Work Text:
"My requirements for a lover...."
Jiang Cheng muttered under his breath as he gazed at the Lotus Pier's beautiful scenery outside. It felt so long ago, in his memories, that this very place had been the site of many tragedies and losses when it was attacked and destroyed by the Qishan Wen Sect. But the new furniture that was before him, along with the polished and sturdy new pavilion that he was sitting in right now, were all a reminder that all that destruction had taken place not too long ago.
This new pavilion Jiang Cheng was sitting in right now wasn't one that existed in the Lotus Pier originally, only planned and built during the time the whole place was reconstructed, under Jiang Cheng's designs after he took command of what remained of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect to rebuild everything from scratch. This pavilion... stood around the site where Jiang Cheng's mother, Yu Ziyuan, instructed her son and his adopted brother, Wei Wuxian, to run away as she fought the Wens in a battle that would ultimately lead to her own death alongside Jiang Fengmian, her husband and Jiang Cheng's father.
Jiang Cheng closed his eyes as he gave a moment of silence for his deceased parents. Sure, they were not perfect, and neither did he not have unpleasant memories of them, but they were still his parents, and ones who had left him all the power and the responsibilities of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect after their deaths, so Jiang Cheng was determined to preserve their memory by being a son whom they can be proud of even in the afterlife.
... never mind that Jiang Fengmian always dotted on Wei Wuxian a lot more then Jiang Cheng! And that Yu Ziyuan always kept comparing Jiang Cheng to and making him compete with Wei Wuxian who kept one-upping him in a lot of things! Jiang Cheng was now the sect leader, and Wei Wuxian was doing his own thing as the Yiling Patriarch, and keeping Wei Wuxian's vow of servitude to him in mind, Jiang Cheng felt little need to continue feeling inferior next to his adopted brother as he is, and can be, his own man now.
Putting those thoughts aside to concentrate on what he was originally thinking about, Jiang Cheng let out a heavy sigh as he turned his gaze down towards the blank piece of paper beneath him. As a sect leader, it is his duty to bear a heir so as to ensure the longevity of his sect, but that is not to say that Jiang Cheng didn't desire a longterm relationship deep down... he just wanted someone whom he could love and cherish for the rest of his life.
As much as he enjoyed Wei Wuxian's company back then, Wei Wuxian's tendency to be wild and reckless while still being better then him left a bit of a bad taste in Jiang Cheng's mouth. So if Jiang Cheng wanted a lover who was going to be by his side for the rest of his life, that said lover better not be like Wei Wuxian. This was his intention for writing down his lover's requirements after all... Jiang Cheng is aware that he has certain standards and desires for his lover, and he thought it'd be a bit helpful for himself if he could put whatever he could think of down on paper as a reference.
"Hmph... 'naturally beautiful' of course...." Jiang Cheng mumbled as he wrote what he mumbled down on the piece of paper. Of course any man would want a beautiful lover, so Jiang Cheng felt that it was a bit embarrassing writing that down, but it was the first thing that came into his mind so he might as well. Though as he wrote 'naturally beautiful' on the paper, another thought came into his mind... what kind of face would be considered 'naturally beautiful' to him? Naturally he has some standards of his own in that department, so Jiang Cheng decided to think through that thought a little bit more.
... come to think of it, Jiang Cheng thought, during his early youth, he was almost always too busy minding Wei Wuxian's business to look out for girls, and any girls that did approach him were more often then not actually approaching Wei Wuxian whom he is always with. Damn you, Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng grumbled as he clutched his brush tightly. The two women that he did interact with more were his mother and his elder sister Jiang Yanli, and of course they were beautiful, but Jiang Cheng felt that it'd be awkward if he uses them as a baseline of what he'd consider 'naturally beautiful'.
Surely, surely there was someone beautiful that caught his eye once, Jiang Cheng closed his eyes as he tried to think outside of the box, where he puts aside the memories of his family and kicks the memories of Wei Wuxian hard in the rear and out of his mind. That was then he remembered something. It was... during the first day of his time in the Cloud Recesses of the Gusu Lan Sect, where he and he-who-for-now-shall-not-be-named-for-sanity's-sake were sent there to take classes under Lan Qiren. It was there that Jiang Cheng first caught sight of a beautiful girl, somewhere around his age, and she could not leave his mind for about a week.
All he could remember of her in order to identify her from the many other students was that she was someone from the Qinghe Nie Sect due to her uniform, and that she always had a fan that she held onto elegantly that increased her charm and beauty a lot more. But it was after a week that the-jackass-adopted-brother found out about Jiang Cheng's long-distanced crush, and quickly pushed him to go talk to the girl... thankfully it worked out well as Jiang Cheng and the girl got along quickly despite their first official interaction being a somewhat awkward one, and ah, he remembers now, the girl introduced herself as... Nie Huaisang.
Nie Huaisang... Jiang Cheng remembers now. It has been quite a long time ever since he last talked to her, mainly due to the attack on the Lotus Pier and the Sunshot Campaign that forced him to break contact with her out of necessity and business, but he has fond memories of her now that he is properly recalling all the times he had with her during their days in the Cloud Recesses... surely she must have grown like him now, and she's surely even more beautiful then she was when young and....
... and wait a minute, Nie Huaisang was actually a guy wasn't it?
That one thought made Jiang Cheng snap back into reality so hard that he sat straight up with a snap, his face a red from embarrassment at his mistake. It can't be! His first proper crush surely can't be a guy! Yes, its true that Nie Huaisang was naturally beautiful despite being a male, with his slim figure and delicate features and NO! NO! NO! THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT! Jiang Cheng shook his head harshly as he tried to get the thoughts of Nie Huaisang's looks out of his mind, before weakly glancing back at the paper he was writing on again.
He had written 'like Nie Huaisang' under 'naturally beautiful'.
DAMN IT ALL.
Jiang Cheng hastily covered Nie Huaisang's name with a very thick line that he'll just call an underline to emphasise the importance of 'naturally beautiful' in his desired lover, doing his best to suppress the thought of immediately associating Nie Huaisang with the descriptive as he did so.
With that mostly out of the way, Jiang Cheng decided to distract himself by thinking about qualities that he'd like to see in his lover outside of looks. After all, natural beauty is wasted if its on a messy and unruly person, so Jiang Cheng decided that the opposites of those negative qualities would be what's desirable from a lover. 'Graceful and obedient' he wrote down, before putting his brush down and looking outside the pavilion again, this time focusing his gaze at the Lotus Pier's waters that was filled with newly planted lotus plants. As the lotus have not bloomed yet, the view they created were more green then the striking purple that these plants were famous for.
Still, the lotus leaves that stood out in the waters at the moment were graceful in their own right that they were worthy of some admiration, slim yet sturdy, delicate yet steady, just like Nie Huaisang, whose green Nie uniform came into Jiang Cheng's mind as he continued to stare at the green lotus leaves outside. A small gust of cooling wind blew outside just then, swaying the leaves gently to create a graceful dance that amused Jiang Cheng a bit as he thought about how Nie Huaisang could easily be pushed around to do whatever others wanted, mostly by that-oh-so-superior-mess-maker, but Jiang Cheng himself would push Nie Huaisang around sometimes. Sure Nie Huaisang more often then not had strings attached to things he's been made to do, and he does cheat his way around what he's been made to do pretty often as well, but Jiang Cheng is willing to ignore that a bit due to how graceful Huaisang was in doing such things....
... wait, why is he thinking about Nie Huaisang again?
Jiang Cheng slammed a fist on the table as he sharply turned to look back at the paper he was writing on. Thankfully he has not subconsciously written 'like Nie Huaisang' again under 'graceful and obedient', but still, the realisation that he just can't get Nie Huaisang out of his mind while thinking about what his desirable lover would be like did nothing but embarrass and irritate Jiang Cheng greatly to the point that he would have yelled out in frustration if he wasn't self-conscious.
Fine, Jiang Cheng screamed in his mind, we'll play your game, Nie Huaisang, even if Jiang Cheng acknowledges in his subconsciousness that Huaisang probably wasn't asking for this either. This time round, Jiang Cheng starts thinking about desirable traits that definitely do NOT describe Nie Huaisang, like being 'hard-working', something which Huaisang is practically infamous for not being as such, as well as 'thrifty', something which Jiang Cheng admittedly pull out of nowhere other then from a unjustified belief that Huaisang probably didn't get his fans and porn books cheap.
As Jiang Cheng scribbled down 'hard-working and thrifty' on the piece of paper, he couldn't help but think about the fact that even if Nie Huaisang wasn't hard-working or thrifty, Jiang Cheng just couldn't bring himself to find those negative traits off-putting or even irritating. In fact, Jiang Cheng's mind immediately recalled about how he himself helped Nie Huaisang indulge in those traits, such as helping Huaisang do his homework whenever Huaisang asked him to, or buying whatever Huaisang wanted whenever they visited the small town below the mountains of the Cloud Recesses....
... he couldn't help it! Jiang Cheng retorted loudly in his mind as he slammed the brush on the table after writing with it. Nie Huaisang never really went overboard in asking him for favours! And when he did, Huaisang had an extremely adorable way of asking for favours that made Jiang Cheng instinctively want to help him and... Jiang Cheng just cuts his thoughts short by slamming his face on the table, keeping his face pressed on the table as he groaned out Nie Huaisang's name in an agonised manner. When you find even the negative traits of a person something that you don't mind looking over and even helping said person indulge in them, you know you have a problem getting that person off your mind in the 'desirable' department.
Damn you, Nie Huaisang, Jiang Cheng thought, before lifting his face up to rest his chin on the table while staring blankly at the paper before him. Perhaps fighting against his thoughts of Nie Huaisang wasn't the way to go at this point now, thought Jiang Cheng as sighed in defeat... if Huaisang was going to stick into his mind, then he might as well continue to try finding more desirable traits from that man and just hope that somewhere, out there, there is a woman who could fulfil all those traits that describe Nie Huaisang... as high a demand that might be.
Sitting straight back up, Jiang Cheng allowed his thoughts to continue bringing up Nie Huaisang... like where is Huaisang right now? Isn't Nie Huaisang the younger brother of Nie Mingjue, the current sect leader of the Qinghe Nie Sect? If so, then Huaisang is probably back in the Unclean Realm where his sect resides at, most likely helping his brother out in the family business... that makes Nie Huaisang a man from a respected family doesn't it? Well, 'respected' is a pretty tame word to describe one of the four great sects of China (five if you still count the now destroyed Wen sect that is currently made up of the survivors that are under a-certain-demonic-cultivating-pansy's care), but regardless, Jiang Cheng found that trait desirable from a lover, making him write 'coming from a respected family' next on his list.
Though despite coming from a prominent sect, Nie Huaisang wasn't too strong a cultivator was he? Well, Jiang Cheng did hear from the man Huaisang himself after all, about how he only formed his Golden Core 'eight or nine years later than the other disciples of the same generation as him'. Jiang Cheng could not help but smile a soft smile in amusement, the same response he did back then when he was first told about it. But even if Nie Huaisang's lack of strength in the field of cultivation was amusing, Jiang Cheng remembered how he found that fact refreshing back then.
After all, after living a competitive life of trying to best others around him in many things, including cultivation, it was... relieving to find and have a fellow cultivator around him who was naturally weak in cultivation, and wasn't actively trying to compete with others to be better in cultivation. Still smiling softly at the thought, Jiang Cheng wrote down 'cultivation level not too high' on his list next.
Now, what else does he get and enjoy out of this totally-not-my-desirable-lover-but-is-still-desirable Nie Huaisang? Jiang Cheng pondered and looked down at his list again. So far he has written down traits of a desired lover that described how he wanted them to look and behave, so perhaps he should try thinking about what ways a lover would express themselves that he'd find desirable, and thus he thinks about how Nie Huaisang expressed himself in general from what he has observed.
For one, Nie Huaisang wasn't exactly an assertive person. Sure Huaisang does often ask for favours quite a lot, but he does so in a way where if one said no to him outright, he'd relent immediately without complaint... its just that for Jiang Cheng, he just never had the heart to say no to Huaisang's requests, but at least he feels good doing favours for the weaker man. Perhaps it was the fact that Nie Huaisang was neither a talkative or loud person to begin with, which made it feel more tolerable to Jiang Cheng whenever the things Huaisang only had to say to him was for favours.
Again, like Nie Huaisang's cultivation capabilities, or rather the lack of it, Jiang Cheng found Huaisang's meek and quiet personality to be refreshing in his presence after having to deal with a certain-obnoxious-and-loud-twit for so long. Thus, Jiang Cheng decided that such traits are most definitely what he'd desire from a lover, and with that thought, Jiang Cheng wrote down 'personality not too strong, not too talkative, voice not too loud' on his list.
Jiang Cheng leaned against the wall next to the table he was working on, where the window was at, staring at the darkening skies outside that signalled nightfall. He has been thinking about this list for that long huh, Jiang Cheng mused, before staring back down at the list as he continued to lean against the wall. He pretty much has a comprehensive list of what his desirable lover should be like now, all thanks to Nie Huaisang, as much as thinking about how desirable Nie Huaisang was to to him irked him whilst still tugging at his heartstrings.
Jiang Cheng almost decided to consider the list complete, before one final thought struck his mind. Does he have any desired traits of a lover if they were to interact with his family? While it sounded important when he first thought about it, Jiang Cheng slowly considered it an unnecessary detail the more he pondered about it. After all, Jiang Cheng's parents are dead, his elder sister is happily married to Jin Zixuan of the Lanling Jin Sect to be bothered about the people in his own life, and... he wouldn't bat an eye if his lover kicked that-damned-smartass-of-a-brother in the groin (but not kill him of course, because he doesn't not care THAT much).
But... his elder sister as given birth to a son recently, and Jiang Cheng decided to give a thought to his nephew at least... Jin Ling was to be his name was it? Jiang Cheng thought about how he'd want to give nothing but the best for his nephew, no matter how much of a brat he might turn out to be, so Jiang Cheng decided to at least put down 'must treat Jin Ling nicely' as the last and final detail in his list of what he desires, and requires, from a lover.
With his lover's requirements list pretty much done for good, Jiang Cheng sighed heavily as he stretched his arms, feeling pretty worn out despite doing nothing but sitting down and thinking for the whole afternoon. Picking up the piece of paper that he had written his list on, Jiang Cheng begun to read it out loud in his mind to make sure that he was satisfied on all the details.
'Naturally beautiful,
graceful and obedient,
hard-working and thrifty,
coming from a respected family,
cultivation level not too high,
personality not too strong, not too talkative, voice not too loud
and must treat Jin Ling nicely.'
When Jiang Cheng reads the last line, his mind immediately thinks about what it'd be like if Nie Huaisang interacted with Jin Ling. Knowing Nie Huaisang's personality, he could easily imagine Huaisang happily spoiling and entertaining his nephew, and maybe even get pushed around by Jin Ling a bit here and there... that would actually be pretty cute to witness, Jiang Cheng thought... maybe he'll invite Nie Huaisang to come meet Jin Ling sometime... in fact he could even muster up some energy to write an invitation letter to Huaisang now....
... actually, why don't you just write a letter proposing to Nie Huaisang to be your lover at this point?
Jiang Cheng snapped back into reality hard at that thought, his eyes wide and his face red as he thought about what just went through his mind again: He had wanted to, considered to, desired to, and had every intention to go and propose to Nie Huaisang, a guy, to be his lover.
Jiang Cheng stood up from the table he was seated at and immediately begun circling around the room, trying all he could to purge this thought of desiring Nie Huaisang as a lover from his mind with desperate questions that he muttered to himself, questions that were immediately responded to from his subconscious thoughts.
"Nie Huaisang is a man! A relationship with him would be scandalous!"
'But as I love him that much, I will fight anyone who dares talk bad about a relationship between us.'
"Nie Mingjue will surely kill me for wanting to take his younger brother as a lover!"
'But for Huaisang, Mingjue will not scare me.'
"Nie Huaisang and I are both men, we can't produce any heirs for our sects together."
'Consider adoption!'
"... what if Nie Huaisang does not reciprocate my desire for him...."
'HE WILL!'
Jiang Cheng froze on the spot, feeling greatly disgusted and frustrated that he can't and won't get rid of his desire for Nie Huaisang, to the point that even he can't reason with himself anymore! Surely his parents are looking at him with great shame in the afterlife! Surely his sister and adopted brother will laugh if they find out about his desires! Surely he'd be a laughingstock amongst the cultivators if word of this gets out! Surely... Nie Huaisang would be disgusted if he proposed to him....
The more Jiang Cheng thought about it, the more self-conscious he got, and the more self-conscious he got, the angrier he became. Clenching his fists tightly, Jiang Cheng turned to look at his lover's requirements list on the table, and then stormed over to pick him up with a grip so hard that it crumpled the paper. This cannot be! This will not be! Jiang Cheng thought to himself with great rage in his mind.
He will lock this list in his private chest so that no one will ever look upon it, and he will go and distract these thoughts of Nie Huaisang by delving into his work until he can't think of Huaisang anymore, and in the meantime, he will get his disciples to go and arrange some blind dates for him. At this point, he wasn't going to care about what kind of girl he could get from his blind dates, so long as he can enter a relationship with some girl and hopefully purge his desire for Nie Huaisang from his mind for good.
Stuffing the list into his garments, Jiang Cheng fell on the floor on his back, his great anger having worn him out quickly to the point that all he wanted to do now was to just sleep and put this damned day behind him. As he closed his eyes, his subconsciousness played one final taunt at him by making him recall the time he and Nie Huaisang were out in the Cloud Recesses' gardens at night in search of Wei Wuxian who had run away from his quarters (again). Somewhere during their search, they both decided to take a short break under a tree, but when they did so, Nie Huaisang drifted off to sleep whilst leaning against Jiang Cheng... and Jiang Cheng remembers how warm he felt from the contact, how comfortable it felt to have Huaisang's light frame lean against him, how beautiful the sleeping Huaisang looked as he gazed upon the smaller male until he fell asleep himself....
"... damn you, Nie Huaisang... if only you were a woman, I would have proposed to you without any hesitation... please don't forget me at least...."
And with that, Jiang Cheng fell into a deep sleep, a small tear dripping down from his closed eyes.