Work Text:
1.
Lan Xichen really likes Jiang Cheng.
But he and Wei Wuxian were each other’s sun and moon.
That was what Lan Xichen, after drinking a single mouthful of Emperor’s Smile, had wailed said amidst desolate tears.
Wiping away his cold sweat, Jin Guangyao regretted for the hundredth, thousandth time, listening to Nie Mingjue— the idiot! and his idiotic, idiotic words.
One hour prior:
“I wonder what Er-di would be like after some wine.”
“Da-ge... This one will investigate the matter for you immediately.”
He wrestled his derangedly crying Er-ge into bed.
“Er-ge, please calm down first! Let’s talk about this again tomorrow! Lie down, your San-di can guarantee this — I will soon have your beloved wife wrapped up and delivered nicely to you! My heavens, can you please lie down properly?!”
The second day, Lan Xichen woke up feeling like his head was about to split open. He couldn’t remember at all what had happened the night before. For some reason, however, his San-di, A-Yao, had been shooting him strange, furtive looks all day.
As they began to eat, A-Yao finally spoke in an offhanded tone.
“Er-ge, have you heard? Wei Wuxian and your brother Wangji have gotten together.”
Lan Xichen was shocked speechless (overjoyed at his luck). He asked frantically, “Is that really true?! How did you come to know of this?!”
“From what A-Ling said, Wangji’s forehead ribbon has already been given out,” Jin Guangyao relayed. “How could it not be true?”
Lan Xichen adopted a solemn, cautious manner.
“By any chance, do you happen to know how Jiang Cheng reacted to the news?”
On the inside, Jin Guangyao could only roll his eyes. On the outside, however, he smiled with an aura of boundless benevolence.
“By worshipping the day and thanking the earth! He was in high spirits to say the least! In his exact words — oh my mother , so there is actually someone stupid enough to fall for a thing like Wei Wuxian, in the future there will be no one left to compete with me for pork ribs, ha ha ha ha, Lan Wangji, you really are a Buddha descended to the mortal realm, ha ha ha ha ha!”
Zewu-Jun, in that moment, was so happy that he nearly kissed Lianfang-zun.
2.
Broken-hearted and disconsolate, Lan Xichen said miserably to his sworn brothers: “Jiang Cheng is straight.”
Nie Mingjue seemed very confused.
“Yeah, and so?”
Jin Guangyao cut in. “..... Who told you that? How do you know?”
Lan Xichen wore a look of affliction, his distraught manner seeming to convey an almost audible sense of tragedy has befallen me and oh, I will never love again.
“I heard that one of his matchmaking requirements was ‘a woman of natural, effortless beauty.’”
A moment of silence. As before, Nie Mingjie listened on in complete bafflement. Jin Guangyao, however, seemed pensive. After a moment, he spoke again.
“Er-ge, how many times has Jiang Cheng solicited a matchmaker now?”
“Three times.”
“And has he succeeded yet?”
“No.”
“And why do you think that is so?”
“.... Because he hasn’t been satisfied with any of the goddesses he’s been matched with?”
Jin Guangyao pressed on, inch by agonizing inch.
“And why do you think he wasn’t satisfied with any of them?”
“.... He is a man of high standards?”
“The answer is this: he does not like goddesses , but has not yet become aware of his own inclinations!”
Having listened to this almost god-like level of solid reasoning, Lan Xichen was both shocked beyond measure, and happy beyond comparison.
“So that’s how it is!” he gasped, with the air of someone upon whom enlightenment was slowly dawning.
Nie Mingjue, “?????”
Jin Guangyao, “😏”
Zewu-Jun, in that moment, was again so happy that he nearly kissed Lianfang-zun.
3.
Lan Xichen stood dejectedly before Jin Guangyao, so distressed that his head seemed to almost have grown from the sheer weight of his worrying.
“A-Yao, Jiang Cheng has been matched with Lady Lin and has arranged to meet her! How can we make him become aware of his own inclinations?!”
Jin Guangyao laughed gently. “Even if he takes awhile to realize it, it still won’t be too late. For now, our first priority is to find a way to mess up their first meeting.”
Lan Xichen nodded rapidly. “You are right, of course! But how do we mess it up?”
Luckily, Jin Guangyao had a few cards up his sleeve. “Let San-di take care of this matter.”
Three days later, the entire countryside was abuzz with the tragic tale of Sect Leader Jiang’s fourth matchmaking attempt. Apparently, during the date, Lady Lin had suddenly taken out a book.
“Sect Leader Jiang, would you be willing to sign an autograph?”
Sect Leader Jiang had been overjoyed. It seemed like someone had finally recorded his heroic deeds and valiant adventures into a book! He had signed his name with a proud flourish, and only afterwards, had he casually asked: “What is written in this book?”
Lady Lin had giggled vaguely.
“Well... you already know what’s in it. Speaking openly about such content is quite embarrassing.”
Sect Leader Jiang had been mystified. Taking the book from her, he found seven words inscribed on the cover.
A Tsundere Sect Leader Fell For Me.
Below it, two tenderly embracing figures, one blue and one purple, had been drawn in such a maudlin way that he could not stand to look directly upon the image.
In an instant, his face had become as black as the well-charred bottom of an aged wok.
Lady Lin had continued with utmost sincerity, “Sect Leader Jiang, you and Sect Leader Lan must be happy together!”
Sect Leader Jiang had sucked in a deep breath.
“So the reason you agreed to meet me today...”
“.... was to wish you and Lan Xichen to grow old together, to love each other and never part, to live happily ever after!”
Jiang Cheng had stormed off in a furious flurry of sleeves.
And as for the origins of Lady Lin’s mysterious book, Jin Guangyao laughed, as if wordlessly saying: I don’t know, I don’t know, I really don’t know.
Zewu-Jun, having been informed of the matter, was once again so happy that he nearly kissed Lianfang-zun.
4.
For the nth time, Lan Xichen looked to Jin Guangyao with an expression of distress.
“A-Yao! Sect Leader Jiang is very angry with me! He told me that those of the Cloud Recesses really know how to snare the Jiang family’s pigs. Snaring Wei Wuxian hadn’t really mattered. But now Sizhui, the damned brat, has snared Jin Ling! What should I do! Please, you have to save me!”
In his heart, Jin Guangyao resented the iron for not yet turning to steel.
(Translation note: This is a proverb that means to be disappointed that someone isn’t meeting expectations and hoping impatiently to see improvements.)
“Huaisang— no, no, I mean Er-ge, let me explain this to you.”
He proceeded to explain to Lan Xichen the difference between giving and receiving in a male relationship.
Lan Xichen only seemed to have understood half of what had been said.
“So you’re saying that as long as Jiang Cheng sees Jin Ling doing this— what did you call it? giving? then Jiang Cheng will not feel like his pigs have been snared?”
So the child can be taught, Jin Guangyao thought triumphantly to himself.
And so, Lan Xichen hurriedly returned to the Cloud Recesses, where he searched out Lan Sizhui. “Sizhui, you’ve seen how Hanguang-Jun and Wei Wuxian are together, haven’t you?”
Sizhui expressed that it was very hard not to see.
“Listen well. Tomorrow, you and A-Ling will go to Lotus Pier. In front of Sect Leader Jiang, you will act out what they do. What Wei Wuxian does, you do. What Hanguang-Jun does, A-Ling does.”
Lan Sizhui was so shocked that he lost all color in his face.
“What?!”
I actually like these pair of legs, he thought morosely to himself.
But Lan Xichen was ruthless.
“If you don’t do this well, your possibility of marrying Jin Ling will not be looking so good. Of course, it’s your choice to make on how you’d like to proceed from here.”
Lan Sizhui lamented: Zewu-Jun, you have changed!
The second day, Lan Xichen paid a visit to Lotus Pier. Even from afar, he could already hear Jiang Cheng laughing loudly with great self-satisfaction and immense pride: “So it was actually the Lan family’s pigs that were snared, ah wa ha ha ha ha ha ha , A-Ling, I really underestimated you this time, you really are something, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Turning his head, still flushed with the glory of his own success, he bid Lan Xichen a very good morning.
“Zewu-Jun, good morning, ha ha ha. How are the wedding preparations coming along between A-Ling and Sizhui, that lovely child?”
Lan Sizhui had succeeded in being raised from “damned brat” to “Sizhui, that lovely child”.
And so Zewu-jun, once more, was again so happy he nearly kissed Lianfang-zun.
5.
Lan Xichen, with an air of having been deeply aggrieved, looked up at his Da-ge and San-di. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, being thusly looked at, felt all of their hairs stand on end.
Nie Mingjue thought to himself, could it be that he finally found out about the time I accidentally ruined one of his family’s famous paintings? But A-Yao promised not to tell!
Jin Guangyao thought to himself, which one of my genius plans has backfired?
After a long while, Lan Xichen finally opened his mouth. “Sect Leader Jiang thinks... that I, and one amongst the two of you, are having a secret love affair.”
At first, Nie Mingjue thought that he must have misheard. “You said who and who?!”
“I. And one of you... Sect Leader Jiang is an upstanding man of honor and morality. And so, now, no matter what, he will not be with me.”
One day prior:
Jiang Cheng pretended to be unaffected.
“I heard that Zewu-jun will soon be marrying Lianfang-zun? Or is it Chifeng-zun? Congratulations to the both of you.”
Jin Guangyao was shocked down to his very bones. “Who said that?!”
“I don’t know. But it seems that in this lifetime... I, Xichen, have absolutely no way of being with Sect Leader Jiang.”
With this last look of complete desolation, Lan Xichen turned and left.
Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao had clearly done nothing wrong, and yet, they could not explain why they could feel their guilty consciences flaring up.
One week later. A discussion conference.
Jin Guangyao felt as if his intestines were tied into a hundred knots. Should he do it, or should he not? He looked at the lonely and deserted back of his own Er-ge from afar. The silhouette was truly miserable, wretched, and deeply sorrowful.
Biting down, he finally made his decision.
He would do it then. In doing good, there were no halfways. In delivering Buddhism, one must deliver it all the way to the West! An entire lifetime’s worth of loyalty and self-sacrifice, I, Jin Guangyao, will give it all to you, Lan Xichen!
And so, in the throng of people, under the eyes of everyone present, he calmly walked up to Nie Mingjue.
“Da-ge, please excuse me for this.”
Nie Mingjue, “?????”
And then, lovingly, adoringly, and deeply, he kissed him.
Nie Mingjue, “....!!!!!!!”
Not really knowing why, Jiang Cheng let out an inexplicable breath. “Congratulations to the both of you.”
Zewu-Jun, in that moment, and for the last time— was so happy that he nearly kissed Lianfang-zun.
+1
Truthfully, Lan Xichen was a very easily terrified person.
And so, Jin Guangyao was forced to watch, with his own two eyes, as his own Er-ge stood in front of Sect Leader Jiang, stopping and stuttering for ten whole minutes, as he valiantly tried to muster up the courage to confess.
Lan Xichen, “Sect Leader Jiang, I— I—”
Jiang Cheng, “You what?! Relax and just say it!”
Lan Xichen bit down and put in his utmost effort. “I wanted to tell you that I’m actually— actually—”
Jiang Cheng, “?????”
Lan Xichen was unwilling to give up. “—actually, truly , really— really— really—”
Jiang Cheng, “... really stuttery?”
It wasn’t clear if it was the sincere-hearted enthusiasm of wanting to help a friend, or the ruthlessness of wanting payback for all he had suffered, but by some curious circumstance, Jin Guangyao hand found itself in the middle of Lan Xichen’s back.
Lan Xichen fell gracefully into Jiang Cheng. All four lips, upper and lower, met solidly in a kiss.
Instinctively, Jiang Cheng pushed Lan Xichen away from him in an explosive burst of motion, his face so red it looked like a tomato. Lan Xichen’s face had been terrified to whiteness.
After a good while, Jiang Cheng managed with some difficulty, “And so—”
Lan Xichen resolutely threw it all to the winds. “I like y— y— y— you!”
Simultaneously, Jiang Cheng completed the rest of his sentence, “—that time, it was you who gave that book to Lady Lin then?”
Lan Xichen, “.........”
This time, although Zewu-Jin had not nearly kissed Lianfang-zun, he had actually kissed the Sandu-Shengshou of his dreams.