Archive of Our Own

Mingjue gasps—quiet, unguarded, shamefully soft—as Wei Wuxian’s fingers somehow—finally—crook just right, pressing against that raw, electric bundle of nerves buried deep inside of him. The sound escapes before he can stop it: before he can even brace his back arches off the mat, involuntary movement as a rush of heat coils low in his gut.

That single brush—the feeling runs deeper than nerves—it tugs through his meridians, pulling on the stagnant resentment laden qi that the Yiling Laozu had him save up—finally stirring it up enough to get it to move.

In the same move his body has gone from moderately interested to too warm, too open, too aware of every point of contact: calves flat to the mat, thighs spread wide, the slick stretch of three—now four—slender fingers working in and out with steady, unnerving precision.

He grits his teeth.

It’s not the first time someone’s had their hands in him. Hell, he has taken more than his fair share of men as lovers: soldiers looking for stress relief were abundant while at war. He had found pleasure in opening himself up and taking them in. Pleasure in knowing how to hold himself through it, how to command a moment even when he is laid bare. Found equal pleasure in holding someone down and ravishing them. He knows what is means to fuck and be fucked.

But this—this isn’t for pleasure. This is a ritual: a surgical excision disguised as need.

And gods, it’s taking forever.

They’ve been here half a shi already, his legs spread, robe bunched under his back, cold air licking at his sweat-slicked skin while Wei Wuxian mutters and probes, alternatively distracted and attentive.

Finally finding his prostate shouldn’t feel like a fucking miracle—but it does.

Wuxian hums under his breath—some absent little melody he doesn’t seem aware he’s doing—and Mingjue wants to snap at him. Tell him to focus. To stop acting like this is some lab test in a Qishan dungeon.

Instead, he just lies there. Breathing hard. Jaw clenched. Doing what he’s been doing for weeks now—enduring. Letting Wuxian study him, poke at him, take him apart layer by layer under the guise of cultivation diagnostics. All because Huaisang begged. Because Xichen gently pushed. Because after years of thinking he would die before he was thirty the Yiling Laozu took one curious look at him, eyes blood red, hand on his wrist and said “Oh…that is an interesting problem you have Nie-zongzhu.”

“Hm—okay, just a little bit more, I think, and then we should be ready to start, Nie-zongzh—” Wuxian cuts himself off before finishing the title, and Mingjue watches as his eyes dart to the right before his hands stills, seemingly forgotten inside of him.

And isn't that infuriating.

He’s been coming here for weeks—dragged back again and again by Huaisang’s not-so-subtle guilt trips and the Yiling Laozu’s—Wei Wuxian’s—growing pile of theories. It would be a shame if after all that time together he hadn’t started to catch on to the fearsome Ghost Cultivator Patriarch’s tells. The way he hums to fill silence. The sharp edge that creeps into his voice when he’s thinking too fast. The careful way he doesn’t look too long at Mingjue’s face when things start getting invasive.

All of that study leads him to deduce that the Yiling Laozu is hesitating here, but for what reason—and there is always a reason with Wei Wuxian, even if the explanation is irrational—Mingjue cannot tell.

Nevertheless the hesitation makes Mingjue twitchy, the resentment just stirred rising to add to his irritation.

Mingjue stares up at the cave ceiling, then lets his gaze drift down the line of his body. Every inch of him is visible—

Broad chest flushed. Scarred stomach rising and falling with slightly uneven breaths. The trail of hair leading down his torso. His thighs spread wide around Wuxian’s narrow frame. His cock, half-hard despite Wei Xuxian’s insistence in getting distracted every five seconds.

—Still fucking four of them. A number that sticks in his head like a splinter.

And Wuxian is still mostly dressed.

His outer robe hangs loose at the elbows, bunched around his arms. The inner layer clings to the sweat on his collarbones, slightly parted at the chest—but otherwise untouched. His hands are bare, his knees pressed to the mat outside of Mingjue’s hips—brush of skin on skin tantalizing near in any circumstances other than these—but the rest of him remains wrapped and composed.

Like the Nie-zongzhu lying beneath him—thighs spread, sweat-slicked—is no more than another corpse spread out in front of him for inspection.

If Mingjue’s had any other option he would not allow this vulnerability.

Wei Wuxian’s hand adjusts slightly, and Mingjue is once again unable to stop from jerking—less from pain than from the sheer familiarity of it.

“Hmm…you’re not blocked,” Mingjue can hear Wuxian murmur, likely to himself. “But it’s knotted—tangled low, around the base of your meridians. Almost like a blade that won’t rest in its sheath. Which…I—almost fitting—.”

“I—what does that even—” Mingjue tries to say, but this is the moment that Wei Wuxian decides to focus once again, curling his fingers again—deep, unerring, maddening—he has to stop talking and focus on breathing. Inhale. Exhale. His jaw clenches.

The burn of the stretch. The tight pull. The way Wei Wuxian now deems it appropriate sends resentment probing through every curl and push of his fingers. It’s working deeper now. Tiny thread burrowing deeper, testing boundaries. The Yiling Laozu had explained that this was necessary. In his typical too many words had claimed that the lengthy prep was needed to expand Mingjue’s meridians, widen them to hit the intrusion of his own.

And Mingjue had appreciated the consideration at the time, but didn’t think it would take this long.

He doesn’t look down again. He remembers too clearly what he saw—the Yiling Patriarch’s fingers disappearing into his body. Instead he focuses on that aching, unbearable awareness of being filled—matched only by the desire to snap, to grab Wuxian by the collar and bite down hard—

Fuck—can feel his mind slipping in the resentments rise–

And then Wei Wuxian, voice brimming with the echoes of the dead, says:

“Ah—It’s like your resentment is pulsing. Alive. Twisting around your meridians—eating you from the inside out. Feeding you anger.”

And Minjue can only just snap down on the snarl he wants to give in reply.

Wei Wuxian’s fingers slide free with a wet pop—Mingjue’s body clenches on the emptiness before he forces himself to relax. He exhales slow, jaw tight, braces against the robe bunched under his back, the only thing keeping his spine from sticking to the cool cave floor.

He waits.

Wuxian doesn’t speak.

Mingjue keeps his eyes on the ceiling for a few long breaths—until the silence stretches on too long, taut and awkward. He glances down.

Wuxian hasn’t moved.

He’s still kneeling between Mingjue’s spread thighs, the damp edges of his robes brushing against Mingjue’s calves. His hand is resting on one knee, fingers slack, eyes focused—very focused—on Mingjue’s ass, where he just pulled his fingers out.

His brow is faintly furrowed, lips parted. But they are not pulled in that self deprecating smile that he has sometimes, nor the cocky grin. No, he almost looks stunned: Mingjue’s body a puzzle he doesn’t know how to solve.

Mingjue feels his face twist.

He shifts, deliberately. His thighs tense around Wuxian’s sides—not enough to close, but enough to startle him out of whatever trance he had found himself in.

Wuxian’s gaze jerks up to Mingjue’s.

“Are you going to keep staring at my ass,” Mingjue says, voice flat, “or are you going to oil yourself up and get on with it?”

Wuxian goes pink. Instantly. “I wasn’t—well, I was, but it’s not—”

“Don't tell me you need to be walked through it?,” Mingjue cuts in.

He watches as Wuxian fumbles for the oil with hands that have lost their usual flagrant sweep; he nearly tips the dish, catching it just in time. His mouth is moving, muttering something under his breath—possibly an apology, possibly just words to fill the air.

Mingjue doesn’t care.

His legs are still open. His chest is flushed. His cock is hard—unfucking untouched—bobbing slightly with the tension riding through his frame. His lower dantian is pulsing low and strange with stirred-up qi, the edge of something disastrous—that Wuxian had purposefully stirred up in him—mounting behind it, and Wuxian is wasting time gawking like a teenager and not the all feared Yilling Lazhou.

He glares. “You’ve been lecturing me about spiritual energy for weeks. Suddenly faced with a little real-world application and you lose your head?”

“I have not lost my head,” Wei Wuxian’s retorts, fumbling oil down his cock. “I just—was taking a moment to consider—”

“You had your fingers in my ass for nearly a quarter shi,” Mingjue snaps. “You’ve had your moment to consider it. Now get on with it.”

Wei Wuxian hisses through his teeth. He strokes himself twice, then presses forward, settling between Mingjue’s thighs again. His hands brace on the outside of Mingjue’s legs, and for the first time since he pulled his fingers out, his expression sharpens—still pink around the ears, but focused.

And then he starts to push in.

The pressure is steady. Slow. With clear effort Wei Wuxian keeps his pace steady, hips held taut.

Mingjue exhales hard through his nose, jaw clenched as the stretch deepens. He expected this part—the sting, the sharp pull at muscle and qi alike. His breath shortens, chest rising. The robe beneath him is soaked now. Every inch of him feels opened, vulnerable, and maddeningly attuned to the man above him.

Wei Wuxian sinks in deeper with a soft, broken gasp. His fingers flex on Mingjue’s legs. His hips stutter once—unsteady, too fast—before he catches himself and still himself once again panting as he bites his lips.

That’s when Mingjue notices.

He’s overwhelmed. Shaken.

His brow is damp, lip caught between his teeth. He’s panting like someone trying not to come just from the moment of breach. It strikes Mingjue as strange. Wuxian had been confident enough while prepping him—talking too much, sure, but precise, deliberate. Now he’s acting like this is more than he’s used to handling. Like he’s new to it.

That can’t be right.

“Have you done this before?” Mingjue asks, voice low, rough.

There’s a beat of silence. Too long. Then:

“…Yes,” Wuxian says, but his brows are back to being pinched in uncertainty.

And Wuxian won’t meet his gaze.

But before he can dwell on it, Wei Wuxian bottoms out with a thin, keening sound—

“Ah—tight—gods, you’re—” Wuxian groans above him, shifting his hips slightly, his voice cracking at the end. He sounds wrecked.

—and Mingjue feels it.

It is more than just the stretch of a cock—more than the ache of being opened. But a wave of something raw and dark pulsing into his body.

With how much experience Mingjue has with it, this intrusion is easy enough to identify: resentment.

But…it is not the kind he carries—the wild gnashing hatred bound tight to bone and nerve. Wei Wuxian’s resentment is colder. Focused. It slides through him as a controlled, yet relentless tide, curling through his lower dantian, encircling the resentment that was just a second ago riling Mingjue into a frenzy.

It shouldn’t be possible. Mingjue’s body is a battlefield. His resentment consumes everything it touches, even him.

But Wuxian’s resentment doesn’t carry the same rage; it doesn’t burn, doesn’t fester. It seems, almost, to calm his own.

Mingjue grits his teeth. The stretch is manageable—but the presence inside him is not. It was one thing to know that he would be opening himself up to the Yiling Laozu, opening himself up to his swirling minimesa of resentment that seems to cloud his every movement. But it is another thing entirely to feel it, feel the way it sinks into him, slow—controlled–trickle suffusing into his meridians.

His body recognizes it as hostile, but his qi doesn’t lash out. It does something worse.

It retreats.

“Is it—supposed to feel like this?” he gasps, resisting the urge to sink his hands into Wei Wuxian’s forearms as they move to bracket his hips.

Wuxian breathes hard through his nose. “It’s working,” he pants. “You’re pulling on it. I—That’s—that’s good.”

“You’re not using spiritual energy,” Mingjue says.

“No. No, like I said earlier, spiritual energy wouldn’t work here. Just…resentment. Mine. The Burial Mounds. Its—its not like yours. Not acidic in the same way.”

Fighting resentment with resentment shouldn’t work. All of the scrolls he had consulted over the years—all of the sparse handful of Nie elders too—had said that it shouldn’t work: pouring more resentment into his bones should do nothing but poison him further.

Yet. He doesn’t feel poisoned.

Wuxian thrusts again—slow, deeper this time, but still clumsy. His hips stutter on the downstroke, lacking the rhythm or confidence of someone who’s done this before. The soft groan that breaks from his throat is raw, uncertain. Unpracticed.

If Mingjue weren’t already drowning in the buoyant tide of resentment bleeding through his meridians, flooding outward with every pulse of Wuxian’s body against his own, he might be tempted to call the pathetic way Wei Wuxian begins to rut into him underwhelming.

But as it is, all he can do is breathe. Long, ragged inhales through his nose. Forcing his body to relax

He can feel his resentment rise deeper in his body attempt to meet the ebbing pressure of Wuxian’s, flaring instinctively—territorial, sharp—but just before it can crest into a surge of fury, something catches it. Binds it. The flow of Wuxian’s energy weaving in, not forcing surrender, but inviting it. Making room.

And so Mingjue holds on.

Clutches tight to the core of himself as their bodies move in imperfect rhythm, ignoring the ache he can feel blossoming in his hip, his shoulders, from being in this position for so long.

For a moment, they hover in resonance—Wuxian braced above him, Mingjue somehow arched into the pressure.

And gods, it feels—

He shudders.

He feels like more of this will drive him from his head—but not by fury, the weight of duty, the storm that brews in his blood when Baxia sings. No. Drive him out of his head with pleasure of all things.

His hips shift involuntarily, and Wuxian moans again—broken sounds falling from his lips as he trembles, grinding his hips deep, panting all the while, a glassy look in his eyes as his cock seems to pulse inside of Mingjue, pressing more on his walls—

“Are you getting bigger?” Mingjue bites out.

“Ah—maybe. The resentment makes it… denser,” Wuxian says, voice low, almost contemplative. “It might feel like—more as I go on.”

Mingjue doesn’t reply because the pressure just becomes more. He can’t. His breath has caught in his throat, locked behind clenched teeth.

And then Wuxian shifts back, pulling out—too far, leaving Mingjue nearly empty. A rush of cold air ghosts across his skin. The emptiness is a punch. Disorienting.

For a heartbeat, nothing moves. Wuxian turns his head, just slightly, like he’s listening to something far off—like one of his damn ghosts just whispered something in his ear, something more important that the head of the Nie clan waiting and open for him for fucks sake.

Mingjue grits his teeth. If this brat thinks he can just stop here—

And then—he doesn't.

Wei Wuxian thrusts back in. All at once. Deep.

Hitting his prostate dead on.

Mingjue seizes.

His whole body locks up, a full-body tremor wracking him from heels to fingertips. The spot—that spot—flashes white-hot under the force of it, lightning grounding through his spine. His mouth opens in a silent, broken gasp, all the breath in his lungs gone once again. The stretch is brutal—but it’s nothing compared to the way Wuxian hits that raw, throbbing spot inside him like he’s homing in on a target.

A snarl rips from Mingjue’s throat, strangled by the force of sensation.

“Fuck—”

Then Wuxian does it again. Hits the same place with terrifying precision.

The brat's earlier clumsiness is gone. His movements now are measured, almost graceful—each push forward calculated, every pullback deliberate. He finds that same nerve and presses it, again and again, in slow rolling thrusts.

Mingjue’s eyes snap open, blinking through the haze.

The Wei Wuxian between his legs is not the fidgeting, breathless young man who had fumbled his way through fingering earlier.

This is the Yiling Laozu.

His hair sticks to his temples, the red of his inner robes clinging damp to his arms. Resentment coils off of him like steam. His expression has sharpened—eyes dark and focused, mouth parted but no longer with uncertainty—instead it is curled with what looks like a smirk.

Mingjue is pinned beneath him, legs spread wide, his own resentment snarling like a beast inside his blood. But instead of surging wild, it’s being guided, siphoned into motion by Wuxian’s own. The pressure builds in his lower belly, coiled so tight it’s painful. And yet when Wuxian thrusts again, that pressure shifts, knocked loose by the unrelenting rhythm of hips meeting thighs.

Wuxian breathes harder, his head bent forward as he watches where their bodies connect.

Mingjue’s fingers twitch—restless, searching—before planting against the cave floor. His body shakes with restraint, with how close he is to slipping.

He’s being fucked…but more than that—under this fucking brats mestrations—he’s being undone.

He can feel the way his resentment tries to claw to the surface but instead of lashing out, it rises to meet Wuxian’s. It curls toward it. Reaches.

And Wuxian gives it back, tinged not with rage, but pressure and control and focus—so unlike the fury Mingjue has carried like a second skin his entire life.

He should be fighting this. He should not be letting this—this sorcerer—drag pleasure from him like marrow from bone.

But gods.

The way Wuxian moves now—slow, sure, twisting his hips with devastating precision, like he knows every inch of Mingjue’s insides by memory—it’s unbearable.

“You—” he growls, hating how wrecked his voice has become. “You did that on purpose.”

Wuxian looks up at him, red eyes bright and feral. And he smiles.

“Was that...good?” he asks, innocent in tone, but the gleam in his gaze says he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Mingjue doesn’t answer.

He can’t. Not without giving something away.

And then Wuxian moves again—thrusts harder—and Mingjue’s mouth falls open in a silent cry, every thought erased in the flood of heat and pressure and the scraping feeling of his own qi being pushed around his meridians.

It’s terrifying. It’s thrilling.

Wei Wuxian shifts again—knees sliding forward, posture tightening—and suddenly, Mingjue’s hips are lifted clean off the mat.

His breath leaves him in a rush. The new angle is worse—deeper. Wuxian slots his cock back inside of him perfectly and thrusts again, and Mingjue lets out something between a grunt and a curse as the entire stretch of him is forced open, pressure blooming behind his eyes.

He tries to brace himself, to plant his feet, to push down into the mat and find something—anything—to take the edge off the way his nerves are lighting up like struck iron.

But Wuxian just adjusts his grip—fingers curling beneath Mingjue’s thighs and hoisting him higher, locking his weight into position. It renders him effectively helpless. He can’t rock back. He can’t tense against the movement. All he can do is take it.

He growls low in his throat, frustration pulsing sharp behind his teeth. His hands twitch at his sides, and then one drags up, trembling, toward his own cock—hard, flushed dark, and still untouched despite the flood of sensation wracking his body.

He’s close. He needs—gods, just a touch. Just enough to ground himself. To come back into his own skin.

But before his fingers even reach, Wuxian sees him reaching. And he stops moving.

Mingjue’s hand freezes, glare locking on him—but before he can snarl out a protest, Wuxian grabs both his wrists and pins them down, pressing them flat to the mat at either side of his body. His grip is firm, stronger than it should be, and glowing with faint threads of coiled resentment.

“You need to stay full for the second part of this,” Wuxian says, voice low—steady, too calm. “No release yet. You’ll disrupt the flow.”

Mingjue bares his teeth. “I don’t give a fuck about the flow right now.”

But Wuxian just tilts his head, eyes gleaming. “I do.”

And then, with his hands still restraining Mingjue’s wrists, Wuxian rolls his hips again, smooth and slow and deep. The motion punches the breath from Mingjue’s lungs. He twitches beneath him, legs straining, spine arching—pinned, stretched, leaking, and still denied.

It’s unbearable.

Wuxian’s face is close now, strands of dark hair falling forward as he leans over him, still fucking him with maddening control. His body radiates warmth, resentment-honed and electric. His smile is soft. Maddening.

“You’re doing very well Nie-zongzhu,” he says. “Just a little longer.”

Mingjue growls again, low in his throat, but it’s all for show, he has no control over his qi, and Wei Wuxian has him pinned. His wrists twitch under Wuxian’s grip, but the younger man only tightens his hold, one palm shifting slightly to press down against Mingjue’s pulse.

"You're trying to fight it again," Wuxian says, breath warm and maddening as it ghosts over Mingjue’s throat. “You always do this, don’t you? Try to muscle through. Try to master it. Even now.”

He snaps his hips forward as punctuation, and Mingjue’s whole body jerks.

“Still think you're in control?” Wuxian asks, so soft it's almost cruel.

Mingjue glares up at him, but he can’t even make his voice work, not with the way Wuxian’s cock grinds against that awful, perfect place deep inside of him again. His legs are trembling. His arms pinned. His qi—his resentment—is bleeding out of him in thick, visible pulses now, dragged forth by the steady roll of Wuxian’s own currents, wicked and shimmering and completely without apology.

“Look at you,” Wuxian whispers, tilting his head. “Nie-zongzhu, all bare and open under me. You look good like this.”

Mingjue turns his head, furious at how hot his cheeks feel. “You're not—hnngh—not supposed to talk so much during a ritual,” he snarls.

Wuxian laughs.

“You mean this ritual? The one I wrote? The one where you’re underneath me with your legs in the air?” He again punctuates each question with a sharp, focused thrust, and Mingjue nearly bites through his own lip trying not to make a sound.

“I think I can say what I want.”

His hand leaves Mingjue’s wrist just long enough to slide down his chest—deliberate, mocking, reverent—and brush over a scar near his ribs. “You’ve never let anyone do this to you before, have you?” he says, almost thoughtfully. “Not like this. You haven’t felt the pleasure I am wringing from your body before.”

Mingjue's throat works, but no words come. He doesn’t want to answer. Doesn’t want to admit anything—but his body’s already betrayed him. His cock is leaking against his stomach. His thighs are shaking. And he knows, knows, that Wuxian can feel how tight he’s clenching around him with every breath, every movement.

Wuxian shifts again—lifting his hips slightly and thrusting down, hard enough to knock a broken groan out of Mingjue’s chest—and then leans in close.

“I said,” he breathes, low and dangerous, “no finishing. Not until I say.”

And with one hand pressed firm to Mingjue’s sternum and the other back on his wrists, Wei Wuxian begins to fuck him in earnest—tight, punishing strokes, cruel in their restraint, building something unbearable under Mingjue’s skin.

Each thrust pushes another pulse of that foreign resentment into him, cracking him open deeper.

The knot in his lower dantian tightens, then blooms—hot and sharp, wildfire through his limbs.

Wei Wuxian’s voice is all control, “Come. You will take what we give you well.”

Mingjue’s muscles clamp down instinctively, a sharp squeeze that sends a low groan ripping from Wuxian’s throat.

Wuxian shudders, hips snapping once, twice more as he spills deep inside Mingjue, thick and dense—raw power—resentment poured out like molten lead. A flood that Mingjue can’t brace against, can’t dam up. It sinks into him, a tide washing over the cracks in his qi and widening them until he isn’t sure where he ends and Wuxian begins.

He’s drowning.

And when he blinks—when he can keep his eyes open long enough—he sees him.

This is entirely the Yiling Laozu.

Not the sharp-tongued brat who pokes and prods and hums while rifling through theory scrolls. But the man who raised a corpse army. The man who shattered the cultivation world. Confident. Lips twitching with satisfaction. Power condensed into every breath.

And Wei Wuxian’s hands—fuck—the Yiling Laozu’s hands settle on his lower dantian.

And push.

And push. And push.

And—fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

Mingjue sobs, the sound torn from him without warning, hips rolling helplessly in the mess between them. The Guardian of the Burial Mounds keeps pressing, guiding the weight of that resentment deeper, until Mingjue feels carved out from the inside.

He can’t stop the whines slipping past his lips.

Can’t stop the way his body tries to chase the feeling—grinding down against nothing now, chasing pleasure, chasing release—but the edge of his own climax stays just out of reach, burning at the edges of his vision. Infinitely close. Infinitely far.

And somewhere in the middle of it—

He lets go.

He has to. He can’t hold on to his anger anymore. Can’t hold on to Baxia’s fury, indistinguishable from his own for so many years. It slips through his fingers like ash, like smoke, and all that’s left is this—

Clarity.

Blinding. Terrifying. Clean.

He hasn’t felt this lucid in weeks. In months. In years.

His body shudders as the last dregs of tension bleed out of him. It’s disorienting—relief and loss indistinguishable—but the swell of power Wuxian presses into him refuses to be ignored.

His world narrows down to the heavy pulse of two bodies, the tide of resentment pulling them together.

Then Wuxian pulls out—slow, careful, panting—and looks down at him.

His eyes are wide. Wild. Radiant. Consuming.

A god looking down at his creation.

A black hole, impossibly bright at the center, gazing down at the being he has under his complete control.

Mingjue doesn’t know how long they stay like that.

Breathing. Not speaking.

Time stretches thin—elastic, trembling at the edges.

It snaps when Wei Wuxian shifts, moving with intent. He climbs over Mingjue’s body, steady now, controlled. Mingjue is too full to react. Every nerve sings raw. His skin tingles with overstimulation, every inch of him too aware—of the emptiness where Wuxian had been, of the pulse between his legs, of the way his cock throbs painfully with no relief in sight.

His breath comes shallow. Uneven. His fingers twitch restlessly at his sides.

And then Wuxian reaches for him.

Not to press him back. Not to brace or restrain.

But to take hold of his cock.

Mingjue inhales sharply, a hiss dragged through clenched teeth. His hand snaps up to grip Wuxian’s wrist on instinct—too late to stop the contact, just enough to meet it. His hips jerk forward without meaning to, and the friction of Wuxian’s slicked hand only intensifies the ache.

“What—” he grits out, voice rough and unsteady, “What are you doing?”

Wuxian lifts his gaze. His eyes gleam red—bright and certain.

“I told you,” he says, calm, composed. “You have to give it back.”

Mingjue blinks, disoriented. His thoughts lag behind his body, still fogged with heat and power and too many conflicting urges.

“Give what back?” he manages.

“The resentment you’re holding,” Wuxian says, thumb brushing along the shaft. His hand is warm. Confident. “The energy I put into you. You have to return it. We need to finish the circle.”

He strokes once, coating Mingjue in oil he must have retrieved when Mingjue was too far gone to notice. The motion is maddening—all too gentle for the storm raging under his skin.

Mingjue’s breath catches again. He blinks down at the sight, at the strength in Wuxian’s grip, at the firm resolve in his expression.

He feels better than he has in years. Decades, even. His body feels lighter, unburdened. His qi, for once, moves freely.

Why would he ever want to let go of that?

But Wuxian’s face is implacable. Certain.

“This is necessary,” he says again, quieter now. “Do you understand?”

There’s no cruelty in his voice. None of the smugness that the Yilling Lazou projects in spades. Only calm certainty.

Mingjue swallows, throat tight.

“I… yeah,” he finally says. “Just—don’t go too fast.”

Wuxian nods in affirmation as he settles himself over Mingjue, shifting until Mingjue’s cock is pressed against his hole, heat pulsing between them. Mingjue watches, breath caught, as the mask of the Yiling Laozu slips just a little. Wuxian’s face pinches with concentration as he lowers himself in slow, hitching movements.

“Wow…this is a lot.”

Mingjue’s gaze sharpens, the haze in his mind beginning to lift under the weight of pressure and heat. He narrows his eyes. “Didn’t you say you’d done this before?”

Wuxian lets out a nervous laugh. His cheeks flush pink and there’s a faint tremble in his voice. “I mean yeah, of course—I fingered myself earlier this morning. I asked Wen Qing what I should do before fucking someone, and she was very…thorough. It’s wild—because I don’t think she ever needed that information before…”

Mingjue raises an eyebrow, skepticism edging into his tone. “Fingering yourself isn’t the same as fucking someone.”

Wuxian immediately protests, visibly flustered. “I mean—it’s not exactly the same, but it’s practice!”

Mingjue levels him with a look because that was not an answer. “So…have you actually had sex before this?”

There’s a pause. Wuxian’s gaze drops to the mat, fidgeting returning with a vengeance. “I mean… technically, no. But—”

Before Mingjue can say a word, Wuxian suddenly drops the rest of the way down—fast, reckless. Mingjue swears, a harsh curse ripping from his throat as his cock is swallowed in one tight, blindingly hot motion.

Wuxian freezes, eyes wide, lip caught between his teeth.

Mingjue’s breath stutters. The irritation rises—yes—but tangled with something else. Possessive. Sharp. A flare of mine that startles even him. He watches Wuxian shift, still trying to adjust to the stretch.

“God,” Mingjue growls, voice low, rough, “you are such a fucking brat.”

His hands move to Wuxian’s waist—steady, strong, holding him still. Not just to help him balance, but to keep him from moving too much, too fast.

Because if they keep going like this?

Mingjue is going to embarrass himself.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t even respond—just looks down at him with glassy eyes, and the sight steals whatever sharp retort Mingjue had been about to deliver. The words die in his throat.

Instead, he falls quiet.

He watches the flicker of something unguarded behind Wei Wuxian’s wet lashes. The subtle tremble of Wuxian’s breath. His lips part around a sound he doesn’t seem to notice he’s making—a soft, breathy noises that twist something low in Mingjue’s gut. His gaze lingers on Wuxian’s flushed face, the delicate shine of sweat on his cheeks, and the way his eyes can’t seem to stop darting down—drawn to where they’re still connected.

And then slowly—almost reverently—Wuxian starts to move.

He braces his hands against Mingjue’s chest, thighs trembling as he pushes up, rising until only the tip remains inside, trembling with the effort it takes to hold himself there.

Mingjue watches every second.

The way Wuxian hovers. The strain in his legs. The slight furrow between his brows. Then—gradually, beautifully—he sinks again. Breathing in stuttering little puffs as he splits open around Mingjue’s cock for a second time.

Mingjue exhales through his nose, jaw clenched tight. His grip on Wuxian’s hips is firm. Maybe tighter than it needs to be. Maybe not.

He watches as Wuxian moves up again. Then down. Up and down and up and—each time a little steadier, a little deeper, though the tremble never leaves his thighs. He’s clearly pushing himself to his limits. But he doesn’t stop. And Mingjue can’t look away.

Then Wuxian glances down at him, blinking through the heat in his cheeks, his mouth falling open around a soft curse. “Ah—fuck—do your hands need to be there?”

Mingjue snorts. His voice is low, rasping. “To control the brat who threw himself on my cock without warning? Yes.”

Wuxian laughs—or tries to. It warps into something breathier, needier, and then turns into a sound that’s halfway between a moan and a plea. His hips bounce again, shallow and careful, and a wicked little smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“This Yiling Laozu can be good,” he says, small wicked smile curving his lips.

Liar, Mingjue thinks, but he doesn’t say it. His hands tighten fractionally in answer instead.

The soft squelch of Wei Wuxian’s tentative movements fills the space between them—sticky, intimate, loud in the quiet cave. Then Wuxian slowly starts to draw the subdued resentment-laced qi from Mingjue’s dantian every time he lifts his hips, a thin ribbon of energy threading between them and vanishing into Wuxian’s own network.

Mingjue sees the exact moment it strikes him. Wuxian’s shoulders jerk taut. His mouth falls open in a stunned gasp. His breath catches, eyes going unfocused as his spine arches in a subtle, helpless twitch, hips stuttering in their rhythm as he freezes halfway through a motion. A low, fractured sound slips from his lips, trembling and raw.

Mingjue’s brows knit, watching. His fingers curl a little harder into Wuxian’s waist. “Is it too much?”

“No,” Wuxian pants, blinking rapidly, dazed. “It just—I—” He cuts himself off, trembling, and then says, “It almost feels like…the resentment…”

A pause. Then Wuxian shudders again. “It’s almost as if I’m getting fucked by Baxia.”

The words strike Mingjue off guard—low in the gut and sharply between the ribs—of all the things that Wei Wuxian could have said that was not what he was expecting—

It’s not just the image—though that alone is enough to knock the air from his lungs—it’s the reverence in Wuxian’s voice. The awe. The way he says it like he could get off to the thought. His head tips back slightly, the line of his throat bared and shining with sweat, body trembling as Mingjue’s qi continues to pour into him, power mingling with heat and resentment, reshaping itself inside his frame.

A strange sense of pride flares—hot, possessive, and inexplicably sharp—followed by an odd pang of envy. He doesn’t know why it stings.

He shouldn’t care. It’s not like—

But whatever bitter edge that thought might have held gets swept away the moment Wuxian rolls his hips again.

Mingjue chokes on a curse. Not just from the way it feels—tight, hot, unbearably slick—but from the sheer force of it. Wuxian’s body clamps around him with startling strength, the muscles in his thighs trembling, his hole gripping him like it’s trying to pull Mingjue deeper, trying to swallow him whole.

His hands flex reflexively, fingers digging into soft skin, bruising and grounding. Each breath comes ragged, uneven—hauled up from his core. The earlier flicker of envy is gone, dissolved beneath the relentless pull of sensation, of heat, of being held.

Wuxian’s so fucking tight.

Too tight, almost—like his body hasn’t figured out how to let go. Like it doesn’t want to. It’s maddening. Every time Wuxian sinks down, he yields just enough to take Mingjue in, and then on the slow lift of his hips, he tightens again—dragging every inch of Mingjue through the slick, clenching heat as if wringing him out for everything he’s worth.

Mingjue grits his teeth, jaw locked. His head tips back against the mat as another tremor arcs up his spine, leaving his fingers twitching against Wuxian’s waist.

There’s too much happening. Heat. Breath. Pressure. The scent of sweat. And something else clinging to Wuxian’s skin—sweet, faintly bitter, almost like lacquered incense. It fills his lungs and fogs his thoughts. Mingjue would hate it if it didn’t feel so good.

And then Wuxian whimpers—a high, breathy thing—and Mingjue feels it, gut-deep and electric. His eyes snap open, pupils blown, forcing himself to focus.

Wuxian’s looking down at him, blinking through dazed lashes—cheeks flushed red, lips slick and parted, hair a mess around his temples. He looks debauched. Wrecked. Entirely too pleased with himself.

The brat had said he could be good.

So Mingjue lets him keep trying.

And gods, he doesn’t know how he could have ever closed his eyes in the first place, he could watch this forever.

Wuxian’s eyes flutter shut again as he moves—slow and trembling, so clearly feeling it, every inch like it’s the first. His lashes stick together with sweat, his mouth parted in soft, broken gasps, breath hitching in quiet little bursts that thread down Mingjue’s spine and gather like fire in his gut.

There’s something raw in it—earnest in the way Wuxian rides him—not graceful, not practiced, but driven by sensation. It’s too much. Too much and not enough all at once.

The resentment in Mingjue’s meridians trickles out in slow, steady pulses. Drawn—siphoned gently into Wuxian’s body like breath exhaled. Tide pulled back out to sea.

He should feel emptied.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he feels…buoyed. Held up. Cradled by the rhythm, the warmth, the weight of it all. He could lie here and let Wuxian fuck the rage out of him inch by inch, let him siphon the sharp edges from his bones and replace it with this slow, radiant pull of something not quite peace—but close. Closer than he’s been in years, closer than he felt even minutes ago floating in the flood of resentment that Wei Wuxian had given him.

He could roll along this edge forever—could let the Yiling Laozu fuck the weight out of him until the sun set on both their graves.

But then—

Wuxian stutters.

Breath catching on the downstroke, wrecked against the shore: “Ah—ah fuck—Chifeng-zun—can you—can you hold my hips a little harder?”

The words strike like a bell in his ribs.

Chifeng-zun.

Begging.

Like he’s the one being unraveled.

Something sharp and primal shifts inside Mingjue.

He growls—low and rough, the kind of sound dragged from deep in his chest—and his hands, idle where they’d been resting on Wuxian’s waist, tighten. Hard. Bruisingly hard. Claiming.

Before either of them can take a breath, Wei Wuxian is slammed back down, Mingjue’s cock driven into him with force that rattles the breath from both their lungs.

Wuxian cries out—high and startled, fingernails dragging across Mingjue’s chest in a frantic, fluttering scrabble for balance—a litany of curses pried from his lips, but Mingjue doesn’t stop.

The idle tides have turned into churning waters.

The rhythm Mingjue sets is brutal, hungry. His jaw clenches, pulse racing in his throat as the tension coils tight behind his eyes, a dam ready to break. He hears himself cursing under his breath, feels Wuxian squeezing around him with every thrust, feels the backlash of resentment still weaving between them—but now it’s burning clean, pushed through with something purer, steadier.

It strikes Mingjue that he wants—gods—no, he needs with such a powerful might—and if he were in his right mind, he’d pause at the sheer intensity of that desire. To leave a mark so deep, Wei Wuxian will feel it inside him for weeks after—the memory of being taken so utterly, bright and raw whenever he channels his cultivation.

On top of him, Wuxian shudders like he heard that thought. Opens his pretty little mouth, coy smile partially sundered—

“Ah—Chifeng-zun, please! Please give this Yiling Laozu that which is his by right. Come, give it all back to him. Fill him up. Please Dage!—”

And that is all it takes, Wei Xuxian’s—the Yiling Laozhu’s—red eyes looking down at him, all powerful in his own domain, yet reduced to babbling Mingjue’s title, begging, entirely wrecked upon his cock.

Mingjue snarls. Wraps an arm around Wuxian’s waist and drives up hard. He doesn’t care if they break—doesn’t care if the power snaps and arcs wild for a breath. Here—Wuxian is His—His to hold—His to fill—His to mark—

Eventually Mingjue begins to gather the scattered pieces of his mind.

His senses return in waves. First heat—low in his belly, echoing in the spaces where Wuxian had been. Then weight, not physical, but pressing nonetheless: the shape of his own body, of his own qi, unfamiliar in its looseness, its startling clarity. The silence inside his mind is alien.

The sharp edged blade that had so long haunted him is quiet: Baxia’s vindictive snarl so intertwined with his own for as long as he could remember, then longer still—gone.

Typically, after Xichen plays Cleansing, there’s still a residue left behind: a thin film of resentment clinging to his meridians that even the great Zewu-jun cannot fully scour away. Tension released, but not repented.

This—this feels like a reckoning. Earth scorched clean.

Mingjue lays there, just breathing. Slow inhale. Slow exhale. Tracing the path his qi takes as it circulates through his body—basking in how clear it is. Clear in a way that it had not been in ages. Probably not since he turned fifteen. Since he took up the mantle of Nie-zongzhu, forged in the blood that Baxia spilled.

Since he set his life down its path of destruction—and self-destruction.

Distantly, he feels Wei Wuxian shift, lifting himself off Mingjue’s chest. The rush of cold air makes the mess between them abruptly, painfully apparent.

A sharp inhale of breath—his own? Wuxian’s? Both?—cuts through the stillness as Mingjue’s cock slips free from him. The loss of warmth, of pressure, of closeness hits somewhere low in his gut. Some distant part of him wants to protest. But he can’t summon the energy.

“I—I think that worked,” Wuxian says, voice rough but pleased, somewhere above him. There’s the sound of fabric rustling. Mingjue can’t help it as he cracks one eye open to watch as Wei Wuxian looks down at his still robed body, frowning at the spurts of cum he finds there. Without ceremony, Wuxian strips it off, leaving only the cling of his red inner robe—skin visible at the collar, the smooth planes of his chest—

Mingjue closes his eyes again.

A moment later, pressure returns—Wuxian’s hands, warm and sure, pressing into the mess smeared across Mingjue’s abdomen. It takes him a moment to register what’s happening—Wuxian is palpating his lower dantian, gently, methodically. His voice dips low as he mutters to himself: something about meridian saturation. Herbs the Wen Qing recommended for recovery.

None of it makes sense yet.

Slowly, the weight of the room returns, chill settling in around him, but not yet caressing his flesh still heated from their exchange.

His chest rises. Falls.

Breath by breath, he begins to return.

And with it, a slow-growing sense of guilt.

Fuck.

He should have been gentler with a virgin.

It’s late in Gusu, and the wine has long since gone from pleasant warmth to reckless honesty.

Mingjue slams his cup down a little too hard on the low table between them. “Gods, and if I had known he was a virgin, I would’ve at least tried to make the experience pleasant—slower, gentler.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Instead, I just—ravished him.”

Across from him, Lan Xichen shifts uncomfortably, smile strained. “Ah…”

“He couldn’t even look at me the next morning. Had Wen Ning see me off—said the Yiling Laozu was too busy to say goodbye personally.” Mingjue pours himself another cup, shakes his head. “Too busy! As if I hadn’t just—”

“I understand,” Xichen interrupts quickly, and takes a deliberate sip of his own tea, despite the untouched wine near his elbow. “That must have been…awkward.”

“Awkward?” Mingjue barks out a laugh. “I fucked Wei Wuxian, Xichen. And he fucked me. For cultivation purposes,” he adds, as if that helps. “And then I found out he was a virgin halfway through. And then I was still as rough as I was.”

A sharp, discordant note breaks the quiet behind them.

Lan Wangji, who had been seated quietly in the corner tuning his guqin, freezes. He stares down at the strings a moment, then sets the instrument aside and rises, stiff-backed.

“Wangji—?” Lan Xichen begins, but Wangji is already walking out the door.

Mingjue blinks after him. “What’s wrong with him?”

Xichen exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for a sword strike. He places his cup down, very carefully, and offers a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Ah…” That sour look flashes across his face, ”You know,” he says gently, “my brother feels things…very deeply.”

Mingjue frowns. “Uh-huh?”

“And…he and Wei Wuxian have always shared a certain—Ah. It is probably best to say that Wangji considers Wei Wuxian a very close…friend.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then Mingjue lets out a slow, dawning groan, tipping his head back against the screen.

“Fuck.”

Two weeks later, Nie Mingjue returns to the Burial Mounds, Baxia strapped across his back.

The earth still smells of death—iron and incense mingling heavy with the weight of too many unspoken things. The heavy mist curls at his feet, ghosts dragging through the ruined grass. And standing at the gate, waiting is Wei Wuxian. All red and black robes, infuriating grin, Chénqíng at his side where a sword should hang, black miasma gathered swirling at his feet—every inch the Yilling Laozu.

“The great Chifeng-zun,” Wuxian says, lascivious lit to his tone, eyes sparkling with mischief. “What a pleasure to see you at the gates of his humble Yiling Laozu.”

Something that Mingjue did not realize was tight in his chest loosens. He snorts, unimpressed. “Yiling Laozu, what an honor to have you receive me at your gate.”

Wuxian’s eyes flash like he’s just won something.

Behind Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji stands tall—still in full Gusu whites—looking just like the jade that his title suggests. Official Lan envoy, Xichen had said, with a long-suffering sigh and a look Mingjue still wasn’t sure how to interpret.

Lan Wangji is glaring at him.

Wuxian steps closer, his gaze flicking to Baxia where she rests against Mingjue’s back, silent but always watching. Then Wuxian reaches for Mingjue’s wrist—fingertips light, hesitant—flinching slightly when he makes contact.

Mingjue feels it too: a ripple in his core, Baxia’s presence rising like a snarl. His qi catches at the edges, sharp and defensive, and for a moment the pressure between them spikes.

“Oh,” Wuxian says, pulling his hand back. “Ah. I suppose she’s still mad at me for scouring all the traces of her out of your system.”

He grins, but there’s something crooked about it. Something weary underneath.

“Well,” he continues, “Guess it was too much to hope that it would be a permanent solution on the first try. But—it seems like it held for a while, right? So that’s something. Temporary respite from Baxia’s wrath, I’ll take it.”

“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji’s voice cuts clean through the mist, tight with disapproval.

“Lan Zhan,” Wuxian replies, fondly annoyed, without turning. His smile doesn’t fade, but the mischief dims slightly.

Mingjue watches the way the corners of his eyes crease when he says Lan Wangji’s name, how his whole posture softens, just subtly. He also notes, with a slow draw of breath, how Lan Wangji does not stop glaring at him.

Mingjue shifts his weight. “So,” he says, breaking away from the glare Lan Wangji is sending his way—filing that particular problem away for later—turning his attention back to Wei Wuxian. “Where do you want me?”

Delight sparkles in Wuxian eyes as he claps his hands together. “Ah, straight to business! Just how I like it. Come on in. This lowly one will need to do a full diagnostic again to get a clearer picture of what stuck and what didn’t. Don’t worry, there’s a mat this time. Lan Zhan insisted.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says immediately, reprimanding, though if Mingjue looks close enough his ears have gone slightly pink.

Wuxian beams over his shoulder. “You said it was unhygienic.”

“Wei Ying!”

“See?” Wuxian chirps, already leading the way. “He totally did. But really, we have some new ideas that—”

Mingjue exhales slowly. He doesn’t follow immediately.

Instead, he stands and watches the two of them walk ahead—side by side, already falling into rhythm. Wei Wuxian’s hands move as he speaks, carving shapes into the air with his fingertips. Lan Wangji walks beside him, silent but attentive, his gaze tracking Wei Wuxian with an intensity that would frighten most people.

Wuxian laughs at something he says—bright, effortless—and Lan Wangji posture eases, the line of his jaw relaxes. How his attention doesn’t waver even once. And damn maybe Mingjue needs to prioritize the problem he filed away earlier, Xichen does know his brother very well.

Then, as if feeling the weight of Mingjue’s gaze, Wuxian turns back.

His eyes are still sparking with laughter as he grins and calls, “If you don’t keep up, the ghosts will eat you!”