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Meng Yao was someone who loved too hard for anyone’s good. That’s what his mother would tell him. Keep a soft heart, but a fierce mind, she’d urge.
His first true love, Nie Mingjue, was the hardest he had ever fallen in his life. It makes sense. He was young, in need of a masculine role model to look up to, and Nie Mingjue was someone powerful and respected, who stood up for him when no one else did. Meng Yao would have done anything for him, and he almost did. But the faucet ran too long and the leaks came out. Despite all the nights they’d shared entangled in sweat and whispers, Meng Yao could feel Mingjue’s dwindling trust and belief, even before he was banished. Panicked, Meng Yao did everything he could. He read books, he learned music, he soothed Mingjue when he would get mad, but nothing worked. It was all downhill from there. Meng Yao can still recall the beating in his chest, that heavy anxiety of losing the love you had relied on most for comfort, for reason to exist. When Mingjue threw him out so easily was when Meng Yao realised he was never loved back after all. He was just a toy, a usefulness. Just something that could be tossed once it became an eyesore for Nie Mingjue.
Lan Xichen was different.
At first, Meng Yao just wanted to get close to someone who knew Mingjue since childhood. He hoped he could learn more, find out how to win back Mingjue’s elusive love. Meng Yao used every trick in his book to sweet talk Lan Xichen but the man would simply smile and thank him for his care. The first time they got together, Xichen had vehemently tried to refuse. Meng Yao had just wanted to offer some relief. It was easy for him. He knew how to please people. And Lan Xichen, being so hard to please, was like a puzzle Meng Yao was dying to pick at whenever time would allow.
As sworn brothers, Meng Yao finally found his way back into Mingjue’s arms, though the hold was loose, hesitant, and he could feel that Mingjue was merely submitting to his carnal pleasures, his mind still absent and uncaring towards Meng Yao. It drove Meng Yao crazy. After all he had done, Mingjue just couldn’t see him as that innocent young cultivator that he wanted to protect anymore. It would have been his ruin so much sooner if Lan Xichen wasn’t always there, asking for nothing, giving a smile that was everything.
Meng Yao wasn’t stupid this time. He wasn’t going to fall so hard. He was going to be cautious. He was going to treat Lan Xichen as merely the sworn brother that he was. He wouldn’t expect anything. He wouldn’t want anything past his company, his smile, his softness…
It wasn’t before long that they kissed behind the Gusu library, and he couldn’t help but pull Xichen to his chambers, desperate to continue that feeling of peace when their lips touched.
When Mingjue finally revealed himself for what he was to Meng Yao — just another noble that looked down on him, that laughed at his birth, that saw him as less than human, less than worthy of respect — Meng Yao swore he would never make the same mistake again.
Only Su She could be trusted, because they were both considered to be of low birth. Zewu Jun would have to be considered as nothing but a tool. Just another person to fool, to take advantage of, to insert into his alibi of innocence.
He’ll never hurt him. Meng Yao would never need to. Somehow, this, he knew. Meng Yao was happy to kill everyone except Zewu Jun, because Zewu Jun would understand. He would forgive him. He would understand his kindness and his needs and forgive him.
Now, he keeps him in the Silence Room.
After the incident at the temple, Lan Xichen swore to take care of Meng Yao as a prisoner, that he could cause no further trouble under Lan Xichen’s watchful eye. No one would argue with Zewu Jun, and with one arm gone and his spiritual powers permanently corrupted, Meng Yao would pose little harm anyway. As for repenting for his crimes, Zewu Jun assured that the isolation was enough, paired with endless copying of the Lan Clan tomes.
Meng Yao thought this incarceration would be more cruel somehow. That perhaps he’d be beaten or interrogated often, or even that Zewu Jun would keep him locked away for whenever he sought out sexual favours. But Lan Xichen never touched him. He would come to visit him every day he could, simply to read together, to play music, to share a meal, that constant smile on his face.
Sometimes, Lan Xichen would sleep with him in the same bed, again never touching, just beside him, breathing softly, smiling when Meng Yao looked over at him, puzzled.
The existence could be seen as pitiful.
One night Meng Yao gave up and rolled on top of the Sect Leader. It made the man’s smile fade. He looked at him with a sort of sadness instead, like he was thinking of something he regretted.
It was unbearable. Even as they made love night after night, Lan Xichen’s expression would not change. Meng Yao seeked it out, tried to tease out a new reaction, some sort of proof that he was useful to him, that he was giving him something that he wanted. But that was just the truth, wasn’t it? That he was no longer wanted.
Staying in the Silence Room for so long, Meng Yao had to resist telling Lan Xichen he was just like his father. It would be the perfect way to rile him up, exactly what he wanted. But why couldn’t he? Something would always stop him. Something always made him think ‘ No, not like this. I will get a rise out of him some other way.’
But his refusal for action only made his stay in the Silence Room more aggravating. It was three years of nothingness. Of Lan Xichen’s company without any of Lan Xichen’s warmth.
It was only natural that he would want to end it. There was nothing more for him in this world, after all. Lan Xichen’s love for him had surely trickled away. Or had there even been any love to begin with? Meng Yao has to laugh. ‘Perhaps I was born this way.’ Meng Yao just wanted to stop feeling the way that he did. ‘Perhaps this is what Mother meant.’ He just wanted that promised relief.
‘I must have been born unloveable.’
When he took his final breath, he only hoped that when Lan Xichen found him, he would be riled up at least a little bit.