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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 9 - ao3 -

Lan Qiren was groggy with lack of sleep the next morning, but an evening’s contemplation of the Lan sect’s rules had put him back into the right mindset.

As a disciple of the Lan sect, he was entitled under the rules for his elders to remember do not disrespect your juniors just as he was required to respect and obey your elders. Pursuant to the rules, he should have the protection of his sect and their support, and if what he had was imperfect, it was at least something; for every Lan Ganhui that mocked him, there was a Lan Yueheng that encouraged him, and there were plenty of teachers that preferred him over all the others.

As for his brother – Lan Qiren should not hold his anger against him. He had been acting in the best interest of the sect, seeking to obtain benefits for what had been lost; he had thought throughout the trip that Lan Qiren had given up more than just his word of honor, but had refrained from punishing him accordingly. In the end, even his father had assigned him only to kneel, which was a milder punishment by far than he deserved for all his mistakes and insolence.

More than that, his brother was right: Wen Ruohan would be bound by his own word of honor and public reputation to treat Lan Qiren with dignity, and by endorsing the relationship rather than rejecting it, his sect was indicating that they would hold Wen Ruohan to his word. His father had appropriately expressed concern on Lan Qiren’s behalf, his brother had refuted those concerns with well-reasoned logic; it was inappropriate for Lan Qiren to take such an intellectual discussion to heart.

That he had – and that he had forgotten, even temporarily and in the privacy of his own head, the rule do not argue with family for it does not matter who wins – was merely evidence once again that Lan Qiren was inferior to his brother, who through keeping a cool head had enabled their sect to turn what could have been an embarrassment into a victory.

As for his father…Lan Qiren shouldn’t have been surprised, that’s all. Hadn’t years and years taught him that fathers only gave what they chose to give and no more? He had long ago learned that his father was kind and noble and equitable, concerned with all the Lan sect disciples (but for his dearly beloved eldest) in the same way and the same manner; being disappointed to receive that and nothing more was only his own foolishness.

(He only wondered, in passing, why it had been his father’s glacial voice that had scared him so, compared to the familiar warmth of his brother’s anger.)

So fortified and reassured, Lan Qiren returned to the regular flow of daily life at the Cloud Recesses.

It was not easy. As his brother had predicted, rumors about his sworn brotherhood with Wen Ruohan sprang up at once, and many of his fellow disciples were prone to staring at him when they thought he wouldn’t notice. The teachers handed out many punishments for breaking the prohibition about talking behind people’s backs, although with a certain leniency that made Lan Qiren suspect that they themselves toed the line of that particular rule behind closed doors.

The rumors themselves were split between those that theorized that Wen Ruohan had used nefarious means to entrap Lan Qiren and force him to agree to brotherhood – the Fire Palace was mentioned often, as were various theoretical misapplications of cultivation techniques of dark and unsavory natures – and those that skipped over the how of brotherhood and went straight to speculating as to the why, which typically also involved a variety of references to misapplied cultivation techniques, this time of the sort most often found exclusively in certain types of low-brow spring books.

Someone even suggested that Wen Ruohan intended on taking Lan Qiren to bed as a cauldron, which was the stupidest idea out of the whole lot.

“Of course that can’t be true,” Lan Qiren patiently explained to Lan Yueheng, who had come to collect his geometry book. As a gesture of thanks for his support, Lan Qiren had read the whole thing and sent an annotated list of questions and comments; Lan Yueheng had practically turned pink with excitement when he’d seen it and then secluded himself for two days to write a response. Lan Qiren still didn’t see the appeal of geometry, but he’d managed to coax Lan Yueheng into a discussion of the mathematics of music theory, an area in which their particular interests overlapped, and he had hope of a fruitful dialogue continuing into the future. “At least traditionally, cauldrons are individuals with high cultivation potential that has yet to be developed – raw natural talent, in other words, which can then be refined into strength for another. My inborn talent is only moderate, even low, and my progress is primarily due to good resources and hard work. So even if someone put in the work to make me a cauldron, they wouldn’t get much out of me.”

Lan Yueheng nodded, his brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “So your brother would’ve been a better cauldron than you.”

“…that is correct, but please don’t say it.” Lan Qiren quietly pitied Lan Yueheng’s etiquette teachers, and spared a thought to hope that his cousin’s children, should he have them, would take more after whoever he married than him. Even if only because Lan Qiren hoped to become a teacher himself one day, and he was sure that Lan Yueheng’s particularly brash and un-Lan-like bluntness would make for a terrible future student. “Perhaps it would be more helpful for you to think of it in the sense of energy transfers of heat? I’m already cold, so to speak, so he wouldn’t be able to draw out much heat from me.”

“Wait, if you’re cold and Sect Leader Wen is hot, would that make him the cauldron? Assuming you ever did dual cultivate.”

Lan Qiren pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s...not how that works, Yueheng-xiong. At all. I was merely attempting to use a metaphor to clarify the issue. Clearly I failed and only confused things further.”

Lan Yueheng shrugged. “At least you try,” he remarked. “And when you fail, you try again, doing something different. It’s better than the teachers who just do the same thing every time and blame you for being as bemused on the seventh repetition as you were on the first.”

Lan Qiren felt his ears go red at the compliment. “You’ve been here too long,” he reminded his cousin. “Your parents won’t be happy to see you spending too much time with me.”

“My parents don’t care. It’s my aunt and uncle who don’t like it. They say that people might start asking if I cultivate as a cauldron too –”

“Your parents listen to your aunt and uncle, so if they don’t like it, you shouldn’t disobey them. The rules say Be a filial child.”

“They also say Do not form cliques to exclude others, but that isn’t stopping the other disciples from playing favorites, is it?”

That was definitely one of the rules more honored in the breach, Lan Qiren thought with a sigh. But what could be done, when their elders did the same? The sect followed the example of its leader, and his father’s tendency towards favoritism were well known, albeit one that was widely indulged as a quirk rather than condemned as a serious flaw.

“I will remind the teachers of that one,” he said. “Perhaps a refresher would be suitable, to remind people. But the rule are meant for your own discipline, not others, and – ”

“Just because other people aren’t following the rules doesn’t mean I shouldn’t, I know,” Lan Yueheng said with a sigh of his own. “I’ll go…oh! It’s getting late. Weren’t you supposed to go to the guest’s pavilion by the western watchtower already?”

Lan Qiren blinked. “I don’t have that patrol route in my schedule until the end of the week.”

“No, no! I was supposed to tell you! Lao Nie’s come to visit, and –”

There were rules against running in the Cloud Recesses, so Lan Qiren was slightly late despite his best efforts, but true to form Lao Nie didn’t admonish him: he only turned from where he was sitting in the pavilion and smiled, calling out, “Qiren! There you are!”

“Forgive –”

“Forgiven,” Lao Nie interrupted before Lan Qiren even got the first word out. Lan Qiren was relieved to see that there was neither food nor tea already prepared; he would have been mortified if it had grown cold while Lao Nie was waiting to see him. “And don’t bow, either. How have you been? Tell me people aren’t harassing you over the nonsense with Hanhan.”

Lan Qiren opened his mouth, then hesitated.

“Do not tell lies,” Lao Nie observed, grimacing. “Ah, Qiren! Sometimes your brother’s worse than useless. It’s a pity, really, I hadn’t realized – well. At any rate, I’ve been bothering him for weeks to tell me about you and he wouldn’t say a word.”

“He was angry at me for messing up the conference,” Lan Qiren explained.

Lao Nie’s eyebrows arched. “You mean the conference where the Lan sect got first place in both major events and then extracted serious concessions from the Wen sect in a completely unexpected and nearly inexplicable political coup that got the whole cultivation world talking in awe at your political acumen? That conference?”

“I lost face for him. He thought – well, he’d thought it was worse than it was,” Lan Qiren hesitated. “He’s not the only one.”

Lao Nie huffed. “People are, by and large, stupid,” he declared. “Don��t let them get to you. They’ll change their tune soon enough.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t so sure. “They say a reputation is like a porcelain vase,” he said, unable to conceal his worries in the face of someone actually expressing concern rather than curiosity. His dream was to be a traveling cultivator, and that would be much easier with a good name, which he had always had before – good, or at least boring, which was just fine with him. He preferred to be boring! It had never occurred to him that he might do something that would render him the subject of gossip; it had never happened before. “Once cracked…”

“Right now, there’s only some bored people speculating that there might be a crack,” Lao Nie said. His confidence was contagious; Lan Qiren couldn’t help but relax a little in the face of it. “No one’s actually sure about it, and they’re willing to hear otherwise – things aren’t yet so bad. Don’t worry. I’ve spoken with Hanhan about it already.”

Lan Qiren felt his ears burning in shame. “Lao Nie! You didn’t!”

Especially since that would undoubtedly only make Wen Ruohan even more angry…

Lao Nie laughed and put his hand on his head, rubbing it lightly. “I did. Not in your name, but rather his own – do you think the Wen sect wants to get a reputation for being led by a man with an unhealthy interest in noble-born children? It’s in his interest to get this cleared up as much as you.”

Lan Qiren felt the tension rush out of his shoulders all at once. That hadn’t occurred to him, but now that Lao Nie had pointed it out, it was clear enough.

After all, for all the talk going around about Lan Qiren, it was widely agreed that he was clearly the victim in whatever scenario they’d thought up, whether through having his oath extracted under torture or by force; even among those who theorized that Wen Ruohan intended to use him as a cauldron, the reputation Lan Qiren might get would be, at worst, that of a seductive flirt who couldn’t be resisted. Lan Qiren’s brother had scoffed audibly the first time he’d heard that, saying that such a rumor would naturally be dispelled the moment anyone came in contact with Lan Qiren for more than a moment, and in all honesty Lan Qiren agreed with his assessment. He had the classic Lan sect looks, yes, but so did many others, and he had a demeanor as stern as a schoolmaster, giving off the feel of an old man even though he wasn’t even of age.

Meanwhile, for Wen Ruohan, the consequences were undoubtedly more dire – if he was said to have a taste for boys, especially noble-born ones, the other sects might be afraid to send their sons around him. It was a different reputation by far than his taste for torture, or his supposed use of dark and forbidden cultivation; those would make people fear him, while lusting for children would only make people disdain him.

Still, Lan Qiren wasn’t sure how exactly even someone of Wen Ruohan’s cunning would go about fixing such a mistake – and that was putting aside why he would make such a mistake over Lan Qiren in the first place. He hadn’t had a chance to explain to his brother his theory that Wen Ruohan had acted just to irritate Lao Nie, and in the end he’d decided it wasn’t worth drawing his brother’s attention back to the subject.

Besides, if Lan Qiren could figure it out, with his notorious inability to understand interpersonal affairs, then surely his brother was more than able to do the same. It wasn’t as if Lao Nie were being shy about it…

“Hanhan said he had something in mind,” Lao Nie was saying, shaking his head. “He usually does, I find, and each idea’s more awful than the next.”

Lan Qiren shifted a little from one foot to the other. “If you know he’s awful, why do you…” he hesitated. “I mean, you call him – an endearment.”

“Oh, he’s a little awful, no doubt,” Lao Nie said, sounding rather fond. “But as long as it’s not my sect, what do I care? Anyway, Qiren, you shouldn’t worry. If there’s one thing you can trust with Hanhan, it’s that he takes care of anything associated with himself.”

Lan Qiren didn’t really like the fact that he was now counted among that number.

It didn’t seem all that safe.

“Though of course that doesn’t protect him from you,” Lao Nie added, suddenly smirking, and Lan Qiren blinked owlishly at him. “Apparently, you’re a very talkative drunk.”

Lan Qiren’s face burned red.

“And effusive, too! According to Hanhan, even after you forced him down in his seat to keep listening to you, you kept waving your hands around while you were talking and knocking things over; he had to pin you down to keep you from destroying things by accident.”

That would explain the marks on his arms.

“Apparently, you didn’t appreciate him doing that and kneed him right in the –”

“You really think he can make the rumors go away?” Lan Qiren hastily interrupted, rubbing the back of his neck a little as if it would make the heat of hideous embarrassment go away. That tallied up a little too well with the physical evidence to be anything other than accurate. “There’s – a lot of them. And I’d like to have a clean reputation.”

“You will,” Lao Nie said, thankfully distracted from his mortifyingly plausible story. “Anyone who meets you will know at once that you’re a righteous and upstanding person.”

Lan Qiren liked that better than the way his brother had put it.

“It’s just that you haven’t had a chance to make your name in the cultivation world,” Lao Nie said. He sounded sure of himself. “You’ll do wonderful things one day, Qiren. I’ve no doubt.”

“I don’t want to do wonderful things,” Lan Qiren said, scowling. “I just want to travel around and help people.”

“Yes, I know,” Lao Nie said, and he sounded fond again, just the way he did when he was talking about Wen Ruohan, or even Lan Qiren’s brother. Truly, Lan Qiren thought to himself, the Nie sect had no idea how lucky they were to have him as sect leader. “Really, Qiren, it’s like I said: don’t worry about it. Now come, tell me what you’ve been studying recently.”

Lan Qiren had promised himself that he would reduce the amount of time he spent with Lao Nie on his occasional visits to the Lan sect, not wanting to risk inciting Wen Ruohan’s unreasonable anger and jealousy any further.

He would need to assign himself an appropriate punishment for breaking that promise, he thought, and sat down to start telling Lao Nie all about the work he was doing with one of his teachers on comparing the origin points of the various Lan sect rules, as well as his experiments on arrays to enhance open-air acoustics that would, he hoped, eventually be inscribed on all Lan sect instruments to increase the range and impact of their spell songs.

He even mentioned the possibility of a joint project on the mathematics of musical theory, and for whatever reason he thought Lao Nie looked especially pleased about that.

He didn’t think about Wen Ruohan at all.

#mdzs #lan qiren #sect leader nie #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

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drwcn · 4 years

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I have a question about Discordance. How did the whole thing came to be? Like how did the Lan elders think that hmmm wei wuxian, mischievous sneaky boi, should be the one to marry the sect leader?

LOL

No, well it started with Madam Yu actually. In the synopsis, I wrote that Madam Yu wanted to get rid of WWX because Jiang Fengmian’s favouritisim was really starting to affect the preparation for Jiang Cheng as sect heir. A lot of time he delegates tasks to WWX that he really should give to his son and heir. Madam Yu has had enough of that bullshit. The easiest way to get rid of WWX is to marry him out. That way, he is both simultaneously gone and Lotus Pier forms a advantageous alliance.

If he is to marry out, it’ll look better if he marries a man rather than a woman, since WWX is a man himself. Men marrying out (ru-zhui 入赘) is already not something to be proud of (historically if a man married into the woman’s family it’s because her station and wealth is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than his, and in a misogynist society that’s not a proud thing for a man to do, but to advance in life, some men did do it.)

So for Lotus Pier’s pride, Madam Yu wanted a groom from a good family - so someone from a major sect - and ideally someone who is a good cultivator. Wei Wuxian’s position as a very favoured Head Disciple in Yunmeng, his rank (4th) amongst his peers, and the fact he was the son of Cangse Sanren meant Lotus Pier could set a certain high bar for groom candidates.

In this au, WWX has already gone to Cloud Recesses. He’s a bit older, about 18-19 years old, and like all teenagers over the years he’s grown taller, stronger, and to an extent a little more mature.

In this au, a lot of what happened when the guest disciples went to Cloud Recesses never happened, because Lan Wangji wasn’t around. He prolonged his self-imposed isolation and was cultivating in the snowy peaks of Mt. Gusu. (Of course the war never happened, because Wen Qing’s father is Sect Master Wen, and the Chief Cultivator is Jin Guangshan).

But all other things being the same, WWX would’ve still encountered Jin Zixuan at the inn, they would’ve still left behind their invites, and therefore been stopped at the gates. This time, there’s no Lan Wangji to come and see them and tell Lan Xichen to let them in. So actually by the time Wei Wuxian came back with the invites, his siblings were still waiting for him. So there was no sword fighting on the roof, he didn’t make a fool of himself on the very night. And without his encounter with Lan Wangji that very first night, WWX wouldn’t have had anyone to annoy in class, and he wouldn’t try to spend all his time and effort getting on LWJ’s nerves. At best he’ll sneak in snacks with NHS.

And without Lan Wangji, the One Brain Cell Trio wouldn’t have gotten caught drinking, and they wouldn’t have been punished...and all of those tomfoolery would’ve been better hidden (but not completely unwritten bc WWX is still WWX).

And without a war, WWX would’ve stayed the full time at Cloud Recesses, and he would’ve been able to demonstrate his skills in cultivation and his cleverness (as much as LQR disapproves of some of his more unorthodox idea, he can’t deny that WWX is intelligent).

In part 3 or chapter 3, I wrote from JYL’s point of view that Lan Xichen didn’t just marry Wei Wuxian for his pretty face. This more matured version of Wei Wuxian with full possession of his golden core is a very strong cultivator from a very good clan. He is favoured by JFM and is treated more like a young master who would’ve been taught the etiquettes and mannerisms of sect heir without being an actual heir.

Lan Xichen himself is known in this au to prefer men, though I think if pressed upon, he would’ve accepted a female spouse out of duty. Now in his generation, if you look around, there aren’t that many heiresses of major clans for him to marry. Jiang Yanli is already married to Jin Zixuan. There’s Wen Qing, of course, but the Wens are deeply, deeply private people and Nevernight is very far away. Sect Master Wen loves his daughter very much and he had the good sense to keep her away from the political bullshit, so very few people have seen or met Wen Qing. (She will be around in the later chapters don’t worry).

So if not a major clan, Lan Xichen would’ve had to marry from a minor clan. Well, why couldn’t he marry from within his own clan? Well he could, if his bride is an outer disciple, as in not Lan by blood, but what political advantage would that contribute to Gusu Lan? (Cultural note: you can’t marry cousins from within your family of your own last name. Historically even people who married their cousins, married cousins of different last names, aka from different clans.)

So potential wife candidates were scarce. Under these circumstances, the Elders agreed that a husband for Lan Xichen would be just as good as long as he is a strong cultivator and come from a very good clan so that an alliance may be made. Geographically speaking, Yunmeng and Gusu are adjacent, so it’s more convenient to have an ally right beside you. Wei Wuxian met all of their hard criteria, but his personality was a point of contention. So before the marriage was set, Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian were allowed to meet and converse and try to get to know each other, because the Elders trusted Lan Xichen to be a good judge of character. LXC and WWX got on just fine and this was a marriage of convenience anyway.

On the topic of heirs, the agreement was that WWX allow LXC to take on one additional concubine (female in this case) to provide him with children. Not any time soon, but eventually. WWX agreed. What’s not to agree? If LXC refused to take on additional spouses out of obligation to his husband, then Gusu still has LWJ and other Lan cousins, so they weren’t too concerned.

Too bad for them, how was anyone supposed to know that Lan Wangji would fall in love with his own brother in law?

#discordance #discau #cql #the untamed #Anonymous #corie replies

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ibijau · 3 years

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👀

How about the beginning of the second part for that Wen Qing Lives au that I just can’t seem to work on?

Nie Huaisang did not rescue Wen Ning, but he also does not want Wen Qing's cooperation anyway. He doesn't want Wen Qing's anything and makes it clear when he joins her in the Unclean Realm. She is not what he was hoping to find in that highly guarded cell.

"Having let you see me, I had a choice between taking you away or killing you. Murder is distasteful and I avoid it whenever possible. Besides, we once had a common friend. After the lengths he went to for your people, I'd rather not see you dead."

"Yet you left my brother in the Jins' hands."

"Your brother is a puppet. He's already as good as dead. I've risked enough already."

He's not wrong of course. Wen Qing knows she ought to feel grateful he at least saved her. Gratefulness is a rare commodity these days, and she never asked to be saved.

"What is to become of me now?"

Nie Huaisang grimaces, and takes out a fan with which he plays nervously.

"It depends on what you prefer. I can buy you a farm somewhere isolated, or find a temple that will take you in, or… something. But you'll have to hide for the rest of your life. Jin Guangyao will be looking for you."

By hide he means she'll have to give up medicine. Her entire soul revolts against that idea, burning with an anger that surprises her. She did not think she could still feel such strong emotions. But she has lost everything else, her friends, her family, her brother even. She will not lose the last thing she has.

"Have me dropped somewhere far from Qinghe and I'll manage on my own," Wen Qing says. "I don't fear Jin Guangyao. The worst he can do now is to kill me. Until he does, I'll be out there helping whoever I can."

Nie Huaisang nervously flickers his fan, watching her carefully.

"I won't say a word about your involvement in my escape," Wen Qing promises, guessing that's the reason for his anxiety.

The movement of his fan quickens and his mouth pinches tight. Apparently, he had not actually thought of that.

"Lady Wen, I told you that my brother had been killed, and you did not protest," Nie Huaisang remarks, ignoring her promise. "Everyone else always assures me that he is only missing, that he might have survived. They make a great show of comforting me so I’ll stop sobbing on their robes. Could it be that you know something about it?"

"Xue Yang told me about what happened, and I have no reason to doubt him. He is a surprisingly honest man, in his own fashion."

Watching her captor, Wen Qing sees a few tears pool at the corners of his eyes, though they remain unspilled. For all of his assurance, it appears Nie Huaisang still hoped that his brother was alive in spite of everything. She pities him for the death of that last hope. It reminds her of that day Xue Yang let her know that she had lost everything. The pain of losing kin is one she still feels daily.

"Lady Wen, please, would you tell me what you know?"

It is a cruel sort of mercy that to share with Nie Huaisang the stories Xue Yang told her. She tries to relay them in a kinder manner than she received them. Judging by how pale Nie Huaisang turns, how tightly he grips his fan, her gentleness does little to soften the blow.

"He dared," Nie Huaisang hisses. "Brother used to hold him in such high regard once, and Jin Guangyao did this! That snake! He'll pay, I'll make him pay!"

He is still not crying, but Wen Qing can tell what effort it must take him. She is reminded of Wen Ning, trying to be brave when he was little and swallowing his anger, refusing to cry so he wouldn't upset her. She wonders if Wen Ning would want to avenge her if he were in Nie Huaisang’s place. She doesn't think he would, it doesn't seem like him, but… She remembers Nie Huaisang when they were younger.

She would not have taken him for the vengeful sort either.

"Lady Wen, thank you for what you have told me," Nie Huaisang says when some of his rage subsides. "You have helped me more than you could imagine and given me several leads to go on. You have my gratitude."

"You freed me," Wen Qing replies. "Consider it a debt repaid. But if someday you get your revenge…" she hesitates. Holding grudges goes against what her clan taught her. Healers, not killers. And yet for this, she wants to make an exception. "When you get your revenge, make sure to add another blow to his face, for my family's sake. However they died, they did not deserve this."

"You do not know how…"

"No."

"Do you want to know?"

Wen Qing hesitates. The honest, truthful answer is no. It is enough to know they are dead.

But in this world that bears her name such deep, unending hate, it would be foolish to hope that the truth never reach her ears. People must talk about what happened. People do little but talk, after all.

Wen Qing looks at Nie Huaisang, who looks too young and acts too old, who still won’t cry over his brother’s death even though sorrow seems to devour him alive. She gave him the unwanted gift of harsh truth, offered with as much kindness as can ever come from something so horrific. In this moment, she trusts him to return the favour.

“Tell me.”

He does.

Wen Qing doesn’t cry.

One needs a heart for tears, and hers is torn away by what she learns. Her people, her family, the ones she swore to defend and for whom she gave her life, her very soul… and they were slaughtered before she was even set up into her hidden laboratory.

Jin Guangshan must have laughed at her naivety and somewhere beyond the grave, so does Wen Ruohan.

“All of them?” she asks in a voice that doesn’t sound like hers anymore.

“All of them.”

“There was a child. He was three, going on four. We left him at the Burial Mounds, so he wouldn’t have to see me and my brother die. Him as well?”

For the first time since he started his horrific tale, Nie Huaisang seems unsure. The fan in his hand stills, he stares at her with wide eyes.

“I never heard anything about a child,” he claims. “My brother, Zewu-Jun… They went to the Burial Mounds when everything was over, they never said anything about a child. What we did to your people wasn’t right, Lady Wen, but my brother wasn’t the sort to let a child die for the crimes of his elders.”

Wen Qing doesn’t reply. Refuses to reply. A-Yuan wasn’t a threat at the time, no, but she knows how people like that think. There’s a reason Wen Ruohan took her and Wen Ning into his care. He knew that left alone, they might have grown into revenge seeking young people, rather than the indebted fools he turned them into. They killed A-Yuan not for what he was, but what he would have become.

If Nie Huaisang doesn’t see that, then he still has a lot to learn.

“Lady Wen, do you wish to avenge them?” he asks her in a careful tone.

“I owe you my freedom. I will not attack you for your brother’s crimes.”

Nie Huaisang tilts his head as if to get a better look at her. Aside from lingering grief, his expression is unreadable.

“It was not Qinghe Nie who hanged them,” he says at last, as if that absolves him of responsibility. “But consider this: we have a common enemy. Surely you must resent Lanling Jin as much as I do. Or if not the whole sect, then at least those who chose to murder our families.”

#jau writes #wen qing lives #reasons for being abandoned: wq isn't interested in helping nhs who of course can't afford to let her go so easily #lesbianjinzixuan

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stiltonbasket · 4 years

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chancellor of the morning sun: first meeting, xichen (childhood)

In which Lan Xichen stages a rescue and meets her intended husband; or, part 3 of the nielan au that has completely taken over my brain.

Part 1 | Part 2: Lesson (Youth) | Part 3: First Meeting, Mingjue (Childhood) | AO3

“Where are we going, A-Jie?”

“We’re just walking, A-Zhan.”

Her little brother looks doubtfully up at the sky and clutches her hand a little tighter.

“Jie, wasn’t the leisure hall that way?”

“No,” she says gloomily. “That’s the building where Wen-zongzhu keeps his biting lizards.”

In a manner that rather forebodes ill for the rest of her stay in Qishan, eleven-year-old Lan Huan, first heir to the Gusu Lan clan and courtesy name Xichen, is completely and utterly lost in the immense gardens of the Nightless City’s Sun Palace. She hadn’t meant to get lost, of course; Shufu went off to join the day’s more important audiences with all the rest of the sect leaders, so Xichen and A-Zhan were supposed to stay with the women and children in the leisure wing and enjoy the entertainment Sect Leader Wen had provided for them.

But then one of the boys from the Jiang clan decided to steal the flowers from the vases standing about the room and throw them at A-Zhan, which bothered her poor baby brother so much—both at the sheer shamelessness of it and because the flowers were being wasted—that Xichen led the child back to his mother and bundled A-Zhan off for a walk in the grounds to settle him. And then the two young masters of the Wen sect appeared out of nowhere, offering to show Lan Huan and Lan Zhan around the palace, but Shufu drilled the importance of never being alone with a man she didn’t know or trust into her head so many times that Lan Huan said she was going to join Madam Jin outside and fled as fast as she could.

She would have suffered the invitation if it had been just Wen Chao, but Wen Xu is past sixteen and nearly as tall as her uncle, and the thought of being alone with him put her on edge.

Shuoyue is not and never has been for show, even if Lan Huan is only eleven, but it has never been proper for a young master older than fourteen or so to invite a strange young maiden to accompany him somewhere without a chaperone. Wen Xu certainly knows that, even if Wen Chao might not have been told just yet, which means the boy is probably untrustworthy in some way or other.

“Will we go see Madam Jin?” A-Zhan asks, tugging at her hand again. “That’s what you told Wen Xu.”

“We can’t,” Lan Huan says regretfully. She met Jin Zixuan briefly at a banquet in the Cloud Recesses last year, and the boy asked his father if he could “marry Maiden Lan instead, since she is prettier than Jiang-guniang,” the moment he thought Lan Huan was out of earshot—which she wasn’t, since all she had done was walk into the next room to have tea with Madam Qin and her daughter, Qin Su.

Jin Guangshan remarked that it wasn’t a bad idea (which would have stopped Lan Huan’s heart in its tracks, were she not already betrothed to the unknown but not yet insufferable Nie Mingjue, and not fully aware that Shufu only let the engagement stand because he knows her intended’s father is a good man) and asked Jin-furen if they might talk to her uncle about a future courtship. But then, Jin-furen snapped at her son for chasing the first pair of pretty eyes he saw—whatever that meant—and gave Lan Huan nothing but dark looks until the banquet was over.

So Madam Jin is out of the question, and for a very good, if unfortunate reason.

“As if I would ever marry Jin Zixuan,” she mutters to herself. The boy isn’t a bad sort, exactly, but very sure that he is the most important person in every room that doesn’t already have his father in it, and Lan Huan has had far too much of that in her time—especially for a girl who refuses to live and cultivate on the women’s side of the Cloud Recesses, and ends up in front of a panel of concerned elders every other month to discuss her unmaidenly behavior, Young Mistress.

It is at this juncture—when Lan Huan is revisiting the memory of Jin-furen’s determination to keep Jin Zixuan away from her and close to Jiang Yanli while they were all still together in Wen Ruohan’s leisure hall, and seething a little at the thought that Madam Jin seems to believe Lan Huan might fall prey to her son’s nonexistent charms—that A-Zhan tugs at her arm for a third time, and points to a suspicious-looking disturbance on the surface of a nearby pool.

“Someone fell in, A-Jie,” he says, staring intently at the splashing water before gazing up at her in distress. “Someone small, like me.”

She squints, and then cries out in horrified surprise when a tiny hand flails above the side of the pond before sinking back down again. “Stay here, A-Zhan!”

Lan Huan throws off the outer two layers of her robes and runs towards the tiled pond so quickly that she nearly trips over her own feet, vaulting over the short stone wall and tumbling into the water just in time to hoist a little bundle of grey and white cloth up against her chest so it can breathe properly again. The pond is less than a foot deeper than she is tall, but the tiny child in her arms can hardly swim, and clings to her neck in terror as she paddles them slowly back towards the water’s edge—Shufu taught her never to cling if someone tried to rescue her from the water when she was very small, but no one seems to have told this baby that, so she fights for breath as best she can before splashing back to the tiled wall and hauling herself and the child out.

“Don’t cry,” she rasps, vaguely aware that her little charge is wailing into her wet clothes, and that a pair of older boys seem to be running towards them from the far end of the gardens, while also wailing at the top of their lungs. “Can you get your breath, little one?”

“There was a frog!” the small boy sobs, shoving his face against her stomach and hiding it there. “And I chased it, and then I slipped and fell in!”

At least he can breathe, if he’s crying so much, Lan Huan thinks wryly, before sitting up and peeling the child out of his sodden gown.

“A-Zhan, bring my clothes here,” she instructs, as her brother picks up her fallen white robes and hurries over to her side. Between the two of them, they manage to get the little frog-hunter dry with one of her gowns and warmly wrapped up with the other one, which is when the shrieking boys from earlier—one wearing black and silver, and one in Lanling gold—finally dash down the path and skid to a halt in front of them.

“Huaisang!” the older one chokes, almost crying himself as he reaches her. “A-Sang, you—”

“I fell in, Gege!” Huaisang squeaks (Nie Huaisang, Xichen realizes) before bursting into tears again as the tall youth falls to his knees in the grass and cuffs him around the ears. “Gege! You’re so mean! I almost died before this jiejie pulled me out, and now you’re hitting me!”

“I’ll hit you again in a minute, just wait!” the boy screeches. “What did you think you were doing, wandering off on your own when I told you not to let go of my hand unless we were back with Father? You could have drowned, A-Sang!”

“That was very foolish, Huaisang,” the second boy says, and Lan Xichen stifles a sigh of despair when she realizes that the new young master’s companion is none other than Jin Zixuan—because today hasn’t been bad enough, apparently. “Nie-da-gongzi was ready to tear the gardens apart when he realized you were gone.”

Nie-da-gongzi.

This shouting, trembling youth in front of her, clutching his little brother to his heart and berating him at every other breath, is none other than Lan Xichen’s intended, the person Xichen will bow to earth and heaven beside when she comes of age.

(How strange it is that they have met in such a way rather than at the banquet scheduled to take place later tonight, as Shufu and Nie-zongzhu both planned.)

“Maiden Lan,” Jin Zixuan blurts out, going a little pink in the cheeks as she spares him a cool, disinterested glance. At her side, A-Zhan squeezes her hand and glares up at the older boy, who takes a few involuntary steps backward before remembering that her brother is only seven years old and wouldn’t hurt a fly. “That was a very brave thing you just did.”

The older Nie-gongzi freezes on the ground, finally looking at her and A-Zhan for long enough to register the blue silk ribbons on their foreheads, and then at the delicate beaded clouds sewn onto the lace-trimmed gown bundled around Nie Huaisang’s shoulders.

And then, after his mind catches up with his eyes, he looks up at Lan Xichen and prostrates himself at her feet so forcefully that he strikes her damp shoes with his forehead. “Maiden Lan!” he gasps. “Forgive me, I did not see your ribbon, but—I cannot be grateful enough, Lan-guniang, that you saved Huaisang! I and my clan are forever in your debt, a debt that can never be repaid if we tried for a thousand years, but—”

“Give.”

All three of the older children assembled (and Nie Huaisang, now suspiciously cheerful again as he snuggles into his borrowed robe) look around for the source of the reproof before realizing that Lan Zhan had spoken, pointing straight at Nie Mingjue with his tiny forefinger outstretched in threat like one of Shufu’s discipline rulers.

“Ah, what?” Young Master Nie says gently. “What should I give, Lan-xiao-gongzi?”

“Give Jie your robe. She’ll freeze if you don’t.”

The weather—yet another nail in the coffin of Lan Xichen’s afternoon, though coming face to face with her betrothed has been one of the few tolerable things about it—chooses that moment to send a frigid wind over the gardens, making Xichen shiver despite herself as Nie-gongzi straightens up and takes off his outer gown. Jin Zixuan seems to realize then that Lan Xichen is only in her inner garments, turning his face away in embarrassment while Lan Zhan takes the robe from Nie Mingjue and helps his sister into it.

“Thank you, Nie-gongzi,” she says, tying the wide sash securely around her waist. “It would have been strange to walk all the way back to the guest quarters without my overgown. Shall I return this to you in the morning, after I have the time to have it washed?”

“Oh, there’s no need!” Nie Mingjue cries, waving his hands in the air as Jin Zixuan turns to stare at him in disbelief. “That’s a talisman robe, so it’ll be fine even if your inner robe isn’t clean after the pond water. And it’ll dry your inner robes off too in a minute, so you can be warm on your way back to the palace.”

He dithers on the spot for a moment, and then bows low at the waist. “May I see you and the little young master safely back to your uncle, Maiden Lan?”

“You may,” Lan Xichen agrees, moving to take her brother’s hand before running back to fetch Shuoyue, which she dropped into a flowerbed some thirty feet away when she removed her two outer garments. “There, I’m ready. Come along, A-Zhan.”

“That’s a beautiful jian,” Nie Mingjue remarks as they set off down one of the garden paths—he seems to know where he’s going, to Lan Xichen’s relief, which will hopefully squash their chances of having another unfortunate adventure between here and the Sun Palace’s guest wing. “I like the jade stripe down the middle of the scabbard. Did you choose it yourself?”

“Yes, I did,” she smiles, rather glad at the prospect of someone liking Shuoyue. The elders insisted that eleven was too young to carry a sword in public, even though her core was so advanced that she had gained enough control over it to fly on a jian by the time she was six—so wearing it to gatherings often feels like an act of defiance, and one she wishes she never had to perform. “It has a white-jade handle too, see?”

“Marvelous,” Nie-gongzi agrees, sounding a little breathless as he gazes at the weapon with stars in his eyes. “You know, all of the swords I’ve seen from the Lan clan are decorated with white and silver finishings, but the green jade on yours looks wonderful. It’s like—like a pine tree, and the white jade at the handle looks like snow.”

He takes in a breath and gathers himself up, and then—

“Do you like sabers? I have a very good one. She’s called Baxia.”

“Baxia, like the sihai longwang’s eighth son?” Lan Xichen frowns, trying to remember exactly which son of the dragon god of the four seas shared the saber’s name. “Or was it the sixth, the turtle-dragon?”

“Baxia’s name is split between them both, actually,” Nie Mingjue says shyly. “The sixth one is called Bixi, too. It’s about the only piece of legend I know by heart, since I don’t read very much, but of course I had to learn the story behind my dao’s name so I could tell people about it.”

“It’s a very strong name. And fitting, since the figure of the eighth son guards bridges, and the Unclean Realm is said to be a great fortress with many raised terraces over the lower courts for archers.”

“That’s exactly why I chose it!” he exclaims. “We have statues of Lord Baxia all over the stronghold, but no one’s ever called their saber that before.”

The conversation proceeds in much the same vein all the way back to Shufu’s rooms, and by the end of it Lan Xichen has learned more about the Nie clan’s cultivation than she thought she would ever have the chance to, since none of the five great sects like to share their secrets with outsiders. In return, she tells Nie Mingjue about the chord assassination path, and how likes cultivating with Liebing better because the xiao is useful even outside combat—and the boy’s eyes go even rounder as she plays a few notes meant to relieve sore muscles and cure headaches, wiping away the little furrow between his brows as his shoulders finally relax.

“Our clan prefers an honorable battle to settle matters,” Nie-gongzi admits, as they reach her uncle’s door. “But healers are far superior, because they must mend the hurts that warriors leave behind.”

Shufu throws the door open before Lan Xichen can reply, ushering her and A-Zhan over the threshold before realizing that Xichen is dressed in the colors of a young master from Qinghe instead of Lan blue and white; and then he notices that Nie Mingjue is missing his fourth layer, and that the child in his arms is wearing Lan Xichen’s outer robe, and then that Lan Zhan is carrying her second one, since they used it as a towel to dry Nie Huaisang.

“Xichen,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Would you care to tell me what happened here, and why you are over an hour late back to our quarters?”

“A-Zhan and I got lost on our way back to the leisure hall, and we found Young Master Nie after he fell into one of the pools in the garden,” she says, studiously ignoring the puzzled glances Jin Zixuan and Nie Mingjue exchange behind her back at the mention of her courtesy name. “I pulled him out and gave him one of my robes to keep him warm, and so Nie-da-gongzi gave me his. This niece is most sorry for worrying you, Shufu.”

Her uncle frowns and opens his mouth—probably to scold someone, though she can’t be sure just who yet—but then Nie Huaisang’s stomach rumbles from his perch against his brother’s shoulder, and Lan Xichen (trained by over half a lifetime of looking after A-Zhan, since she had to be his mother in A-Niang’s place because A-Niang couldn’t) finds herself reaching for one of the qiankun pouches in A-Zhan’s sleeve before passing it to Nie Mingjue.

“Thank you, Maiden Lan,” he says, confused. “I will...I mean, this gift...uh, what is it?”

“I baked a batch of red-bean pastries for the trip, since Shufu and A-Zhan like them,” Xichen replies, watching with a warm glow in her stomach as Nie Huaisang reaches over to undo the drawstring and squeals in delight when his hands close around a pile of fresh buns. “A-Sang should eat as many as he likes—he just fell into cold water, after all, and I always carry food in talisman pouches to keep it warm.”

“Lan-guniang,” Nie Mingjue gasps. “This is too much, we couldn’t possibly—”

“You five missed the lunch banquet, and there will be no more food for any of you until dinner,” Shufu snaps at him. “Take it, Young Master Nie, since my niece has offered, and get that child into a hot bath before he catches his death of cold. Now, I bid you good afternoon, for heaven’s sake try to come to the evening feast with the full four layers of robes on your shoulders.”

And then he slides the door shut in Nie Mingjue’s face, turning on Xichen and Lan Zhan with a scowl that melts into a thoughtful sort of look before either of them have time to do much more than wilt in resignation for the lecture ahead.

But then he sighs, and tucks his hands behind his back before smiling at Lan Xichen.

“So you have met your betrothed, A-Huan,” he says, sounding as if he might laugh, for some reason. “What do you think? Do you like him?”

Lan Xichen would have liked to say something along the lines of yes, he seems all right, Shufu, or I’m sure he and I will get along well when we’re older—but her tongue betrays her, in the end, and all Xichen can find words for is this:

“I do like Nie-gongzi, Shufu,” she confesses. “I like him very much.”

#nielan #lan xichen #nie mingjue #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan arranged marriage au #the untamed #my fic #mo dao zu shi

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