#or work on actual RL work instead of the Megafic because life under capitalism is cruel

[robininthelabyrinth]

Remember in your AU "Fire and Light," Wen Zhuliu tries to sabotage Wen Chao's stay at the Cloud Recesses by exposing him to every creepy thing and vice possible? And NMJ and the Lans swoop in to save the day! This time - it's canon verse, and Lan Qiren finds out Bad Things Are Afoot and goes on the war path over it, taking Wen Chao under his wing in the process!

ao3

“My ear still hurts,” Wen Chao grumbled, rubbing it for the fourth or fifth time as if he were trying to play for sympathy. “I can’t believe you dragged me out of there by the ear –”

“If you think your ear hurts, you should wait until you get a taste of our sect discipline,” Lan Qiren said dryly, and watched as Wen Chao’s eyes went wide with disbelief. As he’d suspected, Wen Chao was definitely among the young men that had snuck over to the Lan sect’s Discipline Hall in order to watch others receive their punishment.

“You can’t be serious!” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to let those beasts smack me with rods! You’re going to assign me to – to copy lines – or –”

“Why would I do that? Serious infractions deserve serious reprisals.”

“But – but – my father –”

“Sect Leader Wen may be an indulgent parent –” Absent is more like it. “– but he respects discipline. If he sent you to be a student under my care, he entrusted you to me in all matters, and that includes correcting your conduct.”

“But…” Wen Chao’s eyes flickered from side to side wildly. “But…”

“Have you never been disciplined?” Lan Qiren asked, genuinely curious, and a little bewildered. Even the usually well-behaved Lan Wangji had spent time in the Discipline Hall, kneeling in repentance or receiving a few strikes as appropriate – he’d never known a student that hadn’t been given a few smacks for youthful impertinence. But the way Wen Chao was acting, it was as if he’d only ever seen it from a distance, never experienced it, and thought it far worse than it really was.

“My mother would never permit it!”

Ah, and there was the truth of it, wasn’t it? The second Madame Wen…she probably thought she was protecting her son from harm, when in fact she was spoiling him rotten.

Lan Qiren shook his head.

Still, Wen Chao wouldn’t be the first young brat with overly indulgent parents that Lan Qiren had taught – yet in comparison, his behavior was infinitely worse. Some teachers might ascribe it simply to Wen sect arrogance, which was said to come as naturally to them as breathing, but Lan Qiren didn’t think so – there was something else going on here.

For instance…

“How did you even find such a place as this?” he asked, frowning and reaching up to tug his beard. “You have not even been at the Cloud Recesses for a full half-month, and this is your first excursion – how could you find your way here?”

Wen Chao scoffed. “As if it’s hard to find a gaming house in any city!”

Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows. “This is not a gaming house.”

Wen Chao faltered. “It – fine, it’s not a gaming house, it’s a brothel. But –”

“It is not a brothel, either.”

Now Wen Chao looked extremely confused. As Lan Qiren had suspected, he didn’t know the nature of the place he’d been visiting in the slightest – and that, of course, meant that he hadn’t found it on his own.

“I found you there myself,” he pointed out, in case Wen Chao had forgotten the scene of being dragged out by his ear. It was always possible with adolescents; he’d learned to his regret never to doubt the questionable nature of their short-term memory. “Do you think that I would visit a brothel or a gaming house?”

“I – uh – that is – there are many – many hypocritical…” Wen Chao trailed off, apparently unable to actually complete the accusation even to himself. “…actually, why were you there, Teacher Lan?”

“I was buying medicinal ingredients that are difficult to locate locally,” Lan Qiren said mildly. “Why else would I visit a drug importer?”

“A drug–” Wen Chao looked horrified. “I wasn’t going there for that, Teacher Lan!”

“Yet that was what I heard you asking for while you were in there.”

In fact, Wen Chao been using the slang parlance common to such transactions, and he’d been asking for some pretty strong stuff, too, some of which was only useful for wretched business. If Lan Qiren didn’t know that Wen Chao was a fourteen-year-old currently residing in the Cloud Recesses, carefully watched over, that list of requests would have made him think that Wen Chao was planning to kidnap and rape some poor woman.

Others might have thought so, but they hadn’t had the dubious pleasure of grading Wen Chao’s papers. Lan Qiren was quite certain that Wen Chao, while spoiled rotten and rather nasty with it, had neither the genuine malice nor the creativity for such a thing.

Which meant that the impression of wickedness was intentional.

“Why did you think it was a gaming house?” he asked. “Did someone tell you?”

“I – I mean – he said– well, he didn’t say – it’s not – it was supposed to be a password –”

“Who told you the password?”

Wen Chao crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “I’m not saying!”

Lan Qiren frowned thoughtfully to himself. It was someone the boy trusted, then – how insidious.

And it really was insidious: the drug importer was a relatively respectable one, as such things went, but like everyone else in that type of business it was still a snake, willing to do everything and anything to chip out an advantage. Even if no one had seen Wen Chao in there, trying to make the ‘purchase’ he’d asked for, the merchant himself would have ensured that the news was spread. It would stain Wen Chao’s reputation…stain, but not ruin; given Wen Chao’s age, that reckless and impetuous youth, it would be easy enough for him to play it off as if he’d been dared to do it by some other boy.

No, the ruin would only come if he was found to have actually used the drugs on someone…

“Do you want to be punished?” he asked.

Wen Chao went white, but pressed his lips together tightly. “I’m still not saying!”

Admirable enough, as such things went. There was still hope for the boy.

“I am not seeking to force you to speak,” Lan Qiren clarified, and he wasn’t, genuinely. If he wanted to do that, or to find an answer to his question, there were better ways to go about it. No, right now, he had loftier aims: saving the boy from himself, and from whoever was plotting against him. “Your actions are deplorable, and you must be punished for them. However, the grade of the punishment can vary depending on the circumstances…I propose a wager.”

Wen Chao blinked, taken aback, and then a moment later his eyes brightened. Unsurprising, if he’d already been introduced to gaming houses; it was too easy for a child to pick up a taste for gambling, and easier still to lure them into playing more than they should. Perhaps whoever was currently scheming Wen Chao’s ruin had also been the one to introduce him to the gambling dens – it would be pleasantly ironic to use that very quality to defeat them.

“You want to bet on something?” Wen Chao asked, a little skeptically. “You?”

“There is no prohibition against wagers in our sect rules,” Lan Qiren said, voice dry. People tended to think that there was, including some people in his sect, and they were always so appalled to belatedly figure it out…typically after losing a great deal of money and often enough their dignity as well. “I am willing to wager on the terms of your punishment. If you win, you can reduce the severity significantly.”

Wen Chao looked even more enthusiastic at that.

“All right,” he said, bouncing a little. “I’m listening. What’s the bet? And what do I have to pay if I lose?”

At least Wen Chao was still cognizant enough to ask that question.

“If you lose, I want the name of the person who told you about that place,” Lan Qiren said, and Wen Chao scowled. “But if you guarantee that you will serve out whatever terms of punishment are ultimately imposed upon you willingly, I will also guarantee that if you lose, and the individual in question is one of your people, you will need to approve what happens to them before discipline is applied.”

Wen Chao pretended to think about it, but his face was too expressive – it was clear that they were one of his people, and that he thought that Lan Qiren’s promise was foolish. For him, it must seem like a no-lose situation; after all, he could always refuse to impose any punishment, or insist on punishment so minor as to barely be a censure, even if he did ultimately reveal the name.

“All right,” Wen Chao said, and smiled. “Then I’m in.”

Lan Qiren nodded. “Then let me tell you the terms…”

If the person behind this acted as Lan Qiren expected, Wen Chao would soon find himself waking up with a girl in his bed and a raging fire in his body – and then, regardless of what he actually did, when that was revealed, his reputation would be ruined once and for all. No matter what he did in the future, the cultivation world would always remember him first and foremost as an abusive waste. He would not only be humiliated, but unable to recover from that humiliation, leaving him no way out, and from there he would sink into despair, more than likely to simply give in and accept his fate, becoming a waste in truth.

But if Wen Chao abided by the terms Lan Qiren set out, they would be able to prevent that disaster from taking place, and Wen Chao would see with his own eyes that whoever it was that he trusted and sought to protect was betraying him and trying to harm him. After that, ensuring that Wen Chao gave his consent for the culprit to be punished would be easy enough and then Wen Chao would have to willingly serve his own punishment, finally learning something…and when that was done, maybe he could finally start improving and making something genuine out of himself.

Lan Qiren would make sure of it.

Wen Chao was Lan Qiren’s student, after all. Didn’t he have a reputation to protect?

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen chao #my fic #my fics #still reposting stuff I wrote but never posted #while I work on the Megafic #or work on actual RL work instead of the Megafic because life under capitalism is cruel