Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fourth Uncle saw the Jin nobles entering the camp off Qiongqi Way before Wen Ning did, and when he caught sight of them, the first thing he said to her was, “Keep your head down.”

Wen Ning bristled at once, stopping where she’d knelt, though she understood. She was too impulsive in this place, too quick to fight — whether in defense of others or sheer spite; she had bruises and cuts to show for it. It was simple: Fourth Uncle was protecting her, or trying to. Looking down as she had been told to, Wen Ning contemplated the large rock her hands were resting on, which she’d been about to move along with others.

They were supposed to clear a path down to the valley. They were supposed to make it easier to haul the bodies of their own dead down before they were crudely buried — really just tossing dirt over the corpses in hopes that it would hide the smell and sight of decay, which was unpleasant for the guards. Even those who wouldn’t bat an eye at dashing a child’s head in didn’t care for what nature did in the aftermath, and found death easier to stomach than rot.

Wen Ning should have kept moving. She knew full well she’d be in trouble if she was spotted acting lazy, be beaten or given some worse task or both. But she froze as the strangers’ conversation grew nearer and she recognized names.

“The hunt should really be something, assuming my cousin doesn’t manage to ruin it somehow.” It was a man speaking, and when Wen Ning raised her eyes a fraction, she could see he’d stopped on the raised path above them, his white boots and silvery robes kept carefully away from the dirt the prisoners worked in. “We’re sure to find some impressive prey for it.”

“There’d have to be, to keep a cultivator like yourself busy, Jin-gongzi,” said another male voice from beside him.

Why had they stopped? For the view? Wen Ning had been shoveling dirt over bodies until late last night with the others. The pit on the dark side of the valley hadn’t yet filled for the day. But still, how appealing of a view could it possibly be? Unless slave labor was pleasing to the eye… it was only Fourth Uncle’s hand on her arm that made her realize she was shaking with anger. Such a casual tone, for where these bastards were...

“What cousin, Jin-gongzi? Not that Meng Yao?”

Oh. Wen Ning remembered Meng Yao, vaguely. In a line of interrogators searching in vain for news of Jiang-zongzhu and evidence of further sabotage, she was one of the few who hadn’t laid a hand on Wen Ning — and one of the few to make her cry, though not speak. How horribly fitting, that she’d joined with the Jin sect.

“She’s Jin Guangyao now,” the first answered, “unfortunately. And yes; Jin-zongzhu’s letting her organize it, for some reason. Showing off Wen Ruohan’s killer for the public I suppose.”

“Isn’t she the whore’s daughter? I’ll bet they’re showing her off,” a third voice snickered.

“Well, my uncle has never had trouble finding uses for whores,” the first man said, which earned him a burst of outright laughter from his companions.

“We may have to leave most of it to her, but you all can do your part too. We’ll only get the best sorts of prey with good bait.” Wen Ning’s stomach dropped as she understood instantly, simply by guessing at the worst, what they were here to do.

“Right,” said the second voice. “How many?” Above her, she watched as the young master walked back and forth — pacing like a tiger, she thought.

“Hm… we’ll need a lot of prey. All of the great sect leaders will be coming, not to mention the minor ones. I’m sure our cultivators will win the most, of course, but Lan-zongzhu and Nie-zongzhu are quite skilled as well. Even Jiang-zongzhu…”

“I’ve heard things about the head disciple, too,” another man added. “Wei Wuxian. She’s supposed to be impressive. Assuming Jiang-zongzhu brings her.” Wen Ning felt her heart leap at that. Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng — even after everything, if she could see them, maybe… surely they wouldn’t put up with her peoples’ fate?

“Probably. There’s something else too. We’ve got a little competition planned, we’ll need a few for that too. Let’s say forty in all.”

Even with everything, wasn’t it possible he remembered?

“Take the weak ones. Old ones, cripples, children. Whoever can’t work much.”

With that, the disciples (they were disciples, not mere soldiers) actually started paying them mind. Fourth Uncle gestured once again to Wen Ning to keep her head down and this time, she listened, only glancing side to side and trying to identify, aside from him, who might be in danger of being targeted for the crimes of being less than useful laborers. It wasn’t as if she could do anything in the long run, but maybe she could distract. Even as she was thinking that, it didn’t take long for them to be found where they were, even as Fourth Uncle, sensing the danger of approaching footsteps, moved a little farther down the slope and turned away. She heard someone call, “Hey, you,” in his direction, and knew what was coming.

That was, perhaps, the moment when Wen Ning lost her mind, because she raised her head and found herself standing. She had to do something. She had to do something. As if she was the one being addressed, she looked up at the disciple standing above her, his face shadowed by the sun which lit him from behind. “What do you want?” she called back, and he started to say,

“Not you,” before he stopped. When he spoke again, there was a tone in his voice which warned of something worse to come: interest. What had caught his attention? “Wait,” he said, apparently having forgotten the old man who had successfully slipped from his sight. That was something. “Come here.” That made Wen Ning curse under her breath, but what was the alternative? She did her best to climb up and ended up more or less kneeling on the path next to — damn it. The young master was there beside a familiar face she couldn’t quite place.

The familiar one was the voice she’d heard, but this time the young master demanded of him,
“What do you want her for? She looks healthy enough.”

Yes, his thin face and high cheekbones she recalled...

“No, I know… I mean, I remember her from the Gusu lectures; it’s Wen Qionglin.”

Oh. Of course. At that, the young master’s eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t she the one the Wei girl complained about before?”

They were talking as if she wasn’t there, so she pushed herself to her feet. If she could just keep their attention… was there a chance she could get herself somewhere she could see them? And if she could just talk to them… it might change nothing, but she felt bound to at least try.

“Jin-gongzi,” she started, and he stepped forward immediately, closing the distance to shove her down so she fell to sitting. He looked down at her at once, glaring.

“Shut up. Who the hell said you could speak to me?” he snapped, his tone sliding into something harsher than the casual way he’d talked of sacrificing her people moments ago.

“I need to speak to Jiang-zongzhu.” The young master laughed sharply.

“You need to? What makes you think you have the right?”

“I know him,” she blurted. “He’s my…”

All at once, her voice caught in her throat, unable to pronounce the word ‘friend’. Sheer doubt silenced her.

“What kind of stupid lie is that?” the young master demanded with the utmost derision, and then looked to his companion. “What Wen bitch has anything to do with the leader of a great sect?”
“I don’t know, Jin-gongzi,” he said, staring at the ground. “But she did — spend time around him. He does know her.”

“I want to see him,” she said, audaciously, and this time, the young master kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

“I should feed you to the beasts,” he hissed. “That’d shut you up.”

“Are we taking her with us, Jin-gongzi?” asked the one beside him. He seemed to consider, and then his eyes lit up with a kind of malice Wen Ning was familiar with. She knew it better on Wen Chao’s face: the look he had when he’d thought of a particularly interesting torture.

“Yes,” he said. “If she wants Jiang-zongzhu so much… let’s see what he thinks of her now, after everything her people have done. I’ve heard how he was in battle; it should be entertaining to see how she does under that whip of his.”

With that, he gestured to his disciples, and one of them grabbed her under the arm and hauled her to her feet. “Are you coming quietly, or do we need to tie your hands?”

Wen Ning bit the inside of her cheek, because after so much fighting back against her captors the urge to lash out was strong. Instead she said, “I’ll come quietly.”

“Right,” said the young master. “Take her with.” Then that glint returned to his eyes and he smirked. “Let her help us pick out the weak ones.”

That plan of Jin-gongzi’s did not work out. When Wen Ning was taken along through the camp, surveying targets to trap beasts by tying them with spirit lures, she did as she was told in that she went quietly. She went so quietly, in fact, that she refused resolutely to speak, or so much as gesture in anyone’s direction. They hit her another time for that, but realized quickly that such a thing wouldn't break her resolve. Wen Ning had spent too much time being interrogated by her own sect for a simple blow to sway her; she could do it all day if she wanted.

It didn’t take all day, though. The people were selected, more or less at random. For them, shackles were brought out, and a few looked on Wen Ning standing apart with suspicion, one with disdain, and another pity, because the man holding her close had at some point decided to put his hand on her waist. Wen Ning had barely noticed until then because she was used to being manhandled at this point. But it looked… well. Like maybe their interest was different than it was. That had happened. Women disappeared for an hour, a day after catching some guard’s eye. Sometimes they came back; sometimes they were added to the body count in the valley. A few had disappeared entirely, taken back as a personal prize, until the man in question got bored. Only then did it actually occur to Wen Ning that it was entirely possible that she was one of them after all — a gift of an opportunity for someone to vent his hatred on. It was oddly humiliating, that knowledge, though it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to her, or that would if Jiang Wanyin was not the person he’d been before the war.

Wen Ning didn’t want to make that assumption. She knew that between their sects, her saving his life could not possibly outweigh what Qishan had done to Yunmeng, but maybe between the two of them — if she could just speak to him — it would mean something. As she was marched back from the camp, ahead of the miserably bound and condemned men, women and children, she struggled to think what she could even say, or beg for. At the very least she could plead with him to look at the conditions here, to hope the horrors would move his heart to intervene with Jin-zongzhu — Jin-xiandu now — to be less harsh. But then, wasn’t he going to see these… human targets? Would that change anything? Her head spun with fears and hopes and possibilities.

It was slow going to the edge of the camp. They had been serious about choosing the old and crippled first; few could move fast with hobbled, aching or short legs. Eventually, though, Wen Ning was pulled ahead, and half-dragged through the heavily guarded gate at the end of the hilltop’s path, where horses, beautifully saddled and bridled, were waiting. This was where the men split. Some prepared to depart in the direction of Hundred Phoenix Mountain. Wen Ning was brought with the others, to go back to Jinlintai. They sat her in front of one disciple on his horse, a white doupeng thrown about her shoulders to hide the thin, dirty black clothes beneath. It was a mockery of some triumphal ride home, to a place that was not hers. Just another dungeon awaited her, nothing more or less except who was in it, and who would come to visit. The disciple from Gusu had his arm around her waist again, unnecessarily tight when she could stay on the horse very well. He’d be gone soon, she thought. Or at least she could hope.

When she arrived at her destination, a suitably dank and poorly-lit cell somewhere beneath the hill on which Jinlintai was built, she was left to the mercy of several men for a brief time, to do what they would during the hunt and make ready for after. The technical term used was that they should break her in, so that Jiang-zongzhu would have an easier time. It seemed they had been empowered by the example Jin-gongzi had shown with his earlier rough treatment, ordered only not to kill her, and leave Jiang-zongzhu something to work with. Her face was bruised from an altercation two days before; they were ordered to leave it alone. Instead, they had decided, anywhere else would do. Whatever it took for her to be broken with enough left to keep the sect leader occupied and entertained.

The dungeon, being underground, was cold in a way that belied the end of summer. That was ostensibly why one of the meager two robes she wore was taken from her: because the chill would be unpleasant. ‘Taken’ was too innocuous a word, really. It took two men to hold her back at first, a third to untie it, and when it couldn’t be taken off because every time they let go of an arm she lashed out, tore it instead. It left her with her shirt, skirt and trousers, and she only stopped fighting at the threat of those going too, because she really didn’t want to greet Jiang Wanyin without any clothing.

She was rewarded for that bit of obedience with a pair of shackles, and when she didn’t stay still enough, a hard strike to the side of her face, and a palm charged with spiritual energy that hit the center of her chest with enough force to slam her back into the stone wall. Her head hitting it made her vision go starry, sent pain reverberating around her skull as well as the spread from the impact on her chest where something felt nearly cracked. When she cursed at the pain, that same thin-faced man who had been a boy only a few years ago wrapped his hands around her throat and choked her until her body thrashed on pure reflex and then weakened, only dropping her when she was on the edge of passing out, and she ended on her knees after falling.

When she had recovered her voice enough, though her throat felt raw and like there was something lodged in it, she spat, “Bastard.”

This time, he said with vitriol to echo what she’d heard in the young master’s voice, and years and years before that, “Wen bitch.”

“That’s creative,” she snapped back acidly. “No one’s called me that before.”

His boot caught her in the stomach this time and sent her sprawling. “Do you never stop talking?” he growled, and this time Wen Ning didn’t answer immediately, struggling harder to get air back in her lungs. He looked away from her, at the other disciples apparently waiting their turn, and said as if she wasn’t there, “She’s going to give Jiang-zongzhu a headache if she keeps up like this.”

Another of them nodded, and Wen Ning’s heart sank when he said with a smirk, “Give me another turn? Let’s see if we can fix it.”

The beating took a lot out of her. She fainted at one point from the pain in her ribs and difficulty breathing, and an infusion of qi had to be used to wake her and preserve her a little longer.

The greatest indignation she felt was from the gag — a strip of cloth torn from her stolen robe and tied tight enough between her teeth that her jaw ached. She was well used to shackles from being a prisoner at Qishan, and physical harm was almost mundane at this point. However, in the course of attempts to make her weak enough so as to be easy to “work with”, it had been decided on, not just because she’d started screaming out of spite, but because someone had suggested that she might bite. That wouldn’t have been a bad idea, she thought vaguely, but she didn’t get the chance to try it. After that, they’d decided their work was thorough enough when she was sufficiently exhausted that she lay still, but was checked to be still conscious and more or less capable of breathing. Softened up, someone said. Easier to handle. Wen Ning was starting to doubt that they were talking about Zidian. Either way, they talked like she was nothing more than a disobedient animal in need of training.

She wasn’t. She refused to be made to think so now, after so much resistance already.

She could only hope that Jiang Cheng would see her as something more than another Wen-dog; more than a target; more than prey.

Chapter Text

It took Jiang Cheng several moments to recognize Wen Ning, with her hair fallen in her face and her scraped, bruised wrists held defensively in front of her despite being chained together. But then she roused, threw back her head so that the black curtains hiding her features fell away. He saw the blooming bruise on her cheek, the cloth gag tied between her teeth, and the burning glare in her eyes and felt his stomach flip.

“Why is she,” he started before he realized what he was asking, and Jin Zixun broke in with a laugh.

“Ah, sorry about that, Jiang-zongzhu. She was screaming her head off earlier; I think she was hoping to annoy the guests.”

“Oh. That… makes sense,” Jiang Cheng said stupidly. “What do you — what should…”

Jin Zixun raised an eyebrow as if he’d missed something obvious. “I don’t know, Jiang-zongzhu. I would’ve thought you would find the audacity of claiming you were her friend after all her sect has done to yours to be worth punishment. I’d suggest teaching her otherwise? She’s your gift, though; you’re free to do what you will. And,” he grabbed Wen Ning’s hair to draw her head up, “There are other uses for women. I doubt it’s her first time.”

At Jin Zixun’s words, though she never lost the anger, Wen Ning dropped her gaze from Jiang Cheng to stare at the floor instead, and Jiang Cheng had to make a concerted effort not to flinch. It was so casual. Expected. Did they really — ? “Don’t be squeamish,” Jin Zixun rolled his eyes. “It’s not half so bad as what the Wen-dogs did to our women, if they caught any. Besides, I’m sure she’s amenable.” Jiang Cheng blinked, which made him laugh again. “Oh. Didn’t you know she likes you? Her face when I found her… she begged to see you. I can’t imagine she’d refuse you anything.” Wen Ning looked for all the world as though she hadn’t heard him, like nothing he said could touch her.

Against logic and practicality, impulse which was driven by nothing less than horror made him say, “I would like some privacy.”

Jin Zixun clapped him on the back and he almost jumped at it. “Alright then. Growing a spine now, are we?”

He came very close to snapping at Jin Zixun not to speak to him that way, but settled for a terse nod instead. “What happens after?” he asked.

Jin Zixun shrugged.“Keep her as your own prisoner, if you don’t want to kill her. Or we can hold onto her, of course.”

“If I don’t want to,” Jiang Cheng started without thinking, and cut himself off. It made sense, in the end. Why wouldn’t it? But he wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

Jin Zixun looked over his shoulder as he made to leave. “Jiang-zongzhu,” he said almost warningly, “You shouldn’t forget your parents. Don’t be too soft on her just because she once tricked her fellow students into thinking she was sweet and innocent.”

Jiang Cheng squared his jaw, and thought briefly of what Wen Chao had said about women’s natures while standing over his mother’s corpse. Then he took the anger at the echo of Wen Chao he saw in Jin Zixun and formed it into what he hoped was a convincing act, glaring not where he wanted to but at Wen Ning. “Don’t worry, Jin-gongzi,” he said icily, and held up his right hand, letting Zidian spark. “I know what I’m doing.”

The door closed and locked behind him, Jiang Cheng noticed Wen Ning’s gaze flick to the whip before settling on his face. Though her eyes were brimming with emotion, he couldn’t be sure if it was anger, fear, or some mingling of the two, only that the intensity made him feel unbalanced as he thought through what to do. The current of energy still ran through Zidian around his wrist, fist curled at his side, reminding him what he was—maybe—supposed to be doing. Jiang Cheng took a step forward, the lighting snaking out into his hand to drag along the floor after, and Wen Ning’s eyes widened. Then she drew back unexpectedly, pressing herself into the corner of the room, and ducked her head.

Jiang Cheng froze, feeling ill.

What exactly was he doing? Paying the Wen sect back for what they’d done to the Jiang, in theory. But… this wasn’t as simple as looking at some group of strangers at a distance.

This wasn’t the sect; it was Wen Ning, and only her, with no collaborators or allies, without anyone but him to be afraid of. Anything he did now was between the two of them, any punishment hers alone.

It was impossible to pay her back in kind. First, because however terribly he whipped her, however many bones he broke, he could never replicate the horrible half-death of a shattered golden core. Second, because she had done none of those things to him, and to pay her back in kind would mean to free her from the sect to which he was beholden if he wanted to rebuild his own.

Though the gag was still muffling her, he could hear Wen Ning’s heavy breathing, getting faster. Another step and the lighting from Zidian died entirely. When Jiang Cheng was right in front of her, he reached behind her head to untie the gag. Wen Ning stiffened under his hands, and then as he stepped away and she looked up to see him without Zidian ready to attack, relaxed minutely.

“Wen Ning,” he hissed in a whisper, “What happened to you?”

“He did,” she said, lifting her chin at the door Jin Zixun had left through.

“I mean—how did you get here to begin with? Jin Zixun said that you were brought from a prison…” Wen Ning nodded rather curtly

“Jiang Wannyin, I’m not a braggart,” Wen Ning said hoarsely, “I won’t try to say I’m some sort of war hero. But I do wish there was some way to make people understand that I’m not a traitor twice over. I betrayed Wen Ruohan because A-jie didn’t raise me to live by the kind of path he did, and because—” she swallowed. “—because you and Wei Ying… were my friends, back then. But when the Wen fell, the Jin just shuffled A-jie and I from one prison to another.”

He said uselessly. “I didn’t know… about the Wen, I mean. That they…”

“Of course you didn’t; how would you know what goes on behind closed doors and enemy lines? Were you assuming I’ve gotten along smoothly? Deceived Wen Ruohan and slipped right back into my old place and his side? I’m not that good of a liar. They guessed where I’d gone, so they threw me in a cell.”

She tossed her head to one side, which bared her neck as her hair fell down her back instead. The angle, and the way that her single robe had slipped, bared a series of patterns, stark white and reddish-brown, raised and flat, which were too familiar to Jiang Cheng. Scars. Most of them looked old — older than the time after the war would allow — and he couldn’t fail to notice how many were burns.

“What is that?” he asked instead of something more specific like who gave them to you or why.

“See for yourself,” Wen Ning said. She raised her shackled hands. “I can’t really undo my robe.” Jiang Cheng felt his cheeks burning, but he couldn’t argue with her point.

He reached out and tentatively undid the die at her side, slipping it down enough that he could see more of her skin, and the full, distorted imprint of the Wen insignia crossed over by later whip scars. At once, the brands Wen soldiers carried came to his mind, and then This is my fault. She’d never have been punished so severely had she not transgressed first, and at the time, so much as acknowledging his existence in the presence of Wen Chao would have done precisely that.

It was thinking of Wen Chao, the way his lip had twisted into a sneer when he said vile things about Wei Ying—to her and to him—which jolted him as he realized how much it recalled Jin Zixun, particularly in one unsavory aspect: “Do they really… what he said about women…”

Wen Ning’s answer held no hesitation. “Yes,” she said flatly. “They do whatever they want, with any of us, and when they’re done and we’re dead they desecrate the bodies too. Whatever our soldiers did to their people, theirs do to ours, and it’s all just that much more suffering. Is that so hard to believe?”

“And you,” he started, before she shrugged.

“I’ve taken a lot of beatings,” Wen Ning said. “I know how; I don’t care. I just haven’t had any practice with that sort of violence. What you don’t know is always harder to deal with. Like your whip. I don’t know how to be whipped with lightning either.”

She had carried him on her back from Lotus Pier. She had risked her life, and this was her reward for all of it, from Jiang Cheng’s allies—from his sect, from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said without thinking, “that you were hurt.”

“No you aren’t,” Wen Ning mumbled. “Or if you are, it won’t matter. Even if you walk away without laying a finger on me, what do you think they’ll do then? All the others they chose the day they brought me here were…”

Jiang Cheng frowned. “What?”

“Bait. To catch the monsters for the hunt. It was mostly children and old people, the ones who can’t work. No one they picked is meant to survive. Besides — they know I’m a cultivator now, that I was at the Gusu lectures. That’s a death sentence.”

There was so much that should’ve been no surprise. He remembered the decision to execute Wen cultivators. He’d supported it. If anyone else had described it, Jiang Cheng thought, it might have fazed him less. It was the Wen sect, the murderers of his people, and the other sects had every right. Like Jin Zixun had said — their people had done worse.

Hearing the way Wen Ning’s voice trembled made the surety waver a little, though. But it was the way she looked at him, without accusation, but with grief and indignation, which threw it off balance entirely. “I’m not an idiot, Jiang Wanyin. I know that according to every law and principle we deserve this. Don’t think for a moment that I’m going to take it quietly because of that. You — you can leave; I know you will. But don’t lie to yourself that no one from Dafan Wen did anything to aid you in this war.”

How was he supposed to forget? The idea that he ever had stung, only because it rang true. But now, how could he forget it? Jiang Cheng had a horrifying sense that when he left, it would be as she said. Wen Ning would die, and Wen Ning would haunt him.

It was different, it was all different. If she’d been standing before the archers, a chained target, would he have fired, because he wanted to or simply because he was being watched? Would that be so terrible? Anyone would have. Wei Wuxian had covered her eyes and loosed her arrows smiling to show off. Jiang Cheng and everyone he cared about had clapped. Hours ago that meant nothing.

“This would be easier if we hadn’t talked,” he blurted out.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Did I make it difficult?”

“Yes.” Wen Ning met his eyes and held his look steadily. He imagined himself at a greater distance, looking at her like this and drawing back a bow.

“Good,” she said. In his mind’s eye, the arrow dropped before it could be loosed.

“I’m not going to walk away and leave you,” he said, the words almost preceding the full formation of his thoughts. Wen Ning kept quite still, watching him warily. “I’m going to do what he suggested, and take you back to Lotus Pier. After that—do what you will; you’re free. But until then, just…”

“Act as if I’m betrayed or horrified or whatever will satisfy?” Jiang Cheng nodded, and Wen Ning lifted her head. “Strike that wall with Zidian,” she said, and when he did so without hesitation, she screamed as though it was she who had been shocked by the lightning, not the stone. Understanding suddenly, he did it again, and she yelped. Again, again, and Wen Ning had managed to bring tears to her own eyes, and now sobbed as though in great pain. Jiang Cheng, without laying a hand, wielded zidian until he was panting with exertion.

When he finally stopped, Wen Ning fell silent except for taking gulping breaths, and nodded again, subtly, in the direction of the door. Jiang Cheng’s voice stuck in his throat when he raised it enough for Jin Zixun to hear: “I’m… finished in here.” He didn’t know what else to say. When the door creaked open, Wen Ning cringed away from it as Jin Zixun stepped inside, grinning. “Had your fun, Jiang-zongzhu?”

The smile Jiang Cheng returned felt like more of a grimace. “Not quite, Jin-gongzi. I think I’d like to keep her after all.”