Thread by @undeadbiscuit

thinking about Jiang Cheng birthday softness (not quite full fluff, because Setting Issues) in my usual #sangchengyao setup. Nie Huaisang surprisingly takes control, flatly refusing to let Jin Guangyao stress himself over planning. "You handle presents instead," he insists,

knowing both that Jin Guangyao desperately needs the break and that he *likes* present shopping when he can afford to do it.

He and Jiang Yanli get their heads together to plan and execute a menu for a small intimate gathering (and if she intuits that he's doing all this because

of his insecurity as to what he brings to the relationship and they end up having an impromptu mutual therapy conversation over the cooling fires, no one needs to know about it).

The two of them even try to coax Wei Wuxian out of the Burial Mounds. ("No one will see you,

Wei-xiong," Huaisang promises. "We've got a disguise all ready.")

They fail, but leave the (great deal of) excess birthday food, and he 'pays' them with some new experimental talismans Jiang Cheng might be able to use for the reconstruction effort (because he can't just say

they're gifts).

Two boyfriends and a sister sneak the food and gifts into Lotus Pier under the knowing winks and grins (and a few additional gifts) of the disciples and set up in the room Jiang Cheng is using until the family quarters are rebuilt.

After a long day of training

new recruits and slogging through paperwork, Jiang Cheng had actually managed to *forget* it was his birthday (fortunately Yanli realizes this and intercepts her brother before their surprise can set off his fight or flight instinct).

It's hardly the grand party a sect leader's

birthday celebration should be, and there are so many people he wishes could have been there and will never be there again.

But even so, as he sits down to eat with three people who love him enough to pull this off and the in-spirit well-wishes of a dozen more,

Jiang Cheng finds that he is content.