Summary:Yu Ziyuan cuts off Wei Wuxian's hand. The cultivation world changes. Kay's comments: Another story where Wei Wuxian loses his hand, because I'm very weak for this specific canon-divergence scenario. It all works out in the end too, even though the Yunmeng Siblings are going through it in this story, but they have each other's back. This series also features Wangxian getting together, Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing getting together and also falling in a dom/sub relationship with delicious femdom Wen Qing, Sect Leader Jiang Yanli who falls into a partnership with Nie Huaisang and Xiyao working their things out as well. All in all just a super creative scenario, with lots of interesting ideas. Excerpt: A hand jerks him off what’s left of her, and he whirls. It’s his mother, dragging Wei Wuixan by his whole arm. “A-Cheng!” “Look what you’ve done!” he screams right back, gesturing at Wei Wuxian, at the answering signal flares of the Wen high overhead. “Was it worth it, a-Niang? Let go of him!” She staggers back a half-step, before her face goes hard. “You dare!” she snaps, and grabs him by the front of his robes, and drags both of them to the roof in one long bound. Drags them towards the pier. “Listen to me,” she says, as she pushes them onto the barge. “You must remember what’s important. You are the master of Lotus Pier, the leader of the Jiang Sect! That is what matters!”

Summary: “It was a kindness she didn’t take your right hand,” Jiang Yanli is the one to say, when she’s arrived with Jiang-shushu and he’s finally been taken to the healers. Not that the healers can do much. - Or, the one where Wei Wuxian's hand is taken. Kay's comments: I absolutely adore this series and I'm still heartbroken that justdoityoufucker orphaned all their works, but thankfully, the stories didn't get deleted and are still here for us to enjoy! This story has everything that I love: a fix-it that it's rooted in "it gets worse before it gets better", canon-divergence, Wen siblings feelings, Wei Wuxian finding his own path away from the Jiang Sect and Wangian finding their way together, it's the perfect package! It explores how the story could have gone, if Madam Yu had cut off Wei Wuxian's hand to save Lotus Pier and I love which directions it took. Excerpt: When Wei Ying wakes again, he initially thinks himself alone in the room, Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s beds neatly made up and the two of them not in eyesight when he pushes himself to sitting. He’s wrong. He’s not alone. There’s an achingly familiar white-clad form at the low table, sitting with perfect posture, writing with exact precision. Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, he thinks the other boy’s name but he must say it out loud because Lan Zhan turns to him like a flower toward sun. He doesn’t know why, but upon the sight of Lan Zhan, upon the way his eyes soften with worry when he sees Wei Ying, Wei Ying bursts into tears. It’s all so much, too much, and he wants to go to sleep and wake up and have it be before all this, before his hand got cut off, before the Xuanwu, before everything. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Lan Zhan was starting to look worried about the sudden tears, which was a funny thought, but not funny enough to override the sudden realization of just how much his life has been ruined by those he once thought to be his family. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan finally says, standing and stepping forward until he’s right next to the bed. He hesitates for a second, then flicks his sleeves out and neatly sits there, on the edge of the bed, and doesn’t even flinch when Wei Ying collapses into him.

Summary:  Wei Wuxian lost his hand.

The Wens occupy Lotus Cove.

Jiang Yanli cooks, and plots.

My comments:  Oh, aaaah, me I feel so delighted and satisfied, which is very bizarre, because the whole first half of the story has some very traumatic circumstances in it: injuries and subjugation and parental abuse and an attempted rape and... so many bad things. And yet, Author ALWAYS takes care of you. Jiang Yanli, even in the midst of the Wen takeover, is so charming and endearing and she comes into her own in a way she's never had a chance to before. (She is absolutely the focus of this story, although everyone is in it.) With wwx wounded and hidden away in the space under Jiang Yanli's floorboards, Jiang Cheng paralyzed by his mother, Madam Yu on a rampage to sell whichever of her children to Wen Rouhan that he'll accept in order to release Lotus Pier, and Jiang Fengmian drinking himself into a stupor... there is no one else to take up all the slack and protect Lotus Pier.

The circumstances are sooo fraught, as a matter of fact, that it sparks the formation of Jiang Yanli's golden core, the expression of which is manifesting her suggestions into the food she cooks.

Wen Zhuliu becomes an unexpected mentor, and his gruff directions about how to feel out the edges of her power and ways to put it to practical use are simply lovely. Meanwhile, Lan Wangji shows up (because of course he does), and immediately scoops up his wwx for cuddles and caretaking, in between which he staunchly stands behind and supports Jiang Yanli as she tries to figure out how to wrest back her home.

And so things get better, and happier and things just work, and the satisfaction in obstacles falling after they've left a bruise is so much more intense.

I'm just happy. And I adore Jiang Yanli more than ever. And Wen Zhuliu, too, who knew!?