It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him. “Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I…if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?” “It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain.

“You know, you’re the one to beat this year,” Jiang Cheng offers helpfully, having seen the glare from right next to him. “Hanguang-jun’s been through juniors with the rest of us, he knows all of our tics. You’re an unknown variable, since he’s never competed against you before.” “Thanks,” says Wei Wuxian drily. “That’s very comforting.” Or: five nighthunting competitions where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were rivals, and one where they weren't.

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.

"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.)

After their end, a plea and a wish for things to have been different by Lan Xichen sends Nie Mingjue and Jin GuangYao back in time and gives them a chance to do better. With their knowledge of the 'future' they came from, they have to figure out how to deal with each other.

“I propose that we kill two birds with one stone,” Liu Mingyan said, and if her tone goes a bit theatrical, Jiang Cheng had the decency not to point it out. “I don’t follow,” Jiang Cheng deadpanned, crossing his arms. “I thought the plan was to milk this whole thing for what it’s worth and gracefully part ways when it inevitably fell apart.” “Yes, well. There’s a perfectly viable solution to the whole ‘falling apart’ part - you,” she said, pointing to Jiang Cheng, “Marry my brother.” -- Jiang Cheng gets married in the spring of his 39th year. It turns out better than he expected.

It starts with a curse, Jin Guangyao’s last revenge, seeking to tarnish what he could never touch. Lan Xichen is prepared to die from it, if he must, taking the shame of it to his grave. He doesn’t expect his brother’s lover to figure out the situation, let alone that Wei Wuxian might be their best hope of dealing with the curse in a way that leaves all three of them with their self-respect intact. And he certainly doesn’t expect being slowly, carefully drawn into their relationship, and learning how to live again.

Lan Zhan had never expected to marry. So of course, fate would have it that he was wed to Wei Ying's beloved shidi, just as they had become close, somewhere between friends and companions. aka Canon Divergent AU where coreless!JC marries LWJ, complicated feelings ensue. Eventual zhanchengxian.

“Are you a cultivator?” “No,” she says, steadily. “This one doesn’t possess the core for it.” She pauses and raises her eyes to his, so boldly he finds it a little startling. “I believe that I can be of use to the Jiang sect in spite of that, and I have brought a gift to prove it. May I show you?” Fully intrigued now, Jiang Cheng nods. The girl unslings the bundle from her back, unties a couple of straps, and unrolls it on the floor in a smooth motion. Jiang Cheng is on his feet before he even consciously realizes it’s happened, and the reaction murmurs out through the hall. There, on a blanket that belongs on the back of a horse, are five Wen cultivator swords, offered to him by a girl who looks like the word “bumpkin” was invented specifically for her. What the fuck. “Where did you get those?” he asks, instead of asking “What the fuck?” out loud, because that would be unbecoming of his status as sect leader. The girl meets his eyes again, lifts her chin, and says simply, “I killed the men who carried them.” Or: Fan Dingxiang cultivates the swole path. Jiang Cheng doesn't know how to handle that.

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.