Chapter Text
Red, yellow, and grey all over - Standing out like a sore thumb - Escape through the kitchen - Careful camouflage - No loose ends
The sun wobbles its way in weak late-afternoon-yellow stripes across the rooftops, glinting off the turned up points of hip roofs and throwing shadows behind chimney stacks. Very little of it actually makes it through the thick smog and down to the ground, especially as Meng Yao makes his way through the streets towards the poorer district of the city, where the buildings - and people - are packed more densely in together. By the time he reaches the tea house where he’s supposed to be meeting his final client of the day, despite the fact that the sun is still above the horizon, it is gloomy enough down on the ground that the lamps are already lit; they paint everything in alternating shades of warm gaslight yellow, from the streetlights, and glowing red, from the hanging lamps outside of businesses trying to lure in customers with lurid bright colours that stand out from the miserable grey of just about everything else in this district.
Meng Yao pauses outside of the teahouse, resting his back against the wall and pretending to be engrossed in rolling himself a cigarette as he carefully commits everyone in the area to memory. Most of the clients he gets come to him in person, or will at least write to him directly, but this one…
This one is something different. A contact who had worked with Jiang Shipping before the fire had slipped him a note explaining that a friend of a friend needed help from someone with his very particular skills, and that they could pay handsomely for it. Meng Yao does not like meeting his clients without knowing their full names - and, therefore, without having had the opportunity to extensively research them - but with two of the Five Families going under recently, business is tight, and Meng Yao has ends to meet. He can’t be as picky with his clients as he’d like any more.
Satisfied that he would recognise anyone were they to follow him inside the tea house, Meng Yao tucks the cigarette in his waistcoat pocket, takes off his hat, checks his hair in the glass of the door, then walks in.
It is the work of a few seconds to identify his client. The man has, to his credit, at least made an attempt to disguise himself; the coat stretched a little too tightly over his broad shoulders is ratty and dirty, his shoes are scuffed, his face has been shaved with a poor quality blade and his hair is unkempt. One thing he has been utterly unable to disguise, however, is his bearing. The client stands out like a sore thumb in this poor district tea house because he carries himself - even sitting, even whilst trying to disguise himself - so perfectly upright.
Upper class, then, that's for certain. Possibly even from one of the Five Families, which would be fortuitous for Meng Yao's pocket if considerably dangerous for his person; with posture like that he could be an outer branch of the Nie fallen on hard times, or even one of the many Lan cousins who’d not been accounted for in the fire. Jiang would be unlikely but… still possible, he supposes. Rumour has it that the heir, Jiang Wanyin, has been seen skulking around the old warehouses by the docks.
Meng Yao straightens his coat and approaches the man’s table from an angle that leaves him unseen for as long as possible, and begins the process of piecing together the appropriate personality for this encounter. When he’d been a child, his mother had made a game of him observing and - back in the safety of her room - impersonating the various patrons of the brothel. Together they’d tried on one man’s strange accent, and another man’s lopsided gait, swapping personas like hats, and it had taken him a few years to register this as more than just a distraction to keep him busy whilst she was working. She’d taught him how to blend in, how to be at ease among his betters, how to survive. As he’d grown, he’d further developed those skills, and now has a dozen versions of himself as readily accessible as books on a bookshelf.
His client is a rich man who, even in disguise, carries himself with pride. He likely views asking for someone as lowly as Meng Yao’s help as a humiliation. He will want to be rewarded for his mortification; he will want a straightforward man he can trust, smart enough to know what he’s doing whilst also knowing his place. No fuss. No mess. A professional.
Meng Yao can work with that.
He slides into the seat opposite the man, and with a polite smile, he inclines his head respectfully and asks, “Huan, I presume? I’m Meng Yao.”
The man looks up from his tea, startled, and for just a second Meng Yao’s carefully curated smile slips. Their eyes meet and he feels his stomach swoop.
Handsome does not do this man justice. His jaw is wide and square, his cheekbones could be carved from jade, his lips are well-shaped and plush, and his eyes - there’s something about them, something… kind.
Ridiculous! He shakes off the sudden warm haze in his chest; his client is very attractive, and that is absolutely not going to be a problem because Meng Yao is a professional, for gods’ sake. Thankfully, the attraction appears to be mutual, as Huan looks utterly poleaxed, blanking rapidly, mouth hanging just slightly open as his eyes dart quickly down to Meng Yao’s cheeks. Ah. Dimples. Meng Yao smiles a little wider, just to see Huan gulp, and feels his own pulse settle as he's back in control of the interaction.
Yes, he can work with this.
“Ah, yes,” Huan answers after a few seconds of silence, shaking his head as if to clear it, before offering him a smile back. “Pleased to meet you.”
Meng Yao tilts his head, letting his hair fall into his eyes and putting just a hint of a smirk into his smile, “And if it is not too bold to assume… Lan Huan?”
It's a bit of a gamble, but when Huan’s eyebrows raise Meng Yao knows he’s right with a little burst of smug pleasure.
“I see your reputation does not exaggerate,” Lan Huan concedes. “Perhaps, then, you can also extrapolate why I might need your services?”
”The city isn’t safe for Lans these days. With the Jiangs gone, the Wens rule the waterways, so presumably you’ve sought me out because you need someone to organise safe passage across the river for you.”
Lan Huan leans in closer and lowers his voice, “Is that something you can do?”
Meng Yao pauses for a few moments, ostensibly considering it but mostly just enjoying the feeling of letting this rich, powerful, handsome man sweat.
”It won’t be easy,” Meng Yao admits, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them, “and it won’t be cheap. But if you give me a few days, I should be able to manage something.”
”Thank you,” Lan Huan, and his voice is so earnestly relieved that it very nearly distracts Meng Yao away from watching the door. His eyes flick towards it, catching the movement of it opening and closing behind the most recent customer in his peripherals-
And then his blood runs cold.
He leans in closer to Lan Huan, dropping his voice to a low hiss between his teeth. “Were you followed? No- don’t look around. Just keep looking at me. Were you followed?”
Lan Huan’s face pales, and he swallows. “I- I thought I was careful, but I could… I could have missed something? I haven’t slept in a few days, I’m sorry, I’m not at my best right now…”
The apology and genuine distress in the man’s eyes melt the meagre flash of irritation at his incompetence immediately. Meng Yao watches the new customer over Lan Huan’s shoulder as he meanders over to a table within arm’s reach of the door, dropping down onto a low cushion gracelessly. He’s broad and bulky and dressed poorly, but he has sharp, clever eyes, and Meng Yao recognises his face from outside the tea house.
Which means he probably knows Meng Yao’s face, too. And the last thing he wants is to be on Wen Ruohan’s shitlist, alongside Lan Huan and the rest of his kin.
“Do you trust me, Lan Huan?” Meng Yao whispers.
Lan Huan’s eyes grow wide again, and after a few moments of apparent contemplation, he nods.
“I am going to get you out of here, and get you somewhere safe. But you have to do exactly what I say, and no matter what, you cannot look back. Understand?”
Lan Huan nods again.
“Alright,” Meng Yao wraps his fingers around Lan Huan’s wrist and gives it a squeeze, “when I say now, follow me.”
The gig for Mr Wen has been a pretty simple one, all things considered; orders were to keep an eye on the tall, dark, handsome Lan guy, and make a note of everywhere he went and everyone he spoke to. And if he meets with any of the other Lans, get a telegram to Mr Wen right away.
Mostly the guy has just been trying to keep his head down… which is easier said than done when you’re particularly tall and have a rather noticeable kind of face. Still, Robert can hardly complain, considering how much easier it has made his job. Mr Lan had managed to keep out of sight for almost two weeks after the fire at the Lan house, but Robert is good at what he does, and what he does is find people then stick to ‘em like glue - and that was just what he did with Mr Lan. He’d been difficult to find, though once Robert had found him, he’d been pretty easy to tail. By that point Mr Lan had been exhausted and desperate, and exhausted desperate people make stupid mistakes.
The tea shop had been an unusual move in Mr Lan’s otherwise nonexistent itinerary, so Robert had followed him and propped himself up outside to see if anyone showed up to meet with him.
And then he showed up, and things got interesting.
Robert is pretty shit at names, but he is exceptionally good at faces, and he recognises the face of the young man who walks into the tea shop immediately. He’s a Fixer, a sort of professional middle man. Everyone in a certain part of the city knows that if you want something - an object, a person, a legal document, a mystery solved or an obstacle removed - you go to him. He’s smart and fast and not afraid to get his hands dirty, and today he doesn’t have his hulking ogre of a boxer bodyguard with him. Probably he wants to go unnoticed… and he walked right into the tea shop, where the Lan guy is sitting.
Very interesting.
Robert hangs around outside long enough that the Fixer and Mr Lan are likely too busy talking to look at the door, then slips inside himself. He takes a seat at a table by the door and watches them together, heads bent close in a way that either means they’re sharing a secret, or they’re starting an affair. Either would relieve the monotony of Robert’s day if he’s honest.
A young woman approaches him, ready to take his order. He waves her away, but in the split second that she breaks his eyeline to Mr Lan-
Fuck. Gone! They must have caught wise. Fuck.
Robert scrambles to his feet and searches the room. There - at the back, disappearing into the kitchen, leaving the door clattering behind them. He dodges and weaves between tables, ignoring the yells and protests from the other patrons. There are times to be subtle, and then there are times to remember that he can’t tail Mr Lan if he has no idea where he’s gone. He bursts into the kitchen and is immediately hit with a wave of hot, moist air; blinking in the sudden fragrant mist, he elbows his way between protesting cooks and waitstaff towards the only other exit.
The door leads out into an alleyway, and he’s moving fast enough that he staggers a little before he rights himself and spots the two figures at the other end of the alley, silhouetted in the gloom as they run. Robert hates running; normally he’s good enough at his job to avoid it getting to this point, but normally he’s tailing clueless idiots, not people with professional sodding experience. The soles of his feet sting through his shoes as they slap on the cobbles, and he has to snatch off his hat before it flies off his head. He loses sight of the targets for a moment after they round a corner, and when he reaches the corner himself he skids to a halt and casts frantically about; the street isn’t busy, but there are enough people to obscure them.
There! He spots them hurrying through the door to-
Oh shit. Judging by the women loitering around the entrance - some with their long skirts pinned up to show off a bit of stockinged leg, some in brightly patterned cheongsam wafting their fans coquettishly - it’s a brothel, and although he’s bribed a fair few madams in his time, he knows that if someone really wants to hide, a brothel is as good as a maze for any pursuer to try and follow.
Time for a strategy adjustment.
Robert crosses the street and instals himself in the shadows, leaning against a wall at the mouth of an alleyway and tugging his hat down to hide what little of his face would be visible in the low light. He can wait. He’s good at waiting.
A long time passes. Robert doesn’t fall into the trap of pulling out his watch to check how long, though; he learns from his mistakes. It’s very likely there’s other exits in this building, though if Mr Fixer’s reputation is anything close to accurate then he’s smart, which means he’ll assume that the other exits are being watched, and will most likely double back and leave through the front again.
Robert’s been doing this a long time, and he’s willing to bet that he’s more patient than either of these guys. Unlike them, he’s got nowhere else to be tonight, and nothing much to lose. So he waits.
And waits.
At first, when the two women stroll out of the door, Robert ignores them, but some deep part of his brain starts yelling that there’s something familiar going on so he takes another look, and lo and fucking behold, don’t they have a very particular height difference? He has to cover his mouth to smother an incredulous laugh. Wow. Wow. How in the goddamn hell did the Fixer convince some upper class fancy boy to jump into a dress and wig? More importantly, how in the goddamn hell did he convince the brothel Madam to part with two such high quality dresses, and hand painted fans to complete the set? He’s either a serious smooth talker, or Mr Lan has very very deep pockets.
Robert is genuinely tempted to let them slip away, just to reward the audacity of the move, but a job is a job and he won’t get paid if he lets them scarper, so he mentally congratulates them even as he watches them like a grandmother on chaperone duty.
By this point the sun has fully set and the whole street is illuminated in red. Anyone not peddling their wares is moving along quickly, his two targets included. Robert steps away from the wall and lets himself be pulled along into the slipstream of the crowd, keeping his eyes fixed on the pair of ornately decorated dark wigs bobbing ahead of him. The street opens out into a crossroads, and he curses under his breath as his direct eyeline is disrupted by a clattering horse-drawn carriage - it is only for the space of a few breaths, barely fifteen seconds, but when the carriage is gone -
Fuck. Where are they?
Robert abandons subtlety, frantically turning his head this way and that, spinning on the spot. Where they fuck could they have gone in so short a time? Did they duck into a doorway? Double back?
He turns around, panic beginning to mount inside of him, and he’s high-strung enough that he lurches back when someone roughly brushes past him. He almost loses his footing, falling back against a wall. Who…?
He sees a flash of dark round eyes over the top of a fan, decorated with peonies, and the light glints off something thin and metal swiftly pushed back into the fashionable little hat. He catches the scent of a floral perfume. Fuck! He hauls himself back upright, determined not to let them get the better of him, but his knees buckle and something is… wrong.
He looks down. His shirt feels oddly wet. He presses his hand to his stomach and it comes away sticky and dark.
Ah.
He sinks to the ground against the wall.
That bastard.
Lan Xichen makes it through approximately ten minutes of silent, harried walking before he breaks and asks, “Did you just- is he-?”
“I don’t believe you would like the answer to that question, Mr Lan,” his new… friend says tartly, hiding his mouth behind his fan and speaking lowly enough that no one passing them would hear anything amiss in the pitch of his voice. “We’re nearly there.”
Lan Xichen takes a deep breath in and figures that’s as good as a true answer; he isn’t sure he’d actually be much happier if the man following him survived whatever his companion had done to him, there really was no winning that situation, but he still can’t find it in himself to leave behind the lessons he’d been taught all his life — to value all life equally, and to strive to prevent unnecessary death and suffering.
Unfortunately no matter what he might wish, Wen Ruohan has not left him the luxury of pacifism.
Lan Xichen twitches at the sound of someone calling out to them, some drunken lout halfway between stumbling out of one rowdy pub and on to the next, but they’re saved from having to respond by another patron — a day labourer by the looks of him, something physical but not so ghastly as the factories — cuffing the lout on the back of the head and snapping something at him in an accent too thick for Lan Xichen to catch.
“A neighbour,” his friend tells him, gesturing vaguely at the labourer with his fan in a way that’s delicately artful, “he knows it’s me, and now he knows you’re with me, so he’ll get the word out that you’re not to be bothered. There’s no safer place than this in the city for you now.”
Lan Xichen has heard of this sort of thing before, tight-knit communities that watch out for their own with the sort of protective fervour so sorely lacking amongst the Five — in spite of all their insisting that they all live or die by each other’s wellbeing. Wen Ruohan is on a crusade to prove that that isn’t at all the case and he’d actually quite like it if there were only his own family left to care about; he wonders, vaguely, what it would be like if all their claims of alliance and friendship weren’t such hollow falsehoods. Certainly he wouldn’t be skulking through the poorest quarter he’s ever seen wearing a borrowed silk gown that flirtatiously toes the line of public indecency in order to escape a man sent to follow him and, he can only assume, kill him if need be.
A quiet, “Just here,” pulls him out of such melancholy thoughts and then he’s ducking into a narrow little rowhouse at his companion’s insistence, the front entry barely wide enough for him to turn and shut the door behind himself.
He manages it with only a bit of jostling just in time to hear a door click open and a wonderfully, achingly familiar voice drawl, “So, Meng Yao, did you just fancy taking your evening tea with Cui-mama or-?”
“Don’t start,” Meng Yao sighs as he unpins his wig and whips it off his head, gesturing with it at a man Lan Xichen hasn’t seen in person in years but still knows as well as he knows himself. “There was a slight change of plans-”
“Ah yes I see. A daring escape through the brothel then, because you deliberately had no one with you to watch your back-”
“I was aiming for discretion, Mingjue, and no one likes a man who says ‘I told you so’-”
“Well I haven’t said it, and now I don’t need to as you’ve just done it for me. Am I taking those dresses back in the usual way tomorrow then?”
Meng Yao sighs again, a huffy little thing as he deposits his wig and his fan on the spindly little entry table next to the coat tree by the stairs, each thing within too-easy reach of the next - Lan Xichen feels as if he’ll knock everything over if he moves at all in the tight space. “Yes, I promised to return them in perfect condition by lunch tomorrow as per, but I believe you will be the only one who could do it without being followed. Mr Lan had a tail–” the past-tense only confirms what Lan Xichen already knew “–and I’ve now in all likelihood made myself an enemy of Wen Ruohan as well-”
Meng Yao doesn’t get any further than that before he’s once again interrupted, though this time it’s not for whatever sort of… friendly but scolding banter Nie Mingjue had greeted them with.
“Mr L… Xichen?!”
Lan Xichen tries his best to stand up even straighter as Nie Mingjue finally steps out into the hallway proper — his bulk making the tiny entryway downright claustrophobic — to peer at him through the gloom the single small gaslamp by the door is struggling to alleviate.
“Mingjue,” Lan Xichen replies, too warm, too friendly, but how can he possibly help it?
“Ah. I see introductions are unnecessary.”
Meng Yao has to practically plaster himself to the bannister of the stairs to let Nie Mingjue barrel past him and Lan Xichen, exhausted and afraid and heartsore as he is, can’t help but grin, slightly teary-eyed, when his closest friend in the entire world takes him by the shoulders to pull him into the light where he can get a proper look. Beneath the skillful layers of powder and rouge and kohl he knows he looks as exhausted as he feels, but Nie Mingjue is staring at him with some dangerous combination of wonder and hope and Lan Xichen suddenly feels like he could take on any number of goons Wen Ruohan wants to send after him.
“I can’t believe this, it really is you — what the devil are you doing here?!” Nie Mingjue finally demands when he’s finished his inspection, rattling him a little by the grip on his shoulders, and Lan Xichen is still smiling so widely his rouged cheeks ache; he hasn’t had much cause to smile so widely in quite some time, it sits strangely on his face.
“Looking for you, of course; you weren’t at home and Huaisang couldn’t tell me where you’d gone. It took ages to track you down, I must admit I’m not built for it. I have so much to tell you and… I believe I need your help.”
“I’ll just go put on some tea,” Meng Yao says and disappears through a door at the end of the hallway with a swish of perfumed silk and not another word. The moment the door swings shut behind him Lan Xichen finds himself tugged in for a tight hug and he returns it instantly, the rattling thing in his chest knocked loose by the fire and his weeks of feeling afraid of every unfamiliar face around him finally settling as he lays his head on Mingjue’s shoulder with a sigh of pure relief.
“I heard about the fire but no one had any news of you,” Nie Mingjue rumbles in his ear, “I know that your brother and your uncle escaped upriver, but I could only hope you were with them and safe.”
Lan Xichen’s reply comes a little muffled from the way his cheek is smushed against Nie Mingjue’s shoulder but he can’t be bothered to lift his head to speak properly. “I made them go without me, I knew if we all left no one would remain who could accuse Wen Ruohan of his misdeeds.”
Nie Mingjue finally shifts his weight in a way that cuts their hug short and Lan Xichen straightens up with an effort in order to look him in the eyes. His gaze is as intense as ever, straightforward and unyieldingly proud, just as it’s always been, no matter the way the Nie legacy has fallen into ruin around his ears.
“You have proof of this?”
Lan Xichen winces a little to think of his clothes supposedly (hopefully) being tended to by the madam of the brothel as both collateral and a matter of more effectively selling their disguise, which would hardly have been convincing if they’d swanned out of the front door of the brothel carrying bundles of men’s clothing.
“I do, but it’s in the pocket of my coat.”
Nie Mingjue seems to realize the problem instantly considering the way his gaze flicks down the entire silk-clad length of him from head to toe before he sighs and tilts his head in the direction of the door he’d stepped out of.
“I’ll be going to get your coat back tomorrow, I swear you’ll have it. For tonight rest easy knowing I believe you even without evidence, and Meng Yao will, too. Come in and sit down, you look worn to the bone.”
Nie Mingjue ushers him into a comfortably appointed sitting room, the evening paper he’d apparently been reading abandoned on a low table beside an empty space just big enough for a tea service. Lan Xichen lets himself be fussed into the armchair nearest the hearth, currently no more than a few glowing coals though there’s sufficient light from the front window and a lamp or two to see that the place is clean and well-appointed, if a little shabby. He’s only just settled in when the door opens again with a rattling clatter and Meng Yao reappears with a tray, setting it down neatly on the table before slipping out again with a dimpling smile that doesn’t quite seem to reach his eyes; Lan Xichen’s concerned question dies on the tip of his tongue as the door clicks shut behind him and his footsteps creak on the stairs in the next moment.
“He’ll be back in a minute,” Nie Mingjue tells him as he starts pouring tea, handing the first cup to Lan Xichen and holding it for an extra moment to make sure it won’t slip through his shaking fingers. “Do you want to talk first or clean up and change into something you didn’t steal from a brothel?”
Lan Xichen manages a weak smile around the rim of his cup. “I have been informed in no uncertain terms that I have borrowed this gown from the brothel and there will be dire consequences if it is not promptly returned.”
“Borrowed, stolen, it hardly makes a difference; if you want to be pedantic they’re Meng Yao’s anyway and he loans them to the madam, not the other way around, but again: not terribly important.”
Nie Mingjue fixes him with a knowing look and Lan Xichen hides his chagrin behind a sip of tea; he’d nearly forgotten that most of his distraction tactics won’t work on Nie Mingjue, as dedicated as he is to taking the most straightforward path at all times and damn the consequences. He’d asked a question, and he won’t leave it be until Lan Xichen has given him an answer, as simple as.
“I could hardly trouble you for a full suit of clothing-“ he deflects but makes it no further before Nie Mingjue is scoffing and waving him off as he pours his own tea plus a third cup he adds a generous dash of milk to.
“You can and I won’t let you refuse to try. You’ll borrow something of mine until we can get you sorted with your own things, and I’d bet money that’s what Meng Yao is doing upstairs anyway right this very moment. You will simply have to accept you’ve no choice in the matter.”
Lan Xichen nods as genteelly as he knows how, polite to the point of teasing, and says, “I humbly concede defeat; as always, Captain Nie has emerged victorious.”
Nie Mingjue smiles at him, crooked and as familiar as his own, the smallest hint of dimples under the truly impressive moustache he’s grown since the last time Lan Xichen saw him. Lan Xichen tips his head back to rest more firmly against the chair with his eyes shut to just breathe.
“I would like to dress before I tell you what I know,” he finally decides, well aware that Nie Mingjue is still waiting for his answer and is unlikely to change the subject until he’s given it. He’s still as stubborn as ever, then, not that Lan Xichen expected any different.
“Alright. I’m sure Meng Yao would like to hear it as well anyway, since you’ve hired him and all.”
Lan Xichen feels a tinge of guilt for that, but he truly does intend to hire Meng Yao’s services, that much hadn’t been a lie at all. Nothing he’s said has been a lie, of course.
They lapse into silence and Lan Xichen nearly dozes off next to the cozy warmth of the coals, gentler than a roaring fire in a way he appreciates after everything that’s happened. He’s roused from his dozing by the click of the door opening again and when he opens his eyes it’s to find Meng Yao once more dressed neatly but plainly, trousers of a dark wool and a collarless shirt buttoned all the way to his throat, bracers over his shoulders, looking mostly like a day-labourer without the grime of a hard day’s work on the docks or in the factories to dirty him. He looks unfairly lovely in something so simple, and Lan Xichen is dismayed to realise he still finds him just as arresting as the moment their eyes locked in the tea house. In the brothel he was able to blame it on adrenaline and proximity as Meng Yao had leaned in close to apply his kohl and make sure the wig fit properly with every strand of his natural hair carefully tucked inside, but there’s no excuse now.
Meng Yao is lovely, and he’s thankfully giving Nie Mingjue some sort of significant glance Lan Xichen can’t parse so he has a moment to recover his wits before Meng Yao turns those wide, dark eyes on him.
“Apologies for being such a poor host, Mr Lan, but I’ve just prepared my bedroom for guests. I’ve set aside two suits of Mingjue’s clothes I believe will fit you well enough to get by, and a washbasin of warm water is on the dressing table if you’d like to clean up.”
“Ah, that’s really not necessary, I would hate to force you out of your own room-”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Meng Yao scoffs, like such an argument is unthinkable, “You’re hardly going to sleep down here, and we’re short on space otherwise. Of course you’re taking my bed.”
Well. Who is he to turn down such a tempting offer? He follows Meng Yao upstairs and into the first room off the short hallway without any further protest, the room modestly furnished and clearly having just been tidied enough for a visitor at short notice. It hardly matters to him if it’s perfectly tidy, of course, and from what little he knows of Meng Yao’s profession the bare wall seemingly reserved for chalk drawings directly on the plaster, photos of various buildings and streets, and news clippings pinned up between them all connected with red thread wrapped around the pins makes perfect sense. And no matter what, it is of course infinitely preferable to the gutters and doorways he’s been sleeping in for so many weeks.
“I’ll leave you to get comfortable, we’ll be downstairs when you feel well enough to come discuss your case. Is there anything else you need, Mr Lan?”
“Just Xichen, please,” he corrects, only barely refraining from inviting him to keep using ‘Huan’ (and that only because he’s not willing to face Nie Mingjue’s knowing smirks and silent teasing if he invites Meng Yao to be so familiar so soon). “This is more than enough, please don’t trouble yourself further.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then… Xichen,” Meng Yao says with one of those pretty dimpling smiles of his and leaves Lan Xichen to lament his weakness to handsome men in private. That is, at least, a much more pleasant problem to fix in the front of his mind than anything else currently troubling him so he keeps it there as he washes his face and carefully undoes the various frog closures and cleverly concealed silk ties preserving his modesty to ensure he doesn’t damage anything. Once she’d dropped her public persona in one of the backrooms of her establishment, Madam Cui had seemed like a no-nonsense sort of woman and not someone Lan Xichen would want to be on the wrong side of; best to just be careful, no matter what Nie Mingjue had said about the true ownership of the gowns.
When he opens the wardrobe he finds it completely empty save for the promised sets of clothing which, when he holds them up against himself, prove to be a bit too loose around the chest and shoulders as he would expect, but they’ll do perfectly fine. Once he’s clean, dressed, and staring right at a lovely bed made up with crisp fresh linens all turned down and ready to sleep in, his bone-deep exhaustion becomes even harder to ignore — but his news really won’t wait. He pushes his weariness aside with an effort in favour of re-emerging and returning downstairs, where he pauses just on the other side of the door to the sitting room and ignores the voice in the back of his mind that sounds like Lan Qiren scolding him for eavesdropping.
“-ink Wen Ruohan will target you?”
“I don’t know. The tail didn’t seem overly important from what I observed but it’s not as if Wen Ruohan has an easy temper. He may take it as an insult no matter who the goon was, considering I left him bleeding out in a gutter. Still, there’s nothing left behind to tie his death to us specifically so his anger will likely find a more immediate target.”
Nie Mingjue sighs loudly enough to be heard even through the door and over the sound of the fire crackling; someone must have laid fresh logs on it while he’d been gone.
“Anyone sent to tail Xichen is someone making regular reports, someone will notice he’s dead sooner rather than later, and we can assume they at least have Xichen’s last known whereabouts in a general sense. If he was good at his job — which if he was sent to tail Xichen then he probably was — he’ll have written every detail he could think of somewhere and the next to take over will simply pick up quite literally where he left off.”
“My money is on the second, but he’s safe here anyway. They might have his movements from the last few weeks but a dead man can hardly tell them Xichen met me in a tea shop or where we went after I killed him. If we lay low for a few days and let Wen Ruohan’s temper cool, I doubt we’ll be in any more danger than we already were.”
“I’ll listen out for any news that they might know where he’s gone tomorrow when I visit Cui-mama. Will I tell Colm to have the boys keep their ears to the ground as well?”
Meng Yao snorts delicately and Lan Xichen doesn’t know him well of course but he thinks it’s safe to assume that he’s rolling his eyes when he replies, “Her brutes are excellent in a fight but hardly who I want for informants. I’ve already told Cui-mama to get the girls on it; patrons are far more likely to let something slip around them anyway, plus if any thugs come calling they’ll try to intimidate the girls for information first, not Colm and the rest. You just let me worry about the gossip mill.”
Lan Xichen decides that’s enough eavesdropping, considering all it’s accomplished is made him feel guilty for potentially endangering not only Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao but also the entire brothel full of people just trying to eke out their living.
“Whatever you say,” Nie Mingjue replies as Lan Xichen nudges the door open and finds himself the sudden audience of two very intense stares. He pauses just over the threshold until Meng Yao waves him in with an elegant little gesture.
“Come in, sit down before you fall over. I won’t offer you a stiff drink no matter how much you look like you need it — unless you no longer follow your family proscription?”
Lan Xichen tries to hide his surprise at Meng Yao’s knowing that particular rule as he settles down in the chair nearest the fire again and shakes his head.
“You are well-informed, as is only to be expected. I do follow it, tea will more than suffice.”
There are only a few moments between the request and Nie Mingjue helping him curl his cold, shaking hands around the cup Meng Yao had poured for him, and while that’s good news for the exhaustion weighing him down it doesn’t exactly give him as much time as he’d like to get his thoughts in order to begin his nightmarish narrative.
“You said you need my help,” Nie Mingue prompts him rather gently (for him), obviously concerned under his perpetual gruff frown and piercing stare.
“I do,” he admits, sheepish. “I’ve tried to sort things out myself but I’m afraid it’s more difficult than I’d anticipated.”
Meng Yao turns away from the sideboard with a glass of whiskey he passes to Nie Mingjue as he says, “Getting you out of the city is perfectly doable, we merely have to be careful and clever.”
“Ah… I must apologize for my earlier misdirection. I do not actually wish to leave the city, tempting though the offer is, particularly as I fully trust your confidence in your ability to do so. It may still perhaps prove necessary, should we need to contact my family for their assistance or testimony, but I have resolved to stay here and ensure Wen Ruohan’s plans are stopped.”
Meng Yao blinks down at him for a long moment before he turns back to the sideboard with a little sniff. “Alright, so if you don’t want to leave the city and you were seeking Mingjue’s help rather than mine, what would you like us to do for you?”
Lan Xichen can’t help but fidget for a moment, his uncle’s voice reprimanding him in the back of his mind for the undignified habit. “I believe that Wen Ruohan means to weaken and destroy the Five Families to the point of establishing himself as the sole social, political, and capital power of the city.”
The accusation settles like a stone into the relative silence of the fire crackling and the quiet burble of whatever Meng Yao is pouring.
“That’s quite the accusation,” he tells the decanter of whiskey. “Are you intending to ask us to stop this scheme ourselves?”
“No! Heavens no, I doubt he will be stopped by anything short of a miracle. I simply realized in the days immediately following my escape from the fire that destroyed my home that I lack the sort of resources necessary to follow the clue left behind that lends some weight to my supposition. I knew that Mingjue had returned to town but I’d heard he was laying low somewhere away from home, and there were whispers in the lower quarters of a man who could solve any problem brought to his attention. I thought if anyone could help me find Mingjue it was this mysterious fixer, and then by chance I heard something that made me hope Mingjue would be easier to find than I had thought. I only want to find answers to my questions, that’s all.”
Meng Yao crosses the room to sit on the sofa next to Nie Mingjue, a handsbreadth between them, and Lan Xichen can’t help but notice the glance they exchange before they both look at him in tandem.
“Can you tell us what happened, Xichen?” Nie Mingjue asks him, again with surprising delicacy. “All we know are rumors, and not very reliable ones.”
Lan Xichen takes a deep breath in, drains his tea, and forces himself to truly think about the night he would rather forget entirely.
“It was horribly clever to start the fire in the hours just before midnight,” he begins, and settles deeper into his chair to tell his story to his attentive little audience of two.