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brightclothesforwinter · 1 year

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Sneaking in right under the wire (it's 23:15 on the 21st where I am!) for @mdzswomen's week 3 - I'd only just been talking about the yanqing fix-it AU which is at least 50% an excuse to bang on about TCM, so when I saw that one of the themes was 'healing' that was obviously a sign.

So here's the very beginning, I make no promises about ever getting to the end, I am excruciatingly slow as a writer, but I think works OK as a self-contained piece in the meantime.

It happens like this: Wen-Zongzhu sends Wen Qing to the Cloud Recesses, to investigate their defences. Identify points of interest. She goes, because she must, her family's safety always held over her head, her little brother at her heels because that is all the concession she can wring.

She has her mission, which she cannot reject nor fail at.

She also has her calling as a physician, and even Wen-Zongzhu would not lightly command her to set that aside. He understands the levers of filial loyalty too well for that.

. . .

Wen Chao is not subtle, delivering them to the Cloud Recesses.

Wen Qing is extremely subtle. She wears a guest disciple's robes; encourages her brother to attend lectures on the men's side as she does on the women's. She is as confident as she can be in his safety, here, this quiet place set aside from the world, with its rules standing carven in changeless stone and apply equally to all. As siblings, they are granted guest quarters set between the two sides, allowing each family a little privacy.

Thus the Jiang are their neighbours, and Jiang Yanli is sweet and kind and friendly, and, to Wen Qing's trained eye, obviously unwell. She tires easily; pauses for breath on the steep paths where a stronger cultivator would not need to, and on some mornings she moves as stiffly as a much older woman. To have friends is a dangerous thing, in the Nightless City. But here - Wen-Zongzhu's plans will surely pose danger to Jiang-Zongzhu's only daughter, in the fullness of time, but Wen Qing's friendship will at least not make that danger worse. She cannot let her guard down - she can never let her guard down - but in this time, in this place, she need not be quite so guarded.

Should Wen-Zongzhu ever ask, she can say plainly and truthfully that she felt it wise to maintain a friendly facade, to avoid suspicion, and that she also felt there might be some value in gathering what observations she could of the Jiang sibilings, who can be expected to go on to be leader and first disciple of one Great Sect, and mistress of another.

As a physician and a friend, she offers, delicately, to examine Jiang Yanli.

Jiang Yanli has been examined and treated by any number of doctors. The flow of qi in her meridians is sluggish, her core correspondingly underdeveloped. She has been prescribed, at various times, exercises to stimulate qi movement, exercises to slow qi movement, and several entirely contradictory herbs; one of the ones she's been taking is probably partly responsible for the shortness of breath. It's obvious her esteemed professional colleagues have been grasping at straws.

It is not at all clear quite what is wrong with her meridians, but certainly something is. Were her core stronger, she would be at serious risk of qi deviation. Had certain of her prescribed treatments been effective, they would have caused a qi deviation. The blockages are partial and specific; at certain points, qi flow is restricted, and the regular core-strengthening exercises taught to cultivators' children have erratic results.

'A bit like a hydraulic dam,' Jiang Yanli says, explaining Wen Qing's findings to her brothers. The metaphor would not have occurred to her, but Wen Qing supposes it is natural to Lotus Pier's children to think first of water.

A-Ning is somewhat distressingly impressed with Jiang Yanli's shidi; his confidence, mostly, but also his innovative thought-processes. He is, she will grudgingly admit, intelligent and creative, at least when it comes to matters not involving Lan-er-gongzi. And he is in fine form now, theorising noisily aloud and messily on paper, while Wen Ning grinds ink and Wen Qing intervenes when his lack of medical knowledge leads his flights of fancy too far astray.

She is sharp-tongued by habit, but he seems, if anything, grateful to be corrected - his grin is quite indecorous - and Jiang Yanli's smile is soft, watching them all. It is possible Wei Wuxian is as brilliant in his own field as she is in hers. It is possible that together they can come up with something which might not do more harm than good.

'You do both like a challenge,' Jiang Yanli says, gentle and amused, as she draws Jiang Wanyin away from the increasingly involved discussion.

Jiang Wanyin is the most reserved; the most aware, despite being youngest, of the prospect that war will divide them. Not that Yanli-mei is unaware, but she chooses to take the moments they have, to offer friendship now, and leave the things that must divide them to their own time.

Wei Wuxian quite possibly does not think beyond the current moment. It is possible that without the project to help his beloved sect-sister keeping his mind occupied, he would be getting into even more trouble, from restless boredom and what she suspects isn't so much an inability to grasp the concept of decorum, but the inability to remember, in the pinch, that it matters.

They are unlike anyone she has ever known. His brilliance would not have saved him from his inability to play politics, among the Wen, and what would have become of Yanli-mei's gentleness doesn't bear thinking about. Jiang Wanyin might, perhaps, have learnt to curb his temper into bitter viciousness before he pulled the tiger's tail too hard.

There are dozens of arrays the Jiang use for the general purpose of clearing the river-ways. Some are ancient, passed down through the generations; others, Wei Wuxian has already had a hand in refining. They are, she learns, different for an obstruction which is floating or submerged, partial or complete, if it is of earth or of wood, or some combination. There is one for metal, mostly employed in retrieving dropped tools, several which put her in mind of the greater yang meridians, but are apparently employed in particular hydrological circumstances she still doesn't entirely grasp despite an enthusiastic attempt to make a miniature demonstration in sand, and one untested and entirely theoretical creation of Wei Wuxian's which he claims would be effective in the deeply implausible scenario that the flow of the river was somehow blocked by fire.

Implausible as a behaviour of physical geography, at least. As a political statement, that time may well come. And as an analogy to the flow of qi and the functioning of the body - the river-management arrays are the key she needs.

. . .

Wei Wuxian is protective; Jiang Wanyin is brusquely sceptical; Yanli-mei is steadfast and resolute. "Let us," she says quietly, "attempt the impossible."

Wen Qing is cautious. The first treatment is brief, tentative, the application of the smallest amount of energy she can muster to one of the blockages of the liver meridian. It is appropriate in function, it is a faint meridian, and most importantly for this experiment, it is a yin meridian; her own cultivation energies suffice, filtered through an array they have adapted from one which would be used to break up a submerged partial blockage of wood in circumstances where the disruption downstream must be minimised. She carries out the treatment at the hour of the sheep, when it will have the mildest possible effect, with all three of their brothers waiting anxiously on the other side of the privacy screen.

The liver meridian opens into the eyes. When Yanli-mei opens eyes just a little brighter, Wen Qing believes that it has worked.

When she actually snaps at her brothers for fussing over her, she is certain; the liver is also the seat of anger.

Nonetheless, she chases the boys away again, examines her patient's pulse and tongue, and traces the meridian from toe to crown before she pronounces their experiment a tentative success.

It is fortunate they did not attempt this experiment at the hour of the ox; Wei Wuxian actually whoops in triumph.

For the next few days, Wen Qing attends the women's lectures, observes her patient, and documents her process. Wen-Zongzhu gave instructions regarding the secrecy of her mission here, but none concerning any unexpected advances in medical cultivation. Nor is it something he is at all likely to enquire about, afterwards. She takes a copy to the Lan healers, for their knowledge and their archives; speaks quietly and respectfully, and tells them she feels it is always wise to keep multiple copies of such things. She dare not give voice to any more direct warning, but perhaps it will be enough.

They concur with her plan to address Yanli-mei's meridians by pairs, which if nothing else speaks well of their competence. There will be imbalances over the proposed six days of treatment, but to address all in one day cycle would be excessively strenuous for both patient and healers.

One of the Lan healers is a tall, quiet woman who - with obvious discomfort - describes herself as 'uniquely qualified' to assist with the yang-dominant meridians for the sake of decorum; Wen Qing thanks her kindly, but says she is accustomed to working with A-Ning, and that Yanli-mei's brothers are surely suitable chaperones. Delicacy and precision matter more for this than cultivation power or healing skill, and she is accustomed to directing him. That, too, is a hint, perhaps; that her didi has more skills than grinding her inks, brewing her herbs, and preserving her reputation as a young woman among men.

She leaves with a copy of one of their oldest and most poetically obscure treatises on healing, an invitation to study their other medical texts, and written permission for the five of them to rise at the hour of the tiger, to most effectively begin the treatments of the lung meridian.

. . .

Even in summer, the tiger hour is dark; when she and A-Ning cross the courtyard to the Jiangs' guest-house, and here on the mountain-side it is even a little cool.

Jiang Wanyin is groggy, grumpy, afraid for his sister, and trying with limited success to conceal all three. Wei Wuxian has obviously not slept at all, and can apparently keep quiet or still but not both. And Yanli-mei - her face is a pretty mask. A stranger would think her neither tired nor anxious, but she is brewing tea, and steaming sweet buns she must have prepared last night. Yanli-mei's anxieties manifest in food, drink, and practical matters, just as her discomfort manifests in warm politeness.

Even with a limited palette of ingredients, she is an exquisite cook. It speaks, perhaps, to a childhood less idyllically carefree than Wen Qing first thought.

The existing river-clearing array for metal prioritised intact recovery of valuable tools; the synthesis to one which would break down harmlessly was predominantly Wei Wuxian's work, checked over by Jiang Wanyin with his more reliable eye for detail. She has had them both check over her own work, the further conversion from the hydrological context to the medical.

She works methodically. The Jiangs have been at pains to warn that clearing a blockage upstream risks flooding - or in this case, qi deviation - downstream; she works in reverse, from the thumbs to the triple-burner, opening each blockage only a little on the first pass. It takes three passes, overall, and Yanli-mei slips into a drowsy doze, though this cannot be comfortable. The hour is almost over by the time she can remove her needles and rouse her patient.

Beyond the screen, their brothers have fallen quiet. Perhaps sleeping. She is the only one who hears Yanli-mei whisper, "it's so unfair," with tears welling in her dark eyes.

"It is," Wen Qing whispers back, holding her close. It might be her health, the incompetence of her previous doctors, whatever family trouble it is that has left her so inclined to make herself small, to show her love in practical ways, to wear a smiling face and play the peacemaker. It might be something else entirely, but Wen Qing does not for a moment doubt that it is unfair. Many things are.

The moment passes, as these moments do. Yanli-mei steadies her breath; dries her eyes. Presses her palms together as if to apologise -

- Wen Qing catches her forearms. "The lungs are the seat of grief. It is natural that your buried griefs would surface. It will pass."

Yanli-mei nods. "It is better," she says quietly, "that we are here."

And not in Yunmeng.

They wake their brothers; Jiang Wanyin gruffly insists on taking charge of the brewing of fresh tea. Outside, the dawn is breaking.

It requires several folded blankets and a certain amount of experimentation to position Yanli-mei so that she is sitting comfortably enough, but Wen Qing is still able to place all the necessary needles. Only when they are both satisfied does she call A-Ning and move the screen aside. She would sooner not have the distraction, but decorum is better satisfied if Yanli-mei's brothers are present and able to swear there has been nothing untoward; their word will carry more weight than hers.

There is nothing indecorous about the process, even by non-medical standards. Each array is bound to a pair of needles; A-Ning sits at the table where they are laid out, weighted down by pebbles from the courtyard garden, and applies power as Wen Qing directs. She is distantly conscious of the weight of Yanli-mei's brothers' attention, aware enough of Yanli-mei's swelling sadness to give an occasional, careful squeeze to the last three fingers of her hand, where the needles are not, but otherwise intensely focused on her patient's meridians and her shifting pulse-patterns.

"That smells wonderful," Yanli-mei says, as Wen Qing rises from the haze of concentration.

"It's plain rice porridge, again," Wei Wuxian replies, in a voice for tragedies, and almost drops the bowls he is setting out on the table.

It's Jiang Wanyin who actually explains, busy with brazier and kettle again. "The Lan kitchens sent someone with a tray." Wen Qing removes her needles and finds Yanli-mei a cloth to wipe her face and blow her nose, while A-Ning carefully rolls and ties the papers with the arrays, and sets them with Wen Qing's other tools.

Yanli-mei is shaky on her feet, when Wen Qing helps her up, but she insists on going to her brothers, drawing them away from their separate tasks.

"I am so sorry," she murmurs, embracing them both at once, and Wen Qing takes over the tea-making and files away the apologies she can't help but hear. The Violet Spider naturally favours her own son, while Jiang-Zongzhu, somewhat less naturally, shows greater favour to Wei Wuxian. Yanli-mei, she suspects, has been mediating between the four of them almost her whole life.

It's an exploitable rift, and Wen Qing wishes she didn't have to know that. She doubts it will be something she is able to keep back, when Wen-Zongzhu questions her.

. . .

They rest for the remainder of the morning, and attend the afternoon lectures, even Yanli-mei, who insists that major medical treatment or not, she feels at least as well as she ever has, and that she can't bear to lose any more time to lying around and resting. She sticks close to Wen Qing, wreathed in formless sadness, until one of the Jin girls - not Mianmian, the one with the sharp eyes who Wen Qing is certain is viciously jealous of her sect-sister's standing - raises an eyebrow at the pair of them together. Wen Qing is inclined to lift her chin and ignore her, secure in her own standing, but Yanli-mei steps forward, greets the snake with her usual impeccable manners, and says smoothly, "you know, of course, that this one's health has always been poor; since we are study-sisters here, the renowned physician-jie has kindly condescended to offer her skills." Which is several shades more polite than the first daughter of the Jiang needs to be to an Jin outer disciple who is not even particularly skilled in any regard herself, but there is the betrothal; perhaps Yanli-mei schemes to ensure these ones will look on her with kindness, later.

Their lecture is otherwise uneventful; the focus is on the various kinds of ghost for which a woman cultivator is most likely to be called; there are several which are particularly known to trouble brides-to-be, newlywed women, and those carrying a first child, and it is regrettably common for the afflicted young women to die because their families hesitated to bring a strange man into the household until it was too late.

Wei Wuxian's already poor impulse-control is, naturally, made worse by the lack of sleep; whatever he says in the men's lecture - or possibly the manner in which he says it - infuriates the teacher badly enough that he is confined to the library, copying the Lan code of conduct under Lan-er-gongzi's supervision.

Wen Qing and Yanli-mei request that he be permitted to absent himself from that task the following morning to be present for the treatment of Yanli-mei's stomach and spleen meridians. It is Wen Qing's reasoning - that opening these meridians will bring Yanli-mei's buried worries to the surface, and that to have both her brothers present will be some reassurance - but it is Yanli-mei's earnest, apologetic mien which wins them that concession.

The treatment goes as well as Wen Qing could have hoped for. Yanli-mei's worries are regrettably informative; of course - especially after yesterday's lecture - she worries for own future, as anyone would whose betrothed shows so little care for them; who will be her defender, alone and unwanted in the halls of Jinlintai?

She worries for her parents and her brothers, without her there to play peacemaker. Shocked protest, from them both, until Wen Qing rolls her eyes and points out that she can see exactly what Yanli-mei means, that they don't know how to express affection without shoving and fighting and sharp words; that they hurt each other, sometimes, and that she is always the one to help them reconcile.

Perhaps that has given them thought. Perhaps it will help.

The third concern is nothing Wen Qing can set at ease. Yanli-mei sees the way the wind is blowing, as clear as Wen Qing does; that there is war on the horizon, and it will set them on opposite sides. "You are not here to learn," she says, in a whisper, Wen Qing's hand clutched in hers.

Wen Qing could deny it. It wouldn't even be a lie; it's just that the things she is here to learn are not what the Lan are intending to teach.

"And yet I have," she murmurs instead. "I was not sent here to make friends, either, and yet."

"Must it come to war?" Yanli-mei the peacemaker pleads.

There is no kind way to say it. "The alternatives are worse." Wen-Zongzhu's ambitions will not be stopped by anything less, but that, she cannot say aloud. A fine line. "I wish it were not so." Yanli-mei is soft and kind and delicate over a core of determined practicality. She is as precious and lovely in Wen Qing's eyes as she is in her brothers', and Jin Zixuan is a fool not to see it. "That we might choose a path for ourselves, and not be pulled apart by duty."

"Even the boys don't get that freedom; what hope have we?"

"Tomorrow will be better," Wen Qing replies.

. . .

Tomorrow is better, but only because the heart is the seat of joy, Wei Wuxian's theoretical fire-blockage array works as intended, and Yanli-mei's joy is contagious. They have skipped the afternoon lecture for the treatment, and she spends the monkey and rooster hours preparing a celebratory meal for the five of them, animated with delight. Perhaps her culinary art is not rooted entirely in her fears after all.

Wen Qing wants to kiss her in the worst way. She cannot imagine a more ridiculously hopeless courtship than this.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have to; Wei Wuxian appears to be conducting one with Lan-er-gongzi. She's not convinced either of them have noticed.

The day after that, Wen Qing is expecting the treatment to awaken fear. She almost goes so far as to warn Yanli-mei's brothers, then concludes that their reactions will be deeply unhelpful. Yanli-mei herself, she does warn, which gets her a solemn nod, and, "promise me you'll finish it anyway?"

It's both an easy and a hard promise to give; she would be quite derelict in her duty to abandon this treatment now, but if Wen-Zongzhu were to arrive tomorrow and summon her back, she doubts any argument about her given word and the sect reputation would sway him. She tells Yanli-mei as much.

Not giving thought to the kidney's role as governor of desire may have been a mistake; Yanli-mei kisses her, enough steel in her spine that Wen Qing really internalises, for the first time, that this is the Violet Spider's daughter. Wen Qing is the one who has to pull away, to say, "Yanli-mei, you are reacting to the treatment, we cannot do this now."

There is all of her mother's fierceness in Yanli-mei's eyes when she says, "not now," and accedes.

. . .

They need written dispensation from the Lan healers again, the next day, if they are to continue the treatment past the hour of the pig. In spite of everything, it is easily granted; people - with the pointed exception of her betrothed, who has no idea how lucky he is - like Jiang Yanli, even the stiffest and most formal of the Lan.

Restoring the faint yin and lesser yang meridians of the hand brings emotional balance at last; Yanli-mei apologises to them all, quietly and unnecessarily, for her shifting moods.

The final pair, finishing with the liver at the hour of the ox, do not bring the anger associated with that organ, only an exhausted relief. They fall asleep on each others' shoulders, and Wen Qing suspects it is night-rat Wei Wuxian who covers them with a blanket.

. . .

"It's hard to believe it's real," Yanli-mei admits. "There were so many promises, when I was younger, and then I just - gave up hoping."

The extraordinary meridians do not seem to be afflicted with the same trouble. The three seas ebb and flow in their proper courses. It is likely that Yanli-mei would never have had any particular difficulty in conceiving and carrying a child.

When she mentions that a Jin midwife told her as much, Wen Qing has to fight down a red wash of fury at Jin presumption, that they would dare -

- of course they would dare. Their first young master, betrothed to one known to be in poor health; of course they would think it their right to know. Jin-Zongzhu would want a fertile brood mare for his single legitimate son. When Wen-Zongzhu's vast plans come to fruition, she will not be sad to see that one brought low.

If only Wen-Zongzhu would be content to plunder the vast wealth of Jinlintai and let the rest of the cultivation world alone.

They have the summer, at least, and if Yanli-mei is suddenly immensely busy, throwing herself into the training she has so long neglected, well, not even haughty Jin girls will raise their eyebrows when one so recently restored to health continues to visit regularly with her physician.

#mdzs #mdzswomen #wen qing #jiang yanli #yanqing #the rare beast that is me writing fic #I promise it really is a fix-it #it's just going to take some time and also the war for them to mature into the power couple that drives the fixing part of fix-it #I'm a former patient who did some reading not an actual expert as is probably obvious to any actual experts #(it was very effective but man did I have to drink a lot of really disgusting sludge along the way)#oh also I am totally picking and choosing the bits I want from each canon so ner #also I should note the pov is harsh about JZX because WQ is ragingly jealous #and not out of any authorial intent to bash #also I have no idea if night-rat is idiomatic or not but it seemed more appropriate than night-owl given the clock #and I am at risk of turning into one myself so no more fiddling with it #my adhd needs sleep

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