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[illicitly]

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	» Age: 30s » Species: Human » A5 Card: Open » Seeking: Companionship, mainly. Friends, allies, and lovers, also welcome. » Preferences: Likeminded men and women. Not too old, not too young. » Interests: Fashion, art, calligraphy, antiques, poetry, politics, astronomy, bird collection, strategy games, and erotic literature. » Bio: Single sect leader seeking potential wife and cultivation partner, sexual companionship, and business associates. Additional benefits available.
	base code by photosynthesis
	Nie Huaisang

Comments

[baxiasprice]

Watched his memories.

[Which probably required explanation.]

In those things they shoved us in last month. All the way up to his death.

[illicitly]

I see.

Did you view them as yourself or through the eyes of another?

[Considering his own experience with those things, he has to ask.]

[baxiasprice]

[Mingjue grimaces over how exactly to describe it and settles on:]

My own eyes. From the outside. But with an insight like Empathy.

[illicitly]

And you didn't lose awareness of yourself at any point?

[He's very thorough in his work, da ge.]

[baxiasprice]

[With how specific the question is, Mingjue relaxes and his answer is easier to give.]

You know more about the technology than I do. I remained myself from beginning to end and felt my own emotions about the events I saw. But I see why you were worried I didn't know.

[illicitly]

I was concerned for your safety.

I tried to reason with him when he told me that he had been intimate with you and Xichen-ge.
I tried to support him the best I could. When I pointed out that you and Xichen-ge were not the ones he had harmed, he put his own desires before both of yours. If you doubt me, the messages we have exchanged are still on my bracelet. If you wish, I will show them to you so that you may decide for yourself about both of us.

I will not tell you what to think of him. Your conclusions are yours to make.

[baxiasprice]

How can I doubt you? I'm very proud of you. Appalled at everything I saw, but very proud. You trapped him in a net of his own making.

[A pause between messages. This manner of communication. He likes it, how concise it is.]

When you came to me in tears, the time for silence ended. Your riddles were helpful, even if they were riddles. After this, I will handle him myself with open eyes. You do not have to worry about me as much.

You might be older than I am, but I have still led a war.

[That's a joke. He's making a joke.]

[illicitly]

[His brother is proud of him.

Anger, disappointment, and shame over the methods he'd used... Mistrust in the person Huaisang had become over the years... Those were reactions that he'd been prepared for, not this. It take some time for Huaisang to reply because the words are enough to make him burst into tears of bittersweet relief. He's been carrying guilt over not being able to lead the Qinghe Nie Sect the way he imagined his brother would have wanted him to for so long. Every questionable decision had been painful until the one way Huaisang had been able to continue making them had been to simply numb himself in order to keep doing what had to be done.

Once he's finally stopped crying for the time being, Huaisang wipes his eyes, washes his face, and simply goes back to texting.]

I evaded open war with the Lanling Jin and saw to it that you were avenged. None of our disciples were killed. It was the best that I could do.

[He could talk about his fears and his reasoning but what would it matter now? The most important things is that he'd kept their people safe. They had not shared the Tingshan He Clan's fate because of the decisions he'd made as their leader. Even if Jin Guangyao's word that he simply would've locked Huaisang away could be trusted, there was no assurance that the cultivators under his leadership would've been granted the same mercy.]

I'll leave him to you. If you are informed, there is little else I can do to help you but stay out of your way.

[Huaisang has his own life to lead here, after all. The more distance he has from their relationship and the less he knows about matters between them unless his assistance is specifically required, the better.]

[baxiasprice]

[It's the pause between texts that make Mingjue wonder if he should have done this in person.]

You did good. We can talk more later, but you avenged my future self. I'm satisfied.

[After a moment of consideration and, Mingjue will admit it to himself, hesitance, he adds:]

I'm not the older brother you knew. You're my brother, but not the brother I expected. Without this between us, we can figure out what kind of brothers we are now.

If you want.

[illicitly]

[It's his turn to hesitate now.

Huaisang's gaze has always been on the horizon, fixed on futures others were usually unable or unwilling to see. His head might often be in the clouds but his feet are firmly on the ground. His brother's dead to him now; he's been gone, soul scattered to the winds along with his remains, out of his reach even if Huaisang had the skill to communicate with him beyond the grave. He still remembers the grief that tore him apart as he'd clutched his brother's dead body in his arms, the horror he'd felt when he'd visited his tomb to find it disturbed from within and broken into. He'd only just closed the chapter dedicated to Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao that's consumed the past decade of his life and truth be told, he's not eager to re-open old wounds that have only barely begun to heal. The whims of the Augur carried him home once already, Huaisang has no doubt that it will carry him back again at some point and Mingjue back to his own proper time and as well.

However, this Nie Mingjue seems to understand things as they are and it gives him a tentative bit of hope. He may have one more plot in him yet, one that may benefit them both in the end. But first, some things need to be said.]


My brother has been dead for ten years.

Your brother is still young, frightened, and waiting for you back home. He may seem clueless and carefree but he worries a lot. About you, the future, not measuring up as a proper Nie. He knows his strengths and limitations.

When he tells you that he cannot learn the saber, listen to him. He will grow stronger and be of greater use to the sect if he is trained in a different way.

I cannot be your brother but I can be your friend and advisor on how to handle your heir. After all, I used to be him once.

[baxiasprice]

Yes. That. Exactly.

[And Mingjue breathes out a little, because Huaisang has given him words to explain more of why the only times he'd really, truly interacted with him while on the island had been in moments of distress. Why trying to do anything else had been, to his frustration, weird.

It makes his next words easier:]

When I first arrived. Your words and tears about the saber. They stuck with me.

Since then, I have thought a lot about the scars my future self left behind. Making the same mistakes all over again would be stupid if I know how poorly it turns out.