Lan Zhan looked too old, sometimes, staring into the blinding sun of dawn. He looked like he had gone somewhere Wei Wuxian couldn’t follow, beyond the scope of the horizon. Resentful energy swirled black and terrible at that thought, and Wei Wuxian laughed it to shattering pieces. Lan Zhan had stayed, but that didn’t mean he would forever.

"By the Heavens, did you hear? The Yiling Patriarch has been invited to the Discussion Conference in Qinghe!" Gossip was, by far, the fastest way for information to spread. "What! Whose idea was that!?" It was not the most accurate or most reliable method, but people were people, and the tedium of daily life would always bore them. "I heard it was the Nie Sect leader's suggestion." ---------- After thirteen years in the Burial Mounds, the Yiling Patriarch finally makes a public reappearance. Civilians are scared. Cultivators are outraged. Sect Leaders are concerned. Wei Wuxian has been too quiet, they say, and nobody knows what dark horrors the Burial Mounds may now contain. Wei Wuxian wouldn't quite call them dark horrors, but the description wasn't too far off. (tl;dr Wei Wuxian lives, raises a whole gaggle of demonic cultivator children, and the cultivation world panics.)

or, Catharsis: The Fic In which Wei Wuxian, shortly after being called into Mo Xuanyu’s body, is further forced into the past, where he proceeds to tumble his way into absolutely nailing a time travel fix-it.

"Zewu-Jun. You once told me about a house surrounded by gentians, where you visited once a month, and how Lan Zhan still waited there, even when the door no longer opened." Xichen feels light-headed. He feels shocked, and angry. He has never told anyone such a thing, but Lan Zhan is giving Xichen a look of utter betrayal. "You told him?" Lan Zhan whispers. "When?" Wei Wuxian takes Lan Zhan's hand. "About twenty years from now." Wei Wuxian starts again from the beginning.

Wei Wuxian’s hand jolts, spilling a drop of wine onto the tabletop. “Love?” he croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. “Lan Zh— uh, Hanguang-jun, in love?” “Have you not heard the story?” the other young woman asks, looking pitying. “You must, it is a truly heartrending tale of star-crossed romance and mutual pining — go to any storyhouse in town, everyone has been requesting a reading of this book.” “There’s a book?” Wei Wuxian says blankly. In which the junior disciples (namely, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen, and a reluctant Lan Sizhui) turn to RPF in an attempt to rehabilitate Wei Wuxian's reputation so that he and Hanguang-jun can get together and get married and live happily ever after. It's... surprisingly effective.

“Just do what you can, Senior Wei!” Sizhui whispers. “We’ll be right here!” “Yeah!” Jingyi says. “And just remember: it’s going to be a disaster either way, so it’s not like there’s much you can do about it!” (Or: Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng plan a discussion conference together. It goes about as well as Wei Wuxian expects.)

“I once heard a rumour that this is how Lan An and his cultivation partner did it,” Ma Qiao piped up. “Which, I mean, if anyone could…” “The Lans are far too boring and repressed for something like this,” Wei Wuxian said, with the authority of one who had been resoundingly ignored by a Lan for the past month. “Can you imagine Lan Wangji dual cultivating?” Everyone knows that dual cultivation is a myth that only works in porn. Wei Wuxian discovers differently.

Lan Wangji had never had call to perform the spell of silent communication before he and Wei Wuxian joined together to fight Xuanwu. He figured it was temporary. Spoiler alert: it wasn't. Or: the AU in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian psychically bond in the cave, Wei Wuxian overhears Lan Wangji thinking about the fact that he actually likes him, and after several minutes of confusion, is fully on board with this.

An AU in which, after the Sunshot Campaign is over, Jin Guangshan does not legitimize Meng Yao and he goes to live at Cloud Recesses with Lan Xichen.

In which Jiang Yanli plots for her brothers’ happiness Or: the YunMeng siblings learn about self worth

He can’t get Jin Guangyao’s words out of his head. If he’d only believed in Wei Wuxian, if he’d only been willing to stand up for him, could it all have been avoided?

A month and a half into his duties, a letter arrives. Lan Zhan, it reads, I miss you already. Throw over your responsibilities and meet me at the western ridge at Qixi. Yours, Wei WuXian. -- Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi parted ways after Yunping — but not forever. [!!CQL verse!!]

i kinda want an au where lan wangji decides to stay with wei wuxian after meeting a-yuan but also i know he's not there yet in his development and it would be a lot of work to write the political fallout this change could cause so many ideas, so little time

What if: WWX doesn’t get there in time to intercept LWJ’s glass of wine?

Wang Lingjiao takes her time mentioning the Wen Supervisory Offices. Yu Ziyuan cuts off Wei Wuxian's sword hand in compliance with the Wens' demands, but Lotus Pier still falls. Its children manage as well as they can.

Lan Qiren had spent so long trying to save his nephews from his brother’s mistake – he would not now allow them to fall into their mother’s. (in which Lan Qiren notices that there's something wrong with Nie Mingjue...but no matter what it sounds like, he can't believe his nephew would poison his own lover)

Cloud Recesses, Gusu, age 15 “You don’t think they’re really going to make us wake up at mao hour?” Wei Wuxian whined. “Or sleep by the end of xu hour?” “They’re not going to make us do anything,” Jiang Cheng groaned. “It’s just that activities will be ongoing when they’re awake, so if you miss them all by sleeping until si hour, that’s your problem. It’s not like we made them do anything when they were visiting us at the Lotus Pier…” “What are you talking about?” Nie Huaisang wanted to know. “You all most certainly made poor Lan-xiong stay up past his bedtime when he was visiting the Lotus Pier – and the same for the rest of us, too!” Wei Wuxian, who had led most of the forcing-to-stay-up-late nonsense, coughed. “Yes, well…speaking of Lan Zhan, do you think he’ll be happy to see me?” “No,” both Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang chorused.

Once upon a time in Yiling, a rumor started about the Yiling Patriarch having started to collect a harem of beautiful young men from a variety of sects. (it was Nie Huaisang's fault) (to be fair, the porn didn't help)

“It’s impossible,” Wen Qing said, her voice flat and eyes icy. “Literally impossible. It would kill you both.” “But –” “If you don’t care about your own life, at least care about his,” she said, and Wei Wuxian fell silent; she’d hit him right where it hurt the most, and he turned and stormed away. Wen Qing waited, watching as Wen Ning ran after him, distressed by his distress, and when he was finally out of earshot, she said, “You may regret that, one day.” Behind her there was a rusty bark of laughter, if that horrible twisted sound, low and grating and rasping at the throat until it bled, could be called a laugh. “I won’t,” Jiang Cheng said. “Thank you for lying to him.”

"This is not what they wanted, and it’s almost enough that they both know that. Yanli knows that it’s not fair, because she has come out with the better half of the bargain--she gets to stay at Lotus Pier with her brothers, her people, her home. Jin Guangyao has been married off, outside of his Clan, practically abandoned to the plain faced sister of a Sect Leader; the second choice after his older brother’s engagement to her fell through with devastating finality. But Jin Guangyao has been patient in all of their meetings, his manner pleasant, his smile gentle." -- Jin Guangshan gets Jin Guangyao out of JinLinTai almost as soon as he is recognized as his son, marrying him into the Jiang Clan. Jiang Yanli gets a husband, though it's not the one she expected. Jin Guangyao gets a family, though it's not the one he worked for. But maybe that's alright.

The resentful energy occupying Wei Wuxian's body like an enemy army is very interested in giving him Lan Wangji, tied up with a bow. Wei Wuxian is hoping that Lan Wangji (who is far too noble and very keen to save Wei Wuxian's misguided soul) doesn't find out about any aspect of that.

Jiang Yanli lifted her eyes up to Madam Jin and said, calmly, as if from a hundred miles away, “I am a daughter of the Yu sect. Did he think my mother only taught me how to pour tea?” Or: the AU in which Jin Guangshan targets Jiang Yanli and she kills him before he can ruin everything.

the power of dick saves the cultivation world SAY HELLO TO MY DUAL CULTIVATION AGENDA

Wei Wuxian almost does not catch the name of the song. In which the aftermath of the cave battle involves just enough communication to make a difference.

Wei Wuxian barely makes a sound when Jin Zixun’s sword goes through his chest. A tiny noise is punched out of him — half gasp, half sigh. Jin Zixun, wearing that smirk that Lan Wangji has always hated, moves to pull the sword out. This won’t do; Lan Wangji knows enough about battlefield medicine to understand the principle of keeping the weapon in the wound until a medic arrives. So he does the only thing that occurs to him in the moment, letting the momentum of flight be the force behind the swing; he cuts off Jin Zixun’s hand. - Lan Wangji goes with Wei Wuxian to his nephew's one-month celebration instead of Wen Ning. They still don't make it to the party.

“Tell me I’m beautiful, Lan er-gege!” “You are well aware you are beautiful,” Lan Wangji says. Wei Wuxian trips over Jiang Wanyin and sends both of them to the ground in a tangle of limbs and bruises.

Crumpled at the base of Koi Tower’s long stairs for the second time, Jin Guangyao presses his face into the stone, takes a deep breath despite re-broken ribs, and arranges his features as carefully as he knows how. Then he stands, moving carefully around the pain, and bows deep, arms held straight and true. The walk back up the steps to his father's side is painful enough to wipe the smile from his face; it is not painful enough to prevent him re-taking his place as seneschal, bowing again at the top of the steps. As he straightens, he prioritizes his plans for his father’s demise over all else.