The reason Wei Wuxian had told him to look at this on the plane, Lan Xichen realizes, is that Lan Xichen will find it difficult to murder him from cruising altitude. Or, Lan Xichen finds his dating life taken out of his own hands.

The first time Lan Huan sees him, he thinks it’s a trick of the light. The sea glimmers like translucent pearls off of the man’s pectorals, polishes his long wavy hair like jet. But the most fascinating part of him must be the thousands of tiny glittering scales lining his lower abdomen, down, down, down to a pair of translucent olive fins that shimmer like gold in the summer light. Lan Huan breathes in, but the salt spray somehow tangles in his lungs. (Mermaid AU)

In life and in death, Xichen’s love will never leave him. (or: nie mingjue's fierce corpse is granted sentience, and sets out to fix things.)

The cascade of events that lead to this moment—Nie Mingjue in a mesh crop top and billowing pants and a snake shaped chain that connects the neck bit to his trousers, good god—started, like all chaotic things in Mingjue’s life do, with Huaisang. With Huaisang’s new boyfriend, to be precise. And Huaisang’s boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend’s brother. Who just happened to be Mingjue’s high school almost-sweetheart. - in which Huaisang has an art show, Xichen wears a suit, and there are. Shenanigans.

Some days, it isn’t so bad. His qi irregularities are within the expected boundaries. The desire to give in to the whispering need that wants him to succumb to violence is a quiet thing—imagine how his blood would look on our fingers, Baxia says, but Mingjue smiles through it, bows to Sect Leader Ouyang respectfully, and offers him tea. (If he spends a minute gritting his teeth and breathing heavily in a side chamber before the next assembly at the yearly cultivation conference, does it matter? If a report gets crushed between his fingers and the edge of his vision goes red for a second, a minute, did it really happen if nobody saw?) Other days, it is harder. For those days—the violent ones, the ones where he hangs onto his sanity by the edge of his teeth—he has Xichen.

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)

Nie Mingjue's mustache deserves to be classed as a spiritual tool. Or 5+1 times someone appreciated Nie Mingjue's facial hair for Reasons.

Mingjue’s first thought is: generic. This is entirely Huaisang's fault, the product of listening to far too many rants about the failings of modern men’s fashion. Lan Xichen looks like he’s stepped out of a diagram labelled “Business Casual.” Mingjue’s second thought is: pretty.