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Chapter Text

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, pouting and draping herself along his back. First she eels into the space between Lan Zhan sitting at his qin table and the shelf behind him. Then she digs a knee into his backside, getting settled, and leans an elbow on his shoulder. Finally, she props her cheek on his head, and complains at him. “Lan Zhan, you’ve been playing for more than a shichen!”

He cannot actually see her pouting, at this angle. He can, however, hear it in her voice. Wei Ying’s voice speaks to him like a voice in his heart; his zhiji, his zhiyin, his zhijiao, and today, Lan Zhan’s qizi. His wife, dearly beloved for all that she is, as much on days like this as on the days when Wei Ying is Lan Zhan’s husband. He hears her inner melody, both when she speaks, and when she does not.

Just as she had heard him slow his plucking and gliding notes to a hush, and drift off into silence. She had known it was not an intentional musical nuance but an expression of uncertainty. His routine practice had long since concluded, and the inspiration for a new composition that he’d been following has just drifted out of reach like a wisp of cloud. Accordingly, she is disturbing his moment of unease—his discomfort with the concept of allowing inspiration to ebb and flow rather than pushing for results with ruthless self-discipline—not the act of creative production itself.

“Lan Zhaaaaaaan,” Wei Ying playfully singsongs, “you are so cruel and heartless, neglecting this humble wife! I cannot weave silk for you, and I am no longer attractive enough to hold your gaze. Whatever will be my fate?”

A corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth ticks up, in a minute smile. Wei Ying is playing. Wei Ying would be happy with any number of responses that participate in her game.

“Wei Ying can make a loom talisman,” Lan Zhan observes accurately. “Wei Ying is very capable.”

“But my hands are so rough, Lan-er-gege,” Wei Ying pouts, brushing fingers that are calloused but sensitive over Lan Zhan’s cheek. “My face is weather-beaten. My hair is a disaster! How can the elegant, esteemed Second Jade of Lan look twice at this wilted flower? No, he cannot—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts gently, before she can slide from pretended self-deprecation into the real thing. “My beloved wife Wei Ying is very lovely, both enhanced with powder and paint, and without. Lan Wangji, who goes where the chaos is, will not be afraid of the knots in your hair, zhiyin.”

Lan Zhan hears Wei Ying swallow. “Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. Perhaps I have tied up darkness there. Perhaps I have woven a talisman to catch your heart.”

“It is yours regardless,” Lan Zhan murmurs.

Lan Zhan feels clever fingers touching his temples; sliding back into his hair; unbinding his forehead ribbon. It is not meant to be removed while he is still wearing his two-piece silver guan and the hair pin that secures it, but Wei Ying manages to liberate it quite readily, nonetheless.

The weight along Lan Zhan’s back arches into him for a moment, molding the length of his wife’s torso against his back. He feels an intriguing pressure both from the softness of Wei Ying’s chest in a subtly padded ruqun and from the growing hardness of her cock.

Then she slips aside, padding across the room, turning to gaze affectionately at him from a clear space of her own. From where Lan Zhan kneels at the qin table, Wei Ying is framed by the diffuse brightness of a thin paper screen inset in an immense circular window with a dark wooden sill. It is illumination enough to set her beauty ablaze in his eyes.

She is a breathtaking sight in a daring combination of garments. Her skirt and top are separate matched pieces, with rich red as the base color; searing scarlet shows at the edges of her sleeves and skirts, and is on display in the straight collar line of an intentionally visible undershirt. Over that, she wears a long lightweight robe with parallel collars and sweeping sleeves, of a deep midnight blue that ripples with dark shadows and shines with shot-silk turquoise highlights. And over that are draped an even-lighter decorative overrobe and matching gauzy shawl, of translucent misty white lace swirled with clouds.

The outermost layer combines Lan motifs with a suggestion of indulgent immodesty, being luxurious and transparent at once. The layer beneath that hints at Jiang blue-violet without quite claiming it, and also resembles her usual black while daring to brighten it. The brilliant red of the inner garments is not only her signature color, but furthermore, combined with the white, constitutes a slap in the face to those who would malign her onetime stand against the cultivation world for the Wen Remnants. She is a scandal and a statement and a spectacular figure. She is Wei Ying.

And in her hand, she holds Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon. The long white ends trail in the air, carefully suspended by her grasp high enough to be in no danger of touching the ground. She respects it, this symbol of his self-control and filial piety and dutiful calm restraint…but in her own unique way.

As he watches her, stunned, she smiles, a crooked and mischievous smile. Then the red tip of her tongue darts out between lips that shine a darker-than-usual red with the blossom painted on them today.

Deliberately, playfully, she delicately licks the central silver ornament of his ribbon.

“Come here,” Wei Ying says softly, and Lan Zhan goes to her.

He does not choose to rise from his knees as he does so. Wei Ying’s smile grows wider and wider as he comes to her, graceful and easy in this posture as in most motions of a body endlessly trained for flexibility combined with strength. It is not a use to which his multiple layers of white and pale-blue single-piece robes are meant to be put, necessarily. But the protective talismans are good, and the quality of the fabric and tailoring as well. They will not be damaged. And he, in this, is healed.

Lan Zhan has knelt in snow and despair; he has knelt in the agony of a broken leg and the deadly humiliation of his sect; he has knelt to plead for the life of his zhiji with someone who wanted to save him from his beloved. And he has survived. More, with Wei Ying as his spouse, he has learned to truly live, for the first time. Were he given one chance only to crawl to her, he would do so over cracked ice or burning coals. To do so without pain or penalty, to have the chance to worship her body and all that she is beyond her body with pure pleasure instead of fearful grief, is a gift beyond comprehension.

That she finds it a source of humor and delight that Hanguang-jun is proud to humble himself to her only adds to his joy.

When he reaches Wei Ying’s feet, the shining hem of her gown like the trail of sunrise, Lan Zhan looks up at her from his hands and knees. He removes his silver hairpiece, leaving his hair merely pinned back, and places the intricate treasure at Wei Ying's feet, a tribute infinitely too small for the immense grace of being permitted to gaze up into her bright eyes. Lan Zhan feels himself growing warm, from his flushed ears to his heavy cock, from his heart to his fingertips. If Wei Ying held carved ice in her arms, it would surely come to life before melting. A person who is merely called jade is easy for her to animate.

Wei Ying grins back at him. Nowadays better attuned to his sense of drama than she used to be, she lets him have his moment of silent delight. But in her gorgeous smile, he still hears the laughing “Lan Zhan!” that destroyed his peace and salvaged his heart as a teenager. Spoken or silent, he knows the gleefully jokingly earnest request to “look at me, look what I’m getting away with!” that he now gets to hear one way or another every day.

She lifts the skirts of her ruqun, and settles them over his head in a whisper of silk.

Wei Ying is not wearing underwear.

In colorful shadow, in the warmth between her legs, Lan Zhan find his way to her crux, and licks at her.

Another day, Wei Ying might slide her cock between his lips, tease his mouth shallowly or surge into his throat. Lan Zhan can vividly imagine his wife fucking his face, and it makes his mouth water with desire, imagining the stretch and the soreness and the weight on his tongue.

But Lan Zhan knows that sometimes, on days like today, Wei Ying finds that she is less inclined towards certain of their usual repertoire of sexual acts. At times she needs to avoid—needs her Lan Zhan to take care to avoid—the pain of pressing on an unmet expectation, a deeply physical disconnect and disruption, as sore as a scar. Accordingly, he restrains himself to licking and nuzzling everything he can reach. It’s no loss, no grim self-denial; Lan Zhan knows what it is to fast from all the body’s wants, and this, instead, is a feast. He adores the varied textures of her skin and the curly sweat-damp hairs, the growing slipperiness of her body slicked with his spit as he devours the complex scent and taste of her, loving all of Wei Ying in the way she wants to give him here and now.

She lets out a trembling breath and clenches her thighs around his head. He slides his hands upward from her ankles and grips her hips, curling strong hands around her slender but healthily rounded limbs. He presses upwards to lift a part of her weight. He can feel her rounded rear bounce, as he eases her legs open while she stands on tiptoes, prevented from falling by his hold on her. She shifts, lifting one leg to slide it over his shoulder, her foot pointed down his back.

He uses his whole face to press gently into the tender taut skin behind her balls, pushing firmly on the sensitive spot there from the outside. He licks forward, to feel her testicles drawn tight, to observe the shape of her hard cock pressing outward at her soft rustling skirts from underneath. He uses his hand to spread her wider, shifting her further over his shoulder. Then he tongues into her opening, prodding with his tongue, lavishing licks all around, while she gasps and the ring of muscle there yields and clenches rhythmically.

When Wei Ying climaxes, it is with her hole pulsing around the heavy relentless licking touch of his tongue, pushing ruthlessly in so much more shallowly and softly than her body has grown to crave, his lips pressed tightly to her rim. She is sobbing, and shaking, and struggling against his grip—and urging him on with curses and pleas and demands.

After Wei Ying has made a mess of her inner gown and his face alike with her sweat and his saliva and her come, Lan Zhan releases her legs. He keeps his hands close by, just in case. She sways, shaky as a newborn filly, flexible as a willow, but stays upright.

Lan Zhan ducks his head out from under Wei Ying’s skirts while they remain half-covering his arms and chest. Joyously, openly happy, Lan Zhan smiles at her, and she smiles back.

Chapter Text

The topic of traditional Chinese clothing extends over thousands of years and many cultures and too much art and literature and material artifacts for even a professional to look at, so there might be mistakes in this, I’m afraid.

My main source was:
https://www.newhanfu.com/
Also:
https://ziseviolet. /
https://fouryearsofshades. /

Ji (筓) refers to a hair pin used to fix a bun in place. Symbolically pinning one’s hair, often at age 15, was a rite of passage in a woman’s life, in the past IRL as far as I know. [Edit: Meanwhile, crowning/capping/receiving a guan, typically at age 20, was a rite of passage for a man, referenced in the Li Ji/Book of RItes. There's something not particularly historical going on with coming-of-age and courtesy names in MDZS, and this AU takes additional departures.] In CQL we see both men and women with gorgeous hairpins of more and less expensive materials. [Edit: The costumes in general are a big mix of period influences, and LWJ's CQL hair ornaments could make for a story in their own right. I also really liked the CQL interpretation of A-Qing's fox hairpin, mentioned in the novel.] I don’t know how to distinguish the categories of hairpin seen in the show.

History of Traditional Chinese Hair Accessories
https://www.newhanfu.com/8919.html
This is a pretty comprehensive overview:
Traditional Ancient Chinese Hairstyles History
https://www.newhanfu.com/15138.html
Here’s some types of hair pin, mostly floral:
10 Types of Traditional Chinese Hairpins to Match Hanfu
https://www.newhanfu.com/15526.html
Here are more example hair pins:
https://ziseviolet. /post/672685241508462592/%E6%AD%A6%E5%89%87%E5%A4%A9%E6%99%82%E4%BB%A3%E9%AB%AE%E7%B0%AA-wuzetian-reign-hairpins-tombs-murals

Wei Ying is wearing a manageable although lovely hair style, a round double bun with a pin through it. Her hair pin has comparatively simple carved flowers instead of an entire branch of articifial blossoms or a bunch of giant hoops and points and dangling bits. (Huasi/thin gold craft is a Jin thing, among others, for sure.) Looking at what young A-Qing and young Xiao Xingchen wear in CQL can suggest the general size/shape and the materials/level of craft, respectively; the motifs include Lan, Jiang, and Wei symbolism, although I honestly haven’t figured out what. Lan Wangji gave it to her, and also puts real flowers in her hair almost compulsively whenever they walk under auspicious blossoming trees.

Wei Ying painted her lips for fun but didn’t do very elaborate make-up otherwise. There was a post about different shapes of lip make-up I meant to include and have misplaced. I’ll add it if I see it.

What is Traditional Chinese Makeup?
https://www.newhanfu.com/3486.html
https://www.newhanfu.com/22946.html
‘Flower Petal’ Lip Makeup:
https://ziseviolet. /post/621495102231150592/are-the-lips-of-tang-dynasty-makeup-suppose-to

Wei Ying is also wearing a women’s style of ruqun, or two-piece hanfu. There are both masculine and feminine versions of that. Again, I don’t know all the subtleties, and everyone in CQL (and also the donghua) gets the clothing porn treatment. Her feminine as opposed to masculine outfit is overall more like her color palette applied to some of Jiang Yanli’s styles, with some of Jiang Cheng’s flair but not his colors or his emphasis on being pointy.

Wei Ying is wearing “Qiyao Ruqun/ 齐腰襦裙”, or waist-high ruqun, a women’s version, with parallel collars, instead of the crossed collars of all of her canon outfits. It shows off what would otherwise be an undershirt layer, e.g. her Mo Xiong/抹胸 undershirt is intentionally and appropriately visible in the chest section. This creates a displayed bit of neck framed by the two sides of the robe part, a straight collar line just above the bust, and leads down to a cinched-in waist, while still being easy to move in. Then she has long flowy skirts and sleeves, in multiple layers. (I also looked at “Qixiong Ruqun/ 齐胸襦裙”, chest-high ruqun, a specifically woman’s style, which has a straight line across the chest formed by what’s functionally the waistband of the skirt component. But Wei Ying absolutely wants to get away with it being okay to show off a bit more of her undergarments. *cough* cave scene red skirts *cough*)

Overview of some women’s hanfu styles:
https://ziseviolet. /post/162258999612/hi-i-see-in-your-posts-that-there-are-names-for
Description and examples of the style I went with:
https://ziseviolet. /post/169983260819/which-hanfu-style-is-your-favorite

I looked at some undergarments that might be layered either visibly or invisibly to help create that straight line above the bust. For a cis women these would help with appropriately binding the bust and building up the overall visual effect, like a Western bra or chemise; for a trans woman or as in this case a genderqueer person who happens to be amab, they’ll help create the shape as well as the style in a different way.

Hezi/诃子
https://ziseviolet. /post/163888104032/do-you-have-any-info-on-the-hezi-undergarment-worn
https://ziseviolet. /post/160892249849/truth-about-%E8%AF%83%E5%AD%90
Mo Xiong/抹胸
https://ziseviolet. /tagged/moxiong
Undergarment overview (note she’s missing some but not all of these):
https://ziseviolet. /post/163348558962/how-to-tell-the-difference-between-the-kinds-of
Hanfu, cleavage, and discussion of unnecessary fitting problems for plus-size folks IRL:
https://ziseviolet. /tagged/cleavage

She’s absolutely wearing a padded undershirt/shapewear to modestly enhance the curvature of her bust. I didn’t try look up how that would work historically as opposed to in a modern context, but I imagine there were versions of it at some point in time. Headcanon that a healthy Wei Ying already has a pretty curvy butt along with a ridiculously athletic tiny waist. These are probably Western standards for a conventionally-attractive feminine figure, but oh well.

Over top of her regular long-sleeve top and skirt (and sash and petticoat etc) is a Daxiushan/大袖衫, a long light robe with broad sleeves.

She’s also got the long floaty shawl or Pibo/披帛. With Lan motifs on her scandalously decadent accessory. (Never mind that Lan Wangji canonically wears hella lace.) The color palette is all wrong and other specifics differ but this outfit with pibo is appropriately Dramatic As Fuck.
https://hanfugallery. /post/654733873770528768/chinese-hanfu-by-%E9%87%8D%E5%9B%9E%E6%B1%89%E5%94%90
While this one has the model doing a nice pout and slouch in fancy-wear with makeup.
https://ziseviolet. /post/672865541207277568

And yeah, there should be some underwear for the crotch as well with this outfit—she owns the anachronistic Fantasy Ancient China version of trans-friendly shape panties for tucking, as well as light pants that go under the skirts—but at home in the Jingshi with Lan Wangji she’s having more fun by leaving them off.

I’m not positive this all goes together as an outfit, but I think I’m getting better at it!

Chapter Text

Oh boy! So today I decided that along with gender and trans representation headaches I wanted translation and thesaurus headaches TOO.

This is just about the latter. I’m not going to justify my queerness right now, sorry. If you have critical feedback on my attempt at one small aspect of complex representation because it affects you personally, I do want it, but I’m more likely to be up for a private conversation.

There’s lots of words and affectionate titles out there for husband, wife, and/or spouse. I just picked one for wife, qizi, that I'd seen in other fic, because I was getting overwhelmed.
https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=qizi

Incidentally, IIRC, the English subtitles for CQL (and fan novel translations) that have Lan Zhan saying ‘spouse’ or ‘significant other’ to explain the Lan headband are actually for him saying a word more commonly translated as ‘wife’ or a compound word that is literally ‘husband and wife’. I’ll add my source for this if I run across it again.
ETA: One of multiple sources:
https:// /wrecklwj/status/1329102947603517440
*vibrates in queer appropriation of heterosexual gendered words AND ALSO unintended Gay via translation difficulties*
ETA: Censorship backfire and translation trouble equals 'yes homo':
https://hunxi-guilai. /post/619855236501209088/hey-i-was-wondering-if-you-could-talk-about-the
(In this AU WWX is lying about being (only) a man as much as lying about not being attracted to (mostly) men, and doesn't actually know either of those yet during the cave scene.)

So here I am, speaking only English and Spanish, wading into the weeds to think about zhiji vs. zhiyin vs. zhiren vs. zhijiao vs etc etc etc. I’m gonna mess this up. Feel free to tell me *how* if you actually know. I’m also gonna quote or point at the meta of better informed people, like, a lot. And reread some translated poetry.

Zhiji: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zhiji
“to know oneself,”
… OR: “the one who knows me” (fanon translation)

So WangXian are romantic as fuck, but ‘zhiji’ isn’t *just* ‘soulmate.’

Zhiyin: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zhiyin
“intimate friend” Zhijiao: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zhijiao
"best friend"

Here’s some excellent meta on the word and related words: zhiji, zhi, zhiyin, etc.
https://hunxi-guilai. /post/612161034673946624/all-right-guys-lets-have-a-conversation-about
https://hunxi-guilai. /post/612432615825375232/someone-has-pointed-this-out-already-right-the

Quoting said meta to think about WangXian: “So instead of 愛 ai being the basis of the strongest possible relationship between two people, it’s instead 知 zhi – that is, knowing”…“the relationship between a man-of-service and his patron (or a minister and his lord) is actively likened to the romantic relationship between men and women…this becomes, like, a thing in the Chinese poetic tradition”…“this relationship of knowing is one that is worth dying for”…"知音 zhiyin is often used interchangeably with 知己 zhiji"

知 zhi: "in Classical/Literary Chinese… bridges the English valences of knowing and understanding and recognizing another person… knowing someone is a big-ass deal.”
愛 ai: "The character we read as ‘love’ today – 愛 ai – back then didn’t mean love”
知己 zhiji: "is more than saying that they’re your best friend, or confidante, or uwu soulmate – they’re your patron, your benefactor, the mirror to your soul, your self. They know you so well that your movements are in concert, your words synchronized, your actions unified. ”
知遇之恩 zhiyuzhien: "composed of a bunch of difficult-to-translate characters"
知音 zhiyin: "is often literally translated as ‘the one who knows the tune,’"

Continued quoting from hunxi-guilai, while jumping sideways a bit to think about NingXian: [There is a] “famous quote from 司馬遷 Sima Qian’s 《史記·刺客列傳》/ Records of the Grand Historian, “Biographies of the Assassin-Retainers” : “士為知己者死，女為悅己者容” | 'Men of service die for those who know them; women beautify themselves for those who delight in them.'” (So in this AU WWX will be willing to do both *wink*.) (In fact that line is so well known it came up while I was looking for hanfu info.) ..."[P]atron and assassin don’t even have to speak to each other to carry out each other’s will. In the biography of 專諸 Zhuan Zhu, 公子光 Prince Guang gets down on his knees and bows his head to the floor before his assassin, declaring 光之身，子之身也 / my self is as yours.”

On the larger scale of this WangNingXian AU: NingXian is almost more of a personal-and-political, feudal-service, zhiji relationship than WangXian. NingXian absolutely count as zhiji too, but the primary axes of to know and to serve are WWX as patron lord/benefactor knowing WN literally inside and out, while WN serves WWX with his whole heart and his life; though this develops over time.

Meanwhile, WangXian in this AU insisted on making things bidirectional, with an emphasis on equality via symmetry rather than being equally important to each other but in different ways. WangNing…you’ll find out, when I get there, but basically, *that* pairing revolves around ‘I didn’t have to have this relationship but I chose to’.

See also:
https://hunxi-guilai. /post/613449661324328960/hi-stumbled-across-the-%E7%9F%A5%E5%B7%B1-post-and-just-wanted-to

摯交 zhijiao: "is ‘close/intimate friend,’ or ‘bosom friend’ if you want to get Victorian...‘Confidante’"
Let’s throw another in there too: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zhiren, "to identify"
So for zhiren, which I’ve seen go flying by in other fanfic I think, I mainly found ( 知人善任/知人善用, 知人知面不知心, 知人者智 自知者明) Zhīrén shàn rèn/zhīrén shàn yòng: "(if you) know people (what they're good at), (you can) make good use of people, and similar sayings.
A few bonus phrases:
百年好合 : Bǎinián hǎo hé: one hundred years good relationship, long years of good union, one hundred years of good cooperation https://www.travelchinacheaper.com/chinese-idioms
深情厚谊 : (shēn qíng hòu yì): “long and intimate friendship”: https://www.saporedicina.com/english/list-chengyu/

In the novel Incense Burner extras, IIRC, while LWJ dreams about having forceful sex with a naïve WWX who has roused his temper, WWX dreams about cozy domesticity in a cabin in the woods with LWJ weaving on a talisman-powered loom while WWX does some farming and hunting.

I’ve decided that for this AU, WWX and LWJ are incredibly playful with gender tropes, including references to work that would be gendered in their culture or in the fanwriter’s; thus the somewhat feminine role of the good wife who weaves fine silk is mentally available to either of them.

Getting literary again, to the extent of my limited ability to do so in another language, some translated poetic references to women weaving silk I read included: 1, versions of Eastern Han Yue-fu translated by Steven Owen in ‘An Anthology of Chinese Literature’ such as: “the eldest wife weaves silk and linens, the middle wife weaves the yellow floss, the youngest wife does nothing at all”, contrasting diligent skill and idleness. 2, the ballad of Mulan, in which the sounds of the loom frame the story of a woman undertaking masculine endeavours. 3, another I haven’t yet re-located, in which a dutiful first wife and tempting second wife are contrasted metaphorically via their relative weaving skill.