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Ren Yixin has been up since sunrise like most of her clan. Unlike them, however, she allows herself more time to simply remain in bed, enjoying the sounds of a world coming alive. Unfortunately, Ren Yixin only has so long before her daughter barges into the room, hair a mess, three pairs of earrings in one hand, the other holding twice as many hairpins.
Her daughter doesn’t manage to sit still or keep quiet as Ren Yixin helps her choose her accessories and does her hair, but it is welcome chatter and a ritual Ren Yixin rarely gets to indulge in anymore, grown as her daughter is now.
They have sent messengers to Lotus Pier before, showing off their skills, and hosted other minor sects, but it is the first time their clan is graced with the presence of a great sect leader and his heir to foster closer relations.
The weeks leading up to this day have been nothing but one long, tumultuous effort to prepare their very best for their guest and Ren Yixin, for one, is quite happy to send their clan members to Lotus Pier the next time. The oldest have been bickering among themselves for a month and the youngest have spilled more ink than a donkey with a brush might. Caught between the two are the servants, polishing their floors from all the pacing and spilled ink.
Their clan isn’t grand in size or land, but they take pride in their skill and being commissioned by Yunmeng Jiang would help expand their business and reputation. Nobody wants to give their guest reason to believe they aren’t hoping for the best outcome possible.
Still, Ren Yixin cannot help but be glad to be exempt from the preparations. Her son will handle showing off the extent of their craft while her daughter walks as his example and Ren Yixin can retreat to her library and its peace instead of being swept up by the overall joyous but also very exhausting atmosphere. She’s always been quite happy in her solitude and will leave the more social duties to others in her clan.
She sends her children off with their clan head dressed in their second-best, enough to leave a positive impression but not too elegant to be mistaken for arrogance. While they pick up Sect Leader Jiang, Ren Yixin retreats into her library.
She has books to copy, designs to archive, and essays to grade. For all that Ren Yixin isn’t supposed to manage so many administrative tasks anymore, slowly handing them to her son, she finds herself drawn to them anyway.
Despite the commotion surrounding Sect Leader Jiang’s arrival, Ren Yixin’s day is mostly quiet. Occasionally, someone enters the library, but Ren Yixin spends most of the time at her desk by the window, overseeing the garden.
“And this is our library,” her son’s voice echoes from the side.
Ren Yixin looks up from her writing to find him showing two young boys around, both dressed in the disciple robes of Yunmeng Jiang. She guesses the left one, slightly taller, his robes a smidge nicer, is the heir, so the other one must be Sect Leader Jiang’s ward.
The shorter boy’s face scrounges up as he examines the shelves with a critical eye, reminding Ren Yixin just a little of their latest batch of kittens. Cute animals, but so very spoiled by their young apprentices that they refuse to eat anything but freshly caught fish. Their ability to catch mice is unpreceded, so no one dares to feed them leftovers anymore.
“You don’t have many manuals on sword fighting,” the short one points out while his martial brother nods before promptly poking the boy for his blunt tone.
Unable to help herself, Ren Yixin laughs, drawing the attention of her son and the two boys.
“What keen observation, young master,” Ren Yixin says. “Can you tell me what we have many manuals on?”
Understanding the prompt, both boys quickly look between the shelves, searching out the titles of their books and their content.
“Calligraphy!” exclaims the sect heir. “And talismans?”
His enthusiasm is adorable; were he Ren Yixin’s child, she’d pat his back for a well-done job. “Correct, young master. Has Sect Leader Jiang told you of our specializations?”
The Jiang sect heir glances at his martial brother before straightening up. “Your clan produces excellent talisman supplies, high-grade paper, and cinnabar of a quality seldom seen.”
Ren Yixin nods and urges the two boys to step closer to her desk. “My great-grandfather was a poor papermaker,” she tells the boys as she turns around one of the papers she’s been using to take notes. “The process took a long time, especially for a single man working independently, refusing to use cheaper materials.”
Ren Yixin smiled conspiringly. “My great-grandfather was quite the stubborn man. In any case, a traveling cultivator bought his paper when she ran out of paper to write her talismans on. And then, just two weeks later, she returned to his doorstep, willing to pawn what little jewelry she had for more of it!”
The boys listen attentively as Ren Yixin spins the tale of her family’s origin while sketching a talisman on her notepaper. The wind talisman is one of the first the children of the clan learn as it is simple enough to write and the reaction is an ideal measure of spiritual energy.
“Can you tell me what this one does?” she asks the boys as soon as she’s finished.
They lean over her desk, fingers hovering just above the talisman, afraid to touch it in case it might smudge the writing.
“Something with wind?” the shorter boy guesses. “Because of the radical?”
“Exactly,” Ren Yixin replies and activates the talisman with just a spark of her spiritual energy, lest she cause chaos in her library. Still, the wind gust is enough to tussle the boys’ hair. “Now, this is only the effect of a very simple talisman on scrap paper, but can you imagine what else you might do with it?”
From the corner of her eye, Ren Yixin sees her son grinning, likely recalling the day he heard the same lecture. He points at the sky when he catches her looking, a reminder to end the lesson soon. He probably has to return the children to their residence or continue the tour.
“Storms?” the short one asks, eyes wide and eager. “Could you create a whole storm just with that? Or power a boat, have the wind carry it down the river?”
That isn’t where Ren Yixin’s thoughts usually go with this talisman, it really is too basic for actions as grand as the boy is envisioning, but he’s clearly grasped the concept, so Ren Yixin inclines her head.
“Jiang Cheng!” the boy exclaims, shaking the arm of his martial brother. “Imagine putting this on the boats of the senior disciples when they watch swim training from the boats again, they’d just…” He shakes his hands, imitating a tree crown caught in a strong gust of wind.
The sect heir’s eyes light up for a second before he scowls. “We’d get into so much trouble with Jiang Chang.”
“That’s not a no!”
“Wei Wuxian!”
The two boys laughed on their way out of the library, but while the Jiang sect heir is quick to ask her son another question, Wei Wuxian glances back at her. As far as Ren Yixin knows, Yunmeng Jiang doesn’t teach more about talismans than the other great sects, which isn’t much at all as they have the time and ability to instruct their disciples in the sword path. As useful as talismans are, they do require additional study and Ren Yixin has yet to meet a cultivator who uses them regularly in battle.
She doubts the craft is particularly captivating for little boys dreaming of becoming heroes.
Ren Yixin turns around the talisman and returns to her notes.
Wei Wuxian isn’t really sure why he’s here.
Well, that isn’t entirely correct. He’s visiting the Ren Clan because Shijie is in Meishan visiting her grandparents and nobody wanted to leave him at Lotus Pier alone with Madam Yu. While Wei Wuxian is confident in his ability to stay out of trouble and out of her way, experience speaks of a different tale. He isn’t ungrateful, the trip has been fun so far! Since Uncle Jiang brought him home, Wei Wuxian hasn’t been so far from Lotus Pier or so close to Yiling. The trip on the boat had been filled with laughter and Uncle Jiang telling him and Jiang Cheng plenty of stories, one more amazing than the other. Some of them had even been about his parents.
Uncle Jiang doesn’t often speak of them, but Wei Wuxian understands. He barely remembers his parents, but Uncle Jiang was close with them and had years’ worth of memories. Recalling all those precious moments when knowing they’d died so young must hurt him too, so Wei Wuxian doesn’t ask.
Their trip feels almost like a pleasant vacation to Wei Wuxian until the moment Uncle Jiang and Jiang Cheng attend the meeting with the Clan leader and Wei Wuxian is left to his own devices, which brings him to his current predicament.
He’s standing in the entryway to the library, waiting for something to signal him that he ought to enter the room. Yesterday, Madam Ren had been kind enough to show him and Wei Wuxian a little talisman. Her son, their guide on the first day, told them that it really was a child’s work and his mother is capable of much grander feats.
At Lotus Pier, the senior disciples can use blank talismans to draw up protections for a nighthunt, but Wei Wuxian has never seen them use it for something as frivolous as tousling someone’s hair. They just put you in a headlock, mess you up good, and toss you in the river.
So Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what he’s doing at the library. Writing talismans requires good calligraphy and Wei Wuxian’s is kind of terrible. Sitting still and doing nothing for hours is a trouble. He regularly got kicked out of meditation classes for causing a ruckus. Nowadays, one of the senior disciples takes pity on him and runs him ragged during a training spar before sending him off for meditation.
Wei Wuxian should go back to their quarters or head to the city to buy a souvenir for Shijie, but instead, he’s standing here because he keeps thinking about Madam Ren’s words, about storms being summoned by nothing more than lines on paper.
Still, he hesitates—
“Are you going to keep standing there, Wei-gongzi?”
Wei Wuxian jumps out of his skin as he turns around, nearly stumbling over his feet. Madam Ren smiles at him and steps into her library. She doesn’t look like any of the scholars at Lotus Pier, who are all old, gray, and boring. Madam Ren also has streaks of gray in her hair, but it only makes her look experienced standing among her books. Despite the light green color of her dress, there are no ink blots on her robes. Maybe she has a talisman for that as well, Wei Wuxian’s robes are permanently stained with ink and he doesn’t write half as much as she seems to.
Wei Wuxian wonders about that too. The Ren Clan are a minor clan, and while they aren’t poor, they most certainly aren’t wealthy. When Wei Wuxian still lived on the streets, he learned to gauge a person’s wealth from their clothes and whether they might be worth robbing. The dresses of the Ren Clan are all finely made, works of art that must have taken ages to embroider. Shijie had embroidered Wei Wuxian’s latest ribbon, which had taken her days.
“I’m sorry, Madam Ren,” Wei Wuxian apologizes. “I didn’t mean to stand in your way.”
Madam Ren is clearly amused by his antics. “What were you meaning to do then?”
If Wei Wuxian knew, he wouldn’t be standing here now, would he? He has no answer for her, but instead of being slighted, Madam Ren just signs him to follow her. She has him sit at a desk next to the one she was working on yesterday and disappears between the rows of shelves for a while. When she returns, it is with books and paper.
“Can you tell me how you’d turn my little gust of wind into a storm?” Madam Ren asks him.
Wei Wuxian eyes her suspiciously, but her inquiry seems to be honest.
“I’d make it bigger?”
Madam Ren nods and writes yesterday’s talisman on a blank sheet of paper. “Try to make it bigger.”
Taking her literally, Wei Wuxian copies the talisman, changing its size. When he is done, he waits expectantly for Madam Ren’s reaction. She looks over his work and laughs.
“Your creativity and imagination are your freedom, not necessarily the length of your brushstrokes,” Madam Ren explains kindly and modifies his work. She doesn’t add much, a single radical really, which seems rather minimalistic.
“This doesn’t turn it into a storm, but it should produce more wind than my old one.” She pauses and looks him over before glancing out of the window. “Do you want to try?”
Wei Wuxian is on his feet before she finishes the question. Madam Ren doesn’t take him to the central courtyard but to a wide, open training field with suspicious burn marks.
“I imagine you’ve been taught how to activate a talisman.”
Wei Wuxian nods eagerly. “Yes!”
He activates the talisman and watches as it rustles the leaves of the trees, his own hair smacking him in the face in the process.
“Well done,” Madam Ren praises him. “How do you think this could be improved?”
“Adding direction?” Wei Wuxian suggests, mostly as a joke, but Madam Ren gives him writing utensils and lets him try adding directions. By the time they are called for dinner, Wei Wuxian has figured out how to make the wind head in a specific direction and has about a hundred more ideas.
“Find me in the library again tomorrow,” Madam Ren tells him before he dashes off to dinner, wanting to tell Jiang Cheng all about it.
The rest of their stay passes quicker than Wei Wuxian had anticipated. Every day, he finds Madam Ren in the library. When he is there before her, he writes down all his thoughts for her to go through the moment she arrives. Wei Wuxian can’t recall when he last put so much effort into learning something new. Maybe it’s just that this is the first time he’s learning something on his own without a deadline or a limit hanging over him. He asks one question after another, and no matter how bizarre, Madam Ren answers them all to the best of her abilities.
On their last day, Wei Wuxian is almost sad to leave. As on the first day, he hesitates in the entryway of the library.
“Silly child,” Madam Ren tells him after he confesses so. “Our clans have business with another now, don’t they? I doubt it’ll be a hardship for a courier to carry an additional letter.”
Wei Wuxian has never written a letter, to whom would he write? He knows no one but his martial siblings and they hardly need to read a letter when he can just skip to their side.
“I await your questions, Wei-gongzi,” Madam Ren says when they depart from the pier. “Next time you visit, don’t hesitate anymore.”
Wei Wuxian grins at her. “Yes, Teacher!”
A boy is standing in the doorway to her ransacked library.
“Ren Yixin,” he asks in song, years and brutalities separated from the child she once taught, “do you want revenge?”