#mingxian

I picture lwj and lxc running into wwx at a hotel entrance or something and chatting it up, then realizing they're there for the same event and asking him who is here there with and him being like "oh i am nmj's date"

This is a win-win for nhs cause either 3zun figure shit out with the wwx shaped jealousy bomb, OR wwx and nmj actually hit it off and nhs best friend becomes family.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46814080

So I had this idea and wasn't sure which pairings etc would work well with it but ex-chengxian and zhancheng seems to be good maybe so like au where the law is that if you divorce your spouse you cannot remarry them until they've married another... if they become divorced/widowed from this new spouse, *then* if you want to rekindle a relationship with them you can get married to them again because divorce is allowed but a past emperor thought that some people were marrying and divorcing too frivolously and not taking marriage seriously so they put this rule into place so that people would think before making hasty decisions.

Now of course the new marriage has to be real.. a real relationship.. if the court finds out that you're marrying and divorcing just as a way to get the second marriage out of the way to get back with your first spouse you will be arrested. Of course there were still some shady dealings but the law generally made it difficult for people to actually go through with these kinds of plans. Only one half of the couple needed to remarry not both, just to show that they tried to move on.

Of course you could still get back together after a divorce, you simply would not be able to marry and would just have to be without that status, which was very frowned upon by the society. Some people did just live together but it wasn't an easy thing socially speaking as it was a sign that you were a frivolous person who divorced your spouse for petty reasons and it just made u seem like u had bad character so people would look down on you. And for the most part it worked. People who considered marriage did it seriously, and divorce as well.

Of course every society has people who do things in haste and anger so there were definitely those who didn't think things through and later regretted it. So I'm thinking maybe chengxian are together and they're childhood sweethearts but Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng have been arguing lately and couldn't agree on certain decisions... Wei Wuxian in the heat of the moment said something really really stupid-- that maybe they should just divorce and do things their own way.

Jiang Cheng, hurt, agreed.

Wei Wuxian of course regrets it. He regrets it so much.

But Jiang Cheng refused to be married to someone who didn't want him. He promised himself he wouldn't become his mother. So he goes through with the divorce because just the fact that Wei Wuxian brought it up really hurt him and caused him to lose trust and faith in their relationship.

Wei Wuxian was confident that he could win Jiang Cheng back... but he wouldn't get the chance to he knew because Jiang Cheng would *never* put himself in a cohabiting situation after the divorce to have people look down on him and treat him poorly, and Wei Wuxian wouldn't want that for him either.

Enter Lan Wangji Now I can't decide how I want this to go. We could have a few dif scenarios here. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are good friends and Wei Wuxian begs Lan Wangji to help him. He could court Jiang Cheng and marry him and because Wei Wuxian didn't want Jiang Cheng's heart to be too badly hurt, Lan Wangji could divorce him later with the excuse of being Wei Wuxian's friend and feeling so guilty that he 'stole' him from Wei Wuxian when he knew how much Wei Wuxian still loved Jiang Cheng. This was so Jiang Cheng wouldn't feel like he was the problem. Wei Wuxian definitely learned the hard way and he really didn't want to hurt Jiang Cheng, he loved him.

So when they got divorced Wei Wuxian could beg Jiang Cheng for another chance. (And of course Lan Wangji would talk up how much Wei Wuxian regretted what he did and how much he cared for Jiang Cheng) OR Lan Wangji who is in love with Wei Wuxian and wants to marry *him* but he knows Wei Wuxian is still in love with Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji isn't a bad guy and he just wants Wei Wuxian to be happy, even if it's not with him. He and Wei Wuxian are friends and Wei Wuxian of course cried to him all about his regrets etc So he volunteers to woo & marry Jiang Cheng and divorce him after a bit so that Wei Wuxian could remarry him.

The problem? He falls in love with Jiang Cheng.

In either scenario Lan Wangji falls for Jiang Cheng and... well.. he doesn't *want* to divorce him. This has the potential for drama because both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng feel betrayed by Lan Wangji once this comes out. Wei Wuxian will confront Lan Wangji because when are you going to divorce him?! Lan Wangji keeps stalling somehow Jiang Cheng finds out.. maybe he overhears their conversation or maybe Wei Wuxian in a fit of anger at Lan Wangji for having Jiang Cheng's love now, tells Jiang Cheng everything

Jiang Cheng of course is doubly heartbroken and betrayed because he can't believe that Wei Wuxian would actually have someone else make him fall in love with them and marry them only to divorce him just to let him be with Wei Wuxian (yes Wei Wuxian loves him but it's selfish of him not to consider that Jiang Cheng would be heartbroken at a second divorce no matter how amicable because for Jiang Cheng to get married in the first place to another person meant he would have had to love them dearly and of course he'd have moved on from Wei Wuxian by then to this new person so no guarantee he'd go back to Wei Wuxian at all).

And of course he's more hurt by Lan Wangji who he was now in love with because it meant that Lan Wangji approached him with ulterior motives and if the relationship started on a lie then how could Jiang Cheng believe any of Lan Wangji's feelings were real? From the beginning Lan Wangji had no intention of being with Jiang Cheng He was just stringing Jiang Cheng along and faking everything to get Jiang Cheng to agree to marry him. Jiang Cheng is crushed. But Lan Wangji refuses to divorce him. He would not make the same mistake as Wei Wuxian and let Jiang Cheng go. Jiang Cheng was rightfully upset with him but Lan Wangji was willing to grovel as long as it took.

Even if Wei Wuxian was angry with Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji couldn't help himself. He knew Wei Wuxian loved Jiang Cheng but... well he did now too. If it's the first scenario where they're just friends, maybe Lan Wangji decides Jiang Cheng is more important than Wei Wuxian but Lan Wangji is still his friend so he tries to convince Wei Wuxian that he and Jiang Cheng divorced for a reason and that Wei Wuxian was just accustomed to Jiang Cheng being around his entire life and needed to put himself out there and find someone to love that wasn't just partially because of familiarity. Wei Wuxian of course is pissed at Lan Wangji anyway and still heartbroken

He really and truly lost Jiang Cheng. Not only was Jiang Cheng now married to Lan Wangji who was refusing to divorce him so there was no chance of remarrying him, but Jiang Cheng was also really hurt that Wei Wuxian would go behind his back and scheme. He felt Wei Wuxian had been selfish... if Wei Wuxian had been honest and tried to win Jiang Cheng back, then if Wei Wuxian's efforts had been sincere and Jiang Cheng gave him another chance, the marriage issue could have been resolved by both of them agreeing to Lan Wangji's help. But Wei Wuxian hadn't done that, he and Lan Wangji had played Jiang Cheng for a fool in Jiang Cheng's eyes.

And so Wei Wuxian had lost Jiang Cheng and he'd also lost a friendship with Lan Wangji because Lan Wangji had agreed to help him but instead had stolen Jiang Cheng from him. Even if Jiang Cheng was mad at Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng was more hurt and Wei Wuxian knew it was because Jiang Cheng really loved him, so if Lan Wangji grovelled enough he was sure Jiang Cheng would accept him Maybe Wei Wuxian goes out to drown his sorrows and ends up crying alone in a corner... he wakes up the next morning in a bed that he didn't recognise and high key panicked because he did not remember going home with anyone!

"Calm down, nothing happened," said a very amused voice.

The man had watched him flail around in confusion and panic and thought it adorable and hilarious but put him out of his misery anyway because it wasn't nice to scare him like that. Wei Wuxian looked over to see a huge, muscled dude with a grin on his face. 'Whoa' he thought, 'Hot'.

"Uh.. what am I doing here? And no offense but, who are you?"

"Nie Mingjue," came the response alongside another grin, and oh my were those dimples? "And as to why you're here.. you had a little too much and were crying all alone. I wanted to make sure you were okay and you basically spilled your life story. You passed out after a while and well I didn't know what else to do but to take you home and let you rest. Your phone was locked so I couldn't call anyone to come get you. I apologise but I didn't really have a choice at the moment."

"Oh." Wei Wuxian felt embarrassed that this man saw his sorry state. "You must think I'm pathetic." He hid his face in his hands sorrowfully.

"No. Maybe you made some mistakes but we all do, especially when emotions are involved. It's not pathetic."

Wei Wuxian strangely felt a bit better. Nie Mingjue was just really good at big brothering someone-- though he could tell from the looks he was getting as he made breakfast that this one definitely didn't see him as a brother. Well, that was ok. He might have red puffy eyes but when he smiled Wei Wuxian was breathtaking. Nie Mingjue would like very much to make him smile. Though not just yet of course, he was still getting over his ex.

But Nie Mingjue was a patient man. He could wait.

Of course Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji would eventually work things out because never let it be said that Lan Wangji wasn't good at simping. Eventually his efforts got through to Jiang Cheng and they had a proper conversation and Jiang Cheng expressed how hurt he was while Lan Wangji talked about how he fell for Jiang Cheng very quickly and he knew that he'd have a hard time doing what Wei Wuxian had asked, and by the time their wedding came around he knew he wasn't going to go through with it at all. He apologised too for not considering Jiang Cheng's feelings when he and Wei Wuxian planned things and acknowledged it was foolish.

It may have started out as a way to help Wei Wuxian but for Lan Wangji it very soon became real and he didn't fake things with Jiang Cheng, even in the beginning he hadn't exactly lied to Jiang Cheng he had just tried to talk to him about things they had in common and to get to know him.

Once he convinced Jiang Cheng that it wasn't fake and his feelings were real, they were able to 'start over' on more honest ground and Lan Wangji took the opportunity to woo him again. They also managed to have a conversation with Wei Wuxian and to clear the air. Lan Wangji apologised to him as well because well, he really did betray Wei Wuxian in a way. And Wei Wuxian acknowledged it was immature and selfish of him to try and control Jiang Cheng's relationship status so that he'd get back with Wei Wuxian. The biggest surprise was when Wei Wuxian introduced them to his new boyfriend but it was a happy surprise, they were glad for him.

Of course if it's the second scenario where Lan Wangji was in love with Wei Wuxian and volunteered himself to marry Jiang Cheng so Wei Wuxian could have him back because he wanted to see Wei Wuxian happy.. aka he was doing it all for Wei Wuxian without regard for Jiang Cheng up until he went and fell for Jiang Cheng himself... it'd be a little more complicated. ie. Jiang Cheng would be even more hurt i think in this scenario because if Lan Wangji was in love with Wei Wuxian then how could he love Jiang Cheng?