hear me out: tlj x ming fan
I need yāall to hear me out here. I fell down the rarepair rabbit hole and this is where I ended up: tlj and mf. And I mean, Ming Fan. Little mini Shen Jiu Ming Fan. And Bingheās dad.
Yes, I absolutely do mean this. I am dead serious. This is not a āhaha funny pair lbhās ex bully is making out with lbhās dad ahahaā ship. I mean it could be, but then thereās the angst potential.
Like. Imagine. Ming Fan is this scrappy, somewhat ordinary-looking kid (he grows out of the baby fat and gorgeous tho trust me bro just look at the official art in the book that stuff is too pretty) with a distant family, a distant shizun/dad-figure and maybe 3 crushes (I go with Nyy, Gyx/Yyx and lbh because I like the idea of mf being emotionally useless and mistaking a fucking crush for abyss-deep hatred) which all quietly failed when they ran off and got married to someone not named Ming Fan. He probably has abandonment and neglect issues huge enough to pass as mountains. He always feels like heās not good enough because heās surrounded by prodigies, fucking heaven-sent geniuses and immortals but at the same time he feels like he has to take care of everyone and everything because if not him, then who? His shizun works two jobs, one of which empress, and he was absent for years, mf definitely took over one or two peak lord duties. All the disciples are younger than him, heās their dashixiong, they rely on him. He canāt trust Bai Zhan because Qing Jing peak hates Bai Zhan. Heās got a difficult personality so he has a hard time making friends. His family is slowly aging towards the day heāll be standing at their graves, not looking a single day older than 27 or 30 while his siblings and parents are six feet under. Heās on his own. And he gets good at it. He starts lying to people about his workload, he starts hiding his insecurities, his troubles, his qi deviations, everything. Heās the perfect, if a little grumpy, head disciple. And heās so fucking young.
Enter Tlj. He takes one look at this kid and decides he does not give a shit. Man has issues. He isnāt looking for a boyfriend, he just wants quiet after all that bullshit he went through. And mfās just an ordinary cultivator, maybe a bit more hardworking than usual, but what about it? Not enough for tlj to care. So, tlj breaks into the qing jing library and just. Refuses to leave. Because of the yaoi slop that shen yuanās been hiding in there. (Yes Shen Yuanās a fujo in this one. Itās not gay if heās not the one doing it. Itās either him or Nyy.)
and ming fan is in that library trying to learn, trying to do his documents and definitely NOT prepared for some fuckass demon to waltz in and start reading smut five meters away in the corner. And bringing snacks into the library. SNACKS. IN THE HOLY QING JING LIBRARY. Ming Fanās retreat. The one place on Qing Jing he can still work at (he got kicked out of his office for working himself into passing out. Shen Yuan does not know this because heās busy being married).
so they kinda start talking and mf is just annoyed and tired and every time heās polite you just KNOW itās insincere. He has mastered the ways of obviously insincere politeness to a degree even Shen Jiu would be proud of. tlj is just kinda amused. Like he starts out seeing mf as this weird, kinda funny kid, but not really as a person, more as some weird funny animal to pass time watching. and then Ming Fan starts being stupid. And hiding all the shit he does for the people around him. And he gets him a special corner in the library he can eat snacks at without the librarian trying to kill him for dirtying her sacred space. And he has qi deviations. And some fucker is trying to flirt with him and mf pretends he doesnāt know because that fucker is the crush of some friend/shimei/shidi of his. And he tries to do everything alone. And he never asks for help. And holy shit tlj is CONCERNED.
like, not romantically. Definitely not. Heās not betraying xiyan like that. But it canāt hurt to drag one stupid disciple on mandatory holiday⦠right?
anyway ming fan latches onto that tiny bit of concern like itās a lifeline. Like? Positive attention?? Someone is considering him a priority??? And he lets him trash talk about everyone and everything? And he agrees that Huan Hua is the worst place ever and, aside from gyx, should be thrown into a bug nest for being peacocks and stupid and trying to hurt shizun and that entire fake trial and imprisonment thing they pulled? He is starving for that. All of that.
Flash forward, they are both screaming in their heads while tlj is flirting and mf is slowly learning how to flirt back in a way that makes the other guy shut up. Both are just yelling WHY YOU WHY THE FUCK IS IT THAT GUY IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANYONE LITERALLY FUCKING ANYONE WHY HIM. this is worse for tlj because of the sxy thing.
Ming Fan is so insecure and he feels like tljās out of his league so he doesnāt even try to take it seriously and tlj stares at mf desperately trying to tell himself that he is not falling for some random, stupid kid with a martyr complex. And beats himself up for ābetrayingā sxy. Again.
And they go on some kind of epic holiday quest all the while. They can have their bi crisis on the road, preferably while mfās trying to paint something to sell for travelling funds. That sounds like the perfect time to be having an emotional crisis.
meanwhile cang qiong wonders where the fuck ming fan is, because apparently they were not paying attention and now heās gone and qing jing would be collapsing if he hadnāt taught some of the disciples how to do paperwork bc lbh does not care and sy is busy and overwhelmed with suddenly having to do the entirety of two jobs. Meanwhile sqh is overworking his spy network for the gossip because, what do you mean his sonās father is dating his sonās childhood bully?