swords with sparkling eyes. With his lips curled up in a smile that showed off sharp canines, it was impossible to quell the feeling of needles crawling up his neck.

“Daozhang, why are some of these swords missing their sheathes?” Xinyi asked, jolting Song Lan from his thoughts.

Stepping forward to look the shelves over, he spoke without looking at Xinyi. “My fellow Daozhang and I recovered these swords over a course of many years, from many different sources. Many of them had been relics of war, picked off battlefields and kept as trophies. In those cases, the sheathes were not found with them.”

Xinyi nodded, humming thoughtfully. “What about this one?”

Song Lan followed the boy’s outstretched finger to the sword in the bottom left shelf. “Mm… What about it?”

He squatted down to be at eye level with the blade. “Do you know the names of the swords? Who they belonged to? What about this one?”

“That sword belonged to a very evil man.” Song Lan replied, his gaze piercing through Xinyi. “It’s name is JiangZai.”

Xinyi laughed and stood up. “I guess that’s a fitting name then.”

“Indeed.”

“Where’d you find that one?” Xinyi looked up at Song Lan now, a childishly innocent joy in his eyes.

“...”

“Daozhang?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t the one that tracked it down.” With that, Song Lan turned away to stand beside Jingyi.

~X~

Xinyi threw himself down onto his bed with a huff, folding his arms behind his head and glaring up at the ceiling. Chen was to his left, laying on his stomach with his chin propped up on one hand. His roommate’s eyes burned holes through him, but Xinyi ignored him a moment longer, still fuming about his exchange with Song Lan.

“What the fuck is his problem?” He growled finally, sitting up abruptly.

Chen laughed. “There it is. What happened this time?”

Xinyi threw his arms up angrily. “I was just asking questions about the swords! He doesn’t look at anyone else like that- it’s like he hates me already. What did I do that was so wrong?”

Chen stayed silent, only shrugging in response.

“He looked about ready to stab me when I asked about that one sword- JiangHui? Whatever. He said he wasn’t even the one that collected that sword, why act so sour about it?”

Xinyi slumped back again, tugging his blanket up over him.

“Maybe it’s a sensitive topic.” Chen suggested. “If the other Daozhang brought it back, maybe Song Lan didn’t want him to.”

“That sword’s gotta be hundreds of years old, at least! How could it be so personal?”

Chen extinguished the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. “Could be a family feud thing. Like maybe that sword killed a bunch of his ancestors or something.”

Xinyi didn’t respond, just rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes. Having been up since the crack of dawn, and the exertion spent playing in the river with Chen and QianHua, it didn’t take long for sleep to take him. Even on the hard floor mat beds, his muscles relaxed right away and the day’s events melted away. In his dreams, Xinyi saw himself holding that sword. It swung about with ease, feeling perfectly balanced in his grasp.

Through the dark, distant screams could be heard. Just a few at first, but quickly joined by dozens. Men… women… even children… their horrible screams burned his ears. The feeling of hot, slick blood rushed around his hands and crept up his arms. He could feel it dripping down his face like sweat. The darkness slowly began to clear, black smoke dissipating from his vision.

The people the screams belonged to rushed back and forth in front of him, fear guiding their steps. The man nearest to him stumbled over his own feet, falling to the ground hard, his face bouncing off the stone flooring. Blood rushed from the wound that had split across his cheek, streaming down his jaw as he whipped around to face some invisible foe, only to be slammed back again.

The heart in his chest pounded painfully, it’s pace too fast. Fear gurgled in his throat, but when he opened his mouth to scream, only blood poured out. Why was it always this way? Why was he always covered in blood? He looked down, surprised to see that the hand that was usually bashed and broken had healed. The pinky finger was missing, but the wound had long since scarred over.

Looking up again, the compound had been replaced with a dusty, white road. Either side was lined with run down shops, their paper windows worn and ripped. The only other person in the whole town was the white-robed figure ahead, his back facing him. He begged his feet to move, to let him walk over and see the face of this ghost. The harder he pushed his muscles to work, the slower they moved. He’d barely taken two steps when the figure fell to his knees, wavering for a moment before collapsing onto the ground.

An overwhelming sense of dread and despair washed over him, gripping his heart... his throat... choking him…

Xinyi sat up with a gasp, sucking air in as though he’d really been choking. Struggling to disentangle himself from his blanket, he climbed to his feet and rushed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Not knowing where he was going and despite still being out of breath, he flew down the hall, not stopping until he was sure he was far away from where everyone else was sleeping.

He threw himself against a wall and slid down to the floor, letting out a heavy sob and burying his face in his hands. The dream had already begun fading from his mind, but the emotion it’d brought on was crushing. Even after it lessened, he sobbed on in frustration. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through the night and he couldn't understand why he was having such horrible nightmares. It felt like he was losing his mind, and Song Lan's glaring and Xiao Xingchen's riddles weren't helping.

~X~

Nothing quite matched the irritability that came from an unsuccessful night-hunt. Long after Jin Ling had sent MingYue back to the temple, he'd remained in the woods, scouring the area surrounding the pond. He used every trick he could think of to locate the source of the weird energy he kept picking up on, but every time he seemed to be getting closer, it vanished and reappeared somewhere else. Around midnight, Wuxian's compass gave up and just started spinning wildly. That had been the final straw that sent Jin Ling stomping back to the temple.

Beyond exhausted, spiritual energy running low, and mood soured, all Jin Ling could think about was collapsing into his bed and passing out. The thought was sounding better and better as he trudged down the hallways to his room. With that acting as a distraction, it took him longer than it should have to process the soft sniffles and occasional stuttered cry that echoed off the walls. His muscles froze, ears straining to study the noise and determine where it was coming from.

Eyes narrowed, sword unsheathed, Jin Ling walked slowly down the hall, preparing himself for a sobbing, bleeding ghost to appear in front of him at any moment. Instead, when he turned the corner, all he was greeted by was the shocked, soggy face of Xue Yang.

No.

Wang Xinyi.

This was Sizhui and Jingyi's student. This problem could not be solved with talismans. Or his sword. He sheathed it quickly, regaining a dignified composure, although looking quite awkward. Jin Ling had never been good at comforting others. Or being in their presence when they cried. He wondered if Sizhui would scold him if he simply pretended he hadn't seen Xinyi and walked away. He glanced down the hall, then back at Xinyi, down at the floor, and then straight ahead.

"It's the middle of the night, what are you doing crying out here? It's barely been two days, you can't be homesick yet." Jin Ling's voice was as curt as ever, lined with an ever present tone of annoyance learned from Jiang Cheng.

Xinyi sniffed, also refusing to look at the other man. "It's nothing."

Jin Ling shot a look at Xinyi, annoyed that the boy would dare to drag this out with formalities. "It's not nothing. Men don't cry over nothing. Say it directly or don't cry at all!"

Xinyi looked up at Jin Ling, baffled by the harsh words. He couldn't help but laugh.

"Why else do people cry out in the night?" Xinyi asked, standing up and dusting himself off. "Just a nightmare. It’s nothing."

Jin Ling met his gaze now, staring him down. "What nightmare?"

The younger man shrugged, feeling uncomfortable under the scrutiny. "Just a nightmare. I don't remember now."

Xinyi turned to leave, but Jin Ling stepped around him quickly, blocking his path. One hand grasped the hilt of his sword tight enough to turn his knuckles white.

"How often do you have nightmares?" He demanded, his presence boring down on Xinyi.

"Are you gonna stab me if I give the wrong answer?"

Jin Ling's eye twitched, having long run out of patience from using that damn compass. "How often? And don't lie, I'll be able to tell."

Xinyi huffed, but wasn't interested in dragging it on any longer. This man was uncomfortable, annoying, and most importantly, a complete fucking stranger- no one knew why he was even here or how he knew the Lan professors.

"Every night."

Jin Ling's eyes widened for a second. "For how long?"

"A year."

The cultivator practically choked at the answer. "A year? Every single night for a year?! How are you-"

He paced back and forth a few times, the gears spinning in his head as he processed the answer. Usually reincarnated souls only had nightly dreams from their past lives for a handful of months before either awakening or losing their mind completely. Not only had Xinyi been having nightmares, but he'd been having them for a year! It was a miracle he hadn't snapped and gone on a killing spree yet!

Jin Ling stopped abruptly and faced Xinyi again. "You've had these dreams for a year. Surely you remember enough to tell me what they're usually about, even if you supposedly don't remember the one you had tonight."

Xinyi tried to move passed him again. "Sir… why is this importa-."

Jin Ling stepped in front of him again. "Because it is!"

He frowned, his eyebrow twitching angrily. "I don't know! Getting hurt in some horrible way, watching people die, being followed by this creepy ghost girl…. And sometimes there's this person I'm trying to get to but I can't move."

"Person? What person?"

Xinyi shrugged. "Some person. A dream person I guess."

Jin Ling finally released the hilt of his sword and swept the sleeves of his robe out to clasp his hands behind his back.

"It's late. Go back to bed."

Without another word, Jin Ling turned and disappeared down the hall, leaving Xinyi gaping after him.

"Everyone here is out of their goddamn minds." He hissed, finally heading back to his room.

#mdzs #the untamed #xue yang #xiao xingchen #song lan #xuexiao #junior disciples #jin ling #lan sizhui #lan jingyi #mdzs fic

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aki-draws-things · 3 years

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NaNoWriMo 2020 #17

I live! This damn fic took so much time and energy and the prompt barely had a tiny mention after 4k words.. I should hate it but no... It was fun, it derailed from the original idea once, then it derailed again from the new idea so here we are, enjoy!!

Prompt: Waking up restrained

Word Count: 4267

Lotus Pier was in uproar, the first conference held after its rebuilt went better than the newly appointed sect leader even dared to hope, he received his fair number of advice that nie mingjue hoped he would ignore, especially everything coming from Jin guangshan.

"Jiang wanyin, - nie mingjue said after the conference was over, as he waited for his sworn brothers. - you're old enough to recognize a good advice from a bad one but I'm going to tell you anyway. Sect leader Jin is bad news for everyone, but for you especially, now. You're new, inexperienced, he’ll try to get some advantage from you."

"I… Sect leader Nie, I'm not really old enough for that role…" he said, voice small and uncertain. He was supposed to become leader one day, but he hoped it would be much into adulthood, and not just… How old was he exactly? Eighteen? In truth he forgot his own age. Sect leader Nie smiled and Jiang Cheng thought it was the strangest look he had seen on his face.

"No one really is. Perhaps only Jin guangshan actually."

"well, sect leader lan--"

"xichen?" He was confused, his sworn brother only became leader after the Sunshot Campaign.

"zewu-jun--? I… I thought lan qiren was--"

"common mistake. - he agreed. - but no. Besides, he is two years younger than my father. And father died pretty young even for a nie."

"well, the wen leader--"

He gritted his teeth just at mentioning him, and yet it made nie mingjue laugh again. What was so fun, exactly, Jiang Cheng wondered.

"please, please, Jiang wanyin, he was even younger. The baby of the three brothers." if only things went differently… he thought.

At first nie mingjue thought meng Yao Jin guangyao would follow the same path, his desire for power growing more and more each day, he wanted to be recognized by his father, and MingJue couldn’t really blame him for that, if only his father had been a better man. When he swore brotherhood with him he did it in the hope of changing that fate so they wouldn't end up like his father and his own sworn brothers, he could hardly bear the thought of this being their fate. The day he found himself trusting Jin guangyao again he almost yelled in happiness. It was weird, to think he would react that way, to think he would trust him again after everything he did. But Yao kept his word and resettled the wen refugees in a village in the Qinghe region, they now were under the direct jurisdiction of the Nie sect and it would be war before he let Jin GuangShan lift a finger on them. Sure, Xue yang was still in his hands but they would make it work.

"three brothers? There's more Wens?!"

Jin Guangyao stepped outside a pavilion in that moment, as Jiang Cheng's voice became strangled.

"No blood brothers. And it's only one now, anyway. He had sworn brothers once, people who loved him and who he loved back. -"I don't believe that." he growled. - he had a nephew he let cling on his leg and carry him around the fire palace. Bright as the sun and kin— "

"he never was anything like that. A snake who deserves no sympathy or even a memory."

Jiang Cheng almost jumped out of his skin as Lan Qiren spoke behind him, his eyes hard looking at the Nie leader.

"that still is your brother you’re talking about. Your younger brother."

"… Coming from the one who killed him…"

"well master lan, technically—" Jin guangyao took his place next to nie mingjue, ready to object, it had been him, in the very end, to stab Wen RuoHan as Nie MingJue laid unconscious in the palace.

"I had no choice. I tried— I— the ritual faile—" It was strange, Nie MingJue took a step back, away from Lan Qiren. It wasn’t anger, it wasn't fear either, more an old instinct he couldn't repress. No one liked to be scolded for something they never did wrong in the first place, but his body always reacted before he could even think of it, the sound of his father’s voice, mad with anger and on the constant verge of qi deviations overlapping the voice of whoever was talking. Yells were even worse. Yells made him jump and freeze and squeeze his eyes shut.

- HuaiSang yelled at him once, in exasperation. He told him to stop bothering him with training and practice. That he didn’t care for a sword and for fights and politics. And that if Nie MingJue couldn’t accept that, and he moved closer to his desk while saying so, unable now to stop, he could go search for a new heir. It didn’t go how HuaiSang hoped or even thought it would, but he learned that day to never yell against his own brother that close. He didn't know why instead of getting angry and yell back, MingJue had grown pale and, in the moment Huaisang slammed both hands on the desk to make his point clearer, he briefly lifted his arms in front of his face, as if he wanted to protect himself. Like Huaisang would ever dare to harm him. Nie MingJue never explained it was because of the same father they both still loved so much, and Huaisang never brought it back again. But he never raised his voice like that in his presence, he couldn't bear the thought of his brother being frightened. -

"because you're just a hopeless child who wants to act older than he is."

"uncle? Is something the matter?" lan xichen joined them in that moment and nie mingjue grew stiff at the older lan's accusations. A child. Sure he was, wasn't he? Too young to hold the fate of an entire sect and its domain, a child no one taught how to be a sect leader and had to improvise his way through it.

"isn't that what your blindness made me? A child leading one of the great sects?"

"I wasn't the one shattering my brother's blade." for someone so keen on making his clan's rules being respected, lan qiren seemed pretty fast in anger that night.

"No. You were the one ignoring your brother's pleads. - he was tired. He didn't want to fight, and he knew, deep down, something was off. Lan qiren wasn't the kind of man to say things like that, not after he spoke kindly of his younger brother after his death. Something wasn't right and yet once it started none of them could manage to stop unless they retreated. He turned to the confused Jiang leader. - seems., Jiang wanyin, like there's someone else advice you better ignore tonight."

"what was wrong with your brother before?" Jiang cheng asked, a couple of hours later, to nie huaisang.

"mh? You mean him acting like someone his age being confronted and called a child?"

"well, someone his age would have been… I don't know, really… Calmer." nie huaisang stifled a laugh.

"A couple of years from now try to lead a war and rally the main sects to follow you, and then when it's over and you won let's talk back of how to be calm. Deal?" he offered him a hand to shake in a joking way but that somehow only made the new sect leader more confused, which made a new question pop in huaisang's mind. "wait. How old do you think Da-ge is, exactly?" he asked, suddenly serious.

"... At least…. 30? Wait, what? Why? Huaisang! Stop laughing!" nie huaisang hid behind his fan, unable to stop at the seriousness Jiang cheng used to answer him.

"I really need to tell Da-ge he looks way too old and should change something."

"you're making no sense! I didn't say he looks old!"

"you did, you did!" he laughed more.

"He can't be much younger huaisang, come on. - he complained. - or he would have become sect leader while being a kid."

"well… - huaisang didn't really like to be reminded that, nor did nie mingjue for the matter. But since Jiang cheng brought it up… - he was kind of a kid. You're hardly a man at fourteen, aren't you?"

"fourt--ah! Sure… One of your nie ways not to reveal your real age, I've heard you're all very secretive on that." but nie huaisang wasn't laughing anymore.

"I wish it was. I wish you all didn't have to follow a 23 years old into a war. The only part master lan said right was Da-ge always trying to act older than he is, but again, what else should he do in a world like this one? Softness is a weakness for a sect leader, jiang-xiong. He can't afford to be soft." "I wish he still was."

He still was soft and trusting despite all odds and that became his downfall in the end. How could he not trust them. How could he not trust him?

He should have known better, he should have listened to his instinct. But lan qiren told him, and the rest of the cultivation world, that the yin metal had been destroyed. - sure, the tiger seal Wei wuxian made was still in his hands but it wasn't the same thing, and the young man seemed more in control than wen ruohan had ever been. - why would they not believe him? Lan xichen told them the same.

"No more yin metal." he told his sworn brothers, and he sounded so sincere. "that threat is no more." both nie mingjue and jin guangyao believed him. Lans never lie after all. They… Omit. They diverge the attention on other things. And they're damn good at that.

"Da-ge, what's troubling you?" nie huaisang asked, one spring afternoon. He didn't simply look troubled or lost in thoughts, he looked pained. Lan xichen had left the unclean realm only one hour before and finally huaisang saw his brother breath out, relaxed. He seemed constantly on edge when lan xichen showed up in Qinghe, even more when he did it to play for him. Instead of calming his mind as it was supposed to do, the presence of his second brother caused him more pain. In the end even huaisang noticed and grew wary of lan xichen.

Nie mingjue rested his head against the wall, eyes closed as he slowed his breath.

"I thought I would have become afraid of Yao one day. I thought he would betray me, us, again and that my trust would cause the downfall of the Nie clan…" he said, voice low, only slightly trembling. Huaisang knew of his thoughts, no more secrets between them, not after his almost death during the sunshot campaign

"I sense a but coming."

"but. Lan xichen changed. I don't know how or when or why. He's different, his voice, his eyes… Even his music."

"he scares you." nie huaisang stated, the truth dawning on him, reminding him again that he wasn't that much older and had every right to feel scared. Not that fear had an age.

"I… Yes. - he finally admitted. - and I feel like all these years I've been fighting the wrong people."

"what---?"

"not saying the wens were good 9r anything, huaisang. I know they weren't despite i kept my hopes up until the last moment. I killed many of them, I killed the boy I used to play with when we were kids, and yes, I led a war against one I called uncle and I don't regret it. But… There's a shadow stretching behind the scene and it's always been there, I was just to blind to see it before."

"you're saying the Lans betrayed us? They stole the yin iron instead of destroying it? Da-ge… Are-- are you accusing your sworn brother of doing something like that?"

He didn't want to. Of course he didn't. He wanted to trust lan xichen, he wanted to trust lan qiren too. He wanted to blame his mind and bad temper and the increasing qi deviations for this thoughts, this paranoia. And yet, the more he tried, the more his suspects became clearer and definite. He couldn't trust his sworn brother anymore, heavens only knew if he could trust the other one or if lan xichen already claimed him with nice words. He was alone. Well, he had huaisang but if he could spare him from having to fight people he liked… He Was alone.

Nie huaisang believed him. He too saw a difference in how lan xichen acted, he couldn't point out exactly what the difference was, Lans were known to be subtle, but he knew it was there and he knew, even better, he couldn't let his brother fight on his own, not that time.

Mingjue told him to be careful, to be wary of people around them, not to trust them too much, not to give out too much information, but huaisang still had friends, people he knew and trusted, deeply. People like him, able to put their family's needs before their own.

"nie-xiong! Coming to check that we're not planning to overthrow your sect while farming?" wei wuxian joked the moment nie huaisang stepped inside the small village where the remaining of the wen clan lived.

"this little one would have already succeeded if he was to grab Da-ge's leg." he joked back, a hand brushing little wen yuan's hair as he happily clinged to his leg ever since huaisang stepped in the village.

"A-Yuan! The future wen leader! Railing his people to reclaim qishan and--oww!!"

Wen Qing smacked him on the back before he could finish his absurd set of praising.

"what brings you here, young Master nie?" she asked, serious, reminding him he was there for official and important business and not to see his friends.

"I need spies."

"to spy on who, if I may ask? The Nie sect got some new enemy?"

Nie huaisang looked straight at him, knowing he was still seeing lan wangji, wondering if he didn't just made a mistake and caused his brother's downfall once and for all. But lan wangji, the times huaisang met him after the suspects were out between the brothers, seemed the usual self. Still uncorrupted. He had to try. No turning back anymore.

"lan sect. I need to spy on them."

"the lan-- but why? I thought chifeng-zun--"

"sworn brothers still can betray you, there are precedents in our family."

Lan qiren, his brother told him, played the guqin for their father everyday after the accident, and nie mingjue liked to listen to him, as much as he liked listening to lan xichen, and Jin guangyao now. But what if his music instead of healing worsened his temper? What if lan qiren caused the very last qi deviation that killed him, what if he was the reason his father became so violent and angry toward him, the reason his mother left and nie mingjue was alone keeping his little brother safe. It was an endless what if.

"I know my brother." lan wangji voice caught him by surprise. "he cares for his brothers."

"but he's your brother and you love him. Love makes you blind."

"that's not so different for you, nie-xiong." Wei wuxian interjected. "you love your brother and believe what he tells you."

"no. I believe what I see. Besides… Rěnnài and Baxia are always upset after he comes here."

"who?"

"I believe he means their sabers…" wen Ning whispered from where he was almost hiding behind his sister, while wen yuan tugged lightly at the tassel on rěnnài sheath.

"sabers do not get upset by people."

"they're spiritual weapons. - lan wangji said. - I've heard some cultivators develop a strong bond with their weapons."

"a bond, but they're still weapons. Iron."

He reeks of evil, master, his dizi is made of blood and evil.

“I know, but he’s good, I trust him.”

I like the little human. He’s pure.

“We’re not kidnapping the kid.”

"they're souls, - huaisang said, a hand just slightly brushing the hilt. - who chose iron to be reborn. Nie sabers have a will of their own, they whisper to us. Rěnnài doesn't like your dizi, wei-xiong." he smirked. “But she really likes A-Yuan.” With a happy squeal he clinged at his leg a little more.

Lan Wangji didn’t want to believe him, and Nie Huaisang couldn’t blame him. They were right, if they told him his brother was doing something evil he would never believe them, not without proof. In the end, to prove him wrong and yet help him find out if someone between the four great sects was trying to get more power in evil ways, he decided to check on his brother’s intentions. He was their best shot. If someone had full authority to enter Cloud Recesses without raising a single suspect, that was Lan Wangji. He had been away from his home for a while, choosing against his own uncle’s requests, to live in the village with Wei WuXian and the Wens refugees but nothing indicated he wouldn’t be welcome at home, especially by his brother. Kid there was something weird, off, wrong, he would feel it almost immediately.

It wasn’t like Lan Wangji didn’t trust Nie Huaisang, the young man was smart, he didn’t like to show it but he was. Smart people were dangerous, smart people were deadly. They noticed things that normally passed unnoticed, and they noticed them earlier.

Lan Wangji decided, as he crossed the borders of Cloud Recesses, to never cross or find himself against Nie Huaisang. It wasn’t fear, he told himself, but he liked very much his life as it was and he knew the younger Nie had every ability to tear it apart if only he wanted.

He also decided, as he walked toward his brother’s house, that Nie Huaisang was right. There was something in the air around him that smelled different. He couldn’t pinpoint how or what, but it seemed colder, darker. He smelled, he realized, of blood.

“Brother. - Lan Xichen greeted him with a pleasant, familiar smile. - Oh, I’m so glad you came to visit. Come inside, let’s have a drink.”

He couldn’t refuse, in truth, why should he refuse? It was his older brother, his own blood, out of everyone Lan Xichen would never harm him. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t harm others and Lan Wangji still smelled blood.

“So, tell me about life in that village, Wangji.”

“They’re not a danger, brother.” He didn’t know why he felt like specifying that as the first answer, he wasn’t scared of his brother. Not yet at least. He smiled and lifted a cup to his lips.

“Of course they’re not. I was there when A-Yao left them in our Da-ge’s care, if they had been a danger Da-ge wouldn’t have simply left them in a village to do what they wanted.”

“They’re kind, and they work hard to get what they have.”

“You like it there?” You’re not planning on returning here, Wangji? Was the subtle question, be it disapproving or in hope Lan Wangji wasn’t sure.

“I do.” Wei Ying is there. His brother would surely understand his reasons, and Wei Ying had been the reason behind many of his actions in the past years.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, but would you come visit us more? Uncle misses you, I miss you.”

Lan Wangji nodded silently as he took another cup of tea. It tasted different from the first, more bitter but not exactly bad. He drank.

“There’s nothing wrong going on in Gusu.” He told Nie Huaisang the next time he went to visit them, Huaisang scowled at his words, unwilling to really believe him, he saw his brother cough up blood and lose consciousness as Lan Xichen played for him, he dismissed his offer to play something else, something Xichen said to be more powerful, in private, to help him recover faster, he sent him away and remained at his brother’s side for a night and a day before he finally woke up. He wouldn’t listen to someone say there was nothing wrong . He wouldn’t believe him.

“Lan Zhan has no reason to lie to you. Besides, he’s a Lan, he doesn’t lie.” He didn’t want to listen to Wei WuXian either, defending him like he could do no evil— “I never said that, Nie-xiong.”

Oh. Did he speak aloud? Well, little it mattered anymore, he wouldn’t believe them anyway.

“Sorry for bothering you.” He said with a little bow. “I’ll be more careful in the future. I really hope you’re right about your brother.”

“They’re starting to suspect too much.” Lan XiChen sat cross legged in front of a table before his uncle, a hand playing carefully with the Yin Iron pulsing a red light, the other placed under his chin as he looked annoyed. “Mmmmh… what should we do? You know, I’m quite fond of Da-ge but… - He sighed and looked at the man, hands folded on the table and eyes blank. - He’s becoming useless. Perhaps I should take him away from the plan and move on with the next.” He thought a little more about option, then he poured some tea and placed the cup in front of his uncle.

“Drink.” He ordered calmly watching as Lan Qiren took the cup in both hands and brought it to his lips without complaining about being ordered around. Why should he complain? He was alive, his conscience left intact, simply dormant. “Good. Now organize that conference we discussed. It’s time to move on the next step.” He stood and left the room.

A Cultivation conference was nothing strange or suspect, not even when the Gusu Lan Sect asked only for the presence of the sect leaders, be they belonging to major sects or not, and only the leaders.

“You’re still recovering, Da-ge. You can just write them and say you’re still feeling sick and you won’t—”

“Nonsense. I’m fine enough to go. Stop being so apprehensive.”

“But Da-ge—!”

“Even if what we suspect may be true, they won’t make a move so openly, relax Huaisang.”

He wanted to believe him, he wanted to trust his words, Huaisang really wanted to do it and yet—

“At least let me come with you. We’ll tell them I was too worried to let you travel alone.”

“I need you here in the Unclean realm.”

“ZongHui can stay here. You named him your trusted general. Is it because he’s good - “Of course it’s because he’s good! The best even.” - or because he’s pretty?”

“Huaisang.”

“What Da-ge? I can recognize a pretty face, you know?”

In the end Nie MingJue headed to Gusu alone. In the end he wished he didn’t. In the end the pain was so much that his mind screamed his little brother’s name in fear and despair, wanting Huaisang close so he could comfort him. In the end he felt small and scared like he didn’t feel in so many years.

“Will you join me for a drink, Da-ge?” Lan Xichen asked as he was passing in front of a chamber to get to his room. He had a teapot on the table and Nie MingJue was tired and cold, a tea couldn’t hurt.

The tea tasted good, just as always, it was sweet, like he knew Lan Xichen preferred it, not the bitter, earthy taste it had the special tea that was made in Qinghe, not as good as the one he always drank but he blamed habit and tiredness for not appreciating it enough. They talked, softly in the night until late before Nie MingJue noticed that it was way past the usual hour Lans would retreat and Lan Xichen didn’t yawn once.

“I have guests, and you’re here to keep me company. - He explained like it was obvious, and yet other times Nie MingJue saw him yawning when the time to rest came closer. - I don’t want to give up on your company just because of a bedtime rule.” He smiled and poured more tea for both of them, Nie MingJue yawned instead. The travel and the conference made him finally tired.

“One last cup. - He agreed. - Then I’ll be the one going to sleep or I’ll fall asleep tomorrow morning.”

“We really don’t want that, do we?” Lan Xichen stared at him, his smile frozen on his lips, kind and gentle. Nie MingJue emptied his cup, when he made to stand and leave for his personal chamber the floor under his feet shifted and he fell hitting the floor loudly. Lan Xichen put his cup down, untouched, his smile never faltering.

Nie MingJue felt tired when he woke up, his head pulsed painfully and his body shivered as sweat ran down from his forehead. He was cold, he couldn’t think, thoughts were slow and mixing one on top of the other, his chest felt tight and on fire. It hurt. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Something held his ankles and wrists still, heavy chains around them and around his chest, whatever he was laying on was hard and cold. He tasted iron on his lips and tongue and when his eyes finally stopped wandering around he put into focus Lan Xichen’s form standing next to him, looking down at him with a smile.

“Don’t move too much, Da-ge, it will hurt less if you stay still.” He said smiling.

His golden core burned and Nie MingJue screamed.

#nie mingjue #nie huaisang #lan xichen #dark lan xichen #waking up restrained #mention of old generation sworn brothers #mention of other characters #the untamed #cql #Mo dao zu shi #mdzs #mdzs fic #Grandmaster of demonic cultivation #founder of diabolism #fanfic #angst #nanowrimo 2020 #angst collection in cultivation #aki writes

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callunavulgari · 3 years

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Scrapbook 2021 | Part I

For anyone that’s new to this, this is how I keep track of all of the things I enjoy and/or create throughout the year. I have literally been doing this since I had a livejournal. I think the first one was 2011? Maybe? In which case, woohoo, ten years of scrapbooking!

It’s a nice little snippet of my life and helps to organize my brain.

A reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read 80 books, finish five video games, write more than 20 fics or something larger than 20k, and write either an original short story or start a novel.

Past Years

MOVIES

January

(Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring)

(Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

(Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

Robin Hood

(Hook)

Wolfwalkers

February

(Age of Ultron)

From Up On Poppy Hill

(Tangled)

(Onward)

(The Mummy)

(Hercules)

(Promare)

March

Raya and the Last Dragon

(My Neighbor Totoro)

April

(Hunchback of Notre Dame)

(Tarzan)

(Beauty and the Beast)

Weathering With You

BOOKS

January

A Deadly Education | Naomi Novak [Fin]

Home Body | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Sunken Mall | K.D. Edwards [Fin]

Bloom | Kevin Panetta [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

All the Stars and Teeth | Adalyn Grace [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 1 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

I Hope You Stay | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Pillow Thoughts | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Piraneesi | Susanna Clarke [Fin]

The Ex Talk | Rachel Lynn Solomon [Fin]

February

The Adventure Zone: Vol 2 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 3 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

March

Winter’s Orbit | Everina Maxwell [Fin]

Fireheart Tiger | Aliette de Bodard [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

Fire | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

Bitterblue | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Witch’s Heart | Genevieve Gornichec [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore

April

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Memory Theater | Karin Tidbeck [Fin]

These Violent Delights | Chloe Gong

(Red White and Royal Blue | Casey Mcquiston) [Fin]

Rule of Wolves | Leigh Bardugo [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Not the Girl You Marry | Andie Christopher [Fin]

The Echo Wife | Sarah Gailey [Fin]

The Midnight Library | Matt Haig

Catherine House | Elisabeth Thomas [Fin]

Séance Tea Party | Reimena Yee [Fin]

Lumberjanes vol 1 | Noelle Stevenson [Fin]

PODCASTS

January

The Unseen, Christmas and New Year Special

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel arc, Heart of It All and What Lies Beyond

The Penumbra Podcast, Second Citadel, Strong Arm of Justice and The Priestess’ Fortune

I Am In Eskew, Episode 16

Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 67, 68, and 69

The Magnus Archives, Episode 190 and 191

February

The Magnus Archives, Episode 192-194

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 15-60

March

The Magnus Archives, Episode 194-200 [Fin]

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 60-TAZ BALANCE ENDING

MBMBAM, Episode 1

I Am In Eskew, Episode 17-22

April

I Am In Eskew, Episode 23-END

Alice Isn’t Dead, Episode 18-END

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January

His Dark Materials, s2 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment

Buzzfeed Worth It

(Black Sails, s1)

The Queen’s Gambit**

February

Cherry Magic

Wandavision, s1

Watcher Entertainment

The Owl House

(Little Witch Academia)

Star vs the Forces of Evil, s3, s4

Bridgerton

Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime

Heaven’s Official Blessing

March

Wandavision, s1 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History & Watcher Weekly

Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Word of Honor

April

Word of Honor, s1

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History

Falcon and the Winter Soldier, s1

Kim’s Convenience, s1, 2, 3, 4

Leverage, s4

Shadow and Bone, s1

The Great, s1

VIDEO GAMES

January

Hades, 37 hours [Fin]

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

February

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Hades, 75+ hours?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 16 hours

Persona 5 Royal

March

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 45 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 141 hours

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Concrete Genie, 3 hours

April

Concrete Genie, 6 hours [Fin]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 65 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 160 hours

Monster Hunter Rise, 2 hours

Civ, 5 hours

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January

Modern Rustic by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 22k | “I think,” he says, finally, “that if we looked around this place hard enough, we’d find a rose underneath a—a glass thing, what’s it called—losing petals. Metaphorically.”

easy livin' by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved (Fallout AU) | Ryan/Shane | 6k | The Wasteland - and Ryan - through Shane's eyes.

(in nocte consiliam by oxymoronic | Bartimaeus | Bartimaeus/Nathaniel | 4k | London, 2003. Britain is on the brink of war, and someone is trying rather hard to kill John Mandrake.)

made of glass the way you see through me by uneventfulhouses | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 19k | Will it always be like this? Ryan wonders, watching Shane lope up the snowy walkway and pushing his way through the front door, humming some jolly old tune in that way Shane’s prone to do. Theatrical, performing for an audience even though Ryan is the only one around.

All Your Stars In View by alpha_exodus | Harry Potter | Draco/Harry | 18k | Life after the war is difficult for Harry, especially when the only thing that makes him feel better is, oddly enough, being around Malfoy. So when Malfoy asks to paint his portrait, Harry can't refuse, even if it means baring himself in more ways than one.

13 Genuinely Awful Things About Steven by thefourthvine | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | Andrew’s learned to like cake, he’s learned to like oysters, and he’s learned to like Steven.

we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york) by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | “Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”

Russian Roulette Croquembouche by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Andrew/Steven | 9k | “Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”

rose-colored boy by juniperProse | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 2k | Andrew’s eyes are pink.

Like Wildfire by makemadej | Watcher Entertainment | Shane/Ryan | 20k | “Is this gonna be a thing with you?” Ryan demands. “You can’t keep committing to stuff that no one else knows about! When people online say they want you to be more open and vulnerable, this is not what they mean.”

Scratching the Itch by bendingsignpost | Doctor Who | Rose/Ten | 20k | Her mum had always told her that blokes had only one thing on their minds, but this was taking it to an entirely new level.

lie back and let me unlock you by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 7k | Xiao Xingchen, reluctantly, admits to certain fantasies that he has. His friend is happy to indulge him.

in our respective ways by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 6k | Jiang Cheng has his golden core back. But he seems to have lost Wei Wuxian.

By Proxy by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng/Lan Wangji | 12k | Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, looking for comfort in all the wrong places.

some good mistakes by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 18k | Or, the one where Wei Wuxian vanishes and Lan Wangji, reluctantly, asks for Jiang Cheng's help tracking him down.

efforts in a common cause by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang/Song Lan | 12k | Everybody's walked out of Yi City alive. Now it's just three badly adjusted adults (and one badly adjusted teenager) trying to make things work - a project somewhat derailed by a night hunt that turns out to be something else.

swinger of birches by astronicht | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 23k | Lan Zhan is a little witch in the house on the hill, whispering out a love curse. Wei Ying is a witch undead, undone.

let me desecrate you by hkafterdark | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | “Dangerous words.” Wei Wuxian drew back. The flickering candlelight gave him an otherworldly appearance; that, and his beauty, unchanged since the first time Lan Wangji had seen him. “You aren’t afraid to be at the mercy of the fearsome Yiling laozu?”

The Demon Affair by stereobone | Yu Yu Hakusho | Hiei/Kurama | 9k | Kurama accidentally seduces Hiei into a relationship.

i came to win (and i won) by paperclipbitch | The Queen’s Gambit | Beth/Benny | 3k | They play chess, and they fuck.The two things are not the same.

February

Sylvain Gautier Would Love To Try To Solve All Your Problems Through Sex (Hey It Might Help) by Fall Out Boy by harriet_vane | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | Sylvain/Felix | 22k | In which Sylvain wakes up on the wrong tour bus, and refuses to be their sex therapist (unless Felix asks nicely)

μήτηρ, in the Greek by antistar_e (kaikamahine) | Hades | Nyx & Persephone, canon relationships | 37k | At the end of this recounting, she tilted her head and asked politely, Is this not how you have children?Uh, no, said Persephone.

that voodoo that you do so well by veterization | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 18k | Ryan buys a voodoo potion oil at Voodoo Authentica meant to attract Yummy Boys. Appropriately, things happen.

A Bridge Between by Runespoor | Spirited Away | Gen | 3k | Years later, Chihiro moves into a new apartment; her parents help.

the ghost king's bride by arahir | Tian Guan Ci Fu | Hua Cheng/Xie Lian | 10k | Ghosts won't stop giving Xie Lian flowers, Hua Cheng won't stop teasing, and Xie Lian is out here doing his best, man.

Side bitch out of your league by rohkeutta | Captain America | Steve/Bucky | 3k | “I tried to call Sam,” Captain America says, bewildered. He’s sprinting like Usain Bolt and doesn’t sound even a little out of breath. Fucker. “Who’re you?”

cause in your warmth (I forget how cold it can be) by madnessandbrilliance | Promare | Lio/Galo | 7k | Lio is always freezing. Galo is always warm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest.

backdraft by broments | Promare | Lio/Galo | 32k | It happens in an instant, Galo gaping like an idiot while Lio presses forward to defend against the perceived threat, the weapon sparkling but not burning as it kisses Galo's throat.

Yosuke will now die for you! by DragonBandit | Persona 4 | Yosuke/Souji | 5k | ...This, causes problems.

dramamine by brawlite | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 7k | Song Lan is having a bad morning. Help comes from the last person he'd expect: Xue Yang.

Hearth and Home by lady_ragnell | Leverage | Alec/Eliot/Parker | 1k | When Eliot goes to a temple, or when he’s in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn’t do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia.

Where One Ends and the Other Begins by kalliopeia | Leverage | Alec/Parker/Eliot | 30k | Nobody’s particularly shocked when the job goes spectacularly sideways because their loot turns out to be magic. Parker and Eliot begin reading each other’s minds, accidental sharing happens, and shenanigans result.

Hungry Thirsty Roots by coolkidroland | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 56k | In which Akira absolutely does not learn to leave well enough alone. **

Without Grasping Yet by Angelic_Ascent | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 8k | Akechi and Akira end up far too cramped for comfort in the Morgana bus. And then they're left alone in Mementos.

Falling Up by KivaEmber | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 2k | “If it helps…” Akira spoke up suddenly, his tone morbidly amused, “I forgive you, for shooting me in the face.”

March

Touch of Forbidden by tirsynni | LoZ | Ganondorf/Link | 2k | Nabooru warned him not to travel to the Spirit Temple. So of course Link went to the Spirit Temple.

breaking the same old heart by tardigradeschool | The Adventure Zone | Magnus/Taako | 11k | Taako and Magnus in triptych: before, during, and after the Bureau.**

your head is good, it’s loyal, it’s clean by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 4k | "Here, I do this all the time."Too quickly for him to react, Taako plucks away one of his golden rings and slips it onto the ring finger of Magnus' left hand.

bruising kisses, whispered confessions by tangerine_skye | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | The trio stop over at an inn for the night. Taako and Magnus share a bed.

i can see what's coming (but i'm not saying it) by pansywaist | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | His breath is still hot on Taako's lips, distracting enough he almost misses the strained whisper: “I thought I was gonna lose you.”

Emergency Consolation in the Pocket Spa by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | If Magnus wants to hug a wizard, Magnus gets to hug a wizard.

together for the long haul by kismetNemesis | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 6k | Magnus and Taako were married on a bright spring day in the year after they saved the world.

thin skin, bruises, and a cold cup of tea by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | Sleep is for the weak, and Magnus has no weaknesses, except for his own natural curiosity.

tender is the night by dollylux | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 10k | “It’s just…” He runs a hand through the thick bramble of his hair, gripping the crown of it to anchor himself. He sighs, slumping back against the footboard. “I guess I’m just not very good at one on one. Like, not… not in any way.”

a note is attached to the top of the vial by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Kravitz/Taako, Magnus/Taako | 5k | Elves have a lifespan of up to six hundred years. The people that you know don't even come close to that.

Pieces of Memory and Heart by ellemaris | Raya and the Last Dragon | Raya/Namaari | 1k | Raya isn't sure how to heal everything between Heart and Fang, but returning something important to Namaari seems like a start.

the gods laugh by miss_aphelion | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 11k+ | WIP | Wei Wuxian is just getting used to being alive again when he's ripped from the world he knows. He wakes in a place where his sister and her husband live, where his brother doesn't hate him, where the Wen remnants have all survived.

In Your Room, In Your Bed by giraffeter | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji/Jiang Cheng | 25k | After Wei Ying is disowned, Yu Ziyuan forbids Jiang Cheng from letting Wei Ying live with him. Jiang Cheng lets him stay anyway because Fuck That. He tells his parents Lan Zhan is his new roommate instead.

in the blossom season (in the pouring rain) by varnes | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 14k | “Doctor Flowers,” Lan Zhan repeats, pointing at the tiny plum tree, just to confirm that his son is suggesting a magical tree named Doctor Flowers sprouted overnight and made their tame family project turn into a verdant jungle.

34 years old - 5'8" - DL - no-BB by withpractice_ff | Ace Attorney | Edgeworth/Phoenix | 3k | Phoenix finds Edgeworth’s Grindr profile

spinning with the stars above by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 7k | Wangji returns home to Vulcan for the first time since he left for Starfleet Academy, this time with Wei Ying at his side. He’s not expecting Wei Ying and his uncle to be fast friends, but things go poorly in a very different way than he was expecting.

every breath that comes before by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 10k | Or, what if that cup of wine Wei Wuxian drank for Lan Wangji after the Phoenix Mountain hunt wasn't just wine?

never love an anchor by tardigradeschool | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 31k | A fisherman and a selkie fall in love beside the sea. Regretfully, things are never quite that simple.

Be Careful by giraffeter | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 5k | Song Lan and Xue Yang try to survive a week in their shared apartment without Xiao Xingchen as a buffer.

April

running for a soft place to fall by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Xichen & Lan Wangji | 10k | As he leaves for his coming of age test at age twelve, half-Vulcan Xichen has a goal in mind. The rules of the kahs-wan prohibit taking food, water, or weapons. In accordance, Xichen is bringing none of those things, but he does have a compass tucked into his pocket. He is going to find his father.

an act too often neglected by Ariaste | The Untamed | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | 60k | The single faceless, anonymous photograph on the profile that catches his eye is shot in elegant black-and-white, and there’s something about the crispness of the focus and the markedly off-center composition that says art, for once, rather than mugshot.The caption below is equally sparse: “5’6. Demanding.”

where you go, I'm going (so jump and I'm jumping) by Aria | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jonathan | 6k | "I don't think so," Alex said. She looked at Martin. "Is this really how it went?"

Morning, keep the streets empty for me by feyburner | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | Ghosts were drawn to the ring roads.

2am on a saturday by detectorist | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 11k | In which Lan Zhan gets high, slides into Wei Ying's DMs, and somehow ends up having the harmonica played to him at 2am in the morning.

Grief Kindly Stopped by ShanaStoryteller | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 5k | Nothing leaves the Burial Mounds alive.

Boat Basin by downjune | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | 5k | He thought the 21st century now maybe suffered from an overabundance of classifications for all the different ways to fuck and/or romance a person, but the most important thing—and his therapist had emphasized this—the most important thing was connection.

my touch magnifies by isozyme | Word of Honor | Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu/Ye Baiyi | 7k | Wen Kexing gets hit with fuck-or-die sex pollen on the way to Longyuan cabinet. Everything would be fine, except Zhou Zishu’s been keeping an unfortunate secret: the nails in his chest mean he can’t get hard anymore.

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January

2020 || Multifandom Mashup

Hades - Official Animated Trailer

Hades Mini-PMV: This Year

2020, I guess

MARVEL || Energy (ft. Easy McCoy + Black Hydra)

obi-wan || give it

2020 ll Multifandom Mashup

Multifandom | Goodbye 2020

Multifandom | Goodbye 2018

2018 Multifandom | MASHUP

His Dark Materials - No Sanctuary

Lyra & Mrs. Coulter | Hurricane

► mrs. coulter || way down we go [hdm]

Wonder Woman || BORN READY

Vikings | The End of the Journey

February

MARVEL || Ready Set (ft. Vo Williams)

MARVEL || Here We Go (ft. Chris Classic)

MARVEL || Is You Ready || The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Never forget || Hualian - Hua Cheng x Xie Lian AMV

【魔道祖师 / MDZS】Animatic - The First Siege | Safe & Sound

The Jedi Way | THE MANDALORIAN

Multifandom || Going Bad (feat. Drake)

March

Broccolli Casserole--The Untamed

Hey Brother - The Adventure Zone Animatic/PMV

The Adventure Zone: Balance trailer

The Adventure Zone: Balance Arc Trailer (Animatic)

13 Year Olds (A MDZS Animatic by Arcxus)

Multifandom || Die In This Town

DNA | shadow & bone

(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff | Grief

Defying Gravity | MDZS/CQL Animatic

It’s Quiet Uptown | MDZS Animatic

To The Stars

(Marvel) WandaVision || Awaken

Walt Disney Animation Studios | A Magical Journey

We don't have forever.

stop living a fake life.

► Wanda Maximoff | PAINT IT BLACK (+15k)

Multifandom || Take It (c/w Quang Truong) ft. @SEIGE WORLD

Kylo Ren | STAR WARS

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

April

MARVEL || Natural ft.ImagineDragons

xue yang & xiao xingchen ➤ gasoline

WEN KEXING || GASOLINE

Wen Kexing ✘ Zhou Zishu || Dandelions

Play With Fire - Wen Kexing

TOXIC ~ Wen Kexing ~ word of honor ~ 山河令

(Marvel) Bucky Barnes | Free

Bucky Barnes | Feeling Good

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier || Next Level ft. @7kingZ || (Marvel)

Eternity looking down on us.

The complexity of reality.

Captain America

✗ The Crows | Trouble (Shadow&Bone)

Shadow & Bone | Paint It Black

The secret fate of all life.

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January

A Better Version - Jessie Shelton

Start a War - Klergy, Valerie Broussard

Meet Me in the Dark - Melissa Etheridge

ily - Surf Mesa, Emilee

Space Man - Eurielle

To Be Loved - Aurora

In the Blood - Darren Korb

Can’t Help Falling in Love - Tommee Profitt

Astronomical - SVRCINA

Oh Comely - Neutral Milk Hotel

In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles

goblincore + cottagecore

moonlit love letters 🌙💌 (sailor moon-inspired lofi mix)

Moonlight Densetsu Lo-Fi Remix 1 hour version

Peaceful Meditation

February

Never Forget You - Zara Larsson

Is You Ready - Migros

Recomposed Four Seasons - Max Richter

The End - JPOLND

Love Yourself - Sufjan Stevens

Deja | Daniel Roure

Used To Like | Neon Trees

Material Boy - Sir Sly

Willow - Taylor Swift

Overture - Apashe

Evangeline - Josh Garrels

Gris, pt 1 - Berlinist

Inferno - Hiroyuki Sawano

March

BAMBAM - Angie

Dictator - Rei Ami

Demons - Hayley Kiyoko

Runaway - Rei Ami

Deep Blue - Marcus Warner

Brave New World - Kalandra

Nero - The Speed

The Path of Silence - Anne Sophie Versnaeyen

Tuleloits - Kerli

Soft to Be Strong - Marina

Relic - Reeder

Ascension - Gorillaz

Will You Follow Me Into the Dark - Klergy

Voidfish (Plural) - Rachel Mitchell

Raya and the Last Dragon soundtrack

Unicorn Wizard - Ninja Sex Party

Me Too - Meghan Trainor

Umbrella - Rihanna

Colors Flying High - Lollia

Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There - Lyn

lovely - khalid

Burn My Dread - Lotus Juice

Progress - The Dear Hunter

My Mother Told Me - Rachel Hardy

Savage Daughter - Sarah Ross

Four - Sleeping At Last

April

The Other Side - Amarante

Predator & Prey - Griffin Puatu

As the World Caves In -Matt Maltese

Tell Her I Wasn’t Scared - Dan Thiessen

Esmeralda - Adriel Genet

Woods - AfterInfinity

So Human of You - Shireen

Flags of Rome - Jesper Kyd

Do It All the Time - I don’t Know How But They Found Me

Hummingbirds - Venus Hum

On and On - Curtis Harding

Grand Escape - RADWIMPS

my ex’s best friend - machine gun kelly

Sofia - Clairo

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Charlotte Lawrence

Next Level - 7KingZ

Tell Me - Johnny Jewel

Get Out of Town - Firefles

Music for Anglo Saxes

I See Darkness In You - Red Mecca

Satan Is His Name - Holly Golightly

Rocky Trail - Kings of Convenience

Story - NF

Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs

Use to Be (L.O.V.E.) - Chelsea Collins

Bird on a Wire - Simone Istwa

Huzzah - Nathan Barr

POSTED FIC

January

gonna make you feel, boy | Hades | Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus | 1,101 words | “You can touch, you know,” she murmurs, satisfaction and anticipation warring within her. Her pulse pounds. Zagreus’s eyes have darkened, his pupils eating up all that color. He looks good enough to eat.

February

how long do we have? | She Ra | Adora/Catra | 1,539 words | “The war is over, Adora,” Catra tells her. Adora hums. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

March

only fools rush in | The Adventure Zone | Taako/Magnus | 5,209 words | “Okay,” Taako says, sitting down heavily. “So. Ancient ritual to… bring people together?”

til my lungs both billow out | The Magnus Archives | Jon/Martin | 748 words | The knife goes in. The tape runs out.

the echo, as wide as the equator | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 2,927 words | “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers after it is done.

April

N/A

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

January

1685 words of Buzzfeed Unsolved, tattoo AU

February

N/A

March

3121 words of Magnus/Taako, Stolen Century verse Posted!

April

852 words of Steve/Billy

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

got the morbs: sad/somber songs for sad/somber people

2021: a mix for the year that comes after 2020

Sahara Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Spanish Sahara

Fire Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Play With Fire

Consequences Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Consequences

Paradise Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Paradise Valley

Real Boy: a Zagreus playlist

February

N/A

March

only fools rush in: a taako/magnus playlist

pomegranate seeds: a persephone playlist

make them bow: a megaera playlist

fuck feelings: a taako playlist

til my lungs both billow out: a jonmartin playlist

April

i am my mother’s savage daughter: a playlist for the girl

#heather says what #heather writes #scrapbook #2021

3 notes · View notes

grapefruitsketches · 4 years

Text

Chapter 8, Memory

Final part of my Songxiao post-canon fix-it fic series, started under the Untamed Spring Fest 2020 event:

Please see the reblogged version of this under the my-writing and songxiao-fix-it-series tags on my blog - will be a pinned post for the next little while - for links to previous chapters/the Ao3 version!

4,134 Words

“Remember your assignment, Xiao-daozhang!” Wen Qionglin said good-naturedly, although Song Lan knew that undertone well, the one that softly implied an or else if the kindly reminder wasn’t heeded.

And with a soft nod from Xingchen, and the requisite farewell bows, Wen Qionglin had gone.

The farm was quiet.

For the first time since Xingchen had awoken in Cloud Recesses, the two were truly alone.

It had been Wei Wuxian’s idea.

“You know,” he had said, chewing thoughtfully on a particularly tough piece of pork, “Lan Zhan tells me that your guqin playing has gotten pretty good, Song-daozhang. Right, Lan Zhan?”

Hanguang-Jun, apparently long resigned to his husband’s insistence on starting conversations not only during meal times, but mid-bite, nodded.

“I wonder if… now that you don’t usually even need an interpreter… if you two might want some… alone time?”

To Song Lan’s relief, Xingchen (having completely missed the combination of Wei Wuxian’s suggestive eyebrow raise and Hanguang-Jun’s silent mouthing of Wei Ying!, and the sudden flush Song Lan could feel rushing to his face) was able to, quite innocently, consider the idea, “Hmm… I mean, if you two don’t mind us being here alone, then it might be nice… I mean… it might be good to test how well this works, just the two of us… if we are to… to travel alone again.” Xingchen’s voice faded out, and Song Lan felt his heart quicken. They had not yet discussed what might follow their time at the farm. For months, it had seemed enough to imagine that where they were might as well have been where they always were, where they would forever be, even though both knew there had been a beginning and so there would be an end.

But now… Xingchen’s mental state had seemed to be improving steadily as of late. There were still nightmares, still outbursts. But they were more controlled. Xingchen seemed to be getting more comfortable with the idea that these emotions would rise from time to time, and, at least out loud, did not chastise himself so much for them.

“What do you think, Zichen?” and with this offer of a future, of a something that came next, of a return to something that looked like the normal of his life twenty years ago, of course, Song Lan caught the other’s hand and squeezed a quick, enthusiastic, Yes.

And so, after seeking Wen Qionglin’s approval of the suggestion, the date was set for the cessation of Wen Qionglin, Wei Wuxian, and Hanguang-Jun’s rotating visits. Letters were sent to the Juniors, who were liable to pop by at a moment’s notice, that the farm would be off limits until and unless Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen decided otherwise.

It would be just the peace and quiet that the two had wanted, had deserved, for so long. Just the right way to ease back into the peace and quiet on the road that so clearly characterized Song Lan’s favourite memories - the two of them alone, side by side.

Or so Song Lan had thought.

Barely five weeks in, he began to feel restless. He and Xingchen went about the daily chores, took boat rides, had picnics, cooked, cleaned, took walks, explored. But the farm was starting to feel exceptionally small without the ever-rotating collection of friends (did Song Lan dare acknowledge them as family?) to distract from the sameness of the scenery, the sameness of the limited range of activities. Fuxue seemed to whine at his back, Shuanghua humming comfortingly, but Song Lan felt that it too wondered, why, now that they were not held here by obligations to friends and family, they were not pursuing far more important matters.

But it was also Shuanghua that brought echoing words of Wen Qionglin back to Song Lan, words that reminded him that there was still work to be done. Here. Now. Work that needed this quiet alone time to work itself out.

Why does Song-daozhang still carry Shuanghua for you?

Remember your assignment!

Song Lan wondered what that assignment might be, but never dared intervene or ask about Xingchen’s solo sessions with Wen Qionglin. It had hurt at first, to be suddenly excluded from the meetings, but he had soon recalled what his early sessions had been like, and flinched at the thought of Xingchen being there. He had been grateful even then that he had been using sign language at the time. He didn’t even have to worry about Xingchen overhearing anything in a moment of lucidity from the spirit pouch that had never left his side.

If Wen Qionglin had taken the time to remind Xingchen of the assignment as he left, it must have been important. He was sure Xingchen had not forgotten, but knowing Wen Qionglin, it wouldn’t be anything easy.

It was clear Xingchen was working hard on his recovery. Song Lan did not think Xingchen realized how light a sleeper he was now, but every morning Song Lan watched, as Xingchen reached for the blade. He saw that, every morning, he flinched away. A full arm’s length still between his fingers and Shuanghua. He watched how Xingchen steadied himself before standing back up, seeming to conclude that today, again, was not the day. Xingchen would sigh, unconsciously letting his fingers brush the raised scar, the only spot on Xingchen that Song Lan tried to avoid looking at, before lying back in bed.

Xingchen would then let a hand drift over to Song Lan - maybe to his hair, his waist, his arm - before apparently falling asleep so the two of them would seem to wake up together just a little later (Song Lan always making a show of stretching not long after this morning ritual, Xingchen mirroring with a sleepy yawn, both doing their best so that the other didn’t realize they had been awake for quite some time by then).

But Shuanghua was not the assignment. At least, Song Lan didn’t think so. Instead, the hints came at the quietest of moments. While the soup bubbled. While they dozed in the sun on a nearby hill. When Song Lan stopped rowing for a while and let the stream carry them lazily downriver. Xingchen would sit up, maybe open his mouth, maybe raise an arm to meet Song Lan’s. Sometimes, he would even seem to start to say the words, “Zichen, I…” or “I need to…” before pivoting suddenly to something wildly different than his tone had originally implied, “…am hungry. Let’s go make dinner” or “…tell you this terrible joke Wei-gongzi told me.”

Song Lan’s heart ached for him. He was clearly trying, so hard. Xingchen was tired. His face drawn, strength returning but fortitude slipping. And there was nothing Song Lan could do except to play, over and over again, the chords, I’m listening.

It had been three months that they had spent alone at the farm. Xingchen knew he was running out of excuses. And while the excuses ran out, and his ability to resist weakened, the pressure within him mounted. There were nights where he couldn’t sleep, torn between his desire to just let go, and his fear of turning out to be too much for Zichen after all. He knew Zichen wouldn’t leave, but in a way, that made it worse.

But the peaceful days went on. And Zichen seemed only to get sadder. The notes of the guqin not intrusive, but still imploring.

I need to tell him. But I can’t. He had said.

You want to tell him. And you can. Wen Qionglin had corrected.

But what if he does not want to know? Xingchen had asked.

What would you want him to hide from you?

And even though it had taken months, and the pressure building to near unbearable levels, for Xingchen to realize, he finally understood that Wen Qionglin was, as always, right.

“Zichen… I need to… no, I want to… talk to you about, about Yi City.”

The words had come out of him in a rush. Xingchen honestly couldn’t believe he had finally said it. But there the words hung, heavy. Finally escaped from his lungs, his heart, unretractable.

A long, unbearable silence followed, and Xingchen heard the sound of urgent shuffling, the guqin being dragged closer to Zichen. The instrument had apparently been left with wheelbarrow as they dug up fresh potatoes. Xingchen heard a faint clapping sound, Zichen ever unwilling to let a speck of dirt touch the smooth surface of the instrument.

And the chords which finally came, ones so familiar, so commonplace, brought tears to Xingchen’s eyes when he heard them answer. I’m listening. But this time, they were followed by something more. No matter what.

And so Xingchen began.

Song Lan had known, or at least suspected, most of this.

He remembered vividly the way Xingchen had laughed when Xue Yang had teased him, had seen the quiet little home those three had shared. He also had heard directly from the now, thankfully, dead man what brutal manipulations had been imposed on Xingchen. And Song Lan knew only too well, though most of his other memories as Xue Yang’s puppet were dull and distant, what revelation had been Xingchen’s breaking point, remembered this moment clearly. Song Lan had internally screamed out, realizing only then that there would never be a way for him to break out of the control the needles in his neck imposed. Because if Xingchen’s grief torn face, his gut-wrenching scream wouldn’t let him do anything more than turn his head just ever so slightly towards his beloved, nothing would.

But he listened. Of course he listened. And Xingchen clearly needed to speak. He tensed, but was not surprised at the guilt Xingchen carried, at the I should’ve knowns, all the I’m sorrys, every if only I hads. Each one a punch to Song Lan’s gut, hearing the weight Xingchen had been carrying, but bearable in that Xingchen was clearly letting off some of the pressure that Song Lan had watched Xingchen undeservingly endure since he had awoken. Had felt this man turn on himself even as far back as when he first felt the squirms of a reassembling soul in the pouch he had carried.

A hand on his thigh, “Zichen.”

Song Lan looked up, startled out of the trance Xingchen’s words had put him under. He realized Xingchen had been silent for a few moments, waiting anxiously for Song Lan’s response.

Song Lan reached for the hand, carefully slotting his fingers between Xingchen’s and holding tight. Xingchen smiled, a smile which finally seemed to light up his face the way it should. And something, a pressure Song Lan hadn’t noticed until now, burst inside him as well. Tears flowed freely from his - from Xingchen’s - eyes.

Song Lan thought of the young girl Xingchen had described, that he himself had met so briefly. He thought of Xingchen’s soft smiles at the younger visiting cultivators, and Song Lan wondered, as Xingchen must have, how A-Qing would have gotten along with them if she had truly had the chance.

He thought of loneliness and grief, how they could each inspire such compassion, such horror, or both. He thought of life, death, renewal. Baoshan Sanren, Yi City, Baixue Temple.

He thought of all the ridiculous thoughts that had crossed his mind over the long twenty years they had spent apart. That Xingchen must hate him. That Xingchen must blame him. That what had happened to Xingchen was his fault. He had fought these thoughts for years. Wen Qionglin supporting him, then Hanguang-Jun, now Xingchen. But until now, until hearing the same thoughts mirrored in Xingchen’s voice: that Xingchen, Xingchen thought he could ever be hated? That Song Lan could ever truly think any of this was Xingchen’s fault? Only now did Song Lan truly understand how ridiculous he must have sounded, similarly taking on all the blame.

Wen Qionglin had had regrets. Hanguang-Jun had had regrets. Each of them had demonstrated to Song Lan that your darkest moments, your biggest mistakes, your worst actions, did not have to define you. They had shown him that forgiving yourself could sometimes be a selfless act. If absolving himself for actions he’d taken under another’s control, if acknowledging his own growth past lashing out at Baixue Temple, could present the possibility to Xingchen that he could forgive himself? If Song Lan telling himself that no matter what he had done - willingly at Baixue Temple, unwillingly as a puppet - he was still worthy of living a life with the ones he cared for and who cared for him, if that made it any more likely that Xingchen understood that he deserved at least the same? Then suddenly any further moral quandry dissipated.

But he had to say something. He reached for his guqin, wondering just how to explain this to his partner. Instead, what came out was a question that had haunted him since the moment Shuanghua had pierced his chest.

I have sometimes thought… what if I hadn’t found you? Would you be happier? If you had never known… who he was?

He braced himself for these notes to fall heavily on their mood, for Xingchen to freeze, withdraw, think that Song Lan wasn’t as easy a confidante as he’d thought.

“No.” That was all Xingchen said. A simple word, and a gentle laugh.

So Song Lan was instead the one who froze, surprised. After a few moments, Xingchen heard the volumes Song Lan’s stillness spoke.

Xingchen sighed, “The truth is important. I still missed you all those years apart, even if there were others, trustworthy or no, with whom I could temporarily relieve that feeling once in a while.” Xingchen leaned a cheek on his hand, tapping it thoughtfully, “I don’t even know for sure if I didn’t suspect even then that something was wrong with the man who turned out to be… to be Xue Yang…” Xingchen raced through the end of the sentence, the name hard to say even now, “I just didn’t realize… no, never mind.”

Please. Simple, not forceful. Enough.

Xingchen smiled weakly, “I know now this wouldn’t excuse anything, and it’s still a pretty silly conclusion to come to but… I suppose I just didn’t realize, didn’t even consider, that if this person wasn’t to be trusted, that if he was by my side, that he could still hurt people that weren’t ah… you know.”

That he could hurt people who weren’t you. Song Lan understood, and didn’t need to hear Xingchen say so, or guess the end of the sentence through the guqin to confirm. An easy temptation, to think that saving others could be as simple as sacrificing oneself. It was one they had each fallen into at some point, but one that, hopefully, they were finally learning to leave behind.

Xingchen rested a hand on Song Lan’s shoulder, inviting, warm. And Song Lan responded in kind, pulling Xingchen close. There would be no more gardening today.

The sun went down over fields that had only recently seemed so confining. The fields now seemed almost endless, comforting in their depth. The two cultivators lay side by side, enjoying the shade as they leaned against the trunk of an ancient tree. The warm pinks and oranges painted across the sky reminded Song Lan of the campfires the two of them had fallen asleep next to on so many nights, back when they were still dancing around the now obvious fact that they wanted to remain at each other’s sides for as long as they were able.

Song Lan absent-mindedly strummed the guqin, describing for Xingchen the swirls of fading light, the way the last bursts of sunbeams painted the leaves of the peach grove below them. He had been thinking of new ways to adapt some of his poetry into this auditory language, and realized with a smile he might just be getting it. He looked down at Xingchen, who was resting his head on Song Lan’s shoulder, breathing slowly, evenly. Xingchen shifted, the delicate features settling into a faint smile. Song Lan’s smile reflected Xingchen’s without a thought. There was no contest between the sunset and Xingchen’s peaceful expression. Song Lan knew from experience that not even thousands of sunsets could match the latter.

“Song Zichen,” Xingchen said, the use of his full name taking Song Lan aback for a moment, but his tone was still drowsy, if sombre, “I need you to know that I will never put you through anything like that ever again. I cannot change the past but I cannot, will not cause any more suffering. Not on anyone, but not on you especially.”

Song Lan’s answer came through powerfully, louder chords than those he had been playing until now coming through naturally, an effortless translation of his own feelings on the matter, And I need you to know that if you do, I will be there to help you fix it. Because I cannot allow suffering for you any more than you can for me.

“Zichen, Zichen. Always one upping me with your words,” Xingchen laughed, losing the serious tone he had held moments before, “Just you wait until I can spar again. Then we will truly have some justice.” Xingchen yawned and snuggled closer into Zichen’s side. Song Lan returned to his softer, melodic descriptions of the landscape. Xingchen fell quickly into a gentle sleep, one that Song Lan hoped to be a well-deserved deep and peaceful one.

Song Lan blinked his eyes open, the pale light confusing until he realized - it was the sunrise. Xingchen’s arms were wrapped around him, the other man sleeping later than Song Lan for the first time in a long while. Song Lan had no intention of moving, of risking rousing him, and in the moment, failed to see the problem with staying here forever.

Something tugged at his mind, though, a feeling that he was missing something important, something obvious. Not quite as urgent as the feelings he often had on the battlefield, those ones which had saved his, and sometimes Xingchen’s, life on more than one occasion, but something important nonetheless.

He blinked lazily, doing a quick sweep of the surroundings.

The garden tools still rested in the wheelbarrow, the remains of their late lunch turned dinner packed neatly in the basket nearby. The fields were empty. Fuxue rested on his back.

That was it. Fuxue.

Or rather, Fuxue’s near constant companion.

Having sat by the tree with the initial intention that it would only be a quick break, Song Lan had not bothered to remove the swords from his back. And now Song Lan realized that at some point in the night, as Xingchen’s arms had snaked around Song Lan’s waist, as Xingchen had pulled him closer, a hand must have landed inadvertently on a certain blade.

And though the sword was still sheathed, though the hand was nowhere near the handle on which it belonged, Song Lan thought he heard, clear as the early morning birds taking stock of their nesting grounds, Shuanghua sing.

And so the days passed, boredom slipped away as they found each other again, easily, even if slowly, now that the final walls had fallen between them. The nightmares became rarer, and the past more historical fact than vengeful ghost.

They were sitting on the edge of the bed, side by side, contemplating the same spot near the corner of the room.

“I think I will this time,” Xingchen said, smiling, sure, not needing Song Lan’s answer, just stating this as the truth.

And in that moment, Song Lan believed him, of course he did. Before Xingchen even stood up, Song Lan had seen him cross the room, grab Shuanghua by the hilt, wield it, stand ready to protect as many as he could, to vanquish evil where he must. Song Lan knew he would be there by his side. He knew that at the end of a journey, they would come back, to a place like this, but a place far less quiet, one full of people who needed and loved them and who one day the world would need and love.

The nightmares of the past may be rarer, but the dreams for the future were becoming far more haunting.

The Xingchen of the present finally did lift Shuanghua from the stand, and, even if somewhat more hesitantly than Song Lan’s mind had presented it, Xingchen once again stood, truly united with his sword. Watching Xingchen, but mind still racing weeks, years, decades ahead, Song Lan knew the first chords he played should have been congratulatory, celebratory, awestruck. But instead, the chords his fingers danced over without a thought were instead, We should start talking about our sect again.

And if the mere thought of Xingchen reconnecting with Shuanghua, had been dazzling, then the sight of Xingchen turning, laughing, sword in hand and exuberant agreement lighting up his whole face? The sight almost made Song Lan need to shield his eyes from the brightness. Almost. But then, how could he forgive himself if he missed even a moment?

There were more talks, more walks, more cooking, boat rides, gardening. A tension had been relieved, worries still lurking but temporarily eased, more nuisance than threat. And soon, the farm came to feel too small again, like a cozy sickroom occupied just a bit too long after the fever had passed.

They spoke of the sect they would build.

“Zichen, I was thinking… if you think it would be right, we could set our sect up where…”

At Baixue Temple, came the quick set of chords. And Xingchen had grinned, nodding. They could not bring back or replace what was lost, but they could certainly keep their memories close by as they rebuilt their lives and reclaimed the dreams they had long believed forever out of reach.

When Wen Ning appeared, months after he’d left, arms laden with carefully chosen gifts and treats from the various villages where his patients lived, he came upon a sight that brought an immediate smile to his face, a glow of pride to his chest.

The clashing of swords, sweeping robes, elegant but powerful leaps through the air. The Distant Moon and Gentle Breeze. The Distant Snow and Cold Frost. Swirling, dancing together in playful combat, like snow flurries on a winter’s day. Shuanghua in one’s hand, Fuxue in the other. And if there was still a hesitation in one’s step, unwilling to take an opening he had clearly noticed, or if the other sometimes struck a bit more gently than the teasing, taunting voice challenged him to, to Wen Ning, this was still success.

And weeks later, after the proper festivities were had, after Xiao Xingchen asked to see Jin Ling’s dog and Wei Wuxian accused him of high treason, after Ouyang Zizhen spent half a day in silence, before breaking and realizing if he was going to be remembered in stories or song, it would not be as a Song Lan or Hanguang-Jun silent type. After Sizhui taught Song Lan the word for “adorable” and Xiao Xingchen’s cheeks remained flushed the rest of the evening once Hanguang-Jun translated the chord for him, if after all that Song Lan held Xingchen’s hand, and Xingchen understood that that meant it was time. If Xingchen asked if Song Lan was sure, and if Song Lan made out the chords for Yes. If Xingchen said, “To Baixue Temple?” and Song Lan replied, “They would want us to rebuild.”

If after all that, as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji watched the two cultivators set off, they felt a little stirring of nostalgia for the moment they had first detected whispers that they might have what they had now? If those two cultivators left side by side, one in white, one in black, a sword draped over each one’s back, and felt a feeling of rightness descend over them in a way it hadn’t for decades? Well, that wouldn’t mean that everything was back to how it was, or even that the world was as those two deserved it to be. But perhaps it meant it didn’t matter. That for them, it was enough to have each other, their dream, and an open road ahead of them. That the road behind, arduous as it had been, could be left as something only ever behind them. Always there, maybe having left a stain of dirt on robes or shoes so that it could not be readily forgotten, but not nearly as present as the road under their feet now.

And certainly never more important than the one they each had forever by their side.

[END]

Thank you so much if you've kept up with/read this whole thing! This is the longest fic I've ever posted, and just thinking of anyone having read so many words I wrote is both terrifying but so nice <3

Thank you again so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this journey!!

#songxiao #the untamed #cql #xiao xingchen #song lan #songxiao fix it series #mdzs #my writing

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