Jiang Cheng takes a dagger meant for Nie Huaisang. In the rapidly ensuing aftermath, bleeding out in the middle of the Unclean Realm becomes the very least of his concerns.

Nie Huaisang asks Jiang Cheng to plug him up after sex so he can be filled with Jiang Cheng's cum while presiding over a discussion conference. Halfway through the day, Jiang Cheng thinks he should check if Huaisang needs a refill.

Spring comes, and Nie Huaisang is seen with his sabre for the first time since— anyone's guess as to when.

A sabre is, by nature, forthright.

“Why do you wear your face like that?”

Nie Huaisang's hand comes up partway to Meng Yao's face before his fingers curl inwards. Meng Yao's eyes go wide and tremulous before the corners of his mouth curl into a small smile, like one of the soundless laughs shared between them in the midst of a banquet speech.

Jiang Cheng requires a new suit. Wei Wuxian removes it.

An explosive misunderstanding leaves Jiang Cheng assuming he's escaped matchmakers forever and Yu Ziyuan assuming she can solve her son's singleness with the right young man. Only one of them can be right. But what will Jiang Cheng do when the last name on the matchmakers' new list is his friend, Nie Huaisang?

Talking at someone is only fun for so long. That's all being a sect leader is: talking and talking to people bound by courtesy to listen to you. It's so fucking dull. A relief, then, to face one’s equal, and no less an old friend who is inclined to interrupt you whenever you ramble. He likes it. It’s one of Jiang Cheng’s best qualities.

In the years after Guanyin Temple, Nie Huaisang attends to unfinished business.

“If there is anything else that can be said of Qinghe Nie,” Lan Xichen recites, helplessly faint, “it is that we take our weddings and our burials very seriously—”

“—For they are, to us, one and the same,” Nie Huaisang finishes for him. “You do remember.”

The hot springs were deep enough here that the water lapped at Lan Jingyi's thighs. He couldn't see much of the man in front of him except that his hair was tied up and he'd been taller than Lan Jingyi before he got on his knees. To suck Lan Jingyi's dick. Because Lan Jingyi was having anonymous sex in the gay hot springs in Qinghe and getting his dick sucked by a stranger.