In preparing their ambush, the Jin sect was careful to get rid of all the human corpses at the Qiongqi Path - They forgot that the reason the path got its name was that, many years ago, Wen Mao killed the great beast, the Qiongi - and when Wei Wuxian started playing, he noticed that there was still some dead thing, deep beneath the ground...

Nie Huaisang meant for it to be a surprise. Learning the Song of Clarity for his brother, so that he wouldn't need to feel bad about his sworn brothers travelling all the way to Qinghe for him - it would be the perfect birthday gift. Obviously he can't just ask someone to teach him, since they would just tell his brother about it, but that's fine; Nie Huaisang knows of a place where he can sit and listen in secret - he'll just pick it up that way. Except something must have gone wrong, because he's started coughing up blood...

Nie Mingjue would be the very first to admit that devious plotting was not his strong suit – but if it meant he could make things better, make it so that his brother never had to dirty his hands to avenge him, he would do his best. His best, in this instance, was a forbidden ritual that sent him back in time to before their father had died, before Wen Ruohan's perfidy was revealed, before Meng Yao was twisted by the world's cruelty, before Wei Wuxian was orphaned... Nie Mingjue had a lot to do and very little time in which to do it. Best to get started right away.

Nie Mingjue leaves his first Discussion Conference as a Sect Leader early, desperately needing to find some fresh air and possibly something to hit. Instead he finds a small, dirty child that reminds him of his brother, cowering away from some dogs - Maybe he should take him home.

Wei Wuxian was fully prepared to be rejected – no matter what Jiang Cheng said about the Sunshot Campaign caring more about defeating the Wens than anything else, the fact remained that his cultivation was most decidedly abnormal and unorthodox, the sort of thing the cultivation world most scorned. He’d already decided that if they did that, he would return to his previous approach of stalking the Wens from the shadows, fighting them in his own way, on his own. Instead, he walked into the command tent, Chenqing gripped tightly in his hand, and Nie Mingjue didn’t so much as blink, just said, “Can you do anything but ambushes?” and the next thing he knew, it was three shichen later, he’d shared far more than he’d meant to about his new cultivation style, and there were eight different plans of attack that would greatly increase his effectiveness on the battlefield. It was – exhilarating, actually. (in which Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian become sworn brothers)

The Nie sect’s ancestors were butchers; that lowly heritage is well known and widely celebrated, much to the not-entirely-concealed disdain of some of the more refined, gentlemanly sects. Butchers at home and butchers at war – everyone knows that. What’s rather less well known is that the third sect leader, colloquially known among his descendants as ‘that idiot’, rather heroically saved an imperial princess in battle and then – and this was why he was that idiot – married her. She was a proper princess, too, the true-born daughter of the emperor; other sects might see that as a good thing, since for all that cultivation sects saw themselves as being above petty things like the politics of the common folk, a princess was still a princess. The Nie did not. The reason for this was quite simple. What does a cultivation style that already incorporates an increased chance of death through anger most assuredly does not need? The blood of the eight-clawed dragon, that’s what.

A man who binds himself with so many rules is afraid of what he will do without them. When all his righteousness is not enough and his little brother is killed by one he trusted, Nie Mingjue casts aside all restraint and principle. He travels to the Burial Mounds, his brother's corpse cradled in his arms, and kneels before the Yiling Patriarch, begging him to bring his brother back - And then he goes to seek an accounting. No matter what the cost.

Nie Mingjue and Baxia have always been close. Maybe a little too close. (Nie Mingjue watched as his body leaped to the side, avoiding the beast’s charge – the movements were a little jerky, he thought, and Baxia sent some frustration back that he thought might roughly translate to listen it’s a new body and I’m trying here if she were capable of speech – and then spinning around, leaping up, and then bringing him - Nie-Mingjue-the-saber, that is - down on the beast.)

“It’s not wrong if you write it down,” Mo Xuanyu muttered to himself like a mantra as he scribbled down a rough explanation of what he was going to do. “If you write it down, it’s just an experiment, and that makes it okay.” That’s what they used to say back at Koi Tower, back when they were doing all those bad things. They also said that you’re supposed to try stuff out before you do the real thing, because practice makes perfect. And anyway, surely it wouldn't hurt to put the cat in the middle of the body-sacrificing array before he put himself in - the array ran on resentment, on revenge, and how much resentment could a cat possibly have?

In which Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen discover something very interesting about the Nie sect, and what exactly a "qi deviation" means when it comes to the main Nie clan. ...also, tigers.

When Nie Mingjue turned sixteen years old, he was alone. He had taken nothing with him but his saber, Baxia. He had hugged his brother maybe-goodbye, and then he had gone down into the saber tombs to wait to see if this was the year he was going to go insane. (a fairytale)