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There isn’t much satisfaction in taking part in the great hunt Jin Guangyao had organized with his own hands and wit. A few participants had forfeited their placement out of muted unhappiness, or wounded pride, leaving with enough vacant spots to let someone as unfitting of a fight as him join.
In truth, he would’ve liked to admit that was all the reason for his current predicament. Were it so, a small word of self-consciousness would have saved him the pain of descending the balcony.
Nothing ever good happens from being faced to a vertiginous flight of stairs.
Jin Guangyao climbed down the observation deck earlier in the day. The bright sword glares that cut through the sky had turned not a few curious heads, but Jin Guangyao remained as still as a rock, face frozen in a smile and white as a sheet.
He had just started to sort out the issue of the malevolent spirits and ghosts taking the high road and crowding around the Jiang Clan at a few notes from Wei Wuxian's cursed flute, that another root had emerged from the ground. Unseen, and ready to trip him.
The great hunt was truly a disaster.
Phoenix Mountain was large and thickly packed with trees.The perfect spot for an archery competition, although fuqin had turned down that plan in place of an all-round weapon tournament. It was only laughable then that his own fellow disciples were kicking up sand over something their sect leader had established.
Words were Jin Guangyao's speciality, but he assumed that could not count on pair with his cousins and brother’s swordsmanship. When he’d climbed down his sword before the comically large crowd that had gathered around Jin Zixuan and, of course, Wei Wuxian,he’d felt the foreboding feeling of disaster shrouding his back.
He did not catch much of the dispute, Madam Jin immediately shushed him upon arrival and later berated him for having left Jin Zixun run away with his tail between his legs. For losing and argument with Jiang Yanli of all people.
Perhaps, Madam Jin should’ve turned her painted claws towards the incompetence of her own blood, both storming away like children who’d been denied a sweet. Unfortunately, Jin Guangyao was the only one that did not have a real relation with the austere spouse of his father, and thus he could not be absolved of any error.
As if the alarmingly speedy diminution of prey hadn't been a hard enough bite to chew and swallow, after watching his brother's back retreat with far less grace than was admirable, Jin Guangyao had been given the novelty that even the yao beasts he'd tackled and transported on the peak had been all but pulverized by Nie Mingjue.
Which wasn't surprising at all, if only for the fact da-ge had given him word that he wouldn't join this year's hunt, letting his brother carry their family's name instead. Jin Guangyao had accepted the news with a polite smile and internally he had seethed. Of course, a hunt he'd personally organized could not befit the standards of the austere Chifeng-zun.
As his deputy, he'd been barely given room to breathe on a standard day. Let alone a celebration. Between all the tasks Nie Mingjue seemed to bounce through like some cursed chewing toy; he expected that, given the liberty of choice without fallback, da-ge might prefer to sit back and observe.
His exhaustion was but invisible to just any eye, but Jin Guangyao knew it for he'd seen it before.
Since the Sunshot Campaign ended, Nie Mingjue had started to look frailer and frailer like a branch ready to snap.
Jin Guangyao still couldn’t choose if it was his own imagination trying to guilt trip him, or the fact he’d stopped seeing the man as often. As Meng Yao, he’d all but lived in Nie Mingjue’s house, drank and ate at his table, trudged in his chambers like only a family member or… someone much closer, would.
Nie Mingjue’s robes were elusive, swamped in layers and coarse embroidery as it befit a sect leader and thus Chifeng-zun's appearance never looked any less imposing. Yet, the swollen and dark quality of the skin around his eyes spoke of nights spent awake and fighting. Nie Mingjue had never pretended not to suffer the consequences of their lifestyle but he'd always battled with his demons with weapons that were most familiar to him. His hands and his saber.
Jin Guangyao assumed not a few disciples had been kept awake as the sounds of Sect Leader's Nie mad training kept them alert.
He probably got tired of listening to my father's yapping, Jin Guangyao thought. The voice in his mind taking on an harsher tone, much more fitting of a certain sworn brother of his. Or Huaisang went and brought disgrace to the Nie again.
Gazing ahead at said man's back, held straight as a bow string, Jin Guangyao couldn't fully summon the blame he'd gladly throw back at him for having given him a false word. Da-ge would sooner argue that it was no promise he made. Perhaps, a warning — or a favor, if he considered the improvement to the chances of the remaining participants with Nie Mingjue sitting out.
It was no wonder only half of the yao beasts had been slain, when Nie Mingjue had descended with nothing but an outstandingly tall war bow. It was odd not seeing the saber loom at his side, and if Jin Guangyao so dared to say, his gait looked almost uneven . Like it was not just the visual aid, but Nie Mingjue physically carried the lack of Baxia.
"Da-ge has not been informed of the later decision to change the hunt's regulations", Lan Xichen told him on their way back to the observing deck. Shouting over the wind as they flew almost hip to hip.
He looked as juvenile as a disciple with his forehead ribbon askew and his cheeks reddened by the cold.
And when they'd stepped down and Lan Xichen trapped him with both his hands and his eyes, offering to take part in the hunt as a pair instead of letting the good name of the Jin disappear completely from the scoreboard, Jin Guangyao felt swindled.
He couldn't say no when er-ge actually made a fair point — and he couldn't say no because er-ge was er-ge and his every word demanded to be worshiped.
It was hilarious how Lan Xichen would scold him, probably take insult if he were to hear Jin Guangyao's reasons. The last thing Lan Xichen wanted was to be pictured as a tyrant, but how could Jin Guangyao tell him he was more like the divine and that his every wish should be respected and fulfilled to the best of his abilities.
Perhaps, if it were da-ge's voice instead of his own, then Zewu-jun would be more inclined to believe him. Alas, only one of them was gifted the ability to speak both true and faux. Nie Mingjue would ruin it for the both of them with his constipated nature; when unable to confess his feelings, he would sooner cease talking all together.
He compromised. By the time Jin Guangyao rushed back to the observation deck after having dispatched enough disciples to retrieve more beasts and all miscellaneous beings, the sun had already started dropping.
He found Lan Xichen exactly where he'd left him at the bottom of the stairs. With both Hensheng and Shuoyue in hand, he looked back at him and smiled. Together they made their way into the pre-established arena. Only when they were far from curious eyes, shielded by the thick vegetation, did Lan Xichen hand him back his sword.
Finding da-ge was easier work than finding prey. He wasn't exactly hiding and all they had to do was follow the path of destruction cleaved by sabers. Jin Guangyao didn't lament the mistreatment of innocent trees and boulders and simply accepted the fact it was that and not the heads of any of the hosting sect's representatives.
"They did all this damage with only bow and arrows?", he mused, idly turning a stone back on its dry, sun-baked side with his foot. Ahead, voices were rumbling like the gurgle of a storm. Jin Guangyao's stomach pulled and twisted in a raw, familiar movement. If Lan Xichen noticed how his steps had slowed, he did not mention it and easily matched his stride.
"You'd be surprised at how ingenious da-ge's seals can be. He's rather creative if you manage to dig up that side of him. Don't say that to him, though, he would hate to have to admit something he shares with his brother."
Jin Guangyao wanted to argue that he had spent time at da-ge's side, yet the most creative he'd seen the man be was when he would alternate his robes three days in instead of every other. Or when he'd fashioned himself some new boots after he broke his own pair for kicking a tree down in a rage.
"Isn't it a bit hypocritical to criticize Wei Wuxian for not carrying his sword, then?" Jin Guangyao's mouth moved before consulting his brain, but upon having said as much, he couldn't find the fault in his statement. It was an egotistical thing to have claimed looking at it from the events of today.
Lan Xichen didn't reply immediately. Upon looking at his face, Jin Guangyao found a foreign hue to his features. His mouth, pulled into a thin line, did an odd twist before relaxing back into its elegant cut. "I'm sure he simply wanted to respect your organization. Da-ge must've not read your latest letter. He isn't fond of birds."
That was laughable.
Feeling as if he'd taken too large a step and was now stumbling to regain balance, Jin Guangyao dropped the topic entirely. Moving past the rock he'd been tormenting, he walked as if nothing had been slowing him at all. Up ahead, the voices had dimmed to a quiet rustle.
"Is he good with a bow?" He asked and bit his tongue when the picture of Nie Mingjue aiming down at a target was summoned before his mind's eye, and how nicely his arms would fill his sleeve under practiced tension. In all the time as his deputy, Jin Guangyao had never had the pleasure of accompanying him in a night hunt and thus could only imagine Chifeng-zun's prowess to a degree.
Lan Xichen laughed. The sound crystalline and warm. "It's Mingjue-xiong", he said and yeah, Jin Guangyao could probably agree with that.
In all frankness, Jin Guangyao found that good with a bow did not actually fit the description at all. Quite terrifying, did.
Lan Xichen was all too happy to have found their third and missing sworn brother than to pay attention to how Jin Guangyao blanched and turned green with a mixture of envy and pride as Nie Mingjue knocked three arrows and shot. Three equally monstrous things Jin Guangyao did not remember listing in his order letters, tumbled to the ground, all three sprouting a flaming silver feather out of their skulls or vital spots. Whether that could be called a skull at all. Generally, it would not present limbs or that many holes.
Lan Xichen rushed forward, the tails of his white ribbon billowing behind him and beckoning Jin Guangyao to follow. To reach and pull on the, begging to turn around and go back to the observation deck because this was completely out of Jin Guangyao's abilities.
He would favor having fuqin drown him with his displeasure and offending words than showing da-ge just how bad he was with a bow. On a second thought, that monstrous bow was possibly as tall as half of him and looked way sturdier. Not that he expected Nie Mingjue to offer him his bow, but if he was feeling rather mean, he could order one of his men to give up theirs and then Jin Guangyao would be obliged to accept and tell him he was rather shit at any type of precision shooting.
Nie Mingjue turned around, all fierceness and unbraided hair and Jin Guangyao had a momentary slip up and thought about pulling on those curled ends instead.
"Xichen", he called, shouldering his bow. The smile naturally lifting his lips fell somewhat when he spotted the yellow-clad figure following close behind.
Although Jin Guangyao wouldn’t have said that falling was the exact thing that happened to his face. More like it froze and remained as that, half a smile, half a grimace.
“I didn't know you'd participate.” Nie Mingjue had the audacity to look perplexed.
"Yes, da-ge. I am."
"Good", he concluded after a long consideration where the three of them just stared at a point ahead to avoid the impolite staring that would occur.
The disciples around them, probably wary of interrupting and getting bashed with the hard heel of their leader’s hand, had disappeared to hunt down a different quarter of the mountain.
"I thought your father wouldn't let you." Nie Mingjue added, unhelpfully insisting on being conversational.
When was the last time he’d actively tried to get into a one on one with him that was strictly verbal and didn’t end in Jin Guangyao fleeing the room fearing that the next reply may come with more steel than bite?
Er-ge would argue that da-ge wouldn’t truly hit him, but Jin Guangyao had never stayed long enough to pursue the faith Xichen put in his friend. Nor did he plan to.
Nie Mingjue didn’t seem bothered by his presence as much as Jin Guangyao had expected. On the other hand, he seemed rather eager to hear his motivation, as if Jin Guangyao had truly just brushed off his father’s command to come run in the mud with the lots of them.
Jin Guangshan would probably not notice his absence until later in the evening and even then, only if one of the girls Jin Guangyao had dexterity slipped in as servants, didn’t fit his liking. Or the food didn’t, or if Madam Jin felt bothered enough to mention the Wei Wuxian accident.
That would imply recounting the embarrassing stumble of her son, the apple of her eye. Jin Guangyao strongly debated she would dare lay a word of the event that occurred in the midst of a crowd so kin on gossiping as was the Jin court.
Jin Guangyao sighed. Dealing with Chifeng-zun was never easy, but the reason was often his temperament and coldness, not a choice to be deliberately enigmatic. Did Jin Guangyao just find… pride in his words?
Seeking aid in Lan Xichen, he wasn't surprised to see him look away, a graceful quirk to his mouth all the telling Jin Guangyao needed to be proved right.
"I am not that much of a fighter", he downplayed the praise, because it couldn't possibly have been that. A barb, aimed at Jin zongzhu, most likely.
Jin Guangyao braced himself when Nie Mingjue's eyes suddenly turned to steel and he visibly jerked back. As if the words had slapped him back to normalcy.
He jerked his head, abruptly irked, like Jin Guangyao's admitting to his lack of skills personally offended him. "That is a lie."
"Da-ge. Perhaps, a-Yao is not on our level, but I'm sure he can carry himself just fine", Lan Xichen intervened, fluidly directing the flow of the conversation towards smoother shores.
He was gripping Shuoyue rather harshly and Jin Guangyao wondered idly if he were impatient to actively fight something.
It was an odd sight to behold the first jade of Lan showing signs of antsiness so publicly. Anyone would if they'd been faced with what Lan Xichen had in just a mere couple of hours, Jin Guangyao reasoned.
Hanguang-jun and Wei Wuxian, and then his own step-mother — no one could blame him for wanting to hit something,and the hunt served as the perfect excuse to step around his family’s rules.
"I bet he can", Nie Mingjue was saying.
Jin Guangyao had no time to catch the dart for what it was that the other man had already thrown the matter behind him and stalked down a different tree line. He held his bow with intent and, he mused with a disconcerting surprise, less of the teeth-grounding tension with which he wielded his saber.
Oh , Jin Guangyao bit his lips, suddenly nervous. Nie Mingjue needed all his willpower to restrain the hunger of the saber. To relinquish hold of it meant he needn't have an outlet for the anger that usually disrupted his spirit. He was just relaxed . That was the cause of his numbed reactions and the reason he'd let Jin Guangyao go with a mere shrug.
"You were right", he wondered aloud, some minutes later that saw him and er-ge follow dutily on their da-ge's tracks as he hunted down a good enough prey for them. He'd already killed a couple more, justifying the egotistical action by claiming how they were lesser yao beasts and thus would've just wasted their sweat.
Jin Guangyao would argue he was, in an uncharacteristic and charming way, trying to lay an impression.
Showing off was the last thing he expected Chifeng-zun to do, yet here he was, staggeringly beautiful and cheeky as he purposefully ignored the arrows laying around and let Lan Xichen bend to retrieve them.
"Impatient", Lan Xichen murmured, slipping the projectiles into his own sash.
He was smiling all the while.
Jin Guangyao considered picking a couple as well while they ventured into the thicker of the woods. Nie Mingjue got eager and eager as more beasts showed up. At last, a respite to Jin Guangyao's latest effort to save the disastrous event.
Yet, the arrows seemed rather stuck in their targets and he really didn't want to struggle so basely before er-ge. He then thought to ask Xichen to hold a couple for him, but again, er-ge looked way too content with his bundle of sticky, frayed projectiles.
"He is very good", he praised, eyes trained on da-ge's back. Nie Mingjue didn't turn around to silence him, so Jin Guangyao assumed he did not hear.
"Hmm, he is rather happy about stealing prey. What Wei Wuxian did greatly offended him but I am glad he decided not to intervene", Lan Xichen did not mention how Baxia's absence was possibly the reason for that and Jin Guangyao felt it was not his position to comment.
"He usually hunted along with my brother, so I think that too might have frustrated him", Lan Xichen continued.
The irritation might as well be dust thrown to the air; with Wei Wuxian hanging around and acting so rashly, it was no wonder that Lan Wangji had no second thought to spare to his usual hunting companion.
It was curious that, even now, nobody doubted the nature of the relationship between the esteemed Hanguang-jun and Yunmeng’s resident embarrassment, besides a general dislike for one another.
Lan Xichen turned his head, a rare twinkle in his eye that made Jin Guangyao's heart do a stupid flip and caused him severe chagrin. "It is for the best that we joined him today."
"We might want to step up on our game if we want to catch something ourselves. Da-ge might confuse us for simple bystanders”, he said immediately, his own face indulging in a contained smile.
"We don't want that", Lan Xichen agreed.
"Do we?"
He would've fallen in love with Lan Xichen right then and there, if it didn’t mean falling in love with a man. It was a presumptuous thought and near conceited to assume er-ge’s gracefulness harbored any different intent than what his upbringing naturally brought him to do.The first jade of Lan was courteous with everyone, especially so with those he respected.
Jin Guangyao knew Lan Xichen held him in high esteem despite what the general opinion had to say about him behind his back. He was grateful for it. After all, er-ge often went out of his way to put a good word for him, he never laughed with Sect Leader Yao at the jokes his own father spewed.
Neither him nor da-ge did — but, da-ge was another story entirely.
He rarely ever laughed.
Eventually, Jin Guangyao supposed that getting a good number of prey under his name would save him half the trouble of explaining to his father why he’d abandoned his duty. Jin Guangshan couldn’t quite berate him as much when the idea of joining the game came from sect leader’s Lan.
He would recoup when the tables were empty and the mood of the celebration wasn’t quite as strong as to dampen his displeasure at having been humiliated.
Nie Mingjue had been happily filling in the work for them but didn't comment when Shuoyue darted forth and cut off the remaining creatures' heads in one clean arch. He nocked back an arrow and shot in the sky, hitting a flying hybrid that Jin Guangyao had not seen against the bright reflection of the sun.
That was that.
Jin Guangyao managed his own fair share of points. Smaller beasts, the ones da-ge wasn't purposefully hunting down; enough strain to get his blood pumping and his qi circulating but not as much as to make him sweat under his robes. He hadn't come to fight and his boots were rather unwieldy in the rough terrain.
It could almost be described as a nice afternoon. If it weren't for the enormous misstep Jin Guangyao failed to foresee, he could've almost had it as that. A good memory to look back to. To add to the raw sceneries of Qinghe in the winter that tugged at a deep, painful place in his heart.
Hensheng had just cleaned off a two-headed cat-like figure and was waving back to loop around his waist when Jin Guangyao saw another beast move in the outskirts of their little battlefield. Nothing outstanding about the creature caught his eye but the fact it was close enough and Hensheng was still in the air, its dim glare facing the right direction.
Jin Guangyao willed the blade to wander further, he did not see how Nie Mingjue had put back his bow, an arrow held like a dagger in his hand.
If push came to shove, Jin Guangyao would claim the accident wasn't entirely on him. Acting so childish and reckless in a hunt should’ve been one of the first unwritten rules in the Nie's scrolls for slaughter.
Hensheng cut a clean, pretty arc in the air. The white blade carved with silver blossoms sunk into flesh, drawing blood at the lightest of touch. Nie Mingjue did not falter in his attack when the soft sword wrapped around his upper arm, immediately finding the weak spots in his armor and Jin Guangyao watched with mounting horror as red lines appeared on his neck, staining his robes in crisscross.
Frozen, he lifted a hand to call the blade back, but his wrist got caught in a firm grip. His whole body was still like a statue, but for his eyes seeking frantically for the one refraining him from recalling Hensheng. Hide what he’d done. Run.
Too far, too far. What had he done?
He heard it before he saw, the crunch of metal touching bone as Nie Mingjue wrenches himself from his spot, frozen still, to grapple the tail of the best, either scared by the sudden glare of the sword or the smell of blood.
Lan Xichen's pale face squished in grief and pain washed over Jin Guangyao, momentarily quieting the horror of what he'd done. His wrist throbbed like a searing shackle had been clasped around it. Lan Xichen’s qi was rolling in waves around them, a dissonant and far cry form his usual controlled presence.
Recalling what would happen to an object wrapped into Hensheng's biting embrace, Jin Guangyao felt momentarily light-headed. He staggered back a few steps, his mind rushing him to flee, but Lan the grip around him was relentless. Both the single thing keeping him upright and holding him in place.
A loud yelp from the last creature left standing, now folding on the ground and fuming with dark smoke from the hole at its neck, had both him and er-ge lifting their heads, heart stuck in their throats. Lan Xichen wore his anxiousness best, although his body was shivering with a thin layer of dread. Jin Guangyao's armpits were already soaked through.
Having finished off the last offending beast, Nie Mingjue's face flushed so darkly it seemed ready to pop. He flinched upon finding his neck constricted, looked down at the steel wrapped around his torso, then looked back at Jin Guangyao with so much horror and betrayal it leaked into the wound that still felt open in his stomach, bringing tears to his eyes.
"Da-ge—"
"Mingjue—"
Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao moved at the same moment and spoke at the same moment. The spot where they were linked hand to wrist played like a swing and they bumped their shoulders at the first step.
With a startled glare, Jin Guangyao bolted in the opposite direction. Lan Xichen hadn't relinquished his hold and thus they lingered in place for a quiet moment, looking odd and disconcerting.
Nie Mingjue huffed loudly from where he'd witnessed the little theatric.The reaction was excessive and their concern felt even more uncomfortable than the blade currently cutting the blood flow from his arm. His fingers had turned rather stiff and a little cold. Hensheng wasn't a first grade spiritual tool, Nie Mingjue with his spiritual power could've easily snapped the blade from his body with nothing more than a scratch on his hand.
Withholding him from ruining Jin Guangyao's sword for him, was the look on his face, or rather the lack of his usual smile and blandness.
Since the Sunshot Campaign ended , it was rare to find him unsmiling. Whether he was accompanying his father like a little dog, or ordering disciples and servants with scrolled up blueprints. Right now, Nie Mingjue couldn't decide whether his face appeared more unsettling with or without it.
Settling for what he could understand, Jin Guangyao's reaction did not feel forced , like he really hadn't planned for this to happen. Which was probably the truth seeing as his head was still very much attached to his body and the Jin clan could not fare too well with the accusation of attempted murder weighing on their heads.
Then, why was he still suffering from this awkward embrace?
"Call your sword back already", he said at once, waving his uninjured arm with frustration.
Blood was trickling down his sleeve, leaving things sticky, but it still all amounted to nothing more than a scratch. Nie Mingjue experienced way worse stings, so to hesitate before this accident was senseless.
He expected Lan Xichen at least, to act as was proper.
They went to war together; he'd held his head after Jin Guangyao's schemes left him bleeding on the sleek tile of the Scorching Sun Palace.
He did not want to give the Jin Guangyao of today the credit of thinking he'd seriously injured him. Again.
Speaking of that, Jin Guangyao was hovering behind Lan Xichen like a shadow, his expression mournful. "It was not on purpose", he said, his face contracting even more when Lan Xichen let go of him to take measured steps in Nie Mingjue's direction. "I didn't mean to, I really didn't mean to. You moved in my line of sight before I could direct Hensheng elsewhere."
"You don't have to convince me." Nie Mingjue scowled, his voice dripping with far more accusation than Jin Guangyao thought was necessary. "At least, this once you didn't stab yourself.”
What kind of answer was proper against such an accusation? Jin Guangyao didn't know whether to laugh or cry, the feeling reinforced by the little yelp Nie Mingjue let slip when Lan Xichen grabbed a hold of his arm. It made sense that he was angry, but er-ge's fury was seldom bigger than a ripple and louder than his disappointment — and he didn’t take it out on things, that was da-ge .
He certainly didn’t take it out on people, either. That was him .
The sword slipped free with a little nudge of er-ge's spiritual power and Jin Guangyao let it coil around his arm, shivering a little as the blood transferred to his immaculate sleeves. Da-ge's blood on his clothes.
"That would be rather unnecessary", Lan Xichen murmured. The veil of calmness he'd managed to maintain until now seemed to have settled back, snugly folding in its rims, and he was starting to talk more tranquilly. "It's not good to joke about your injuries, da-ge."
Nie Mingjue grit his teeth and pulled his arm away, taking a step back when that didn't seem a clear enough sign for er-ge who orbited after him like the moon chasing the sun.
Jin Guangyao watched da-ge pull a face and double the distance, the irrational need to smack him on the top of his head repeatedly seizing his wits.
Wait a moment, hadn't Nie Mingjue said anything to er-ge about what happened in the woods when Jin Guangyao ultimately ruined his chances with perhaps one of the most gorgeous and loyal men he'd had the luck to meet in his miserable life?
He was sure he'd overheard the Nie disciple say how it had been Zewu-jun to unseal their sect leader's spiritual power while he was hiding from said sect leader. He remembered the hysterics and rage that had filled him when one of them had started laughing.
So much for sowing respect and loyalty. Nie Mingjue was so naive at times it physically caused him distress.
But then, was Nie Mingjue appearengly hating on Jin Guangyao for no reason at all? Had he not told Zewu-jun of his despicable acts? Was he covering him — no, that wasn't right. Nie Mingjue didn't want Lan Xichen to know how far he had stumbled with Meng Yao; he was merely a dirty secret that he had to intimidate into silence. The stain on his sect.
"It is nothing", Nie Mingjue insisted, although they could all see his hand turn red under the sleeve. "We should go back before they fire the final flares. I want to see who won."
Jin Guangyao wanted to argue, but he was speechless by Nie Mingjue's underwhelming exit. Nie Mingjue was looking at him as if taunting him to say something. Was he worried Jin Guangyao would expose himself and thus expose the things Nie Mingjue had willingly withheld from er-ge? He would lose nothing, while Jin Guangyao would see the last of the respect anyone had for him vanish?
"Da-ge, we should bandage your arm first", Lan Xichen reasoned. His hands looked empty, as if he wanted so bad to fiddle with something but was too diligent to do so. In the end, the silence was what broke him and he reached up to straighten his forehead ribbon.
Nie Mingjue was trying to fit his stiff arm around the curve of the bow, but upon seeing the unwillingness of the limb to hold tight to the wood, he sighed and let it hang at his side. "Very well. At the observation deck, you may", he negotiated.
Lan Xichen looked way too happy for someone who'd just been scammed into agreeing to the little end of a bargain. Da-ge's wound was still bleeding.
"It is best if the clans don't know that we've fought together", he added. Unknowing of the stab he delivered to Jin Guangyao's stomach. Or perhaps he knew, and this was his retaliation.
Truly, what was he expecting?"
They did not make it to the observation deck.
A few breathing exercises should’ve taken care of the problem for da-ge. WIth his outstanding spiritual power, it wouldn’t be surprising to find the skin spotless once they reached the balcony and Nie Mingjue would be obliged to fulfill his promise to Xichen.
As things were, they stood very far from their destination and da-ge had just stumbled so bad he’d walked into the treeline and almost fell over.
Jin Guangyao was walking closer to him, too anxious to match his strides. One step more and Jin Guangyao placed a hand on Nie Mingjue's broad back. He could feel how tense he was underneath the stiff outer robe, how he was forcing himself to relax, although his appearance let nothing slip but the thin veil of sweat on his face.
He craned his head back at the light touch of fingers on his shoulder. When he saw Jin Guangyao standing there, he actually let a short laugh slip from his lips. “This is absurd.”
Prompting him to explain what was, did not work. His mouth, after regaining his breath, was set into a strict line. Not even when Lan Xichen saw them hanging back and turned around in a swirl of white, did he speak again.
Taking his silence for unwellness, Lan Xichen’s expression immediately sombered. He ushered da-ge to lean against a tree, the latter’s shrug of dismissal, quietened with a single, scathing look that had even Jin Guangyao reconsider acquaintance to Lan Xichen.
Surely, he’d never received a glare so cold it made even Hanguang-jun’s frostiness look mild.
“Da-ge, let me see the wound.”
Nie Mingjue’s mouth snapped closed with a click of his teeth. With what he’d to say gone with the wind, he shook his head.
“There’s nothing to see.” His eyebrows jumped on his forehead and twisted as if he was uncertain whether to scowl or hide his face completely.
“I’ll be the judge of that”, Lan Xichen said. Then he added, with incredible gentleness that did not fit with the earlier fierceness of his features. “Will you let me see the wound, please?”
Jin Guangyao knew not how to act. Or where to look; his eyes were stuck to the scene before him, as if enchanted and he was unable to avert his gaze even as the feeling of wrongness ate at his insides.
It was clear that such a display of vulnerability did not belong to his sight, not when Lan Xichen was looking at Mingjue as if he were going to shatter any moment. With his arms outstretched, held painfully stiff and away from da-ge’s body, Jin Guangyao believed that might be the case as well.
Looking at Mingjue now, it was clear how much control it was taking him from — what? Nie Mingjue did not have his saber with him. He was not holding back the spirit gnawing at his mind and he was not restraining his temper either.
He wasn’t angry. He looked scared.
His high, sharp cheekbones flushed, jaw clenched to the point his chin had started to quiver, it was the same face Jin Guangyao had met across the jet black floor of the Scorching Sun Palace. Standing closer now, he could see it was not hatred clouding Nie Mingjue’s eyes in deep, burned shade. Without the anger, the fear showed itself for what it was, raw and honest.
Nie Mingjue had not been angry when he’d opened his eyes from the pillow of Xichen’s thighs and hands to find Jin Guangyao’s face above him. Or… not only angry.
“Not with him here”, the words sounded like they hurt coming out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth. Like he had to batter them and put them into a line.
The knot that had sat snug at the bottom of his stomach, unraveled. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t want to leave, had almost forgone his manners and spoken out of line at the mere insinuation of being chased away,
He’d wanted to run in Nightless City. When Nie Mingjue had hefted his saber and he knew he would’ve killed him if Lan Xichen hadn’t been present to stop him; he’d spared him one too many times, after all. All he wanted then was to go back to Lanling and its treacherous steps and show his father he was worthy. He was deserving
Lan Xichen was concerned over Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao was too. He did not deserve to be, and yet he was.
Godammit, he was too.
"Did you poison your blade?"
"Er-ge!", Jin Guangyao sputtered, appalled. Between the beasts and the blood loss, why was he the one chased down with the branding iron? Upon seeing the serious pitch of Lan Xichen's brows he willingly quietened his indignation and lowered his head. "No. I did not."
The question arrived completely unwarranted and Jin Guangyao missed the few beats that should've brought oxygen into his bloodstream. His mind was busy replaying a possible placating reply while ignoring the hurt that had sparked under his collarbone. Too soon after the painful realization and er-ge wasn’t at his side, wasn’t even before him. He was shielding Nie Mingjue, his head turned but a fraction and his visible eye cold and suspicious.
When would he even have gotten the time? The resources. Jin Guangyao had not planned to join the hunt, but acquiesced when er-ge asked. He asked and now he was throwing him aside, stomping on his foot as if unaware that it hurt and he was angry and he'd not planned any of this.
It hurt that er-ge's first estimation was this, and it hurt because it was er-ge — Jin Guangyao expected Nie Mingjue to act cold and distrustful, to throw accusations and not consider the insult they may bring along.
Not —
Not er-ge.
Nie Mingjue, idiot tha he was, breathless and dazed and unaware of the crevice he was stepping down on. Like a meddling nuisance and Jin Guangyao could not berate him, not when he was still worried and the anger at being once again painted as the culprit of something much more terrible than what he'd intentionally caused, eluded him.
Not when Nie Mingjue looked almost small from where his head poked behind Lan Xichen’s shoulder.
WIth his eyes wide as saucers and his eyebrows lifted to reveal his expression he looked young and injured and just like Huaisang did when he lied and got called out for it.
Jin Guangyao would’ve bet real gold that given the chance to flee, even Nie Mingjue would’ve retreated back to the woods, to lick his wounds clean before showing himself again.
"Hey."
"Yes, da-ge?" Lan Xichen's expression was at a cross between hesitant and remorseful, displaying that he too was not sure what direction he expected this conversation to go. Jin Guangyao's grip on his robes tightened in response, his vision blurring at the edges.
“We’ll be late for the upshot.”
Shifting from concerned to exasperated, Lan Xichen took a deep breath, then exhaled, just as slowly. “I do not care about who the winners are. There are more pressing matters we should be focusing our attention on. Your shoulder is torn.”
As Lan Xichen's voice picked up again, Jin Guangyao lowered his head in both relief and concern. He'd never heard er-ge speak so bluntly. His words sounded almost harsh.
Staring at his feet, he was glad he was not the one at the end of that voice. Yet, upon glancing up at the rustle of cloth becoming more insistent, he couldn't help but agree with him.
With the collar out of the way, the extent of the problem had become a little clearer. Jin Guangyao saw how Nie Mingjue’s inner robes that were supposed to be a light green color, were dark and mottled in places. The smell of blood hit him hard, and he fought down the queasiness in his bowels.
Lan Xichen tugged at the opening of Nie Minjue's robe, a small sound of dissatisfaction falling from his lips when he met resistance. Da-ge had pulled up his own arms to hold his clothes closed over his chest, a dogged expression on his face. "Your robes", he began to say but chewed on his next words, tugging harder than er-ge when he tried to use his distraction as he ruminated on what to say, to reinforce his attempt at divesting him.
Jin Guangyao had seen the famed Lan arm strength in action, but perhaps, the fear of being half naked and exposed before them was greater than that of walking out with tattered robes for the austere Chifeng-zun.
"Your robes are white", Nie Mingjue eventually managed to spit. Still warring with er-ge. His eyes were wide and slightly glazed over and Jin Guangyao couldn't decide whether he wanted to comfort him or comfort Lan Xichen as his distress rose similar to his brother's antics at being denied.
The thought apparently striked Jin Guangyao as well. For how odd it was to be on the same length as Nie Mingjue, he took a step forward then remembered that Nie Mingjue had not been all too happy about his presence. His arm fell from where it had inched upon, unbeknownst to him, to reach for er-ge and da-ge’s hands where they were bickering like children over the last piece of candied fruit.
“I’m sorry. Da-ge, I am truly sorry. I will alert the disciple to call for a medic. In confidentiality, nobody shall know if you don’t wish them to.” Bowing at the waist, the urge to kowtow and slam his head on the ground not quite as satisfied, he hesitated to add one last, “ I apologize.”
Before he could turn tail, Lan Xichen’s voice came, near frantic. “Don’t go. “He looked torn between wanting to walk up to Jin Guangyao and keep crowding Nie Mingjue against the tree, as if for the one he followed he would lose the other.
“I will need your help if we have to stitch the wound closed.”
Nie Mingjue did not look happy at being stuck in one spot, his shoulder stiff and cold and strange where it pressed on the bark. Upon hearing er-ge’s conclusion, he spooked and casted a panicked look towards Lan XIchen.
He’s going to bleed out so close to his own sect, to his own men and his own brother and it’s going to be Meng Yao’s fault. Fucking wonderful.
“It is not great. Please, da-ge, stay calm. I am aware you dislike it.”
“Dislike it? It is useless! My cultivation will take care of it in due time!”
“Due time, is too much time. I’ve done this for you many times and I promise, I dislike it just as much as you do. You’ve got it, you’re strong. You can focus on me, I’ll hold your hand.”
“Don’t say that shit in front of him!”
Next, Jin Guangyao would widen his eyes, face flushed to a baked potato forgotten on the fire, and watch with equal disorientation and endearment as Lan Xichen wrestled one of Nie Mingjue’s hands, stiff into claws with shock, into his own.
"I always carry a needle and some thread with me. In case something tears", he said and proceeded to slip a hand inside his sleeve after Lan Xichen nodded at him, a grateful curve to his eyes.
Nie Mingjue shot him a scathing look that screamed ‘traitor’ in capital letters.
"Something like me?"
"Exactly", Jin Guangyao confirmed with a curt nod. "Da-ge, I am truly sorry. Let me fix this for you, I can do it quickly if you don't move too much."
He'd produced a small pouch delicately sewn with silver thread in the fashion of a flower, and was now rummaging through its contents with two fingers. He pulled out a fine thread, almost invisible in the light and imbued with spiritual power and a needle.
Nie Mingjue's eyes were misty but he couldn't bring himself from looking away from the flower. It wasn't a peony and that detail alone seemed to dispel some of the rising panic.
He weighted the promise with the suspicion of a guard barterting with their prisoner, eyebrows pinched together. The next moment, he decided to throw it behind his head, picking up his most favored ax instead.
"Nothing would've to be fixed if you'd actually paid attention to what you were doing!" He argued.
In front of him, Lan Xichen frowned lightly. Pulling one sleeve over his hand, he started to dab at the excess blood. The cloth turned from white to a faint red immediately. Jin Guangyao couldn't choose what disturbed him more. Seeing Lan Xichen ruin his clothes or having to argue with da-ge over a matter that would've already been resolved if he were actually willing to listen.
"Can I really be the only one at blame? Da-ge acted irresponsibly as well, charging that beast with nothing but an arrow? Does he ever consider that he might get seriously injured? That not everything he faces can be dealt with raw strength and power?"
"I got injured!" Nie Mingjue yelled.
Exactly, you idiot.
"Mistakes happen.” Lan Xichen’s face was still twisted with concern as he reached for one of Nie Mingjue’s knees, coaxing him to sit down as one would an infant. It was befitting. He deserved it for acting so stupidly stubborn and getting hurt.
Nie Mingjue was not supposed to get hurt, ever. He was the strong leader, the strong older brother. How could Jin Guangyao cope with this version of him knowing he’d lost the right to touch him? To kneel down at his other side and help him just as er-ge was?
He threw back his sleeves, looking to make space in the air in front of him when he felt like it had grown to a scalding degree and was dense as clay. “I will require a fire to sterilize the needle.”
Nie Mingjue whined and at last closed his eyes in defeat.
It seemed that rather than Jin Guangyao’s presence, the more he stubbornly stuck at the scene, helping Lan Xichen produce a small fire that would not attract too much attention, it was the constant mention of a certain tool that caused Nie Mingjue to flinch and avert his gaze.
When hovering his hand above the fire, the needle securely held between his thumb and forefinger, he noticed Nie Mingjue stare not at his face and not at his hand either, but at the small, silver object, in his expression the wish to be the fire licking at its body.
It was this. Jin Guangyao’s competitor.
Suddenly, his chest felt lighter, as if ten years worth of strife had been removed in one swift motion. He wanted to laugh or perhaps do something worse, something that would put Nie Mingjue’s scowl straight back on his face and directed it at him.
For if he were to crawl to him now and kiss him just as er-ge had and pull his cheeks until he either huffed or showed him the dimple he’d seen but once in Huaisang’s room, before one of his latest paintings, it was certain it would be him ending up in the firepit.
As it was, he couldn’t even turn his head and thank er-ge for holding his sleeve for him, full as he was to the brim with relief and delight.
His fingers neater and more practiced as they peeled back fabric, needle ready in his hand, the cutting edge of the thread still fresh on his tongue. He crouched by Nie Mingjue’s side and waited for Lan Xichen to do the same across from him, to take his hand back into his palm and lay a soft kiss to Nie Mingjue’s temple.
Stunned so badly, da-ge did not argue at the gesture and instead leaned to the side, letting Jin Guangyao see more clearly what he had to work with.
Lan Xichen did not understand him relaxing as a good sign, his arm immediately sliding behind his back to wrap around his waist.
“When the Cloud Recesses burned down and I had to run, a-Yao found me. Or, for better words, we found each other”, Lan Xichen spoke softly, his hand communicating the most of his emotion as it squeezed down tightly.
“I had no disciples with me to take and wash my clothes for me and in such circumstances, with only the robes I had on me, they got dirty frequently. A-Yao offered to clean them for me but I refused, he only ever wanted to help but I felt bad. I was ashamed.”
Eyes narrowed down at his handiwork, Jin Guangyao clutched down on the needle . When it hooked under the flesh, a single tear runs down Nie Mingjue’s cheek, quickly dried by Lan Xichen’s thumb. So quickly that he would’ve missed it if it weren’t in his direct eyeline.
“When I washed my first pair of robes, I ripped them.”
Jin Guangyao’s hands did not falter while Lan Xichen delicately webbed his words. It was Nie Mingjue’s that shook with a moment's panic and latched onto the nearest thing. Seeing as the hand belonging to his uninjured arm was being held captive already, it was his injured one that clasped so tightly around Jin Guangyao’s leg, it physically jostled him, causing the needle to slip deeper than he intended.
He was rewarded with a frustrated sigh, but Nie Minjgjue did not complain further. Lan XIchen was still recounting his story and neither of them felt inclined to interrupt him in exchange of starting another fight over who was at blame.
“A-Yao mended them for me and then ordered me not to wash any more fabrics for we were running quite low on them. He fixed it in less time than it takes me to dry my hair”, Lan Xichen added and although Jin Guangyao had finished stitching the worst of the cuts up, he lingered by da-ge’s side, running his fingers across his damp hairline.
With his eyes still closed, it was a secret between him and er-ge, whose hands those fingers belonged to.
Feeling put on the spot and with nothing else to excuse his own hesitation, Jin Guangyao added. “Er-ge has very long hair.”
“Right.” Lan Xichen’s eyes shone with a moment’s affection. His arm lifted, following the line of his eyes to brush against Jin Guangyao’s cheek, thread a strand of hair back behind his hair. His hat felt crooked on his head, but with er-ge’s hand on his face, and his hands stained with da-ge’s blood, he did not dare reach to adjust it.
When Nie Mingjue’s opened his eyes, Lan Xichen's hand had long since fallen back to his side. He blinked, somewhat dazed and immediately prodded at the skin over his collarbone. Jin Guangyao did not understand his rush when it was obvious the sight unsettled him, but then, when had Jin Guangyao ever understood anything regarding Nie Mingjue?
He did not comment on the story either, and Jin Guangyao had the distant suspicion that he’d heard it already.
His smile stayed on only through the power of muscle memory. “It is done, da-ge. Please, think about sitting out of your training for at least the following two days. We do not want the stitches to reopen.”
“I know how to live with an injury”, Nie Mingjue objected after pulling his robes over the offended area.
Jin Guangyao wanted to argue that living with a wound and tending to one were two completely, rather significantly different things. Exacting his revenge on the Jin captain had not outlasted the regret at how he and Nie Mingjue had parted. Now more than ever, he felt the rift that had created between them; his hands slimy with more than just blood, with mud and dirt that he’d taken out from beneath his feet. When he’d dug the breach that he yearned so much to be able to cross now.
“We are still on time. They haven’t shot the ending flares, yet”, he said. Raising on his feet, he carefully avoided touching his clothes, in fear the blood might transfer. “Perhaps after a change of clothes. The banquet will be exquisite, I can assure you.”
Lan Xichen made no move to stand but when Nie Mingjue grouchily shuffled his feet, he could do nothing more than smile and pull himself back. What a sight they all made, two sect leaders and Jin Guangyao, bloodied and tattered in a kid’s hunt. At least, he could proudly flaunt that his organization did not show bias, although it had been none of his listed programs to cause such a mess.
“Excellent.” Nie Mingjue finished pulling the lapels of his outer robes over his chest, only to realize one was missing.
“My disciples have packed robes that will suit da-ge stature”, Lan Xichen offered with a laugh and patted his shoulder.
Nie Mingjue pulled a face and bent his arm awkwardly at his waist. The gesture was odd and it came to Jin Guangyao only later that he’d been aiming to lay his hand on Baxia, forgetting she wasn’t at his side.
Lan Xichen heaved a sigh and pinched lightly between his brows. “They are dark in color. You can tighten the sleeves.”
Nie Mingjue turned a beaming grin his way. “Thank you, Lan Huan.”
As he turned to leave, his stride only but a bit off canter, he was promptly ushered back to stationary by er-ge’s hand laid on his arm. “You should probably thank a-Yao too.”
Jin Guangyao had remained pensive all the while, but upon hearing the endearing name with which er-ge had taken to call him, he moved his head up. “It is not necessary. I am grateful that da-ge let me help, despite my actions having been the cause of the trouble from the start.”
Nie Mingjue didn’t reply him, fixing him with a stare that found Jin Guangyao surprised by his inability to read. It took him an overwhelming amount of self-respect not to bow his head and apologize again when Nie Mingjue took some deliberate steps closer.
He did not look as imposing like this and Jin Guangyao would’ve added between himself and well, himself, even less after he’d seen him cry over a cut needing stitches.
When a weight fell on his head, he considered Nie Mingjue, despite his past assurances that he needed no more reference from him than he required from Xichen, might want him to kotow.
He and er-ge would never be on the same level before Nie Mingjue’s eyes. Lan Xichen got to hold his hands and kiss him and what did Jin Guangyao got?
“Thank you”, Nie Mingjue said uselessly.
Jin Guangyao hummed noncommittally, unable to move under the hands carefully adjusting his hat. When Nie Mingjue’s fingers grazed down the laces to tighten the clip under his chin, he urged his head back, forcing him to take in the expression painted over his face.
Nie Mingjue’s cheeks were still dusted pink and the look in his eyes was something Jin Guangyao was sure was not meant for him. He lingered with his thumb down the column of his neck and Jin Guangyao would’ve let him push, and push until his neck craned and the bone snapped and the flesh opened to show his inside. Nie Mingjue could’ve ripped out his tongue and he would’ve let him.
The hand slipped away. “Your hat still looks stupid.”
Instead of frowning, Jin Guangyao merely huffed out a small laugh. “I suppose it does.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” He straightened his back and rounded to where Lan Xichen was watching. A smile on his lip that he gracefully slipped behind a sleeve. Jin Guangyao did not avert his gaze when Nie Mingjue placed a hand on er-ge’s shoulder, the tips of his ears pink. “Thank you.”
JIn Guangyao considered watching them kiss. As his sworn brother, he was not unfamiliar with the intimacy webbed delicately in their friendship. Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen had been brawling on the ground with wooden swords by the time Jin Guangyao had been old enough to balance a tray on his arms.
For all he felt that he’d disclosed into something more, he found he would not have minded. As sect leaders, it would be an unforgivable breach of protocol. The thought that naturally followed was even more beset.
Jin Guangyao had no renown title to defend, not yet. If a man was to kiss him, wouldn’t it be spoken just as badly as a man seeking a woman in a dark alley?
“Do you wish to come up the balcony on your own separate way?” Lan Xichen asked.
He had made his way further up, with Nie Mingjue in tow, only sparsely massaging his shoulder.
“It is for the best”, he said and turned a blind eye to the sight of er-ge’s smile faltering. With his head facing the opposite direction, he did not see that it was two, instead of one, that trickled into a frown.
It had been a dangerous thought to entertain, but for a moment longer, Jin Guangyao let himself just do that. Entertain it.
Kissing a woman should not be different than kissing a man, he mused, idly picking up his pace. In the brother, he’d kissed plenty of girls, it was impossible not to.
The idea of kissing er-ge, beautiful, cool Lan Xichen was perhaps akin to taking a sip straight from a well of truth. He could not lie to his er-ge, not without the feeling of worms squirming and eating his guts. He would not just do it, he would’ve to mean it.
With da-ge, well. He could not risk thinking of Nie Mingjue that way without losing his mind.
He hated being vulnerable, showing his skin, but in the earthen air of the Unclean Realm, he’d let himself slip. Indulge in fantasies that belonged to Nie Huaisang’s book and his secluded, juvenile dreams.
He had not been allowed to bring any of that with him on his climb up the Koi Tower staircase. With his skin shedded, it was easier to pretend it was not him back then. He who sought for nothing but a smile from his father, who desired it all.
Thinking back to Phoenix Mountain and the great hunt Jin Guangyao had the honor to set up from where he was looking down at the empty coffin of his mother, he felt a wistful kind of nostalgia.
For years, he’d acclaimed the celebration as his worst pain in the side. It had been laughable how, of all his deeds, the greatest hunt of the generation still maintained a level of respect and achievement that did not dirty the name of Lianfang-zun.
Even now, the true villain of the story, remained the Yiling Laozu.
After Qionqi Path, the voicing that spread like a poisonous weed, went back to that same hunt and even beyond that. Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian had almost gotten into it and then, as was expected of someone as malicious in spirit as the Yiling patriarch, he’d gotten revenge.
Under Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangyao had found he did not dislike the idea of being a good man, a good brother. Something more, yet still good. Working for him, he’d almost believed himself capable of that.
When Qionqi Path happened and the Jin clan was shipped back the deceased body of their heir, Jin Guangyao’s brother, he understood one and for all, that that just didn’t come natural to him. Gazing down the tomb of his brother, to his chest filled with flowers to hide the missing heart, he’d started planning.
“Our father tried to beat that out of him”, Nie Huaisang lamented, reaching down an arm to grip, to touch. Lan Xichen was at his back, restraining him from crawling in the coffin alongside his long dead brother.
Jin Guangyao would’ve gladly thrown himself to his knees to aid er-ge in holding back a distraught younger brother from doing something reckless. His hands were busy, holding a chord to his own nephew’s throat; his last standing family and he was using him to defend himself, to run.
Guanyin Temple was truly turning the lot of them into laughing stock.
“Nie Zongzhu, it is dangerous. You should step back”, Hanguang-jun spoke with his usual frostiness. He was standing between the crowd that had formed to join his ultimate design, his side fledged towards Wei Wuxian.
Even now, with the waters closing around his throat, Jin Guangyao wondered if Lan Xichen was so set upon doing the right thing, to help Huaisang and keep him safe, because he was the only one that let himself be protected.
“Please, Wangji. Give us a moment with him”, Lan Xichen talked terms, but his hands were shaking so bad, Nie Huaisang managed to actually slip his arms inside the coffin and wrench Nie Mingjue’s from his stiff embrace. “A-Ya — Lianfang-zun, please.”
Us.
“Where is my mother?”, he asked no one in particular.
Under his hands, Jin Ling’s throat bobbed uneasily. Jiang Zongzhu’s was standing at the sight, glaring like a vulture ready to get the killing strike. His displeasure was known to everybody as his famed whip sparked and crackled at his side, unleashed and coiled around his foot.
Behind him, a couple more sets of trembling, fearful eyes blinked at him. Kids about Jin Ling’s age.
What had this turned out to be?
Wei Wuxian, as was befitting of his character, was the one to speak up unprompted, needling his way into the various conversation started and dropped as the tension rose in the room and nobody actually took notice of what the other’s were talking about.
“Nie zongzhu, what did you say?” Even in a body that was not his to use, his air of affability and natural charm blossomed like poison ivy under his feet. He took a couple of steps, coming as far as to peek over Nie Huaisang’s shoulders. All the while his eyes were trained on Jin Guangyao, hands raised beside his head.
Hanguang-jun did not care for such showmanship, but he must’ve been concerned over Jin Ling’s safety for he only moved where Wei Wuxian had already set foot, his eyes looking behind, where the crackling of lighting kept Jin Guangyao’s hair raised.
Nie Huaisang, upon being talked to, looked up with a vastly different expression. Jin Guangyao noticed something in his eyes that didn’t quite belong. Something, perhaps, he hadn’t meant to let slip.
It wasn’t the Head-Shaker looking crookedly at Wei Wuxian. Jin Guangyao knew those eyes, he’d to tape them shut in order to be able to function without feeling their constant weight and piercing judgment on the back of his head.
“My da-ge was scared of needles. Why did you have to stitch him up so badly?”, Nie Huaisang cried, pulling on the stiff arm as if to show the horror he was appointing. “Was he alive why you did it? W-Wei-xiong!”
Nie Mingjue, even as a corpse, was perpetually uncoperative. Nie Huaisang pulled with all his might, but the arm didn’t rip off as Jin Guangyao feared, instead, it recoiled right back where it had been laying across his chest.
Nie Huaisang fell back against Lan Xichen with a yelp and a fresh gush of tears.
Wei Wuxian laughed. The sound was jarring, both because it was more familiar to him than it was supposed to be given he’d never really gotten chummy with Wei Wuxian when he was alive, to recognize the quality of his laugh. And both, for the sadness lining his face. “Nie zongzhu, you know very well it wasn’t me.”
That was the second, biggest misstep in his life.
He couldn’t see it. Behind a bow and the painted, wide sleeves of his brother’s robes, Jin Guangyao had not seen.
He’d been looking out for the wrong man all the while and now he couldn’t see once again. Beyond the rising waters that were choking him, memories fluttered by dragged by mad currents. Unable to stop them, he was forced to watch and revive them.
Xue Yang had initially been supposed to be the one to chop off Nie Mingjue’s body. He would’ve adored it, the idea of ripping up what was left of one of the most renowned cultivators almost made his mouth foam.
Then, Jin Guangyao realized that if his partner in crime did the cutting, he'd have to do the cleaning. The sight of the needle held so close to Nie Mingjue’s skin, made him gag and he had to excuse himself.
Ripping up Nie Mingjue hadn’t been harder than watching him destroy himself on his notes. The worst came later.
“I get it now”, he murmured, Jin Guangyao murmured to the cold stone of the coffin.
It might’ve been months since he got sealed down below with his own victim and butcher, or days. Time was relative when you were dead.
He assumed the story went about the same for Nie Mingjue.
The taller man was pressed uncomfortably at his back. Facing his own side, Jin Guangyao felt the sharp edge of his chin push down the top of his head; or, he recognized the pressure on the extension of his own body. Feelings were beyond him.
At first they had fought, but not as much as he’d expected. It had almost been fun. The strength was exhilarating.
Jin Guangyao had never in his life dreamed of being able to match the strength of another man, let alone Chifeng-zun. Even as if their coffin-brawling couldn’t be counted as a real check of power and without pain, the fighting was all but revitalizing.
When that ended, things got boring awfully fast.
Nie Mingjue made a lot of noise. He turned and pushed and pulled and whined like a dog. It was dark and cramped in the coffin but Jin Guangyao’s eyes just worked, like his body did, against comprehension and nature, and he saw Nie Mingjue pull at the thread on his legs, on his arms; kitten like tugging most of the time, but sometimes he would yank with all his strength, squishing Jin Guangyao against one wall or the bottom. Wailing all the while.
They could not cry, fierce corpses could not. He presumed that was the closest Nie Mingjue could get to bawling his own heart and soul out.
“What do you get?”
Gazing down at the tomb of his brother, with no body to mourn but a silent, steel saber, Nie Huaisang must’ve started planning as well
Oh, he could see it now. See it all.
“Say, Nie Mingjue”, he said. Saying Nie Mingjue, not zongzhu, not da-ge, was something he’d never dreamed to achieve before. There was no high to climb to when you died under a forgotten temple in a forgotten piece of land that belonged to a man who’d tumbled to his own demise.
Jin Guangyao could do quite whatever the hell he wanted.
Guangyao, a-Yao.
“If I were to tell you a secret, would you reciprocate?”
“Don’t speak.”
The thought came to him a little over a one to couple hundreds recounting later. Nie Mingjue was not pulling at his wounds, they’d found that he was quite content to fidget with anything that fit his hands and didn’t break. His hands were like coal now — err, his hand was.
“I want to kiss you.”
“I will literally rip your lips with my teeth if you try.” Nie Mingjue said conversionally, the bone of his middle finger was all but dust by now, the poor digit didn’t even crack anymore as the taller man pulled and pushed it back and forth like a little lever.
“Then when you smile, you’ll be ugly like me.”
Jin Guangyao looked at him with a critical eye. “We’re both ugly.”
“Monsters”, Nie Mingjue agreed.
Jin Guangyao considered embracing him instead. In the midst of their brawling, he’d managed to get his arms around Nie Mingjue’s neck a couple of times, squeezed with all his might with the pretext of trying to cleave his head right off. It felt terrifyingly good.
The longer he stood with Nie Mingjue pressed against every spot of him, the warmer his chest felt. He knew it was an illusion, his brain trying to cope with his current state, but he couldn’t deny the comfort it gave him.
“Would you kiss a monster, Nie Mingjue?”
“I would kill a monster.”
After, with a smaller, pathetic voice, a-Yao added. “Is it because I am a man?”
Nie Mingjue did not speak for a long time. So much that even a-Yao had forgotten about that conversation all together.
When he did, he was laying face down, his body flat and Jin Guangyao curled at his side, drawing blind patterns on his back. Nie Mingjue’s hair was longer, still lustrous and thick and perfectly pillowy.
“I do not quite like you”, he confessed after years.
A-yao could live with that. It wasn’t I hate you or I’ll murder you. They had evolved from that. Now it was like they were chatting about.
In about twenty years, he would ask again. In about a hundred, he might even get his first kiss as his new, own person.