Chapter Text
To Lan Sizhui, Jin Ling was like a fawn: able to run, but still wobbling about on unsteady legs too long for his body. Sometimes he caught glimpses of who Jin Ling would be. He saw the fire in Jin Ling’s eyes as he leapt, turned in midair, and fired an arrow that hit its mark, sure and true. The flash of his sword glare, a deadly dance of silver and gold. But sometimes he saw the young fawn in him still, moments when he was unsure, unsteady on his own two legs.
“A-Ling,” he said as Jin Ling approached him through the pine trees. Lan Sizhui could not help but smile when he saw him; the years had built their friendship into a strong and trustworthy thing, and he felt no need to hide his affection. “Are you heading out?”
Jin Ling sighed. “Yeah, I have a meeting tomorrow with a sect leader. One of the minor sects. I wish I could skip it.” One of his disciples caught his eye, and Jin Ling jerked his head in response to some silent question. His eyes found Lan Sizhui’s again before skidding away. “Are you going to continue on? If you follow the tracks north, you should be able to find the last yayu.”
Lan Sizhui hummed. He had thought about it. “I think I’ll go back to Cloud Recesses first. It would make a good night-hunt for the juniors. Maybe Jingyi and I will bring them out here to track it down.”
Jin Ling nodded. “Makes sense.” He looked at the ground and scuffed it with the toe of his boot. “I was thinking, I—”
“Jin Rulan, the horses are ready.”
Jin Ling looked up, over Lan Sizhui’s shoulder at the disciple. His back was straight suddenly, his shoulders pulled back. He looked like a sect leader. “I will be there in a moment. Tell everyone we leave in five minutes.”
A sudden shiver swept through Lan Sizhui. All the hair on his arms rose, and a tingle ran down his spine. He licked his lips. “Rulan?”
“Hmm?” Jin Ling glanced at him. A little of the sharpness from a moment ago was still in his gaze. It softened when their eyes met. “Oh, yeah. I don’t like being called ‘sect leader’ by my elders, even if they’re technically my disciples. It reminds me too much of—” Jin Guangyao, Lan Sizhui heard in the silence. Jin Ling cut himself off and shrugged. “I hate my courtesy name, but it’s better than that.”
“Rulan is your courtesy name? Like orchid, the flower?”
This time, Jin Ling’s dark brown eyes lingered on his. “You didn’t know?” he asked, surprised. “They gave it to me when I became sect leader.”
Lan Sizhui knew his eyebrows were inching up his forehead; he couldn’t help it. “Who is ‘they’?”
Jin Ling rolled his eyes. “Technically the elders, actually jiujiu, but apparently Wei Wuxian picked it.”
Lan Sizhui laughed a little. “You let Wei Wuxian pick your name?”
“Hey!” Jin Ling scowled at him, but Lan Sizhui knew it was in fun. “I didn’t get a say in it. He named me before I was born.”
Lan Sizhui’s stomach dropped. What had been amusing a moment ago was now cold, like stepping into unexpected deep water. He knew perfectly well why Lan Wangji had chosen ‘sizhui’ for his own courtesy name. He had suspected the reason why for many years; to be named after ‘longing’ was not a light burden. It was only with Wei Wuxian’s reappearance that his suspicions had been confirmed.
And now he knew why Jin Ling bore the name Rulan. The character for ‘lan’ was not the same, but Lan Sizhui could guess which Lan Wei Wuxian must have been thinking of twenty years ago.
Rulan, Sizhui—a matched pair. A different Lan, a different longing. A different love suspended across time.
“I see,” he said, and felt strangely like crying.
“The elders just showed up and told me when I was getting ready for the ceremony.” Jin Ling huffed out a breath. “Five years has been long enough for me to get used to it, but I don’t think I’ll ever love it.”
“Five years?” he said faintly. Had it really been that long? Five years since they had first fought together, fending off fierce corpses side by side at the Burial Mounds? Five years, and Lan Sizhui had not once learned his courtesy name?
There was a distant shout; one of the Jin disciples telling the others to prepare to move out. Jin Ling’s eyes flicked over Lan Sizhui’s shoulder. His back straightened again. He whistled, a piercing sound, the kind that carried. A moment later, Fairy bounded over from between the trees, her tongue lolling from her mouth. Jin Ling absently put a hand on her head and scratched between her ears. He nodded at Lan Sizhui. “Sizhui. I’ll see you later.”
Lan Sizhui could only nod in reply, his mouth dry. The scent of the pine needles broken under Jin Ling’s boots remained long after he was gone.
Jin Ling knew from the start that his feelings for Lan Sizhui were puppy love. He could see himself acting like Fairy had when she had been small enough to fit in his arms, back when she was still Little Fairy. Jin Ling followed Lan Sizhui around, hanging on his every word. Sometimes he poked and prodded at him to get him to spar with him, or at least to give him a word, even if it was a harsh one—but Lan Sizhui was never harsh. Lan Sizhui was gentle, even when Jin Ling scowled and argued with him. He wondered if he bit his arm and hung on for dear life, if that would be enough to get Lan Sizhui to play with him.
Jin Ling did his best to cover it up. He crossed his arms when Lan Sizhui looked at him. He stuck out his lower lip when Lan Sizhui teased Lan Jingyi. He puffed himself up with outrage when Lan Sizhui (speaking for Hanguang Jun) made a particularly biting comment to Jiang Cheng. But even that, he knew, was pointless. Still his heart perked up whenever Lan Sizhui was mentioned, still it ran little circles in his chest and barked excitedly when Lan Sizhui got close.
As Jin Ling knew well, once a puppy attached itself to you, nothing you could do could shake it off. All you could hope for was that once it grew up, it would see that you weren’t so special after all.
The only problem was that Lan Sizhui really was that special. He was kind. He was generous. He was stubborn, too, which made Jin Ling’s stomach flutter in a way he didn’t know what to do with. Jin Ling watched him as they grew up, as Lan Sizhui changed from the little Lan disciple at Hanguang Jun’s side to the head junior Lan disciple.
And his puppy love grew, and grew, and grew, until it seemed to be all that lived in his chest. Now, when he saw Lan Sizhui, it uncurled, like it had been napping and only now woke to stretch in the light of the sun.
Jin Ling woke up slowly. He was sitting up, leaning sideways, and his head was resting on something warm. He could smell pine needles and the sharp scent of Lan Sizhui’s soap.
Jin Ling opened his eyes and blinked. He had drooled on Lan Sizhui’s shoulder. He could feel it sticking his mouth to the fabric. He sat up and frowned; it had left a little damp spot. The Lan sect robes resisted dirt and blood, but apparently they were not immune to drool.
“Good morning,” Lan Sizhui said, laughter evident in his voice.
Jin Ling grumbled something in return. He squinted and rubbed his right eye absently. They were sitting in the shade under a tree. The shadows had only lengthened a little; he didn’t think he had been asleep for more than an hour.
“I’m not sure we needed to sneak away from your disciples just to take a nap.”
“You don’t know them,” Jin Ling said darkly. They were always pestering him to do something—sign some paperwork, or write a letter, or ask his treasury for more money to do something. Though, to be fair, Lan Sizhui had been on enough night-hunts with Jin Ling and his retinue that he probably did know.
Lan Sizhui got smoothly to his feet. Jin Ling followed more slowly, propping himself up with one hand as he got to his feet. He tried to surreptitiously brush the dust from his robes; Lan Sizhui, of course, was spotless.
“Shall we?” Lan Sizhui asked, stepping lightly to the clearing in front of them, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Yes,” Jin Ling said. As he reached for Suihua, the blood sang in his veins.
Jin Ling’s sword glare sliced through the air. It was a sure strike, but Lan Sizhui neatly side-stepped the blow as if it were nothing. Jin Ling twisted, Suihua a natural extension of his arm, and went for Lan Sizhui’s waist; Lan Sizhui leapt backwards, then blitzed in with a series of sharp attacks to Jin Ling’s head and shoulders, his blade cutting beautiful, deadly patterns in the sunshine. Jin Ling blocked them all without hesitation. Lan Sizhui didn’t attempt to block the blow that followed; he dodged it, light on his feet, sliding out of Jin Ling’s reach.
When they had first met, Jin Ling had had a hard time figuring out what Lan Sizhui reminded him of. He was too serious to be a fox, too straightforward to be a leopard or a tiger. He had thought maybe a falcon, but that did not fit either; it had all of Lan Sizhui’s fierceness, but none of his warmth and kindness.
It was now, seeing him bend out of the way like a Jiang to avoid Suihua’s sword glare, then counter with a Jiang-style strike that flowed into a Lan-style block, followed by footwork that only Jins were taught, a combination that Jin Ling could barely counter, that he thought, Oh.
Once when Jin Ling was little, he went hunting tadpoles in the shallows with Jiang Cheng. The river reeds, longer than he was tall, swayed in the wind and blocked his view of his uncle. Angry and scared, Jin Ling grabbed a handful of them and tugged. They were grass, weren’t they? And he had tugged up handfuls of grass before. But the slender stalks did not give way. Their sharp edges cut his palms and the pads of his fingers. When he tried to tug, his hands only slid upwards along their long, dark green stalks. Their roots would not budge.
He heard splashing behind him. “Jin Ling,” Jiang Cheng said, and he waded over. Then there were strong hands around his waist pulling him up. The reeds slipped from his grasp. “What are you doing? Leave the reeds alone.”
Jin Ling’s hands hurt. He looked down at them and saw the scratches and the blood. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Bu-but they were in the way!”
Jiang Cheng clicked his tongue. “You are as stubborn as your father,” he muttered, and waded out of the river with a screaming Jin Ling on his hip.
Lan Sizhui was like the river reeds. Flexible, but firmly grounded. Strong and supple. Beautiful.
Untouchable.
Lan Sizhui’s strike was a flash of silver, blinding in the sun. Jin Ling dodged, then leaned forward; he could see that the way Lan Sizhui’s muscles were coiled to leap aside, and he was sure he could catch him when he did. But when he struck, Lan Sizhui was not there. Lan Sizhui had not stepped away; he had stepped towards him, slipping inside his guard. Jin Ling froze, his neck bared. He felt the cold touch of steel as Lan Sizhui laid the flat of his blade on Jin Ling’s throat.
Jin Ling swallowed, ignoring the heavy beating of his heart. “Very nice,” he managed to say, dropping the tip of Suihua. He waited for Lan Sizhui to move away.
But Lan Sizhui didn’t move. He was so close to Jin Ling like this, his sword still against his throat, like they were in the throes of battle. But now he had the time to admire what he only caught glimpses of during night-hunts: the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek, the sweat shining on his forehead above his forehead ribbon, how his lips parted as he drew in breath.
Jin Ling’s eyes locked with his. They were only a hand’s breadth apart. He saw Lan Sizhui’s pupils expand, his already dark eyes darken further, like pools of deep water. His eyes widened. “Sizhui?” he whispered.
Lan Sizhui blinked. “You also did well,” he said. He stepped away and sheathed his sword. Lan Sizhui shielded his eyes and looked to the western hills beyond the rocky outcrop they had found. The sun’s rays were blinding in their glory so soon before they disappeared. “We should be able to catch up to the last of them as soon as the sun sets.”
“Right.” There was the soft snk of Jin Ling sheathing his own sword. “Let’s get moving before my disciples notice we’ve left camp.”
Lan Sizhui had not brought the juniors, or Lan Jingyi, to find the remaining yayu; he had not mentioned it at all. He had waited for Jin Ling to send him a letter, and then had mentioned, very carefully, that the yayu were likely still nesting in that area between Gusu and Lanling where no clear border could be drawn. The yayu were hard to detect, of course; though they were large, more like tigers than anything else, their cries sounded like those of a lost child. The only way to be sure was to hunt them down on foot. And while Jin Ling’s usual entourage of disciples and retainers and elders might like to think they were required members of any night-hunt, the best way to hunt a predator was to imitate them: silent and stealthy.
It was well after dark when they found the yayu. They did not even need to speak. Jin Ling notched an arrow, pulled back his bow, and waited. Lan Sizhui unsheathed his sword and crouched low in the bushes. He glanced at Jin Ling, but even though he had been holding the string pulled taut for several minutes, there was not even a tremble in his long, strong arms.
The bushes across from them shivered and rustled as it nosed about in the underbrush. Lan Sizhui leapt out of the bushes, his sword held low at his side, the only thing in his field of vision the bushes moving slightly in the moonlight.
He felt the air tremble as the arrow sped past him. It found its mark moments before Lan Sizhui did; the yayu let out a guttural cry and reared upwards, only to find its neck slashed by Lan Sizhui’s blade. It was a clean cut, but not deep enough to be a death blow. He danced back, out of reach of its claws. It turned on him, an arrow sticking from its shoulder. As it came for him, an arrow sprouted from one eye, then the other. It staggered. Lan Sizhui leapt into the air and drove his blade into its brain.
He sprang back, his footsteps light on the packed dirt. It screamed as it fell, but when it hit the dirt it was dead.
A cloud that Lan Sizhui had not even known was there drifted away from the moon. Jin Ling’s figure was clearly visible in the moonlight as he approached the yayu. He bent over it and placed a boot on its shoulder, then pulled a dagger from his boot. He set to work freeing his arrows. Lan Sizhui approached sidelong. He admired Jin Ling in silhouette. His movements were steady and sure as he cut the arrows free. He dropped his boot from its shoulder and moved to its flank.
Lan Sizhui leapt up onto its shoulders and held it steady so Jin Ling could get at the remaining arrow. It had gone in deep, but Jin Ling cut it free in moments. Lan Sizhui balanced on its shoulders and pulled his sword from its head. Blood slid down the blade. He swiftly wiped it on its fur, then sheathed his sword.
When he looked down, already prepared to leap to the ground, he found Jin Ling looking up at him with his hand extended, an offer to steady him as he dismounted. Lan Sizhui’s breathing froze in his chest. He did not let himself think. He took his hand and jumped down swiftly, Jin Ling’s grip firm around his palm.
Lan Sizhui looked at him and found that this close, he had to tilt his head up slightly to do so. Since when was Jin Ling taller than him? Jin Ling met his gaze, though it was impossible to read his expression in the dark. “Shall we get back? My disciples will be looking for us by now.”
“Yes,” he said, even though he wanted to say no, to linger in the darkness with Jin Ling, to stay in this stolen moment where they were two cultivators without sects or responsibilities.
Jin Ling nodded and looked to the east, where the moon was rising. Lan Sizhui could see the bridge of his nose, the sweep of lips outlined against the sky. He felt a shiver run through him again, running along the edges of his arms and settling deep within his core. There was no fawn about Jin Ling now.
Lan Sizhui knew full well that he went on night-hunts with Jin Ling too often. Lan Jingyi had taken to giving Lan Sizhui all the reports that came in of any disturbances even somewhat close to the Lanling border, and he liked to drop them loudly on his desk with a wink. Lan Sizhui refused to react beyond the blush that he couldn’t suppress; someone had to handle those reports, and it made sense for it to be someone who was on good terms with the Jin sect leader. Didn’t it?
Of course, Jin Ling was always on his mind when he went through those reports in particular. So much so, in fact, that he thought he was dreaming when he heard someone say, “Sect Leader Jin?” outside his window.
Lan Sizhui nearly spilled ink all over the report he was responding to.
“Is this sect business? Should I summon Sect Leader Lan?” someone else asked. Two disciples speaking loudly; it was practically a commotion by Cloud Recesses standards. Lan Sizhui sat, frozen, his brush clenched in his hand. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Then Jin Ling’s voice responded. “Where’s Sizhui?”
Lan Sizhui was on his feet and outside before he was fully aware of moving. Jin Ling was in the middle of the courtyard, his bow and Suihua both strapped across his back. He was scowling at the Lan disciple who was trying to guide him back to the main gates. “Don’t try to tell me he’s in class,” Jin Ling was saying. “I know he doesn’t teach in the afternoons. Are you going to find him for me or not?”
“Sect Leader Jin,” Lan Sizhui called.
Jin Ling looked up. His face softened slightly, though Lan Sizhui doubted that anyone else could tell.
The thing was. He knew that Jin Ling had had a crush on him. He had noticed it from as early as their adventure in Yi City. Jin Ling was always trying to get Lan Sizhui’s attention whenever he was around, trying to show off, to show that he was competent, too. Lan Sizhui thought that the crush had been less on him and more on what Lan Sizhui had represented to a young Jin Ling: someone more mature, trusted and looked up to by his fellow disciples. Raised to be equal to his other disciples, not destined to become a sect leader too young. Someone who had grown up with a loving father figure. Stability. A possible friend.
Now that they were friends, and older, the signs of Jin Ling’s crush had faded. Things were different now, more equal between them. Jin Ling no longer flushed and dropped his arrows when Lan Sizhui caught him looking. Lan Sizhui often reminded himself that it was something Jin Ling had grown out of. He didn’t think Jin Ling had a crush on him anymore.
Until he did things like this.
“I didn’t know that we were expecting a visit from the Jin Sect today,” he said carefully. “Have your disciples joined you?”
“I’m not here on sect business,” Jin Ling said shortly. “They didn’t come with me. It’s just me, and Fairy. I left her at the front gates. I don’t want to leave her out there for too long. You’re not busy, right? We should scout the mountains for a night-hunt while there’s still light.”
Lan Sizhui looked at the downward curve of Jin Ling’s mouth, the tense line of his shoulders. He never traveled without his small army of disciples. “Let me get my things,” he said.
They went halfway down the mountain before Jin Ling turned off the path into the trees. Fairy bounded along at their heels, occasionally stopping to sniff something. Lan Sizhui eyed Jin Ling’s tense profile as they went deeper into the woods.
They were well out of sight of the path when Jin Ling finally stopped. He took a deep breath.
“What is it?” Lan Sizhui asked.
“They did it again,” Jin Ling said through gritted teeth. “The elders completely ignored me and went behind my back. They’ve been keeping requests for aid from me!” He whirled around and began to pace. “Do you know what I found? They’d destroyed five books of records. Five! There aren’t any other copies. And I’ll never know what was in those books, because they bribed the scribe who wrote them.” He kicked a nearby tree branch. “I’ve tried so hard to find people who are loyal to me, or at least to the sect, but then I turn around and another one of them has been bought.”
He looked away, past where Fairy was waiting patiently for them. “They want so badly for me to not be sect leader, maybe I should just give it to them. Maybe I should step down and let them find someone who does a better job of being a puppet than me.” He was so angry, he was visibly trembling.
Normally, they did not touch. Lan Sizhui pretended it was because they were simply not that kind of people. Lan Jingyi liked to bump shoulders, wrap an arm around his shoulders, muss his hair; but Lan Sizhui only returned the favor when he knew it was wanted. He had never been particularly physically affectionate.
The real reason he did not touch Jin Ling, of course, was that it was too dangerous. If there was one thing he had learned as a Lan, it was restraint. The first step towards restraint was to remove oneself from temptation. He knew that if he started touching, he simply would not be able to stop.
But this was a situation that called for extreme methods. Lan Sizhui took a step across the leaf litter, crunching small twigs under his boots. He took another step. He opened his arms.
Jin Ling fell into them, as if it were all he had been waiting for. He rested his forehead on Lan Sizhui’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around his waist. Lan Sizhui stroked his hands across his broad shoulders, smoothed them down his back.
“I think you are a very good sect leader,” he said quietly.
Jin Ling breathed in deep, heaving breaths. The moist air of his mouth tickled the side of Lan Sizhui’s neck. Around them, he could hear bird calls, the trill of insects, smell the sharp scent of the broken grasses under their feet.
Finally, Jin Ling took a last, shuddering breath and pulled back. Lan Sizhui immediately dropped his arms, not wanting to hold them there any longer than Jin Ling wanted him to. He pretended not to notice as Jin Ling turned away to wipe moisture from his eyes.
“Thanks,” Jin Ling said, not looking at him. “Anyway, how about we find Jingyi and see if anyone in Caiyi needs the help of a cultivator?
“Helping out” ended up looking like standing in an orchard because the owner’s ladder was too short to reach the remaining peaches of the harvest. Of course they had offered their assistance; it was the responsibility of every cultivator to help out however they could. It wasn’t exactly what Lan Sizhui had had in mind, but it was still a welcome distraction.
“A little to the left,” Lan Jingyi shouted.
“I can’t reach it,” Lan Sizhui replied. He steered his sword a little to the left anyway. “The branches are in the way.”
“I wonder if there’s another way we can get it,” Ouyang Zizhen mused. He was overseeing the whole operation from the ground with his arms crossed. Jin Ling had sent one of the golden Jin butterflies to Baling to relay the message about their impromptu trip, and Ouyang Zizhen had met them in Caiyi.
Lan Sizhui lowered his sword to the ground and stepped off. He went to stand beside Jin Ling, who was directly beneath the peach tree, looking straight up. “I think I can reach it,” Jin Ling murmured, half to himself.
It was warm, and they had been picking peaches for over an hour. Jin Ling had removed the top half of his outer robe and folded it around his waist when Lan Sizhui wasn’t looking. His white inner robe showed off forearms that were firm from years of training with the bow.
“How?” Lan Sizhui asked. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and looked up at the lone remaining peach above them.
“Give me a lift?”
“You aren’t that tall,” Lan Jingyi scoffed nearby. “No way you can get it.”
“I bet if I stand on his shoulders I will be,” Jin Ling countered with a scowl in Lan Jingyi’s direction.
Lan Sizhui tried not to think too hard. He dropped to one knee and cupped his hands in front of him. Without waiting, Jin Ling stepped into his hands and then onto his shoulders.
Slowly, Lan Sizhui stood up. He could feel Jin Ling’s weight shifting as he stabilized his balance. Lan Sizhui wrapped his hands around Jin Ling’s ankles, warm through the soft leather of his boots.
Jin Ling grunted. “I can almost reach it.”
“You need to move to the right—”
“No, that won’t work, look, he’s already in the right spot. Stand on your tip-toes, Sizhui!”
Lan Sizhui ignored them. He focused on the weight of Jin Ling on his shoulders, the feel of the soles of his boots. Jin Ling shifted his weight slightly to the right, and Lan Sizhui tightened his core to keep them both stable.
There was a rustling of leaves and a grunt. “I’ve got it.”
Ouyang Zizhen cheered. “I knew you could do it! Good work, team!”
“Not bad, Young Mistress.”
Lan Sizhui carefully knelt, then held out his palms again. Jin Ling stepped down lightly. When Lan Sizhui stood, he found himself face to face with Jin Ling, who was wiping off the peach in his hand with his sleeve. He closed his eyes and breathed in.
“It’s ripe.”
“It had better be, after all that!”
Jin Ling gave the peach a last polish with his sleeve, then held it out to him. “Here.”
Lan Sizhui stared at him. He looked back, defiance in his dark brown eyes. Behind them, the other two had gone very quiet.
“Come on, it’s not a big deal,” Jin Ling mumbled. Pink dusted his cheeks and his nose, though that could have been from the sun. “They told us we could eat whatever we wanted, right? This is our payment for today.”
“You should have it,” Lan Sizhui said faintly. “You’re the one who got it, after all.” He attempted a smile.
Jin Ling frowned briefly. “We should share it, if that’s the problem. What, do you think it’s not ripe yet?” He withdrew his hand and bit into the peach. He gave a little hum of approval as he chewed and swallowed. “See? It’s good. You can have the rest.”
Lan Sizhui stared at the bitten peach in Jin Ling’s hand. “That’s too kind of you.” His face was hot, and he knew that the others were watching, but he couldn’t help himself. He reached for it as if in a dream. He rotated the peach so that the unblemished half was towards him. The soft flesh gave way beneath his teeth just before the burst of flavor. Juice dribbled down his chin. He wiped it away with his hand.
He looked up to find Jin Ling watching him curiously. “It is good,” he agreed. Satisfaction flashed across Jin Ling’s face.
“So romantic!” Ouyang Zizhen gasped.
Jin Ling’s scowl immediately returned. He glared at Ouyang Zizhen over Lan Sizhui’s shoulder. “Romantic? What’s romantic? It’s a half-eaten peach!”
“Are you really try me that you don’t know—”
“Shush, don’t tell him,” Lan Jingyi whispered, loudly enough that they could hear him very clearly.
Jin Ling crossed his arms. The flush on his cheeks was more evident now. “Tell me what?”
Lan Sizhui’s face heated. He didn’t need to turn around to know what kind of look Lan Jingyi was giving him. “Jin Ling,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about it.” He made a show of rolling down his sleeves and grabbing the nearest basket of peaches. “We should get these back to their owners.”
“Fine,” Lan Jingyi grumbled. “Just invite us on your next couple’s night-hunt, okay?”
“We’re not a couple!” Jin Ling shot back. Lan Sizhui’s face burned. He walked faster so that Jin Ling couldn’t see his face.
“Actually,” Lan Jingyi said, “Do you want company back to the border with Lanling? We got a report of something menacing some villagers out there.”
Lan Sizhui looked at Lan Jingyi, his own embarrassment forgotten. “That’s true. The one that just came in this morning?”
Lan Jingyi nodded. “Sounds like jiangshi to me.” He smirked at the surprise that must have shown on Lan Sizhui’s face. “You thought I didn’t read them before I handed them over to you?”
“Jiangshi?” Jin Ling repeated. There was a little crease between his eyebrows as he frowned. It made his vermillion dot stand out. “Are you sure? I thought that Sizhui—my disciples and I had cleaned them out of the hills. The yayu were a much bigger problem.”
“Certainly bigger,” Lan Sizhui agreed. “But Lan Jingyi is right. It did sound like jiangshi.” It was the sort of report they got often: a hopping figure had been seen in the woods at dusk, and someone in the village was very sick. The author of the letter hadn’t thought it was a coincidence.
“You know corpses,” Lan Jingyi said airily. “Always turning into qi-sucking vampires at a moment’s notice. So what do you think? Do you have time in your busy schedule, Sect Leader Jin?”
Jin Ling hesitated. “Where did the letter come from?”
“Hmm.” Lan Jingyi set down his basket of peaches. They all stopped while he felt around inside his sleeves. He pulled out a letter and unrolled it. “Xinghua. Not sure where that is, though.”
“Jingyi!” Lan Sizhui exclaimed.
Lan Jingyi shrugged. He handed the letter over to Jin Ling. “When you said that Jin Ling needed a distraction, I thought it might help.”
“Jiangshi would be a good hunt for the juniors,” Lan Sizhui admitted.
“I know where this is,” Jin Ling said. He scanned the letter one last time before rolling it up. “We could make it there in a few hours by sword, but.” He shrugged. “Longer than that, with Fairy.”
“Then could the Lan Sect host the noble Sect Leader Jin for one night while Sizhui and I get clearance to bring along some juniors?” Lan Jingyi asked. “We can get an early start tomorrow morning.”
Several things were clicking into place for Lan Sizhui that he should have figured out earlier. He had been so distracted by Jin Ling’s sudden appearance, he hadn’t pressed him for details. “How did you get here, with Fairy?”
Jin Ling avoided his gaze. He scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “By horse. I made kind of a scene when I left, and two of my disciples rushed after me.” He shrugged and darted a glance at Lan Sizhui. “I gave them some gold and told them to get a room in Caiyi. They’re good people.” Loyal enough, Lan Sizhui heard.
Lan Sizhui let out a breath. “That’s good.” I’m glad you’re not traveling alone, he didn’t say; he knew that the elders insisted that Jin Ling travel with a large entourage for a reason. There were many who would have liked to take Jin Ling out of the political picture.
“My father sent some disciples with me,” Ouyang Zizhen chimed in. “We can come.”
“How many?”
Ouyang Zizhen looked sheepish. “Four. All senior disciples.” He exchanged a miserable look with Jin Ling; his father trusted him to handle himself even less than Jin Ling’s elders did.
Lan Jingyi clapped his hands together. “Then it’s decided. We set out tomorrow!”