Chapter Text
“—and don’t forget to bring that boyfriend you were telling your grandmothers about!”
“wait, a-niang—”
“we can’t wait to meet him!” jiang yanli cheers through the phone before hitting the end call button. jin ling stares at the screen. he blinks, once, twice. then chucks his phone across the room, the edge of his case — specially designed to withstand these attacks — bounces off the wall and ricochets back towards him, dangerously near jin ling’s face, until it lands on his pillow.
“who died?” lan jingyi peeks into jin ling’s room upon hearing the noise, and decides to make himself known for the annoyance that he is. jingyi looks over jin ling’s form, curled into a fetal position, thighs to his chest with his arm thrown over his head, and pops out just as quickly as he came. jin ling lets out a loud sigh when he picks up his phone again, the lockscreen of his smiling family mocks him.
“hey, jin ling, is everything okay in here?” this time it's lan sizhui, the lesser of the two evil lans he lives with. jin ling makes a grumbled noise from under his arm, locking his phone and leaving it face down on the pillow. sizhui lets out a soft chuckle before stepping in, jin ling can hear two other sets of feet shuffling in before the door is shut with a click. “i’ll take that as a no.”
“it sounded like he threw his phone again.” jingyi whisper-shouts in true fashion. “one of these days he’s going to break a hole through the wall.” this comment is followed with an oof , likely ouyang zizhen elbowing him in the stomach.
“weren’t you on call with auntie, just now?” zizhen speaks up over jingyi’s ‘woe-is-me’ groans. jin ling makes another strangled sound at the reminder of what just transpired on the phone moments ago. someone sits down on his bed and places a tentative hand on his ankle, it is definitely zizhen — he’s into feet. “did she say something?” zizhen sounds concerned, of course he does, he is always concerned.
“she invited us to the family christmas dinner.” jin ling finally manages to be coherent, jingyi snorts from somewhere behind him.
“ that’s what’s got you worked up? we go every year anyway!” jin ling whacks his arm behind himself haphazardly, his hand narrowly hits jingyi, a warning. “rude—”
“did she say anything else, jin ling?” sizhui quickly intervenes, making jin ling look in his direction instead of plan another attack on jingyi’s life. sizhui is crouching by the side of his bed, zizhen gives his ankle a squeeze.
“she…” jin ling rubs his hands in his face, “a-niang wants me to bring my boyfriend.” jingyi snorts again.
“but you don’t have a boyfriend—”
“jingyi—”
“i know that, asshole!” jin ling quickly sits up and makes a move to hit jingyi again, this time with better aim but sizhui catches his elbow. jin ling looks down at his cousin (question mark? he doesn’t really understand the familial logistics they have to jump through for sizhui to be his cousin but jin ling would rather not touch the entire family tree problem), and surrenders under the pinched yet pleading look. jin ling deflates and lets his head hit the headboard with a thud . “i lied to nai nai and lao lao about having a boyfriend two weeks ago, to get them off my case about ‘meeting a nice lady.’ which, by the way, is code for ‘we are arranging your marriage for political reasons.’”
“oh, jin ling. i’m sure they wouldn’t have gone through with it.” zizhen tries to comfort him, jin ling splays his legs over zizhen’s lap and he gets his calves patted. “plus, wouldn’t auntie be against it and all, considering her own marriage was arranged?” jin ling rolls his eyes.
“you’re forgetting that my parents are now stupidly in love, even if it took them two stock market crashes to get there.” jin ling grips his phone in his hand, he presses the home button and his lockscreen smiles up at him again. “they’re all dead certain that me and whoever they set me up with will be happy in the end, but i’m not ready for that type of commitment yet.”
“oh, jin ling—”
“no! we are not getting deep in-my-feelings about it!” jin ling is quick to cut his cousin’s sickenly sweet speech off. “i know it’s going to happen someday and i don’t really care.” sizhui gives him one of his disapproving looks that rivals jiujiu’s, jin ling almost shrivels into himself. “i just wanted one evening where i wasn’t being badgered over my lack of love life. so i lied. now , i need a boyfriend to prove my bluff.”
“why don’t you ask a friend to go with you?” zizhen offers harmlessly. jin ling, jingyi, and sizhui all simultaneously turn and stare at zizhen as if he grew a second head. zizhen sheepishly recoils, “oh, right. we’re your only friends.” jingyi claps his hands together and gathers everyone’s attention.
“that settles it then!” jin ling raises an eyebrow and lifts a hand, ready to strike for whatever bullshit he was about to spew. “i’ll go as your date— ow! ”
“why would i take you as my boyfriend!?” jin ling cries out, affronted. jingyi blocks off the onslaught of kitty slaps with a few of his own.
“because you don’t have any other choice!”
“it wouldn’t even work!”
“why the fuck not?! i’m boyfriend material—”
“you’re literally my cousin’s boyfriend!”
“oh, right.” the slaps stop and jin ling slumps against the headboard again.
“everyone knows you, sizhui and zizhen are an item now. and even if we did pretend, i’m not emotionally stable enough for the brutally and violently charged interrogation that would be coming from lan wangji. ”
“yeah, er-ge can be intense.” jingyi slumps next to jin ling, sizhui makes his way to the other side of the bed and sits there. “the only reason my two boyfriends aren’t dead is because one of them is his son and we grew up with the other.”
“you grew up with me too, asswipe.” jin ling swats at jingyi’s arm, this time jingyi doesn’t bother to feign being hurt. “but i have a feeling he wouldn’t approve of me dating any of you.”
“it’s nothing personal, jin ling.” sizhui speaks up, all smiles and soft tones. “you just remind baba an awful lot of his ex.”
“unsurprising because his ex is my jiujiu— ”
“aren’t we getting off topic here?” zizhen pats jin ling’s knee. “can’t you just tell auntie that your alleged boyfriend caught the flu and couldn’t make it?”
“he used that excuse last year, and the year before that he said he got dumped the night of.” jingyi unhelpfully quips up. “another excuse will just give madam yu and madam jin probable cause for hooking our young mistress with another rich mistress.” jingyi scrambles off the bed before jin ling can tear his throat out. jin ling digs the palms of his hands into his eye sockets and groans.
“this is so stupid! why do we even have christmas dinners?! we’re daoists, and in china!” jin ling would throw his phone into the wall again but zizhen and sizhui are blocking his aerial trajectory.
“we’ll figure something out, jin ling, don’t worry about it.” sizhui sends him a reassuring smile that does nothing to reassure jin ling, but that’s a problem on his end — sizhui is an angel, and if jin ling wasn’t… inclined towards older men, jin ling might’ve tried shooting his shot with him.
“why don’t you just hire someone to be your date?” jingyi rests his head in sizhui’s lap, opting to prop his feet up against the headboard and next to jin ling’s face. jin ling knocks his legs over.
“what the hell?”
“like from an escort service, i’m sure they offer ‘pretend to be lonely boy’s dinner date’ packages or something.” jin ling deduces that going to jail for killing his flatmate is a sizable excuse for missing the yearly christmas family dinner.
“you’re forgetting that the jins are banned from all the escort services in the province, sweetheart.” sizhui plays the loose strands of jingyi’s front bangs and jin ling wants to barf.
“thanks a lot, jin guangshan.” jin ling makes a mock toast gesture towards the sky with his phone.
“put some respect to your late grandfather’s name, young mistress.” jingyi teases, which only earns him a glare. jin ling wouldn’t risk hitting sizhui to get to jingyi.
“maybe not an escort service exactly, but i’m sure you could find someone online.” zizhen speaks up. when jin ling tears his murderous gaze from jingyi, he realizes that zizhen has leaned back into sizhui’s side. jin ling despises this throuple. “hand me your phone, i’ll look it up.” jin ling unlocks his phone and hands it begrudgingly to his flatmate. zizhen begins tapping away as sizhui watches over his shoulder. they scroll intently, shaking their heads and whispering to each other in a way that has jin ling worrying about whether he deleted his nudes from last week or not. they were good nudes, but jin ling doesn’t want his cousin and his cousin’s boyfriend to see them.
“here! he’s perfect!” finally, zizhen turns his phone back to him to reveal a weibo post. jin ling takes the phone into his possession and stares contemplatively at the screen.
need a date to your family gathering so they’ll stop asking if you have a boyfriend?
for ¥5,000, i will:
- show up
- dress nicely
- laugh at your jokes
for ¥10,000, i will:
- do everything in the ¥5000 tier
- hold your waist all evening
- tell our meetcute story
for ¥20,000, i will:
- do everything in the ¥10,000 tier
- say “i love you” where your parents can hear
- kiss your cheek or mouth, your choice
jin ling blinks back at his flatmates, once, twice. he makes a motion of readying his arm to chuck his phone but zizhen lunged forward and caught his hands.
“just, look at him. he is totally your type.” zizhen gives him what can only be classified as puppy eyes and jin ling huffs as he pulls away. jin ling looks back at the weibo post, scrolling down to find pictures of the person attached. the username reads wei wuxian , and at the bottom of the post, he has some information about himself.
36. can look anywhere between 20-40 depending on how i style my hair.
part-time photographer. full-time moodmaker.
likes spicy food, video games, and cute butts.
thirty-six. jin ling’s inner uncle-fucker thrills. he clicks to open one of the images to fullscreen and gasps. this man is gorgeous . he turns his lips into a scowl to hide his glee, he would hate to admit that zizhen and sizhui were right. his man is his type: older, silly, pretty but still has an edge to his appearance — like he would bend jin ling in half and laugh while he stepped on his cock. jin ling wants him.
“okay, wei wuxian it is. how do i message him?” jin ling chews his bottom lip as he hovers over the private message section.
“how about ‘hi, i’m jin ling, eighteen, and never learned how to ask a guy out so i have to resort to paying people to date m—’ ow! ”
%&%&
jin ling and wei wuxian correspond over text and agree on the ¥20,000 tier (this decision has nothing to do with the fact that jin ling definitely wants hot uncle worthy wei wuxian to kiss him). wei wuxian agreed to go for the youngest of his looks, which jin ling found to be reasonable considering his entire family doesn’t need to know about his attraction to men decades older than him. for security reasons, wei wuxian is to be referred to as wei ying and jin ling is supposed to transfer half the payment when he picks wei wuxian up, and the other half once they get through the night. jin ling left the coming up with a convincing ‘how we started dating’ story to wei wuxian and his expertise.
all in all, jin ling doesn’t dread this year’s family dinner as much.
%&%&
i’m here.
jin ling fires off the text and money to wei wuxian while they wait in the limo, outside of wei wuxian’s building. since jin ling, jingyi, sizhui and zizhen all live together — from having moved out for university — it only made sense that they would head to the banquet together.
be down in a sec <3!
true to his word, wei wuxian bounds out from the apartment complex in a tight fitting suit. his hair is tied up in a ponytail, loose, with a red ribbon to match the accents of his silk dress shirt. wei wuxian waves as he runs across the street, not bothering to look both ways, and skips towards the vehicle. their chauffeur makes quick work of opening the door and wei wuxian gracefully slides in. it’s clear that he’s in acting mode immediately because he presses a kiss to jin ling’s cheek the moment he gets in, and then he bows from his seat towards the other three men.
“wei ying, lovely to finally meet you all!” he glows. wei wuxian is obnoxiously beautiful up close, jin ling finds himself helplessly gaping.
“you don’t have to worry about us, mr. wei, we know what’s going on.” sizhui makes up for jin ling’s inability to speak, jingyi chortles next to zizhen.
“yeah, there’s no way in hell jin ling could land a guy like you naturally.” jingyi yelps when zizhen and sizhui both elbow him at the same time. wei wuxian laughs effortless, he relaxes into the seat.
“i’m sure that’s not true! our xiao-ling is quite the looker,” wei wuxian turns his attention back to jin ling and he can feel the heat rising to his face. “a little quieter than i expected, but i can work with that.” he smiles. wei wuxian fucking smiles at jin ling. jin ling deduces that death by explosion is a good excuse for not attending their yearly family dinner.
“i-i’m jin ling.” he manages to sputter in the face of god, jingyi lets out a muffled snort.
“yes, you are. i recognized you from the photograph you sent, remember?” wei wuxian’s voice sounds really nice. smooth, a bit preppy but like chimes. he would sound great laughing and degrading jin ling—
“right, yes… the photo… uh huh…” jin ling is not staring at wei wuxian’s lips, especially not with how red and glossy they look, not when wei wuxian runs his tongue over the bottom of his lip and smiles.
“so, xiao-ling, boyfriend of mine, where are we headed to?” wei wuxian rests a hand on jin ling’s knee and jin ling has half the mind not to spread his legs open for his insanely hot uncle worthy of a fake boyfriend for the night.
“uhh,” jin ling blinks, once, twice. jingyi clamps a hand over his mouth but it does nothing to quiet his amusement, jin ling throws him a quick glare before composing himself. “lotus pier event hall.”
“lotus… pier event hall?” wei wuxian’s eyebrows furrows and jin ling wants nothing more than to sooth away the lines blemishing his clear skin. he sounds sullen for a second, visibly confused. “i thought this was a family dinner?” wei wuxian shifts in his seat, rubbing a hand against his neck.
“it is, we’ve just got a lot of family.” jingyi pipes up and jin ling finds himself reconsidering the impression he wants to make tonight, surely murder wasn’t that much of a turn off. “mostly jin ling’s uncles.” wei wuxian doesn’t look entirely reassured, his lips pull into a pressed line as if he were trying to hide a frown.
“i think 80% of your relatives are jin ling’s uncles, somehow.” zizhen adds, jin ling cannot refute this fact.
“you might secretly be one of jin ling’s uncles too, wei ying!” jin ling aimlessly wacks in jingyi’s direction. his face flushes as wei wuxian chuckles at jingyi’s joke. jin ling would hate to admit that he would not mind if wei wuxian turned out to be his uncle by some twist of fate. he would find it very hot, actually. but alas, jin ling knows all his uncles — yes, all of them.
not a single person in their elaborate family tree is unaccounted for, especially not at their christmas family dinner. jin ling knows and has met every maternal, paternal, and i-don’t-know-how-or-where-you-came-from uncle in his family. with exception to one uncle who shall not be named because his jiujiu and grandmother had banned every mention of his existence before jin ling had even turned five. there were no photographs, no records, and no stories about this mysterious uncle. only groans of agony (jiujiu) and spiteful complaints (madam yu) if the missing uncle was ever vaguely alluded to.
regardless, wei wuxian is here to play his 20 year old university boyfriend — not the uncle fantasy of jin ling’s wet dreams.
“the jiang family isn’t that big on it’s own,” sizhui decides to mention. wei wuxian’s hand grips his knee, jin ling tries to focus on something else — anything that isn’t jin ling imagining being choked. he has really pretty hands, manicured nails as well. “but combined with the jins,”
“and all their illegitimate children—” jingyi interjects.
“ and , as mentioned, all of jin ling’s uncles, it becomes a large crowd. so we use the lotus pier event hall to host everyone.” sizhui ends his explanation with a cute smile, this is why sizhui is jin ling’s favourite cousin.
“ahh, is that so…” wei wuxian’s grip on jin ling’s knee doesn’t let up and honestly, jin ling doesn’t want him to let go anytime soon. wei wuxian tugs on his collar a little and pops up a shirt button. “i’ll be sure to convince them all then.” wei wuxian bumps into jin ling’s side playfully, his ponytail swishes, and sends him a wink. jin ling’s cheeks burn, he wonders how unethical asking wei wuxian out for real after paying him to fake date him would be. wei wuxian doesn’t notice jin ling’s flushed appearance as he turns back to the other three. “so who are all of you in relation to xiao-ling? i should know who his close friends are, in case i get interrogated by an angry uncle.”
“i’m ouyang zizhen, heir to ouyang agricultures. i’m sizhui and jingyi’s plus one.” zizhen starts them off civilly. out of habit, zizhen hands wei wuxian a business card which he examined while nodding before pocketing it.
“us plus ones better stick together then, zizhen! can’t let the future in-laws eat us alive.” zizhen lets out a soft laugh at them, then he shudders slightly. probably at the reminder of lan xichen and lan wangji’s deceptive smiles when the throuple had announced they were all a thing.
“lan jingyi at your service! i’m jin ling’s favourite uncle—!” wei wuxian lets out a breathy chuckle at this.
“fucking liar— i don’t even consider you my uncle!” jin ling snarls in jingyi’s direction. jingyi only laughs and leans into zizhen.
“i’m your uncle, whether you like it or not, a-ling .” jin ling makes a fake barfing motion before realizing that it is probably unseemingly, and not on track to convincing wei wuxian to see him ever again.
“lan, you said?” wei wuxian tilts his head, his ponytail follows along with him. jin ling can spot the faint red shimmer over wei wuxian’s eyelids.
“yup!” jingyi pops his ‘p’ in a way that jin ling finds too distracting, he wants to admire this specimen from god without jingyi’s commentary. “third jade of gusu lan! you might have heard of us from the cloud recesses academy?”
“ah, i have, i have.” wei wuxian nods his head quickly, too quickly for jin ling’s liking. what if wei wuxian liked the lans better than he liked jin ling by the end of the night? the thought makes him pout. wei wuxian turns to sizhui next. “and you are?”
“lan sizhui, pleased to meet you, sir.” prim and proper. sizhui smiles the poster boy lan smile that makes sizhui look more like lan xichen’s son. “my father is lan wangji, better known as—”
“ second jade of gusu lan — ah, sorry, yes i know about him.” wei wuxian’s face does something complicated. jin ling doesn’t like what that could mean. he resolves to keep lan wangji far away from his wei wuxian, lest lan wangji try to fuck jin ling’s hot uncle wet dream— uh, jin ling’s date, the way lan wangji has fucked jin ling’s jiujiu in the past.
“it’s alright, i’m not surprised.”
“how exactly are the lans related to you, xiao-ling?” wei wuxian focuses his attention on jin ling and jin ling can feel himself combust on the inside.
“uhh, my shushu married lan xichen so…” jin ling waves his hand in the air vaguely, real eloquent of him.
“don’t forget that er-ge dated cheng-ge too.” jingyi unnecessarily adds, jin ling would stick his tongue out but he must be dignified if he wants any chance at asking wei wuxian out later.
“cheng-ge…?” wei wuxian’s brows furrow again, jin ling really wants to kiss away the lines. he is going to have a rough night.
“jiang cheng, heir to jiang corps and jin ling’s beloved jiujiu.” jingyi supplies. he pauses for a second, then breaks out into a shit-eating grin. “if you have to know, he’s my ex too.”
“oh?” wei wuxian’s eyes widen just a fraction, jin ling thinks they twinkle. “you… and lan wangji are both jiang cheng’s exes?” jin ling has a moment of brief panic. his family is… messy to say the least. they’ve got all sorts of problems and well… incest seems to be a recurring theme, so does hooking up with your ex’s siblings. jin ling completely forgot the third reason why he never brought anyone to dinner with his family (the first being that he has no one and the second being that he has no skills to ask anyone out). his family was not what people would call morally conscious. jin ling has no way of knowing how wei wuxian would react to being exposed to his family’s affairs, and jin ling would be damned if he let this hot uncle wet dream insult any of them. he is especially protective of his jiujiu and the relationship that jingyi, zizhen, and sizhui have — no matter how incestuous. jin ling is just about to say something in jingyi’s defense when wei wuxian bursts into laughter. the four of them join in on the contagious laugh, but sizhui’s and jin ling’s are a bit more strained. “oh— i’m sorry… i just found that really amusing. your family is really funny, xiao-ling.” jin ling lets out a sigh in relief, at least he didn’t react badly.
“yeah…” the quartet sigh. “my family is something. ” jin ling shares a meaningful glance with sizhui, who only offers him a soft smile and the wave of his hand. jingyi stops laughing gradually and opts to drape himself over zizhen instead.
“is there anyone i should look out for in particular?” wei wuxian rubs his thumb against jin ling’s knee, the motion is soothing against the fabric of jin ling’s pants.
“you won’t have to worry too much about my family.” jin ling decides to distract himself from the juncture of wei wuxian’s neck by doing what he does best — complaining. “if anything, only nai nai, lao lao, and a-niang will pay you any attention because they’re the only ones i told. but a quarter through the night? they’ll all get caught up in some kind of family disaster.” jin ling and the other three shudder at the memories of previous christmas dinners.
last year, jin ling had stumbled upon his father making out with his jiujiu . they were going at it like animals. jin ling was more concerned that jiujiu would eat a-die’s entire face off than with the fact that his father was making out with his wife’s brother. their jackets had been tossed to the floor, a-die’s shirt was half unbuttoned and jiujiu was on the way to becoming shirtless with all the wandering a-die’s hands were doing. jin ling had let out a yelp when he discovered them but neither of them broke apart. jin ling hadn’t wanted to risk getting caught up in between whatever it was that was going on and immediately sought out his mother. a-niang had only sighed when jin ling brought her to them, she looked… fond. by the time they got a-die and jiujiu to a room, jiujiu had lost his shirt and a-die was flushed in places jin ling never wanted to see. a-niang had patted jin ling on the head as if he were five again and told him to return to his cousins. when it was time to clear the hall and return home, a-die, a-niang and jiujiu had emerged from the room with their clothes off kilter and necks sporting red-purple marks.
the year before that, two ladies had crashed the party and stirred up a storm. they looked like twins with matching hair styles and mirrored mannerisms. they demanded that the jiangs take responsibility, that they refused to be ‘dirty little secrets’ any longer. everyone in the hall had immediately turned to glare at his grandfather, jiang fengmian. but he looked just as lost as anyone else, his eyes were ready to pop out of his sockets and his legs quaked. eventually, he slowly faced his wife. madam yu, normally scowling and standing up proud (“you must not slouch, a-ling, it is unbecoming.”), was actually hiding her face behind the sleeves of her robes. time seemed to slow with the twin women seething in the middle of the banquet hall, all familial eyes on the rocky couple. “san niang… do you know these women?” jiang fengmian had asked in his painstakingly calm voice, every syllable seemed to be drawn out. the twins cackled and announced that of course madam yu knew them! knew their bodies like the bank of her ringed hand! everyone was shocked to say the least. the debacle ended when his grandfather extended an offer to the family dinners and promised the women that they were welcome in the jiang family. if his grandmother had disappeared into a spare room with the two smug ladies afterwards, jin ling was none the wiser.
the years before that were no better. jin ling is sure that his jiujiu has fucked every single one of their relatives, including but not limited to: lan qiren, lan wangji, lan jingyi, lan sizhui, jin guangyao, jin zixuan, wen qing, wen ning, wen ruohan, wen xu, wen zhuliu, nie huaisang, nie mingjue, mo xuanyu, jin guangyao’s weird pet xue yang, xiao xingchen, and many others who jin ling doesn’t want to remember. the only person he hasn’t fucked is lan xichen, for reasons unknown. not to mention all the passive-aggressive fights jiujiu and lan wangji end up over the dinner table, someone either walks out of it with a black eye or a hickey. it is truly a miracle that jin ling stayed a virgin during all this mayhem, considering how much his family liked to get down with each other. he is almost bitter about it. even more so when he recalls jiujiu cockblocking him any time someone tried to make a pass on him. jin ling wants a taste of lan wangji’s sweet, fat dick too y’know!
“on second thought, you might want to be careful around jiujiu.” jin ling enlightens wei wuxian, who has another complicated pinched look on his pretty face. “he can get really protective so…” wei wuxian breaks out into a dazzling smile and collects jin ling’s hands in his own.
“don’t worry, xiao-ling, your jiujiu won’t doubt we’re in love for a second!”