I confess that the narrative of TTJ in the sect learning how to be a human properly was always my favorite part of the novel even if it wasn’t a romantic portion of the story. So I am so excited the drama kept it (with bits of the Cang Jiumin dream storyline, they meld seamlessly.) 

(I love that he actually gets a name chosen with care and not one that is expression of hatred and bad luck!)

Look at how shocked he is the master is all “the sword is yours, keep it.” He is so not used to care and kindness.

Honestly, it’s little things that get me, like how he’s so awkward being hugged by the blind lady and you realize he’s still not used to being touched in gentleness and love.

It’s just such a pleasure watching TTJ find acceptance and care in the sect - finally a decent parental figure in his master and then also the sect brothers who just accept and like him, do not view him as a monstrosity (he didn’t have such matter-of-fact acceptance even during his emperor days for obvious reasons.) This is the longest stretch of normalcy he’s ever had and he needed it so badly (and the fact that it comes from sect master and brothers he destroyed in past timeline is extra glorious; it does show that we are our choices, we are not doomed to do the same thing over and over.) The fact that he probably got it because Susu broke his fate/curse and so he is not being pushed by literally the Universe into more and more suffering as a goad to turn him into devil god, is an extra bonus. And the thing that gets me so hard is - TTJ aka Cang Jiumin, thrives. He repays kindness with kindness - you watch him be a good student and kind to the old lady and practice well. 

It makes me think of the scene in an early ep flashback where older nanny tells younger nanny that the reason TTJ has difficulty processing or understanding emotions and people is because of his fucked up existence. And she is proven right - he is clearly always an introvert but living a nice life full of physical and emotional caring (he does not go hungry, he is liked, he is taught, he is valued), he adjusts more and more. He soaks normalcy as a sponge and I think learns as much or more from this stretch as he did from Susu. Susu opened up the gate but it’s this time that really puts the seal on it (yes, I am mixing my metaphor.) He needed to love and be loved by at least one person to give the world a chance, but he now has demonstration that not the whole world is awful. Before he hated the world but refrained from damage because Susu loved it, but now perhaps he can learn to love it a little on his own behalf. (And it makes sense his fate was nonstop horror before - if you want someone to turn into a demon god who is in so much pain he wants to erase the universe into nothingness, you can’t give him a glimmer of hope or a positive outlet. You don’t want your would-be world destructor to go “I don’t want to end the Universe because I have a sect dinner on Thursday, and my wife and I are going on a vacay the following weekend, how about we check back in a few millennia.”)

He is so gentle with this random old lady and he’s able to analogize the two of them - that is empathy, really, something impossible for a person they claimed was devoid of feelings; he’s come so far all because he’s had normalcy and care.

And he tries to make her withered tree bloom because she wants it, tries so hard even tho he just met her (and that he tries with the help of charms Susu taught him - he really is a memorial to her in so many ways, a living breathing memorial.)

I love his conversation with the old lady btw, it is my favorite scene in the episode, where they talk about why people live. In some ways, despite his age he is pitifully young since he’s had so little normal experience. This isn’t just a mission to help and old lady, it is a mission to help him too.

The way it turns out she knew and yet still took it, because kindness is rare and precious…

I love his opening up, responding to honesty with honesty, care to care. He is like a mirror to the world, in so many ways, and when all it gave him was pain he dealt pain back, but he is slowly healing, slowly climbing out of his well of misery and abuse and seeing humanity in others and in the process finding humanity in himself.

It’s so interesting how he answers about people, not home, because he doesn’t have a home, not really. Nowhere where people are glad to see him and so there is no home for him because without care it’s just rocks and dirt and why does he care where he is.

Oh God, this killed me.

The way he ponders that!

The way this is written - it’s as if Susu translates the world to him and him to the world and without her as the conduit, he cannot judge his success or his worth or his morality. I am incoherent!!!

It is gutting that all he needed was a little push - a little choice, a little happiness. Look how quickly he learns - like when he talks about his wife to the old lady and old lady asks if he could get his wife back by becoming evil, would he, and he thinks and is tempted but says no because Susu would not have liked it. He has learned to put what she wants above what he wants (a change even from “hate me as long as you are here.”)

The way he figures out how to fulfill the old lady’s wish with his white lie and her response just…

Here he is with the old lady who passed away. I am verklempt….

It really is nature/nurture debate and the answer is pretty clear - if he was brought up with love and care instead of constant trauma and suffering - he would have been just lovely; he is climbing out of that abyss even after all the torment and without it he’d have been there so much sooner. Devil God actually is a manifestation the world’s cruelty creating its own monsters and seeds of its own destruction and I love that.

PS Devil God voice is proof that you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (or evil in this case.) He should have taken the body/soul when TTJ didn’t care and was offering but he wanted to wait for the perfect host as opposed to 98% compatible and now he’s living (undying?) proof of the old adage of “you snooze you lose!”

thissss.  ALLL OF THISSSSS.

Till the End of the Moon: Unconventional Enemies to Lovers

A few months ago I posted my own personal thoughts on enemies-to-lovers that don't cross my own personal red lines. Since then, I enjoyed watching the absolutely next-level cdrama TILL THE END OF THE MOON, which is a uniquely complex and delicious take on the enemies to lovers trope which goes way harder than any other ETL I've ever seen. In this post I'd like to break down how TTEOTM addresses each of my points in turn, and I think this will highlight two unique features of this story: the wonderful complexity of the characters' alignment between good and evil, and the way that the ending, while flawed, unconventional and not completely satisfying, nevertheless makes a certain amount of dramatic sense.

In case that wasn't obvious right away, SPOILERS AHEAD.

This point is about keeping your moral categories straight and not treating something genuinely problematic as though it's just a misunderstanding. One of the really fascinating things about TILL THE END OF THE MOON is that you couldn't quite call Tantai Jin either evil OR misunderstood. Instead, he's a complex mixture of both - a man who uses demon magic, wears black, and tends towards vengeance and mayhem when he feels attacked, yes, but who deep down very profoundly just needs to be loved. The show proves this over and over. Tantai Jin only acts out when he feels threatened or betrayed, when his belief that no one will ever love him is validated by the actions of those around him. On the other hand, when people show love towards him, he responds with wary but genuine trust, affection, and self-sacrifice. Our heroine Li Susu and others are quick to misunderstand Tantai Jin, but this is mainly because of the sinister vibes that surround him on account of him being picked out as the Devil God's future vessel. So, is he evil or misunderstood? He's a bit of both, and the really delightful thing about this show is that it does a beautiful job of keeping its categories straight, resolving misunderstandings quickly but doing the hard yards when it comes to addressing Tantai Jin's propensities towards vengeance.

Every romance needs reasons for the characters to love and trust each other, despite the things that are keeping them apart. TILL THE END OF THE MOON, again, takes a super complex approach to this point as well. Both Li Susu and Tantai Jin have incredibly mixed feelings towards each other. Li Susu deeply hates the Devil God and throughout the show, the major obstacle standing in the way of her learning to love Tantai Jin is her hatred of what she believes he will one day become. This provokes her to whip him, betray him, and plan his death. But she also sees very clearly that Tantai Jin is a pitiable outcast who has only ever known hatred and suffering. When she defends him, he quickly warms up to her. Tantai Jin, meanwhile, has heard Li Susu's vows of undying hatred and hostility, but has no defences against her practical acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. When she starts telling him that she loves him, he believes it because he so desperately wants to. Then, when she betrays him, his hostility is born of desperation: he thinks her cruel and heartless for toying with him. And when she comes back to him, he's so desperate for her love that he accepts her without reservation, making himself wholly vulnerable. Is there hatred between these two? Undoubtedly. But it's allied with an equally irresistible love and compassion. Like all the best enemies-to-lovers stories, and more than most, TILL THE END OF THE MOON gives the characters a choice between a hatred that will destroy them and a love that can heal them.

Normally what I mean by this is that enemies-to-lovers will usually involve a profound character arc for at least one of the characters, often from evil to good. TILL THE END OF THE MOON tackles this particular element with incredible complexity. When Li Susu gets to know Tantai Jin, he's cunning and manipulative, but just trying to survive. The two of them embark on a deeply transformative journey, but it is nothing so clear-cut as a journey from villainy to goodness or vice versa. Tantai Jin flirts with villainy before ultimately drawing away from it. By the time he actually does ascend to become the Devil God in the final quarter, it isn't because he's become evil - rather, he's playing the long game, positioning himself and Li Susu to destroy the Devil God once and for all. The important part of Tantai Jin's character arc is learning to accept love from himself and from people around him, to the point that he no longer responds to perceived rejection with vengeful rage. Similarly, the show also brings Susu to a point where she is able to let go of her deap-seated fear of the Devil God. By the end, she has become able to trust her beloved and make herself vulnerable to him even AFTER he's become the Devil God - a truly incredible arc.

I've heard a lot of people saying that the show TTEOTM differs from the book TTEOTM sharply in that Show!Tantai Jin is much less of a villain than Book!Tantai Jin. Normally, this would impair my enjoyment - I'm usually the one shouting at the screen to LET your baddie be a baddie, for heaven's sake. Not having read the book, I can't actually compare the two, but I CAN say that I'm so impressed by how the show revels in shades of grey. Instead of simplifying the male lead's morality, the story allows it to be messy and complex. Neither Li Susu nor Tantai Jin can fit easily into good and evil categories. I appreciate this immensely.

Similarly, I'm fascinated by how TILL THE END OF THE MOON treats Li Susu, our token "good" half of the couple. She's the Lady of Light, but in the midst of her crusade she's stubborn. She's cruel. She's vengeful. She spends SO MUCH of the story refusing to believe that Tantai Jin can defy fate, and when she meets him again after undergoing 500 years of suffering to find her, she still refuses to acknowledge that she is the woman who loved him, because she fears it will give the Devil God a new foothold in the world. Throughout the story she lies to him, betrays him, and wields or withholds her affection like a weapon. (This, combined with the long stretches of the show in which she is far more powerful than Tantai Jin, reverses a lot of common gender tropes in some really fun ways). In fact Li Susu is kind of terrible, and I love that for her and for the show because now it's not about a pure and good person suffering for the love of a villain - it's about two dark and deeply flawed people hurting each other equally. Similarly, Tantai Jin just isn't a villain, despite the aesthetics.

I don't think that every romance needs a happy ending - look at WUTHERING HEIGHTS. While it's imperfect, I don't think that TTEOTM has an unhappy ending per se. I trust that our boy is going to cultivate himself right out of that Heart-Guarding Scale. Tantai Jin and Li Susu definitely deserve their happy ending if any couple does - they've worked through their differences and are now totally vulnerable with and accepting of each other. However, it's fascinating that they don't quite get a HEA - or need to wait a long time for it - for reasons that actually sit pretty well with me. Namely, it was Tantai Jin's fatal flaw all along that he pinned all his sense of self-worth to Li Susu and couldn't face the thought of a life without her. This is that oddest of all things: a love story which cannot end happily until the hero is able to find love and security in people who are NOT the heroine. His feelings for Li Susu are not enough to cure him, because on the deepest level Tantai Jin still doesn't consider himself worthy of love and is willing to settle for whatever crumbs he can pick up off the floor. It takes the love of his shifu and sect brothers showing him that he is worthy APART from Li Susu, before he can learn to be healthily in love WITH her. By the end, it is this acceptance of himself and all the love shown by people who are NOT Li Susu, which enables Tantai Jin to consume the Devil God rather than to be consumed BY him. It is this which gives him the strength to accept death at Li Susu's hands without seeking to avenge or defend himself, and Li Susu the ability to trust him enough to follow through with it. Again, this is an incredibly complex take on a standard romantic scenario.

What I mean by this is that if the villain is driven to villainy primarily in order to possess the heroine romantically or sexually, he ought not to get her. But TTEOTM is much more complex than, say, LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL*, in which Orchid represents the moral growth the Evil Overlord needs rather than the world domination he wants. For one thing, Tantai Jin is not a villain when he first meets Li Susu, he never quite becomes one, and many of his most villainous actions are are direct response to her perceived enmity. They are self-preservation or revenge. Also, for much of the story, there is nothing Tantai Jin wants as much as Li Susu, and all his actions, good and bad, are either attempts to win her favour or retaliation for perceived or actual betrayal.

In retrospect, perhaps this was always an indication of how the story was going to end. Tantai Jin WANTS Li Susu to love him from very early on. But his need is quite different. He NEEDS to accept love and esteem from himself and from others, because so long as he pins all his sense of self-worth to the murder wifey he will never be stable or sane. One of the really beautiful things about the final quarter of the story, despite its messiness, is seeing Tantai Jin flower into someone who is finally able to accept his own worthiness. After so many episodes in which he's been suffering, paranoid and hurting, he's finally able to achieve an even keel - not through the Heartless Way, but through experiencing love. This time, when he feels threatened by the rejection of one person, he has the love of others to fall back on. Thus, the ending of this show was never going to be about whether Tantai Jin could love Li Susu: he has from the beginning. It was going to be about whether he could learn to see himself as worthy of love.

For Tantai Jin, additionally, getting what he needs doesn't mean that he can't also get what he wants. Tantai Jin has never been SO villainous - so cruel, selfish, and obdurate - that getting what he wants would be a grave injustice. And, getting what he needs - the love of others - is not incompatible with what he wants - the love of Li Susu. Indeed it's the only condition upon which he CAN have a healthy relationship with Li Susu. I think this is why the ending, as messy and flawed as it is, is not a dealbreaker and even makes a weird amount of sense. The fact that Tantai Jin clearly gets what he Needs prevents it all from feeling as utterly wasteful and stupid as, say, TROS did. And then the door is left just a crack ajar for him one to day to get what he Wants, too.

In conclusion, then, TTEOTM is an incredibly ambitious, complex story which goes harder than just about any other enemies-to-lovers story I can think of and sets itself up for an unconventional ending in making the core of its story about whether the hero can learn to love himself. While it's not perfect, I feel like it's an enemies-to-lovers masterclass which I'll be revisiting early and often.

* As a footnote, when I say that TTEOTM is less complex than LBFAD, this isn't meant as a ding. LBFAD is simpler and less ambitious, but also more successful. It's often the way.

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C-Novels Available in English Translation

A few weeks ago, a few of my danmei-loving friends and I got to talking about how much there is that we want to read, but that none of us have been very organized about keeping track of titles, fantranslation links, etc.

So, we decided to make a spreadsheet.

AND to combine every link we'd each separately stashed around on that spreadsheet.

The result is a list of 89 titles (currently 83 are danmei, 5 are baihe, and 1 is gen, reflecting our personal interests/preferences) with links to translations, some complete, some not. (as of 2/7/23)

Love C-Novels? Especially danmei? Looking for something to read? Check it out!

Some notes:

GO FORTH, AND FIND YOUR NEW FAVORITE BOOK!

I picked the bone curse (epi28) but it’s more specifically the scenes before.

When DFQC declares his love for XLH in front of his people while XLH waited on the moon bridge with the locks. How the camera changes between the two characters, how he uses his words to express his love (probably for the first time in 30k years), how she waited and waited on the bridge as the moon creeped upwards, how DFQC decided to take the curse to show his undying love and to appease his citizens, how he had his crown removed to take the curse, the pain of the curse inflicted on him, how the music + lyrics perfectly matches the scenes unfolding, and finally how it ended with him walking up the bridge to meet with XLH to keep his promise when he was on the verge of blacking out. At that moment, you can feel how he felt, that every pain, every torment he just went through was worth it. Worth seeing XLH on that bridge, sharing an intimate moment. You can feel their hearts connected despite everything around them.

This scene was so perfect in terms of camera work, script, design, music, placement in the plot, that I don’t think I have seen anything just as beautifully done cinematically. The juxtaposition of camera work between the two characters before they finally meet on the bridge is just chef kisses.

As much as I wanted to pick epi9 because the wow factor is amazing, the emotional charge of epi9 is nothing compared to the one that occurred in epi28.

Love and Redemption | Yu Sifeng’s 49 outfits compilation

*confirmed via various lip-readings, according to the original script 认识 ‘to know’ was originally 认定 ‘to have chosen’. it’s a one-character difference, but it is a stark difference in mouth shape

n here’s gwen’s gorgeous mirror image! 😭💖 hers uses the words spoken by A-Xu in the final cut of the show

Bizarre things that happened because of everyone in China having WenZhou brainrot:

1. The official Youku weibo account posting an original video-edit of Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan to promote Gong Jun's new firefighter show that Zhang Zhehan isn't even in. They edited together footage from the firefighter show and scenes from a totally unrelated film (the bravest) where ZZH acted as a firefighter. They even tagged both of them in the post.

People were confused. Youku took it down after three minutes. People were even more confused. Youku offered no other explanation.

2. Sichuan News tagging Zhang Zhehan on their weibo post, inviting him to "visit Gong Jun's hometown" and JiangXi News also tagging Gong Jun, inviting him to "visit Zhang Zhehan's hometown".

This has never happened before and people are perplexed. Again, no further explanation was provided.

3. For Gong Jun's firefighter show, his hometown Sichuan's Fireman Unit tagged him on their official weibo post to help promote it. Nothing strange about that, no, the weird thing is Zhang Zhehan's hometown JiangXi's Fireman Unit also promoted the show on their official weibo and tagged Gong Jun. Again, this show has nothing to do with Zhang Zhehan at all.

People are still wondering what the fuck is going on but have mostly given up on getting any kind of explanation.

4. Official public accounts for their respective hometowns Sichuan and JiangXi continue to roleplay as in-laws on weibo, to everyone's utter bewilderment. From tagging each other on random official posts to outright inviting the other hometown's "son" over. In Gong Jun's first Bilibili video, Sichuan Satellite TV posted a comment inviting Zhang-Laoshi over to Sichuan to play. And this roleplay extends to various versions of these official hometown accounts, from tourism accounts to weather report accounts.

And this is still going on, well after the concert and official promotions for WOH have come to an end. In fact, it might have gotten worse because instead of in-laws they're now acting like a married couple. For 5.20 (Chinese Valentines Day) the two hometowns collaborated to give away special editions of their newspapers, tagging and commenting on each other's post, affectionately calling the other 西西 and 川川. By this point, people are just rolling with it as if these public accounts calling each other pet names on social media is perfectly normal and not at all completely beffudling to those who don't know about WOH.

5. OK! Magazine doing the equivalent of a desperate fangirl piecing together random screenshots of two characters to make content for her rarepair ship. They took Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan's unrelated solo photoshoots and smushed them together, filling the Haidian Huangzhuang Station.

All I can say is...I have never had a fandom experience like this and I don't think I've ever seen such widespread support and adoration like this for a CP, and it's especially satisfying knowing how this casting was mocked and ridiculed throughout the whole production period because people claimed chemistry between the leads would be impossible 😂 Now people are clamoring just to see them in the same shot.

Complete list of all deleted shots and scenes of Word of Honor

If you know of better versions or subbed versions, please share.

Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

eluvisen:

Medicine

Writing Specific Characters

Illegal Activity

Black Market Prices & Profits

Forensics

rebuttable presumption masterpost

by popular demand, ta-da! 

if you’re new to rebuttable presumption, here’s a quick 10 point summary to the verse.

quick answers to FAQs: 1) there is no update schedule, i write when i have the time/inspiration to; 2) none of this is being written in any chronological order, so you don’t necessarily have to read this in order, but if you want to, it’s in the order in this masterpost; 3) there is no chance this will be cross-posted on ao3 before the verse is done, primarily because the non-chronological order of writing will make it messy; 4) do not for any reason at all ever ask me when this is going to be posted on ao3.

current as at: 1 august 2020

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Yunmeng Jiang Clarity Bells are infused with the spiritual energy from one’s own golden core. It’s an extension of the one who wears it. Their spiritual power aiding in clearing their mind and bringing tranquility. So, when one dies, the bell loses it’s power and never chimes again.

When the Jiang Sect Leader and Madam Yu died, their clarity bells died along with them. The Jiang children had to lay the non functioning bells on their parents’ tablets.

Jiang Cheng’s bell also stopped working on the night he lost his golden core. He never had time to get a new bell made, and with everything going on he couldn’t care less about it. They are gifted the bells by an elder when they come of age, a custom long since followed through generations of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. The only people who could give the bell to him now are his siblings- one has defected, the other has left their home. Also, Jiang Cheng is too proud to ask his sister.

Years later, in the span of few weeks, Jiang Cheng would bring two other clarity bells back to their family’s Ancestral Hall. His sister’s soul already split apart, her clarity bell doesn’t make a sound.

When he begrudgingly places the other bell on a small tablet, much to his horror, the bell chimes. His first thought is that Wei Wuxian is alive. If the bell made a sound, that means his brother’s core is still active, that his spiritual energy is still flowing smoothly.

Then it dawns on him that he has seen the wreckage in the Nightless City. He couldn’t find a body even after searching for days. He could only find Chenqing and his brother’s clarity bell.

So, he wears that clarity bell on his person. To remind himself that his brother is still alive. He scours the world for demonic cultivators, surely one of them would be Wei Wuxian. Also, he never did get another bell made, and this was the only one left.

It is only years later that Jiang Cheng would find out why the bell never stopped chiming. Why the core was never extinguished, why the spiritual energy had never stopped flowing.

[PINNED POST] housekeeping + links

Because Tumblr is messing around with how things show up in tags (mainly the inclusion of links in your posts), this post will be an amalgamation of all the useful links you’ll need for my fics, and will be linked at the bottom of each post.

Will be updated regularly.

Last updated: 08 August 2020

General

Fic-related links below.

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all right guys, let’s have a conversation about soulmates

because I’m a nerd who majored in ancient China and still can’t let it go

okay so we all know that wangxian invented romance, but let’s talk a bit more about the iconic dialogue in episode 25:

I’ve seen various translations of the phrase “畢生知己” as “lifelong confidante” or “soulmate,” and I’m always so torn because these are both fine translations but like, not quite there

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Player 3 has entered the game. 

I’ve been reading about Chinese ghosts and spirits today and it is honestly a miracle that Wei Wuxian did not end up as a vengeful spirit. Like, there are so many different ways that someone could become a vengeful ghost in his particular setting: improper burial? check. Absorption of too much of one kind of energy over another? check. Rage against moral injustice? check. Violent death? check.

Like, no wonder people are still talking about him thirteen years later. No wonder people still sell talismans to ward off his ghost. No wonder he’s a bogeyman story. Because he should have been. He absolutely should have been causing malicious havoc somewhere. And then I think about Lan Wangji during that time, and I just…. that’s what he expected, isn’t it? He expected to find Wei Wuxian among the restless, angry dead, and he expected to be the one to try to pacify him. But it’s never Wei Wuxian. For thirteen years he investigates rumors of chaos and destruction and it’s never Wei Wuxian.

And then it turns out Wei Wuxian wasn’t a vengeful spirit at all. He’s not even possessing Mo Xuanyu. He was invited, and his spirit is whole, and not corrupted, so long as he can fulfill this binding wish of destroying an enemy he can’t readily identify.

How much relief must he have felt, at that chance? At knowing that this fear he’s carried with him for over a decade is something he can set down, and maybe even something he never needed to worry about at all? How much of his faith in Wei Wuxian’s spirit and intentions must have been restored.

Idk, I just can’t stop thinking about this. About how close they were to not just “Wei Wuxian is dead” but to “Lan Wangji meets Wei Wuxian on a night hunt” under the absolute worst of circumstances.

One of the things that makes MDZS such a good vehicle for international fandom is that it communicates this cultural element so cohesively. Yes, these are themes/fears you’ll find in other chinese dramas (and sometimes they may even be plotpoints) but MDZS makes a point of outlining the stakes very clearly. While it never hurts, MDZS is crafted in such a way that you don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of chinese cultural superstitions to understand what’s going on, and what’s at stake. 

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The Untamed | Undressing in Xuanwu Cave behind the scene

A+ parenting

(Based on this)

@englishbunnyrocks you rang?

–

“A-Yuan, can you say ‘ge ge’?” Wei Wuxian coaxes the child he’s bouncing on his knees.

A-Yuan looks at him with huge eyes and blinks. Ah, gods, he’s adorable!

Still, Wei Wuxian is on a mission. “Or maybeee… can you say 'Hanguang-Jun’?”

Wait…

“Shit, maybe that’s too difficu-”

“Shit!” A-Yuan pronounces and a huge smile blooms on his chubby little face.

Wei Wuxian pales. Wen Qing is going to skin him alive for this and it’s not like he was even trying! (This time, at least…)

“A-Yuan, listen here, do not let Wen Qing hear you say this word, okay? Not ever, lets make a deal. Come on, I’ll give you something yummy and this’ll be our little secret, what do you say?”

“Shit!”

“Oh my-”

–

Lan Xichen smiles gently, watching Lan Yuan play quietly in the jingshi. The boy has recovered quite nicely from his fever but it seems to have robbed him of all memories previous to his awakening.

Then again, maybe that was a blessing.

He was, however, already very attached to Wangji, who helped tend to the boy despite his own wounds. Now, Wangji was still recovering from the brutal punishment he received and Lan Xichen was watching over the both of them.

He was a little apprehensive of the child, considering Wangji had given him enough information to infer that A-Yuan was a Wen child whom Wei Wuxian had all but officially adopted as his own - and if A-Yuan was anything like Wei Wuxian then may the heavens watch over Cloud Recesses, Xichen prayed… but his fears were unfounded in the end. Newly adopted by Wangji, Lan Yuan was a very good child, quiet and obedient. Today, he listened to Lan Xichen playing melodies that would help Wangji recover and clapped after each piece.

Both Jades of Lan found it endlessly endearing.

Lets see if he’s as clever as either of his father figures, Lan Xichen thought and put his xiao away. And lets see if we can make Wangji smile today.

It hasn’t happened yet, not since, well… But as a big brother, Lan Xichen would try and try and try. Whatever it took, he would do it to see his little brother smile again.

“Lan Yuan,” he said seriously an the child immediately sat straight, gazing at him with those innocent eyes. “Can you say 'Hanguang-Jun’?”

“Shit!”

Lan Wangji fell off his bed. Lan Xichen choked on a sip of tea but immediately ran to help his brother up, sputtering in a very ungentlemanly way.

Wei Wuxian, he thought, wavering between mortification and amusement, of course Wei Wuxian would-

oh.

There, on Wangji’s pale face, was the barest hint of a tremulous smile.

Soooo adorable!!!

Lin Hai’s Official Instrumental Version of 無羈 Wuji - With added Lan Wang Ji messages to Wei Wu Xian [Part 1] → [Part 2]