As a result of his newfound cultivation, Wei Wuxian was having trouble sleeping - and then he realizes that he sleeps just fine during war council meetings. What could possibly be the cause? The only thing that seems to be in common is the presence of one Sect Leader Nie... And so Project "Sleep with Nie Mingjue" is born! (shut up, Jiang Cheng, the name is fine - who could possibly misunderstand?)

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.

“It’s impossible,” Wen Qing said, her voice flat and eyes icy. “Literally impossible. It would kill you both.” “But –” “If you don’t care about your own life, at least care about his,” she said, and Wei Wuxian fell silent; she’d hit him right where it hurt the most, and he turned and stormed away. Wen Qing waited, watching as Wen Ning ran after him, distressed by his distress, and when he was finally out of earshot, she said, “You may regret that, one day.” Behind her there was a rusty bark of laughter, if that horrible twisted sound, low and grating and rasping at the throat until it bled, could be called a laugh. “I won’t,” Jiang Cheng said. “Thank you for lying to him.”

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.

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..!”)

Everyone has their own theories about how Jiang Cheng, of all unlikely people, got the opportunity to become a god. They're all wrong. It started with a kind act - and a story.

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...

"You can't seriously be suggesting that we elect Sect Leader Yao to be Chief Cultivator!" “I don’t see the problem,” Nie Mingjue said, heroically maintaining a straight face despite the slightest curve in his eyes that indicated a man who knew exactly what the problem with his suggestion was. “According to all the stories I’ve heard him tell, Sect Leader Yao has been at the forefront of every action in the past few years, large or small - no matter where or how implausibly quickly he must have traveled to get there.”

Lan Xichen wished that people in Qinghe weren't so notoriously reluctant to share personal information. It was one thing not to know exactly how old someone was, or what their given name was, but entirely another thing to belatedly find out that there was a new baby in the family.

“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.

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.

“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?”

In which Lan Xichen, nearly thirteen, visits Nie Mingjue, newly appointed Sect Leader - and decide to swap brothers for a day.

Madame Yu has always been irredeemably stubborn. You think a little thing like being taken captive by the Wen sect after they invaded her home, destroyed her husband's golden core, and sent her children fleeing to the winds is going to stop her?

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.

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)

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)

“You are never allowed to do this again,” Jiang Cheng’s mother said, her voice harsh in the way that means she was scared, because she hated being scared. “Never again, you hear me?” “I hear you, a-niang,” Jiang Cheng said. “Did it live?” “Yes, of course it lived,” Madame Yu snapped. “You’re the one that nearly died! You can’t – death-sharing is a rare gift, A-Cheng, but you can’t use it too often, you hear me? Every time you use it, your own life gets shorter. You must never do it again. And you mustn’t tell anyone else about it! No one at all! Swear to me!” “I swear,” he said. “No one at all.”

The healers said it was trauma. Perhaps he was too young, or too sensitive; perhaps it was only that it had happened in such a way, at such an impressionable time – in any event, Lan Wangji’s reactions to his mother’s death had gone well beyond the normal signs of grief and turned into something much more severe. After some intense discussion, it was agreed that he should be temporarily sent to live as a guest in another sect to see if he would benefit from the change of scenery. From not being around the place where he was drowning in the memories of his mother. They sent him to the Jiang Sect.

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 was Wei Wuxian’s idea, of course. Jiang Yanli’s big didi was brilliant and talented beyond measure, as reckless and impertinent in his thoughts as he was in every other way, just as her little didi was earnest and soft-hearted and dutiful, the outlines of the serious man he’d become when he grew up just barely visible underneath the baby fat that still lingered in his cheeks. It was Wei Wuxian’s idea, but it was Jiang Cheng that made Jiang Yanli decide to use it.

“It’s just in case,” Jiang Cheng said. “A-Cheng…” Jiang Yanli said, smiling helplessly. Her little brother was all grown up now and pretending like it was his duty to be protective of her, rather than the other way around. “A-Cheng, it’s really not necessary. I’m going to my own engagement dinner – I don’t think anyone’s going to cause trouble.” It turns out, Jiang Yanli thought later as she looked at the dead body in the corner of her bedroom, that she'd underestimated her soon-to-be father-in-law.

“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?

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.

There has always been a divide between the sect and the clan. The clan flows through the male line, heritage and paternity, but it is the wife who comes from outside that rules the sect - a measure, Lan Xichen thought, put in place to prevent war between the sects. Who would want to risk antagonizing someone who might end up running your sect some day? And then Nie Mingjue's father died.

Meng Yao had finally achieved the pinnacle of power: he was the viceroy of Emperor Wen Ruohan, who conquered the cultivation world years ago - the Nie sect heirs having disappeared without a trace, the Jin compromised, the Lan crushed, the Jiang destroyed - and the Emperor had left him in complete charge in his absence. Unfortunately, complete charge meant a complete headache. How was he supposed to get anything done when everyone else was scheming against him all the time? He needed help, and good help was so hard to find. "Hold this," he said to a passing guard - something of a giant, with a tall frame, strong back, and broad shoulders, and handsome features to boot; just Meng Yao’s type. "It’s not that difficult. I only need your arms, not your brain, so just – do it. Whatever your name is!” “A-Jue,” the guard said. “I mostly get called A-Jue.”

Meng Yao had spent years not thinking of Jin Zixuan as anything other than an obstacle in the way of his ultimate goal – his father’s recognition, himself as the heir and eventual master of Lanling Jin – and he bitterly resented Wen Ruohan for trashing all that effort. It was impossible to think that way with Jin Zixuan shivering in front of him, chained down to the floor of the palace within the Nightless City. And yet, it was equally impossible to act to save him - Or was it?

“My lady,” the midwife said. “Congratulations. You have a daughter.” Madame Jin shook her head. “I need a son,” she said. “My lady –” “I’m not doing that again,” Madame Jin said, her voice getting stronger. “I need a son.” “But –” She looked at her loyal maid, who inclined her head. A knife flashed. “Congratulations, my lady,” her maid said, pushing aside the midwife’s body with her foot. “You have a son.” Madame Jin smiled.

“No, I don’t want anything,” Nie Mingjue said, deeply relieved to have identified that he had not, in fact, forgotten to fill out his calendar. “I’m stuck in a time loop.” “…ah,” the guard said, looking taken aback – he must be new to Qinghe, like many of the cultivators in the army. Like Meng Yao, for that matter. “Is that…bad?” “No, it’s fantastic. I’m going back to sleep. No one is to bother me all day.”

Prompt: NMJ and JGY spend an entire banquet on the same page and in perfect agreement on something - and that something is that the random, minor sect leader's daughter that is CLEARLY trying to get with LXC is Not Good Enough For Him and they both need to make sure the OTHER doesn't accidentally maim and/or poison her throughout the night.

Prompt: We keep hearing little bits about the Nie bros dad, but what about their moms?

The first time Jin Guangshan mentioned it, Jin Guangyao felt a great surge of relief – at last, he thought. At last someone else that isn’t me notices it!