Back at home, when he has time to examine it more closely, it quickly becomes obvious why this ritual never turned up in all his early research. It's not a typical soul summoning ritual. It's not a cultivation ritual at all; as Nie Huaisang puzzles through it, the closest category he can put it in is folk magic...not only that, but sex magic.

Baxia takes the shape of a woman with the body of a tiger and three heads, each more horrifying than the next. Huaisang is standing between her and his brother. Wings of ink and ash unfurl behind him as the white-throated needletail dissolves into nothing from Huaisang’s right flank and [defend] activates. “What do you want?” he asks. Shouts, really, through the screaming of the desert wind and the never-ending hum of Baxia’s energy. You know what I want, she says with three voices all at once. You know what I want, delicious one, pretty one. Jewel-snake, ink demon, fiend. - in which a sacrifice is made.

The fault, Nie Mingjue thinks later, lies squarely with the blasted weather.

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.

Nie Huaisang would do anything to help his brother. Now he knows the very thing required, and it forces every choked, desperate thought to the surface. Everything hiding beneath 'Da-ge smiled at me' rises forcefully up through him so that his mouth is filled with the taste of wanting. Yes, Nie Huaisang would do anything to help his brother, but especially this.

The one where NHS successfully thirst-traps his brother (and then gets to keep him). This started as a discord thread, then it moved to twitter, and it is now here on AO3. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me along every step of the way!

Who do you bloom for, in your lungs?

Huaisang pulls against the heavy, taut drape of the hanfu’s collar and the layers underneath, revealing barely a triangle of his pale clavicle and shoulder as he fans himself from the heat. It’s a tantalizing strip of skin, and before Mingjue can drag his eyes away, the glint of silver catches his gaze. Is that - ? Mingjue only gets a glimpse. Nestled between Huaisang’s skin and the gauzy white inner robe, there’s a strip of silver-black. A strap. A - a bra strap. It burns at the back of his mind for hours, like an ember in the dark, a glow he can see even with his eyes closed. What is Huaisang hiding, underneath all those layers?

Nie Huaisang blinks his big dark eyes open and scoots closer, thighs bumping against the outside of Nie Mingjue's hips. "I don't feel anything yet," he says. "Can you give me some more?"

In the end, there isn’t much of a discussion. With the sabre spirit boiling in Mingjue’s blood, it has to be Huaisang. Huaisang has regular courses, has never actually been stabbed or tortured on the field of battle. They know their duty to the family. If Mingjue can’t risk a child, Huaisang will do it. But she's not doing it alone.

Huaisang ran his fingers up over Mingjue’s thigh and abdomen, smoothing in slow circles as he spoke, “Just relax, Da-ge. I’ll take good care of you.”

the power of dick saves the cultivation world SAY HELLO TO MY DUAL CULTIVATION AGENDA

Mingjue takes up baking, and Huaisang suffers terribly for it.

He didn’t know until this moment just how much he wanted Mingjue to ask for it—for anything—to take the reins Huaisang has been holding out for so long and pull them tight and demand.

Some time ago, Nie Mingjue gave this gift to Huaisang. Now Huaisang has found a way for both of them to enjoy it in a new way and he can't wait to share. From the text: “I just want to try something, if you don't mind.” Nie Mingjue watches him retrieve a box from under the bed. He recognizes it, it contains something Nie Mingjue gifted to Nie Huaisang. And indeed, that's exactly what his brother extracts from the box. A sizable pale green jade dildo, shaped after his own member. He gave that to Nie Huaisang before their relationship evolved into this. He didn't explain at the time, what it was supposed to look like, but it became very clear the first time Nie Huaisang saw him erect. By then he had familiarized himself with that shape and that size, and was delighted by this discovery.

Nie Huaisang sends a video of his invention into the groupchat: “houston, we have a live one.” Mo Xuanyu replies within a split of a second: “omg, wig. can i make you a website to livestream?” or kinky twink gets buttplug hooked to twitter live data for science!

In retrospect, Nie Mingjue should have figured out what was going on earlier. The first couple of times his gym shirts disappeared could easily be chalked up to mistakes - misplacing them in the locker room, slipping out of his gym bag in the parking lot, disappearing into the black hole of the laundry room. The third, and fourth, and fifth disappearances suggested a loss by intent more than accident. Mingjue bought more shirts. More shirts disappeared.

“Ah, fuck, da-ge, fill me up, please, fuck,” which is entirely normal for them, or as normal as a didi being plowed into the bed by his da-ge can be, and it’s fine, until Huaisang’s mouth betrays him. “Knock me up, da-ge, give me your baby, please.”

Mingjue has been working too much, so Huaisang brings him lunch and a special surprise. Huaisang's motives aren't entirely altruistic...

Saving people, hunting things: the family business. Modern AU: the Nies are hit by a demon's death curse, which is NOT fuck or die - it's fuck AND die, a kind of reverse cultivation curse that's usually directed against cultivation partners, destroying their golden cores little by little every time they fuck. NOT a clever curse to use against brothers! ...except that the curse comes with a chaser: its targets share blisteringly horny sex dreams every night, as a way of encouraging them to go ahead and give in to the whole fuck-and-die schtick. Awkward. So it makes sense to search for a cure to the curse, right? Especially since the cure might actually help stabilise Mingjue's golden core. Obviously they have no intention of actually boning once they've got rid of the whole fuck-and-die curse... (...for the life of me I can't remember who suggested a Fuck AND Die trope on Twitter many weeks ago - evidently it has been living rent free in the back of my head ever since, though, and so here we have some Niecest.)

Nie Mingjue has had a very shitty week. His brother concocts an elaborate scheme to help him relax.