Rating:

Mature

Category:

Poly

Fandom:

MDZS/CQL

Relationship:

3zun

Tags:

cannibalism, canon divergent, demonic possession, gaslighting, gore, horror, major character death, minor character death, movie fusion, side wangxian, yuletide 2020

Stats:

Posted on:

2021-01-01

Words:

19,623

It’s wrong. He feels wrong.

There’s something in here with him.

The cell is stone, cold. Xue Yang is suspended against the wall, arms and legs chained. His head is hanging down, but in the dim firelight, as Meng Yao approaches, he lifts his chin.

His smirk is one of a darker cultivator, one who knows unconventional methods.

Xue Yang says, “What have I done to be graced with your presence?”

“I think—” Meng Yao says. He struggles to get the words out. His already weak golden core falters, flickering.  “I believe there is something in here, in my body. With me.”

“Oh?” Xue Yang tilts his head.

“It—It is hungry, I think,” Meng Yao says. So much of his body is protesting. Inside. “I do not know what for.”

“And now you’ve come for my wisdom,” Xue Yang says, nodding.

“No.” And Meng Yao feels his lips moving, letting the sounds come out of his mouth—but the grip on his mind is slipping, growing more and more distant. He wills himself to keep going. “I want it out. I want it gone.”

The weakness in his voice is pathetic. But Meng Yao needs to keep his heart up, his mind up, his core up—keep it in himself, himself, spiritual energy swirling, his veins, his body—

“I see,” Xue Yang says, though nothing in his face gives him away. “I have some ideas, then. But,” and his grin grows wider, as he rattles his chains, “you’ll need to let me out first.”

Meng Yao swallows. “Anything.”

 

 

 

Every so often, Nie Mingjue wonders about Meng Yao—if he’s doing well in Jinlin Tai, under the tutelage of Jin Guangshan. He hadn’t minced words in his recommendation, as Meng Yao deserves no less than an exceptionally high rank—perhaps not as high as he’d been under Nie Mingjue’s command, but his eye for drawing out understated potentials and his mind crafted for strategy meetings should not go to waste. There is no reason for him to be anything less than a commander of a higher ranking, especially with the sect leader as his father.

Yet as the Sunshot Campaign rages on, he hears no whispers about Meng Yao’s achievements on the battlefield, his posture as a commander, any shift in power with his new discipleship in Jinlin Tai. There’s talk of the core commander of the Jin army, who has new and unconventional ideas for how to overtake the Wen army—but nothing about Meng Yao’s contributions. When he allows himself to think about it for long, there’s a faint disturbance in Nie Mingjue’s mind—had Meng Yao not wanted to make a name for himself? Gain his father’s approval? Even a sliver of a mention would put his heart at ease, know that the loss of his best deputy is not in vain; and yet, as the war continues, Meng Yao’s name lives not in a whisper, in the lips of cultivators—only in Nie Mingjue’s head.

But, of course, it is not his concern; Meng Yao is now part of Lanling Jin, so Nie Mingjue does not spend too much time thinking about other sects when he has his own sect to run. Meng Yao has achieved what he wanted—being welcomed into the Jin clan, being a part of it—and so, for Meng Yao’s sake, Nie Mingjue is satisfied.

Qinghe Nie is called to aid in Langya where Meng Yao is stationed, though, an opportunity he doesn’t hesitate in taking.  With his aid, the Jin army recuperates easily enough as the Wen cultivators retreat. There’s no time for Nie Mingjue to look for his previous deputy—especially when Jin Guangshan appears shortly, thanking him, despite looking harried.

He is alone; moreover, he is without a son at his side. “What’s Meng Yao doing nowadays?” he asks Jin Guangshan casually.

Jin Guangshan barely seems to register his words. “Who?”

Meng Yao must be here somewhere. And he knows how the rumors spread as much as he despises them—you don’t have to know Meng Yao is Jin Guangshan’s son to know how he toppled down the stairs of Jinlin Tai. If Nie Mingjue had the power to stop other cultivators from gossiping so crudely, he would; but surely if Nie Mingjue is aware despite his distaste, so must Jin Guangshan be.

“My previous deputy. I recommended him here,” Nie Mingjue says coldly. “Did you not receive my letter?”

Jin Guangshan denies it—must be feigning, says something in Nie Mingjue’s gut. Still, without any proof he has nothing to fight on. If Jin Guangshan insists that he did not receive word that Nie Mingjue had sent an exceptional soldier at his behest, then there is not much Nie Mingjue can do otherwise.

Yet there’s something off—not just with Jin Guangshan, but a niggling at the back of his mind, that he must find Meng Yao. He’s here somewhere, Nie Mingjue just knows, despite what Jin Guangshan says, what the other cultivators he asks say. But he’s ushered away as the battlegrounds get cleaned up for some stupid political shit, so Nie Mingjue does what a good sect leader does and sits politely as Jin Guangshan drones on about what they should do about the Sunshot Campaign—what his army should do, as Jin Guangshan never shows his face on the battlefield.

Yet, even Meng Yao’s absence here feels wrong. Perhaps he would not have earned a high rank so quickly in Langya, despite what Nie Mingjue had written in his letter; but he should not tossed aside, squandered away like some common cultivator, either. Nie Mingjue knows that Meng Yao’s cultivation level is low, but everything else—his way with words, mind for strategy, willingness to deal with politics like this, deserves far more than merely being regarded as a cultivator among cultivators.

And so, when evening falls, after Nie Mingjue has been trying and failing to look for and wonder where the fuck Meng Yao is, he makes his escape from everyone else. But rather than returning to his chambers, or perhaps roping someone into parrying with him to get his mind off—his feet lead him outside, into the forest, where the surprise Langya ambush had taken place. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care about this strange urge, leading him deeper into the wood, the darkness. He might be looking for something, though the grounds are cleaned up, no bodies or uniforms.

On a breath, he tastes something strange in his mouth—blood, perhaps he had bitten the inside of his cheek without noticing. The night air is cool and haunting, and Nie Mingjue almost wishes a monster would come out so he could go at it with Baxia, lose his head in the movements of his saber. As it is, he trawls through the brambles and trees, allowing that strange tug in his mind to guide him, blood from the fight buried beneath the dirt under his shoes.

Then, behind him, a noise.. Stepping out from a cluster of trees is a slim figure.

Under the moonlight, Meng Yao’s face glows white.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t believe in divine retribution, but it feels almost like a conjuring from his mind. “Meng Yao,” he breathes.

Meng Yao pauses. Considers him. He brings his fingers to his lips—there’s something there, but Nie Mingjue can’t see what it is as Meng Yao licks, sucks it off. Heat rolls in Nie Mingjue’s stomach.

He rushes to Meng Yao. “How are you? Are you alright?” he asks, but Meng Yao stays as he is, eyeing the fingers he just licked. He looks the same as before—better and healthier, possibly, with the way his skin is glowing in the darkness. Hair dark and sleek.

Meng Yao meets his gaze. His lips draw into a smile that makes Nie Mingjue’s gut hot. “Nie-zongzhu,” he says.

And then he’s closer, so close that Nie Mingjue can barely breathe. His lips, cheek, mouth are so close to Nie Mingjue’s face, and it takes a moment to realize that Meng Yao is lingering around his neck, inhaling. Smelling him.

And it’s—Nie Mingjue is not frightened of many things. But Meng Yao so close to him is like having a blade pressed to his neck, and Nie Mingjue is frozen still, heart pounding in his ears. Everything and nothing about this situation feels right, and he knows that the next move that gets made will not be his.

Meng Yao says, “Nie-ge.”

And then he’s off Nie Mingjue. And Nie Mingjue’s eyes have been wide open, but then he blinks, and—Meng Yao is gone, disappeared into the night. The forest is as quiet and dark as it’s always been, undisturbed, bloodless and bodiless as if there had never been a battle here in the first place.

The ghost of Meng Yao’s touch hovers against his skin. The disturbing tug in the back of Nie Mingjue’s mind grows louder.

 

 

 

Meng Yao remembers waking up, hurting all over—and yet, a strange calmness that had overtaken him from the inside. Alone now, here, faintly hearing Xue Yang say, “Well?” but cannot yet bring himself to respond. When he had opened his mouth, there was dryness, saliva gathering in his mouth—and along with that serenity, an emptiness.

He remembers standing up, remembering how to move his body, his limbs. And yet that hollow feeling in his chest was still there.

He had said, to Xue Yang, “I believe it worked.”

 

 

 

“That is Meng Yao,” Nie Mingjue says.

He and Jin Guangshan are walking around and checking on both armies; with the way he hadn’t seen Meng Yao at all during the day prior, he hadn’t expected to run into him again so easily.

Meng Yao jerks his head up from where he’d been drinking his water, at the sound of his name, and his eyes widen in surprise.

“Nie-zongzhu!” he says, then glances at Jin Guangshan. Nie Mingjue notices how he immediately lowers his eyes at his father.

“Jin-zongzhu,” he says, instead of fuqin.

“Ah,” Jin Guangshan says, his expression—blank. Unreadable. “Yes, of course, I remember when he joined my forces here in Langya.” He’s talking more to Nie Mingjue now.

Nie Mingjue frowns. Both because Meng Yao is behaving perfectly normally, like last night hadn’t happened, and because Jin Guangshan is not even looking at his son. “I gave him a letter to give to you,” he says.

“A letter? He must’ve forgotten it.”

“I didn’t,” Meng Yao says quietly, but does not falter when Jin Guangshan looks at him again. “I requested your presence so I could give it to you directly.”

Jin Guangshan shrugs. “Then someone must’ve misplaced it then,” he says, and begins walking away. “No matter—”

“No,” Nie Mingjue interrupts. Regardless of whatever the fuck last night was—”Meng Yao is a man of exceptional talents,” he tells Jin Guangshan. “He deserves to rise above his station. And he is your son, is he not?”

Jin Guangshan flounders at this, especially under the intense stares of both Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao. “Is he? I might have too many sons to count.” He laughs awkwardly.

“My mother was Meng Shi,” Meng Yao tells him. “You gave her a pearl. I showed it to a servant on—”

He falls silent. Nie Mingjue wishes he didn’t know why.

“Ah, right, right,” Jin Guangshan says, to Nie Mingjue’s surprise. “Meng Shi, lovely woman from Yunmeng,” he tells Nie Mingjue, who doesn’t even try to pretend to care. “How is she?” he asks Meng Yao.

Meng Yao’s face is hard, for a second; then back to normal. “She passed away.”

“Unfortunate, that,” Jin Guangshan says, and turns to move on again. “But I believe idle talk is not something we have much time for, when Wen Ruohan must be preparing to strike again. Where’s my commander?” He looks over the sea of their men who are resting, healing, meditating. Some are housed while others take their rest on bamboo cots outside.

Meng Yao speaks up again. “I do believe he fell during the battle yesterday.”

“Nonsense.” Jin Guangshan waves him off. “We spoke after the Wens surrendered, before I attended to Nie-zongzhu here.” He nods to Nie Mingjue.

But then another cultivator sitting nearby says, “We haven’t seen him since last night. We tried looking everywhere for the commander, but he hasn’t shown up at all.”

“Strange. He must be resting somewhere,” Jin Guangshan says.

But though he sends men—and Nie Mingjue, who volunteers—to find the Langya commander, they don’t find him in any building, on the grounds, or hidden away in the woods somewhere. They spend the day searching; Meng Yao does not trail them, though he does inquire about the search as Nie Mingjue comes back from the forest.

“I’m certain I saw him get stabbed yesterday,” Meng Yao says.

Nie Mingjue is inclined to believe him, but—”I hardly saw you yesterday, Meng Yao,” he says. “What were you doing in the woods last night?”

Meng Yao smiles at him. “What do you mean? And I was on the field all day yesterday, Nie-zongzhu.”

“You weren’t, but I ran into you—”

“I’m getting concerned, Nie-zongzhu,” Meng Yao says, though his voice is light. Teasing. “How you’re hearing things and seeing things. Maybe you should talk to someone about these disturbing thoughts you’re having.”

“Piss off,” Nie Mingjue says.

But Meng Yao laughs and switches tack. “If the commander is gone, then who will take his place?” he asks. “Whether he’s died or fled, someone needs to take over his position.”

And when the day comes to an end, Jin Guangshan must realize this as well, as his Langya army is still in desperate need of someone to command them. He looks even worse than yesterday—”It’s not like him to just disappear,” he says to Nie Mingjue. “And if he died, then why haven’t we found his body?”

“Perhaps it got mixed in with the other bodies when the battlegrounds got cleared out,” Nie Mingjue suggests.

Jin Guangshan shakes his head. “Impossible. Then someone must’ve seen, must’ve said—”

But there’s no luck the next day, or the day after that. Nie Mingjue sticks around because he wants to know the answer to this mystery too, although it seems more and more likely that the commander either defected or died without a trace.

Langya needs someone in power.

Meng Yao hasn’t brought up the issue of Nie Mingjue’s letter again.

Nie Mingjue requests an audience with Jin Guangshan the day before he leaves—a private one, sect leader to sect leader.

“Jin-zongzhu,” he says, when they’re alone. “I know I mentioned it before, but Meng Yao really has a brilliant mind—he’s the most effective deputy I’ve ever had. If he did not want to work under Lanling Jin, I would take him back as mine in a heartbeat.”

He watches as Jin Guangshan’s expression turns more and more resigned.

“Whatever happened to the letter I wrote for you doesn’t matter,” he tells Jin Guangshan. “I’m here now, and now Langya needs a commander. I cannot stress enough how effective Meng Yao would be in that position. He obeys orders better than anyone who’s ever worked under me, and always has creative and strategic suggestions, in and outside the battlefield.”

He looks Jin Guangshan dead in the eye.

“I cannot tell Jin-zongzhu how to lead his sect,” he says. “But it would be an immense waste of potential to not allow Meng Yao to wield that power.”

Jin Guangshan sighs. “You’re right, you can’t tell me how to run my sect,” he says.

Nie Mingjue opens up his mouth to fight.

“But I know that barely anyone else here is qualified for such power. All gossiping, power hungry idiots.” Jin Guangshan rolls his eyes.

Nie Mingjue is pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to talk about your army of cultivators.

“So with your advice, I suppose there’s no harm in giving that position to Meng Yao.” Jin Guangshan toys with the jewelry around his fingers. “It’s not like there’s a worse option.”

“I am grateful to have helped you make this decision,” Nie Mingjue says diplomatically, even though he clenches his fists because Meng Yao is nowhere near being the worst option—he should be thought of as the best one. “He is your son, after all.”

“I’m sure that’s what he told you,” Jin Guangshan says, but it means nothing to Nie Mingjue when he’s seen the way Meng Yao separates himself from the gossiping cultivators, has never bothered to fight when they talk about his teenage fall at Jinlin Tai.

And so—it is this Meng Yao who is placed in charge of the soldiers in Langya. This Meng Yao, looking healthier than before, beaming and all dimples as Jin Guangshan declares it, before Nie Mingjue heads back to Qinghe with his men.

It’s on the ride back when Nie Mingjue remembers that Meng Yao has an affinity for cleaning up after the battlefields.

 

 

 

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” says Xue Yang.

The hunger is not like human hunger—it’s at his core, feels like it’s taking over his whole body. He does not feel it now—the Langya commander’s horrid mouth is buried under meters of dirt—but he remembers it, aching from the bottom of his stomach.

Meng Yao smiles. “I’m glad you think so,” he says. The good thing about feeding is that it makes him feel like royalty, even though his father will still barely look at him despite elevating his station. No matter. For now, Langya is enough.

Xue Yang snorts. “I’m assuming that becoming accustomed to your new… powers has not found any difficulties, then.”

“No, not quite,” are the words Meng Yao says, despite that getting the commander alone had not been a convenient feat.  “In fact, I’ve gained more than I expected.”

Xue Yang cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Meng Yao is standing inside of his cell. They’re a good distance apart; Meng Yao will never become like Xue Yang, he thinks. Caught, captured. Powerless.

“Yes,” Meng Yao continues with some thought. “I’ve gained the position of being the head commander of the cultivators at Langya.”

Xue Yang bows his head. It’s mocking. “Congratulations, Commander,” he says with a grin. “I’m glad our sacrifice has worked out for you.”

“Indeed,” Meng Yao murmurs, although it’s no matter of the ritual he and Xue Yang had done together. The previous commander had stolen his ideas so many times that it’s not like Meng Yao hadn’t been thinking of killing him, eventually. Would Nie Mingjue still have recommended him for the position if Meng Yao wasn’t like this? It’s likely.

Xue Yang rattles his chains. “So what’re we gonna do now? Gonna let me go and say that I ‘escaped’? Promise I’ll pay you back—I think we can help each other out a lot.”

“Actually,” Meng Yao says, taking a step forward, “I think I should hold off on us owing each other favors. Don’t you?”

This is the first time something falters in Xue Yang’s expression. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” and Meng Yao feels that hunger surge through his veins, his skin. He is not hungry, no. But it is easy to channel that, especially when he remembers the way the dead commander had slid his blade into Meng Yao’s chest, how his eyes had widened when Meng Yao pulled it out without hesitation, feeling his skin stitch back up.

“I mean,” he says, “it’s so easy for me now, on the battlefield, with enemies, don’t you think? I hardly need cultivation now, much less a golden core.”

Xue Yang’s eyes narrow as Meng Yao gets closer. There’s a spark of fear.

“And it’s so inconvenient that there’s someone who knows what’s happened to me.” Meng Yao breathes in Xue Yang’s scent. He is greasy from weeks and months without bathing. His blood and organs must be hot. “Who knows what I have to do to get my power.”

Xue Yang’s laugh sounds forced. “Gongzi, what are you talking about? I did you a favor, didn’t I?”

“And I’m very grateful you did,” Meng Yao says solemnly. “I’ll be sure to remember it.”

Xue Yang looks like he’s about to speak—and then a scream fills the air.

Then, blissful silence.

 

 

 

The Jin station at Langya helps Qinghe Nie tear through Wen Ruohan’s armies in every city Qishan Wen had taken for themselves—Yangquan in particular starts as a powerful siege that ends in the Wen cultivators pleading for mercy.

Working with Meng Yao feels right again, especially as Meng Yao smiles over Nie Mingjue at strategy meetings—but there’s still something. Something not quite right.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t know what it is; it’s not like Meng Yao could’ve changed very much for the months they were apart. Yet he can’t help bringing it up one afternoon after they discussed how to take over Nightless City: “You’re different, Meng Yao.”

“Am I, Nie-zongzhu?” Meng Yao smiles up at him, then down at his shoes. “I suppose I’m just glad that there are others who can recognize me like you do. Although you’ve always seen me like this.”

That is—not what Nie Mingjue meant, and warmth creeps up his neck. “Langya has changed you,” he tries, though feels like he’s aiming blindfolded. (Although he can aim perfectly well with a blindfold on.)

“Has it?” Meng Yao says.

And maybe it hasn’t. But there is a comfortable weight on Meng Yao’s shoulders these days, moving deftly between meetings, unfalteringly receiving and giving orders. Paired with the way he seems to glow, like a deity blesses him each morning, he is a vision among the war, among the bloodshed.

Nie Mingjue cuffs his shoulder. He’s careful not to touch too much, not to get too close, because—

“For the better, I think,” he concedes.

Meng Yao smiles back. “When is Zewu-Jun arriving?”

Lan Xichen is due to arrive this afternoon, along with the Lan and Jiang troops. Nie Mingjue hopes to end this in the next fortnight, as the Wen’s forces get weaker; the only thing more glorious than Wen Xu’s head on a stick will be Wen Ruohan’s. With the added news of Xue Yang no longer being a threat—he’d been discovered dead in Jinlin Tai last month, horribly mutilated— the tides have fully begun to turn. And Baxia, of course, rings greed and glutton, with each Wen-dog that she slices through bringing her more pleasure, though Nie Mingjue pushes that down. War is horrible with each drop of blood spilt, but the saber spirit craving the taste slithers down his spine, at the edges of his golden core.

Lan Xichen does arrive later that day, with his brother, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Wanyin in tow. They are all appropriately impressed at how Meng Yao’s coordinated the Jin troops, especially since Nie Mingjue’s started lingering around them in case he catches snippets of them gossiping about Meng Yao’s origins. But it seems to be of no concern to Meng Yao, as he flits between conversations, discussing strategy with Nie Mingjue or divulging to Lan Xichen what being a disciple of Lanling is like as himself or managing his men as Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen walk along the grounds, conversing about how they know that the Sunshot Campaign is coming to an end.

“A-Yao is so much happier,” Lan Xichen says one morning. He’s taking tea and breakfast with Nie Mingjue in his chambers, his visits something Nie Mingjue has always looked forward to when waking up is otherwise a dull affair.

“I agree,” Nie Mingjue says, though then he thinks of the first night he arrived in Langya, Meng Yao’s strange behavior. “But does he seem any different otherwise to you?”

“What do you mean?” Lan Xichen asks pleasantly.

Maybe that night had been a fluke. But Nie Mingjue remembers, the heat of Meng Yao’s skin—

“Never mind,” he mutters, and sips at his tea.

Lan Xichen sets his teacup down. “I must thank you, Mingjue-ge,” he says. “We both know Meng Yao has had a difficult time in the cultivation world despite his efforts, but it seems that you and I both see him as he deserves to be seen.”

“Of course,” Nie Mingjue says, though there’s a sliver of doubt in the back of his mind. But he still has no explanation for it—Meng Yao is perfectly normal, nothing different except with more power, more grace. “He deserves no less than to be treated like an equal.”

Lan Xichen beams, inclines his head. “Indeed.”

As the days go on, though, exhaustion begins to creep over Meng Yao’s face. Nie Mingjue isn’t really paying attention to it—one day Meng Yao is his bright-eyed, well-spoken self; the next, there are bags under his eyes and his hair looks limp as if he’s forgotten to take care of it this morning.

“You need more rest,” Nie Mingjue tells him after another strategy meeting. Meng Yao’s eyes are glassy, though he snaps his head up when Nie Mingjue speaks.

His smile looks forced. “I’ve been getting rest,” he says.

“Bullshit. You need to take care of yourself,” Nie Mingjue says.

Meng Yao’s lips tighten. “I’m doing what I can, Nie-zongzhu. War is just stressful.”

“Then find ways to destress.” Nie Mingjue packs up the papers from his desk. “Ask Xichen to play you the Song of Clarity. I’m sure your golden core needs some rinsing.”

Despite the shadows under his eyes, Meng Yao chuckles.

Nie Mingjue glances at him. “What?”

Meng Yao turns away. “Nothing,” he says.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

With some clever maneuvering, they siege on Nightless City, all four clans’ armies at once. Despite the surprise, Wen Ruohan is still prepared, fierce corpses taking on their cultivators by the numbers as they try to fend them off.

But that’s what Nie Mingjue is here for—while they duel it out on the battlefield, he will sneak into Fire Palace and overtake Wen Ruohan before he knows what’s coming to him. Meng Yao will head the Langya army and Nie Mingjue will drive his sword into Wen Ruohan; it’s time to put this to an end, once and for all. He ignores the doubt in his mind, a strange quiet, as he makes his way through the corridors, wielding Baxia and slicing through the throats of anyone who dares cross him.

It gets darker and darker in Fire Palace—corridors begin to look like walls begin to look like corridors, and the candles are so low, so red that it’s hard to see in front of him. He has Baxia prepared as the number of guards whittle down, until he finds himself surrounded mostly by darkness, trying to find his way—it feels like he is in the right place, as he continues with each step.

Then, a familiar voice:  “Don’t you think I have a lot to offer, Wen-zongzhu?”

A sliver of crimson teases out from where Nie Mingjue has pressed his back against a wall. A wall—a door, slid open, left ajar by the barest amounts. The inside is dark enough that Nie Mingjue would’ve easily missed it, if the voice, the familiarity of the voice hadn’t brought him to a halt.

Wen Ruohan replies, gravelly, “There is nothing to trust you for—you came with your so-called Sunshot Campaign, did you not?”

Meng Yao’s quiet laughter pierces through Nie Mingjue’s head, though he would not have heard if he was not listening for it. “Indeed, but why shoot down the sun when it is so majestic? So… enthralling.” His voice turns sultry, making something burn in Nie Mingjue’s gut.

Every part of him is screaming to storm inside, slash Wen Ruohan at the throat, Meng Yao—throttle him, watch the light dull from his playful eyes. His qi surges through his veins like anger, yet somehow—

Wen Ruohan’s voice grows dangerous. “I am not a cut-sleeve!” he says, though there is a waver—a weakness, a shuffling of cloth.

“Indeed, yet you have no concubines for yourself,” says Meng Yao. “Would it be too much for Wen-zongzhu to indulge in such pleasures?”

Nie Mingjue’s grip around Baxia tightens—he remembers the lithe body pressed against his, the heat, the passion—

Wen Ruohan speaks, breaking him out of his thoughts, the memory.

“It is not—” he’s spluttering, like a fool. “I would never—I am not—”

Despite his words, breaths get cut off. An unspeakable feeling surges through Nie Mingjue’s body until it almost blinds him with rage, and he storms in, red candles feeling like blood behind his eyes.

There’s the sound of a blade unsheathing. And the sight he comes to is not what he’s expecting.

Meng Yao hovering over Wen Ruohan—Wen Ruohan at his mercy, stripped nearly naked, skin aglow in the dim candlelight. The shock on his face, the lust, still there, unequivocal. And suddenly Nie Mingjue feels better that this is what he comes to, Meng Yao’s hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword, dragging it out as his wide eyes meet Nie Mingjue.

“Nie—” he starts.

“Don’t,” Nie Mingjue growls. He approaches, steps around Wen Ruohan’s lifeless body. He is limp on the ground; outside, the fierce corpses fall away like crumbling buildings.

His blood seeps out of his naked body, dark like tar. “You came here alone,” Nie Mingjue says, meeting Meng Yao’s gaze. “Why?”

“I—”

“The assassination had been planned for me to come. My cultivation level is high enough.” At his height, Nie Mingjue towers over Meng Yao. Meng Yao has never seemed smaller or meeker in these moments, but right now, with the conversation he has heard moments before Wen Ruohan’s death, like an animal playing with its food, Nie Mingjue wishes. With his unsuppressed fury, the envy—and yet Meng Yao does not have the sense to look smaller, guileless.

As it is, Meng Yao bows his head but not his shoulders. “I should have told Nie-zongzhu,” he says, “but I felt that I am quieter, less recognizable, more,” his gaze flickers over Nie Mingjue’s body, “discreet.”

He turns back to Wen Ruohan’s corpse. “But it is no matter, as the filth is dead—”

“Why would you want to go through Fire Palace alone?” Nie Mingjue demands. “With your golden core—”

“Do I need a golden core to drive a blade through a man’s body?” Meng Yao points out. He sheathes his blade away, dripping blood and all. “It is over now. Does it matter who killed Wen Ruohan?” He sneers with disgust at Wen Ruohan’s naked body.

Nie Mingjue ignores the pleased flutter in his chest at this. “I will not take credit for your actions,” he says. “Regardless, it was your blade, your hand.”

“I would not think Nie-zongzhu would do something so dishonorable, anyhow.” Meng Yao’s tone turns light now.

Nie Mingjue cuffs him on the shoulder. “When I tell the others it was you—when I tell Jin Guangshan it was you, he is bound to recognize you. Not as a commander, but as his son.”

Meng Yao’s eyes shine bright, despite the shadows of the room. “Nie-zongzhu.”

“I do not approve of you having gone through with this independently,” Nie Mingjue is harsh to point out. “But, it is as you said. It does not matter, as Wen Ruohan is dead.”

Meng Yao bows to him. Now, he makes himself look smaller—yet Nie Mingjue wants to see him, take him as an equal, as his own. It was what Nie Mingjue used to know, back in Qinghe, despite the gossip of other men. He remembers Meng Yao then, at his side, against his tongue, in his bed, warm and smiling in the snow-glow sunlight.

“Thank you, Nie-zongzhu,” Meng Yao says. “If you would like to check on our men, please allow me to clean up the mess I have made.”

“Of course.” Nie Mingjue kicks at Wen Ruohan’s unmoving body. His wide-open eyes are disturbing, corpse lying in the fresh pool of his blood. “You’re too good at cleaning up the trash, A-Yao.”

Meng Yao beams at him. “It is my pleasure.”

 

 

 

At the banquet that night, Meng Yao looks healthier than ever, as if he had eaten the sun to glow for himself.

 

 

 

Nie Mingjue doesn’t let himself think about it for too long, however. If Meng Yao—now Jin Guangyao, as Nie Mingjue had been correct and Jin Guangshan had taken in the killer of Wen Ruohan with open arms, as if A-Yao had always been a part of his family—had wanted to assassinate Wen Ruohan himself, why hadn’t he said anything? He was under no obligation to divulge his plans to other commanders, Nie Mingjue tells himself—but why not tell Nie Mingjue who always trusted him, believed in him? If he had wanted a part of Nie Mingjue’s revenge for killing his father, he would have only needed to say the word and Nie Mingjue would have brought him on. Anyone else and Nie Mingjue would have declined immediately, but A-Yao is right—he is quiet, discreet, unrecognizable. He would not make a single misstep at Nie Mingjue’s side.

What if Nie Mingjue had arrived later? Would he have encountered Meng Yao seducing Wen Ruohan to his fullest, letting his guard down before stabbing him in the throat? Would Meng Yao have been naked too, mounted onto Wen Ruohan’s body, purring, “Give me a moment, Da-Ge,” before murdering Wen Ruohan with his manhood still inside Meng Yao’s body? Blood spurting from his mouth as Meng Yao rode him—or if Nie Mingjue had never arrived, perhaps he would not have killed Wen Ruohan at all. Perhaps he would have told everyone Wen Ruohan was dead, took him for his own, his fierce corpses, his everything—

No, Jin Guangyao would not. He does not doubt that anyone has intended anything other than death for Wen Ruohan, even A-Yao—even if Nie Mingjue had not put his word in as a witness, A-Yao would have brought Wen Ruohan’s dead body out for all to see, the glory of his assassination falling on no one’s shoulders but his own. Nie Mingjue has no doubt that he must have figured this himself, that with a witness or not, if Meng Yao had murdered Wen Ruohan, he would have made sure everyone would know. He would not be as despicable to join Qishan Wen for himself, though Nie Mingjue tries not to think too hard about what he had heard—about Jin Guangyao offering himself up as a concubine, the husky low tone of his voice, his lips, bruised and battered and bloodied—

Jin Guangshan is delighted enough to host a various number of celebrations for the end of the Sunshot Campaign, though on the third day there’s a restless ache in Nie Mingjue’s body. Still, he manages to ignore it, ignore Baxia screaming for blood when Lan Xichen says, “You look better than ever, A-Yao.”

Jin Guangyao’s smile dimples at him. “Thank you, Er-ge.”

“Lianfang-zun is what they’re calling you,” Nie Mingjue says with a snort. “But there is no shame in any names you have taken on.”

Jin Guangyao turns his smile to him. “Da-ge is too kind,” he says; Nie Mingjue pretends that the new form of address doesn’t make his skin tingle with desire. “I am thankful, in any case, to be able to take on the name Jin.”

“You’ve deserved no less,” Lan Xichen says. “You’re still the same A-Yao to us.”

“Being recognized by Jin Guangshan isn’t that much of an honor,” Nie Mingjue grumbles. “But I can’t say anymore, I don’t want to incriminate myself.”

Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao laugh.

If Jin Guangyao had any other motivations for killing Wen Ruohan alone, Nie Mingjue cannot think of them—even as precariousness lingers at the side of his mind, it’s unfounded. Regardless of whether Nie Mingjue had known or not, nothing would have changed—Wen Ruohan would still be dead, Jin Guangyao still would be recognized. It would certainly be different if Nie Mingjue had killed Wen Ruohan instead, as Meng Yao would still be Meng Yao—but then Nie Mingjue would have insisted on taking him back as his deputy, if Meng Yao had been unhappy with his position in Lanling Jin. Nie Mingjue would have guaranteed Meng Yao received the honor he deserved, for his intelligence and his capability.

Wen Ruohan’s body has been disposed of—Nie Mingjue does not know how, but Jin Guangyao had cleaned up extremely well, as the secret room is now stainless, bathed in yellow candlelight the next time Nie Mingjue sees. There’s not a trace of his blood, his flesh, and the only fierce corpses move by Wei Wuxian’s command, which—is something Lan Xichen insists his brother is taking care of.

“Wei Wuxian’s cultivation methods are questionable,” Nie Mingjue says to him one day. “And digging up graves—”

“He hasn’t done so since the Sunshot Campaign ended. Wangji told me,” Lan Xichen tells him. “Wangji says he will look at our musical texts when we return to Gusu. To find other ways for Wei Wuxian to practice his cultivation.”

“Your brother’s stubbornness knows no bounds,” Nie Mingjue says, and Lan Xichen smiles at this.

It is Xichen’s idea as well to take an oath together, the three of them—Nie Mingjue winning battle after battle against Qishan Wen, Lan Xichen’s reputation of sweeping in and rescuing those who were in danger, Jin Guangyao’s final assassination, the blood still on his blade. “People talk about the three of us,” Lan Xichen says that evening before the banquet. “How we bring them hope.”

“You bring them hope,” Jin Guangyao points out. “Da-ge brings them awe.”

“And fear,” Nie Mingjue says. “Don’t think I haven’t heard men talking about how they’re too afraid to cross me.”

“It’s ridiculous, I agree,” Jin Guangyao says with a nod. “They say your anger is legendary, but I’ve never seen it.”

“Nor have I,” Lan Xichen adds, eyes twinkling.

Nie Mingjue growls. “Now that’s not true. You both know—”

But Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao break into peals of laughter. “I think Da-ge likes being feared,” Jin Guangyao says. “Is that anger on purpose, Da-ge?”

“I do not! But the both of you—” Nie Mingjue feels his cheeks warm as the words die from his mouth. “Your brother isn’t afraid of me,” he says to Lan Xichen, to deflect.

“Indeed. But he is also careful not to cross you,” Lan Xichen says. “And it is the three of us who spark that confidence, for everyone to know that Gusu Lan, Qinghe Nie, and now Lanling Jin will forever remain as strong allies, because of us.”

“You do recall my saber spirit,” Nie Mingjue reminds him. “It will not be long, before—”

“We have time,” Lan Xichen says. “And there is a Song of Clarity, at least, to put it at bay. A-Yao and I have been talking.” He nods at Jin Guangyao. “He is learning it on the guqin, from me.”

Nie Mingjue thinks of his brother. “And there is the matter of Huaisang—”

“Da-ge, you’re thinking too much,” Jin Guangyao says, putting a hand on his arm. He looks better than the most expensive concubine, than a maiden on her wedding day. Nie Mingjue’s eyes strain to look directly at him. “Why do we not listen to what Er-ge has to say, and discuss the matter of your saber spirit later?”

And so they do; and at the banquet, the three of them take a triumvirate oath, a swearing of brotherhood. It is miles away from what Nie Mingjue wants from them—from both of them, though what he and Lan Xichen used to do as teens goes unspoken now. But it is the next best, and close, as they do talk about visits, after, and the saber spirit, and Huaisang, who Nie Mingjue accidentally lashed out at before dinner. And so they are sworn brothers, 三尊, and Nie Mingjue ignores the uneasy feeling in his gut as his eyes meet Jin Guangyao’s.

It is easier to pass off the feeling as lust, rather than suspicion.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

And so the cultivation world goes on, progresses beyond the bloodshed Wen Ruohan had inflicted upon them all. They depart with their sects, though Jin Guangshan claims Nightless City as Jin territory, and Nie Mingjue doesn’t care enough to argue with the Chief Cultivator about it. Possession of previous Wen land means less to him now that the war is over and Baxia makes her thirst for blood louder, more acute, with each night hunt, each monster she craves and consumes.

And of course there’s the matter of hiding it from Huaisang, and also the matter of Wei Wuxian’s possession of his so-called Yin Hu Fu. With so much going on, even if Nie Mingjue wanted to voice his strange feeling about Jin Guangyao to Lan Xichen, he wouldn’t—he does not make baseless claims, accusations without the slightest amount of proof. And he doubts that Lan Xichen would take to such implications, anyway; his most redeeming quality (and most foolish, if Nie Mingjue were asked) is his ability to believe in the best of everyone. No, even suggesting his skepticism to Xichen would not help matters at all, so Nie Mingjue tucks it in the back of his mind and keeps silent.

In continuing with the celebration of the fall of Wen Ruohan some weeks later, back in Qinghe, there’s a tickling in his mind when Nie Mingjue receives a summons for a guest. He arrives in the main hall to find Jin Guangyao, tired and pale but still smiling, who bows as Nie Mingjue approaches.

“Enough of that. I thought Xichen trained that out of you,” Nie Mingjue says, lifting Jin Guangyao’s arms back up.

Jin Guangyao meets his eyes. “Regarding Da-ge is not the same as greeting Er-ge.”

“Nonsense,” Nie Mingjue says with a roll of his eyes.

They head towards Nie Mingjue’s office, Jin Guangyao pressing close—but not too close, not uncomfortable. “How is Huaisang?” Jin Guangyao asks conversationally.

“He’s—well, you know. Dillydallying with his art, not putting enough energy into sword practice.” Nie Mingjue thinks spitefully of the books of poetry in Huaisang’s room. He’s going to have to talk to someone about hiding those away from him.

Jin Guangyao says, neutrally, “Indeed, though it is good he is putting his energy into anything at all, instead of lazing around.”

“I’d rather him laze around.”

“You don’t mean that, Da-ge,” Jin Guangyao says as they approach his office. “And even if you do—well.”

He brandishes an envelope from his robes. An invitation, Nie Mingjue recognizes, from the Lanling Jin letterhead, the pretentious seal on the back they use to invite the other major sects for Jin-hosted events.

“We’re organizing a night hunt for all the sects who took part in the Sunshot Campaign,” Jin Guangyao continues. “And I thought I might have the honor of delivering Qinghe Nie’s invitation in person.”

“A night hunt would be good,” Nie Mingjue says thoughtfully. “Up the morale, get the cultivators’ blood pumping.”

“Indeed,” Jin Guangyao says, beaming.

He’s standing so close to Nie Mingjue now—they’ve not sat down, and Nie Mingjue still has the proffered invitation in hand. Jin Guangyao leans in, and Nie Mingjue can almost hear him breathing. His heart quickens at the proximity.

He steps away, towards his desk. “Well, of course I accept the invitation,” he says, opening the encasing and casting a brief glance over it. “I’ll bring plenty of cultivators as well. And Huaisang, of course.”

“Of course.” Jin Guangyao moves close to him again. Infinitesimally, his nostrils flare. “I do look forward to seeing you participate as well. You could certainly destroy so many guai that it’ll be difficult for everyone else.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Nie Mingjue says. He wants to shift away, but—Jin Guangyao is the type to call him out for it. He is so close, so warm.

He laughs. “We both know that you have difficulty discerning what is a reasonable amount for normal people,” he says. “Remember when I used to accompany you on your night hunts? Your men would ask you where you got your injuries and you’d say it was minor, just from ten gui or so.”

“That’s not much,” Nie Mingjue argues, and Jin Guangyao chuckles again.

“Not for you, perhaps. But you underestimate how much even one guai can affect a person,” he says.

There are dark shadows under his eyes. At their proximity, Nie Mingjue can’t help but say, “Have you been sleeping properly A-Yao? You look terrible again.” He furrows his eyebrows.

Jin Guangyao does step away at this, turning his gaze elsewhere, off Nie Mingjue’s face. “I am fine, Da-ge,” he says, voice thin. “It was just a long journey here from Lanling.”

“Then you must stay and rest,” Nie Mingjue says.

Jin Guangyao shakes his head. “The night hunt is in several days. I must head to Gusu for Er-ge’s invitation as well.”

As Nie Mingjue looks closer, the differences in Jin Guangyao are staggering. It’s so easy to get swept away by his smooth voice, enticing eyes—yet there is dryness to his skin, stiffness to the strands of hair framing his face, something lackluster about him.

Jin Guangyao’s gaze flickers over him again—something unreadable enters his expression. “Thank you for your hospitality, Da-ge, however brief,” he says. “I will try to rest on my journey to Gusu.”

He departs, and Nie Mingjue hopes he will look better at the night hunt on Phoenix Mountain.

 

 

 

Blood and fear and Nie Mingjue’s golden core—he wants to curl around it, sink his teeth into it, devour it. He feels so empty—but not Da-ge, no, not yet.

 

 

 

The night hunt gets upstaged by Wei Wuxian of all people, with his performance that enrages Jin Guangshan and, in all honesty, impresses Nie Mingjue. Despite his cultivation methods, there’s no question that Wei Wuxian is immensely talented—he hopes Lan Wangji’s attempts to subdue him are nothing less than successful, as no sect needs another war so soon.

On the hunt, the direction Nie Mingjue takes with his men is luckily full of gui, of varying levels but no match against Baxia, who thirsts for death. While it’s better to keep her balanced, at bay, Nie Mingjue also doesn’t want to think—wants to hack, slash, do what he does best. The anger and every other emotion he prefers to keep bubbling under his skin—and, frequently, fails to keep just there—feels like nothing when his body moves in the familiar patterns. Destroy gui, purge guai, feel at home in the trees of Phoenix Mountain as the monsters come at him. Baxia sings in pleasure and Nie Mingjue takes the time to breathe, to calm his golden core.

They’ve made their way well enough through the wood; Nie Huaisang had managed to disappear before they had ventured into the mountains. Nie Mingjue takes comfort in the fact that at least he is safe, with his weak golden core, though the aggravation that Huaisang is yet again skipping out on an opportunity to practice his bladework makes Nie Mingjue grit his teeth. With Baxia, he stops; he doesn’t need the break, but something makes his senses veer, verge into a momentary pause. He closes his eyes and inhales, thoughts of Huaisang, Baxia—and maybe a hunger, an emptiness.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost doesn’t hear the soft voices some distance away. And then there’s a tinkling laughter—Jin Guangyao’s laughter.

Nie Mingjue opens his eyes. Quietly, he makes his way through the trees so he can hear the words that are being spoken.

“Ah, Huang-gongzi, you flatter me,” says Jin Guangyao’s voice.

“I did not intend to,” says another voice—Nie Mingjue doesn’t know it, but he’s sure there are plenty of cultivators named Huang. “I only speak the truth.”

“Betrothal is not yet a concern of mine. But Huang-gongzi is pleasing to the eye as well,” Jin Guangyao says.

“Jin-gongzi flatters me as well,” says Huang. There’s no mistaking a blush in his words. Nie Mingjue’s grip tightens around Baxia’s hilt.

Jin Guangyao says, “Have you ever been with a man, A-Huang?” and Nie Mingjue turns away. Jin Guangyao isn’t—but the laughter, his tousled hair gracing Nie Mingjue’s bed, flashes through Nie Mingjue’s memory. But Nie Mingjue doesn’t own him; Jin Guangyao has never belonged to him. He made sure to make that clear, back when they were in Qinghe, together, side by side.

Still—

He storms back to his men, boots crunching on the leaves unmistakably loudly. He hopes Jin Guangyao and his friend hear them. Nie Mingjue ignores the few animals that scurry away, towards the conversation that he’d just eavesdropped on. He orders his men to help him find more demons to hunt.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

After the hunt, Nie Mingjue goes out of his way to look for this Huang, who is flattering to Jin Guangyao’s eye, apparently. He asks around, but no one seems to know where anyone named Huang is.

“I think there was a cultivator under Yueyang Chang named Huang,” says a Jin cultivator he asks. “But I’ve only met him once and haven’t seen him since the night hunt began.”

In the end, Nie Mingjue stops looking. Jin Guangyao does not disappear privately with anyone for the next couple of days, filled with a celebratory banquet despite how a sizable amount of the monsters had been captured and redirected by Wei Wuxian, right into the traps belonging to Yunmeng Jiang. It’s an annoyance, but Nie Mingjue cannot deny that he had killed just as many monsters, if not more.

Jin Guangyao looks better now, better than when he’d visited Qinghe, and when the night hunt had begun. Despite this, an uneasy feeling grows in Nie Mingjue’s stomach.

He wants to investigate the disappearance of the previous Langya commander, but knows he cannot do so without attracting attention—without attracting Jin Guangyao’s attention. “Have you spoken with A-Yao recently?” he asks Lan Xichen on the third night of the banquet, as Jin Guangshan goes on with his ostentatious bragging about Jin Zixuan’s achievements during the night hunt, drinking more and more wine. Jin Zixun looks unhappy from a few seats down.

Lan Xichen chuckles like Nie Mingjue had told a particularly funny joke. “Of course I have,” he says, sipping his tea. “Why?”

“Does he seem—” Nie Mingjue struggles to find the words. He does not want Lan Xichen reading too much into his words. “Significantly stressed, occasionally?”

“But who would blame him? Now that Jin Guangshan’s brought him on as part of his family, he never declines any responsibility A-Yao volunteers for.” At this, Lan Xichen’s lips do turn downward. “I do hope he doesn’t overexert himself and keeps the rest of his body healthy. It’s unfortunate that his cultivation level is so low.”

“How are the qin lessons?” Nie Mingjue asks.

Lan Xichen beams. “Brilliant. He’s picked up on the fundamentals quickly, though he’s not a natural like Wangji. Then again, not many are.” He hums thoughtfully and places a bean sprout in his mouth.

So Jin Guangyao still keeps up with Lan Xichen and the guqin lessons just fine. But as Nie Mingjue turns his gaze back up to the Jins, where Jin Guangyao is sitting between Jin Zixuan and Jin Zixun,  Nie Mingjue feels that doubt creep colder in his mind.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Things come to a head a day later, when Wei Wuxian, who’s been notably absent despite having been in the hunt, storms in and demands to speak with Jin Zixun. It’s almost admirable with the way he threatens the truth out of Jin Zixun—yet when the news of Qiongqi Path is broken to him that evening, amidst Jin Guangyao’s harried words, Nie Mingjue figures they should’ve seen this coming. Cultivators who rely on magic, control of fierce corpses—even the utilization of saber spirits does not come close to the manipulation of dead spirits.

As expected, Jin Guangshan calls a meeting, since at least a hundred of his cultivators were murdered by Wei Wuxian on Qiongqi Path. Nie Mingjue has his sympathies; Wei Wuxian is far too unpredictable, the methods he had used during the Sunshot Campaign as well a stark reminder to all of them. Yet Jin Guangshan goes on about his horrible acts, misdeeds, then suddenly blatant lies that no one bats an eyelash at.

There is some commotion, discrepancies, Lan Wangji and a young woman from Lanling Jin speak out against him. And of all people, it’s Jin Guangyao who retorts, who replies with a smile on his face that it’s certain they’ve all forgotten what Wei Wuxian had said. That Jin Guangyao had forgotten what he said.

Nie Mingjue knows Jin Guangyao, recalls: by the second time Meng Yao had come into Nie Mingjue’s bed, he could trace all of Nie Mingjue’s moles, in exactly the right places, in the dark of his bed chambers. Nie Mingjue knows that even if his own memory fails him, Jin Guangyao’s would not, and that feeling unfolds from the back of his mind. Something—something not quite right.

Afterwards,  Lan Xichen tells Jin Guangyao, “A-Yao, you’ve been hard at work.”

“Not as hard as Yunmeng Jiang will have it.” Jin Guangyao glances to the table that Jiang Wanyin had been sitting at, along with a few of his disciples. “It must be difficult, to be faced with such betrayal in front of the rest of the cultivation world.”

Nie Mingjue feels the doubt creeping, the comfortable familiarity of anger—and yet, the unfamiliarity of it being directed at Jin Guangyao. He does not want to humiliate, but with Lan Xichen—and with the saber spirit, rattling a bit more, day by day—

“And yet, a certain kind of courage to lie to the face of the cultivation world as well,” he snarls.

Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao turn to him with some alarm. “Da-ge,” Lan Xichen says gently. “What do you—”

“A-Huan.” Nie Mingjue can’t help but let the endearment, Lan Xichen’s informal name that Jin Guangyao has never earned the right to use, slip out. “You know as well as I do that Wei Wuxian would never denounce his shidi in front of others, much less in front of him.”

He turns to Jin Guangyao, whose expression imperceptibly flickers through an array of emotions, before turning to a wan smile.

“Da-ge, if you are accusing me—”

“I am not accusing you. I am merely wondering why you prioritize your father’s frivolous approval over honesty,” Nie Mingjue bites out. “Wei Wuxian massacred Jin cultivators, yes. He didn’t massacre Jiang Wanyin’s cultivators. You only said that to further anger him. Did your father take your mind as well as your loyalty, A-Yao? Are you his dog now?”

“And yet, you have no father left yourself,” Jin Guangyao fires back.

Nie Mingjue feels his insides turn to ice. The scowl on Jin Guangyao’s face is ugly, as flawless as every other aspect of his appearance is. It’s almost unrecognizable, he is almost unrecognizable, and Nie Mingjue wants to tear the expression off, ruin him, unruin him.

Lan Xichen quietly says, “A-Yao—”

“I’m leaving,” Nie Mingjue says.

He thunders out of the room. Jin Guangyao was there when he was still Meng Yao, when Nie Mingjue was still picking up after his sect after Wen Ruohan had murdered his father. Nie Mingjue remembers the shock, the words coming out of his body as new sect leader, but not his heart. Remembers the tears on Huaisang’s face and the days passing with a sliver of more power under his fist, still not used to it. Remembers Meng Yao, quiet and demure and far more obedient, effective than Nie Mingjue could have wished for, before he was even his deputy.

Remembers Meng Yao’s body, nestled into his.

He leaves Lanling with his men that night. The way that feeling creeps whenever his thoughts linger too much on Meng Yao have turned into a festering wound, tilting towards the saber spirit. He is violent in his room when they get back to Qinghe, but then thinks of Xichen, his brother.

He breathes and sleeps and continues on.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

It’s some weeks later when Lan Xichen writes to him, a letter about how things are back in the Cloud Recesses, along with a heartfelt paragraph about how Jin Guangyao regrets what he had said to Nie Mingjue, and has been devoting more time to learning the qin from him. Nie Mingjue snorts, but then Lan Xichen closes the letter with how he wishes to visit Qinghe soon, and would Nie Mingjue be amenable to that?

Nie Mingjue responds that he would like nothing more than to see Lan Xichen again, and sends the letter off without mention of Jin Guangyao.

It is, however, in vain, as after the formalities upon Lan Xichen’s arrival, when he and Nie Mingjue are alone, Lan Xichen starts with, “A-Yao begs for your forgiveness from him.”

“I’ll believe it when I hear it from him,” Nie Mingjue grunts.

Lan Xichen tilts his head. “He told me that you have not responded to any of his letters.”

Indeed, when Nie Mingjue sees a messenger come in with a letter bearing a Jin seal, he orders the messenger to toss it into the fire. “Then he shall have to wait when I do,” he says.

Lan Xichen purses his lips. “You and A-Yao were both very impassioned during your argument,” he says. “You were both saying things you didn’t mean—”

“I meant every word I said,” Nie Mingjue says.

Lan Xichen goes quiet, watching him.

Nie Mingjue hastens. “I apologize, A-Huan. But you cannot deny that it is disturbing that A-Yao will go to such lengths to follow Jin Guangshan.’”

“If it eases your heart, A-Yao has confided in me that their relationship has grown… difficult,” Lan Xichen admits. “A-Yao is going through one of his stressful periods again, and just the other day I heard him talking back to his father.”

“Is ‘no eavesdropping’ not one of the three thousand rules of Gusu Lan?” Nie Mingjue says thoughtfully.

Lan Xichen flushes. “I was not eavesdropping, I merely happened to overhear—”

Nie Mingjue laughs. “If you broke one of your sect’s horrid thousand rules, have it be known that I am not one to complain,” he says. And, unfortunately, the weight in his chest does feel lighter at the news of Jin Guangyao’s loyalty to Jin Guangshan becoming more strained. Remaining silent for political reasons does not mean Nie Mingjue’s distaste for Jin Guangshan has lessened; while the needs of many are more important than the few—than his own private dislike—Nie Mingjue still tries to keep his conversations with the Chief Cultivator to a minimum.

The matter of Wei Wuxian does not fall away, however. He has fled to the Burial Mounds; there is much talk of sieging over, seizing control of his Yin Hu Fu and overthrowing his control of Wen Ning, who has become a fierce corpse. But with Gusu Lan still working on building the Cloud Recesses, and Jiang Wanyin restoring the order of Yunmeng Jiang, the plans only go barely discussed.

The saber spirit in Nie Mingjue’s golden core grows by the day, and he searches for more demons, more nights to hunt.

It does not take long, after a few more visits from Lan Xichen, until Nie Mingjue grudgingly admits that he would not mind seeing Jin Guangyao again. It has been a few months since the encounter at the banquet, and what Lan Xichen keeps insisting to him is not wrong. Though Nie Mingjue will stand by what he said, he cannot deny that perhaps he had been overly accusatory towards Jin Guangyao—that though what he had said was unthinkable, he had likely been speaking out of anger. He does not get angry; Nie Mingjue had never seen it before. The twisted expression on his face haunts Nie Mingjue sometimes, something Nie Mingjue’s uncovered about him.

He does not know if he wants to know who Jin Guangyao is, raw—but before then, everything he had shown Nie Mingjue had been nothing short of respectable. This new side to Jin Guangyao’s face is unsettling, like the lurking in the back of his mind. But then Nie Mingjue remembers the nights of Qinghe, before, his laughter as Nie Mingjue sucked the blood off his shoulder. Nie Mingjue had taken him as he was and is, son of a prostitute, effortlessly Meng Yao. Jin Guangyao should be just the same.

And so it is when Lan Xichen notes that he will not have time to play the Song of Clarity for him, but that A-Yao would like to try for once if Nie Mingjue is willing, that Nie Mingjue makes himself agree. He feels it in his mind before the summon, when Jin Guangyao arrives, half a fortnight later.

The smile on his face is hesitant. “Da-ge,” Jin Guangyao says when Nie Mingjue enters the hall. He bows deeply, deeper than Nie Mingjue has ever seen him bow before. “I know it has been too long, but I cannot express the amount of regret at the words I spoke the last time we saw each other.”

“Jin Guangyao,” Nie Mingjue says, and feels a sick pleasure at the way Jin Guangyao flinches at the use of his courtesy name. “Would you grovel if I asked you to?”

“Yes,” Jin Guangyao says immediately.

“Would you kowtow and beg for forgiveness three times if I told you?”

“Yes.”

“If I asked you to leave Lanling Jin and return to Qinghe as my deputy, would you?”

Jin Guangyao hesitates at this. He does not lift his eyes up, but Nie Mingjue sees the tension in his shoulders.

Nie Mingjue sighs. It’s been too long, and—he doesn’t know what else to ask of him.

“My forgiveness is not easily won,” he says, and sees Jin Guangyao tense even more. “But, A-Yao, if you regret it as much as I do, I see no reason to cause any more issue between Qinghe Nie and Lanling Jin.”

Jin Guangyao jerks his head back up, nodding enthusiastically. “Of course, Da-ge,” he says, apology still on his face. “I should not have used the memory of your father against you. But surely you must now understand why I had to defend my own.”

“Let us speak no more of the matter,” Nie Mingjue says shortly. But he turns, and beckons for Jin Guangyao to follow. “Come, Xichen told me your playing of the Song of Clarity is as good as his now.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jin Guangyao says with a small smile, but joins him.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

With Jin Guangyao visiting again, along with Lan Xichen—and sometimes both, if their schedules allow, it feels as though the days are passing like they should. But Nie Mingjue does notice, since Lan Xichen had pointed it out, that Jin Guangyao does not bring up his own father, again.

It is not for lack of his presence, especially when Nie Mingjue finds himself in Lanling again, to conference about leading a siege to the Burial Mounds and taking care of Wei Wuxian. The welcoming party proceeds as usual, and the tug Nie Mingjue gets in his head disappears when he and Jin Guangyao lock eyes, and smile. There is nothing when Nie Mingjue finds Lan Xichen before dinner, elbowing him about his new hairpiece—just soothing warmth in his chest, with him.

His seat is closer to Lan Xichen during the meal, but he still keeps an eye on Jin Guangyao, watches him as he speaks to his father. His expression is tight; and the pallid tone to his skin has returned, with gaunt cheekbones and shadowed eyes and hair so dry it must be falling apart.

And towards the end of the meal, when Nie Mingjue is close enough to hear Jin Guangyao say, “And if I can show you the plans for the lookout towers—”

“This again,” Jin Guangshan says with a scoff. “I already said, A-Yao, who has the time or resources for such a thing?”

“We do,” Jin Guangyao argues. “We’re the richest cultivation sect.”

Jin Guangshan waves him off, with a literal brandish of his hand. “I don’t have time for foolish ambitions.”

Jin Guangyao’s face twists, uglier than when he and Nie Mingjue had been arguing. Nie Mingjue sees the veins popping on his neck, pressed lips, jaw clench—

“Da-ge, have you seen my fan?”

Nie Mingjue tears his gaze away to Huaisang, frowning at him with his empty hands. Huaisang complains, “I know I brought it, and if you took it away again…”

“That’s just as likely as you losing it, with a memory as bad as yours.” When Nie Mingjue glances at Jin Guangshan again, Jin Guangyao is gone—Jin Guangshan is bending down, speaking to a maiden from another sect.

“My memory isn’t that bad. I wouldn’t misplace my favorite fan,” Huaisang protests.

Nie Mingjue raises his eyebrows at him. “I remember just last week…”

 

 

 

The anger and indignity almost overpowers the hunger. Almost, with—

No, no, he can’t. Not quite yet.

But why not?

There’s too much to be done, this isn’t supposed to be a hindrance—even with the proceedings with the rest of the world, with everyone else, he can—he is in power. In control. There is nothing in here with him anymore.

But why not? Why not, when Da-ge…

Him too?

No, but if—if he is full, if—

 

 

 

“A-Yao is stressed again,” Lan Xichen says.

He had come with Nie Mingjue to his chambers after dinner, for a few rounds of Clarity. Nie Mingjue is almost disappointed that Jin Guangyao hadn’t joined as well, if not that Lan Xichen’s company is just as good, his presence just as soothing.

Nie Mingjue hums in agreement. He runs a guqin string between his fingers, from where he and Lan Xichen are sitting across from each other. “I do not worry,” he says, because he doesn’t. “But he and his father—it was only a matter of time.”

“You do not blame yourself, do you?” Lan Xichen asks.

“Of course not.” Nie Mingjue snorts. “Who wants to get along with Jin Guangshan? If I was his son, I would speak out against him on the first day. I’m impressed that A-Yao has lasted as long as he has.”

“He does have better control over his temper than you, yes.”

“Xichen,” Nie Mingjue says, but Lan Xichen lets out a light laugh and bumps their knees together.

“It does make me wonder, though, to what lengths Jin Guangshan will go to,” Lan Xichen says. “A-Yao only wants the best for him, for everyone, but the Chief Cultivator—”

“Yes?” Nie Mingjue inquires.

Lan Xichen flushes, casts his gaze down. “I am merely considering that if things become so fraught, then A-Yao will become demoted from his position.”

“Jin Guangshan would do such a thing,” Nie Mingjue considers. And grins: “And Xichen, if you wanted to talk behind other people’s backs, you should’ve just said so.”

“I would not do such a thing.”

“And yet, you imply so lowly of Jin Guangshan’s integrity,” Nie Mingjue teases. “Why not be mean? I think with all your Gusu Lan teachings, you’ve earned it.”

“And I think you and A-Yao are mean enough for the three of us,” Lan Xichen replies.

Nie Mingjue actually barks out a laugh. “So many implications in a single sentence!” He grins and leans into Lan Xichen’s shoulder like they’re sharing a secret; Lan Xichen leans back, and Nie Mingjue remembers when they were teens, kids, swordfighting in the courtyard, snickering against each other, crawling into beds and pressing their bodies together.

“Where has the time gone?” Nie Mingjue says to Lan Xichen. “Look at us now, both sect leaders.”

“I agree, I wish we spent far more time in the safety of our youth,” Lan Xichen reminisces. “I feel far too young, sometimes.”

“I don’t feel young enough,” Nie Mingjue says. Then snickers. “Lend me some of your youth, old man.”

“Never,” Lan Xichen says, smile quirking at his lips.

The room feels warmer; the points where they touch, where their gazes meet feel fizzy, like a firecracker. Nie Mingjue thinks he’s going to say something—

Then a strange image, out of nowhere, of A-Yao smiling at him, blood on his teeth. Around his mouth.

It’s gone in an instant, but doesn’t stop the dread creeping up around Nie Mingjue’s heart. He gets up immediately.

Lan Xichen looks worried now. “Da-ge?” he asks.

“I,” and Nie Mingjue goes to the door, to the corridor. He needs to find Jin Guangyao, to find—there’s something else, something—he doesn’t know what it is. Not his golden core and not the saber spirit. Frustration courses through his body, but more than that he feels—thickness in his mouth, his fingers—

He looks down; his hands are dripping with blood. Gasping in horror, he staggers back, hitting the stone-cold wall. When he looks down again, in the dim candlelight, his hands are—fine. Bloodless.

“Mingjue?” Lan Xichen’s followed him out, crease in his perfect brow with worry.

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth—and then, in the shadow of a corridor, it’s—Wen Ruohan’s body, no, Wen Ruohan, grinning in the darkness, paler than a fierce corpse. Blood on his mustache, that lust in his eyes; as the candle lights flicker, the shadows give way to the what’s left of the rest of his body, and Nie Mingjue’s mouth turns warm—

He shouts, feeling for Baxia who’s not there, who’s—

“Da-ge!” Lan Xichen holds Nie Mingjue up from where he’s slipping against the wall. Sweat beads at Nie Mingjue’s temple, and he looks up at Lan Xichen, barely recognizing him, features distorted in the darkness.

“Xichen,” he makes himself say; his voice sounds hoarse.

“Mingjue.” Now that Lan Xichen is closer, Nie Mingjue makes his eyes rake over the face he’s known nearly all his life, that he loves. “Mingjue, what’s wrong?”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth—but it’s at that moment when another voice goes, “Nie-zongzhu!”

Nie Mingjue startles, jerking back in fear; he’s never felt smaller his entire life. But it’s only a Jin disciple, looking between Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue with confusion, concern etched on his face.

Down the hallway, it’s empty, not even a memory of Wen Ruohan lurking around the corner.

“Nie-zongzhu,” the Jin disciple says again, when Nie Mingjue manages to stand back up, clutching at Lan Xichen for support. “Are you alright? You—”

“I’m fine,” Nie Mingjue feels his mouth make the words, hears them in his ears. He doesn’t feel fine. His mouth is thick and hot, so hot.

The disciple glances between the both of them with worry. Lan Xichen, with all his arm strength, manages to balance perfectly fine with Nie Mingjue hanging off him with very little dignity.

“Is there something wrong?” Lan Xichen asks the disciple.

The Jin disciple’s face goes awash with panic again. “It’s the Chief Cultivator. The door to his chambers is locked, no one’s seen him all evening, no one’s come in or out, he won’t respond—”

“What?” This makes Nie Mingjue feel back in his body—something to focus on, someone else in danger. This is familiar, not the fear for himself, his own mortality beyond his wavering golden core. “Is anyone with him?”

“We don’t know.” The Jin disciple wrings his hands. “Jin-furen hasn’t seen him either, but she usually is nowhere near him when Jin-zongzhu is—” He swallows his words, unable to speak ill of his sect leader, or of his affairs.

It is not unusual, of course, for Jin Guangshan to have taken an early night, especially if he has a maiden with him. However, for disciples to be unable to enter his chambers, the lack of response—”How long has he been in there?” Nie Mingjue asks, straightening up, mind desperately trying to find something to hold onto. Something that isn’t blood, Wen Ruohan, his old deputy’s bloodied, grinning face—

“All day,” the disciple says. “It’s why we—we figured he must be indulging in—something, but when he hasn’t attended any meals, or even asked for a summons, we figured that something—” He’s breathless. “Nie-zongzhu, do you think you could—”

“I’m on it,” Nie Mingjue replies, hand gripping tightly back around Baxia slid into his hand by Lan Xichen, mind gripping around what the fuck is going on with Jin Guangshan. “Stay here,” he tells Lan Xichen, whose face is filled with worry. He nods.

The disciple leads him to Jin Guangshan’s chambers through the maze of Jinlin Tai’s hallways. He stops outside the doors, saying, “I don’t know if you want to call for him first, if he might respond to Nie-zongzhu—”

“Probably no more than you,” Nie Mingjue says grimly, and barrels at the door with Baxia.

Despite that the door is made of metal, Baxia’s increasing bloodthirstiness combined with the adrenaline coursing through Nie Mingjue’s body, the anger and fear and the anger at his own fear wins out—after several minutes of hacking, the metal gives way, dents, pierces open. There’s no room for the disciple to peer through curiously, and Nie Mingjue is busy channeling all his spiritual energy into Baxia to make the opening wide enough that he isn’t looking into the room, until the space in the damaged door is wide enough.

The metal flays, the hole barely wide enough for two men to crawl through, much less Nie Mingjue. But at the sight of candles, smell of—smoke, burning flesh, Nie Mingjue sheathes Baxia and hurries in, unconcerned about the scrape of metal against his skin.

The room is covered in candles, littering the ground, wax seeping onto rugs, hot and melting. And at the center of the room, with hot wax crawling up it—

Jin Guangshan’s body is worse here, real and in front of him, than what Nie Mingjue had thought he’d seen of Wen Ruohan earlier. The Chief Cultivator’s eyes are open, frozen in terror, chest gutted out in front of him, hint of bones and spines and ribs through the dangling string of his insides. Guts and blood spilling out onto the floor, chunks of his flesh missing like his body had been left for wild dogs to feed from, even though the rest of the room is empty. Silent.

A window lingers open, the night wind whipping at the pane. Nie Mingjue peers out—it’s at least a li drop from here. The culprit couldn’t have—

His stomach turns when he looks at Jin Guangshan’s body again. Candle wax has begun to drip on his feet, the hair on his head. He can’t bring himself to move it just yet.

The disciple had taken one look at Jin Guangshan and ran out, presumably to empty his stomach. Nie Mingjue can’t blame him.

But his mind—his mind flits to Jin Guangyao again, that inexplicable image he’d gotten—but it hadn’t been real, it was just. Nie Mingjue didn’t know where it had come from. And maybe he’s just looking for someone to blame it on, and his thoughts about A-Yao have been so weird and precarious and muddled, all for nothing, out of nowhere.

But it wasn’t real. If he had seen Jin Guangyao, while he was with Lan Xichen, Xichen would’ve said something. And he—even if Nie Mingjue had imagined it, it doesn’t mean anything. He knows that qi deviation can alter his state of mind, can give him hallucinations—he isn’t sure if he should feel so clear-headed afterward. But A-Yao is—

Where is Jin Guangyao? Despite the tension with his father, he should be at his beck and call, looking after him—but even as Nie Mingjue mindlessly calls for the Jin disciple from before to get others with stronger stomachs to clean up, to inform Jin-furen and Zixuan of the situation, Jin Guangyao doesn’t turn up anywhere. Not even when Jin Zixun appears in tow despite having not been summoned, fearful and distraught. A man should be at his father’s side at the event of his death, Nie Mingjue thinks as he watches Jin-furen wail in despair at her husband’s mutilated body, remembering his own father’s qi deviation—and Jin Guangyao is no exception.

Time passes. But it’s still evening when Nie Mingjue returns to his guest chambers, feeling like at least a month has passed. His body goes through the motions of opening his door, remembering he left Lan Xichen here, opening his mouth—

Lan Xichen is sitting where he was before. But he is not alone—Jin Guangyao is sitting with him, and in the low candlelight, their mouths move, come together—they’re kissing.

“What the fuck?” he blurts loudly; he thinks he’s allowed some rudeness, he just dealt with Jin Guangshan’s deformed corpse. “A-Yao, what are you even doing in here?”

They break apart; Nie Mingjue can’t tear his gaze away from how both of their pink lips are shiny with spit.

Jin Guangyao turns his gaze to him. Nie Mingjue remembers what he’d seen, what he’d thought he’d seen, Jin Guangyao’s mouth and chin and teeth drenched with blood, fangs, smiling—

Lan Xichen interrupts, “A-Yao just told me about the news of his father. And I was comforting him, and we—” His eyes are downcast, sad and—guilty, which Nie Mingjue rarely sees from him except when they were teens and got caught sneaking into the Qinghe Nie training grounds.

Nie Mingjue growls, “What do you mean, told you the news about his father? I was just there—” He turns to Jin Guangyao. “I didn’t see you—”

“But didn’t you?” When Jin Guangyao looks at him, his eyes are shining. He looks radiant, unsettling under the candlelight. “It’s my father, Da-ge, of course I would be there.”

“Bullshit.” Nie Mingjue’s mind is swimming. Jin Guangyao looks eerily calm, his face—flawless, unstained, not a hint of a teardrop shed on his cheeks. He remembers his own father’s death, how inconsolable he’d been, anger and sorrow over taking his heart at once.

Jin Guangyao’s expression turns hurt. Not enough for Nie Mingjue to feel guilt about it. “But I was, Da-ge, I was with Jin-furen. She was shaking in my arms.” A frown creases over his face, concerned. “But it was all so much to take in, Da-ge, so I’m not surprised. You wouldn’t remember me.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue says, because he would’ve. Wouldn’t he? “I—”

“A-Yao did tell me how you found his father’s body. How emotionless you were when you called for everyone,” Lan Xichen puts in. “Mingjue, no one blames you.”

“But—” Nie Mingjue swallows, swallows again. Why does his throat feel full, teeth feel stained? He licks his lips.

“It’s understandable.” Lan Xichen gets up, puts a hand on his arm. Despite the calamity in Nie Mingjue’s head, Lan Xichen is a breath he remembers to take. And again, and again. “You were so stressed before, and seeing something as terrible as Jin Guangshan’s death—”

“But,” Nie Mingjue says, voice finally catching up with his brain. With Xichen, his lungs feel a bit clearer. “But it doesn’t matter, A-Yao, you should—you should be back there with your family.”

“Ah,” Jin Guangyao says. His eyes dart between Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen. “If you believe I should—”

“No, stay.” Lan Xichen turns back to Nie Mingjue. Hesitantly, he brings a hand up to Nie Mingjue’s cheek. Nie Mingjue closes his eyes and tries to breathe slower.

“Mingjue, you’re fine,” Lan Xichen says. “You’re just overwhelmed.”

And Nie Mingjue believes him. Knows it for himself, the hammering still in his chest. But then his mind flashes to what he’d walked in on, mere minutes ago—Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao sitting so close, too close, and he wants to see it again, but it’s not—and Jin Guangshan’s disfigured corpse—but the promise of them—

It is not the saber spirit, or maybe it is. The rolling through his veins, hot and overtaking. “And you, Xichen?” because he needs to find somewhere to direct it, direct this anger. “You and A-Yao, now? My two sworn brothers, with their tongues down each other’s throats?”

The bluntness strikes them; he sees it when Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen glance at each other, then away, then blush. Lan Xichen regards Nie Mingjue again.

“It’s not just him,” Lan Xichen confesses quietly. “It’s—I’ve always liked you both, and I felt like we’ve been leading up to this. The three of us. That I have, on my end.”

Nie Mingjue feels light-headed—he has, too, with every stroke of Clarity from their guqin strings. But with the events of the evening, he has no time for Lan Xichen’s words like this. Not now, when the sight, the taste of flesh in his mouth feels too recent, real.

And Jin Guangyao, beautiful in the golden glow of the room. “I as well,” he says. His eyelashes cast high shadows on his high cheekbones. “What about you, Da-ge? Haven’t you always wanted us?”

“Of course I have,” Nie Mingjue says without thinking. “But this is hardly the time, with the recent news of your father’s death.”

“I disagree,” Jin Guangyao says. His gaze is glistening, his chin is trembling. “Da-ge, you don’t know how scared I am right now. Seeing my father like that,” he swallows, “Er-ge was trying to comfort me. Surely you understand; you’ve calmed down quite a bit since he started touching you.”

Nie Mingjue exhales—but Jin Guangyao is right. Despite the horror of the night, he’s with Lan Xichen, both of them, his sworn brothers, and his heart eases. He closes his eyes, opens them again when Jin Guangyao stands up, joins them, closer to them, breathing in their scent.

Nie Mingjue can count his eyelashes when Jin Guangyao breathes against his face, “Don’t you want to feel comforted too, Da-ge?”

A feral sound escapes from Nie Mingjue’s mouth. Before he knows it, he’s tugging in Jin Guangyao, teeth clacking—somehow everything he’s known, and yet nothing he’s ever known all at once. His mouth is soft, has always been, but the way he kisses back now is—fierce, like he can put up as good as a fight against Nie Mingjue. Flames licking into him, inside of him, urging him open, deeper. Like this, Nie Mingjue can almost pretend that that image isn’t there, in his head, flashing, Jin Guangyao with blood on his teeth and predatory smile on his face—

He pulls Jin Guangyao in harder. He focuses on how he’s missed this, holding Jin Guangyao, kissing him back, hand on Jin Guangyao’s waist, trying to find everything Jin Guangyao’s ever tried to hide from him—

There’s a small moan away from them. Nie Mingjue breaks apart—Lan Xichen has been watching, enraptured, and flushes when he’s been caught.

“You do not have to stop on my account,” Lan Xichen says, gaze flickering between the both of them. “I am not—”

The way he shifts; his arousal must be uncomfortable in his lap. Nie Mingjue remembers the length of it, remembers its taste, remembers all the ways he and Lan Xichen used to touch each other, before the world felt so real. “Xichen,” he says, grabbing him by the hand, pulling him up, into the heat of his and Jin Guangyao’s bodies.

Lan Xichen lets out another small noise when Nie Mingjue brings their mouths together, his warmth less questing, hungry—more familiar, like home. Nie Mingjue loves this too, loves the both of them, feels Jin Guangyao run his fingers against the hair pressing on Nie Mingjue’s scalp as Nie Mingjue devours Lan Xichen’s mouth.

They break apart to breathe, to gasp; Nie Mingjue’s never been harder in his life. With Lan Xichen here, pink and enticing; Jin Guangyao’s eyes sharp and lustful. Nie Mingjue doesn’t know what he wants right now, but he wants something—to take, to be taken, to have these stupid, stuffy robes off his body—

“My bed,” he growls, and both Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao light up as they follow. There’s kissing and the tearing of clothing and Lan Xichen’s laughter—“Mingjue, slow down—” and Jin Guangyao taking one or two or all three of them in hand with his clever fingers, and Nie Mingjue burning, burning, wanting to swallow them both whole, wanting to be swallowed down.

 

 

 

Their scent is sweet, and though he feels so full—not his golden core, and hardly his stomach, but that part of him, that new new part of him—he watches Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue’s shallow breathing, their unconscious bodies, and salivates.

 

 

 

Jin Guangshan’s funeral is a long and torturous affair. Since he’s already in Lanling, Nie Mingjue also attends, borrowing white robes from the tallest disciple of Lanling Jin, which are still tight around his shoulders and come down to his forearms. Jin-furen cannot stop sobbing, Jin Zixuan’s face is tear-streaked for days, and Jin Guangyao is quiet in front of his family and disciples.

He takes comfort with Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen, though—when they are alone, with this new, shiny thing, he manages to smile, to laugh, to make conversation. More often than not it’s the three of them alone, anyway, because Nie Mingjue hates trying to comfort Jin-furen or any of the depressed disciples, and he’s a thoughtful enough lover to not leave Lan Xichen alone with them as well.

Despite the tragedy, Jin Guangyao insists that they keep working on calming down Nie Mingjue’s saber spirit, continue on with the Song of Clarity. Nie Mingjue thinks he should have the time alone to mourn, but—

“You know what my thoughts are like, Da-ge,” Jin Guangyao says with a smile. “Left alone too long with them and I might go crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re any different alone with them than otherwise,” Nie Mingjue says dryly. “You must’ve already gone crazy.”

Jin Guangyao laughs. Lan Xichen’s face is bright as he watches the both of them.

Jin Guangshan’s death puts an immediate halt to the issue of whatever Wei Wuxian is doing in Yiling—the cultivation world just lost their Chief Cultivator, and Lanling Jin just lost their sect leader. Before they can even think to attack the Burial Mounds, they need to re-politicize as the cultivation world—something that Nie Mingjue hates, every time.

When his father had died, it had been no question that he would have to become Sect Leader, despite being seventeen—duty does not wait for age. And so he watches as everyone grieves and conferences and tries to talk politics around the tragedy. Jin Zixuan is entitled to be the new Sect Leader of Lanling Jin, as is appropriate, and the title of Chief Cultivator goes to—

Jin Guangyao makes an annoyingly compelling argument about why Nie Mingjue should be Chief Cultivator. “He led the Sunshot Campaign,” he says, on the third day of the conference. “He barreled through Wen Ruohan’s forces, gave us the confidence and strength we would win.”

“A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue warns under his breath, but Jin Guangyao ignores him.

“People already fear him; now, they will understand even more why he’s earned that fear,” Jin Guangyao says to the rest of the sect leaders and cultivation disciples. “He’s the most accomplished of the Sect Leaders given his age—apologies, Jiang-zongzhu,” he nods at Jiang Wanyin, who waves him off, “—especially as the leader of one of the four major clans. He is the clear choice.”

“A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue snaps, then addresses the rest of the conference. “Becoming Chief Cultivator has never been an ambition of mine—”

“But that will make you more fitting for the role!” Of course, Yao-zongzhu has to open his mouth. “No hunger for the power will make you more competent with that power.”

“It’s true,” agrees another sect leader. “While they say ambition will help you get to the top, if you earn power you never desired in the first place, would that not make you more trustworthy?”

“Plus he did the most for the war! Winning battles and even rescuing Jin Guangshan when he needed help in Langya!” When this cultivator realizes what he said, and that people have turned to look at him, he hastens to add, “Not to besmirch the memory of the late Chief Cultivator. But it’s true!”

“If one is an excellent military general, then he will be an even greater Chief Cultivator,” says another, which Nie Mingjue is pretty sure does not correlate at all.

But others nod and murmur their agreement, and Nie Mingjue departs the conference with one more title under his belt.

He would be a fool to decline the offer, even as much as politics bore him. And he does think advantageously, that needing to care for the relations between all the sects and towns means that he will travel more—that once he departs Lanling, it won’t be long until he can come again, arrange time and places to meet up with Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao and, if they can manage, both. Of course, there are other things too, like teaching Huaisang how to run Qinghe Nie when Nie Mingjue is gone, and communicating with Wei Wuxian in Yiling, which he is not looking forward to.

But there are worse things.

On the last night of his stay in Lanling—though they had never managed a conference about Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen told him that his brother had visited Yiling to tell Wei Wuxian of the recent news, and Wei Wuxian requested an audience with Nie Mingjue alone—he is with Jin Guangyao in his guest chambers, while Lan Xichen is sorting out his own disciples. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao had gone through a round of Clarity along with some groping and biting; now, Nie Mingjue is convincing himself to pack while Jin Guangyao cleans Baxia.

“I do not think I said it to you,” Nie Mingjue says after a moment, as he frowns at his pile of under robes. “But I know what your father’s acceptance into his family meant to you, and I’m sorry that you had to lose him so quickly.” He thinks of their argument that feels like ages ago. “Though I did not agree with everything he said, a man should not have to lose his father so young.”

Jin Guangyao is quiet, fingers scraping lightly over Baxia. “He was murdered so cruelly,” he says in a low voice. “In such a barbaric manner. We have to find out who did it.”

“Indeed,” Nie Mingjue murmurs; he has thought about it as well, but the last few days of too many politics make his head spin. “Whoever it is, they have a sick lack of value for human life.”

Jin Guangyao nods. “Luckily, we have Da-ge as Chief Cultivator,” he says, then casts one of his bright smiles at Nie Mingjue. He looks healthier than ever—Nie Mingjue will never parse what causes his gaunt stressful periods. His father’s death certainly should, yet despite his sorrow, Jin Guangyao has never looked so relaxed.

“And Zixuan heading Lanling Jin,” Jin Guangyao says thoughtfully. “My brother, and my lover—”

Nie Mingjue snorts. “What a sentimental thing to call me.”

“It’s true, is it not?” Jin Guangyao says.

His hand slips on the cloth he’d been using to clean Baxia—right on the blade, against his skin.

Nie Mingjue notices, starting. “A-Yao,” he says, grabbing for his saber. “Let me clean Baxia, get yourself cleaned up—”

“Hm?” Jin Guangyao looks down at his hand, moving it along the cloth.

Where the blade had slid right along his skin is clean, unbroken.

Nie Mingjue blinks. He thought he saw a red line, where Baxia would slice right along his palm, a sliver of blood slipping out. “Are you okay?” he asks Jin Guangyao, who’s watching him strangely.

“Of course I am, Da-ge,” he says. “Are you?”

Nie Mingjue doesn’t know. He thought he saw—but maybe it was a trick of the light, a weird shift of his handkerchief. Jin Guangyao is bloodless, woundless. There’s not a single scar on his skin.

“I’m fine,” he says, mostly to himself.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

The aftermath of Jin Guangshan’s death is shockingly good. Jin Zixuan’s wedding gets put off to allow for at least a month of mourning; but once that period is over, when Nie Mingjue is back in Lanling for something political again (Jin Guangyao, of course, visits his guest chambers every night), he and Jin Zixuan are walking the grounds, discussing it.

Jin Zixuan says, “I was thinking of inviting Wei Wuxian.”

He glances at Nie Mingjue, waiting for his reaction. Nie Mingjue considers. He had visited Yiling, earlier, the Wen Remnants, Wei Wuxian—the Yiling Laozu, they’re calling him. If it were earlier, if he did not have the responsibility to think before acting, he would’ve led an attack on the Burial Mounds with no problem. As it is, he’d responded to Wei Wuxian’s request for an audience with him in kind, and saw that the Wens Wei Wuxian was housing were ones he did not recognize, elders and children and the sickly. The only cause of alarm would be Wen Ning, who, despite being a fierce corpse, had shied away every time Nie Mingjue even thought about glancing in his direction and kept referring to him as gongzi in an almost apologetic way.

Jin Guangshan would not stand for such a thing. But Nie Mingjue is not Jin Guangshan—and, when he allows himself to think it, he is better than Jin Guangshan. “What does your family think?” he asks idly.

Jin Zixuan scoffs. “My mother reckons it’s a horrible idea, and Zixun keeps calling him evil,” he says. Then his voice softens. “But… I think A-Li would like it. She never says it, but I know she misses her shidi.”

“Then I’m not one to tell you who to invite or not invite to your wedding,” Nie Mingjue says. He thinks on the safe side—something that feels so new, so foreign to him still—and adds, “But make sure Hanguang-jun is attending as well, to keep him in line.”

Jin Zixuan smiles. “Of course.”

So, a month or so after the previous Chief Cultivator’s death, there is a wedding, Wei Wuxian beaming from Jiang Wanyin’s side. And afterwards, about another month later, a son—the next sect heir, all 50cm of him.

And Nie Mingjue keeps the peace between all the sects, between the cultivation world and Wei Wuxian, between Lan Xichen, himself, and Jin Guangyao. It feels almost too easy: the way he begins to fall into place as Chief Cultivator; a new sect leader of Lanling Jin; stops in Gusu; or Jin Guangyao’s fingers on his guqin, on Nie Mingjue’s arousal; or Lan Xichen’s smile, pressed against his own.

But despite this—despite how, as time goes on, the three of them spend an equal amount with the Song of Clarity ringing in bedchambers as they do in a bed—Nie Mingjue feels himself teetering. It’s fear, more than anything, and sometimes doesn’t feel like his own—he is not afraid of death, but how it will happen, why it will happen. Being Chief Cultivator brings his life to a standstill, where it’s almost easy to forget the saber spirit in between meetings and paperwork; and still, a stir in his chest, the desire for another nighthunt.

Baxia wants to kill again. He feels it, but it becomes less of a part of him, more of a knowledge, along with everything else tumbling in his brain. It is easier to be steady without his hand on her hilt all the time, but then the dread creeps around his stomach, the precariousness, the doubt. And the qi deviation is waiting for him, whenever it might happen, even if he can more easily pull away from the saber spirit these days.

And he is not entirely sure if he is, because there’s still the matter of the hallucinations. He does not mention it, because then everyone will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to arrange for another untimely death, and—if Nie Mingjue can keep control, take his life day by day, that’s enough for now. Much less does he wish to worry Lan Xichen, who rubs his shoulders at night, laces their fingers together when Nie Mingjue is buried deep inside of him; or Jin Guangyao, who—

Nie Mingjue doesn’t know why he keeps seeing it. Wishes, of all things, that his brain would conjure any other image—not one of Jin Guangyao, one of his lovers, smiling through a mouthful of blood, flesh hanging off his teeth. The hallucination never says anything, never appears for more than mere seconds, in corners of rooms when he’s alone, at the back of conference halls, hovering like a specter when he has the real Jin Guangyao nestled into the heat of his body.

No, he cannot tell Jin Guangyao, of all people. Jin Guangyao, whose complexion continues to alter between perfect and worn—the stress of needing to advise his brother instead of his father, surely. Who brings Huaisang presents every time he visits, who plays the Song of Clarity so precisely that sometimes Nie Mingjue can tell himself it’s working, who touches Nie Mingjue so tenderly, on top of him or inside of him or both, giving as good as he can get. He’s as impassioned as the both of them, when Nie Mingjue works himself onto either of them in a sweat, when Lan Xichen whines and arches his back enticingly. Jin Guangyao has always been a dedicated lover, but now with the both of them, easily finding his way between their two large bodies, pressing kisses to Nie Mingjue’s head, biting Lan Xichen so hard he cries out.

Neither of them are the type to complain, especially when it’s just the two of them, he and Xichen, fucking against each other tenderly, saliva upon sweat. Nie Mingjue sees where Jin Guangyao has kissed a bruise on the back of his shoulderblade and remembers—remembers another bite mark from an era that feels a lifetime ago, when Jin Guangyao was still Meng Yao, blood oozing through. And he smiles, kisses at the bruise Jin Guangyao had given Lan Xichen and drives in deeper, at the thought of both of them.

So no, he cannot tell Jin Guangyao; perhaps not even Lan Xichen. Especially when there are days he goes without a hallucination, without a headache, without his qi deviation looming over his head, and he can convince himself they’re not there. That his doubts, that trickling cold feeling in the back of his mind, have no reason to be there in the first place.

 

 

 

Sometimes the smell is so sweet he can taste it on his tongue, bite a piece off. Da-ge, Er-ge, and he imagines, imagines the flavor. Perhaps the smallest amount of blood, of arteries, making its home along with the pieces of the nameless flesh inside of him.

 

 

 

The heat in his bed is not new—they are not the type to talk about it, although sometimes Lan Wangji’s gaze will flicker to the empty spot when Nie Mingjue visits Gusu alone; or Jin Zixuan will mention that Jin Guangyao will be able to stop by the guest chambers at night when he’s visiting in Lanling; or Nie Huaisang will ask teasingly if Nie Mingjue misses his other brothers, his sworn brothers. But otherwise it is not something Nie Mingjue wishes to boast about. Being a cut-sleeve has its own unfortunate connotations, and while Nie Mingjue has no shame in who he is, there is no need for the rest of the cultivation world to be concerned about the Chief Cultivator’s personal affairs.

But the three of them is new, because it is different, to kiss Lan Xichen and feel Jin Guangyao press inside him. To touch Jin Guangyao, with Lan Xichen’s breath in his ear. To watch the two of them, feel the burning desire in his gut, not always to join, but simply to drink in the pleasure, the view, their beautiful bodies entangled together.

Jin Guangyao’s face is bright and healthy tonight, when they are in Gusu. He kisses Nie Mingjue’s arousal, loving; later, tasting, devouring the inside of Lan Xichen’s mouth as Xichen moans. Nie Mingjue’s fist is rough as he strokes himself, comes. He kisses the both of them, feeling where Jin Guangyao had bitten Lan Xichen on the lip. Lan Xichen laughs as Nie Mingjue soothes the cut with his tongue.

“You both,” Lan Xichen says, beaming up. “What would my nights be like if either of you were less rough?”

“Less interesting, that’s for sure,” Nie Mingjue says.

Jin Guangyao laughs. “Do you want us to be tender, Er-ge?” he asks, brushing the hair from Lan Xichen’s face. His fingers trail down, to where the strand ends near his bare chest. “I certainly can, although I don’t know if Da-ge can.”

“A-Yao lies,” Nie Mingjue teases, and shifts his weight against Jin Guangyao’s. Jin Guangyao laughs again as he goes down underneath him, so that he and Lan Xichen are lying side by side in bed, Nie Mingjue crowding over them.

“I never did ask,” Lan Xichen says, cupping the bruises on Nie Mingjue’s hips. From Jin Guangyao, only a night or two ago. “But you two—”

“A long time ago,” Nie Mingjue admits. “Back when A-Yao was technically a Nie cultivator.” He thinks of the time, when it felt easier—but that was because he was only a sect leader, not Chief Cultivator. Because he only had to concern himself with his clan, not everyone else. “And Xichen, it’s not like our past isn’t filled with experimentation either.”

“Experimentation,” Jin Guangyao says with amusement. “Is that why, Er-ge, when the Cloud Recesses burned down—”

“What now?” Nie Mingjue asks, as Lan Xichen blushes.

Jin Guangyao smirks. “‘I have done this before,'” he says, mimicking Lan Xichen’s speech patterns. “And what a thoughtful lover he was.”

Nie Mingjue snorts. “It’s a good thing you have both of us here now,” he says, running a palm up Lan Xichen’s cheek. “We can teach you how to be rough.”

“Indeed you can,” Lan Xichen says, dragging Nie Mingjue down for a kiss.

And it’s later in the night, when Nie Mingjue is already asleep, not quite stirring. But there’s a shift beside him, a rustling, a lack of weight on the bed. Lan Xichen’s taste, back in his mouth. And his stomach aches with something empty, something hungry, like taking a bite of a meal before having it snatched away from you. Something that makes you crave more.

Then it slips away, and he is fast asleep.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Moons pass, if not years. Wei Wuxian is not welcomed back into Yunmeng Jiang, but only because he stubbornly stays in Yiling; Lan Xichen begins joking that he’s become a sect leader in his own right. Jin Guangyao, however, is as wary of the prospect as Nie Mingjue is, as they don’t need the stress of a potential threat or uprising on their hands. A sect formed out of novelty or cultivation philosophy is largely harmless; a sect formed out of rebellion is trouble.

But time passes without incident, to the point where Nie Mingjue is beginning to think of talking with Huaisang, that though his core has not gotten worse, it has not gotten any better—qi deviation lurks behind each faint tenseness between his eyebrows, waiting to strike, to take his body for itself. His heart feels like a wine stopper—words he used to say freely, in the world where he could, crashing against his edges, piling up within him.

He does not tell Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao that the Song of Clarity is losing its effects. Lan Xichen brings his guqin to Lanling, or Jin Guangyao brings his to Gusu; or they both bring their own when they visit Nie Mingjue in Qinghe. And Nie Mingjue adores it, anyway, one or both of them playing for him, as he goes over letters or kisses the bite marks on Xichen’s neck or simply sits there and watches. He is not one for music, much less arts, but it’s been often enough that he can tell while Lan Xichen’s playing is unhesitant with flourish, Jin Guangyao’s is precise, each string plucked as if reciting one of the poems Huaisang loves so much from memory.

Nie Mingjue smiles at the end of one of their duets, this time in Lanling. “Wonderful, as always,” he says, to which Lan Xichen smiles prettily and Jin Guangyao rearranges his hat.

“Da-ge, we could play you an entirely different song and you wouldn’t even notice,” he says.

Nie Mingjue splutters as Lan Xichen fully laughs. “Not if you told me it was supposed to be the Song of Clarity,” he says. “I think I’ve heard it enough to recognize that one, at least.”

“Yes, but we could change one or two notes and you wouldn’t even notice,” Jin Guangyao teases.

“Why would you do that?” Nie Mingjue demands.

“To test you, of course,” Lan Xichen says, eyes twinkling in first his direction, then at Jin Guangyao’s. “We don’t expect you to pay attention, but—”

“Of course I pay attention,” Nie Mingjue grumbles under his breath. “I do when it’s you two.”

Jin Guangyao’s eyes shine with adoration. It’s one of his stress-free days, where he looks perfect, like not a thing in the world could touch a hair on his head. “Da-ge,” he says, breathless, and kisses him, and there’s not much conversation for a while.

Nie Mingjue returns to his guest chambers later that night—Lan Xichen never admits it, but he always drags most of the blankets in his sleep, and while Nie Mingjue can handle the cold winters in Qinghe, not to mention the heated rooms of Jinlin Tai, he usually likes the feeling of some sort of weight on his body, however small it is. It’s why he prefers when Jin Guangyao stays with them, because he curls into Nie Mingjue’s touches, can lay on Nie Mingjue’s chest for hours; but tonight he’d kissed both of them and said that he had something to take care of before the end of the night and slipped away.

His guest chambers—which are the same every time, and he’s starting to doubt that anyone else ever stays here when they visit, even when Nie Mingjue is away—are warm and well-lit. And yet as he lies alone, Nie Mingjue thinks of Lan Xichen passed out from his horrid sleep schedule in his own guest chambers, Jin Guangyao off handling whatever it is before he likely returns to his own private chambers, in far too much consideration for either of his lovers.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t have that type of consideration, especially since he never hesitates to mock Lan Xichen when he insists on following the Cloud Recesses rules outside of Gusu, even though tonight he has more of an excuse of an early frisky evening more than anything. A night without a weight over Nie Mingjue—or at least blankets, if he can urge Lan Xichen into cuddling—is not much of a sacrifice; and as he thinks about it, his lips tingle, with the taste of Xichen and something warm, sweet. It’s too tantalizing, so he climbs out of bed, slips on a layer of informal outer robes, and pads to Lan Xichen’s guest chambers.

Jinlin Tai is a maze of hallways and Nie Mingjue is not the best with directions, so it’s a few wrong turns before he recognizes where he’s going and finds Xichen’s rooms again. “Wake up,” he grumbles, as he knocks, then getting his fingers around the door handle. “At least keep me company until I fall asleep—”

He stops dead in his tracks.

The room is dark; moonlight shines through the open window, stars glittering in the clear autumn sky. Lying on the bed is Lan Xichen, eyes open. His robes are torn off, in shreds around his body, his feet. Over him—

Jin Guangyao turns. Half-naked, robes hanging off his shoulders, skin glowing; a faint scar, perhaps, in the shape of Nie Mingjue’s mouth. Blood is dripping from his chin, real blood, Xichen’s blood, not just an image conjured in Nie Mingjue’s mind. Chunks of Lan Xichen’s body are missing, notably around his chest, stomach, heart—in huge clods, spilling out from his body, torn skin. Lan Xichen’s mouth is open in what might be surprise, or fear, and Nie Mingjue tastes a sweetness at his lips.

Jin Guangyao’s mouth is almost entirely canine teeth, fangs, massive, irises small and thin and barely human. He hisses at the sight of Nie Mingjue, whines, and—

There’s fear, there’s devastation, but more than anything else there’s anger, surging through Nie Mingjue’s body like an old friend, red behind his eyes, blood running hot as his hands wrap around a poker at the fireplace. “A-Yao,” he says, voice booming even to his own ears. “Jin Guangyao, Meng Yao.”

Jin Guangyao recoils, pupils dilating back—yet the fire doesn’t die around his eyes, bloodstains around his lips. “Da-ge,” he says, voice turning gentle, pitiful. “I—this is not—”

“What is it not?” Nie Mingjue barely hears his own thoughts, the cool air on his skin, carpet beneath his feet. His body, his head is filled with rage and darkness and Jin Guangyao. “Is it not Xichen’s blood on your hands, in your mouth? What—why would you—”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to do it either.” Jin Guangyao’s eyes are big, so big. Tears welling, shining beneath moonlight. “But, Er-ge, he smells so good, you wouldn’t even believe—”

“What kind of creature are you?” Nie Mingjue bellows, and rages toward Jin Guangyao, thrusting the fireplace poker at him. “What kind of man are you, to talk about such things?”

Jin Guangyao dodges his attacks with inhuman-like grace, maneuvering off the bed. Noise rings in Nie Mingjue’s ears—thoughts and doubts and suspicions coming to surface, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it—except he didn’t, because if he did, wouldn’t he have done something about it?

“It’s more than you could ever understand,” Jin Guangyao says, and the anger fills every part of Nie Mingjue’s body. Anger at himself, at Jin Guangyao, at Lan Xichen, lifeless on the bed—he tries to grasp for Jin Guangyao, hack at him, needing this, needing this not to be real—

“What’s to understand?” Nie Mingjue’s voice clamors in every inch of the room. “Have you been lying all along? Biding your time, waiting? Who else have you killed like this?” Jin Guangyao moves like lightning, the tears still in his eyes but not on his cheeks, the blood on his chin. “Your father? Wen Ruohan?”

He remembers the visions, the things that weren’t real, but—maybe they were, with the red on Jin Guangyao’s lips matching the phantom feeling Nie Mingjue feels on his own lips. The murder, the heartlessness, eating Lan Xichen—

“Da-ge, listen to me,” Jin Guangyao tries. “You’ve never—You don’t understand what it’s like to be powerless. To be small and scared and fear for yourself in the world, and then when you have that power, what do you do? What did you expect me to do?”

“Anything!” Nie Mingjue roars, slashing, searching, trying. Lan Xichen’s body is never out of sight, a sick reminder whenever Nie Mingjue’s gaze catches, and he wants Jin Guangyao, to cut him to pieces, to make him scream in pain and beg for mercy. “What kind of power would you want for this? Was he worth nothing to you? Were we worth nothing to you?”

“Of course not,” Jin Guangyao cries. Two tear tracks now, dripping down to his chin, smearing the blood around his mouth. “You and Er-ge, you’re the world to me.”

“Don’t feed me your lies!” Nie Mingjue wants to scream, wants to trample, destroy, the poker jabbing, seeking, but it’s not enough—and then he doesn’t know how, but now Baxia’s in his hands, perhaps heard his pain, his bloodlust, eager to tear through another body.  It’ll never be the same as Jin Guangyao, where Lan Xichen’s dead blood is drying around his mouth, movements cutting close with the promise of Baxia’s singing, massive blade—

It catches on Jin Guangyao, tears through his robe, right across the shoulder. And yet Nie Mingjue watches in horror as though the robe remains open, the skin stitches up—back together, heals, like Baxia hadn’t sliced through him at all.

“What are you?” he whispers, devastated.

Jin Guangyao’s eyes are dark. Dry. “If you knew what hunger felt like, you’d understand,” he says, and there’s regret in his voice. It’s pathetic, he’s pathetic; the distance between them feels like an entire world. This man—no, this monster could never be his equal.

Jin Guangyao says, “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

And he throws himself at Nie Mingjue, a horrible snarl scratching out of his mouth. Nie Mingjue tries to fight him off, with his body, with his saber—Jin Guangyao thrashes at him, teeth back out in their monstrous state, clings to Nie Mingjue, his shoulders—

Pain surges through him, his collarbone, the side of his neck where Jin Guangyao’s teeth had sunk in. He screams in agony, feeling the qi, Baxia, everything broiling through his blood now. “I’m sorry,” he hears, “I didn’t have a choice,” but Nie Mingjue doesn’t care, the pain turning to fury, turning to the last grip he has on life, on Baxia. He hacks blindly, even though it feels useless, even though he’d see Jin Guangyao’s body sew itself back together—but now every part of him, the saber spirit, his heart needs blood, raging to the tips of his fingers, grip on the saber mindless, hopeless, empty—

Jin Guangyao cries out.

It’s not a normal cry—like a dying animal, like the remains of a demon, unaware of its own vulnerability. Nie Mingjue struggles with his mind, with the red behind his eyes, to see Baxia lodged in the middle of Jin Guangyao’s chest. Sliced up, blood seeping through his robes, from lower dantian to heart.

Jin Guangyao looks at Nie Mingjue with big, wide eyes. His pupils are normal.

“Fuck you, Nie Mingjue,” he rasps out, and collapses.

Nie Mingjue breathes. But the raging is still inside his heart, his mind, his core—the blood behind his eyes, and he feels the bloodlust, Baxia, needing to seek more enemies, more prey—

And then it stops.

When he opens his eyes again, he’s in the same position as he was before. Jin Guangyao is still hanging off his saber, unmoving—not breathing, dead, by all accounts. And when he looks to the bed again—Lan Xichen there, mutilated, bloodied, hardly a memory of a human. Nie Mingjue would feel sick, except right now he feels nothing—a blank buzz in his head, blinking away the red behind his eyes.

His shoulder, the deep wounds from the fangs, aches.

He slides Baxia out, away. She comes back dripping with thick blood. Jin Guangyao’s body falls on top of him, no longer held up by the saber. Nie Mingjue does not have the energy to move his head from his shoulder.

He feels something new in Baxia. He tightens his grip, and that bloodlust—it shies away, almost frightened.

A Jin disciple enters the room, sees the three of them, and screams.

 

 

 

Sometimes, there is hunger—but more often are the memories of two bodies curling around his own, the glimpses of eyes that held bright life inside, the nights in Qinghe with a hand stroking his head, cradling his hair, like he was once something precious.