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Chapter Text

Okay, so some base lines for this au:

All of the major Cultivation Sects are different mythical creatures and this is important because they are creatures first, human cultivators later. This is a secret from most of the actual human cultivators because a lot of cultivators stab first and ask questions later and the Wens are mostly humans that are more than willing to take down a powerful aggressive spirit for some renown.

The second thing you need to know is that Wei Wuixan, his mom, her teacher, and maybe Xiao Xingchen, start out as Biahu, or White tiger spirits. They are kinda like the Xuanyu in the sacred beast way, but they are not the sacred beast themselves. Like the Xuanyu of slaughter tho, they can also become fearsome beast with enough murder and resentful energy. (hint hint) NO ONE except spouses and particularly smart people who know what Baihu smell like know what they are because cultivators have hunted them down before. Wei Wuxian was born a Baihu and you can bet he was an adorable fur baby until he got the hang of the whole human thing.

So here’s what everyone is:

Wei Wuxian: Baihu (White Tiger)

Jiang sect: jiāorén (Chinese Mermaids, can make waterproof fabric!!) (Wei Wuxian’s dad was one too.)

Madame Yu: Dragon child (Like one of her parents had sex with a dragon and got a very feirce grumpy baby who is a little wild. She’s like a dragon stuck in a tiny mortal body.)

Lan sect: Qilin (Kind of chinese unicorns, but also not.)

Sizui: Baihu (It’s roughly based on the fact tigers can become Baihu, except for adopted children.)

Wen sect: Human??

Jin sect: Pixui (Wealth spirits that are a mix of lion, dragon, and bird)

Jin Ling: I don’t know if I want him to be a Jiaoren or a Pixui because he could be either.

Nie sect: Kominu? (Lion Dogs because I have limited knowledge of their mythology and some of the creature I did know about either didn’t fit or were OP)

cultivators can either be fully human, halfway creature, or full creature. For Example, When Wei Wuxian is halfway he has the cat eyes, sharp teeth, claws, ears and tail, and his stripes. The most notable are ones that curve under his eyes along his cheekbones.

Story Outline (linear time instead of the story timeline because I think better like that. Also where I point out all where the cannon diverges due to people secretly being creatures instead of people.)

So This really starts with Wei Wuxian’s parents getting together and Jiang Fengmian getting betrothed to Madame Yu. Mostly it involves Changse dragging her husband back to Lotus pier because he is an actual fish boi and needs to hangout with his fish friend every so often. Because of this, Madame Yu and Changse meet and become sort of hate friends because Tigers and Dragons don’t mix but they also admire each other as kickass women. They recognize what the other is on the spot, because again (and I did this deliberately) Tigers and Dragons are mortal enemies.

This is Important because that means whenever Wei Wuxian’s parents wander to Yuemeng they drop by to socialize the fish bois and because Changse always wanted to see a baby Jiaoren and Yanali is adorable. Otherwise Chengse occasionally sends letters to Madame Yu because I like stories where they are friends, and Madame Yu is the only person at that point to know Wei wuxian is a Tiger and knows what his stripes look like incase she has to find him for whatever reason.

The thing about all of the creature cultivators is that sometimes they might be born in a human esque form but they can’t maintain it at all when they're little. This inability to maintain their human form lasts till they are at least five or six because you need the quality baby brains to remember, stay human in front of everyone. So theat means, because Madame Yu is human shaped and cannot spend days on end in the pond, Jiang Fengmian is actually forced to be a good father and watch over his little fish babies while Madame Yu takes names and runs the sect. It also means Madame Yu and Jiang Fengmian spend a lot of time together because the kids are very stationary and I can see Jiaoren being very social.

So one day they are just chilling in the family pool just off the pier with baby Jiang Cheng and Yanli who can definitely do the human thing consistently at this point when they get a letter telling them that Wei Changeze died and they couldn’t find Changse’s body. (A few months later Madame Yu hears about that a cultivator managed to slay a fearsome white tiger on the same night hunt, and it hurts.)

Now Jiang Fengmian can’t go, he has to watch over his fish child and Yanali is too young to watch over her baby brother all the time and has to focus on learning how to cultivate and play human. (A lot of human classes to little creature cultivators is to not bite your enemies, because baby monsters go for bite first.) So Madame Yu takes a week or so setting something up and goes to find her friend's child.

It takes a while because while she knows the general area she’s looking for a tiger cub who has been taught to hide from humans he doesn’t know and he’s been scared by some real nasty people lately. And Dogs, because he wouldn’t be Wei Ying without an intense fear of dogs. So when she does find the tiger baby its been nearly a year and even when she actually finds him, he is like, big scary dragon lady. She’s gonna eat me, and they have to go through this whole thing until he feels comfortable enough to go with her. (ironically Wei wuxian is still scared of her, but this time because he’s just instinctively afraid of her. Like when she’s not close enough to smell it's like, adopted mom!!! And then she gets closer and it’s like SCARY DRAGON LADY.) Luckily Wei wuxian can maintain his human form even if he’s a little unsocialized and makes weird tiger noises sometimes.

She brings back her new tiger baby, and finds her fish babies have now gotten human-ing down enough that they can have their own rooms in the compound. Remember that whole jealousy brought on by parental affection thing? Madame Yu literally goes on night hunts all the time and can actually sniff out people so they find Wei Wuixian so much sooner. Which makes Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian like sixish-sevenish instead of 8-10 when they meet. BUT Jiang cheng does not want to share his new room with this upstart who got to spend so many weeks with his mama when Jiang cheng was stuck in the lotus pond. (Jiang cheng doesn’t have dogs yet but that’s because Jiang cheng is six and a fish baby who just learned how not to be a fish baby the whole time. He gets them later and an exasperated Madame Yu reminds him that he is a TIGER and bigger than the little puppies. It only sort of works but luckily now that he isn’t a half starved cub, dogs are wary around him. They keep a mutual distance and Wei wuxian only sometimes hides behind the nearest sympathetic body. Should note he’s only somewhat comfortable with Jiang Chengs dogs. )

So Wei Wuxian gets locked out and runs off because he’s a baby and now that he isn’t running around he really misses his parents.

Now, as much as I’d like to do the whole tree scene that was really touching, TIGERS CAN'T CLIMB TREES. Or rather they’re not good at it, and I just have tiny baby wuxian sitting on one of the piers crying because no one wants him, and he had been excited to live with the scary dragon lady and her fish babies. That image stuck in my head, and then joined by the fish babies because first bonding moment! Jiange Cheng promises to be his family because Wei Wuixan lost his, and because there are no convenient dogs to make promises about.

So they grow up together, though Wei Wuxian never mentions the whole Tiger thing because new siblings or not He remembers his mother warning him not to tell anyone who didn’t already know. The only person he could tell was his spouse, because honestly is important in relationships. He learns that their Jiaoren real fast because fish babies need hydration or they could get real sick, and Tigers like swimming so it all works out. If he runs off by himself to hunt pheasants, well, people learn not to question the white tiger they see sometimes.

The Whole Gusu thing goes about the same I think. Wei Wuxian meets Lan Wangji and they start their slow burn of pining and miscommunication. Wei wuxian gets kicked out for puncing Jin Zixuan for bad mouthing his sister, though Madame Yu is disappointed, she’s glad he got kicked out before her dumb fur baby could out himself. (She had seen only two ways fors Wei Wuxian’s trip to Gusu to go and she prefers this one.)

The only difference is that because Wei Wuxian is assumed to be a human because he isn’t a Jiaoren like other Yumengjiang sect members he kinda starves because his diet is mainly protein and the Lan sect is vegetarian. (Qilin don’t eat things that were killed and it is kinda cool, so i guess it’s more vegan.) He definitely intended to eat the rabbits but he was dumb baby gay and gave them to Lan Wangji because he was besotted and didn’t even realize. (Like cannon, the dumbass) He ends up begging food off of Nie Huisang and the other carnivorous leaning guest disciples. Huisang is definitely suspicious of Wei Wuxian after that, especially because while he likes spicy food he can only eat it at room temperature like most human shaped creatures.

Then the Wen business starts going down, and the cloud recesses burn and the Xuanyu cave happens.

Now it could either have Wei Wuixan outing himself as they fight the turtle, because he’s stronger in human form or It goes as it did in canon with maybe feverish tiger noises at Lan Wangi who is confused and kinda desperately in love.

The Lotus pier battle probably goes differently given that they have home field advantage and the water isn’t safe, there are angry mermaids more than willing to cause a little chaos. A big point in their favor is the fact that while the other creature run sects know about the fish person thing, the Wens do not because the Wens are human assholes. I’m not a tactician but I feel like overwhelming numbers only work when your enemy stays where you can hit them. Madame Yu and Jiang Fengmian might even survive it. I don’t know. SHRUG.

I’m not sure if the Golden core thing still happens, though the wen sibling & Wei wuxian friendship totally does. BUT Wei Wuxian still gets dropped into the burial mounds, and two things happen.

One, he harnesses resentful energy and invents demonic cultivation. Side effect, while the original White tiger might be incorruptible, the spawn or whatever toe the line between spiritual beast and demon. The more Wei Wuxian uses the resentful energy without purifying it, the harder time he has keeping a grasp on his humanity and his human form. (He makes the tiger seal to help him, but it kinda back fires because apparently Baihu are metal aligned? And his demon-ness vibes with it.)

Two, Yiling Burial Mounds become his territory. Like Boasan Sanren with her mountain, tigers are just mountain people and territorial. Lotus pier was the place he grew up, sure, but it belonged to Madame Yu. Yiling is his and even after the war, he goes back every so often.

So the war happens, and Wei wuxian reunites with his fish family, but he is getting more and more reluctant to leave Yiling because he’s getting worse and his control over his tiger instincts is waning fast.

The whole thing with the Wens happened, and he loses control again, and when he wakes up all of the jin cultivators have either mauled or torn apart and they make their escape to the yiling burial mounds.

This changes things because now Wei wuxian knows he cannot trust himself, and he starts working out how he can fix Wen Ning, but also seal himself away before he loses himself completely. (End game, he exists as a demon for a few centuries filtering through the resentful energy of the burial mounds as he uses the seal to purify himself and then wakes up with a nice clean mountain. Causally ignoring the man who probably knows purification songs who would be more than willing to help the love of his life.) The only people he really trusts around himself are the wen siblings and his new tiger baby A-yuan because they both know and Wen ning can body slam him, and he would never hurt his cub. (when A-yuan first changes, Wen Qing demands to know how the hell is being a tiger infectious. Wei Wuxian is also confused Because no one told him he could do that.)

Which brings to one of the bigger cannon divergences.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t trust himself outside the burial grounds, and so he doesn’t go to the one month celebration. Demon tiger plus baby? Bad Idea. So Jin Zixuan and his cousin never die and the nightless city thing never happens because the Wen siblings don’t have to turn themselves in. Jiang Yanli never dies.

Maybe instead, Wei wuxian asks Lan Wangji for a favor. As a Qirin (according to wikipedia), they can sense things like evil and are supporters of justice so Lan Wangji knows that the Wen remnants are good people. So Wei Wuxian asks him to take them in and while he knows Lan Zhan doesn’t like him that much could he help seal him?

Lan Wangji against this plan for obvious reasons (not only the whole can’t be with loved one for centuries, but also the fact he has to stab wei wuxian with his own sword) but Wei Wuxian tells him it’s either this or someone else will kill him because Wei wuxian is almost past the point of no return. (At somepoint the tiger ate part of the tiger seal which was interesting on a cultivation science level but also annoyed the hell out of Wei Wuxian. WHy did his stupid demon side think that was a good idea.)

So he does, and takes the Wens to Gusu. Cultivators saw the big explosion of spiritual energy and when they went to the burial mounds there was signs of a struggle and this emancipated tiger demon sealed within the cave with the Yiling Patriarchs sword. They decided to leave it alone since even the yiling patriarch couldn’t defeat it, it must be powerful.

LATER Mo Xuanyu tries to do the thing, but it goes weird and he gets a ghost who technically owns his physical form and usually just follows him around making wei wuxian typical comments.

They make tentative plans to unseal Wei Wuxian’s tiger body and get drawn into the plot along the way. (Including Wangxian because no duh)

FIN!

Chapter Text

The day Yu Ziyuan met Cangse Sanren had been working up to being a rather mundane day, if a rather hot one.

She watched her betrothed out of the corner of her eye, her hands folded in front of her. Their conversation had collapsed under their shared unease, only helped along by the Jiang heir’s unusually curt demeanor that worsened the longer they walked along the pier. Thus they walked in tense silence, trailed by Jinzuh and Yinzuh.

Inwardly she sighed, she was well aware of the pressure her family was putting on him to marry her but it wasn’t like she was very happy with this arrangement either. It didn’t mean she wasn’t going to put in the effort into making their future marriage work.

She looked away, taking in the soft bobbing of the soft pink blossoms in the water interspeeding the thick green leaves. She could see flashes of scales swimming between the leaves, and she would admit she wasn’t completely unhappy about what would come from being the Madame of Lotus Pier. Yuming Jiang was one of the five great sects and this way she will be on the same level as her sworn sister after her own marriage to sect leader Jin. If anything they could lament their ill matched marriages together. The only real downside to the lotus pier was the prevailing scent of fish that seemed to cling to everything for some unfathomable reason.

Yu Ziyuan gave the lotus pool one last appraising glance, idli making a note to commission a pavilion to gaze upon this view at some point after her marriage. She turned back to her betrothed, frowning at him when she noticed he had stopped at some point during her musing, gazing over the water with no small amount of longing. “Master Ji-” She started, crossing her arms over her chest, only to be interrupted by a victorious call accompanied by a strangled yelp.

All four of them whipped around, Zidan sparking around her finger as she looked to see who would dare to interrupt them at this time. It pleased her that Jiang Fengmian also pulled out his own blade, on guard even in his own home. Even if he dropped his stance when he saw who it was. Just landing on the pier not long from where they stood was a rather beautiful woman with a harried looking man being tugged after her. Both of them wore plain dark robes, but Yu Ziyuan saw the telltale bell hanging from the man's belt.

”I told you I could find him, A-ze.” The woman called as she dragged the man behind her. She sheathed her sword with one hand, twirling it around in a show of skill. With her hand free she waved to them with a cheery smile, yanking the poor man as she put a step into her march towards them.

”Changse...?” Jiang Fengmian breathed out questioningly, his brows furrowing as he slid the sword away. Yu Ziyuan herself was caught between being amused at this woman's gall and being angered for the same reason.

”Fengmian!” The woman replied cheerfully, ducking between Yinzu and Jinzu with a short wave. The man she tugged after her bowed his head with an apologetic expression even as he followed obediently.

Something about the woman tugged at the wild thing curled within her chest, something about her bright eyes and the scent of wilderness clinging to her. By the look in her maids’ eyes, they were seeing it as well, whatever it was.

”What are you-” Fengmian asked hesitantly, looking from the couple to her with a nervous frown.

The woman stopped just short of Yu Ziyuan’s betrothed, holding up a silent hand. “Hold that thought.” She interrupted, tugging her man to Jiang’s side with a determined look in her eyes. The man went willingly, if resigned to the woman's whims. The woman looked them over, tapping a finger to her lips as if considering the image in front of her walking so she faced the deeper side of the pier. Jiang Fengmian looked just as confused as Yu Ziyuan was, opening his mouth to say something. With a bright smile, the woman shoved both men into the pier, stepping back as they flailed into the pool with a splash.

Yu Ziyuan took an aborted stop towards the place the two had disappeared, knowing that the while the people of YumengJiang were all strong swimmers wet robes made things difficult. The woman, unrepentant of her crime, turned to her with a polite smile on her face. “I apologize, Madam, for stealing you betrothed, but any longer in this heat I was worried Jiang Fengmian would become sick.”

”So you pushed him into the lake?” Yu Ziyuan found herself snapping, leveling the presumptuous woman in an accusatory lake. “Who are you even to be so liberal with Sect leader Jiang.”

Tilting her head, the woman looked over her consideringly, pursing her lips. “My name is Changse Sanren, once disciple of Boasan Sanren. Wife of Wei Changze, whom I also pushed into the lake.” She said with a sharp smile, as her eyes flashed feral yellow. Yu Ziyaun felt her spine stiffen, she recognized that name though it was rare for someone in the community to not. The wild thing made her want to snarl and demanded she fight the woman standing in front of her, and she recognized what stood before her. “Did Jiang Fengmian neglect to mention that Lotus pier was home to the Yumeng Jiaoren?” Sanren continued as if she hadn’t noticed Yu Ziyuan’s tension.

Steeling herself, she shifted her stance to properly face the rogue cultivator. She had not known that, but it would certainly explain the fish smell. It would explain a lot of things regarding Jiang Fengmian, she thought wryly before shaking it off to focus on the woman. When Fengmian had mentioned his friend’s elopement, she had wondered why Changse Sanren hadn’t married into the YumenJiang sect. Had not known that the woman took after her teacher. “Does your husband know he eloped with a Baihu?” She snarled, knowing all too well of the secrecy of some of their ilk, though it was a valid concern given how many human cultivators were willing to add a white tiger pelt to their achievements.

”Does Jiang Fengmian know that Meishan Yu sent a dragon child to be his bride?” Changse countered with a knowing smile that Yu Ziyuan felt herself soften too. “But yes, I told him when he asked for my hand. With you and your maids, that makes four people who know about it, though you were the first one who knew without having to be told. Most just assume I am human.”

”Idiots,” Yu Ziyuan scoffed distanfully, “Didn’t you learn at Gusu for a time?”

Changze hummed agreeably, turning her attention to the lake. “You realize that your future husband is one of those idiots, yes?”

Yu Ziyuan watched her betrothed and Changse’s husband finally surface from the water, wet hair in disarray, and distinctly inhuman with the glossimer fins framing their faces. Every so often she could make out the shape of their long tails as the sun catches their silver accents. The soft placid smile she often associated with Jiang Fengmian gracing his face once more as both men turned to the dock. Her betrothed freezes at the sight of her, a guilty expression sliding over his face, sinking down so only his large eyes were visible over the water.

Changse knelt down with a laugh, beaming at the two. “You know, Fengmian, if you had simply told Lady Yu that you were a Jiaoren, you would have saved yourself a lot of misfortune in the long run.” She said scoldingly, shaking a finger at the sheepish man. “I will be very disappointed if me and Changze aren’t invited to your wedding.”

Yu Ziyuan raised an eyebrow when her betrothed glanced at her uncertainty, smirking when the Jiaoren ducks his head back underwater. She can practically feel her maids’ amusement from where they linger in the background.

She laughs when Wei Changze pulls his laughing wife down into the water, the Baihu’s suripsed shriek personally very satisfying. Presumptuous woman.

Chapter Text

Wen Qing had never put much thought into Wen Rouhan’s ravings about the beast hiding in human skin, mostly because they came hand in hand with his speeches about Wen superiority. Another was simple disbelief, because if there were magical beasts capable of such a feat as turning human, Why would they?.

Then she met Wei Wuxian.

Or rather her brother dragged the half dead man through the door of her office.

”Sister, I need your help!” Her brother whispered-yelled, the door to her office rattling open. She turned with a indulgent sigh, putting down her brush to have her hands free for whatever poor creature her brother dragged to her. It was an almost welcome reminder of a time before Wen Rouhan decided to wage war against the cultivation world, her soft hearted brother bringing back broken winged birds and shivering kittens.

She was almost all too surprised to see her brother in dirt streaked white robes and the young man pressed against his side almost radiating resentful energy.

”A-Ning? What are you-? Who is that?” She demanded, the healer in her already looking over both of them. Her brother is first by virtue of him being the one she actually cares about, and she does not like sight of the claw marks bleeding on his face that start just under his left eye and drag across and down his face. It had not even been two hours since she sent him out to restock some herbs, and yet it looks like he had run into something with claws. “What happened to your face!”

The man her brother dragged looked like he had just crawled out of hell, and with nothing to show for it. He smelt like death, his hair dirty, lank, and snarled around a pale face smudged with soot across his sunken cheeks. From her desk she could hear the rapid shallow breaths that rattled in his lungs. Hazy grey eyes stared soullessly at the floor as his head lulled forwards, leaning almost entirely on her brother.

Her brother looked at her eyes wide with fear, wincing as she reached to touch the bleeding scratches. They weren’t deep, though whatever scratched him had something under their claws that concerned her. “Sister! I found him outside of the Burial Grounds, please help him.” Her brother begged, ducking his head out of her grip as he shifted his grip on the dead eyed man.

She forced herself to look at the man, frowning at the black liquid dripping down his chin as she moved to help her brother support him. “Bring him to the table. Did he throw up when you found him?” She questioned, guiding the man’s arm over her shoulder and grimacing at the disgusting fabric the man passed as clothing. It was torn and wet with something that only smelt worse up close, a mix between rot and blood. The young man twitched weakly when she touched him, his fingers flexing as his face tugged into a pained frown.

This close to his face, there was something familiar to him. Though soot or dirt, or whatever streaking his cheeks made it hard to pinpoint exactly where she remembered him.

Her brother shook his head, helping her to guide him to the table. “H-he was semi-lucid when he c-came down the path but as soon as he stepped off the mountain he went p-pale and collapsed.” He supplied, stooping down to grab the young man’s legs as she pressed him onto the table. The man’s twitches were growing into full on jerks and his head started to shake from side to side, eyes slamming shut with a grimace. The resentful energy clinging to him seemed to writhe against her senses, crackles of red and black energy dancing over the man’s fingers. “When I went to help him he..he” Her brother hesitated, frowning down at the man’s feet.

She frowned, waving her brother off. “Tell me later, I need you to get me warm water, a towel, and some plain clean robes for him to be changed into.” She ordered, already moving to untie the man’s belt. She paused at the black dizi that looked much better than the man who owned it before setting it on the side table behind her, frowning at how her fingers seemed to buzz.

She stripped the rest of his tattered clothes with a detached sense of professionalism, noting to interrogate her brother about their sect symbol burned into the young man’s chest. She leaves the man his under robes, pulling them off his too thin chest.

She pressed her hands to his wrist, a wrinkle in her nose the only sign of her discomfort. The man’s meridians were twisted with resentful energy and even the configuration of them was weird, his golden core just off. She would need to use her needles and some carefully put spiritual energy to move them back into a semblance of alignment and to help him expel some of the resentful energy wreaking havoc on him.

A part of her that wasn’t focused on bringing this stranger to some sort of okay, the part that was tired of war and demands, revelled at the opportunity to help someone. To do what she loved and strove to instead of doing paperwork for ungrateful men who thought them better than even their own family. To defy Wen Rouhan in this small way, despite her own fears. To use her talents and heal someone..

She started to place her needles when her brother came in with the water balanced precariously atop the dark grey robes and the plain towels he had procured. The young man twitched with each needle she poked into him, his head shifting a bit as he grunted softly. “Put the robes by the bed, I need you to clean him off. I cannot tell if he has any other injuries under all of this grime.” She ordered, moving closer to the man’s center. The Resentful energy is stubborn and clings to man resolutely. If not for the war tearing their world apart she would kill to have a GusuLan Cultivator playing cleansing as she works what little she can. “Where exactly did you find him, A-Ning?”

Her brother is red faced as he swiped the wet cloth over the man’s face and neck, though she is glad to note he had wiped his own wounds down before he had returned. “C-coming down from the burial mounds. I-I recognized him, but he...He didn’t remember me.” He said sadly, grabbing a fresh cloth. “He collapsed at the foot, and that’s when I approached.” The man flinches at each touch of the rag, the quiet grunts becoming louder as he flexes his hands.

Wen Qing nodded, allowing her brother to wipe the man’s torso before she pressed the needles in. The dark smudges on the man’s sharp cheek bones remain after Wen Ning runs the cloth over them, resolving into black lines following the curve of his eyes. There are other marks lining his body, only growing starker as the grime is wiped away. “Is that before or after you got scratched by some creature?” She asked, frowning at her patient as she pushes just a little more energy through his spirit veins. The acupuncture has straightened things moderately, but the resentful energy has yet to fade.

Her brother is quiet for a long moment, his hand’s pausing with one of the man’s filthy hands wrapped in the towel. She drew her gaze from the man on her table, narrowing her eyes at her soft hearted little brother. He dropped his gaze to his own hands, “It wasn’t a creature...” He whispered, almost too quiet for her to hear.

”What.” She demanded, a little too harshly if the way her brother flinches says anything. Her eyes were drawn to the thick dark nails poking out of her brother's loose grip, to the red staining the pale cloth. Something flickered to life in the back of her mind.

”Young Master Wei was out of it and I...I reacted too slowly.” Her brother defended meeting her eyes with a desperate sort of plea. “He was fine until he saw this, and then he clawed me.” He pressed a hand to the symbol of their sect, and she thinks of the burn that is still red and shiny.

She will beat herself up for this later, but her carefully controlled spiritual energy spikes with anger at the thought of someone hurting her oh so helpful baby brother. “He clawed-” she started, angry and stressed, her mind whirling.

She is cut off by the young man, Wei Wuxian, the young master who her brother talked about for days before the indoctrination and the assault on Lotus Pier, wakes up with a spike of resentful energy and a growl. Bloody red inhuman eyes snap open as his face twists from pained all to aware and angry, black lines starker. A heavy sort of pressure layers over them, the same cold heaviness she remembers from night hunts against powerful beasts and spirits.

She jerked back as Wei Wuxian wrenched his arm from her brother’s grip, swiping at her with thick black claws. With inhuman flexibility the man twists his way into a crouch, energy crackling over his skin in short bursts.

It feels like she blinked and suddenly Wei Wuxian went from a young man to some strange creature. His stained under robes hang from his waist, and only lets her take in the changes to his body all the more clearly. The black lines on his skins grow sharp and whit fur crawls up to his elbow. He perched shakeley on the far edge of her operating table with all too sharp teeth in a fearsome snarl, furry ears pressed back against his hair as a tail lashed back and forth behind him. The no doubt numb arm is kept close to his chest like an animal, his eyes flickered between the original red and a bright gold.

”Young master Wei!” Her brother exclaimed, his face twisted with worry regardless of the inhuman creature snarling on her table.

”Wen!” Wei Wuxian spat, snarling when Wen Ning took a step closer. His eyes flash red and she can see a hazy sort of hate in the crimson gaze.

”A-Ning, back up!” She snapped, needles ready to be thrown the second the man-creature lunged. The man’s eyes snap to hers, feline pupils drawn needle thin. If she hadn’t felt the golden core he had cultivated for her own she would have discounted the idea that this creature was a cultivator, to say nothing of the missing YumengJiang Head Disciple. Yet she wouldn’t begin to think him human, not with the white fur that inched up his arm and the stripes.

Though she would hesitate to call him a demon with the fear hiding behind the hate.

”Young Master Wei, please calm down.” Her brother pleads shakily, hands held placatingly in front of him.

”Stay Back! You won’t throw me back there!” Wei Wuixain snarled. “Godless Wen dogs.”

Wen Qing drew herself up, “Do not compare me to the likes of them, I am a healer and for the time you are my patient. Calm down.” She snapped, brandishing the needles the same way he brandished his clawed hands. His face falters, ear flat against his head as his eyes return to the bright feline gold.

Their little standoff lasted what felt like hours, but could only be a few minutes before Wei Wuxian’s face turned pale. She watched warily as the young man fell forwards onto his hands and retched, the resentful energy folding back under his skin.

She has a strong stomach, had needed one with her job, and the sight of vomit was a familiar one. Nonetheless, she swallowed back the urge to gag at the black bile that came out of the man, the smell of old rot and the sight of bone fragments an assault to the senses. The resentful energy clinging to the mess painted a dark picture. Wen Qing pressed a sleeve over her shirt, waving at her brother to grab the towels to clean it up.

Before he could, Wei Wuxian pitched forwards forcing them to catch his shoulders as the young man whined in the back of his throat. “Please don’t make me go back.” he rasped, leaning against Wen Ning. “Gotta help A-Cheng and Shijie first.”

Wen Qing would deny it to her dying breath, but there was something heart wrenching about the soft, sad look on that young man’s face. She would regret it later when the young tiger in human clothes tore through her family and their lives with the dead. Would regret not smashing the dizi when she had the chance up until he used it to save her little brother.

She would regret it, but for now she would help this sad creature her brother dragged in just like she helped all the others.