LINKDING

Summary: Lin Chen did not look up from his book. “What on earth,” he said, clipped and precise, “makes you think that I would want to meet the man you're busy dying for?” / In which Lin Chen joins the Consort Jing fanclub, Mei Changsu re-evaluates several tenets of his existence, and Xiao Jingyan decides that if everyone else is having an emotional crisis, he might as well join them. ➤ HELLO it's a 12k Lin Chen/Mei Changsu/Xiao Jingyan ship fic I am there with bells on!!! ➤ mcs has a thing with jingyan and separately a thing with lin chen. he wants to make them be in the same room with each other. ➤ mcs gets what he wants and immediately gets to regret it in like five different ways, which is exactly what I love to see ➤ it's got so many delightfully fraught conversations between various iterations of the characters! ➤ it involves lin chen and jingyan talking about mcs behind his back! ➤ it involves lin chen and consort jing teaming up! ➤ LOVED IT.

Summary: <blockquote>Like a fool, Jingyan had believed Lin Chen when he said Mei Changsu—Xiao Shu--was dead for the second time. In Jingyan's defense, who expected someone to fake their death twice? Wasn't it--just a little--over the top?</blockquote> ➤ a post-canon Nirvana in Fire fic in which Jingyan discovers that Mei Changsu survived after all...and never let Jingyan know. ➤ Jingyan is uh. not handling it well, the loneliness and responsibility of being emperor. and this only makes it worse! ➤ anyway it's a venue for lots of real good angst, and I definitely cried at one point! ➤ I also really appreciate the use it makes of various secondary characters who are also important figures in Jingyan's life ➤ many feels. I love these characters. there IS a happy ending. ➤ 31k words in length ➤ (not quite enough of an ending to really give space to come down from the heights of emotion, but otherwise a good enough fic that it's worth it!)

Summary: <blockquote>As winter sets in, Shen Zhui and Cai Quan compare notes on the firework factory case.</blockquote> ➤ Nirvana in Fire fic about Cai Quan/Shen Zhui!!!!!! god I love these nerds ➤ Reading fic about their comfortable relationship with each other as they argue and work and engage in endless bureaucracy just filled me with enormous fondness for them both ➤ they should be a thriving ship in the fandom and it's a tragedy there's not more fic about them, but this one is GREAT. ➤ 3k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Jingyu is quiet. He’s been quiet ever since the news came back about Chiyan army’s betrayal and subsequent slaughter at the hands of Xie Yu. Since the death of his uncle and cousin and aunt.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mei Changsu approaches sex toy acquisition the same way he does corporate espionage, public relations scandals, identity theft, and meal planning before grocery runs. (or, Mei Changsu wants to fuck Jingyan until he screams.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Sir Su,” Jingyan said, “Forgive me, but I can’t help but feel strange referring to you in such a manner after such intimacies.” “Ah,” said Lin Chen, abruptly thrown out of his warm, post-coital state, “No, Your Highness is going to have to trust me on this, calling me Changsu is really going to spoil the mood.”</blockquote> ➤ the one where lin chen goes to the capital under the name mei changsu to enact mcs's plans on his behalf! genius premise, enacted with perfection

<blockquote>“The seventh prince of Da Liang has arrived at Mount Langya.” Mei Changsu sat very still, his eyes wide in the face he had worn for only a few months now, since Meiling. Then he set down the ink brush and straightened his back. “Get rid of him.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>An experimental medicine of Lin Chen's makes Mei Changsu dream his way back into the past. Dream, of course, of Lin Shu.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jingyan was leaning in, one fist clenched on the table, and Mei Changsu searched for something to say that could ease the terrible solitude that Jingyan carried like a weight, and was also true, and would not compromise the deception necessary to achieve their goal.</blockquote>

<blockquote> It wasn’t that Xiao Jingyan had been looking for an excuse to leave the capital. Nevertheless, he was relieved to receive news of a bandit troupe terrorising the villages along the northeastern borders. His late father had been sick for four years. Jingyan had remained in the capital for a further three to help Jingyu become the new emperor. Now that he’d succeeded, he was raring to leave the stifling confines of court, even for just a little bit. While investigating bandit activity, Jingyan is rescued by the Jiangzuo Alliance. Their famous chief, Mei Changsu, insists on a meeting but refuses to show his face.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The poem, Prince Qi later told Lin Shu, was a better lesson for Jingyan on how the quarry conflict had played out than any lesson he himself had tried to impart. “Normal lectures hit his thick skull and decide to march around rather than chance the passage between his ears,” Prince Qi said. "Who knew the solution was to get our Xiaoshu drunk and improvise verse?" His compliment lit up Lin Shu like a sky lantern – in one tipsy, inspired flight of improvisation, he had made his friend blush so gorgeously and pleased the Crown Prince. But Lin Xie had not been so delighted.</blockquote> ➤ mutual pining in their young days, and why it's a bad idea

<blockquote>Prince Yu challenges Jingyan to an unconventional drinking game.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The excavation of the tomb of Xiao Jingyan, Emperor Wu of Liang, reveals some ancient secrets on national television. The history nerds have their moment.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jingyan knows what is happening to him. In the first hours, the sensation was familiar, the subtle burning under his skin distinct and memorable. He had asked his mother about the flower and the drug many years ago, omitting to mention that he had taken it himself. He had been a little alarmed by her description of the consequences if the pair who had taken it were unable to reunite — she had put it less euphemistically — but had decided to put it out of his mind. Whatever might happen over sixteen years, it couldn’t touch the bond between him and Xiao Shu. He hadn’t even been sure the drug had had much effect. The rest of that season had been filled with triumphs of strength and with heated, stolen nights, but who could say whether that was the drug or mere suggestion working on their youth and strength? They were already invincible. They were already in love.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“The woman remarkable enough to capture the heart of the Qilin Scholar must be possessed of unparalleled beauty and refinement, a true pearl.”</blockquote> ➤ one of the tags is: pretending that you have a secret lover to cover up your political scheming ➤ series consists of: suffer the same condition half of yours is with me sleepless

<blockquote>Mei Changsu dies at the age of thirty-three on the fields of Meiling, as a military strategist for Commander General Meng Zhi of Da Liang who is leading the war against Da Yu. He wakes up on the fields of Meiling, wearing battle armor that's over a decade old and surrounded by men who have long since died, killed in an unjust battle for a crime they didn't commit.</blockquote> ➤ time loop doesn't stop looping, but it's still a satisfying ending

<blockquote> There was something of Xiao Jingyan there, in the firmness of his jaw, the unforgiving slash of his brows, and most clearly in the eyes that neither saw nor conveyed deception. But Long Zhan was not Jingyan, could never be, no matter how much Changsu might wish otherwise, because Jingyan was dead. --- In service to a very-much-alive Prince Qi, Jingyan dons a Jianghu-typical disguise and infiltrates the Jiangzuo Alliance to suss out this Mei Changsu fellow and see if he might be useful in helping them re-open the Chiyan conspiracy case. Basically, a slightly ridiculous premise where everyone is running around the Jianghu with masks, multiple identities, and secret agendas.</blockquote> ➤ canon divergence, prince Jing is ALSO presumed dead and hiding in the jianghu under a fake identity!

<blockquote>Mei Changsu was a pale, delicate-looking scholar with a gentle smile and a smooth, mellow voice, the kind that stirred the worst of Lin Shu’s scorn. (time travel AU)</blockquote> ➤ aaaahhhhh!!!!!!

<blockquote>When Mei Changsu suggests that they should abandon an officer of the Chiyan Army because it is the strategically smart thing to do, Jingyan is ready to cut all ties with his strategist--until Lin Chen arrives with a message from Langya Hall: Mei Changsu's illness can be cured, but only through great risk and sacrifice. Jingyan chooses to take that risk, because it is what a man of honor would do for a friend in need.</blockquote> ➤ time travel to cure mcs's illness

<blockquote>Jingyan falls in love with Xiao Shu in the spring. Hopefully he'll get his man by winter. A "Marquis Xie's Chiyan-Meiling Plot Fails" AU. (The working summary of this travesty was "Xiao Shu channels Art of War to get Xia Jiang. Jingyan channels Art of War to get Xiao Shu", but a more accurate summary would be "Xiao Shu channels Art of War to get both Xia Jiang and Jingyan, and Jingyan has no brains".)</blockquote> ➤ canon divergence au where the chiyan plot fails, and wow this vision of what a young and unembittered Lin Shu is like is incredible

<blockquote>Lin Chen watches him with patience Mei Changsu barely knows, lips pulled into an unhappy line but unmoving. Lin Chen's eyes - they're different. His hair is shorter and not quite as haphazardly cut. He's pulled it from his face. He looks tidy. He looks young. He looks wrong. / In which Mei Changsu dies, lives, and chooses the other method. </blockquote> ➤ Lin Chen & Mei Changsu gen with some nice little hints of interest at more between them that they don't act on, where mcs goes back in time and makes different choices

<blockquote>There are things only Xiao Jingyan can give Mei Changsu; but there are things only Lin Chen knows how to make him take.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A week before the Spring Hunt, Prince Yu pays a visit to the Su Residence. "I wondered if we might have an honest conversation."</blockquote>

<blockquote>Jingyan did not expect to ever see his one-night stand from three years ago again. Mei Changsu did not anticipate that his one-night stand would stubbornly refuse to give up having feelings for him. Things go very much not according to plan, to Mei Changsu's dismay and everyone else's glee.</blockquote>

<blockquote>or, the famous strategist mei changsu plays xanatos speed chess against truth serum: the fic. </blockquote> ➤ yessss

<blockquote>Jingyan tucked his hands into his sleeves and said with serene and infinite calm, “I am going to kill him.”</blockquote>