Hello dear readers.

Thank you in advance for reading my fluff. I'm not a writer by nature; my background is science and math. But I watch TVs and movies and read books and the stories continue in my head long after I'm done watching and reading. In the last few years I've started writing them down and posting them on fan fiction sites. If you enjoy my story, please let me know in the comments. If you don't enjoy my story, my apologies for boring you.

I'm not Chinese and my knowledge of chinese customs and history is limited to what I remember from the single chapter on Asia back in 9th grade, a few documentaries I watched on the Discovery channel, and a few Asian dramas. So please consider any mistakes about chinese customs and history as part of my fiction rather than ignorance.

I've been informally studying Mandarin for a year now, and can understand almost 1000 words/phrases when spoken slowly and clearly.. I'm going to use some of that knowledge in my story. In Mandarin Chinese the words for he/him (他), she/her (她), and it (它) are all pronounced the same: tā. So without context clues and simply simply saying tā, the speaker can mean one gender and the listener can infer another. My use of gender pronouns in certain scenes might therefore be confusing but is definitely deliberate.

This fiction is based mostly on the TV show as read through English subtitles. Wei WuXian is in Wei WuXian's body, not Mo XuanYu's. That said, I'm also using an English translation of the book as a reference ( /novels/grandmaster-of-demonic-cultivation/) because the timeline in the TV show does not make sense. Somehow Wei WuXian has been dead for 16 years, but when we're taken to the past, it's 16 years ago that Wei WuXian first arrived in Cloud Recesses…. Add together the months spent in classes, 9 months for a baby, 3 months in the Burial Mounds, and additional time for the SunShot Campaign, rebuilding, etc.? The TV timeline falls apart rather quickly. So I'm working from the book in that Wei WuXian has been dead for 13 years and the story started 7 years before that.

I'm also using the ages used in the book. So in the past, Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng were 15, Lan WangJi 16, Wen Ning 13 or 14. Jiang YanLi 18/19. Wen Qing in the show is 24 ish; I don't remember her age being listed in the book, but 24 is too old to be attending classes with young teenagers in my not so humble opinion, so I'm going to make her 18/19 as well.

I've read the book twice and watched the series twice. I'm not an addict. Nor do I have a photographic memory. Any parts of my story that go against what was shown on TV and in the book are either my own mis-remembrances or deliberate, I'm not going to tell you which is which, and in any case are now part of my fiction.

Thank you for reading.


"Bath first, then food." Lan WangJi ordered.

"But I'm hungry, " Wei WuXian whined. After months of traveling and mostly eating alone he was looking forward to dining with his friend. Even though that friend insisted, or at least tried to insist, upon silence during meals. And even though the food in Cloud Recesses was distinctly lacking in spices. Glancing quickly over at Lan WangJi, he amended his thoughts: it wasn't the food he was looking forward to so much as the companionship. I missed you.

Lan WangJi sniffed delicately in Wei WuXian's direction. "Wood smoke, grass, dirt, peppers…. What's that other smell? Fermented apples?" He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Wei WuXian laughed. "Little Apple and I slept near an orchard a few days ago. He broke his tether and gorged himself while I slept. Then he vomited on my head. I did wash, but I guess my soap wasn't strong enough."

Lan WangJi knelt beside a chest and pulled out a set of clothing from the bottom: dark blue outer robes with a matching sash and white underclothes. "Here, you can wear this after your bath. I've never worn it. Give me all your dirty things later, and I'll have someone wash and mend them."

Wei WuXian looked over the garments. The outer robe was embroidered with silver threads in a delicate cloud pattern. "Why do you have this?" he asked. "The darkest color I've seen on you is pale blue."

"It was a gift."

"Was she pretty?"

"I didn't notice."

Wei WuXian was incredulous. "How do you not notice if the girl is pretty or not? I guarantee you, she was hoping you'd think she was pretty."

Lan Wanji looked over at Wei WuXian out of the corner of his eye. "I performed an exorcism at her parent's house a few years ago. A few months later, I happened to be passing through her town, and she gave me the outfit as a thank you gift. Neither time did she impress me enough that I wished for another meeting. I took the clothes out of courtesy, because she insisted they were simply a thank you gift, not anything else."

"I'm surprised the Elders haven't married you off, yet. You and ZeWu-Jun. You both have excellent reputations, good bloodlines. And I'm pretty sure that a son adopted from outside the Sect is not suitable as an heir." Wei WuXian laughed as another thought occurred to him. "You're going to have to learn how to talk, Lan Zhan! I'm quite certain wives like to talk with their husbands about many subjects, not just the weighty important matters." He laughed louder. "Your poor wife to be! She'll be chattering on about which dish pattern you should use for your next banquet, and you'll be ignoring her." He felt a pain sear through his chest at the thought of Lan WangJi married. But that's the way it's supposed to be, he thought. Men are supposed to fall in love with women.

Lan WangJi's heart sank at the mention of marriage. He was quite sure Wei Ying was right about the Elders wanting to marry him off, and he was equally as sure that they disapproved of his choice. What he was unsure about was how his choice felt in return. "I do not enjoy the prattle of beings who are allergic to the silence of their own thoughts." Present company excluded, he added mentally.

Wei WuXian laughed again. "No wonder you're always ignoring me. No matter; I stopped minding a long time ago."

"I always pay attention to you, Wei Ying. You speak because there is something that I need to hear, not simply to fill the silence." Inwardly, he smiled. Apparently his friend was struck silent by that admission. It wasn't completely true; Wei Ying did talk to fill the silence. But this was one voice Lan WangJi would happily listen to prattle on for the rest of his life.

Lan Zhan had more to say, words that he ached to tell his friend. But words that would admit his love if ever spoken. And a confession of love could destroy their fragile friendship.

You are the smartest person I've ever met. Even at fifteen, you were more knowledgeable than many of the adults around you. You never studied hard, and hardly ever paid attention, but you absorbed everything taught to you. And, more importantly, you are able to take that knowledge and use it for something new. I envied you for that as much as I wanted to hate you for it. My uncle would say that I'm his model student, but if pressed for the truth, he would have to say you were his brightest. My brother might not be casually dismissive of people of lower birth status like other Sect leaders are, but he doesn't listen to and ask opinions of people who don't know what they're talking about.

You are the son of a servant and a cultivator from a sect hardly anyone knows exists. It is expected that you should be subservient and submissive in all ways to the Elders, and the Sect leaders and their sons simply because of your humble roots. You have never meekly settled into anyone's expectations for you, though. You stand tall and proud and hold true to your principles. You've never accepted the way it's always been done is the best way to do things. I love that about you.

He hesitated for a moment, pushing down the desire to admit everything, then added, "You'll have to stay way I can play the Song of Clarity for you when I think you need it. Also, the Elders weren't happy when I told them I would bring you back here. They know your reputation is not fully deserved, but they are still wary of you influencing the junior disciples. So they want you under my observation." That was only a partial lie. The Elders were indeed not happy that the notorious Yiling Patriarch was going to spend time in Cloud Recesses, and they did not want him influencing the disciples in Cultivation matters, but they had no problems allowing Wei WuXian the use of one of the smaller empty houses. Properly supervised, of course.

"There's only the one bed; where am I going to sleep?" Wei Ying asked lightly. Almost from the time they first met, Lan WangJi had invaded Wei WuXian's dreams. At first they were just playful dreams of kids having fun together: having water fights, shooting arrows at kites, stealing lotus pods on moonless nights, and such. Since his return from the dead, though, the dreams had become more mature, involving the two of them reenacting some of the pictures in the erotica he had read as a young teenager. And far too often for his liking, he awoke from those dreams to find his trousers and bedding all wet and sticky. What will happen if I have one of those dreams while sleeping in your bed?

The first time he had woken up to the aftermath of an erotic dream he had been thirteen. Mortified that Jiang Cheng, or worse Madame Yu, would find out, he had developed a trick to clean the mess up without leaving any trace behind. So it might not be so bad if he had one and was able to remove the evidence before Lan WangJi saw it…. But since one of them woke up at five every morning and the other liked to sleep for another four (or more) hours… that was an unlikely scenario.

"There's plenty of room if you lie still." Lan Zhan glared back over his shoulder, and the other hurriedly nodded his agreement.

"I can't control what I'm doing when I'm asleep," he muttered, wiping at his nose. "If I kick you in my sleep, I take no responsibility." I'll just have to find a trick that prevents me from getting hard while I'm asleep.


A/N: I have been informed that donkeys can't actually vomit. Well, humans can't do magic, either... So in my little fictional world, donkeys do get sick.