#zmh

[z4chzwh0re]

I am back, i have calmed heh why is life fucking me over lately, im way too chill to be crashing out every other day -w-

[dennisd7231]

I have. Art

[carolyncaves]

Day 12 is Rebirth (I went with ‘reborn’, I figure that’s Close Enough), and this is a sort of Lan Xichen emerging from seclusion thing. It features Nie Huaisang and my OC Zhang Meihua, but tbh I’m still working out my thinking about the dynamic between LXC and NHS post-canon, so some of that is glossed over. It’s mostly about LXC. Precedes this one.

1459 words, Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang/OC. Technically pre-relationship in the context of the whole au, but it’s not really a feature of this ficlet. Mental health issues (vaguely)

“If Zewu Jun receives anyone – disciples, servants – could they please let him know we’re here and would be pleased to speak with him, however informally.”

Nie Huaisang had assumed he would not accept. Why would he? The junior disciple who showed them to their pavilion informed them Lan Xichen was still in his seclusion and had not seen any outsiders since entering it. Surely the first person he agreed to see would not be Nie Huaisang. He and Meihua had come to make the offer. They would drink tea, walk the peaceful paths of Cloud Recesses, spend the night, and return home.

The tea had not been delivered five minutes when the door slid open again, and Nie Huaisang looked up to inform whatever servant was checking on them they were more than satisfied with the hospitality of Gusu. His voice died in his throat.

Zewu Jun had the dazed, beleaguered look of a person who’d thought ‘certainly, I’ll simply walk down to the compound, it’s a simple thing I used to do without thought countless times a day’, only to discover that having been secluded on the back mountain for nearly two years, it wasn’t really so simple any longer. Nie Huaisang felt a bit chagrinned. He had chosen not to offer for them to visit Lan Xichen wherever he was secluded, because it had seemed like a ridiculous intrusion to even suggest, but now he thought maybe it would have been the kinder thing to do. Zewu Jun’s hair was low and only pulled back loosely – clean, but far from the well-maintained luster Nie Huaisang remembered him with. His clothes were simple as well. He blinked at them as if he had just been born – or perhaps more appropriately, reborn. Someone whose eyes were adjusting to the light of a new world he had not been a part of for a very long time.

For Nie Huaisang, his long agony was over that day two years ago in Guanyin. For Zewu Jun, that was the day his began.

“I was told … you desired to see me. Informally, if necessary.” He seemed almost defensive, or perhaps wounded. Maybe he was afraid they were laughing at him – had summoned him here (as much as a Sect Leader could be summoned by anyone in his own demesne) so they could see and make mockery of his state of deterioration.

“We simply wanted to convey that we would be pleased and honored to see you at all, Zewu Jun, knowing you have been in seclusion,” Meihua said.

Nie Huaisang had planned to let her do all the talking, but something sick in his belly at the sight of Zewu Jun like this thought that wasn’t enough. “We were truly just trying not to inconvenience you, Zewu Jun, because we know your mind is burdened. I am a visiting Sect Leader, technically, but I really don’t know anything, so I wouldn’t be deserving of any special consideration on your part.”

There was a long pause as Lan Xichen regarded him, a glaze in his knowing eyes. Nie Huaisang hoped Lan Xichen wouldn’t miss his meaning. We both know I had a hand in making you like this. If anyone should be ashamed here, it isn’t you.

It must have gotten through clearly, or else Lan Xichen decided to receive them anyway, because he came forward across the room. He didn’t even call for a separate setting of his own, which would be most formal. He sank down at the tea table with them, that the three of them would share it. As if he were receiving friends personally, instead of a colleague he resented.

“Congratulations on your marriage,” Lan Xichen said to Meihua. “I hope you will forgive me for not attending your wedding – please know it was not a personal slight.”

“Of course. I tried to make sure it was clear in your invitation we would not be offended if you remained away,” Meihua said. “We would have been happy to have you, but we knew you were in seclusion and would never have expected you to break it on our accounts.”

Lan Xichen looked significantly at them, then gestured down at himself, clearly meaning his current state. His lip curled slightly in a wry smile, so it seemed a rebuttal of amusement rather than indignation or anger.

“I said we would never expect you to,” Meihua pointed out. “Not that we wouldn’t ask.”

“Why would you have come all this way now, if you didn’t expect me to?” Lan Xichen replied, as if he were catching them out on a misplaced detail.

“You deserve the journey, Zewu Jun,” Zhang Meihua said, “even only for the attempt.”

Lan Xichen’s head rocked back at that, as if it were really something unbelievable. His gaze travelled to Nie Huaisang’s face, as if searching it for confirmation. Nie Huaisang hid a little behind his fan, but he didn’t let himself look away.

Nie Huaisang owed Zewu Jun for the role he’d made him play. That had become apparent as his seclusion stretched on. Nie Huaisang wanted to repay this debt as well as he’d done Meng Yao’s – and it seemed Zewu Jun was going to let him try.

///

Lan Xichen was beginning to get the impression this was some sort of apology, or at least the overture to one, which he had not expected at all.

When he had been given word of their visitors’ request, he had for some reason acquiesced. People had stopped asking for him early on in the first year, so perhaps it was the novelty. Perhaps the void at his center had claimed enough ground that he no longer cared enough to resist. Perhaps it was because, after everything, he still wanted something from Huaisang – and his weary heart had jumped at the chance he might get it, even though rationally he knew it was something that didn’t exist. So Lan Xichen had risen and gone to receive them.

It wasn’t until he was in the middle of Cloud Recesses, attracting the stares of every servant and disciple in his vicinity, that it occurred to him to think about his physical state. Unpolished and inelegant. It was then that he felt the urge to withdraw, the rise of fear. How could they not think poorly of him? In fact, that might have been their goal all along, to coax their way into a glimpse of the First Jade of Lan now that he had lost his luster. To take his trusting goodwill and turn it against him. Lan Xichen could not turn around and leave (he could, of course, because he was Sect Leader, but it seemed to him doing so would display a sickening weakness), but by the time he’d reached to door to their guests’ pavilion, he was immersed in an insecurity and defensiveness that bordered on resentment.

It was a relief to find himself in error. It would not be later, as he reflected on having once again failed to judge correctly, but now, he was weary and empty, and he found a strange, easy warmth in these two people who treated him like he owed them nothing and the world less. Lan Xichen surrendered to it, to the guidance of someone other than himself, and sat down with them to take tea.

They carried most of the conversation, but they didn’t seem to mind it – they were both suited to it individually, and together they had a pleasant and apparently indefatigable chemistry. Apology aside, he assumed they hoped for something from him, information or a favor, so he gave them ample time to reveal it. After tea, the three of them went for a walk along the mountain paths. After the walk, he took dinner in their pavilion with them. After eating, they sat further, he drinking water, them drinking wine, until time began to brush against the Lan sect curfew. When he excused himself and rose, they rose with him, and they walked him to the gently-lit edges of the central compound. It was then, finally, that they exchanged a glance and evidently determined their ulterior motive should be revealed.

They wanted to invite him to come to Qinghe.

“To visit or to stay,” Zhang Meihua explained. “Whatever you like.”

“In case a venue away from your usual places seems easier,” Huaisang added. “You could keep to yourself. We aren’t bothered with propriety, neither of us, so you wouldn’t need to be either.”

Instead of simply thanking them for the offer, Lan Xichen told them he would think on it – not because he was because he had relaxed his determination to speak only the truth, but because he thought he probably would.

[benwrey]

how could he forget the ropes oh my god....... - 👁💙

gordon failman cant even remember the ropez

[carolyncaves]

For 20: Fond I’ve just got some short light banter between Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng. Essentially a prologue to the ace!JC AU. 552 words, NHS & co playing matchmaker, background NHS x OC.

"Wei-xiong was reminding me of all the conversations we had back in those days,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully over a cup of baijiu. It was his own wedding feast, so he figured he had several more minutes of Jiang Cheng’s bare-minimum courtesy to rely on, and he was planning on making them count. “You know, about girls and boys and birds and bees – when we were all just figuring these things out. It's funny how some of the things we thought then make so much more sense in retrospect. Don't you agree?"

"Don't talk about me with Wei Wuxian! What business does he have, thinking he knows what I ever thought?” Jiang Cheng scowled into his own cup of liquor.

"Come now, Jiang-xiong, I know you aren't fond of him, but you can't tell me he doesn't have your best interests at heart."

"Fond of him?" Jiang Cheng looked apoplectic. "He's the worst thing that ever happened to me and my family. He saved my life, and the while cultivation world, albeit unwittingly with your maniacal help. Don't talk to me about ‘fond of him’. He doesn't need to be thinking about my personal life." Jiang Cheng drank the baijiu, set the cup down hard, and glared at him. "Neither do you!"

"Ah, don't be like that - it's my wedding."

"It could be your funeral for all I care."

"Jiang-xiong," Nie Huaisang scolded, playfully hurt. "I’ve been thinking about this because you're my friend and I care about you. You were always so quiet when we were looking at those dirty books as schoolboys - except when you were very loud. And then you never seemed to take the matchmaking seriously - or rather, you took it so seriously of course it never worked out. You're a mess of contradicting signals, one can hardly tell what you want. I wonder if you know yourself. That's fine, of course, that's fine if you don’t, it's not something to rush into headlong. Neither is it something to do if you genuinely don't wish to. I only worry for your future and your enduring happiness."

Jiang Cheng was looking less and less tolerant of Nie Huaisang's rambling, which was impressive, considering how intolerant of it he looked at the start. He needed to get to the point.

"Companionship takes all kinds of forms, you know. Just look at me and Meihua."

"Yes, look at you," Jiang Cheng said. "Letting a brazen and calculating third daughter from a minor sect poach you easily."

"The right thing looks different for everyone, Jiang-xiong. That's precisely what I mean."

"I'm finished talking to you about this," Jiang Cheng said, standing, taking Sandu from the table. "I’m finished talking to you entirely. The matchmakers won't take me anymore regardless, so it's a moot point." He scowled at Nie Huaisang, and then he scowled across the room toward where Meihua was speaking with Wei Wuxian. "Congratulations," he said grudgingly.

Nie Huaisang watched Jiang Cheng go, and then he waited to catch Meihua's eye. When she and Wei Wuxian noticed him, they each inclined an eyebrow. Well?

Nie Huaisang nodded.

Most people only needed a gentle push in the right direction to do what they really wanted in their hearts. Jiang Cheng was going to need a two-handed shove and then some.

[carolyncaves]

I’m cheating slightly and saying this is an entry for both Day 9: Shower and Day 10: Rainbow - my excuse is this scene is long enough to count double. From a chronological standpoint, this is the very beginning of the NHS/OC, JC&OC saga, which as I’ve said follows the same post-canon thread as my fic Senseless (on AO3), but the only important background is Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are Together (because of course they are).

2209 words, Wangxian, Nie Huaisang, OC, Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng. Post CQL, drama at parties, banter, Wangxian feels, Meet Zhang Meihua

The banquet – held in honor of Jin Ling’s accession to Sect Leader – was essentially a very lavish excuse to invite everyone in the cultivation world to Carp Tower to shower him with praise and gifts of goodwill. It was a very Lanling Jin thing to do, but at least they’d thrown a good party to entice and compensate the guests. Wei Wuxian was most of the way through his second bottle of baijiu and felt pleasantly warm from it, and the evening was still young.

He himself had been personally invited, which indicated Jiang Cheng had no control over the guest list. Not that a lack of an invitation would have kept him from his sister’s son’s celebration. Lan Zhan was invited to everything, because he was Chief Cultivator, and ever since they had become more one thing than two, he brought Wei Wuxian everywhere with him without fail and wore a version of his blank look that dared anyone to say anything about it. So far, no one had.

Lan Zhan had paid his respects to Jin Ling (as had Wei Wuxian himself, somewhat more jovially and obnoxiously and overbearingly, as a good uncle should), but with that duty fulfilled, Lan Zhan seemed more interested in doting on Wei Wuxian than in socializing with the other cultivators – or rather staring silently into the middle distance, which was how he usually behaved at parties. Wei Wuxian barely had time to breathe before he was being handed each next cup of baijiu or pilfered blossom or small delicacy Lan Zhan had acquired from a servant’s tray. This time, it was a tiny cherry cordial jelly, with a piece of sugared orange peel on top.

Lan Zhan had been increasingly free with gifts and indulgences now that Wei Wuxian was a permanent inhabitant of the jingshi, and for a while Wei Wuxian had often teased him about it, his own roundabout way of trying to tell him he didn’t have to, that Wei Wuxian was not so very needy, that Lan Zhan could relax because he would stay regardless. Then one time Lan Zhan had inclined his head, almost in shame, and said, “I like giving things to you,” very quietly. That admission, in addition to lighting Wei Wuxian’s insides up like a brand, had made him change course completely. Now he simply made sure to show he liked the things he was given. He tipped the cordial treat into his mouth, savoring the taste and smiling at his companion as he did it. In this case, he wondered if Lan Zhan’s particularly fervent behavior had something to do with the past. The last time they’d been here, Wei Wuxian had been wearing Mo Xuanyu’s mask, and once that had been removed, he’d been stabbed trying to exit.

The time before that, Wei Wuxian had drunk a cup of liquor on Lan Zhan’s behalf and left Lanling at odds with the entire cultivation world.

They were a very long way from that now, in time and in metaphorical distance. Still, Wei Wuxian knew Lan Zhan had suffered greatly when he was gone. Those memories had haunted Lan Zhan through the long absence in a way they never would for Wei Wuxian himself. He let Lan Zhan do whatever he wanted to do, hoping his pliance would soothe him.

“Wei-jiu!” Jin Ling’s voice pierced through all the crowded hall, and the words sent Wei Wuxian’s heart up to lodge in his throat. Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng – who had been carefully distant from Wei Wuxian all evening, this being the first time they’d seen each other since their previous conversation which had resolved some things but not others, and who now looked moments away from apoplexy at either Jin Ling’s active solicitation of Wei Wuxian’s attention, the term he used to do it, or both – were standing over Nie Huaisang, who – Wei Wuxian had been keeping track – was sitting in a well-behaved manner in the Nie delegation’s section of the hall and not seeking anyone out. Nie Huaisang was smiling placidly, but Wei Wuxian could still see he was a little alarmed at being the center of attention of now four of the people who had been present at Guanyin Temple that day. Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure whether that alarm was warranted or not.

Two jars of baijiu deep, he was more than curious to find out. He was halfway across the hall before it occurred to him to check with Lan Zhan, but he was following in Wei Wuxian’s wake, looking cool but placid. He would be all right.

“Venerable Sect Master Jin,” Wei Wuxian greeted, bowing exaggeratedly low to his nephew. He bowed to Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang as well, as courtesy required. It occurred to him that all three of them were Sect Leaders, of three of the main sects. With Lan Xichen in seclusion, Lan Zhan was not very dissimilar from being one himself, at least for now – in addition to being Chief Cultivator. Wei Wuxian considered himself standing among them and chuckled. He didn’t think being the former Yiling Partiarch, brief ruler of several radish fields, made him quite their equal.

“What’s so funny?” Jin Ling scolded. “I called you over here to settle something. I heard you punched my father in the face when you were all at Cloud Recesses together, and Jiu Jiu says you were being hotheaded and foolish, but Sect Leader Nie says my father deserved it.”

“Sect Leader Nie says many things,” Lan Zhan said, eyes narrowing in his direction.

Nie Huaisang fan kept fluttering gently against his chest and he kept his smile up, but Wei Wuxian could see his throat bob. Lan Zhan did indeed sound very threatening, and it would probably be bad luck to have blood spilled on the day of Jin Ling’s celebration, so Wei Wuxian took Lan Zhan’s hand and squeezed it and said, “They’re both right, Jin Ling. I behaved rashly in defense of my sister’s feelings, to be sure, but your father was a young man acting foolish himself. It’s like what I told you before, about getting in some fights while you had the chance.”

“You told him what?” Jiang Cheng seethed, and Wei Wuxian thought maybe in the end blood would be spilled after all, only it would be his own, when they were interrupted by the sound of a voice clearing its throat.

A woman was standing there, having approached their group. She was of their generation, if on the younger side of it, and her hair was worn in the arrangement of an unmarried woman. Her yellow and purple robes were a style that evoked Lanling, and she was smiling, with a similar attitude about her as the floral pattern on her dress – light and carefree. Wei Wuxian didn’t recognize her, so she had to belong to a minor sect or family. She carried no sword.

“Sect Leader Jin,” she began, bowing, “Your Excellency, Sect Leaders, Senior Wei. I apologize for interrupting your conversation, but I was about to depart, and I was hoping to get the chance to speak with Sect Leader Nie beforehand.”

Nie Huaisang sat up straighter, apparently surprised to be addressed. “Well, of course. You look somewhat familiar to me, guniang. Have we met before? Your name is …”

“Zhang Meihua. I believe my father invited you to stop for tea at our family’s manor when you were on your way here from Qinghe. I was out, but I’m often told I and my two elder sisters look very much alike.” She smiled in amusement. “So we ourselves have not met. But later that day, I found this in our hall.” She reached into her wide belt and withdrew a folded paper fan, the same sort Nie Huaisang himself carried. “I believed you may have left it inadvertently, and I thought I should return it to you.”

“Oh my, Zhang-guniang, you didn’t need to come all this way over a paper fan,” Nie Huaisang said jovially. He reached out, and seemed idly perplexed when she didn’t just hand it to him.

“It was no trouble, Sect Leader, I was already thinking I’d attend.” And then, despite her casual tone, she steeled herself just a little – imperceptibly WWX might not have even noticed – before opening the fan and holding it down for Nie Huaisang to inspect.

The painted side was facing out, and the art was obviously not Nie Huaisang’s, at least as far as Wei Wuxian’s eye could tell – it lacked his subtlety. But that didn’t seem to matter. The transverse side of the fan, the side Nie Huaisang often used to write poetry on his own, was angled so as to be visible to Nie Huaisang only. And Nie Huaisang – who was always playing with the fan in his hands, who was always animated with a whole rainbow of inane emotions he was happy to have you see – Nie Huaisang was frozen, his face a rictus of his disintegrating smile mixed with swift horror.

Something was written there, and Nie Huaisang was surprised and very unhappy to see it.

Wei Wuxian had just processed it, was reaching for Chenqing with one hand and Lan Zhan with the other, when Zhang Meihua snapped the fan shut.

“Ah, Sect Leader Nie, I think I’ve made a mistake,” she said, laughing a little, lightly. “I actually think this must be my oldest sister’s fan, which I don’t recognize because she never uses them. I will put this back where it belongs, where it will certainly never see the light of day again.”

Huaisang’s eyes lifted, then – from the fan to her face. His expression was melting toward bewilderment.

“I assure you, Sect Leader, you have nothing to fear. I have no ambitions against your artful style. I suppose I was merely searching a little too eagerly for an excuse to introduce myself to you, because I appreciate the skill of your work.” Zhang Meihua bowed low and proper. “Sect Leader Jin, congratulations again and thank you for your hospitality.” She turned and walked toward the open doors at the far end of Glamour Hall.

Nie Huaisang watched her go like a man transfixed.

“What was that all about?” Jin Ling, characteristically demanding even when he had missed an important thread.

When Zhang Meihua reached the doorway, she looked over her shoulder to see if Nie Huaisang was still watching. She saw that he was, and she inclined her head at him, and then she held the fan out and dropped it into one of the braziers blazing next to the entrance to help heat the spacious hall. The orange light inside it flared briefly, as the flames consumed the paper and whatever secret of Huaisang’s had been inscribed on it. Then it was over, and she was gone.

“Ah, what indeed, Jin Ling,” Wei Wuxian laughed over Nie Huaisang’s still-dazed head. “That was a fellow appreciator of the painted fan, trying very skillfully to catch the esteemed Sect Leader Nie’s attention!”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said quietly, a gentle warning. Wei Wuxian ignored him.

“Why did she burn it then?” Jin Ling asked, still oblivious.

“She said it herself – she did not want Huaisang to feel she was threatening his supremacy in the fine art of carrying paper fans.” Wei Wuxian knew he was radiating far too much glee. He couldn’t help it.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan repeated, a little more firmly, and Wei Wuxian conceded. A deep rose blush had by that point painted Nie Huaisang’s cheeks, and if Wei Wuxian carried on more about it, Jin Ling would eventually catch the drift.

“Ah, well. An interesting person to have met, wouldn’t you agree, Esteemed Sect Leader Huaisang?”

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” Jiang Cheng scowled. Wei Wuxian couldn’t imagine Sandu Shengshou letting anyone leave the room after a dramatic revelation of a personal secret, assurances of that person’s good intentions to the contrary.

“She’s probably already gone,” Nie Huaisang said, almost absently. “She said she was leaving, didn’t she? It’s a long journey back to Zhang Manor.”

“But at the next cultivation conference …” Wei Wuxian raised his eyebrows, making an implicating face at Lan Zhan – who did not roll his eyes at him but clearly wanted to in spirit – and Jiang Cheng – who did.

“Oh, I’m not sure if she’ll make an appearance,” Nie Huaisang dissembled, his own fan once again beginning to flutter. “If she’s a maiden daughter of a minor sect without much to do with cultivation, she surely has better things to do than travel all the way to Qinghe to attend a cultivation conference.”

“I have a good feeling about it,” Wei Wuxian proclaimed. He truly did, too. Not just that Lady Zhang would absolutely make an appearance at the next public event Nie Huaisang attended. If Wei Wuxian could bet Lan Zhan’s money, he would wager that someday there would be a public event held in their honor.

To make her statement with such an audience, four powerful figures and Wei Wuxian as well … this Zhang Meihua seemed like a person who knew what she wanted, and who would take bold steps to see it through.

[carolyncaves]

Day 23 is Earth, and I almost went for some light modern AU thing, but then I remembered I was trying to work on character creation, so instead I did some thinking about Zhang Meihua. 1275 words, NHS x OC, the plot thickens. Follows this.

In poetry, the earth was often depicted with warm and gentle demeanor. It was green and damp and loamy, the font of life, all sturdy wise trees and delicate daffodils and the supportive ground beneath mankind’s feet.

Qinghe was in the far north, where it was cold in the winter and harsh every time of year. Surrounded by the bare, unyielding stone of Qinghe and the walls of the Unclean Realm, Nie Huaisang had always thought differently. He had a great deal of affection for his home, to be sure. He was just well aware the earth was as indifferent to human life as any other natural force – cultivation, time, the rain, or the hearts of small-minded men.

Nie Huaisang had managed to endure the endless talking and discussing and work of the cultivation conference, and more than a little ribbing from Wei Wuxian in particular, and now it was time for the part of the event he’d actually been looking forward to – the banquet afterward. He always looked forward to banquets – the good ones were fun, and the bad ones were fun in a different way – but this time in particular, he was anxious to discover whether Zhang Meihua would make an appearance.

He’d been trying to size her up in his mind’s eye since the accession party at Jinlintai. Their meeting had been so brief. He was hoping today he would be given a little more to work with. She would certainly attend – she wouldn’t have gone to the great effort of arranging her previous spectacle if she didn’t have a longer game in mind.

Sure enough, she arrived with the other minor guests. She was seated in the outed edges of the Jin sect’s sphere of influence, because her family was sworn to the service of Jinlintai. She was wearing muted colors today, pale yellow with dusty lavender. Before, she’d been trying to stand out, even among the gaudy characters of Lanling – now, she was trying to look like she could blend in at Qinghe.

She was unsubtle. That much was obvious even from her debut. She wore her intentions on her sleeve, as it were. But she was astute, discerning, nuanced, patient. She didn’t immediately seek out his gaze. In fact, he had trouble catching her eye at all, and she made no move to approach him.

Nie Huaisang lasted about half a stick of incense’s time before he asked a servant to call her over.

Only when the servant leaned down and spoke in her ear did Zhang Meihua turn her gaze in his direction – and it was with an easy and open smile. She rose immediately and wove her way across the hall to meet him.

“Sect Leader Nie,” she said, bowing cordially.

“Zhang-san-guniang. Our meeting in Lanling made a very strong impression on me,” Nie Huaisang said, and he was almost certain he didn’t imagine the corners of her mouth turn a little further upward in amusement at that. “How are your elder sisters? I have been trying to remember them, from my visit to your home. We didn’t talk much, my group was mostly served by your household’s servants and then we departed, but of course your family greeted me politely. If I remember correctly, one had a young child on her arm?”

“That would have been my eldest sister, Lanhua.”

“Was her husband away? I don’t recall if I met him.”

“You did not, Sect Leader. Her husband revealed himself to be a man of poor character several years ago, deserting her and their child. Lanhua is the head of our family.”

“Ah, I see, I see, I’m sorry for mentioning it. Tell me about your second sister, then. She looked wan and carried a handkerchief – was she ill? If so, I hope she has recovered.”

“Thank you for your wishes, Sect Leader. My second sister, Juhua, is indeed ill, though it is not the sort of illness one recovers from. Fortunately there is a doctor in Gaojia Town who treats her and she is able to live her life reasonably well.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, terribly sorry, never mind then. Let me instead compliment you on your family’s beautiful manor and wish you perpetual peace and prosperity.”

She said nothing in response to that, and her easy smile did not quite slip, but Nie Huaisang faintly began to remember the particulars of the political situation in the Menghe River Valley. A robber baron had established himself through friendship ties with Jin Guangshan and then extorted his way into ever-increasing control of trade under Jin Guangyao’s corruption, using his stranglehold to leech more and more power and money into his own pockets. It was likely the Zhang family was facing financial and political pressure, especially if the first sister had a child to support and the second a chronic illness that required ongoing treatment and they only had sisters and no brothers to work with.

Suddenly, Zhang-san-guniang’s motivations were cast in an entirely more illuminating light. Was she here to persuade him to take action to help restore her region’s former balance of power and consequently her family’s prosperity, or to seduce him into a marriage which would secure her family regardless? Perhaps either of the two would suffice, and she was intending to cast her lots widely and see what came up.

It was a little hurtful, albeit in a foolish way, to realize she was interested in more than him as person. At the same time, Nie Huaisang remembered acutely what it was to be a younger sibling and find the weight of one’s family’s survival resting unexpectedly on one’s shoulders. He remembered his brother growing more and more unstable, and feeling helpless under the impending weight.

He remembered his death, and being the only one left to avenge it.

He looked as if for the first time at Zhang Meihua – with her carefully-considered robes, likely bought specifically for this occasion, and her nearly-free smile, and her cunningly crafted approach – and he saw her a little more sharply. “You know, Zhang-san-guniang, I think maybe you and I have a lot in common with each other. Please sit next to me and let us talk some more this evening.”

He said it for several reasons. He was hardly just going to marry this person – he had no mercenary reason of his own to agree to it, and he didn’t know her at all – but if they could work out something together instead of in opposition, Nie Huaisang would not be opposed to helping her. Favors were bought with favors, and a favor from Zhang Meihua might come in handy someday.

Because he remembered the fan she’d presented to him at Jinlintai, and the words written on it which had struck him like a saber to the chest. Zhang Meihua had to be truly clever to have discovered that – and for all she’d assured him she hadn’t meant it as a threat, she did in fact want something from him, and there would be consequences for her if she didn’t get it. She had the ability to weaponize that secret if she decided to – to flip and suddenly hold it like a knife to his throat.

Perhaps that was all part of her calculation. She’d given him no choice but to take her seriously in one respect – so he would also be forced to entertain her seriously in the other.

Nie Huaisang was well accustomed to cultivating his formidable allies closely and keeping his most dangerous enemies even closer. He had to admit he was tantalizingly curious which of those Zhang Meihua would turn out to be.

[therealmlpguy]

THIZ WAZ IN NZFW WHAT WAZ I ZUPPOZED TO THINK