Once, Shen Wei catches Zhao Yunlan napping on the couch with a lollipop still in his mouth. The lollipop bulges from the side of his cheeks, the stick protruding out, and his lips are tinged a shade of red. All the while, Zhao Yunlan takes deep slow breaths, in and out, in and out, lost to slumber. Shen Wei is grateful that Zhao Yunlan no longer smokes - leaving cigarettes unattended is very dangerous indeed - but the lollipop could still be a choking hazard.
With a sigh, Shen Wei reaches out and gently extricates the lollipop from Zhao Yunlan’s mouth. As he does so, his thumb lingers over Zhao Yunlan’s lips, sticky-sweet.
It almost seems as if Zhao Yunlan has a different flavor every day. Lemon yellow, watermelon green, grape purple, tangerine orange, blueberry blue. It splashes his tongue different colors and makes every kiss an adventure unto itself. It’s such a little, juvenile thing - chasing after the traces of sugar - but Shen Wei thinks he looks forward to it.
He had his first lollipop ten thousand years ago, and he will keep tasting them now, ten thousand years later.
When Zhao Yunlan wakes up, he finds Shen Wei watching him with one hand curled around his pendant and the other hand holding the lollipop. He smiles widely, blinking open tired eyes, and he pulls Shen Wei into a strawberry kiss.
“Zhao is probably a classic case of ‘off-work silence,’ a common symptom among busy city-dwellers. He has stayed single for most of his life; partly because of his unusual job, and partly because of himself: he seems garrulous and confident on the outside, but his true self is detached and unsociable; if you don’t talk to him he can stay silent for an entire night, without any expression on his face.”
-Guardian, Chapter 22 (English translation by RainbowSe7en)
case closed - shen wei/zhao yunlan, ~500 words, crack.
A pair of Dixingian power suppressing handcuffs is missing from the SID headquarters, and Lin Jing is horrified.
ride - shen wei/zhao yunlan, ~2000 words.
After the web novelist case, Zhao Yunlan knocks on Shen Wei's door and asks him out to breakfast.
(AKA the one where Zhao Yunlan somehow gets Shen Wei to ride on his motorcycle with him, and Shen Wei curses his stupid sexy biker boyfriend and he’s just ~swooning~ and pining and it’s hilarious)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Da Qing and Shen Wei have a conversation about Zhao Yunlan, and a past memory is revisited. [2700 words]
Notes: I expected this to just be a short 100 word ficlet that I would throw up here on tumblr, but I got too carried away, so looks like I’m putting this one on AO3. Basically, I have headcanons about what happened to Zhao Yunlan after his mom died and he became estranged with his dad.
Zhao Yunlan first catches sight of the necklace hanging from Shen Wei’s neck after those two thugs had tried to rob Shen Wei in the alleyway. It had just been a glimmer of brilliant orange-yellow - Shen Wei’s hand curled around it - and then furtively tucked away under the collar of his dress shirt.
He doesn’t think much of it, not at first.
It’s just a part of Shen Wei’s wardrobe, like his watch or his rimless spectacles. Zhao Yunlan will catch a glimpse of the black cord when Shen Wei turns his neck or shrugs his shoulders a certain way. But the pendant is never visible, always hidden.
When Zhao Yunlan carries the drunk, unconscious Shen Wei, he’s surprisingly heavy - he seems to have actual muscle in that proper professor frame of his. As he eases Shen Wei’s body down on the small bed, Zhao Yunlan notices - all that shifting has exposed the pendant necklace at his throat.
It’s a fiery amber orb. It fits against Zhao Yunlan’s palm when he touches it. It’s warm from the heat of Shen Wei’s body - which is strange, whenever he’s made contact with Shen Wei before, he’s noticed that his body temperature is usually relatively cool - but he knows, that’s the alcohol. Shen Wei’s face is still flushed a dusty red.
Gently, Zhao Yunlan slips the pendant back under Shen Wei’s shirt. Then he reaches for his jacket - and that’s when the revelation hits, and it feels like his world has been upturned.
--
Once Zhao Yunlan confronts Shen Wei about his identity, they ease into something like routine - comfortably fitting into each other’s lives as if they’ve always been there. In Zhao Yunlan’s apartment, they eat meals together, talk together, sit together, sleep together--
It starts like this: Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei for ‘repayment.’ Shen Wei takes Zhao Yunlan’s joking suggestion at face value, beginning the process of tidying up by arranging pillows on the bed. Zhao Yunlan walks over to him, pins him down on the bedsheets, and says, “You know that isn’t what I meant.” And Shen Wei blinks and smiles, and it’s blinding, wide and real and radiating fondness, and he tangles his hand in Zhao Yunlan’s hair and kisses him fiercely.
Zhao Yunlan hadn’t expected him to kiss like this. It is a biting, desperate kiss, Shen Wei underneath him, but grasping, reaching up, until Shen Wei has flipped Zhao Yunlan over and he’s sinking his teeth into Zhao Yunlan’s neck. Zhao Yunlan is whimpering - “babe - baby,” he thinks he’s saying incoherently, “please, Shen Wei,” - his hips jerking and shifting against Shen Wei’s surprisingly unmovable waist, which is just pressed against him, keeping him down.
“You have always been an unfair tease, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, and he closes his eyes, opens them, and tells Zhao Yunlan in a calm, steady voice to take off his clothes and turn over for him.
Zhao Yunlan obeys.
--
As the days go by, Zhao Yunlan observes that Shen Wei never takes the pendant necklace off.
Shen Wei doesn’t take it off when he’s in the shower - it’s there on his neck and dripping droplets of water when he emerges, swathed a towel. It’s there when he’s cooking in the kitchen, catching the dim lights overhead and sparkling. As far as Zhao Yunlan can tell, it’s still hanging there when he’s garbed as the Black-Cloaked Envoy, buried under layers of black. And the necklace is there when they’re in bed, bobbing against the white of Shen Wei’s throat when he’s fucking Zhao Yunlan, or just dangling there as they curl against each other and sleep.
And he realizes that Shen Wei always touches the thing. Just little pats throughout the day, as if it’s a reassuring balm. He’ll be grading papers or something, and then almost half-absentmindedly folds his hand against his chest.
--
“What does it mean?” Zhao Yunlan asks him, as they’re lying in bed together.
Shen Wei is sitting up and reading, a book open in his lap. Zhao Yunlan is watching him, his hand loosely curled in Shen Wei’s.
“What does what mean?” Shen Wei asks.
“Your necklace,” Zhao Yunlan says. “You don’t strike me the type to wear jewelry, but it seems important. Is it - connected to your Dixingian power? Or is it an artifact like the Hallows?”
Shen Wei doesn’t say anything. His gaze darts toward the pendant, then up at Zhao Yunlan, and he looks...embarrassed...uncertain? Zhao Yunlan fights back the urge to sigh - Shen Wei and his secrets - but he gives Shen Wei an encouraging smile and continues to lightly speculate.
“Is there meteorite or asteroid dust in it? Pieces of the stars?” Zhao Yunlan kisses his palm and touches Shen Wei’s chest, as if he wants to make a wish upon the pendant. Shen Wei watches him, eyes slightly widened.
“Perhaps the next closest thing,” Shen Wei says, a soft murmur.
--
When Zhao Yunlan finds the lollipop wrapper inside, he laughs and laughs and it hurts.
--
Shen Wei doesn’t know why he picks up the scrap that Kunlun had left behind. He traces the spiral pattern with his fingertips, and holds it in his palm.
When he sees Kunlun set the clinking bells around Da Qing’s neck - claiming ownership - Shen Wei cannot breathe for a single moment. He thinks, I want Kunlun’s fingers brushing against my neck. I want him to mark me as his.
When he wakes up from his long sleep, he finds the scrap tucked into the folds of his cloak. It’s somehow still preserved - perhaps an unconscious instinct on his part. He musters the ability to create and shape, summoning the power of a Dixingian who had worked with rocks and metal, and he fashions an orb pendant sealed around it.
He wants to tell Zhao Yunlan that it’s more precious than any of the stars in the sky.
Zhao Yunlan feels as if he was about to split apart. He spent almost half a year going after Shen Wei with all the tricks up his sleeve, and he was so incredibly close to having him. If he were to describe the process, it was “completely shameless, ask for the stars and I’ll give him the moon, too...” [...] But he dares not treat the Ghost Slayer that way. (x)
details from the Guardian novel that i always think about, part 1
Guo Changcheng donates nearly all of his money to charity. In his free time, he volunteers at a care center for children with autism, collects books to donate to a school, and makes posters/brochures for a volunteer teaching program...
When Da Qing first approaches ten-year-old Zhao Yunlan and tells him he’s the Guardian, Zhao Yunlan thinks of himself as a male Sailor Moon.
Zhao Yunlan has a consistent habit for stealing food, whether it's swiping food from the members of the SID, biting a French fry out of Shen Wei’s hand, or grabbing ham that Shen Wei has just finished slicing on a cutting board.
Zhao Yunlan has a kink for Shen Wei with long hair.
Zhao Yunlan jokes about calling Shen Wei 'daddy.' #KinkshameHim
Zhao Yunlan starts to grow a vegetable garden in the SID headquarters' backyard.
Shen Wei is several thousands of years old, and he has no concept of money. Do not trust him with money.
Zhao Yunlan buys a house for himself and Shen Wei before he figures out that Shen Wei is the Ghost Slayer - before they start dating - before their first kiss.
When Shen Wei decides to accept Zhao Yunlan and be together with him, he bites his own wrist, starts bleeding all over Zhao Yunlan, and passes the fuck out. When he wakes up, Zhao Yunlan has made five (5) cups of instant noodles for breakfast, and Shen Wei is absolutely disgusted.
The SID members all have a copy of Shen Wei’s class schedule. They’re relieved when Shen Wei drops by to see Zhao Yunlan so they can start slacking off.
When Kunlun first meets the Ghost King (young Shen Wei), the Ghost King is attacked by a demon. The Ghost King quickly kills the demon, and starts to devour its flesh in front of Kunlun. The Ghost King has fallen in love at first sight and tries not to chew too messily.
When Zhao Yunlan catches Shen Wei trying to manipulate him and mislead him when it comes to his past as Kunlun, he threatens to break up with Shen Wei. Shen Wei's first urge is utter panic, monster instincts activating, and he wants to literally eat Zhao Yunlan.
Shen Wei doesn't have a bed in his bedroom, nor is there any other conventional furniture. Instead, the walls are covered in portraits and photographs of Kunlun and his reincarnations. They're organized neatly by time period. Shen Wei will just sit there, gazing at them.
Shen Wei does the Edward Cullen thing. You know the thing. He sneaks in and watches Zhao Yunlan as he sleeps. He has to make sure that ZYL is drunk enough, because he doesn't want to wake him up.
Hello, anon! Guardian 镇魂 is a Chinese live action sci-fi webdrama. It’s about a special investigative department that handles cases related to supernatural criminals from the underworld. The two leads are:
Zhao Yunlan, police chief of the department in question. He’s scruffy, charming, confident in the face of danger, and sharper than he lets on. Outwardly informal to strangers in a way that’s kind of rude. Also, when he’s into someone, he’s a huge flirt.
Shen Wei, university professor. He’s very mysterious and restrained, and tries his hardest to be all mild-mannered and polite. But he’s actually secretly ~THE BLACK-CLOAKED ENVOY~, an ancient powerful ambassador from the underworld who helps catch abovementioned supernatural criminals.
So, the deal is, Shen Wei has this epic crush on Zhao Yunlan. They have this 10,000-year-old connection that Zhao Yunlan isn’t aware of. Shen Wei would do anything to protect Zhao Yunlan, he’d kill for him and he’d die for him. He is so devoted and self-sacrificing, and you can just see the love in his eyes whenever he looks at Zhao Yunlan. And Shen Wei does this ridiculous stoic woobie thing, where he’s visibly pining and suffering and keeping secrets from Zhao Yunlan.
Zhao Yunlan is initially wary of Shen Wei..but he’s intrigued by him, and he can tell that Shen Wei is so intense about him even if he doesn’t know why, and their relationship builds over the course of several cases.
Guardian is based on a BL novel by Priest. The drama had to change many elements to get past the Chinese censors - it had to change all the supernatural/fantasy/mythological aspects into sci-fi. Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are a canon couple in the novel, but the drama had to scale back the m/m romance also because of the censors.
But…it’s very much there. Like, it’s screamingly obvious that Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are in love and they’re a couple, even if it’s subtext-that’s-pretty-much-text. The chemistry between them is palpable, and you can tell that the writers, cast and crew committed themselves to make this as gay as they possibly could (here’s a fanvid for reference).
Caveat: this show is not high quality television and obviously had a low budget. Terrible CGI, bad voiceover dubbing, bad acting from most of the characters who are not the leads, the plot and worldbuilding is a mess, ridiculous villains, awful costuming of side and background characters, etc.
But it’s tropey fun if you’re like me and have nostalgia for shows like Torchwood and early New Doctor Who, and the love story between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan is one of the best things I’ve ever watched onscreen. This is a show that knows the BL fan id, which is ‘hot badass dudes getting hurt and having tender feelings for each other and gently touching each other.’
I’d like to note that this series has a sad ending that verges on being ambiguous, which sucks, but that can easily be headcanoned away. And it helps that Priest (who wrote the original novel) fixed it by connecting it to the novel universe, which does has a happy ending.
It’s a lifestyle that Zhao Yunlan has always dreamt of. Two people who don’t always have to talk, who won’t annoy each other or demand a lot all day, like going on movie dates and giving flowers. They live their own lives, but they’re not distant…it’s like they are meant to live together, just the two of them.
At this age, Zhao Yunlan is smart enough and experienced enough to realize that when a man looks at someone he likes, and doesn’t see tiny waist long legs big butt, but sees home, that’s definitely not lust. (x)
Remember that time when Zhao Yunlan basically told the entire city that he slept with a Dixingian, and the camera is very unsubtly trained on Shen Wei’s face? Yeah.
