Second Bite of the Cherry
is a Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi fanfic written by Arendiria on Archive of Our Own.
In which Lan Zhan finds Wei Ying in the streets a few months after her parents' demise and refuse to be parted from her. Lan Qiren isn't particularly happy about raising Cangse Sanren's child, but if it means avoiding to lock up the next Madam Lan, he can live with it.
Contains the following tropes
- Adaptational Personality Change: Having been raised in the very strict Cloud Recesses with a distant but caring Lan Qiren as her Parental Substitute, Wei Ying isn't as wild and secretly depressed as her canon counterpart.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Courtesy of her adoption in the Gusu Lan Sect instead of the Yunmeng Jiang one, Wei Ying feels much closer with the Twin Jades and their uncle, while she's distant towards Jiang Fangmian and his children.
- Awful Wedded Life: Something Yu Ziyuan and her best friend Madam Jin are seen lamenting over liquor.
- Yu Ziyuan is rather bitter to see her husband mourn Cangse Sanren, suspecting he would have wanted to marry her if Wei Changze hadn't come first. However, she clutches so tightly to her grudge that she poisons her own household.
- Han Yuyan loathes Jin Guangshan for being a slimy git ready to fuck anything with two legs and leaving a string of bastards scattered in the country. She considers her son growing up as different as possible from his father a victory.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Jin Guangshan is heavily suspected from being his nephew's biological father, as he was rather close with his sister and her marriage happened in iffy circumstances. Heavily doting upon Jin Zixun certainly didn't help the rumors.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Lan Zhan immediately decides Wei Ying is his when they first meet as preteens. They spend the following decade growing together in the Cloud Recesses, and officially tie the knot when they're shy of eighteen years old.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Wei Ying is a tongyangxi ("little daughter-in-law"), adopted as a future bride for one of the Gusu Lan Sect's young heirs. It might be eyebrow-raising for a Western mind, but the practice was only banned in the late fourties-early fifties in China and Taiwan.
- Everyone Has Standards: Lan Qiren might not have been Cangse Sanren's greatest fan, he nonetheless refuses to let her daughter starve in the streets. The Lan elders also show reluctance at sending a little girl in a family in which she would be potentially abused — due to Yu Ziyuan's legendary hostility towards Cangse Sanren.
- Family-Values Villain: Wen Ruohan has the greatest respect for the sacred institution of marriage. It causes a lot of friction between him and his younger son Wen Chao.
- Fantasy Contraception: Cultivators have low fertility because they can circulate their qi and deprive the foetus from energy to grow. Lan Qiren pointedly reminds Lan Wangji of this tidbit when the young man starts having sex with Wei Ying, in order to avoid a Shotgun Wedding.
- Foil:
- Lan Wangji and Wei Ying's relationship was encouraged to deviate from Qingheng-jun and the previous Madam Lan's relationship by the Lan elders. Lan Wangji still fell in love with a young girl he met outside the sect, but she came to return his love instead of being locked away by him.
- They also are contrasting with Jiang Yanli and Yu Ziyuan's own relationships. Where Lan Wangji and Wei Ying are in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, both Jiang women's intended husbands aren't too happy about them.
- Both Lan Qiren and Yu Ziyuan bear a grudge towards Cangse Sanren, but he genuinely puts effort into becoming a Parental Substitute to the woman's daughter while Yu Ziyuan never could bring herself to set her envy aside in canon.
- From Bad to Worse: Several Jin disciples are found breaking curfew and tending to a forbidden pet in the Cloud Recesses. Then Jin Zixun decides to assault the female disciple that just stumbled on them, to intimidate her into keeping quiet. THEN an irate Lan Wangji appears and reveals they just attacked his fiancée. Jin Zixuan's thought process devolves in sheer horror at this point.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Yu Ziyuan is furious when she learns Cangse Sanren's daughter will get to marry a Sect Heir deeply in love with her.
- I Just Want to Be You: Hinted with Jiang Cheng, who cannot help but envy Lan Wangji for being in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage and craves a loving partner of his own, instead of his parents' Awful Wedded Life.
- I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: The story opens with Lan Zhan holding a five year old Wei Ying's hand and asking his brother to let him bring the little girl to Gusu. Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren ultimately fold after learning who she is, and that she's barely surviving in the streets after losing her parents.
- In the Blood:
- A persisting fear in the Twin Jades' family (paternal AND maternal) is the possibility of them being so overwhelmed by lust that they would force a girl into marrying them.
- Granny Zhou brazenly confronting a wealthy young cultivator because she feared he was mistreating his fiancée? Lan Wangji certainly inherited his ironclad morality from his grandmother. The old woman also comments that his softness towards Wei Ying is very reminiscent of his mother happily doting on other girls.
- Both Yu Ziyuan and her son Jiang Cheng envy Lan Wangji and Wei Ying's happy relationship.
- Like Brother and Sister: When Lan Qiren explains to his eldest nephew that Wei Ying might become his wife, Lan Xichen admits he cannot see as anything other but his sister — or rather, sister-in-law.
- The Lan elders are aware of this trope, and advice Lan Qiren to not let Wei Ying interact too much with the Twin Jades as they grow up in order for her to remain suitable as a potential wife.
- Long-Lost Relative: The Zhou family is nothing short of stunned to learn that the famed Twin Jades of Lan are their lost daughter's children.
- Manipulative Bastard: Jin Guangshan suggests for Lan Wangji to marry one of his bastard daughters. Not only it would ally him with another Great Sect, it would imply that Gusu Lan is alright with his lechery and womanizing. Lan Qiren and both his nephews are utterly disgusted by the plan and promptly tell Jin Guangshan no.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- Madame Jin is referred as Han Yuyan when she's interacting with her friend Yu Ziyuan.
- The former Madame Lan's name is revealed to be Zhou Zhiruo when Lan Wangji meets his maternal grandmother.
- Never My Fault: Yu Ziyuan firmly refuses to consider she might be responsible for her Awful Wedded Life, even when Jiang Fengmian calls her out on her bitterness.
- Out-Gambitted: Wei Ying has been groomed as the future Madam Lan to ensure one of the Twin Jades would be married to a respectable woman. So when Jin Guangshan tries to foist one of his bastard daughters upon Lan Wangji, Lan Qiren has no qualms telling the man to stuff it.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Between Lan Wangji and Wei Ying. They know that they are getting married from a young age and can't wait to be old enough to finally wed.
- Shipper on Deck: Lan Yi is very happy about Wei Ying and Lan Wangji's upcoming nuptials, giving them her blessing.
- Shipper with an Agenda: The Lan elders really want to avoid another bride locked up in the Cloud Recesses by one of their heirs, so they groom Wei Ying as a potential Madam Lan to throw her at the Twin Jades. They are quite happy to see the plan has worked when Lan Wangji marries her.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- Wei Ying very much looks like Cangse Sanren with Wei Changze's grey eyes, allowing Jiang Fengmian to correctly peg her identity when they meet.
- A rather sad example happens when Lan Wangji's maternal grandmother and uncle accuse him from trying to kidnap Wei Ying because he inherited Qingheng-jun's looks, triggering bad memories of the Lan Sect Leader forcing Zhou Zhiruo into marriage.
- Succession Crisis: Lan Qiren is reluctant to adopt Wei Ying as it would give her or her eventual husband a claim to the Sect Leader position. The Lan elders solve the problem by suggesting to marry the girl with a pre-existing heir.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel:
- Justified with Wei Ying as she lists "symptoms" indicating you fell in love with someone, since she's rather sheltered and has no other basis to understand Lan Wangji's feelings.
- Meng Shi has convinced herself that Jin Guangshan will be arriving at anytime to rescue her from the brothel and teach cultivation to Meng Yao. Wei Ying tries to gently explain her the reality.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: The Zhou family never got to see their daughter again after she was taken to the Cloud Recesses, but meeting Lan Wangji allows them to learn he's a very sweet and kind young man who genuinely adores his fiancée.
- Unintentionally Notorious Crime: In order to intimidate a Lan disciple into not exposing them for breaking several rules, Jin Zixun has himself and other Jin disciples swarm her and pull her off the fence she was standing on. Deliberately letting her fall and getting severely hurt. Only for a FURIOUS Lan Wangji to come by. The disciple was the Second Heir's beloved fiancee. Which escalates minor rule breaking into a diplomatic incident that results in the Lan sect nearly severing their relationship to the Jin, Jin Zixun and his cronies being publicly beaten as punishment and all the Jin disciples being kicked out of the Cloud Recesses.
- Unknown Rival: Yu Ziyuan is under the impression that Wei Ying purposely mocks her and her daughter Yanli with her loving, happy marriage. Wei Ying is barely aware Yu Ziyuan exists and frets quite a lot about her dear friend Yanli's future.
- Unwanted Rescue: Granny Zhou panics when she sees Lan Wangji with Wei Ying, believing the girl is threatened into letting herself be taken to Gusu and married, and it takes some time and the reveal that Lan Wangji is her grandson to calm her down.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Downplayed with Wei Ying's cynophobia. She still is uneasy around dogs, but spending months instead of years in the streets prevented her to be as traumatized as her canon counterpart.
- Wife Husbandry: A downplayed variant, since Wei Ying was adopted into the Gusu Lan Sect with the implicit hopes that she would be wed to one of their Twin Jades.
