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“My mother would tell me to keep you as far away from me as possible so you won’t have a chance to kill me for my position,” Meng Yao’s brother told him.
Meng Yao thought that Madam Jin gave very sensible advice, which his father’s only legitimate heir was evidently ignoring.
He was, admittedly, more than a little off balance at the moment. For months he’d been regretting his transfer into the Jin sect, regretting all his own plans, regretting thinking there was any chance of gaining his birthright; regretting everything and planning more seriously by the day to kill his captain just to get a break from the indignities.
And then suddenly the news had come that his father, the only notable sect leader who had never appeared anywhere near the battlefield apart from Wen Ruohan himself, was dead.
Jin Zixuan had vanished from the front to go claim his birthright, but left most of his forces behind, to avoid leaving their allies in the lurch as had perhaps been the aim of the assassination.
And then, not two weeks later, a summons had come for Meng Yao. Not to the Tower, but to another part of the front, away from the bastard captain whose days had been numbered.
He’d been directed, on arrival, to an ostentatious golden tent, and entered to find no one inside but Jin Zixuan, receiving him seated in even more ostentation golden robes, and talking with startling frankness about being killed by him.
Was this a trap? It seemed like some sort of trap. He did not let his smile flicker. “I’m sure your mother is looking out for your best interests, Sect Leader Jin.”
“Of course she is.” His brother sounded almost, but not quite, contemptuous. “But to be blunt.” Which did seem thus far to be a very good description of the man. It reminded him of Nie Mingjue—probably that was one of the habits of privilege, to say whatever you thought with no real fear of the consequences. “You are the only relative I have whom I can be sure did not kill our father.”
Meng Yao blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I can’t even be sure of Mother—they hated each other, and without me there to mediate who knows how bitter it might have gotten.” Jin Zixuan sighed heavily. “You’ve been out at one front or another for over three years now. You don’t have any contacts within the family, and had nothing to offer an assassination scheme that would have made any cousins reach out to you to form some. Nie Mingjue says you’re brilliant, hardworking, and determined.”
“Is he the only one you’ve asked.” It came out faintly sardonic and entirely unconsidered, and he pressed his lips together. Clearly he was more overset than he’d realized.
“He asked me about you, actually. At the funeral.” Jin Zixuan shifted his posture, slouching a little on the low stool he occupied, which was probably also ostentatious but you couldn't tell at the moment, as it was entirely obscured by his ass.
He hadn’t bothered to put it on any sort of dais, so despite Meng Yao’s unimpressive height, sitting meant Jin Zixuan was looking up at him. It was not a vulnerable position except in the very literal sense that he would find it more difficult to dodge an attack—Meng Yao was very conspicuously being kept in the position of a petitioner before a powerful man. It was still striking that the man wasn't attempting to loom.
Jin Zixuan visibly repressed the inclination to fidget and said almost smoothly, “Since he apparently sent you over to us some eight months ago with a strong recommendation. I could use your help, if you’re half the logistician he thinks. Mother’s spent all this energy keeping me from having any direct rivals within the sect, but now I’m invested as Leader, that means I have nobody to rely on.”
Meng Yao’s mind raced. “I’m happy to be of service,” he said pleasantly.
“Wonderful.” Was it possible his brother was this simpleminded? Or had that been irony. “It’ll be slightly more effort for me to bring you in as a shu brother than it would have been for father, but I lose less face than he would have, too. Is your mother still living?”
Meng Yao couldn’t help but stiffen. “No.”
“Well.” Jin Zixuan looked uncomfortable. “That’s too bad. Simpler for dealing with my mother, though, we’d have had to bring her in at least briefly, and Mother isn’t very reasonable about some things. She’s going to make pickle faces at your calling her Mother, fair warning.”
He’d known he would have to do that, if he were ever recognized, but it was still unpleasant to hear said in such a way.
“So?” Jin Zixuan prompted. “Are you willing? To deal with this snakepit of a family and be my support?”
Was he. Now that his father was dead, this was clearly the only chance he’d ever get—Jin Zixuan would never reach out again to a bastard who had spurned him in his time of need.
It was an excellent offer, even, with no costs he hadn’t anticipated all along. So of course he was willing. It tasted flat, that was all, achieving the goal without any of the expected components, on the strength not of what he had done but of something he hadn’t.
To think he’d been plotting a murder yesterday and today was being offered very nearly the maximum promotion possible for not committing one.
He ought to agree, and wait and watch until he figured out everything he needed to know. He opened his mouth to say, of course, Sect Leader . Or maybe it would be more convincing to call him big brother. What level of formality would balance respect and intimacy in a way that would appeal to this man?
Never mind. Watch him, and pick later. Just take it!
“I won’t blame you if you say no,” Jin Zixuan blurted, into Meng Yao’s inexplicable hesitation. He raised a hand and passed it over his face. “I can offer you access to money, the name Jin, nicer robes, all that kind of thing, but now that I’ve told you how it is with us I won’t be angry if you’d rather walk away and put your talents to use for your own sake, somewhere you won’t be bound to our nonsense.”
Walk away? Just...let go of all his plans. His dreams. The one thing his mother had always wanted for him. Just because it wasn’t happening in a way he’d anticipated?
“No,” said Meng Yao. Realized his smile had slipped, and brought it up, bashful, and sank into a deep salute of perfect modesty. “I want to help Sect Leader, of course. It’s just such a shock. I always thought my only chance was to do something to impress our father.”
“He was hard to impress,” said Jin Zixuan, in a tone that passed for dark coming from the sort of person he was. He sighed in relief so blatant it seemed feigned. “Wonderful," he repeated, more emphatically this time. "Thank you. Welcome to the family. You’ll have to be Jin Zi-something, we’ll have a few days to workshop it.”
“What makes Brother so confident he can rely on me?” Meng Yao asked, straightening up, since Jin Zixuan's tone made remaining in the bow any longer faintly absurd. Was it Nie Mingjue’s recommendation alone? Or just desperation?
Or an odd streak of idealism, in someone who had clearly learned to be cynical about family.
...or had he just been played by a man who needed a stalking horse to die in his place?
Jin Zixuan laughed. “I’m not sure of anything.” He stood up, over half a head taller than Meng Yao, and more again with the height of his magnificent guan. “But I’m as close as I can get to certain you had nothing to do with Father’s murder, so if you do stab me in the back at least it won’t be the same damn conspiracy that took him out.”
“I could find and join the existing conspiracy after we get to Jin Tower,” Meng Yao pointed out, smiling wider.
It was a calculated risk that won another laugh, this one carrying a very faint note of hysteria in its underbelly. “If you do me the favor of killing me just slow enough to appreciate the irony, I may forgive you for it.”
He turned, giving Meng Yao his back, and brushed aside the golden curtain that had hung behind his seat. "There's tea before we start the paperwork, come on."
Meng Yao sank down beside his brother's lavish table as a blank-faced servant filled his cup with something pale and steaming and fragrant. His hands were steady as he lifted the hot cup.
He thought about the cultivators who refused to drink tea poured by his hands, and about how none of the other sects were dragging around enough staff at the front to spare any servants for tasks like pouring tea even for Sect Leaders, and he thought about how his brother had had that whole outrageous conversation with this servant just on the other side of the curtain, and reflected that it was too early to be sure whether the man had faith in his staff or was too stupid to consider them a possible vector for treason.
He smiled, and waited for his brother to drink first, and hoped his brother would help himself to some of the elegant little tea sweets that had no business being served so near the war front. They looked delicious.
He would have to rapidly improve at protecting against poison, clearly. From the look of things, he and Jin Zixuan were both going to be likely targets, and Jin Zixuan was clearly not to be relied upon to protect Meng Yao from being framed for his murder.