Tracing the Bounds of Your Flames

by Nayru Elric

Demonic cultivation takes a toll on the heartiest souls. Nie Mingjue knows this well, yet Meng Yao can only see him as the enigmatic clan leader. Ensnared in a discipline and authority that threatens to devour them both, will Meng Yao destroy everything he holds dear while trying to gain control? Slow-burn NieYao. Future 3zun. WARNING: depictions of sexual abuse and dubious consent

5. Chapter 5

OKAY SO…

I already posted this chapter over a month ago, but took it down within the week because I wasn't satisfied. If you've already read the previous version, much of what is written here is the same, but A LOT, is also not. I added and deleted over six-thousand words. I don't even know how much. So, I hope you like it. (I also went back and edited minor things in every previous chapter, AGAIN.)

A lot in this chapter qualifies as a "major content warning," by the way, so beware. I hope the tags and other chapters' content in general have conveyed the potential for serious topics being addressed already. My apologies to anyone who commented on the last version of the chapter, whose comment is now deleted!

---

Meng Yao stood up from the bed. He stooped to retrieve his clothes from the floor after threading the ornaments from Nie Mingjue's hair, when large fingers closed around his wrist. In the spacious chill of the bedroom, a heated fear crept up from his toes, all the way to his cheeks.

Moments before, those fingers had caressed his body, gentle with the swaying rhythm of Clan Leader Nie's thrusts. He now feared the man's loving passion had turned to disgust, having changed his mind about the nature of their encounter – that he would accuse Yao as a vixen and disgrace now that it had ended.

Only, a lingering question remained on the Clan Leader's face.

"Please stay," were the words on his ajar, unmoving lips. Unspoken, but clearly there.

No one had ever been that gentle with him before. Focused on his pleasure and comfort over their own. The fingers on Yao's arm quivered from the light yearning of the larger man's grip, and Yao was unable to move, trembling himself with the knowledge of his own weakness.

He'd been aware of it from the start, from the moment he suspected Clan Leader Nie had feelings for him – staring at incongruous times – when the Clan Leader's face relaxed and his voice became gravelly from fatigue late at night, and his body languished from the disarmament and lovesickness that overcame him. It lulled him into a trance with the promise of safety and ultimate retribution, the prospect of the older man's returned affections, and at first, Yao had waved it aside. He was hesitant to invest himself in someone, especially Clan Leader Nie, without knowing his true intentions. The man was severe with soldiers and difficult to understand. For Yao's feelings to develop into a one-sided infatuation of subordinate-to-superior would be improper, and idiotically tragic.

When it happened that his interest was returned, however, it was so easy to fall… Already at the tipping point of intoxication, poured from a crystal chalice, Yao plunged into a deep, toxic, endless lake.

Clan Leader Nie released his wrist. His severe eyes, softened by the light, rested on a spot in the sheets, and Yao took that as his cue to leave.

Once dressed – neck and waistline of his hanfu adjusted, hair finger-combed back to elegance – he skirted around the bed, walked out of the room, barely casting Nie Mingjue a glance. The man laid on the bed, naked and immobile still.

He didn't pass anyone in the halls on the way back to his quarters – the familiar route he'd meant to take hours before, after handing Clan Leader Nie the report on the new recruits.

The opportunity to open himself to the Clan Leader had been presented, and he'd taken that chance without regard to the consequences. If Nie Mingjue had reacted poorly, what then? Yao was baffled by his own mindlessness despite its closeness to the present. He sighed at his aching muscles and back. A light craving washed over his body like a tide, already desiring to have Nie Mingjue close again.

He'd accepted Clan Leader Nie's proposal to become his vice general, though he sensed some inexplicable, undefined motive behind his offer. Something like fate, perhaps, but of course, there were other things: Refusing his offer in front of the men who had insulted him would be rueful – humility of that kind would only make him appear an even greater suck-up and ungrateful, and it's likely Clan Leader Nie would've had to insist to make Yao accept or else he'd lose face. Accepting outright had its own consequences, but Yao didn't care.

When he reached his room, after closing it, he slumped against the door. Unsteady on his feet, he was heaving in great, shaky breaths.

The tears that stung his eyes were not from the Clan Leader's gentleness.

He leaned against the door and hugged himself, reprimanding his weak spirit until he sucked the tears dry, undressed, and slept with the conviction of a restless sentry. The yearning for Clan Leader Nie's strong grip on his arms and thighs would have to be put aside, never to be pursued again.

The next day, Clan Leader Nie wouldn't meet his gaze.

This is how it ends, Yao thought, my place with the Nie.

It was bound to happen. Being vice general for such an influential clan was a short-lived dream. He was only wanted for a brief night of passionate coitus. Soon, Clan Leader Nie would send him from Qinghe, regretting inviting him in at all. There was nothing to salvage or hope for. He would move on, and Yao would have to start all over again. Pray that his safety and reputation wouldn't become even more fraught from the mistake of this indulgence.

This was before he adorned the Nie braids.

Not a week later, Yao poured over a map in the throne room. Since the success of the night hunt, there had been talk of a war. The Wen were overstepping clan boundaries, exerting power over lesser sects for the sake of it. Most of the major clans were uninterested in involving themselves, afraid to incite conflict over disputes that were others' business, but the Nie elders had grown weary of Wen's arrogant displays of power, and urged Clan Leader Nie to do something about it.

Yao studied the map on the table diligently, tracing etched lines with his fingers, committing them to memory – where the mountains met the desert, where the desert met the forest, the forest the rivers and rivers the rolling hills of ancient, misty trees. The vastness of the world at his fingertips, under his command, was astounding, far too great to comprehend when he'd been but a boy in a brothel. Back then, he hadn't the ability to imagine the distances he would travel from Yunping, the offenses and novelties he would endure from people he met along the way.

He wasn't paying attention when Nie Mingjue stepped closer to him, his breath hot on his neck.

In recent memory, his delicate hands grasped the man's large, smoky back to steady himself. His neck stretched backward on bedsheets, legs lifting unconsciously, the tension inside him dissipating entirely at the Clan Leader's touch, clinging so hard, unsure if he could fully enjoy it.

Yao's breath got caught in his throat as Clan Leader Nie stood behind him. Then large hands gripped his waist – careful, but firm, and Yao jolted at the ferocity of passion clouding his senses. Hair tickled the backs of his hands, resting on thin, inked lines, and his eyelids fluttered closed as, tilting his head, prickled lips latched onto his neck. One of Nie Mingjue's hands closed around his on the table, and he gasped in the empty space as Nie Mingjue pressed himself against Yao's back, encircling him totally. His gasp was barely loud enough to alert a nosy passerby, but Yao immediately brought a hand over his mouth as he shuddered.

He spun around. The expression on the older man's face was stunned and apologetic at having gotten so carried away, worried again that he'd pressured Yao, but Meng Yao wrapped his elbows around his neck. He pressed his tongue between Clan Leader Nie's hairy lips in a desperate fervency, needing to feel him close again – to be enshrouded and intoxicated by him, so entirely forced to let go, to know that his hope for safety in Clan Leader Nie's presence wasn't just the man's passing fancy, that Clan Leader Nie also felt the same about him.

Yao's hands found Nie Mingjue's crotch – and the man was embarrassed at how hard he was. The Clan Leader was. He was ready to deny it, how excited he was, until Yao took his hand and led him stumbling out of the throne room, toward their rooms. On top of the large, furnished bed, hanfu sliding down his shoulders after more tousseling but otherwise fully clothed, Yao grinned as the Clan Leader undid his own belt in a rush. He waited with mouth watering, for the man to push him forcefully against the bed, tearing the clothes from his body, to enter him and ravage his insides. When Clan Leader Nie's hands rested gently on Yao's shoulders instead, easing him down slowly, a different anxiety pounded in Yao's skull.

In the coming weeks, he would teach Clan Leader Nie to be more forceful with his desires, to take what he wanted with less reluctance. It just needed time.

In deserted hallways, Yao would move just out of the Clan Leader's grasp. The man's hands would have fallen on Yao's upper arms in greeting, or closed flirtatiously around his hips. When he moved away, Mingjue would start with the worry of his misstep – perhaps they were only sexual partners after all, and Yao only wanted him in his bedroom even if no one was around – until, seeing the coy grin on Yao's face, inviting him to pursue, eventually, a smirk darkened his features.

Whenever Yao emerged from some private room they'd found themselves in, he feared Nie Mingjue's scent lingered on him – that he'd alert everyone to his sexual relationship with the Clan Leader with his flushed face and hands, his negligence in addressing him so often and so casually. He found himself worrying over it as he spoke to soldiers and other servants, especially when the captain of the guard became bolder with his rebukes and defiances, and others were more direct in their nosy looks, chuckles, and sneers. The elders no longer ignored Yao's presence either, regarding his effeminate face and small body with thinly-veiled scrutiny and disgust as they spoke to Nie Mingjue in the throne room or hallway.

…Did they know?

Twisted though the circumstances may be, Yao refused to give in to their judgements and criticism. He'd been offered this position by the Clan Leader. He would do his utmost to live up to Clan Leader Nie's expectations, and besides, Nie Mingjue needed his help running the Qinghe household. He was an exceedingly lonely person, and would listen to no one else. The man found his advice on domestic and foreign affairs invaluable. As for the fun they could share in privacy, that was simply an added bonus – adoring every shaky breath of unbridled coitus when the Clan Leader lost himself. Groaning loudly, his sweat drenched Yao's back, overtaking him with thrusts rough enough to make Yao whimper in their emotionality alone, though he'd silently endured far worse neglectful strength.

What are they jealous of, I wonder?

When he'd draw the attention of Nie soldiers who glanced sideways at him, hear questions in the back of his mind, it was always in a quiet, soothing voice that noted his internal panic whenever the captain of the guard shook his head at his polite demeanor, pushed him aside, sometimes to the point that the breath would leave him, like he was nothing but a youthful servant girl who'd sullied his laundry rather than second-in-command.

"Meng Yao."

Nie Mingjue sometimes said his name like this – his name and nothing else. Laying on top of Yao, staring down at his face with his forearms propped on either side of him, boxing him in, they were both in their night clothes, not moving aside from that. The candlelight was dim across the Clan Leader's browned skin, and he stroked Yao's soft, pale cheek with two of his fingers. Yao's hair was tossed around him on the bedsheets from moments before: when he'd pounced on Nie Mingjue, and Mingjue's strong arms had locked around his waist, rolled him across the bed, laughter on their breaths at the man's exorbitant size and strength, artfully postponing Yao's libidinous schemes. Moments like these usually happened after sex, when the two had already exhausted themselves with giving, wanting, and taking – but these moments of slowness were what Yao cherished most, though he wouldn't admit it. Moments when it was almost like Nie Mingjue saw him as more than he could ever be – more than an advisor, more than a prostitute's son or even a lover. Someone on whom all his hopes and dreams centered, where the energy of the very universe concentrated.

If only he could live up to Nie Mingjue's expectations.

On a few occasions, Yao walked back to his quarters after being pushed against the wall. He'd cleaned all the weapons in the armory, and blisters had formed on his hands and grime coated his clothes. The boy he'd ordered to do it was told to stop by the froward captain, who had asked curtly, but pointedly, how Yao intended to prove his transgression.

To believe the nerve of such a man! One who can't even keep his own breath from smelling rancid because of all the alcohol he consumes when he's supposed to be on duty! It's a wonder Nie Mingjue appointed him as captain of the guard at all.

Yao was unable to help the rush of relief and comfort that washed over him.

Don't you think you deserve a rest after all you've been through? Besides, Nie Mingjue's sword – it needs cleaning.

The voice was cordial and soothing, inviting sympathy and curiosity. Kindly, but gave off a commanding air, one that shouldn't be tested. Yao was seated on Nie Mingjue's throne.

It didn't happen often. It called to Yao only when no one else was around, when no meetings or events in the throne room were planned. It didn't follow him everywhere, but when Clan Leader Nie's anger was focused on something, orphic tones reverberated in his skull.

It was only a few times, a few precious times, but nevertheless, a few precious moments his hands grasped Baxia's hilt and drew it from its sealed pedestal. His body quivered as he stood in the throne room hall. It was too heavy to make level with his chest. Sometimes, demonic power assisted him, infiltrating his bones. His arms would shake with the fierceness of its bloated power, and he'd heft the saber up in all its glory, the awe of its immensity delighting him.

He could wield the blade Nie Mingjue waggled so proudly! Perhaps their difference in strength wasn't so great – he could destroy the captain of the guard – he just needed more time, more practice –

Baxia's voice boomed out in fury at such thoughts. In a few short swings, it dragged him into the hellscape of his mind. He was nothing but a toy for others to manipulate and tear open. His body lurched repeatedly and he spat blood onto the ground, trapped in bedrooms that reeked of sweat and heat, dirty alleyways where the cold sank into his brittle bones. Iron-hot hands held him down, and he was too terrified to move. His limbs twisted violently until he screamed his apology and submitted –

And Baxia's mental torment would stop.

It admonished Yao to never suggest such a thing again.

Shaken, Yao would concede.

Nie Mingjue pulled him aside one night, and seated him before his lap. Both of them were naked and exhausted. It was late, long after any wayward servant or even Huaisang could hear them in the palace halls. Light tugging at his scalp made him stay still, but it wasn't for some time that Yao understood what was happening. When Nie Mingjue finished, Yao's hand flew to his head. His fingers ran over the tresses of frayed, sex-tangled braids.

Nie Mingjue was rarely talkative, but that night he had asked after a moment, "How do you like it?" his expression impassive. He waited as if expecting Yao to smile in what was really a frown, and make a remark about personal propriety.

Yao ran his hands over the braids for a long time. Even in the darkness, after what they'd shared, his face was flushed, unable to process the true depth of this gesture. Nie Mingjue's arms closed around him. Yao relaxed against him until he fell asleep.

Huaisang noticed the next day – when a servant had been ordered by Nie Mingjue to redo Meng Yao's braids. In time, so would the other servants, the soldiers, and the elders – as well as the captain of the guard.

Braids in his hair, Yao sat in the throne room, studying the intricate patterns on Baxia's blade, stroking the jagged hilt and curved metal surface with a polishing rag. He scrubbed the weapon until the demonic faces tessellated across its edge shined, and he saw his own reflection. He grinned at the image he saw there – the decorated vice general of a man in control of his own destiny. He would no longer bend to the will of others. He had protection and skill.

You can tell me everything, Meng Yao, the voice would assure. Men like them, they're all the same. Nie Mingjue would never understand. They'll use you and hurt you until there's nothing left, abandoning you at the first sign of trouble. That's why your father kicked you down those stairs years ago. He used your mother without a care, and abandoned you to hold justifiable violence and hatred in your heart, uncaring how his violent and lustful ways affect everyone around him.

Who else would listen to his violent urges whenever one of the soldiers crossed him? Whenever the face of his father flashed in his mind? How he would take the knives at their sides. Leap onto them with the force of all his strength – of every terrible thing that had ever been done to him, watching hungrily as their blood spilled from their throats, onto their clothes, onto his face –

His entire worldview revolves around his black-and-white morality of forthright justice, one passed down the Nie bloodline for generations. But nothing is ever that simple, as you and I both know. Nie Mingjue is just another clan leader upholding an image – if you don't fit in, he'll cast you aside.

Before the illation of Baxia, Yao unraveled. He hoped the demon's confirmations of his fears weren't true – but Clan Leader Nie's anger shook the throne room with his power, sentencing men to their deaths for defending their homes. Who else would hear and understand his shame at being so weak and vulnerable that he'd been cast out and humiliated by his own father? Cast out and humiliated within Nie Clan?

That he'd been cornered as a young boy, often without fighting, let himself be –?

The only difference between Nie Mingjue and Clan Leader Jin was that Clan Leader Nie had no whyfor to cast him out yet. He had no reason to destroy his body, mind, and spirit, to reject the gifts he'd worked so tirelessly to obtain, humiliating him in front of all – to abandon him to start anew, bleeding and broken, unable to lift his head without hurting, blinded by a fear of scorching sunlight and gilded carp who sneered, who laughed behind his back at his misfortune. Not while Nie Mingjue was already getting everything he wanted, late at night.

He had no reason to, yet.

But he'd find one.

He'd find one, and then Yao's usefulness and standing would run its course.

He'd have to start all over again.

He'd be cast out.

He'd be left bloody and broken again.

The cycle had to end.

---

. . .

---

Silhouetted darkly against the red Wen throne, slender fingers gripped the saber that was not his own. Hot in his palm, unwilling to part with it, Yao was imbued with the strength of a thousand.

Outside, Wen Ruohan's demonic horde fell in the battlements below. They crumbled into dust, and the faint sound of cheering pierced the palace walls. The aura inside was resonant and powerful, clinging with viscous arms to the slick, basalt walls. It was a presence more bombastic than anything, its writhing incessant enough to make Yao smirk at the cultivators laid out before him. Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue.

"Meng Yao!"

It was Xichen who called out to him. Baxia's fiery breath scalded Yao's lips as he stepped over the emaciated body of Wen Ruohan, as though it were a mound of dirt in his path – blood barely staining the bottom of his robes. Nie Mingjue was on his knees. His qi was scrambled by the dead and ugly tyrant behind them – dead, very dead, completely dead. Dead. The clan leader was frozen, his face a mask of terror and disbelief – an expression Yao had never seen before. Yao lifted his eyebrows as he laughed.

"Always so useless when it comes to key moments like this, aren't you? Too scared to fight your own demons to face the ones in front of you. That's why you left your father to die, after all, unable to face the beast that slayed him. You even failed to console young Huaisang in his time of need." The words rang true, and Yao lifted the saber again, this time gripping with both hands. Panting, he glared unforgivingly at Nie Mingjue – his tears from before having dried on his cheeks. But it was no matter. His lack of visual clarity could have been Baxia's influence or something more –

It doesn't matter!

"This is the outcome of your cowardice and negligence," Yao whispered. His voice was hoarse, and this, he knew, came from himself.

Yao hesitated just a moment, since Nie Mingjue wasn't fighting back.

Then he swung Baxia downward, screaming.

---

. . .

---

"Why aren't you resting in the cave with the others?"

Nie Mingjue had the eyes of an accursed dragon-turtle masquerading as a man. It sent shocks of warning and pleasure through Yao's bones the moment the Clan Leader said his name, hypnotizing him with the promise of sympathy and security. He was pulled into the darkest ring around the moon, a point of serenity where the purity of its glow remained obfuscated. Washed up by the tide of concupiscence and covetousness – the desire for a life of stability and contentment under the strong hand of this man – it was something he'd never had growing up and could hardly believe he deserved, especially when the opportunity presented itself.

Maybe he'd grow to believe it.

When else had he ever felt that way?

"He tries hard for attention! Always running back and forth –"

"Jin Guangshan has been playing around for so long – and has he ever cared about any of the dozens of bastards running around?"

"Such an outcome can only be the fault of the one who desired for more than was within their reach –!"

"Besides, he's the son of a whore who can sleep with anyone –"

Mingjue was angry on his behalf. Angry enough to draw his sword. Angry enough to bellow at their insolence. To advise Meng Yao to ignore their remarks, for he would be at his side from now on, as his vice general.

When he turned back to Meng Yao, chest heaving from holding his rage in check, there had been a difference in the other's face. A relief in an exhale, a surprise at his benevolence and humanity – one Mingjue mirrored. It hadn't been there before.

The uncharacteristic declaration and defense of Meng Yao's position surprised him. A man of his power and influence – even he didn't know why he did it.

There had been a similarity between them since the start. He glimpsed the other working assiduously on the battlefield, tending to the sick and wounded with the gentle care and sleepless dedication of a mother. He'd been unable to recall any other man who had ever given that much compassion to other soldiers – but Meng Yao was someone whose demeanor didn't match the reach of his actions. He wasn't like the others Mingjue had been drawn to – men of status and propriety, whose desire for him had been apparent once they were alone – and inevitably, he was curious to understand this contradictory person.

Something told him circumstance made their fates unentwineable, observing how the other worked, how he bowed and avoided Mingjue's eyes, even when being commended. So rather than fight against it, like a traveler lost in the dark forest, Mingjue ventured toward that virulent, ghostly warm blue light.

Even now, Mingjue questioned whether he'd made the right choice.

---

. . .

---

Something in Meng Yao's posture wavered as Nie Mingjue left himself prone. Xichen couldn't get there fast enough. He intended to knock Baxia out of the way, to take Yao by the shoulders, to shake him out of his deadly trance –

He miscalculated and Baxia sunk into his shoulder instead.

Meng Yao blanched at the conclusion of his blade. His strength let up just barely enough to save Xichen his arm. The Lan cultivator let out a stifled gasp at the snap of his own bones.

"Zewu-jun, why would you do that!"

"A-Yao, please," Xichen rasped, desperate to break through. "It's Baxia. Baxia is making you act this way. Come back to us, you aren't the person this demon has poisoned you into thinking you are. Spare Brother Mingjue your wrath, and –"

Meng Yao's face was hidden, his arms shaking with sadness and rage.

"You're wrong, Zewu-jun!"

. . .

The whispers in his head were too loud. Too much to comprehend. He couldn't get them out, couldn't shed the terror of suffocating under another's weight, of being helpless and vulnerable to so many who abused him without a care. "Lan Xichen."

His expression was infallible, smiling tragically despite the bleak resignation blinding Xichen. It was wholly apart from the sweet, polite voice the Lan cultivator knew, and when he failed to respond, mouth opening and closing in helplessness, Meng Yao said softly, "I would gladly tear apart anyone who dared cross me."

"No – but – your enemy – it's not Mingjue – he –!"

Their voices kept taunting him, kept spewing reassurances and lies with placating expressions that all turned out to be false false false –

"Shut up!"

Meng Yao tore Baxia from Xichen's shoulder, staining more of his white robes red. The scream that escaped his lips was the most unrefined thing Xichen had ever heard. It rattled him crazy, blotting out the sight of the blood and Mingjue's subsequent cry, cussing at his brutish carelessness – but Yao's vision darkened as he swung again.

This time, Baxia connected with Xichen's sword.

"Meng Yao, snap out of it! What are you trying to do, attacking Mingjue like this?!"

Xichen wouldn't back down. Not until there was no part of him left to resist this fate. He wouldn't let everything they had worked for crumble into nothing in the seas of time and social expectation, after the three of them had become so close over the last few months.

---

. . .

---

Baxia's power coursed through Yao, imbuing his body with an unrealistic strength and newfound rage. It was remarkable. Xichen was thunder-shocked at his relentlessness, the lack of clarity and recognizable suffering in his actions, but this part of himself couldn't remain hidden forever. Baxia made it so easy to let go.

"Get out of my way! Get out of my way! I need to – I have to –!"

"Meng Yao."

The low rumble of Mingjue's voice cut through the tumult of Yao's thoughts. It distracted him long enough for Xichen to send him and Baxia backward.

They beheld him with such unfathomable pity. Wanted so desperately to box him into a cage of his own helplessness and despair – just another victim of circumstance who couldn't control the malicious impulses inside him, who was only reacting to the pain caused by Baxia rather than carrying out a long-held desire. Yao laughed at them. Loudly. There was blood pooling on the ground from Xichen's shoulder and the now martyred Clan Leader Wen below him. His head swam with it all, the horror and delight. He drowned in the tar-like figures with groping hands that haunted his dreams with broad swings of Baxia's blade.

"You're pathetic!" he cried, surprising both Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue. "You clan cultivators – you think you understand everything! When in reality, you understand nothing! You think all I need is someone to show me the correct path, that I'm just some misguided child who's been outcast by all of society and merely craves a shred of kindness. As if I haven't already met with the likes of you a thousand times – in circumstances your kind would deem disgusting and unworthy. As if the sympathy of some grand head cultivator's son is all I need in your 'good and just' society." He quoted Nie Mingjue when he said this. The man's face drained of color.

Caught between confusion and hurt, Xichen pleaded as he held his limp and bleeding shoulder. "A-Yao, please, this isn't you. We only wanted to help you, to give you what you need in a world that has been cruel. I – I'd change it in a heartbeat if I could, but I… I can't."

"I appreciate the sentiment, dearest Zewu-jun, Chifeng-zun –" Meng Yao said it theatrically, mimicking a double-handed bow to each of them. "But I have tasted death before your asinine lectures touched upon the subject. Could understand the worth of flesh and feigned pleasantry before the truth of your birthright's curse was forced upon you. Neither of you will ever understand the world I come from. Only deception keeps you safe. Those with more power and influence can take whatever they want, and all you can do is sit there and take it, or else they'll wipe your existence clean from the earth in the name of societal order or divine retribution. You've been fed the elixir of honorable death or immortality since birth, an exalted existence once we pass on from this realm. Well I'll tell you now: There's nothing beyond the gateway of redemption in a broken society. Not for me. Nothing! My ancestors aren't watching over my family. If they were, I wouldn't have…!" The air left his lungs, and he struggled to regain it. "They… wouldn't have –!"

Xichen was speechless, unable to understand the full meaning behind Meng Yao's reaction – but Mingjue curled his large fingers in hesitation.

Even when he was as careful as he could be, gentle with his hands, careful with his thrusts – sometimes, the other shook silently.

"Meng Yao… you… Were you…?"

The shaking timbre of Mingjue's voice startled all of them. There was a question in it, one he dared not ask, terrified by the darkness in Yao's smiling gaze. He was gutted, hearing his true thoughts, more than while apologizing after Yao had fucked him in the tent, more than after hearing the other's fears in Nie Clan – more than his uncontrolled tears after Mingjue murdered the captain of the guard. Affronted at his realization and sorrow, Meng Yao fixated on him in fury.

"Nie Mingjue, don't act like you understand."

The words stabbed him. His breath was irregular, his strength gone. But letting the other escape like this, even if he was too weak to face it before –

Droplets of blood dribbled onto white snow. He'd turned his horse the other direction and ran.

Mingjue's voice quavered with tears when he spoke, the long-forgotten memory of revulsion and terror creeping up his throat. The shrill voices of soldiers and other men laughing and joking in the palace halls, clapping each other on the shoulder at having committed such heinous deeds. The stench of their breath was one that made Mingjue question the morality of love and sexual affairs between men.

"Meng Yao, please… you don't have to face this alone. I only ever wanted you to be honest with me. That's all I've ever wanted. For us to –"

"To what?!" The other was no longer mocking him. Meng Yao's voice was broken, devoid of the vitriol it'd previously held as Baxia hung loosely at his side. "What could we have done, Clan Leader Nie?! There's nothing that would have worked out in Nie Clan from the start. What with our difference in status, background, and everyone watching us! From the soldiers to the servants to the clan elders and the captain of the guard! Nothing could have changed that! It was always hopeless!"

Mingjue was staggered. He wanted to tell Meng Yao that it wasn't true, that perhaps, if he'd been honest with him, maybe it could've worked – that maybe it still could, if they went back, after everything.

Meng Yao leapt forward again. Xichen was too weak to stop him, though he tried. The wound in his shoulder proved too much. Mingjue's arm circled around Xichen's waist before he fell, and Mingjue steeled himself for a blow, but Meng Yao was already gone. Halfway down the Wen throne hall, he cut through Nie and Lan cultivators swiftly, like they were stalks of grass. Mingjue's gut roiled at the gory sight, ready to weep – when a hand clutched at the front of his hanfu.

"Brother Mingjue."

Xichen's voice was weak, but Mingjue took his hand. It was drenched with blood.

A shiver of dread crept up his spine, at the uncaring violence of Meng Yao and Baxia's demonic power, that he would even hurt Xichen.

Despite his condition, Xichen was critical and earnest. "What happened…? Between you and Meng Yao? What's he talking about…?"

Mingjue's breaths came out shakily, in a wheeze that escaped through his teeth.

All the rough sex, the bondage, the disparagement. His expectation that the other was honest with his feelings if he wasn't saying otherwise. That he would tell him if someone was bothering him, if he wasn't in the mood, if Mingjue had gone too far – when he'd likely gone along with so much out of a sense of duty and fear – a fear Mingjue hadn't understood. Until now.

All the time they'd spent with each other, and it had only made Mingjue complacent. He hadn't inquired about Meng Yao's past in what he told himself was respect, but it had actually been cowardice. Of course the other wouldn't tell him what he'd endured, what he truly desired, in fear of what Mingjue would think. He should have figured it out from the start, how their difference in power and upbringing affected Meng Yao's ability to be honest with him. Though he'd often wished and hoped it wasn't true… he couldn't avoid reality forever.

He'd cast aside all power and obligation in an instant if it meant he could help those he loved most. But there was no way Mingjue could escape his heritage and karma now, after so many years, given the demon tethered to his soul.

"Baxia will destroy him, if I don't go," Mingjue said, apologetically, to Xichen.

Xichen nodded, clasping Mingjue's robes, lightheaded from blood loss. He smiled weakly. "I understand."

At that moment, Mingjue became aware of the Lan cultivators who had evaded Meng Yao and Baxia, now at their side, waiting to tend to their leader.

And finally, Mingjue let go.

"Please… make him return to us."

Mingjue nodded.

Though his qi was out of sorts, after lowering Xichen to the ground, he forced himself to stand.

---

. . .

---

Emerging into a pale, overcast light, pushing aside the gaping dark doors of the palace, Yao squinted as he came face-to-face with Clan Leader Jiang, Wei Wuxian, and Xichen's brother.

"So you're the one I sensed in there," Wei Wuxian said, stepping forward without a care – much to the others' trepidation. "Meng Yao, was it? Last I remember, you were serving Clan Leader Nie in Qinghe, right? What's with that scary look just now?"

Yao grimaced at the other's levity. They weren't going to let him leave, and Yao entertained the thought of allowing Baxia's power to surge through him once more, slicing up with the saber to cut their throat, spraying blood everywhere, in one swift and unthinking motion. It was already crimson coated with the blood of the cultivators inside. Indeed, he smirked with a one-sided twerk of his lip. "Wei Wuxian, you should understand more than anybody – what with your indulgence in demonic power. I mean, the instrument at your side, of course I do. I only wish to use Baxia's power to take revenge on those that have done me wrong. You did the same with Wen Chao and his mistress, did you not? Driving him and all the other Wen soldiers mad until they were clawing their own skin, tearing the hair from their scalps. A bloody and emaciated mess. Everyone heard how the Wen cultivators met their end at your hand."

As intended, Yao's words hit home. Wei Wuxian struggled for a quick response as Jiang Cheng gritted his teeth in ire. The shape of a hot-headed and doubtful defense fluttered and died in his mouth when Lan Wangji stepped between them, though, his sword level with their chests, wiping the smile from Yao's lips.

Lan Wangji was already taller than Yao by a head or more, and his aura in battle was similar to that of his brother's – sharp as the tip of his silver sword, but with a merciless shadow over his brow. He wouldn't hesitate to harm Yao if need be, as Xichen had.

Yao calculated what amount of violence and distraction it would take to get past them. How much of his own blood would he have to spill? Theirs didn't matter. Footsteps crossed the stone platform behind him.

"Meng Yao, you may have the power you want now, but Baxia will take everything from you. Let go. It's my burden to bear."

"Don't you dare lecture me on demonic cultivation, Clan Leader Nie," Meng Yao spat. He swung the saber haphazardly as he turned. "I know the outcome of its wrath! I've endured it firsthand through you for long enough!"

The slimy laugh that escaped Yao's lips as he threw his head back, swishing his soft, braided hair, brought Mingjue back to the present. When Nie Mingjue would stalk into Meng Yao's rooms late at night, swamped with paperwork, having returned irritated and fuming from a court meeting. He'd push Yao against the wall as his lips and hands covered his entire body, until the young advisor was pleading for more.

His hands were outstretched entreatingly. Those brusque hands that had given him so much pleasure and pain, that reduced him to a slave of his own flesh and bones. The body his mother had given him – small and demure, defenseless, weak – damned be the fate that denied him his birthright as Jin Clan's heir.

"You think that because we've shared a bed you have any reason to grieve over what I've been through?! You have no idea. Nie Mingjue, what is it like to be suffocated until you think you might die? To wonder whether you invited their restraining hands and taunting words, with a simple, absent-minded flourish of hips or demure hand –" His speech became faster, more panicked, startling himself with the chaotic rhythm of his words. "– small gestures you don't think about day-to-day – signs of weakness – you couldn't help it. And still, you can't help but wonder if – deep down – you didn't like it – if they were only giving me exactly what I wanted, as you have."

His voice broke. His smile twitched. In a flash, his free hand raked across his eyes.

He gave a furtive glance backward between his fingers, avoiding Clan Leader Nie's face. It's so easy to manipulate them, he thought. All of them. If only Xichen's little brother would get out of the way…

"What are you planning to do with this power?" Nie Mingjue shouted. Despair and madness made his booming voice primeval. "Baxia will claim your soul before you can –"

"Oh, I know exactly where to find him."

Realization dawned on Mingjue's face.

"Killing Jin Guangshan won't end your suffering. The unrest is within yourself." It was Lan Wangji who weighed in with these words.

"Why shouldn't he die?" Yao enquired lightly, rolling his shoulders as he turned, Baxia in hand. "He's a promiscuous clan leader who cares nothing for his own kin, let alone his own people, letting them crawl in the mud for the sake of his own golden throne. I know the type. I could smell it on him, see it in his eyes."

And the dam breaks.

Suddenly he's fifteen and bowing to a man who reeks of wanton lust. Before Yao lifts his eyes, his body is reliving every terrible thing that's happened to him and more – bones breaking, skin bruised, covered in blood. When he finally hits the bottom of the stairs he's too dazed and confused to realize. Only when the distant figure of a man in grand golden robes, with hands on hips, is glinting at him from above, does the physical pain hit him – and it's undoing.

Nie Mingjue is behind him – his back against his, his scent suffocating him, threatening to debilitate him with the memory of breath on his neck, groans in his ear – overwhelmed by penetration and the bindings cutting his wrists, hands around his throat, wooden gag in his mouth, fingers tugging his hair –

Yao screams and the blade slices across the man's lower abdomen.

It's too late now.

Mingjue was reaching for Baxia, to gently lift it out of his grasp.

He falls to his knees.

. . .

Ah, that's a lot of blood.

Hunched over and clutching the wound, Mingjue is aware of Baxia clattering to the ground.

"No! No, no, nonono! Clan Leader Nie, I –"

Meng Yao sobbing into his chest.

Ah, this is how so many of those tales ended too, Mingjue recalls. The clan leader's lover or enemy always ended up regretting what they'd done.

Baxia laughs at Mingjue's blood spilling onto the ground, at the destruction it wrought, and all the souls it would claim for this meal. Yao remains pressed to him, ruing the sound of the saber's voice. He doesn't notice how Wei Wuxian glances at the obsidian flute in their hands, troubled, as Mingjue sinks from his knees onto his back.

"What did you do?! What did you do?!" Xichen flies to him, white robes flowing like a ghost, tears streaming down his face. His hands are cold, fingers bony on Mingjue's cheeks – stained with Wen Ruohan's and his own blood.

"No! No…! It can't be…! What did you do?!"

Xichen's gaze is deliberate and slow as he turns somewhere to the side, toward Baxia radiating gleeful resentment, then back to Nie Mingjue. And Mingjue alone.

In spite of his vision going dark, he smiles at that. "Xichen, please…"

Mingjue is unsure if the rest of his words reach him, the whole world becoming a distant firelight in his view – smaller and smaller, until it nearly disappears entirely in the darkness.

Perhaps it was never meant to be. Perhaps he'd defied Heaven long enough with these last few years mostly free of demonic torment. In Meng Yao's presence, he'd been more than just a clan leader's son, more than a strict guardian to Huaisang and the protector of justice in the land.

He'd been content.

Long, tusk-like canines emerge from the fog. The demon's double-pronged horns curve upward. Dark eyes enraged, eyebrows bushy and red, its arms, thick and scaly, make its large and armored body seem ungainly – but that's just a façade. In the darkness of dreams that have haunted him ever since he was a boy, Baxia was always going to catch up to him just like this, in the end. A giant of cosmic size, the monster's claw beckons, towering over him.

Mingjue glances back at the world of light. He's content, with the last image of their concerned and tear-stained faces, Meng Yao and Lan Xichen, who blur up toward the cloudy sky. He will ensure it's just one human soul Baxia takes today.

He hopes Huaisang can forgive him.

---

. . .

---

Days pass into months. Months progress into a year. The seasons come and go, and the cold of winter sinks into Xichen's bones. His shoulder aches from the force of Nie Mingjue's sword wedging through his bones, a residual pain that sometimes wakes him up at night, not always knowing why, clutching the long and tapering, sickly pink scar across his shoulder, front and back.

The Sunshot Campaign has long since ended. Alone in his bed, Xichen doubts whether this feeling will ever leave him: of loneliness, of being swept up by the winds of change, unable to change anything, unable to control it. Victory was declared by the main clans opposing Wen. Clan Leader Jin oversaw the exchange of power, and after the siege on Scorching Sun Palace, Clan Leader Jin demanded to know the one responsible for Wen Ruohan's defeat –

It's early morning when Xichen trudges through wet snow to the gardens to clear his head. Four or five months have passed since then, and his footsteps are crunching softly. Meng Yao is already there.

He is sitting on a rock by the riverside, his shoes removed, his feet in the running, ice-cold water. In his night clothes, his head is bowed and expression placid, as if it were actually the morning of a warm summer day. The former Nie advisor wears braids in his hair still, though he's moved them from the top of his head to the sides of his face, hiding them under many layers of hair best he can – a small but telling gesture, conveying his shame more than any of his words or actions over the last half year.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Xichen finally bursts. He shakes with morose, glad the other doesn't turn around.

Meng Yao says nothing. He wears not the robes nor the headband of a Lan, fixated on his feet, turning blue in the ice cold water.

"The violence in your heart," Xichen goes on. "Why did you…?" Xichen is about to question him about his upbringing but he already knows; over the last few months, he'd only recently heard himself, the cautionary brothel tales of underhanded valor – of women humiliated who found a way to enact revenge in the end. Out in the world, he'd told no one he was going, had been alone, as he stumbled into places a Lan should never be.

Xichen and Yao have already spent months avoiding each other, guilt becoming a pastime. Xichen carried out Mingjue's last wish to house Meng Yao in Cloud Recesses after what happened at Scorching Sun Palace, despite his crimes. Yao had always dreamed of ending up here, but now that he is, the cold of winter has enshrouded him. Isolated from the one he once thought would be his savior, he hasn't been able to approach Xichen in all that time.

He'd heard nothing of Baxia's whispers since he arrived. Every now and then, he'd still awaken in his bed. Breathing rugged, heart pounding. It would never end. And sometimes, he'd forget Nie Mingjue was no longer near. He'd bring a hand to his head, remind himself of his daily chores in Qinghe, occupy himself with the thought of Clan Leader Nie's antics – arousing delight or despair, it would bring him out of his nightmares. It wasn't until the room came into focus, the walls no longer covered with demonic faces but light and airy Daoist symbols, that Yao would remember he could no longer count on that familiar schedule to keep him sane.

He remained alone with his thoughts in this cold and remote land – and yet, only a few tears could escape him.

"There was no reason to tell you. I knew you wouldn't understand."

Xichen is hurt by these words more than the fact the other didn't tell him, though it is true. If Meng Yao had written to Xichen or approached him in person about his fear of what Nie Mingjue would think, Xichen would have told him not to be. That he only needed patience, time, to see the man's virtues, not his faults. Look past his scary demeanor, and you'll be able to reach him. Look past decades of cultivation, of pressure to be the strongest man in the land with unbending loyalty to the severity of Nie law, and you'll find complete understanding. It was a fantastical dream.

Still, the accusation comes tumbling out of Xichen's mouth.

"Brother Mingjue, you… he… he trusted you! How can I trust you, knowing… knowing what happened?! What you did?! Didn't he give you everything you wanted in Qinghe?! How could you hate him so much that you –?!"

Meng Yao smiles, still facing the riverside. He stifles full-body shivers at the freezing sensation scalding up his legs.

"I want you to hurt me," he'd told Clan Leader Nie, one night when the man was already on top of him, already inside him, clutching Yao's face with one large hand, snarling as he bared white teeth. "I want to be your pet – please use me, please fuck me! Make me yours. Please, Clan Leader Nie, please –!"

I wanted you to fuck it out of me, Yao thinks.

All the pain.

All the desire.

Everything I feel but cannot bear to say.

Fuck me until I can no longer think or feel anything but you.

Anyone who would do that for me, no matter how badly I would treat them afterward, no matter what I will accuse them of –

They deserve to be swallowed whole.

. . .

In spring, new students arrive in Cloud Recesses.

Yao steers clear of them. He's been working on his cultivation and sword techniques, assigned the one-on-one instruction of another Lan – Xichen at least provided him that. His abilities are still not enough to keep up with others his age, but his power is growing stronger. Still, Xichen refuses to speak to him for long most days.

The demon that so easily rotted his mind has disappeared, but the subject of its rot remains.

. . .

For the first time since he arrived in Cloud Recesses – when, without looking at him, Xichen had informed him of all the rules in this room – after nearly a year, Yao is called to the Lan throne hall. The Clan Leader is finally looking at him.

The distance between them is great as ever. Meng Yao lacks the lowered, overly reverent and respectful eager set of his chin, the polite smile.

"Clan Leader Jin has been making trouble again. I don't know how, but he's found out who defeated Wen Ruohan." Lan Xichen speaks so eloquently, befitting of his position, as if these were matters that didn't concern him. "He's asking to meet with you."

Meng Yao shudders. A man of that caliber, with that kind of violence in his heart…

"Please, don't go."

Xichen's voice is austere, but he surprises Yao with imploring concern. He still cares, in spite of everything, and a light blush colors Meng Yao's cheeks at that.

"Clan Leader Lan, you've treated me extremely well this past year. Offered lessons, room, and board where I did not deserve it. For that, this one is undoubtedly grateful, for it is unlikely I will ever be able to repay my debt to you." Meng Yao joins his hands and bows deeply, and doesn't fail to notice the conflict and resistant doubt that arises on Xichen's normally held-aloof expression. "I must go. Lan Clan has taught me much and treated me well, but it's no place for me. I cannot stay here. I will accept Jin Guangshan's request, for there's no other way I can settle with my past."

"Meng Yao," Xichen says. He's dropped the dignified, broad span of his shoulders. His position as clan leader. Not avoiding, not waving away. He's afraid for Meng Yao, of what he will do in Jin Guangshan's presence. It's clear in the denying, confused set of his brows, the parted and near-trembling contour of his lip. Meng Yao had wished to see such an expression on him under much different circumstances. "Please, as your friend, I'd rather you stay here."

He's trying to regain his Clan Leader sense of command and regality, like a parent instructing a child. Meng Yao always hated Nie Mingjue for doing the same. He drops his formality, clenching his fists.

"How else can I live with myself, Lan Xichen?! Knowing how Nie Mingjue defended me… How… he trusted me to watch over Qinghe and his younger brother, and I – abandoned him?! Everything?! Even now, because of the past…?!"

Stricken at Meng Yao even mentioning his name, Xichen wrings his hands in his lap. "I don't know if you're ready – to face the consequences of what you've done. How do I know you won't revert back to how you were back then? That you aren't still hiding things from me…?"

Yao recalls the demonic voice of Baxia, how it had dragged him back into the alleyway where he'd first been raped. The hand over his mouth prevented him from screaming or crying out for help. Rancid breath cloying and choking him as this monster leaned down to remind him of his error in defending his mother from his wrath and intimidation a few nights ago. The ruckus had turned into a full-on brawl – glasses shattering and punches throwing in the client room. And though the other women never thought fondly of Meng Shi or her son, they knew trash when they saw, smelled, and heard it. Yao had stepped protectively between his mother and this man, though he was only the same strength and size as her – heredity cruel and disregardful of his sex and age. When the man stepped forward, it vibrated in his bones, created static in his hair. The man fully intended to kill him. Yao stood his ground, when a few other women came rushing in. They pounced on the man using teeth, fists, and nails, until it was too much trouble to pursue this catch, never mind the price. Everyone left with blood and bruises – for the women, blooming underneath pale and soft skin, the same skin Yao had grown accustomed to caring for. And though his body ached, he'd been proud, grateful his mother didn't have to endure this monster who reeked of booze and sweat – all the rotten parts of the world packed into one miserable human body.

The man sought his revenge for this humiliation in the coming days. By that time, though Yao didn't regret what he'd done, sitting alone in an alley with more bruises on him than before as people passed him by, he wished he and the other women had killed the man instead.

"Zewu-jun," he starts slowly, aware he's lifting his hands. His voice is surprisingly calm in the wake of this memory. "I have no reason to hide anything from you anymore. How can I ever make it up to you or Clan Leader Nie, if you don't give me a chance?"

Startled by the emotions causing him to tremble, emotions he hasn't felt in a long, long time – Yao digs his nails into his palms, his teeth biting his lip.

It's been months since he saw Clan Leader Nie – or rather, Nie Mingjue. The only man he'd lain with who hadn't made him into a ragdoll as his first and only thought.

No. Yao had been too used to the terror. Abuse and twisted adoration – humiliation that made him into something inhuman in their designs. The only way he could accept Nie Mingjue's affections was if he remade them in his own image. If he became one of the men who haunted his dreams – his fantasies only functioning insofar as his partners used him, hurt him – unmade his body, mind, and spirit anew – into an animal for others' pleasure, as the whore's son they ascribed.

"A-Yao, please…"

Xichen hasn't used this name with him in all the months he's stayed in Lan Clan. He's at Yao's side. A tender hand is on his shoulder.

The dam breaks again.

. . .

Xichen's hand is rubbing his back, soft against his skin. Someone must have touched him like this before, but it was long ago.

He'd sobbed into Xichen's shoulder as Xichen pulled him close in the throne room, hands to his face. How many times does this have to happen before he finally learns?

There's an exhausted fire in Yao's head but the chill of winter is in his bones, even now. Even in Xichen's room.

The other's arms cross over his shoulders and Xichen's lips find the back of his neck.

He'd told Xichen nothing. Yet here he is, sharing this space with him.

He's safe, but it's as if he's floating in a dream. Nothing is real.

"I have to go," Yao murmurs suddenly.

"To see your father?" Xichen asks, barely paying attention, too occupied by Yao's exposed nape.

Yao turns and wriggles out of his grasp.

Xichen's dreamy expression sobers. "You still won't tell me?"

Yao blushes. He'd been guided by the other to Xichen's room after breaking down in the throne room. Somewhere he could cry in private, since strict rules and heightened repression made expressing affection difficult in Lan Clan. Once he'd calmed down, Yao and Xichen had gotten carried away with other things –

It had been so long since he'd touched someone. Been touched by someone. The way Xichen is staring at him now, though, it's as if he's a lone puppy, held at arm's length by the scuff of his collar.

"Clan Leader Nie and I…" Yao begins, and stops. What can he say…?

After a moment, Xichen sighs. Resignation crosses his face as he leans back. "I understand. You still love him, and you don't want me interfering. That's it, isn't it? I'm sorry for thinking otherwise." His eyes are narrow in what he thinks is aloofness, but there's sorrow there too.

"Zewu-jun, I-I…" Yao is nervous at the implication, unknown to himself. Then he catches sight of the scar tapering down Xichen's shoulder. His stomach drops.

They'd both had Xichen there now – him and Clan Leader Nie – to comfort them in the wake of the other. His legs are curled near him on the bed, surrounded by Xichen's sheets, soft and hugging against his skin. Finally, Yao takes a breath. "I care for you, Zewu-jun." When the other says nothing, Yao's voice is brazen. "I've cared about you ever since we met in Yunping. I – I fell in love with you, and it's because I love you – because we both do – that we didn't want to hurt you with our fighting. We were already hurting each other. I didn't want you to know what I was really thinking and feeling in Nie Clan so you wouldn't worry about me. It wasn't your burden to bear, and you… you wouldn't have understood. You've already helped me enough."

Xichen is baffled by the honesty of his confession. Eventually, he rises from the bed, Yao watching him all the while, and readjusts his robes around his neck and shoulders. The sight of the cultivator's body, what little Yao can see of it, is something he'd dreamt about for so long: the smoothness of his white skin, the slim line of his waist and graceful curve of his shoulders. But now that they were finally here, something felt dishonest – off. Wrong, without Nie Mingjue.

"Then, it seems you must go to him. Jin Guangshan," Xichen says finally. The lack of accusation or warmth in his tone tugs at Yao's heart, deepening the guilt boiling in his gut.

He stands and, pulling his loosened hanfu back over one shoulder, reaches up, up, higher, to take Xichen around the neck. He lowers the head cultivator's beautiful face into his in a tender, passionate kiss.

Finally, the cold of winter melts on Xichen's skin.

---

. . .

---

Standing before the Nie elders in the private pavilion in Qinghe, Nie Mingjue bows his head.

They're spewing some nonsense about Jin Clan encroaching on Nie claims to territory and resources, about the Wen dogs who propagated after the war – something about Clan Leader Jiang and Wei Wuxian working together to combat the growing Jin influence – smaller clans' meddlesome ways. He can't bring himself to care.

After the battle at Scorching Sun Palace, Mingjue had fought Baxia with all his strength. The dark and treacherous world the monster dwelled in, the waters below that imprisoned him when he was a boy, had lit with the fireworks of their clash. It was a fruitless battle, one every Nie clan leader had fought before him. One last attempt to escape the quicksand of their demonic sabers, the trap having settled in around him over many years. Finally, after a battle hard-fought over many weeks, he'd given up, ready to relinquish his soul. As Baxia's scaly claw stretched forward, the world was pierced by a ray of blinding light, white as the moon.

He'd awoken in Qinghe, surrounded by Lan cultivators who had sacrificed their qi to pull him back from the brink of possession and death. His recovery had taken two months of dedicated cleansing technique and qi transference, and Xichen was beside himself when Mingjue finally opened his eyes. All he'd seen was Xichen's disheveled white robes and unkempt black hair buried in the blankets at his side. When the sobs finally reached his consciousness, Mingjue used all his effort to place his hand on the other's.

It took many more days, over a month, until Mingjue was close to being himself again, and only then, did Xichen leave his side. They agreed Meng Yao should stay far away from Baxia and Qinghe, in Gusu, knowing he had nowhere else to go.

"We're counting on you to protect our claims, Clan Leader, now that you're up to the task."

It's the elder woman who spoke to him, respect and distance in her tone since he'd returned from the Sunshot Campaign victorious, and Meng Yao was gone. Mingjue shakes his head in disgust with a scoff.

"What is it?"

Mingjue lifts his head, staring at her. "Just what I'd expect, from a spineless lot like you." He turns to each of the eight other men around her, seated on their high chairs with lips fixed in tight, wrinkled, unchanging lines, ancient eyes unseeing. Each face twisted in anger, registering what he'd said. He cares not. He had been through enough, seen enough to care to play their games anymore. His father died for the demonic cultivation Mingjue had almost lost himself to at a similar young age. But more than that, someone who toiled for the Nie household – fingers bleeding, mentally and physically unwound – more than this woman or any of these men could ever fathom in all their years, born in privileged families – was no longer with them, and they were happy about it. Overwhelmed with elation, worried about their borders and their resources and their politics – not the captain of the guard who wanted Meng Yao dead and Xue Yang set free.

"You think I'm worthy of respect now that Vice General Meng Yao is gone, that's it?" He stalks into the center of their high tables and high chairs, his glare backed by the ravenous power of Baxia, rising all around him.

It takes a moment for the elder woman to answer. "He was distracting you from your duties. He needed to be dealt with –"

Mingjue squares on her, smirking in mockery. "Yes, we had a relationship that extended beyond his court duties. Well beyond." Mingjue basks in the shock and avoidance in the older men's faces. Stupefied, unable to even address the topic. The disgust the elder woman fails to keep in check is evident in her wince. He hadn't expected how good it would feel, to say what they'd been thinking and badgering him about all this time.

"The Qinghe household is in ruin without Meng Yao. He provided companionship and instruction to my younger brother, and oversaw all political clan events. My father never had anyone who could do that for him in all his years, and I certainly couldn't have done it myself, too busy defending our territory. You're insane if you think Qinghe would have been better off without him. You –" He points at her, all of them. "– chased him out, with your ignorance about what it really takes to run this nation, and lack of care for domestic affairs, except when it came to my personal relations. Your over-concern for border disputes and an idea of what Qinghe and Nie Clan stand for is laughable, and undignified." Mingjue's shoulders are tense and raised from the passionate speech. He drops his hand, mutually stunned by the silence that follows. Regaining a modicum of respect, head slightly bowed, he says frankly, "There's no one who can replace him."

When they don't reply, Mingjue marches through them and out of their private pavilion without being dismissed.

. . .

Despite Meng Yao's absence, Baxia's influence hasn't been oppressive since he awoke from comatose. Normally, the demonic saber demanded a price that would be too high for him to repay, its power lent to another, and his body incapacitated for months. It must be the result of Lan cultivation. The cultivators who helped him, Xichen most of all, likely dealt with the aftereffects of Baxia's toll more than he. That's how lovers always ended up succumbing to demonic tricks: They gave too much of themselves in the hopes of saving the one they loved.

Though it was unlikely Xichen was in danger now, far away from Baxia's proximity, it was reasonable to assume he felt the effects for months afterwards. But he had less to worry about than Meng Yao, whose knowledge and cultivation skill was limited, making his susceptibility to its power greater – like many of the partners, wives and concubines mostly, of Nie legend, who had been unable to cultivate or forbidden from it for one reason or another. With both far from Baxia and Qinghe, there was nothing to worry about now…

. . .

"Huaisang."

Knocking on his brother's door, only after something inside clatters and there's a squeal followed by cursing, does his younger brother's face slowly appear in the crack of the sliding door. His hands are behind his back, showing as little of the room's interior as possible.

"A-ah, Big Bro, what are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to stop by. May I come in?"

"Uh –" Huaisang glances quickly behind him, calculating something in his head before looking up at Mingjue in appeasement. "Could you come back later? My room's kinda a mess right now –"

At his dubious tone and pose, Mingjue places one hand on the door and forces it open. "H-h-hey!"

When Mingjue steps inside, he's greeted by a mess of ink trays, brushes, and mixed colors surrounding a canvas on the main table. The object of Huaisang's shame is the ink bottle spilled across the floor, however. It would take days – of servants and Huaisang's own scrubbing – to get it out of the floor mat.

When Mingjue turns back to his younger brother, his head lowered in shame, hands revealing fingers grey and black with ink, Mingjue sighs.

Even aside from their height, the two of them will never see eye-to-eye. That's why Meng Yao… why he…

"Meng Yao, he…" Mingjue's voice catches and Huaisang's face lifts. "What happened that day, why he never came back… he… He tried to kill me. Baxia possessed him. He…" No, that isn't the entire truth.

Drifting over to one of the cushions on his floor, Huaisang sits. After much time, Mingjue slowly seats himself across from him. His younger brother had overseen Qinghe with counsel from Lan Xichen while he was comatose. Sixteen years ago, soldiers had dragged the body of their father into Qinghe when Huaisang was hardly more than a toddler. Still alive, by that time, the man's spirit was already gone. Unable to die from his wounds, he hadn't passed away until many months later. He'd been in his own bed, clawing for breath, nearly killed the healers who tended to him. Mingjue and Huaisang had heard it, the daily struggle to get the Clan Leader to wake up, remember himself, to no avail. In Mingjue's memory was his younger sibling, fretful as a child, much younger than himself, clinging to him as the man screamed insults of nonsense, items crashing in his room, servants, soldiers, and healers escaping in a blind terror.

While Mingjue was unconscious, how much of that time had his younger brother relived?

"I don't know if I did the right thing, asking Meng Yao to stay in Qinghe at all," Mingjue admits, head in one palm. He raises his head, tries not to feel ashamed by the tears in his eyes. Huaisang swallows audibly.

"He was nice to have around," he agrees. "We could share a lot of things."

"Did he ever tell you? The kind of insults he faced in Qinghe, bullied into taking on more work than I ever meant to assign?"

Huaisang shakes and lowers his head. "No, but… I always felt… there was something he wasn't telling us. He was always wrapped up in his duties. It was so hard to get him to drop his formalities – I wanted… to see who he really was, you know? Sometimes – sometimes it felt like, he was ready to explode, underneath his assurances that everything was fine. I tried to question him about it a few times. I asked him about… you and him. But that's all I could think to ask. It would be rude to ask about his heritage without him bringing it up first. And it's not like I wanted him to think I only saw him that way…"

"I know how you feel."

Awkward silence settles between the brothers for a while.

"I figured he'd been possessed by Baxia during the Sunshot Campaign," Huaisang murmurs.

So it was true, then. Huaisang must have known about their relationship long before Meng Yao was almost killed by the captain of the guard. And if Huaisang had known, despite his and Meng Yao's trepidation to speak about it – he'd probably picked up other signs, too. Of the unrest between them.

"I miss him," Huaisang says, with breathy detachment, as if afraid of saying it in front of Mingjue.

He nods slowly. "I miss him too. I regret hiding everything from you. I'd hoped no one else would find out."

Huaisang shifts in discomfort. "But… but you and him – it's not like the elders, or – or anyone – would have… accepted your relationship as legitimate – right…?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"I mean was he… was he your…" Huaisang makes a weird twirling motion with his fingers that almost makes Mingjue burst out laughing at his younger brother's peevishness. He's trying to distinguish whether Mingjue wanted Meng Yao to be something like a wife, or a sexual partner without any romantic ties.

Due to their covertness and lack of officiality, it was probably difficult to tell.

Mingjue says, "He was my closest advisor. I assigned that position to him in hopes we could…" We could what? He knew the law, that only women could get married to men, and Nie clan leaders sometimes had male concubines, but it was unconventional. By assigning Meng Yao as his advisor, he thought he'd relinquished all hope or chance they could become something more. At the other's eager seduction, though, Mingjue hadn't been able to refuse him. If only he'd controlled himself, warned Meng Yao to never overstep –

No…

Maybe he could have saved both of them heartache in the end, but it was always going to happen.

In another lifetime, there would be a better or worse circumstance that they could cross paths, but here, now, it happened just like this.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Mingjue says truthfully.

Huaisang considers him for a moment. Abruptly, he stands up. "Well, I'm sure we'll see him again."

Nodding in agreement, Mingjue is unable to speak. Sorrow clogs his throat, his very pores – even after many months have passed, he misses the other's devious smiles and careful hands, his innocent, enticing looks. His velvety skin and silky hair. His silvery voice and flushed cheeks – with a fierce passion.

It was a hurt that wouldn't go away anytime soon.

---

. . .

---

Meng Yao passes through the open throne room doors of Jinlintai. The walls drip with beads and golden veils, tapestries of gold-embroidered banners, the cleanliness of the place something out of a dream. His reflection blinks at him from the polish on the floor, the stone white and clear as marble. Murals of jade depict clan leaders and scenery in cascading respect to cultivation gods and goddesses, in all shades of gemstone black, brown, green, and aquamarine.

What pride and conceit, Meng Yao thinks. While Qinghe's walls depicted the faces of spirits and demons, forever reminding them of their curse and duty to the other clans across the land, Jin Clan revels in its riches and glory.

There he sits, in golden robes, regarding Meng Yao with a distant and critical eye. His chin is high, jutted, unwilling to submit to any show of hesitation or weakness. Even as Meng Yao only tips his head and folds his hands in front of him, rather than performing a full bend of his upper body.

"The people demand a hero," Jin Guangshan begins. "And I can make it so. You've evaded me long enough in Gusu Lan, but I have my ways. Nothing gets past me, not even the whereabouts of my troubled son." He plucks a grape from the platter on the table beside him, sits back and chews it slowly before continuing. "All I would ask is you pledge yourself to Jin Clan, to me. I can bestow you a new name, one befitting your true status. I can give you all the luxuries life has to offer – women, food, clothes – you name it, it's all yours. I only ask that you help Jin Clan rise in the war of politics. Given your notoriety as Wen Ruohan's killer, and positionality with Clan Leaders Lan and Nie, you have the power to create the utopia we desire."

Since Jin Guangshan pauses here to let him speak, Meng Yao asks, "What utopia are you hoping to create, Clan Leader Jin?"

Satisfied with his interest, Jin Guangshan leans forward again, hands on his knees. "A few clans have been resistant to my orders lately. Helping remnants of Wen escape the persecution that awaits them. Postponing the marriage of Zixuan and the daughter of the late Clan Leader Jiang Fengmian. These disputes need to be smothered before they become outright rebellions. Jiang Clan cannot win in a fight against us, and it would incite others to do the same. We have to show them that – though many are dissatisfied with Jin Clan's effort in the war, we can't fall into the degeneracy of Wen Clan to sway them. We need someone influential to cull their opinion."

"Someone influential." Meng Yao smiles. Apparently killing a man is everything in the sanctity of these lavish halls.

"I appreciate the offer, Clan Leader Jin," Meng Yao says quietly. Jin Guangshan has to lean closer to hear him. "My troubled son," he had said, words Yao had wanted to hear from the man's lips for so long. In another life, he would jump on this chance, knowing full-well he would be the lap dog of the budding tyrant on his golden throne, holed up in political pleasantry rather than phoenixes of fire, a brute camouflaged as a man of the highest standing. He would bend Yao to his every whim, and Yao could envision himself desperate enough that he would take that chance – no, he didn't fail to notice the way Jin Guangshan beheld him now, as a prize waiting to be snatched. Whether the man's rage and lust would ever allow him to lay a hand on Yao, he couldn't say for sure. He glares at Jin Guangshan. "It seems Jin Clan is in more dire straits than I ever imagined, if you need the help of a whore's son like me."

"So you refuse?" he demands, brow hardening at Yao's words, ready to call in the guards the moment the encounter escalated. No one else is present. He clearly trusted Yao would take his proposal and jump to become a royal Jin dog the moment the chance presented itself, how reverent and respectful he had been all those years ago, bowing even after being kicked down Jinlintai's copious amount of stairs.

"Jin Guangshan, I have no father. Just a prostitute as my mother, Meng Shi, whom you abandoned in a brothel in Yunping."

With a flick of his wrist, Jin Guangshan motions for the guard. "I can see we're done here."

"I'm here to tell you that!"

A small knife is in his shoe. He could grab it and pounce on this man before the guards could intervene, walking slow as they are – clearly not viewing him as a legitimate threat. Rid the world of one less pervert to ruin lives and taint lavish halls. None of them must have heard the full story of what happened that day, during the Sunshot Campaign, how he almost killed Clan Leader Nie.

The knife is in his hand before he considers it. With a rapid flick of his wrist, before anyone knows what's happening, the blade embeds itself in the Jin throne.

Blood oozes over gold.

. . .

There are hands around his upper arms again, dragging him away from the scene. Accused of an assassination attempt. There are Jin guards wrenching him across the courtyard, and he's kicking and screaming at their blindness and insolence, at their cowardice for obeying the orders of such a disgusting man. What exact words are coming out of his mouth are unknown. He probably sounds crazy, deranged – likened to the serial killer Xue Yang – the recent, dastardly wiles of Wei Wuxian.

Good.

Let them believe what they want.

He won't forgive them, those who have done him wrong, the society that has wrought only pain and suffering upon so many of his kind. It was a long line of failed ancestry that brought him here, on his father's side as well as his mother's – in the lineages of the brothel mistresses who abused girls who got pregnant or ran away, the men who mistreated women as products to be used and discarded, the clan leaders who forced the disciplined and oftentimes abusive practice of cultivation on their sons, the elders who cursed young men and women for any kind of defiance, even if their heart was in the right place – all were guilty of the outcome of this suffering. In a long, endless cycle of death and rebirth, repeating over and over, unconscious, unthinking.

Anyone who harmed others in favor of their own desires deserved to die and be reborn in their own personal Hell a hundred times over. He would make sure of that.

Amidst his struggling, Yao sees him – standing at the precipice of the stairs to Jinlintai. Nie Mingjue.

The guards pause, startled by the sight of the man, looming in ceremonial regalia at the entrance – large and armored, Baxia peering over his shoulder.

He's here about the border dispute, but Meng Yao knows nothing about that. He must have apparated Nie Mingjue there with the power of his mind. There's no other way the man would appear at such an opportunistic time.

Stunned, the apparition of Nie Mingjue doesn't move, however, as Yao is dragged around the corner, yelling nonsense.

---

. . .

---

"Ah, Chifeng-zun, welcome in."

Clan Leader Jin is holding a rag to his cheek and ear, bandaged and covered in blood.

"My apologies for my tardiness. I was just attacked by –" His eyes widen momentarily, Mingjue amuses himself with noticing, remembering to whom he spoke. "Well… your former vice general." He stresses the word so it is not an insult.

Nie Mingjue bites his tongue, answering through clenched teeth. "I saw."

"Anyway, I'm sure you're here about the border dispute? You should know my family has owned that stretch of land since…"

And just like that, Mingjue tunes him out. Not listening, knowing Meng Yao was here, in this very room, talking to his father. Having thrown a knife at him. And now he was in the dungeons, awaiting a trial that would most certainly end in his execution.

Did Xichen even know?

"Clan Leader Jin," Nie Mingjue interjects, as courteously as he can manage. "What happened here, before I entered?"

"Oh, the bastard son claiming to be my heir went mad! You saw him acting like a lunatic as he was carried out, didn't you?! He attempted to murder me! It was a noble cause, you taking him in and trying to reform him, but one's heritage is inescapable, I'm afraid. Bad stays bad. I should have imprisoned and done away with him as soon as he arrived in Jinlintai years ago. Then he wouldn't have caused anyone trouble all this time later."

Sitting across from the man in his grand throne room of ivory and gold, Nie Mingjue clenches his fists.

Lowering the bloody rag held to his face, Jin Guangshan picks up on his disquiet. "You aren't going to grovel on his behalf, are you?" He chuckles loudly as he raises a teacup to his lips. "Scum like him – it isn't worth it."

Mingjue knew if the other had truly wanted Jin Guangshan dead, he wouldn't be sitting here talking to him right now.

The scratch on his cheek, the hole in his ear – it wasn't an assassination attempt.

It was a warning.

Mingjue was only sorry he hadn't seen it himself.

Why had Meng Yao been so reckless, though, attacking even while knowing there wasn't an escape?

Jin Guangshan is prattling on about something he doesn't hear. Mingjue sets his teacup on the table with a loud snap and stands. He blocks out Clan Leader Jin's astonished hollers after him as he stalks out the throne room. The man stays seated, too occupied with his wound and lazy in his palace cushions to be bothered to chase him.

Mingjue scribbles the fastest letter he's ever written in his quarters and sends his courier to Gusu Lan, on its way to Xichen. Before anyone can ask after him, he places Baxia on his back. He returns to the courtyard. He prowls in the direction he saw the guards take Meng Yao.

Traversing stoned passageways and barred darkness in the dungeons below Jinlintai for what feels like eons, he peers inside each cell until he happens upon the right one. Out of breath, knuckles grimy with blood, sword gashes in his arms. Meng Yao is crouched with his arms around his knees. His robes are dirty, cheeks red and purple with forming bruises, lip bloody. He jumps when it's Nie Mingjue looming outside his barred doors.

"Clan Leader Nie…"

"I just want you to tell me the truth," Mingjue says. None of the harshness of anger or grief of hurt over the last year of separation carries through in his voice, though he swallows his embarrassment. "What happened in the Jin Clan throne room?"

There are shouts behind him – guards approaching fast. He didn't bring any of the Nie guard with him to the dungeons in hopes he wouldn't incite a war. That might be unavoidable now.

Meng Yao's round, sweet face appears between the bars as his hands curls around them, his steps and hips as swaying and graceful as Mingjue remembers.

The guards' footsteps are getting closer. "Well?!"

"I was offered a position as Jin Guangshan's servant for killing Wen Ruohan. I refused."

"And then?!"

A devilish smile crosses Meng Yao's face. "I tried to kill him, of course."

Mingjue is rattled by the expression. He's seen it a thousand times – in the darkness of his bedroom, surrounded by puffy bedsheets, Meng Yao having successfully goaded Mingjue into pouncing on him though he was distracted by his work; in the throne room, when Nie Mingjue successfully carried out a political ploy in Qinghe court, guided by Meng Yao's counsel. Back when he was still holding back.

Mingjue unsheathes Baxia. He twirls it sideways in his hand. "I said the truth." The sight of the blade causes Meng Yao to start, but there's no time for that.

The other drops his smile. "I knew he wouldn't let me leave unscathed for what I said. I denounced his power as a leader and as my father, and threw the knife at his head."

"Aiming to kill?"

"No."

"I thought not."

Before Meng Yao can say another word, Mingjue cleaves the lock on the door in two. The hinges whine open, and Mingjue proffers his hand.

. . .

They're far away from the gilded walkways of Jinlintai when Meng Yao finally clears his throat, riding on a horse a few paces behind him. When Mingjue offered his hand, Yao had slapped it aside, but stepped out of the cell after him before the guards arrived.

They'd escaped posthaste. A war could started because of this incident, what with the all-mighty Chifeng-zun refusing to participate in a discussion with Clan Leader Jin about borders and freeing his murderous, bastard son.

So why…?

"I told him," Yao pipes up behind him. "Xichen, I mean, that you love him."

Clearly not expecting these would be Yao's first words, Nie Mingjue grunts deep in his throat, but otherwise doesn't respond.

Yao urges his horse forward, to walk in stride with Siming. Nie Mingjue's mare struts dignifiedly through the agrarian plains. Fields of rice and tea pass on either side, workers' heads popping up out of the vegetation every so often to watch the Nie retinue pass. There aren't that many of them – enough soldiers to quell an ambush, nothing more. The Nie cultivators behind and around them have said nothing about Meng Yao's presence – only exchanged a few glances, to ensure they weren't imagining the former Nie advisor at the Clan Leader's side.

"Nie Mingjue." Yao says it loud enough for those around them to hear, which causes the man's head to swivel toward him in a mix of irritation, curiosity, and surprise. Yao demurs for a moment, catching glimmers of anger – as well as Baxia's hilt.

"Let's talk at the inn," Mingjue says. He urges Siming forward with a slight kick of his heels and click of his tongue, once again placing Yao a few paces behind.

. . .

A stable boy takes their horses once they arrive, and then Nie Mingjue is bounding through the front doors of the inn. Yao assumes he's meant to follow. When the innkeeper points them and the Nie soldiers to the hallway leading to the rooms, Mingjue hesitates. He says a few words to whom Yao surmises is the new captain of the guard, and then, as the soldiers pass them, Nie Mingjue sizes him up, as if aware of Yao's presence, and the fact he helped him escape the dungeons, for the first time. There's warm disquiet in his otherwise stony face.

"This way."

Yao follows, and then they're sitting on opposite sides of a table again, tea set out before them at the restaurant on the first floor of the inn. Though the inn is grandiose and large, its multiple levels and location in a town on remote Jin territory mean people are greatly spaced out. Even so, the man is over-dressed, in grand robes and armor fit for a meeting with the Jin clan leader. Yao is speechless that Clan Leader Nie would talk to him in such a public setting. He had never seen him in this particular outfit before, the large epaulets on his shoulders shining with metallic faces and long, dark and draping robes.

Yao's own clothes are grimy and tattered from his scuffle with the Jin guards.

"Why did you save me?" It was the question he'd always wanted an answer to, but only asked accusingly. Once, when he was in the Clan Leader's room after the death of the previous captain of the guard, and again, when they were in Nie Mingjue's tent during the Sunshot Campaign.

Though both times were less than a year ago, they seemed a distant memory.

After a large gulp, Mingjue sets down his tea glass. He's tempted to order booze for this conversation instead.

"Meng Yao, I… I was grateful, to have you in Qinghe. At my side, watching over everything." He makes an effort to speak clearly. "I regret what happened between us. It's my fault that things turned out the way they did. I shouldn't have offered you the position of vice general so suddenly. I should have… heeded the ancient warnings, should have known Baxia would infect and influence you as someone without cultivation. For my negligence, I am deeply sorry." He bows his upper body with his hands on his knees, braids and clothes draping over the table.

Yao disconnects from his body. They're in public, and especially with the man wearing such regal attire, surely, there are others watching them now. He refuses to survey their surroundings for fear of just how many faces have turned toward them in the restaurant space.

"P-please, d-don't do that here, Clan Leader Nie," he chastises in a panicked voice, leaning forward to put his hands on the man's shoulders and physically lift him back up. His voice is shrill enough so anyone who is watching will know he addressed the man by his proper title, and takes no pleasure in the sight before him.

Mingjue lifts his head and frowns. He'd been hoping for a different reaction, but now, Yao is too self-conscious and embarrassed to meet his gaze, focused on sipping his tea.

Yao replies, "You didn't answer what I asked. Why you saved me."

The older man's head shakes with an ironic smile, as if unable to believe this question has such importance. This time, he has an answer ready. "I found your diligence inspiring and your conduct was to my liking. After hearing what they were saying in the cave, I wanted to give you a chance to prove yourself. That's all. Or were you asking about earlier today, at Jinlintai?"

Yao's head shakes absentmindedly. "No."

Sensing the other's pensiveness, Mingjue downs the rest of his tea with a single tip of his head. As his empty cup hits the table, Meng Yao snaps out of his stupor and moves to pour the next cup for Mingjue – but while reaching for the pot, Mingjue scowls. His hand closes around the handle first, pouring for both of them.

Yao shifts uneasily, once again afraid of who might be watching them. Still, he wouldn't feel right bringing it up – making all of it a bigger deal than it was. "Clan Leader Nie, don't apologize for offering me the position of vice general. It may have been sudden, but it was what I wanted. I was… glad you did. Who else would have given me such kindness…?"

Yao pauses here, daring a quick glance at Nie Mingjue's face. For a moment, there's a shimmer of optimism in the dark set of his brow. Just as quickly, it disappears.

"Still… everything got complicated after that."

"I know. I apologize for that."

His remorse makes Yao worry the man regrets absolutely everything that happened between them. "…But, you know, not everything I did was a lie."

Yao has the inclination to reach across the table and clasp his hand – if not for their publicity.

Instead, he smiles that smile – the real one that dazzles in his bright eyes – or at least, the one Mingjue hopes is real, that he always used in the past, in the comfort of their own rooms. It splits his face in a somber and dimpled line.

Mingjue says, almost crooning, "Jin Guangshan was pretty mad when I found him."

Yao scoffs quietly.

"Why didn't you kill him, anyway?"

Mingjue asks it nonchalantly, bringing his teacup back to his face, but Yao's shoulders tense at the topic. His malicious intent. If he doesn't tread carefully, perhaps Nie Mingjue would disown him again right here on the spot. "I figured there would be a more covert and acceptable way to get rid of him later on. For it to not be the mania of his shunned, illegitimate son, but the felicitous assassination of a tyrant with no regard for his people. My attack was but a warning for what is to come."

"Is that so?"

Yao says nothing to Mingjue's playful doubt.

"Did you want anything to eat? If not, I'll leave you be."

He stands to leave, and Yao doesn't have the time to tailor his expression as he watches him go. Conflict, longing, and self-pity flash across his face as his eyebrows sink pensively and his lips part in a pout Mingjue has never beheld on him before.

So, Mingjue stays.

They hardly say anything for the rest of the meal. At some point, Yao remarks, "The food is good." He doesn't specify what he means, as he normally would – commenting on the texture of the meat, the rich flavor of the broth, the consistency of the steamed vegetables – but Mingjue grins.

He's content.

He had never been more sure of the power of his presence.

. . .

Yao sleeps in his own room that night. The sheets are comfortable, and he'd been thoroughly fed, and washed, with wounds treated. He's too restless to stay unconscious for long.

He sits up in bed. Blinking into the darkness. There's nothing there, but he waits as if expecting something – a face to pop out, a voice to call to him. He hadn't been given any old room at the inn. There's not only a large bed, but a desk with ink and paper, a shelf of books, and a private bathtub to be filled on his command. Nie Mingjue's room is probably only slightly larger.

Yao rises, pushes back the sheets. He pulls on a pair of slippers, and a complimentary silk white robe adorns his shoulders as he quietly slides open the door and steps into the hall.

It's completely and utterly dark. Faint snores emit from the passing rooms. Yao likes it this way. It was rare the world ever sounded like this – that men lay so silent and defenseless in the early hours of morning. The brothel sounded like this sometimes, when all the passion and play had been exhausted, and everyone had fallen asleep tangled in another's arms. Though, it never smelled this good or clean there, and silence was even rarer.

That, too, is a distant memory now. His mother's face, kindly and round, her light, keen eyes that held so much within – sometimes, he sees her in the mirror, or thinks he does. Usually, he was disgusted by such thoughts.

She was kind, unlike him. She hadn't taught him to be heartless and cruel, to enact revenge on anyone who wronged him – to twist lovers into resentful men. Those were just stories.

Had she known what he went through, perhaps she would have taught him differently. With the ignorant and tenderhearted hope of a mother that could endure anything as long as her son was safe, he hadn't the heart to break hers more.

Shuffling near the walls, one hand tracing it, a faint whisper causes the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on-end.

Yao is aware of the source, and stops anyway. He finds the right door.

His closed fist rests against it.

His hand falls back to his side.

He turns and keeps walking down the hall.

Inside, awake in his bed, sensing the other's wandering, Mingjue sighs in disappointment and relief.

. . .

Qinghe is as craggy and dry as Yao remembers it, but not nearly as cold as Gusu. Even in summer, the gusts that passed through the clandestine mountain school of cultivating scholars were crisp and cutting.

He'd followed the Nie retinue out of confusion, mostly. Gusu was in the opposite direction, and it didn't feel right to ask Nie Mingjue to turn around on his behalf. Could they even reach Gusu without inciting more conflict while passing through Jin territory? They needed time to recuperate, to wait and see Jin Clan's next move.

Clan Leader Nie hovers inconspicuously at Meng Yao's side when they first get back. He's wary of leaving Yao alone with other Nie members, but after a sharp glance his direction, Mingjue gets the message. He's making things weirder than they need to be. The Unclean Realm hasn't forgotten their former vice general, but a year was a long time. The fact Meng Yao had returned at all was more cause for gossip, and with the new management, rumors about him had become tired and old, boring news.

As Yao is led to a room – different from his old one, but in a similar area of the palace as before – he avoids eye-contact with everyone. He certainly doesn't smile. Once in the safe privacy of his own dwelling, he collapses in a heap on the floor. The journey from Gusu to Jinlintai had allowed him much time for reflection, as had the last year. To believe he'd wind up here again, except under completely different circumstances… Just what was Clan Leader Nie doing?

"Meng Yao is here –"

No sooner had the words left Mingjue's lips than Huaisang turned to bolt down the hallway.

"Hold on," Mingjue scolds, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Let me tell you what happened first." As he relayed the supposed assassination attempt on Jin Guangshan, the escape from Jinlintai and breaking him out of the prisons, the border dispute that never got solved, Huaisang's elation sunk into alarm.

"Big Bro!" He called after Mingjue when he turns to leave. "Did you… did you already talk to him?"

"Of course I did."

Huaisang frowns, as if he doesn't believe it. Then he turns and, with an ostentatious swish of his robes, prances down the hallway.

. . .

"I'm so glad you're back. I've been meaning to show you the new paintings I've acquired – violet dyed silk woven with gold from the south! No one else here appreciates them as much as you do."

Yao smiles. "I'd love to see that."

Huaisang is glad to have him in Qinghe again – but without Meng Yao's braids so apparent, there's a greater separation between them now. Once, they'd been a part of the same family.

After a beat, Huaisang says, "I hope you don't feel like you have to pretend with me anymore. I'm not your master and you're not my servant. I would like for us to be – true – friends."

The words flicker falteringly across Yao's pleasantly-constructed face. It isn't a fake smile he dons, but definitely an exaggerated one – a smile one would use for a cousin who was ten years younger, though he and Huaisang are not nearly that far apart in age.

It takes a moment for Yao to be able to speak, seeing as politeness won't do. "Nie Huaisang, what can I say to you? I watched you grow up, and we hid so many things –" The grin on his face is sly now, eyes narrowed, and Huaisang has the inkling of belittlement. "– but you were just a child."

Starkly contrasted to his brother's apology, Huaisang is shaken by the change in Meng Yao's tone. He's no longer coddling and finical with his words. Blunt sarcasm drips from every syllable.

"Yeah, and what about you?! Going to bed with my brother the moment you stepped foot in Qinghe palace as his vice general. Neither of you thought I knew anything, that you were soooo secretive about it, but I saw everything."

Though he was about to retort, the flustered edge to Huaisang's voice causes Yao embarrassment.

"Everything!"

"Fine, fine," Yao stumbles. "I understand. I'm sorry – is that what you want to hear?"

"Not quite." Huaisang's expression doesn't change. Yao has no idea what more he could possibly want.

"I still see you as a child," he admits. "There's no way I can't. With your brother as distant as he is, who else was going to look after you? It had to be me. I couldn't become friends with my charge."

"And yet you slept with my brother."

Yao is astounded how easily the words tumble out of Huaisang's lips. How long had Huaisang known? How long had he itched to say these words? How much did he resent Yao for getting closer to Mingjue than Huaisang would ever be, and in such a short amount of time?

The young master had no other friends outside the walls of the Unclean Realm. No one he'd connected with from his days in Gusu wrote, and his brother was strict, and no one else understood art or poetry. Clan Leader Nie and Meng Yao were his entire world. Yet, between these two people in his life there was a bond that he would never quite understand. Of course he would be jealous, as misplaced and nonsensical as it may seem.

"My big brother, you know… I never saw him as happy as when he was with you." Huaisang isn't indignant anymore, only stating a fact. He waits, but not as if waiting for an answer. As if he already knows Yao won't say anything. "But now, I'm not so sure… if you staying here was ever a good idea after all."

Yao nods, uncomfortable.

"Still, I was glad to have you around. I hope I wasn't too much of an annoying kid."

"Of course not." There's more he would say – that he wants to say – but the words bundle up inside him.

Huaisang grins. "Good. Now, I hope you'll come to my room so I can show you my new art. Staying cooped up here can't be good for your health, even if you are wanted by the Jin for multiple offenses."

The gaiety in his tone catches Yao off-guard. The young Nie grabs his sleeve to pull him out of the room.

. . .

"I've written to Xichen. I told him what happened." Nie Mingjue tells him this in the throne room. So many times before, Meng Yao had stood in this very spot, with his hands folded and head bowed – but when it was late at night, and it was less likely someone would walk in on them, he'd dropped his decorum, spoken frankly, cared less about holding his shoulders and head in such perfect subordinate posture.

"He'll be here within the week to take you back to Gusu."

At this, Yao's face breaks with trepidation and bewilderment.

Mingjue continues as if he doesn't notice. "I've heard Jin Guangshan has been assembling a legion of troops to pursue you. You should feel honored, finally getting your father's attention."

The humor in the jibe is apparent, but Yao can't bring himself to laugh. "Clan Leader Nie, I –"

"I would have thought," Mingjue interrupts, the harshness of his gaze biting, "after you insulted him the way you did, he would have preferred to forget your existence altogether."

This last remark isn't about Jin Guangshan at all.

"Nie Mingjue, I can't go back to Gusu."

"Why not?"

"It's a place of cold, loneliness, and rigid rules. You don't expect me to be able to flourish there, do you?"

"It's what you've always wanted."

"Yes, it was, but not anymore –"

"I don't think you're in a position to argue, given what you've done."

Yao's pleading expression dims. It's overshadowed by blank, baleful resentment, shining like an eclipse. The threat hanging in the air urges Mingjue to stand.

"It's decided then," he says, and he leaves before Meng Yao can calculate his next words.

. . .

He was not going back to Gusu.

Qinghe has this way about it. Its eyes and hands push down your throat, its halls and whispers create echoes times a thousand. Even without the captain of the guard leading a battalion of insults against him or Baxia's voice in his head, Yao was alight with the flames of duty – and maybe that was just partly due to Nie Mingjue's presence, but maybe not.

Gusu was the opposite. Everyone is so focused on cultivation studies, meditation, and sword training, you couldn't stir up drama even if you tried. Anyone who did, well, they were punished gravely.

The Nie elders – Mingjue hasn't said anything, but Yao is aware of the private pavilion. These days, whenever Nie Mingjue returns from it, he'd passed Yao in the halls with a stormy aura that no doubt meant the elders were none too pleased to hear of Meng Yao's re-arrival. As for everyone else, they were curious about his presence, but no longer ornery – taking care not to approach or avoid him. However, the absence of a housekeeper was something Yao couldn't ignore. With every waking moment, he itched to take up his old station, seeing accounting files in disarray and servants fumbling through their tasks. Maybe if he just –

Mingjue caught him reorganizing scrolls in the study one afternoon, since clearly no scholar had done it in ages. Yao immediately recognized his perturbed scowl.

"What are you doing?"

"It's filthy in here. I thought I'd clean up."

"That isn't your job anymore."

"There's nothing else for me to do in this place," Yao snaps.

After a moment, in which Nie Mingjue takes a deep breath – one that seems to be quelling some fire of wrath, he relents. "Fine."

Before he turns completely, Yao is behind him. His arms are occupied by scrolls, but there's a hand on Mingjue's wrist. He lets Yao pull him back, and then the hand instead hovers in the air between them. Yao seems to be staring through him, then at a certain spot, which makes Mingjue fear where this is going – but remorse is evident in Meng Yao's expression.

"Are you… still hurt? Where I cut you."

Mingjue is uneasy, heart pounding, with both of them so close together. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

There's pain in Meng Yao's voice, in Meng Yao's face, pain that's unreadable, that he hasn't seen before. His hand rests carefully on the place Baxia seared through Mingjue's lower abdomen, fingers splayed. It roots Mingjue to the spot.

Meng Yao's robes are highly contrasted to anything he wore while he was vice general: the modest garb of any Nie cultivator, like back when they first met. Meanwhile, Mingjue just returned from an excursion into the mountains, and wears the sweeping dark robes and insulating furs of the Nie leader, the highest in command.

Eventually, Meng Yao's hand drops back to his side. His head lifts toward Mingjue, and Mingjue cannot stop himself. He does it again – cupping the smaller one's cheek, very gently, if only for a brief moment.

Before he can take his hand away entirely, Meng Yao grabs onto him. He guides Mingjue's hand through his hair, through braids hidden beneath pinned up strands.

Mingjue's hand falls, shock written across his face.

He's making a lot of assumptions with these words, but he says them anyway. "I'm not sure you want this. Staying in Qinghe again. The same thing might happen, with the Nie elders and Baxia hanging over our heads. Have you heard its voice since you arrived?"

Meng Yao shakes his head, confirming it wasn't all in Mingjue's mind, the other's hesitance to leave. "No, I haven't. I…"

Mingjue is antsy to leave, if only to get Meng Yao out of his vicinity so he'll stop remembering everything – his hands, his lips, his thighs, teeth all over his skin – how he feels over every cell on his body. Much as Mingjue tried, disconnecting the young, former advisor from the past was impossible. If they were to be near each other for long…

"Is it okay if I come to your room later? I…" There's something unspoken on his lips, and Mingjue has the urge to kiss him, but he doesn't.

Later that night, in the end, he hadn't been able to say no.

But Meng Yao doesn't fly into his arms or into his bed the moment he steps inside. He collapses onto the cushions near the prepared tea set on Mingjue's desk and stays there for some time.

Unsure whether to approach him, Mingjue is awkward in his own room. Meng Yao is lying half on his stomach, half on one side, hugging a cushion under his head, sprawled out. He might be asleep.

Mingjue sits next to him, leans over him, trying to ascertain if it's true, when Meng Yao jumps up, clearly sleep-dazed.

"Clan Leader Nie, I…"

The sleepy slur to his voice, a few hairs stuck to his cheek – butterflies flutter in Mingjue's stomach. He can't help himself. He chuckles.

Meng Yao scowls at him, embarrassment on his cheeks. "Sorry, I don't know why I came here. I'll go now."

Mingjue grabs his wrist as he stands, marching toward the door. Meng Yao whirls back around. How he's looking at him now, Mingjue immediately releases him. The move had been unconscious.

Meng Yao stands with his hands folded at his sides. A decision has to be made before Xichen arrives tomorrow.

"Will you finally tell me?"

Meng Yao lifts a brow.

"What happened," Mingjue says. "At the brothel. With your mother. Before you arrived in Qinghe. Will you finally trust me enough to tell me?"

Meng Yao opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

---

Special thanks, again, to mirycactusito, who screams with me about characters until 3AM. And thanks to my friend Sherry (though she likely won't ever read this), whose feedback on Within these Walls really inspired me to understand these characters in a way I likely never would have otherwise.

I wrote chapter 1 with the intent to one-up a friend's doubt of my ability to write something she liked that was NieYao, and to get some closure on the NieYao divorce, then got waayyy too carried away imagining all the consequences of this divergence. Now I'm even thinking of writing a 3zun AU 😂, but we'll see what the next few months and next year hold for me in terms of writing. I put way more time and work into this than I ever expected.

I would love to hear any final or particular thoughts on the story! Since I've never written something quite like this before – especially the erotica and length/format/perspective.

Hope to see you in the next one. Until then, cheers~

[End]