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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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anything with jin zixuan marrying into the jiang sect, instead of jiang yanli marrying out?

ao3

It wasn’t that Jin Zixuan didn’t love his mother – he did, he truly did. He loved her, he supported her, he stood by her side in every argument. He would do anything within his power to help her get everything that she wanted.

It was only that he took a very reasonable look at the circumstances and realized he couldn’t. He couldn’t get her the one thing she’d always counted for.

He couldn’t win the right of succession to be Sect Leader Jin.

Maybe if his mother had managed to stop his father from bringing home all his bastards – there were nineteen of them, all together, and those were just the ones that were willing to admit it so who even knew – he might’ve had a better chance, given that he was after all the sole legitimate son. But legitimacy only took you so far: he was neither the oldest of the children, nor the most capable, nor the most cunning. He wasn’t even the best connected, despite his maternal family’s support; that honor went to another one of his siblings, born to an especially well-connected family through unspecified circumstances that might or might not involve rape but which sufficient money had plastered over.

The only thing Jin Zixuan had going for him was his legitimacy, but his father had long ago taught him - however inadvertently - that there wasn’t anything magical about a wedding ceremony that made him better suited to the role of sect leader.

What’s more, in his heart of hearts, Jin Zixuan didn’t even want it.

He wasn’t – he didn’t really like fighting. Or politics, or scheming, or any of it. It just wasn’t his personality. He didn’t like games of influence, he didn’t like backstabbing people that trusted him, he didn’t like gossiping and slandering and not being able to believe in people’s good faith and any of that, and no matter how much his mom pushed him, he didn’t think he’d ever like it.

But that was what Lanling Jin did, what Jilin Tower was like, and if he wanted to take up the Sect Leader’s seat and reside in the Fragrant Palace, he had to get over himself and accept that that’s what the rest of his life would be like.

Forever.

Until someone murdered him and took his place, anyway. It almost felt inevitable, sometimes.

Or, because he really truly didn’t want the job, because he really truly didn’t want to die, he could try to think of something else. Some way out.

For example, he could, and did, go to Jin Ziyao and ask him for help.

Jin Ziyao stared at him, eyes narrow and calculating as they so rarely were – he was very good at keeping a bland polite smile on his face, the best at it of all the people Jin Zixuan had ever met, and he’d met a lot.

“That’s an interesting thing to say, brother,” he said, gently eliding as always the fact that they were the same age, born on the same day to different mothers. “Very interesting indeed. I must ask, though - why are you saying it to me?”

“Because you’d be the best at the job,” Jin Zixuan said honestly. He really thought so: Jin Ziyao was smart and clever, cunning enough to wear a kind face and tricky enough to actually pull off the impression of actually being kind, since people were more willing to forgive kind people, but also ambitious and ruthless enough to survive and maybe even thrive in the political world the way Jin Zixuan wasn’t. “And because you’re smart enough to come up with a way for me to get out of this without dying, if you wanted to.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Why would I want to?”

And that was the rub, wasn’t it? Jin Zixuan was the legitimate son, the rightful heir, and his father, their father, was just as likely to name Jin Zixuan as the next sect leader no matter how unfit for the role he was on nothing more than that basis as he was to name anyone else with a much stronger claim.

It was in everyone else’s best interest to kill him, if they were ambitious.

Maybe not his sisters. They wouldn’t inherit no matter what happened to him.

(Sometimes Jin Zixuan wished he was lucky enough to be born a nobody, little Jin Ziyu, who just wanted to play with make-up and avoid all contact with his maternal Mo family. Nobody cared about Jin Ziyu, and everyone liked it that way.)

“You know my position,” Jin Zixuan explained. He didn’t need to say it out loud; he was bitterly aware that it was basically his only personality trait: legitimate heir of Jin Guangshan, the rich boy everyone thought would be the next sect leader unless someone else got in the way. “My support could be worth something to you.”

“Especially if it’s sincere,” Jin Ziyao murmured, looking thoughtful, contemplative. It wasn’t an outright no, anyway, or at least not yet. “And you would be sincere, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s a reason I said that I’m not fit for the role,” Jin Zixuan replied, his voice dry to hide the fact that his heart was in his throat. Jin Ziyao was the one most likely to succeed in finding a way to get him out of this mess, but he was also the most likely to figure out a way to kill him without being blamed for it, too. There was a reason he’d come to him, but that reason was the danger - who was to say that Jin Ziyao wouldn’t decide it’d be safer to kill him, and to use this to accomplish it? He could be signing his own death warrant. “And even if you’re smart, competent, good at managing things, well-connected, and well-liked, you can still use my help.”

Jin Ziyao had only a single fault: his mother had been a prostitute. People still judged him for that, something which made no sense to Jin Zixuan whatsoever – it wasn’t Jin Ziyao’s fault what his mother did before he was born – but it meant he lacked legitimacy even more than the others.

Having the legitimate son backing his claim would be a strong argument in favor of overlooking that.

“You know your mother won’t like it,” Jin Ziyao said. Testing, probing; he hadn’t agreed yet.

“I know,” Jin Zixuan said simply. “But I hope that she’d like me being dead less.”

He wasn’t actually sure about that. His mother loved him, yes, but he had never entirely determined if she loved him for himself or as an extension of herself – a symbol of what she would be fighting towards. A sign that her struggles with her husband had a purpose, that all her humiliation would one day be worth it.

That one day, when he was sect leader, she would become the true power in Lanling through him.

(Jin Zixuan didn’t know what she imagined would happen to all his illegitimate brothers and sisters in that situation, and he didn’t want to; it put a sick feeling in his gut to think about it – which he supposed meant he did know, after all, what she would want, but was instead choosing to ignore it.)

Jin Ziyao studied him for a long moment, presumably trying to analyze his sincerity and how firm he was on the idea.

Jin Zixuan didn’t rush him, knowing it was a gamble on his side as well: it would be worse for him to help Jin Zixuan out of the line of succession only for Jin Zixuan to change his mind down the road. It would make him look bad, make him a target for the others, and the backstabbing nature of Lanling politics meant that luring someone in with a request for aid was exactly the sort of trap someone might lay out.

Sometimes, Jin Zixuan was really, really tired of Lanling.

Maybe something of that showed on his face, because just when he was starting to lose hope, Jin Ziyao abruptly nodded – almost to himself – and said, “All right. How about your marriage?”

“What about my marriage?” Jin Zixuan asked, puzzled.

He’d been engaged to his mother’s best friend’s daughter since before he was born, and amazingly enough the engagement had held despite everything – probably because they had barely met, to be perfectly honest. And also the fact that being surrounded by brothers that hid daggers in their smiles gave Jin Zixuan enough experience to realize that he was being deliberately incited when his so-called friends started telling him that he deserved better than a girl most often described simply as being nice.

After all, he’d already started doubting by that time that he even deserved the accident of his legitimate birth, so forget deserving any girl.

Also, being nice sounded…rather nice, actually. Certainly a relief, assuming she was actually nice rather than just pretending to be the way so many of his sisters were.

(None of them liked her, which suggested she might be.)

“You should get to know your intended better,” Jin Ziyao said. “Visit her more often.”

Jin Zixuan really wasn’t seeing the connection between that and his request for assistance, and Jin Ziyao’s gaze softened a little bit, though Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure if it was with sympathy or merely pity.

“It’ll make it easier for you,” he clarified. “For when you marry in.”

Marry in?

Marry in. The Jiang sect was a Great Sect, with enough power and influence to make unreasonable demands – and his father desperately wanted the alliance with them. If they could be convinced to demand that he marry in rather than having Jiang Yanli marry out, pointing to their smaller numbers or the tragedies that had befallen their sect…

Jiang Cheng would like having his sister around. He was also notoriously standoffish around women, and had viciously rejected any effort to be matched with one of the illegitimate Jin girls; it might even be possible to suggest to his father that allowing Jin Zixuan to marry in would mean that there was a chance that Jiang Cheng would be willing to leave his sect to a nephew surnamed Jiang, winning the Jin sect both an alliance and inheritance all at once.

Best of all, it had to be him. The Jiang sect had only agreed to the engagement because of Madame Yu’s friendship with his mother, not for any political reason; if his father tried to substitute him with someone else, they might break it entirely…

And someone who married out couldn’t be the heir.

“You’re a genius,” Jin Zixuan told his brother, who smiled crookedly in acknowledgement. “What should I do? Do I just – go over there? Send a letter? I can’t write letters…”

“Let me think about it,” Jin Ziyao said. “I’m sure I can come up with something more subtle than you.”

#mdzs #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #succession #Anonymous

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d00m-d4ys · 3 years

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Disclaimer: i know this could be better (quality-of-story-wise) but it could also be a whole lot worse, so imo that absolves me of both editing and basic grammatical discipline. Please enjoy the latest instalment of my ‘the subplot of jiang fengmian possibly cheating on his wife was boring; yu ziyuan and cangse sanren should have been besties’ agenda.

Curfew is one of the many rules that chafe, and so she disregards it as often as she can. As undignified as it is to scales the walls of Cloud Recesses, she seethes, it could all be avoided if she was allowed spar with Zidian and teach the second heir of Lan not to look down his nose at her.

This moon is high by the time she returns, and she nearly topples to the ground as a voice calls, “Don’t fall.”

She steadies herself, telling her racing heart to calm itself. She looks to her left and sees the girl: a rogue cultivator, hair diligently unkempt and at odds with her pressed student’s robes.

“Don’t concern yourself with me,” she tells her sternly.

Cangse Sanren sits up, eyes wide. “I wasn’t concerned! Merely speaking aloud. Ignore me, honoured Violet Spider.”

“You mock me?” Zidian crackles in her hands.

“But of course. Jiangs fight best when they’re angry.” She comes to her feet like a puppet tugged along by its strings, lighter than air and undeniably coordinated.

Zidian hisses louder. “I am not Jiang, you insolent—“

Cangse Sanren moves almost too fast to track, and Ziyuan strikes on reflex, Zidian splitting a layer of roofing in half as Cangse dodges back, landing safely out of reach on top of the guard tower. She whistles, long and low. “So this is Zidian. Why do you hide her away?”

She curls her fingers around her ring protectively, unsure of what the girl means to do.

“Is that why? Afraid someone will steal it?” Cangse lights back down on the roof, confident in a way that Ziyuan hates, but not enough to risk using Zidian again. “I’m sorry for insulting you. What are you, if not a Jiang?”

The question catches her off-guard, and she answers before she can think better of it. “This one is Yu Ziyuan.”

“Yu Ziyuan, Yu Ziyuan— I can’t promise I’ll remember, but I’ll do my best.” She bows, again catching her by surprise. “This one is Cangse Sanren.”

She swallows. “I know.”

Cangse straightens up and grins at her, tucking her sword into the crook of her elbow. “I think we’ll be friends. Yes?”

She’s about to answer when the roofing beneath her feet turns slick as ice, sending her plummeting to the ground. Cangse lands mostly on top of her with her many bony appendages, and for a moment all Ziyuan can do is sit there and quietly groan.

It’s probably not a good sign that the clan leader himself had caught them sparring out of grounds and after curfew, but at least she isn’t alone.

After that, it was quite obvious that Cangse would continue to be a permanent pest.

“A-Yuan,” she begs, already reaching for Ziyuan’s bowl. “Cangse is so hungry, how can A-Yuan be so cruel?”

“Eat your own damn food,” she snaps, and learns not to regret it. Cangse sighs and returns to her own bowl, identical to hers excepting the absence of bamboo shoots.

Cangse seems to attract trouble: she can see across the room Jiang Fengmian making a beeline for her table, followed shortly after by a disciple whose name escapes her.

The usual niceties are as excruciating as always, and they find themselves seated across the table. Cangse drops her chopsticks and slams her hands down, earning them several dirty looks. “Young Master, I must know your name.”

There is a moment where Ziyuan can see disaster blooming. Both men look delighted at the attention, and both move to answer her question.

She dumps her bamboo shoots in Jiang Fengmian’s bowl, interrupting his train of thought and drawing his attention to her.

It’s a risky gamble: the bamboo shoots are inarguably the best thing in a Lan’s diet, and she doesn’t want to invite implication into her actions, but something so grand and distracting and (hopefully) confusing is enough to render him speechless.

Unfortunately, it also draws Cangse’s ire, though the servant — Wei Changze — is blissfully unaware of her blunders, still basking under Cangse’s attention.

Jiang Fengmian colours a bright pink that she privately thinks is very becoming, and she can only hope that his interest in Cangse is only infatuation. “Thank you, Lady Yu.”

The Jin arrive, finally, and so too does her friend from across the river. Hua Yufei is just as ladylike as she remembers, but her immediate taking-to of Cangse Sanren is concerning, to say the least.

“Is it difficult, being a rogue cultivator?”

“Perhaps it is, when comfort is a concern. I have often slept outdoors on nighthunts, when no inn would have me.”

Yufei shudders. “I could never,” she swears, hand daintily resting on her collarbone. “Ziyuan, did you hear the news, or shall I tell you?”

“What news?”

“Sect Leader Jin is in want of a match for his son. I have it on good authority that I am in the running, and that Jin Guangshan favours me.”

Her mother had sent word that her own marriage now had a wedding date, and it filled her with equal parts dread and relief.

Cangse bumps her shoulder, jolting her out of her daydreams. “Congratulate your sworn-sister, A-Yuan, for I have no earthly idea what any of you are talking about.”

Yufei gets far more excited than she should, and hurries to sit next to Cangse. “See that one there? The Jin with peonies on his sleeve? He is Jin Guangshan. If I am to marry him, I’ll be Madame of the second-richest sect in Xianxia.”

Cangse looks critically at him and evidently turns up little to compliment, to Ziyuan’s vindication. “He seems very . . . friendly.”

It’s a very kind way of noting his lecherous staring at the servant pouring his tea. “He will not give up his ways under marriage, Yufei.”

“What do I care if he galavants through every brothel in Lanling? I need only bear a son, and my wifely duties will be complete. I will have Koi Tower, and he shall have his fleeting pleasures. Let others take care of him.”

The lectures end, somewhat successfully: Lan Qiren’s facial hair had suffered Cangse’s vengeance, Hua Yufei had secured a tentative proposal from Jin Guangshan, and Jiang Fengmian no longer looked scared of her when she spoke to him.

Yufei hugs her tightly before dashing after the Jin delegation. Cangse stands by her as the Jiang sect prepares to leave, disiciples running about accomplishing what they should have several hours beforehand. “Is Yunmeng your home?”

“For now.” Her betrothal was entering into its vital stages, and it wouldn’t do to return to Meishan just yet. “And yours?”

She lifts one shoulder, staring out over the bustling Jiangs. “Wherever I’m needed.”

Ziyuan spots Wei Changze trying to look as though he’s not watching Cangse Sanren, fiddling with something in his hands. If they’re not careful, the Jiang sect will lose two fine cultivators. “Then you should come with us.”

Yu Ziyuan knows that something is wrong. She knows it as well as she knows that her daughter is six, that her son is three, that she has not seen her ill-gotten sworn-sister since before either of them were born.

She leaves without a word, away on her sword and letting her heart guide her.

The last of her steady letters had come from Yiling, paper smelling faintly of sulphur from the Burial Mounds. So west she steers herself, flying hard through the gathering storm and buffeting winds until she hears Cangse calling for her husband. She descends hard and almost falls, Zidian flaring out and cracking against the encroaching fierce corpses. Two fall back, weak enough to be banished, but four more advance in their place, and she seizes her sword for the task of disposing of them.

Cangse does not struggle with fierce corpses. She has a way with them, tames them like dogs under her immortal’s teachings. Ziyuan is almost afraid to turn around, sheathing her sword and searching the gloom and thicket for a trace of teal robes, a beaded jade hairpiece.

“A-Ze!”

Her voice is near. She can hear two sets of footprints, one surer, the other more cautious.

Something was wrong with this forest, if it had separated Cangse and Wei Changze. She feels as though she might crawl out of her skin, the resentful energy mounting with each second she remained. She rushes through thicket and brush, forcing her way through layers of the maze array with sheer force of will, far too angry to be waylaid by such child’s play.

The final layer stretches like rice cake before snapping, and it felt as though a layer of wet cotton had been ripped from her ears, the sounds of the world coming into sharp focus with painful suddenness.

Cangse is there to catch her, though she seems disoriented. “A-Yuan?”

Her voice shakes, and she hates it. “We have to leave.”

Cangse’s mouth sets. “Not without A-Ze.”

The maze array changes even as they speak, and Cangse is too dizzy to do anything but slow them down and ensure they remain trapped. She feels her mouth twist grimly as she wraps her hand around her wrist, dragging her to the edge of the array. “I will find him.”

She doesn’t regret finding Cangse first. How could she, for her own sworn-sister? She refuses to regret. She will not regret.

It’s difficult to muster that conviction when she lays Wei Changze’s body down on the ground, overtaken by the hole in his chest where his heart once was.

Cangse wails when she sees him, a keening, heartbroken sound Ziyuan has never heard a person make. The sound is pure pain, and for a moment all she can do is stand there and think about how devestated Jiang Fengmian will be, when he hears the news.

She kneels, wanting to at least close his eyes. Cangse’s wails abruptly peter off and she screams, “Get away from him!”

The suddenness of it startles her away, and Cangse throws herself over his body, protecting him. “Don’t touch him. I won’t let him be sullied by such hands.”

“Such hands?” Already, she is angry. “Say your meaning.”

“You always hated him,” she accuses. “You could have saved him. Why didn’t you save him?” She touched his cheeks, crying over his glossy, dead eyes. “Why didn’t you help him first?”

“And risk the same happening to you?” She doesn’t regret. She doesn’t.

“You should have! He’s the one who should live. It shouldn’t be me.”

She stands, too angry to say anything constructive at the moment. “Wei Ying will be in Yunmeng, while you grieve.”

She’ll never be sure if Cangse Sanren would have heard anything of the living world in that moment, her ear pressed to a dead man’s chest.

Jiang Fengmian is in his office, and she lets herself in. “Wei Changze is dead.”

The news is sudden, and horrible, and Fengmian spends a good few minutes unable to speak. “What happened?”

She meets his watery gaze. “A nighthunt. He was overpowered.”

“And Cangse?” He licks his lips. “Is she—“

“You are aware they have a child?” She feels so very angry, and it is easy to blame it on his apparently poor memory, instead of its true source. “You do know that? Or have you only read their letters to trace Cangse’s calligraphy? Are you so eager that you forget your duty?”

He has the decency to look ashamed, but not enough to muster a response.

She scoffed and left the room, making her way to her children’s’ quarters.

Cangse Sanren arrives just as Ziyuan’s lies to her son began to wear thin.

She lands softly in the training grounds, leaving stunned and gaping disciples in her wake. She strides to wear Ziyuan stands, supervising Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying as they spar.

“I want my son back.”

Ziyuan lifts her chin, crossing her arms. It hides her anxiety: Cangse is dressed in mourning white, and her eyes are sunken with lack of sleep. She is much paler than she used to be, and much angrier.

Cangse scowls at her, at her silence. “Wei Ying. Come here.”

Wei Ying looks up with a gleeful cry, and rushes to embrace his mother. For a moment, Cangse is her old self again, swinging him into her arms and kissing him on the cheek.

But it soon fades, and Cangse Sanren fixes her with a steely glare and utters perhaps the last words Yu Ziyuan will ever forget:

“Until we meet again, Madame Jiang.”

#mdzs fic #mdzs #yu ziyuan #cangse sanren #exerpt from something i might write someday #i deleted the first iteration of this post on accodent so #hua yufei is the name i gave madame jin #i googled it and someone else also has that name so either i picked a good one or someones parents are also bad at naming. cool either way

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baoshan-sanren · 4 years

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Chapter 50

Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

Nie HuaiSang wrinkles his nose at the smell.

It has been some years since he has descended into the dungeons, but the damp air seems heavier now than it had been in the past. They are not meant to be enjoyable, the dungeons, and more pleasant accommodations would defeat the purpose of using them as a form of punishment. Still, HuaiSang does not understand why nothing can be done about the smell. The fan does precious little aside from moving the sticky air across his cheeks, and he folds it irritably, tapping Song Lan on the shoulder.

“Are you certain that torture will yield no results? I assure you, Madam Yu has made quite an art of it over the years. I think she takes pride in obtaining confessions without spilling a drop of blood.”

Song Lan shakes his head. They have spoken of this before, but HuaiSang knows that his voice will carry to the nearest cells. Perhaps Xue ChengMei cannot be tortured into a confession, but there is no harm in issuing a threat.

The boy is on his feet long before they reach him, forehead pressed against the bars, a mischievous grin etched across surprisingly attractive features. HuaiSang understands that a monster’s appearance will rarely reflect their inner monstrosity, but even he has to admit that this is slightly ridiculous. The boy looks fifteen years old at most, short in stature, small in build. The only vaguely threatening features of his appearance are the white, sharp teeth, but even those are made more menacing by their surroundings. Had the boy grinned at him in a well-lit courtyard instead of doing so in-between the bars of a cell, HuaiSang would have thought him cute, rather than dangerous.

“The Royal Companion,” the boy exclaims, “what an unexpected pleasure! I am a great admirer of yours.”

“Is that so?” HuaiSang says, “Do not spare the detail. I am always willing to be admired.”

Xue ChengMei’s eyes glitter in the darkness, his grin unwavering, “I should have known you would make no pretense of false humility.”

“Not precisely the way I prefer to be flattered.”

“It is your deeds I admire,” the boy says, “Tell me, does Sect Leader Su still believe that his son perished from a snake bite? Do you not think it extremely unfortunate? To be bitten by a yellow tail in MoLing?”

The boy taps his lips with his finger, issuing an exaggerated wink, “What a studious, sturdy snake that must have been, to have traveled all the way from QingHe just for a taste of the Young Master Su.”

HuaiSang mirrors the boy’s movement, tapping his lips with the fan.

Interesting. And potentially problematic.

“Your performance was not nearly as impressive,” HuaiSang smiles, “Such a common poison, with such an easily obtainable antidote. Surely, you did not expect that plan to work.”

“Ahh,” the boy sighs, pressing his cheek against the iron bar, “not all of us can be masters of the art I suppose. But the resulting chaos was quite entertaining.”

“Tell me about the Emperor’s potential,” HuaiSang says, “Tell me about achieving greatness.”

“Oh, but I have a much more interesting story to tell.”

“I am bored now,” HuaiSang turns to Song Lan, “let us go back.”

“Your father,” Xue ChengMei says quickly, “was no older than myself when the Empress took the throne. Such a young age, to be handed such great responsibility. Are you sure that you do not care to hear the story?”

HuaiSang’s fingers do not clench around his fan. He is calm as still water.

“You will like it,” the boy goes on, excitedly pressing himself against the bars, “it is a story no one else knows, but I am willing to share it with you.”

“Most of his words are deranged nonsense,” Song Lan says decisively, “there is no need to humor him.”

“Might as well,” HuaiSang says, glad to hear himself sound unaffected, “He seems anxious to tell it.”

“I am,” Xue ChengMei exclaims, “It is a fascinating tale. Many, many years ago, there was a mad Emperor who had a gift for demonic cultivation. But trying to control resentful energy comes with a cost. In order to continue using this infinite resource without harming himself in the process, he decided to store this energy into an object. The object would be capable of concentrating and directing the energy, but the process of creating such a thing came with a cost as well. He committed endless atrocities, slaughtered thousands of people, burned towns, rivers ran red with blood, so on and so forth,” he waves his hand impatiently, “You know that part of the story I am sure. Temples and cities obliterated, Sects decimated, advisors strung up by their toes, blah-blah.”

The impatient wave of his hand is such a perfect mirror image of Wei Ying’s own frequently used gesture, that HuaiSang is both alarmed and nauseated to see it.

“This part is known to all; the Emperor’s little niece, his favorite creature in the world, decides that the Emperor must be replaced, and murders her own uncle in cold blood. This is a story told and retold. Every child can recite the details. The Emperor’s experiments had failed, the Emperor was killed, the Empress took the throne, years of peace followed. But,” the boy presses his forehead to the iron bar, “this story is wrong.”

“Is it?” HuaiSang says, more and more convinced that this creature is dangerously unstable, “How so?”

“The Emperor did not fail in his experiments,” Xue ChengMei whispers conspiratorially, “He had succeeded. He had managed to create an object which can store infinite amounts of resentful energy, an object which can be used by any of his descendants. Any descendants, that is, who posses a particular affinity for demonic cultivation.”

HuaiSang feels his stomach turn, “The sword.”

“The sword,” the boy confirms, “Now, this is the interesting part of the story. The Empress, having grown up at court, did not have many trustworthy friends. But she did have three close confidants, two sworn brothers and a sister, peers she explicitly trusted. One of them, your father, was entrusted the sword. He was to place the sword in the Nie family's Ancestral Hall, where no descendent of YanLing DaoRen could lay their hands on it again. Can you guess what happened next?”

HuaiSang no longer cares that the boy can see his tight grip on the fan.

“Enlighten me,” he says coldly.

“Your father did not follow the Empress’ order,” Xue ChengMei grins brightly, “and who can blame him, truly? A young girl, not a full day in possession of the throne yet, asking him to hide such an object? If she were to lose her seat within a year, who would stand in the Nie Sect’s defense? Who would believe that the Nie Sect had obtained such an object for the sake of protecting the throne, instead of personal gain? You may think yourself a rare creature, Young Master Nie,” the boy winks again, “but I think you will find that the Nie Sect Leaders have always been pragmatists at heart.”

HuaiSang ignores the jab, his mind a whirlwind, “What did he do with the sword?”

The boy offers an exaggerated shrug, “Pawned it, sold it, given it away. What difference does it make?”

He is lying; HuaiSang knows this. He had made no effort to make it sound like the truth.

“How did you get it?”

“A friend gave to me,” Xue ChengMei says, blinking innocently through the bars.

“A friend who is still in the Immortal Mountain City?”

“Maybe,” the boy says, “Maybe not. Maybe he is no longer a friend. One cannot always trust those they call friends,” his grin is a sharp, sickly-sweet thing, “I believe this is a lesson the Emperor has yet to learn.”

HuaiSang wants nothing more than to take a hot, fragrant bath, and forget that he had ever spoken to this creature.

“You wanted the Emperor to become another YanLing DaoRen. To what purpose?”

“Wei WuXian would never be another YanLing DaoRen,” Xue ChengMei scoffs, “He would be so much more. A perfect vessel of destruction. A divine entity. Chaos personified.”

Well.

That answers that question.

HuaiSang taps his fan against his leg, thinking.

“Your attempts to eliminate the Lan Sect. You did not want the presence of those who can cleanse the Emperor of the resentful energy. But the Lan Sect is still here. The Emperor will recover. Your plan has failed.”

Xue ChengMei does not seem upset by the revelation, “Plans fail on occasion. There is always tomorrow.”

“You must have a great deal of confidence in your friend, who is maybe no longer a friend, if you intend to live long enough to see tomorrow.”

The boy only smiles in response.

It is an empty threat.

HuaiSang hates making empty threats.

A Jin Sect disciple cannot meet an accidental death in the Immortal Mountain City dungeons; not unless HuaiSang means to cause a diplomatic disaster. The situation at court is still too tense, too fragile for such heavy-handed solutions.

HuaiSang also cannot reveal the reasons for Xue ChengMei’s imprisonment. Such an accusation would result in a swift death, with no opportunity to draw out the accomplices he must have in the Immortal Mountain City.

No, the boy is infinitely more useful alive, although it sets HuaiSang’s teeth on edge to have this creature anywhere near Wei Ying.

There are many more questions he could ask, but the smell is unbearable, and for the time being, he has the majority of the answers he needs. The boy’s revelations may have been sparse and unpleasant, but HuaiSang has never needed all the pieces of a tangram to discern its shape.

Only when he is climbing the stone steps, does one particular sentence come back to him with full force, and he finds himself shaking his head in disbelief.

Chaos personified. As if Wei Ying had ever needed a demonic sword to be worthy of such a title.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #ficlet #m #wwx emperor au #okay so i mixed up the order last time #this is xue yang's creepy story time #wangji's pov is next #ily chickens

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isabilightwood · 3 years

Text

THE PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY - CHAPTER 9

Or, Sacrifice Summon! Jiang Yanli is here to make things right, be the ultimate big sister (step 1: bring back her dead brother), and maybe steal the Peacock throne in the process

[AO3][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

The trees shivered under an unnatural fog. Yet the sky above was clear, save for the eerie crimson light of the stars. Every gust of wind against the leaves was a howling moan, every rustle of the undergrowth a giant spider yao gathering itself to lunge. Jin Tianyu wanted to go home. He was going to be an accountant under the Chief Cultivator and help him change the world. Important things. Not like stupid night hunting.

He didn’t need night hunting experience to do math.

But his instructors disagreed. Even Madam Jin had shaken her head when he asked for an exemption, and explained that he needed to be able to defend himself. He’d already delayed too much by avoiding night hunting until he was eighteen, two years away from his coming of age. But what could he ever need to defend himself from in Koi Tower, save the cheek-pinching fingers of elderly relatives?

And if he had to go night hunting, why did it have to be with Fan Caining? If only their regular blademaster or even Madam Jin herself ran these things. Then he would feel safe and protected, and not like his class’ ostensible teacher, appointed to ensure the group made it back in one piece, would turn tail and flee should they run into anything more dangerous than a single ghost.

Which they would. Besides their target, a guai formed from a carpenter’s worktable that had become animated, killed its owner, and run off into the woods, there had been reports of multiple yao formed from clouded leopards in these woods.

Not to mention the giant spiders. Jin Tianyu had had one on the ceiling of his room last night, and his roommate had refused to take care of it for him, right before rolling over and going right to sleep! He’d been forced to suffer through chasing it away with a broom by himself, whimpering all the while. And that was without the massive growth spurt resentful energy gave them.

Fan Caining suddenly swept his sword through the undergrowth, clearing out an ordinary pack of rodents. As he did so, something growled in the woods up ahead.

“That should draw something out.” He informed the group, though they’d been taught in class that the best way to draw out a dangerous guai or yao was to choose a battleground by scouting during the day, and using a lure flag with a limited distance to reduce the risk of attracting anything else.

How a bunch of rodents would draw out a murderous worktable, Jin Tianyu did not know. But it might bring out those leopards!

The senior disciple had a build that seemed to be made of squares, which also described his personality. Flat and boring, with a few pointy spots that made him dangerous to cross. Jin Tianyu had learned that the hard way when he suggested they might, possibly want to scout beforehand, and Fan Caining hit him hard across the back with the flat of his sword. The bruise had yet to fade.

Sure enough, a leopard yao with glowing red eyes pounced on his slightly older cousin as they entered the next clearing. She shrieked and whacked at it with her sheathed sword while Jin Tianyu and everyone else gaped. Even Fan Caining.

As his tangjie managed to get her sword between herself and the leopard, Jin Tianyu shook off his shock and drew his sword. He held it in front of himself like a spear and charged, yelling. Sword pierced flesh with sickening squelch.

He’d screwed his eyes shut to avoid looking, he realized, and opened them. The leopard was dead alright, and his tangjie alive if covered in the leopard’s blood. But it seemed Fan Caining had recovered at the same time he did. Either Jin Tianyu stabbing its gut or it’s beheading could have done it in.

“Thanks.” Tangjie said, as she used his limp arm to pull herself up. “I was starting to think no one would step in.”

The dozen other junior disciples looked sheepish.

“Of course,” Fan Caining drew himself up prouder than any peacock in the Koi Tower gardens, though she hadn’t addressed him.

The groaning noise sounded again, this time cut off with a wail.

Fan Caining waved him and the other junior disciples ahead as though nothing was wrong. Jin Tianyu cursed his luck for the thousandth time.

It was one of the outer disciples who first stepped in a trap. They tried to take another step, and found themselves immobilized at the edge of the clearing. Tangjie took a step forward and found herself shot up into the branches of the tree above. “I can’t — my hands are stuck to the branch!” She called down, in a panic.

Several other disciples moved to help, but found themselves in the same situation. Jin Tianyu’s limbs felt heavy, and he stood there dumb and immobile.

The groaning noise came again, but cut off in a laugh that could only come from a person.

Lilting laughter that sounded like his worst nightmare echoed through the clearing. Looking around, Jin Tianyu spotted a man dressed in black and silver reclining casually on a tree branch. Beautiful, in the way of jagged glass, only sharper. Like he would not only cut anything that got too close, but shred it into thin, unidentifiable slivers.

If I was better at verse, I could be a poet, and leave cultivation behind forever. Jin Tianyu thought absently.

The man looked familiar somehow, like he might have crossed paths with Jin Tianyu in passing. Except that Jin Tianyu had never left Lanling City before.

Fog rolled into the clearing, but only below the tree line, leaving the man clear and untouched above.

Jin Tianyu coughed. No, not fog. Powder.

Fan Caining stood in the center of the clearing, his sword shaking as he pointed it up towards the man. “Xue Yang? But you’re supposed to be —”

“Dead?” Xue Yang’s teeth shone white, bared in a threat, not a smile. “Yes, you did try very hard to make that happen. Too bad for you, I’m too crazy to die. Lucky for me, none of your friends are here this time to save you. Only a few tasty little children.”

To his surprise, Fan Caining did not try to run. Instead, he jumped up into the trees. “I can take you on my own, you weak little maniac.”

Xue Yang only laughed as he attacked.

Xue Yang. Jin Tianyu knew why he recognized him now. That was the former disciple brought in by the former sect leader, cast out by the current Chief Cultivator. The murderer of the Chang Clan.

He’d called them tasty.

Screw Fan Caining. They needed to get out of there.

Jin Tianyu tried to give himself leverage to get to his cousin by pushing against a tree, and found himself entirely turned around, no longer in the clearing.

He turned, and the trees seemed to spin around him. They continued to spin no matter how long he tried to stand still, stumbling, until finally he hit something solid and rough. A tree. He slid down it. Seated, his vision felt a little clearer.

He soon wished it wasn’t.

Something dropped from the tree to dangle in above Jin Tianyu. He dared to peak, and immediately regretted it.

The slack, inverted features of Fan Caining stared back, his eyes bulging from his head, tongue swollen and hanging from blue-tinged lips.

Jin Tianyu screamed.

He woke to Tangjie slapping his cheeks. “Tianyu! Tianyu, wake up!”

“What… what happened?” Jin Tianyu said groggily, as his memory began to return. He sat up straight. “Xue Yang!”

“He left, but I think there was something in that fog. You inhale the most of it, but all of us breathed in a little.” She explained. “We need to hurry back to the inn. The rest of the group has Cai-qianbei’s body. Come on, we need to go.”

She slung his arm around her neck, but as he stood, the vertigo returned in full force.

Somehow, they made it back to the inn, but he didn’t remember it.

A young man rose from a table, then he was doubled and tripled and on again. He wore gray, with a boar on his shoulder. That meant Nie. Jin Tianyu remembered that.

“Did the lot of you run all the way back here like that?”

“What?” Jin Tianyu asked, and the next thing he knew, the Nie disciple was keeping him upright by the elbow, taking his weight from Tangjie so she could collapse in a chair.

Jin Tianyu stared up into the Nie disciple’s face, at the angles of his defined cheekbones and jaw, with just the right amount of softness. Very symmetrical. He could do math with that face.

Pretty. He thought.

“Thank you.” The Nie disciple flashed him a smile that made him want to faint all over again. “You’ve got corpse poisoning. Let’s get some congee in you, now.”

He was seated and a bowl of congee appeared in front of him out of nowhere, as though it had already been prepared. Even though it was evening, and he didn’t think enough time had passed to make it.

Jin Tianyu couldn’t be sure, though. He was too busy floating, the only thing anchoring him to his body the burning pain on his tongue.

That faded as he forced down more of the bowl, and he realized it was chili. He could see the flakes reddening his bowl. Tangjie, who loved chili, had scarfed it down with no problem. Jin Tianyu tried to put down the bowl.

“No, no, you have to eat the whole thing for it to work.” The Nie disciple —who was even prettier now that his head was clearer — shoved the bowl back into his hands. “That was corpse powder you were poisoned with. You’ll die.”

Jin Tianyu shoveled the rest into his mouth.

The Nie disciple was tall. Very tall, as was the case for every Nie he’d seen with the sole exception of their current sect leader, but surprisingly thin, like he didn’t spend all his spare time building up the muscles the Nie were well known for. The hair braided up into his guan was lopsided, like he’d done it up without looking in a mirror. But even under the influence of the corpse powder, Jin Tianyu had been correct. His face was perfectly symmetrical, without a single blemish or pore to be found. It would have looked unnatural, were his perfect face not so expressive. His brows arched and lips pursed sternly, but giving the impression that he was laughing.

“Now, would you mind telling me what happened?” His beautiful savior asked.

Speaking over each other, Jin Tianyu and the other disciples hurried to do so. But by the next morning, when they gathered to leave for Koi Tower, their savior was gone.

In Nie robes and a face that did not belong to him, Wei Wuxian did not receive a second glance until he first set foot in the Unclean realm. Once there, he constantly felt eyes boring into his back, but when he glanced over, he’d find disciples hard at work on their forms or their noses buried deep in texts. Which only went to prove their curiosity.

Even with Nie Huaisang for a sect leader, it wasn’t every day that a stranger was brought into the sect and handed a high-ranking position. But the Nie Sect had few elders, and those they had were aged and gray because with saber cultivation, it was the weak who survived the longest. It seemed the Nie elders were retired in truth, pursuing hobbies like needlework and whittling and nagging their grandchildren to eat more.

By the time Wei Wuxian arrived in the Unclean Realm, Nie Mingjue’s body had been hidden away, though not yet buried, for reasons known only to Nie Huaisang. No one said anything about that, either.

“And since I’m the weakest of the lot, I’ll live to be a hundred,” Nie Huaisang completed explaining his free reign to lead his sect however he chose, unparalleled by any other sect even a single generation past its founding as they approached the gates to the Unclean Realm.

Right before dropping a bomb on his head in the form of unwarranted and unwanted respectability. “My closest sect siblings know my motives if not my plans, so no one will oppose appointing you to the vacant position of fourth disciple.”

“What?” Wei Wuxian sputtered, tempted to check if Nie Huaisang was running a fever. “What happened to the last fourth disciple?”

Nie Huaisang snapped his fan closed, and opened it again, staring off into the distance.

Touchy subject. Understood. “Forget I asked.”

“Let’s just say Jin Guangyao owes the Nie Clan more than one life.” Nie Huaisang said, before dragging him through the gates and launching into a series of dramatic introductions that left his head spinning.

Apparently he was going by Nie Wang, courtesy Xiaomeng now.

Wei Wuxian had not been consulted on this. Walking around with everyone thinking his name was hope felt precisely in line with Nie Huaisang’s sense of humor.

True to form, Nie Huaisang did not deign to explain until he wanted something. Despite copious amounts of pleading, Wei Wuxian was forced to wait through a restless night of nightmares and a morning while his apparent new sect leader caught up on work to get his answers.

Finally, Nie Huaisang summoned him around lunch time. He was set up in a pavilion in the garden, with a mountain of paperwork. The garden had been designed by someone with an eye for showcasing Qinghe’s foliage. A lotus pond surrounded the pavilion, and though its cultivated beauty was no match for the wildness of Yunmeng’s lakes, the carefully selected flowers staggered through the surrounding paths were like hidden gems, each intended to stand on its own.

There were birds as well, goldfinches and many others kept there not by cages, but by the feeders full of seeds spread throughout.

“So,” Wei Wuxian said as he sprawled on a bench across the table from Nie Huaisang, who did not look up from his work to greet him. “I thought I was going to be a rogue cultivator. But apparently you had other ideas.”

“If you’re going to pull this off, the easiest way to wander around without notice is as one of my disciples. As a rogue cultivator, you might gather some recognition, get invited along to visit sects and so on. As one of mine, well, there are Nie disciples everywhere.” It was deeply disconcerting to watch Nie Huaisang take something seriously. And he was serious about that paperwork, not even looking up to speak. “They get bored of me, and travel.”

“They’re spies, aren’t they?”

He lifted his brush from a page with a flourish, and pinned it off to the side under a weight to dry, immediately moving onto the next one. “Are you saying I’m not irritating enough to make people need a break? I must have an ulterior motive? I’ll have to try harder.”

“Oh, you’re very irritating. They’re just extremely loyal.”

“After the Sunshot campaign and the losses we had during Dage’s decline, both to desertion and other causes. And then the prospect of me. Well, anyone who’s left is basically family.”

He gestured at Nie Xiaodan, at that moment crossing the bridge towards the pavilion.

Nie Xiaodan patted him on the head as she passed by. “Don’t forget to order lunch, Zongzhu.” She said, and returned to discussing a night hunt with her companion. It seemed she had come for that reminder only.

Nie Huaisang beamed.

“Fine, I’ll pretend to be your disciple.” Wei Wuxian wanted to pretend he’d been given a choice.

“Excellent! We can get you a saber easily enough.”

Uh. He had told him what Wen Qing said about his core, right? Wei Wuxian was often terrible at remembering tasks, but he distinctly recalled completing that one. “I’m banned from resentful energy, doctor’s orders.”

“Our smiths can make sabers without binding an animal spirit, you know. They do make other things.”

Wei Wuxian was summarily introduced to the blacksmiths, a married couple who looked him up and down intently and promptly got into an argument over the saber’s design. When he looked around for Nie Huaisang, the sneaky little spymaster was missing, because of course he was.

Attempts at interrupting failed to distract the couple from their debate over the pattern to be inscribed on the hilt, so Wei Wuxian settled against the wall to wait, and inadvertently took a nap.

He was prodded awake with the end of a (thankfully) unheated poker. “Infuse this with your energy,” The smith holding the poker growled, pointing towards a red-hot block of iron. Wei Wuxian did as requested, feeling only a slight protest from Xue Yang’s — his core.

Then, all he had to do was wait.

During the week it took for his new saber to be prepared, Wei Wuxian was not idle.

If he was going to imitate Xue Yang with no demonic cultivation and an extremely temperamental sword, Wei Wuxian needed tricks. Wen Qing had told him to invent something. But, Wei Wuxian thought, how better to create the illusion of evil tricks than to use something that actually existed.

He had drawn one idea from the stage. Why not the methods for a few more?

Within a day of verbalizing his plan, Wei Wuxian drowned under a sea of texts pulled from the shelves of the Nie library and from the private records of Qinghe’s theater and dance troops. Thanks to Nie Huaisang’s generous patronage, Wei Wuxian had been able to request manuals on the techniques in common between troops, rather than their family secrets. The tricks to raising and lowering a curtain on an improvised stage and to building a smoke bomb in a desired hue for a start.

The combination of practical optical illusions and talismans seemed particularly promising.

The smoke bombs were the easiest, simply a matter of mixing powders together in a casing and setting them on fire. Fun for him, but since he managed to irritate someone no matter where he set them off, Wei Wuxian moved on.

Combining his binding talisman and a sticking talisman, he stuck a disciple to the roof of the library.

(A volunteer, since it wasn’t as though Jiang Cheng was there. Or speaking to him.)

The force holding him in place was a standard talisman, nothing Wei Wuxian had invented, but the disciple struggled against it like he’d never learned how to counter it. Which he probably hadn’t, given how little thought most cultivators gave them beyond wards and the ubiquitous ones for keeping tea warm or sending brief messages.

Which was precisely why Wei Wuxian might just pull this off.

He thought about pulleys and spirit nets, and the next day, he inscribed the talismans within a pressure-triggered array, and sent himself flying upwards. Followed by a plethora of curious volunteers.

What had he expected, though? The Nie were a sect full of adrenaline junkies. Even the first disciple came around for a turn. After that, Wei Wuxian found himself with company and conversation at every meal.

Even so, he never forgot he was wearing a mask. Every night after a long day of study, the mask weighed heavy on his face, leaving him with a headache. He found it easier to ward his door, than keep it on while he slept. Then, and only then, was it safe to be himself.

Many of the most useful tricks required more practice, such as projecting sounds so they seemed to come from a different source. Wei Wuxian practiced each, over and over again, until he felt he had it. And then put on a demonstration.

When he could pull off a trick successfully in front of the little Nie Disciples, he knew he had managed it. If he still couldn’t fool Nie Huaisang, well, Huaisang was Huaisang.

He couldn’t be held to mortal standards.

That left one more problem, perhaps the most challenging.

Along with the skin mask, Xue Yang’s bag had contained: two changes of clothes, a small pouch of silver, a large coil of rope, and several heavy bags full of corpse powder.

Obviously, Wei Wuxian wasn’t actually going to use corpse powder on anyone. That could get messy fast, if anyone else was around, with no guarantee he’d be able to serve the antidote in time. Yet it seemed like corpse powder was a common part of Xue Yang’s modus operandi.

If he didn’t use it, would Jin Guangyao suspect something was off? There was no way of telling.

The problem niggled at the back of his mind all week long, whether he was becoming one with the library or getting caught in his own rope trap. But he got no closer to finding a solution.

Until finally, during breakfast on the day Wei Wuxian was to receive his saber, he sat staring into his congee, stirring it absently.

And had a brilliant idea.

Somehow, having a potential solution took the edge off his nerves, and he was able to hold Yuanzheng for the first time while only making a bit of a fool of himself. To his relief, it didn’t feel like Suibian, though the long, thin saber was also designed for agility rather than power.

Yuanzheng

did feel like a weapon he could use, not the dead, draining weight Suibian had become or the repulsion of Jiangzai. Like it might become an extension of his arm in time, with Suibian and Chenqing out of reach. Wei Wuxian teared up a little, as he went through a series of exercises for the first time in years, and did not pass out.

For the first time, his resurrection really felt like a second chance. The beginning of the long journey he’d named his saber for, with a slim chance that light in the distance was the end of the tunnel. With family and zhiji waiting on the other end.

He had better make it count.

From the privacy of his own room that night, he pulled out his Distance Speaking Stone, and called up Wen Qing. “Hey, disorienting powder can be cleared from the system with congee like corpse powder, right?”

With construction on watchtowers set to begin in several sects, there was little for Jiang Yanli to do on the project but wait. Yet she couldn’t remain idle with only her sect responsibilities and A-Ling to occupy her time. Not if she intended to make herself — or rather, Qin Su — a credible power in her own right, someone who had a chance of being believed when it came time to reveal Jin Guangyao’s crimes.

She needed a new project. Something Jin Guangyao had yet to present a plan for, something Qin Su would get all the credit for.

Word arrived that a Jin disciple had been murdered by Xue Yang, the juniors he had been escorting barely escaping with their lives. The pair of Jin cousins with the rare tea feud (under a temporary ceasefire in favor of vengeance against the Chief Cultivator for the allowance cut, so far consisting of attempts to convince the servants to put laxatives in his tea, which the servants would not do, out of a desire to remain among the living) fainted dead away at the news.

Jiang Yanli, already aware of this through her brother, attempted to look appropriately horrified.

Jin Guangyao paled, and for a moment, lost his composure. Ice in his eyes and steel in the set of his jaw, there and gone again in a blink. Mask back into place but still off balance, he cut off the junior disciples’ explanation of their rescue from corpse powder mid sentence. He immediately sent off three teams of disciples to track down Xue Yang and bring back his body.

“I thought Xiandu always heard all explanations to the end.” A messenger from Fengyang Hua whispered to a group consisting of the wards from Lieshan Du, Zhai Xia, and Mo Xuanyu’s ever-present suitors.

Not always, rumor would now say. Even Xiandu is afraid of something.

Even with fear in the air over the return of Xue Yang — for everyone had a horror story to tell of his time in Koi Tower, mostly to do with dismembered animals in places that were decidedly not the kitchen — Jiang Yanli found she had finally settled into her role.

One day, the paperwork ran out, and Jiang Yanli found herself with an afternoon free. A novel experience, since her return. It was a perfect opportunity to brainstorm her next step.

If only she could dredge up the barest hint of an idea. But her mind felt like a dried-up creek in a drought.

“I was thinking of going to the tailor in the city, Xiao-Heng is growing like a demon and needs more new clothes. Would you like to come with me?”

I bet we’re not thinking of anything because we’re trying too hard. Qin Su said.

As much as Jiang Yanli hated to admit it, she had a point. A-Xian always said that he had his best ideas the moment he stopped trying to force a solution. The difficulty lay in not thinking about it.

I have a solution for that. My beloved nephew is quite the attention hog.

“A-Ling’s robes have been looking rather short.” She said aloud.

Qi Juan beamed, and began tucking her son in his sling. He was soon to outgrow it, and had just reached the troublesome learning to crawl stage.

Kidnapping her son from his lessons was a thrill, though it was the work of a moment. The sour-faced calligraphy instructor dismissed A-Ling with visible relief, and the reminder that A-Ling was still expected to produce ten copies of poems at the next class. Without blotches of ink covering half the page, or brush strokes of uneven width.

A-Ling stuck out his tongue behind the instructor’s back, and ran to grab her hand, already chattering about how he wanted to bring back sticks of tanghulu for the entire class.

“My sweet, grumpy boy,” She ruffled his hair, and he scowled, attempting to push it back into place, but only displacing his top knot further. Just like his jiujiu.

The main streets of Lanling were cleaner than she remembered from six years ago. The shops lining the main street had all recently been given a fresh coat of paint, proprietors and customers alike looking healthier and more prosperous. Jin Guangyao had reformed the city’s taxes, on the basis that letting the common people keep more of their earnings now would bring the sect more profit in the long term. More than one person recognized her as Madam Jin, and called out a respectful greeting with a smile. At least on a surface level, his plan had begun to work.

There were fewer brothels now as well, reduced by half. The madams who had refused to start allowing their workers to pay off their contracts had been driven out of business or died in mysterious fires. (In some cases, but not all, the workers mysteriously escaped unscathed.) As A-Ling towed her along to a hawker with a tower of tanghulu, she passed an empty lot with the blackened foundations still visible. The buildings next to it were under repair, one of which seemed to have sustained considerable damage to the living quarters on the second floor.

As she looked around more closely, she saw an emaciated old man begging from the entrance of an alley, a woman in what had once been a set of fine performance robes soliciting passerby, and scruffy children lurking in dark corners.

Despite Jin Guangyao’s claims of working towards progress, there were still street children in Lanling.

Making a home for the orphans of Lanling had been a project dear to A-Xuan’s heart, in the last months of his life. Impending fatherhood had made him more perceptive in many ways, more so even than the changes he underwent during the Sunshot campaign. But when she was preganant, her husband had taken her by the arms and informed her with great distress that there are children in the streets, Yanli! Children!

Jiang Yanli had thought better late than never and helped him come up with a plan. She had her own reasons to take an interest in the care of orphans and poor children, after all.

Jin Guangshan had probably signed the funding out of the budget on an advisor’s word, not having been informed how his son and daughter-in-law were spending the clan’s funds in the first place.

Jin Guangyao would not have gotten rid of such a program, she thought, as she fished a coin so her son could get as sticky with sugar as his little heart desired.

Qin Su did not quite agree. No, he would have replaced it with something similar, that he could claim the credit for.

True. But he hadn’t — which meant there was room for Jiang Yanli to fill the gap.

After a moment of thought, she purchased a second stick, and handed it to Qi Juan.

“You looked like you could use it.” She told her.

Qi Juan bit down delicately on the candy-coated hawthorn, but couldn’t avoid the satisfying crunch. And laughed, as parts of the coating cracked, and fell from her lips. “All right. I haven’t had something like this since… before the Sunshot Campaign, probably. Certainly not since my family came up in the world and married me off. You look like you could use one too.”

“Do I?” Jiang Yanli had often thought that helping others feel better was its own reward.

It would make me feel better to taste something sweet. Qin Su said in a blatant attempt to get Jiang Yanli to treat herself. Sweet-sweet though, not hawthorn berries.

I think that stall might be selling lotus mooncakes.” Though the mid-autumn festival had already past, there was never a wrong time for a mooncake.

It was a mistake to mention heaven’s favorite root in front of Jin Ling. “Lotus!” He shouted. “Pleasepleaseplease mooncake mooncake!” And would not let up until she bought him one, in addition to three for herself.

“That’s more than enough sugar for one day, young man.” She informed him as she took a bite of her own mooncake, wrapping the others in a cloth for later.

A-Ling grinned toothily up at her, mooncake leaking lotus paste in one hand, half eaten tanghulu in the other, and the glint of sugar all over his cheeks.

Perhaps she should have insisted he wait until after their errand for his treats, but Jiang Yanli did not possess the earned resistance to his adorable whims of a mother who had gotten to see her child grow. Who could blame her, if she spoiled him a little? “Do you think the tailor will still let us in the shop?”

“It’s not so bad,” Qi Juan said, just as A-Ling smushed the rest of the mooncake in his hand, and shoved it in his face. She grimaced. “I’m certain Tailor Ke has seen worse.”

Indeed, Tailor Ke, a woman who knew her way around hanfu, if the way the one she was wearing flattered her extensive curves meant anything, did not blink an eye. “If you could wipe off the young master’s hands, please, Jin-furen?”

Jiang Yanli took the offered wet handkerchief, and wiped the stickiness off of a protesting A-Ling. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to damage any of your lovely merchandise.”

Sadly, the more vibrant fabrics could not be chosen for A-Ling, who would be consigned to golden peacocks and peonies on off-white for as long as he lived. As a married-in spouse, however, Jiang Yanli had more leeway with under robes. The pale pink of Laoling Qin tempered the gold, making it almost palatable.

Qi Juan freely admired a swatch of vivid green fabric, in precisely the right shade for her natal sect. A daring choice, if it was for her son. Perhaps a sign that Qi Juan would be receptive to opposing her husband.

Tailor Ke bustled around, assembling the appropriate silks in Jin colors for Jiang Yanli’s inspection herself.

“Have you been short handed lately?” She asked as ideas for how, exactly, she would go about outdoing Jin Guangyao in reform measures began to coalesce in her mind.

“Have I ever! There’s all this new demand for clothing and not enough suitable apprentices to go around! Everyone’s looking, not just me.” She dropped a stack of fabrics on the table with a grunt. “Jin-gongzi’s order will take priority, of course.”

She shook her head. Naturally an order from the sect leader’s wife would be prioritized, but there was no need. “Please put Bei-gongzi’s order ahead of mine. A-Ling can get a bit more use out of his robes, but Bei-gongzi won’t fit into his if he grows anymore. And only the peony for embroidery. If it’s any more elaborate, A-Ling will inevitably ruin the robes the first time he wears them.”

“Yes, Jin-furen.” Tailor Ke agreed. “It won’t take more than a week, all told. Kid’s clothes work up fast.”

“And wear out faster.” She sighed as A-Ling chose that moment to snag his sleeve on a nail. “What are you looking for, in an apprentice?”

Many craftspeople would have been hesitant to answer, but Tailor Ke was happy to babble on as she began to drape fabrics over A-Ling’s shoulders, critiquing and sorting them to find the least aesthetically terrible combinations. “Oh, someone who’s quick with their hands, with some basic sewing and embroidery skills. I don’t have time to teach basics, but the rest can come along in time. Someone to do the books for me would also be a dream. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, though fortunately I can still stitch a straight seam without looking.”

That seemed like simple enough requirements, easily fulfilled with a little education. Though orphans were pulled of the street from time to time, it was usually for menial positions they would lose the moment something went wrong. Or if they were very lucky, to take care of an old, childless widow. Re-instituting A-Xuan’s program and improving upon it — that could be a very real way to distinguish Qin Su in the eyes of not only the Jin Sect, but the cultivation world.

The children could not only learn skills to help find employment, but be tested for cultivation potential.

The sects were always complaining about how difficult it was to recruit new talent. Executed properly, Jiang Yanli could make Qin Su look not only kind-hearted, but clever, reputable, and forward thinking, with the best interests of the sect she had married into at heart.

Even if the actual Qin Su fantasized about burning down Koi Tower on a regular basis.

Hey.

What? It was true.

Qin Su huffed. A semi-regular basis, maybe. And I would never actually. I wouldn’t actually ruin the whole of Lanling’s economy or put the servants and juniors out of house and home.

My apologies then. She suppressed a laugh.

Would there really be enough apprenticeships to go around, though? Qin Su sent numbers bouncing around her mind as she attempted the mental math, but got lost without paper.

Perhaps not. But larger farms could use workers, manors could use servants, and affordable bookkeepers were always in short supply. It could, at least, give them a better start.

“Shenshen look! I’m all twirly!” A-Ling giggled as he spun, the silk draped over him spinning out and threatening to knock over the tailor’s basket of supplies. Jiang Yanli tried not to smile, knowing she would need to scold him later, and prepared to pay for the entire bolt.

“We should discuss the problem with your sword.” Wen Qing said one night through the softly glowing Distance Speaking Stone. A-Xian had popped in earlier, briefly, but he was busy following the second of the Jin disciples on Xue Yang’s list, learning the habits of the group they were part of before he could lead them into a trap.

Jiang Yanli stared into her evening tea. “Must we?”

“Wei Wuxian isn’t having trouble with his new saber. The problem must be that Chunsheng doesn’t fully recognize you as Qin Su.”

“I can’t just get rid of her sword.” That wasn’t done.

<We are not getting rid of Chunsheng.> Qin Su said from inside her paperman. She’d been bent over a copy of some of A-Xian’s notes, researching something she had yet to explain.

“You’re basically unprotected. What if something —” Wen Qing cut herself off, surprisingly panicked.

Replacing a sword would garner more attention than A-Xian had in refusing to carry Suibian around. Whether they would somehow determine the truth or spread rumors about a disastrous fallout with the Qin clan, everyone would know something was off.

Still, it was sweet of her to worry. “Any sword is more protection than I had in my last life, Wen Qing.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” She sounded so forlorn that Jiang Yanli ached with the desire to fall into her arms and rub circles into her back until she slept, and even after. “But I worry.”

So did she, far too often. There was no end to worrying, it seemed. Not even after death. “Does A-Xian have any ideas about the talisman keeping you trapped?”

Wen Qing hesitated. “I haven’t let him look at it yet.”

“A-Qing!” A slip of the tongue, in her shock.

Wen Qing’s breath caught. “I’m not letting him put my life before his again. When we’re closer —”

“Last time you put his life before yours, he died anyways.” Jiang Yanli snapped. And sighed. “I’m sorry, that was unfair. It’s just — if you’re allowed to worry for me, I get to worry for you.”

“A little longer. Then I’ll speak to him.”

She could tell that was the best she was going to get. “If you don’t, I’ll tell him myself.”

Jiang Yanli was tired of watching the people she cared about tear themselves apart. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

Wen Qing let out a shaky, hiccupping laugh. “That seems fair.”

#the untamed #cq #wangxian #yanqing #qin su #the sacrifice summon! JYL fic #where the summoner (qin su) sticks around #this time featuring wwx traumatizing some teenagers #being subject to the whims of nhs #and jyl spending an afternoon with jin ling

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hamliet · 5 years

Text

MXTX Ladies Week: MDZS

I did Scum Villain’s awesome female cast last night, and now it is time for my favorite of MXTX’s novels, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.

In MDZS, my main critique is that, while all of the female characters do get fantastic arcs, the vast majority of them die (though, granted, their deaths aren’t usually done just for the male characters’ sadness, but often do make sense for their own arcs. So that’s. Something. Still grumbly about it though). “The woman dies” is a similar trope to “bury your gays” and it’s... tiring. That said, I did find all the characters’ arcs incredibly well done. No one is fanservice; they are all complex and human.

I want to talk about the characters whom I haven’t talked about as much before, so that means less on SiSi and MianMian, as well as less on Madame Lan. See here for my meta on SiSi and MianMian, as well as here for my meta on Madame Lan. Throughout all of their arcs, there’s a common thread about calling out sexism. MianMian calls it out directly:

The person replied, “You’re...calling white black no matter how irrational it is. Ha, women will always be women.”

MianMian fumed, “Irrational? Calling white black? I’m just being considerate it as it stands. What does it have to do with the fact that I’m a woman? You can’t be rational with me so you’re attacking me with other things?”...

Holding in her tears, she shouted a moment later, “Fine! Your voices are louder! Fine! You’re the rational ones!”

She clenched her teeth and took off the crested robe she wore with force, slamming it onto the table with a loud bang. Even the sect leaders in the front rows, who weren’t paying attention to this side, turned around to see what happened. The ones beside her were indeed surprised. What she did meant that she was ‘leaving the sect’?

Soon, some began to agree, “Women will always be women. They quit just after you say a few harsh words. She’ll definitely come back on her own, a couple of days later.”

“There’s no doubt. After all, she finally managed to turn from the daughter of a servant to a disciple, haha…”

MianMian is looked down upon by the social hierarchy for being a woman and for being the daughter of a servant. Her lack of power against a sexist world is eventually countered by the fact that she’s one of the women who survive the novel, with a husband who follows her in night-hunting. As I said in my past meta, she steps outside a corrupt society.

Mistreated Wives Mistreating Children: Madame Jin and Madame Yu

Madame Yu is probably one of the most complex characters in the entire novel, which says a lot since she’s a minor character. But she and Madame Jin are said to be best friends who arrange the marriage of their children, and the two women are also foils.

Both of them are mistreated by their husbands in a sense. Madame Jin has to deal with Jin GuangShan sleeping around and impregnating numerous other women, while Yu ZiYuan has to deal with the fact that Jiang FengMian clearly was in love with CanSe SanRen, not with her, and brought back CangSe SanRen’s child after Wei WuXian was orphaned. To be completely fair, Madame Yu’s dislike of and lack of respect for her husband is completely valid over this. However, what isn’t valid is her taking it out on all three of the kids at Lotus Pier. She abuses Wei WuXian and mentally abuses Jiang Cheng as well, and isn’t exactly awesome towards Jiang YanLi either. She constantly reminds Jiang Cheng that he can’t live up to Wei WuXian (projecting her own bitterness at not being enough to be loved like CangSe SanRen in her husband’s eyes), whom she despises for whom his mother was, and thereby exacerbates Jiang Cheng’s already deep insecurity issues (granted Jiang FengMian is responsible for this as well). But, she ultimately dies to save both Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian, refusing to cut off his hand when she knows he is innocent. It doesn’t erase how she treated them while they lived, but it does add a level of complexity and tragedy: she knew Wei WuXian was powerless in these circumstances, as she had always felt, and she saves the kids before dying to defend Lotus Pier--with her husband, whom, it’s implied, did care about her but sucked at showing it. Almost like that’s a Jiang family trait.

Madame Jin is no better towards Jin GuangYao when he shows up. She did not object towards a child being kicked down the stairs on the basis of something he could not help, and Lan XiChen notes that she has him beaten regularly after he is accepted in the Jinlintai. Yes, she told off her husband for his arrogance, but she was trapped in her marriage with him and projected her pain onto someone who was not responsible for it (regardless of what Jin GuangYao did, she was abusing him).

The point of both women isn’t that they’re horrible or that one is redeemed; it’s once again calling out the double standards and corrupt power structures at play. Jin GuangYao and Madame Jin are actually foils in that both abuse the power they have to target children who can’t help who their parents are (A-Song), because neither of them are able to truly demand justice from the person who is actually responsible: Jin GuangShan.

The Bad Girls: Meng Shi, CangSe SanRen, and Madame Lan

Or the women whom no one cared about enough to hear their stories. Madame Lan was a murderer and a parallel to Jin GuangYao and Wei WuXian as a result; the only way to save her life was to marry Lan WangJi and XiChen’s father. She’s noted to have been playful and fun, but she was only allowed to see her sons once a month, and she was confined her entire life, which is basically symbolic of how the cultivational society treats people: it traps them and isolates them.

CangSe SanRen is not described in much detail besides that, like Xiao XingChen, she left BaoShan SanRen to join cultivational society. Yet she still continued to flout its rules--cutting off Lan QiRen’s beard and marrying a servant instead of marrying a sect leader and gaining power. Rumors about her--that she had an affair with Jiang FengMian despite no evidence--and that she flouted society are then projected onto her son (symbolic of society’s unwillingness to change its corruption and power system)...

...which is just like how Meng Shi’s having been a prostitute is projected onto Jin GuangYao. People won’t even accept tea from him, believing his skin dirty on the basis of whom his mother was. However, everything we know about Meng Shi suggests she cared deeply for her son and chose to have him despite knowing what it would do to her popularity as a prostitute. Even when the other prostitutes comment about how she was a fool who kept hoping he would return, she still cared for her son and he repaid her by carving her face into the GuanYin temple’s idol. Jin GuangYao also expressly says that his father “wouldn’t buy [her] freedom,” implying that she did not have much of a choice about her lifestyle. Good job, society. Not.

The Mean Girl: JiaoJiao

Okay, she’s kind of loathsome in personalty, petty and cruel and having an affair with an even crueler prince. Yet in a story that comments so much on privilege, it’s hard not to see her as a victim of circumstance as well; however, her proximity with the (then) pinnacle of corruption in Wen Chao and Wen RouHan means that she too misuses her power once she has it. She hurts innocents in Lotus Pier, she tries to kill MianMian just for being pretty, etc.

However, keep in mind that JiaoJiao’s prettiness is said to be what attracted Wen Chao to her, and it’s said that her family then received favors, such as the creating of their own sect. Her name is also noted by translators to be comparatively unsophisticated, implying that she likely came from a family that wasn’t exactly high up in society. None of this excuses her, but what exactly makes her fear of someone else being prettier than her and thus losing all the power she has (which she knew would happen eventually), and potentially her family suffering for it as well, all that much different than Jiang Cheng’s bitterness towards people more powerful in cultivation than him? Jiang Cheng had ShiJie and Wei WuXian and others to show him love and help him not become as cruel of a person (until she dies and then he does, indeed, torture people), but we know nothing about whether JiaoJiao had that.

Desperate people cling to what they have. JiaoJiao, Wei WuXian, Jin GuangYao, and Jiang Cheng all show us this. It doesn’t excuse them, but neither does it mean they’re demons.

Integrity and the Limits of Sacrifice: Wen Qing and Jiang YanLi

Jiang YanLi and Wen Qing are in many ways the opposite of JiaoJiao: both are brave, kind women, and wonderful older sisters, even if Jiang YanLi is unassuming and Wen Qing bold. Both are inhibited by their power, though: Jiang YanLi’s talents are not cultivational in nature, and Wen Qing may be talented and brilliant as a doctor, but she is limited by her role all the same:

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few of times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

The thing is: she did try to stop some of them, helping Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t speak up for her. Sigh.

Both of them are also foils in how they both ultimately sacrifice their lives to save Wei WuXian... and it turns out that their sacrifice doesn’t protect Wei WuXian. Wen Qing tells Wei WuXian the story’s catchphrase “thank you, and I’m sorry” before turning herself in for execution with her brother, but all this winds up in is the BurialMounds being seiged anyways, all her relatives except Wen Yuan being killed, and Wei WuXian still dying. Wen Ning, too, is not killed but is made a weapon. Jiang YanLi, despite Wei WuXian having led to the death of her husband, pushes him out of the way of a soldier looking to kill him, and gets killed instead. But this only results in Jiang Cheng becoming enraged and helping kill Wei WuXian, and Jin Ling being left an orphan.

However, because MDZS has a pretty nuanced view on sacrifice, it’s neither pointless nor to be admired. Wei WuXian is both Wen Qing and Jiang YanLi’s foil in this: he, too, is self-sacrificial to a fault. The novel pretty clearly implies that self-sacrifice can be a form of self-harm, as it is for all three of them. Yet, all three of them have a defining trait of deep love that ultimately enables them to have legacies that continue: Wen Yuan, Jin Ling, even Wen Ning survive, and Wei WuXian is given a second chance at life. It’s not that their sacrifices were ultimately selfish and didn’t matter or shouldn’t have happened; it’s that, without an unjust society, they should not have had to happen. Wen Qing should not have been condemned on the basis of her name. Jiang YanLi should not have been killed because Wei WuXian should never have been seiged. And Wei WuXian should never have had to feel like he had to prove his worth (keep in mind Yu ZiYuan’s last words to him are literally that he should protect Jiang Cheng with his life).

The Victims: Qin Su, Mo XuanYu’s Mother, and Madame Qin

In this house we stan Qin Su.

Talk about a woman who goes after what she wants. She is said to have pursued Jin GuangYao after he saved her during the Sunshot Campaign, rather than the other way around.

However, during the sunshot campaign, Qin Su had been saved by Jin GuangYao. She fell in love with him and never gave up, insisting that she wanted to be his wife. In the end, they finally drew the period on such a romantic story. Jin GuangYao didn’t let her down either. Even though he held the important position of Chief Cultivator, his behavior was drastically different from his father’s. He never took in any concubines, much less had a relationship with any other woman. This was indeed something that many wives of sect leaders envied.

And yet, again, because of circumstances beyond her control and because of the abuse of power, she can’t have happiness. Jin GuangShan raped her mother (seriously, he’s the very symbol of power abuse in relation to sexism in this novel), who is too ashamed to tell her husband that his best friend assaulted her. We can’t fault Madame Qin for staying silent, and with Qin Su already pregnant, it’s difficult not to empathize with Jin GuangYao for feeling trapped and marrying her anyways--though it is his fault for not telling her, and for killing their son, as Qin Su basically states that the dividing line for her is because Jin GuangYao killed A-Song, not because of their blood relation.

After a moment of silence, Jin GuangYao answered, “I know that you won’t believe me, no matter what I say, but it was sincere, back then.”

Qin Su sobbed, “… You’re still speaking such blandishments!”

Jin GuangYao, “I’m speaking the truth. I’ve always remembered that you have never said anything about my background or my mother. I’m grateful for you until the end of my life, and I want to respect you, cherish you, love you. But, you have to know that even if A-Song hadn’t been killed, he had to die. He could only die. If we let him grow up, you and I…”

With the mention of her son, Qin Su couldn’t bear it any longer. With a raise of her hand, she slapped him on the face, “Then who’s the one that did all this?! Just what can’t you do for this position?!”

In some ways Qin Su and Madame Qin could be seen as a potential foil for Madame Jin and Madame Yu, in that they both loved children who were forced upon them, who would have been scorned in the world’s eyes, and defend their wellbeing and life.

Mo XuanYu’s mother was sixteen when Jin GuangShan found her, and she was noted to herself be the illegitimate daughter of a servant--but her father was not scorned for this, yet she was scorned for having a son outside of wedlock.

the elder one was the daughter of his principal wife, looking for a husband to marry into the family, while the younger one was the daughter of a servant. The Mo family originally wanted to hastily give her to someone, but an adventure awaited her. When she was sixteen, the leader of a well-known cultivation family was passing by the area, and fell in love with her at first sight.

...In the beginning, the people of Mo Village regarded the topic with contempt, but because the Sect Leader* often helped out, the Mo family received plenty of advantages. And so, the direction of the discussions changed, and the Mo family took pride in the matter, while everyone else also envied the opportunity.

She was respected only for the value she could bring a poor village. And then when Mo XuanYu was cast out of the Jin Sect, it’s noted that:

After he went back home dejectedly, he was bombarded with ridicule. The situation seemed like it was beyond redemption, and the second-lady of Mo was not able to withstand the blow, shortly choking to death because of the trauma.

Considering Mo XuanYu’s makeup is of a hanged ghost and the mention of how she died, it’s pretty likely that she hung herself.

Mo XuanYu’s mother, just like Qin Su, commits suicide in the end to avoid a cruel society that would not respond to plights that were in no way their fault with anything but cruelty. Jin GuangYao notes that Qin Su would be the “laughingstock of the world” and soon after she grabs a dagger in which her soul would be trapped forever--a dagger originally owned by again The Symbol of Abuse of Power in Wen RouHan--and kills herself in a chamber of secrets (literally, a secret treasure vault, because she could not survive these secrets coming to light not keeping them silent). Just like Madame Qin, neither of them have anywhere to turn to for justice or for compassion. In the cultivational world, they are already disadvantaged for being women, and their tragic ends show again how disgusting the society in MDZS is.

Hope and Bravery: A-Qing

Of course it’s not the righteous cultivator and it’s not the strongest in cultivation who is the hero who finally gets justice in Yi City. It’s the beggar girl who pretends to be blind, the thief, with no cultivation. A-Qing’s ghost may be blind and mute, but she sees and speaks more than any of them. Her empathy enables the heroes to figure out what happened in Yi City, and she is mourned and lauded for her bravery for it.

She has little power in the world, so she lies to get the money she can. But what she does have is love and loyalty that foils Lan WangJi’s (though I don’t believe in any way that it’s remotely implied this love for Xiao XingChen is romantic!) Even after Xiao XingChen’s death, even after her own physical dismemberment and death, she continues to look for justice for him, and this eventually pays off.

Further Hope: MianMian

I addressed this a bit in my meta with her, but MianMian’s happy ending comes outside of society, and includes her marrying a man who respects her autonomy and wishes:

Luo QingYang gazed at her husband, smiling, “My husband isn’t of the cultivating world. He used to be a merchant. But, he’s willing to go night-hunting with me…”

It was both rare and admirable that an ordinary person, and a man at that, would be willing to give up his originally stable life and dare travel the world with his wife, unafraid of danger and wander. Wei WuXian couldn’t help feeling respect for him.

And MianMian still has a keen observation: that society in the world hasn’t changed (which Wei WuXian will also note in the last chapter when they find a new scapegoat villain in Jin GuangYao):

Luo Qing Yang sighed, “Oh, these people…” She seemed as if she remembered something, shaking her head, “They’re the same everywhere.”

But as long as there are people willing to be empathetic, to believe in justice and be brave, who can combine these--like A-Qing, Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian, and more--there is hope for healing, even if it takes thirteen years.

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

I would really like to see your take on JC/JYL age flip also JC is the sickley one JYL is sect heir and how it changes them

Sometimes, Jiang Cheng wondered if his father would have loved him if he had been born healthy.

If maybe that would have been the thing that would have changed everything – the little difference that would have entitled him to the hugs that Wei Wuxian got, the warm smiles, the praise. The hand on the shoulder, the occasional “well done”…

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know if it was his weakness that his father so obviously despised him for, or if it was only his mother’s blood that ran true in him – his face like her face, his temperament the same as hers except without the power to back it up.

He didn’t know if he would’ve been a different person if he’d had a body that obeyed him properly – one that didn’t try to kill him when he tried to train the sword, that didn’t send him blue in the face and choking when he ran too far or too fast or when it was too cold or too wet. He didn’t even want to be talented, the way Wei Wuxian was; he would be content with having the opportunity to complete, rather than being left out of the race entirely. Surely through hard work and effort he could have kept neck-and-neck with Wei Wuxian in the race for his father’s affection, the race Wei Wuxian won so easily, instead of the way he was now.

He wondered, too, if perhaps his body had shaped who he was – if perhaps his prickliness, his bitterness, his anger, his tendency to scold instead of praise, his frowns and scowls instead of smiles were all from that base anger, the anger at his body for failing him when he needed it. The way he saw himself left behind by all his peers, watching them grow strong while he struggled and strained and broke himself trying his best only to become barely average.

Maybe if he’d been born normal, he wouldn’t have been like that. Maybe he would have smiled easily, the way Wei Wuxian did; maybe he would have been calm and patient, the way Jiang Yanli was. Maybe he would have understood the Jiang sect motto the way his father was always telling him he couldn’t.

Maybe his parents wouldn’t have fought so bitterly all the time if only his mother had produced a son his father could think was worthy of him.

He didn’t know.

He regretted it anyway.

But most of all, he regretted what his weakness meant to Jiang Yanli.

She’d never complained, of course. She assured him it wasn’t his fault – that he couldn’t control it, that it was merely the will of the Heavens. She told him she wasn’t angry at him.

He wouldn’t blame her if she was.

He was angry at himself.

At his weakness.

At what it had cost her.

When he was still a child, they’d all thought that his sickliness was merely an artifact of his childhood – that it would pass and fade, that he would outgrow his illness and become a man like any other, and as a result his parents and all his sect had treated him as the presumptive heir. He’d gotten tutors, training, extra lessons; he’d been asked to listen to meetings, to read over reports, to think over problems…

Jiang Yanli, in contrast, had been left alone to amuse herself.

It wasn’t a matter of power; she had a powerful golden core, a good basic talent that could be further strengthened with hard work. But the Jiang sect had one daughter and one son, and obviously that meant that the son would inherit and the daughter marry out – and so what did it matter what her cultivation was? There was no need to train her to be anything other than a good wife.

Jiang Yanli had liked that.

She’d been so gentle, Jiang Cheng remembered – generous, kind, happy. She liked cooking, sailing, playing with children, walking by the pier and conversing with the merchants and fishermen…

She couldn’t do that now.

She was the sect heir, now. Responsibility had fallen hard upon her shoulders, but she bore it well: the endless classes to take, the increased stress to increase her cultivation, the burden of the sect’s reputation, the lack of time to do as she pleased – all that and more, she accepted with the same smile as before.

She was still gentle, still generous, still kind.

And yet, as she grew older, stronger, more confident, she also grew – bitter.

Bitter like her mother.

Like Jiang Cheng.

And the reason was all him.

Him, for being weak. For being unworthy. For not being Wei Wuxian –

“You deserve better,” Jiang Yanli said, Jiang Cheng lying in bed with his head in her lap, chest slowly rising and falling – the aftermath of an attack.

“Than what?” he asked, a sad laugh gurgling in his throat. “Than to be born sick? Than to be a disappointment?”

“To be treated as less worthy than Wei Wuxian’s shadow,” she said fiercely.

Jiang Cheng bit his lips. “Don’t say that.”

“She’s right, though,” Wei Wuxian said. He was there as well, sitting on the floor, and Jiang Cheng didn’t know how to argue with him.

It wasn’t like he didn’t understand his father’s preference for Wei Wuxian. He even agreed with it. He adored Wei Wuxian, with his mischief and his brilliance, the way he would fight anyone and anything for Jiang Cheng’s sake; he always had the best ideas on how to waste time, how to play, how to joke around. He was arrogant and self-absorbed, bold and unrestrained, powerful and healthy and strong, everything Jiang Cheng wished he could be, and yet Wei Wuxian always allowed his useless can’t-breath, can’t-run, need-to-rest-again weak-bodied shidi to trail along behind him.

“Why don’t you call him A-Xian anymore?” he asked his sister, choosing to ignore Wei Wuxian.

“Too much intimacy between men and women is not good,” Jiang Yanli said, but she didn’t look at him, and Jiang Cheng might be weak but he wasn’t stupid.

“Does – does Father want you two to marry?” he asked hesitantly, looking between one and the other, neither of them looking at him. “But Mother already engaged you to Jin Zixuan.”

Presents had been exchanged, the engagement all but final – the Jin sect’s interest in the match, originally arranged as part of a promise between their mothers, who had been childhood friends, had gone up considerably ever since they realized that Jiang Yanli would be inheriting the Jiang sect. It was difficult but not impossible for two sect heirs to marry: they’d agreed that they’d need have two sons, one to inherit each sect, carry on each surname, and that the inheritance would devolve back to the original family lines should anything go wrong with that plan.

It was settled.

“Engagements can be broken,” Jiang Yanli said, and her eyes were a little red. “And – it might not be that. It’s just improper, now that I’m older…”

Jiang Cheng twisted to look at Wei Wuxian, who was nowhere near as good at eliding a direct question.

“Sect Leader Jin all but implied that we were planning on putting a green hat on his son’s head,” Wei Wuxian blurted out, characteristically blunt. “Just because I’m close to shijie, that we were planning for her to marry Jin Zixuan so that we’d get the Jin sect’s benefits, but that the children would be mine – that bastard.”

“A-Xian!” Jiang Yanli exclaimed.

“It’s true, though! He is! In spirit, if not in blood –”

“That’s not the problem –”

“Are you?” Jiang Cheng asked, and they both turned to look at him. “Going to marry?”

“No,” Wei Wuxian said immediately, eyes bugging out, even as Jiang Yanli furiously shook her head in similar denial. “Shijie’s – no!”

A marital sister was a perfectly reasonable match to make, even if they’d been raised together, but the disgusted expressions on both their faces at the very thought somehow pleased Jiang Cheng.

(He was a bitter, awful person sometimes. No, not sometimes – often. But they still loved him.)

“Okay,” he said, clearing his throat and looking away. “Well, it’s not important yet, is it? We’re going to go to the Cloud Recesses, where Jin Zixuan is, too. Maybe jiejie will like him and it’ll all be all right.”

“Yes,” Jiang Yanli said quickly. “That’s right. I mean, I haven’t met him, and I’ve been far too busy to think about any of that…this will be a good opportunity to see if we suit each other. If we do, good; if we don’t, we don’t, and I’ll insist on breaking the engagement to marry as my own wishes suit – and not to A-Xian. Never to A-Xian.”

Not even if their father thought he would be the perfect match.

“Madame Yu wouldn’t agree anyway,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding furiously.

“That’s true,” Jiang Cheng said, and relaxed a little. He already knew he wouldn’t have a bride – nor a husband, for that matter, he found that he wasn’t especially fussed about that in the rare times he let himself dream of what-could-be. Those dreams weren’t for him, though, not really; who would want a broken barely average cultivator like him, with no talents except maybe cooking the way Jiang Yanli had taught him and a temper as bad as it could be?

It was horrible and selfish of him, to want his most beloved people to stay with him instead of finding their happiness elsewhere – whether with each other, or with someone else – but he couldn’t help himself.

He didn’t have anything else. Not his parents’ respect and love, not cultivation or fighting power, not even his health – all he had was their love.

He shouldn’t hope for anything more than that.

(And yet, in the Cloud Recesses of all unexpected places – he found it.)

#mdzs #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #letitdevour

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Good Help - chapter 3 - ao3 link

Everyone was required to come to the Nightless City to pay homage to the Emperor, no matter their status, and any number of sects had chosen to pay another visit during the Emperor’s absence – whether in search of profit or merely credit for fulfilling their duties, preferably without the risk of incurring their volatile Emperor’s attention.

One of those sects was Lanling Jin.

Meng Yao felt both disappointment and relief when he learned that Jin Guangshan would not be coming himself, declining on the grounds that it was just too miserable to go without his good friend the Emperor there, though it was far more likely that he didn’t want to have to acknowledge the presence of Meng Yao, standing there in the Emperor’s place. Instead, his father sent his one legitimate son and heir, Jin Zixuan, and Jin Zixuan brought his wives.

The rumors of friendship between Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan were exaggerated for effect, in Meng Yao’s opinion, but there must be some basis to it. Otherwise, there was no way Jin Zixuan would have been allowed to hold such a treasure in his hands: he had married the last survivors of the Jiang clan, Jiang Yanli and her younger brother Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Yanli, at least, was considered a prize, given that she brought with her the bloodline and legitimacy of a former Great Sect and had at least a technical claim to a frankly eye-popping dowry, should the Emperor ever decide to allow her to reclaim the ownership of the Lotus Pier, even if in practice the place had been rapidly converted into a pleasure palace by his second son.

Jin Zixuan had managed to win that race, having had the advantage of being already engaged to Jiang Yanli since birth, his mother having apparently been friends with the former Madame Jiang, known better as Madame Yu. Given Jin Zixuan’s character – not known to be especially good at either politics or finance – Meng Yao was of the belief, as were many people, that he had only taken Jiang Cheng as a bride in order to please his wife by saving the life of her younger brother after the Jiang sect was destroyed, since Jiang Cheng, the son of a fallen clan, represented little more than a gigantic target on the back of anyone who might claim him.

Of course, rather than admit it, Jin Zixuan denied all such rumors and maintained consistently that he had been in love with both of them, desperately, and that had been the reason he’d petitioned for the right of marriage.

(Meng Yao also heard rumors that Wen Ruohan had found his insistence funny and agreed to the match on the condition that their marriage bed be witnessed, which sounded very much in line with what he knew of Wen Ruohan’s character – he would have enjoyed forcing them to consummate their fake marriage, luxuriated in their humiliation, and laughed when they failed to look each other in the eye later. Still, what wasn’t worth doing to preserve a life?)

At any rate, regardless of anything else, Jin Zixuan was still the Emperor’s subject, and therefore he had to come pay homage the same as anyone else. Meng Yao’s brother by blood (although frustratingly not by law) had trouble looking directly at Meng Yao during the ceremony, but he managed to conduct the ritual of swearing loyalty moderately well regardless, with no indications of disrespect and perfect etiquette. It was only after, when Meng Yao had maliciously invited him to share a cup of tea to extend the duration of the awkwardness, that something broke – and it wasn’t Jin Zixuan at all.

“Is it true?” Jiang Cheng asked abruptly, the first words he’d said in this visit, and Meng Yao turned to look at him even as Jin Zixuan’s face turned pale. “That the Emperor started fucking Huaisang?”

Huaisang, Meng Yao thought, rolling the name around in his mouth – was A-Sang originally a Jiang, then?

But no, if he was, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have that look of desperation on his face, of longing and despair; whoever this Huaisang had been in his previous life, before he’d become an Imperial Consort, he’d been someone that Jiang Cheng had been close to. Maybe someone he had even lost his heart to.

Interesting.

Or, well – interesting, but ultimately irrelevant.

“I have no insight into the Emperor’s personal affairs,” Meng Yao said, calm and placid as ever. “Especially while he is far away on a long voyage.”

Jiang Cheng scowled at him, but his sister put her hand on his shoulder and he subsided, still looking upset.

Meng Yao decided to show pity as a stratagem to put Jin Zixuan into his debt, and said, affecting a tone of mild sympathy, “I have no reason to think that he is based on his conduct before leaving, and I understand that his travels were motivated by a search for a spiritual item capable of improving cultivation. It may be that he took Imperial Consort A-Sang with him on account of the Consort’s reputed scholarly achievements.”

To the extent A-Sang had any scholarly achievements other than carting around a scholar’s fan, anyway.

Jiang Cheng still scowled, but his shoulders relaxed a little, and Jiang Yanli sent Meng Yao a grateful look.

Jin Zixuan seemed only a little moved, picking up his tea cup and continuing the former conversation without a hitch, but when everything was done he unexpectedly reached out and caught Meng Yao’s arm.

Meng Yao tensed, but Jin Zixuan took no movement against him, only looked at him. “It was an unexpected pleasure to meet you,” he said, nothing he couldn’t have said without touching, but then his hand shifted and Meng Yao felt the prickle of paper beneath his palm.

Meng Yao put a smile on his face and said some pleasantries, and as soon as Jin Zixuan left he looked at the note he’d been smuggled.

You are being targeted, it said, which – was rather unhelpful, actually.

“He couldn’t have included more details of who, what, or when?” Meng Yao complained to A-Jue later, making sure to look piteous out of habit even though he knew A-Jue didn’t believe him at all. Or at least, he shouldn’t by this point, or else Meng Yao’s lessons on how to detect a liar were all going to waste. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s me that he didn’t want to commit to saying too much, there is that awkwardness there, but it’s not like I don’t know people are trying to kill me. I’m the Emperor’s viceroy! I’ve been making changes left and right in his absence, some of them extremely unpopular –”

And yet others that were extremely popular. He’d known the Watchtower idea would win him acclaim among the common people, and that even if the smaller sects complained about the encroachment at first they would soon – or at least, eventually – realize that it was in their own best interest.

“ – and really. He left a note! Why be ominous and vague in a note?”

“Perhaps he meant something more general,” A-Jue said.

Meng Yao looked at him, and A-Jue shrugged, averting his eyes. The action – so obviously indicating that he had something to say and wasn’t saying it for whatever reason – should have irritated Meng Yao, but by now he’d grown to find A-Jue’s thorough inability to dissemble directly rather adorable. Such a big man, older than Meng Yao, and he still blushed when he tried to lie to your face.

“You can go on,” Meng Yao coaxed. “I’m not going to be angry.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m five.”

“Who’s a big boy who knows something he’s not saying? You are, yes, you are!”

A-Jue tried to look disapproving but ended up having to hide his sniggering into his sleeve. “That’s more like you’d treat a dog, viceroy Meng. Not that you’d know, given how much you hate them.”

“I don’t hate dogs,” Meng Yao said. “I gave Jin Zixuan’s eldest a spiritual dog just last year, a husky. It’s gigantic man-eaters I object to.”

“Northern mountain dogs are a bit large,” A-Jue conceded, a little reluctantly, but in fairness at his size the mountain dogs were probably proportional in size to regular dogs. Actually, A-Jue’s accent, however blurred by time and assimilation, suggested he was from somewhere to north of the Nightless City – maybe he’d drunk the same water as the dogs growing up, explaining how he reached his current heights. “And aren’t you the one who’s always saying that you only keep things from people that they don’t need to know?”

“I like being the person to decide who needs to know what,” Meng Yao said. “Now, you clearly want to tell me, so tell me already.”

A-Jue sighed. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the job is supposed to kill you?”

Meng Yao frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the Emperor’s viceroy,” A-Jue said. “He appointed you, and then he immediately left you alone to more or less run the entirety of his domain – he gave you the power of authority, to speak with his voice. That’s a pretty big promotion from chief torturer, wouldn’t you say?”

Meng Yao would not describe being the deputy in charge of the Fire Palace as ‘chief torturer’ – prisons required a great deal of management, he wasn’t just torturing people anymore – but he couldn’t exactly say that A-Jue was wrong.

He’d enjoyed his success, but he’d been startled by it, too. He’d had to fight and scheme for every last thing that he’d ever wanted, before this, and while he’d had to do more than a bit of tussling to keep this role over the overtures of the other deputies, it did sometimes feel as though this promotion came a little too easily, too suddenly.

“What do you think, then?” he asked, folding his hands together under his sleeves so no one could see how his nails dug into his flesh. If there was one thing he truly hated, it was the scorn of others, of those who thought they were better than him.

Being schemed against was a very close second.

“Some of your policies are in fact very unpopular,” A-Jue said. “Even though we both know that they’re necessary…the Emperor would know that they were necessary, too.”

“You think he wants me as what? A scapegoat?”

Wen Ruohan didn’t pay attention to things like popularity, officially taking the position that strength was all that mattered, and yet only a fool ignored such things entirely, and Wen Ruohan was no fool.

“The Emperor is friends with Jin Guangshan,” A-Jue said quietly. “Not merely for show, and although Jin Guangshan does exaggerate it somewhat, it’s not as much as people think. Before he became Emperor, back when they were peers, they would often spend time together, do things together…and your existence offends Jin Guangshan. People laugh at him for not having accepted you back then.”

That was as Meng Yao wanted. He’d wanted to rub into his father’s face how stupid he’d been – and Jin Guangshan had done nothing, had just taken it, and in retrospect that seemed rather uncharacteristic of someone of his reputation.

“So, what?” he asked, ignoring the blood on his nails from where his flesh could no longer take the pressure. “You think he’s pressing the Emperor to have me executed for failing to live up to his expectations?”

“Maybe,” A-Jue said. “And perhaps the Emperor has incentivized others to try to make you fail.”

Having people try to kill a stand-in would be a very effective way to see how those same people would try to kill you. It wasn’t a bad plan, not really, but Meng Yao really didn’t appreciate it when it was aimed at him.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Meng Yao said. “I will not fail. I will succeed, and so thoroughly that even the Emperor will be unable to deny my success – he enjoys being thought of as someone who rewards merit, and killing me would just be seen as petty. He won’t do it. I have my brain, my talent, my competence – I won’t let him.”

Assuming, of course, that he survived until Wen Ruohan’s return.

“You have me, too,” A-Jue said.

It was a nice sentiment, Meng Yao thought, and patted A-Jue on the shoulder, and A-Jue didn’t even flinch this time. He didn’t expect that A-Jue really meant it, of course – A-Jue was a guard of the inner hall, and to get that sort of position he had to be loyal to Wen Ruohan first and foremost – but it was nice of him to say it regardless.

Meng Yao wondered, briefly, if now was a good time to let his hand linger on A-Jue’s shoulder, to turn the contact into a caress. He didn’t think he’d even need to order A-Jue to his bed at this point, although he’d be more than willing to do so if A-Jue liked things like that – he was moderately sure that A-Jue sincerely liked him, and that there was more to that liking than mere friendliness or even the stirrings of loyalty. If he asked, or even just indicated interest, A-Jue would probably come to him entirely of his own volition.

And yet…

Meng Yao removed his hand, turning the conversation forcefully to some other subject, much to A-Jue’s evident relief. He was too busy, he told himself. There was no time to spend on dalliances.

And anyway –

He’d had his fill of sharing with Wen Ruohan.

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #jin zixuan #jiang yanli #my fic #my fics #good help

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

A-Yuan

Jin Ling was pretty cool, in Lan Yuan’s opinion, and he didn’t even feel the need to caveat it with the statement that it was as far as young brothers went.

He didn’t really remember a time when Jin Ling wasn’t around – he’d had a bad fever that had eaten away much of his early memories, leaving only a few vague faces and a smile and something that sometimes gives him nightmares he doesn’t quite remember, but since he’s a few years older than baby Jin Ling, that meant there must have been a time when Jin Ling wasn’t there.

Back before, before Hanguang-jun adopted him and before Sect Leader Jiang managed to win the right to raise Jin Ling, who was only his sister’s son, at his home – they wouldn’t have been brothers back then.

Lan Yuan didn’t like to think too much about before. It gave him a headache.

(Except when he thought about someone smiling -)

Anyway, before was one of the secrets.

Lan Yuan knew all about secrets: he was extremely trustworthy, according to Hanguang-jun and even Sect Leader Jiang, a very mature and intelligent child who knew when and to whom to speak, and that meant he got to know all the cool secrets.

That meant it was his job to make sure Jin Ling kept the secrets, too.

“So, remember, what do we do when your grandmother comes to visit?” he asked encouragingly.

“Talk about her,” Jin Ling said obediently. He was a good kid, even if he had temper tantrums sometimes. “Don’t say anything about the Lotus Pier.”

“That’s right!” Lan Yuan cheered. “If you don’t talk about it, you can’t give any of the secrets away!”

Jin Ling nodded. “I’ll keep the secrets!” But then he frowned. “What are the secrets?”

“What do you mean? We know lots of secrets. Cool secrets!”

Well, some of the secrets were cool, anyway. The ones about how Zidian worked, and the hidden places in the walls, and some of the nasty stuff that Sect Leader Jiang said about the other sect leaders that no one was supposed to repeat and which made even the sailors look pretty impressed, and there was also the super-secret Yunmeng Jiang technique for getting fish to come up to you – it involved your toes and a lot of eye-rolling by Hanguang-jun.

According to Sect Leader Jiang, the eye-rolling was especially critical for it to work, but luckily they had Hanguang-jun for that; he was an expert.

(There was a secret, too, about Sect Leader Jiang’s shixiong and Hanguang-jun’s friend that they sometimes told stories about, the one called Wei Wuxian, and the secret was that that they both loved him even though he’d done bad things.)

Hanguang-jun was one of the secrets, too.

Lan Yuan wasn’t entirely sure why he was a secret, but it was very important that they not tell anyone that he was there. He’d gotten hurt really bad a few years back, really bad, bad enough that he hadn’t walked for a whole year and even after that couldn’t do much more than limp around with Sect Leader Jiang’s help. He ended up needing to learn the sword again the same way Lan Yuan did, except he got better at it a whole lot faster – it was because he was grown up, according to Sect Leader Jiang, and grown-ups had special cheating powers that let them do stuff like that super quick.

(Hanguang-jun said the only cheat was experience, but Lan Yuan preferred the cheating adult powers explanation.)

It was pretty cool to be trusted enough to know secrets, most of the time. The only time it wasn’t cool were times like this, when old Madame Jin came around and said mean things about Lan Yuan not being raised right and it being a pity that her beloved grandson was growing up with no father or mother to teach him.

It made Jin Ling cry whenever she said that, because it was the same thing the mean kids on the Pier used to say to him before Sect Leader Jiang had announced very loudly that he wasn’t so proud or dignified that he wouldn’t throw hands with small children if it made Jin Ling stop crying. It made Lan Yan so angry because she was Jin Ling’s grandmother, shouldn’t she care if he was crying?

She didn’t, not really; she just snapped at him for being weak. She was mostly just angry about everything: about the fact that he was being raised by Sect Leader Jiang instead of at Lanling where no one wanted to take care of him; about the fact that she wasn’t powerful enough to have stopped that decision from getting made no matter what she tried; about the fact that he wasn’t old enough to do anything useful, as she termed it; about his parents being dead, which wasn’t his fault at all –

It was wrong, too. Jin Ling might not have a mother or father to teach him, but that didn’t matter because he had Hanguang-jun and Sect Leader Jiang instead; who needed any more than that?

But he couldn’t say that, because Hanguang-jun was a secret.

Still, it didn’t mean that Lan Yuan was going to put up with it. Not this time!

He put on his best Hanguang-jun face – neutral but with his eyebrows a little arched like he was asking a question that he sincerely wanted to know the answer to – and asked her: “Are you a hag or a night-witch? They take different talismans to be banished, so I need to know which one to get.”

It wasn’t as deadpan or witty as Hanguang-jun was when he was trying nor as vicious and cutting as Sect Leader Jiang when he was on a tear, but it did the trick, given that the trick was to get her to yell at him instead of bullying Jin Ling any longer.

Lan Yuan was tough: she meant nothing to him, so he was fine with being called a worthless bastard (he knew he wasn’t worthless, so odds were good that he probably wasn’t a bastard either) or a whore’s son (whatever a whore was, he was moderately sure Hanguang-jun had never met one), a waste of space (how could space be wasted?) or a disrespectful brat (possibly true, even though he normally thought of himself as being quite nice).

He wasn’t expecting her to slap him.

“Gege!” Jin Ling shrieked, horrified out of his tears as he rushed across the room to Lan Yuan’s side; he was on the floor somehow, he must have fallen when she hit him. “You can’t hit gege!”

“Don’t address him like that,” Madam Jin snapped. “Pull yourself together – you’re the heir to Lanling Jin, you don’t need to address some bastard as – ”

She was interrupted a crackling sound, like wood popping in the fire, and Lan Yuan automatically smiled, even though it hurt his mouth to do so.

No one lasted long at the Lotus Pier without knowing what Zidian sounded like.

Sect Leader Jiang’s face was as black as Lan Yuan had ever seen it, and that was saying something, given that Sect Leader Jiang preferred scowling to just about any other expression out there.

“Madame Jin,” he said, and she tensed, clearly gearing up for a fight. “Thank you for coming to visit.”

She blinked, clearly surprised – wondering why he wasn’t making a fuss, most likely. Lan Yuan licked the blood from his split lip with a grin and held Jin Ling’s hand in his: he knew better.

“It’s such a pity that you have to leave so soon,” Sect Leader Jiang continued.

“What are you talking about, I’m not –”

Zidian lashed out, leaving a burnt mark less than a hands’ breadth away from her head.

“It is your choice whether you leave by your own free will or get carried out of by my guards,” Sect Leader Jiang snarled, his cold anger abruptly igniting. “How dare you strike A-Yuan? How dare you strike any child? If you’ve dared laid hands on Jin Ling –”

“I would never,” she snapped, but she was backing away: Sect Leader Jiang’s reputation preceded him. “A-Ling is –”

“If you did that, I’d put you in my dungeons,” Sect Leader Jiang continued as if he couldn’t hear her. His eyes were red and bloodshot with rage. “Surely no one could hurt their own grandchild, their own blood. Perhaps you’ve been possessed? I’ve heard rumors of demonic cultivation near your maternal family’s home…”

There was a bit more bluster after that, but Madame Jin retreated quickly, and then she was flying away from the Lotus Pier as quick as she could go.

After all, everyone knew how bad Sect Leader Jiang was when it came to demonic cultivators – and what he supposedly did to them in his dungeons.

It was a little funny, actually, since as far as Lan Yuan knew, the Lotus Pier didn’t actually have dungeons at the moment; the old ones had long ago been repurposed as storerooms and no one had ever quite bothered to replace them. And though Sect Leader Jiang did question demonic cultivators in the storerooms, right next to the rice and beans, it wasn’t – what people said it was.

Lan Yuan wouldn’t have believed such horrible things about Sect Leader Jiang anyway, but as it happened he’d heard Sect Leader Jiang screaming about it when he and Hanguang-jun were having one of their fights. They didn’t fight often, not real fighting, and they were very good at trying to make sure neither he nor Jin Ling were around for them when they did, but A-Yuan had gotten up especially late that night because of a nightmare he couldn’t quite remember and he’d overheard them by accident.

(“Is that really what you think of me? That I disregard all morality, all righteousness, that I’m blinded by hatred, that I wanted – that I wanted him to – to –”

“No. I know you loved him.”

“It wasn’t him, at the end. It couldn’t have been him, he couldn’t – jiejie’s dead. Everyone’s dead. All corpses, all, everyone around me just marking time until they’re dead, too –”

“Jiang Cheng, calm down; your mind is becoming unstable. I should not have asked –”

“But they’re not wrong! I do hurt them, even when I don’t mean to, even when I let them go later. I’m not righteous, I’m not; I find them, I stop them, I take them from where they’re hurting people – someone has to – and what if they’re him? What do I do if they’re him? I question every one of them. No one else can do it, I have to – it’s my fault, it’s my – he wouldn’t have started down that path but for me –”

“Jiang Cheng –”

“So many people hurt because of me, stupid selfish me, and still all I care about is making sure that I’m the one to find him first, just like I said I’d be back at the siege. I have to be the first one to find him so that no one else can hurt him, because if they find him they will – but now I’m the one, I’m the one who hurts them instead and all because I don’t know – I can’t judge – I get so angry –”

“Calm yourself. This is not irresolvable: I will help you question them, to see if any of them are him, and when that is done, we will decide their fate together. The guilty treated as guilty, the innocent as innocent. Or do you doubt my judgment?”

“…only in terms of romance.” A breath. “That would work. Thank you.”)

The second Madame Jin was gone, Sect Leader Jiang was kneeling in front of Lan Yuan, touching his split lip lightly with his fingers, a distressed expression on his face. “I shouldn’t have let her come,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t have let her see you. I knew she was sensitive about children, ever since Lianfeng-zun fully eclipsed her in influence…you need a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” Lan Yuan protested, even as he was swept up into Sect Leader Jiang’s arms. “Sect Leader Jiang…”

“No. Doctor, now.”

“I don’t need it! It’s just a little thing – Hanguang-jun could fix it!”

“Fine. Then we’re going to see him.”

“Take me, too!” Jin Ling demanded, tugging at Sect Leader Jiang’s leg. “Jiujiu, take me! I don’t want to see grandmother again! She’s a bad lady! She hurt gege, and all he did was say she was a hag!”

“She made Jin Ling cry!” Lan Yuan exclaimed, hideously embarrassed. “I had to get her attention away from –”

“You did the right thing, A-Yuan,” Sect Leader Jiang said, scooping up Jin Ling and heading towards the inner quarters where Hanguang-jun would be waiting. “Never let anyone attack your family. No matter what. You hear me? No matter what.”

Lan Yuan had had four panic attacks, seven nightmares, and at least twelve rather uncharacteristic temper tantrums (mostly just persistent pouting) over having to go visit the Cloud Recesses, and he was starting to think that he’d overreacted.

The Cloud Recesses was, despite all his fears…actually pretty cool.

Kind of like Hanguang-jun had said all along. And Sect Leader Jiang had even agreed, albeit with his usual caveats and complaining – mostly about the food, and something about quizzes.

It was still scary, though. Lan Yuan had gone on trips outside of the Lotus Pier with Sect Leader Jiang and the other Jiang disciples (he still thought of himself as halfway a Jiang disciple, even though his surname was Lan and he was apparently part of the Lan sect now?), but that was all in Yunmeng except for that one trip he’d taken with Sect Leader Jiang to some place in Qishan that he’d thought was a great deal of fun but which had made Hanguang-jun ask Sect Leader Jiang for a moment of his time in a way that meant Sect Leader Jiang was about to get a very stern talking to, and after that they hadn’t gone again.

This time, though, he wasn’t just going for a single visit, there and back again on Sandu; he was going for a whole month – maybe even a whole season if he liked the first month, but he’d already secretly decided he wouldn’t. Sect Leader Jiang would be there at the beginning, but he couldn’t stay for very long, and of course Hanguang-jun couldn’t go at all.

“For now,” Sect Leader Jiang had told him as they were flying, Lan Yuan held in his arms like he was Jin Ling even though he was old enough to stand on Sandu by himself as long as he was holding onto someone. Sect Leader Jiang had insisted, though, and Lan Yuan was shamefully grateful for it. “In the future, Hanguang-jun will be able to go with you and stay here while you’re here.”

“Really?” Lan Yuan had said, eyes wide. He’d never gone on a trip with Hanguang-jun before, first because he was injured and then because he was a secret, so that would be a brand-new experience – wait. “You didn’t say anything about future trips!”

Sect Leader Jiang had coughed, except it sounded a bit like laughter. “Nothing’s been decided,” he’d said. “We need to see if you’ll even like the place. If you don’t, well, there’s precedent for clan members joining other sects, and of course the Jiang sect would be happy to have you.”

That had been a relief.

Possibly it had been the relief of knowing he wasn’t going to get stuck there – sent away again – that had let him relax and start exploring the new place, which was nice and gentle and quiet in a way the Lotus Pier really wasn’t, except maybe for Hanguang-jun’s rooms…

Wait.

Lan Yuan turned and narrowed his eyes at Sect Leader Jiang. “Is this where the secret is from?” he demanded.

There was another cough-laugh, this time from Uncle Lan Xichen, who was apparently actually called Zewu-jun or else Sect Leader Lan; he’d come out with them to show them around. “The secret?” he asked Sect Leader Jiang, his eyebrows arched.

“He’s a child! They talk unless they’re told a reason not to, so we came up with a reason. I’m not sure what you were expecting us to do,” Sect Leader Jiang said, crossing his arms with a huff. “Put your brother in seclusion and deny him access to his son until he could walk again?”

Sect Leader Lan winced briefly. “I meant no offense, Sect Leader Jiang. It was only that I hadn’t realized how much effort went into keeping – into ensuring Wangji’s privacy.”

“A-Yuan was the easy one,” Sect Leader Jiang said, long-suffering. “When Jin Ling started talking…there’s no reasoning with a one-year-old. At least no one ever figured out who ‘ha-ju’ was.”

Sect Leader Lan abruptly stopped walking and raised a hand to his head, as if suffering from a sudden headache. “The Discussion Conference! When he kept reaching out to me, wanting me to hold him, and then crying when I did…!”

Sect Leader Jiang snickered. “He kicked Sect Leader Jin in the face trying to get to you,” he said in the tone of someone who enjoyed the memory very much. “A good kid.”

Lan Yuan nodded. Jin Ling was, in fact, a very good kid. Even his temper tantrums were getting more and more under control, which was inevitable under Hanguang-jun’s iron fist – if he could get Sect Leader Jiang to stop having so many temper tantrums, Jin Ling didn’t stand a chance.

No one did. Hanguang-jun could do anything.

Sect Leader Lan shook his head. “I can still scarcely believe it,” he murmured. “It seems – ah.”

“Ah?” Sect Leader Jiang echoed.

“It appears that Uncle has returned earlier than I had expected.”

“…you know what, I think I have some paperwork I need to get to,” Sect Leader Jiang said, which was probably both true and a sign that this ‘Uncle’ was either very scary or very annoying. “A-Yuan, act cute.”

Lan Yuan obediently arranged a pleasant smile on his face and widened his eyes.

“A very fine skill,” Sect Leader Lan praised, though his lips were twitching. “Come along, Sizhui; I’ll introduce you to Jingyi – I think you’ll get along.”

Lan Jingyi turned out to be a small scarecrow of a boy, too tall for his age and skinny to boot, and they sized each other up for a good while before Lan Jingyi broke out into a gap-toothed grin and said, “Wanna play?”

Lan Jingyi, Lan Yuan decided shortly thereafter, was awesome.

They ran around the Cloud Recesses (walked at speed, since running was forbidden), played with the rabbits and the birds, tumbled through the vegetable gardens as an obstacle course –

“And that’s just today!” Lan Jingyi crowed. “Wait until tomorrow when we have more time, Sizhui; I’ll show you the mountain, it’s really cool!”

Lan Jingyi, like Lan Yuan, didn’t have parents anymore, having misplaced them during the war like so many others had. He confirmed that sometimes the other children made comments about it – Lan Yuan wasn’t surprised – but also that most of them were too afraid of Teacher Lan to do much more than that, and that was moderately comforting.

Teacher Lan, apparently, was Lan Jingyi’s version of Hanguang-jun, and they sounded very similar in some ways, enough that Lan Yuan was giggling in sympathy and fellow-feeling.

He didn’t mean to slip up.

It was when they were dropping stones down a well. They’d just celebrated a particularly loud plop that had made Lan Yuan scold the rock for violating the rule against excess noise, much to Lan Jingyi’s laughter, and then Lan Jingyi said, pretty casually, “They don’t usually teach Lan sect rules outside of the Cloud Recesses, especially not with the clan-specific flourishes. So who taught you?”

Lan Yuan’s back went straight with fear. “I – no one.”

Lan Jingyi blinked at him. Probably because that was a terrible lie.

Probably because Lan Yuan didn’t like lying.

Lying is forbidden.

Hanguang-jun said so.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Lan Yuan said hurriedly. “It’s a secret. You have to promise not to tell!”

“But why is it a secret?” Lan Jingyi asked bemusedly. “You’re a Lan; it makes sense that you’d know the Lan rules.”

“Just promise,” Lan Yuan said. “Promise, and I’ll tell you.”

Lan Jingyi’s shout when he told him was loud enough to scare away all the rabbits.

Maybe it had been mean to make Lan Jingyi promise to keep something a secret from Teacher Lan, especially since he was his version of Hanguang-jun, because Lan Yuan wouldn’t be able to keep anything a secret from Hanguang-jun, not even if he promised.

Sect Leader Jiang, maybe, if it was something nice to surprise him with – but not Hanguang-jun.

That was probably why he wasn’t really that surprised when Lan Jingyi showed up to his door with a guilty expression and threw himself at his feet to beg forgiveness, or why when he ran back to the place where he was staying with Sect Leader Jiang he found all the adults shouting at each other.

“What do we do?” Lan Jingyi asked, his eyes wet with tears as he showed him a little hiding place that let them hear everything the adults were saying without getting caught. “I’ve never seen them this angry…you’re not supposed to yell inside the Cloud Recesses!”

“It’s okay,” Lan Yuan decided after watching for a little. He might not know Teacher Lan at all, and Sect Leader Lan not so great either no matter how much he looked like Hanguang-jun, but he knew Sect Leader Jiang very well and his face wasn’t nearly red enough to make him worry. If anything, he almost looked – pleased? Was he deliberately causing trouble? And after all those lectures about not starting anything…

Hmm, on second thought, most of those lectures had been from Hanguang-jun, and Hanguang-jun had been glaring over his head the entire time. Maybe they hadn’t been aimed at him at all.

“What do you mean that it’s okay? They’re fighting!”

“It’s a good type of fighting,” Lan Yuan explained wisely. “This is the sort of fighting that adults do when they have too many feelings and they can’t keep them all inside, so they have to throw them at each other instead.”

“…really?”

“Really. Sect Leader Jiang has a lot of those. They just need to wear themselves out.” At least, he thought so – that was what they did during Jin Ling’s tantrums. “Come on, let’s leave them to it; they’re not saying anything interesting, anyway.”

(“- have no right to refuse to tell us that he was hiding Wangji!”

“But Master Lan, how was I to know you were looking for him? After all, no one ever said – it was all just causal hellos and have-you-seen-any-Lan-sect-recently, never saying anything directly. And all the rumors said he was in seclusion.”

“Sophistry. You knew he wasn’t!”

“I did. I also knew that his sect didn’t seem to care enough about his well-being, after thirty-three strikes with the discipline whip, to actually bother to ask.”

“You -! I should think you of all people, Sect Leader Jiang, would understand our need to make sure he would never again be deceived by the likes of Wei Wuxian –”

“If you dare speak his name again in my presence, Master Lan, I will forget that you were once my teacher. Mark your words!”)

By the next morning, Teacher Lan had a stiff expression, Sect Leader Lan an exhausted one, and Sect Leader Jiang a distinct resemblance to a cat that has just left a corpse on the floor to show off its hunting prowess.

“Looks like I’m definitely staying here the full season,” Lan Yuan told Lan Jingyi, who looked so delighted by the idea that it almost made him feel okay about it. “Now it’s a principle.”

“A principle like our sect rules?”

“No, the type of principle where you want to show that you’re right and other people are wrong.”

Specifically, the type where Sect Leader Jiang got to stand up for Hanguang-jun’s honor, and honestly. If they’d only just told Lan Yuan that that was what they were doing, he would’ve agreed to come ages ago! He wants to defend Hanguang-jun, too!

“Oh. You mean gloating?”

Lan Yuan concealed a smile. It seemed like the Cloud Recesses really wasn’t a bad place after all.

Lan Yuan was not supposed to be here, but in his defense, it was totally an accident.

He’d been playing hide-and-seek with Lan Jingyi and some of the other juniors, and no one actually said the hanshi was off-limits. Sect Leader Jiang had always encouraged him to try to think beyond the rules (while Hanguang-jun just looked long-suffering), to not make assumptions about what was and wasn’t allowed, to press his limits until he figured out what he could and couldn’t do for himself.

And then, once he knew, to attempt the impossible.

He’d known that Sect Leader Lan was busy for most of the day with meetings – so why not hide in the hanshi? How was he supposed to know that Sect Leader Lan’s sworn brothers would come in to wait for him there?

Maybe if they’d come in slowly he would have just popped out of his hiding place, apologized, saluted, and scampered, but instead the doors had just burst open and Chifeng-zun strode in, closely followed by Lianfeng-zun, and they were already mid-conversation. It would have been rude to interrupt!

“- can’t decide if I want to thank him or wring his neck,” Chifeng-zun was saying. “But regardless of the conclusion, I’m not going to do either, and neither are you. It’s not our place.”

“I wasn’t suggesting any serious damage,” Lianfeng-zun said, starting to make tea. “A few minor irritations, at most; a trade dispute or two, possibly an inciting incident –”

“Meng Yao. We’ve talked about this.”

“I suppose we have. It’s only…” His voice trailed off.

Chifeng-zun sighed. “I know. Seeing Xichen break down like that was –” He waved his hand, looking for the word. “Horrific. I thought he was having a qi deviation.”

“It would have been easier if it had been something physical or to do with his cultivation,” Lianfeng-zun said. “Something a doctor could have helped, or the Song of Clarity – something, so that we wouldn’t be left doing nothing, nothing but waiting to see if he would die of grief. The way he clung to us both, what he said…well. Wounds of the heart and mind run deep, and the scars last long.”

“As we both know,” Chifeng-zun said, and his voice was a little dry.

Lianfeng-zun chuckled. “As we both know indeed. I must admit, I never expected to reconcile with you in this lifetime.”

“I’m still convinced in retrospect that you were planning on murdering me somehow,” Chifeng-zun said, not sounding as upset as he probably should have been about something like that. “I appreciate your restraint on Xichen’s behalf – and your lack of it when we joined together to search for Wangji.”

“Mm. That came as a surprise, to be honest. I thought da-ge would object to such…viciousness.”

“How was I to know you would have such strange assumptions? Being vicious, and even being petty, are not mutually exclusive with being righteous – and anyway, I like you much better now that I know what you’re like, and can formulate my expectations accordingly. It was always the hypocrisy and lies I despised the most; I’m surprised you didn’t figure that out on your own.”

“Da-ge has always been impossible for me to read,” Lianfeng-zun said, and his voice was strangely – scolding?

Chifeng-zun certainly seemed to take it as such. “I have hobbies! It was war; I just didn’t have time for them, that’s all. Anyway, having hobbies doesn’t necessarily entail having vices.”

“Unlike some other people of our mutual acquaintance,” and now it was Lianfeng-zun’s turn to be dry.

“I didn’t say it, you did. Anyway, returning to the subject of other sect leaders of our mutual acquaintance, I’m still shocked that Sect Leader Jiang kept up the lie as long as he did.”

“I know. I hate to speak badly about him, but he’s normally a terrible liar – his face goes red, he scowls more than usual, he averts his eyes…every single possible indication of untruthfulness. I would never think that he’d be able to keep a secret of this magnitude.”

“A lesson in underestimating people, I suppose.”

They sat in quiet silence for a little while longer, and then Lianfeng-zun poured the tea.

Lan Yuan contemplated escape, but really it was far too late to leave with dignity. They weren’t wrong about Sect Leader Jiang being a terrible liar, so Lan Yuan wasn’t angry or anything, but they’d probably be embarrassed that he overheard them talking about him at all.

“They’ll need a way to get out of it,” Lianfeng-zun said. “I’m not sure they realize that, yet.”

“Get out of it?” Chifeng-zun asked. “What do you mean?”

“As far as the majority of the cultivation world knows, Hanguang-jun has been in seclusion here, in the Cloud Recesses, for much of the past three years. During those same three years, Hanguang-jun’s adopted son has been living, quite publicly in the Lotus Pier – no one knows he’s Hanguang-jun’s now, of course, but if he reveals that he is, how does he explain the child having been there rather than here? Wouldn’t one or another of the sects have to admit the deception, and thereby lose face?”

Chifeng-zun considered the issue for a moment, then huffed. “You’re overthinking it. It’s not that hard problem to solve.”

Lan Yuan, who had started to enter full-fledged panic at the realization that they might have, in fact, messed everything up horribly and all because of him, calmed a little and tried to peer further around the edge of the screen he was hiding behind, eager to hear the solution.

Lianfeng-zun looked equally intrigued. “Well, then, da-ge – don’t leave we simple-minded persons in suspense.”

“As if you’ve ever been simple-minded.”

“Da-ge. Don’t play coy.”

Chifeng-zun chuckled and drank his tea, casually malicious, but then put it down on the table. “Easy enough. They just need to have a fight.”

“A fight?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t they fight? After all, with Hanguang-jun having finally emerged from seclusion, don’t you think he would be furious to discover that the son he gave his name to was being kept away from his family at the Lotus Pier?”

“I think I see your point,” Lianfeng-zun said, starting to smile. “When he retreated into seclusion, he undoubtedly understood that the boy would be delivered to the Cloud Recesses to be raised as a proper Lan, but instead he was kept back at the Lotus Pier –”

“Presumably Sect Leader Jiang made some sort of commitment to the mother that he didn’t feel he could break.”

“And naturally, since the father of the child was not present, there was no way for the Lan sect to claim him.”

“Of course. Especially when we are all in the midst of rebuilding – who would want to start trouble? But now that Wangji is out again…”

Lianfeng-zun laughed. “Doesn’t that result in the boy coming to the Cloud Recesses permanently? I was under the impression he didn’t want that.”

“Are you suggesting that they rob the boy of the only home he’s known?” Chifeng-zun pretended to scold. “Nonsense. Some calmer mind, likely belonging to a sect that is neither of the two in question - and not me -”

“Well, you did say calmer.”

“Someone will have to prevail with a compromise: a division of time between the two places.”

Lianfeng-zun smiled. “I think I see the direction in which you’re going – that’s the same sort of argument that could be used to allow Sect Leader Jiang to retain partial custody of A-Ling once he gets old enough that his return to Koi Tower is required, isn’t it?”

“Precisely.”

Lan Yuan somehow hadn’t thought about Jin Ling having to go back to Koi Tower – in Lanling, which was really far away – and it’s probably his distress at the idea that makes him lean forward a little too far and tip over the screen with a giant crash.

Both men turned to stare at him.

“Uh,” he said, and promptly dropped into a low bow, bringing his hands up in salute. “Sorry for the disturbance! Have a nice day!”

He ran.

(There was laughter behind him.)

“You – abandoner of responsibilities! Scum! Bad person!”

Hanguang-jun’s eye twitched. “Jiang Wanyin. I know you can do better than that.”

“Oooh, he’s pulled out the courtesy name,” Lan Yuan whispered to Sect Leader Lan, who was doing a very good job of not laughing out loud but it looked a little like it hurt. His shoulders were shaking and there were tears in his curved-smile eyes. “You know he’s serious now.”

Sect Leader Lan had to put his sleeve in his mouth to muffle the snickering. Jin Ling didn’t quite understand what was going on, but he was giggling quite openly, and that wasn’t helping either.

“I’m trying, okay,” Sect Leader Jiang complained. “It just feels weird, that’s all.”

“You fight all the time,” Jiang Meimei, one of the clan disciples that assisted Sect Leader Jiang with administration, said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not even exaggerating. How can this be hard?”

“We fight over reasonable things,” Sect Leader Jiang argued. “Like him being a snob, or persnickety, or having terrible taste in any number of things, up to and including seasonings –”

“Preferring to have intact taste buds is a reasonable preference.”

“Coward. Afraid of a little chili pepper.”

“That one can do something is not a reason to do it.”

“Is that a Lan sect rule? ‘Refrain from fun’ as the general rule, for everything else see the list of exceptions?”

“I believe the point Deputy Jiang was attempting to make was that this is more along the lines of what we were expecting,” Sect Leader Lan put in. “Perhaps a slightly more aggravated version…?”

“Oh, I can do aggravated,” Sect Leader Jiang said, which in Lan Yuan’s opinion was stating the obvious. “But even I have trouble working up a temper about Lan Wangji, of all people, abandoning some poor woman with a child he’d promised to take care of, which may or may not be his – it’s just not plausible.”

“What part,” Hanguang-jun said dryly, “the abandonment or the woman?”

“Both? Both.”

“While I don’t disagree with your assessment of Wangji’s character, that isn’t the point at the moment,” Sect Leader Lan said, his eyes sharp and interested – he’d looked up suddenly when Sect Leader Jiang had called Hanguang-jun by name, as if he were studying Hanguang-jun’s reaction. There wasn’t one, of course; Sect Leader Jiang had long ago fallen into the habit of calling Hanguang-jun by name, and Hanguang-jun returned the favor – albeit with Sect Leader Jiang’s given name, which everyone used instead of his courtesy name. Unless he was in front of other people, or else being especially sarcastic. “Perhaps you can think of some angle which would work for you?”

“Like what?”

“Well – A-Yao had a suggestion, but I don’t know if it would work.”

“Can’t be worse than this,” Jiang Meimei opined. “No one’ll believe Hanguang-jun for a scum no matter how loudly Sect Leader Jiang yells.”

Sect Leader Lan smiled and nodded, looking proud. He was Hanguang-jun’s big brother, so it made sense. “A-Yao suggested that Sect Leader Jiang consider it as Wangji having promised him something – to assist in caring for A-Yuan alongside him, perhaps – and having then defaulted in favor of something he preferred more, such as leaving to enter seclusion at the Cloud Recesses.”

Sect Leader Jiang’s shoulders abruptly went tense. “Not a bad suggestion,” he said, and his voice was strained as if he were forcing himself to be calm. “But Lan Wangji wouldn’t do that, either.”

“But if you pretend –”

“I would not,” Hanguang-jun said firmly. “I would not violate any vow I have taken, regardless of the recipient of that vow.”

Sect Leader Jiang’s shoulders relaxed a little.

“I do not believe that additional sincerity is helpful in this instance,” Hanguang-jun continued, folding his hands behind his back. “The goal is not to simulate a real argument, but to spread the understanding that there was an argument – wouldn’t a spar in public be sufficient, with explanations to be provided later?”

Sect Leader Jiang tilted his head to the side, looking intrigued. “So, what, you emerge from seclusion, talk to Sect Leader Lan for a bit to ‘find out’ about A-Yuan, then fly straight to the Lotus Pier and attack me without saying anything?”

Hanguang-jun nodded.

“That would be in character for a stone-face like you. And if you really put effort into it, I wouldn’t have time to be shouting out insults left and right.”

“It would confuse people,” Sect Leader Lan agreed, sounding thoughtful. “They would seek out anyone with knowledge, and we could plant some people to gossip appropriately…afterwards, once the information is widely known, we can have Mingjue-xiong or maybe A-Yao - they’re still fighting over who - well, one of them will announce that he was consulted as a neutral third party and that the matter is now resolved, with Wangji returning alongside A-Yuan to the Cloud Recesses for at least a season each year, and remaining at the Lotus Pier to supervise his education during the remaining months.”

“Acceptable,” Hanguang-jun said.

“Is it?” Sect Leader Jiang asked, looking at him. “Not to reverse course and go worry about the exact opposite thing I was worrying about just before, but, well. You know that it wouldn’t be hard to push for you to stay here all year, if you prefer, right? After all, I’m known for being unreasonable…”

Hanguang-jun shook his head. “A-Yuan should have the background to which he is entitled. A few months out of the year are an acceptable sacrifice.”

Sect Leader Lan bowed his head, looking a little sad, but nodded. “Moreover, if Wangji is truly unhappy in the Cloud Recesses, we can adjust the agreement going forward,” he said. “Attention will likely only be paid for the first year or two – thereafter, Wangji can reside wherever he prefers.”

“I will not remain at the Cloud Recesses,” Hanguang-jun said to Sect Leader Jiang, his eyes steady, and Sect Leader Jiang scowled in a way that was almost a smile. “It was my home once, but no longer – but it will be pleasant to visit it.”

“As long as you remember that it’s just a visit,” Sect Leader Jiang grumbled. “All right, I’m signed on. Let’s do it.”

#mdzs #lan sizhui #jiang cheng #jin ling #madame jin #lan xichen #lan qiren #lan jingyi #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #delight in misery #everyone gets a SUPER LONG CHAPTER

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