An AU where Wei Ying was raised by the Jin family as a courtesan.

Every student of House Mandrake is assigned a study partner, a counterpart from House Valerian. Lan Wangji suspects, with some outrage, that he's been given the troublemaker.

chengxian thought: turnip sales aren't cutting it, so wwx freelances out of a yiling brothel. jc, blowing off steam on one of his periodic trips to check up on him, asks for whatever the madam recommends and, welp, there's his brother. jc writes this off as a charitable donation. I did not intend to put any further thought into this but just like, the idea of the moments where wwx is still laughing off the coincidence and jc has already decided to go through with it, to insist, and wwx slowly slowly gets there

There was another boy there at the base of the balcony outside of Meng Shi's window, where Meng Yao liked to sit: a boy few years older than him, taller, in finely made clothing that would normally make Meng Yao itch all over in futile envy, but the other boy’s eyes were white around the edges in a way that was immediately, painfully familiar. “Someone’s chasing you?” Meng Yao asked, and the boy’s eyes widened even further, surprised, but he nodded in confirmation. “There’s a trellis around the left side – can you climb up? I'll hide you.” "Thanks," the boy said, later, once the man he called Wen Ruohan had left. "My name is Nie Mingjue. What's yours?"

A generous allowance from his parents or Wei Wuxian in his life: Jiang Cheng would make the same choice a thousand times over, but his grad school stipend is barely enough to support himself, let alone the two of them. An arrangement with an older man might keep his head above water—if he doesn't wade in too deep.

Meng Shi was no ordinary prostitute; she was a Courtesan. When Sect Leader Jin threw her out she knew better than to think he was worth her, or her baby's, time. Meng Yao knows this and take a different route to gain influence in the Cultivation world. One that leads him to some similar places, and people, and some very different outcomes.