#mingli

[tbgkaru-woh]

not to be straight on main, I love Jin Zixuan more than anyone, but Nie Mingjue would be such a fun suitor for Yanli, especially chubby Yanli, they could have been so fucking cute

[lotusofyunmeng]

//MingLi aesthetic that I made because I like this ship a lot more than I ever thought I would lol

[hedgehoginkalaziris]

mingli my beloved

[theleakypen]

[chinhands] 3-sentence fic prompt: mingjue and yanli getting takeout

"I could make this at home, Nie-dage," JYL says skeptically, looking over the Soup Shack menu.

NMJ snorts. "I have no doubt you can, but the point is that, one, you don't have to this time, and, two, it's not an all day production." He elbows her affectionately. "Order the dang ramen, Jiang Yanli."

Jiang Yanli flushes and smiles. "Fair enough."

[fauvester]

mingli bonding for a very sweet fic that cursed my dick

[disastermages]

[read it on ao3]

The dock above Jiang Yanli is old and rotten in places, but not rotten enough to give away where she’s hiding underneath it, trying hard not to giggle. Her brothers are supposed to be leading her fiance deeper into the woods and eventually out onto the dock, telling him all sorts of made up ghost stories. The three of them had come up with them together last night, but she had been the one to decide that Jiang Cheng should be the one to tell them, Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but grin and that gave the whole thing away. 

The sound of their voices drawing closer and closer is Jiang Yanli’s cue to dive beneath the surface of the water, unbound hair fanning out like the bloom of a flower as she draws breath into her chest and holds it. All she has to do is wait for Nie Mingjue’s shadow to tower over the water, and then she could wrap her hand around his ankle while Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian both shoved him into the lake.

They couldn’t do this sort of thing when she was engaged to Jin Zixuan. They tried, and he hadn’t taken it well. 

The white robes on her body, layers upon layers of them to keep from allowing them to be come see through, grow heavy and rough in the water, but they do little to slow Jiang Yanli down as the dock above creaks and groans under the weight of three grown men. She can see just enough past the glare of the sun to know that Nie Mingjue is squinting hard at the water, she has to time this perfectly. 

Wei Wuxian leans over Nie Mingjue’s shoulder, pointing something out, and it’s Jiang Yanli’s cue to strike, pushing herself up out of the water with a force she shouldn’t have to wrap both small hands around Nie Mingjue’s ankle while both of her brothers shove their shoulders into his back, pitching him forward while they run away, howling with laughter. 

Jiang Yanli is almost certain that she’s a very convincing corpse, she can’t see past her own hair to tell otherwise, but the way Nie Mingjue splashes and tries to fight against her hands on his arms all but confirms it. He’s reaching for Baxia, Jiang Yanli knows she shouldn’t laugh, but she still does, it makes him stop splashing for just one long moment before reality sinks in.

“You!” Nie Mingjue sputters, hair clinging to his face as he dips below the surface for just a moment before he remembers how to tread water. It’s an improvement, he couldn’t even float when they’d first gotten engaged. Alarm gives way to amusement as he tries to swim towards her, only to be met with empty water as Jiang Yanli dives away from him, black hair and white burial robes billowing out around her. 

Nie Mingjue no longer sinks like a stone, but he still can’t keep up with Jiang Yanli when she truly tries to keep away from him. “I didn’t know Mingjue-dage was so eager to swim with me,” Jiang Yanli grins as she resurfaces, pushing her hair out of her face just to look at him. Some men would have splashed and thundered their way back to the shore by now, but all Nie Mingjue has done is watch her as if she’s something to be marveled at.

He swims towards her carefully, never knowing whether or not she’s going to slip through his fingers again, and admittedly, Jiang Yanli thinks about it, but she lets him draw closer instead. She could push him under again, but that feels too mean, even she wouldn’t forgive herself for that. That’s something her brothers did to each other. 

She chooses to be sweet, instead, brushing wet hair from his face and then pressing that same hand against his cheek. He would get tired of swimming with her soon enough, she has to take what she can.

“I would have swam with you sooner if I’d known you made for such a pretty ghost.” Nie Mingjue smiles when he says it, pressing a kiss to the palm of her hand right after, and Jiang Yanli feels her stomach flip before it fills to the brim with butterflies. It isn’t fair how he can tease her right back after she’d conspired with her brothers to push him into the lake. 

Slowly, they drift closer and closer to the shore, sinking into the mud just a little as they climb out of the water together, water falling off the both of them in sheets. If she’d been alone, Jiang Yanli might’ve just laid on the dock so the sun could dry her from bottom to top, she might’ve even fallen asleep in the sun like that, but who knows what kind of rumors would get spread if anyone caught her lying her cheek on Nie Mingjue’s chest while they dried together?

She should lead him over to the tree trunk where her clothes, her real clothes, not the burial robes she’d bribed her shimei to get for her, lay hidden, but Nie Mingjue’s arms wrap around her waist. He’s careful not to pull her wet hair as he holds her close, his eyes glued to her face. He always treats her as if she’s some great beauty, as if she’s something to be held close to his heart.

The humidity of Lotus Pier is already making both of their hair curl, Jiang Yanli wants nothing more than to reach out and run her fingers through Nie Mingjue’s curls, her eyes blinking wide while he continues to watch her like he can’t bear to let her out of his sight.

She shouldn’t. Jiang Yanli knows that she shouldn’t, but before she can think twice about it, she’s standing on tiptoe to kiss Nie Mingjue. Her arms wrap around his neck, keeping him close and keeping herself up, though she doesn’t need to for long. 

Nie Mingjue picks her up and holds her against him before Jiang Yanli even realizes that she’s being moved, her own hands sliding down to his chest. She can feel his heartbeat there, but it feels far, far too fast for something as simple as picking her up. Carefully, because it might break whatever spell they’re under, Jiang Yanli slides one hand up to Nie Mingjue’s throat, feeling for his pulse and finding it just as fast.

“Sect Leader Nie,” Jiang Yanli calls him that to dump ice water over her own head, her lips still numb from the kiss when Nie Mingjue rests his forehead against hers, his eyes fluttering shut. She needs to get down, she needs to put some sort of distance between them so she doesn’t do anything he might regret. It doesn’t matter that she started it, it doesn’t matter that she played a trick on him or kissed him first. This is too much, she’s done too much, and all Nie Mingjue has done is reward her for it. 

Jiang Yanli doesn’t expect to be kissed again, nor does she expect the kiss to linger as long as it does. She can’t hope to control the soft sound that flutters out of her throat, as if one of the butterflies in her stomach has broken loose. 

“Qinghe’s waters will be too cold and shallow for you to do this again, Lady Jiang.” Nie Mingjue speaks to her softly, but the reminder of her own title does nothing to cool off the warmth that’s building up underneath her cheeks, “You’ll have to find other means of playing tricks after we marry.”

Nie Mingjue still wants to marry her, even after Jiang Yanli pulled him into the lake and pretended to be a ghost. She even dressed the part.

Slowly, and then all too quickly, a smile bursts across Jiang Yanli’s face while her cheeks burn hotter, threatening to dry them both in an instant. They aren’t supposed to be alone together, not until after they’re married, they’ve already broken that rule, among others. She shouldn’t go to Qinghe until the wedding, either, Jiang Yanli knows that. Her wedding robes aren’t even done yet. 

“Perhaps a visit to the Unclean Realm should be arranged,” Jiang Yanli speaks softly, leaning her chin against her hand while she pretends to think, “I’ll have to think of what can be prepared once I settle in, won’t I?”

Jiang Yanli doesn’t expect to see Nie Mingjue grin down at her, but it puts her heart in her throat all the same.

“Your future husband might have tricks of his own, Lady Jiang.” It doesn’t sound like a threat or a warning, it sounds like a promise.

Jiang Yanli can’t wait for him to follow through with it.

[gingersnapwolves]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

hey remember all those months ago when I made these posts about writing a Mingli fic?

*checks* that was, um, in 2020

BUT ANYWAY

 Nie Huaisang was sitting in the aviary, feeling extremely pleased with himself, when Wei Wuxian bounced in and immediately demanded, “Are you trying to steal my shijie?”

 “What?” Nie Huaisang blinked at him with pretend innocence. “Wei-xiong, why would you say such a thing?”

 “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think shijie is an idiot?” Wei Wuxian continued. “I mean, what you’re doing is so blatant that Jin Zixuan noticed, and he is an idiot. So let’s try this again, Nie-xiong – are you trying to steal my shijie and marry her off to your brother?”

 “I sure am,” Nie Huaisang said cheerfully. “I mean, who would you rather have to sit with at family dinners, me or Jin Zixun?”

[guqin-and-flute]

it's been forever since I sent you a prompt for anything, I wish you would write a fic where, but the only thought in my head is mingli and flowers

[Ahhh, Mingli! FOR YOU! 🥰 Mushrooms are...flowers...for these purposes...I guess?]

"And this?"

"Mmm, danzi mahuang, I think! Wen-guniang said it was good for your heart."

"Ah." Mingjue was silent a moment, watching her root around happily in the underbrush. "What about that?" When she turned, he pointed to a tall, alien looking stem with a cluster of buds at the top protruding from a rotten trunk a ways down the slope, in the shade.

Yanli twisted around to look and tilted her head quizzically. "Hm! Some sort of orchid, I think! I'm not quite sure. It looks fairly familiar...."

"And this?" He reached out and carelessly knocked the backs of his knuckles into a nearby bush, making it quiver.

This made his wife give a laugh like a bell, delicate and bright. "Dearest, I don't honestly know that much about plants! Just what I picked up from when we were hiding in Yiling for a time and what I know of around Lotus Pier. I appreciate you keeping me company, but you don't have to come foraging with me, you know," she added. "I just wanted some mushrooms for the stew tonight."

He folded his arms and set his feet further apart, leaning back against the trunk of the tree whose roots he was sitting on. "I'm not going to let you go on your own."

"There are plenty of people that could take me. You seem quite bored."

"I'm not bored. I'm...engaging you. And I have the day off."

"And so you should rest!"

"I am resting. I enjoy spending time with you."

At this, she smiled widely and gracefully rose, brushing loose dirt from her hands and coming over to him. "You're very sweet. You could have brought a book." She stretched out her hands and, automatically, he reached out to take them.

"You know I don't like to read."

"Well, perhaps a technique scroll, then. Or maybe your polish kit, since Baxia is with us."

Tilting his head in acknowledgment of his idea, he looked down at their joined hands, rubbing the backs of them with his thumbs. Hers were cool and damp, soil lining the soft grooves of her knuckles. They were also much smaller and slimmer than his own, not to mention softer, squishier. Mingjue's hands were broad, hard, and calloused with saber work--this thought made his thumbs pause--was he scratching her?

In turn, Yanli freed one of her hands and turned his over, lifting it up closer to her face to peer at his palm. "Hmmm...." she said, with pensive interest.

He waited, swatting away the urge to pull it away and see just what she was looking at with so much intent. The next moment, he was rewarded when she shot him a mischievous look, eyebrows raised. "Do you want to know what I see in the future, Chifeng-zun?"

Indulgently, he cocked his head, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth.

Turning his palm toward him, she pointed at the line that arched closest to his pinky, grooved deep. "Right here. It says you're going to have mushroom stew for dinner."

That broke free his own laugh, sharp and loud, startling birds from trees as it rang down the mountainside.