Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian was fully prepared to be rejected – no matter what Jiang Cheng said about the Sunshot Campaign caring more about defeating the Wens than anything else, the fact remained that his cultivation was most decidedly abnormal and unorthodox, the sort of thing the cultivation world most scorned. He’d already decided that if they did that, he would return to his previous approach of stalking the Wens from the shadows, fighting them in his own way, on his own.
Instead, he walked into the command tent, Chenqing gripped tightly in his hand, and Nie Mingjue didn’t so much as blink, just said, “Can you do anything but ambushes?” and the next thing he knew, it was three shichen later, he’d shared far more than he’d meant to about his new cultivation style, and there were eight different plans of attack that would greatly increase his effectiveness on the battlefield.
It was – exhilarating, actually.
Officially, Wei Wuxian was part of Jiang Cheng’s cohort, the Jiang Sect fighting under their own flag alongside but still separate from the other sects, but practically speaking Nie Mingjue was one giving the orders and, well, Wei Wuxian was the only one who could do what he did, so he ended up getting juggled around a lot. Sure, he could work with anyone, or on his own, but he had to admit that he had an almost ridiculous amount of fun with the strategies that used the Nie sect’s overwhelming offensive power to charge straight into the Wen’s much more populous front line, with Wei Wuxian following a step behind; by the time the Wens regrouped, the numbers were generally a lot more balanced.
“You did well,” Nie Mingjue said, after one of those instances, and Wei Wuxian crowed about it to Jiang Cheng for days – Nie Mingjue was a fair man, but a harsh one; he wouldn’t have said anything at all if Wei Wuxian had done something so basic as merely doing well, so he must have been truly exceptional.
“If you like him so much, why don’t you be his brother,” Jiang Cheng said, because he was a petty spiteful person and Wei Wuxian loved him for it, and they ended up wrestling so much they fell down a hill into a mud puddle; it was great.
“Actually, no, really,” he said later, as they were cleaning up.
“You must really love getting beaten,” Wei Wuxian mused, “to be asking for it again so soon.”
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes at him. “You’re not wrong to be worried about how the cultivation world would accept your unorthodoxy,” he said. “If it was – before, it wouldn’t matter; you could do as you like, and the Jiang sect would still be there to hold up the sky for you, but we’re not what we used to be.”
Wei Wuxian knew what he meant. A starved camel is worth more than a horse, but the fact remained that over half of their cohort were brand new disciples or ones adopted in from outside the sect; the Jiang sect was praised for its valor and bravery, its extraordinary actions during the war, but reputation wasn’t the same as power – pretty words without swords to back them were worthless.
“So, what’s your plan? You want to marry me out to the Nie sect?” he teased. “Could you at least pick a nicer place? I’d rather go back to the Cloud Recesses than live in the Unclean Realm.”
Jiang Cheng smacked him upside the head, or tried to, anyway, and pretended he hadn’t when he missed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Yunmeng Jiang’s Two Prides, remember? Don’t think you can get away from your promises to help me once this is all over–”
Wei Wuxian didn’t want to talk about that. He still hadn’t figured out how to explain why he wouldn’t be able to help with basic things like training new disciples, which had once been his favorite task. He’d been postponing thinking about it in the hopes that something would come up, and as a back-up option planned to skulk around being so outrageously drunk that it’d be impossible to ask him to do anything.
“–but it might not be a bad idea to see if Nie Mingjue would agree to become sworn brothers with you. Given his reputation, it would do a lot to calm the rumors about how uncontrollable you are –”
The ones about how the Jiang sect couldn’t manage him, how he stepped on Jiang Cheng and ignored his instructions, how it wasn’t fair for one sect to have all of his power to themselves – that last one was the worst of the lot. The Wens had abused their power, but now power itself was suspicious; Wei Wuxian couldn’t tolerate the idea that the cultivation world would turn against Yunmeng Jiang, destroying his home another time over, because of him.
Not again.
“– and it’s not like it’d be a bad thing to have Nie help when we finally get around to rebuilding the Lotus Pier,” Jiang Cheng concluded, his face solemn and adult in a way Wei Wuxian wasn’t used to, thinking first of politics and only secondly of emotion in a way Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have believed possible. Somewhere along the line his shidi had grown up into the sect leader he was always meant to become, too young and still angry, still immature in many ways, but – the outlines of the future were there.
“If you’re really serious about this, I can ask,” he finally said. “Which doesn’t mean he’d agree; I’m a junior from another sect – he doesn’t owe me anything.”
Jiang Cheng shrugged. “If it’ll help the war effort, he’ll do it. That’s why he has the reputation he does…you should go ask. I bet the line of people wanting to be his sworn brother will be thousands of li long when this war is over; better to get in early.”
“Probably a good point. We’d better make the proposal before someone untrustworthy gets in,” Wei Wuxian said, thinking about how Nie Mingjue still sometimes looked for his old deputy who had betrayed him, Meng Yao, despite purporting to hate the very mention of his name. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll all turn out for the best. And that way I’d still be free to get Yunmeng Jiang additional benefits by marrying someone from another sect!”
“Yeah, right,” Jiang Cheng said. “Who’d marry you?”