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“We’re all dead “
Such a Jiang Cheng thing to say, Wei Wuxian thought with a smile. Not that it was that much of an exaggeration. He glanced at Lan Zhan, who was as calm as ever, and as always took comfort in his tranquility before answering.
“Don’t be so dramatic!”
“Coming from you, that’s really fucking rich” Jiang Cheng immediately replied, totally ignored by Wei Ying, who carried on :
“I bet he’s just lost in Lotus Pier, that’s all! We’ve got no reason to panic just yet”
“Ah…” Shizui began at the other end of the table, hesitating a little when all its occupants turned to him “Didn’t his guards say that he didn’t even leave the room? Why would he go to Lotus Pier at night, when he claimed multiple times to be tired?”
Wei Ying was so proud: Lan Yuan clearly took the best of both him and Lan Wangji. So calm! So analytical! It was just too bad that he had to destroy Wei Ying’s miserable attempt at reassuring his audience.
“That’s it. He has been kidnapped. We’re soooooo dead. At least our death will be cool but, well, we’re done for” Lan Jingyi said, pale as a ghost, before turning to Jin Ling “I’m so sorry I tried one of your tunics and tore it the other day. It was a nice tunic”
“You did what?! I loved that one! It really wasn’t Fairy’s fault after all!”
“Oh. And I’m sorry for your vase. You know, the really expensive-looking one? I swear it was an accident”
“YOU-!”
If his Uncle hasn’t been here, Jin Ling would probably have strangled Jingyi before their doom even arrived. Though, honestly, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have stopped him in Wei Wuxian’s humble opinion.
“Jingyi! Jin Ling! Please don’t fight right now! We need to think calmly and find a solution”
Surprisingly, Lan Yuan’s words did calm his two best friends, and a sudden silence took over the room. The surge to immediately break it came to Wei Ying, as always, but it was actually a good opportunity to think over their situation.
Honestly, this week didn’t start off that badly. Thirteen years after their studies at Cloud Recess, while he and Lan Zhan were ready to settle down there after two months of travel, Wei Ying had experienced a strange nostalgia. So he told Wangji that it would be nice to reunite among old comrades who once were under Lan Qiren’s teaching: just the two of them, Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan for a nice week at lotus pier, which he missed a lot.
And since he has the greatest husband that ever walked those lands, Lan Zhan simply nodded, and so the project took form. While Jin Zixuan -who Wei Ying begrudgingly respects now that he actually became a decent human being under his shijie’s influence- wasn’t free because of the kind of emergency that fell on sect leader’s heads at the worst times, his son was at Lotus Pier and naturally, this led Jingyi and Shizui to tag along as well.
As always, Nie Huaisang came with a lot of gossip, a lot of dubious books Wei Ying traded him for dubious talismans and two bodyguards who were quite severe but really nice when their charge wasn’t hell bent on complaining about his brother’s -kind of justified- protectiveness.
The problem was that Nie Huaisang basically vanished during the third night. And now, a consequent time after his last apparition, the lot of them were basically screwed.
Because they all knew that, if someone here didn’t have a spirit for adventure, it was Nie Huaisang. And if someone here wouldn’t wander out at night, by his free will, without his guards, it was Nie Huaisang. But the result was still there: after a day spent visiting the shopping district of Lotus Pier, Huaisang went to his room after dinner to sleep, but wasn’t in it when one of his bodyguard came in to bring him his set of clothes for the next morning.
So, there was their second problem: they had to find Huaisang and hope that he wasn’t harmed.
Their first problem was to try and save their own life from the impending doom that threatened any fool in this world who dared to put Nie Huaisang in any form of danger.
Wei Ying had faith in the ability of everyone in the room. He believed in Lan Zhan more than in anybody else. But Wei Ying was also wise enough to never want to cross an angry, worried, saber-in-hand Nie Mingjue. The guy was basically the concept of force itself taking the form of a cultivator, and Wuxian once saw him crush a wolf’s skull bare-handed like it was mere parchment.
…Now that he thought about it, he even saw him kill eleven Wen soldiers in one strike during the war. And destroy walls in anger. And-
“We have to send a message to Big Brother Lan. As fast as we can” Was the first conclusion Wei Wuxian drew, and Jiang Cheng for once immediately nodded.
Lan Zhan looked at him.
“Mmh”
He then turned his head toward Jingyi, who took a second to understand before loudly exclaiming “Ah! Yes! Right! I’ll get paper! And ink!” before rising and going out of the room. A new silence followed his departure.
When he came back, Wangji elegantly wrote a few words before handing the message to a trusted servant of the Jiang Sect, who bowed and went away to send it. At that exact moment, Wei Ying almost felt the fervent prayer everyone was sending to that single piece of paper:
“Please, reach Lan Xichen before gossips reach Nie Mingjue”
Even though the guest room that was given to Huaisang initially wasn’t different from the others, now it looked like the bedchamber of a heaven official. No wonder the packages Huaisang brought were so huge: the whole place was filled with beautiful tissues, clothes, fans and boxes carefully arranged. Wei Ying never actually saw Huaisang’s real bedchamber at the Unclean Realm, but now he wanted to. And he finally understood why Mingue always complained when he and Wangji offered his brother gifts from their travels.
“He has enough of those things! Shower him with it a little more and he will never resurface from his damn collection!” he would complain, the stern frown on his face not affecting his beaming little brother.
“Don’t actually listen to him. He’s the first one to spoil him when no one’s looking” Lan Xichen would murmur to Wei Ying, a conspirator’s smile on his face.
“How the hell does he travel with all those?” Jiang Cheng said, mouth agape “I’m not even sure it’s a room from Lotus Pier anymore”
Wei Ying laughed, tore his gaze away from Jin Ling, who was examining an exposed fan with wonder, and went for the window at the end of the room. Left as the bodyguard found it, the window was wide open and a chilly air was disturbing the candles that were now nearly consumed. The window was perfectly intact, and while Huaisang would have been able to go though it with no problem, a struggle or an intrusion would have left some marks on the fragile, old wood. (How Wuxian knew that about the windows of Lotus Pier was a story he absolutely had to tell the boys about later).
Obviously, no human except for the ones currently here would have been able to make Huaisang leave the safety of his room. But how would an inhuman being stroll unnoticed here? The window, the only one in the chamber, gave to one of the gardens. Clearly a place the patrols passed through regularly, but -of course- none of the guards noticed something strange during the night, let alone a second sect leader being abducted. “Everytime we saw him, he was with at least one of you” they all said, pale under their sect leader’s glare.
“It’s strange, don’t you think Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying didn’t even need to turn his head to know Wangji was right behind him “A human would have thought Huaisang an idiot while he is not, and that would have given him plenty of opportunities to alert us or to leave a message somehow. Anything else wouldn’t have taken him for an idiot, but would have easily been outwitted anyway. That there’s no message at all is the most suspicious thing here”
“Mmh”
“Besides, there’s no noise-cancelling sigil in here, Lan Yuan and I checked. His bodyguards were just in the corridor, how could he not warn them? And if is he has been threatened into not doing so, with what? Even with a blade on his neck, he’d be the type to cry out for help”
“Mmh”
“I would think that’s just a prank, except Huaisang is as scared of his brother’s wrath now as he was when we were younger. But why would he ever follow someone or something willingly in the middle of the night?”
“Mmh…”
Wei Ying took a curious glance at Wangji, who simply looked at him in return. They clearly had the same idea.
“…If Huaisang had a secret date for the night, do you think he would have told us?”
It would actually be kind of ridiculous, but the possibility was there. Wei Ying never heard of a love affair involving Huaisang before, but the little guy could be really shady if he wanted to -his ability to smuggle things without problem was still unmatched as far as Wei Ying knew-.
“Well, he probably wouldn’t have. But he also wouldn’t do a mistake as stupid as not assuring himself that his bodyguards wouldn’t check on him”
Imagining the scenario, Wuxian actually wondered which was worst: Nie Mingjue discovering that his brother disappeared or Nie Mingjue discovering that his little brother went out in the middle of the night to do unspeakable things with a stranger. He honestly didn’t know the Nie sect leader enough to know what his exact reactions would be, since they only ever talked two or three time around a drink, but he heard enough stories from both Huaisang and cultivators’ gossips to guess.
“Wei Ying”
He turned to Lan Wangji, and saw him looking into a pouch by the bed. Inside, a delicate box stood under several closed fans. Curious, Wei Ying placed the fans on the bed and opened the box, which contained three beautiful glass vials. One was clearly missing, since the interior was split into four slots.
“Oh, are those perfumes? I wonder what they smell like. They must be expensive”
He didn’t even need to look at Wangji’s disapproving frown.
“But don’t worry Lan Zhan! I’ll behave! I’ll just look for the fourth-“ he turned his head, smiled “Ah! Here it is!”
On the bedside table, just near an unlit candle, the fourth bottle was placed, far emptier than the three others. This time, Wei Ying didn’t even try to control himself: he took it, and let a little drop of perfume fall on his arm. He sniffed it a bit.
“Hmm…Huaisang probably didn’t go to a secret date after all. Not one he was waiting for anyway. This is definitively his everyday perfume”
Not that he really paid attention to it before, but now that he smelled it, he definitively associated the discreet and fresh scent with Huaisang. Placing the bottle on the bedside table again, Wei Ying sighed and turned around to repose against Wangji’s side.
“Guess we’re back to the beginning. It’s such a shame that Huaisang never exudes spiritual energy, we can’t even track him! If you disappeared, I would just have to draw a little talisman or fly around the area for a bit before spotting you. But even if he was right in front of me, I wouldn’t sense Huaisang at all”
Wangji didn’t answer with words, but he delicately leaned his head against Wei Ying’s. In the background, Jingyi and Jin Ling were bickering about the importance of expensive clothes, and Lan Yuan clearly gave up the idea to calm the debate. Not that it was anything more than a game anyway.
Shifting a little against Lan Zhan, Wei Ying looked for Jiang Cheng in the room, and found him frowning at parchments that were stacked on a low table. Comfortably resting against his husband, Wei Ying clearly didn’t want to move and so he didn’t. He just spoke loudly.
“Jiang Cheng! You found anything?”
Jiang Cheng just frowned a little more, not looking up, but did respond after a few seconds.
“Nothing interesting right now. Just poetry and letters half finished”
“Is poetry that offensive to you? You look like this poor parchment spat in your face”
Jiang Cheng just frowned harder, but clearly refrained himself from looking at his brother of heart.
“Well, those poems are weirdly familiar, but I don’t know where I read them before. It’s probably from a famous author”
“Ah, that’s what you’re frustrated about? We have a Second Nie Sect Leader to find you know, you can’t afford to lose time like that”
Finally, a deadpan look. Jiang Cheng put down the poems.
“Are you serious right now? Who’s the one comfortably resting after meddling with another’s belongings for five minutes?”
“It’s not my fault if my night was cut short! I need my Lan Zhan time of the day!”
“Do you even listen to yourself? You didn’t change at all in the past twenty years”
“Well, I got a husband. What did you change in the past twenty years?”
“You little-“
“Oh! I found something!” Shizui had a natural talent to intervene at the nick of time “I don’t know if it will help but…” he actually looked closer at the slim book he was holding “Oh. Nevermind. We shouldn’t-“
Shizui never finished his phrase. Leaping across the room like the rabbits his husband loved, Wei Ying seized the little book and beamed.
“A SECRET JOURNAL! Great work A-Yuan!”
“We really sh-“
Shizui gave up when he saw the curious looks on everyone but Wangji’s face. Even Jiang Cheng, his kind-of-uncle, and habitually the reasonable one, was looking at the book with interest.
“Doesn’t it seem strange that Huaisang would let something like that behind? Without protection?” Jiang Cheng said, crossing his arms and stepping to Wei Ying’s left side.
“It’s definitively strange” Wei Wuxian answered, and promptly began to turn the pages of the little notebook “Except if this is a decoy, or a coded journal” he then smiled “AH! Here it is! My page!”
Indeed, on the page he just stopped on, his name was written in good while ordinary calligraphy. Beneath it, several sentences stood separated.
“Is really scared of dogs”
“Definitively has a thing for Lan Wangji. Definitively doesn’t know it”
“Excellent relationship with his adoptive father. Disastrously bad one with his adoptive mother”
“I think he actually admires and loves Jiang Cheng a lot. Too bad Jiang Cheng’s oblivious too”
“Loves his shijie dearly. Therefore, doesn’t like her fiancé”
“Kind of an idiot and kind of a genius”
"If he doesn’t kill Lan Qiren with his attics, nothing and no one will”
“Oh! No wonder he didn’t bother to hide it and instead brought it here. It’s old. It must be his journal from our days at the Cloud Recess!” Wei Ying exclaimed, “Damn, he had me figured out better than I did at the time”
“It is surprisingly accurate” Jiang Cheng agreed
“Mmh” Added Lan Wangji. Wei Ying smiled at him.
“Lan Zhan Lan Zhan! I bet your page is just behind mine, let’s look!”
“Wei Ying” he simply answered.
“I knew you would want to” Wuxian had a talent to hear what he wanted to hear. And Lan Wangji made it relatively easy “Let’s read it!”
He turned the page and, indeed, there stood the name of Lan Wangji.
“Probably more passionate than one would think”
“Clearly has a great relationship with his brother”
“Probably has a thing for Wei Wuxian. Poor soul”
Jiang Cheng had the face to laugh.
“The perfect timing to steal his notes is during lunch”
“Big brother is actually right: when you look at it carefully, he doesn’t actually resemble his brother that much. In different clothes, anyone would spot the differences”
“Definitively has a thing for Wei Wuxian. Poor soul”
“Great with a Guquin. Apparently doesn’t like other instruments as much”
“You didn’t play other instruments?” Wei Ying asked, surprised.
“Mmh”
“He really is good at reading people” Jiang Cheng frowned, but clearly was impressed. He had absolutely no idea of what was happening between his adoptive brother and Lan Wangji at the time.
“Ooh Jiang Cheng! You actually want to see your page too! Don’t worry, I’ve got your back”
“We shouldn’t…” Jiang Cheng’s rebuttal wasn’t convincing. At his left, Jin Ling suddenly looked very interested. Jiang Cheng glanced at him, then at the journal, then at Wei Wuxian. Finally, he sighed.
“Jin Ling, carry on the research with Lan Shizui and Lan Jingyi” the order was clear, and Jin Ling pouted but did go anyway : “Yes, yes, uncle…”
Cheerful, Wei Ying turned a few pages, and beamed.
“Here you are!”
This page was clearly made after the others: the calligraphy was much more precise, more graceful and full of intent.
“Jiang Cheng”
“Clearly loves and admires his brother a lot. Too bad they’re idiots”
“Hey! He was much nicer about it earlier!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, clearly regretting his decision to let Wei Ying snoop.
“Not that he’s wrong about it” Wei Ying smiled, smug “You actually love me? Admire me? Jiang Cheng, brother of my heart, I’m so touched!”
“Shut the fuck up” the brother of his heart replied, cheeks red and eyes going to the cursed page again.
“Looks for the quality Wei Wuxian’s cultivation have, and therefore misses his. He shouldn’t compare himself to his brother that much: his cultivation is great in other ways”
“Oh” Jiang Cheng said, in an exhale, and didn’t want to continue reading but did anyway. This time, Wei Ying actually kept silent and wondered if he should carry on. Truth wasn’t that easy to swallow : he thanked the gods that Huaisang played dumb everyday.
“Isn’t that idealistic despite his age, will probably make a great sect leader in the future”
“Does have quite the temper though. And doesn’t know how to express his best feelings. From what I’ve heard, that may come from his mother”
“Loves his sister dearly. Therefore, doesn’t like her fiancé”
“Has a great back” Here, impossible to read the sentence beneath the ink that had been splayed over it. Wei Ying pouted.
“Kind of oblivious to other’s feeling too. Not that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian make it easy”
“His control over his emotions is improving”
“I think he never looked at me once”
“Why am I the one with the masked sentences?” Jiang Cheng asked, definitively ignoring what the other sentences revealed about him.
“That’s actually weird” Wei Ying acquiesced, and closed the notebook. A silence took over the room.
Kind of a long silence. The junior looked at each other with questions written all over their faces, but didn’t dare speak up before the adults. Lan Zhan was the first one to talk.
“Wei Ying. Don’t.”
“But Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying shook the book in his hands with emphasis “That’s a golden opportunity! If Chifeng-Zun come, see that we lost his brother, what other protection will we have? We’re clearly not winning with our swords!”
Jiang Chen didn’t add anything, and that was agreement in Wei Ying’s book. Even if it wasn’t the moral thing to do. At all. “Survival over morality” his adoptive mother used to say.
“Wei Ying”
“Lan Zhaaaaan!”
Lan Zhan closed his eyes, and turned around, clearly giving up. His husband pouted for a while but re-opened the book anyway. Jiang Cheng regained his position at his left to peer at it too.
Wei Ying found the page named “Big Brother” quick enough, but it didn’t have the aspect he expected at all. The whole page was covered in fresh ink, along with the next one, which was -unsurprisingly? - named “Big brother Lan”. The only words that were still visible were written erratically at the bottom, crossing over both pages.
“I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING”
Well. That was…Ominous.
“So, naturally, I told him “Don’t worry about Hanguang-Jun, he doesn’t take liquor well. Last time he drank, he tried to see if he could throw a horse farther than I could and he tried to chop vegetables with his guqin. I’ll happily drink this all in his place”. He nodded, served me and I drank everything. See where the clue was?”
Jin Ling and Shizui frowned, thinking about the answer, while Jingyi was trying with no success to hide his laugher behind his sleeve. He always loved when Wei Ying told them about the shenanigans of a drunk Wangji.
“I don’t know…maybe dead people can’t produce alcohol?” A-Yuan ventured, clearly not believing his own theory.
“No, no, think harder!”
“Was the liquor good?” Jin Ling asked
“It was okay. Not worth a drop of Emperor’s smile though-Jingyi, you’re walking straight toward a tree”
Narrowly avoiding said-tree, Jingyi finally calmed his laughter to ask : “Was it because he didn’t even react to your story? I wouldn’t believe that Hanguang-Jun behave so strangely under alcohol if I hadn’t seen it myself!”
“Exactly!”
The boys were clearly surprised, Jingyi most of all.
“Nobody who heard of Lan Zhan would have believed my story, and even then, they would have reacted to it. We were pretty close to the Cloud Recess, it was impossible for him to not know of Lan Zhan, but he didn’t even blink! So I knew that this was a guy who was long dead but simply didn’t realize it yet”
The boys “Ooh”-ed and “Aah”-ed and Shizui reconsidered the story, holding his chin from habit -a habit that probably came from Lan Qiren, to the distress of Wei Ying-. “That makes sense” he concluded, and Wei Wuxian couldn’t help his laughter and answered, “Of course it does!”
That A-Yuan was always eager to hear his unconventional teachings but asked himself everytime if they were serious tips or elaborated pranks both showed how well he knew his adoptive father and how meticulous he was. And judging from the gaze Lan Zhan gave Shizui in the corner of Wei Ying’s eyes, he too felt his chest fill with warm pride everytime it happened.
“We can’t see shit in this freaking forest, how the hell are we supposed to find Huaisang?”
Well, Jiang Cheng did add to the poesy everywhere he went.
“That we can’t see him is not an actual problem. That we’re not hearing him right now is worrying” Wei Ying answered, looking at the dark sky. Even the moon didn’t dare witness their upending doom apparently. The torches the juniors held didn’t do much to spread light around, but they at least were sufficient to see the ground clearly.
When they finally left Huaisang’s room with little to no clue, they decided that going anywhere was better than going nowhere at all. As such, they went off to the forest, since they would have known if Huaisang was at the pier -words travelled fast there-, and they would have seen him if he had been in the naked plains that surrounded the area -Jiang Cheng took the time to fly over those quickly-.
While Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng did play a lot in the forest when they were younger, since it had few animals and even fewer spirits, they rarely came by night. (Madam Yu’s instruction had been clear after all: they weren’t allowed to go outside after the sunset). In the darkness, it seemed far more threatening than it actually was and flying around was out of the question: Jingyi was sure to end up in a tree otherwise.
“It’s strange : we can hear the wildlife pretty clearly. It’s usually a lot more quiet when an evil being is around” Wei Ying wondered, taking Lan Zhan’s hand to cross a puddle, “Not that we know for sure that such a thing is involved”
“Is it true though? Are animal really that reactive to negative energy?” Jin Ling asked, making a detour to avoid the puddle with a grimace for the brown water.
“Fairy certainly is! If only he was there!” Jingyi enthusiastically declared, nearly stepping into the puddle, until Shizui pushed him aside and made him avoid it.
A chill that had everything to do with fear climbed up Wei Wuxian’s back.
“Don-Don’t speak of it like that! Those d…do…things can be summoned you know!” he said, holding Lan Zhan’s arm tightly and looking around frantically.
“No they can’t.” Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng answered simultaneously. Jin Ling blushed, and added “I wish I didn’t have to leave Fairy at the Tower”
Clearly, Jiang Cheng wished too. He stepped right into the puddle without blinking, his feet vengeful.
“Fairy was chosen among the best, but some animals do sense evil beings. The more domesticated the better, but wild birds tend to fly away from negative energy too. Probably because they always end up as pray, unlike wolves or bears, which can defeat and eat the weaker corpses, thus creating new evil beings. Remember that, Jin Ling”
“Yes Uncle!” Jin Ling enthusiastically nodded, and for a terrifying -exhilarating?- second, Wei Ying thought his ponytail was going to end up in the torch’s fire.
“Wei Ying”
Music to his ears. Certainly not loosening his grip on Lan Zhan’s arm, Wei Ying turned his head toward his beautiful -his eyes, under the torch’s fire, looked like molten gold- husband “Yes, Lan Zhan?”
“Can’t you hear?” A delicate frown formed itself between Wangji’s eyebrows, and everyone stopped walking. In the relative silence -insects and birds could still be heard now and then-, Wei Ying did hear something.
“Oh. Wait…” he mumbled, concentrating on the faraway sound. The sound of wind. The sound of air. A sound that was fast approaching, that was both familiar and curiously dreadful.
“Is someone flying toward here?” Jiang Cheng irrupted, touching his ring and posting himself in front of the juniors.
“If this is it, they sure are fast” Wei Ying approximatively turned toward the source of the sound “Really fast. Is it really human?”
“Whatever it is, it will be there at any second now” Jiang Cheng answered, Zidian deployed. Wei Ying felt Lan Zhan shift by his side, but not in a defensive stance.
“Wait” Wangji said, and Wuxian knew by his tone that they weren’t in danger.
The sound was now impossible to miss and coming closer and closer, louder and louder.
“Lan Zhan, do you know-“
Wei Ying didn’t have the time to finish his question, a black shadow -or were there two of those?- emerged from the trees, slowing down significantly just before coming into the circle of light drawn by the torch.
“No way” Wei Wuxian let out, low and fearful.
As the sound escaped his mouth, the imposing stature of Nie Mingjue revealed itself in the golden light, confident and sure on his loyal Baxia. The sight was as surreal as unexpected.
For a second, Wei Ying actually thought that this was the end. MingJue was going to attack them, screaming about the corpse of his missing brother, ire in his eyes and fire in his aura, his image imprinted on their eyes like it was for all the Wens who fell under his saber.
The next second though, a white figure came from behind the Nie Sect Leader, its refreshing and calming presence unmistakable.
“Oh, there is quite the crowd here” Lan Xichen said, his voice sweet like salvation.
“Indeed” MinJue frowned, maybe more curious than angry -or was it wishful thinking on Wei Ying’s part?-. At the same time, Zidian retreated itself into Jiang Cheng’s ring.
“Sect Leader Jiang, Young Master Wei, Wangji” Lan Xichen calmly saluted, steeping down from Suiben “Oh, and Young Master Jin, Shizui, Jingyi, good evening” he added when the juniors came out from behind Jiang Chen’s back. True to themselves, Wangji and MingJue only nodded as greetings.
“Sect Leader Nie, Sect Leader Lan” Jiang Cheng responded, his frown not quite leaving his face “How odd to see you there at this hour, I was not informed of your arrival”
Strange indeed, Wei Ying honestly had no idea of what was happening right now, but he felt a familiar dread when he saw MingJue looking around, his frown more and more apparent.
“Where is Huaisang?” he asked, no formality nor small talk needed.
A silence.
Lan Xichen looked at them, surprised. “Wangji, what’s the matter?”
“Brother…”
Like lightning, Nie Mingjue’s head turned to them. ”Where. Is. Huaisang?” he asked again, a little more forceful.
“We lost him” Wei Ying said, the words escaping faster than heaven’s judgement, and Jiang Cheng and the juniors looked at him with horror.
Oh well. Someone had to do it.
“You did what?” At least, Mingjue seemed more incredulous than angry. Which was a good start, right?
“Do you mind explaining this to us? I’m sure you have an explanation” Lan Xichen took over, looking at the Nie Sect Leader then at Wei Ying.
Wuxian clearly saw, by Jiang Cheng’s face, that he was on the verge of asking the same question. After all, they were on his territory. Fortunately, he respected and knew Mingjue and Xichen enough to not doubt them, and their clans shared pretty good relationships -one of the main goals of their studies at the Cloud Recess-. If they were any other Sect Leaders’, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have left the fault in formality pass that easily. But if Lan Xichen had come with bad intent, then the cultivation world didn’t have anything worth fighting for anyway.
“We…don’t really have an explanation” Wei Wuxian started, because he was honestly the only one able to do it diplomatically enough “Huaisang went to his chamber to sleep early in the night, but his bodyguards found him missing a while later. No one noticed anything strange. We don’t know where he went, we were…looking for him”
He isn’t ashamed to admit that he didn’t dare look at Mingjue and instead concentrated on the growing worry in Lan Xichen’s gentle eyes. A tense silence barely had any time to settle before the rough voice of the Nie Sect Leader killed it “Damn it all. At least we came at the right time”
Wei Wuxian was confused.
“I hope we did” Xichen answered him, and then turned toward his brother again “But you must be confused. I hope I can explain the reason of our presence here fast enough, but we must hurry”
Now it was definitively weird. The Lan Sect Leader carried on :
“Four weeks ago, I was informed of strange incidents happening in villages not far from Cloud Recess. Apparently, young and unseasoned cultivators kept disappearing without a trace, only to be found dead days later. Of course, at the beginning, everyone thought that they went on hunts and died in the process. But then, several witnesses thought it strange, since they saw the cultivators with a family member or their mentor going out of the village just before their disappearance. Confronted with that, those families and mentors said they never did such thing, and this strange pattern had been going on for nearly three months, with seven victims, when I was informed.”
At his side, Nie Mingjue clearly wanted to go away as far as possible, probably to find his brother. He kept his arms crossed but his posture was tense, his breathing too slow and deep to be natural. Wei Ying wondered why he didn’t go away already, since Lan Xichen could explain the situation well enough without him.
“At the beginning, I gave the responsibility of the investigation to two capable cultivators and waited for results. However, while I was speaking of the issue with Mingjue and A-Yao, they told me that, one or two years ago, similar events had happened on their territory, but then stopped without leaving a trace. And indeed, a week later, I learnt that no similar disappearance had been recorded in three weeks”
“Wait-“ Jiang Cheng suddenly said, but stopped himself. Lan Xichen nodded, and carried on.
“Thankfully, a witness led us to a track : they said that, while they were speaking to the father of one of the victims in a restaurant, they saw said-father in the street, walking with his son! On the moment, they just thought that they drank to much, but the following events led them to reconsider”
Wei Ying, who already had a general idea of where this was going, looked at Jiang Cheng. “Don’t tell me that such things happened at Lotus Pier?”
“Only once, not enough to draw a pattern” Jiang Cheng replied, clearly incredulous, “And I spoke about it to one of my counselors, who went to the monthly council in my place a week ago”
“Exactly, that’s what led us there” Lan Xichen answered “We learnt about this two days ago, and immediately came. While there’s records at the Lan library about creatures able to take the appearance of different humans, it’s not something that has been seen in a long while and we don’t know much about it. Since we don’t know how powerful it is, Mingjue and I came here ourselves. The fewer we are, the harder it will be for it to escape”
Now, everything made sense. The guards saying that they didn’t see Huaisang without one of them. Nie Mingjue staying rather going after his brother, in fear of the creature impersonating him while he was away. The fact that Huaisang went out of his room willingly in the middle of the night…wait, on second thought, that was still strange.
“But is such a thing really the cause for Huaisang missing?” Nie Mingjue visibly twitched, but Wei Ying carried on “Even if I went to him, he certainly wouldn’t follow me in such a creepy place in the middle of the night”
Unexpectedly, Mingjue directed a glare, a fierce one, in Jiang Cheng’s direction and spoke through his teeth “He wouldn’t have followed you but I have a pretty good idea of what made him go out”
Well, that was weird. But even Wei Ying could tell that Mingjue’s hostility was more worry than anger. As long as he didn’t resent them -yet- and had the lucidity to focus on what’s really important -Huaisang’s rescue-, it was good in Wei Ying’s book anyway. He’ll think about that bit later.
Lan Xichen let his palm rest on his sworn brother’s shoulder, “MingJue, you can’t sense him at all? We have to go look for him”
“Huaisang always kept his energy under folds, even when he never had a lot of it to begin with” Mingjue glared, at nothing this time, “We’ll have better luck listening for cries of help, and we should be gone already”
On those two points, Wei Wuxian definitively agreed. He gripped Lan Zhan’s arm tighter “I’m Lan Zhan’s partner!”
“Who else could put up with you? Jin Ling, let’s go” Jiang Cheng dryly replied, already stepping on his sword.
“Yes uncle!”
“Jingyi” Wangji called, the junior turning toward him. “No sword”
“Whaat? Hanguang-Jun!” Jingyi pouted, while A-Yuan only sighed.
“Ah Ah! That’s a bit cruel, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying laughed, waiting for Bichen to be deployed before stepping on it. What use did a marriage have if it didn’t allow him to never fly alone?
“Well it’s fair, he’s already dangerous enough by foot” Jin Ling jested, a smirk he definitively got from his father on his lips.
“That’s still about the tunic, isn’t it? I apologized for it already!”
Jin Ling narrowly avoided a tree, the flame of his torch swinging, and looked at the purple figure flying fast, really fast in front of him.
He had to make his Uncle stop right now, but hesitated to do so. He loved his uncle, he really did! But even he had to admit that Jiang Cheng was short-tempered, especially when he was worried. They barely departed from the others and he went out, faster than Zidian, not hesitating in the slightest. Jin Ling barely kept up and he had to tell him!
“Uncle?”
Nothing. Jin Ling counted to ten, and tried again:
“Uncle! Uncle please!”
“What?!”
Clearly, the news Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue brought agitated him more than he would probably admit. Jin Ling still carried on.
“Can we stop for a second?”
“Uh?!”
“Uncle, please, it’s important!”
Jiang Cheng looked at him, which was really dangerous in his nephew’s humble opinion, and slowed down.
“What is it? We don’t have much time to lose. God knows where the airhead is”
Crap, he was really worried.
“I know! It’s just…” Jin Ling took a deep breath, “I lied!”
“What?” Narrowing his eyes, Jiang Cheng completely stopped flying.
“I didn’t let Fairy at the Golden Tower. I took him with me. He’s just a few meters behind us right now” Jin Ling didn’t dare say that they just flew too fast for his dog to properly keep up with them.
His uncle was clearly taken aback, but quickly got angry again.
“And why didn’t you say so at the beginning?! He clearly can track Huaisang down!”
“Well, first, uncle Wei was there! And I did bring him a cloth of Nie Huaisang when you all left his room, and Fairy didn’t move much, probably because the scent was everywhere. But! I kept a fan with me, maybe we can retry here? You and uncle Wei didn’t seem that worried so I didn’t think it was that dangerous! Not until we learned that…I’m…” seeing his uncle’s ashen face, his quick breathing, Jin Ling suddenly realized how much was at stake “I’m really sorry uncle I didn’t think…”
Oh gods, he was going to cry, wasn’t he? He was the future leader of his sect, he wanted to make his uncle proud, but here he was, realizing far too late that he may have killed the second leader of the Nie sect and his uncles will never forgive him how foolish was he-
“Woof!”
Fairy’s bark stopped his first tear from falling, and his uncle took his arm roughly as soon as he spotted the intelligent dog. Jin Ling didn’t know which one of them was trembling.
“We’ll talk about that later, get the damn fan out!”
Jin Ling gulped, nodded, and got the fan from his sleeve.
“Here, Fairy, scent this” he presented the painted wood and paper to the dog, who sniffed it, and barked three time.
“Now track, Fairy!”
For a second, Fairy didn’t move, and Jin Ling felt colder than ice.
Then, the smart dog went off, wagging his tail and barely letting them the time to follow before going out of the torch’s reach.
“Let’s go!” Jiang Cheng ordered, already back to flying. Jin Ling took a moment to calm down, took a shaky breath, and followed suit. At least Fairy scented something, so Nie Huaisang was probably pretty close or at least went there. They had hope now, and Jin Ling prayed, fervently “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead…”
The minutes they spent following Fairy into the darkness seemed endless, slow, painful. At every turn his uncle took, Jin Ling was afraid that his torch would illuminate a corpse, an ashen body, clothes scattered in the wind. He saw so much of those, and now that he thought about it, it was scary how easy it was to imagine Nie Huaisang left for dead after a fight he never had the capacity to win.
His mind was reeling with possibility, they knew nearly nothing of the thing that took the second Nie Sect leader, was it strong? If it had the face of someone Jin Ling cared about, would he be able to strike it down? To kill it? Not for the first time in his life, he knew he was going to rely on his Uncle. It was both a warm and shameful thought.
Fairy barked, and Jin Ling nearly fled into Jiang Cheng, who stopped dead in his track.
“The hell…I didn’t even know there was a cabin here!” his uncle said, tense.
Indeed, hidden among the trees before them stood a wooden cabin that seemed frail enough to fall over at any second. Getting of his sword and deploying Zidian, Jiang Cheng went toward the door with no hesitation.
“Jin Ling, cover” he said, frowning. “It’s weird, if he’s in there we should be hearing screaming and crying already”
Jin Ling took his sword in hand, and didn’t say that the thing they were chasing probably heard Fairy. He didn’t say that he half-expected to find Huaisang dead and half eaten already. He didn’t say that his hand trembled when Jiang Cheng put his hand on the door, and pushed.
In a second, they were already in the cabin, attack posture at the ready and Zidian about to lash out : “Huaisang!” Jiang Cheng screamed upon entering, looking around frantically.
The cabin was pretty small, simple, and the only furniture in it were a bed, a table and two chairs. On the closer chair, the limp form of Nie Huaisang nearly got a relieved sob from Jin Ling. They found him. They found him and there was no blood to be seen around. And no creature.
Thank gods.
Jiang Cheng immediately went for the limp figure, shaking it roughly.
“Huaisang! Wake up you airhead!” he turned for a second toward his nephew, “Jin Ling, go to the window, the fucking thing shouldn’t be far from here”
Jin Ling nodded and did as his uncle instructed. Fairy followed him suit, still wagging his tail. After looking through the window, Jin Ling realized that he kept his torch in a strong grip the whole time. His hand was surprisingly white, and he hesitated to put out the fire Uncle Wei made. They didn’t want to be spotted by their enemy, did they?
“Huaisang! Wake up your idiot!” Jiang Cheng voice barely got a reaction “Your brother is here!”
In a jolt, screaming his lungs out, Nie Huaisang woke up “WHAT?! Big brother I swear I didn’t-!”
One, two second of silence. Huaisang visibly realized that the frown that was so close to his face was a familiar one, but not the one he feared the most. Strangely enough, that seemed to make him panic.
“Jiang Cheng? What…” he looked around, his face pale “Oh” he finally said, seeing Jin Ling. He visibly calmed down.
“Oh? Fucking “Oh”?! What the fuck Huaisang? We’ve been looking for you! What the hell happened?!”
“I…I….I don’t know!! You’re the one that acted weird!” Huaisang was clearly distraught, but didn’t seem to notice that Jiang Cheng’s hands were still on his shoulders “You brought me here and I don’t even know why! And then you knocked me off! I even thought that you…you…”
Here, he seemed to hesitate, and Jiang Cheng shook him up again.
“That I what? What did I do then?!”
“I probably hallucinated but…I thought…” Huaisang looked at the floor, then, timidly, at the Sect Leader towering over him, “I thought I saw you change into one of my bodyguards…? But I promise I didn’t drink anything weird today! It was probably because I was losing consciousness! Why did you even hit me?!”
“Your bodyguard…?” Jiang Cheng seemed to realize something, “Crap! We have to go!”
“What? But Jiang Cheeeng! Can’t you even explain-Aaah!”
Jin Ling really didn’t know if he wanted to laugh of cry : his uncle carried Nie Huaisang on his shoulder like a mere sac of lotus seeds, not even flinching when the Nie gesticulated in panic. So much for a second Sect leader.
“Don’t drop me! Don’t drop me!” he cried
“I won’t, but stop making it so tempting!” his uncle replied, already passing through the door, “Jin Ling, let’s go!”
“Ah, yes uncle!”
“Hum…”
...
“HUUUM….”
“Jingyi, I think you’re overthinking it” Shizui finally said, looking at his friend.
“But Shizui! What if it was a trap? What do we do then?” Jingyi answered, waving the paper that just flew toward them.
Shizui was always happy to see his father’s inventions be used, and this was no exception: the simple spell Wei WuXian invented to send messages to specific people on a short distance was more and more used during hunts. So, of course this was the method of communication they all agreed upon when they came to the forest.
Now, the message they just received was clearly from Jin Ling -the flowery, delicate calligraphy of his sect was unmistakable-, and the spell was probably casted by Jiang Cheng, seeing how strong it was.
“Found Huaisang. Let’s meet back at Lotus Pier now”
“I don’t think that’s a trap. Not that many people can cast father’s spell correctly, and who would rather attack us at Lotus Pier than in the middle of a dark forest? We should just go”
“Huuum….”
Shizui shrugged “If you don’t want to go, then don’t. I’m going”
He pulled out his sword and was just ready to take off when Jingyi exclaimed “Fine! Fine!”
And then they got off.
“Hum…”
Wei Wuxian looked at Huaisang, frowning to appear more threatening. Which didn’t work, because he was Wei Wuxian. And probably because nobody saw it, hidden as they were in one of the blind spot of the Yunmeng residence, the torches extinguished.
“So, you’re saying that we should go get this bodyguard of yours?” Wei Ying asked
Jiang Cheng answered instead of Huaisang, clearly trying to not scream: “Of course we should! At least to check if the creature is still impersonating him! And if it isn’t, we’ll just have to check everyone in the damn Pier!”
“But isn’t that weird? Why would this thing capture Huaisang, then just leave him in the forest, waiting for us to find him?” from the look on Jin Ling’s face, he clearly thought the same thing. He even took a small step back from his uncle and the youngest Nie brother.
“Probably to make us think that this isn’t Nie Huaisang” Jiang Cheng responded, crossing his arms and nodding toward said-this on his left.
Wei Wuxian was surprised “So you did think about it!” he smiled, “How clever, Jiang Cheng!”
“What are you insinuating you little-“
Wei Ying cut him off “But what tells you that this is Huaisang?”
‘Huaisang’ was clearly agitated by this point, he kept looking between Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying and Wangji : “What?! How can I prove that?” he moved his arms in panic, his fan flying around, “Please don’t hurt me! I’m innocent! I swear!”
“I’m taking a bet. And this is a little too convincing to be true.” Jiang Cheng calmly said, looking at him.
That didn’t satisfy Wei Ying at all, and everyone there clearly knew it. This situation was just a little too bizarre. Did the creature really went as the bodyguard, persuaded that they wouldn’t believe Huaisang and thus escaping without problem? Or did it kill Huaisang or at least hide him to impersonate him now? And even if they checked everyone in Lotus Pier, how could they tell if they were their true selves or just this creature they knew nothing about?
“Well” Wei Ying said, not finding a solution to their problem, “I hope Chifeng-Zun will have a way to help us”
“What? My brother is here?!” exclaimed Huaisang, suddenly pale in the darkness, “I thought this was just to wake me up!”
Jiang Cheng was right : this was pretty convincing. How many people knew that Huaisang played with the cord tying his fan to his wrist when he was nervous?
Nobody actually had to answer to that outburst though: a second later, as if summoned, the distinct sound of people flying toward them could be heard. A short while later, both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen reached them.
“Huaisang!” Mingjue exclaimed, coming down from Baxia and immediately walking toward his brother.
“Big Brother! Wh-What are you doing here?! I didn’t do anything, I swear!”
“Except following someone into a forest, in the middle of the night! What did you think?! Didn’t I tell you to always alert your guards when you went out?”
“I know! But…I…” Huaisang looked at the floor, fidgeting. He looked like he had an excuse to add, but didn’t dare to. Strangely enough, his brother only glared, and walked off.
“Follow me” he ordered, not looking back. Huaisang looked confused, but did obey and they settled pretty far away, to clearly resume their conversation. From the distance, Wei Ying couldn’t hope to catch a word.
“You’re arriving late” Lan Zhan said to his own brother.
That was true : the two Sect Leader shouldn’t have taken more time than them to come. Xichen smiled, and that, more than anything, calmed Wei Ying’s worries.
“Yes. We took the time to play Inquiry before coming, we wanted to know if you really found Huaisang. And you did”
Inquiry. How did Wei Ying not think of it? He knew that Lan Zhan could use it to ask about the living as well as the dead. Of course the Lan Sect Leader would be able to do the same thing.
“Is Inquiry really that precise?” Jin Ling asked and seemed to realize a second later that that sounded impertinent. Luckily for him, Lan Xichen never took things the wrong way, even when he should.
“In that case, it is, thanks to your Uncle’s strong presence. I only had to ask if Huaisang’s soul was near him”
That made sense : when blindly looking for a soul, it took time for the response to come -if it ever came-. The spirits weren’t in infinite number and didn’t always interact, even if a strong energy supported the song. However, asking for the spirits, who would naturally be drawn in by Jiang Cheng’s golden core, to check if he was near Huaisang would be much more effective.
“Ah, but that won’t work…” Wei Ying muttered, and realized that Xichen didn’t have all the information “Huaisang said that he saw the creature changing from Jiang Cheng to one of his bodyguard, but there’s no reason for it to have stayed in that form”
And, with the time it took to play Inquiry, they won’t be able to cover the Yunmeng residence before the creature escaped, if it wasn’t already far away…
“But it still won’t hurt us to check! There’s still hope that the damn thing didn’t expect for Huaisang to see it change face” Jiang Chen took over, holding his ground.
“Well, that’s reasonable…” Lan Xichen conceded, and suddenly brightened up “Ah! Jingyi, Shizui, here you are!”
And indeed, the two young Lans came toward them by foot, for obvious reasons: the whole forest seemed to live in Jingyi’s hair now. Wei Ying laughed without restrain.
“Is that even possible?” Quingu, one of Huaisang’s bodyguard, asked “It looks so much like the young master…”
The largest room of the Yunmeng’s residence was pretty crowed: as soon as the word got out that a creature which took Nie Huaisang’s features had been arrested by Sect Leader Jiang, a dozen of servants and even more disciples came to see it. “It” being tied up in the middle of the room, with some fake talismans all over his clothes -fake talismans designed by Wei Ying, who barely restrained his laughter at the sight of them-.
After a brief discussion, they decided that this was their best bet if they wanted to lure the creature out: make it believe that they thought Huaisang was a fake, and checking everyone for strange behavior.
Seated in the form of a square around Huaisang, calmly drinking tea, were the three Sect Leaders and Jin Ling. Wei Ying and Wangji, along with the two Lan juniors, were in a corner of the room from which they could see all the entrances. The walls where filled up with curious people, but thankfully, they kept their muttering as quiet as possible. Probably because of Jiang Cheng and Mingjue’s thunderous expressions.
Wei Ying knew for a fact that the bodyguard he was speaking to wasn’t the one Huaisang saw in the cabin, but still preferred having him in arm’s reach. Thus, he took him with them to the corner of the room, telling him the story they prepared.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Wuxian answered, “We honestly didn’t believe it at first, but…you know…it was so strange. How could Huaisang escape from the creature?”
His attempt at gossiping surprisingly worked -the Nie brothers had a strange way to choose their bodyguard-, Quingu just nodded sadly, looked around and asked: “Did you…find any remain…?”
He clearly didn’t believe a lot in his second master, this was kind of disheartening to see.
“We didn’t. We’ll search after sunrise” not that the sun was far from rising. The night had been long.
“Wei Ying” Lan Zhan called, and looked toward one of the doors.
Just entering in the room, stood the Nie’s second bodyguard. He frowned upon seeing the scene, and Wei Ying gestured to him. He wanted to call him, but didn’t know his name -or rather, didn’t remember it- but thankfully, the bodyguard came only after a moment of hesitation.
“What happened?” he immediately asked “I heard that something took the form of young master Nie? How is that possible?”
It took a second for Wei Ying to see that his clothes were cut short, a little too short. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember if it was already the case earlier in the night.
“Well, how to explain…”
That was troublesome. Was something such as too-short sleeves enough to send a signal to the Sect Leaders waiting for it?
“Sect Leader Nie and Sect Leader Lan had been looking for a creature able to do that for a while…they tracked it down to Lotus Pier, and we connected the dots pretty quickly”
Should they evacuate the room? Should they act? Their plan was shaky at best but Wei Ying’s instinct told him that something was about to happen.
“And…you know…we actually have proof that this isn’t Huaisang”
So he did what he did best: he squeezed Lan Zhan’s hand discreetly, and took a bet.
“Sect Leader Lan played Inquiry and…” he affected a broken tone, spoke quietly “…Huaisang is dead”
Their reactions were…disappointing: they both looked equally shocked and surprised. The one whose name was still a mystery to Wei Ying spoke first: “What?! But…does Sect Leader Nie know?”
Oops. Wuxian just realized his mistake.
“We didn’t tell him, we…just told him this thing confessed, and that we weren’t sure that Huaisang’s alive but…”
Wei Ying honestly had no idea of what he was going to say when the other side of the room suddenly burst out into flames, ironically saving him.
“What?!” he heard Jiang Cheng scream
In a sudden panic, all the servants and disciples got out of the room, screams and cries filling the space while the air was getting warmer with a terrifying speed. Wei Ying saw the sect Leaders and Jin Ling stand up, Huaisang looking distraught, and felt Lan Zhan take his arm. In the corner of his eyes, he still kept sight of the second bodyguard : it was the perfect occasion to escape.
Sadly, that wasn’t the good person to watch over.
“Now give over the creature and don’t try anything!”
“Shizui!” Jingyi cried, and Wei Ying felt cold as ice despite the burning fire.
Something clearly escaped him at some point: putting his saber on Shizui’s throat, Quingu was slowly retreating toward the nearest door. In a haze, Wei Ying saw three servants in purple holding their own swords, walking toward Huaisang.
“What the hell?!” Mingjue reacted, his own hand itching for his saber but not getting it out “Explain this instant!”
“Isn’t it clear?! Sect Leader Nie, you should have been more suspicious of your men, did you really think that we Wens were going to let you alone? Now hand over the creature!”
Wei Ying’s head swam. Shizui was in danger. What were the Wens doing in this story? Why did they want the creature? Shizui was in danger. And they didn’t know where the damn thing was anyway! Shizui was in danger. Where is the other bodyguard?!
“Shizui” Lan Zhan said “Don’t worry. We’re here”.
And just like that, Wei Ying breathed again. The fire was clearly the act of QuinGu’s three accomplices. The whole place was made not to burn quickly after the war, so, while the wall carried on burning, the fire didn’t progress further. The three false servants had grabbed Huaisang, and were an inch away from getting their heads cut off by Mingjue. Nobody dared to move.
But they had to.
“What will you do with it? It won’t obey you, you know” Wei Ying said, finding his voice again.
“Ah! It will! We have a master on your side, don’t you know how easy it is to control those creatures?”
A master? In demonic cultivation? True, Wei Ying and his experimentations at the beginning of the war -born from desperation, from the fresh memory of his adoptive parents dying, from the knowledge that they had to do something- were famous, but he also cut them short as soon as the Sunshot Campaign gained advantage. Unfortunately, he inspired less scrupulous people.
And how could they be speaking about, if not of Xue Yang, who escaped three days before his execution, while under the Lan Sect’s care? The man had made a name for himself, and if Quingu and his team were Wen spies left after the war-
His thoughts were cut short.
As was Quingu’s right arm.
Wei Ying barely had the time to blink: Quingu screamed, A-Yuan went away from him, Mingjue roared, three bodies hit the ground, Huaisang’s second bodyguard sheathed his bloody saber.
And just like that, it was over.
“Big Brother! Those ropes are too tight! I can’t feel my hands! I think they are dying! How will I ever paint again?”
“Something still isn’t right…”
Lan Xichen agreed, but didn’t say so immediately. Instead, he let his head rest on Mingjue’s shoulder, and looked at his pensive face. He was strangely different, with his hair down and most of his robes gone. He always seemed softer, calmer, even when he wasn’t. Oh, and the sunlight passing through the window certainly suited his skin.
“Huaisang probably knew of this creature before us, and he isn’t dumb. He wouldn’t have followed it in the forest. He would have recognized it immediately” Mingjue carried on.
Lan Xichen was surprised.
“You think the creature wasn’t here to begin with?”
“That’s exactly what I think”
When Quingu surrendered, with an arm missing and his three accomplices unconscious, it was a lot to process in one go for everyone. The fire had been put out pretty quickly, Huaisang freed from his ropes, and they all decided that they needed to rest before speaking about the strange night they went through. Thankfully, Jiang Cheng seemed too stunned and too fed up to really care about them inviting themselves in his home -Xichen still felt guilty about that-, and Mingjue and himself took two adjacent rooms, as far away from the main building as possible.
They actually slept a little, since they went through a long flight before coming into the whole mess, but then Mingjue quickly came to Xichen’s chamber, as he always did when they were away from prying eyes. It was a strange luck that most of the disciples and servants of the YunmengJiang Sect were sent to the pier to look for the creature and gather information.
“But…why would Huaisang lie?”
“…You know, he’s the one who chose Quingu as his bodyguard. I only assigned him our uncle”
“Oh. And the one he picked turns out to be a Wen spy”
“Exactly. Along with three others, here in Lotus Pier” Mingjue readjusted their position against the wall, taking a pillow from the other side of the bed, “That’s too much of a coincidence”
“So…Huaisang took advantage of our investigations, and staged this whole night to make spies reveal themselves? That seems…”
“Complicated?”
“…Yes. Don’t you think so?”
Mingjue looked at him, his eyes pensive, his mouth moving in hesitation. He clearly had far more to say, and Xichen waited for it. He loved those simple moments when, away from the people he had to shine for, Mingjue took his time and always confided everything in him. He loved this tender, warm trust that made them so strong through the worst and the best years of their lives.
“A little over two years ago, I asked Huaisang to investigate about the eventual Wens we enrolled during the war. I knew he was capable of doing it, and even when he complained about the work, he actually seemed interested, so I let him do what he wanted”
He played with Xichen’s hair, making one, two, then three loops around his finger and rubbing it distractively.
“I don’t really know what I expected. Maybe a list? Maybe confessions he would have blackmailed out of traitors and spies alike? He only told me that most of the infiltrated Wens either adopted our way of life, or were weeded out naturally, but that there were still one of them who was in a pretty good position. He never told me more about it, but clearly had his target in sight. Quingu was quite good with a saber, and is a protegee of one of our council’s members”
Mingjue let the hair come loose again, and instead played with the end of the forehead ribbon Xichen took off for him years ago. He never stood inactivity, even in the simplest things.
“At the time, I didn’t know anymore than that. But I recently learned that the remaining spies among the Sect probably were in touch with the people who took Xue Yang before his execution. I think Huaisang knew that from the beginning”
Here, he stopped. Xichen was surprised.
“So you’re saying that Huaisang…did all of this? Do you think the creature…” Xichen left the words unsaid. They seemed unbelievable.
A soft smile appeared on Mingjue’s lips, not uncommon when they were alone, but still dazzling. Xichen often wondered if the novelty of it will ever fade.
“I think it never existed in the first place. I think Huaisang sneaked around your secret library when he was at the Cloud Recess, and I think the old stories stuck with him. I think he payed people play witness everytime a young cultivator died by accident. I think he created a myth that would no doubt interest his targets, and I think this is no coincidence if he made them reveal themselves in Lotus Pier and nowhere else”
The GusuLan Sect wasn’t afraid of spies: they only recruited young people and didn’t suffer enough human loss during the war to compromise on this condition. The JinLing sect wasn’t afraid either : A-Yao and Jin Zuxian both knew how to deal with enemies, as they had imperial spies all over their tower. They used and treated with them, so they didn’t particularly want to expose them. As far as the biggest Sects went, only the YunmengJiang Sect, who recruited a lot after the war, and the QingheNie Sect needed to get rid of potential enemies in their ranks.
“So, he played us all along?” Xichen felt his own smile widening, “I don’t know how I feel about it. You must be proud”
Ah, but Mingjue was still the most beautiful when triumph and pride illuminated his features.
“I am”
And Xichen loved him so.