Archive of Our Own

Meng Yao rubbed at his shoulder before he opened Nie HuaiSang's door. It didn't hurt, not even a phantom pain. He had only been without the arm for a few minutes before he had had more distracting problems, but the sudden revival made him very aware of how easy it had been to lose it.

"After all, I hold his life in my hands," he had taunted when he had commanded Lan WangJi to seal his spiritual power, wire tight across Wei WuXian's neck. Apparently Lan WangJi had not taken kindly to those hands so callously touching his beloved life.

No use dwelling on such things. With any luck, the young master Nie will be the old airheaded fool he had been fond of in his youth and Meng Yao could… handle him. Meng Yao doesn't know how long the potential had laid in Nie HuaiSang untapped, but if it came to it, there were plenty of Wens to make overzealous and accidentally murderous should he become a future obstacle again.

(Privately, a hidden part of him hoped that wouldn't be necessary and he could play the diligent young servant for a little while again. He hadn't realized, back then, how comfortable his life was when he didn't have so many secrets to balance. He had practice silencing that part of himself.)

Nie HuaiSang was sniffling and whispering Nie MingJue's name when he came in and made him consider a different, very interesting alternative possibility. Was he not the only temporal transplant?

Meng Yao had arrived this morning, bleary and kicked awake by other disciples, a combination he had not had to endure for many years. His throat had been aching and it had taken several tries to regain his voice, the phantom vice of thick fingers holding it back.

It was not unheard of for the Meng Yao of the early war to go perhaps a day without managing to run into Nie MingJue, but it was rare and noteworthy, and Meng Yao had no plan to face his foe so quickly.

Thankfully, though the exact day eluded him, Meng Yao was able to piece together that it was not yet long before the Wen Clan Discussion Conference and it's archery competition, the last before the Sunshot Campaign.

Meng Yao had not yet been named Vice General, that much had been clear from the circumstances of his sleeping arrangements. He had seen the Sect Leader demolishing his way through a series of disciples doing his training exercises in the yard. The disciples' determined grins as they stepped up for each of their turns to swing their cursed sabers made Meng Yao amused to consider how they excitedly pursued the very thing that drove them to deadly madness.

However, he was already the obliging confidant of the second young master by now and it would not be possible to avoid that particular reunion. Best to have it on his own terms, in privacy. He had expected the integrity of his pleasant mask to be tested; he had not expected the possibility that he was not alone in this experience.

The fact Meng Yao had lasted this far into the morning without Baxia finding its way into his chest proved Nie MingJue had not come back to this time with prior memories. Nie HuaiSang with his forehead pressed to the just closed door that faced the training yard, gathering himself upon watching Nie MingJue at the most vivid part of his life, that led to a less certain conclusion.

But no, Nie HuaiSang did not react any differently to Meng Yao than he had back then.

"Yao-ge," he beamed. His sunny grin was barely marred by the puffy redness of his eyes.

His endearing clumsiness was much the same as well.

"If you are here to make me practice,” he said quickly, “I promise I'm getting right on it!"

Nie HuaiSang demonstrated by hastening over to the wall and shakily picking up his saber that was resting there.

"See! Practicing!"

He made a few clumsy swings, nearly toppling over and stumbling to stay upright.

Nie HuaiSang smiled sheepishly. Meng Yao let out a poorly smothered huff of laughter, the warm thrum of fondness surprising him.

Nie HuaiSang pouted as he tried to steady himself with his saber's unwieldy weight in his hand. The comical flailing was undeniably cute, something that Meng Yao recalled had visibly irritated Nie MingJue as often as it caused the sect leader to hide a fond smile.

He decided to indulge in some light questions that could easily be mistaken for harmless teasing just to be sure.

"Were you crying just now?" he asked.

"Ah!" Nie HuaiSang put his hand to his eyes, "aha, yes I was, I uh-"

He scrubbed at his face as if it would erase the evidence, peeking up with a chagrined smile.

"You were calling out for your brother?" Meng Yao posed indulgently, stepping inside and closing the door.

It was ridiculous to think this was the cold schemer who had heedlessly paved the road of his revenge with the bodies and sanities of others when he sulkily denied crying for his brother, tugging at the lock of hair in front of his face.

Meng Yao’s love of irony was unshaken despite having now been it's victim at this very boy's hands. He made one last joke at the expense of Nie HuaiSang’s ignorance.

"Could it be you didn't like being Sect Leader Nie?" Meng Yao mused, smiling to himself. It would be easy to assume he meant to say 'won't like being Sect Leader Nie'.

Of course, how quickly he had convinced himself that if only he had known what to look for that he would have seen through Nie HuaiSang. The Headshaker had let his mask slip but once and it was to deliberately tell Jin GuangYao just whose hands guided the sword that was piercing his chest.

Meng Yao barely dodged the sharply thrown saber. It lodged into the wall behind him and he was so shocked that he was unprepared to be immediately seized savagely and tossed to the ground.

"Jin GuangYao," Nie HuaiSang spat, summoning the saber back to his hand easily, his face thunderous from where he stood over Meng Yao. He moved with intent, raising his saber and striking the floor heavily as Meng Yao rolled away. His sleeve was caught and torn as he dodged with pure frantic instinct.

Meng Yao was still in his old body, he did not have the ability gained through several years more training. He barely had enough time to bolt to his feet while Nie HuaiSang tugged the saber angrily out of the wood, gone any trace of the clownish act of incompetence of a moment ago.

"Come here, San-ge~! You appear to be bearing one arm too many."

His eyes glittered with cold rage and his voice rang with furious mocking.

This violent reaction was much more in line to what Meng Yao would have expected from Nie MingJue. Indeed, the last time he had to rely so strongly on the fearful reactions of panic was when Nie MingJue was qi-deviating and he had underestimated how quick he would still be in the throes of madness. He had miscalculated again by revealing himself here, but he was far too bitter to remain silent.

"Are you upset you didn't get to take my arm from me the first time, Sect Leader Nie?" Meng Yao shot back, fleeing easily from Nie HuaiSang's strikes. Now that he compared it to the final actions of Nie MingJue’s life, it was easier to see the echoes of Nie HuaiSang’s brother in his motions. Even knowing what he had, it seemed Nie HuaiSang had chosen to learn the saber in the same way as Nie MingJue.

"I find I have a good history with getting my justice from you, San-ge," Nie HuaiSang replied and Meng Yao ducked under another blow. The oft neglected blade was not sharp enough to cut his hair, but it managed to swipe at the braids knotted at the top of his head, pulling some loose. Nie HuaiSang’s swings were closer to the ground than Nie MingJue’s and Meng Yao realized that years of thinking of Nie HuaiSang as his helpless little A-Sang made him forget they were very much of the same stature and strength, separated by barely a year in age.

Worse, Nie HuaiSang's body had years of cultivation practice, reluctant or otherwise, more than his at this time.

"What you call justice, others may call needless cruelty," he shot back, putting space between them. He hoped Nie HuaiSang stayed angry enough to keep to classic Nie violence and forget how quickly a talisman might render Meng Yao helpless.

He managed to take out his own weapon, a piddling no name standard sword he had worn during his time in the Nie sect. However, it was sturdy enough to block Nie HuaiSang's swings and that was what mattered.

They were close once their weapons clashed, blades scraping between their snarling faces.

"I gladly receive Jin-gege's advice on the matter of cruelty. How long did it take to die in my brother's grasp? Was it as long as it took for Da-ge to die when he deviated in front of us?"

Meng Yao shoved the sword against the saber as hard as he could to disengage and stumbled when Nie HuaiSang let go of the saber altogether. He took the chance to wrap his hands on Meng Yao's throat and push him down, both blades falling away as Meng Yao tugged at the grip.

"Did it feel like this? You comforted me as I watched, I remember."

Nie HuaiSang was much stronger than he had pretended back then, or else more versed in ways to use his stature to his advantage now.

He squeezed, a terrible parody of Jin GuangYao’s final moments, putting his mouth next to Meng Yao's ear when he whispered sweetly, "Don't worry, I comforted XiChen-ge when he watched you ripped apart in front of him."

The words struck deeper than the saber could have.

"You! What did you do?!" Meng Yao roared, blasting Nie HuaiSang back with a surge of spiritual power.

It was too much, it had been impulsive, he could feel the exhaustion take hold as soon as the power left him, this body not yet cultivated to any level of real spiritual stamina.

It was enough to throw Nie HuaiSang back across the room however. He hit the wall hard and slid down, but got to his feet with only a brief stumble and a twisted glower.

"What did I do?" He laughed and it was awful. Meng Yao had never seen this bitterness in Nie HuaiSang, he had never let Meng Yao see. But the laugh sounded like it channeled all the hate and anger he had carefully concealed and let fester for all those years.

"Yao-ge, San-ge, what I did was nothing to your betrayal. It broke his heart to know you so ruthlessly cut down everyone that served as a passing obstacle to you."

Nie HuaiSang stalked over and stomped his foot into Meng Yao's stomach, still weak from trying to recover from the power he had spent and the pain of being told he had so deeply hurt Lan XiChen.

"Killed your brother by blood, fucked your sister, killed your own child!” he ground his heel brutally, “Meticulously murdered your sworn brother using XiChen-ge himself! Why would he believe you never harbored intent on him?"

Nie HuaiSang’s hair had loosened when he had hit the wall and the shroud of his hair made the darkness in his expression all the more stark.

Jin GuangYao had not had time to properly fear Nie HuaiSang before his death, not with the elder Nie’s corpse with its hands around his throat. Now, Meng Yao found the younger was no less frightening, the loose hair and twisted expression of hate reminiscent of Jin GuangYao's final moments looking into the sallow face of Nie MingJue.

When Nie HuaiSang put his weight on his foot again, Meng Yao wrapped his hands around it and tugged, forcing him to collide hard onto the floor.

Meng Yao scrambled up, but Nie HuaiSang lashed out from on his back and caught him across the calf, knocking him down again. They both struggled up to lunge at each other.

Meng Yao had him pinned to the ground on his back by his arm and throat, but Nie HuaiSang had gotten his hand around his neck again. A Nie favorite, Meng Yao deemed it sourly, but Nie HuaiSang wasn’t done using his words as weapons despite the tight clutch on his throat.

"You had him give you the knife to stab Da-ge!" Nie HuaiSang shouted, "The music, the book you used to change it, the qin you used to play it! Lan XiChen was your sword in Da-ge as much as he was my sword in you!"

Nie HuaiSang wrenched his body aside and kicked out hard into Meng Yao's gut in the same place he had stomped earlier. It sent Meng Yao reeling, still weak from the overuse of his meager core and the physical toll this had all taken. He truly had been so pathetic before he left the Nie Sect.

Nie HuaiSang took the time it took for Meng Yao to regain his breath to snatch up the fallen sword and saber.

He thrust the sword at the fallen Meng Yao, now the one on his back again, only staying his blow a breath away from Meng Yao's neck. The saber he planted at his side, hand gripped tightly on its hilt in barely-banked rage.

They were both panting and disheveled, clothes and hair long since torn and tangled. Meng Yao propped himself up by his elbows, but no higher, and glared up at Nie HuaiSang who did not move the blade from under his chin.

"You are no better than me, A-Sang," Meng Yao hissed darkly between huffs, "you planned out my death as slowly and harshly as I did Da-ge's."

Nie HuaiSang smiled cruelly, "I did. When have you known me to ever take swift and easy retribution? You knew me, had known me for years, and yet you still handed me that flute and taught me those notes and tried to use me for my own brother's demise."

The smile slid off his face and he took a step forward and Meng Yao had to lift his chin back to avoid having his throat cut. Nie HuaiSang’s voice was low and harsh.

"My brother condemned you for your mutiny in the Jin sect. This family that punishes disloyalty to such an extreme, did you think I would forget a wrongful death so easily? Did you think that because I used my sword manuals to level tables that I never read any books put before me? Do you want to know, San-ge, when I knew what you had done?"

Meng Yao gritted his teeth, but said nothing.

"Oh, you are curious, aren't you? Where did you go wrong in your perfect plan? Your pride had always been your downfall, never thought anyone in the room was as smart as you. For a long time that was true.”

Nie HuaiSang paused, looking over his face with icy detachment. It was not the same look he had given him in that temple, but it made Meng Yao’s spine chill. He looked nothing like the carefree boy he had been during this time.

“I was still wearing white when you saw me after the funeral, wasn't I? You stood right there, all false sorrow and creased brows. You consoled me. I had books with me. I was desperate to know where it had gone wrong, how I lost my brother. One of those books was instructions on the Song of Clarity."

Meng Yao's eyes widened. From just that?

“You called my name a mere breath after I put it together. I didn’t let it show on my face that first time I met the eyes of my brother’s killer. I hid my torment and pain. I only got better as I spent years throwing myself into your arms pleading for your assistance. Just now, when you came in, all I could see was Jin GuangYao. The soft smile, the earnest eyes, the lies, the malice. But you couldn’t tell, could you?”

He laughed hollowly, speaking deadly soft.

"I bet you thought it was so delicious for Da-ge's baby brother to play the song that drove him to madness, didn't you?"

The sword trembled under Meng Yao’s jaw. He dare not swallow lest the tip dig into his flesh.

Nie HuaiSang then scoffed, the sword steadying, "XiChen-ge taught me the guqin when I was a child, before either of us ever met you. Da-ge said it would only encourage me to avoid studying, but XiChen-ge insisted it couldn't hurt. What," he gritted out, “could a little music hurt?”

The cold blade tapped under Meng Yao’s chin.

"I learned something about my family not long before Da-ge died," Nie HuaiSang confided, "that my clan who were born of butchers never stopped taking life for their means. You know as well as I the bodies in the burial tombs. At the time, I was repulsed, I was sickened, I never felt less like I belonged to the clan as when I found out this history of sacrifice. I didn't realize it was and would be my legacy."

Nie HuaiSang moved the sword down to point directly at Meng Yao's heart and pressed the metal against the rumpled cloth.

He smiled softly, "I wondered why you talked so much in that temple. But I suppose there is something to be said for the villainous monologue. It’s freeing, to voice grievances."

“Will you kill me now, A-Sang?” Meng Yao asked up the blade. Was this why he had come back? To finally die at Nie HuaiSang’s own hands? Was this a final fever dream of justice as his life disperses?

Nie HuaiSang tilted his head, seemed to genuinely consider the question as if it was a blank fan he intended to paint.

“...will I?” he mused, seemingly to himself.

The point of the sword dug into Meng Yao’s chest as he tried to modulate his breaths to prevent drawing any premature blood.

The moment seemed to last eternity, the same way time had slowed to an agonizing crawl as Jin GuangYao had stuttered out his last gasp.

And then Nie HuaiSang took the blades away. Meng Yao scooted back a few inches apprehensively.

"Your fury expended already?" He ventured tentatively.

Nie HuaiSang made a thoughtful look. Absurdly, he brought the sword hilt up to tap his finger on his chin.

"I had thought it had been sated long ago, honestly. I was prepared to focus on this second chance, to give the Yao-ge of this time a second chance. That changed when I saw you a moment ago. I didn't realize my hatred was not yet spent until I saw San-ge’s face so soon after seeing my brother's face again."

He paused, then amended, glancing over the plain Nie sword casually.

"Well, my brother's living face. And the other disciples always told me sewing was a civilian's skill, ha," he mused wistfully.

Meng Yao shivered despite himself. He had not had much time to contemplate the way Nie MingJue's body had come fully back together after he had locked the head away so carefully. Nie HuaiSang's easy admittance of personally sewing his brother's corpse back piece by piece was unexpected and unsettling.

Even more disconcerting was how Nie HuaiSang started twirling the sword around idly through the air, pensive air unbroken.

"It's too bad," Nie HuaiSang then spun his saber on its tip against the floor with a finger on the hilt as well. Confusion and dismay had Meng Yao pinned now. Nie HuaiSang had become disturbingly nonchalant all at once, but the casualness he handled the two weapons implied a comfort with blades Meng Yao would never have fathomed from Nie HuaiSang even in those final days.

“XiChen-ge! My leg, my leg! Is it still there?! Ahh...” Nie HuaiSang had cried over the small cut that had directly caused Su She’s ignoble end. The same Nie HuaiSang who, even now with twenty years less experience in his body, played with two deadly blades like toys on a string.

“What is too bad?” Meng Yao asked faintly.

"That I had to kill you, that is. When I took over as Chief Cultivator, the plans and notes you left behind were invaluable, amazing! You could have been the greatest man the world had known if you hadn't put pride before your morality."

Nie HuaiSang suddenly stopped spinning the blades and eyed Meng Yao with an appraising look, "Perhaps that is why we are here. I cannot see whatever power that has wrought this doing it just for the purpose of giving us another chance to kill each other."

Since Meng Yao had thought that was the very thing he had been resurrected for just a moment ago, he found a measure of sourness at Nie HuaiSang so easily brushing off the possibility.

"Lacking explicit orders, I am fine assuming that is exactly why we are here."

Nie HuaiSang's eyes flashed with something almost like gleeful amusement, "Sore loser."

He leaned on the hilt of the saber and went back to fiddling with the sword, looking nothing like the easily flustered youth he had been at one time nor like the angry wrath of Nie made manifest he had been for decades behind a soft face and open fan.

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" Meng Yao couldn't help but ask. It seemed easier than to parse how to take this Nie HuaiSang he had no means to handle.

"Don't you know, San-ge? I play the long game," but he said it without any heat.

"Did your ridiculous rant just now really calm your feelings?” Meng Yao asked in disbelief, “Did tossing me around like your brother used to do make you feel better?"

Nie HuaiSang glanced at him from the side of his eye at the phrasing.

“I am curious as to what you are implying about my brother by that, but,” he shrugged, "yes. A victory speech was all I was missing I suppose. No one really wanted to hear what I had to say after that fiasco in the temple.”

“Would you like a turn?” he offered, “You will only be allowed to air grievances I haven't heard yet, however. Keep it fresh."

Meng Yao sat up fully and eyed him.

"Why are you forgiving me?"

Meng Yao leapt aside, skidding across the floor when his question prompted Nie HuaiSang to throw his saber with murderous accuracy again.

"I do not forgive you," Nie HuaiSang spoke with deadly seriousness.

After a tense moment to make his sincerity clear, he summoned the saber back to his hand and went back to playing it with the previous disrespect.

"But I am tired," he admitted, “of who I became. I was not happy. I got what I wanted, but it was at the price of everything and everyone I loved. They made me Chief Cultivator, hadn’t planned on that, and so I was forced once a year to see the faces of those who I wronged glare at me from all sides of the room.”

He huffed a laugh, “Did you know that Old Man-, that Teacher Lan never really hated Wei-xiong? I could tell because the way he looked at him and the way he looked at me for what I did to XiChen-ge…”

Nie HuaiSang stopped fiddling with his saber and the sword.

“In those few moments before you entered my room, I couldn’t even speak. Seeing Da-ge, being back, having a chance to take it all back, I was happier than I had been in…"

Nie HuaiSang trailed off pensively.

"...for quite some time. Years, Decades. No one liked me after I killed you. The ones who didn’t know what I did thought me empty-headed, the ones who figured it out thought I had become too much like you. In the end, the war between the world and you and me left only two people in existence happy with the outcome."

Meng Yao raised his eyebrows at the oddly exact number.

Nie HuaiSang noticed and snorted, regaining some of his levity, "It is understandable you glossed over it in your recollections, but of the revelations at your mother's temple, there was precisely one that made the revealers happier than before.”

“Though the rest of us suffered in the stead," he added in a cynical mutter.

Ah.

"A-Sang, if I am not mistaken, you are the one who killed my littlest brother to bring that relationship to fruition,” Meng Yao observed with no lack of dryness.

"I think you and I know better than any the difference between intent and providing the means. Like I said, necessary sacrifice. He was going to die anyways, you made sure of that. I merely used his suicide to my purposes. But was I wrong to assume Hanguang-Jun would make his feelings clear to Wei-xiong before the worst possible moment?" Nie HuaiSang lamented.

He was not, Meng Yao admitted.

"What I am building towards with all this is a proposal," Nie HuaiSang went on, "I greatly hate being unhappy. I always have. It's not an unusual sentiment. Unfortunately, while this twist of fate has brought my brother back, it means I am in position to watch a great deal of unhappiness unfold when the Wens make their moves."

"Are you asking me to work with you to stop the Sunshot Campaign?" Meng Yao asked incredulously.

"Pardon me, Yao-ge, but I jumped to the conclusion you would not want to suffer in Wen RuoHan's servitude once again," Nie HuaiSang drawled.

Meng Yao grimaced in silent acknowledgement.

"I don't want to stop the Campaign,” Nie HuaiSang corrected, “I want to prevent its necessity. I have since learned you don't know me as well as I thought, but I would think you would at least remember that at my heart I hate work. I want to raise my birds and paint my fans and read poetry and waste my days away as a lazy young master.”

“It's all I ever wanted,” he emphasised with heavy meaning.

The implication was clear, that Meng Yao made Nie HuaiSang cold, angry, and vicious when he killed Nie MingJue.

"I have since learned you know me better than I thought," Meng Yao gamely replied, "but that kind of life is not what I want."

Nie HuaiSang smiled and this time he looked a little bit more like the boy Meng Yao remembered from before that last dead eyed look they had exchanged in the temple.

"I know. I meant what I said, you could be the greatest man in the world. The foreknowledge you have now means you can avoid the things that stopped you before like thinking you would not pay for killing my brother."

They both knew that was not the mistake that had most brought upon Jin GuangYao’s fall.

Nie HuaiSang waved the hand whose elbow he had propped on the saber hilt in grudging acknowledgment, "I suppose you could also avoid screwing your sister, killing your son, getting tortured by Wen RuoHan, lying about basically everything to Lan XiChen, thinking your father is worth the spit to curse him, and just everything involving Xue Yang."

Nie HuaiSang then looked at him smugly like he was waiting for Meng Yao to protest.

"And how do you suppose I achieve this greatness without a few of those misdeeds?" Meng Yao asked carefully instead.

"It's simple. Is the Chief Cultivator required to be a leader of a sect?"

There had only been one Chief Cultivator in Meng Yao’s previous lifetime, so the only precedent he had was himself. If Nie HuaiSang had become Chief Cultivator after him, it seemed that the position had still gone to a sect leader.

When his father had come up with the position, it had been very much with the intention that he himself would take the role.

But it was never actually written that way, simply understood.

Meng Yao was silent, considering, and then gave him an assessing look, "You think I could become Chief Cultivator without being a sect leader?"

Without being a member of a cultivation clan, is what he really meant, without a sect clan’s name?

Nie HuaiSang groaned, "Could you? Yao-ge, I need you to be Chief Cultivator. Your ideas and skills are made for it. Your watchtowers are the most important innovation to come out of the last three generations other than what Wei-xiong did. Ah, Wei-xiong, we will have to decide if we want to have him develop demonic cultivation...Though you read most of his notes I suppose…"

While Nie HuaiSang mused on his own, Meng Yao turned the idea over in his mind.

"Why should I comply?"

Nie HuaiSang gave him an unimpressed look, "Other than I am offering to assist you to achieve all your dreams without any of the mistakes? Because, San-ge, you don't have a choice."

Nie HuaiSang narrowed his eyes with a self-satisfied smile and propped his saber on his shoulder. Looking down at Meng Yao with his smirk and blades, he looked very much like a Nie at last.

"If you kill me here, Da-ge will kill you. Oh he might hesitate, he likes you a lot right now, but it would be a clan matter and you have not yet earned XiChen-ge’s insistence of seeing the best in you. If I get to leave this room, I will make sure evidence is left behind that will implicate you in the event of my later untimely death. And if you still don't agree and try to leave without trying to kill me, well."

Nie HuaiSang held out his saber and sword to each side and gestured to the gouged floor, the damaged walls and furniture, the darkening bruises on both their skin, and the torn and rumpled clothes they wore.

"What happened in here, I wonder? Who will Da-ge believe?"

"I would think your brother would be happy you finally got in a fight or two,” Meng Yao quipped.

"A fight?" Nie HuaiSang echoed, "eheh, not so much."

He stuck the saber and sword into the already marked up wood of the floor. He sucked in a breath and abruptly, his eyes filled with tears. He hunched his shoulders, clutching the edges of his robes tight to his chest, trembling.

"D-Da-ge, I, Yao-ge, he just, he just, he said that I was s-so pretty and then he started pulling my clothes, a-and I didn't know what to do, I didn’t-!"

Meng Yao paled.

Nie HuaiSang straightened and brushed off his clothes dispassionately.

"You can thank your father for the idea. Always got too handsy with me," he groused, "I'm glad you killed him, we don't have to change that. Wei-xiong did some interesting things to Wen Chao if you want ideas."

Meng Yao knew Jin GuangShan had a tendency to eye pretty people for far too long in even the most inappropriate settings, but he had not realized he had tried anything to a sect heir, perhaps even sect leader depending on when or how long it went on.

He had raped his right hand's wife, Meng Yao remembered. Touching the shy, helpless Headshaker would not be beneath him, especially without Nie MingJue to personally cut his dick off for trying.

"Actually," Nie HuaiSang considered, "I might make killing him a requirement. All the worst shit you did was to gain his regard. I'm not going to risk you trying again."

"I won't," Meng Yao cut in, "try to earn his regard."

The last thing Meng Yao needed was Nie HuaiSang making hasty moves, no matter how deserved.

Nie HuaiSang was looking at him with a knowing smile, "I suppose you will just have to cooperate and stop me from moving too fast, won't you?"

Meng Yao grit his teeth, "I never rejected the offer."

“You can’t,” Nie HuaiSang reminded him, “as we discussed. Now we have much to plan. We should probably clean this up too. Terrible wind talisman accident, hmm?”

Meng Yao was glad for the ready excuse when a rabble of footsteps moved outside and one set came up to the door itself.

There was only time for Meng Yao on the ground to share a brief bracing look with Nie HuaiSang standing bracketed by the sword and saber.

"What the fuck happened in here?!" Nie MingJue demanded.

-

While he and Nie HuaiSang got to work putting the room to rights and deciding what sections of floor were salvageable, Meng Yao considered something Nie HuaiSang had said while proposing his grand plan. A large part of him knew he would not like whatever answer the question would yield, but there was no point in not learning everything Nie HuaiSang knew before he saw his brother again and his walls went back up.

“A-Sang, you said something earlier.”

“The entire point of earlier was me saying all the things I couldn’t before,” Nie HuaiSang prompted, “I believe I intended most of it to stick out to you for a while.”

Meng Yao knew he should drop it. It would incur discomfort at best to have a definitive answer.

Still, he said, “You said one of my past mistakes was being tortured by Wen RuoHan.”

“Surely your sister must have noticed, even if she didn’t come to the conclusion,” Nie HuaiSang replied, though he had busied himself with righting the tea table and was not facing Meng Yao, “You had a brand at your hip. I saw it by accident in the days following Wen RuoHan’s death. It wasn't even a full moment, just a flash. If I hadn't seen one applied before my very eyes, I would not have recognized what it was. I can not believe such a man as him would give up an excuse to torture information from a supposed defector.”

Meng Yao was right, he hadn’t wanted to know the answer. He had not shared that part of his time with the Wens with anyone, not even Lan XiChen.

“You sat on that information for decades,” Meng Yao observed bitterly.

“What use was it? Before you killed Da-ge, it would be cruel to bring up and after it would only serve to make you sympathetic. If people knew, it would distance you from the atrocities done upon the Wen sect remnants. I didn’t need Wei-xiong or Hanguang-Jun suffering a bout of empathy over the shared scar.”

Nie HuaiSang had fixed the table, but had not turned around.

“So you knew I didn’t have anything to do with what was done to Wens under the Jin custody.”

“Any absolution you gained from the lack of involvement at the first incident at Qiongqi Path is reverted by your involvement with the second, I’ll remind you. But there was no way you would take the time out to torture people the same way you had been without a personal reason or goal to achieve.”

Meng Yao smiled a bit at the backhanded compliment.

“I have a question for Yao-ge in return.”

“I will consider answering,” which meant he would.

Nie HuaiSang turned around and leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

“What did you mean when you said my brother threw you around?”

Meng Yao took a moment to flick his eyes over Nie HuaiSang. By now he knew better than to assume he would easily catch anything Nie HuaiSang was hiding, but was he hiding anything? Either by intentional choice or by simply no longer seeing the need to conceal his thoughts after they had come this far, Meng Yao could read Nie HuaiSang's real question.

"You want to know if he tossed me around behind closed doors, so to speak," he observed, "if the answer is yes would you regret the lengths you went for him?"

Yes, now Nie HuaiSang closed off his thoughts. The difference was miniscule: his breathing and small movements became more natural, less practiced. Less like a trained warrior and more like a guileless civilian.

"So eager to pursue injustice, you Nies, you see it even where you least want."

It must have struck a nerve, because Nie HuaiSang glared and replied harshly, "Indeed, we saw it in you."

Uncomfortable with what he implied, Meng Yao continued, "He didn't. Your noble brother was always that: noble. I referred only to when he lashed out at me during his fits of anger and of course the time he pushed me down the steps of Koi Tower, calling me a whore's son."

Nie HuaiSang didn't show any signs of relief. He probably already knew his brother wouldn't sink so low as to force a subordinate.

He had still asked.

"Your brother is still out there," Meng Yao pointed out, "should I be concerned he had such thoughts of me?"

For some reason that made Nie HuaiSang laugh.

"Ah, no," he said with a genuine grin, "it's just, after the archery competition in a few months, Da-ge will set me aside to discuss something rather opposite. He thought I perhaps was leaning too hard on your assistance. That I should stop making you into my maid."

Nie HuaiSang then snorted at the destruction around them, "Much like I'm doing now it seems."

"You did do most of this mess," Meng Yao conceded with mock solemnity.

Nie HuaiSang tilted his head in acknowledgement and got back to fixing up the room.

"I didn't mind," Meng Yao said abruptly. He didn't know why he was volunteering this.

"Hm?"

"I didn't mind being your maid," he admitted, "it was impossible not to be fond of you. Your brother likely went to you rather than me about it knowing the impossibility of resisting your charms."

Meng Yao looked up when a soft clatter drew his attention.

Nie HuaiSang was hastily putting one of his fans back on a table, back turned.

"Are you considering making demands of your inferiors?" Meng Yao teased when he realized he had somehow taken Nie HuaiSang by surprise.

"You are not my inferior," Nie HuaiSang deflected, fiddling with the fans on the table.

"We are hardly equals. I lost after all."

"You didn't know you were playing."

Well then.

Nie HuaiSang should regret letting that slip.

"So ready to hand me an advantage?"

When Nie HuaiSang turned to face him, he didn't seem concerned, "What advantage? It is the truth. My plans were based on the fact you didn't know until too late who was playing you."

"But now you admit I would win if I had known."

"Against that Nie HuaiSang. But how old were you when you died, Yao-ge? How old do you think I was?"

"Older," Meng Yao concluded.

"Older," Nie HuaiSang confirmed.

The swordwork, the intricate mask, the shocking skills Nie HuaiSang had brought back with him made more sense if he went many more years practicing his craft after Jin GuangYao died.

They had put the room to rights as much as it could be. They sat down facing each other across the tea table.

"How did you die, A-Sang? Or would you prefer Nie-xiong?"

"We both out lived Da-ge."

"Hmm, very true."

Meng Yao waited to see if Nie HuaiSang would answer the question. He only fanned himself lightly.

"It wasn't violent. At least not violent enough to break through the spirit calming rituals from childhood. The ones on Nies are particularly strong, it takes terrible death and desecration for them to linger. Congratulations."

"I should have let him rest," Meng Yao admitted.

"I believe we agreed you should have simply not killed him."

Meng Yao smiled readily, "Will you tell him then? Of the Wens?"

Of us?

“Hmm,” Nie HuaiSang continued wafting the fan in front of his face, “I don’t believe so. I didn’t keep you alive to just have you killed immediately, no matter how apt it would be for you to die to Baxia’s wrath.”

"And what if we are not alone in returning?"

Nie HuaiSang grinned, "Then you must certainly be on your guard, Yao-ge. You became the story to scare children after you died. There are people who even accuse you of masterminding Wei WuXian's atrocities. They would surely try to end your book before you pick up the brush."

Meng Yao turned that over in his mind. The backlash to Wei WuXian had been incredible and he had no doubt his own had been even greater.

"Don't worry, Yao-ge!" Nie HuaiSang laughed, "I will protect you~!"

He fanned himself and batted his eyes at Meng Yao with a sharp edged smile. Meng Yao just shook his head.

It seemed he had finally achieved in death what he never had in life; people knowing him for his deeds rather than his heritage.