#3city

Good day Yi City! The party preparations have started! Round six for the Songxuexiao Exchange is go! Signups open OCTOBER 9. Be ready with your prompts!

Songxuexiao Exchange 2025 on AO3

Schedule

October 9 - Signups open

October 17 - Signups close (5:00 p.m. EST)

October 20 - Assignments Sent Out

December 7 - Works Due (5:00 p.m. EST)

December 14 - Works Revealed

“I love you to death, I love you completely”

You were scared, Xiao Xingchen thinks, gaze sweeping over Xue Yang. He looks awful. His eyes and face are red, like he’s been rubbing at them. He seems hesitant—like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to be in the room with them. Xiao Xingchen feels a rush of affection for him. He reaches out his hand, palm up, offering it to Xue Yang.

Xue Yang stares. Xiao Xingchen waits. Then, slowly, Xue Yang places his hand in Xiao Xingchen’s. Xiao Xingchen closes his fingers and pulls him down, to the bed, to them.

Yi city modern au

3city, modern cultivators AU

It's nothing special; just a normal weekday evening. Song Lan is sitting at the dining room table finishing up a night hunt report on his laptop. Xingchen and Xue Yang are flirting in the kitchen— well, ostensibly they're making dinner, but they've never let that get in the way before. It's a soup recipe that Xue Yang had suggested in his offhand way that was meant to hide his enthusiasm for it, and then immediately hedged on the idea when Xingchen encouraged him. So Song Lan had turned it into a challenge, said he didn't want to cook tonight, they could just order something if Xue Yang didn't want to cook, either.

And so now here they are, pot simmering on the stove, half a cabinet's worth of spices out on the counters and a stack of dirty cutting boards that Song Lan will volunteer to clean up later. It's comforting; someone put some music on and Xingchen is laughing and Song Lan feels safe, the atmosphere both inviting and undemanding.

He lapses in and out of the conversation. At one point, he looks up to catch Xingchen trying to get away from Xue Yang with sauce on his fingers, and Xue Yang's smile is unrestrained. Contagious. Song Lan ducks his head back into his work before either of them can notice.

Later, there's a disagreement about the amount of spice and Song Lan is called upon to arbitrate. Xue Yang brings a shallow spoonful over to the table and Song Lan holds onto his hand to steady it while he tastes. And then he reaches with the other hand for Xue Yang's neck, pulling him down for a kiss. It's not long, but not chaste; Xingchen wolf-whistles from behind.

"That good, huh?" Xue Yang teases when Song Lan lets him go.