#50 000 words anyone please
New SangCheng (sorta) fake dating romcom farce idea: at some point post-Guanyin Temple, after Jiang Cheng has had some time to cool down and think, he figures out Nie Huaisang’s role in the whole Undoing of Jin Guangyao and he’s like “huh. Not so useless after all!” The next time they meet at a cultivation conference, he goes over to him and drops a bunch of loaded comments on him, while NHS flutters his fan and insists he has no idea what JC is talking about. They end up going off in a corner to drink and continue to exchange veiled remarks, which somehow turns into reminiscing about carefree days in the Cloud Recesses etc etc, and NHS is like “it’s really been too long, I should come and spend some time in Lotus Pier so we can catch up properly!” This is fine with JC, who’s been trying to pin NHS down on the specifics of a trade agreement between Yunmeng and Qinghe for eighteen months now, and he’s not gonna let this opportunity fly! Wei Wuxian, in the mean time, is across the room, standing next to Lan Wangji, hissing things like “Why is Nie-xiong leaning over at Jiang Cheng like that? Did he just bat his eyelashes at him? What’s going on over there?”
A couple of weeks later, news that Nie-zongzhu is making an extended visit to Lotus Pier comes to the Cloud Recesses, and WWX starts getting very suspicious. Is NHS COURTING his DIDI. WWX is nothing but full of admiration for the deviousness of NHS’s mind, really, it was quite the revenge plot, very impressive, but he draws the line at letting him marry into the family! Precious baby brother deserves the best, and the best is not the person who killed a bunch of cats as bait and whose MAN-EATING SABER TOMB nearly did it for Shijie’s son! This requires attention. He and JC exchange a bunch of snippy letters (“why is Nie Huaisang in Lotus Pier?” “None of your business.” “He is a VIPER, Jiang Cheng! Don’t let him anywhere near your bosom!” “First of all, what the fuck are you talking about. Second of all, you lost any right to tell me who I can or cannot have as a houseguest in my own home when you fucked off to Gusu with your precious Hanguang-jun! If you send me any more letters about this I’m going to drop them into the lake without reading them.”) and then WWX shows up in Lotus Pier unannounced with six suitcases. When JC bitches at him for swanning in without warning, he just says “well, you said you were going to throw my letters into the lake so I didn’t see the point—”
Var. amusing misunderstandings ensue in the following days, before Jiang Cheng, supremely irritated that WWX keeps sticking his nose (and face, and entire body) into the room every time he and NHS are making progress on this trade agreement (“my, my, don’t you two have your heads together! Anything interesting?” NHS, sighing: no), finally twigs to the fact that WWX thinks NHS is here to court him, and is determined to play Houseguest Chicken with NHS as long as necessary to cockblock him. JC: oh my god he’s an idiot. What a dumb, overbearing, overprotective, interfering idiot—on the other hand it GOT him here, didn’t it? Instead of correcting the misapprehension, JC just goes to NHS and says hey, want to pretend to be courting me to mess with Wei Wuxian? NHS: be delighted, that sounds so much more agreeable than work. JC stops trying to foist WWX off when he follows them around, only puts up a token protest when WWX insists on joining them for a moonlit evening swim, just rolls his eyes, when NHS asks if he can paint JC and JC adopts a languid pose that WWX spoils by glomping on to JC and tries to put him in a headlock, all Nie-xiong, don’t you think this is a more dynamic composition? This is the most time JC’s gotten with his brother in like eighteen years and he doesn’t even have to put up with his stupid husband!
This is, of course, about the point when Lan Wangji gets tired of waiting for Wei Ying to be finished with whatever this is and come back home, and he shows up in Lotus Pier himself. Not unannounced; he’s a civilized person, but his letter gets there exactly two hours before he does and he wasn’t asking permission. Now Jiang Cheng has three houseguests, and if he kicks Lan Wangji out, odds are that Wei Wuxian will, in fact, go with him. Which he doesn’t want, because he really has been having a lot of fun with shixiong! I’m not entirely sure what happens next, but it probably involves Jin Ling showing up with Ouyang Zizhen (they were on a night hunt or smth) and more comical misunderstandings. Maybe Jin Ling is attempting his own teenage sexual experimentation and brought Zizhen to Lotus Pier for the romantic moonlight swimming, and he’s embarrassed and annoyed when all his attempts to be alone with his uh you know, his friend, keep being interrupted by a bunch of adults—please picture NHS gaily wandering around Lotus Pier as he pleases, Jiang-zongzhu did tell him he could have the run of the place—followed, of course, by JC, who is his host, with Wei Wuxian following HIM because he’s still not going to let them be alone, especially not when JC seems so receptive to NHS’s advances (“viper! Bosom!” He continues to mutter), followed of course by Lan Wangji, who has no interest in any of this, but he just wants to be with Wei Ying. Ouyang Zizhen has been unduly distracted from Jin Ling by the swooning romantic realization that Nie-zongzhu and Jiang-zongzhu are in love— Jin Ling, probably: that’s disgusting, that’s my Jiujiu! Also if Wei Wuxian ruins the mood one more time I am actually going to send Fairy to chase him off.
Please don’t ask me how this ends, I have no idea. (Except that Jiang Cheng DOES get his trade agreement ratified.)
