#xusang

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Though he hadn't wanted to come, the gala so far had been... fine. 

Though the host and venue were sorely lacking, as they always were whenever Jin Guangshan held an event, at least Yao-ge's impeccable planning had ensured the food and drinks were delicious and the music was pleasant, and there had been the presence of other old friends to help his mood. 

At least until, in the depth of their conversation about a new gallery opening, Luo Qingyang had frozen mid-word, going wide-eyed and almost panicked as she stared over his shoulder. 

"Hello, Birdie." 

Huaisang similarly stiffened at the too-familiar voice with its thin veneer of charm over malice. 

Fuck. 

What was he doing here? After the chaos that had happened overseas, he'd believed he would never be in the same room with Wen Xu again, and that had been just peachy with him.

'Pushy' was the politest thing he could call the advances of the Wen clan's eldest son, who had always seemed to think "disinterest" wasn't an actual word. 

Mianmian made a short hand signal that indicated she was going to go warn Yao-ge and get either Da-ge or Jiang-xiong and Wei-xiong, and he gave a quick, almost unnoticeable nod of gratitude in return before turning to face his (still) unwanted suitor. 

The knife's edge smile and the way the other man's eyes sparked at having been acknowledged did nothing to ease the knot of discomfort twisting itself in his stomach. 

At least the fact that they were at a very public party meant that he couldn't be backed too far into a corner, and he took what little reassurance he could out of that, tilting his head as if bored by Wen Xu's reappearance instead of incredibly nervous. 

"Didn't hear from you in awhile, Birdie," the other man said, reaching out to brush his hair out of his eyes and behind his ear in a gesture that was too intimate -too possessive- for the setting. "I was starting to think you were avoiding me." 

'And yet you didn't take the fucking hint,' Nie Huaisang bit his tongue to keep from saying. 

"Oh... you know, life and work... staying out of other people's business," he said instead, the underlying meaning frosty and obvious. 

Wen Xu always had a bit of a possessive streak because it's practically genetic in the main branch of the family. As a kid, it didn't come off as a negative because it mostly manifested in protecting his stuff from his destructive brat of a brother and getting a bit bristly if he suspected someone was trying to poach a person he'd taken a liking to. With Nie Huaisang in particular, it manifested at first as protectiveness. He'd heard about the unwanted Nie heir from his father, and once he actually met Huaisang and found he was just as cute and smart and quietly endearing as his father said, he was smitten.

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Coaxing Sangsang out of his guest room to go down into the city had proven more difficult than usual this visit.

Once they'd reached the edge of the marketplace he'd chosen this time, Wen Xu made a little note in the back of his head to check with the other Wen juniors who'd gone to Qinghe recently as part of the exchanges his father and Nie-zongzhu frequently fostered.

Due to the closeness of their sects, the Nie juniors often didn't bother to guard their words.

And when, not if, Wen Xu found out which of the other boy's distant relatives had provoked this particularly quiet and withdrawn spell, he was not going to be gentle in the slightest, especially if it had been one of the cousins.

The adults were bad enough, but their fellow juniors could be nasty when they knew the most trouble they would get into for it was an admonishment and maybe copying a few lines.

For now, however, he leaned in and gently bumped shoulders with Huaisang. "Hey."

"Hey," Nie Huaisang replied reflexively, but his gaze remained locked on the path under their feet as they walked.

Wen Xu bumped him a little harder, enough to make the other boy have to correct his steps to compensate. "I think you'll like this place. They have a dish that has rabbit cooked in yogurt and spices and then laid over flatbread."

Huaisang finally raised his head and squinted at him. "What's yogurt?" he asked suspiciously.

Wen Xu grinned. "Bitter spoiled cream," he said, just to enjoy the way Huaisang's nose wrinkled at the description. "It's not so bad. You like cheese, right?"

"Right," Huaisang murmured, clearly still wary.

And clearly still depressed.

Wen Xu's hands clenched at his sides, and he had to force himself to open them and relax. Rather than let them close back up again, he took Huaisang's hand and began to pull him through the market faster. "Come on, let's get a good table before the place fills up!"

It was an excuse. There was nowhere in the Nightless City that dared turn away the scion of the Undying Sun, even if they were full to the rafters. But the quicker speed startled Huaisang out of his miserable reverie, if the way his grip on Wen Xu's hand reflexively tightened and his eyes went wide were any indication, and that was what he'd been aiming for.

Distraction, distraction, distraction. It was the one thing he'd learned would always work whenever Huaisang was like this.

He would make sure Huaisang didn't have time to think for the rest of the afternoon, and then send him back to his rooms too tired and full of good food to let those thoughts creep back in before he was asleep.

and my characters start discussing dual cultivation (as they do)

and i’m like wait does this mean i’m going to have to develop a canon-compliant sex magic system (of course it does)

so @desiderii is like oh i’ve got a book for that (naturally, as a book dragon)

anyway so if anyone is like me and wants to go on a journey of yang essence, dual cultivation, yin tides,  and the history of homosexuality in china (which is honestly the most impressive history of homosexuality I’ve yet encountered ever and I’ve spent basically my entire life since high school dedicated to researching historical queer identities and practice, seriously china was rocking it in the Han and Tang dynasties and bisexuality was the norm and almost all of the Han and Tang emperors had gay lovers)

here’s my bibliography so far:

Jolan Cheng's The Tao of Love and Sex

Jessieca Leo's Sex in the Yellow Emperors

Fang Fu Ruan's Sex in China

Bischoff, Friedrich Alexander. 1985. The Songs of the Orchid Tower. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

Hinsch, Bret. 1990. Passion of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China. Berkeley: University of California Press

Kapac, Jack Steven. 1992. Chinese Male Homosexuality: Sexual Identity Formation and Gay Organizational Development in a Contemporary Chinese Population. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinest Studies

Ruan, Fangfu. 1997. “China.” In Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality: A Multi‑Nation Comparison, edited by Donald James West and Richard Green, 57‑66. New York: Plenum Press

Van Gulik 1961, Sexual life in ancient China, Leiden: E. Brill  (28, 48, 62‑63, 109)

Daoist Texts in Translation, Louis Komjathy, Boston University (this is a phenomenal place to start if you’re looking for english translations of literally any daoist text beyond the i-ching and the tao te ching because they’re crazy hard to find)

Douglas Wile, Art of the Bedchamber

Anyway hopefully that gives y’all a good start. Come at me if you wanna talk about jade peaks and ching essence.

Also here’s my story:

wen ruohan/jiang cheng and wen xu/nie huaisang, warnings for rape/non-con/dub-con, generally problematic and unhealthy relationships

From the moment of the explosion -before screaming panic erupted around him, before his horse reared and threw him, before he hit the ground and got the wind knocked out of him- Nie Huaisang knew that he was absolutely screwed.

He didn't even get the chance to roll up on his knees and get his breath back before hands roughly dragged him up and held him in place.

Wen Xu walked into the clearing, neatly sidestepping the bodies of one horse and three humans who had been caught in the mine array's activation, and smiled at him.

Nie Huaisang felt a cold chill crawl up his spine at how off it looked.

"Hello, Birdie," the other man greeted him cheerfully, then looked at the tiny remaining contingent of healers and guards he'd been traveling with and were now being held at swordpoint by Wen cultivators and soldiers.

"Don't." Nie Huaisang managed to cough out before Wen Xu could give the signal he knew from experience was coming.

Wen Xu tilted his head slightly, hand still raised. "You're in no position to give me orders, Birdie. And why would you want them spared anyway? They're not going to try to save you."

He knew that. He'd known that from the very first time he sat down on the empty throne, sect leader in name only.

It didn't matter.

"I don't care; they're still mine," he said, putting some acrid emphasis behind it.

Wen Xu laughed.

Nie Huaisang shuddered.

But apparently, Wen Xu had found the answer amusing enough, because instead of the execution signal, he waved for release. The Wen contingent looked wary, but weren't stupid enough to question the order, and backed off enough that his people could slip between them to flee.

The healers were the only ones who even looked back, which didn't surprise him either. At least someone would carry the news to the camps, though he had little reassurance in that.

In the same timeline/vein of the confrontation, I like the idea that Wen Xu honestly didn't think much of Nie Huaisang when they were younger. This undersized, anxious, mousy little nothing hiding in Nie Mingjue's shadow? Boring. Not even worth a second glance.

He spent very little time with the brothers, despite their fathers' friendship, and what time they were in proximity, he mostly spent annoying Nie Mingjue (three years younger than him and already starting to turn into a grouch, much more entertaining) as much as he could get away with.

He doesn't see Nie Huaisang at all for years after the death of Papa Nie, mostly because there's not a chance in hell of Nie Mingjue allowing it. Even at the archery tournament that Nie Huaisang is allowed to attend, he's very carefully kept from interacting with any of their Wen hosts, especially alone.

So the first time they meet since Huaisang was seven is at the Indoctrination Camp, where he's now sixteen.

By this time, he's starting to grow into those "elegant and attractive" (thank you, novel) features, and his nervousness serves to make him look deliciously breakable (thank you again, novel).

Suddenly, he's a lot more interesting this go around.

And, as long as he doesn't A) interfere with the running of the camp itself, which is supposed to be Wen Chao's task, or B) upset the delicate balance that is "keeping a hostage" by actually killing Huaisang, Wen Xu has carte blanche from their father to do as he pleases.

He doesn't get to make the most of his plans before the majority of the captives escape (Huaisang is with them, once more drawing on novel instead of CQL), but really, that only gives him more time to refine those plans. Expand them, even.

When he hears word that his target is now working among the aid tents scattered near the Cloud Recesses, under the belief that a target already so damaged won't be the focus of another attack while there are more lucrative targets to be had, he decides he'll prove that belief wrong and catch himself a little bird while he's at it.

Even if you're talking the "kinder" set of Wensibs, pretty much any Wen/Sang ship is so full of potentially/extremely toxic layers that you might as well be making a cocktail out of jellyfish venom and battery acid, which is exactly how I like it. Even with as few Wen Xu/Huaisang fics as there are out there, most of them tend to lean towards trying to soften Wen Xu up or make him a better person and, like, why defang the best part of the ship? Lean in, y'all!

Anyway, most of my ideas for the ship are pretty half-baked. I really like the image of Wen Xu specifically getting himself killed by telling Nie Mingjue how he's going to keep Nie Huaisang as a pet if the Sunshot Campaign fails, and I have a teeny tiny snippet for if he were to actually get his way, so here you go.

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(warning for implied forced drugging)

Really, isn't this the better option, Sang-er? 

Would you rather be chained to the wall of a cell in the Fire Palace, waiting your turn in the hands of his father's favorite torturer? 

Here, all you have to do is look pretty and accept the collar that keeps you from running and the medications that keep you docile. 

You're good at being a decoration, aren't you? 

There you go, just rest your head on his knee and let him pet you. 

He'll take good care of you as long as you let him do what he wants. 

He loves you, after all.

Chapters: 2/6 Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nie Huaisang/Wen Xu Characters: Nie Huaisang, Wen Xu (Modao Zushi) Additional Tags: MDZS Rare Pair Week 2024, Prompt Fill, Getting Together, Scheming Nie Huaisang, Good Person Wen Xu (Modao Zushi), For a given value of Good Summary:

Chapters: 1/6 Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nie Huaisang/Wen Xu Characters: Nie Huaisang, Wen Xu (Modao Zushi) Additional Tags: MDZS Rare Pair Week 2024, Prompt Fill, Getting Together, Scheming Nie Huaisang, Good Person Wen Xu (Modao Zushi), For a given value of Good Summary:

Enemies to lovers, slow burn, porn with plot. Why did the voice in his head sound like Wei Wuxian?