Destined || Xicheng Oneshots

The Art of Being Loved Pt.1

Tags: Boss/Employee, secret crushes, fluff, Childhood trauma, love, Nie Huaisang being a good friend, Down Bad Lan Xichen, Soft Lan Xichen, fluff, eventual romance, Oblivious Jiang Cheng, Misunderstandings, but they're solved in the end

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Love was not a word in Jiang Wanyins dictionary. He was never loved and he didn't know how to give love. Jiang Cheng didn't know since when it was like this. Maybe it was when he was presented as an omega or maybe it was before that. He never got the "undying" love that his parents gave his adopted brother and his Shi-Jie.

His mom was strict, and hated Wei Wuxian, his adopted brother. He knew mainly it was because of the fact that Wei Ying was the son of his fathers "lover". Jealousy is a green-monster indeed. His father was unresponsive to her pleas to abandon the child and that he was a bad omen. Yu ZiYuan tried to keep Jiang Wanyin away from Wei Wuxian but they were like brother -- inseparable. 

But deep inside Jiang Cheng had always felt jealous of Wei Wuxian. He felt weak compared to him. he was always first in everything and Jiang Cheng just smiled it off whenever he was asked about it. His sister was on her merry way to her dream college. He loved his sister and was really very happy for her. But what about him. 

There was a time when his mother eventually warmed up to his adopted brother. It was a gradual change, slow yet noticeable. His damned father somehow got his mother to change her mind and she was a lot more -- sweet towards Wei Wuxian than Jiang Cheng himself. He would notice the sweets that Wei Wuxian loved on the dining table sometimes when they got home or the bigger presents during Christmas. No one else seemed to notice when Jiang Wanyin slowly withered himself away into a shell, and a hard one at that. By the time he was in high school he was known as "The Rock" and not like the movie star but like a literal rock. he would lash out at anyone and anything if he got angry and his tempter was out of control. 

But his shitty brother didn't seem to mind at all. He was always around Jiang Cheng, he was like honey, always sticky and gooey. Jiang Cheng hated it. Especially after he found out Wei Wuxian had a lover. Lan Wangji, a boy from a really really rich family. He didn't know how or when it happened since Lan Wangji was like a brick, his face never changed no matter what. His brother was crazy, unpredictable and cannot stop talking. Lan Wangji was like black and white it was one way or the other but Wei Wuxian was anything but black and white. But he was not blind to the way the Lan looked at his brother or the admiring gazes that would be thrown at him. 

His sister had came home that summer and another had tagged along with her. Her boyfriend, Jin ZiXuan. The guy was similar to Lan Wangji but he made effort to talk to his sisters parents and have a conversation. He was dearly in love with Jiang Yanli and anyone could see it. The same day Wei Wuxian had brought his boyfriend along for the trip. Jiang Cheng watched as the six sat in the living room chatting with each other in a heart-warming way. What about him? No one seemed to notice him when he walked out the door, not even bothering to be sneaky. What about his lover? When will someone love him the way that Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian or how his brother-in-law loves his sister? Jiang Cheng waited and waited, he waited for 18 years, yet no one came. 

At the moment Jiang Cheng was 23. He had finished college a year ago and had gotten a job away from YunMeng and in Gusu a prominent town, east of YunMeng. He was fortunate enough to get  a job at the biggest company there.

The company he worked for was named Lan and Co. He didn't know if he approved of the name or what but he couldn't do nothing about it. The quickest way to survive in a world like this was to make friends of your own status and climb your way up the social hierarchy. But climbing was for later making friends was now. Jiang Cheng managed to make one. A man Nie Huaisang. He was quick to find out that Huaisang was in the same situation that he was in. He was a Nie Heir, one of the richest blacksmith foundations in the nation. But they were no where close to the influence the Lan's had. He was curious to meet them. He had met one, that damned Lan Wangji but he had only heard of his older brother Lan Xichen. When he had asked the Nie, he found out that the Nie Huisang's older brother Nie Mingjue was best friends with Lan Xichen and so Huisang knew him as well. He had caught the perfect person to be friends with.