#he writes a letter to nie mingjue
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Lan Wangji felt his heart skipping a beat when a very familiar laugh sounded through the quiet of Cloud Recesses, coming from somewhere nearby. Without thinking much of it, he changed directions to pass by the usual trio of friends sitting around the courtyard, talking about something Lan Wangji didn't feel like he wanted to actually pay attention.
Wei Ying was like the sun coming out from behind a large cloud, his smile, his laugh was just so bright (so beautiful). Lan Wangji almost paused his walking, but got hold of himself and averted his eyes from the beautiful boy he refuses to acknowledge stole his heart.
While doing this, he ended up looking briefly at Nie Huaisang, who sat closer to Wei Ying with a soft expression behind his opened fan.
Lan Wangji recognizes that expression. A soft tiny smile, together with soft eyes that twinkles with youthful feelings.
Oh. Oh no. He can't possibly be in l-
Lan Wangji glares.
Nie Huaisang turns around and smirks at him, before turning to give all his attention to whatever Wei Ying was saying.
Lan Wangji glared harder.
If Nie Huaisang wanted a war. He was going to have one.
Wei Ying is his
"Ah! Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying exclaimed loudly with a even brighter smile on his face.
Pausing, Lan Wangji nodded at him and then continued his walking, shooting a last glare at his brother's friend's little brother, who only smirked yet again.
#cloud recesses arc#gusu trio#cr arc but make it teenage romance drama#what if nhs and lwj were both in love with wwx#spoiler: it's war#mdzs#wangxian#wei ying#wei wuxian#lan zhan#lan wangji#nie huaisang#jiang cheng is there ok#poor boy don't even realize whats going on#neither wwx but well#lan xichen is highly amused#he writes a letter to nie mingjue#mdzs headcanons#mdzs imagine#lan wangji is a simp#wwx gets the love he deserves#wei ying pls this man wants to marry you#nmj: my brother is cuter hes gonna win his heart#lxc: haha i dont think so#my writing#bnnywngs writing
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A prompt: I'm still in love with Second madam nie. Anything from her POV, maybe including her favourite person, nie mingjue?
ao3
"Send Huaisang to my office. Immediately."
Nie Mingjue’s order went out, and no sooner out than fulfilled, even if Nie Huaisang did show up looking disgruntled and a little disheveled, as if someone strong had hoisted him up over his protests, thrown him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and whisked him away when he'd much rather be in his room reading or in a shop buying something. This was precisely what had happened, so Nie Huaisang felt entirely justified, even if his brother frowned ominously at his not-befitting-an-heir-of-a-Great-Sect appearance.
Still, his brother refrained from scolding (for once) and merely said, "Close the door."
Nie Huaisang did, his interest reluctantly piqued.
"Something political that I'm not supposed to know about?" he asked. "Or...?"
"Or," Nie Mingjue confirmed, and produced a letter. "Your mother wrote to you."
Nie Huaisang couldn't stop himself from wrinkling his nose.
Nie Mingjue noticed. "What's the matter? You don't want to hear from Second Mother?"
Actually, no.
Neither Nie Huaisang nor his mother had ever managed to properly explain to the bull-headed Nie Mingjue that certain types of people simply couldn't abide sharing space with another of their own kind - yes, even their own children, yes, even from a young age - and as a result he worked tirelessly to maintain his little brother's relationship with his long-absent, presumed-dead-by-most-people mother over both their protests. His persistence and earnest insistence that familial relationships were important was a little cute, actually, but it did mean that it was awfully hard to skive off without actually engaging.
Of course, the same was true on his mother's side. Nie Huaisang had to suppress a snigger at the thought of his brother hunting down and officiously scolding a fox in some forest somewhere with instructions to write more often.
"Are you going to read it?" Nie Mingjue prompted, and the expression on his face suggested that the answer to the question was required to be 'yes' and also 'right now, in this room, while being watched’. Nie Mingjue would never be so rude as to actually interfere with or eavesdrop on Nie Huaisang's correspondence, but previous experience had already shown him that listening to Nie Huaisang's claims of wanting to read it later or in private would only result in the letter not being read at all, whether due to negligence or it "accidentally" being destroyed in a fire or somesuch.
Damn Nie Huaisang's former self for having used up all the good excuses too early!
"Oh, all right," Nie Huaisang grumbled, and settled himself down to read. At least he could be fairly sure that the content would be about a subject of his liking - after all, the only thing Nie Huaisang had in common with his mother, other than a shared bloodline, was a fondness for his older brother.
-
Hey, pigface -
(Rude as always, Mother.)
I would say that I hope you're doing well, but I don't actually care (it's mutual!) and I'm sure that if there was anything wrong with you, my darling pork bun would have already conveyed it to me. (Almost certainly true.) He'd be ever so distressed about it, the poor tasty little lamb, so you'd better keep yourself in one piece for his sake, you hear me? (Like Nie Huaisang was going to get anywhere near danger anyway. She wasn't wrong about how much Nie Mingjue would worry, though, so Nie Huaisang reluctantly agreed with the sentiment - he'd be able to point to that when his brother ever so politely inquired as to what his mother had written. See, a positive interaction! They were capable of it! Mostly!)
As for your delicious older brother...(She'd better not say anything about Nie Huaisang stopping him from getting into danger, because that was impossible; Nie Mingjue and danger were practically best friends) well, I will only say, if he dies, you are to avenge him.
(Obviously.)
Now, I'm equally certain that you don't give one fig for my own state of health (completely correct), so I won't bore you with that. I will say that your cousin in Dongying is doing very well (that was good, Nie Huaisang had liked him, though of course he'd liked the fact that the man lived all the way away in Dongying even better) and his musically inclined partner sends you in particular his regards. (He'd probably mispronounced it.) I'll spare you how he mangled it (called it!) and tell you instead that he is still proficient in that song you taught him (aww, how cute). I enclose some little tricks that you might find useful (please no) assuming you ever endeavor to be useful (never!)
Now, onto the most important subject (about time) - how is my tender little zongzi doing? (What a stupid question, she literally saw da-ge when she gave him this message.) He seemed fine in person, but you know he doesn't want to burden people with his troubles (sad, but true) and he is especially cautious when there's a chance that the person in question wants to help out (that's because certain people thought the only way to help any situation involved murder and/or eating people). I expect at least four pages of his day-to-day activities (psst, like Nie Huaisang was going to strain himself to do something like that) in exchange of which I will provide a brand new illustrated set of your preferred brand of picture book (...damn her for knowing his weaknesses).
Stay alive and in your own territory (same to you, Mother), and best wishes to my best little savory dumpling in the world, may he be ever delicious and ready to eat.
(Stop being weird, Mother.)
(Also, he wasn’t hers, he was Nie Huaisang’s.)
-
"No signature, as always," Nie Huaisang observed, and Nie Mingjue snorted.
"Like anyone could mimic how your mother talks."
Nie Huaisang thought about it, then shrugged in agreement.
"How is she doing?"
Nie Huaisang gave his brother an incredulous look, which (rightfully) made the older man flush.
"I have no idea how to tell," he defended himself. "I just want to know that she's not facing any difficulties, that's all. She'd never admit it if she was."
Only da-ge, Nie Huaisang thought fondly, and also No wonder she likes him so much.
It was, he had to admit, the one area in which his mother had impeccable taste that completely accorded with his own.
His da-ge was simply, unquestionably, the best.
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Happy Valentine's Shana! If you're up for it, a continuation of the wangxian time travel au pleasee
If not, dealers choice :)
a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lan Xichen does need to get engaged. He's not opposed to Wen Qing, whom his brother is for some reason pushing for, but she's not his preference.
He wishes this were a conversation that he and Mingjue could have in person. But that's not possible, so instead he has to write a letter that's not overly formal, since he's asking unofficially, nor too casual, so that his friend knows that he's serious.
Which is basically impossible, since he's asking his best friend if he's planning to marry A-Yao, and if he's not, would he mind if Lan Xichen did?
He hasn't even discussed it with A-Yao yet. It's not proper to bring it up until he's confirmed he's available, but it still makes guilt squirm in the bottom of his stomach. He's very devoted to the Nie. Maybe he has no interest in leaving for another clan, no matter the position he'd be marrying into.
Uhg. All of this is Wangji's fault.
He's going to find Jiang Wanyin so they can bitch about their terrible brothers together.
#why do i love this little murder gremlin so much#i just think he's neat#prompt answers#prompts are closed#asks#anon#untamed
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I wish you would write a fic where...
Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang spending time together at some point before Huaisang goes to Gusu for the first time (can be before or after their father dies)
I always love me some Nie bros! I hope you enjoy this - I had a good chuckle writing it :D
(I didn't state it in the fic but NHS is about 13-14 years old)
~ ~ ~
“Nie-zongzhu?”
Nie Mingjue looked up from his papers at Elder Nie WuFong. “Yes?”
“This one was wondering if Nie-gongzi wasn’t a little too old to spend his days painting in your office. Would his attention not be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps studying battle strategies, or mingling with other boys his age.”
Nie Mingjue glared over at his brother, who had shifted down in his seat and only just looked up over the surface of his table. The last time Nie Mingjue had sent his brother to ‘mingle with other boys his age’, he’d walked in on two fourteen-year old boys stripping their outer robes off after losing to Nie Huaisang at a game of dice.
“While I appreciate the concern,” Nie Mingjue replied with a sigh, “I believe my brother’s time is best spent here with me.”
Elder Nie nodded and bowed before making his exit, closing the office door behind him. Nie Huaisang sat upright in his seat once again and continued his work of gliding a brush across his paper to shape the wings of a crane in flight. Nie Mingjue huffed and picked his own paper back up.
He grunted.
“What’s another way of saying ‘this sounds interesting, but we can’t afford it right now’?”
“Which sect leader?” Nie Huaisang asked without looking up from his artwork.
“He-zongzhu.”
His brother nodded. “Unfortunately, this year’s budget has not allowed us any leeway in pursuing new projects or proposals, however, I would greatly appreciate any updates you can give on its progress. If there is another way I can support this, then please let me know, and I shall see if in the future, we might find room in next year’s budget to assist in this endeavour.”
Nie Mingjue smirked at his brother’s way with words and wrote down what his brother had suggested, with only the occasional tweak to apply it to Sect Leader He’s request. He set his completed letter aside for the ink to dry and took up another piece of correspondence.
He groaned.
“Yao or Ouyang?” Nie Huaisang asked.
“Yao,” Nie Mingjue replied through gritted teeth.
“What does he want this time.”
“Nothing much,” Nie Mingjue tried to speak casually, “only to marry you off to his little sister.”
Nie Huaisang’s head popped up looking absolutely horrified. “Da-ge, you can’t be serious!”
“You’re right,” Nie Mingjue nodded. “I’ll write him back and accept immediately-”
“Don’t you dare!”
Nie Mingjue was no longer able to keep a straight face and he burst into strangled chuckles. His brother heaved a sigh of relief. “So, brat, how do you think I should respond?”
“Dear Yao-zongzhu,” Nie Huaisang spoke dramatically, “while I am honoured by your proposal, it is one we simply cannot accept. My brother is, unfortunately for such an alliance, the most cuttingest sleeve that ever was cut-”
“Didn’t I catch you kissing the cook’s daughter last week?” Nie Mingjue accused with a raised eyebrow.
“You also caught me with the captain’s son the week before that,” Nie Huaisang countered, “so technically it isn’t completely untrue. But if you don’t like that, you can always say... my didi is unfortunately on his deathbed after I forced him to go on a night hunt and he was cursed by a trickster ghost, and I could not possibly allow you to betrothe your sister to a dying man.”
“Since when are you a man?”
“It’s for the effect, Da-ge!”
“And what do we say when he sees you alive at the next cultivation conference?”
“That it was a miraculous recovery,” Nie Huaisang grinned. Nie Mingjue snorted. “Or you can tell him I’m already betrothed... maybe to Wangji-di or Xichen-ge?”
“You wouldn’t survive Cloud Recesses’ rules.”
“What about Jiang Wanyin?”
“You haven’t seen him since you were five – you don’t even know what he looks like now.”
Nie Huaisang nodded solemnly. “You’re right, he might have gotten too ugly to kiss even with a bag over my head.”
Nie Mingjue was tempted to throw a brush at his brother’s head... then he thought of something better. “You know, didi, I think you’re onto something. But you know what sect we should marry you into?” He waited until his brother looked at him with wide-eyed curiosity. “The Jin. They’re rich and they love artsy things like you do.”
Nie Huaisang tilted his head consideringly. “But Zixuan-xiong is already betrothed to Jiang Yanli.”
“I know.” Nie Mingjue made a production of pulling out a clean piece of paper. “Dear Jin-zongzhu, I believe it is time for a proper alliance between our sects. I would like to propose a formal betrothal between my brother and heir, and your nephew Jin Zixun-”
Nie Huaisang wailed and flopped back onto the floor. “If you even consider sending that, I’m going to run off and join a night hunt so I can let a yao gore me to death!”
“Would you really prefer death to marriage with Jin Zixun?”
“Yes!!!!”
“Always a critic,” Nie Mingjue smirked.
“But back to Yao-zongzhu’s sister.” Nie Huaisang stood up from the floor and brushed off his robes. “I think there’s a possibility you haven’t considered yet.”
“Oh?” Nie Mingjue watched as his brother approached his desk to grab sect leader Yao’s letter. “And what would that be.”
Nie Huaisang’s face turned more mischievous than a fox’s. “Marrying her to you! Dear Yao-zongzhu, I will take your sister for my own wife and we will have ten children so my didi no longer has to be my heir-” he dictated as he ran out of the room.
Nie Mingjue sat and shook his head at his brother’s antics.
And then he stopped.
His brother wouldn’t actually send such a response... would he?
He jumped up from his desk and ran out after his brother – just in case.
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I have no idea how coherent this will be because I am still in borderline Sickness Stupid Mode, but for today's "Things I Will Probably Never Write," we have "Nie Mingjue is forced into an unwinnable choice between his brother and his sect and Nie Huaisang takes the choice from him to spare them both (some of) the misery."
So, during all the cleanup and rebuilding post-Sunshot, it becomes apparent that there is a growing problem in the Nie sect.
All of the rogue cultivators and refugee-from-destroyed-small-sect cultivators and regular soldiers hold a huge disdain for Nie Huaisang, and they aren't particularly shy about it. They signed on under the battle charisma of Nie Mingjue, and even if Huaisang wasn't entirely idle during the war (most people saw him at one point or another helping the infirmary and food tents, for example, and some of them were even treated or fed by him), the idea of this coddled little puffball ever giving them orders is a big fat No Fucking Thanks.
The spreading disgruntlement isn't curbed by the seniors and elders who'd always been with the sect, as they've never been particularly happy with Nie Mingjue's insistence on keeping his brother as heir either.
And eventually, the grumbling becomes a snap. Someone or several someones tries to incapacitate Nie Huaisang enough that he'd no longer be able to take up the sect leader mantle.
Naturally, Nie Mingjue is incensed, and when the person or ringleaders are caught, they have to be punished.
But he's not oblivious, and it quickly becomes clear to him that they have a lot more support amongst the sect than he would have thought, severely complicating the situation.
Nie Huaisang isn't oblivious either. If the punishment is too harsh; if his brother seems to be choosing him over the will of the sect on the whole, they could be looking at a succession crisis, or even open rebellion. If the punishment is light, but he doesn't remove Huaisang from his position, that will only make the attempts bolder until he has to fully pick a side. If he does remove Huaisang from his position, then no matter how harsh a punishment he chooses, there will be those who see it as capitulating.
If he does this-
If he does that-
If, if, if-
Huaisang knows that no matter what his brother chooses to do, there will be severely negative side effects, but that the worst will come from siding with him.
(He knows he isn't strong enough to have to stand and hear his brother cast him aside.)
Well... it's not like he wanted to be in line for the sect position, and everyone expects him to be a coward anyway.
So he spends a full night writing instructions to a handful of trusted servants on how to sell or release the aviary inhabitants, which of his things to sell, etc.
He packs a few paintings that will make good advertisements of his ability, a few more that will sell quickly, and some trinkets and such that will also fetch good prices. He packs the money he'd earned off his last book just before the war started, some food from the kitchen and the plainest, most unnoticeable robes he owns.
Then, just before dawn, he finishes a letter to his brother, fetches Zhihua alone out of all the birds, and slips out of one of the secret gates that's no longer manned now that the war is over.
He doesn't really have an idea of where he's going, other than it would be best if he doesn't go near any sect seats. Too many political complications if he were to be found. Maybe some seaside town? He could actually learn to fish, and his abilities would do well among tourists...
No matter where he goes, this way, his brother won't be backed into a corner any more. No matter what he chooses to do with the ringleaders, he'll have to pick another heir, so no one can say he's still coddling Huaisang from the sect's perception of his behavior.
---
To say Nie Mingjue is unhappy to find his brother's goodbye letter is an understatement. At first, he takes it as Nie Huaisang avoiding duties and consequences again, but as he re-reads it, he starts to understand Huaisang's intent to spare him from a no-win situation.
Which doesn't make him any less unhappy.
Especially not when he gets to the line about never having to practice saber again. He's sure Huaisang intended that as a joke, trying to lighten the severity of what's just happened, but all it does is remind Mingjue that his own frequent expressions of annoyance and exasperation with his brother's idle personality probably contributed to exacerbating the situation.
He can't let himself resent the sect, but he can resent his brat of a brother for never shaping up and himself for not doing better at making Huaisang do so. It all comes down to that. Really. Nothing else.
Getting up and getting dressed, he goes to speak with the elders about what punishments would be appropriate for the disciples being held in the cells and a list of cousins who are close enough to the main bloodline to be acceptably eligible, and never says a word to any of them about Huaisang.
Later, he will go speak with the servants Huaisang chose and give them their assignments, but only for the birds. He does not mention any of the instructions about selling Huaisang's possessions.
Then after that, he will take Baxia out to the coldest side of the mountain, away from the walls of the Unclean Realms, and spend the rest of the day venting the grief and rage and resentment tied up in his guts.
Then he will go back to running the sect and pretend nothing is amiss until Huaisang's next letter arrives.
#mdzs#nie bros#nie mingjue#nie huaisang#nie sect#i had more for this idea but i ran out of typing steam#ideas
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Okay, so. This is the first of the broken twitter threadfics. The reasons I picked it to post are A) it broke at a relatively good ending point, and B) I was doing this as an experiment to see if I could keep myself from planning out where a story was going to go before writing it, and twitter's fuckery effectively kneecapped that. So, here it is!
----------
(“Why can’t you be more like-”)
A month before he’s supposed to attend the lectures, Nie Huaisang is nowhere to be found in the Unclean Realms.
In his wake are a pair of boxes for his brother and Meng Yao, each of which contains a cheerily biting note that since they each clearly want him to become the other, he’s giving them what they’ve always wanted!
Each other.
Without him in the middle.
Meng Yao is unnerved by this sudden disappearance, but anyone he mentions it to, Nie Mingjue included, just rolls their eyes.
it's a bratty tantrum, nothing more.
Huaisang will be back by dinner, complaining of being hungry.
The rest of the day passes.
Then another.
Then a week.
The time for Huaisang and the other disciples his age to leave for the Cloud Recesses comes and goes, and still no one knows where he is.
An uncomfortable heaviness develops in the air inside the fortress.
Everyone can tell that everyone else is worried, but nobody will broach the subject because Nie Mingjue (though clearly the most worried of all) is stubbornly refusing to discuss it.
When a letter comes from Gusu asking why Nie Huaisang never arrived for classes even though Nie Mingjue was adamant he would keep attending until he passed, it gets crumpled and tossed into the fire without a reply.
Meanwhile, whatever sort of relationship Huaisang thought his brother and Meng Yao were forming based on the weird backhanded praise of each other/putdowns towards him doesn't happen.
It's too awkward.
Both retreat entirely into bland professionalism and if a topic doesn’t have to do with work, they don't bring it up.
(Meng Yao doesn't understand why Huaisang was convinced he was pushing to get close to Mingjue in such a manner. Huaisang knew about his plans to eventually join his father, what could possibly make him believe-?
But with Huaisang no longer there to be a distraction while he's working, he finds his brain replaying certain events, and gradually starting to see them from a different perspective.
And… he doesn’t like what he sees.
For all he'd claimed repeatedly to be a neutral party in the brothers’ arguments, he... wasn't.
Even on the occasions that he was personally more sympathetic to Huaisang’s side of the matter, he'd always pushed him to be the one to back down and give in. Be an obedient little brother.
Behave.
Which... he can't be blamed for that, surely.
As much as Huaisang liked him, Huaisang wasn't his primary employer. it made logical sense that-
-No.
That's where he'd gone wrong.
He should have either truly remained neutral by telling both brothers it wasn't his place to get involved, or he should have told Huaisang why he felt compelled to take Nie Mingjue’s side so often.
But instead, he'd willingly taken up that center role, and then-
Ah.
What a mess.)
—
As the days of the summer and early fall tick by, Meng Yao finds himself... keeping an eye out.
Not searching (no one will admit to doing that, especially not Mingjue), just... hoping.
Huaisang has always despised winter and what it does to his health, surely once the weather starts to change for the worse, he will-
Huaisang still doesn't come back.
(It's getting harder and harder not to dwell on how much he misses Huaisang.
How much of a mistake he made.
He should have-
If only he had-
His… his friend is gone.
Now he only has coworkers.
And while he gets along with... most of them fairly well nowadays, it isn't the same.
It isn’t the same at all.)
—
They have been monitoring the movements of the Wen sect day in and day out, but it still catches them by surprise when it isn't inside their borders that the first blatant act of war is committed.
Meng Yao goes out among the scouts to make sure they are well-supplied with flares and messenger tokens and everything else they will need to keep the flow of information strong.
(He does not say that he is looking for Huaisang, but he does not have to.
He does not find Huaisang, but he does bring home Mingjue's friend from the Lan sect, bruised and filthy and exhausted.
He decides he likes Lan Xichen well enough, but-)
When the envoys from the Wen sect come to demand their heir, it is the first time Nie Mingjue says out loud, to anyone, that they don't have one.
For the briefest moment, Nie Huaisang is no longer a ghost, as every present member of the sect flinches.
Their visitors do not.
Meng Yao is the only one who catches that they seem to have expected this answer.
He doesn't like that at all.
And when he tells them later, as they help the disciples who have volunteered to go pack what little they are being allowed to bring, Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen like it even less.
(That night, Meng Yao hears the door to the room beside his unlock for the first time in over a year.
He curls himself into a ball under the blankets and pretends not to hear anything after that.)
—
A week after their disciples have made it home after escaping from the indoctrination camp, (at the same time that Lotus Pier is burning), Meng Yao has gone out with the scouts again, this time with a disguised Lan Xichen among their numbers-
-He wants to find his brother. Neither Nie Mingjue nor Meng Yao can begrudge him that, not when they are still-
-and they overhear a loud scuffle and heated voices-
"He fucking bit me! just slit the little bitch's throat already!"
"You do it! And then you can explain to the boss why and see what that gets you!"
"Let him go! He hasn't done anything!"
"Stay out of it, or you can die in his place!"
The source of the fight is several men in white and red robes crowded around an unseen figure as villagers yell from the sidelines.
One moves to the right, just long enough for Meng Yao to glimpse-
It’s-
His whole body goes cold.
It's-
He moves without thinking, a borrowed sword in hand. He doesn't hear Lan Xichen's startled warning, but it doesn't matter, as the other man immediately follows.
When he comes back to himself, there are five dead men on the ground and Nie Huaisang has thrown himself to his feet to run-
-from them, just as much as he'd probably tried to escape the Wen.
Spell music keeps him from getting more than a few steps before he drops into a heap right next to a sorry mess of bloody black feathers that has an arrow sticking out of it.
The old man who'd done the most yelling looks like he might be ready to do more, and Meng Yao, still feeling numb and sick and a hundred other things, manages to regain himself enough to reassure him that they have no intention of harming-
harming-
It hits him that he has no idea what Nie Huaisang was calling himself here.
Here, a tiny backwater village so close to the border between Qinghe and Qishan.
The complicated and messy swirl of emotions becomes distant... muted. He's still dizzy, but in a way that's like looking at the ground from up high.
The fight took place in front of a book copy shop-
"-er, yes, he does," the old man says, making Meng Yao realize he'd just asked if this person whose name he doesn't know works there.
Ha.
The only thing in the world that Nie Huaisang had ever hated as much as saber training was being forced to duplicate texts and rules and notes-
-and he's here.
Working and living in some nondescript copy shop.
Lan Xichen is saying something, and then the old man is speaking again, but Meng Yao comprehends none of it. Other Nie disciples have arrived and need to be caught up to speed, but he-
He pushes his way into the shop, and then up the back stairs to the living quarters above it.
There are only four small rooms and it's easy to tell which one is-
-was-
-is Huaisang's because it's the one that has three little wooden perches-
-clearly built of scavenged branches, they are still the most well made things in the room-
-arranged by the window and the door.
There is no wardrobe, just a couple of shoddy-looking boxes. The bed is... serviceable, which is the nicest word he can come up with. There is no wash basin, nor privacy screen. The shade over the window is so thin it would practically be useless in winter. A teapot and cup that look like they could crumble any moment sit on a tiny table that isn't in much better shape.
Meng Yao... has been in this room before.
Maybe not this specific room, but this room.
It's the same room he lived in during every stop between the brothel and Koi Tower, between Koi Tower and the Unclean Realms, paying for what rest he could get by offering up his education or labor.
And this room...
This room is where...
His fingers clench on the door frame.
He inhales slowly, though whether to keep from laughing or throwing up, he isn't sure which.
Oh... they had so badly underestimated how much resentment and hurt their failed -misguided- attempts at incentivization had brewed within Nie Huaisang.
Nie Huaisang had been a boy who despised rote routine work, who loved soft and comfortable things, who always needed to be surrounded by people and animals for companionship, who got bitterly sick every time the weather turned cold.
And yet he had been living in this room, with a job doing what he hated day in and day out, and only the one bird that had undoubtedly been shot out of the windowsill by a Wen arrow for company.
He can't help but wonder if Huaisang had chosen this life specifically because it was so antithetical to everything the sect knew about him; because they'd never think to look in a place like this.
Or if he had just decided that even this was preferable to letting anyone think he'd been cowed into crawling back home.
Meng Yao is still nauseous when he stumbles back down the stairs to find the others waiting for him and Nie Huaisang, still unconscious from the spellsong, lying in the back of a small wagon the disciples have procured.
"There was nothing worth bringing," he says in response to one man's question, and ignores Lan Xichen's query as to whether or not he is well.
It's already been decided that he will be the one to take Nie Huaisang back to the closest camp, while the disciples will fly to the primary one further south to alert Nie Mingjue that his brother has been found.
Although he knows he's been picked because his sword flight is still unsteady, he is fine with it.
If anyone else had offered -or demanded- to take the wagon, that would be another story.
Except for Lan Xichen, who has brought back the horses he and Meng Yao had been using to avoid being seen on their swords, the others take off once the Wen corpses have been moved away from the buildings and burned.
(Meng Yao probably should have supervised that, being the sect leader's aide.
But that would have meant moving away from Nie Huaisang, and he…��
He just can’t-)
They hitch the horses to the wagon. Before he climbs up into the saddle, Meng Yao takes off his cloak and wraps it around his-
Not his-
His young master.
(How funny that, almost two years ago, he would have been the one who needed it more.
How funny that, almost two years ago, Nie Huaisang would have had more than one and would have offered them all with a laugh and a gentle tease.
How funny that-)
If Lan Xichen notices him wiping his eyes as they nudge the horses to start down the road, he is kind enough not to mention it.
—
By the time they reach the camp, the spell song has worn off, but Nie Huaisang still sleeps-
-and he does still sleep. Meng Yao's judgment may have been in grievous error in one painfully important category, but he can still easily tell when Huaisang is feigning in order to be left alone-
-heavily enough that his only reaction to being picked up by Lan Xichen is to pull the borrowed cloak tighter around himself like a turtle trying to shrink into its shell.
"I'll make the report to the camp commander after taking him to the main infirmary tent," Lan Xichen says.
'Because I don't think you'd want to leave him alone long enough to do it,' Meng Yao hears. He nods, trying -badly- to hide his relief at the offer.
As they enter the tent, one of the medics turns to greet them, then his eyes go huge.
"Is that-"
"Not one more word," Meng Yao cuts him off, a little more sharply than he'd meant to. "No one is to find out he's here before Zongzhu arrives, got it?"
The medic's mouth closes with an audible snap, then he recovers his composure and nods, gesturing to an empty cot.
The results of the ensuing exam are... roughly what Meng Yao expected… because they are very similar to his own the first time he'd been ordered into a tent to have his medical baseline set when he’d joined the Nie camps.
Except for the lungs.
He is sitting close enough that he doesn't need the medic to tell him the soft, pained-sounding wheeze is not good.
Again, his thoughts and his stomach begin to twist and tangle around the reversal of their fortunes and the dozens of other little itchy thoughts. His fingers tighten on the edge of the camp stool he's sitting on and he has to squeeze his eyes shut and just focus on inhaling-
-and exhaling-
-until the knots loosen up enough that he no longer feels like vomiting.
Prying one hand away from his seat, he reaches out and takes hold of Nie Huaisang's colder one.
When the first big winter storm had arrived and Nie Huaisang had not arrived with it, he had started to have dreams that were uncomfortable in more ways than one. Even now, gently rubbing his thumb over the other young man's ink and dirt-stained fingers, memories-not-memories from them flicker through his mind.
He has no idea how Nie Mingjue will react to his brother's reappearance, but no matter what his sect leader decides, he can't-
-won't-
-can’t let Nie Huaisang disappear again.
Even, he thinks as he lifts those cold fingers up to breathe warmth onto them, if he has to refashion an aviary into another kind of cage.
—
It is just past nightfall when he hears the flutter of activity outside the tent.
It is a familiar enough clatter to both of them that the noise makes Nie Huaisang stir.
(He wants to be the first person Nie Huaisang sees.
He wants to try and smooth things over before-
He wants-)
But there isn't enough time, and it's more important that he-
He steps out of the tent right as Nie Mingjue is approaching.
He bows to his sect leader, but keeps the tent flap held closed behind him.
When he doesn't move aside, the faint scowl on Nie Mingjue's face deepens and he raises an eyebrow in a familiar expression of 'What do you think you're doing?'
"Zongzhu," Meng Yao replies to the unspoken question. "Will you hear my report first?"
His words are deferential, holding none of the direct defiance that his position does, but the combination of the two is enough to give Nie Mingjue pause, his expression shifting from annoyance to curious concern before he nods.
Meng Yao keeps it short, but painfully blunt, emphasizing where and how Nie Huaisang had been living, and how close to danger and for how long.
"I would not be so presumptuous as to give you directions on how to handle this. But he was already prepared to bolt from-" me "-us as if we were just as much of a threat as the Wen. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that if you storm in there and immediately start dressing him down, then-" unless you let me lock him away "-it will be the last time you ever see him, let alone get the chance to talk to him,” he finishes quietly.
Then he steps aside and lets go of the tent flap.
Although he doesn't want to leave, he knows that if they -even accidentally- give Huaisang the impression that they are immediately falling back into the old pattern, this will be a disaster.
So he forces himself to walk away from the tent.
He should really see about acquiring food anyway. Though he'd had some travel rations on his person, he hadn't been able to make himself eat since they'd found Huaisang, and Huaisang-
The many ways their fortunes have been reversed hits him again, and he swallows hard to keep from bringing attention to himself by hysterically laughing... or something even more embarrassing.
Okay.
Food.
Concentrate on that.
Though it grates on him to do so, he purposely takes the time to eat his own meal at the kitchen tents, even dragging it out a little longer than normal.
Just as he finishes eating, he finally catches a glimpse of Nie Mingjue headed towards the main command tent.
His sect leader's expression is tense, but not angry or panicked. His tone, from what Meng Yao can hear, is a little sharply clipped, but there is no real bark to the orders he's giving.
Meng Yao will take those as good signs.
Collecting a tray of simple dishes and jars of pressed juice and water, he heads back to the infirmary tent where he'd left Huaisang.
He doesn't find Huaisang there-
-he's fled, the fight was worse than anticipated, they won't-
-but is relieved to find he's only been moved to one of the smaller side tents. It's fine- it's good, even. Fewer people will see him this way.
Huaisang is sitting on the little cot he's been given, facing away from (him) the entrance. He's huddled under one of the spare blankets, the cloak Meng Yao had wrapped him in folded up and laid on the end of the thin pallet mattress.
(That bothers him.
Sits in the back of his brain like another little itch.
"Why don't you want- it, Huaisang?" bubbles up in the back of his throat, and he has to force it back down.)
"I owe you an apology," Huaisang says suddenly, surprising Meng Yao into looking up from the small camp table he'd been setting up for the food.
(His voice has become as small as the rest of him, Meng Yao's mind notes with a discomforting mix of emotions. Small and rough and raspy- is it because the reunion with his brother brought tears with it? Or is that just how he sounds now? Does he really want to know?)
"Whatever for?" Meng Yao asks after shoving all that turbulence into the little chest in his mind to join the rest of it and pretending it's not going to be overstuffed and refuse to close soon.
"I never paid attention to how hard your job was. I just made it worse."
He finds himself glancing at those ink and dirt stained fingers again, now clutching the edge of the blanket so tightly.
Reversal of fortunes.
Some little part of him is satisfied by the recognition, of the acknowledgment, but the rest-
if this is the result of another fight- if this apology was somehow forced by Nie Mingjue-
He bites his tongue for a moment to quell the swell of unexpected irritation. "There's nothing to apologize for in that regard. At most, you could be exasperating on occasion… but more often than not, you were the only one reminding me to care for myself," he says, reaching over to pick up the folded cloak and wrap it around Huaisang's shoulders over the blanket.
Better.
He looks much better with that (mark of possession).
"I have no idea how many times I forgot to stop for a meal or any other necessities without you there to insist."
The mention of food earns a sharp, unmistakable growl, and Huaisang ducks his head as he huddles deeper into the borrowed blanket and offered cloak, his unbound hair doing little to hide his expression of uncomfortable embarrassment.
Reversal of fortunes.
Once upon a time, Nie Huaisang had offered him clothing from his own wardrobe and food swiped from the kitchens and Meng Yao had struggled to politely decline out of fear that bounds were being overstepped and he would be the one to get in trouble for it.
Now however... now, he understands.
Whether or not Huaisang had felt the same possessiveness back then that Meng Yao is grappling with now is an interesting, but ultimately unimportant, question.
But he understands.
And, just as Huaisang once had, he will not allow refusal.
He takes a seat on a little stool across from Huaisang and offers one of the dishes he'd brought, a fairly simple combination of steamed rice, roasted chicken, and greens with only a little bit of seasoning.
Even though growing up in Yunping had given him a fairly high tolerance for spice, he remembers all too well how much it had hurt to eat too much good food at once after months going on the minimum, and he has no desire to make Huaisang similarly sick.
"Don't rush. We've got time."
Nie Huaisang's mouth presses into a thin line, like he might disagree with that judgment.
Curiosity lingers hot and fuzzy on the back of his neck-
-what had the brothers said to each other?-
-but he swats it aside and merely waits.
He will not risk scaring his young master away by pressing him for information so soon after getting him back.
Hunger eventually wins over discontent, and Huaisang reaches out to accept the food.
He eats in a stilted, almost wooden way that is so very alien to how he used to be, but so very familiar to Meng Yao. It is another addition to the list of things that he wants to- will fix.
Huaisang's hair falls back into his face as he hunches over the bowl, and Meng Yao finds himself impulsively reaching to brush it back.
Huaisang flinches at the contact, and they both go still, staring at each other, Meng Yao's hand still outstretched.
He should pull back.
Give space.
He doesn't want to.
But no matter how much their situation has changed, their nominal statuses dictate he must.
Just as he starts to withdraw, however, Huaisang lets out an unsteady breath and tilts his head just enough to maintain contact.
Without a single spoken word, it's a lonely plea and an apology and forgiveness and so many other things rolled up into a little ball of bruised and battered emotions.
It makes Meng Yao almost dizzy, and he can't contain the smile that blooms on his mouth as he indulges in what he's been offered, sweeping his fingers along Huaisang's cheek to tuck his hair back behind his ear.
All too quickly, however, the flutters of almost-giddiness fade as he remembers their situation is still hanging precariously on a thread as thin as spider silk.
But any discussion of what will happen next for them can -will have to- wait until the food is gone.
They fall into an awkward silence as Nie Huaisang finishes the bowl of food and a jar of water. He quickly looks away when he realizes Meng Yao has caught him eyeing the second dish with apprehensive longing.
"Here," Meng Yao says, offering one of the jars of juice instead. "It won't be as heavy on your stomach."
Nie Huaisang hesitates, the expression on his face unreadable as he looks at it, then at Meng Yao-
-Meng Yao wants to ask, he wants to ask, he can’t ask-
Then he takes it from Meng Yao's hands and tilts it up to swallow a mouthful.
Meng Yao unconsciously mimics the swallow.
there is something-
-something-
-one thing that still eats at him, but he is struggling to let it out of where he's kept it caged in his chest.
He is very, very good at offering apologies as a matter of politeness.
He has never been as good at offering apologies out of sincerity.
"Gongzi-" he starts only for his voice to die in his throat when green eyes regard him over the rim of the jar.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Try again.
"I... I have missed you, Huaisang," he says.
It is not what he intended to say.
It is not what he was supposed to say.
It's an entirely different but equally difficult level of vulnerability; one he hadn't been trying so hard to hide because he'd never expected it to attempt escape to begin with.
He had recognized too much of himself in this changed Huaisang, and that familiarity had momentarily lured him into a false sense of… of…
His first instinct is to take it back.
Cover his too-exposed heart with his usual deferential politeness, smile and offer a more neutral comment.
"I missed you too," Huaisang says quietly before he can do any of that.
Meng Yao exhales sharply, the air punched out of his chest as surely as if Nie Huaisang had buried a fist into the soft spot below his sternum, and he has to look away before he can let it show how starkly he has been affected.
He is still pulling himself together when he sees one of the captains who'd been accompanying Nie Mingjue earlier poke his head into the tent.
The man looks around for a moment before his gaze lands on them, and he gives a quick jerk of his head in a silent demand.
Meng Yao hesitates.
As emotionally fraught as this had just become, he doesn't want to leave. They still have that-
-that one thing that they have to talk about, and if he leaves now, they might not ever-
"Better go," Nie Huaisang says, and when Meng Yao turns his head, his young master is once again wearing that expression Meng Yao cannot decipher.
Meng Yao bites the inside of his lip, then reaches out and squeezes the hand not occupied with the jar. "I'll be back soon," he says.
Nie Huaisang salutes him with the jar, the gesture too flippant for the look in his eyes.
Meng Yao again finds himself wondering just what the brothers had said to each other.
But he does not ask, instead getting up to follow the captain away from the infirmary and towards the tent where Nie Mingjue has temporarily taken up residence until he returns to the main camp.
—
Meng Yao frowns as he finishes reading the missive his sect leader has handed him.
It is not the fact that Nie Huaisang is being sent back to the Unclean Realms that bothers him. Even if he were in better health, the time he's spent away from the sect has made him even less prepared for a fight. it's better for him to go- to go home.
No, what bothers Meng Yao is the escort being sent with him. Only two guards, both only weeks out of no longer being classified as juniors, and a single healing assistant- not even a full-fledged medic.
He knows that this wouldn't be enough of an escort for someone the Wen wasn’t even looking for, let alone someone they had already made a kidnapping attempt on.
Suddenly, Huaisang's too-bland attitude and strange reactions make more sense, if this had been one of the things the brothers had discussed.
(What had they said?
What had they said?
The prickle of curiosity has become a gnawing, but still he squashes it.)
He rereads the missive twice over before it finally hits him.
This is another manifestation of the-
Not once had Nie Mingjue ever officially sent out search parties, or discussed his missing brother, or- or-
(But Meng Yao, much as he'd pretended otherwise, very vividly remembers that midnight breakdown in Nie Huaisang's abandoned room.)
A sect leader preparing for an inevitable war couldn't be seen as soft or weak by the enemy, nor his own.
A sect leader in the middle of a war couldn't be seen as soft or weak by the enemy, nor his own.
Nie Mingjue might have sorely missed his brother, but he also clearly believed that extending more than the barest minimum would be read as special treatment. Coddling, even.
No matter how much this particular situation warranted a stronger approach.
Meng Yao understands the politics of appearance all too well, so he gets it. He does. That doesn't stop him from wanting to beat his head against the table in frustration.
Stubborn.
Stubborn.
Gods, both of them are so-
He takes a deep, slow inhale, then lays the paper down. "What are you going to do if this posturing for your men gets your brother killed?"
Nie Mingjue goes rigid, the line of his spine completely straight.
The captain he was talking to is a smart man; his eyes go wide for the briefest moment, and then he turns around and walks out of the tent without a word.
Meng Yao is acutely aware he's just stepped into dangerous territory. A few years ago, he never would have let that question escape his mouth. Instead, as soon as he’d finished reading the missive the first time, he would have immediately gone to cajole Huaisang not to make a fuss about the orders.
Well, look where that had gotten them.
"The only reason we found him at all is because Wen Ruohan had somehow figured out where he was first,” he presses.”And yet you're risking sending him right back into the jaws of the tiger to-"
Nie Mingjue's hands clench into fists at his sides.
Though the man has never so much raised his voice in Meng Yao's direction, the memories of all the shouting matches between the brothers make him involuntarily take a step back.
But Nie Mingjue, apparently remembering his earlier advice, does not yell, though the curt, emotionless tone of the words "The orders will not be changed," is almost worse.
This bullheaded-!
Realizing he will get nowhere, that the fact there had been no shouting between the brothers this time really was the only concession Nie Mingjue had been willing -or perhaps 'been able' was the better description- to make, Meng Yao leaves him standing alone at the table of maps and missives and walks back to the infirmary.
At the very least, he should make sure that Huaisang has warmer clothes for travel than the ones they found him in.
–-
Nie Huaisang and his pittance of an escort are up and ready to leave before dawn, hoping to get some ground covered while only the enemy’s night scouts are still on the hunt.
Nie Huaisang doesn't make a peep of complaint about having to get up so early for what amounts to boring work, which only drives the knife of how much he has changed deeper between Meng Yao's ribs.
(He knows Huaisang has to go.
He wants him to stay.
He wants to go with him.
He wants-)
"Hu- Gongzi, may we speak?" he asks quietly.
Huaisang stops pretending to not be watching his brother out of the corner of his eye and turns his attention to Meng Yao, then nods.
Meng Yao's mouth suddenly goes dry under the quiet intensity of that green-eyed stare, but he gathers his nerves back together and ties them down tight.
"I... I owe you an apology as well. You were right that I was only lying to both of us when I claimed not to be taking sides in your arguments. I should have stayed out of it. I'm... I'm sorry."
There.
He has said it.
It is hardly the most eloquent apology he has ever given, but... again, sincerity is much more difficult than politeness.
But it also seems to have been more effective. Huaisang blinks at him in surprise, tilting his head like a startled bird... then he takes hold of Meng Yao's hands and smiles.
It's small, unsure, almost as if he's forgotten how to do it. but it's there, and-
"Thank you," he says, and "Apology accepted."
Ha.
Okay.
Meng Yao does not embarrass himself by tearing up in front of everyone, but he comes close. He squeezes the hands holding his, ruthlessly smothering the sudden urge to kiss too-cold fingers
-or do something more-
-then steps back and lets go.
He doesn't watch them leave.
Neither does Nie Mingjue.
—
It has been six days.
Even though he has remained diligent to his responsibilities as the sect leader’s aide, Meng Yao's mind keeps being distracted by the map he has drawn in his mind.
Even on foot, even if there were a few small delays here and there, Huaisang and his escorts should arrive at the unclean realms by the next morning, so when sundown arrives, the nervous tension that's been humming through his nerves finally starts to ease…
And then, right in the middle of dinner, Nie Mingjue suddenly jerks as though he's been shot with an arrow.
Meng Yao, Lan Xichen, and the small knot of disciples present all see the color drain from his face as he rips a talisman out of the collar of his inner robe-
-and when Meng Yao sees the deep splotch of red blooming across the paper, his own heart drops.
It's a bloodshed talisman.
And they all immediately know who it has to be tied to.
Meng Yao has never seen a human move so fast in his entire life.
Nie Mingjue is already in the sky on Baxia before any of the rest of them are out of the tent. Even Lan Xichen can't catch him before he can no longer be seen in the darkness.
Meng Yao inwardly curses his own faltering cultivation that leaves him unable to keep up with the others, but at least his mental map means he won't get lost because of the lag.
He just hopes-
He just hopes-
He lands in the middle of a maelstrom of clashing metal and screaming horses, more than a little bewildered by the number of moving and dead bodies in the forest clearing.
How the fuck had this many Wen managed to get this deep into Qinghe territory? Their scouts should have caught them long before-
No matter. His sect leader and the others would deal with them.
He has to find-
There are two figures in green and grey lying among the more numerous white and red. The first, he immediately identifies as the medical assistant -(dead)- and the other-
He rushes over and pulls a semi-conscious Nie Huaisang up onto his knees. The younger man is sluggishly bleeding from his nose and a second blow to the head that has bruised most of the right side of his face, and his wrists are also raw and bloody from struggling out of the ropes lying under him.
"Yao-ge? When... Where did...?" he asks in a disoriented slur.
(Later, Meng Yao will allow himself to be thrilled by the return of the endearment.)
For now, he jerks Nie Huaisang out of the way of a falling Wen horse and then drags him towards the treeline. They're almost out of the fight zone when a sword whistles past, barely missing taking off Meng Yao's ear.
Fortunately, its owner hits the ground dead before he can call it back to try again.
With that last death cry, the clearing goes silent, they and the disciples and Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue all staring at each other, almost dazed from the wearing off of the battle adrenaline.
Then Nie Mingjue crosses the clearing with almost the same superhuman speed as before and jerks Nie Huaisang out of Meng Yao's hands, wrapping his brother in an embrace so tight that Nie Huaisang can't help letting out a small squeak of protest.
—
There is never a verbal apology.
In fact, neither brother says a word during the (unsettlingly) short flight to the Unclean Realms.
But neither of them lets go of the other for the entire flight either, and Meng Yao supposes that has to be enough for them.
(He desperately hopes that it is enough for them.)
The first time Nie Mingjue puts his brother down since that first desperate grab is when they land inside the courtyard, and even then, he has a solid grip on Nie Huaisang's shoulder.
"Finally," Meng Yao hears a feminine voice mutter from amongst the staff who came running at their unexpected approach, before others immediately shush her.
He bites his tongue to keep from smirking, but he hears a couple of the disciples with them have to choke back laughter.
It is indeed a relief to finally have at least one of the many sources of tension in the realm eased.
Though there is now another in its place, as he notices Nie Huaisang glance around warily, already growing stiff and uncomfortable in the place that hasn't been his home for some time now.
This won't do.
"Zongzhu," he says, mindful of how to balance the situation now. "Perhaps it would be best for everyone to rest before any discussion of important matters."
"...Right," Nie Mingjue mutters awkwardly, then moves to dismiss the small crowd.
He still hasn't let go of Nie Huaisang.
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anything to share from flowers in the palace verse? :3
(take a short preview of one of the upcoming oneshots!)
“I want to send Wei Ying to the Cloud Recesses with A-Cheng.”
Jiang Fengmian glances up from the kite he was painting.
“Why?” he asks, perplexed. “Her education has been more than satisfactory. If she went to the Cloud Recesses, she would find the lessons terribly dull: and you know how A-Ying hates to be bored with her lessons. Lan Qiren would be half out of his wits by the time she left.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Ziyuan says drily. “But I have more practical intentions for this venture, if you will hear me out.”
He nods and lays down his brush. “What are they?”
“Wei Ying is nearly seventeen, and we have not yet found a bridegroom for her,” his wife explains, seating herself on the chair across from his. “A-Li’s future is assured, and A-Cheng will not take kindly to our meddling in his prospects—and he’ll make a more attractive husband after he passes the imperial exams, so we needn’t think of him now. But finding a suitable groom for A-Ying will be difficult, so why not send her to Lan Qiren’s academy and let her look for a bridegroom there?”
“It is a good idea,” muses Jiang Fengmian. “But A-Ying is still young. If the choice were left to me, I would not have her wed within these next five years at least; and I do not think she would agree to look for a bridegroom so soon, even if we asked her to.”
“I’m not going to ask her,” Ziyuan scoffs. “I already have a family in mind, and Wei Ying already has friends among the clan. She need not do anything more than secure one or two banquet invitations before the end of the lecture course, or drag a few of the boys into whatever mishap she will surely have planned for Lan Qiren.”
“Which family do you mean, my lady?”
“The Nie family. You know A-Ying cannot live in just any household, Fengmian: and now that I think on it, she will fare best in a military clan like the Nie. She has studied military history, and she can manage an estate upon a fraction of the budget it ought to have—and most importantly, no relation of Nie Huangyin’s would dare interfere with her schooling if she chose to stay on at Pan Gaolin’s academy after her wedding.”
“Neither would a Lan,” Jiang Fengmian points out. “Why not ask A-Ying to consider one of them?”
His wife scowls at him. “I want to inconvenience Lan Qiren, not kill him.”
“Very well,” he says, laughing. “Let it be as you say, then.”
“Good. Now, write to Qiren and tell him to prepare an extra place in the girls’ dormitory. Most likely, he will ask one of his nieces to look after her until she settles in; and if we're lucky, it will be the one betrothed to Nie Mingjue.”
So A-Ying goes off to the Cloud Recesses two weeks later, taking a box of A-Li’s baked sweets and a very apprehensive A-Cheng with her. To Ziyuan’s disappointment, Lan Xichen is too busy with her own duties to spend much time with Wei Ying; but three days after A-Ying’s departure, she sends Jiang Fengmian an exhilarated letter that appears to be almost entirely about Qiren’s younger niece, Lan Wangji.
“Well, that’s something,” Yu Ziyuan says slowly, when Jiang Fengmian reports to her office with the letter. “If Wei Ying has made friends with Lan Wangji, then she is sure to be welcome at the Unclean Realm after Lan-guniang and Nie Mingjue are married.”
Jiang Fengmian nods. The words of A-Ying’s letter are already fading from his mind, for he had received so many over the course of his travels throughout the country, but in later years—after his first daughter lost her betrothed, and after both she and her sister were shut away behind the high walls of the palace hougong where one of his mother’s distant cousins had taken her own life to escape her emperor husband—he would return to his study and open the old desk drawer devoted to his children’s keepsakes, and realize that the seeds of A-Ying’s true marriage had been planted beneath his very nose.
He and Ziyuan sent her off to find a husband, and in her dear, wild-hearted way—she found a wife instead.
#wangxian#mo dao zu shi#the untamed#jiang fengmian#yu ziyuan#flowers in the palace#my fic#fic preview
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You said nhs is a pantser not a planner. As in 'flying by the seat of'? Or is there another meaning?
That's it exactly! The 'planner vs pantser' dichotomy is a common idea in writer circles. Quoth Publishers Weekly:
Novelists tend to fall into two categories: “planners,” who develop outlines before they begin writing, and those who don’t, often referred to in self-publishing circles as “pantsers.” The term, which comes from the phrase “by the seat of your pants,” refers to novelists who work without any kind of synopsis, outline, or character development work done before they begin writing.
To literally copy the text of a post I made 3+ years ago:
hot take: Nie Huaisang is not actually good at Xanatos Gambits - elaborate planning, setting up dominoes or chess games or whatever metaphor you want and letting it all fall into place, every option a win. Nie Huaisang is very, very good at:
appearing nonthreatening
manipulating a scene, mostly via use of feigned helplessness and redirection
gathering information
throwing rocks at a hornet’s nests and then reacting very quickly to stay just slightly in control of the consequences, mostly using the tools above
That’s his modus operandi over and over. Getting Wei Wuxian resurrected - the biggest rock-to-a-hornet’s-nest of all. Sending Jin Guangyao a letter revealing Qin Su’s parentage, basically saying his days were numbered - yup. Getting Nie Mingjue’s body all together to storm off to the temple - yep. But I refuse to believe that he predicted the results of any of this well enough to plan - oh, the general scope, sure. WWX would go haring off to solve the mystery, almost certainly picking up LWJ because, you know, true love and righteousness. JGY would do something to overreach; that was clearly the goal of the letter. And NMJ would have the chance to get his own vengeance. But Nie Huaisang clearly made sure he was on the scene to manage the consequences of all of these - that’s not the actions of a man with masterful, predictive plans. That’s a very clever man with, like, alright plans, a decent sense of timing on when to land a political killing blow, who’s really good at winging it.
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why do you think jgy is so despicable compared to other characters?
Thanks for asking in such a polite way. I appreciate it!
Now, I just finished reading the second book yesterday, so I'm a little shook from what was happening. I know we can list Jin Guangyao's crimes in order – A-Su's death, Nie Mingjue's death, his own son's death, the cultivators he killed, Jin Zixuan, Jin Guangshian, and that's just the murders – but the cause of my negative feelings towards goes deeper than that.
My main issues with Jin Guangyao as I was reading started because of one thing and one thing only: man terrified me. Man is absolutely fucking terrifying, because he has no boundaries, no limits, no attachments, no love, no nothing. There is nothing he wouldn't do for his goals, for his ambitions. Which, in itself, is admirable, and he goes about it in a very smart way.
But reading the books had a chill running down my spine every time he justified his actions and worded things in such a way that seemed to absolve him of all guilt and make it seem like he was trying his best to do the good thing—
He was not. Everyone and everything was a pawn to him. He had a way with words that sucks you right in, that makes you feel empathetic towards him, that makes you feel for him, but it's not real.
It. Is. Not. Real.
So I could write an essay about how repulsive his murders are, or how nauseating his actions towards his wife and son are, or how sick his manipulation of Lan Xichen is, but if I had to pick a specific reason my admiration of his abilities turned to hatred, and I might even be a little biased, but it would most definitely be Nie Mingjue.
Nie Mingjue, who rose to defend him when he was nothing. Nie Mingjue, acknowledged his abilities and praised his character. Nie Mingjue, who let him go with a fucking letter of recommendation when he heard that Meng Yao still harbored a dream of being accepted by the Jin.
Nie Mingjue was not a perfect, flawless man. However, he saw through Jin Guangyao's schemes, and yet no one believed his doubts (looking at poor Lan Xichen). He was pushed to the brink of insanity, and it was so hard to read, because every time he would bring up JGY's actions, he had Jin Guangyao excuse them on one hand, then Lan Xichen defending him on another.
And Jin Guangyao pretended to help, to be the good guy, the patient loving friend, even as he was slowly killing Nie Mingjue. And he did. And if that weren't enough, he dismembered him, and scattered the pieces like they were nothing.
I don't know if people picked up on this while reading, seeing as he is defended by many, but Jin Guangyao was cruel. He was a cruel, unfeeling, narcissistic man, who can't be taken at his word, ever.
This might not be a very coherent post, and I could probably write a better introspection on hi character (with citations, istg), but I would just like to finish it by saying this: I am aware of this man's upbringing and difficulties in life. I am aware he was discriminated against for faults that were not his own. I am aware he was disadvantaged in a society were political ties are everything.
I am not blind to the writing of his character. I simply do not find it valid to defend a man so ruthless, just because his life was not fair.
Was it fair for Wei Wuxian to be blamed for things he never did? Was it fair for Jin Ling to grow up an orphan? Was it fair for Nie Mingjue to qi-deviate? Was it fair for Lan Xichen to go into seclusion because he couldn't mentally deal with what Jin Guangyao did?
Fairness is not an excuse.
#mdzs#the untamed#mo dao zu shi#character introspection#nie mingjue#lan xichen#jin zixuan#nie huaisang#jin ling#wei wuxian#cql p#cql
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The Waves are Rising and Rising
|Beginning| |Previous|
Chapter 12
I feel like y'all are either desperately ready for this one or not ready at all, I can't decide which. Chapter 13 will post on Monday!
--//--
It’s a moment of weakness that pushes Jin Guangyao to finally write to his sworn brothers and schedule their next dual cultivation session as he’d promised himself. The Incident (and the emphasis is entirely necessary) involving his almost being allowed to hold little Jin Ling had set quite the precedent around Jinlintai; Now no matter what Jiang Yanli is doing, no matter if Jin Ling is fussing or asleep, no matter if there are nursemaids around or not to help their beloved Jin-shao-furen with her squirming child or relieve her tired arms…no matter how desperately Jin Guangyao yearns to actually get to feel the acceptance that Jiang Yanli had so cautiously offered him that day, he isn’t allowed near enough to the pair to even think of being allowed to try again.
His tentative, wistful hopes of that first month after Jin Ling’s birth had been so thoroughly dashed by Jin-furen and the rest of the court so strident in following her example in the weeks since that now when he happens to catch a glimpse of the swaddling in Jiang Yanli’s arms or hear Jin Ling crying or cooing (one just as likely as the other) somewhere nearby, he forces himself to turn away and find something to keep him busy elsewhere until the danger of another emotional lapse like the first (and, so far, only) has passed.
There isn’t much he can reasonably do about the rare occasions he’s called to attend a family meal in which all important parties are present, however, and it’s after one such evening in which he serves his father rather than being allowed to sit and eat like the rest of the inner family that he slips into his rooms earlier than usual in order to write his letters, one bound for Gusu and the other for Qinghe.
All he wants is to be treated as an equal; not a servant, not a bastard child of a whore, not a stain on his family’s gilded reputation. He still believes that he can find that someday in Jinlintai, one day his hard work will be recognized and rewarded, and when that day comes he’ll take his rightful place as a recognized son of Jin Guangshan with all the privilege and lack of worldly cares that Jin Zixuan currently enjoys. But at precisely this moment that isn’t so, no matter what he might wish, and so he takes deep breaths in to steady his hands and loosen the knot of emotion choking him in order to ask his sworn brothers to please inform him of the earliest day they can meet in Bujing Shi.
Please.
He arrives in Qinghe two days after he receives their replies, and the moment he steps off Hensheng he shoves his father’s reminders of his purpose in Nie Mingjue’s life to the back of his mind in favor of hurrying as politely as possible to his rooms to divest himself of his weapons and other traveling necessities.
He’s just finished putting himself to rights for friendly company when there’s a knock at his door and his heart leaps at the possibility that the light tapping on the wood might be Lan Xichen, arrived before him and as anxious to see him as Jin Guangyao is the reverse.
He opens the door to find a servant waiting, ducked into an appropriately low bow.
“Chifeng-zun has requested Lianfang-zun’s presence in his quarters for the evening meal,” the servant informs him and Jin Guangyao’s excitement doesn’t necessarily dim so much as it twists in a new direction. He thanks the servant and decides it’s not that he’s excited to see Nie Mingjue, it’s that he’s excited to be invited to a meal in which he knows he’ll be expected to sit down and actually eat, and no one will glare daggers at him for daring to glance at the infant Jin heir in Jiang Yanli’s arms. That’s all.
He makes his way quickly through Bujing Shi and gives Nie Mingjue’s door no more than the most perfunctory of raps with his knuckles before he slides it aside and steps into Nie Mingjue’s quarters. Lan Xichen isn’t here yet either, Nie Mingjue hasn’t even sat down at the table where a tea service sits steaming gently, but Jin Guangyao still can’t help but feel something in him relax anyway. Nie Mingjue turns to look at him over his shoulder through the gap where his arm is bent up for him to unpin his guan, and he’d swear he sees the corner of his eye crinkle, like he’s smiling where Jin Guangyao can’t quite see.
“Hey,” Nie Mingjue greets, casual, and returns to his task with the rustling of his heavy silk outer-robe as he readjusts his hands to better reach the pins buried in his pile of braids. “Xichen just arrived, someone at the gates will tell him to come here when he can.”
Jin Guangyao hums his acknowledgement and tamps down the strangest, most unacceptable urge to go over and bury his face in Nie Mingjue’s back. He can almost feel it, soft warm pressure against the entire front of his body and darkness behind his eyelids, almost like lying facedown in bed but with the bonus of getting to wrap his arms around someone solid and warm as he gets some rest—
He’s far too tired. That’s the only explanation for the strange lapse in good judgment. Rather than snuggling up against Nie Mingjue now shaking his coils of braids down to hang loose around his shoulders, he sits down at the table in his usual spot stacked with an extra cushion and, after a moment, he allows himself to be so sloppy as to forgo kneeling to instead sit in a more Nie style, legs crossed loosely on the floor in front of him in the way that takes most of the pressure off his hips and knees.
Nie Mingjue finishes taking the round floral ornaments out of his hair in silence and shrugs out of his outermost robe next, Jin Guangyao blinking up at him in surprise as he hangs it properly over a rack rather than just dropping it on the floor like he usually does. For one wild moment he wonders if they’re just going to… start their session and let Lan Xichen join in whenever he gets here. He immediately banishes such an absurd thought, but he isn’t fast enough to stop his cheeks from growing a little warm as he very determinedly does not picture what that might look like (and how much Lan Xichen would probably enjoy it).
Nie Mingjue spares him and settles in at the table then, thankfully still mostly dressed, though he squints at him for a long moment in an assessing way that Jin Guangyao can’t say he particularly cares for.
“Can this one help you with something, da-ge?” he asks, a little too dry to come across as obsequious as he would usually aim for.
“You look like shit. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Alright, rude. Jin Guangyao blinks slowly at him and watches the silent admonishment land a moment later in the way Nie Mingjue jerks his chin up a little, haughty, but won’t quite meet his eyes for a moment.
“Well you’re not,” he mutters sullenly, though without any true anger behind it like there would be if his temper were in danger of flaring.
“I am sleeping perfectly fine, da-ge.” It’s not even a lie; he sleeps like the dead for the hour or two of rest that he’s allowed after he finishes his work with Xue Yang. Alright fine; it isn’t strictly a lie, but it also isn’t the truth as Nie Mingjue would like to hear it and he’s always so good at knowing that, so his eyes flash with irritation anyway as he huffs a sharp sigh.
“Fine, don’t tell me then. But if you don’t sleep tonight I’ll knock you unconscious to make sure you get some sort of rest.”
“There are less violent ways to ensure I’m worn out enough to sleep, da-ge.”
The innuendo doesn’t land until Jin Guangyao very pointedly smirks and glances down the length of Nie Mingjue’s body and then at the bed, feeling bold. Nie Mingjue looks so shocked by the implication despite the fact that that’s what they’re here for that Jin Guangyao is equally startled into laughing behind his wide sleeve.
For the briefest moment he wonders which incident Nie Mingjue is remembering — Jin Guangyao’s last disastrous effort to dual cultivate with him in which he’d passed out, or the fact that Nie Mingjue had enjoyed himself so thoroughly when they fucked him in the bath that he hadn’t even been awake long enough to dress afterwards. Judging by the flush quickly spreading through Nie Mingjue’s cheeks (and for the sake of his own pride), he’s going to assume the latter.
Nie Mingjue grumbles something under his breath that Jin Guangyao doesn’t try too hard to catch as he pours tea for both of them. When Nie Mingjue hands him his cup Jin Guangyao doesn’t even tease him for being too flustered to remember they’re waiting for Lan Xichen, he just takes his cup and sips at it, letting the gesture more than the beverage warm him from the inside out.
It’s his favorite again. Jin Guangyao sips and delights in finding all the layers in it, bright and fruity at the start and deepening into something almost bitter on the finish, though not unpleasantly so. It’s a light tea so unlike what’s usually had in Qinghe, delicate and requiring care to brew properly.
Nie Mingjue always makes it just right. For him.
The silence suddenly feels deafening as Jin Guangyao’s eyes sting and his heart gives a too-hard thump in his chest.
“...A-Yao-” Nie Mingjue somehow gives the impression of desperately wanting to clap his hand over his mouth without even moving a muscle to do so when Jin Guangyao focuses on him quicker than his too-fast heartbeat, vindictive elation already clawing its way out of his chest. That soft, half-remembered ‘A-Yao’ from so long ago wasn’t some exhaustion-induced hallucination! He was right, and now that he’s not half-dead on a horse halfway to Lanling he can make Nie Mingjue own up to this weakness—
“You did, you called me A-Yao that time when—!”
Nie Mingjue raises his hands in clear surrender, looking as panicked as it’s possible for him to (which isn’t much, granted, but he does still look vaguely like a caged animal caught in a trap of his own making so Jin Guangyao approves), but his victory is cut off at the knees by a polite tapping on the door. This time it actually is Lan Xichen, and when he enters Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue both freeze except to turn their heads to look at him, which means that Jin Guangyao has a surprisingly enjoyable moment watching Lan Xichen stop in his tracks and look very affably confused, with a tentative smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Are you two… alright?” he asks with a pointed glance at Jin Guangyao’s extended hand still jabbing an admonishing finger towards Nie Mingjue’s chest and Nie Mingjue’s hands raised in surrender.
“Fine,” Nie Mingjue answers for both of them. Jin Guangyao looks at him again with his eyes narrowed, assessing just as Nie Mingjue had done to him mere minutes ago. Nie Mingjue’s long-suffering look very clearly communicates how desperately he doesn’t want this conversation to continue at all, but especially not with their current audience. Considering Jin Guangyao knows precisely how much Lan Xichen would likely read into this (admittedly strange) development, and how earnestly he would ask if this means they’ve magically sorted out all their issues and are therefore willing to be close again as they once were, he can (reluctantly, slightly guiltily) understand the desire for discretion.
Of course Jin Guangyao would very much like to ask very similar questions himself, but at least he would do so with the knowledge that it’s impossible Nie Mingjue has actually forgiven him for the things that caused their miserable separation in the first place, and for his part Jin Guangyao is as unlikely to apologize for them as he ever has been. He did what needed to be done, Nie Mingjue has staunchly refused to accept that into his worldview. Thanks to such luxury, he has instead decided to make every action that doesn’t align with his own personal moral code — to which he alone so strictly adheres — Jin Guangyao’s malicious fault and absolutely no one else’s, and will hear no opinions that say otherwise.
That sort of cavernous rift is not something that can be crossed easily, not when both parties are unwilling to bend for the sake of the other’s comfort, so in the end nothing’s really changed at all. Saying as much would only hurt and disappoint Lan Xichen, which will forever remain a line Jin Guangyao will do his utmost not to cross.
The fact that the reminder sits like a rock in the pit of his stomach is one that he will not be addressing for at least the next two to three days, if ever.
“We’re fine, er-ge, come sit down,” Jin Guangyao says and returns to his demure sipping, consoling himself for the lost chance at making Nie Mingjue uncomfortable with admiring Lan Xichen as he sinks down gracefully to kneel across from him in a flutter of silk, his eyes and smiling lips full of a secret mischief only they share. It soothes his loss immensely to be so coyly reminded of what he and Lan Xichen did together the last time they were in Qinghe, to know that Lan Xichen still thinks of it too whenever they see each other, and he has to hide a smug smirk behind the next sip of his tea.
“Oh good, you’re even worse here,” Nie Mingjue mutters, his frown hard enough to make his face look like it was carved from stone as he pours tea for Lan Xichen and passes the little cup to him almost rudely, an inelegant bump of their fingers rather than a careful transfer.
Lan Xichen has the good grace to look confused, but Jin Guangyao already knows he, at least, is going to refuse to apologize even if Lan Xichen will be moved to. The guilt he’d been afraid would surface once the afterglow of their… mutual success wore off hasn’t reared its head yet, so as far as he’s concerned there’s nothing to apologize for.
“Pardon?”
“Don’t.”
Jin Guangyao goes still as all hints of playfulness abruptly dissipate in the wake of Nie Mingjue’s glare, the hard cut of his command. Jin Guangyao glances at Lan Xichen again but this time there’s nothing sly in either of their eyes, simple caution and, in Lan Xichen’s case, perfectly innocent confusion.
And it is innocent confusion. Jin Guangyao realizes in a sudden burst of clarity that Lan Xichen hadn’t even realized what he was doing — what they were doing. He does feel guilty then, just a little, for accidentally dragging Lan Xichen with him, unknowingly, into the path of Nie Mingjue’s irritation.
“You’ve done something,” Nie Mingjue tells them, still glaring between them for a moment before he settles on just glaring at Jin Guangyao (what else is new, he thinks, suddenly tired). “I didn’t say anything in Lanling because it’s clear you didn’t want to talk about it, but we’re not in Lanling anymore so just say it. What are you hiding from me?”
Jin Guangyao entertains the idea for the briefest of moments — barely a conscious thought before he recoils from it — of undermining Nie Mingjue’s suspicions. It would be so easy to do, a disparaging comment about how the final decline, nudged along by the vicious saber spirits, always starts with paranoia, and is he really sure they’re hiding something from him? Why would they have anything to hide from him, as his sworn brothers? Doesn’t he trust them, or at least Lan Xichen? The fact that they are wouldn’t matter; he could plant that seed of doubt, he could make it harder for Nie Mingjue to trust the evidence of his own senses to guide him properly.
He could report the beginnings of his success to Jin Guangshan and perhaps in doing so earn a reprieve from the miseries of Jinlintai, the degree of relief directly proportional to his father’s rising or falling opinion of him.
Jin Guangyao clutches his teacup so hard his fingers ache and says nothing.
“It’s nothing serious, da-ge,” Lan Xichen soothes in his place, reaching across the table to place a gentle hand over Nie Mingjue’s. “A-Yao-” Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue both twitch, though neither acknowledge it “-and I simply conducted some… experiments, but we haven’t had adequate privacy in which to tell you the results of them yet. It’s nothing we wanted to keep from you indefinitely.”
Is that so? Jin Guangyao raises an eyebrow and sips at his tea to avoid looking at Lan Xichen; they hadn’t outright discussed the issue of telling Nie Mingjue about their extracurricular activities, and privately he’d sort of thought it could be just for them, something special they shared, considering it was nothing at all like their ‘experiments’ to date in which Nie Mingjue has been involved. Still, he supposes that since the excuse to be intimate together was to improve his ability to dual cultivate, it’s understandable that Lan Xichen would want to share their success with the one of the three of them for whom proper dual cultivation is truly a matter of life and death.
It stands to reason that Lan Xichen had always intended to tell Nie Mingjue of their night together without him, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t possibly ask him not to do so without also addressing the weight of what they’d deliberately left unspoken between them that night, so. There it is. The secret had been nice while it lasted.
Nie Mingjue looks back and forth between them again for a long moment before he sighs and scrubs at his eyes with one broad hand, muttering behind it, “Fine. Just tell me now, then, so you can stop looking at each other like that. I had enough of it in Lanling.”
Jin Guangyao can see it in the delicate moue of Lan Xichen’s mouth, in the way his gaze turns coy again, that he’s going to dance around saying it in a way that Nie Mingjue, already frustrated by months of not knowing what they’re hiding from him but knowing that they’re hiding something, will certainly not appreciate.
“Er-ge and I had sex,” Jin Guangyao says instead, brisk and businesslike. And then, because he still feels like the cat that ate the canary about it all, he adds, “Quite good sex, too, actually.”
It at least knocks the wind out of Nie Mingjue’s sails, his irritation fading as he looks between them yet again, no longer glaring but… hurt? That can’t be right.
“You did what?”
No, he’s definitely upset, and it’s not anger. The guilt that Jin Guangyao has successfully avoided for months suddenly curdles in his belly without warning, urging him to make his excuses to escape the weight of Nie Mingjue’s unexpectedly plaintive gaze.
“I thought it might help our situation if A-Yao got a chance to practice sharing his qi without any… pressure to do it well.”
“So you needed to have sex with him?”
The implication — that sex hardly needs to be had for basic qi sharing (‘taught to children,’ his mind still sneers in Nie Mingjue’s voice whenever he thinks of the much more basic form of the practice) — is painfully clear in the sarcastic drawl of his question, and it at least seems to make Lan Xichen realize that Nie Mingjue is truly upset. If Jin Guangyao were inclined to specify, he’d dare to say that Nie Mingjue is jealous, but of course that’s ridiculous. What in the world does he have to be jealous of? He certainly can’t be jealous of Lan Xichen, considering he’d likely rather sit through at least three of Sect Leader Yao’s sanctimonious tirades one right after the other than have unnecessary sex of any kind with Jin Guangyao. But to be jealous, then, of Jin Guangyao for getting to have Lan Xichen to himself for a single night? Ridiculous.
It’s clear — it has always been clear — how much Lan Xichen loves Nie Mingjue; that he would move heaven and earth to do everything he can for his childhood friend. Lan Xichen is the one holding this entire operation together with little more than his ironclad belief that this is something they can accomplish and his desire to see any amount of softening between Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, no matter how slight. Is it not abundantly clear how much Jin Guangyao is simply a minor addition to the lifelong devotion Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen had already been looking for any excuse to legitimize for years, at least to the extent any leaders of two Great Sects can do?
So no, jealousy can’t be right, but he supposes the true label hardly matters. Whatever flavor of emotion it is, Nie Mingjue is upset, and it’s something that they need to fix if Jin Guangyao is going to leave here having gotten what he wants out of this encounter.
Lan Xichen sits up a little straighter and meets Nie Mingjue’s skeptical gaze with a cool confidence that’s unfairly attractive, especially considering what it is he’s defending so readily.
“Yes, I did. I wanted to have sex with A-Yao, and he agreed that it was a good idea to try. I’m glad that we did, as well, because that night he and I figured out how to truly dual cultivate.”
Mmmm the smugness is back, barely tainted by the slowly-receding guilt still churning in his belly. He did that, he put that easy confidence in the set of Lan Xichen’s shoulders, the relaxation around the corners of his eyes. Jin Guangyao, not Nie Mingjue, finally figured out how to align himself so utterly with Lan Xichen, down to their very cores (literally), that for a few blissful moments every single aspect of them — body, mind, and soul — had been entirely in harmony. No matter how devoted Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen are to each other, it was Jin Guangyao who finally helped Lan Xichen crack the mystery of the thing that will hopefully save Nie Mingjue’s life.
Nie Mingjue is going to owe him a lifetime of favors in exchange for his incredible and supremely selfish night with Lan Xichen — that they’d had under Nie Mingjue’s own roof!
Delicious.
“Don’t gloat,” Nie Mingjue snaps at him and Jin Guangyao blinks, surprised to have been caught out because yes Nie Mingjue is definitely looking straight at him, not admonishing Lan Xichen for the easy authority in his defense of their night together.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, da-ge,” Jin Guangyao lies so baldly that even Lan Xichen shoots him a little disapproving look, though it isn’t enough to make him take it back. Why should he? In the grand scheme of a lifetime of being kicked around and passed over, why shouldn’t he be proud of what he was able to accomplish with nothing more than patched-together cultivation training and a desperate desire to not disappoint Lan Xichen? Nie Mingjue has a lifetime of achievements both hard-won and gifted to him through privilege, what difference should it make to him?
Nie Mingjue glares at him for a moment more before he seems to give up, shoulders slumping ever so slightly and his hand dropping to pick up his abandoned teacup again with an air of defeat.
“Alright, fine. So you slept together and figured out dual cultivation; guess that’ll make things easier from now on.”
Jin Guangyao once again meets Lan Xichen’s eyes across the table and finds the little smile the man gives him more reassuring than he would’ve expected. Perhaps it has something to do with the way Lan Xichen had just defended his own actions in a way that made it clear, in no uncertain terms, why he’d decided to do what he had. He hadn’t even given their excuse the second time.
I wanted to have sex with A-Yao.
Lan Xichen wanted him, and in his eyes that was enough to justify accidentally upsetting Nie Mingjue. He hadn’t backed down at all, but had rather claimed full, intentional responsibility for having both suggested the plan and followed through with it.
Jin Guangyao is glad that he’s already sitting down as the rush of it is heady enough to make the room wobble a bit.
Although on second thought the little dizzy spell might also have something to do with the way his empty stomach growls immediately upon registering the smell of food in the moment before a servant interrupts them with a knock.
“I’ll get it,” Lan Xichen hurries to reassure and gets smoothly to his feet. The silence is only slightly awkward as the pair of serving girls bring in rice and a few platters to array in the center of the table — mostly meat, as is customary here, save for a few vegetarian dishes in deference to Lan Xichen’s typical diet. They leave behind a fresh pot of tea, the strong, dark stuff usually served at meals in Qinghe, and leave again without another word. Nie Mingjue casts the usual privacy wards over the room the moment they’re gone and somehow it takes some of the edge off immediately.
“How is the baby, A-Yao?” Lan Xichen asks when they’ve all settled again to begin serving themselves and each other from the communal plates. Jin Guangyao pauses for the briefest of moments, a particularly well-seasoned piece of wild mushroom pinched between the tips of his chopsticks just over Lan Xichen’s bowl.
“Jin Ling is doing very well,” he says as neutrally as he can, frantically cramming the emotional turmoil of the last month and a half or so as far down as he can get it. His sworn brothers haven’t been to Jinlintai since Jin Ling was born. Their last visit for Nie Mingjue to sit through a good few rounds of the Song of Cleansing had been near the middle of Jiang Yanli’s second trimester, before things around Jinlintai grew so tense and hectic that Jin Guangyao couldn’t dream of playing host to two Great Sect leaders, even if they were his own sworn brothers. They will, of course, be invited to the hundred-day celebration and he’s very much looking forward to that even now as he sits here with them, but that’s some time away yet, and it will be their first sight of the youngest Jin Heir.
It’s natural that they’re curious as to how he’s doing. It’s perfectly normal to ask him about his neph- about the latest addition to the Jin household. It’s not his er-ge’s fault that it brings the perpetual lump in his throat right back from where he’d swallowed it down and makes his eyes burn with the humiliation of what the boy’s birth has meant for him, personally.
It hurts, like lancing a wound that just won’t heal, but Jin Guangyao forces himself to finish the gesture, to serve Lan Xichen the roasted vegetables he’ll like best, to do the same for Nie Mingjue, giving him the crispiest, fattiest pieces from the platter of roast boar, and keep talking like he actually gets to be an active part of the boy’s life rather than hear about his progress through eavesdropping on servants’ gossip whenever he can.
He continues, “Xiao-gongzi is healthy and vigorous. Jin-shao-furen already has a small army of nursemaids to assist her in his care and may require more once he begins walking, depending on his curiosity.”
“A-Sang was like that as a baby,” Nie Mingjue snorts inelegantly around a bite of pork. “Er-ma was exhausted, I swear half of Bujing Shi had to try to help her corral him into safe areas and get him to go to sleep every night, including most of the disciples.”
Jin Guangyao smiles around the way that digs in under his ribs; not only the idea of mere disciples being allowed to tend to their beloved second young master, but the idea of an entire Sect — essentially an entire village — of people making the care of one child a primary concern. He thinks of Meng Shi, exhausted and working herself to death just to take care of him all on her own while others in her life actively attempted to make it all so much harder for her, and he swallows down a bite of greens with more bitterness than can be blamed on the cooking.
“Mm. Jin Ling is similarly doted on by his nursemaids and family.” And Jin Guangyao can’t even begrudge the boy all the people who want to spend so much of their time holding him, bouncing him gently in their arms, offering up toys for him to choose and shout his delight or derision for — he longs to be one of them, after all.
“Does he recognize you yet?”
Jin Guangyao would very much like it if Lan Xichen were even slightly less invested in his life, he thinks. He aims his gaze somewhere around the middle of the table and finds he can’t offer his sworn brother anything better than his tightest smile as he picks up another delicately roasted mushroom and places it with some finality on top of the rest of the serving in Lan Xichen’s bowl.
“I believe it’s still too early for the little master to be able to distinguish anyone, save his parents.”
“Perhaps,” Xichen allows with warmth in his voice, in his smile. “But he must still recognize being held by his shu-ow!”
Lan Xichen cuts off abruptly and Jin Guangyao looks up from his dedicated study of the table through the watery wobbling in his vision to find Lan Xichen darting a confused look at Nie Mingjue sitting perfectly still and innocent like he didn’t just kick their sworn brother under the table.
“Enough. How are things going in Gusu?” Nie Mingjue asks a little too stiffly for it to feel entirely natural.
Lan Xichen still looks confused as he replies, “Fine?” like he isn’t sure if he’s meant to actually change the topic or not. He must truly be tired if he’s so sloppy that Nie Mingjue can see the emotion on his face. Jin Guangyao fights to get his expression back under control as Lan Xichen darts a glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but he must see something similarly incriminating because he suddenly settles into the entirely new topic with ease and perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. After all, there’s only so much excitement one can find in the logistics of housing, clothing, and feeding a small tribe of displaced refugees-turned-war-prisoners-turned-refugees-again, but Lan Xichen talks of the previously abandoned village the Wen remnants have settled in for long enough that Jin Guangyao doesn’t feel like he’s in danger of bursting into tears anymore, not even when Nie Mingjue casually places choice little morsels in Jin Guangyao’s bowl without seeming to think about it as they listen.
Lan Xichen tells them of how helpful it’s been to have so many extra hands to contribute to the rebuilding efforts where possible, and of Wen Qing’s arrival and her tireless work with Wei Wuxian in their attempts to treat the near-fatal wounds Wen Ning had sustained in the work camp at Qiongqi Pass — to the point where the Lan doctors have practically begged to be allowed to practice alongside them in order to learn new methods to treat their own people, which is apparently going just as well as (nearly) everything else with help from Lan Wangji to smooth their way amongst the clan elders and the Sect as a whole.
By the time they’re finished eating and stacking the empty dishes neatly away to be returned to the kitchens in the morning, Lan Xichen is sighing morosely over the one sour note in his hopeful narrative; namely, the fact that somehow Wei Wuxian remains oblivious to the fact that Lan Wangji isn’t doing all of his aggressive helping purely out of the goodness of his heart (though there is also his well-known desire to see injustices rectified to use as an excuse to anyone in the Sect who dares to get overly nosy about his motives).
“I just don’t understand how Wei-gongzi can be so determined not to see what’s in front of him,” Lan Xichen sighs over a final cup of dark tea. “I can’t imagine what more Wangji could do to make his intentions clear except… perhaps…”
Nie Mingjue snorts and gets to his feet to start tugging down the covers on the bed. “Let me guess — he hasn’t actually told him, with words, what it is he wants?”
“Well… he worries for Wei-gongzi’s precarious position! The last thing he would want is to put pressure on him when Wei-gongzi has aligned himself with the Wen, who still rely on us almost entirely for supplies and protection,” Lan Xichen hedges, ever the loyal older brother. Jin Guangyao finds it admirable that he wants to defend his brother and also wildly ironic that they’re having this conversation about those two rather than…
No, actually, on second thought he does not want to consider how much of that whole… situation could apply just as easily to them if they were in a position to talk about it together. He does not think about himself and Lan Xichen lying in bed together, tangled up and still sweaty from the incredible sex they’d just had, unable and unwilling to actually say that they’re in love but meaning it with their entire hearts all the same.
“Perhaps Wei-gongzi really is just that blind,” Jin Guangyao sniffs. Because while yes, he and Lan Xichen haven’t said what they feel, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know. Wei Wuxian is simply stupid, that much is clear no matter how brilliant (and, as Xue Yang is unfortunately proving, one-of-a-kind) his work in demonic cultivation is. “Lan-er-gongzi’s feelings are perfectly clear, it’s hardly his fault he fell in love with an idiot.”
“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen chides, but he does it with that familiar, mischievous twinkle in his eye and the smallest of smiles tucked in the corner of his mouth, so he must agree with him on at least some level and he’s simply too diplomatic to say so. Jin Guangyao will still count it as a win.
Nie Mingjue sighs as he dumps the extraneous bedding unceremoniously on the floor and then begins untying his outermost robe, a little more slowly than usual, almost lazily. “Do we really have to talk about them right this minute?”
Lan Xichen smiles and shakes his head, looking almost unbearably fond. “Of course not, da-ge. I actually have a proposition I’d like to make though, before we begin.”
Nie Mingjue raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t pause in his lazy stripping that Jin Guangyao is not watching with any discernible degree of craving. It’s perfectly natural, after discovering one is touch-starved whilst in a position to do little to nothing about it, to be drawn to the first hint of warm, bare skin that could conceivably be his for touching; the fact that it’s Nie Mingjue baring himself (and in such a teasing way without even seeming to intend to be a tease) has nothing to do with any of it.
“Oh?”
“Mm. I thought perhaps A-Yao could go first this time.”
What?
Jin Guangyao blinks, lets that register, and turns his startled gaze on Lan Xichen still sitting at the table looking perfectly serene.
What?
“Er-ge?” Jin Guangyao asks, bewildered. They definitely didn’t talk about this, and what’s the point of breaking the pattern now?
Almost as if he can read his thoughts, Lan Xichen smiles up at him and replies, “I believe we may have become too stuck in our ways. A-Yao and I tried something new and found our way to true dual cultivation; perhaps all that’s needed here are a few simple changes as well.”
“Alright, that’s it — just what the hell did you two do?” Nie Mingjue huffs like he’s been dying to ask it all evening. He shrugs out of his final top layer a little too aggressively and drops it to the floor to put his hands on his hips over his trousers riding a little lower than usual. (Has that trail of dark hair beneath his navel always been there? Does it have any right to be so tempting??)
“I feel like simply talking about it wouldn’t be all that helpful. Would you like one of us to show you?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake Xichen, come on, just spit it out, you’re being ridiculous-”
“I’ll show you.”
As has happened before, Jin Guangyao wonders very briefly who said that only to realize it was… him. Offering to have sex with Nie Mingjue. For fun.
Because that’s what he and Lan Xichen did differently together, wasn’t it? Lan Xichen had fucked him in the same pattern — the same rhythm, even — that he always uses with Nie Mingjue; he’d gone slowly enough at first to teach him how to circulate his qi while they were together, yes, but that’s not a lesson Nie Mingjue needs, it’s presumably something they’ve already been doing, so that wasn’t actually any different either; the only thing he can think of that was truly new was that they were already attuned to each other so much even before there was any penetration at all because Lan Xichen had kissed him, touched him, taken him into his mouth and made him feel incredible and loose and eager to accept anything and everything that was given to him.
He doesn’t know if he can even do that with Nie Mingjue; it’s possible that the rift between them really is too deep and wide to cross, even to do something that requires no emotional attachment (he’s going to ignore that there were definitely emotions with Lan Xichen during everything, he’ll somehow convince himself that’s not the important part). But Meng Shi didn’t raise a quitter, and he had done it with Lan Xichen, the dual cultivation bit. He’s bound and determined to prove to Nie Mingjue that they can do it together as well, that this is viable no matter what the other man has thought in the past about Jin Guangyao’s motives or abilities.
Jin Guangyao meets Nie Mingjue’s challenging gaze with one of his own and doesn’t take his eyes off him as he starts to undress as meticulously as ever, a challenge in every flick of his fingers and the curious tilt of his head when Nie Mingjue’s glare flickers down the length of his body, just once, when he slips off his embroidered outer robe.
“Alright, fine. You can show me,” Nie Mingjue allows. Gracious of him.
Jin Guangyao shrugs, easily pretending like it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other, and crosses the room as he continues to unpick the knots of the closures on his robes, his shirt, and slides each one off to fold over the decorative screen under the window. When he turns back to the room at large it’s to find Nie Mingjue already naked sitting on the edge of the bed facing away from him — and Lan Xichen staring at them both with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open ever so slightly, his ears flushed bright red.
“Xichen, you alright?” Nie Mingjue asks as Jin Guangyao climbs onto the bed behind him to kneel at his side, his forearm propped up on Nie Mingjue’s broad shoulder to lean against him ever so slightly as his knees twinge.
“I’m great,” Lan Xichen says with a little too much breathless enthusiasm. Jin Guangyao raises an eyebrow and turns his head enough to glance at Nie Mingjue to find a similarly skeptical (and amused) expression on his face. Actually he’s downright smirking across the room at Lan Xichen, which is so unfairly attractive Jin Guangyao would very much like to bite him about it.
“Yeah I’ll bet you are. What next, Guangyao?”
Jin Guangyao barely resists the urge to snort and decides he’s not done attempting to knock Nie Mingjue off-balance (off his damn high horse, more like). Rather than answering him at first, he adjusts to kneel behind him and slide both arms straight out over Nie Mingjue’s broad shoulders, leaning his chest against his back and ignoring the way it makes Nie Mingjue tense up in favor of pressing his mouth against the hot shell of his ear.
“‘Guangyao’,” he muses, too low for Lan Xichen to hear, hardly louder than an exhale, “is not what you called me an hour ago.”
“Watch it,” Nie Mingjue warns him, but he tilts his head to the side anyway so Jin Guangyao takes a chance on accepting the invitation, brushing his parted lips down behind his ear and along the line of his neck to kiss the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder.
As Jin Guangyao had half-feared, now that he’s got the skin-to-skin contact his entire being has been aching to get for months, he finds himself feeling unacceptably greedy for more. He tucks himself closer to Nie Mingjue’s back and pets idle fingertips up and down the contours of his well-muscled (and well-cushioned) chest with the faint rasp of coarse hair against his skin. He shivers when Nie Mingjue does and presses another open-mouthed, damp kiss to a single random spot amongst the miles of warm, bare skin on display.
He trails a few more kisses idly out to the curve of Nie Mingjue’s shoulder, over the slight pucker of a silvery star-shaped scar without pausing, and then trails inwards again until Nie Mingjue exhales slowly, carefully controlled, and tilts his head forward to bare the nape of his neck. Jin Guangyao sacrifices the pleasure of stroking his chest to bury one hand in his thick, unbound hair instead and push it out of his way so he can scrape his teeth lightly against the top of Nie Mingjue’s spine; he’s promptly rewarded with another full-body shiver.
Nie Mingjue curls over a little further, elbows braced on his knees, so Jin Guangyao lays himself against his back fully to nip at his as-of-yet untouched ear on the other side, and Nie Mingjue tilts his head the other way to allow it so quickly he nearly clips the tip of Jin Guangyao’s nose.
Jin Guangyao makes the mistake then of flicking a glance up through his lashes to gauge Lan Xichen’s state across the room, wary of him getting jealous even though this had been his idea. That single glance at least proves that he isn’t jealous, though Jin Guangyao does worry for the safety of the table that he’s clutching the edge of so hard his knuckles are white. There are probably divots in the shape of his nails bitten into the lacquer. It’s probably a miracle that the wood hasn’t splintered under the force of his grip.
“Sit up straight,” Jin Guangyao kisses into the spot just below Nie Mingjue’s ear and he has to scramble to keep his arms locked around Nie Mingjue’s broad chest to avoid being flopped back onto the bed when he jerks upright again with a little half-gasp. Rather than making some quip about how quick Nie Mingjue is to obey the slightest touch of a firm hand, he nibbles on the crook of his neck and tugs a little around Nie Mingjue’s chest until he gets the message to slide further back onto the bed, just far enough for Jin Guangyao to swing around and plant himself firmly in Nie Mingjue’s lap without fear of falling off the edge of the wooden frame beneath them.
He sits down on the tops of Nie Mingjue’s thighs to give his knees a bit of a break, and even though it puts him beneath Nie Mingjue’s eye-level he realizes with a heady little jolt that he still feels very… in control. He swallows heavily, checking Nie Mingjue’s face for any possibility of a negative reaction, for any indication that he has gone too far and is about to be cast away — but Nie Mingjue is watching him intently, his eyes heavy-lidded and gaze fixed on his mouth even as his hands curl tightly around Jin Guangyao’s hips. Jin Guangyao ghosts the tip of his index finger up the shallow valley of Nie Mingjue’s sternum, circles it a few times in the hollow of his throat, and then trails it slowly up further over the knot of his throat until he can carefully hold his chin delicately between thumb and forefinger.
Nie Mingjue leans in with just the mere suggestion of guiding pressure, aiming unerringly for a deep kiss that feels, if anything, like a simple continuation from the last time they’d kissed despite the months that have passed since then. Nie Mingjue’s mouth is familiar and delightful, firm, confident movements of his lips and sweeps of his tongue that Jin Guangyao meets with equal confidence, giving no ground but taking none either.
From a purely technical perspective, kissing Nie Mingjue is so incredibly different from kissing Lan Xichen. They both make his stomach swoop and his heart race, but there almost all the similarities end. Nie Mingjue kisses like he does everything else — with an unshakeable air of authority. His delusions of authority in this particular situation can’t quite hide the desperation that lurks a little deeper, though, and that’s what Jin Guangyao chases more of with more eagerness than he would ever claim outright.
He nips at Nie Mingjue’s bottom lip, gently at first and then a little harder when he feels the man’s grip on his hips tighten, his entire body tense with anticipation. Jin Guangyao breezes right past any thought Nie Mingjue might have of taking control of the situation and forces the man to adjust to him and what he wants, changing up the depth or the rhythm of their kisses as he sees fit until Nie Mingjue finally gets that he won’t be allowed to direct him and settles down. Jin Guangyao rewards him with a tug on his hair that tilts his head back far enough for Jin Guangyao to duck down to bite the spot below his ear that made him shiver before; this time it makes Nie Mingjue groan, hastily muffled but still perfectly audible from this close, and Jin Guangyao can’t help but preen just a bit.
It feels… good. Pleasing Nie Mingjue feels good in a way that being what Lan Xichen wants doesn’t; it’s not better than being with Lan Xichen, it’s just different in some way he doesn’t have any interest in attempting to define at this point in time. He has more important things to worry about, like continuing to do the things that are turning Nie Mingjue soft and pliant.
Well. Not all of him is soft.
Actually there’s a very distinctive part of him that’s not soft at all. Jin Guangyao tuts with (only half-faked) sympathy and rolls his hips exactly once to give him a bit of friction, and the groan Nie Mingjue bites off is headier than an entire jar of the most expensive wine Jin gold can buy.
“Do you really want to know what er-ge and I did together?” he muses. He tugs Nie Mingjue’s head back a little farther and walks his free hand up the exposed length of his neck, light brushes of his first two fingertips in a teasing saunter that makes Nie Mingjue swallow thickly, the knot of his throat bobbing with it. Jin Guangyao leans in to kiss it, feeling strangely possessive.
“Do you want me to know?”
Ohhhh he does, Jin Guangyao realizes. Now that the secret’s out and Nie Mingjue knows they did something, he finds that he does actually want him to know the specifics. He wants Nie Mingjue to imagine them together in exquisite detail, he wants to make him so jealous he’s sick with it (he wants Nie Mingjue to have even more reasons to want him like he apparently does right now, judging by the erection Jin Guangyao is currently sitting on).
Jin Guangyao brushes those same two fingertips around the overheated curve of Nie Mingjue’s ear and gets his knees back under himself to lean up and nibble on his earlobe, shivering a little himself when it makes Nie Mingjue exhale against his ear in a rush.
It’s clear he has Nie Mingjue’s undivided attention, and he savors the weight of it on his skin (literally, in some respects, as Nie Mingjue drags his hands around to his back, his ass, and holds him tightly) as he begins, “Er-ge invited me in for… tea.” He makes sure to emphasize ‘tea’, the stress on the word making it clear that they’d had far more than that in mind. Even Nie Mingjue, with his usual disregard for such subtleties as innuendo, huffs a breathless chuckle and hums a nearly inaudible, “Mm?” to keep him talking.
“I accepted, and he prepared it for me. He does it so beautifully, doesn’t he? I think it’s his hands, they’re so… elegant. Even when he’s fingering you open, it nearly looks like an art. What a gentleman.”
Nie Mingjue shudders and turns his head enough to press his cheek tight against Jin Guangyao’s, his lips parted and so close to pressing a clumsy kiss to his skin, though he doesn’t quite press close enough to actually do it.
“I asked if he could tell me more about dual cultivation, I had some new questions. He offered to give me a practical demonstration instead. I accepted, and he put his mouth on me.”
Jin Guangyao thrills to feel Nie Mingjue’s cock twitch beneath him, bumping against the soft inside of his thigh, and he turns his head to press a trail of featherlight kisses along Nie Mingjue’s jaw, teasing across his parted lips, and then down the other side to pay some much needed attention to the other ear.
“He owed me an orgasm from the bath, you see. Technically you did, but he decided to take on your debt seeing as you were indisposed and I wanted the debt cleared as soon as I could get it. He made sure the first one was just to please me. Do you think that was enough of a change of pace to make a difference in our cultivation?”
Nie Mingjue makes some vague sort of noise in the back of his throat, which seems to be the only reply he’s capable of making at the moment; Jin Guangyao bites at his own bottom lip to keep from laughing. He feels drunk (giddy) with it, knowing that he’s reduced Nie Mingjue to this with just a few words and knowing where to kiss him for the best effect; still, he wouldn’t want his laughter to be misinterpreted. Nie Mingjue wants this, that much is clear, though there’s still a part of Jin Guangyao insisting caution, caution, this man is unpredictable… but it’s hard to pay attention to it with Nie Mingjue’s big, warm, calloused hands on his skin.
He pretends like the half-moaned-something was an affirmative and nods, cheek brushing against Nie Mingjue’s. “Mmm yes, I think so too. I don’t think I’ll use my mouth on you tonight, though. I think we’re just fine like this.”
Jin Guangyao pulls back just enough to press a few kisses to Nie Mingjue’s mouth and take a quick look at him through lowered lashes; he looks wrecked already, flushed all the way from his neck up to his ears and a little glassy-eyed as he stares at Jin Guangyao’s mouth, as he licks his bottom lip quickly and steals a damp peck of a kiss when Jin Guangyao drifts a little closer.
“Er-ge?” Jin Guangyao raises his voice just a bit to call. He can actually feel the slightest hint of a breeze against his bare back as Lan Xichen crosses the room, hastening to come to him when called. Jin Guangyao turns his head to look up at him and finds he doesn’t look much better than Nie Mingjue, equally as glassy-eyed and watching his every move like he’s desperately waiting for his turn. Hm. A possibility to be explored later, he thinks. “May I have the oil, please?”
Lan Xichen wordlessly fishes the little pot out of his sleeve and carefully takes off the lid to hold it out for him to scoop a generous amount onto two fingers.
“Thank you. You’re still wearing clothes?”
Jin Guangyao turns his attention back to Nie Mingjue and is pretty sure he hears a seam rip behind him as Lan Xichen hurries to strip.
“Fuck, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue finally manages to murmur, slurred and already sex-drunk; he hasn’t even been touched yet but Jin Guangyao knows that tone of voice well enough.
“I will, just be patient.”
Nie Mingjue’s disbelieving huff of laughter cuts off quite abruptly; he even takes his hand off Jin Guangyao’s ass to clap it over his own mouth to attempt to hide that he’s moaning again, and though Jin Guangyao would have liked to hear him properly he doesn’t begrudge him wanting to muffle himself. He curls his hand a little tighter around Nie Mingjue’s cock and slowly drags it up, his way eased by the oil coating his fingers far more generously than necessary, so much that some of it drips off his knuckles and into the hair between Nie Mingjue’s legs. Not that either of them really care, of course.
When he pauses his stroking right at the tip, leaving Nie Mingjue trying and failing to catch his breath in the wake of it, Jin Guangyao tells him, “Er-ge can do incredible things with his mouth, though, maybe if you ask nicely I’ll let him show you exactly what he did to me.”
“I want to,” Lan Xichen breathes as he slides into bed, naked and apparently done with watching from across the room. Jin Guangyao shifts enough to let him slide up behind Nie Mingjue to press close, his hands wandering shamelessly and his mouth pressed to Nie Mingjue’s broad shoulder right where Jin Guangyao had started his own explorations.
Jin Guangyao strokes Nie Mingjue again, a quick downward push and another slow drag upwards, and Nie Mingjue’s head falls back to rest heavily on Lan Xichen’s shoulder as he doesn’t even bother muffling himself this time, too busy pulling Lan Xichen in closer with an arm wrapped, somewhat awkwardly, up and backwards around his neck and the other still wrapped around the entirety of Jin Guangyao’s waist to hold him on his lap.
His attention strays from Nie Mingjue just for a second, a brief moment to glance at Lan Xichen and check in with him —
He’s completely naked.
Not just a ‘he’s removed his clothing for convenience’s sake’ sort of naked, but a ‘he’s not even wearing his ribbon’ naked. Jin Guangyao is momentarily shocked out of the heady confidence born of turning Nie Mingjue into a puddle of arousal and barely-contained desire, but Lan Xichen just smiles at him so beautifully it breaks his heart a little (in the best way possible) before he tucks his face into the crook of Nie Mingjue’s neck with a happy hum.
Jin Guangyao does his best to scoop his confidence back up into his hands and keep working on getting Nie Mingjue to relax enough to get off without the excuse of dual cultivating, and thankfully manages it while Nie Mingjue is distracted with turning his head to try to seek Lan Xichen out for a proper kiss. Jin Guangyao allows it for a few moments strictly because Lan Xichen deserves as many kisses as he can possibly receive, but when their few moments he’s so generously allotted for them are up he does what he can to remind Nie Mingjue in no uncertain terms who he’s meant to be paying attention to at the moment. As he’d suspected, squeezing just shy of too hard around the base of his dick is more than enough to get him to focus again.
“Ah — shit, would you be careful?” Nie Mingjue hisses, but his hips still twitch like he’d very much like to fuck them upwards and is just barely restraining himself, so Jin Guangyao decides not to take the admonishment to heart.
“As I was saying-“ he says crisply, “-if you ask er-ge nicely I might let you have his mouth, but for now, I have other plans; you’ll just have to imagine it while I touch you, won’t you?”
Nie Mingjue squints up at him from his spot lounging on Lan Xichen’s shoulder. He seems to gather his wits about him with an effort and sits up straight again, slowly, carefully levering himself up until they’re eye-to-eye. Jin Guangyao’s hand flexes around Nie Mingjue’s cock utterly involuntarily and he actually watches the sensation travel through Nie Mingjue’s expression, a ripple of pleasure that ends with his eyelashes fluttering for a moment, softening the intensity of his glare for the length of a single sharp inhale.
“I’ll imagine it later. I have something else to focus on right now,” Nie Mingjue tells him, deliberate and slow. Jin Guangyao goes still and blinks at him, unsure what else to do as Nie Mingjue drops his arm from around Lan Xichen’s neck to tangle their free hands together and raise Jin Guangyao’s to his mouth so he can press hazy kisses to his knuckles, eyes still locked on his.
Isn’t he jealous that Jin Guangyao did things with Lan Xichen that the other two haven’t done together? Doesn’t he want to feel Jin Guangyao’s hand around him and imagine that it’s Lan Xichen’s mouth instead? Isn’t any sex with Lan Xichen — even imaginary — infinitely preferable to even the best Jin Guangyao can do??
Nie Mingjue nips at the base of his thumb and soothes it with a kiss, and he’s still looking at him like he’s thinking favorably of letting Jin Guangyao eat him alive. Jin Guangyao watches him closely as he resumes his lazy stroking, barely aware of Lan Xichen feeling Nie Mingjue up from behind as he focuses exclusively on the task at hand.
It’s easier if he convinces himself it’s a challenge, rather than desire, burning in Nie Mingjue’s gaze. If there’s a challenge there then there’s a sudden (unwelcome) reminder that he can fail at this. Lan Xichen wants him to show Nie Mingjue what they figured out together, which means if they don’t achieve proper dual cultivation with him here, right now, then even considering the fact that this is going much better than anything else between them has yet, Nie Mingjue could still decide to accuse him once again of sabotage.
Well. Jin Guangyao didn’t come here to lose, and certainly not to lose to Nie Mingjue. He ducks in to knock Nie Mingjue off balance again with a calculated attack, nipping and kissing his kiss-tender mouth until Nie Mingjue shudders and wraps his arms around Jin Guangyao’s waist to hug him tightly.
Oh a whim, Jin Guangyao releases Nie Mingjue’s cock long enough to arch his back into the hard press of his arms and gasp a faint, “Gege!” that at least makes Lan Xichen whimper quietly, so that’s already a win of sorts if not the one he’d intended. Nie Mingjue’s erection twitches against his thigh again, his hips bucking ever so slightly, and he parries the teasing with a too-sharp bite to the curve of Jin Guangyao’s shoulder.
“Fuck off,” Nie Mingjue hisses between bruising kisses and this time Jin Guangyao is so startled he isn’t quick enough to keep from laughing, though he does stifle it in Nie Mingjue’s hair as he presses a flurry of half-hearted apology kisses to his temple.
“Ow — Stop biting me, ge, it hurts,” he chides when his silent apology goes unheeded. He can’t quite stop from flinching when Nie Mingjue just bites him again even harder than before in retaliation, a sharp, hard pinch that shocks through his entire body. He will not, under any circumstances, admit that he also whimpers a little in a way that’s entirely unacceptable for someone as accustomed to pain as he is, not to mention unwilling to show weakness if at all possible.
Nie Mingjue goes still for a moment, trembling with the effort of it, and then turns his head to nuzzle the tip of his nose under his ear to murmur what seems to be a truly contrite, “…Sorry, A-Yao.”
Turnabout is fair play, and all is fair in love and war, but Jin Guangyao still doesn’t think it’s actually fair that all the sharp, cold bits of himself that he carefully curates and maintains with the obsessive care of an imperial gardener sort of… melt in direct response to both the apology and the diminutive. That shouldn’t be allowed, it’s far more disarming than is fair for what has turned into a surprisingly friendly(-ish) spar.
Lan Xichen gasps softly and it can’t possibly be a coincidence, but he also seems determined not to interrupt them too much so he says nothing; Jin Guangyao can practically hear his thoughts racing to try to figure out what it means without interrupting them to ask outright, but he can’t focus on that right now. He still has Nie Mingjue to tend to, after all, and so he slides his free hand between them again to curl a loose fist around Nie Mingjue’s cock to pick up where he left off.
It’s easy to settle into a rhythm, and Jin Guangyao applies himself to his assignment with the single-minded focus that he brings to everything he attempts. In hardly any time at all Nie Mingjue is no longer able to kiss him, instead just holding him close with one hand in the small of his back and the other pressed to the back of his head. Jin Guangyao presses his flushed cheek to Nie Mingjue’s and breathes with him, ragged and harsh, as they meet each other in the middle for the first time in a very long time, working together on a level deeper than physical. He can feel it even without actively reaching for Nie Mingjue’s core, their qi pulsing closer and closer to the same rhythm as their hips rock together and their ragged breathing syncs in barely-noticeable increments.
They’re nearly perfectly in tune when Nie Mingjue chokes on a groan in his ear and Jin Guangyao smears a clumsy kiss to his jaw to try to help him close that last bit of distance to where he needs to be.
“Mingjue-” he presses against one spot he’d nibbled a pink little bruise onto, the word embarrassingly desperate. He’d started it without really knowing what he wanted to ask for, but it would seem he doesn’t have to. No sooner has he smeared the plea into Nie Mingjue’s sweat-salty skin than Nie Mingjue throws his head back to press hard against Lan Xichen’s steady shoulder and comes on Jin Guangyao’s hand still wrapped around him and his thigh where he’s still straddling Nie Mingjue’s lap. His knees and hip are aching too fiercely to continue ignoring and his thighs are trembling with enough physical exhaustion that he can’t focus enough on pleasure to tumble over the edge of his own climax with Nie Mingjue, but he doesn’t even care.
Nie Mingjue is glorious as far as Jin Guangyao is concerned, pinned underneath him and against Lan Xichen’s chest, lost entirely in pleasure in a way Jin Guangyao doesn’t think they’ve managed for him yet, at least certainly not when he’s been trying on his own to make it happen. He strokes Nie Mingjue through his orgasm and into oversensitivity, and Lan Xichen looks at Jin Guangyao like he hung the moon, maybe even the stars too, and that’s good enough for now.
Jin Guangyao lets Nie Mingjue recover for approximately ten rabbiting heartbeats before he nuzzles up close to his ear again and smiles widely enough he’s sure Nie Mingjue can feel it pressing against his own cheek.
“After I finished, er-ge fingered me open.”
Nie Mingjue shudders hard enough the bed creaks a little and Jin Guangyao tuts sympathetically.
“He tried a new trick with his qi while he did; do you want him to show you?”
Nie Mingjue’s enthusiastic nod is hardly a surprise — who wouldn’t say yes to such a tantalizing prospect as being the sole focus of Lan Xichen’s attention? Rearranging their positions is the work of a few short moments of awkward shuffling (and wandering hands that are certainly not helping), and by the end of it Jin Guangyao has somehow wound up on his back beneath Nie Mingjue’s pressing bulk, rather than in his usual spot beside the other two when it’s not his turn (their time in the bath notwithstanding, considering those had been very unusual circumstances).
He manages a vaguely articulate, “Ah…?” of a question that Nie Mingjue is clearly in no real position to answer, focused on recovering his powers of speech as he still is, but Jin Guangyao blinks up at what he can see of Lan Xichen’s pleased smile over Nie Mingjue’s shoulder in a bid for an explanation.
“I’d like to continue to watch you both simultaneously, if that’s alright,” Lan Xichen so sweetly explains as he hauls Nie Mingjue’s hips up to where he wants them. Jin Guangyao glances at Nie Mingjue to gauge his reaction and finds him looking a little less bleary-eyed, just in time to raise an eyebrow down at him in silent commiseration for Lan Xichen’s ridiculousness. “I have a new idea to try that will be best attempted like this. You’re both doing quite well together already, you’ve been very good, but I think we can do even better.”
Jin Guangyao watches the praise, simple and plain though it is, land hard on Nie Mingjue; he is unfortunately perfectly capable of recognizing the signs of suddenly feeling warm and tingly all over, considering he’s feeling the exact same thing. He meets Nie Mingjue’s hooded gaze and returns the little lift of his brow with one of his own; it passes between them in an instant, the mutual understanding that they will not be addressing what it feels like to be good for Lan Xichen together, and Jin Guangyao decides to seal the silent moment of agreement with an almost perfunctory kiss.
It takes Nie Mingjue a beat too long to return the brief press of lips against his but he gets there when Jin Guangyao chuckles and does it again, prompting. Once they part again Jin Guangyao gets comfortably settled underneath him with a few shuffles of his shoulders and slightly-aching hips as he chides, “Don’t fall asleep yet, da-ge, we’re not done.”
“Shut up,” Nie Mingjue grumbles, clearly embarrassed but not angry, and Jin Guangyao can’t help but smile around the tentative little fledgling hope that things between them could possibly improve, as unlikely as that seems. Of course that would probably require talking about things, which just sounds like hell considering he’s still certain neither of their stances have truly changed enough to have a civil conversation about fundamental moral differences — and of course there’s always Nie Mingjue’s saber-stoked temper to account for — but maybe they can be good enough for this.
Jin Guangyao brushes his fingers cautiously through some of the thick hair hanging over Nie Mingjue’s forehead and he watches, a little breathless, as Nie Mingjue just turns his head into it enough to kiss his palm — not just a fluke, then, but a pattern that Jin Guangyao can replicate whenever he’d like. He’s certain that thought won’t haunt him during his lonely, miserable nights in Lanling.
“Fuck- I’m awake!” Nie Mingjue yelps, eyes flying open, and Jin Guangyao tilts his head a little to the side to look up at Lan Xichen once again in question.
“Just thought I’d make sure,” Lan Xichen replies, his mischievous little smirk sneaking into his voice just enough for Jin Guangyao to hear, though he doesn’t think Nie Mingjue will be able to tell.
Nie Mingjue twists enough to look over his shoulder and huff, “So you had to pinch my ass?!”
“Mn. Would you rather I bite it? That could also be arranged.”
The betrayed glare Nie Mingjue turns on Jin Guangyao when he has to stifle a short laugh is entirely worth it. The glare falls away quickly though as Jin Guangyao presumes — from the way Nie Mingjue shivers and drops his shoulders to press his forehead to the bed just beside Jin Guangyao’s neck — Lan Xichen stops his own snickering long enough to finally start fingering him.
As he’d realized in the bath the last time they were all together for this, Lan Xichen is something of a menace when he’s fucking Nie Mingjue. When it had been him and Lan Xichen alone, he’d been achingly sweet about everything, smiling and laughing along with Jin Guangyao and, most importantly, loving him in the way that Jin Guangyao has always wanted. It stands to reason, since they’re two very different people, that Lan Xichen would behave a little differently with Nie Mingjue; Jin Guangyao just thinks it’s funny that the main difference seems to be a drastic spike in what could only be described as erotic mischief.
Jin Guangyao slides his hand further into Nie Mingjue’s hair to hold his head close where he’s buried his face in the crook of his neck in a poor attempt to muffle himself while Lan Xichen gives him no quarter, fingering him steadily and giving him an equally steady stream of qi. From what Jin Guangyao can tell it seems to be more qi than he’d given when they’d tried it, but that’s to be expected when Nie Mingjue’s core and meridians are able to handle so much more than Jin Guangyao’s. He can feel it now like he could in the bath, a silk-sheets-on-naked-skin sensation as Nie Mingjue kisses wherever he can reach and Lan Xichen runs a hand up and down the broad expanse of Nie Mingjue’s back, a steady circuit that follows the rhythm of his fingers and his qi washing in and out of Nie Mingjue’s core like the incoming tide.
“You said you want to try something new, er-ge?” Jin Guangyao prompts after a few hazy minutes of their prepping Nie Mingjue, though it hardly feels like their usual clinical preparation for dual cultivation so much as it feels like… foreplay. Does it count as foreplay if Nie Mingjue has already come once? Maybe it just means that they’re having even more sex that’s also just for the fun of it.
“Mn, I had a thought, I will explain myself in a moment.”
Nie Mingjue’s ragged voice is low, his smiling mouth warm against Jin Guangyao’s ear as he mutters, “Is he too busy getting off on watching his own fingers in me to string enough words together to explain?”
Jin Guangyao hides a snicker in Nie Mingjue’s shoulder, both for the unexpected baldness of the question and the fact that Nie Mingjue can’t even see Lan Xichen but, from what Jin Guangyao can tell, he’s exactly right.
“C’mere A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue mutters when Jin Guangyao’s snickering fades and he doesn’t even need the careful hand on his cheek to coax him into turning his head enough to meet Nie Mingjue for a kiss deep enough to curl his toes and leave something warm sitting heavy with promise in his belly. He sucks a sharp breath in when Nie Mingjue’s teeth worry at his bottom lip, a nip that doesn’t hurt, just startles. Nie Mingjue gentles the kiss instantly, soft tugs and a brush of the tip of his tongue against the spot as if to soothe the imagined sting.
“Sorry,” he presses into the corner of Jin Guangyao’s mouth and Jin Guangyao shakes his head a little, tips his chin to steal another kiss.
Barely audible, and with hardly any space between them, he murmurs, “It’s alright, Mingjue, you can. Just… gently?” His heart hammers at the liberty he’s taking again, each time a fresh risk; he isn’t actively getting Nie Mingjue off at the moment (yet), maybe he’s not allowed to call him by only his name if he doesn’t also have his hand wrapped around his dick —
Nie Mingjue huffs a short exhale against his mouth but before Jin Guangyao can worry any further that it’s out of anger for his presumptions Nie Mingjue is biting him again, clearly holding back in a way that somehow feels more desperate than an outright mauling would. He’s shaking with the restraint of it as he first nibbles and then bites a little more confidently when Jin Guangyao just threads his fingers deeper into his hair in silent encouragement.
Alright. So he’s allowed to call him ‘Mingjue’ now. That’s only fair, if Nie Mingjue is going to continue giving him minor heart palpitations with his unbearably soft ‘A-Yao’s — in front of er-ge! There’s no way to take it back after that, there’s no possible world in which Lan Xichen will let that pass indefinitely without comment, it’s just a matter of when he’ll decide it’s the right time to address it. So really this is just another ‘turnabout is fair play’ sort of situation. It doesn’t have to mean anything, he’s only upping the stakes every time Nie Mingjue does. In the end it’s just a competition like everything else — and he’s winning.
He slips a hand between them again, petting curious fingertips down the deceptively soft contours of Nie Mingjue’s chest, his belly. He stops just shy of wrapping his fingers around him properly, hand tucked comfortably between his legs, and a fresh, irritated plea for him to get on with it is cut off rather neatly by a tight, “A-Yao would you just — fuck, A-Huan!”
Jin Guangyao realizes, in a burst of clarity, that this is fun. Keeping Nie Mingjue suspended between them like this, blindsiding him with pleasure, teasing him mercilessly while also making sure that one of them is giving him exactly what he wants at the same time… He could do this for hours and still likely want to do it a little longer.
“What was that, Mingjue?” he teases, innocent like he isn’t kneading firm circles around the base of his quickly-hardening erection while Lan Xichen holds him still with both hands curled around his thighs to sink into him. Nie Mingjue doesn’t bother answering him; he takes his hand off Jin Guangyao’s cheek to instead slam his palm flat against the bed frame above Jin Guangyao’s head, his entire arm flexing hard enough that Jin Guangyao can appreciate the sight of his well-corded forearm, the definition of his enormous biceps, even the suddenly-tight definition of his chest. His breath is coming in short little gasps he buries in Jin Guangyao’s hair, each sharp exhale hot against his ear.
Lan Xichen tuts a comforting, “I’ve got you, you’re alright Mingjue,” that sounds just as unrepentant as Jin Guangyao feels.
“I’m going to kill you both,” Nie Mingjue grits between clenched teeth.
“Er-ge, I don’t believe death threats were part of our night together, were they?”
“Mm, not to my knowledge. A-Yao, would you like to try passing da-ge some qi?”
Jin Guangyao might be thoroughly caught up in whatever it is he’s got going on with Nie Mingjue, but he’s not so out of it that the request under the current circumstances doesn’t give him a moment’s pause. Not that he’s exactly opposed to coming so hard he’s knocked straight out of his body again like the first and only time they’d all tried cultivating together, but… if he does that then this will be over before it can really truly begin, and he’d sort of… like it… maybe… if he had an excuse to keep kissing and teasing Nie Mingjue for at least a little while longer. Is that really so much to ask?
“Er-ge, are you sure?”
They could do more aligning of their qi before there’s any dual cultivation, another orgasm or two would probably work quite nicely to get them all working in tandem and they could still dual cultivate after that with all the qi Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen will have to help them recover, it doesn’t have to end now —
“It’s alright, A-Yao.” Jin Guangyao blinks, startled, and glances at Nie Mingjue who turns his head enough to kiss his cheek to punctuate his thoroughly unexpected reassurance. “It’s alright if you can’t.”
Oh fuck that! Jin Guangyao wrinkles his nose and just barely resists the urge to bite Nie Mingjue’s ear. He’s trying to be nice, and in a way Jin Guangyao can appreciate that Nie Mingjue is, in a round-about way, telling him that failure to dual cultivate no longer equals suspecting Jin Guangyao of sabotage. But he can do it, he’s not a failure, and he refuses to let Nie Mingjue think he is for another moment (although that would mean that they really have been having sex just for the hell of it if Nie Mingjue didn’t actually expect him to be able to cultivate and really that’s just something to be considered at length later because right now he’s-)
He-
Jin Guangyao digs his fingertips into the soft give of Nie Mingjue’s belly as he throws his head back with a gasp, a man drowning finally coming up for air. Nie Mingjue slams his palm against the top of the bed frame again and swears a heartfelt, “Motherfucker!!” that comes out more-than-half a groan. Even Lan Xichen isn’t unaffected, bowing over Nie Mingjue’s back with an audible whimper and a sharp snap of his hips that they all feel as a sudden pulse of qi, zipping through Nie Mingjue’s meridians and through Jin Guangyao’s in almost the same instant before circulating back to Lan Xichen.
They don’t all come like they had the first time, but in a way Jin Guangyao sort of wishes they would. Lan Xichen’s qi alone had been overwhelming ecstasy, pleasure nearly to the point of flirting with pain. Both his and Nie Mingjue’s qi twisted together stretches his meridians to their absolute limits but it’s-
It’s-
Exquisite.
It feels like being remade. It feels like becoming someone else, someone who doesn’t ache at all with old injuries, someone who isn’t worn down to the bones with exhaustion and overwork. His lovers’ combined qi sings through him and back out again, a steady wash of the tide that takes away everything but pleasure and he wants to drown in it. With an effort he forces himself not to, to instead actually help Lan Xichen purify and circulate it rather than allow himself to be a passive conduit, and as he focuses on attempting to carry out his task without giving into the incandescent siren call of letting it drag him fully under, he barely even notices Nie Mingjue dropping more of his weight down onto him until they’re pressed together from hips to shoulders.
It feels right. Jin Guangyao wraps his free arm around Nie Mingjue’s broad shoulders and holds him as close as physically possible, but it only feels entirely right, it only feels like they’re finally close enough, with the man’s qi (entwined inexorably as it is with Lan Xichen’s) coursing under his skin.
And then Lan Xichen moves in time with the rhythm of their cultivation and Jin Guangyao nearly cries from the sheer relief of the intimacy of it making up for months — years — of wanting so desperately to be touched and held kindly. Some small rational part of his mind that has survived the onslaught of sensation reminds him that he’ll only feel worse after this is over, that having had it he’ll only want it even more, he’ll only get weaker, more pathetic when he has to leave this all behind again. There’s a reason he’s maintained distance, there’s a reason this was supposed to be purely medical when he felt there was no alternative but to agree to the arrangement, he’d had arguments and they were sound.
Nie Mingjue pulls back just enough to press his lips to his forehead instead of burying his face in the bolster and Jin Guangyao’s hair splayed across it; maybe missing this once it’s gone again will be worth it since it means he has it now.
Getting his hand properly wrapped around Nie Mingjue’s cock again is a bit harder when they’re so distracted and pressed together this closely, but he’s hardly going to ask for space. Lan Xichen helpfully pauses in his thrusting for just long enough for Jin Guangyao to get situated and then he’s back, inexorable and steady as a sunrise, and Jin Guangyao is doing his best to stroke and squeeze in time, and Nie Mingjue is an incoherent mess of, “Fuck yes!” and “A-Huan!” and “A-Yao!” until he goes still with a choked noise in the back of his throat and comes on Jin Guangyao’s hand and hips for the second time tonight. The majority of the qi they’ve been passing between each other coalesces naturally in Nie Mingjue’s core with more than enough for Jin Guangyao’s to feel filled to the brim, perhaps even more so than after he’d shared everything he had with Lan Xichen.
Jin Guangyao still doesn’t come when Nie Mingjue does, but Lan Xichen’s orgasm rocks through all three of them when his qi suddenly spikes with it two thrusts later, and Jin Guangyao, wound up as tightly as he is, comes untouched.
Surprisingly, it’s Nie Mingjue who finds the capacity for speech first. He presses a deliberate kiss to Jin Guangyao’s forehead and lingers, mouth still resting against his skin when he mutters a heartfelt, “Fucking hell that was good.”
‘Good’ feels like something of an understatement, to be quite honest, but Jin Guangyao is far too winded and thrumming with qi he has to find something to do with to argue about semantics. He attempts something like a very brief and probably not very effective meditation to try to work the qi into his core properly while Lan Xichen pulls out, gives Nie Mingjue a very quick perfunctory clean with a cloth (that Nie Mingjue presumably had left out for just that purpose) and helps him lie down, before joining them laid out flat on the mattress. They lay there for a few long moments in the companionable silence of breathing returning to normal, and the soft brush of skin- or silk-on-skin, and Jin Guangyao is very close to drowsing despite the influx of energy still coursing through his spiritual veins when he hears someone’s breath hitch, and someone else shift as if to sit up.
“Mingjue?” Lan Xichen asks, “Shh, what’s wrong? What is it?”
Jin Guangyao’s eyes snap open and he looks quickly at Nie Mingjue lying on his back between them; he’s covering both eyes with one hand but he can’t hide the tear tracks glistening on his temples and Jin Guangyao can’t remember the last time he moved so quickly as he curls onto his side to put his hand on Nie Mingjue’s lower dantian and check the flow of his purified qi.
Nie Mingjue shakes his head, sucks another sharp, hitching breath in, and lets Lan Xichen gently pry his hand away from his eyes so they can look at each other where Lan Xichen has leaned up on his elbow to study him anxiously.
His voice is thick and rasping when he replies, “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing.” Some of the tension leaves Jin Guangyao; he keeps his hand on Nie Mingjue’s belly but he stops prodding at his qi — which is of course perfectly fine — and just strokes his thumb back and forth against warm, soft skin and coarse hair still slightly tacky with sweat and, he’s assuming, come.
“Are you sure?” Lan Xichen murmurs, free hand pressed to Nie Mingjue’s cheek. Jin Guangyao watches Lan Xichen lean in for a soft sip of a kiss like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and he doesn’t devote any attention to examining why he truly isn’t jealous of the gesture at all, not even a little bit.
“I’m sure.”
Jin Guangyao curls closer to carefully rest his head on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder only to immediately find himself wrapped up in a tight embrace, Nie Mingjue’s arm looped securely around his waist to pull him close. (And maybe that’s why he’s not jealous, because after all of that how can he not be sure, at least for now, that if he wants to be kissed or held he doesn’t even have to ask, he can just… exist, and his sworn brothers will show him how much they want him? He’s sure it’s temporary confidence, but it’s heady while he has it.)
Nie Mingjue takes another shivering breath and Jin Guangyao hums sympathetically, a counterpoint to Lan Xichen’s soft tutting and the brush of his thumb against the outer corner of Mingjue’s eye to brush away a fresh tear.
Nie Mingjue whimpers, clearly overwhelmed, “It’s — I swear I’m fine. I feel fine- I feel good-“
It’s the emphasis that does it. Jin Guangyao’s unconsciously presses his hand more firmly over Nie Mingjue’s core and uses the leverage to prop himself up as well, dropping a kiss to Lan Xichen’s shoulder before he looks down at Nie Mingjue’s watery gaze to catch his eye.
“How loud is Baxia right now?”
Nie Mingjue’s chin wobbles and he shakes his head, which is answer enough.
Achieving dual cultivation with Lan Xichen had been… one of the best moments of Jin Guangyao’s life, honestly. Nothing will ever take that away from him. But this? This is what they did it for. As much as Jin Guangyao had thought his lovers had achieved dual cultivation last time they were all three together clearly they hadn’t quite reached it, because Nie Mingjue hadn’t seemed all that different after they were done. He’d been a little more relaxed, a bit more affectionate with Lan Xichen, but in the end he’d still just wandered off back to his quarters to sleep off his orgasm, not much different than every other time he’s withdrawn from them as soon as their business is over.
Now? Nie Mingjue is holding them both close, one on either side, and looking up at them like he’s really seeing them as he manages to say, “I can think so clearly-“ around the tight knot of emotion clearly choking him.
“Da-ge,” Lan Xichen murmurs, velvet-soft sympathy punctuated with a slow kiss to Nie Mingjue’s cheek.
“I didn’t think it would actually — but it’s working–”
Jin Guangyao smiles and Nie Mingjue runs his hand up his back, a smooth skating of his calloused palm along Jin Guangyao’s spine.
“Perhaps we should have all become Jiangs instead,” he muses, swirling the tip of his index finger in lazy circles around Nie Mingjue’s navel, so near to where his suddenly much more evenly-balanced core is spinning much faster than his caresses, “as we seem determined to attempt the impossible.”
Nie Mingjue grins — grins — at him, dimples and everything, and Jin Guangyao instinctively shies away from how much it makes him want. This will fade, he reminds himself sternly. The afterglow will only last so long. The effect of the dual cultivation is not permanent, not by a long shot. Nie Mingjue will grow to resent him again, he’ll remember why they're always at odds, he’ll forget that they could have this so Jin Guangyao shouldn’t even want it while he has it so as not to set himself up for further pain and disappointment —
“You should both stay in here tonight.”
Oh for fuck’s sake, why must Nie Mingjue ruin every single carefully laid plan?! Every single rational intention Jin Guangyao is attempting to shield himself with is abruptly thrown out the window without a care and honestly at this point he feels deserved in wondering if he can claim some sort of recompense for everything Nie Mingjue does to him.
Nie Mingjue’s grin morphs into a smirk when Lan Xichen makes some appropriately enthusiastic noise and ducks down to kiss somewhere in the vicinity of Nie Mingjue’s ear and what is he supposed to do, go back to his room alone while these two have a private night together? Absolutely not, that’s the whole reason he’s tangled up with them in bed now! He’d very much like to wipe that knowing smirk off Nie Mingjue’s face since it’s clear he’s not going to turn the request down when Lan Xichen is so obviously on board and they both know it; a deep-bordering-on-filthy kiss is a passable way to do that, at least.
Nie Mingjue returns the kiss for just long enough for Jin Guangyao to feel that he’s won and then he pulls back with visible effort, gaze locked on Jin Guangyao’s mouth as he says, “Wait, I have — I need to get something done before we get… distracted.”
Jin Guangyao raises an eyebrow at that and glances down to where Lan Xichen has paused, face currently level with Nie Mingjue’s stomach and his intention clearly to continue moving further down at the first indication that he’s alright to keep going.
“He was supposed to ask for that, er-ge,” Jin Guangyao reminds him, amused, and Lan Xichen’s returning smile is once again utterly unrepentant (and so unbelievably happy).
“I thought it was fairly obvious that he’d more than earned it.”
“Of course he has, but that’s not the point. Rules are rules, gege.”
Nie Mingjue clears his throat loudly and ruins his stern glare with a new smile tugging insistently at the corners of his mouth. “I have some work to do, so if we can table this discussion for later…?”
Lan Xichen heaves a sigh and pouts ever so slightly as he sits up to kneel beside them and begins combing out his hair with his fingers, a graceful detangling made unexpectedly erotic by the fact that he’s still completely naked and glistening ever-so-slightly with sweat where the warm light of the lanterns dotted around the room catch him just right.
“What is it you need to do then, da-ge?” he asks and somehow manages to convey that he’s doing Nie Mingjue an enormous favor by allowing him to do something that isn’t lying in bed and letting Lan Xichen suck his dick.
“I have, uh-” Nie Mingjue, staring openly at Lan Xichen, clears his throat and visibly forces himself to look up at Jin Guangyao instead with the air of a man who needs to do so to think straight, “I have reports — something’s wrong with the accounts? Zonghui just brought it to me today. I should look at it while I’m so…”
“Mm. A clear mind is best for that sort of thing,” Jin Guangyao acknowledges. He leans more of his weight on Nie Mingjue’s chest and brushes his fingertips through the kinked waves of the front of his hair, curly from the tight braids he’d been taking out when Jin Guangyao had arrived.
“Mhm.”
Despite his insistence, Nie Mingjue makes no immediate move to get up and get started, and Jin Guangyao certainly isn’t going to complain. He tucks a lock of hair further back and trails the back of his index finger against the now-dry tear track on Nie Mingjue’s temple, a little pale and flaky with salt. Jin Guangyao smiles, just a little, when Nie Mingjue turns into the touch and readjusts his arm around Jin Guangyao’s waist to settle in more comfortably.
“Mingjue.”
“Mhm… What?”
“Your reports?” Jin Guangyao smiles wider when Nie Mingjue sucks in a sharp breath and gives himself a quick shake, jostling Jin Guangyao in his grip before he sits up and carefully maneuvers Jin Guangyao off himself so he can roll to his feet.
“Right. I’m up.”
“That makes two of us,” Lan Xichen sighs with a glance down at his own lap, still pouting, and finally Jin Guangyao laughs outright, a true belly-laugh startled out of him by both Lan Xichen’s petulant innuendo and the sheer pleasure of feeling so comfortable.
Jin Guangyao affects a little pout himself and gets comfortable in the rumpled bedding before he stretches his arm out to brush a couple teasing fingertips against the top of Lan Xichen’s bare thigh, too far away from his unflagging erection to be of any help with it.
“Poor er-ge,” he tuts, “asked to stop when you’re only just getting started. And if da-ge is as… meticulous with his numbers as he used to be then you’ll be waiting for at least a shichen for him to find whatever’s gone wrong with his books, let alone fix it.”
“Hey!” Nie Mingjue pauses with his outer robe only just hooked over one arm and therefore doing absolutely nothing to cover him just yet. It’s a good look, in Jin Guangyao’s utterly unbiased opinion. “If you’re going to insult my perfectly acceptable accounting abilities then why don’t you come over here and show off by doing it in a fraction of the time I would take?”
Jin Guangyao’s breath catches in his chest, but he’s far from afraid that Nie Mingjue is irritated with him. He knows quite intimately what that sounds like, and this isn’t that. This is teasing, which is a marvel in and of itself, but it’s also inviting him into Nie Sect business. It’s inviting him to the sort of private Sect business that he used to handle on a daily basis, and that no one would ever allow someone they suspected of being an inter-Sect spy to see. Especially not someone who can remember everything he sees with the same accuracy as if he were still looking right at it hours, days, months later.
It’s the sort of golden opportunity to find another weakness for Jin Guangshan to exploit to leverage more pressure against the Nie Sect that Jin Guangyao is expected to find on these trips. It’s another thing that could possibly buy a hint of his father’s goodwill on his return to Lanling. Something that could ease his burdens, and isn’t that what his sworn brothers have vowed to do for him? He can ease Nie Mingjue of this small, momentary burden, and then allow his eldest sworn brother to be of (unknowing) use in bettering his situation in return.
He won’t. He’s honest enough with himself to acknowledge the curl of nausea in his stomach for what it is, considering it’s hardly the first time the thought of double-crossing Nie Mingjue and exploiting his weaknesses has left him feeling ill. He could do it, but he won’t.
Jin Guangyao slides out of bed with a sigh and steals the first robe he finds, one of Lan Xichen’s finely-woven, pure white underlayers, and drapes it imperiously around his shoulders despite the fact that it’s so thin it hardly counts as clothing at all on its own.
“Give it to me, then,” he says with his hand held out palm up towards Nie Mingjue who, to his credit, doesn’t allow Jin Guangyao to call his bluff. He finishes putting on his outer robe and belting it shut rather haphazardly before he turns to rummage through the things on his desk in the study through an open archway deeper into the quarters, and when he returns he slaps a thick folio — a few different ledgers tied together with a thin scrap of leather — into Jin Guangyao’s waiting palm.
There’s a look in his eyes that Jin Guangyao can’t quite decipher, but it feels… unlikely that they aren’t thinking along similar lines, at least in terms of Jin Guangyao so unexpectedly fulfilling one of his old duties, and feeling entirely normal and unemotional about doing so.
“There are new income streams since you last saw the books,” Nie Mingjue tells him, fingers lingering on the folio. “Sit with me and we’ll go over them together.”
The pair of them have sat up together plenty of times before, of course, going over all manner of business for the Sect. Even not having done it in years, even thinking it would never happen again, Jin Guangyao still knows the routine of it down to his bones. But of course, leave it to Nie Mingjue to take what Jin Guangyao remembers and cheerfully turn it on its head without any prior warning whatsoever — he definitely never conducted Nie Sect business from the comfort of Nie Mingjue’s lap (no matter how much he might have liked to once upon a time), and a naked Lan Xichen going about the business of oiling and combing his hair properly without a shred of shame about the indecency of it is a distraction he’s certainly never had to contend with while worrying about unaccounted for increases in the cost of ore mining for Qinghe’s bladesmiths where they shouldn’t be.
By the sixth time his mind wanders away from the comfortable, even march of facts and figures to stare after Lan Xichen’s comings and goings, Nie Mingjue sits up straighter and says, through chuckling that vibrates against Jin Guangyao’s back, “You know you’re really not helping us finish this any faster, A-Huan.”
“I am not attempting to,” he replies as he at least returns to bed, though when he gets there he lounges back on his hands in a brazen display of every inch of all the long lines of him which is really just as distracting as everything else he’s done in the last half hour. “Waiting can be just as enjoyable as instant gratification, I am simply exploring my options.”
Jin Guangyao twists enough to look up at Nie Mingjue (and marvels, in the back of his mind, that it doesn’t hurt his hips or his back one bit to do so) and snickers at the confusion on his face.
“Oh dear, da-ge. I believe you should have asked me for his mouth first after all.”
“You’re both being weird again,” Nie Mingjue huffs, “just say what you mean and stop playing coy.”
Jin Guangyao doesn’t take the bait, he simply sniffs and returns to poring over the expenditure records laid out on the table; if Lan Xichen wants to explain the concept of edging then more power to him, but Jin Guangyao suspects he’s planning to just show Nie Mingjue himself.
He finds the discrepancy amongst the records of the last horse market in just over half a shichen. They return to bed and spend much longer than that letting Lan Xichen ‘punish’ them for making him wait.
|NEXT|
#the untamed fanfic#3zun#The Waves are Rising and Rising#Jin Guangyao#Nie Mingjue#Lan Xichen#Also don't be alarmed (be very alarmed) when you remember we're only on chapter 12 out of 17
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The Wedding Committee
Sangchengmonth2020 (on ao3) ((note: this is a continuation of day 8: The Fanciful Courtship)
Day 31: Marriage (the last one!!! Finally!!! No more fic challenge for me)
“Are you out of your mind,” Wei Wuxian shrieked at Sect Leader Nie, an ill-advised thing to do, “That day is not nearly as auspicious. Look at this day.” He thrust a calendar in the Sect Leader’s face, far too close for Nie Mingjue to have any hope of reading it. “This is a much better day for a wedding.”
The calendar hid Nie Mingjue’s quickly reddening face.
“Are you out of your mind?” Nie Mingjue roared back, shoving the calendar and Wei Wuxian away.
Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng watched from afar the table where both Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian were seated as well as an unfortunate number of aunties, the bloodthistier of them all present.
Neither Nie Huaisang nor Jiang Cheng had been invited to the wedding planning, their opinion on the matter deemed unimportant. Even Jiang Yanli had a say and she wasn’t even here, having sent a list of her demands ahead of time.
“Should we tell them our courtship is a farce?” Nie Huaisang asked.
“No.” Jiang Cheng watched as the aunties smiled. He’d never seen them smile so much. Their smiles were not pleasant and did not distract from their long, sharp, perfectly manicured claws.
The screaming continued as Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng walked away in a completely-casual-and-not-at-all-fleeing manner.
***
The wedding arguments became commonplace around Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng got used to it; the shouting and the occasional sounds of fistfights fading into the background as he continued doing actually important work.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nie Mingjue said, “We can’t seat him there; Madame Kuang hates him and is likely to stab him with the dessert spoon—if they even manage to get that far in the meal,”
“An even better reason to put him there,” Wei Wuxian said.
“He is a sect leader. You will show some respect.”
“Oh, please. Don’t act all high and mighty; you don’t like him either.”
“Of course not; Sect Leader Yao is the most intolerable man I’ve ever met.”
***
“Would it be so bad if we were to marry?” Nie Huaisang asked in between brush strokes, eyes on his most recent painting.
Jiang Cheng dipped his bare feet into the cool waters, ripples dancing over the surface of the lake. They were seated in Nie Huaisang’s preferred pier—the lighting here was especially flattering to the lotuses. Apparently.
“Marriages of convenience happen all the time,” Jiang Cheng not-answered. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to be married to Nie Huaisang, he thought, but he didn’t want to be the first to admit that out loud.
“What do married couples even do?”
“I don’t know. Hold hands, pretend to be happy whenever official dignitaries come to visit, try not to make it obvious how many mistresses they have.”
Nie Huaisang made a face at that.
“Anyway,” Jiang Cheng continued, “I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”
“At least they won’t be expecting us to produce any heirs.”
It was Jiang Cheng’s turn to make a face.
Nie Huaisang returned to his painting as Jiang Cheng continued to sway his feet in the water, the calm of the afternoon only disturbed by Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue’s distant shouting.
“Nie Huaisang is joining the Jiang household, therefore the purple napkins would be more appropriate!” Wei Wuxian screeched.
“Purple and red? I’ve never heard of something so ridiculous. Grey and red is a much more pleasing combination,” Nie Mingjue screeched just as stridently.
***
Jiang Yanli arriving months before the wedding was unexpected but not altogether surprising. Wei Wuxian’s letters regarding the planning hadn’t been frequent enough for her liking (ignoring the fact that, per her request, Wei Wuxian had been writing to her every day about every minute detail from which shade of red best suited Jiang Cheng’s skin tone to the exact number of red dates ordered for the big day).
Jiang Cheng had barely hugged her before she was marching away, dragging both Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue with her. Jiang Cheng hadn’t known Ajie had such amazing upper body strength.
“She’s going to eat them alive,” Nie Huaisang said.
***
Lotus Pier became much quieter after that, the kind of quiet that came with prey trying to go unnoticed by the predator skulking about, roaming, searching for its next kill, for the next poorly arranged flower display or the next happiness symbol out of place. But there was less shouting. Jiang Yanli didn’t shout; she was much too dignified for that. Instead, she smiled prettily while telling everyone in a kind and calm manner exactly why they were all morons and why they would be going with her ideas instead.
“Stop pestering me,” Nie Mingjue whispered down from the ladder, “I know what I’m doing.”
“Listen here, you over-muscled brut.” Wei Wuxian whispered back, brandishing Chenqing as close to Nie Mingjue’s face as he could get when he had to contend with both Nie Mingjue’s naturally superior height and a ladder, “If you don’t stop with your nonsense, I’m going to have you slaughtered, then use your corpse as a puppet and make it hang up the lanterns the correct way.”
“Now, now, boys.” Jiang Yanli said, appearing out of nowhere. Both of the fully grown men—each a powerful cultivator in his own right—flinched, the ladder wobbling precariously. “There’s no need to argue; everything will be perfect.”
In a certain light, her smile almost looked like Mother’s.
***
Jiang Cheng muttered, “I think we might have taken this fake courtship too far.”
Nie Huaisang grimaced slightly in agreement.
Standing in front of the shrine, surrounded by family, friends and unfortunate guests they couldn’t not invite without causing a sect feud, dressed from head to toe in intricately embroidered red robes, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang knelt down, side by side and kowtowed to Heaven, Earth and their family, declaring their union to the Universe as Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue cried their hearts out.
The aunties’ smiles were all teeth. Ajie’s smile was worse.
#the untamed#sangcheng#mdzs#jiang cheng#nie huaisang#Why marry for love when you can marry your best friend and get everyone off your backs#No more noisy matchmakers to deal with#and you get to spend more time with your best friend#win-win#Now if only Wei Ying and Nie Mingjue could stop trying to kill one another#sangchengmonth2020#day 31#marriage#sangchengber
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Top Three Reasons why NMJ is not a righteousness beacon
Okay screw poking the bear I'll share my possibly controversial Nie Mingjue thoughts below. Long post ahead!
Disclaimer: I don't condone what JGY did to him. At all. I don't condone what JGY did period. But NMJ is not perfectly just and fair in his dealings and I think we should acknowledge that as part of his character (which I love btw, he's very well constructed and having flaws is what makes him interesting)
Number One: NMJ is a hypocrite. The Nie cultivate a path that leads to gradual descent into madness, and is so severe that the resentment built up in their sabers lives on for years.
Knowing all this, NMJ joins the cultivators rallying against WWX and his ghost path of cultivation because it's "corrupting" and "evil" and "unorthodox"? As if your own isn't?! Bffr, Chifeng-Zun.
Number Two. His stance on justice and worth of life is inconsequential
Politically, I understand that defending WWX freeing the Wens would have been problematic, because the Jin made sure there was a consensus of hatred against WWX (and Jiang Cheng did nothing to alleviate any of that when he had the chance to explain why WWX saved the Wens).
And even if the Nie were a great sect as well, the Jin were still most powerful at the time, and the Wen work camp was in their territory (even if the staff was from multiple sects). Plus, NMJ didn't seem to be personally concerned with the fairness of the treatment the Wen had been subjected to... because they were Wens and NMJ had a personal vendetta against them as a collective
Why does this matter? Because NMJ makes it a point to emphasize that he never kills senselessly, for selfish desires or acclaim, and becomes angry enough to be violent when questioned about how he decides who deserves to die by his hand and whether he is certain his reasoning is right (Chapter 10, Volume 2, 7seas).
JGY popped off with this one, even if he rolled down the stairs for it - because he is right. NMJ can't be sure he made the right choice because such a choice is a matter of subjectivity and circumstance. JGY deciding his life is more than important than others' falls exactly in line with that, even if his views don't agree with NMJ's.
And NMJ himself illustrates it as well - he joins in the mob agreeing that the Wens at the work camp deserved to be tortured and killed even if they did not directly contribute to the war:
"Showed mercy how?" Nie Mingjue demanded. "Wasn't the Wen Clan of Qishan the culprit behind the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng's annihilation?"
(...) Nie Mingjue was indifferent to such logic. "She remained silent and raised no objections while the Wen Clan committed atrocities. That is no different from watching from the sidelines"
NMJ himself was merciless and silent to the slaughter of the innocent, even contributed to it - because his own principles told him it was fair to do so. Did he ever listen to anything but those? No. Was it right? Obviously not.
Nowhere in the book is there any Nie convoy sent to scout the Burial Mounds and see that Wei Ying wasn't building an army or a sect or anything the Jin were claiming. Because NMJ couldn't care less, because those were Wens and by his own principles, they needed to die.
And then he parades around as somebody who doesn't kill those who do not deserve it. Very ironic.
Number Three: his judgement comes from a largely privileged position.
Of course he doesn't understand (or even bother to try) what JGY means by his little speech on needing to make sacrifices and following orders to survive in the political realm - because NMJ himself never had to bother with such things.
He was feared and respected from the start as a Sect Leader and had a hard time understanding how life for someone below that rank could be like. He does support JGY as his deputy and writes him a recommendation letter - but that's obviously not enough for someone with JGY's past and the many prejudices against him due to it.
Even as many times as Lan Xichen tries explaining this to NMJ, he only seems to grudgingly listen but not agree. In his worldview, it is merit that should matter when building one's reputation. Reality is entirely different - but how could the son of a noble, sect leader all his life, understand and emphatize with that?
Of course, JGY absolutely did not need to do All That™️, but his struggle to prove himself to his father and the world (backed up by quite a bit of paranoia) becomes clearer if you look at it from the point of view of an outcast with a wretched origin trying to make a name for himself in the world.
NMJ didn't do that. Instead he labeled JGY as a power-hungry, manipulative, self-centered son of a whore and treated him accordingly - distrustfully and suspiciously.
Since JGY was already doing a lot of shady things (re: the Xue Yang issue that NMJ was keen on resolving via execution), having NMJ on his case was the last thing he could have possibly wanted - so, he resorted to the mdzs version of musical arsenic poisoning (because he would have never in the history of ever convinced NMJ he had no ulterior motives).
Again, that does not justify JGY speeding up NMJ's dying process. And JGY fucked around and found out big time about 13 years or so later. But if you look at things his way, what other solution was there for him to not only survive but also thrive in Jinlintai?
Could NMJ have prevented any of JGY's actions? Debatable. Personally, I think not. But he would have probably died later (by not making himself a direct antagonist to JGY and inviting death at his doorstep), and perhaps he could have even managed to prove (at least to Lan Xichen) that JGY wasn't as well-intentioned as he painted himself to be (by running covet investigations or something of the sort).
To conclude, NMJ is symbolic for a privileged class that believes in merit because it has never had to endure prejudice, and that is too divorced from the hardships of the underprivileged to understand them.
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I'm imagining the seige of cloud recesseses going incredibly different if wen xu is greeted at the gates by lan I-never-stopped-fucking-your-dad qiren
Also I love the idea that in at least one of these generations of students he had to check the students birthdays, do a bit of math and maybe write a letter or two
sequel to LQR/everyone
Lan Qiren had spent his wild youth drinking tea designed to forestall fertility every day with the sort of rigid obedience usually associated with the Lan sect rules, but that didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes…worry.
“But really,” Nie Mingjue said, chin on his hand and shit-eating grin on his face. “How many of the current generation’s parents were you fucking around the time they were conceived?”
“Please stop asking about that,” Lan Qiren said dispiritedly. He didn’t expect the request to be successful: Nie Mingjue, being the child of the one person that Lan Qiren – and everyone else in the cultivation world other than his father, for that matter – had never met, was the only one who could ask these sorts of questions without any concern whatsoever, and therefore, naturally, he did.
“But really. I mean, I know Huaisang’s not yours, he’s too much like Father, but I know you were sleeping with my father and Second Mother around the right time –”
Nie Mingjue had walked in on them one time. It’d been awful.
(Mostly because Lao Nie had reacted by saying, “Qiren, you’re a teacher, you explain what threesomes are!” and then running away without even bothering to put on his clothing, while the second Madame Nie had somehow managed to vanish by the time Lan Qiren had turned around; he hadn’t even seen her leave, though he’d almost gotten a sense of the grin she must have had before she’d disappeared somehow still lingering behind.)
“– and of course everyone knows about Cangse Sanren and you. She was your longest running lover, wasn’t she?”
“She used to be, but then she died,” Lan Qiren said. “It’s probably Sect Leader Wen these days.”
“Of course it is.”
“…I really don’t mind stopping. I mean, if it’s awkward for you.”
“No, no, it’s fine.”
“I mean, he murdered your father. He’s planning to take over the world. I probably should stop.”
“No need, no need! I’ve already sworn a blood feud over the murder, you’re opposing the conquest, to my mind that covers all the relevant bits. Anyway, you know my father. He’s probably in favor of you continuing sexing up Wen Ruohan, murder or no murder.”
That did seem rather like something Lao Nie would do.
“Hmm. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t suppose there’s any possibility that Wen Ruohan’s children…?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Are you sure?”
Lan Qiren wasn’t sure of anything. He pinched his brow and regretted, regretted, regretted. The wedding night wine served in the Nightless City had been delicious, but it wasn’t worth this conversation. “We have nothing in common.”
Nie Mingjue cackled.
“All right, then,” he said enthusiastically. “If we’re using that standard: which of your students do you see something of yourself in…?”
#mdzs#lan qiren#nie mingjue#my fic#my fics#alt headcanons#the nie clan lives to torment LQR#all of them without exception#also poor LXC and LWJ#they're living the 'Johnny Be Fair' life and it's all their uncle's fault
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Hello. How are you?
I was wondering if you could shed light on JGY spying during the SSC. I've seen people say he went on LXC's behalf or his father sent him to prove himself. I headcanon he went of his own wants, to set himself up to be in a high position, no matter what side won. I don't remember if the book shed light on his motivation. Do you happen to know if it did?
While I am inclined to lead towards your headcanon when I am feeling most ungenerous, we actually don't get any direct insight into what Jin Guangyao was planning during this period, since all this information comes to us from Wei Wuxian watching Nie Mingjue's memories of the events. I think it is more canonically likely that he was always going to side with the Sunshot Campaign, if only because of his obsession with earning his father's acknowledgement and approval (and it's only when he realizes that he will never get it that he fully forsakes Jin Guangshan).
With that said, idk where the idea that he was personally sent to spy by Lan Xichen came from (maybe it was a cql thing? idk cause I've never watched it), but this is what the text has to say about it:
Nie MingJue, “Back then, after you fled from Langya, I was wondering why I couldn’t find you no matter what! So you became the Wen-dogs’ underling and took sides with the tyrant in the Nightless City!”
...
Lan XiChen added, “After incident at Langya, A-Yao felt remorse, but he was afraid he might run into you. He could only manage to sneak into the QishanWen Sect and approach Wen RuoHan, then write me letters in secrecy. At first, I did not know whom the person sending the letters was, either. I only realized whom he was after discovering a few clues from a coincidence or two.”
—Chapt. 49: Guile, exr
After his fallout at Langya with Nie Mingjue, Meng Yao disappeared and made his way to Qishan on his own before sending information to an unsuspecting Lan Xichen to curry his favor by feigning wanting to maintain anonymity. Jin Guangshan definitely couldn't have sent him, because keep in mind that he was refusing to acknowledge Meng Yao's existence at this time, so much so that he tried to pretend directly to Nie Mingjue's face that he did not know that Meng Yao had been sent to him upon Nie Mingjue's recommendation. Add this all to the fact that Meng Yao going directly to his father would have run the risk of Nie Mingjue revealing that he was killing his Jin superiors? Too much of a risk to his reputation and life.
So becoming a spy in Nightless City for the Sunshot Campaign was definitely a ploy of his, but likely to gain sympathy and prestige from the great clan leaders by putting himself in "danger" but emerging the victorious underdog. Unfortunately for him, this only worked on Lan Xichen, because Jin Guangshan still treated him like trash and Nie Mingjue still wanted to kill him. Sucks, I guess.
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Do you have any gusu trio (WWX, JC, NHS) thoughts or headcanons you'd like to share?
On learning that Nie Huaisang wrote and illustrated some of the erotic stories himself, Wei Wuxian immediately wanted in on that, mostly just because it was another opportunity to be a gremlin. He proved to be a pretty capable illustrator and poet, but his story-writing was... bad. So bad. The schmoopiest most overwrought gag-worthy purple prose you ever saw in your life. And he was so pleased with himself too. Huaisang's pretty sure he still has it somewhere... maybe he'll inflict it on Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng someday.
Despite being the most straight-laced of the three, Jiang Cheng proved himself surprisingly good at being able to hide things on his person during one of their supply smuggling trips, mostly because nobody suspected he'd ever try to do such a thing. Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian were both suitably impressed.
(borrowing from CQL canon) Nie Huaisang wrote much more elaborate letters to Meng Yao than he wrote to his brother. Nie Mingjue's letters were the usual "Hi from summer camp, food still sucks-" type stuff because he was miffed that he'd been forced to attend lectures again. Meanwhile Meng Yao got to learn all the fun stuff (and Huaisang even stole some lecture books for him with Wei Wuxian's help! How sweet!).
I'm pretty sure I have other ideas... somewhere. I'll dig them out when I can.
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Posting an "emotional whump with the slimmest possibilty for hurt/comfort at the end" concept for tonight's "Things I'll Probably Never Write!" because I feel like it.
-------------
When Nie Huaisang reunites with everyone at the end of Sunshot, he's a hugely changed person.
Quiet, respectful, disarmingly charming. Trains when he's told, studies when he's told, has given up almost all of his "annoying" frivolous habits.
Nie Mingjue and the other members of the sect and his newly-sworn brothers aren't sure what brought this on, since no one's really kept tabs on him except through letters, but they approve!
How nice that he's finally acting like a proper sect heir!
The only thing that comes off as odd is that Nie Huaisang's birds suddenly can't stand to be around him.
Even the wild ones he'd captured to rehabilitate had adored him when he left, and yet now his presence is greeted with screeching and hissing and threats of biting.
Easily solved!
Now that he's actually paying attention to his lessons and duties, he doesn't have time for them anyway, so he simply releases them all.
They can't flee the Unclean Realms fast enough-
-except for little Zhihua.
The mynah still won't go anywhere near him, but refuses to leave the fortress either, popping up whenever he's near a mirror to annoy everyone by pecking loudly at the polished bronze and screeching nonsensical insults at him.
Behind the reflection, sealed in a little pocket space and kept alive only by his magical bindings and only because the creature wearing his face needs him as a source, the real Nie Huaisang can only watch in silent misery as the mirror spirit charms everyone he ever knew and only one little mynah even realizes that it's not really him.
Eventually, the mirror creature overplays its hand and gets caught.
It mockingly refuses to lead anyone to Huaisang, because why would they ever want him back when it was doing so well as a replacement?
When it finally goes down in a fight, it’s still laughing as it dies.
Thanks to some very old and little used texts, they find a way to open the pocket space the mirror spirit came from and rescue the real Huaisang, but he’s been in his little prison for years by then and is super unwell both mentally and physically.
Huaisang spends his waking hours in constant terror, utterly convinced that one day everyone will try to bring back the "objectively better" version of him and stuff him back in the mirror.
He can’t be funny anymore, and he was never as charming as his copy.
The only way to save himself is to be even more obedient.
Only follow directions, exactly when and how they are given. Only accept what he is expressly offered, never ask for anything.
To make sure he doesn’t forget -because he is convinced he’s the ‘stupid’ version of Nie Huaisang as well- he writes himself notes.
Those notes are discovered a few days after he starts keeping them by one of the maids, who only needs a quick glance before becoming concerned enough to take them to Nie Mingjue.
When his brother and the sworn brothers try to talk to him about the issue, Huaisang takes one look at the papers in Mingjue’s hand and flees. With his body not having had the time to completely recover from his time in captivity, it's relatively easy to chase him down, but by the time they do, all he can manage is wordless screaming and struggling that only stops when one of the healers rushes in to sedate him.
Once he’s out and the chaos starts to settle, they have to deal with the realization that he was running for his life from them.
And the question of whether there anything they can do to fix this at all.
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