Chapter Text
“What is this?” Nie Minjgue stared down in irritation at the fancy lacquer box that was currently sitting in the middle of his desk. On the paperwork he had been meaning to get to. He had just known that the reports from the edges of Nie territory where it touched the areas that the Wen had onced controlled would be annoying.. Ever since Wen Ruohan’s death, there had been bitter internal struggles ongoing over who was actually going to take over the sect. It should have been Wen Xu by all logic but the younger son, Wen Chao, and his mother had decided to force the issue. Last news was that the Qishan Wen sect as a whole was fracturing, threatening to descend into civil war, and some of the smaller allied clans were pulling away. It was all inter-sect drama that didn’t affect Qinghe Nie yet but it was causing resentment to surge, and night hunts to be ignored in Wen territory. It meant that problems were being chased over into their borders, but directly intervening was tricky. So he’d gone out to get some actual exercise before sorting through the information about what was actually going on, and what he could actually do something about before the other thinking made him snap. Sparing had at least worked off some of the edge at least, enough for him to feel like he could think for once.
Even if he had been slightly annoyed that he couldn’t find Huisang, in order to force his brother to actually put his saber practice to use. Only to have his brother come strolling into his office with Nie Zonghui as if he hadn’t been hiding for the last few hours, and put this on the desk.
“That’s part of your birthday tribute this year!” Husisang said cheerfully, waving one of his fans around. This one looked like it was a new one, Nie Mingjue thought. Probably one of his little brother’s own creations, since he didn’t recognize it at all. Huisang might think he didn’t care about such a thing, but if it was his brother, he always noticed. “We had a caravan bring it in with the rest of the regular shipments. It’s a little early, but maybe they’re just trying to show their appreciation! Or stand out, maybe. Easier to get noticed when there’s not as much competition.” He said that as if it was obvious, as if it was a conclusion anyone could come to.
Nie Mingjue looked at him sharply. He knew that Huisang was smart, a lot smarter than the fluttering persona he sometimes tried to convince everyone else was his only trait. Granted most of the time he only used it to dodge training in ways that sounded so logical when you first heard them, and only later when he thought back on them did Nie Mingjue realize what had happened. It was more than a bit frustrating, because if Husiang would bother to put that intelligence to anything else related to the sect then it would take some of the tension off his own shoulders.
(And then Nie Mingjue wouldn’t be so terrified of what would happen after his cultivation dragged him down to his inevitable end. He hadn’t talked to Huisang about that yet in part because his brother was very good about slipping out of that particular conversation.)
Now wasn’t the time to bring any of that up - it would spook his brother right out of the room. So instead he turned his attention back to the gift he had been giving. Honestly, he hated a lot of the pomp and circumstance that being a sect leader entailed. He would rather get things done then hem and haw at a conference while trying to make nice with people he would much rather punch their teeth in. Diplomacy still wasn’t his greatest strength, he knew that, and knew he leaned a little hard on Xichen sometimes to help him find his way out a bit he’d fallen into. A -Huan never seemed to find doing it, but he felt guilty each time he was forced to do it. Nie Mingjue was the sect leader between the two of them!
He let out a breath. Now was not the time to think about Lan Xichen. Birthdays, at least for a sect leader, were one of those things that forced a sense of pompous pageantry. If he’d had his way, Nie Mingjue would have kept any celebration of his birthday small, confined his sect and the few people he actually held dear outside it. But because he was the sect leader, what he wanted didn’t matter. There would be a feast, one that would bring in some of the leaders of the other sects they actually had some sort of alliance with. They would show up with a retinue in order to make sure that the Nie sect knew how grateful they were to them. It always reminded Nie Mingjue uncomfortably of how Wen Ruohan had started demanding that they hold court for him towards the end. But if he didn’t follow through with the pageantry, then it would offend people for some unholy reason, and he would have to take up more time that he could spend actually doing things placating them. Or so several people had told him when he’d started contemplating doing such a thing.
So now all he could do was sigh as he picked up the box and examined it, “Who exactly is it from then?” He knew better than to check if it was safe - Nie Zonghui and Husiang wouldn’t have allowed it on his desk if they hadn’t already made sure of that.
“Ming sect,” Husiang answered, fanning himself, “they’re a smaller sect, near the foothills. They make such good paper down there though. It’s so useful for painting!”
“And for talismans I bet,” Nie Mingue said dryly. He didn’t recognize the name off-hand, but he wasn’t surprised that Huisang knew of sects that clearly had some sort of trade agreement with him. He might slack off when it came to cultivation training but he had a strangely complete knowledge of everything else to do with the sect. Nie Mingjue shook his head, “But I guess that’s why they sent in their gift so early. Easier to get noticed if there’s no one vying for our attention when it gets here.”
“Why da-ge!” Huisang said theatrically as he flicked his fan, “if you aren’t careful people will start to think that you actually know politics.”
Nie Mingjue snorted, “I’ve been the sect leader for how many years now?” he said as he picked up the box, and finally opened it. Inside, a snarling beast incredibly carved out of white jade stared at him from a bed of green silk. As he drew it out cautiously, he caught sight of the silk cord it was tied to, and the silver embellishments attached to that.
“A belt ornament?” Huisang had come to stand next to his desk and peered closely at it, “unusual choice, but it’s well made.”
“Mm,” Nie Mingue wasn’t usually one for accessories, but he supposed that Huisang had a point. He turned it over in his hands, examining it. The carving was curious on rather its own - although it was in the shape of a snarling beast it was also clearly not trying to emulate the Nie emblem at all. It wasn’t even close enough to be considered a stylistic representation, and a small sect like the Ming would have dared to send something that was inaccurate as a gift.
The jade also looked….old. Worn. Like it had been around for a while. An antique maybe?
“What do you think it’s actually supposed to represent?” Nie Zonghui had come over as well, “it’s not our emblem, but the design feels very…purposful.”
“Don’t know,” Nie Mingjue said as he ran a calloused thumb over the carving, “I don’t recognize it anyway. Huisang?” He held the pendant up so his brother could look at it. Husiang was always lurking around the markets of the nearby towns, or looking at books of art. There was always a chance that he might recognize it.
But after scrutinizing it for a moment, Huisang pursed his lips and gave a small headshake, “me neither,” he said, “it looks…antique, which suits you da-ge, but I couldn't pull it off. I could ask the Ming sect leader what’s going on when he…Da-ge?”
The last was said sharply as Nie Mingjue inhaled in surprise. Slowly the Nie sect leader lifted his thumb from the jade belt ornament. A small line of red welled across the calloused pad of this thumb. All of them stared at it for a moment before Nie Mingjue swiped a finger across it and wiped it away. “Must have been a rough patch,” he said, feeling more than a bit surprised. He hadn’t felt anything after all, at least until the brief spark of pain hit. It also took work to hurt a cultivator of his level. But it was nothing more than a paper cut, and was already gone by the time Huisang grabbed his hand to examine it.
“Are you sure?” Nie Zonghui said eyebrows drawn together slightly, “we didn’t bother to do anything but the most precautionary tests.”
“And even that’s too much,” Nie Mingjue had given up arguing with his people about this, mostly. But he still thought about it. He moved his finger across his thumb, wiping away the blood. “This is nothing. It would be stupid for a smaller sect to try doing anything. At least if it was poison or something, and I drop dead tomorrow, you’ll know who to go after to get revenge for me.”
Huisang wacked him lightly with his fan, “don’t even joke about that, da-ge!”
Nie Mingjue just snorted and put the jade ornament down. The cut had already healed - his core was too strong for it to take anything but a few moments, “then stop worrying about nothing, and make yourself useful by telling me what’s actually in these reports that’s worth caring about.”
Huisang was very quick to make an excuse to leave the room after that, and Nie Mingjue chuckled as he went back to actually running the sect.
He didn’t die that night, and the next day he actually wore the jade accessory on his belt. The little monster had managed to draw blood - he couldn't help but be a little fond of it. He would just have to avoid his brother or A-Huan finding that out. They would never let him live it down.
~*~*~
Several days later Nie Mingjue felt a surge of irritation as he pulled his sword out of the corpse of the largest of the boar yao that had come charging into a village. The few survivors that they’d managed to find had been far too shaken to give them many details, but they managed to track the group back to a clearing where their leader was waiting. The hard part had been wrangling all of them to make sure that none escaped.
Baxia rang with bloodlust in his head as finished, urging him to go find more to hunt, more to kill. Nie Mingjue took a breath, forcing those feelings down. His fault for letting that anger get the best of him - you gave any of the sabers the tiniest opening and their emotions became yours. You had to learn to not fall too far into it with their cultivation. If you didn’t, you risk succumbing to a qi deviation faster. The stronger you were, the stronger your saber was, and the easier it was to slip. Until eventually you took a step too far and it was too late. That was the grim reality for all the cultivators in their sect. You could only hold it off so long before you sank too deep.
But that would not be today for him. He turned to the rest of the cultivators that had come with him, “Do a sweep,” he commanded, “make sure we got them all, and that their resentment didn’t attract anything else that could cause us problems. Check for any unsettled ghosts. We don’t know how many people they’ve killed.”
His people knew all this, Nie Mingjue had brought only the best and had confidence in their training, but he had to make sure that they heard him. That they saw that he was fine, still himself, even with the itching under his skin and his saber whispering in the back of his mind. It got various sounds of ascent from all of them as they set off on their duties. All except Min Shuren, the most senior medic they had brought with them. She walked over to him as Nie Mingjue surveyed where the rest of his cultivators had gone, trying to weigh where he could be the most useful.
“Not you, sect leader,” she said when she reached him, as if she were reading his mind, “you need to let me look you over.”
Nie Mingjue had never been someone to insist on formality with those in his sect, and his medics especially seemed to ignore most niceties when they thought that their help was needed. In the Nie, it was an attitude that was very much needed. Normally, Nie Mingjue appreciated it. Just not when it was directed at him.
“I’m fine,” he said shortly to her as he sheathed Baxia.
All that got was a long suffering sigh, from the woman who crossed her arms. “You went through a tree. Several of them. And stopped charing yao with arm strength. Which is very impressive, Sect Leader Nie, but also very foolhardy.”
She was annoyingly right, unfortunately. That didn’t mean he was happy about it, “I’m fine,” he insisted. He was sore, yes, because he had been forced to catch the yao to stop its charge, but he wasn't bleeding out or in any other danger, “go deal with others first.”
“My apprentices already are,” Min-daifu said calmly, “and you are the sect leader. As the senior medic you’re my responsibility.”
There was still that itching under his skin, and Nie Mingjue really didn’t want to deal with it, “and I don’t need your help at the moment, Min Shuren]. I said go check on the others.”
“Then let me look you over and I will,” she shot back and took a step closer.
“I said I was fine!” the prickling under his skin almost seemed to explode and he lashed out, nearly smacking Min-daifu as she reached to touch him. Would have, if she had the reflexes to step back in time. He stared at her for a moment, not breathing, as she look back at him in surprise. At the edge of his senses, he felt some of the other Nie cultivators drift closer, ready to come to the doctor’s assistance if it was needed. Most of them were old enough that they remembered his father’s rule, and how it ended. How, towards the end, everyone seemed to be a target, something to vent his rage on. He’d tried hard to make sure Huisang was out of sight, away from him, so he didn’t have to suffer seeing that…
“Sorry,” Nie Mingjue said immediately..
“Wrist,” was the only reply from the doctor at that, “now.” That was a tone that booked no argument. Shaken, Nie Mingjue did as she was told, letting her check his qi without complaints. After a few moments her shoulder relaxed a fraction, “you’re fine for now,” she announced, not just for his benefit Nie Mingjue knew, “but there is a slight instability with your qi. It’s not enough to be immediately concerning, but you should meditate to settle it before we set off. And continue when do get back, just to stabilize things further.” To stop things from getting worse was the unsaid part. You couldn’t hold the end off forever, but Nie Mingjue wanted to hold his off for as long as possible. So he simply nodded, reluctantly as Min-daifu took the opportunity to check over the rest of him, declared him bruised and with minor cuts that his core should have dealt with by nightfall if he rested, and that he would be more than capable of flying home.
“Told you,” he muttered under his breath, but the look the doctor gave him told him that she was not amused, even if he was the sect leader. He cleared his throat, “could you do me a favor and make sure that Husiang doesn’t hear about this?” Huisang wouldn’t let him down, and would fuss about it. Then still refuse to train with his own saber like a good heir should. As if he could somehow keep Nie Mingjue alive through the sheer force of ‘I’m so useless you can’t die and leave me in charge da-ge!’
“...I can promise that the young master won’t hear about this from me,” Min-daifu said with complete honesty and the sect leader winced a little internally. It was a reminder that even though Min Shuren would keep her word and his brother would never hear it from her - Huisang was very good at ‘gathering gossip’ and somehow finding out things he should have no way of knowing. Someone was going to let something slip before the day was out once they returned, and then Huiisang would be insufferable for at least a few hours.
Nie Mingjue muttered a thanks and ran a hand down his face, trying to push his brother’s reaction to the back of his mind so he could focus on the clean up with the last of this hunt. He winced slightly in surprise when he felt the rough stubble all over his face. Hadn’t he taken care of that before the hunt had started? He wasn’t a vain man by any means, but a sect leader had a certain image he had to present to the world - especially when you were the youngest of all the current acting sect leaders. Despite Huisang teasing him, he knew he had to maintain at least a certain level of appearance. No one would take him as seriously if he looked scruffy or unkept.
He must have been more distracted than he realized if he didn’t even finish his personal grooming. No one in this hunt team had said anything about it either, to his surprise. Maybe because they were focused on getting this problem on their border dealt with before another popped up, as was he. Ah, well, if they had already noticed then he was going to get teased on the flight back. He had other things to do than shave at the moment, even if Min-daifu was glaring at him in a way that suggested he had better get to meditating like she asked. So he settled himself with a sigh and closed his eyes, hoping she would let him up after not too long.
It didn’t take as long as he feared to wrap things up, and they were able to head back to an inn for the night. Min Shuren declared him ‘mostly recovered’ before they settled down for the night. A satisfying end to the day.
He woke up the next morning looking as if he hadn’t shaved for a week.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Over the next few days, the situation didn’t get any better. Nie Mingjue could at least take some pride in the fact that he didn’t think anyone had guessed that something might be wrong, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last. He’d been forced to avoid Huisang, since he was sure that his brother would pick up anything off right away. How long that would last though, he wasn’t sure. Surenly Huisang had noticed that he wasn’t being badgered into training with his saber every day since he had returned. That alone would raise alarm bells.
The thing was, a hair growth curse was annoying, but mostly harmless. Just slightly humiliating. And Nie Mingjue was nearly positive that was all this was, since he hadn’t noticed any other effects. Although that now included all his body hair going crazy and the very hair on his head starting to get longer. If it had been any other cultivator, Nie Mingjue had to admit he would have been the one laughing and telling them it wasn’t a shame to get help.
But he wasn’t just any cultivator, he was the sect leader. If it got out to some of the other sects, like the Jin, that Nie Mingjue had been affected by any curse but especially such a small one at this, it wouldn’t only be his own reputation that would suffer.
After his father had died it had taken all he had to claw his way up to leaving the sect in a stable place, to build a firm enough reputation that even someone like Jin Guangshan didn’t dare bother them. He wasn’t about to let that be destroyed because of some pesky minor curse that he should be capable of getting rid of on his own!
And he had hoped that it would just fade out given time. Most smaller curses would do so with someone of his cultivation level, but this one was stubbornly sticking around. He had actually spent a good few hours in their library last night, searching for anything similar. It had given him a couple of directions at last. He would look into it in his spare time, because as much as he would like to devote his time to getting rid of it, he had things like duties he had to see too. Min-daifu had managed to corner him the other day asking him if he was recovering well, which said there were at least a few people outside Huisang that were starting to side-eye his behavior.
All he could do was hope that if he kept his beard trimmed he would be able to keep everyone off his back until he had it dealt with. It would be fine. This wasn’t something that could kill him after all.
When he woke up the next morning, he paused to look at the mirror he’d brought in to keep track of how bad things were that day, and then froze, his breath almost stopping. Instead of the usual brown, a pair of bright red eyes were staring back at him.