AU where Wen Ruohan and Wei Wuxian are related through Cangse Sanren - not like, he's actually his dad or anything, but like uncle or grandfather or something - and I know this has been done before but bear with me, because it's literally not what you think, trust. Anyway, Wei Wuxian is related to Wen Ruohan. His parents die, and Jiang Fengmian does not find Wei Wuxian. This is because Wei Wuxian's parents were killed by cultivators and he dodges away from anyone with a sword at their side. Wei Wuxian grows up on the streets, paranoid and scared, until he's fifteen and alone, meagre spiritual energy and barely any attention paid to those around him. That's when he's snatched up by a man in red, one who drags him onto a sword and dumps him by the mountain that nobody else seems to like, and there a rather strange red robed man stands, seemingly holding court at the edge of the Burial Mounds. A group of similarly robed people stand nearby, and then another, smaller group of people robed in gold. They must be cultivators, but Wei Wuxian has no time to think about such a thing when the red robed man speaks, something about a 'sacrifice' to the Burial Mounds or whatever, spoken to a rather nervous looking man looking far too tacky in all of the gold he wears. Obviously, Wei Wuxian begins to struggle yet again. He doesn't want to hear the rest, and then doesn't have to because there's a dagger in his chest and he's being dragged past the informal barrier and dumped into the hell that it the Burial Mounds. What little spiritual energy he may have formed by repeating his mother and father's techniques, the ones they drilled into his head gently and patiently before they were unceremoniously killed, is being dragged to the most certainly fatal wound and trying uselessly to heal the wound with the dagger in the way. He lays in the dry, dusty mud and waits to die, blood hydrating the earth and giving more back to the place that never gave him anything. There's many voices in his ears, screaming shouting sobbing, but then there's one that is quiet, breaking past all the others, soothing and gentle. It speaks in a whisper, telling him that he can close his eyes and relax, that he won't die as long as he lets them in, lets them help. It says that someone cheated, that they didn't read the rules and now they have broken one. This is what will allow Wei Wuxian to live, but he himself is broken. Weak. It can help, they can help, he just needs to let them in and they will make him better than he ever was before, with the power that they can give him and the knowledge they can share he would be able to take any sort of revenge. He deserves so much more than what he have been given, and he is the perfect host. Flexible soul yet unflinching in his morals. Naturally intelligent. Just let them in. They can make him better. And so he does. It will take a while, but he will be able to seek revenge. (There is a warning in the texts that Wen Ruohan used to gain more power, one that made it clear that the related person had to be dead when they were dropped into the Burial Mounds, otherwise it could all backfire on the sacrificer.) ((Let me know if you want to hear more about this, it's just something I've been thinking about. I've got a vague, mini playlist in my mind about it and everything))