Jin Ling glared at the man, and tried to fight against the hold that the Ghost General had on him. He kicked, stomped, and even tried to bite the fierce corpse, all to no avail. The gaunt man watched him with a grin that kept widening. As for the woman she quickly lost interest in Jin Ling’s pitiful efforts and returned to Wen Yuan’s side, resuming her dark business.
“Don’t touch him!” Jin Ling shrieked. “If you touch him, I’ll kill you!”
Unimpressed, the woman shrugged and kept working, while the gaunt man burst out laughing.
“I see, so you take after your uncle then?” he snickered. “Poor peacock, that can’t be easy for him… but at least your mom is used to dealing with your type.”
“Let me go and I’ll show you what my type can do!” Jin Ling cried out, struggling harder against Wen Ning’s hold.
“Tch, and to think A-Yuan had told us you were such a nice little gentleman,” the man retorted with mock disappointment. “I can’t believe he tried to lie.”
“Don’t taunt him like that,” a voice coming from above Jin Ling whined. It was so soft and gentle that it took him a moment to realise it was in fact the fearsome Ghost General who had spoken. “If he keeps wriggling like that I might let him go, and it won’t be good for you, Wei zongzhu.”
Hearing that name, Jin Ling stopped fighting and stared at the gaunt man in front of him. How could that person be Wei Wuxian? A cultivator of his skill should never have aged that way. Even Jin Guangshan looked younger than that man. In fact there were several elders of the Jin sect who, while in their eighties or more, had less gray hair than that person.
“If you’re Wei Wuxian, why are you hurting Wen Yuan?” Jin Ling shouted. “He came back here because he was so worried about you, why are you hurting him? And who are all these people in the cave? And…”
“Sometimes I wish I’d learned that Lan silencing spell,” Wei Wuxian casually said to Wen Ning. “I should have asked Lan Zhan.”
“I don’t think chatty people are a problem you often have these days,” Wen Ning flatly replied. “Stop teasing that boy and explain things to him. If you don’t, I’ll just release him and let him attack you. You’ll have deserved it if he stabs you.”
“You’re no fun at all,” Wei Wuxian cheerfully complained. “Just take him to A-Yuan, it’ll be easier than explaining it myself.”
That order was enough to make Jin Ling willing to momentarily cooperate. He allowed himself to be brought to the stone table, where the woman he had to assume was Wen Qing was doing something to Wen Yuan. The smell of blood was particularly strong there, due to a few small bowls around the table that were filled with it. That it was Wen Yuan’s own blood couldn’t be doubted. There was an incision on his left arm which Wen Qing just finished cleaning as Jin Ling was brought over, though a red bead quickly formed at the edge. Wen Yuan was still alive, then.
“What did you do to him?” Jin Lign whispered through clenched teeth. “Isn’t he your nephew? How could you do this to him?”
“Strictly speaking he’s our cousin,” Wen Qing corrected, unaffected by his accusations. “And I did it using a knife, if you must know. It was a very clean knife, don’t worry. I’m not a monster.”
Jin Ling felt faint. He might have slumped to the floor, had Wen Ning not being there to hold him upright.
“You’re just as bad as Wei gongzi,” Wen Ning scolded. “Why are the two of you teasing that poor boy?”
“After the scare he just gave us, he deserves it,” Wen Qing retorted. “Besides, didn’t A-Yuan say we should treat his husband like family?”
“You two have been left alone together too long,” Wen Ning sighed, before turning his attention back to Jin Ling. “A-Yuan is fine. Jiejie made him sleep while she drew blood from him so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but he’ll wake up soon.”
“Why do you even need his blood?” Jin Ling retorted. “Why did you make him come back? And what’s wrong with all these people sleeping here?”
Wen Ning slowly nodded. Something not unlike a smile distorted his lips.
“I told them that A-Yuan kept the secret, but they didn’t believe me. He’s a good boy. And you are too, if you came here just for him. But you are a little impatient. Weren’t you supposed to wait for him?”
“He was taking too long to return,” Jin Ling grumbled. “He’d said he’d be back in three days.”
For good measure he tried to wriggle free from Wen Ning again, but put little effort into it. It was clear he wouldn’t break free, but it was important to make it clear he wasn’t complying with them just yet.
“So that’s why he was in such a hurry,” Wen Qing mused as she finished bandaging the incision on Wen Yuan’s arm. “Silly child. Well, he can explain everything to you when he wakes up. A-Ning, keep an eye on those two while Wei Wuxian and I work on the next phase.”
Taking her bowls of blood, she walked away. Jin Ling tried to glance behind his shoulder to check what Wei Wuxian and her were doing, but Wen Ning prevented him from moving enough. Annoying and infuriating as the situation had been at first, very soon Jin Ling only felt very awkward, stuck between a dead man and one who was asleep.
“How much longer until he wakes up?” Jin Ling asked. “Can’t you just explain things yourself while we wait?”
“You’ll probably only believe it if someone you trust tells you,” Wen Ning remarked. “It shouldn’t be much longer. But before I forget… how are you feeling?”
“I feel like I hate all of you!”
A strange wheezing sound escaped Wen Ning’s lips. It might have been laughter.
“That’s fair. But I’m more interested in knowing if you feel feverish or dizzy. The air or the Burial Mounds isn’t good for living people. If you feel unwell at all, you have to warn us. Especially if something starts to itch.”
“Why, is there lice here?” Jin Ling asked. Just the thought of it was enough to make his skin crawl.
Movement on the table offered a much welcome distraction from any thoughts of blood sucking insects. Wen Yuan stretched, yawned, and opened his eyes. When they immediately fell on Jin Ling being held down by Wen Ning, he cried out in surprise.
“Why are you here? You were supposed to wait outside!”
“You were supposed to come back in three days,” Jin Ling reminded him, while knowing well that the delay hadn't quite passed yet. “Why did your aunt and dad steal your blood?”
Wen Yuan’s eyes widened. He tried to sit up too quickly and lost balance. Wen Ning let go of Jin Ling to catch Wen Yuan before he could fall, while Jin Ling immediately sprung forward to do the same, each of them holding one of Wen Yuan's arms until he was better.
“You’ve lost blood and you were laying down for a long time,” Wen Ning gently scolded. “You shouldn’t move too much. I’ll see if there’s anything left you could eat. Jin gongzi, until I’m back, please look after A-Yuan and make sure he doesn’t move too much.”
Had it been Wen Qing or Wei Wuxian asking the same thing, Jin Ling would have told them that they had no right to boss him around, or that he didn’t need them to look after his husband. But he was pleased with the speed at which Wen Ning had rushed to grab Wen Yuan when he almost fell from the table, so he just nodded, glad to be trusted by the only person in Wen Yuan’s family who seemed to truly worry about him.
Jin Ling’s improved mood was helped by the fact that as soon as Wen Ning let go of him, Wen Yuan leaned on him a little more, as naturally as if they did it every day, his forehead resting against Jin Ling’s jaw, while his arms wrapped weakly around his husband’s shoulders for support. Jin Ling gave himself one second to enjoy that closeness, then another, before he went again on the offensive.
“Wen Yuan, what did they do to you?”
“Nothing I didn’t agree with,” Wen Yuan sighed, bringing one hand over his eyes. “More importantly… how are you? Do you feel dizzy? You don’t feel any fever, right? Any itches?”
Jin Ling shivered. “Is there really a lice problem here?”
“I wish it were that easy,” Wen Yuan said with a dry laugh that sent puffs of warm air against Jin Ling’s neck, making him shiver again. “I guess… you’re here anyway. You’ve seen the others, and Wen Ning doesn’t seem to mind you being there, so it’s probably fine to tell you.”
He let out a heavy sigh, and leaned a little more against Jin Ling.
“It all started about a dozen years ago,” Wen Yuan explained. “I don’t remember it very clearly, I was pretty young at the time. The grown-ups could give you more details. We’re survivors of the Wen sect, you know. All that’s left of it. Auntie Wen and Wen Ning, and some others from our side of the clan.”
Saying this, Wen Yuan weakly lifted one arm and gestured at the people laying on the ground over blood arrays. Jin Ling shivered, but said nothing. He'd heard that the Wen disciples once numbered in the thousands, but there couldn't be more than three dozen people in that cave.
“I was the only child who had survived the war,” Wen Yuan went on. “Wen Ning told me for a while, they thought I’d really be the last of us. But after a couple years in the Burial Mounds, things had started looking up. Our fields were giving us enough food to eat, and Auntie Wen had discovered some rare herbs that could sell for good money. Some of the others even got married to local people who came to live with us. Everyone was so happy when one of the younger new aunties got pregnant, and she had a baby boy.”
A tight smile appeared on Wen Yuan’s face. His eyes searched among the people gathered until they fell on one particular woman. Jin Ling too watched those half dead people. He’d noticed before that none of them were younger than his own parents, but still looked again, hoping to be proven wrong.
“We didn’t have much, but we still celebrated little Wen Chang’s hundredth day like he was an emperor’s son,” Wen Yuan said. “I think they let me hold him. He was so small. And then not long after, Uncle four’s new wife got pregnant too even though she wasn’t young anymore. Everything was going so well. So when auntie Wen Qing was offered a good paying job in a rich family in another province, just for a few months, we figured it was more good luck.”
He paused, and took a deep breath.
“I think it was Uncle Four who got sick first,” Wen Yuan whispered, his arms tightening on Jin Ling’s shoulders. “Wen Qing had left only a week or two earlier, and we weren’t expecting her back for almost half a year. She’d been offered so much money. She said when she came back, we’d buy some sheep, maybe even a pair of cows, and materials to continue purifying the Mounds. It would have changed our lives,” Wen Yan insisted. “We couldn’t risk our future by asking her to come back. Even Uncle four didn’t want her to come back. It was just a nasty flu, we thought. A few days of rest and he’d recover. But two days later he was in such a bad state he couldn’t move, his skin was covered in rashes. And he wasn’t the only sick one. More people were getting unwell. And then, little Wen Chang too…”
Still desperately looking around for a younger face, Jin Ling pulled Wen Yuan closer. It didn’t mean anything that there were no children in the cave. They must have been sent somewhere else.
“Little Wen Change was the first one who died,” Wen Yuan somberly announced. “Then Uncle four’s wife got sick, lost her baby, and then died. Maybe it was the sickness, or maybe it was the miscarriage. Poor Uncle four was in a coma by then. When he wakes up, we’ll have to tell him.”
“How come you didn’t get sick?” Jin Ling quickly asked to distract him.
He felt Wen Yuan shrug against his side.
“I did get sick. We all did, except Wen Ning who was already dead, and Auntie Wen who was away. Even Wei zongzhu was unwell, but he came up with a method to combat it. It could only work for him, though, because of that cultivation method he uses. The others are only alive because he came up with a method to put them in a stasis. And then, there was me. Out of everyone who got sick, I’m the only one who recovered on my own. Auntie Wen says I was just lucky, and my body managed to fight it back.”
Wen Yuan huffed, and looked again at the people lying all over the cavern’s floor.
“Auntie Wen gave up on her job, of course,” he said. “We couldn't keep her away any longer. She came back, and she managed to use my blood to make a cure of sorts. She tested it on herself and on Wei zongzhu, since they were the only ones strong enough to handle it. It worked, but the ingredients it used were very expensive. Too expensive,” he added in a whisper. “They weren’t able to make enough for the others. All they could do was keep them like this, and look for another method.”
“So you grew up in the middle of… this?” Jin Ling asked, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.
He’d often been unhappy about his life in Lanling, in a sect with too many people, a good share of whom were nothing but vipers. On occasions he’d even thought himself unlucky to have so many siblings, who always seemed to be getting more attention than him.
Never before had Jin Ling felt more like the spoiled brat others accused him of being. He swore to himself that the moment they got home, he’d hug both his parents, and that he’d never complain again when the twins or Jin Bai needed his help with something, and he’d play more with Jin Hui.
“Not exactly,” Wen Yuan sighed. “Auntie Wen Qing was worried I might get sick again, so I went to live in a different part of the burial mounds with Wen Ning. We grew vegetables, and gathered rare plants to sell in town once a month. Mostly we kept away from ordinary people, because we were scared of contagion. But years passed, and the sickness never spread. Eventually, Auntie Wen heard about a place that sold the most important part of the cure she’d invented, a special flowers that enhances the effects of immunised blood. Except it grows very far from here, and it is quite rare. She couldn’t have afforded to travel there.”
“They should have asked for help,” Jin Ling said. “If my mother had known about this, or even jiujiu… if Wei Wuxian had just asked, they’d have done anything to help!”
“He’s stubborn, and a little too proud,” Wen Yuan agreed. By the sound of it, he wasn't pleased about his father's defects. “I think he should have. I’ve heard him say he was worried about infecting them, but I think he was just so sure he’d find a solution on his own.”
Wen Yuan grimaced, and leaned some more on Jin Ling's side.
“Auntie Wen and him are like that. It’s… a little annoying at times. I was getting very angry at them, very often, at one point. But then, something happened that made it possible to think of getting that flower after all. Enough money to send auntie Wen Qing on that trip, as comfortably as she liked.”
“My grandfather’s offer,” Jin Ling guessed.
He frowned and bit his lip, looking deeper into the cave, where Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing were working and whispering to one another.
“So they really did just sell you to us.”
He knew his mother was convinced there had to be a deeper explanation for Wei Wuxian’s decision to give up on his own son. Jin Ling had tried to entertain the idea sometimes, to make her happy, but in the end Wei Wuxian really was as selfish as people said.
“No, it’s not exactly like that,” Wen Yuan said.
He pulled away from Jin Ling and sat straighter on the stone table, a conflicted expression on his face.
“First of all, you have to understand, Auntie Wen and Wei zongzhu didn’t deal with the outside world anymore,” he explained, avoding looking at the people in question, but also at Jin Ling. “They didn’t have time for that, their research took all their time, as well as looking after everyone. And Wen Ning tries to avoid people, he knows he looks scary. So when your grandfather sent someone here to reach out to Wei zongzhu, I was the one who spoke to him, as usually happened. And I didn’t know a lot about the Jin sect back then, but I knew you were all very rich. Rich enough to pay for Auntie Wen’s travels abroad to get that flower, perhaps. It was a chance we couldn't miss. I had to take it. I had to do something.”
“Wait, but then... “ Jin Ling gasped. “Are you offered yourself without telling them?”
Wen Yuan wrung his hands and stared down at his feet. What little blood was left in his body seemed to rush to his cheeks, blushing as badly as Jin Bai when he'd broken something and feared being caught.
“I had no choice!” Wen Yuan exclaimed. “I knew Wei zongzhu would probably refuse. Because he’s proud, you know, and also the Jin sect had already forced his shijie to marry Jin Zixuan so he hated them, and he didn’t have a very good opinion of Jin zongzhu, and he always said he would never share his methods with the world because they’re too dangerous. But I figured maybe if we twisted things just right… if we could imply that we’d give the Jin something what they want, but really didn’t intend to do so…”
“People get really stupid when they think they’re getting what they want,” Jin Ling mumbled, recalling what his sister had said some days earlier. “And my grandfather is worse than most others. So you convinced Wei Wuxian to follow your plan?”
The degree to which Wen Yuan nervously twisted his hands had to be painful, and the awkward grimace on his face was hardly any better.
“Yes… and no. I figured it’d be easier to set everything in motion first, and involve him later,” Wen Yuan confessed. “By the time I told him about my plan, the wedding date had already been decided. I’d never have told Wei zongzhu at all if I could have, but I figured the Jin sect would get suspicious if he didn’t at least show up, and… well.” Wen Yuan let out a nervous laugh. “Let me tell you, Wei zongzhu was not happy at all when I came clean. I wish I'd never had to see him that angry.”
“I bet,” Jin Ling whispered.
He’d heard enough tales from the Sunshot Campaign to vaguely imagine what a furious Wei Wuxian would be like. The mere idea of it had him shivering. And Wen Yuan had deliberately provoked that anger, just because he loved his family and was desperate to save them.
Had Jin Ling not already been in love, that would have caused him to fall for his husband.
“But why a marriage?” Jin Ling asked. “Couldn’t you find something else to offer, besides yourself? There had to be something, some of Wei zongzhu's more useless research, or...”
Wen Yuan fell silent. His eyes wandered around the cavern, the people laying there like corpses waiting to be prepared for their burial. His expression soured.
“I wanted to get out of the Burial Mounds,” he admitted. “My main goal was to help my family, of course, but I also wanted to get away from this place, no matter what it would cost me.” Wen Yuan paused, a deep frown creasing his brow. “You must think I’m awful. Wanting to abandon my family like this…”
Jin Ling took his husband’s hand.
He remembered their early days, how they’d all wondered at Wen Yuan’s oddities. He’d seemed like a wild animal, always on edge and clearly unused to the company of others. Back then, Jin Ling had thought his husband was just like those disciples who’d been born in peasant families and didn’t know how to behave among gentry. A little more unpolished than most, a little less educated, perhaps, but nothing truly astonishing after the initial shock. Wen Yuan’s quick progress under Jiang Yanli’s wing had appeared to confirm it.
How could Jin Ling have guessed that the truth was so much worse?
“You didn’t abandon them,” Jin Ling said. “You did all this for them. And it worked. They’re getting better. And you… I’m never letting you be alone like that again.”
Wen Yuan looked at him with wonder, bordering on adoration. It was a very, very cute expression on him, and yet it only made Jin Ling sad that a promise as simple as that had such an effect. Sad, and perhaps a little angry as well that the grown ups in Wen Yuan’s life hadn’t noticed how hard the situation was on him. Or perhaps they had noticed, and thought he could handle it just because they had handled so much worse during the Sunshot Campaign.
Grown ups were like that sometimes, which Jin Ling always found deeply annoying.
Well, he’d do better than all those stupid adults. He’d keep his promise and never leave Wen Yuan alone. He’d make sure that Wen Yuan never regretted the risk he took in getting married to a stranger. He would…
A kiss to his cheek made Jin Ling lose his train of thought.
His face heated up so much he knew he had to look silly, though he didn’t mind too much because Wen Yuan too was ridiculously red.
It made him very cute again.
“I’m so glad we met,” Wen Yuan said with a shy grin. “I’m so glad it was you, out of everyone your grandfather could have chosen. I was so scared at first, but now if I could decide for myself… I’d still pick you.”
“Well, I, the same,” Jin Ling mumbled, feeling as though he might spontaneously combust. “I, uh. I think you’re really great.”
Wen Yuan laughed gently. For a second Jin Ling feared that his ineptitude with words had caused it, but the radiant expression on his husband’s face seemed to say instead that Wen Yuan was just too happy to hide. A fact confirmed when, just a moment later, he leaned toward Jin Ling and gave him another kiss, this time on the lips. Just as quickly, Wen Yuan pulled back and stared at Jin Ling with wide, worried eyes, as if it were still possible that Jin Ling would get angry at him.
How stupid.
Jin Ling loved him so much.
Intent on proving that, Jin Ling wrapped his arms around Wen Yuan’s waist and pulled him closer to…
“Might not be the best time and place for that, hm?” Wei Wuxian said from further inside the cave, startling both of them. “A-Yuan, there’s not enough blood in you at the moment, don’t make it go somewhere it’s not needed.”
Wen Yuan hid a mortified expression behind his hands, while Jin Ling glared at his father-in-law. The only effect that had was to make Wei Wuxian laugh.
“I can’t say if you look more like your father or like your uncle,” he said, before looking down at whatever it was he was doing to a bowl of Wen Yuan’s blood. “Not a compliment either way, I’m afraid. You know, with the way A-Yuan was speaking of you when he got here, I thought maybe you took more after your mother. It would have been better for you.”
“Well, my mom married my dad,” Jin Ling retorted. “And she’s very happy with him, so I’d say taking after him isn’t all bad. And I guess Wen Yuan took after his mother, because he’s certainly a lot nicer than you.”
Wei Wuxian pulled a face at the reminder that Jiang Yanli had married Jin Zixuan. Jin Ling, who had so many siblings, immediately recognised that expression as a brother’s bafflement that a beloved relative was happy doing something immensely stupid, and frustrated that no harm was coming of it so they didn’t have an excuse to make it stop.
Jin Ling had seen it on his own reflection when dealing with Jin Ruyi and Jin Bai, though in the family it was Jin Dongmei who most often displayed it.
“Don’t worry, Wei zongzhu isn’t related to A-Yuan by blood,” Wen Ning announced as he approached with a bowl of watery, lukewarm soup. “And he didn’t have too much to do with raising him either. That’s why our A-Yuan is a level-headed and respectful boy who doesn’t make rash decisions. Except when he secretly gets engaged to strangers from evil sects to help us, of course, but nobody is perfect.”
Perhaps Jin Ling ought to have objected a little more to hearing his sect described as evil, but he was too busy feeling relieved that Wen Yuan’s link to Wei Wuxian was less strong than he’d feared. Not because Wei Wuxian was evil, although there was also that, but rather because even after such a short acquaintance, Jin Ling could tell that Wei Wuxian was a deeply annoying person.
While Wen Yuan drank his soup and nibbled on some now stale buns Jin Ling and him had managed to steal from home when leaving Lanling, Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing kept working on some strange alchemy in the far side of the cave. It involved blood, Wen Yuan’s blood, as well as foul smelling dried flowers which Wen Qing was distillating in alcohol. It all seemed so disgusting that Jin Ling couldn’t bear to look at it for very long.
In the meantime, he tried instead to chat with Wen Ning, eager to show Wen Yuan that he could get alone with his family just as well as Wen Yuan did with his own. It was rather awkward at first. Many topics felt inappropriate when speaking with an undead man, especially when the man in question had some good reasons to resent Jin Ling’s entire sect. Wen Ning had been killed by Jin cultivators, after all. But as it turned out, Jin Ling and him were able to find common ground in their deep seated dislike of certain members of the Jin sect, all thanks to Wen Yuan pointing out that Jin Ling had a long standing feud with Jin Chan, whose father Jin Zixun had been in charge of the camp where Wen Ning died. Complaining about the vanity and self importance of certain people gave them a safe enough topic.
In the end, Wen Ning was scary, but he wasn’t a bad person. Certainly, out of everyone related to Wen Yuan whom Jin Ling had met so far, Wen Ning was the most pleasant and polite.
Sunset came, followed by nightfall. Wen Ning lit up some candles in the cave, then left to prepare some more of his watery soup, apparently the only food to be had. Jin Ling considered flying to Yiling to buy something more substantial there, but quickly decided against it. Wen Yuan was not in a state to fly, and leaving him alone with Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing was unthinkable. If they decided that more blood was needed for their experiment, someone had to stop them from harming Wen Yuan.
The soup was eaten. Wen Ning prepared a space for Jin Ling to sleep, right next to Wen Yuan, as far away as possible from Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing. As they laid down on the ground, Jin Ling reflected that it was the first time they were sleeping in what could, on a technicality, be called the same bed. It wasn’t how he had envisioned that happening, but the same could have been said about every recent development in his marriage.
When Wen Yuan shyly took his hand and smiled at him in the dark, Jin Ling reflected that maybe it didn’t matter how any of that was happening, as long as it happened at all. Mostly, he thought that Wen Yuan’s hand was warm in his, its palm rough from learning swordsmanship and from his life before Lanling, while the back of it was soft, as would certainly be the rest of his skin when Jin Ling finally got to touch it.
Marriage of convenience (Jin Ling x Lan Sizhui - Mo dao zu shi, for @duckprintspress may trope mayhem)
“I can't believe Wei Wuxian managed to rope me into this now,” the sigh that escaped Jin Ling's lips was of the practiced kind, since he had bemoaned his family connection to said man for many years now. It talked volumes of the resignation of someone who was frequently enlisted against his will into Wei Wuxian's impossible schemes.
Next to him, Lan Sizhui laughed against his hand, failing to keep the good nature of his mirth under control.
“You know you can still pull out from all of this, right?”
“It wouldn't do for a sect leader to backtrack on his word.”
At that Lan Sizhui smiled with acceptance, but Jing Ling didn't budge on his opinion.
There had been witnesses to the propositions. Other sect leaders who still thought of Jing Ling as the child who had come into power too soon, too abruptly. And since Jing Ling couldn't punch them in the face, he had to prove them wrong in other ways.
That, and also the idea actually didn't make him recoil that much if at all.
A marriage to Lan Sizhui… Jing Ling's heart was beating faster.
“Would it be really that bad if the other cultivators discovered it?” he blurted out, unable to hide how upset it made him just to think of the consequences.
It took a moment for Lan Sizhui to answer him, time that he used to collect himself and choose his words carefully.
“Too many lives have been terminated by a vicious war, and before that by greed. Those people had families and friends, and they survived them with the heavy burden of grief upon their shoulders. They're still pulling it behind them like a weight that never abandons their hearts.”
Hunched between his shoulders, Lan Sizhui seemed even smaller than he really was.
“If someone were to mention the name of my family, all those wounds would open again and bleed. This, believing the Wens to be exterminated.”
“I see why Wei Wuxian would ask for this union.”
“Wei-qianbei is not a cruel person. He's just…”
“A scheming, double-faced prick!” Jin Ling finished with a scoff, but he froze in place when Lan Sizhui leaned against his shoulder, still trying to hide his small laughs, his fingers inching dangerously close to Jin Ling's ones.
“Don't be mean to him,” there was no real reproach in Lan Sizhui's voice, knowing exactly what kind of man his father figure was.
But Jin Ling thought he had all the rights to be at least a bit spiteful towards Wei Wuxian.
That bastard knew precisely what he had done.
He had tricked everyone into believing that since Lan Sizhui could not inherit the head position of the Lan sect, he might as well become a secondary spouse in another powerful sect to maintain diplomatic relations. And what better candidate than his nephew, who was a friend of Lan Sizhui and would make sure to treat him well.
It was a brilliant plan because it also leaned on Lan Sizhui's conviction that everyone would be out for his skin in case his true origins were to be exposed. Marrying into the Jin sect’s main family though would give him the support of not only one but two strong allies.
Such a fine, double layered plot, if not for a detail that everyone else ignored.
Wei Wuxian knew about the gigantic, colossal crush that Jin Ling had harbored for Lan Sizhui since the moment they had met as young boys.
Really a master of manipulation, that one.
Jin Ling hoped he would appreciate the many jars of Lanling’s best wine he would receive soon.
For the moment though, Jin Ling focused himself on being someone Lan Sizhui could lean on, both physically and emotionally.
And maybe one day, he would be able to hold Lan Sizhui's hand on purpose.
Been a long while since I thought about MDZS, and after reading a couple Royalty AU's, I began wondering about one in which the central characters are the Juniors. An omega WWX is enjoying retirement as Empress Dowager Zhehuang alongside his alpha, the Emperor Emeritus, previously the Hanguang Emperor. First Prince SZ was named Crown Prince despite being an omega and ascended as the dynasty's reigning empress. Before his coronation, he was already married to the only alpha son of the noble Jin clan, Prince Consort JL, and after him, OYZZ entered the household. LJY is Jiang Jingyi, heir to alpha JC and omega LXC. (I know: a ~real~ switcheroo.) As for a plot, there really isn't one; I can only imagine that a child of JZXun or any other uppity noble attempts to stir up trouble within the royal family.
