Meng Yao (not-a-single-sin)

Other Names	A-Yao, Jin Guangyao
Setting	The Untamed, gay ancient magic china
Facecast	Zhu Zanjin

Meng Yao is derived from The Untamed. He is the illegitimate son of Jin Guangshan and Meng Shi. 

Jin Guangyao post-installation in the Jin family is a separate template instance. The accounts of his history and relationships are continued here.

 

 

History

Childhood

Meng Yao is born February 20th in a Yunping brothel. His mother raises him with love and care, doing her best to shelter him from the unpleasant environment. She teaches him manners that, for now, are necessary for his survival, and one day will serve him well as a young master of the Jin Sect. Mentg Shi imparts onto him her belief that one day Jin Guangshan will come for them and buy her freedom from the brothel, elevating Meng Yao as his son. This never happens. In the mean time, Meng Shi devotes most of her time and money attempting to educating her son the way a cultivator is supposed to be educated. 

Meng Yao learns reading, writing, etiquette, and some approximation of meditation. He learns to be polite to everyone he meets. He learns to be afraid of everyone he meets. Some of the other prostitutes who are irritated by having a child around are cruel to him, strangers in the streets outside the brothel are dangerous, and his mother is often being hurt. She becomes sick when Meng Yao is nine, and the sickness never leaves completely. Over the years it worsens, and they cannot afford any doctor who knows how to treat her. When Meng Yao is thirteen, a brothel client attacks and publicly humiliates his mother. Meng Yao runs to their room after he hears her scream and tries to fight the attacker away; instead he is kicked down a flight of stairs and badly hits his head. Meng Yao fully recovers from his injuries after this incident; Meng Shi does not. She dies of her illness before Meng Yao turns fourteen.

After his Meng Shi's death, Meng Yao is untethered from the brothel. He travels to the Lanling Jin Sect to meet his father, carrying the supposedly rare and valuable pearl that Jin Guangshan gave his mother to prove his relation. He arrives at Carp Tower on his birthday, which turns out to also be the birthday of Jin Guangshan's legitimate son, Jin Zixuan. Jin Guangshan refuses to acknowledge Meng Yao in front of his displeased wife. Instead he crushes Meng Shi's precious pearl to dust and kicks Meng Yao down all the steps of Carp Tower, breaking bones. Meng Yao bows to his father before he leaves.

Residence with the Nie Sect

Meng Yao joins multiple night hunting parties, trying to get a foothold in the cultivation world. He does everything he can to earn the approval of actual sect members. His traveling companions only laugh at how hard he tries, considering it pathetic and hopeless. Meng Yao overhears his group of Nie cultivators gossiping and making fun of him when he returns from fetching water for the entire group. He leaves to sit in the forest and eat by himself beneath a tree, exhausted and rather miserable.

Nie Mingjue finds him that way. When he stands over him and looks him over, Meng Yao looks up at him with big, big eyes. Infuriated to hear of the petty cruelty of his sect members, Nie Mingjue yells at all of them for being prejudiced idiots, and promotes Meng Yao to vice-general on the spot, shocking everyone present. Meng Yao feels fulfilled in a way he has never experienced before. It isn't enough to fill his heart, but Meng Yao thinks with enough power he will get there eventually.

He and Nie Mingjue come to trust and deeply rely on each other. They have entered a sexual relationship by the time Meng Yao escorts Nie Huaisang to the Cloud Recesses and meets Lan Xichen.

[Meeting Lan Xichen]

[Nie Captain, Divorce]

Sunshot Campaign

Meng Yao heard Wen Chao boast that Cloud Recesses is being destroyed. Concerned for Lan Xichen and having no one else who he thinks might support him, Meng Yao journeys to Gusu. Lan Xichen was assailed by Wen soldiers on his escape from Cloud Recesses, managing to kill them all but sustaining serious injuries. Meng Yao finds him, collapsed and bleeding, and saves his life. They spend four months together in hiding, doing laundry and having sex. Then Lan Xichen goes to join in the Sunshot Campaign and Meng Yao goes to infiltrate Qishan Wen as a spy.

Meng Yao earns Wen Ruohan's favor with his cleverness, his efficient, mercenary manner, and his torture creativity. Meng Yao tortures many innocent people to death and, as he ascends to Wen Ruohan's second in command, harshly punishes those who displease him or the sect leader. Wen soldiers in Nightless City are terrified of him. Meng Yao loyally sends reports to Lan Xichen, but he has no intention of assassinating Wen Ruohan or doing anything especially risky unless it is impossible that he will fail. He does not actually care if the Sunshot Campaign succeeds, as long as he's earned the favor of the winning side.

[Nie Mingjue confrontation, killing Wen Ruohan.]

[Jin Guangyao]

Personality 

Outwardly, Meng Yao is subservient, agreeable, and very polite. He is artfully spoken and clever. He is also extremely manipulative and flashes his dimples the way an octopus sprays ink when threatened.

Meng Yao is an ambitious sociopath. He does in fact possess values, but none that he is unwilling to discard the moment he thinks it might be necessary; typically he never looks back. He values the health, safety, and flourishing of ordinary people when he affords himself that luxury, but will still murder anyone you put in front of him if their death benefits him or their existence offends him. He rarely experiences grief over his actions, and even more rarely believes he could have done anything differently.

Meng Yao is calculating and analytical, rarely displaying genuine emotion. He actually experiences some emotions quite strongly, beneath the detached scheming. Most of those emotions are negative: fear, anger, hurt, jealousy, resentment, humiliation. He is very sensitive to perceived betrayal. He also experiences strong bursts of positive emotion: pride, satisfaction, and accomplishment. 

Relationships

Meng Yao has few people that he cares about and even fewer that he is unwilling to hurt. At the top tier of Meng Yao relationships are the (two) people he would never intentionally hurt and would go out of his way to protect. (These are his mother and Lan Xichen). The next tier contains a few people that Meng Yao cares about and disprefers hurting, but will absolutely kill if he needs to or if they offend him deeply. (e.g. Nie Huaisang, Wei Ying (可怕的鹅)). Below that, a large number of people that Meng Yao gets along with and generally thinks well of, but would hurt without regret. (e.g. Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian). Anyone who Meng Yao dislikes, he will hurt gleefully when possible.

• Lan Xichen (Soulmate, sworn brother)
  • Calls Zewu-jun > Er-ge (Second Brother), is called A-Yao
  • Xichen is the only person who stays by Meng Yao's side consistently, the only person who ever stops Meng Yao from bowing to him. He is the person Meng Yao desires most to help and least to hurt.
  • "In a grey world, he's like white moonlight." - Zhu Zanjin describing Xichen's significance to Meng Yao 
• Nie Mingjue (Boyfriend/ex-boyfriend, liege, sworn brother)
  • Calls Sect Leader Nie > Da-ge (Eldest Brother), is called Meng Yao
  • Nie Mingjue was the first person to see worth in Meng Yao and elevate his status. They both respected and cared deeply about each other, though Meng Yao was always subordinate. 
  • Messy divorce after Wen Chao attacks the Unclean Realm and Meng Yao murders the Nie captain, painful on both sides.
  • Even messier second divorce, after which Meng Yao decides that Nie Mingjue never loved him and always saw him as lesser and despicable, that no matter how hard Meng Yao works to ascend ranks, Nie Mingjue will never value him or see him as equal. 
  • Da-ge is the only murder he ever feels haunted by.
• Nie Huaisang
  • Calls Huaisang, is called Meng Yao 
• Jin Guangshan (Father)
  • Calls Father
  • Jin Guangshan is by far the person Meng Yao gives the most chances, but unfortunately also the worst person in the entire setting. Meng Yao is more desperate for his father's approval than he is for almost anything. 
• Meng Shi (Mother)
  • Calls Mama/Mother, is called A-Yao
  • Meng Yao loves his mother fiercely and thinks better of her than most people in the world.
• Lan Wangji (Brother-in-law, approximately)
• Jin Zixuan (Half-brother)

Appearances

by your clear light and color - f!Wei Ying reports the Nie captain for harassing Meng Yao. Nie Mingjue publicly punches the captain and has him punished. This leaves Meng Yao feeling less of a burning need to murder the captain as soon as possible. When Wei Ying and Lan Zhan escape Nightless City, he oversees their hospitality in addition to the imprisonment and interrogation of Wen Chao. When the Nie send forces to Gusu, Meng Yao accompanies them to search for Lan Xichen. In this thread, Meng Yao and Wei Ying gradually befriend each other. During the Sunshot Campaign, they become sworn siblings by Wei Ying's suggestion. In an accident with the Yin Iron, Wei Ying revives Meng Shi as a fierce corpse and she reenters her son's life. [Wiki]

making room for new regrets - Meng Yao is manipulated by Nie Huaisang into staying longer at Cloud Recesses, where he spends some quality time with Lan Xichen during the Lan lectures. [Wiki]

talk less, smile more - Wen Ying runs into Meng Yao during Wen Chao's attack on the Unclean Realm and drags him over to take credit for her kill of Wen Zhuliu before Nie Mingjue can find him murdering the Nie captain. Offscreen, he receives much attention and acclaim for this feat. [Wiki]

Trivia

• The screen name "not-a-single-sin" is quoted from Meng Yao in the MDZS novel, speaking to Lan Xichen. Just like you said, there is not a single sin in this world that I haven't committed! But you, never have I ever thought about doing you harm.