lrt makes clear that when xichen reaches in to touch meng yao in front of everybody's salads, it isn't just with his right hand

no, BOTH hands he makes contact with BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT fucking is holding a giant jade dick-flute and still manages to stroke BOTH my's hands

if anything, the left hand going for it is even... more... obvious.... like, with the right, it's a little smoother, just fingers adjusting now that he's holding the weight nbd

but with his left hand, it's this real careful movement where it's like, oh, yes, i'm going in to

pick the damn thing up, but no, wait, instead of taking the first angle that'll work

LET ME ROTATE MY WRIST SO I CAN GET MORE inTImATEly sTROkE more of that hand

christ, after making a play like that, having meng yao run up to him in the garden holding his robes up

xichen's immediate reaction when he sees my RUNNING towards him has to be we're gonna bang we'RE GONNA BANG HE WANTS SOME AFTERNOON DELIGHT, AND MY WHOLE DAY HAS BEEN SHIT LET'S gooooooooo

like when lxc suggests my rest, he straight up GESTURES TO THE SIDE, flute in hand

like, let's go over here, i know this great place, i know i said 'go back and rest' but have you considered going back and resting

with me

and our dicks

and meng yao is still fucking BENT IN THE BOW, arms full out and hands folded, and you can see the little !!! going off in

xichen's head when he realizes that no! he cute boy from earlier is not just coming by to let xichen know in person that he is d t f that afternoon, him saying he is going to leave is not an excuse to come back and see me so that i can talk him out of it D:

like, you can see how if meng yao were a super-polite, super-social-forms-observing boy absolutely DESPERATE to get a piece of somebody much, much higher on the social scale, one way to arrange it while leaving everybody face would be to concoct a reason to come see xichen that

is socially appropriate like leaving, but wanting to offer thanks to said superior for kind to you

thus giving the superior a clear chance to follow up with, 'oh, you must be so tired, let me, a gracious host, warmly invite you to stay and view the moon/fuck a while' so that the

social niceties are met for both sides -- the social inferior plays their role by not being inappropriately forward, as it would be to suggest that zewu-jun might be interested in touching other parts of you besides your hands

and xichen can get laid without the impropriety of

appearing to order a cute boy who can't say no without causing embarrassment/loss of face for zewu-jun

to, ah, stay and see if he might enjoy a restful blowjob or eight.

but meng yao holds that bow, doesn't he? they bow to each other, which lxc could definitely have gotten

away with not doing, since 1) he's zewu-jun, 2) sect-leader, 3) the sect-leader in his own house after 4) flexing said social power to make a cute boy feel better

but he bows back, flute in hand, though it's a shallow bow and held very shortly, and then meng yao just holds and

holds the bow, including while he uses real formal, high-register literary language to speak of himself in the third person. he even uses this neat little trick where he speaks of himself in the third person (humbling himself, formality) while placing himself as far as possible

in the sentence from zewu-jun to emphasize the social distance b/n them

so the sequence is like, my runs up

mutual bows, xichen's much lower and shorter than my, xichen starts talking (which would be a signal that lxc considers the bowing to be over/my has bowed enough to him

to satisfy properity), and he says, "meng-gongzi, the salute ceremony is over. you should go back and rest."

and my holds the bow, signaling SERIOUS INTENT, and says in that absurdly literary way about how he has come specially to BID FAREWELL to zewu-jun

and you can see the

D: on xichen's face (not the D he wants!!!!), but then his face shifts. ah, he realizes. perhaps this is meng-gongzi's exquisite courtesy and manners? so he repeats his suggestion from before to rest, although in a more formal manner to match my's formal statement of farewell

something like, 'perhaps meng-gongzi can remain and rest for a few days'

but there's a trace of real concern on his face! is this a game? it doesn't feel like a game before they go and have some long chats about ceramic pottery and viewing wisteria in its season!

and then my

finally! finally! comes out of the bow and lowers his hands, but doesn't look up at zewu-jun and instead says those lines about how he isn't a nie disciple, only a guest and he should return back

and xichen is like oh. :( i guess he's serious. :( which is when the camera shifts

to the side, and you can see

1) the height difference
2) them framed by the dark wood of cloud recesses
3) because oh god, they look just like a traditional painting about people bidding farewell, you're just missing the willow tree
4) xichen's hand tucked up behind him as

5) he says basically, "if that's the case, xichen must not further keep you here."

fucking calls himself xichen!!!!!!!!! FUCKING CALLS HIMSELF XICHEN TO THIS CUTE BOY WHO HAS JUST SAID HE ISN'T EVEN A PROPER NIE DISCIPLE SO HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE A GUEST AT CLOUD RECESSES!!!

IN RESPONSE TO WHICH THE MASTER OF SAID CLOUD RECESSES

REFERS TO HIMSELF USING THE LAST TWO WORDS OF HIS COURTESY NAME, WITHOUT THE FAMILY NAME

WHICH IS SUCH A FUCKING LIKE [FIST CLENCH] WELL, NOW YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE ATTENDING LECTURES, PERHAPS WE CAN BE FRIENDLIER

XICHEN LEANING FORWARD EVER SO SLIGHTLY AS HE DOES THAT

AND THEN MENG YAO'S LITTLE POLITE HEAD NOD, STILL NOT LOOKING UP

WHICH IS WHEN XICHEN LOOKS DOWN FOR A SECOND, COLLECTS HIMSELF, MEASURES THE DISTANCE, AND TAKES A SMALL STEP FORWARD TOWARDS MENG YAO

SMILING AND WARM AND GIVES THAT LINE ABOUT HOW NIE MINGJUE SEES AND UNDERSTANDS VIRTUE AND LIGHT, IT'S REAL LITERARY, I DON'T HAVE 30 MINUTES TO LOOK UP EVERY WORD PAIR I DON'T KNOW

AND IT'S ONLY THEN

THAT MENG YAO LOOKS UP INTO XICHEN'S FACE

AND YOU JUST SEE THIS LIGHT

FLOOD MENG YAO'S FACE

BECAUSE XICHEN IS NOT ONLY NOT GOING TO YELL AT HIM ABOUT LEAVING LIKE THIS

BUT XICHEN UNDERSTANDS THAT THERE IS AN ANXIETY, AN INSECURITY ABOUT HIS PLACE IN THE NIE, THAT HE NEEDS TO STRUGGLE TO KEEP HIS PLACE WITH THEM, AND XICHEN UNDERSTANDING THAT THE

FAVOR OF NIE MINGJUE IS KEY TO KEEPING IT

AND THEN REASSURING HIM AS TO NIE MINGJUE BEING A JUDGE OF CHARACTER AND QUALITY AND INDUSTRY

THEY'VE TALKED FOR LIKE 30 SECONDS, & XICHEN ALREADY SEES THE INSECURITY AND WORRY IN MENG YAO???? AND TRIES TO REASSURE HIM??? ABOUT IT????

and then, you know, the infamous first iteration of meng yao bowing to lxc, lxc catching him, the famous "we are from the same age group" statement

it's just. so much. xichen is so desperately, wildly into meng yao. meng yao is so fucking into xichen. as a fanfic that broke my

heart said, they really deSERVE each other

(and not..... in the way the character in that fanfic said it.......... although they also kinda do, because that's the miracle of xi//yao)

the end now to run away to family obligations