#come on little novices to qinghe we go

[stiltonbasket]

If/when yunhua gets married, her spouse is sort of starry-eyed about their tall, buff wife?

When Yunhua decides to get married, she orders her suitors to take part in a test of strength - that is, facing Yunhai on the training field and winning. She would have fought the suitors herself, but the intention was for at least one of them to win. ;)

[isabilightwood]

THE PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY - CHAPTER 8

Or, Sacrifice Summon! Jiang Yanli is here to make things right, be the ultimate big sister (step 1: bring back her dead brother), and maybe steal the Peacock throne in the process

[AO3][1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

iang Yanli was thrilled to have A-Xian back, and she absolutely hated his plan.

He’d had little difficulty creating the device that would cloak him in a face meant for meaningless cruelty. He had carved a simple wooden mask, and etched characters into it with unusual care. While Jiang Yanli was still getting A-Ling dressed the next morning, A-Xian sketched a young man sweeping leaves across the street, and she walked down to breakfast to find a stranger sitting comfortably among the Nie.

There was nothing in his features to give away that this was a mask, or a face that did not belong to him. But his smile was still his own.

Nie Huaisang had already managed to find clothes in Nie gray that fit A-Xian. Jiang Yanli had to wonder if he’d prepared them beforehand, somehow remembering A-Xian’s measurements without even needing to ask her.

“Shiji— Ah, I mean, Jin-furen. Are you going to introduce your little monster to me?” A-Xian grinned brightly.

She’d thought he would only be able to glimpse his sleeping nephew. But with this disguise, A-Xian could meet him, and A-Ling would never be able to give him away with a child’s innocence.

A-Ling hid behind her back, suddenly shy, though he had not been with the Nie disciples the day before.

She knelt to get on eye level with her son. “It’s alright, A-Ling. He’s a friend.”

Setting his jaw, A-Ling looked stubbornly away.

“Hold on a second.” A-Xian sketched a talisman in the air, and it burst apart into a flock of glittering butterflies. He’d invented it for distraction, but it also doubled as a foolproof way of charming small children.

A-Ling gaped, his hand dropping from her sleeve, and ran forward to jump for the butterflies. As they disappeared under his grasping hands, he laughed in delight.

A-Xian laughed with him.

“Would you show me that one?” Nie Xiaodan asked. “It would be great for convincing our novices to get up and start their exercises. Some of them think that because their Sect Leader is a layabout that means they can be too.”

Nie Huaisang looked up from dipping his youtiao, soy milk dripping from the end of the fried bread. “Our finances are in better shape than they’ve ever been, and I let her manage night hunts as she wishes, and this is the thanks I get.”

“Except for the ghoul infestations you have us move or neglect to keep the other sects and your own peasantry convinced you’re incompetent.” Nie Xiaodan patted her Sect Leader hard enough on the shoulder that he shifted forward in his seat. “So, yes, this is your thanks, A-Sang.”

“The disrespect, not even calling me Zongzhu!” Nie Huaisang complained, even as he preened.

A-Xian laughed as he moved a century egg from his own congee to A-Ling’s. “Sure, I can teach you the talisman. I bet I could modify it so the butterflies last longer, and change directions when someone comes near, so they have to keep chasing them. What do you think, A-Ling? Would that be fun!”

“Mnnmf,” A-Ling agreed, as a blob of his breakfast failed to make it into his mouth. A-Xian beat her to wiping his mouth off, and A-Ling didn’t even flinch, already comfortable with him. Shiny new playthings and a smiling face worked wonders with children, but she hoped A-Ling somehow recognized that he should be important to him.

Jiang Yanli smiled, and brushed a strand of hair back away from her son’s mouth.

After breakfast, Nie Xiaodan and the other disciples parted from them to retrieve Nie Mingjue’s body, and transport him back to Qinghe for burial.

A-Ling had started out the ride babbling excitedly over a series of talismans A-Xian showed him, but eventually, he tired out and dozed off in Jiang Yanli’s arms, trusting her implicitly to keep him upright on the horse.

“It works like this, see?” A-Xian explained while they were on the road, still wearing that stranger’s face so A-Ling couldn’t describe his real one by mistake, only some friendly Nie disciple. He rode hands free, pressing the mask over a drawing of Xue Yang’s face as he etched new shapes into a second mask.

With his poor memory for faces, A-Xian hadn’t remembered the details of Xue Yang’s features. But Jiang Yanli’s glaring had not been enough to stop Nie Huaisang from describing him.

Qin Su was a voice of reason where she didn’t want one. You do have to admit it is a good plan. Jin Guangyao’s very observant — your brother’s plan could make a huge difference in how successful we are in undermining him.

Jiang Yanli had to admit no such thing. I thought you were afraid of him.

I stopped the moment he brought out the butterflies. It’s incredible to me now that anyone who met him could be frightened of him.

He can be intimidating when he wants to, make it seem like he doesn’t care about anything. For her, it was only terrifying to watch her brother do that to himself. His act fooled almost everyone, even A-Cheng.

But not you.

No, A-Xian had never fooled her.

Jiang Yanli would feel much better if there were someone out there, watching his back. If A-Xian would let himself be convinced to go see his zhiji before he committed to any reckless plans. But he had so far ignored her hinting.

Pressing it over the first mask, his features changed in the space of a blink, and Xue Yang stared back at her.

Only the malice was missing.

He went on speaking, and that was even stranger. “I’ll add on a few more faces, I think, so I can look like a respectable grandfather, or a random street kid at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t really let me change my body’s shape, so I won’t be able to shrink into a stooped little granny, unfortunately — that would be even less suspicious. Faces should be enough though, I think.”

“Very impressive, A-Xian. Switch it back, please?” It was, in fact, a monumental achievement, and one he’d achieved in only a single night. But there was only so long Jiang Yanli could stand to look at that face.

He sketched a talisman over the mask without looking, and with a shimmer of golden light, the first face returned. She would have preferred his own, but this was far preferable to the alternative.

The mask did solve the problem of how to smuggle A-Xian into Koi Tower unseen.

Nie Huaisang was all too happy to handle it.

Jiang Yanli entered Koi Tower first, the disciples she’d dismissed at Fengyang appearing at the city entrance as she’d predicted. The others waited outside the city until evening. She brought A-Ling to greet his uncle, as that was expected.

“I trust you had a productive trip?” Jin Guangyao reached out for A-Ling, and plopped him down on his lap. A-Ling giggled, and began to fiddle with a brush with a wet tip, promptly staining his fingers and flicking ink splotches onto his robes.

“I did.” She clasped her hands behind her back to conceal the way her hands clenched into fists at the sight of Jin Guangyao touching her son. Every time it happened, Jiang Yanli had to fight the urge to grab him away and run as far from Koi Tower as she could get. Though Jin Guangyao spoiled A-Ling, she and Qin Su both knew sharing blood would not be enough to protect him, if Jin Guangyao decided he wanted him gone. “I believe Zhai-zongzhu’s planned watchtower locations will be well situated to respond to their most difficult to reach locations. I also provided a few suggestions to Qi-zongzhu. Many of his choices were too close to a temple sect and one was on land that floods regularly.”

“Good, good. Would you mind summarizing those suggestions for me? Qi-zongzhu can be so absentminded, we may need to remind him.” He steepled his fingers, the effect ruined as A-Ling spread ink across the curve of his cheek. Jin Guangyao’s smile twitched. “Excellent, thank you. You also stopped in to see our dear cousin, I believe?”

Our cousin, Qin Su repeated bitterly.

Her breath caught. “I did, yes. I know they had a falling out with my sister, but we’re still quite fond of each other.”

“I feel the same way about Huaisang, though he does test my patience sometimes.” Jin Guangyao did not bring up any of her subsequent extracurriculars. Instead, he plucked the brush from A-Ling’s fist as he came dangerously close to spreading ink on his uncle’s robes. He very seriously asked A-Ling his opinion on tablecloths for an upcoming event.

With that, Jiang Yanli understood the conversation was over. She turned to leave.

Nie Huaisang had a sense for timing, and chose that moment to test Jin Guangyao’s patience. He burst in, wailing, with a rumpled, mud-stained, an out of breath steward on his heels.

Simply a disciple left in his supposed Sect Leader’s dust, A-Xian was able to slip in unnoticed.

Jiang Yanli met him near the kitchens, and after making certain the coast was clear, led him to Wen Qing’s prison using the same techniques as the first time. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t raining.

She knocked sharply on the closed window.

It was flung open with a bang only moments later, revealing Wen Qing, flushed with anger and her hair out of place from running her hands through it.

Jiang Yanli was struck with an odd, simultaneous desire to fix it and make it worse.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come here in person?” Wen Qing snapped.

They’d had no time to warn her, as the papermen had a limited range. “Jin Guangyao will be occupied for hours, and this is important.”

“I thought you were supposed to be…” Wen Qing trailed off, her eyes widening. “Did it work? Did he fall for it?”

A-Xian stepped out of the shadows, removing his mask. “Hi, Qing-jie.”

Wen Qing gasped, and grabbed for his sleeve. “Oh, my — Gods, get in here so I can smack you. How dare you die after we gave ourselves up for you?”’

A-Xian let himself be tugged over the windowsill.

He freed his arm from Wen Qing long enough to bow. “This one apologizes for his grave blunder.”

Wen Qing sniffed, and gave him a quick hug. He beamed, even as tears gathered in his eyes, and squeezed back.

Jiang Yanli climbed inside while they were busy with their reunion and stayed by the window to watch for anyone approaching. From a distance, it would be difficult to tell her and Wen Qing apart, so they’d have enough time to hide under the bed if someone did arrive at an unscheduled time.

“You look awful,” A-Xian told Wen Qing, once they were seated at her desk. The stack of A-Xian’s journals was still there, but the rest of the table was now covered with illustrations of meridians covered in notes in Wen Qing’s writing. Most were scratched out.

Likely something to do with strengthening Jin Guangyao’s core then.

Rather than take offense, Wen Qin rolled her eyes. “Six years of confinement will do that to a person. You look like death warmed over.”

A-Xian laughed in delight. “That’s because I am death warmed over. I came back to life two days ago.”

“Your sister doesn’t look like that.” Wen Qing said, with a glance at Jiang Yanli that felt like a compliment.

Qin Su, for some reason, giggled.

“Obviously Shijie is better than me.” A-Xian turned to beam proudly at her. He was wrong, of course, in his belief that she was the best and kindest person in the world. He didn’t know how the plans she’d set in motion would inevitably hurt the brother of the man he loved and treated the sovereignty of minor sects like weiqi stones, or how she’d threatened Nie Huaisang. But she smiled back anyways.

I don’t think he’ll judge, when he finds out. Qin Su said.

For the most part, no, he wouldn’t. But knowing would forever change his perception of his beloved Shijie, leaving the reality of Jiang Yanli in her place. And she couldn’t assume he would be so sanguine over Lan Xichen. A-Xian had always respected him, and hurting Zewu-jun would hurt Lan Wangji.

Qin Su gave the impression of a shrug. Maybe seeing you more clearly will be a good thing.

A-Xian and Wen Qing fell into an easy rhythm. Watching them, Jiang Yanli felt warm to her center.

“As happy as I am to see you, that’s not enough reason for a visit.” Wen Qing said, after a few more rounds of banter in which they pretended not to have missed each other. “What went wrong?”

“He’s having problems with Xue Yang’s core.” Jiang Yanli explained, before A-Xian could reflexively deflect from the reason they were here.

Wen Qing whipped her head towards A-Xian so fast her neck cracked. “You have Xue Yang’s core?”

He nodded, rubbing a hand gingerly over its place of residence. “I wasn’t entirely sure a core would stick around, when I designed that array, but it seems like the array reshaped everything around it.”

Groaning, Wen Qing took a moment to bury her head in her hands. “You never bring me normal problems. Next time, bring me a nice pulled muscle.”

“I would also like a pulled muscle to be the extent of my problems.” A-Xian sighed wistfully.

“We can dream.” Wen Qing said, her tone flat and disbelieving. “What are the symptoms?”

“When I’m agitated — angry or frustrated, but not sad —his core feels like it’s trying to tear itself apart. Like how the beginning stage of a qi deviation is described. On top of that, resentful energy is in his core, like he invited it there. It feels horrible.” A-Xian leaned forward on his knees and gestured as he spoke.

Wen Qing nodded, and turned to her. “Have you had any with Qin Su’s?”

She hadn’t experienced anything along the lines of what A-Xian was describing. Qin Su’s core felt almost like her own at this point. There was only the way her sword resisted her, draining her when she tried to use it as a spiritual tool, rather than merely a weapon. “Only when I try to control her sword. Chunsheng doesn’t like me.”

Qin Su slipped into a paperman and climbed up to her shoulder to elaborate. <It saps her energy, so she can barely move, much less cultivate. We’ve kept trying, but there’s no improvement.>

“Oh, it’s not just Jiangzai then? I bet they can sense we’re not really their cultivators, despite the cores.” A-Xian perked up with excitement at the implications, before he visibly remembered that this affected him. “But, no. Qing-jie, the real problem is that Xue Yang thought mixing resentful energy in with his spiritual energy was a grand old time.”

“Let me take a look.” Wen Qing took his pulse first, then sent a thread of her own spiritual energy into him. “This is a mess. All that resentment is trapped in your core, and it’s not purifying on its own. I’d bet Xue Yang had resentful energy flowing through his meridians, which would reduce how much gathered in his core and hold off qi deviation.”

She went silent, concentrating, as she continued her examination.

“Absolutely no demonic cultivation,” was Wen Qing’s verdict. “The array seems to have cleared out your meridians, but this core is — well, it’s a mess worse than even you’ve managed to get into on your own. We need to clean it out completely before I can start to help you manage the occasional use of a little resentful energy. That will take a while. Lie on your back, first.”

A-Xian obeyed, but not without complaint. “But how am I supposed to imitate Xue Yang if I can’t use demonic cultivation?”

Carefully inserting the needles in several points along his torso, Wen Qing closed her eyes and began working with hr spiritual energy though them. “You’re supposed to be a genius inventor, aren’t you? Invent something.”

A-Xian smushed his features together in childish irritation. “You’re irritated. What did I do this time? I just got here!”

Smoke-like wisps of resentful energy rose from the ends of the needles, and to Jiang Yanli’s eyes, vanished as it drifted away.

Qin Su’s paperman craned its neck towards the ceiling. Its features were, of course, blank, but her voice gave away her interest. <Its coiling into ropes up there.>

“Wen Qing has been transcribing your work for Jin Guangyao.” Jiang Yanli told him when it became clear Wen Qing would keep him in the dark. “Your handwriting is…”

“Atrocious. But that’s not the real issue here.” Wen Qing grabbed a notebook from the desk, and dropped it, open, over A-Xian’s face. “I had to explain to my family’s murderer that your notes sometimes cut off in descriptions of Lan Wangji’s eyes. Or lips. Or other body parts!”

“In my defense, I never meant for anyone to see this.” He reached up to pluck the book from his face, and flipped through it, eyes going distant as he stared at one of his sketches.

“Well, I did.” Wen Qing plucked the needles from his meridians. “I need to work on your back now, flip over.”

Retrieving a new set of needles, she repeated her work on his lower back.

“Peace offering?” A-Xian attempted to turn his neck halfway around without disturbing the needles. “You’ve been talking to each other with papermen, right? What if I could offer a simpler alternative? To talk more easily at a distance. I had this idea shortly before Qiongqi… I was hoping to… I never wrote it down, but I remember how it would have worked.”

“You wanted to be able to talk to Lan Wangji, didn’t you?” Jiang Yanli asked softly.

“And you, Shijie!” He slumped, pouting. As though to express his disappointment that she would consider herself less important to him. Which she hadn’t, but A-Xian had never had a very secure estimation of his own importance, so he didn’t expect others to either. “But yes. It’s pretty simple, actually. Just hand me that paperweight? And a few more stones?”

“Stay still until I’ve removed the needles, you idiot!” Wen Qing pushed him back down by the shoulders.

A-Xian grumbled out his impatience, but to Jiang Yanli’s eyes he seemed more genuinely energetic than he’d been since before the attack on Lotus Pier stole everything from them. She doubted it could last, if he went forward with this mad plan of his, but she was pleased to see it.

When Wen Qing finally removed the last needle, A-Xian immediately hopped up onto his knees and grabbed for the paperweight. He hunted around for something else that would suit, and came up with an empty crystalline box free of decorative carvings. Retrieving the same steel chisel he’d been using to carve the masks, and applied it to stone.

“So the distance should be … and the sound. No, wait, wrong radical.” A-Xian muttered to himself as he worked.

<Forget the demonic cultivation, if Wei Wuxian can just invent things like this on the spot, that’s what the cultivation clans should fear him for.> Qin Su slid down Jiang Yanli’s sleeve to the floor, and took a leap in A-Xian’s direction, slowed by the pressure of the air.

“Yes, all the explosions should be a warning to stay far, far away.” Wen Qing said dryly.

Qin Su paused with one paper leg in the air as she readied to take the next leap. <Is this going to explode on us?>

“I mostly explode things when figuring out to work metal, or with fire.” A-Xian looked up to grin mischievously at Wen Qing. “Qing-jie invents surgical techniques. That’s far more scary.”

Shrugging her little paper arms, Qin Su continued towards A-Xian to watch him work.

Wen Qing grimaced, hiding her amusement.

Jiang Yanli wanted to see her laugh.

“You know,” she said, “A-Xian may be right. A cultivator once told me the medical tent was more terrifying than any battlefield he’d ever been on. Right before I had to help a healer amputate his leg.”

Wen Qing let out a surprised peal of laughter, and caught herself, but her eyes sparkled as she looked at Jiang Yanli. She found herself without any desire to look away.

A-Xian whooped in success, and she saw that the stones in his hands had begun to glow. He jumped to his feet, with Qin Su holding onto his leg to avoid being knocked away into a wall.

“Okay, so! Hold this.” He placed an inscribed paperweight or box in Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing’s hands. “Think about each other, and put in just enough spiritual energy to activate a talisman. No more than someone without a Golden Core could manage, or you’ll overload it.”

Jiang Yanli met Wen Qing’s eyes as she thought about Wen Qing’s voice lulling her to sleep, the way she’d protested their presence but seemed secretly pleased, the way she always seemed so surprised to find herself smiling. The paperweight began to glow in her hands.

When Wen Qing’s did as well, she suddenly looked away.

A-Xian cleared his throat, prompting them, “Ok, now say something. Recite a recipe or something.”

Jiang Yanli started to list off the ingredients for doupi, one of the few recipes A-Xian had the patience for, but cut off when she heard her voice coming from the stone in Wen Qing’s hand.

“This is—” Wen Qing’s voice echoed from Jiang Yanli’s stone.

It worked. “What a fantastically useful invention.” She said, and again her own voice was repeated back. A-Xian beamed.

It would be… nice, to be able to talk to Wen Qing, and know she wasn’t projecting her consciousness across Koi Tower, leaving her body unaware and undefended. Without the small, but constant risk of Jin Guangyao walking in and finding her in that unmistakable, compromised condition.

“We’ll need to run some tests to see if maybe I can talk to you from a distance as well, but this should at least prevent you from needing to replace papermen regularly.”  A-Xian said, as though he hadn’t just made the greatest breakthrough in cultivation since sword flight.

And done it casually. And not for the first time.

Even more importantly, it was accessible. Anyone could use it.

If they’d had these, after A-Xian defected, when he first had the idea… They had both made mistakes in attempting to save people, in their former lives. The Dafan Wen in his case; A-Xian himself, in hers. But their chief handicap had been the impossibility of regular correspondence without giving the appearance of alliance and putting the fragile, still rebuilding Jiang Sect at risk. Without support from any save her husband and Lan Wangji, neither of whom had anything in the way of political influence, she would have been risking A-Cheng for A-Xian — an impossible choice.

This new invention could have made the difference.

Perhaps now, it could make the difference.

“If it doesn’t, I’m certain you’ll figure it out.” She told him.

“I had better hear from you constantly,” Wen Qing said, in a threatening tone that did nothing to disguise how much she cared.

A-Xian seemed to believe her, more than he ever had when A-Cheng expressed similar sentiments. Perhaps it was the time they’d spent merely surviving together, perhaps the secret they’d shared for so long. Perhaps it was that Wen Qing wasn’t all that much like A-Cheng, really, beyond the surface-level gruffness. There was less difference in their positions, and they shared a common curiosity.

“I want to hear from you every day. I — we — want to know you’re safe.” She needed to know. And with this, the ability to check in at anytime and make sure he was still there, Jiang Yanli might be more capable of watching him leave.

She still hated his plan, though.

“I’ll chatter at you until you’re sick of me.” A-Xian promised with a three-fingered salute and a blinding grin.

Jiang Yanli was going to worry over him incessantly, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.