Would you ever write academy students having and history class, and learning just how many regimes Team 7 changed, and how "natural disasters" influenced something or another
Hi violetablood! :D
I sort of did this in one of my long ago Three Sentence Fic but I don’t think that’s a proper response to this ask so let’s see…
In a realistic Naruto world, I actually don’t know how important history would be in the academy. Because, I read this somewhere in regards to Boku no Hero Academia, but basically both the hero students and shinobi-to-be are at trade/vocational schools, which means their curricula would be focused towards their future roles in society more so than general knowledge. And not to say that history is useless to shinobi (especially regime changes!) but except for maybe the broadest of timeline regarding the Elemental Nations and somewhat uh… patriotic Konoha and Land of Fire history, I don’t think the Academy would teach much history to their pre-teen future soldiers. Like. These are elementary school kids, the majority of whom will either never leave Konoha or at the very least never leave Land of Fire (or, in a realistic war, be little more than cannon fodder, oof). There’s probably some kind of further education opportunities for those who enter Intel or those who are trained for deep cover, but otherwise I feel like more information is given as needed for whichever impending mission a shinobi gets deployed on.
All of that being said, Team Seven’s regime changing shenanigans are definitely part of the curricula mostly because they have SO CRUCIALLY changed the political, economic, and literal landscape of MULTIPLE COUNTRIES, in addition to being the top of a chain of dominoes that literally led to the creation of a BRAND NEW SHINOBI VILLAGE (and yeah, Land of Birds would be a minor village, but it’s still a whole new village). And also the alliance between Sand, Mist, and Leaf. Which, you know, fingers crossed, lasts for a long time.
The “natural disasters” would probably be part of the further education opportunities given they are probably still ANBU classified and thus would only be relevant to the previously mentioned specific shinobi. Although, I suppose that also depends on how much the “natural disasters” have changed geography (which I imagine is taught a little more widely taught in the academy. Or, at the very least, the breadth is a little wider even though, again, not everyone will leave Land of Fire). Because an earthquake is one thing, but a river having changed paths is another.
… although, to be honest, all of the above is me trying to excuse, diegetically, why I wouldn’t write this fic. Or at least, not as an entire fic devoted to this concept? Like, such a scene would be a part of a larger fic to sort of expositional dialogue something about the worldbuilding. Similar to how the “transcript from Nara Satori’s ‘Lectures on Elemental Chakra’” in Primadonna Girl (fills the void up with celluloid) was meant to bring the concept of specific ratios of blended elemental chakra leading to certain “extinct” blood limits to imply that Shikadai has Magnet Release but doesn’t quite know it.
So a scene in which academy students are learning about a certain genin team affecting international politics via regime changes would have to serve a greater purpose than just glorifying said team’s shenanigans. Like… take the Primadonna Girl universe: on the one hand, of course the propaganda machine that is “protect the village and the Hokage with your life” would want to mention such things like the Great Uzumaki Bridge and how the Nanadaime personally saved the life of the Daimyo of Land of Spring. But would they want to even risk Her name being brought up? All the students know that The Last Loyal Uchiha aka the head of the Konoha Military Police was genin teammates with the Nanadaime and that the Rokudaime was their sensei, but would the academy want to risk students then wondering who their third genin teammate was? How struck from the records would Her name and actions be? Does a certain level of enterprising students investigating flag member of Intel? (Is that maybe even a good thing? Are there ANY clan members who run interference, who watch which clever students find the truth and what those clever students do? Does an older Shiho secretly make copies of those censored reports so that one day the truth can be restored?)
And then, non-diegetically, I suppose the reason why I wouldn’t write it is because it would be either SO MANY CHARACTERS to juggle (an entire class, plus their teacher?) or just a straight up lecture—which I greatly struggled with in the previously mentioned “Lectures on Elemental Chakra”—with the students only tuning in every so often. Or, like, talking over it. And then—even if it is the next generation kids—that’s still a lot of OCs to fill out the numbers. Even with Shino being their teacher. SO MANY CHARACTERS!
… buuuuut now that I consider the whole… political ramifications of school curricula in Primadonna Girl, it does make it more appealing. Because the propaganda/intel/counter-intelligence would be one of the many arenas in which the pro-Shikako and pro-Naruto camps would be duking it out, and I guess that would be an interesting way to get Shino’s (and Chiyako’s and maybe Kiba’s) POV or even what side they’d be on, because I don’t think I’ve yet brought up their opinion of the whole situation.
And if this IS after the (fills the void up with celluloid) installment, then it would be interesting to see how Shikadai does or doesn’t react to the gaps that may or may not be in the history that he now knows is where is secretly banished aunt is supposed to be. And if Shikadai does react (or pointedly DOESN’T react) to certain things then that pulls in other students noticing his behavior (ie, Chouchou, Inojin, and Boruto)
So, like, I guess the answer is maybe I would write this fic under extremely certain circumstances?
I love your Nie brothers content, all of it, but there is so little written about the friendship between Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian! We know they were friends in Cloud Recesses, but it's never explored how these genius guys, even if one is focused on magical inovations and the other on strategy and politics, got on. Something which shows how well they got each other would be great
1
Wei Wuxian’s fist trembled. How dare he – worthless peacock – my shijie..!
But before he could throw a punch, he saw a swirl of white – Lan Wangji, sweeping forward with a face like a graveyard, and Nie Huaisang cringing in his shadow – and suddenly he realized that he didn’t need to punch Jin Zixuan.
Speaking of others behind their backs is forbidden.
Sneering without reason is forbidden.
Arrogance is forbidden.
Do not be haughty and complacent.
Do not praise yourself and slander others.
Do not make assumptions about others.
Do not insult people.
Do not take your words lightly.
Wei Wuxian grinned with teeth. “Hey, Lan Zhan!” he sang out, and Jin Zixuan blanched. “Perfect timing!”
Later, after he’d laughed himself sick at Jin Zixuan’s punishment – humiliatingly perfect – and making his appreciation very clear to Lan Wangji, he went to go find Nie Huaisang.
“When did you go get Lan Zhan?” he asked, honestly curious. He hadn’t known he was going to get into a fight until he was there and it was happening, but Nie Huaisang, of all people, had apparently figured out what was going to happen before it happened and took steps to fix it.
“The second they started talking about girls,” Nie Huaisang said promptly. “It’s fairly obvious that Jin Zixuan is resentful of his parents managing his life and he’s lashing out at everything, including specifically your shijie, so a nasty comment was inevitable.”
Wei Wuxian blinked, derailed from his original line of questioning. “He – what? Wait, that’s why he’s so rude about my shijie?”
“Of course,” Nie Huaisang said, blinking back at him. “What did you think? That he just didn’t like her? He’s barely even met her.”
Wei Wuxian hadn’t thought about that way, but it made a certain amount of sense. “When did you get so good at reading people?” he asked, bemused. “I didn’t…uh…”
“Think I have any skills?”
Wei Wuxian coughed.
“I don’t!” Nie Huaisang beamed, clearly very proud of it. “But I do have a lot of expensive hobbies, and that means I need pocket money.”
Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure he understood the connection, and said as much.
Nie Huaisang laughed at him. “The Nie sect believes in self-sufficiency,” he explained. “My brother gives me a certain amount of money to spend, sure, but we’re not the Jin sect; I can’t just buy everything that I lay my eyes on and send the bill back home – my brother would break my legs! I’m expected to find a way to increase the money I get until it’s enough to cover both my needs and wants, necessities and luxuries both, and if I can’t, then I have to do without luxuries.”
Nie Huaisang has never, not once, in the entire few months Wei Wuxian spent in his company, done without luxuries.
“So,” Wei Wuxian said, feeling oddly unnerved and unsure why, “you learned how to read people because you want to act like…a merchant?”
Nie Huaisang lightly tapped his head with his fan, rolling his eyes at him. “Stop being such a landed gentry young master, Wei-xiong. There’s nothing wrong with trade! How much of your sect’s money comes from merchants interested in keeping their trade routes free of resentful energy?”
Wei Wuxian wrinkled his nose a little. “That’s cheapening it a bit, don’t you think? As cultivators, it’s our duty to stand up as heroes, to defend the innocent and defeat evil, to purify –”
“Right, right. Remind me again how the Jiang sect pays for all that pretty purple?”
“Well…I mean…”
Technically, yes, there were all the dye sellers and the fabric merchants, but…
Nie Huaisang was laughing at him.
“Don’t worry about it, Wei-xiong,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You stick to doing your own thing. If you ever need to sell anything, come to me.”
“Of course,” Wei Wuxian said, privately thinking to himself that he’d rather farm for crops than become a seller hawking his goods in the marketplace. “Hey, wait, what is it that you sell, anyway?”
Nie Huaisang sniggered and refused to tell him.
2
It was porn.
Also barbeque and liquor, although in that case Nie Huaisang mostly played the middleman between the vendors of Caiyi Town and the students stuck eating Lan vegetables.
Sometimes he could even be convinced to tug on his contacts for other things, too.
“You’re a true friend,” Wei Wuxian said, clutching the bottle of chili sauce to his chest. “A true and wonderful friend.”
“You still have to pay,” Nie Huaisang said, his eyes curving up behind his fan. “No discounts.”
“A ruthless, vicious, cut-throat friend…”
“I lend you the porn for free, don’t I?
“Wonderful! Wonderful friend!”
3
No matter what Jiang Cheng said, Wei Wuxian was trying to keep his head down during their time at the indoctrination camp. He was taking this whole thing very seriously: he wasn’t making a fuss (too much), he wasn’t being insulting (too much), he wasn’t even socializing (too much).
Lan Wangji didn’t count, anyway; after what had happened to him, he needed someone bothering him.
But Wei Wuxian was being good and keeping back from the rest!
Well, he was, except then he saw Nie Huaisang and just had to go over to say hello. It was only polite, and had nothing to do with the fact that during the months he spent at the Cloud Recesses, he’d learned that Nie Huaisang could sell anyone on anything.
“I don’t suppose you have contacts that will sell you barbeque here,” Wei Wuxian said as a greeting, because the food they’d received was frankly disgusting in a way that made him wistful for the Lan sect like it had been a gourmet restaurant.
“Well,” Nie Huaisang hedged, and Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t get too excited, it’s not barbeque…”
It was meat, though, chunks of that had probably been roasted as skewers at one point, and Wei Wuxian didn’t even care that it was cold as he scarfed it down, immediately feeling ten times better than he’d been before.
“Where?” he asked. “How?”
“There’ll be a surprise inspection tomorrow morning,” Nie Huaisang said instead. “Keep your head down, they’re looking to make an example out of somebody.”
“How do you know that?”
Nie Huaisang shrugged. “I brought art.”
“To the indoctrination camp?”
“Wen soldiers get lonely and bored too, Wei-xiong.”
“You’re trading for information using porn?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m trading porn for meat, and getting the information while we’re chatting. A large number of the Wen sect cultivators used to be their own sects, you know, before they were absorbed, and not all of them are happy about what’s going on here. You just have to figure out who the loyalists are, avoid them, and focus on the rest, and it’s easy.”
“I still can’t believe you brought porn to the Wen sect,” Wei Wuxian said, shaking his head. “What’ll you do if your brother finds out?”
“You’re joking, right? He helped me pack it.”
Wei Wuxian will never understand the Nie sect.
4
Wei Wuxian stared wordlessly at his bowl.
There was a single slice of radish in it.
“Is this a joke?” he asked Wen Qing, because it might be, and she glared at him, meaning that no, it was not. “Don’t we have anything else?”
“With what money, Wen-gongzi? Do you think it comes from thin air?”
“I had a friend once who could make it come out of thin air,” he grumbled, looking down at his bowl. He’d practiced inedia, he didn’t need it, except for the fact that he really, really did. Not having a golden core made things hard. “He could’ve sold fish to fishermen, except he mostly just sold porn.”
Wen Qing rolled her eyes at him. “Wonderful story, Wei-gongzi. Positively heartwarming. But unless your old erotic art dealer is going to come to Yiling to help us sell some radishes, I don’t care.”
Naturally, that was impossible. Wei Wuxian was a villain now, his name blackened, the whole cultivation world against him –
Actually, as far as he could tell, the Nie sect didn’t seem to give a damn about him one way or another. From all the stories Nie Huaisang had told about his brother and from everything he’d seen in the war, Nie Mingjue wasn’t the sort of person to let evil sit around on a mountain while he was busy with other things – if he objected, he’d be there the next day with his saber, ready to put him in his place.
He hadn’t, obviously.
His hatred of the Wen sect was pretty well-known, but he’d taken no action at all to invade Yiling and demand that Wei Wuxian hand them over, and Wei Wuxian was mostly sure that it wasn’t because he was scared of what Wei Wuxian could do with the Stygian Tiger Seal.
…it was probably just the hunger getting to him and making him think crazy things. Not caring enough to go against him was pretty far from supporting him, after all.
But, hey, he wouldn’t be risking anything if he just wrote a tiny little letter asking Nie Huaisang for some advice on selling things, right?
I never thought I’d see the day my Wei-xiong finally became a merchant, the return letter said. I’ll be there in three days. I expect to see liquor.
Wei Wuxian took Wen Ning down the mountain and stood on his shoulders in order to emancipate a jar from the local tavern, but by the time Nie Huaisang arrived, there was, in fact, liquor.
Even Wen Qing – who had opposed the entire outing once she had heard about it upon their return – suddenly thought it was a perfectly reasonable sort of theft when Nie Huaisang offered to trade a giant crate full of meat for it.
“We had some leftovers from a boar hunt,” Nie Huaisang said mournfully, accepting the liquor and a bowl of radishes. “I need variety, Wei-gongzi, it’s terrible. You have to help me get rid of it; I can’t stand to look at it any longer.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Wei Wuxian reminded him in between glorious bites of pork. He was going to be a very good friend and do his best to ensure that Nie Huaisang’s request was fulfilled, even if it meant taking seconds and possibly thirds. “I asked for advice, not a visit.”
“You can’t expect me to put my good name on what could be inferior goods,” Nie Huaisang sniffed.
“Your good name? The one known for porn, you mean?”
Nie Huaisang rolled his eyes at him. “So show me what you have to sell.”
“It’s mostly just the radishes,” Wei Wuxian said. “I tried to tell Wen Qing that we should plant potatoes, but –”
“Forget the radishes,” Nie Huaisang said. “What’s this I hear about you designing a compass that pinpoints resentful energy?”
“Oh, that?” Wei Wuxian said, blinking. “Yeah, I made one of those – the Burial Mounds is the biggest source of resentful energy around, and it’s easier to have a compass that points home instead of north, you know? But what does that have to do with selling radishes?”
“Wei-xiong, you’re hopeless. Leave it all to me, and you’ll have your sect up and running in no time.”
“Yeah, that would be – wait, sect? What sect?”
“Actually,” Nie Huaisang said, tapping his fan against his cheek. He was just plain old ignoring Wei Wuxian now, which, hey! “I take it back – before you leave everything to me, show me what other ideas you’ve been cooking up. What about those talismans you used during the war? The spirit-drawing ones?”
“Spirit summoning,” Wei Wuxian corrected.
“Yes, those. Have you improved on those at all?”
“Uh, I mean, I guess…”
“Good. Show me everything.”
5
“So I have a sect now,” Wei Wuxian told Lan Wangji, who had come to visit. “We sell things to support it. Apparently.”
Lan Wangji nodded, apparently already aware of this. “The clan elders have agreed that using your flags to draw fierce corpses and other creatures away from areas with innocent human lives is an acceptable use.”
“Even the Lan sect?” Wei Wuxian marveled. “No wonder we’re making so much money.”
Then he sighed.
Lan Wangji looked questioningly at him.
“Well, I have a sect now,” Wei Wuxian said. “Everyone’s expecting me to – you know. Form the core of the sect.”
“Marry,” Lan Wangji concluded. Possibly advised? No, that didn’t sound like he was urging him to go ahead, which made a total of one person. “You do not have to if you do not wish. You already have an heir.”
“A-Yuan’s too young to be a proper heir,” Wei Wuxian objected, though he was secretly gleeful that people were generally accepting him as one. “And obviously I can’t just pick anyone; how will I know if they’re a spy? Or if they’ll secretly dislike A-Yuan?” He sighed again. “The worst part is, I think Nie Huaisang is plotting against me, too.”
“Plotting?”
“Yeah! He’s encouraging people to ask me about marriage, when clearly it’s better for me to stay off the market…what about you, Lan Zhan? Are you planning on marrying?”
“No,” Lan Wangji said.
“We’ll be a bunch of old bachelors, then,” Wei Wuxian said. “You should come more often, A-Yuan loves you…hey! I have a great idea! Why don’t we get married? Then no one will bother us ever again!”
“Mm,” Lan Wangji said.
“Mm? What does that mean?”
“It means I will need to send Nie Huaisang his payment in the morning,” Lan Wangji said, and moved to sit next to Wei Wuxian.
“Payment? You bought something from him? What did you want to –”
Lan Wangji silenced him pretty effectively, no spell necessary, and by the time Wei Wuxian retained enough ability to think through what exactly the purchase must have been, he’d already been converted to thinking that it was a very intelligent purchase to make.
violetablood replied to your post “Alright, so I mentioned in discord yesterday that Thalassa’s been...”
In a sea of hypocrites that allows for social posturing to substitute morals, she would be a breath of fresh air but, much like Wei Wuxian, it could turn against her and Lotus Pier. JC must have thoughts about this by now
@violetablood
This is very true!
But to be honest, Thalassa will be...not keeping a low profile exactly, but not really playing the politics of the cultivation world? Which could probably be considered offensive in and of itself because, let’s be real, Thalassa gives no fucks.
Thalassa would never let any consequences get back to Lotus Pier though. She is generally known as a rouge cultivator that frequents Yunmeng (...which is absolutely not true, because she has no golden core, never claimed to have a golden core, the cultivation world just assumed. Because she’s got some weird magic and they need some way to explain it, so she must have a golden core, right? Right.) and is therefore not under the Jiang Sect’s authority. As a rouge cultivator, her actions couldn’t be pinned on a single sect. So if someone did take issue with her, they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they started pointing fingers.
JC is the type of person that does not deal with bullshit. He does not care how perfectly polite you are or what posturing you pull - he has no time for your problems. He’s not reckless like WWX is in doing what’s right and damn the consequences; he bends where WWX would break. He prioritizes, compromises. After the Sunshot Campaign and everything that came after, he is very aware of how the cultivation world works. He’s aware of the greedy, power hungry vipers they he’s surrounded by, but he’s not in much of a position to do anything about it (in the early days at least). He has a sect to think about, people to care for. He has to be cautious, can’t afford to be anything else, until he gains enough of a standing to tell people to fuck off and have them unable to retaliate.
In the meantime, he’s perfectly content setting Thalassa loose on them.
cos in standard, plain ol’ regisson Fractured Lightning? the answer is amusement. detached amusement. Ardyn would just, be very coldly amused at it all and then quietly add the appearance of one/two new Lucis Caelum’s and their obvious pressure points to his revenge plot
Ardyn is old and angry and bitter and broken and all he cares about is finally dying and also getting revenge on his brother and Bahamut
having had one/two Lucis Caelums in the labs? well that’s a great fuck-you to them both
but in the ardynson fusion?
yeah.
Niflheim will be lucky if it’s still standing by the time Ardyn is through
2nd prompt: The ladies need some love. If you could give me something that passes the Bechdel test in the untamed universe, without needing lesbian relashionshs, it would fill me with joy
A/N: apologies for not really answering the prompt - for some reason, it gave me the idea to write a bunch of Untamed characters at a stitch-n-bitch and they have so much to complain about...
“It’s just endlessly frustrating,” Wen Qing said. “I’m a doctor. A very good doctor. How is this the best use of my time?”
She angrily stabbed the cloth in front of her as if it had done something to her personally.
“Consider it practice for your suturing skills,” Madame Jin said, attending to her own embroidery. “Or as stress reduction – I find it especially calming to think of my husband’s face while I sew.”
“Mm, yes,” Madame Yu said. “Stab, stab, stab. I can see the appeal.”
Jiang Yanli hid her giggles behind her own fabric, and even Wen Qing’s lips curled up a little.
“Moreover, knowledge of embroidery is important in its own right,” Madame Yu added. “Especially for us – between the dyers, the weavers, and the seamstresses, the Jiang sect supervises the making of clothing for three quarters of the cultivation world.”
“And we sell it to them,” Madame Jin reminded her.
Madame Yu made a face back at her.
“Personally, I just wish there were more women from the Lan sect available to participate,” Jiang Yanli murmured. “It doesn’t seem fair, really…”
“That we all get dragged around to every Discussion Conference and then shut out of participating in the politics?,” Madame Yu said. “Entirely unfair. Especially since it means that your father has to make decisions, which isn’t exactly what I would call his strong point.”
“Ah, ah, no politics in here,” Madame Jin said. “No politics, and no men, absent special exceptions. Remember the rules. Why don’t we go back to discussing Young Mistress Wen’s grievances?”
“No, there’s no point,” Wen Qing said, a little begrudgingly. “Sect Leader Wen respects my medical skills, but he worries, I think, that I’d – I don’t know, give away secrets or something. I don’t know why. Anyway, at least this way I avoid young masters Greed and Malevolence. Thanks for letting me get it out…how have you all been? Anything new?”
Madame Jin, the immaculate hostess, immediately launched into a rendition of a story out of Lanling, involving theft, vandalism, attempted murder, and a great deal of salacious gossip before concluding with the exile of the relevant party.
“I’m fairly sure that’s not a medically advised use of goose feathers,” Wen Qing said, biting her lips to keep from laughing. “Or – any of that, really. Is that really an appropriate punishment?”
“Well, it’s better than the Lan sect’s view of punishment,” Madame Yu said. “Can you imagine writing all those endless rules?”
“I wouldn’t mind writing rules,” Jiang Yanli said thoughtfully. “I would mind triple training, which I understand is the Nie sect’s preferred approach.”
“Well, you can’t make trouble if none of your muscles work,” Madame Yu pointed out. “It has some merit.”
“What would be the Jiang sect’s preferred punishment in this case?” Madame Jin asked. “Something more corporeal?”
“Kneeling, usually,” Madame Yu said. “All night, if necessary. The purpose is to teach humility.”
“Does it?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“A pity…”
“What are your thoughts on medicinal cuisine?” Jiang Yanli asked Wen Qing in an undertone. “I don’t have any medical expertise, but I’m a fairly good cook, so I was thinking…”
“There are plenty of guides out there,” Wen Qing said, brightening. “I can get some for you. What sort of things were you planning on focusing on?”
“Oh, no plans, just thinking –”
There was a knock at the door.
Madame Jin went to answer it, blinking up at Nie Mingjue.
“You’re not allowed,” she said.
“I know, I know, the rules are that these things are women only,” he said. He looked like he had a headache. “Any chance I can pretend long enough to escape having to talk to any of your spouses?”
“I thought saying you were a woman caused people like you pain,” Madame Jin said.
“Not as much pain as politics.”
“Well, they won’t look for you here,” Madame Yu said with a smirk. “Come on, let him in already.”
“There are rules for a reason, A-Yuan. I don’t care if he’s misaligned; he’s still a man.”
“We do allow some special exceptions,” Madame Yu said briskly. “Anyway, even if he’s not a woman, he’s still not one of the ones we complain about, is he? Same rules as cutsleeves.”
“Can misaligned people be cutsleeves?” Madame Jin asked, reluctantly stepping aside. “I don’t know much about it.”
“It works the same way as it does anywhere else,” Nie Mingjue said, doing his best to look especially pathetic. “I’m a man; if I like men, I’m a cutsleeve.”
“Do you?”
“I like everything. Can I come in?”
“Yes,” Madame Yu said. “Come in, take some clothing, and come tell me what terrible decisions has my husband made now and if it’s too late to go behind his back to overturn them?”
“I came here to avoid talking politics. Isn’t that one of the rules as well?” Nie Mingjue grumbled, but he came in and picked up some cloth and a needle, sitting down next to them to avoid towering.
“You came here to avoid talking politics with idiots,” Madame Jin said tartly. “We don’t qualify.”
“Did you know that Sect Leader Nie…?” Wen Qing asked Jiang Yanli in a whisper, eyes wide. Jiang Yanli shook her head mutely. “But if he was born misaligned, how in the world did he get to be so tall…?”
“If you mean the mustache, you can just say so,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “It’s a stupid use of cultivation, I know.”
Jiang Yanli hid a smile in her sleeve. “It’s very handsome.”
“Actually, I did mean your height,” Wen Qing said. “Using cultivation to grow hair is one thing, but if people could use it to get taller, we’d be surrounded by giants, rather than just you.”
“You ought to have seen my mother,” Nie Mingjue said. He’d started embroidering a small flower onto the sleeve – blue and pretty. “Now she was tall. Possibly a goddess, if you listen to the gossip.”
“The gossip was pretty sure she was a goddess,” Madame Jin said. “No possibly about it. You embroider better than she ever did, though.”
“Wild animals embroidered better than Madame Nie did,” Madame Yu said, sounding vaguely nostalgic. “I only met her a few times, but I was very impressed each time by exactly how little she cared about anyone’s anything. Do you remember the time she walked around Qishan holding a full grown pig above her head?”
“I wish she’d dropped it on Sect Leader Wen.”
“You’re not the only one,” Nie Mingjue said, then frowned. “Young Mistress Wen, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be over with the rest of the doctors comparing notes?”
