“Thank you, A-Ning,” she ran her fingers through his hair and felt her heart tighten as he gave her a bright smile. What wouldn’t she give for his smile to never disappear? What wouldn’t she bear for his eyes to retain their color? What wouldn’t she do for his heart to keep beating? Wen Qing dies, Wen Qing lives. A second chance to make things right.

Nie MingJue wakes up. And that doesn't make sense, because he knows he died. Aka: After everything is said and done, Nie MingJue gets brought back Wei WuXian-style and tries to figure out just what on earth happened in the meantime. In the process he also reunites with his brother, drags Lan XiChen out of seclusion, becomes drinking buddies with Wei WuXian, learns about Jin GuangYao's downfall, meets the next generation, and features (not always intentionally) in a number of reconciliations.

AU in which Nie Huaisang and Jin Guangyao work together to take down Jin Guangshan from the beginning. Or: the story in which Nie Huaisang just wants to paint fans and feed birds and he doesn't understand why this is so much to ask.

What if when Nie Huaisang went back in time to save his brother, he brought not only himself but the rest of the Sect? AKA the fic where the Nie Sect is very overprotective of their Sect Leader and Nie Mingjue is very confused.

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)

Nie Mingjue took one look at the ash-faced girl on the streets of Lanling, caught her by the shoulder and said, “Aren’t you that Wen Qing? I used to see you at discussion conferences – what are you doing here?” Nothing is ever the same again.

When Jiang Chen was little, she told her mother that she wanted to be like her when she grew up. Madame Yu thought it referred to her cultivation and was very proud, even smug, but actually Jiang Cheng had been eyeing her beautiful skirts and delicate jewelry, her proud back and gentle curves. It wasn’t until Jiang Cheng was a little older that she realized that she couldn’t be like her mother – that she was supposed to be like her father. Because she was her father’s son, and not his daughter. She was never going to be like her father.

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 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...

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian escape the burning of the Lotus Pier, but they're not alone: along with them, they bring three of their youngest shidi, little children who can't contribute and are only a burden - and who sometimes see (and say) too much. (“– and then shixiong put me down and told me to go back,” he said, crying bitter tears. “He said to tell you that you have to – that someone has to avenge –” “That idiot,” Wei Wuxian said, his lips were numb. “The Wens – they have Wen Zhuliu there! Doesn’t he know what they’ll do to him..!”)

“You just killed him,” Nie Huaisang said dumbly. When the battle at Langya was done, Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang had gone looking for Meng Yao together – Nie Huaisang's brother had been positively seething at how Jin Guangshan pretended he had never received his letter of recommendation, mumbling threats under his breath – and eventually Nie Mingjue had consented to allow Nie Huaisang to go one way while he went another. Nie Huaisang had found Meng Yao first. He was starting to wish he hadn’t.

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 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.)

By everyone’s agreement (except his own), Wen Ning was the sect leader. Of course, practically speaking, Nie Mingjue actually ran everything; he was the one with the experience in it, after all, and he claimed he was no good at teaching, which was the other thing they generally did. Other than, you know, the whole...fierce corpse thing.

It had always been something of a behind-closed-doors debate – a chicken-and-the-egg problem, what came first, what was the cause and what was the symptom. Was the Nie sect’s atypical cultivation method the reason behind the notorious Nie temper? Or were they born with the temper, and the cultivation method merely built upon that? Which one was the reason for their clan’s tendency towards early qi deviations? Nie Huaisang usually threw his money on the “blame the cultivation style”, almost entirely for the sake of pissing off his brother. He was starting to think, though, that he’d been wrong.

Baxia's beloved master, Nie Mingjue, had a spirit as close as she had ever seen a human come to being a saber spirit, steel right down to the core of him, principles held as stiffly as her blade even when the results of those principles turned to cut against him. Full of rage, just as she was, but tempered, just like her – disciplined, fearsome, just. But still - too soft, sometimes. Baxia decides to fix that.

Nie Huaisang thought that - should the time travel array actually work and he end up back in time before everything happened, with his brother still alive and well - that the first thing he would do would be to properly weep and cry and hug his brother, not jump straight into explanations and strategizing. Then again, he hadn't expected that the array would somehow send his spirit into his brother's body, casting his brother's spirit into his own past self, either.

this idea hit me today honestly i just want all of you to think about yllz huaisang our boys ends up kidnapped and beat by wen chao in retaliation for the death of wen xu and when they think he’s about to die wen chao just has him dropped in the burial mounds, crushed core and all, and the resentful energy that’s there just pulls him back together, reknitting his broken bones and filling the space where his weak golden core used to live and this time when they ask ‘don’t you want revenge nie huaisang’ he answers ‘of course i want revenge’ and so nie huaisang is rebuilt and instead of cultivating with a flute, he controls the resentful energy with his fans, flicking them this way and that to direct the energy and bend it to his will

“What,” Nie Mingjue said, even as Jin Zixuan got up with a set expression on his face to accept a bow from his servant, “are you doing?” Jin Zixuan paused, looking puzzled – and no surprise, since Nie Mingjue hadn’t said anything beyond the most mundane greetings when he first arrived. “Sect Leader Nie..?” Nie Mingjue rose to his feet, his brother’s hand falling off of his arm as if he’d shaken him off like a dog. “What are you doing?” he demanded, louder this time. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Maybe we could just – not talk. Until the effect wears off.” “It shouldn’t be that hard,” Lan Xichen said encouragingly. “Given that it’s us.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nie Mingjue asked suspiciously. “Well, it’s not like the three of us ever talk anymore,” he said, and then slapped his hand over his mouth. Jin Guangyao could not wait for the truth-compelling effects of the smoke to wear off.

Two children, Meng Shi decides, cannot possibly be that much more work than one. On the run from the Jin, Meng Shi encounters another young boy in need of love, a family and a home.

Well, shit, Nie Huaisang thought, even as he comforted Jin Rusong, petting the toddler’s back to try to get him to calm down. What do I do now?

Jin Guangshan has a certain reputation when it comes to bastard children - a reputation he lives up to when Meng Yao arrives at, and is summarily thrown out of, Jinlin Tower. Unfortunately for Jin Guangshan, his actions are witnessed by all the other sect leaders of the time...and Lan Qiren, at least, has some objections.

“No, please repeat that,” Lao Nie said. He had his fingers drilled into his temples and was rubbing them in nice, calming circular motions that were doing absolutely nothing to stem his headache. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly. What was that about...did you really say 'enrichment and stimulation'?” “It’s about Wen Zhuliu,” Nie Huaisang chirped, and Nie Mingjue, standing next to him and holding his hand in encouragement, nodded in agreement. “And how he's been ever since he joined the Nie sect. We haven’t been using him enough, or at least not in the way he’s accustomed to being used. So we’re worried that he’s starting to feel like we don’t appreciate him.” “Don’t appreciate him.” “Uh-huh. Because he did all that work to learn the Core-Melting Technique, and you almost never let him use it, so we’re worried that maybe he’s – you know – da-ge, what’s the word…” “Unfulfilled.”

If Wen Qing had realized sooner that she wasn’t in the afterlife or hallucinating, but had actually traveled back in time, she’d have done things differently. There’d have been less murder, for one thing.

Wen Ning has lived as a sentient fierce corpse for about four hundred years. Going back in time could have been an accident, but isn't.

Wen Ning has lived as a sentient fierce corpse for about four hundred years. Going back in time could have been an accident, but isn't.