Thread by @hyacinthsuns

now thinking about…dragon nie huaisang

(vague TRRTY spoilers/a sprinkling of sangcheng ahead)

https://twitter.com/sanlanglovemail/status/1292910662528774144

can confirm: TRRTY nie huaisang is a dragon. his dragon form is dark green. there isn’t a lot of water near home so he spends a lot of time traveling (his job helps w that). when he is home it always mysteriously starts raining any time he’s supposed to be teaching forms outside.

he is the only dragon he personally knows (for now), because his mom was a dragon! apparently!! nmj's mom, however, was not. so nhs is the only dragon in the nie sect, and no one else in the world knows about it except nmj

(nhs, age 12: ge, my body is. uh. there's something weird happening.

nmj, panicking: oh that's. puberty

nhs, holding up an arm covered in green scales: Are You Sure About That)

nhs is the one who nudged wwx in the direction of dragon folklore in college, during the war, though he didn't actually know for sure if that's what was happening w/ wen ruohan. nhs couldn’t look into it himself—didn’t want to put himself too close to discovery.

but he thought wwx, out of everyone, might be bold enough to chase that thread and see where it led, and do it in a non self-serving way.

(he did not expect wwx to drop off the grid, essentially win the war in secret, & never tell anyone. he was also pretty surprised when he reconnected w/ wwx years later to find wwx in the process of getting a dragon boyfriend, but nhs figures it’s what wwx deserves at this point)

(the book on dragons nhs gave wwx at the end of TRRTY? yeah. it had dragon porn in it.) (wwx discovers this months later. "hey lan zhan, is any of this, uh, actually doable?" yes, in fact. it is.)

in the vague post-TRRTY timeline of events, nhs ends up meeting wen ning & wen qing and reuniting with jiang cheng (because wwx gets [redacted] and they have to launch a rescue mission). jiang cheng is eventually let in on the secret and is Super Angry About It.

since nhs is the only one who 1) was only keeping ONE secret from jc and 2) is least bothered by jc’s general attitude, he gets stuck with Managing jc. he answers jc's questions, teams up with him to go [redacted], hangs out with him when he needs someone there, etc.

and jc is super prickly about it. he’s not anti-dragon, but he’s angry and hurt and a bit terrified about having to contend with—everything this means. meanwhile nhs is like, can you process your emotions a bit faster so i can show you the cool dragon stuff i can do

nhs: anyway. wanna ride on my back and fly through a thunderstorm together?

jc: absolutely the FUCK not. that's some wei wuxian bullshit right there.

sangcheng dragon/human pairing is completely different from wangxian. like—

wwx comes home to find dragon!lwj napping inside. wwx pauses just to gaze at lwj’s beauty & think about how lucky he is to be here, etc. lwj gazes back. later they fuck tenderly with lwj's horns out

meanwhile, sangcheng version: jc comes home to find dragon!nhs inside. jc drops his bag of takeout and screams. nhs lazily reverts to human form and says "how many times are you going to ruin my entryway rug, huh"

the emotional conclusion of this sangcheng spinoff is jiang cheng, exhausted, actually falling asleep against dragon!nhs one night and nie huaisang feeling kind of tender about it

anyway!! nhs is a dragon & he’s sneaky about it. a hypothetical longform TRRTY sequel would be 33% wwx gets [redacted], 33% The (Dragon) Gang Unites To Save Their Boyfriend/Brother/Pal, 33% tender emotions, 1% angry sangcheng

also s/o to lore who, months ago, read TRRTY and was like “so nhs is a dragon, right??” and i was like…….Well He Is Now