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Chapter Text

He didn't exactly remember it anymore. Not the details of it; when he thought about it, he didn't see it through the eyes of his younger self. Most of it was dust, cold, impressions of sound. Meng-jiejie said that was natural enough; she struggled to remember certain things that had happened when she was younger, and she'd seen it happen to the younger girls at the place she used to work. If something nasty happened, half the time you'd remember it like it was painted in huge letters across your mind—the other half, you'd just forget.

Meng-jiejie says she prefers to remember, even if it's something bad, and Xue Yang agrees with her. So he makes himself remember it, by telling it back to himself like a story. He tells himself: Once upon a time, there was a child.

This child loved sweet things, but he had no parents or money, so he could rarely eat them...

These days, Meng-xiong liked to tease him about how he never made good on his threats to run away, but Xue Yang had tried it once or twice—right after Su Minshan had found him.

Getting dragged out of your hiding place in a junk pile by a tall cultivator with a permanent scowl would have been terrifying at any time, and Xue Yang--two or three days, near as he can figure, after what had happened—was still delirious with pain, twisting and biting like a rabid animal until he ran out of energy, begging and crying afterward. Half the time he'd thought Su Minshan was some spirit; some of the street children who remembered their parents passed on stories from them, told about the Black and White Reapers that came for the dead.

I'm not dead, he remembered saying, out of breath and hysteric. I'm not dead, I'm not dead.

Su Minshan had said, with his usual grasp of tact, I know. Not yet.

He remembered very little of the doctor—just being brought into a room, and Su Minshan arguing with a woman until he'd finally offered her enough money she threw up her hands, locked the door, and begun trying to treat the snarling, shaking child with his back to a corner. He'd tried to bite both of them, and he thought he might have succeeded, can vaguely recall the taste of blood; Su Minshan denied that he had, when Xue Yang asked about it later, so he was probably the one who'd been bitten. The doctor had gotten something down his throat, eventually, that had tasted foul but made the pain in his hand go muted and the world go weird and echoing and slow.

Then it was fog until they were out on the road, his hand was bandaged, and Su Minshan was saying, Can you walk?

Xue Yang had tried to run the moment Su Minshan put him down. He didn't get far, of course, but he tried; he didn't know where he was, or who this man was, or where they were going. He may have screamed a few questions in that vein, in between the insults, after Su Minshan had scooped him back up and, after a brief and vicious struggle on Xue Yang's part, immobilized him somehow with a cold flash of qi through his body.

He didn't remember most of what Su Minshan said in return. He'd passed out quickly, too exhausted to fight against sleep when it crept back up on him, unable to pinch himself or jostle his bandaged hand to keep awake. He suspected that Su Minshan might have used some cultivational trick to make him sleep longer, because the next time he woke up, they were outside of the house where, in those days, Meng Shi and her son had lived in a couple of rooms.

Su Minshan had put him down, and the numbness had ebbed from his limbs, although Su Minshan's hand still rested on his shoulder like a warning. Xue Yang had glared up at the man, silently furious and suspicious, bandaged hand cradled to his chest. This man wore a special-looking sword, much as the man who'd sent Xue Yang on that fake errand had; but he looked plenty different, otherwise, and the street around them clearly wasn't Kuizhou anymore. The conclusion was—Xue Yang had no idea. He just knew that nothing good was likely to happen.

Su Minshan had said, "A... friend of mine lives here. She has a son. I'm hoping she can look after you for a while."

Xue Yang had kept glaring, unwilling to speak. Su Minshan had frowned. "You are not," he'd said, emphasizing the word, "going to continue acting like a—" he paused, and seemed to choose a different word than the one that had come into his head, "—continue acting like you have. Nobody here is going to hurt you."

"Where's here?" Xue Yang had demanded, finally too curious to stay silent.

"Yunping."

Xue Yang had no idea where that was. "Who're you?"

"Su Minshan. I'm a rogue cultivator." He paused for a second. "I happened to notice you in that... trash pile you were hiding in, and saw you were injured. I got you treatment." He nodded at Xue Yang's bandaged hand. Paused again, and when he spoke, he had a weird tone; awkward, almost guilty. "It's a pity I didn't find you sooner, but I did what I could."

"Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions, don't you?" Su Minshan said. "Can't you just wait and see?"

Xue Yang glared, then tried to make a break for it again.

Su Minshan had sworn under his breath, caught up to Xue Yang with a terrifyingly light and easy step, and picked him up again. Xue Yang tried determinedly to bite him, but Su Minshan didn't let him twist enough around to do it. They'd gone into the house and up some stairs, and then Xue Yang was dumped on the floor; he scrambled to his feet and put his back to a corner as he heard Su Minshan say, his voice suddenly soft and polite, "I apologize for disturbing you at this hour, Meng-guniang. It's the child I mentioned in my message; he's been giving me some trouble."

The softest, sweetest voice Xue Yang had ever heard had said, with a touch of reproach, "He looks terrified, Su-gongzi. Where did you find him? You never explained that in your message."

That was when he'd met Meng-jiejie.

It's at about that point that the story he tells himself starts sounding unrealistically nice, like some kind of legend rewritten in a more prosaic style. After a few days of suffering, the child was found and taken to a doctor by a mysterious cultivator, who then took him away to another city. There he met a beautiful, kind woman who treated him like another son... At that point, you might as well start throwing in dragons and immortals.

But Meng-jiejie was real. And she did have a son, like Su Minshan had said; Meng Yao, who was a few years older than Xue Yang, and who was apparently Su Minshan's disciple. That required a lot of time for the two of them, apparently, and so Xue Yang was left alone with Meng Shi quite often as his hand healed. It would have made it easy to run away, if he'd wanted to run, but... Meng-jiejie made him stop wanting, little by little, to run.

She couldn't tell him what had possessed Su Minshan to collect him, but she promised him that if he said he meant no harm, it was true; he sincerely doubted her assertions that Su Minshan was 'a good man' despite his abrasive nature, but he decided to trust her on the subject of actual injury. And it was reassuring, kind of, to learn that Su Minshan didn't come from a temple or a sect or anything—Xue Yang had always been wary of people that looked like they had someplace big backing them up, and what had happened only strengthened that wariness.

He still told himself, for the first few weeks, that he'd sneak away when he got the chance, but... Meng Shi, the very first night he was there, still shivering and nearly snarling from his tussle outside with Su Minshan, had gestured to the daozhang to leave her and then sat down on the floor with him. Smiled big and sweet, so it crinkled up her eyes and made her round cheeks dimple deeply. Talked to him about how nothing was going to hurt him here, about how he reminded her of her son, asked him if he liked oxtail soup. When he'd finally said he didn't know, she'd said, want to find out?

And after he'd eaten the soup, she'd given him a piece of candy. Just given it to him, no tricks, not making him do anything. Said they didn't always have the money for candy, but something something the daozhang—Honestly, Xue Yang wasn't listening. The snap of the candy breaking between his teeth, the sweetness on it, seemed to linger in his mouth for days, and every time he saw an open door, an opportunity, it pulled him back.

Wait until she gets tired of it, he'd finally thought. Wait until she's mean, or she wants something, or the cultivator does—wait until it sours, then run.

It didn't sour.

His hand healed, slowly. Meng Yao, when they ate dinner together, made cautious conversation. Su Minshan mostly ignored him. Meng Shi took him to the market with her, telling him how she used to go with her son before he was so busy training. Xue Yang feels a pang of jealousy, but it's soothed away as Meng Shi teaches him how to appraise vegetables and haggle with shopkeepers. She tells him, laughing, that she'd had to learn a lot of it recently herself, and he pictures her as some kind of lady raised in a secluded palace. Sometimes the older shopkeepers lowered their prices when Meng Shi let him bargain, because apparently his face was just so cute; sometimes Meng Shi used some of the coins left over to buy him candy. It's not every day, like he'd dreamed, but it's often enough.

After about a month and a half, his hand heals enough to start using again, albeit cautiously. His remaining four fingers are stiff; his smallest finger, the one that had been worst crushed, had been amputated, but the doctor had done it pretty cleanly. The scar hurts when the nights start to get chilly, but it's not so bad otherwise. Sometimes when Meng-jiejie sees him wince, she cups his hand in hers to warm it up.

Xue Yang, from one day to the next, discovers that he loves her so fiercely that it hurts.

He's jealous of Meng Yao for being her real son; he can't help but worry that all the love he's getting is just because Meng Yao is so occupied with training at the moment, something about 'foundations' and 'cores'. When he's back by Meng Shi's side more often, all the attention will go back to him, and that's when Xue Yang will be left out in the cold, like a feral cat that's become too much trouble to feed. Su Minshan still won't give a satisfactory answer to why he took him in, only vaguely saying something about feeling obligated to help, which seemed like bullshit. And Xue Yang knows in his bones what he is, even if he barely has the words for it yet. He'd grasped the beginnings of it after his father died, picked up more pieces on the streets; had the lesson ground into his flesh, eventually, by the wheel of a cart. Even if the memory was starting to fade, the lesson remained.

He's nothing, a piece of street trash, something to be picked up if it were useful and cast away if it wasn't. Something to be ground into the dirt without a moment's thought, if it bothered you. The knowledge sits in his belly like something poisonous he's swallowed, burns there even when Meng Shi lets him creep close, in the evenings, and lay his head on one shoulder as Meng Yao leans against the other one.

So Xue Yang tries to make himself useful. He listens attentively to Meng Shi's lessons in haggling, helps her carry whatever his small arms can handle, watches her cook until she starts giving him small tasks to handle. He doesn't fight with Meng Yao, even when the bitterness in his stomach and the itching feeling under his skin get so bad he just wants to yell at something; he goes outside and screams and kicks at the trash in back alleys instead. Sometimes he stomps on the bits of rubbish, crushing them under his feet, and imagines that he's crushing the hands of that bastard who'd given him the message to carry. But inside the house, he tries to keep quieter, tries not to jump and yell at things. Tries to be good.

That's around when Su Minshan finally takes notice of him.

The story just gets worse and worse as he tells it, honestly, like he ought to be telling it with an eyeroll and a grin, acknowledging how cliched it sounds. And then the unfortunate orphan, now equipped with a distinctive but surmountable injury, began to train under the mysterious cultivator.

At least Xue Yang sucks for the first several months of teaching; it makes everything feel more reassuringly real. Reassuring as well is the way that Meng Shi lets him crawl into her lap and whine and complain about bruises and Su Minshan's impatience and how stupid and hard meditation is, although she always winds up sending him back with a firm admonishment to try harder. When Su Minshan had first suggested teaching him and her eyes had lit up, Xue Yang was terrified that if he didn't succeed at cultivating she'd be disappointed beyond measure.

Turns out, there's a benefit to being the not-real son. Expectation clearly weighs more heavily on Meng Yao, with his far-off cultivator father—which is another thing that sounds kind of like bullshit to Xue Yang, but he doesn't know a lot about how really fancy cultivators work. Maybe one really would drop a son somewhere and then come pick him up again fifteen, twenty whole years later. Maybe if you were that fancy and spent that much time mediating you just lost track of time. So he keeps his thoughts to himself, though he notices how Su Minshan frowns when Meng Shi brings it up. It seems like one of the only things they disagree on, and Xue Yang doesn't really want to side with Su Minshan, but deep down...

Anyway, it's none of his business, so he tries to put it aside. There's plenty of teaching to focus on screwing up instead.

He learns to read decently, and even masters writing pretty well; he likes swinging a stick around, although sword forms are kind of boring to hold, and learning how to compensate for his missing finger is... awkward. He usually favored his left hand, before, but having it bandaged so long has made him a bit more graceful with his right; but doing anything that requires putting both hands on the 'sword'—Su Minshan finally tells him to focus more on meditation and weaponless forms for the moment, and mutters something about prosthetics to himself. He seems glad to abandon the idea of trying to teach Xue Yang the guqin when Xue Yang shows distaste at it. He sits by Meng Shi while she plays, instead, and sings for her—wavering and squeaking, half genuine and half intentional—until she laughs so hard she has to stop.

It's not part of his formal teaching (and it is, in fact, something Su Minshan repeatedly requests him to stop doing 'while I'm trying to think') but Xue Yang keeps singing for her. He learns without thinking about it to really carry a tune; his breathing exercises for meditation help him hold steadier notes. He sings for her until his voice cracks, and makes her laugh helplessly again when it wavers between high and deep, before cautioning him to be careful and stop for a while; he picks it up again when his voice evens out, and is suddenly a sweet tenor. Meng Shi has her own guqin, by then, instead of borrowing Su Minshan's in the evenings, and Xue Yang's voice weaves with it as if they were always meant to be paired.

Meng Yao had formed his golden core just before his own voice had finished changing. Xue Yang only gets it afterward—feels the hot glow of it deep in his chest, like someone had struck a candle flame to life between his upper ribs, one morning after he'd sat up, the night before, singing Meng Shi all the songs that made her remember bits of the past that made her smile instead of sigh. He'd felt tired from it still, that morning, but good. Peaceful. Su Minshan always seemed half annoyed and half puzzled when he sang, and even Meng Yao didn't appreciate it much; it wasn't a skill that was good for anything, that would get him anywhere. But he liked it anyway, he'd been thinking that morning. He didn't care if it was useless in the world of cultivation they belonged to the edges of, the one that he and Meng Yao were meant to properly enter one day. Meng Shi enjoyed it, and he enjoyed it, and that was enough.

Maybe that was what made it click, that moment of peace. Xue Yang doesn't care about self-examining for ages on end. All he cares about is how Meng-jiejie had laughed with joy when he'd told her that he'd finally formed his core, pressing her hand to his narrow chest as if she could feel its warmth.

"You and A-Yao are both going to be great cultivators, I know it," she tells him. "I'm so proud of you, A-Yang."

Meng Shi starts really getting sick, soon after.

She'd gotten more frail, as the years passed—tired more easily, sent Meng Yao and Xue Yang out on errands more often instead of going herself. Lost her breath after laughing.  But it had always been something relatively easy to ignore, with good days and bad days, easily improved by a little rest. Little by little, however, the bad days become the new good ones. She's always a little tired, a little weak.

It's then she asks Su Minshan to take Meng Yao to see his far-off cultivator father. Xue Yang can bet it's the wan face she had when she asked it that convinced him, despite how unhappy he looked about it—that was why Xue Yang agreed to go along, after all, even though he didn't like the idea.

"I'm not so foolish as to think he loves me," he'd overheard Meng Shi saying to Su Minshan, voice low. "But I think he might remember me fondly. And A-Yao... A son, one even trained already as a cultivator, with a golden core no less! Surely he'll be swayed by that. And if there's opportunity for A-Yang as well, I want him to have it. He's such a clever boy, if they just give him a chance..."

So when she'd asked if he'd accompany them he'd gone, although he hated the long journey and the stuck-up cultivators that surely awaited them at the end of it. When Su Minshan had ordered him to wait while he and Meng Yao went on ahead, Xue Yang had been mildly offended at the assumption he'd cause trouble, but mostly delighted that he didn't have to climb a million stairs and wait heaven-knew-how-long for an audience with some rich asshole.

He'd been a lot more offended when Meng-xiong and Su Minshan found him again, and he heard that Jin Guangshan had pretty much ordered Meng Yao to be thrown out, without so much as poking his head outside. Not surprised, really, but offended, and worried on Meng-jiejie's behalf.

"We'll have to work even harder to be great cultivators," he told Meng Yao, on the way back home. "So she won't be disappointed, no matter what."

Meng Yao had nodded, still looking kind of lost. Xue Yang had shoved him in the arm, and offered him a piece of candy that Meng Yao gloomily accepted.  

"Cheer up," Xue Yang ordered. "That place was too fancy anyway, I bet all the people there were stupid."

That got a tiny smile. "I'm not even upset for myself, exactly," Meng Yao had said, unwrapping the candy. "It's just about disappointing Muqin, and Shizun..."

"We won't disappoint her," Xue Yang had said, already full of plans. "We're old enough Shizun can start teaching us to night-hunt, right? We'll hunt ghosts and monsters ourselves and show her we don't have to be part of a sect to be respected cultivators." He'd poked Meng Yao in the ribs, then. "And you don't even need to worry about disappointing Shizun. He thinks everything you do is perfect."

Meng Yao had smiled in the way that meant he wasn't taking what Xue Yang said quite seriously, but he put the candy in his mouth and shut up.

And in the end, after Xue Yang was done telling her about how they'd been treated—when Su Minshan was done filling in details afterward in his quiet, angry voice, and Meng Yao had sat on the edge of her bed and apologized, squeezing her hand in his—in the end, if Meng Shi was disappointed in them, she didn't show it. She looked angry, and she looked tired, and she looked scared, but she squeezed Meng Yao's hand firmly in return, and finally gave him a wan smile.

"Alright, I believe you," she said. "You did your best. We don't have time to cry about it, then."

She'd cry later that night, Xue Yang knew. After helping her with dinner, he walked out to the nearby scrap of forest where Meng Yao and he often practiced, and kicked trees for a bit imagining they were Jin Guangshan's stupid, lying face. And when Su Minshan found him, half an hour in, he turned to him and demanded, "Didn't you say there was something that could fix my hand, kind of? Make it easier to use a sword?"

Su Minshan nods, coming up beside him and eying the tree he'd put a crack into. "Correct. If we're going to start night hunting in earnest, you should stop relying on talismans and weaponless forms."

"Don't say it like it's my fault. You didn't bring it up before."

"You were growing," Su Minshan says, "do you think we had the money to constantly adjust something like that?" and then added, in a slightly less snippy tone, "It also took me quite some time to find a craftsman who would attempt to make what I had in mind. I can't imagine where..." He trails off.

"Where what?" Interest piqued, Xue Yang bumps against his side, ignoring Su Minshan's frown. "Where'd you even come up with the idea, Shizun?"

Su Minshan stares off in the distance for a moment. He does that a lot; Meng Yao says he thinks it's because he's remembering the past. Xue Yang thinks maybe he's just trying to come up with a lie. He might like Su Minshan, at this point, but he still doesn't trust him; not like Meng Yao does.

"You're not the first person to lose a finger," he says finally. "I had a... I worked with someone, once, with a similar injury. He had a device to somewhat compensate for it."

"And he was still a good swordsman? Like, not just okay, was he good?"

Su Minshan hesitates, then seems to soften, glancing down at Xue Yang. "He was highly skilled," he says. "I don't recall much about his style, but I'm sure that if you experiment, you'll find ways to modify the one I taught you."

Xue Yang snorts; he just knows the basic sword forms, hasn't practiced in months, and Su Minshan's already expecting him to improvise? "You really think I can do that, Shizun?"

He'd asked in the kind of disbelieving tone that would usually get him glared at, but Su Minshan just lifts one shoulder, strangely calm. "I have a feeling you'll be capable of it, yes."

Xue Yang stares at him for a minute. Asks, "Shizun, do you have dreams predicting the future or something?"

Su Minshan scoffs, which is not an answer, and turns on his heel. "Get some sleep," he says over his shoulder. "I'll take you to see the man I found tomorrow; he'll need your measurements to begin."

Xue Yang, after the first couple years of non-answers, had resolved not to lose any sleep wondering where Su Minshan had come from, why he'd found Xue Yang and taken him to Meng Shi, why he'd chosen to teach him—was still choosing to, even though he could have easily picked up some other orphan nearer to home, with a whole left hand. He's still resolved, but the questions start to well up again at the back of his mind. He won't lose sleep, he thinks, but if he has a chance to find out... well, he might do what he can.

'The boy volunteered to take on the duty of traveling to Yunmeng to pick up medicine for his caretaker, and spent an hour or two while there paging through sword catalogues and eavesdropping on conversations'  didn't sound very exciting, so Xue Yang condenses it, in retrospect, to The disciple became curious about his teacher's origins, and began to investigate on his own time. Not that he turned up anything much, although he did start to develop a taste for spiritual swords that he'd probably never be able to afford. He even bought some of the flimsy catalogues to bring back and show Meng Yao sometimes, hiding them in between his shirt and robe in an effort to keep the cheap ink from running in the frequent light rain. Su Minshan scoffed at the 'waste of money' at first, but eventually joined in with the discussions that ensued; Xue Yang even caught him flipping through the so-called 'news' section a few times, which Xue Yang thought of as way more of a waste of money than the pictures of swords. Vanity stuff about the Great Sects and whatever smaller sects had enough money to buy space for a notice of marriage or coming-of-age.

He started looking through it afterward, and found exactly one thing: The Gusu Lan Sect, going off the woodblock prints and breathless 'news' descriptions, always dressed in white.

Gusu was too far for a day trip, though, and the Lan Sect was pretty famously snobbish, not likely to respond to questions easily. Xue Yang files away the decision to interrogate a Lan cultivator if he ever gets a chance, and moves on.

It takes him a few months to adjust to the prosthetic that his shizun had commissioned, but it's surprisingly helpful when he does get used to it. He can't bend the faux finger it awards him, but it helps even out his grip; where the forms still don't fit him, he finds room to alter them slightly. It's slow going, but an almost unbearable excitement kindles within him at the progress. Part of him had been resigned to always being at a loss when it came to sword work, and he hadn't even realized it. Now, that fell away. He practices on his own time, spars with Meng Yao, and even though Meng Yao is ahead of him, Xue Yang knows it's just because he's older. In time, Xue Yang will catch up.

He might have started out as worth nothing, but little by little he's becoming someone impossible to kick aside. And when he and Meng Yao take on their first night hunt—just a couple of weepy old ghosts, barely something to be scared of, but they take care of it practically on their own—Meng Shi beams with pride when they return home. She's a little better these days, with the medicine the doctor from Yunmeng had recommended, and when she hugs Xue Yang despite his half-hearted squirming, it almost feels like her old strength.

Night hunts also afford him a few clearer looks at Nanping—their shizun takes point on any hunt serious enough to require a spiritual sword, since Xue Yang and Meng Yao still only have normal blades. That only turns out a dead end as well. Nanping doesn't resemble the overarching styles of any sect, and Xue Yang learns from Meng Yao that it was apparently broken when Su Minshan first turned up; he'd found someplace to get the blade forged together again. It could have looked like anything before.

Xue Yang had read enough cheaply printed adventure stories at this point to be familiar with the concept of mysterious scars, birth marks, et cetera, but he quickly discovered that Su Minshan sealed the doors with talismans when he bathed, and trying to break those down seemed to be going a little far. He closes the matter off in his mind in an open-ended sentence; He could find no trace of the man's past, but when he himself became a great cultivator, and the world was more open to him, who knew what secrets might be revealed? 

The next section of the story really got ridiculous.

In the course of his travels, the young cultivator met...

But it's better just to remember it like it was.

Hanging around Yunmeng to buy medicine and catalogues and candy, Xue Yang has developed a grudging tolerance for the Jiang Sect. He'd easily internalized Su Minshan's disdain for the Great Sects, primed with his own bitter bone-deep feelings of mistrust, but the Jiang Sect was... fine, as far as a big sect went. Not that you didn't see an occasional disciple making an ass of themselves at a street stall or in a wine shop, but they certainly didn't seem to throw their weight around like the Jin, or act all detached and above everything like the Lan. Most of the disciples acted more like normal people, mingling with crowds and chatting happily to aunties selling lotus seeds. The bustle of the market ran right up to the sweeping walls of Lotus Pier, and half the time it seemed the door was standing open to let crowds in or out.

So about half a year into his trips, when he bumps into a crowd of Jiang disciples and one of them yells for him to stop as he emerges on the other side—Xue Yang stops, at a cautious distance, and turns back to ask, "What?"

The boy who'd hailed him is maybe a year or two older than him, grinning and a bit tanned. "You're a cultivator, right?" he asks. When Xue Yang eyes him suspiciously, he adds, "We've seen you before, and I said you were, and Jiang Cheng said you couldn't be—"

"He doesn't have a sword," snaps another, slightly younger-looking boy. He's wearing fancier clothes than most of the others, and still manages to look bullied. "Even a disciple—"

Su Minshan had ordered Xue Yang to leave his sword at home when he went to Yunmeng, even though it was a common one; it's less trouble if they don't know you're the student of a rogue cultivator. But something about Fancy Boy's tone rubs him the wrong way. "Yeah," he says. "I'm a disciple."

Grinning Boy smacks Fancy Boy in the arm triumphantly, and Fancy Boy glowers. "I knew it!" Grinning Boy says. "It's the way you move, I knew you knew how to fight. Hey, we're going to take care of some water ghouls—want to come with? What sect are you from?"

Xue Yang thinks the questions probably should have come in reverse order. "I'm not from a sect," he answer, raising his chin. "My shizun's a wandering cultivator."

Well, Su Minshan hadn't wandered for the last seven years, at least, but wandering sounded cooler than has no friends.

Surprisingly, Grinning Boy takes this well, smile getting even bigger. "Nothing wrong with that! There are plenty of wandering cultivators who are great."

"You just say that because your mother was one!" one of the girls says, poking Grinning Boy with her bow.

Grinning Boy folds his arms. "So what? I'm still right. Do you have a sword?" he says, turning his attention abruptly back to Xue Yang.

Xue Yang hesitates. Common sense was telling him not to spend any time around disciples from a big sect, but... He didn't have many friends in Yunping. And while that was just because he didn't have time for them, in between looking after Meng Shi and studying and beginning to night-hunt, it got a bit lonely sometimes. Just a bit.

"I left it at home," he said. "But I could still come along. I'm good at other stuff."

Grinning Boy agrees readily, and Xue Yang crosses back over the street to join them. "If you know how to swim," Grinning Boy said cheerfully, "I can teach you how to wrestle one."

Xue Yang decides he kind of likes this guy.

"My name is Xue Yang," he volunteers. "What's yours?"

"Wei Wuxian! Oh, and that's Jiang Cheng." Wei Wuxian waves a careless hand at Fancy Boy—newly named Jiang Cheng—who waves a grudging hand in acknowledgement. "He's having fun even if he's making that face, I promise."

Jiang Cheng glares with offense, then quickens his pace to stalk on ahead. Xue Yang's shoulders tense a little—this boy had the name, he was an actual member of the Jiang family, was it bad that he was pissed off?—but Wei Wuxian just shrugs, and pats Xue Yang on the shoulder. "He'll get over it," he says. "Everyone will have fun, I swear."

It is fun, right up until a particularly crafty water ghoul sinks its teeth into Xue Yang's bad hand while he's wading in the lake shallows.

He only yells so loud because of that, honestly; he'd taken off his glove so it wouldn't get wet, and the scar tissue is always tender after being covered by the glove for most of the day. It draws blood, but he kicks it off before it can get more than one bite in, and one of the older Jiang disciples pins it right afterward. Xue Yang's view of it is blocked by Wei Wuxian leaping back to his side, splashing water into his face.

"Ow," Xue Yang says, more in protest than anything.

"Sorry!" Wei Wuxian goes to wipe at his face, but his sleeve is completely soaked as well; he'd plunged into the water before anyone, to ensure the ghouls were still hiding in the shady spot by the lake's bank they'd been reported before. He laughs a little, then takes Xue Yang's hand to look at it before Xue Yang can protest. "Ah, you're bleeding! It's not deep, but we should get it cleaned and bandaged—"

"I'll be fine," Xue Yang protests. "It's just a scratch, I've had way worse."

But Wei Wuxian is having none of it. "Jiang Cheng!" he yells. "You and everyone take the last couple, all right? I'm taking him up the bank to shijie!"

Jiang Cheng, waist-deep in the lake, cups his hands around his mouth and hollers back, "Jie is a young lady! You shouldn't take strange boys to see her!"

Wei Wuxian just rolls his eyes at that, and starts wading for shore, Xue Yang reluctantly towed along in his wake.

The young cultivator met some disciples from one of the Great Sects. But that's not the most important part. The young cultivator met...

There's a group of the younger disciples and some of the less adventurous girls further up the lake's length, closer to town and therefore safer from the ghouls. Wei Wuxian pulls him toward a couple of the older girls who are sunning themselves sitting near the water, talking quietly. "Shijie!" he calls. "You have bandages and stuff, right?"

One of the girls turns. This bit isn't like the stories; she's not some extraordinary beauty, no white lotus blooming by the lakeside, just a young woman with a pretty heart-shaped face and regular, almost plain features. But Xue Yang still feels a weird thump in his chest, like his heart had stopped for a second, because when she looks at the two of them she smiles.

Xue Yang wouldn't call it the best smile he's ever seen; that would be rude to Meng Shi. But it's a close contender.

'Shijie' it turns out, does have bandages. Her eyes widen in horror when Xue Yang, prompted by Wei Wuxian, holds out his hand for inspection, before she realizes that the missing finger is old news. "How did it happen?" she asks, opening the pouch by her side.

Xue Yang, semi-manhandled into a sitting position across from her, shifts uncomfortably. His story's not really one for public repetition. "It happened when I was a lot younger. I don't remember much."

The older girl nods, and doesn't press. She's wearing slightly nicer clothes, like Jiang Cheng—right, he'd called her his sister. Despite that, there isn't anything impatient or haughty in the way she acts, even with a strange boy her shidi has just dumped on her out of nowhere. She cleans the wound carefully, her head bent over his hand, and Xue Yang finds it a little hard to breathe. It's just that—she's tall, even folded up on the ground, and her voice is so soft, and she hums a little tune as she cleans the wound, like it's meant to distract him. And she smells nice, like sun and water and sweet incense, and her hair's twisted up in a soft bun with little wisps escaping from it, and her guan has little bright flowers on it, really cute.

"Oh right—this is Xue Yang," says Wei Wuxian, interrupting his own constant background chatter that Xue Yang had quit paying attention to. "He's the disciple of a wandering cultivator. I've seen him around a few times and thought I'd invite him to come along with us."

The older girl smiles at Xue Yang. "My name is Jiang Yanli," she says. "Do you live near here?"

"Not far." He has the itching feeling that Su Minshan might not be happy at him divulging a lot of information, but what was he supposed to do? "Yunping."

"Your shizun hasn't come to this city yet, have they? I don't remember any visits from wandering cultivators who mentioned having students."

Xue Yang chews on his lip as she ties off the bandage. "He hasn't. But why would you know? Jiang-guniang," he adds on hastily.

Jiang Yanli smiles, releasing his hand. "My father likes to meet wandering cultivators, especially if they're going to be spending a lot of time around Yunmeng. I'm sure if he'd heard of your shizun, you all would have been invited to stop by Lotus Pier already."

Xue Yang's stomach is heavy with misgiving when Jiang Yanli adds, her brow knitting, "Please don't take that badly. Our sect has always been friendly to wandering cultivators—you can tell your shizun that, if they were concerned about their reception."

"Yeah, there's no need to be worried," Wei Wuxian chimes in. "You're really good even without a sword, so your teacher must be the real thing—the only rogue cultivators that would have to be scared of us are the frauds, you know, people who sell fake manuals and swindle people out of money for pretending to chase off ghosts."

"I don't think he's scared or anything," Xue Yang says reluctantly. "I just think he doesn't like... anyone." It seems awkward to say he doesn't like the Great Sects to a high-ranking disciple and a—He suddenly fits my father into place in his head. Jiang Yanli was... the Jiang sect leader's daughter? 

Fuck.

Not that he had been, thinking, about anything, and if he had it was already kind of stupid because she had to be at least a few years older than him, and he hadn't been, but—fuck.

It made even less sense that she was so nice. Maybe the Jiang Sect really was just an exception to the rule.

"Well, perhaps you could just take him a message," Jiang Yanli says, with an encouraging smile. "It's understandable that some cultivators pursue solitary paths, but it doesn't have to be a long visit. Perhaps the two of you—"

"I've got a shixiong, too," Xue Yang interjects. "He tags around after Shizun everywhere."

"The three of you, then. The Mid-Autumn festival is in just a few weeks; maybe you could convince your shizun to visit for that, at least. It's a good time to come to Lotus Pier. And, while you're all here, perhaps you could stop by. Allow us to show you hospitality for an hour or so, at least—your shizun could meet my father briefly, and I'm sure A-Xian would be glad to see you again."

Xue Yang fidgets. He feels resentful at being spoken to in such a conciliatory way, but he can't really be mad at Jiang Yanli for being nice. He just wishes, somehow, that she'd talk to him more seriously, as if she didn't think he were a kid. "All right," he finally says. "I'll ask him about it."

The young cultivator met the eldest daughter of the Jiang Sect. He couldn't explain why, but she stirred his heart in some strange new way.

He'd expected Su Minshan to scold him for talking to Jiang disciples in the first place, but revealing that—once he was home—only brought on a creased look of annoyance. It's only when he mentions Wei Wuxian's name that Su Minshan looks really upset, and it's shocking enough that Xue Yang's words dry up for a moment in his mouth; Su Minshan looks furious, like Xue Yang has just said the name of someone he hates.

Xue Yang doesn't get it. Wei Wuxian is all of fifteen, if that; maybe his mother had done something? But before he can get up the nerve to pry, Su Minshan takes a deep breath and wipes the expression off his face. Still looking annoyed, but only his usual amount, he says. "Go on. There must be a reason you're telling me about meeting them."

Xue Yang shifts his weight uneasily. "Jiang-guniang said we should all visit sometime. Maybe around the festival. Shizun—"

"Jiang-guniang?" Su Minshan's brow furrows for a moment. "Jiang... Yanli?"

"Uh, yeah. Shizun, what's your problem with Wei-xiong?" 

Meng Yao, who'd been mending a robe nearby, looked up inquisitively as well. Su Minshan hesitates, several emotions flitting over his face, then says stiffly, "I've heard he's a troublemaker, that's all."

"Right," Xue Yang says, dubious. "So can we go? Jiang-guniang said that the Jiang sect doesn't have a problem with rogue cultivators, but it sounded like they really wanted to see you anyway. To make sure you weren't a fake or something."

Su Minshan draws himself up a little, as Xue Yang had hoped. It's not that he tries to prod his shizun in a certain direction, sometimes, by saying things he knew would rub him the wrong way; trying implied it was hard. Xue Yang only attempted it when it seemed a really easy shot.

"Did you give them the impression that I wasn't a legitimate cultivator?" Su Minshan asks, voice icy.

Meng Yao looks up again, tone placating. "Shizun, I'm sure he wouldn't. It was probably just a misunderstanding."

Su Minshan acknowledged the words with a brief glance, and rubs at the bridge of his nose. "We should meet with them," he says, after a long pause. "I've been avoiding contact with the Jiang sect so far, only taking jobs I knew would fall beneath their notice, but... if they've noticed us, there's no going back. We should try to be on good terms with them." He drops his hand, frowning slightly as he adds, as if to himself, "This could be good in the long run. Maybe."

Xue Yang's too used to getting non-answers, at this point, to bother asking what he means.

Chapter Text

The Mid-Autumn festival market around Lotus Pier seemed a dozen times larger than the one in Yunping. Meng Shi had stayed behind, insisting with a smile that she simply wanted to save her strength, and they should tell her all about it when they returned; Xue Yang was grateful of that, now that he knew how noisy it was. He had enough to worry about looking after Meng Yao, who always got a little skittish around crowds, and trying to plan out what to say when they got to Lotus Pier. He doesn't pray much, as a rule, but he dedicates a little thought to asking anyone who might be listening, and inclined to help a poor but... relatively honest young man, to encourage his shizun not to act too weird when they were meeting with the Jiangs. He really wouldn't mind hanging out with Wei-xiong and everyone else again. 

"Stick closer to Shizun," he suggests, the third time Meng Yao almost bumps into someone and looks unnerved about it. "People usually make way for his sour face."

That prompts, oddly enough, a slight blush from Meng Yao, but he mutters agreement and shuffles a little closer to Su Minshan's white robes. Those clear a bit of a path all on their own—Xue Yang can see a few people catch sight of them, out of the corner of their eyes, and start immediately to shift out of the way. He's starting to see why his shizun wears them so consistently. 

There's a puppet show happening at a large stall along their path, and Meng Yao stops to watch for a moment, bringing Xue Yang and Su Minshan to a halt as well. It's the story of Chang'e, plain enough; her and Houyi are engaged in some kind of discussion, or argument, over two cheap bright little bottles that are probably supposed to be the elixir of immortality. 

Chang'e raises her small hand to cover a laugh that sounds a little too sinister, and Xue Yang yawns. The version of the story where Chang'e is a villain is always more boring, in his opinion. 

They watch a bit longer—as Chang'e browbeats a startlingly meek Houyi into leaving the elixirs with her, then cheerfully announces her plan to down them and ascend to the heavens to nobody in particular—before Su Minshan asks, "This play. What does this tell you?" 

Meng Yao answers first, speaking slowly. "It seems popular with the crowd, and it feels pointed... Whoever the lady of Lotus Pier is, I think she's disliked."

"Good." Su Minshan glances at Xue Yang, eyebrow raised. 

Xue Yang rolls his eyes; Meng Yao had pointed out the obvious, what else was there to say? "It's not the version you like."

His shizun frowns slightly. "Explain."

"Did you forget? When I was sick as a kid and Meng-jiejie had to take a rest from watching me. I finally got you to tell me a story—it took forever—and since it was nearly the mid-autumn festival then you told me about Chang'e." He remembers pieces of that night; the hot, stuffed feeling in his chest, the cool moonlight through the window, Su Minshan's voice pausing as he made an adjustment on something he'd been writing, then resuming when Xue Yang groggily whined at him to say what happened next. "You told the version where she only took the elixirs because she had to."

"I do remember," Su Minshan says slowly. "I suppose I have to give you credit for memory, at least, if not observation."

"You made the ending sound really sad, though," Xue Yang added, given pause by a last hiccup of memory. "I remember yelling at you for telling such a shitty story. Where Chang'e wound up stranded on the moon and couldn't talk to anyone or go anywhere..."

"I told you that she probably did the best she could with the situation," Su Minshan says. "You were just easily upset."

"Nobody wants to hear that kind of weak bullshit!" Xue Yang complained. "People want to hear stories where stuff either goes really wrong, or really right. Either lots of people have to die, or the hero has to get everything they ever wanted, or both. Nobody wants 'and then stuff sucked, but I guess it could have been worse'."

"Some people like everyday tragedies," Meng Yao points out. "It's realistic. People make the best of what they have."

Across the street, a kid's clinging to his father's hand. Yelling about something, pointing, and then laughing when his father reaches down and scoops him up. Xue Yang can, very faintly, remember being held against the warmth of his father's chest. Or maybe that's just a story he tells himself. He knows that he remembers what his skin felt like, cold. Remembers the sour-sweet smell of rot, before he'd finally abandoned the body. 

He turns his head away, hunching a bit on instinct. He hates moments like that—the past coming to tap him on the shoulder. Every time it backed off for a week or so, he'd think it was gone for good; then something just touched on the wrong thought in his mind, and... He forces himself to drop his shoulders, shake his head.

"Stories aren't for being realistic," he says. "They're for stuff we can't have." 

Su Minshan says, "It doesn't matter. I'm not a storyteller; it's none of my concern if you liked it." Brusquely, he adds, "Remembering such details can be useful. The stories that someone chooses to tell, the things they do that might seem insignificant... it's the sort of detail that can allow you to analyze an enemy, or cater to an ally."

Xue Yang, still feeling mulish, shrugs. "Meng-xiong has a better memory than me. I should just stick to hitting things, right?"

"Don't sulk," Su Minshan says. 

Meng Yao, on his other side, turns away slightly; distracted by something. "Hold on a minute," he says, and slips away toward some nearby stall. Xue Yang takes the opportunity to turn and stick his tongue out at Su Minshan, who scoffs. 

"If you keep acting like a child, you have no right to complain if I reprimand you as one."

"It's not my fault you're in a bad mood," Xue Yang says stubbornly. "If it's about being here, I bet the Jiang would have noticed you sooner or later, and it would have just looked worse if it seemed like you'd been sneaking around."

"I would have handled it, but that's not important now. Now that we're here, what's important is making a good impression, so if you don't behave—"

"Then what?" Xue Yang demanded, crossing his arms. "You know if you hit me I'll tell Meng-jiejie."

"I'm not going to—" Su Minshan sighs impatiently. "When I arranged for you to stay with her, I didn't know you'd still be crawling into her lap when you should be learning to act like a man. Sometimes I wonder..."

Xue Yang bristles, ready to demand just what he sometimes wondered, but Meng Yao's return interrupts him. He's slightly flushed from the warmth around the stalls, and inserts himself between them with a gentle, conciliatory smile he'd inherited from his mother. "Shizun," he says, offering Su Minshan one of the loosely wrapped cakes he holds, then turns to Xue Yang. "A-Yang. They had some made with lotus seed paste, but it was more expensive—so I just got some with red bean paste, like Muqin usually makes. Here, try it."

It's a mooncake, of course, a simple pattern pressed into its shiny top. It's got a chewy crust, different from the tender kind that Meng Shi usually makes, but it tastes sweet enough; it helps dissolve the lingering sourness in his belly. "Not as good as hers," he still says, loyally. "But it's all right."

The sweetness dissolves most of the animosity still lingering in the air, but Xue Yang still makes it a point to dawdle a few times on the way to the gates of Lotus Pier. Right before they get there, though, he stops in his tracks with a genuine thought. 

"What is it this time?" Su Minshan demands impatiently, looking back to see that he's stopped. 

"I have to get something," Xue Yang says, craning his neck. He's spotted a little stall selling carved belt charms; frogs and fish and flowers. "I'll catch up in just a minute."

Meng Yao, following his gaze, smiles slowly. "Are you getting a present for someone, A-Yang?"

"It's just someone who helped me out last time I was here," Xue Yang said defensively. "Bandaged my wounds and stuff. Shizun always says we should pay back our debts with proper gratitude, right?" 

Confronted with his own wisdom, Su Minshan just furrows his brow and says, "Don't take long." 

He doesn't. He's trying not to really think about what he's doing; the voice clamoring in the back of his head that tells him he's being foolish, that knows Su Minshan would let him have an earful if he knew he was planning to give a gift to a Great Sect's daughter. He weaves a line as he haggles for a lotus-flower charm instead. 

It's never a mistake to give a token of appreciation to a lovely girl, so the young cultivator purchased one for the Jiang sect's daughter...

A disciple stops them briefly at the gate, but at Su Minshan's clipped introduction he bows politely and allows them in, asking them to wait for Jiang-zongzhu nearby. The first open courtyard before the houses is very busy, older disciples talking and laughing as they went to and fro, smaller children playing in groups. One of the circles of children were engaged in what looked like intense discussion, before a lot of them clustered together and pointed an especially tiny child, yelling something. The pointed-at child glowered, but hunkered down and started to hop around like a frog. 

"Stand up straight," Su Minshan muttered, and Xue Yang ripped his gaze away from the kids and their game to find a tall man in Jiang purple approaching. He had a somewhat fancier guan than most, and some people bowed to acknowledge him as he passed, but he isn't accompanied by a horde of servants or anything—Xue Yang guessed the Jiang sect's more casual attitudes must extend to their sect leader. 

Jiang-zongzhu stops when he's a few yards away from them, when the tiny disciple from the circle hops over, scowling, and tugs on his robe. He looks down inquisitively. The girl throws her arms up in frustration and makes a croaking noise. 

"You've been cursed to become a frog again?" Jiang-zongzhu asks. She nods, tearing up dramatically. The kid's wasted on cultivation, Xue Yang thinks; she should have been a roadside beggar, with shiny eyes like that. Jiang-zongzhu considers for a moment, then crouches down to the kid's level. He taps her forehead, then her chest, humming to himself like it's serious business. The little disciple giggles. 

"The curse is broken," Jiang-zongzhu announces. "Go back to your cousins, and don't get into trouble again, all right?"

The girl nods, smiling, and runs back toward the other little kids. Xue Yang exchanges a glance with Meng Yao, who looks confused but optimistic. Su Minshan looks... Su Minshan is actually looking at the buildings, Xue Yang realizes, studying them with curiosity, before his gaze finally returns to Jiang-zongzhu. 

"Shizun?" Xue Yang asks. "Have you been here before?" 

The disciple who'd let them in comes up to Jiang-zongzhu's side, speaking to him quietly. Su Minshan straightens a little as Jiang-zongzhu looks in their direction, but he looks around one last time at the scene—the kids playing, the older members of the sect coming and going, the warm carved wood of the buildings. 

"No," he says, at last. "No, I haven't." 

Jiang-zongzhu comes toward them, and Su Minshan bows in greeting, Meng Yao in sync and Xue Yang a moment later. 

"You must be Xue Yang's teacher?" Jiang-zongzhu says. Looking at Xue Yang, he adds, "I recognize you from A-Xian's description. He'll be glad to know you returned."

Xue Yang, not entirely sure what to do with such a warm welcome, mutters acknowledgement. Su Minshan seems to have gotten over whatever possessed him about hearing Wei Wuxian's name; he sends Xue Yang an exasperated glance and says to Jiang-zongzhu, "Forgive my disciple's poor manners. My name is Su Minshan; my other disciple, here, is Meng Yao. I appreciate the generosity of Jiang-zongzhu's invitation."

"There's no need for forgiveness," Jiang-zongzhu says, with a smile. "He's just a boy, still. I'm sure he'll become better-spoken in time. I am pleased to see you here; when A-Li told me of the situation, I was surprised that a wandering cultivator had been in the area for so long without coming to Lotus Pier." There's a searching quality to the last statement; not quite a question. Not quite not one. 

"It is no reflection on the Jiang sect's hospitality," Su Minshan says, after a pause. "I merely seek to stay apart from most dealings of the jianghu. But in hindsight, a friendly visit would not have been too much trouble; I must apologize for my oversight." 

"No, it's quite understandable." Jiang-zongzhu raises an eyebrow as Xue Yang scuffs a bit in the dirt, and says to Su Minshan, "Perhaps your disciples would prefer to be released, for the moment? A-Xian and A-Li are by the larger lotus pond, if they wish to join them."

"I don't mind staying, Shizun," Meng Yao says. 

"No—Jiang-zongzhu is right." Su Minshan glances at both of them. "He and I should talk; the two of you go enjoy yourselves." 

Meng Yao actually looks sad to be pried away from the conversation, but Xue Yang can't be sorry. They'd probably be talking around things for ages, all sorts of polite statements that implied questions and answers. Jiang-zongzhu seemed pretty mild-tempered, so he doubted it would end badly, and with that worry gone he's just bored. He hauls on Meng Yao's sleeve to speed him up. 

"Come on, Meng-xiong, I'll introduce you to..." He doesn't really want to share Wei-xiong and Jiang Yanli. "Jiang Cheng. You'll probably like him."

As they leave, he faintly hears Jiang-zongzhu say, "It's much rarer to see unaffiliated cultivators, this last year." 

Su Minshan replies, "I know. They're all going to the Wen." 

Jiang-zongzhu, in return, sounds curious. More serious than before. "The situation with the Wen..." 

They're quickly drowned out by the crowd. Meng Yao sighs. 

"I can't believe you'd rather stand around listening to them talk," Xue Yang says. 

"It's important," Meng Yao says. "I want to know everything I can. When you're older—"

"When I'm older, I still won't care." Xue Yang tosses the lotus charm into the air and catches it, nervous excitement bubbling in his chest. "I'll just keep being a rogue cultivator, ignoring all the affairs of the world."

"You're supposed to do that because you've let go of them," Meng Yao scolds, with a half-smile, "not just because you think they're boring. Now—since we're not with Shizun, will you tell me who that charm is for? Was the Jiang disciple who helped bind your hand a pretty girl?"

Xue Yang hesitates for a minute too long; Meng Yao's eyebrows raise slightly and he asks, tone warm and neutral, "...or a handsome boy, perhaps?"

"Stop that," Xue Yang grumbles, "you sound like a thousand-year-old matchmaker."

"I'm just interested in who's caught my shidi's attention—"

"It's not like that!" Frustrated, Xue Yang stuffs the charm back in his pocket. "I'm just paying something back," he insists. "It's the Jiang Sect's daughter. Jiang Yanli."

"Oh. Ah." Meng Yao looks like he slightly regrets his questions. "Well, that's for the best, then."

His tone needles at Xue Yang enough he finds himself asking, "What, because I'd never be good enough for her?"

"A-Yang," Meng Yao says, "you know it's not about that." He sighs. "I don't want to see you hurt."

"Yeah, well. No danger of that." 

"Of course," Meng Yao says, his tone maddeningly placating. 

Xue Yang is still so annoyed when they get out to the lotus pond that, after a brief reunion with Wei Wuxian that manages to raise his spirits just a bit, he forgets to divert Meng Yao to talk with Jiang Cheng instead, and he and Wei Wuxian get involved in some discussion about the area and the way the Jiang Sect handles spirit troubles among the common people and yeah, by that point Xue Yang is half asleep already, so he drifts away from them toward where the older girls are sitting, near the edge of the lake. They seem to be playing their own kind of circle game; a handful of them ringing one who sits in the center, with the smoke of a small incense burner drifting across her face. Jiang Yanli sits a little apart, feet nearly in the water, head bent back to listen to the girl in the circle's center talking. 

"...a tall, tall tree, with many flowers," she's saying, as Xue Yang passes by. "There's so many of them! It's hard to tell which one is my own..."

Jiang Yanli's eyes finally turn to Xue Yang as he gets within a few feet of her, and she smiles in what seems to be genuine pleasure. "Ah, it's you. Your shizun agreed to visit?"

Xue Yang quickly bowed in greeting, then dropped down to sit next to her. "Yeah. He's talking about politics or something with your father. And Wei-xiong's talking to Meng Yao, so I thought I'd come over and see you." He fingered the lotus charm in his pocket, but felt a sudden rush of self-consciousness. Jiang Yanli already had a bunch of charms on her belt—including a fancy silver bell carved with lotus patterns. He'd bought this just outside the gates, practically—what if she already had a dozen of them? "What's that they're doing?" he asked, stalling for time, and nodded at the girls in the circle. 

"Visions of Heaven," Jiang Yanli said, with a slight smile. "Trying to catch glimpses of the future, how many children they'll have. Whether they'll have a good husband. That sort of thing."

"But you're not interested?"

Her face—goes a little in-drawn, somehow, and sad in a way that makes Xue Yang instantly regret he said anything, but she smiles a moment later. It reminds him almost of Meng Shi, and that—tugs at him, fascinates him, despite himself. What business did a sect leader's daughter have with such a sad smile?

"I don't like to think about the future all that much," she says. "I like how things are now. Everything so busy during the festival, everyone having fun. Having A-Cheng and A-Xian here. If you're happy, you don't want to spend a lot of time wondering about when things will change, right?"

That doesn't feel like the full truth, but it's not like he knows her enough to prod further. He rubs the carved petals of the lotus between his fingers one last time, then draws it out, resting it on his knee. "I don't really think about the future either," he offers. "I mean, except I know I'm going to try and become a great cultivator. Other than that, why waste time wondering?"

The story he tells himself rolls out behind him, and he adds new lines in the present, but he never let it extend too far into the future. Sometimes his mind tries to struggle toward the years ahead—when Meng-xiong gets that distant look in his eyes, when Shizun say something especially cryptic, when the doctor gives him a hideously sympathetic look as she hands over Meng Shi's medicine—but Xue Yang always drags it firmly back. 

He wonders what Jiang Yanli's mind turns to, when she doesn't keep it restrained.

She smiles a little more warmly at him, now. "You sound a bit like A-Xian," she says. "Very confident." Her eyes go down to the charm, and her smile widens a little. "Did you get that at the market?"

Xue Yang nods. "It's good carving, right?" In that moment, his stomach swoops—because what if it's not, it's not like he's spent a lot of time looking at that kind of thing—but thankfully, Jiang Yanli nods. 

"Very good! It's nice that you'll have a reminder of Lotus Pier after this."

He nods again, then his brain catches up, but it's too late. "It's actually for," he tries saying, but under her bright, inquisitive gaze, he can't push forward; he falls back, instead, and chooses another path. "It's actually for Meng-jiejie. Meng Yao's mother. She's... she raised me, more or less. She had to stay in Yunping, so I wanted to bring her something."

"Very thoughtful," Jiang Yanli says. There's something new in her eyes as she looks at him—not quite pity, but he bristles anyway, not sure of how to react. "She must be glad of you."

He doesn't know what to say. Pushing the charm back in his pocket, he says abruptly, "I wanted to thank you for helping. Bandaging my hand."

"It was no trouble. Did it heal all right?" 

"Yeah. It's just a little stiff." He searches for something else to say. "Jiang-guniang, I saw a play on my way up. What's your favorite version of the Chang'e story?"

"Hmm." He's not sure if he's said something right or wrong; her face is thoughtful and distant as she turns it toward the lake. "I'm not sure. What's yours?"

He tells her the version that Su Minshan had told him. He barely means to do it; it just seems right. Jiang Yanli listens, and fireworks arc up, after a while, to burn like new brief stars against the night sky. 

"So Chang'e just waits there," Xue Yang finishes, finally, "stuck between heaven and earth, able to see both but not really able to do anything. And she's alone, but she makes the best of it that she can. Building a home for herself, waiting for something to change."

There's silence for a moment, then Jiang Yanli says. "I like that version."

"Really?" 

"It's sad, but I like it." Jiang Yanli's eyes crease in amusement. "I thought this was the one you liked."

"It's fine. I don't know, it's just the one I heard as a kid."

"So what would a better version be like?"

"I don't know. Houyi's apprentice comes through the door and Chang'e just clocks him with a pan. Bam."

That, at least, makes her laugh.

"Listen," Xue Yang manages to say, a while later, "I know you said it's nothing, but really, is there anything I can... do? To thank you for helping, and telling me to get shizun up here and stuff."

Jiang Yanli hums thoughtfully. "Well, if I have to ask for something. Make sure you visit again? I know A-Xian will miss you; he really enjoyed your company."

And what about you? Xue Yang wanted to ask. If he was really the young hero type, he probably would have done it. But he can't get the words out.

"All right," is all he says.

The visits to the Jiang sect became as frequent as the young cultivator's trips away from his home city. 

Stories are so simple! Just one sentence can cover so much ground. Over a year in a breath, folding so many moments within it—at home, strengthening his cultivation little by little; around Lotus Pier, as he continues to be welcomed there. He can't help but be suspicious of their kindness; it's written in his bones, needles pain from his missing finger on cold nights. But the friendship, it seems, is genuine. 

Wei Wuxian has many friends, but Xue Yang is a little more able to follow his quick thoughts than most, build upon his aimless speculating with suggestions of his own—Wei Wuxian is always prodding at the tools that surround them, redrawing talismans, speculating on ways to improve this or that thing, and Xue Yang begins to pick up on it as well. During one of their meetings Wei Wuxian will complain about how shoddy a certain talisman is; Xue Yang will spend the month thinking, on and off, and on their next meeting he'll sometimes bring whatever solution he came up with to Wei Wuxian, to compare with his own ideas—assuming he hasn't forgotten about it. 

It's a test, the first time. When he next comes to visit, and one of the Jiang cousins says, "You redrew that barrier talisman, right? Shixiong wouldn't shut up about it—" Xue Yang feels something relax a little in his chest, knowing that Wei Wuxian won't try to take credit. It's just fun, after that, throwing ideas back and forth like a ball passed through the air. 

Jiang Yanli isn't out and about as often, but when she is, she still seems genuinely happy to see him. It makes something small light up within his chest, a stupid puppy-like impulse to stick by her side. She's always asking questions, not like the ones Wei Wuxian and sometimes Jiang Cheng do—about what he's come up with, how's his training, has he hunted anything since last time—but about whether he likes the change of the seasons, how Meng Shi is doing, has he heard any more stories? Since he'd told her the variation on Chang'e, she seems to have decided that he's some kind of storyteller, and Xue Yang can't disappoint her. He tells her legends he's heard from old-timers on night hunts, stories that Meng Shi would tell on particularly dark winter nights. Pesters Su Minshan until he gets a couple of horror stories to pass along. 

Jiang Yanli might be sweet as honey, but she likes scary stories; she'll tuck her feet closer to herself and put a sleeve in front of her mouth while listening, but her eyes sparkle. She likes sad ones, too, and star-crossed lovers. They're never really alone—the Jiang are lax enough that their boys and girls mingle, but Xue Yang thinks even they would draw the line at a rogue cultivator's disciple sitting alone with their eldest daughter—but as he gets better at recounting stories, it starts to feel like the world dims around him and Jiang Yanli. Like when he used to sing with Meng Shi, before she got too tired to play her guqin most nights, and things just seemed to quiet around them. 

It almost unnerves him, how nice it feels. 

Jiang Cheng doesn't ever seem to like him, but he tolerates his existence without too much complaint. Honestly, he seems to be incapable of really being nice to anyone that isn't Jiang Yanli or, on rare occasion, Wei Wuxian. 

And considering that Jiang Fengman, on the occasions he and Xue Yang cross paths, seems to treat even him with more warmth than he displays toward his son, Xue Yang can't really blame him. It would be funny, how uncomfortable the normally relaxed Jiang-zongzhu seems every time Xue Yang's witnessed him crossing paths with his son, except for how it always leaves shadows on Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian's faces. It's none of Xue Yang's business, but he refrains from ever needling Jiang Cheng about it, for their sake, even when he's being insufferable. 

Their mother—Yu-furen, they call her, weirdly enough—he's only ever seen once or twice. From a distance. And judging by the grayish looks that come over a lot of the disciples when her name gets mentioned, he's lucky for that. 

It's a visit during the time Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are away at Gusu where his luck runs out. 

One of the older Jiang cousins he's gotten passingly friendly with—Jiang Xiaohui—catches him just inside the gate, with a grimace. "Jiang-zongzhu's out for the day," she tells him. "I'm taking some of the youngest disciples out to practice shooting before Yu-furen decides to come out and take charge of things. You'd better come along too."

Little kids tended to like Xue Yang, but his own feelings on them were mixed. "That's fine," he says. "I've just got something to drop off." It's half true. He'd come hoping to find Jiang Yanli out and about, with time enough to share some stories, but there is something nestled in the pouch on his belt that he needs to pass on. 

"For A-Li?" Jiang Xiaohui shakes her head. "She's having a bad day, was holed up in one of the family gardens last I saw. And with Jiang-zongzhu not around, nobody's going to risk letting you in the main house." She shook her head again before Xue Yang even has a chance to make a pleading face. "I'm especially not going to let you in the main house, so don't try it."

Xue Yang frowns. He didn't want to turn around and drag his feet away; if Jiang Yanli was having a bad day, it seemed to him just another good reason to see her. "All right," he says, after a second. "I'll just say hello to a few people then, and run out again before Yu-furen comes out of her lair to terrorize the land."

One of the little kids Jiang Xiaohui is herding giggles, and Jiang Xiaohui gives Xue Yang a warning look. He makes a face of mock repentance before turning toward the inner ring of houses surrounding the private courtyards and gardens. 

Even the Jiang weren't exempt from a bit of a double standard. In Xue Yang's opinion, if someone was such a piece of work that you had to complain about them and look all scared, you shouldn't get annoyed when an outsider was disrespectful of them. If someone wanted to complain about his shizun, he'd join in whole-heartedly. 

...Well. As long as Meng-xiong wasn't there to give him a hurt look. But that's beside the point. 

Regardless of—or perhaps because of—the Jiang sect's hearty population of rowdy young men, a number of trees grow temptingly close to the walls. Xue Yang lounges in the shade of one, as little noticed as a stray cat that's claimed a store front, until there's a moment where no eyes are on him and he can hoist himself up. 

It's pretty quiet within the square of rooms that form the main house—he can hear some talking going on inside a room or two, but it seems like the nice day and the threat of Yu-furen's emergence has driven a lot of people out and about. He's careful of windows, but doesn't try to sneak, just walks casually; it's possible that if someone catches him he can just claim he got let in, or found an open door. Seeming to be wandering about where he didn't belong was a lot better than sneaking around where he didn't belong. Shizun had taught him that, and then absolutely refused to tell Xue Yang where he'd learned it. 

Mysterious bastard. 

He was worried that Jiang Yanli wouldn't be alone, that there'd be a maid with her or something—but when he peered into one of the small side gardens, just a meditative little nook with a tiny pond and an expanse of artful-looking pebbles, he finds her sitting with her eyes closed, completely alone. He almost hesitates to disturb her—it looks like she is trying to meditate, but the wrinkle between her brows hints that it isn't going well—but it would be stupid to come all this way for nothing. He taps lightly on the wall. 

Her eyes fly open. Relief flashes in her eyes for just a moment when she sees him; then it's replaced by shock. 

"Xue-gongzi," she says, "what are you doing here? Who let you in?" 

He leans against the wall, making a contrite face that he hopes looks genuine enough to pass her judgement. "I just came in. I heard you weren't feeling well, and wanted to see you for a minute." 

A touch of warmth softens her mouth, but her brows are still drawn with worry. "Xue-gongzi," she says, "I know you didn't grow up around such things, but... it's not considered proper, being alone like this."

He almost says, I know and then catches himself. Why should he, when she's given him an out? He doesn't want her to be mad at him for ignoring the danger. He makes his expression more contrite instead, clasps his hands into a quick bow. "Sorry," he says, "I mean, I knew that rich families usually don't like it, but yours didn't seem to care so much. I'll leave right away." He hesitates. "Can I just give you something first?" 

Jiang Yanli looks confused. "Give me something?"

Xue Yang dug in his belt pouch, not letting the speeding of his heartbeat deter him. "You know Wei-xiong started to show me how to carve things?" he said. "I kept doing it, and I made something I think is pretty good. I wanted you to have it." 

Wei Wuxian had started it, but in his usual fashion had forgotten to ever give Xue Yang another lesson; but he'd persisted, even putting up with listening to some of the old men's endless stories down at the local wine shop in exchange for whatever grandfather who knew how showing him how to turn the knife, how to dig with the point for a certain effect. It had been a good to have something to do with his hands when he sat up with Meng-jiejie on bad nights.

She'd been the one who'd suggested the form, when he'd been turning a piece of wood over in his hands. 

Jiang Yanli's eyes lit up in surprise, and she reached out to cup the little carved bird in her hand. "It's..."

"It's a magpie," Xue Yang says, releasing the little cord that it hung from, letting it pass from his hand to Jiang Yanli's. "You know, for happiness and good luck. Stuff like that."

"Like in the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl," Jiang Yanli says, her mouth curving into a soft smile, her eyes fixed on the carving. "The bridge of birds from earth to Heaven."

"Right, I guess," says Xue Yang, who didn't want to think about Meng-jiejie's faint sad smile when she'd suggested the form. Whatever she thought was going on, wasn't. "Besides, I just like magpies. They steal anything they like, without ever being afraid, and they'll even pick fights with birds bigger than them." He pauses, then adds, "But mostly it's just the happiness and good luck thing. Do you like it?" 

Jiang Yanli looks up, her smile warm even if her eyes were faintly puzzled. "It's lovely. It almost looks alive, when the light moves over it. But Xue-gongzi, you don't have any reason to give me a gift."

"No reason?" 

Jiang Yanli, catching on, laughs a little. "One bandage, and you give me something that must have taken hours to make?"

"What can I say? I like to repay things tenfold. A hundredfold." He can feel his own voice getting a little too high, a little too frivolous. There's something in Jiang Yanli's eyes, a dawning realization that he wants to avoid. 

She looks at the charm again. There's a pause, and then she says, too delicately, "Xue-gongzi—"

His own voice bursts out before he can stop it. "If you don't like it, just throw it away. I don't care."

He can't bear the gentleness in her voice, the gentleness you'd use to speak to a child. Jiang Yanli looks up, brow furrowed and mouth losing its smile in response to his words, and his chest clutches tighter. He should never have tried to give her anything at all. 

But she says, voice firm, "No. I like it very much." And her hand moves—she finds a place on her belt, shifting aside the ornaments of carved white wood and silver and jade she already wears, and ties on the little wooden magpie. It nests there among the treasures, its tiny eyes seeming to sparkle with dazzled greed. "Xue-gongzi, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself," she says, her voice softening. "I only wanted to say... be careful on your way out."

He rocks on his heels, dizzied by the change in his mood. "Yes, of course." He really should be leaving; he could hear faint, far-away bustling, and he definitely didn't want to risk being found with Jiang Yanli in a secluded garden. Except part of his mind was very foolishly clamoring that it didn't matter, and he really should stay, but he decides that part of his mind should be ignored—it was just dazzled by a smile where it had expected a scold, like the magpie was dazzled by jade and silver. He gathers himself enough to make a gallant little bow. "I won't trouble Jiang-guniang any longer."

She smiles wide and warm, her tone reassuring. 

"Xue-gongzi hasn't troubled me."

He makes it back over the wall without incident; chats with some nervous disciples assigned to chore duty for a bit, until they start dropping hints that he might lend a hand; and thinks, heading toward the gate, that he's done everything without detection. His mouth is pursing into a cocky whistle at the moment that a voice raises behind him, clipped and frigid. 

"Yu-furen wishes you to return and speak with her." 

He turns to see a woman, taller and dressed in paler colors than most of the Jiang, standing stiff as a clay statue. 

"I was just passing through," he tries saying. He really didn't want to be introduced to the terror of Lotus Pier. "I've got places I need to—"

The statue about-faces and marches off, with the unmistakeable air of someone expecting you to fall in line. Xue Yang closes his teeth on his words and follows, sullen. He won't risk Yu-furen declaring him a criminal because he wouldn't jump to her call, or whatever else she might be capable of. At least it's not far—Yu-furen is immediately noticeable, for the wide berth cleared around her and the cold eye with which she sleeps the landscape. 

Said gaze lands on Xue Yang, and goes from ice to fire. His neck begins to prickle in a way that would have him turning tail and running if he was a thieving kid in Kuizhou; but he has to march forward. Stupid fucking martial arts world and its stupid rules for behaving. 

Yu-furen is tall and lovely, but her eyes are dark and mouth sour enough to mar it as her gaze sweeps over Xue Yang. He feels judged, and definitively discarded. 

The feeling only increases when she steps forward, snaps, "Hold out your hand," and, when he reflexively obeys, drops something into it. Xue Yang's chest tightens; it's the charm he'd made for Jiang Yanli, the cord looking frayed, as if it had been pulled off in a hurry. The slide of shadow over it making the magpie seem to ruffle its feathers in fury.

Yu-furen puts her hand back down by her side. She says, bluntly, "Are you trying to ruin my daughter's reputation?"

Xue Yang starts, a mixture of anger and anxiety rising in his throat. "It's not—"

"Don't dare to lie to me and say 'It's not like that.' I'm not naive to the ways of boys like you." Her mouth pulled, as if at some unpleasant memory. "But you're nearly more brazen than I expected. Waiting until her brother and father were gone..."

"I just thought she might be lonely!"

"My daughter," Yu-furen says, taking another step closer, "is not the daughter of a beggar, or even an ordinary workman. She is not—" and her words take on a new, precise, sharpness, "—a girl at an entertainment house."

Xue Yang can't get his breath for a moment. 

When he does get it, it's not for much good. His head is buzzing, in the high hideous way it does when he gets really upset; when he can only think of the worst possible things to say. And there's no turning and running to go hit trees in the forest, not right now. 

"Living like this, don't you think she ever wishes she were an ordinary worker's daughter?" he asks. "Or even anything else?" 

Pain splinters hot and bright over his jaw; a slap and something more, a hot smoking agony that jerks for just a moment through his skin, forces an injured yelp from his mouth. He clutches his jaw, color swimming behind his eyes, coalescing for a moment into an illustration in a sword catalogue. Zidian. 

Yu-furen is pale with fury, when he looks back up. She puts a finger in his face, Zidian still sparking across the curve of her knuckles. "I will not see you here again, if I can prevent it," she says. "I can at least forbid my daughter to meet alone with a rogue cultivator's no-name student, a brat raised by a whore—yes, I made sure that I found out all I could, when it was apparent Jiang Fengman wasn't going to question the three of you at all. He may not care for his own family's reputation, but I will defend what's mine. Do you understand?"

His belly feels hot and tight, like he's swallowed down all his anger and it's about to rip out, leave him slack and empty. For now, it just trembles on the edge of bursting, a hot pressure. "You insulted me first," he says. "How come you're also the one that hit me?" 

Yu-furen scoffs. "Have I insulted you? What is there to insult? I'm simply speaking the truth. And as for hitting, if you were a disciple of the Jiang I'd see to it that you were beaten until you couldn't stand for a week—for a month or three! If you try anything like this again, rest assured I'll see it happen. If your shizun tries to dispute it, I'll simply have to tell him that he didn't discipline you enough himself."

She's looking down on him like—like—Xue Yang bites down on his tongue, hard and sudden, for the shock of pain to drag him away from the path his thoughts were spiraling. In the moment of vibrant blankness, he smiles sickly and fake, and dips his head. Just like Meng-xiong always advises. Won't he be proud? "Of course," he says. "Excuse me then, Yu-furen. I'll leave first." 

Walking away feels like dragging his feet through thick mud. He want to turn and bite back at her, but he just licks blood off his own teeth, repeating a simple phrase like a mantra, trailing a thousand little justifications after it. 

You can't hurt her. She's Jiang Yanli's mother. You can't hurt her. She's Jiang Cheng's mother. You can't hurt her. She might beat you. You can't hurt her. You'd get caught right away. You can't hurt her. What would Meng Shi think if you didn't come home? You can't hurt her. You can't—

That gets him to the gate. To the nearest packed-dirt back alley, where he yanks out his sword and buries it in the ground with all his strength, curling it over it with the force; then he hangs there, beginning to shake. He feels sick with anger and, as the adrenaline starts to die away, fear. Will he really be turned away from Lotus Pier, will Yu-furen tell what she knows to Jiang Yanli, to Wei-xiong and Jiang Cheng—and then the fear blooms into more anger, until it feels like his teeth will snap from gritting, and his shoulders ache. 

He sleeps uneasy, when he makes himself go back to the small room he'd rented, and spends half the morning debating whether to go back to Lotus Pier. Finally, he does—in defiance more than anything; whatever might happen, he burns with fury at the thought of Yu-furen thinking she's cowed him. Luckily, she isn't out and about, but neither is Jiang Yanli.

"She's shut up with Yu-furen today," one of the younger Jiang cousins tells him, sounding like he's talking about someone that's died. Xue Yang can't blame him. "Probably getting lectured about her engagement."

The second sentence hits Xue Yang like an unexpected punch. 

"Her what," he says. 

"Haven't you heard? She's engaged to that peacock, Jin Zixuan." The young Jiang cousin shakes his head solemnly. "I'd never marry someone from the Jin." 

Jiang Xiaohui, finished with her archery, comes over to whack the small cousin lightly upside the head. "Like you'd have the chance to! Don't just repeat things you hear from Wei Wuxian, Jin Zixuan is a good match. And you know it was made by Yu-furen and Jin-furen long ago, so what's the point of complaining about it?" 

The young cousin, defiantly, mutters, "Jin Zixuan complains about it. Shixiong said that when the Jin sect made a visit in the past, he looked at jie once and then never paid any more attention to her. Like she was too plain for him to take notice of!"

Xue Yang hasn't thought about Jin Zixuan since he'd heard that he and Meng Yao share a birthday; that Meng Yao had been turned away at the same time he was celebrated. He'd resented him then, as a loyal shidi, but had saved most of his ire for Jin Guangshan. Clearly this was an oversight. Jin Zixuan also deserved to have his dick kicked in. 

Jiang Xiaohui says firmly, "That's just an assumption. Maybe he was feeling sick that day; maybe he'll grow to love her when they start seeing more of each other. Many things can happen, but no matter how you and shixiong complain about it, the engagement isn't going to be broken, all right? So be civil about it!"
Seeming to remember that Xue Yang is there, she says apologetically, "Don't mind what you've heard, please. It's just silly gossip. Who were you here to see?"

Xue Yang, with difficulty, shrugs.

"Nobody, really. Just stopping by."