#I find wq's voice and mood difficult to capture ahah

[ibijau]

Wen Qing Lives

It’s incomplete still and I low-key hate how I’ve written it (honestly, I’m taking criticism... so much...) but heyyy

also this is firmly CQL/The untamed rather than based on the novel

“What about the others?” Wen Qing asks when Jin Guanshang is done speaking. “Are you going to release them?”

The man shrugs, but it’s clear he expected that question or he’d be angry at her for asking it.

“They don’t interest me. They can return to Yiling for all I care.”

“Even my brother?”

Jin Guanshang’s face hardens into an expression too cruel to be called a smile.

“How could I release my son’s murderer? But he would stay here, like you. Unharmed. I’m sure I can find some use for him.”

Wen Qing nods, once. Of course they’ll find a use for A-Ning. He is a good hostage, something to use against her should she refuse to hold her end of the bargain. A good threat to use against Wei Wuxian too, and so is she. Speaking of which…

“There won’t be retaliations against Wei Wuxian,” she demands.

“If you behave, there won’t be any more deaths,” Jin Guanshang promises. He’s probably the most dishonest man Wen Qing has ever met but he wants her knowledge. She survived Wen Ruohan. She can survive another tyrant, and make sure her family does too. It’s all she’s ever done with her life.

It was nice to have that year in Yiling, those precious months of… of what, anyway? Happiness ? Wen Qing isn’t sure it ever got to that, not with the constant threat of the cultivation world, the fear that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t always be enough to protect them, the lack of food and money. But if it wasn’t happiness, it was the nearest thing to it that she’s had since she was a child. Things were good in Yiling.

Maybe they’ll be good again, for those who are going back there. Wei Wuxian won’t let any harm come to them. Maybe they can be happy, even if Wen Qing couldn’t.

She takes the deal.

She’s always been too willing to give everything for her family, she hears Wen Ruohan whisper into her ear. But his family is dead and hers is alive still, so clearly she’s made some right choices along the way.

......

Long ago, Wen Qing’s first impression of Xue Yang was that he’d been too young, too small, too fragile for whatever was going on with Wen Ruohan’s plans.

Her second impression, after seeing that smile he had, was that this child would stab her in the back if given the chance, not because she was a threat, but just because he might get bored someday.

Now that they’re meeting again in Carp Tower, her third impression is that it’s not her he’ll be thinking about when he stabs. This boy holds more resentful energies than Wei Wuxian did on his darkest days, but rather than to fight it he delights in that darkness within him. 

He’s clever, though. Impossibly clever. Wen Qing has not often had the chance to speak on equal footing with another cultivator, but Xue Yang listens when she speaks and he understands. Talking to him feels almost like talking to Wei Wuxian sometimes. They even look somewhat alike, she tells herself when she feels nostalgic. If she weren’t so pragmatic, if Xue Yang weren’t such a sadistic little shit, she could be tempted to pretend she’s back in that cave in Yiling.

“Wonder how close to death we have to get them,” Xue Yang will say some days, before proceeding to torture whatever poor soul they were given to experiment on. “Mistress Wen, lend me your toys and take notes.”

She hates him as fiercely as she hates Jin Guangshan. Xue Yang knows this, and keeps asking for her assistance in his experiment. If she tries to give his victims something to ease their pain, he complains she’s ruining his results. Jin Guangshan has personally come to remind her that she must choose who will suffer between her family and those strangers.

Every day that she works with Xue Yang, she must make that choice again. She thinks of Wen Ning’s smile, Wen Yuan’s laughter, all those people whose lives depend on her. It’s selfish, but every time she chooses them. She knows it amuses Xue Yang to no end.

She’s never wanted to kill someone before. She does now. Xue Yang and Jin Guangshan die a thousand deaths in her dreams.

But the worst thing about Xue Yang is never the torture and madness.

The worst is those other days, the ones when he is just a frightfully clever boy who chats with her about demonic cultivation and medicine and whatever else he’s taking an interest in at the moment. It’s hard to fully hate someone who is excitedly explaining to you how different candies are made. It always brings Wen Qing back to her first impression: Xue Yang is too young for everything that is happening here.

And even though she knows this is probably part of whatever sick game that boy is playing with her, she pities him. She can’t help it. He reminds her too much of Wen Ning when he gets excited about something innocent. 

She’s been here for over a year, and they haven’t let her see Wen Ning once. Not until some of her research brings results, Jin Guangshan said.

She hates him. She hates them.

But she keeps working. For her family, there’s nothing she won’t do.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Xue Yang says one morning as the guard closes the door behind Wen Qing. “Took some effort to get that old fart to agree, but I thought you deserved a treat.”

Wen Qing tenses immediately. It’s been two years. She knows what sort of things to expect from Xue Yang when he speaks of surprises with a smile like that.

“Don’t bother,” she says coldly. “Let’s just get to work. What do you need from me today?”

“You’re going to help me test something,” Xue Yang replies in a singing voice, his smirk widening. 

Wen Qing has never seen him this excited about anything and it scares her more than she’ll admit. She fights to keep her expression neutral, but she can’t help glancing at Xue Yang’s work table. There’s a body there, covered by a sheet from head to toe. What new madness has that boy invented?

“Come closer, Mistress Wen!” he beckons her. “You need to be nearer for this.”

She obeys, against her will. What choice is there? She is in control when alone in her cell, but here in Xue Yang’s laboratory, he makes the rules.

When he deems her close enough, Xue Yang lifts the sheet from that body’s head.

Wen Qing screams.

They’ve let Xue Yang experiment on her brother.

Wen Ning doesn’t react to her scream even though his eyes are open. He only placidly turns his head to look at her when she shakes him, his eyes entirely black, his face showing no recognition. 

From the corner of her eye, she spots Xue Yang taking notes, a greedy smirk on his lips.

“Jin Guangshan said he’d be unharmed,” Wen Qing hisses.

“And you believed him?” Xue Yang taunts her. “Besides, he’s not harmed. What’s dead can’t feel pain, right? And no damage can’t be repaired. I know. I tested for that too.”

She glares at him, her fists clenched around the chains that cover her brother’s body. Xue Yang keeps smiling like a tiger waiting to pounce. She knows what her next question should be. She doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“I know what you’re wondering,” Xue Yang says when the silence stretches too long. “Why don’t you ask, Mistress Wen? I know you're wondering how much he lied to you. Maybe I’ll be nice. Maybe I’ll answer.”

Wen Qing bites her lip. She doesn’t need to ask, and he doesn’t need to say. One look at him says it all. He wouldn’t be that excited, that giddy if he didn’t have some more horror in store for her.

She won’t give him the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

Wen Qing rushes to the door and into the corridor, demanding to be taken back to her cell. Behind her, Xue Yang is laughing.

For an entire week, Wen Qing refuses to leave her cell and work with Xue Yang. She has no reason to do it now. Her brother has been turned into a mindless puppet. Her family is dead. Wei Wuxian too must be dead, or he would have razed Carp Tower to the ground.

She was ready to die two years ago.

She’s ready to die now.

She doesn't even get to die. 

They don't force her to work with Xue Yang again. When Jin Guangshan comes to check on her own work, it's clear he's annoyed at his demonic cultivator for letting her know too much. That little bastard forgot that they also want her knowledge, her cooperation, that Wen Qing is a tool as valuable as he is, albeit in a different way. 

Or perhaps Xue Yang knew. Perhaps he was trying to help her by letting her know the truth. It sounds like something he'd mistake for kindness. Either way, she's grateful. 

Now she knows for sure that her new master is no better than the last. 

She knows, also, that they haven't killed her brother, and she negotiates to see him daily. Jin Guangshan, perhaps worried she'll let herself die, grants it. 

She can't do anything for Wen Ning. He doesn't react to her presence. Just another puppet. It doesn't matter. Wen Qing sees him every day, brushes his hair, and whispers promises. 

She'll get them both out of this place.