Chapter Text
The world changed when Jiang Cheng was seventeen.
They heard only rumors, for the first few months. Lotus Pier wasn’t far from Nightless City by cultivators’ reckoning, but there were no formal lines of communication, no regular exchanges of news or guest cultivators. The last official missive from Qishan had been that imperious summons for indoctrination. Since the Jiang disciples’ return — since that disastrous confrontation in the Xuanwu cave, and Wen Chao’s attempt to bury them alive with a monster — they’d waited in wary anticipation for the next sign of retaliation.
Two weeks passed, and nothing came.
Jiang Cheng had a few attempts at letters to Wen Qing hidden in his writing desk. He’d never got further than the first stilted sentences.
She hadn’t written him either, anyway.
Jiang Yanli kept in touch with everyone, of course; but she knew only that Wen Qing had written one polite, formal letter, inquiring about Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s health after the night hunt in Dusk Creek Mountain, and then stopped. She hadn’t replied to Jiang Yanli’s next two letters.
That was about the time the first rumors began to swirl through Yunmeng, about unseasonal storms in Qishan, trade routes disrupted, refugees—“So likely Wen-guniang is just busy,” Jiang Yanli said, in the quietly firm way that meant she wanted Jiang Cheng to stop worrying so that she could do all the fretting herself. “She’s a doctor and a cultivator; she’ll be out with the common folk, doing what she can for them. Of course she wouldn’t have time to answer my letters.”
“Nie-xiong wrote,” Wei Wuxian said, laying the letter and a wrapped package on Jiang Yanli’s desk. They were meeting in her rooms, closest to the water. It was a hot, sticky night, with the summer rains still weeks away, and she had opened all the latticed doors to invite the barest hint of a breeze. “He sent you a painted fan, Shijie, and a report from some Nie cultivators passing through Liyang. Those minor clans that had been complaining about trouble from the Wens? The pressure’s eased off now. Wen Ruohan’s focused on something else.”
The fan was painted with an ethereal scene of green mountains ringing a lake pink with lotus blossoms. Jiang Yanli smiled distractedly at it before picking up the letter. Wei Wuxian exchanged a rueful glance with Jiang Cheng, and began fanning her with Nie Huaisang’s gift. Occasionally he bothered to waft a little cool air Jiang Cheng’s way.
“Nie-gongzi doesn’t seem to know very much,” Jiang Yanli said doubtfully, setting Nie Huaisang’s letter down at last. “Wen cultivators pulling back into Qishan… maybe they realized they overstepped, after what Wen Chao did to you boys at the Xuanwu Cave.”
Jiang Cheng snorted. “The Wens admitting they overstepped? They haven’t even sent our swords back.” His left hand still felt empty without Sandu’s familiar weight. So many years training with the sword, carrying it everywhere, learning to use it as another part of his own body— Its absence left him unbalanced. Unsettled.
He said, “What about Gusu? Has that Lan Wangji written?”
Wei Wuxian looked startled, then shifty. “No? Why would he write?”
“Oh, I don’t know, because I found you cuddling in a cave and had to pull you out of his arms.”
“I had a fever,” Wei Wuxian said primly.
“Please don’t argue, boys,” Jiang Yanli said, smoothing two carved jade weights over a new sheet of paper. Jiang Cheng beat Wei Wuxian to grinding ink for her; Wei Wuxian made a dreadful face at him, but settled back to resume his fanning. Jiang Yanli smiled gentle appreciation at them both as she wet her brush. “I’ll write back to Nie-gongzi,” she decided. “And to Zewu-jun, to offer our continued support in rebuilding the Cloud Recesses. And a short note to Wen-guniang, just in case we can find any traders willing to head northwest...”
Wei Wuxian was still restricted from stepping outside Lotus Pier’s gates, so Jiang Cheng was the one who took her letters down to the docks. It was a simmering hot morning, more soup than air, but people still shouted their greetings and asked after poor Wei-gongzi’s health. Jiang Cheng didn’t bother explaining that he was being punished, not sick; he would’ve had to repeat himself too many times. Instead he found Lao Guo, who’d carried Jiang Yanli’s letters before, and asked how soon he was going back north.
Lao Guo hesitated a long moment. “Jiang-gongzi, this old merchant has heard...unpleasant news, coming down on the north wind. Smoke and fire over Nightless City. Bodies floating down the Wei River. This old merchant was planning to journey south to the Yangtze and then to Gusu, instead.”
“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said. He fished another letter out of the inner folds of his robes. “Well, take this instead. It’s for Sect Leader Lan at the Cloud Recesses, anyone in Caiyi Town should be able to pass it on to him. Who told you about the bodies in the Wei? Were they cultivators or commoners?”
Lao Guo lifted his shoulders helplessly. He didn’t know much; he’d heard the rumors at some teahouse or other, and, unlike Wei Wuxian, didn’t press ghoulishly for more. But the same rumors had spread to most of the other traders at the docks. A few embroidered on the theme. The smoke over Nightless City was really from an eruption, and the entire city was engulfed in lava. No, it was from a rebellion; some distant relative of Wen Ruohan had risen up to overthrow him for his crimes. No, it was from a monster, a giant snake-headed tortoise that had escaped from its thousand-year prison to slaughter everyone in Qishan—
“That’s not true,” Jiang Cheng said. “There was a xuanwu imprisoned in Dusk Creek Mountain, but Wei Wuxian killed it. With,” he added grudgingly, “some help from a Lan.”
He found someone willing to carry Jiang Yanli’s letter to Qinghe, and bought a bag of freshly picked lotus seed pods to take home. Wei Wuxian had spent too much of the last two weeks complaining about not being able to go out and pick his own.
The summer droned on, hot and sticky and still. Jiang Fengmian made up his mind three times to go to the Wen indoctrination site to demand the return of his disciples’ confiscated swords, and three times turned back. The rumors were too thick now, too unsettling.
Civil war in Qishan; volcanic eruptions; humans twisted into degenerate beasts and run mindlessly amok. Wen Ruohan was behind it all; Wen Ruohan was mad; Wen Ruohan was dead, and his sons were slaughtering each other for power in his stead.
Then a letter arrived from the Cloud Recesses, brought by a tired inner-sect cultivator in white robes and headband. She made her bows properly before Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan in the reception hall, while Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, and Wei Wuxian knelt behind their dining desks at the side.
The letter was for Jiang-guniang, the Lan Sect cultivator explained; but the news she brought was from one sect leader to another.
“Sect Leader Lan received an envoy from Nightless City, five days ago. The envoy sought to re-establish ties between Qishan Wen and Gusu Lan. She offered a generous gift of gold ingots as well as a rosewood box filled with salt — and Wen Xu’s head.”
Wei Wuxian dropped his teacup.
Jiang Cheng hissed at him to be still, before his mother noticed. For once he needn’t have bothered. Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were wholly focused on the Lan cultivator.
“Wen Xu’s head,” Jiang Fengmian repeated, as if making sure he’d heard correctly. “Wen Ruohan’s eldest son? His heir?”
“Who sent the envoy?” Yu Ziyuan demanded. “Does Wen Ruohan still rule in Nightless City, or has that dog Wen Chao added patricide to his crimes?”
The Lan cultivator bowed. A tiny smile played at the edge of her mouth. “The envoy came from Wen Mu, courtesy name Wen Shuozhen. She proclaimed herself Sect Leader Wen and Lady of Nightless City.”
There was a long moment’s silence. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian traded glances again: Have you ever heard of her? No, me neither.
“Wen Shuozhen,” Yu Ziyuan said slowly. “Wen Mu. I recall… Yes. Wen Ruohan’s sister by the same mother. A talented cultivator, though I wouldn’t have thought— Did she kill Wen Ruohan and his son?”
Or his sons, Jiang Cheng thought. He couldn’t imagine that arrogant bastard Wen Chao bending his head to accept an aunt’s authority.
He hoped that particular death had hurt.
The Lan cultivator spread her hands and bowed her head. “Madam Yu, this cultivator knows very few details. Sect Leader Lan accepted the envoy and her gifts, but we learned only what she wished to tell us. Have the Jiang Sect heard anything more?”
“Rumors only,” Yu Ziyuan said dismissively, before anyone else could speak. “Rebellion within the sect, volcanic eruptions, demonic cultivation… Who knows what’s true and what’s false? But if Wen Shuozhen feels secure enough in her power now to reach out to Gusu Lan…” She twisted Zidian on her finger, her eyes narrowed in thought.
Jiang Fengmian cleared his throat. “Sect Leader Lan accepted the gifts, you said. So he means to accept Wen Sect’s offer of… rapprochement.”
The Lan cultivator’s mouth thinned. She must have been one of the survivors of Wen Xu’s attack on the Cloud Recesses, barely two months ago. Of course she wouldn’t be appeased by a box of gold and Wen Xu’s head. But she said, “Sect Leader Lan hopes for a new era of peace between the sects. He believes that a new discussion conference may offer an opportunity to lay to rest some of the grudges of the past. Unfortunately, the Cloud Recesses is in no state to host such an event, and Sect Leader Nie—”
“Would never let a Wen set foot in the Unclean Realm,” Jiang Fengmian finished, frowning.
Yu Ziyuan gave Zidian another twist. “Sect Leader Lan desires for Lotus Pier to host the discussion conference, doesn’t he.”
The Lan cultivator bowed low, her arms extended in front of her, white sleeves touching the floor.
Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan exchanged a long, silent look.
Jiang Cheng watched them with his own hands fisted so tightly on the hem of his robe that the silk was in danger of tearing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his parents share a glance like this, wordless communication without bitterness or resentment. Perhaps that time when he was twelve or thirteen years old, and Jiang Fengmian had led a band of the senior disciples out to suppress a yaoguai that had slaughtered an entire village? Certainly it hadn’t happened since he was a junior disciple himself.
The moment drew out. Jiang Cheng held his breath.
“Jiang Sect agrees,” Jiang Fengmian said at last, and Yu Ziyuan smiled thinly. “Lotus Pier will host a discussion conference in… let us say the eighth month, after Mid-Autumn Festival. From the twentieth day of the month to the twenty-third, if Sect Leader Lan is amenable.”
“This cultivator will bring word to Sect Leader Lan immediately.” The Lan cultivator bowed again, just as deeply. “Sect Leader Jiang is generous and wise.”
“Hm,” Yu Ziyuan said, but she gestured for Jinzhu and Yinzhu to take the woman away to eat and rest before her journey home. Then she turned on Jiang Yanli. “And what does Lan Xichen say to you?”
Jiang Yanli must have read the letter while the Lan cultivator was still making her bows. She smoothed the paper out on the surface of her dining desk. “Zewu-jun sends his best wishes for all of Jiang Sect’s health and safety, and his little brother’s particular concerns for A-Xian’s recovery.”
Wei Wuxian bounced out from behind his desk. “He did not. Shijie!”
She smiled teasingly at him, but quickly turned serious. “There isn’t much in his letter that his messenger didn’t say. Truly, Mother. A few words about how important it would be for Lotus Pier to host this discussion conference, but you and Father recognized that already.”
“I don’t,” Jiang Cheng said. “Wouldn’t Lanling Jin be the usual place for something like this? Koi Tower has all those golden banquet halls. Even a Wen would be awed.”
Yu Ziyuan’s brows snapped down. “I would have expected my son to recognize the political implications inherent in Lan Xichen’s request. Think before speaking, A-Cheng.” She swept on, before he could protest that he had. “Yanli, come speak with me before you write back. We must consider your wording carefully. Sect Leader Jiang, you may leave the planning for the discussion conference to me. I’ll consult you when I have need of your opinion.”
Her sleeves swirled as she left. Jiang Fengmian sighed and followed her.
“A-Jie,” Jiang Cheng started, at the same time as Wei Wuxian said, “Shijie!”
“Zewu-jun did mention you,” Jiang Yanli said reasonably, passing the letter over. “A-Cheng, you really don’t see why Lotus Pier would be better than Koi Tower for this discussion conference?”
“Well… If the whole point is re-establishing ties between Wen Sect and the other sects… It means Wen Shuozhen isn’t planning to throw her weight around like her brother did, summoning all of us to Qishan. But she wouldn’t be going to Koi Tower and walking up all those stairs like a supplicant, either. So it saves her some face?”
Lotus Pier wasn’t exactly common ground. But even Jiang Cheng had to admit that his home was… homelier than the other sect residences he’d visited. It didn’t have the Cloud Recesses’ ethereal aloofness, that sense of slightly-too-good-for-this-world. It didn’t have the Unclean Realms’ stark and forbidding militance, or Koi Tower’s gaudy, gilded extravagance. It was warm wood and latticed screens, the distant sound of cheerful shouting from the docks and the training yards, the serene beauty of lotus blossoms and the scent of spicy cooking.
It was welcoming in a way the other Great Sect residences weren’t. Was that the right setting for Wen Shuozhen to make her first appearance among the other sect leaders after overthrowing her brother and beheading his son?
Jiang Yanli patted his shoulder and smiled. “Very good, A-Cheng. That’s certainly part of it. There’s also…” She paused, as if searching for words, and then said delicately, “You know most of the other sect leaders respect Father as a cultivator and as a principled man.”
As they didn’t respect Jin Guangshan, Jiang Cheng heard, without his sister having to say it.
Wei Wuxian, of course, had no such compunctions. “You think Sect Leader Jin would be offensive to a female sect leader? He did sure raise an asshole son…”
“Jin Zixuan is not under discussion at the moment,” Jiang Yanli said firmly. “But Mother is a much stronger cultivator than Madam Jin. She’s in a better position to welcome Wen Shuozhen as an equal in cultivation and in sect leadership. And Sect Leader Jin’s usual behavior towards women may be… constrained, when he is a guest in someone else’s home.”
“It’d better be,” Jiang Cheng growled. “Mother would unleash Zidian if he tried to lay a hand on anyone here at Lotus Pier.” He paused. “But everyone knows he’s scared of Madam Jin, too. So surely he wouldn’t offer Sect Leader Wen any insult. Not in front of his wife!”
“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli said, “how many ways do you think it’s possible to insult a woman? Especially one who’s just taken her position by force, and expects to be toppled at any moment?”
“A… lot?” He glanced at Wei Wuxian for support, but received only a shrug. “I mean, if he’s anything like that peacock son of his, he’d probably just say something dumb about her looks or her cultivation…”
Jiang Yanli winced, just a little.
“A-Jie, I didn’t mean—”
“Thank you for demonstrating, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said snidely. Jiang Cheng punched him.
“Boys,” Jiang Yanli said. “There’s one more factor, of course. Did you recognize it in Zewu-jun’s letter, A-Xian?”
Wei Wuxian immediately returned to the letter, smoothing it out and then holding it up, as if the late afternoon sunlight could reveal its secrets. Jiang Cheng craned over his shoulder. Lan Xichen’s calligraphy was smooth and flowing, as flawless as everything else about his sect. At least he didn’t seem to compose his words in four-character idioms, the way Lan Wangji probably did.
“Wangji’s leg is almost healed,” Wei Wuxian read slowly, “with thanks to Wei-gongzi for his care. He would wish, I am sure, for me to express his gratitude and his sincerest hope that Wei-gongzi bears no ill effects from his ordeal in Dusk Creek Mountain. Our gratitude also to Jiang-gongzi for his heroic efforts to summon aid— See, Jiang Cheng, people do think you’re a hero! Your ears are pink.”
“So are yours,” Jiang Cheng retorted. “‘Sincerest hope,’ really?”
“Don’t tease, A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli reproved. “Do you see his point?”
“About why the discussion conference has to happen here?” He stared at the paper again. “Wei Wuxian’s ordeal, my heroic efforts… But Lan Wangji helped Wei Wuxian kill that monster. And Jin Zixuan helped me get all the other disciples to safety — you could just as well say he’s the hero.” Jin Guangshan probably had.
“Jin Zixuan didn’t get injured, though,” Wei Wuxian pointed out, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “And he didn’t run for seven days to get help to rescue us. So. Wen Xu burned the Cloud Recesses and killed Qingheng-jun, so Wen Shuozhen has to approach Lan Sect first to re-establish ties. But after Lan Sect, our Jiang Sect was most insulted, so Wen Shuozhen should come onto our territory to apologize.”
Jiang Cheng’s chest warmed, just a little, with that ‘our Jiang Sect.’ He reminded Wei Wuxian, “You’re Jiang Sect’s head disciple. An injury to you is an insult to us. Of course she should apologize!”
“She won’t,” Jiang Yanli said gently. “She can’t afford to. Even if part of Wen Sect supported her revolt against her brother, she won’t dare look weak against the other sect leaders, or do anything that might risk her legitimacy. That’s why she sent Wen Xu’s head to Zewu-jun as a gift, not as reparations. Accepting a gift puts Zewu-jun under obligation in turn. Which he is fulfilling, by organizing this discussion conference.”
Sometimes Jiang Cheng was certain he’d never learn enough, think quickly enough, perceive deeply enough to make a good sect leader. Jiang Yanli should have been named the heir, no matter her level of cultivation.
“Does hosting it put us under obligation, A-Jie?”
“The duty of hospitality, the duty to ensure the safety of our guests — nothing more than that. I think.” Jiang Yanli took Lan Xichen’s letter back from Wei Wuxian and folded it carefully. “I wish we had some better way of contacting Wen-guniang; it would help so much to know what’s really happening.”
“Do you think…” Jiang Cheng hesitated. “Wen-guniang would be safe, wouldn’t she?” She was a doctor, after all. Not even that asshole Wen Chao had dared interfere with her at Dusk Creek Mountain. But then again, she hadn’t really risked crossing him, either.
“Wen Qing could take down anyone using two needles and a bit of dead leaf,” Wei Wuxian said bracingly.
That wasn’t much reassurance, but it was all they had.
The rains came. The heat rose. Every day felt like living in a steamer basket. Wei Wuxian’s punishment was relaxed at last, and he could join Jiang Cheng in taking the younger disciples swimming in the lake, but it wasn’t as refreshing as it had been last year. Wei Wuxian still laughed and splashed and tried to dunk Jiang Cheng underwater, but both of them kept an eye on the horizon, watching for a boat sailing off the river or a sword flying over the hills.
Lan Xichen had agreed to Jiang Fengmian’s proposed dates for the discussion conference. Jiang Fengmian selected messengers from among the oldest, steadiest senior disciples and sent them with invitations to Lanling, Qinghe, and Qishan, as well as to the minor sects selected to attend. The man who went to Qishan carried extra letters in his robes, but returned reporting that he’d never set eyes on Wen Qing or her brother. Nightless City lay half in ruins, he said; most of the Wen Sect cultivators appeared to be busy with reconstruction.
He’d seen Wen Shuozhen only once, at a distance, from the far side of her reception hall. She was tall and looked stern. Servants had carried his message across the hall to her hands, and then carried her answer back.
Her calligraphy was strong and dark and slanted, not feminine at all. She accepted Jiang Sect’s invitation; she would arrive at Lotus Pier on the nineteenth day of the eighth month. She stamped her letter with a seal in red ink: Sect Leader Wen.
Jiang Yanli took the letter to a calligraphy expert for an analysis of the writer’s personality. Wei Wuxian went swimming. Jiang Cheng knelt in his mother’s study, sweating through three layers of silk robes, and tried to memorize fifteen different formal forms of address.
Nie Huaisang sent a letter with the messenger who came back from Qinghe. It was written in the kind of calligraphy that ought to be hanging on a wall somewhere, but it was three pages long and astonishingly chatty. He reported all the gossip about everyone they’d known in their time studying at the Cloud Recesses, and some people they hadn’t. Nie sect’s former retainer Meng Yao had finally turned up again, after leaving the Unclean Realm last year; apparently he’d helped Lan Xichen hide from Wen cultivators in the weeks after they burned the Cloud Recesses, and was now assisting with its rebuilding. “He ought to be happier there than he was here,” Nie Huaisang wrote, “and Heaven knows the Lans will need his help! I daresay Zewu-jun deserves some solace.”
“Hm,” Jiang Yanli said thoughtfully, reading the letter, but refused to explain to her brothers.
Nie Huaisang didn’t know much more about what was happening in Qishan. Trade down the Yellow River had resumed, but the news that reached Qinghe was third or fourth-hand at best. Wen Shuozhen had killed her brother because he insulted her at a banquet; she was as arrogant and vindictive as Wen Ruohan had been. Wen Shuozhen had killed her brother because she found him assaulting one of her maids, because she wanted to prevent him from cultivating to immortality before her, because she feared his growing domination of the cultivation world.
She was a jealous tyrant; she was a noble assassin. She had cut off Wen Xu’s head herself, with one sweep of her sword. No, she’d never wielded a sword, and Wen Xu had been executed by a headsman in front of ten thousand citizens of Qishan. Her beauty sank fish and felled birds; she was merely average looking at best; she was as ugly as Zhongli Chun.
“Zhongli Chun was a famously intelligent and capable consort to King Xuan of Qi,” Jiang Yanli said, tapping a fingernail against her lip. “Is that comparison meant, I wonder?”
“What makes you think that one’s true, A-Jie?” Jiang Cheng asked. “They can’t all be. Most of these rumors flat-out contradict each other.”
“We’ve had some resumption of trade with Qishan, too,” Wei Wuxian pointed out. “We could go down to the docks and find out what rumors are spreading there. If we hear the same thing from multiple sources, it’s more likely to be true.”
“Only if those sources are reliable,” Jiang Yanli said, but she folded up the letter and slipped it into her sleeve.
They didn’t have much luck finding reliable sources in the weeks that followed. None of the traders at the Lotus Pier docks had actually traveled from Qishan; they’d exchanged their goods at ports with the caravans who’d come overland, at the confluence of the Fuhe and Yunshui rivers at Suizhou. Their news came second- and third-hand too.
A few facts seemed clear. The volcanic eruptions in Qishan had stilled; the harvest seemed likely to be good, despite clouds and ash earlier in the year. Bodies were no longer floating down the Wei river. Wen Sect cultivators had resumed night hunts, though they kept mostly within Qishan’s borders and paid their attention even to smaller prey, like low-level walking corpses and village curses that they might have ignored two months ago.
“So she may be a hideous fratricidal tyrant,” Wei Wuxian concluded, “but… possibly a good sect leader?”
“If being a good sect leader just means conducting proper night hunts and not filling rivers with corpses, how come I’ve been getting all the extra lessons for years?” Jiang Cheng grumbled.
The extra lessons hadn’t abated even now. Jiang Fengmian still ignored Jiang Cheng as he always had, concentrating instead on training the junior disciples and leading their night hunts, but Yu Ziyuan summoned Jiang Cheng to her private quarters for hours every day. There was sparring with Yinzhu and Jinzhu, or against Yu Ziyuan herself wielding Zidian; lessons in history and etiquette and calligraphy; endless criticism of his posture, his enunciation, his memory, his cultivation.
“It’s enough to make me miss the Cloud Recesses,” he told Wei Wuxian, lying on the porch outside his quarters one night, with their feet dangling into the cool water below. Small fish swam beneath the lotus pads and occasionally nibbled on their toes. “At least Teacher Lan spent most of his time yelling at you.”
“I could interrupt your lessons and let Madam Yu take a break to yell at me,” Wei Wuxian offered.
“No,” Jiang Cheng said, horrified at the thought. “We get enough of that at dinner every night.” Yesterday Wei Wuxian’s overly loud slurping of his soup had earned a day of punishment scrubbing the banquet hall floors. He still smelled faintly of floor polish.
“Well, next week’s Mid-Autumn Festival, and then the sects will start arriving. So the end is near! Madam Yu should be lenient afterward. Or, I’ll tell you what— Uncle Jiang’s got me organizing prey for the big night hunt at the discussion conference. You can tell Madam Yu I’m sure to mess it up without your help?”
But Yu Ziyuan only laughed coldly when Jiang Cheng broached the subject. “You think you can manage better than Jiang Fengmian’s favorite disciple? You’ve never come first to that servant’s son in anything. Better to practice your cultivation here and pray you don’t disgrace us before all the sect leaders in your own home.”
He practiced. He sparred. He studied. He stayed up late listening to Wei Wuxian excitedly detailing the plans for the upcoming night hunt, fell asleep on the floor in Wei Wuxian’s room, and woke up in a mad scramble, late for their pre-dawn training with the other senior disciples. Wei Wuxian was frequently late, but this time Jiang Cheng was the one who drew his father’s reproving eye as they dashed onto the training field together.
He had to work harder.
Wei Wuxian was a genius; everything came easily to him, from archery to swordsmanship, from memorizing incomprehensible cultivation manuals to receiving Jiang Fengmian’s approval. Jiang Cheng had to sweat and grapple for the smallest achievements. By the time he attained one, Wei Wuxian had already mastered it and moved on.
There was room for excellence only in the things Wei Wuxian didn’t care about. Etiquette, where Wei Wuxian seldom bothered; penmanship, where Wei Wuxian’s calligraphy was beautiful as phoenixes flying but completely unreadable; the detailed finances of the sect’s operations, to which Wei Wuxian would never be privy anyway. As Mid-Autumn Festival approached, Jiang Cheng stopped meeting Wei Wuxian for commiseration in the evening. He didn’t have the time, or the energy.
Mid-Autumn Festival came and went. Jiang Yanli dragged everyone together for a few hours of mooncakes and moon-watching. They made paper lanterns, decorated with rabbits to honor the goddess Chang’e and her Jade Rabbit companion on the moon. Jiang Cheng kicked Wei Wuxian under the table when he started to look too nostalgic about his rabbit-lantern, and they got drunk together on osmanthus wine.
Three days later, like a storm-wind from the west, the Wens arrived.
