What Even Is This?

A 3zun crack au

Jin Guangyao, Lan xichen, and Nie Mingjue have recently become a triad, finally taking their sworn brotherhood to the next level after many talks, tears, confessions, and scheming of a one Lan xichen to get both his boyfriends to be boyfriends together

Guangshuan is also dead far earlier than in canon under mysterious circumstances, which greatly helped the three come together and absolutely was not a bonding expierience for the three

They’re pretty happy, however this realtionship is still new, and with politics being as it is, (wei wuxian being out there in his burial mounds scarinf everyone by existing and stressing out lan zhan, jin zixuan a new sect leader and expecting a child soon, and nie mingjue suffering baxia’s backlash) they’re trying to keep it on the down low until things stablize a bit

What they forget to take into account, are there brothers

Lan xichen is probably the most innocent in this, he fully believes he’s told lan zhan, he talks about his lovers all the time! Surelly lan zhan was listening?

Lan zhan was not listening. He was brooding over wei wuxian.

He is vaguely that lan xichen liked nie mingjue from way back when they were kids, and hasn’t thought it changed, since lan’s can only love once. It’s their families curse after all. So when lan xichen talks about a-yao this, a-yao that, lan zhan thinks its just friendship talk (like what wei ying used to do to him in cloud recesses) and tunes it out.

Jin Guangyao has an excuse. His position in the jin clan is destabilized by the shift in leadership. The last thing he wants is for jin zixuan to think he can’t do his job because he’s also kissing the leaders of two rival sects.

Jin zixuan for his part, does not see the other sects as rivals to beat like his father did. He’s not thinking much of anything except that he’s really drowning in work, and both Jiang Yanli and Jin Guangyao are lifelines.

Jiang Yanli he can show his gratitude by being the best husband he can be. But jin Guangyao? How can he get his brother to stop being awkward and take a break, (and maybe be closer like everyone else is with their siblings?)

Then jin zixuan catches the heart eyes that jin guangyao throws lan xichen at a sect conference, so much warmer than how he acts towards his other sworn brother, with all that bickering (flirting).

So jun zixuan tries to set up jin guangyao and lan xichen, giving every excuse for one to visit the other, and ample alone time when they do. He’s rewarded once by coming in a room wirh out knocking to see them holding hands.

Jin guangyao pulls his hand away, but its too late, jin zixuan saw it, his mission is complete!

Nie Mingjue is the only one who was no excuse. His brother asks him about his love life all the time. He wants to know!!!

But nie mingjue does not want a meddling sibling in his buisness, and anytime it comes up he gets so embarrassed he can’t speak, so he shuts him out.

Nie huaisang has to use his own brain, and so wjen he spots nie mingjue blushing and braiding a flower into jin guangyao’s hair, he realizes his answer. Nie mingjue has finally acted on his old feelings for meng yao, now his awful father isn’t here to keep them aprart.

All three brothers are thrilled. Until….

Lan zhan finds out first. He’s walking in the cloud recesses, when he sees two people making out. One in a now familiar green, and one in …yellow.

Nie mingjue is making out with jin guangyao in the cloud recesses, right under his brother’s nose! The nerve!

Lan zhan is frozen solid for a good five minutes, just watching in horror, before he turns and storms away, determined to save his brother from such a faithless match.

Jin guangyao and nie mingjue were absolutely doing it on purpose. They caught a glimpse of lan zhan’s white robes and handsome appearance out of the corner of their eye and thinking he was lan xichen, decided to give him a show. When they weren’t hit with a solid body joining their embrace they realized something was wrong, it wasn’t xichen, but lan wangji. They both feel very embarrassed and do not want to bring it up to lan xichen that they ruined his brother’s innocent with the sight of their kissing.

Lan wangji meanwhile tries to tell his brother, but his brother won’t hear a word against nie mingjue, (and lan zhan’s phrasing was also really vague, stuff like: “nie mingjue is a bad man, and jin guangyao is a snake in the bunny feild” but give him a break, he was traumatized)

Lan’s only love once, lan zhan justifies to himself, its gonna take more than words to convince him.

So he goes to the only person he can think of in times of crisis, wei wuxian.

Wei wuxian isn’t very close to those three, he thought nie mingjue was a better man than that, but then again, all the sects did turn a blind eye to the wen prison camps, so what does he know? No. He’s only mad about this because lan zhan came to him so obviously upset, and wei wuxian can never resist an upset lan zhan.

So he works day and night, (while lan zhan gets covered in blankets by the wens and hugs a-yaun for comfort) to create a talisman that can capture an event in the instant it happens, like a painting!

(Its a camera, he invented a camera)

He then starts marketting them to the common people under a psydonim, so it will be a trusted device by the time news reaches the cloud recesses.

He then gives it to lan zhan and instructs him to get a photo of nie mingjue cheating to show to his brother as proof.

Lan zhan accepts with the gravity of a man going to war, and prepares to stalk his brother’s boyfriend.

Meanwhile, nie huaisang is in for the shock of his life at the next sect conference, when he sees thr flowers he had sent to jin guangyao’s rooms on his brothers behalf, were instead decorating the rooms of a blushing lan xichen, who said “someone very special gave them to me.”

This may seem an innocent gesture of regifting, but nie huaisang smells a rat. You don’t regift a lovers gift to another person, u certainly don’t leave the other person blushing and saying it was from someone “very special”

Clearly jin guangyao is two-timing poor nie mingjue! But don’t worry! Nie huaisang has the perfect plan! First he’ll expose jin guangyao for the liar he is, then he’ll have both nie mingjue and lan xichen rebound with each other, effectively ensuring their happieness while punishing the guilty party! (Lan xichen can’t know. He’s to good to cheat, and he loves nie mingjue to much,” nie huaisang thinks, missing the obvious)

His plans however, face problems from the start. He first tries to expose jin guangyao as having a failed relationship before with qin su, to show to his brother jin guangyao’s track record isn’t great. But when he finds the actual reason “the mother told them both they were siblings, since she was no longer afraid of jin guangshan’s retribution since he was dead” it doesn’t help him at all! If anything it makes jiggy look even more honorable for covering it up and makinf it look like it was because he wasn’t good enough.

Then he tries to expose him as a liar in koi tower, lots of corruption there! But his every step is thwarted by some unknown force, one even he can’t out think

His only hope lies in the new talisman on the market that allows you to capture images. Surely if he catches jin guangyao in the act, that will be wnouggh to prove him unfaithful (even if it will prob take a few more steps to convince da-ge that lan xichen didn’t know actually and is s good choice for rebound)

The person who is thwartinf nie huaisang is in fact jin zixuan, mostly by all the back breaking work he’s done to weed out corruption, tiredness, and trying to keep jin guangyao to simpler, easy to do jobs.

See, jin zixuan saw lan xichen kiss nie mingjue on the cheek a couple weeks back, and even though he’s not certain if its actually cheating or lan xichen and a-yao broke up and lan xichen moved on far to quickly, he knows it must be taking a toll on jin guangyao

Not that jin guangyao is showing any signs, but that’s just the mask he’s always wearing. If Jin zixuan wants to see the real him, he needs to prove he can be someone he can trust.

So he starts giving jin guangyao simpler tasks to do, paired with babysitting the new born jin ling, things that keep him away from all the husle of court politics that put him into contact with his ex and his ex’s new man.

Jiang yanli is more than happy to help, talking about her own brothers to remind jiggy he has one too, and having tea with him while he holds jin ling.

Jiggy is glad for time with jin ling, but he likes doing things! He has to fight tooth and nail to get jin zixuan to let him help with the one month ceremony, and is far to busy with that to do any scheming of any kind

Everything comes to a head at jin ling’s one month celebration, where nie huaisang tries to publicly expose jin guangyao by working pictures of him with lan xichen into the slide show (yet another wei wuxian invention, he’s really on fire with these)

He then points out the obvious by “accident” and tries to reassure mingju there’s no way lan xichen would ever betray him like that

Lan zhan (who has brought wei wuxian for moral aupport) sees this and panics, showing his pictures (which he originally wanted to give to his brother in private) to prove his brother’s innocence and that its the other way around, actually.

To which jin zixuan angrilly stands up and points out how nie mingjue and lan xichen were the one’s who left jin guangyao and he’s not going to stand for anyone insulting his brother actually, and this is his psrty so they better back off or get out.

“Your here for formalities sake, we could easily have this with just the jins and the jiangs!”

“Anf me!” Goes wei wuxian

“And the wei sect!” Goes jin zixuan, accidentally acknowledging wei wuxian’s group of outcasts as legitimate and thus changing the course of history

It is at this point when 3zun realize the jig is up. In their attempt to keep quiet for politics, they made everything even worse.

They stand up and point out that no, no one is cheating, and yes, they are all together, all THREE of them, and that is not going to change anytime soon, and also could they have those photos? Lan xichen’s starting a scrap book.

See this is why i don’t tell you things, goes jin guangyao to jin zixuan, (secretly pleased he’d be willing to go against two sects for him)

“What the f- goes on in your head?” Goes nie mingjue to nie huaisang

“Brother i told you this ages ago,” goes a very disappointed lan xichen

“Lan’d can love more than one person?” Lan zhan says, eyes wide and uncompeehending “do i have to love more than one?”

“Don’y worry about it lan zhan,” goes wei wuxian. “You can love exactly how you want too.” Lam zhan looks at him with wide eyes, makes three leaps of logic, a d assumes this is wei wuxian acknowledging lan zhan’s feelings and giving him permission to court him.

Steve running up to hug both of them as tightly as possible, giving robin a huge grin before turning to have one of those passionate i-cant-believe-we're-alive kisses with Eddie