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Summary: A-Qing wants to make things right. She isn't the only one.

Summary: In the aftermath of Wen Ruohan’s trial, Song Lan put in a request for a two-month leave from work and took Xiao Xingchen down to Chongqing for the summer. “I’m still recovering,” he said, when Xingchen made worried noises about Song Lan having been away from the office for a total of four months out of that year. “Don’t worry, Xingchen. What with the trials still going on, I’ll be surprised if Wangji makes it back to Tianyun before Christmas.” So they packed their bags and went to Chongqing, armed with a list of things to do and see while they were there. Or: Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and an impromptu honeymoon.

Summary: After the Phoenix Mountain archery contest, the Wen prisoners are taken away and killed. It is, it turns out, more killing than the earth can take. The Phoenix Mountain forest comes to life, seeking their revenge. Hit with a vision they cannot ignore, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian set towards Qiongqi Path on a rescue mission. When they arrive, they encounter Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen. Kay's comments: So, I am very much biased when it comes to this story, because it was my gift for 2020 MDZS Secret Santa and it was written by one of my friends and favourite authors - ilip13. Needless to say, I absolutely love this story! It is as ili says it, I am weak for stories where one small change throws the entire story into a different direction and this story delviers beautifully. In which the Phoenix mountain forest becomes sentient after the Wen prisoners are killed there (The Untamed canon, where the prisoners are used as targets before the hunt). Featuring Wangxian getting together earlier, Songxiao sharing and deus ex machina Baoshan Sanren. An incredible story that deserves much more love. Excerpt: Lan Zhan’s palm is bloodied. Hurt. Wei Wuxian does his best to twine their fingers together. "It will be over soon," he says, as the wind howls and the trees shout and dry bark is crackling, heating, flaring up and dying out. Lan Zhan’s lips are moving. No sound is coming out. Suddenly, Wei Wuxian feels a gentle, faint prodding of warmth against his fingers. Lan Zhan’s spiritual energy. Under his control again. "Lan Zhan, don’t!" He can’t break the connection. Not yet. "I’ll be fine, keep that to yourself!" His vision is swirling—with tears? And then he sees them, both of them, clear as day, moments before disaster struck. They are standing on the mountain, talking, tense, and Lan Zhan— Lan Zhan slams him against the tree trunk, cages him with his arms, and covers his mouth in a violent kiss.

Summary: A-Qing was a lone, one tailed fox kit, wandering the world with no one to rely on but herself. However, all of that changes when she runs into a mysterious older fox with two tails and a mischievous smile who seems perfectly happy to take her under his wing.

Summary part one: When the light had cleared, there was a large intricate circular array made up of foreign symbols seared into the earth Wei Wuxian had been standing on. Wei Wuxian was splayed on the ground only a few cun between him and the array, eyes wide and disbelieving. Lan Wangji was nowhere to be seen. Jin Zixuan's face was that of true horror, while Jin Zixun’s look of glee was quickly fading into that of confusion. Lan Xichen could not think, could only replay the last few seconds of his life. Could only re-watch in his mind's eye as his brother pushed Wei Wuxian to safety, only to be caught up in whatever that horrid Jin cousin had done. His Strong, brave and ridiculous brother. Next to him he can hear Jin Guangyao speaking but he can’t make out the words.

Summary: On the first day of Lan Zhan’s first class of senior year, Wei Ying walks into his classroom. “Oh, good morning, Wei Ying!” says Professor Song cheerfully, because she has betrayed him. She smiles at Wei Ying, because she has betrayed him, and then she gestures at Lan Zhan and says, “This is Lan Zhan, have you two met before?” because she has betrayed him. “No,” Wei Ying answers, and sticks his hand out at Lan Zhan. “Nice to meet you!” “The two of you are going to be TA’ing this class together,” Professor Song goes on, like she has not just thrown off Lan Zhan’s entire day and possibly his entire month. “And, of course, helping out with my research together as well, so I hope you two can get along well!” or; Lan Zhan tries very hard not to be Wei Ying's friend. He does not succeed.

Kay's comments: Really love this story! Kind of a meet-ugly between Wangxian who will be TAs for the same class in uni that semester and Lan Zhan is simply not vibing with Wei Ying in the beginning and being an ass about it, but he soon makes up for it and they manage to work out their differences and more!

Excerpt: “Oh, I know all of that already,” Wei Ying interrupts, waving a paint-stained hand around in the air. “But you should tell me about yourself, Lan Zhan! We’re going to be working together all year, after all.” Oh, god, they’re going to be working together all year. This is already terrible. He wishes Professor Song had given him some sort of warning, at least, if she was going to be so adamant about taking on another TA. “I am a senior, majoring in sociology,” he says, when it becomes clear Wei Ying is still waiting for a response. He keeps his eyes on the stack of syllabi he’s holding, and his words as clipped and precise as possible. He presses his legs together in his seat, because Wei Ying has sprawled everywhere in his, and he refuses to let them touch even by accident. Wei Ying’s bare knees are too close to him.

Summary: Lan Wangji finds a box his mother left for her sons long ago, containing pieces of a culture she wished them to know. On a snowy winter's night, the Lan brothers and their family reclaim their mother's history.

Summary: Song Zichen and Xiao Xingchen are invited to the camp-fire of two other cultivators, of another tradition.

Summary: “I just remember having the chocolate coins at someone’s house,” Xuanyu says at last. “They had all kinds of dishes I’d never seen before, but they were playing some kind of holiday music and it was festive. Candles and games. We ate so well, and they were so nice. We never went back, I think they moved away a few months later, but…”  Baba’s eyes are kind, nonjudgmental. “It was a good night, was all,” Xuanyu says, then looks away.

Summary: Lan Xichen is a pediatrician who often treats child abuse cases for various foster homes, orphanages and social workers for free. He's currently looking for a second nurse because Luo Qingyang is freshly back from maternal leave and can't be expected to work full time with a baby on hand and none of her substitutes were up to the task. Enter Wei Ying with a semester worth of med school, stellar recommendations, a huge gap in his CV and a laugh bright and warm as the sun. Skeptical at first, Xichen decides to give the man a chance. He gets more than he bargained for with exactly zero regrets.

Summary: Xingchen stands up and waves goodbye to the swan, and keeps walking. He walks for hours, fuelled by worry, until the sun sinks below the horizon. When he finds a place to build himself a small fire and sleep, he turns around and the swan is there. “Tian’e! What are you doing here?” The swan doesn’t respond. Xingchen doesn’t know why he’s surprised. “Tian’e, come and sit by the fire. It gets cold at night, you might get sick.” The swan emerges from the shadows like a ghost and settles in opposite Xingchen. “Did you follow me?”

Mojo's comments: Ah, such a sweet story! Innocent baby xxc sets off on a quest to save his master bssr from a curse and gets a swan buddy almost immediately. Author's Notes which are really all you need to know about this story. … me chanting: SWAN LAN SWAN LAN SWAN LAN … xxc overly trusting himbo: the fic

Excerpt: Tianlan turns to guide him to the lake. Xingchen follows obediently, and there are three fish laid out by the water’s edge. He blinks. “Tianlan, you fished for me?” Tianlan stares at him. Xingchen is delighted. A smart swan! He kneels, not caring if his robes get dirty, and offers his finger to Tianlan’s beak for the same treatment he gave yesterday. It moves into the contact and lets its beak be rubbed indulgently. “Thank you very much, Tianlan. You are a good swan and a good friend.” Tianlan ruffles its feathers. Xingchen thinks that means he’s pleased but embarrassed.

Summary:  In which Crown Prince Xiao Xingchen takes his loyal companions Song Lan and A-Qing on an road trip to meet his fiancée, Gusu is invaded by the Wens, and A-Qing finds out that road trips are a lot less fun when the asshole you rescued keeps hitting on your prince.

Inspired by Final Fantasy XV (no prior knowledge of FFXV required)

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“I suppose you don’t look terrible,” says Gusu’s Queen Dowager Baoshan Sanren, Grandmaster of the Order of Shrouded Cliffs and Shadowed Valleys. “But is that some sort of...slogan...on your shirt?”

“It’s, ah,” says Gusu’s Crown Prince Xiao Xingchen, Heir Apparent to the Order of Shrouded Cliffs and Shadowed Valleys. “I’m not sure, Your Majesty.”

Her Majesty frowns. A-Qing looks straight ahead, resolutely projecting innocence in the face of His Highness wearing a hoodie that proclaims ‘the moon represents my heart butt’.

“Well, I suppose it works as a disguise,” Her Majesty says eventually.

Summary:  Nie Huaisang remembers the important details of his lifetime as a cultivator. Even if no one else does. After meeting the rest of the friends who shared his lifetime and one very, very, determined-to-be-friendly enemy, is it *really* surprising if he'd want everyone else to remember? Even if he has to go through increasingly convoluted methods like running the world's worst tabletop game to do it.

Summary:  “Wàngjī,” Shúfù says. “Promise me. Even if Gūjǐ does not like it, you will keep her close. Do you understand?”

Everything hurts. Lán Wàngjī is tired. His throat is raw from wailing so loud, and his eyes are puffy and dry, and his cheeks are red. In the distance, he can feel Gūjǐ finally recognizing his distress for what it is, and rushing back. He wants to tell her to stay, to not return here, not now, but he has no energy.

So he simply says, “I promise, Shúfù.”

This promise will restrain him for years to come.

Daemon AU, Canon Re-write.

Summary:  After receiving an assignment to write about a remote mountaintop village, travel magazine reporter Xiao Xingchen arrives in Zhinan only to find that his host is dead and the weekly cable car has stranded him. Fortunately, the peculiar residents of the nearby monastery, Wen Ning and Song Zichen, are more than willing to host him for a week while he works on his article.

While he tries to bunker down and figure out what exactly to write about this town, Xiao Xingchen can't help but notice the odd events happening around him, including the very mysterious circumstances under which his original host died.

Summary:  “There was a transporter accident,” Lieutenant Commander Palmer explains. “The solar flare...well we think the solar flare interfered with the transport. You, Xiao, and Xue were...scrambled. Right now, your consciousness is in Xiao’s body, Xue is in your body, and Xiao is in Xue’s body. We are...working on a solution.”

Meaning, Zichen thinks numbly, they have no fucking clue what to do.

It would be one thing to be body swapped with Xingchen. Weird, but not awful. But Zichen keeps getting stuck as the annoying Ensign Xue Yang, and sometimes Xingchen is Ensign Xue. And sometimes they’re him. It’s confusing and frustrating and he really, really, really just wants to be normal human Zichen again.

Normal Zichen in love with Xingchen.

That’s it.

He has no interest in whatever Ensign Xue is doing with his life.

None.

My comments:  This was great! In which established couple songxiao get transported along with the Orion nuisance xy and they wake up in different bodies. xxy's personality here is a hoot: he's just casually curious and accepting about everything and frankly /fine with continuing hanky panky even after he realizes he's suddenly with xy in szc's body (for example). xy insists he /hates szc, but perhaps he doth protest too much?

New switches happen every few days (in spite of them being 'fixed' time and again) and it's getting more painful. ALSO, there is a strange, advanced alien ship following them around, just to make everything a little spicier.

Excerpt:  Xingchen is always full of terrible ideas. Sometimes they’re terrible ideas like “let’s buy bags of candy for these random children I found” and sometimes they’re terrible ideas like “let’s find our prickly Orion and make him admit he loves us.”

Big or small, dangerous or not, Zichen is always along for the ride.

Summary:  Song Lan finds a mountain with an immortal. Unfortunately, resurrecting Xiao Xingchen isn't as simple as he'd hoped.

My comments:  Oh, my heart goes out to Song Zichen, who is trying so hard to bring back his loved ones. The OC immortal that he finally finds is simply adorable, I loved her: rather brusque and to-the-point but careful and affectionate, too. When Xiao Xingchen finally is created and wakes up... he's regressed mentally, probably because of the ptsd from what happened when he killed himself. This, of course, utterly breaks Song Lan's heart :( although he'll take good care of xxc no matter what his mental state is. (It gets better!  Happy ending!)