#or NMJ was making weird faces as he threw Baxia | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Thank you "Worthwhile Trade". The idea of Baxia turning into an guai is so interesting. I liked imagining the part where she hit NMJ for his idiocy. My brain is projecting "married couple" vibes, omg. I admit despite how weird WWX spoke about the events, the time travel part flew over my head until the tags spelled it out for me. (TBC)

(Cont'd) Also... did NMJ mean it in THAT dual-thing way when talking WRH's prefs? And the last part, where WWX used resentful energy to sub NMJ's qi. I assume he can still cultivate since his core's still there, if emptied? But I wonder what'll happen to his energy once restored Can't help but think his renewed qi will inevitably be affected by the traces of the previous energy that once circulated. He's not going to become a walking stygian tiger or something, is he? Off the wall guess, sorry!

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sequel to Worthwhile Trade (ao3), also on tumblr

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand Nie Mingjue.

He didn’t understand the way he thought, the way he acted – the way he smiled when he woke up, the way he opened his arms when Nie Huaisang threw himself into them with a wail and said, “It was worth it for you, didi; it always is if it’s for you. Don’t you know that?” the way Wei Wuxian had always shamefully thought of saying, as if something like that could just be said like that, out in the open.

The way Nie Mingjue shrugged when the doctors said his cultivation would likely never recover, that he should have died, that they didn’t understand why he hadn’t; the way he said, seeming even satisfied, that it was a worthwhile trade.

It’s not a trade, Wei Wuxian wanted to scream at him. It’s a sacrifice! It hurts and you’re sad, no, worse, you’re resentful about it and you shouldn’t be because it was your choice, your decision, but you see someone else with everything that you worked so hard for and you’re angry when you shouldn’t be angry and you feel bad and you turn away; it hurts them when you do and you’re glad, you miserable thing, you’re happy that they’re hurt because why should you be the only one whose hurt –

Perhaps the problem wasn’t that he didn’t understand Nie Mingjue.

Perhaps it was only that he saw in Nie Mingjue his own faults, his own deficiencies, the ones he’d tried so hard to hide in the sea of his poor memory.

“You’ll die if you don’t find a way to cultivate,” he said instead, hovering by the door. He’d say that he didn’t mean to ruin the mood, but he kind of did, and Baxia’s eyes on him were cold as if she knew.

As if she knew everything.

How he’d gone back to the past, how he’d changed things, how it was his fault that Nie Mingjue – who’d never done a single thing to hurt him, who’d been upright and righteous and good and whose brother loved him enough to –

Wei Wuxian had made a point of avoiding Baxia.

Not that she was that easy to avoid. She was tall for a woman – not as tall as Nie Mingjue, but proportionate to him in the sense that she was as much taller than the average woman as he was taller than the average man – and she walked as though people should flee before her, a tread that only felt heavy because of the almost visceral rage that surrounded her like a cloud.

Nie Huaisang had found robes for her, somehow, and they were the least feminine robes Wei Wuxian had ever seen a woman wear, though he supposed he still hadn’t seen that given that Baxia wasn’t exactly a woman. Cut in a martial style, a dark shimmering grey that seemed in some lights to be almost red – she had been born as a human in a mantle of blood and she would not let anyone forget it.

“I should have died already,” Nie Mingjue said, as if the world’s scariest guai didn’t have her hand on his shoulder right next to his vulnerable neck. “You came up with a solution, Wei-gongzi, and for that I thank you. Even if we are not able to solve the next stage, being able to see my loved ones is worthwhile.”

Wei Wuxian could learn to hate that word.

“I have a solution, of a sort,” he said, irritated and not entirely because his reveal had been preempted. He’d hoped to sort of ease into it, somehow. “You lack the capacity for regular cultivation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use demonic cultivation.”

“What? No, we can’t do that,” Nie Huaisang said, biting his fingers anxiously. “Anyway, doesn’t demonic cultivation harm the temperament?”

“You mean my temperament can get worse?” Nie Mingjue teased, and Nie Huaisang smacked him so lightly that it didn’t even displace his clothing. “I don’t know any means of demonic cultivation, Wei-gongzi –”

“Call me Wei Wuxian,” Wei Wuxian said. “Please.”

“Wei Wuxian, then,” Nie Mingjue said. “All the methods I’ve ever heard of were forbidden for very good reasons – but perhaps those conditions are not the same in the method you know.”

Wei Wuxian tensed. “How do you know that I know one?”

“You saved me, didn’t you?” Nie Mingjue said practically, and well, yes, Wei Wuxian supposed he had a point – “And anyway, Baxia can tell.”

Wei Wuxian shivered. “I don’t use it,” he argued. “How can she tell?”

At Nie Huaisang’s instigation, Baxia had recently started experimenting with smiles. She put one on her face now.

It was terrifying.

“Tell me about it,” Nie Mingjue requested. “The powers and the price, all of it.”

“You’re actually considering this?” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “But da-ge…!”

“Wei Wuxian was not wrong when he said that I would die if I didn’t find a way to cultivate despite having given up what I have,” Nie Mingjue said. “If I die, what will you do?”

Oh, not much, just become a mastermind capable of puppeting the entire cultivation world to enact revenge for your death. Nothing big.

“But – da-ge has always put such a priority on remaining on the righteous path…”

“That’s why I asked about the costs,” Nie Mingjue said patiently. “I will not abandon righteousness simply because I adopt a new method of cultivating.”

“Everyone will revile you even if you are righteous,” Wei Wuxian warned him.

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “Who is everyone? What do I care for them? You do the right thing because it is right, not for the sake of fame.”

Wei Wuxian had once thought the same.

“If everyone in the cultivation world thinks you are evil, they will paint you as evil no matter what you do,” he insisted. “No matter how righteous your motives –”

“Let them think he’s evil, then!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “He could be the most black-hearted cultivator in the land, but he’s still my da-ge; my Nie sect and I will protect him!”

“Huaisang! No! That is not how righteousness works – if I ever truly become evil, you are to cut me off at once, kill me if necessary –”

“No way!”

“Huaisang – Baxia, tell him; evil cannot be endured –”

Baxia was looking at her fingernails. She’d picked that gesture up from Sect Leader Ouyang, when he was trying to be pointed about ignoring someone; it was extremely irritating to absolutely everyone who wanted to know who she was and what she was doing here and Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian had teamed up to convince her to keep doing it.

Possibly a mistake, in retrospect.

“Baxia. I know you agree with me on this. Evil is evil, and must be eradicated no matter who it may be.”

She gave him an unimpressed look.

“I know I’m not evil yet,” Nie Mingjue argued, apparently understanding her without any difficulty whatsoever. He’d just woken up from a month-long coma and he could already speak fluent human-saber, it was really unfair. And this man had succumbed to Jin Guangyao’s wiles? Lan Xichen had more to answer for than he knew. “But if I ever become evil – what? No, we will not burn that bridge when we come to it, that’s not even the right idiom, who is teaching you these things –”

Nie Huaisang coughed and hid his face behind a fan.

Wei Wuxian was not going to laugh.

Nie Mingjue growled at them all and turned back to Wei Wuxian. “Explain,” he demanded. “The rest of you, out.”

“But –”

“Out. One of us has to cultivate the righteous path, and if it can’t be me, it has to be you. Baxia?”

She picked Nie Huaisang up by his collar, for all the world like a mother dog picking up her pup by the scruff of its neck, and walked out.

Nie Mingjue picked up demonic cultivation faster than anyone else Wei Wuxian had ever met or even heard of. He wasn’t sure if that demonstrated an unnerving aptitude or if it was simply that Nie Mingjue was surpassingly talented – Wei Wuxian had never met anyone like himself before, someone for whom all things came easy, and it was an unexpected delight to meet a kindred soul somewhere where he’d long ago given up hope. He’d never planned to unveil demonic cultivation in this life unless he truly needed it – he didn’t want to hurt his Lan Zhan the way he had in his first life, and anyway Jiang Cheng and Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu were all alive, with hundreds of Jiang sect members to boot, there was no need for his sacrifice – but the part of him that was more researcher and inventor than cultivator luxuriated in their discussions.

Nie Mingjue was a lot more concerned than Wei Wuxian had ever been with consequences, and how to mitigate them, but he supposed that made sense: losing his cultivation hadn’t impacted that Nie temper one bit, and demonic cultivation was likely to make things worse. Moreover, Nie Mingjue was simply who he was, stiff and unbending, as much steel in his spine as in Baxia’s; he could almost be described as being rigid in his thinking except for the fact that he was in fact seriously considering becoming a demonic cultivator.

“We’re saber cultivators,” Nie Mingjue said when Wei Wuxian tentatively brought it up. “Like a saber, our nature is to be firm and unyielding, not flexible like the sword, but we cannot allow ourselves to become too rigid – a too-rigid saber will break upon encountering an obstacle. It’s a difficult balance to keep, and one made more difficult by our cultivation style.”

“The demonic cultivation aspects, you mean? Using yao to refine your saber spirit?”

“One day, though not today, I’m going to ask you how you know about that,” Nie Mingjue remarked, and although his tone was causal Wei Wuxian’s back went cold. “And I’ll expect you to tell me the truth when I do. But not today. Anyway, yes, that’s what I mean. Do you know what they mean when they say that demonic cultivation harms the temperament?”

Wei Wuxian hesitated. “I assume you’re going to tell me something other than ‘it drives you crazy and makes you kill people’?”

Nie Mingjue snorted. “Sometimes I wonder how someone as smart as you got sent home before you finished your lessons at the Cloud Recesses, but other times it’s fairly obvious.”

Wei Wuxian shrugged, embarrassed.

“Do you really not know?”

“No one taught this to me,” Wei Wuxian said, stung. “I came up with it on my own. How would I know?”

“All demonic cultivation has the same root,” Nie Mingjue said. “Obsession.”

“With killing, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it a million times –”

“Shut up and listen, you impertinent brat. The killing comes later. It starts with obsession. Obsession with righteousness, obsession with love, obsession with the pleasures of this world, with power – a human becomes a demon when they cannot overcome the obsessions within their heart, and the obsession consumes them. In time, a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with power will do whatever it takes to obtain that power, and not mind the blood shed to do it; a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with love will kill everyone who they perceive stands between them and their love, a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with righteousness will turn to murder when in their judgment something that ought to be condemned goes unpunished…”

“What about one who only wants what’s best for his family?” Wei Wuxian said, and he did not know if the challenge in his voice was about Nie Mingjue’s future or his own past.

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “Two roads that I can see: first, their family turns away from them for what they have become and they become vicious with the abandonment, becoming quick to lash out against the world and eventually doing something that causes the world to turn against them. Second, their family stands by them, and eventually the world causes some harm to them – and the demonic cultivator turns to madness in revenge.”

“Not exactly an optimistic outlook.”

“Not especially, no.”

“You don’t seem as concerned by that as I would have thought.”

Nie Mingjue’s lips twitched. “I have a solution.”

“Would you like to share?”

“Using resentful energy to cultivate our sabers makes them prone to obsession, driving them ceaselessly to fight evil, destroy it, without discrimination. It makes them stronger, but also more dangerous – and that is why they must be carefully controlled.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “So, what? You’re going to be the saber now? Under whose control?”

“Huaisang’s, of course,” Nie Mingjue said, as if it were obvious. “For better or for worse, he is sect leader now. Who else would it be?”

“But – what if you disagree? What if he wants to do things one way, and you another –”

“Then I argue and probably yell a lot, and if in the end he still insists on doing things his way, I listen,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “That’s how hierarchy works. Isn’t it the same for you? When your shidi, Jiang Cheng, becomes sect leader, you’ll need to listen to him – or leave the sect. There’s no middle ground.”

Wei Wuxian scowled.

“A sect leader that can’t control his disciples is worse than a demonic cultivator,” Nie Mingjue said. “He’s weak. A target, ripe to be ripped apart and devoured by other sects – resources raided, disciples poached, responsibilities taken away...It’s not a fate I would wish on anyone. If you can’t commit to obeying, commit to leaving so that you don’t end up promising more than you can give.”

Ouch.

Just – ouch.

Great advice, fantastic advice, world-class advice, and totally useless because Jiang Cheng had travelled back in time with him and was therefore convinced that Wei Wuxian was just looking for the first way out of the Jiang sect he could find, no matter what Wei Wuxian said or did about it.

(Even Madame Yu was concerned by the new coldness in their relationship and had tried to talk to him about it, which – Wei Wuxian didn’t know what to do with that. It didn’t match any of what he had thought he’d understood.)

He decided to focus back in on the demonic cultivation lessons, shifting from theoretical discussions to the practical, and that, unfortunately, was when they encountered an issue.

“What do you mean you can’t play an instrument?” Wei Wuxian demanded, appalled. “It’s one of the Six Arts! Everyone can play some sort of instrument – even Nie Huaisang plays an instrument!”

“Everyone agreed it was better that I stop learning,” Nie Mingjue said defensively. “It’s all just plucking on strings or blowing air in pipes, and yet no matter that I did exactly what the teacher said to do, it never worked, that’s all.”

“Didn’t Zewu-jun offer to teach you…?”

“He did. And then he said it would be better if we stopped, too.”

The reason, Wei Wuxian soon learned, was that Nie Mingjue was almost completely tone deaf, and the only reason it was almost was that he was still capable of differentiating speech.

“I agree with the majority,” he said after an extremely frustrating day. “Stop. Never pick up an instrument ever again. And don’t let anyone but Zewu-jun play something especially for you, either, okay? Even if they’re highly recommended.”

“An interesting request,” Nie Mingjue said, eyebrows arched skeptically. “May I ask why?”

“Because you’ll have no idea if they’ve changed the music on you,” Wei Wuxian said bluntly. A great deal about the man’s murder in a different life made sense now, and Jin Guangyao’s brilliance in hiding the score of Turmoil inside of Clarity was a little less impressive when played to a man who thought all music, without exception, was just plucking strings or blowing air. “Musical cultivation is deadly in the right hands, especially if you lower your defenses against it. Just consider it a precaution.”

Nie Mingjue’s eyebrows remained arched, but he hummed in agreement.

“I guess we’ll have to think of a new way for you to cultivate demonic cultivation,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing his face. He had not been planning on having to invent demonic cultivation at all in this life, and now he needed to not only ‘invent’ the original but actually come up with something new. Why was his life so hard? “How did you previously manipulate external energy?”

“With Baxia.”

“Well, that’s not helpful, is it? You can’t wield a human being. Perhaps another saber…?”

That didn’t work, primarily because it turned out that Baxia had strong feelings about Nie Mingjue even thinking about using another saber and well, as far as Wei Wuxian was concerned, whatever Baxia wanted, Baxia got.

(Nie Huaisang had had to go to Heijan once, with Wei Wuxian and Baxia accompanying him since Nie Mingjue wasn’t ready yet, and some unlucky Wen captain had tried to ambush them. That captain, and his squad, were not granted the courtesy of an intact corpse, and Baxia hadn’t even gotten a speck of blood on her nice new robes – no, Wei Wuxian would not be crossing Baxia any time soon.)

“There’s got to be something,” Wei Wuxian said, and Nie Mingjue agreed, and in the end they found something.

Nie Mingjue had been absent-mindedly playing around with one of Nie Huaisang’s fans when one of the fierce corpses Wei Wuxian had raised as practice targets had gotten loose; instinct had taken over and Nie Mingjue had lashed out with the weapon at hand as if it were a saber, and the resentful energy had surged in response –

Baxia was apparently not threatened by the notion of her master using a fan as a weapon, not even one inlaid with steel and heavy cloth with enough layers to catch a sword in.

(If Wei Wuxian needed to go have some time to himself at the sight of Nie Huaisang, dressed as a sect leader with his saber always at his side, standing next to Nie Mingjue holding a fan – well, that was his problem, and also one he intended to show to Jiang Cheng at the next possible opportunity. Someone else deserved to have their mind wrecked by the incongruity as much as he had.)

Even without the weirdness of Nie Mingjue, it was more than a little odd to see Nie Huaisang in the robes of a sect leader without him acting like the Head-shaker. The shock of having to become sect leader had fallen heavily on him: he had become a little more serious, a little more earnest (though still a bit frivolous); he was more inclined to listen and think things over, less inclined to run away.

“If da-ge is going to become a demonic cultivator, someone needs to stand behind him,” Nie Huaisang said simply when Wei Wuxian had tried probing. “He’s always held the world up for me – it’s the least I can do for him. I may not be able to do much, I might be terrible at it, but I owe it to him to at least try.”

Wei Wuxian wondered, sometimes, if Jiang Cheng would have stood up for him if only he had trusted in him, believed in him, the way Nie Mingjue believed in his notoriously useless little brother.

Maybe he’d ask, when he went back to the Jiang sect.

Maybe he’d –

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Jiang Cheng said as a greeting, and for once Uncle Jiang didn’t disagree. “All those letters and you never once mentioned the terrors?”

“The what,” Wei Wuxian said, and that was how he learned that while he was on his way back to Yunmeng neither Baxia nor Nie Mingjue had wasted any time utilizing their newfound skills out on the battlefield.

Nie Huaisang was never going to be a particularly respected sect leader, especially by those that had met him beforehand, but evidently that wasn’t really important given that he was constantly flanked by what was being called the two terrors of Qinghe.

Nie Mingjue preferred darker colors now that he was no longer sect leader, the same dark grey shading towards black that Baxia had selected for herself, and the selection somehow made him seem even taller, verging on inhuman, and Baxia standing beside him, her human features patterned roughly after his, made the two of them appear a matched set. Nie Mingjue wielded the fan that Wei Wuxian had helped him design, which he had forged with his own hands out of the metal from the Xuanwu’s cave that Wei Wuxian had foolishly figured someone ought to get some use out of, painted over with a cinnabar array in Nie Huaisang’s careful brushstrokes, and in his hands it was both weapon and conduit for the raising of armies of corpses. Baxia, for her part, held nothing but required nothing, a sweeping gesture of her hand more devastating than a dozen blows with the saber.

They were terrifying, a nightmare writ large and unmistakably dangerous, undeniably demonic cultivators in a way that was entirely different from Wei Wuxian’s own dramatics, and it unnerved the rest of the cultivation world the way Wei Wuxian had feared it would.

“It won’t be a problem,” Jiang Cheng said impatiently. “The Nie sect are ascending in strength, and this only adds to their mystique – who would challenge them?”

“Uh, Jin Guangshan,” Wei Wuxian said. “Like last time?”

Jiang Cheng huffed. “At this rate, I don’t even think Jin Guangyao will bother defecting to the Jin sect,” he said. “Not if he knows how to play his cards right. The Nie sect’s strength in the original version was never about Chifeng-zun’s skill with the blade alone. It was the whole sect’s strength, with Chifeng-zun’s ability to wield them as skillfully as he did his saber; he’s an outstanding general. And now they have him as a general, him as a demonic cultivator, and whatever the fuck is going on with Lady Baxia –”

“I already told you. She’s a guai.”

“Like I already told you, it doesn’t matter how many times you say that, I will immediately expel the knowledge from my mind and you should too. ‘Immortal cultivator cousin that my brother named his saber after’, like what Nie Huaisang has been putting about, is a perfectly acceptable cover story.”

“And the fact that his saber disappeared at the same time?”

“Coincidence,” Jiang Cheng said firmly. “And we’re sticking with that. Anyway, the point is that if you’re an ambitious man, the Nie sect is the place to be right now and probably will continue to be in the future. This is going to be evident to both Jin Guangshan and the future Jin Guangyao, and we’ll need to deal with that.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Wei Wuxian promised. “After rescuing Chifeng-zun and helping with the demonic cultivation, I’ve gotten pretty close to them.”

“Mm. And how about your other mission?”

Wei Wuxian scowled at the smirk on Jiang Cheng’s face. “You know perfectly well that I haven’t had any time to seduce Lan Wangji, what with how busy I’ve been. I don’t even know for sure if he likes me yet -!”

“You’re an idiot, he does, and you’re not allowed to keep us all in suspense for two decades this time. Figure it out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m sticking you with the job of being an information courier and you leave for the Lan sect front line tomorrow.”

“You are the best shidi ever,” Wei Wuxian said, and meant it.

Jiang Cheng huffed. “Yeah, well,” he said as if his cheeks weren’t red. “Remember that in the future. In this life we’re the Twin Heroes, you hear me? No take-backs.”

Nie Mingjue was right: Wei Wuxian would need to either learn to obey or tell Jiang Cheng early on that he was leaving, and walking a path in the middle would only cause heartbreak all over again.

“Okay,” he said, deciding to ask Lan Wangji for advice on obedience. Surely that was something that could be learned? “Deal. You do know that that means Lan Wangji’s going to have to marry in, right?”

“Oh no,” Jiang Cheng said, voice entirely flat. “How terrible. I’ll find a way to manage dealing with that ice block somehow…listen, I don’t care if you end up calling him Wei Sizhui in this life, but don’t ruin his character. He was perfectly nice.”

“I don’t know if he’s even been born yet,” Wei Wuxian said glumly. “I’ve been looking, but…”

“I’ve asked some of Mother’s spies to keep track of Wen Ning and Wen Qing,” Jiang Cheng said. “Collecting evidence we’ll need for their inevitable post-war trial, assuming we want them to live better lives than just refugees. Give it time, we’ll find him.”

“Now I just need to see if Lan Wangji will want to raise children with me…”

“Wei Wuxian. I don’t care. Go.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #baxia #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #academic discussion of demonic cultivation #this isn't an answer to your question but I hope you like it anyway #tkpartisan

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