It started with Jiang Cheng being a sticky child, refusing to leave his jie’s side even when she sat for her embroidery lessons; with him being noisy and troublesome and the teacher just shoving the needle and thread into his hands with a muttered comment about it being good for men to know how to repair their own clothing – as if a future sect leader would ever need to know something like that. His mother covered her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter when he presented her with the results of several weeks’ worth of effort: it was just barely recognizable as the world’s ugliest duck. “A symbol of loving devotion,” one of her maids said.

Wen Ning began to go, then hesitated. “Do you need medical assistance, Sect Leader Nie? I know a little…” “Wen Qionglin.” “…yes?” “Take the child and go.” (an unexpected encounter in the aftermath of the Sun Palace)

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.

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.

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)

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 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.

“Something happened at the Lotus Pier.” “Oh? What does Fengmian have to say?” “Nothing,” Wei Changze said, and that’s when Cangse Sanren noticed that her husband was an unhealthy shade of pale. “He’s – he’s dead.” “What?” She snatched the letter away from him. “What – him and Yu Ziyuan both? Impossible! They’re – they’re sect leaders. Of a Great Sect! What happened?”

When old sect leader Nie dies, the Wen sect attacks and annexes Qinghe Nie, with the two heirs of the Nie sect taken to be raised as Wen Ruohan's wards - and more besides, in Nie Mingjue's case. Nie Huaisang spends a lot of time thinking about that.

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.

Every once in a while, not often, people who know them well will say that Nie Mingjue lets Nie Huaisang walk all over him. That isn't quite right.

The Lotus Pier always loved the bright spirits of the world, the free and unrestrained; she held them cupped in her hand like birds, ready to fly away, to go where their whim takes them, to return because they loved her. Her cultivators reflected that, shining bright, standing against the world and attempting the impossible. But they were only humans, their lives short and too easily cut shorter; when the invading armies came to the Pier, she tried her best to help her people – help them fight, help them flee – but the enemy was already invited inside her gates. There was nothing she could do. (and then she woke up again)

Wei Wuxian’s life might have been different if his mother had gone onwards to visit the Jiang sect, following a glimpse of that handsome young man she’d met so briefly early on, but in the end she’d decided to go a different way – (Wei Wuxian is one of Jin Guangshan's illegitimate sons, and Cangse Sanren is having exactly none of it)

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.

“Hey,” Lao Nie protested mildly. “Who’s the father here, me or you?” “If a-die wants a new wife, little uncle will find one that isn’t inclined to kill him.” That sounded like a recitation. “Then what’s even the point,” Lao Nie grumbled, and reached out to ruffle his son’s hair, enjoying how Nie Mingjue yelped when he did, glaring up at him with offended dignity.

“You want me to what,” Lan Qiren said. “Be the father of my child,” Cangse Sanren said. Simply and straightforwardly, as if that were just a thing people said.

It's finally time for Nie Mingjue to give Nie Huaisang the Sex Talk. Pity no one ever thought to give one to Nie Mingjue.

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?

Nie Huaisang’s rooms in the Unclean Realm had a little side door that no one but him ever used. Years after he’d put it out of his mind entirely, there came a terrible banging noise at that little side door, like someone was kicking at it furiously from the outside. Lan Wangji, white robes stained with blood and cheeks bright with fever, shoved something into his arms. “You have a child now,” he said through bitten lips. “Congratulations. He is called A-Yuan. I entrust you with his care, for my sect cannot be trusted with it.”

Prompt: Along with forming a golden core most cultivators gain the ability to shapeshift. What they shift into depends on the cultivator, but there are certain tendencies in bloodlines. Jiang Cheng has shifted exactly once in absolute privacy. He didn't stay shifted after finding scales and claws instead of feathers and wings, some sort of reptile from the Yu bloodline. He's since been pretending not to be able to shift at all, but you can only deny your nature for so long.