Wei Wuxian comes back from the dead, and at first he's quite relieved that Jiang Cheng, at least, hasn't changed one bit. Of all the messed up memories in his head, there's an instinct towards his old martial brother that makes all his familiarities a balm, rare as it is that they cross paths after Guanyin Temple.
But the more of his memories return, the less things line up. Jiang Cheng doesn't eat pork anymore. He enjoys listening to music without his attention drifting. He wears his hair down even in formal settings (still *appropriate* but nothing like his rigid formality in emulation of his father in their youth). He moderates his spice intake and *doesn't* moderate his use of alcohol. When his subordinate comes up to him to report a mistake, no matter how grave, he doesn't snap at them or roll his eyes or sigh. In battle, he never ever seems to need anyone to guard his back. He still lets people (other people, non-Wei Wuxian people) do so anyway.
Wei Wuxian is certain it's all deliberate, meant to throw him off in some way. Unseat the delicate balance of positive memories he has drawn from the dark pool of his formerly shattered spirit. There are frighteningly few of them - and so many of those he has have Jiang Cheng, bright and fiery and loud and *himself* all throughout them.
Lan Wangji confirms some of his suspicions - it seems unlikely to him that Sect Leader Jiang is truly as level-headed as he appears in public. Wei Wuxian decides he just has to confirm all the others.
So he watches. The teahouses and the local nighthunting spots. He follows rumors he knows (he knew, once?) that Jiang Cheng would follow. He questions Jin Ling, who puzzledly chases Wei Wuxian off at soup-based inquiries. He sneaks into Lotus Pier.
Jiang Cheng sits in his chambers by the window, sipping delicately at a jade cup. His face splits into a sudden grin, an echo of a smile so familiar Wei Wuxian feels his teeth ache. Someone else is in the room with him. Someone else who picks at the shared plate of food, whose hands pour another measure of wine, who is given leave to run their fingers up Sect Leader Jiang's hand, tapping Zidian (who does not shock them, kill them, as she well should).
A purple sleeve in a familiar style (Wei Wuxian's head hurts a moment, he looks down at his own attire, Gusu underrobes covered by plain charcoal grey) reaches over, followed by a body and long dark hair. The person looks wrong. Their hands too lithe (his own were stronger). Their body too stocky (he'd always been taller than Jiang Cheng). Their smile too sweet, altogether sappy, as they cupped Jiang Cheng's cheek (Wei Wuxian would have smirked, would have teased, would have known to make that cheek burn with blush. Would have pushed Jiang Cheng down by now. Would have-)
Wei Wuxian looks away, fixing his eyes instead on the lake water, whose surface distorts and distorts, and which is never the same as it was before.
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ok, so in the following situation: jiang cheng and replacement-gege ocasionally have sex, just something they do to burn some energy off or when they're looking for something fun. they are slowly working towards something a bit more serious but at a snail's pace since they both prioritize yunmeng jiang's well-being over any romantic relationship (part of the reason they started hooking up). after that night in dafan mountain, with wei wuxian's ressurection and jin ling's (failed?) first night hunt, it's safe to say that he goes back to yunmeng jiang with a lot of pent up frustation and decides that the best way to get rid of it is by having sex with, of course, replacement-gege. unbeknownst to him and literally anyone else, by some cultivating-transplanted-golden-core-shenanigans that no one can explain, wei wuxian's ressurection + zapping him with zidian made it so jiang cheng was able to get pregnant. now, because that was something so unexpected, when jiang cheng found out his pregnancy he was almost five months along, a few months after the whole guanyin temple thing. unfortunately, he found out due to his belly unmistakenbly growing, which means almost everyone else in yunmeng jiang found out together with him. because there isn't a no-gossip rule in yunmeng jiang, word quickly gets around and manages to get to cloud recesses, more specifically, to wei wuxian.
(the gossip doesn't include who the other father is, since jiang cheng and replacement-gege are very discreet about their thing and wei wuxian has no idea who is replacement-gege seeing as he still hasn't visited lotus pier since the whole ancestral hall fiasco)
how does he react?
he's fine, so fine. literally, never been finer. *weird laugh wtout eye contact*
finds out about replacement-gege and has a mental breakdown*
refuses to believe it bc "jc is a virgin!! how can he be pregnant?"
acknowlegdes the pregnancy but pretends jc got pregnant on his own
finds out it was bc of the golden core and demands to be treated like the father
another option (put it in the tags)
Voting ended onMay 29
*the discovery that jiang cheng has a second in command (that's not wei wuxian) for almost 12 years and that he is pregnant with him is too much for wei wuxian to handle
always wanted to try writing one of those dogblood scenarios where everyone's the worst possible version of themselves, so here we go.
consider the following scenario:
[cw: ooc, murder, manipulation, general unethical behavior]
shortly after the fall of lotus pier, qishan wen wipes out a small sect called the shang sect. only one person survives: a disciple named shang yingchen, who is rescued from the wens by jiang cheng. shang yingchen is subsequently recruited into the yunmeng jiang sect by jiang cheng - jiang cheng's very first recruit as sect leader jiang. notably, shang yingchen has a sister named shang yingxia, who has gone missing; though jiang cheng and shang yingchen search for shang yingxia, they are unable to find her.
events proceed as they do in canon. wei wuxian invents demonic cultivation, leaves the yunmeng jiang sect to protect the wen remnants, kicks off a series of events that results in the deaths of both jin zixuan and jiang yanli, and then dies during the first siege of the burial mounds led by jiang cheng.
in the aftermath, jiang cheng grieves. shang yingchen continously offers jiang cheng support, and though jiang cheng at first lashes out at him, he eventually comes to accept this support. eventually, jiang cheng appoints shang yingchen as his second-in-command.
early into the 13 year timeskip, a plague sweeps through lanling. the young jin ling falls gravely ill and seems certain to die. however, one day, jin ling miraculously wakes up completely healthy.
meanwhile, yunmeng jiang cracks down on demonic cultivation. initially, yunmeng jiang only arrests and punishes the (many) yiling laozu imitators that cropped up after wei wuxian's death; however, yunmeng jiang soon expands the scope of its targets to any demonic cultivator at all, and then anyone even suspected of performing demonic cultivation. while those who actually have not performed any demonic cultivation are usually released in the end with no permanent damage, everyone else disappears into the bowels of lotus pier, never to be seen again.
notably, while at first these operations were led by jiang cheng, as time goes on, jiang cheng increasingly delegates this work to his second-in-command, shang yingchen. eventually, the work of apprehending demonic cultivators is placed almost completely under the purview of shang yingchen, with jiang cheng's only participation being the final approval of operations at the very end. thus, even more than jiang cheng himself, the image of shang yingchen - dressed in yunmeng purples, wielding a strange sword said to be made of shadows - becomes the terror of all demonic cultivators.
then, one day, yunmeng jiang's raids on demonic cultivators abruptly stops completely. shang yingchen reports that demonic cultivation has been suppressed to a sufficiently low level.
time passes. shang yingchen continues to serve as jiang cheng's second-in-command, and continues to earn more and more of jiang cheng's trust as well. jiang cheng, meanwhile, grows more and more comfortable relying on shang yingchen. one day, jiang cheng realizes that he feels safe around shang yingchen and that he can no longer picture the new lotus pier without shang yingchen by his side.
shang yingchen's missing sister, shang yingxia, is located. as it turns out, she had survived the massacre of the shang sect but had been afflicted with amnesia due to the traumas she experienced; as an amnesiac, she had joined the moling su sect. now, shang yingxia's memories have returned. however, she is happy in moling su and shang yingchen is happy in yunmeng jiang; thus, though the siblings do reunite with each other, they decide to stay with their current sects.
interestingly, ever since that year during which he nearly died of illness yet miraculously survived in the end, not once has jin ling ever gotten sick.
wei wuxian is resurrected.
wei wuxian is resurrected by the same means as he was in canon: via a soul-sacrifice array that he himself had designed. however, wei wuxian finds via mo xuanyu's notes that, before resorting to the soul-sacrifice array, mo xuanyu had attempted another method: he had attempted to summon a demon called the soul-eater and bid it to massacre his family in exchange for his soul. however, mo xuanyu had not succeeded in summoning the soul-eater.
events proceed as they do in canon: wei wuxian and lan wangji uncover jin guangyao's murder of nie mingjue. su minshan disables everyone's cultivation at the burial mounds in order to allow jin guangyao to kill them all. the golden core transfer is revealed. jin guangyao dies at the yunping guanyin temple. wei wuxian and lan wangji elope with each other.
postcanon, jiang cheng is incredibly upset by this turn of events, especially the reveal of the golden core transfer. he also cannot forget wei wuxian saying at the yunping guanyin temple that the only thing that had ever existed between them had been wei wuxian's obligation to jiang fengmian.
shang yingchen once more does his best to support jiang cheng. from shang yingchen's private point of view, though, wei wuxian is making a big mistake by throwing jiang cheng away - because, if wei wuxian will not fight for jiang cheng, then there is nothing stopping shang yingchen from taking jiang cheng for himself.
thus, shang yingchen does his best to convince jiang cheng to move on. says shang yingchen, if wei wuxian no longer wishes to be brothers with jiang cheng - if wei wuxian never saw jiang cheng as a brother - then that is fine. the world is vast and full of people. even if wei wuxian rejects jiang cheng, there are still plenty of others. jiang cheng is certain to find his own people.
jiang cheng, of course, still harbors hopes that wei wuxian will come back one day. however, he agrees that there is little point in chasing after someone who wishes to cut ties. therefore, while jiang cheng does ship all of wei wuxian's old belongings (which jiang cheng had kept across the 13 year timeskip) to wei wuxian's new address in the cloud recesses, he includes no communication and makes no further efforts to contact wei wuxian.
time passes. at first, wei wuxian is happy in the cloud recesses. however, as the months go by, he begins to feel less and less like himself. the rules and lifestyle in the cloud recesses are anathema to his personality, so either he represses himself to follow the rules, or he compels lan wangji to go against lan wangji's own family by flouting the rules and then getting lan wangji to cover for him. furthermore, while the lan juniors liked him a lot at first, lan qiren's decree against speaking to him does end up driving most of them away from him; as a result, now, barely anyone in the cloud recesses will even talk to him.
meanwhile, ever since the downfall of jin guangyao, the surviving members of the moling su sect have become persecuted public enemies. one day, a confrontation between a group of su remnants and a party of cultivators from qinghe nie escalates into a fight that leaves qinghe nie's first disciple permanently disabled; in retaliation, nie huaisang demands that all of the surviving su remnants be dealt severe punishments, including execution.
one of the surviving su remnants is shang yingchen's sister, shang yingxia. thus, upon hearing of this news, shang yingchen flies to the su remnant settlement, parks himself in front of the entrance, and swears to kill anyone who tries to harm the su remnants.
naturally, jiang cheng soon shows up as well to figure out just what his second in command is doing. however, instead of anything else, shang yingchen gets on his knees and begs jiang cheng to find some way to help his sister and her sect siblings.
then, the next day, qinghe nie's first disciple wakes up to find that she has been restored to perfect health, and that her previously permanent maiming has disappeared completely. that same day, jiang cheng declares that all of the su remnants are now under yunmeng jiang's protection. yunmeng jiang offers qinghe nie a massive sum of money as recompense for sun yingchen's actions; qinghe nie accepts and the matter is closed.
in the aftermath, yunmeng jiang faces heavy criticism. however, since yunmeng jiang is now also the strongest sect in the jianghu and also has the full support of lanling jin, nothing comes of this criticism.
wei wuxian, upon hearing of this news, decides that he does not care at all. certainly, he had expected jiang cheng to cut this shang yingchen loose, just as he had thrown wei wuxian away all those years ago. certainly, wei wuxian had expected jiang cheng to put yunmeng jiang above a single second-in-command. and yet, jiang cheng had not done that. and yet, jiang cheng had exerted his power to protect not just this second-in-command, but also all of the people this second-in-command was desperate to protect. jiang cheng must really love this second-in-command. but all of this has nothing more to do with wei wuxian, so wei wuxian decides he does not care.
yunmeng jiang announces that it is once more going to begin cracking down on demonic cultivation. soon, yunmeng jiang once more begins to hunt down and detain back to lotus pier any individual suspected of demonic cultivation. and, while those who have not actually done any demonic cultivation are typically released with no permanent damage, more and more people are permanently disappeared into lotus pier, never to be seen again.
one day, wang and xian are nighthunting near the gusu-yunmeng border when they are approached by a heavily-injured young man, who begs them for help. this young man identifies himself as an lan, and says that he has recently escaped from lotus pier. says an lan, sect leader jiang and his second-in-command apprehended an lan's entire family for demonic cultivation. certainly, an lan's family had fallen upon hard times and sold demonic talismans in order to regain their lost wealth, but certainly this did not warrant being killed by sect leader jiang! thus, an lan begs wang and xian to help him free his family from the prisons of lotus pier.
wang and xian agree. not wanting to risk a direct confrontation with jiang cheng, wang and xian instead break into lotus pier in the middle of the night. there, they do find the corpses of an lan's other family members (his parents, his brothers and sisters); however, apart from some minor injuries sustained during their initial arrest, none of the bodies are damaged. and yet, all of them are dead.
unnerved, wang and xian sneak out of lotus pier. they inform an lan of what they found. then they agree that something highly unusual is going on in lotus pier and resolve to investigate.
wang and xian begin their investigation by tracking down the people actually released by yunmeng jiang. most of these people have returned to their daily lives with little issue: they all report that, after waving some sort of resentful-energy-detecting talisman around their bodies only to find nothing, sect leader jiang and his second in command had immediately released them. sect leader jiang had even given most of them a small amount of money for their trouble.
however, in one tiny hamlet, wang and xian find a different account. the woman they interview, chu yue, says that she and her sister chu ming were brought to lotus pier along with a group of other people; when the resentful-energy talisman did not activate for them, chu yue and chu ming were released. however, chu ming had felt that the money she had been given was not enough for her troubles, so she had snuck back into lotus pier to investigate - and had not come out again. chu yue eventually grown concerned; too frightened to confront sect leader jiang directly, she searched the nearby area. eventually, she found chu ming a few miles away from lotus pier, half-dead on the shores of lotus lake. chu yue then realized that, instead of coming back out through the gates, chu ming had jumped directly into the lake and swam all the way down to where she was now.
afterwards, chu yue had asked chu ming what had driven her to swim all the way rather than just walk out. however, chu ming seemed to have lost her mind. all of her previous lucidity was gone, and instead, all she could do was repeatedly mutter that she had "seen the demon sword swallow them."
upon hearing this, wang and xian are mostly just confused. however, an lan, who had joined wang and xian's investigation gets a funny look on his face and leaves.
concerned about an lan, wang and xian follow him. an lan returns to an ill-maintained estate that must be his family's home, opens a series of secret doors, and disappears inside; wang and xian sneak in behind him.
inside, wang and xian see an lan draw, following a series of documents, a complex magic circle. then an lan activates the magic circle, and - as far as wang and xian can tell - summons a demon.
an lan asks that the demon grant his wish in exchange for his soul. the demon asks what it is that an lan wishes to obtain. an lan demands the full extermination of yunmeng jiang, as vengeance for the deaths of his family. however, the demon says that it is unable to grant this wish, as the demon already has both a current and a former client among yunmeng jiang, and that the demon cannot directly cause harm upon any of its current clients. upon hearing this, an lan grows enraged and attacks the demon. however, before he can even touch the demon, the demon gently slices through an lan with a short, dark-bladed sword. curiously, the sword's blade passes through an lan's body without even damaging his clothing. even more curiously, an lan collapses - dead.
the demon disappears. afterwards, lan wangji is incredibly concerned by what they saw and wishes to report the entire matter to gusu lan. however, wei wuxian, eyeing the documents now scattered across the floor near an lan's corpse, has a different idea. he convinces lan wangji to keep the matter to themselves for now, as there is something wei wuxian wants to try.
wei wuxian activates the magic circle and summons the demon. the demon seems amused to have been summoned back so quickly, and asks what it is that wei wuxian wishes to obtain. however, wei wuxian instead says that he merely wishes to chat.
first, wei wuxian asks the demon about itself - just what can it do and what services does it offer? the demon replies that it forms contracts with living humans: in exchange for the contractee's soul, the demon will grant any one miracle. the demon can perform any miracle - the only things it cannot do are change the past, revive the dead, and cause direct harm to other living humans with whom the demon currently has a contract.
wei wuxian then asks the demon what it does with the contractee's soul. the demon replies that it eats the soul. however, says the demon, this consumption can be delayed: for every 5 other souls that the contractee obtains for the demon to eat, the demon will delay the consumption of the contractee's own soul by 1 month. when wei wuxian then asks the demon how exactly the contractee can offer someone else's soul to the demon, the demon explains that, once a contract is made, the demon gives the contractee a special blade, which it calls a soul-offering sword: while the soul-offering sword is unable to cause damage to physical matter, it can sever a person's soul from their body and offer said soul to the demon. so any person touched by this blade will be physically unharmed, but will have their soul be extracted for the demon to eat.
the demon then asks if wei wuxian if he wishes to make a contract with the demon. however, wei wuxian refuses and instead says that he merely wished to have a talk today. then wei wuxian dismisses the demon.
with this information, wei wuxian soon figures out the full truth.
when jin ling fell ill, shang yingchen successfully summoned the demon. shang yingchen formed a contract with the demon: in exchange for shang yingchen's soul, the demon would cure jin ling and protect jin ling from all future illness. then, in order to prevent his own soul from being eaten, shang yingchen pushed yunmeng jiang to more actively hunt down demonic cultivators and found a way to seize all responsibility for this task for himself. thus, shang yingchen sacrificed all the demonic cultivators hunted down by yunmeng jiang to the demon, all to delay the consumption of his own soul.
shang yingchen also concealed what he was doing from jiang cheng. he fudged the reports such that all the demonic cultivators he apprehended seemed much more dangerous than they actually were, and also messed with the corpses to make it look like they had died via regular murder. so jiang cheng did not realize what sun yingchen was actually doing.
however, even with this explanation, the number of demonic cultivators that yunmeng jiang had disappeared during this time period was still too high. wei wuxian then figures out why. in fact, soon after entering in the contract with the demon, shang yingchen had challenged the demon to a game of cards, with the following terms: if the demon won, then the demon could increase the number of souls shang yingchen needed to offer to the demon per month by 1; if shang yingchen won, then the demon would return shang yingchen's soul to shang yingchen. shang yingchen lost the first few games, leading to the number of souls he had to sacrifice to dramatically increase.
however, in their final game, the demon got overconfident, and so shang yingchen won. thus, shang yingchen's soul was returned to himself. and since shang yingchen no longer needed to offer souls to the demon, yunmeng jiang's hunting down of demonic cultivators stopped.
then we arrive at the affair with the su remnants. when jiang cheng arrived at the su remnant settlement, he had already been unwilling to abandon shang yingchen. and then, when in a moment of desperation shang yingchen had revealed to jiang cheng the full truth about the demon, jiang cheng had seen a way out. so jiang cheng had summoned the demon himself and signed a contract with the demon: in exchange for jiang cheng's soul, the demon would heal qinghe nie's first disciple and ensure that the su remnants would be forgiven by the jianghu.
thus, with jiang cheng's soul at stake, yunmeng jiang resumed its hunt for demonic cultivators. in order to prevent the demon from eating jiang cheng's soul, jiang cheng and shang yingchen sacrificed the souls of all the demonic cultivators they had captured to the demon.
after learning all of this, wei wuxian summons the demon again. the demon asks if wei wuxian wishes to form a contract. however, wei wuxian once again refuses, and instead challenges the demon to a game of cards. wei wuxian offers these stakes: if the demon wins, then wei wuxian will give the demon his soul and will not demand any miracle in exchange; however, if wei wuxian wins, then the demon will give jiang cheng's soul to wei wuxian.
as it turns out, wei wuxian knows how to cheat at cards. thus, wei wuxian wins handily. the demon angrily gives jiang cheng's soul to wei wuxian and leaves.
this soul takes the form of a ball of light in a transparent jar. at first, lan wangji expects that wei wuxian will return the soul to jiang cheng. however, wei wuxian instead seems content to keep the soul in the jingshi. and as it turns out, it seems that jiang cheng can function just fine without a soul in his body.
wei wuxian begins messing with the soul. he learns that, while the soul cannot be damaged at all, if wei wuxian manipulates the soul in the correct fashion, he can both read jiang cheng's thoughts and feelings and direct jiang cheng's actions. furthermore, wei wuxian finds that jiang cheng cannot move more than a specific distance away from the soul; it just happens that this has not become an issue yet because that distance is quite large and jiang cheng never really leaves yunmeng.
meanwhile, ever since losing jiang cheng's soul, the demon has not contacted jiang cheng again; thus, jiang cheng does not know that his soul is now in the possession of wei wuxian. therefore, jiang cheng and shang yingchen are still continuing their hunts for demonic cultivators, and are now essentially feeding souls to the demon for free.
one day, while messing with the soul, wei wuxian learns the three following facts: 1. jiang cheng used to be in love with wei wuxian; 2. jiang cheng actually lost his golden core leading the wen patrol away from wei wuxian, which he specifically did because he loved wei wuxian; and 3. jiang cheng is no longer in love with wei wuxian, because now jiang cheng is in love with shang yingchen.
in the middle of the night, while lan wangji is asleep, wei wuxian summons the demon again. wei wuxian asks to make a contract with the demon. however, instead of wei wuxian's own soul, wei wuxian offers the soul of shang yingchen.
normally, it is impossible to offer the soul of another person because you only have authority over your own soul. the sole means by which you can offer another soul, the soul-offering sword, can be obtained only after making a contract with the demon, which requires offering a soul to do so - thus, offering another person's soul without offering your own first is impossible via catch-22. however, ever since losing the soul of shang yingchen in that card game, the demon had been incredibly frustrated to have lost the chance to eat shang yingchen's soul. so when wei wuxian says that he has a way of offering the soul of shang yingchen to the demon, the demon decides that it will hear wei wuxian out.
thus, wei wuxian makes the following contract with the demon: in exchange for shang yingchen's soul, the demon will never cause harm to, make any contracts with, or eat the souls of anyone that wei wuxian loves.
that evening, jiang cheng dreams. he dreams of the fight he had faked with wei wuxian in order to sell wei wuxian's expulsion from yunmeng jiang. in his dream, wei wuxian breaks his arm and he stabs wei wuxian in the abdomen.
when jiang cheng wakes up, though, he is not in his bed. instead, he has sleepwalked into the room of shang yingchen. both he and shang yingchen are standing upright. jiang cheng feels in his hand the weight of a sword, identical to the weight he felt in his dream; he looks down and sees his hand wrapped around the hilt of the soul-offering sword. the blade of this sword is buried in the abdomen of shang yingchen.
