Chapter Text
It’s a spring day in Gusu, gleaming and snowy, when Jiang Yanli first meets the woman whose life she will change. Who will change hers in return.
She is glad for the chance to study at the Cloud Recesses, she reminds herself, especially as it means that she is able to keep an eye on her younger brothers. She is glad, she tells herself as the Wen delegation strides through the main hall. She watches as there is an exchange of gifts and thanks. She would not call them pleasantries - she is her mother’s daughter, and she is smarter than that.
Wen Chao says something particularly tone-deaf, and Jiang Yanli makes sure her gentle half-smile does not twitch into a grimace.
It requires careful balance, to be always smiling, but Jiang Yanli - she repeats through the gritted teeth of her mind - is her mother’s daughter. Her true emotions can only ever be seen at the corner of her eyes, and even then, not always. Her own brothers sometimes do not notice until she allows them too.
Wen Chao sneers. Jiang Yanli hides another grimace.
There’s a Wen woman in the delegation. The tightness at the corner of her eyes, hiding behind her bland expression, is one Jiang Yanli recognises intimately and immediately.
She wishes the Wen woman the best, even though she knows she should not. She may be her mother’s daughter, but - to Yu Ziyuan’s chagrin - she is also her father’s eldest child.
The female students are all quartered together, following some bizarre Lan tradition. The Wen woman, Jiang Yanli learns, is named Wen Qing, and she has a younger brother.
Jiang Yanli sees her, as one elder sister to another. They have the same tightness to the corners of their eyes. The same desperate urge in their hands to fix. Jiang Yanli sees herself in Wen Qing, and vice versa, no matter how much she wishes she didn't.
The Jiang and the Wen are not friends, after all.
Wen Qing is quiet, but not quiet like Jiang Yanli. Jiang Yanli has spent years learning how to be quiet like a flower: a lotus on the still water, beautiful and invisible and all-hearing. Wen Qing, though, is quiet like a knife. She vanishes some nights. She sits at the back of lectures. She does not speak up. There is no reason for Jiang Yanli to notice her - but she does, she always does, her eyes drawn to those red robes, those red lips. She’s aware of Wen Qing in the same way she’s aware of the knife her mother had tucked into her belt the day she left for Gusu: Yanli keeps dangerous things in mind, and her knife is silent, certainly, and unobtrusive, but its bite has death.
Jiang Yanli cannot justify why Wen Qing feels dangerous. It’s just something she knows. Or, she reflects ruefully, perhaps she's just lonely and paranoid. Her mother would be ashamed of her for making such accusations without evidence.
Wen Qing is a doctor. Jiang Yanli learns this the hard way, when the slowly building pain she’s been ignoring for the last week peaks all at once as the women assemble in the courtyard before lunch.
Jiang Yanli faints.
(In some ways, she will never be like her mother.)
When she comes to, the first thing she sees is a flash of red. She blinks, and Wen Qing’s figure comes into focus.
“Here,” Wen Qing says, handing her a bowl of a green-tinted liquid. Jiang Yanli takes it cautiously.
“What's this?” she asks. The Yunmeng doctors have assured her that nothing can be done for her flare-ups. They are simply things to endure; she will spend the next few days in bed.
“Medicine,” Wen Qing says, shortly. “It will help.”
Jiang Yanli blinks.
“I cannot accept aid from the Wen,” she says softly.
Wen Qing stiffens, almost unnoticeably. Yanli notices. “I know.” She takes the bowl back, placing it on the table beside Jiang Yanli’s bed. “I apologise for my intrusion,” Wen Qing says, bows stiffly, and is gone from the room before Jiang Yanli can stop her.
Jiang Yanli sighs. She wishes, sometimes, that she could have friends her age in other sects.
However, even if she could, the Wen would be a bad choice. Jiang Yanli had been raised to only make good choices.
She promptly follows that thought up by making an incredibly bad choice and downing the medicine Wen Qing bought.
(She is a Jiang. She may be quiet and meek, but she is still a Jiang, and she still attempts the impossible on the regular.)
It burns. It burns her, from the inside out, and she realises she made a stupid mistake just as her vision fades again.
When Jiang Yanli wakes again, she's still in her bed in the Cloud Recesses, and nothing hurts.
She stands, curious. She’s a little wobbly, but she is not in pain.
This has never happened this quickly after a flare-up.
Jiang Yanli shakes her head, then hurries to class. She’s missed lunch, but she refuses to bring the Jiang shame by missing a class if she does not have to.
When she enters, Wen Qing meets her eye for an instant, then looks away.
They cannot be friends. Jiang Yanli cannot, does not, owe Wen Qing anything.
That does not mean she isn’t grateful.
No one likes the Wen sect, Jiang Yanli thinks to herself. They need no aid when it comes to driving other sects away. Still, on this occasion, Wen Chao is being particularly disgusting.
This was the point, where, if it was the Jiang sect causing the unpleasantry, Jiang Yanli would step forward and calmly guide the instigator into ending it, making them believe it was their own decision. When Wen Qing steps forward, Jiang Yanli hides a smile - older siblings are all the same, it seems.
The smile dies when Wen Chao turns on Wen Qing, shouting at her, spittle flying. This is not something other sects should be seeing. Wen Chao does not care.
Yanli makes sure no one notices as she sucks in a single, shallow breath. There is something in the way Wen Chao looms, the tightness to Wen Qing’s lips, the way she bears it - the way the other Wen watch - Wen Qing is alienated from the main family of their sect, despite having been claimed as a cousin.
The question remains as to why.
It is in the back hills of the Cloud Recesses, shortly before their planned departure home for Yunmeng, that Yanli finds Wen Qing - well, prowling. It puts her in mind of the great clouded leopards she’s heard tell of, giant cats stalking the mountains far west of here: Wen Qing’s eyes are clear and sharp and searching, her every movement measured and graceful, as she takes one or two steps and then probes the air with her hands and a talisman, takes another few steps and tries again. Yanli watches her for a long moment, quelling the unseemly flush rising to her cheeks - and for what? - before gently clearing her throat to make her presence known.
Wen Qing spins abruptly and with fierceness, glaring and almost ... well, Yanli thinks there’s a degree of fear, under the chill, brash self-protecting irritation. “Jiang-guniang,” she snaps, breathless and startled, before wrenching herself back into composure - Yanli knows the feeling, recognises it, can almost feel the way Wen Qing slows her breathing and neatens her expression and tears as much tension as she can from her shoulders. “Are you well?”
“I am... much better than I have been in quite some time,” Yanli answers, surprising even herself with her honesty and Wen Qing even more. (She sees the minute widening of Wen Qing’s eyes, and is a little pleased with how attuned she is to such tells.) “Your medicine proved immensely helpful -” Against her better judgement, she ducks into a bow lower than Wen Qing is strictly due, certainly lower than her mother would ever bow to a Wen. “This one is incredibly grateful to have received your treatment, daifu. It worked wonders.”
She’s not exactly intending on playing on Wen Qing’s ego - truly, her impulsive compliment was genuine - but she can’t help noticing the faint spark of pride in the other woman’s eyes, despite everything. Yanli knows the feeling, of course: one can never quite acknowledge their own achievements, especially not in their positions, so to have it noticed (when it so frequently is not) comes as a warm, glittering surprise. Wen Qing does not so much as smile, but there is a certain steely set to her jaw, a faint shifting in her posture, straightening of her spine, that tells Yanli her praise has been well-received. “I am performing only my familial duty,” Wen Qing says, as though rote-learned, “and exercising the expertise of my mothers and fathers before me, but this humble doctor accepts your gratitude on behalf of the -” A pause. A bitten-back word - “great and honourable Qishan Wen Sect.”
Yanli tilts her head, narrows her eyes, but does not dare ask, not directly. Not yet. “You serve your sect loyally and exceptionally, Wen-guniang,” she says instead, dimpling.
There it is - a flicker of bitterness, visible for a moment in the twist of Wen Qing’s lips. “I do only what I must,” she says, and gives a courtesy bow of her own. Yanli can see her walls coming back up as though physical things - whatever brief favour she had won, it is lost now, and Wen Qing is a fortress of a woman, with barricades for fingers, fortifications for robes, watchtowers for eyes, with guards always on duty. “Good day, Jiang-guniang,” she says, clipped and perfect and polite.
Yanli is so very sick of being perfect, of being her mother’s daughter, of always saying the right thing. Wen Qing, dangerously, makes her want to break rules. To be foolish and impulsive and resentful and human, to wince when she is in pain rather than bearing it until she faints, to - to - to dare to ask. “The Qishan Wen sect,” she says, turning to face Wen Qing directly, to look her in the eye. Wen Qing stiffens, like a hunted rabbit. “Were they always yours?” It’s a foolish suspicion, but she can’t quite help it - the way Wen Qing had stumbled over her words before invoking their name, the way she is treated as separate by her cousins - it’s all but impossible for Yanli to have guessed, but then again, she is a Jiang. (She is her father’s daughter, too.)
Wen Qing stares at her, some strange mix of stunned-afraid-hopeful, and then her lips tighten back into that strict impassive line. (They’d been slightly parted, for a moment, and Yanli had noticed the line where her lip-paint had ended and the natural colours of her lips began. She was briefly transfixed by it, though she knew not why.)
“The Dafan Wen hold no power now,” Wen Qing says, short, clipped, desperate in a way she cannot express. It sings to something kindred in Yanli’s chest. “I serve Qishan with my mother’s needles and my father’s tinctures and my bobo’s herbs and - and -” The passion, the earnest anger, dies on her cheeks. “I serve Qishan,” she repeats, and turns away, stalks down the mountain path, leaving Jiang Yanli watching the wake of her brilliant, blood-red robes.
In the silence of her room, later, Jiang Yanli reflects. As an eldest daughter of sect leaders, she has, of course, been taught the lineages of all the sects. She can recite the ancestors of all the sects, major and minor, until her lips turn blue - she has .
The Dafan Wen is not a branch she knows.
She frowns, free to form expressions in the safety of her chambers, and talks through the Wen clan line again, starting with Wen Mao and working her way down. She can’t think of a single ancestor linked to a name such as Dafan.
A minor branch, then, or a hidden one. A cousin branch, perhaps, the Dafan Wen. A branch of doctors and healers, powerless, servile.
Jiang Yanli thinks of Wen Qing, then, and forces back another unnecessary blush at the thought of the lines of her lips, the twist of her robes, at the way her hands had pointedly not trembled when she handed Jiang Yanli a bowl of medicine. Doctors, yes. Powerless? Only time would tell, Jiang Yanli tells herself with her mother's shrewdness. Deep down, though, she already knows. There is something bright and dangerous and familiar about Wen Qing: knives, intentionally blunted and sheathed, are still knives.
It does not take long to confirm her suspicions about the Dafan Wen. It seems that her brothers have taken Wen Qionglin under their wings, teasing the young man as easily as they tease Nie Huaisang, who they have known for many more years. Jiang Yanli smiles to see it.
If anyone ever asks her - they will not, they never will - she will tell them that she does not know where Wei Wuxian got his open laughter and more open hands, or where Jiang Wanyin found his smile and manner of handing over food. It is, she knows, not from the sharp words of her mother, or the placating smile of her father. Both of her parents love with closed hands, though her father’s are softer. All three of the children they raised love with open hands, reaching and holding and giving.
Jiang Yanli will never say where her brothers learned to love like that, but she will always know.
“Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian shouts, “want to come to Caiyi town with us? Jiang Cheng's paying!”
“I am not!” Jiang Cheng shouts back, but Jiang Yanli can see him already loosening the money pouch from where it sits on his belt. She smiles.
Wei Wuxian just laughs, and looks at Wen Qionglin, who's turning a dark red. Jiang Yanli, well used to the rhythms of their conversation, can see that it's her moment to interject.
“Boys,” she greets, and Wei Wuxian's eyes immediately light up.
“Shijie,” he cries, and explodes into a flurry of motion around her. “Do you want to come to Caiyi with us? Jiang Cheng’s paying, but I swear we won’t be a drain on the Jiang coffers! We’re being good. We’re being excellent, actually, have I told you about -”
Jiang Yanli laughs, which has always been the best way to calm Wei Wuxian’s excitement. “How about,” she says, “all three of you spend dinner with me? I'll make soup.”
Wei Wuxian’s joy is almost tangible, bright and stunning. Jiang Cheng lights up too, and Jiang Yanli watches as their shared happiness lifts Wen Qionglin up too, until all four of them are back near Jiang Yanli's quarters.
She’s technically not meant to have male guests over, but, well. She shares Wei Wuxian’s view on some of the Lan rules, and she knows the schedules of the other women well enough that she knows they will not be caught. Jiang children are raised to do the impossible, which means they are raised for mischief like this, as much as Jiang Yanli's mother would like to pretend they are not. Jiang Yanli is as well versed in trickery as she is in politics. (Each time someone draws a line between the two, she has to hide a laugh. Politics is trickery. She lives in a labyrinth of them both.)
Wei Wuxian finds her cooking implements from somewhere, and, when she raises an eyebrow, he launches into some tale involving the Second Jade of Lan and also, unexplained but somehow vital, rabbits.
She’s curious, but Jiang Cheng is rolling his eyes, so she sets it aside as one of those stories she will never hear the full of, and starts preparing soup.
“Who’s your new friend?” she asks, as if she does not already know. It’s a small, careful step, one of the many she learned while still clinging to her mother’s skirts.
“Oh!” Wei Wuxian says. “This is Wen Ning!”
Wen Qionglin stutters a bow. “Wen Qionglin thanks you for your hospitality, Jiang-guniang.”
Jiang Yanli makes sure her smile is gentle when she turns to him. “I believe I know your sister, Wen Qing?”
“My jie is wonderful,” Wen Qionglin says, and Jiang Yanli’s smile becomes three times more real.
“She mentioned you were from Dafan,” Jiang Yanli says, smoothly, as if this is something she is supposed to know. Her brothers blink, startled.
“Yes!” Wen Qionglin says. He was shy, before, but it's a shyness that hides a bright spark of pride in his sister and his family. “We’re a cousin branch of the Wen, a healing branch. My jie is the greatest doctor in our family.”
“She is a wonderful doctor indeed,” Jiang Yanli says. “Do you miss your family?”
“Ah - a little bit,” Wen Qionglin says. “I haven't seen them at all since jie and I were taken to Qishan.”
Ah. That fills in many gaps for Jiang Yanli.
“I miss Lotus Pier sometimes,” she says. “The piers there are beautiful in the sunsets. Cloud Recesses is beautiful too, of course, but in a different way.”
“Cloud Recesses has nothing on Lotus Pier,” Jiang Cheng says hotly, Wei Wuxian chiming his agreement, and they carry the conversation away for Jiang Yanli. She’s not sure they’re even aware of it, but it leaves her time to think.
A cousin branch, perhaps subjugated. Wen Qing, a doctor and powerful woman in her own right, sent here like a dog for the Wens, under threat of harm to her family members.
It’s all conjecture, of course, but it's conjecture that becomes more and more certain the way she sees Wen Qionglin take a bowl of soup eagerly, then try to hide it as he dips a small rod in. He’s clearly testing for poison, which the Jiang should see as an affront against their hospitality. Jiang Yanli catches the eyes of her brothers instead, and shakes her head minutely. Jiang Cheng’s face had been caught halfway between anger and worry when she looked at him, but he makes a concerted effort and pulls it back into a smile; he, too, is her mother’s child.
Wen Qionglin, test returned negative, takes an eager gulp of his soup. “It’s good!” he says, as if surprised.
“Of course it is,” Wen Wuxian says, giving him a gentle nudge with an elbow. “It's my shijie’s soup!”
Jiang Yanli does not try to hide her smile. She does not have to, not here.
Wen Qionglin leaves them half a shi before curfew hits, clearly wanting to be safe in his bed before any Lans patrol and catch him breaking more rules. The Jiang brothers stay - this is just another thing that should be impossible, but, in their hands, is not.
They do have to hide on the rafters once, when a Lan woman rushes past just as the gong for curfew sounds, clearly late, but that’s a simple matter. The hardest part of hiding from the Lans is hiding Wei Wuxian's laughter, but Jiang Cheng's sleeve takes care of that well enough.
“I worry about Wen Qionglin,” Jiang Yanli says, once they’re back on the ground.
Jiang Cheng looks confused, but there’s a familiar look of scheming on Wei Wuxian’s face. “Funnily enough,” he says, cheerily, “you’re not the first person I've heard say that!”
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Cheng asks, clearly mad that he has to.
Jiang Yanli loves her brother. He interacts with the world bluntly. He asks for what he wants and gives what he can and he does not understand why others do not do the same. It is a wonderful trait. The world, Jiang Yanli thinks, would be simpler and kinder if more people were like Jiang Cheng.
(It’s not naivety, Jiang Yanli is certain. Jiang Cheng knows that some people will be cruel for no reason, that some people like to talk in tricks and twists. Jiang Cheng himself says things he doesn't mean in order to avoid betraying his heart, but his actions always speak to what he truly means. He does not, and does not want to have to, understand why some people enjoy hurting and tricking others who have done nothing to them. It's not naivety. It's a hope for a better world.)
She hopes he will always be like that, her younger brother, pure of heart and clean of anger. She knows that he will one day be Sect Leader - she may be her mother’s daughter and she may be first born, but she is not and never has been strong enough to take her birthright - and that his clean way of understanding will be knocked from him in the politics of that role. The emotion that arises when she thinks of that is something biting and painful. She names it sorrow and locks it away in the hollows of her chest. (A more apt name, perhaps, would be anger, but she has no more room for that.)
“The main Wen clan definitely have something over Wen Ning and his sister,” Wei Wuxian says. “He hasn’t been back to his town since the Wens took him to Qishan? That sounds like a hostage situation to me.”
“The rest of the Wen don't treat Wen Ning the same,” Jiang Cheng says. “I thought it was just because he was shy and a decent person, but this makes sense.”
There's a crackle in Jiang Cheng's eyes that reminds Jiang Yanli of their mother when she's furious.
“Wen Chao yelled at Wen Qing that one time,” Wei Wuxian adds, and together they spend a good hour connecting all the fragments they’ve seen.
The big picture isn't good.
“Wen Qing's definitely here to look for something,” Jiang Cheng says, heavily. “And it's definitely because Wen Ruohan's threatening her family.”
"I wonder what Wen Ruohan wants that is hidden on Lan grounds," Jiang Yanli muses.
"Haha," Wei Wuxian says. "I have no idea."
He's terrible at lying. Jiang Yanli levels a stare at him, knowing her other brother is doing the same from beside her.
"I can't tell you!" Wei Wuxian yelps. "I swear I'll go talk to Lan Qiren about it in the morning though! They were going to send Lan Zhan out to look for others but if the Wens are this serious about it, he really shouldn't go alone."
"I'm sure Lan Qiren already knows," Jiang Yanli says. She knows Wei Wuxian's grudges against people who aren't as smart as him sometimes blind him to the fact that they are still, in fact, smarter than most people.
"Maybe," Wei Wuxian says, doubtfully.
"What can we do to help the Dafan Wen?" Jiang Yanli asks. "Our parents won't protect them, certainly."
"The Jiang should," Jiang Cheng says, anger burning in his voice.
"But we can't," Jiang Yanli says, softly. "We aren't strong enough."
"The Nie would," Wei Wuxian says.
Jiang Yanli looks at him, patiently. Her brother does this sometimes - throws out ideas that seem disconnected, but really are linked, in ways only his mind has noticed.
"What?" Jiang Cheng says.
"Look," Wei Wuxian starts, hands flickering by his sides in a way that tells his siblings to settle down and pay attention, because this will be long and take brainpower to understand, "I know the Wen caused Nie Mingjue's father to die, but I swear the Nie would take them. They're just and righteous and good people. If we explained - and I don't think we have to, I think they already know - but if we explained I think they would agree. And they have the political might we don't and they're closer to Qishan and they're more stronger militantly, and they have the space and the stores and they take in migrants all the time, actually, unlike most of the sects, because their disciples have such a shorter life expectancies because of their cultivation form, which is also why Nie Huaisang doesn't like to cultivate, because he doesn't want to die, which I really think is understandable but also I like flying way too much to do. If I was a Nie disciple I would simply leave and join the Jiang, actually."
He stops, then. "I think I got a bit sidetracked."
Jiang Cheng blinks. "Is that what Nie Huaisang meant when he said 'I hope Wen-xiong knows he always has a friend in the Nie'?"
Wei Wuxian grins. "Absolutely! I mean, probably. It's Nie-xiong. Who really knows what he's thinking?"
Jiang Cheng sighs.
They're leaving Cloud Recesses, headed back for Lotus Pier after the lecture series, when Nie Huaisang tugs on her sleeves.
"Would Jiang-guniang like to visit the Unclean Realm?" he asks, politely, as if she has not seen him drunk and laughing or dead sober and falling into a creek, pulling Jiang Cheng down as he goes as if that was the only point to it. "I believe we have some diplomatic relations to discuss."
He means the Dafan Wen. He must mean the Dafan Wen.
"By diplomatic matters, Yanli-jie," Nie Huaisang whines, "I obviously mean my newest fans! Do you think your parents would let you come and look if you told them it was important! I love Wei-xiong and Jiang-xiong but neither of them like the delicate style I do. You have such a better eye for pretty things. The only pretty thing Wei-xiong likes at the moment is Lan Wangji and I hardly have him stored away in a closet at home."
Jiang Yanli smiles at him, much softer than she wants to. Her real smile is a fierce thing, aching in her jaws as she holds it back. "Jiang Cheng," she calls. "Tell our parents I'm taking a journey to the Unclean Realm in order to discuss some matters with Nie Huaisang."
"You're stealing our sister for a week," Wei Wuxian howls. "Over what? Some fans? For shame, Nie-xiong! For shame!"
The Wen delegation marches past them and out the gate. Jiang Yanli very carefully does not breathe out a sigh of relief. Nie Huaisang winks at her.
The journey to the Unclean Realm does not take as long as Jiang Yanli had feared. Rather than slowing to her walking pace like her brothers do, the Nie delegation simply take turns carrying her on their sabres. They do the same for Nie Huaisang.
The Nie aren't up close and personal, at all, not like she had found when riding with members of her own sect. The larger size of their sabres lets her stand a fair distance, close enough to place a steadying hand on a shoulder or a waist if she needs, but her balance has never been the issue when it comes to flying, so she is mostly fine.
They land in a small, secluded courtyard, and the Nie quickly disperse.
"Come with me," Nie Huaisang says, somehow more settled than he had been at the Cloud Recesses.
He leads Jiang Yanli through a maze of passageways and corridors, at one point lifting a weaving and waving her through the hidden passageway behind it. After long enough that Jiang Yanli has begun to wonder, he draws to a stop.
"We're here," he announces, to an empty room, then plops down at a table to light a fire to start heating water for tea.
"Where?" Jiang Yanli asks. She thinks she could find her way out, if she had to, but she's not as confident as she would like to be.
"Da-ge will be here soon," Nie Huaisang says, and, true to his word, it's barely a breath before a door at the other end of the room slides open and Nie-zongzhu strides though.
Jiang Yanli bows, hurriedly. She does not feel prepared for this. She did not know she would be talking to Nie-zongzhu so soon.
"Nie Huaisang!" Nie-zongzhu booms. "You are a day late!"
Nie Huaisang squeaks. "It's not my fault, da-ge! Lectures ran a day over! I don't know why! I didn't think I was doing that badly!"
There's a pause, then Nie Mingjue laughs, deep and hearty, then picks Nie Huaisang up off the ground and squeezes him close.
There's a moment in which Jiang Yanli does her best to not shift awkwardly, then Nie Mingjue sets Nie Huaisang down, and turns to her.
"Alright, Huaisang," Nie Mingjue says. "What would you like me mull over this time?"
Nie Huaisang pours tea. "What would you do to protect me, da-ge?" he asks, innocently. Jiang Yanli is not fooled. She watched him grow up.
"Anything," Nie Mingjue answers, promptly. It's the answer of a beloved older sibling. It's an answer Jiang Yanli feels deep in her bones, a kindred call.
"Even things you think are immoral?"
"Yes," Nie Mingjue says, then sighs. "Alright. Who are you making me feel sorry for?"
"There's a side branch of the Wen called the Dafan Wen," Nie Huaisang says.
Nie Mingjue opens his mouth. Nie Huaisang hands him a cup of tea. Nie Mingjue drinks.
"Wen Ruohan is threatening the lives of the Dafan Wen to force their leader into cooperating. They sent Wen Qing's younger brother with her to the Lan to keep her under control - she did not have time to scheme if she was constantly trying to make sure he was safe. Fortunately for her and her branch, I am rather fond of Wen Ning, and so I schemed for her."
Nie Mingjue sets down his empty tea cup. He sighs. "The Dafan Wen do not share the values of the main Wen sect? The values that killed our father?"
"The Dafan Wen are a branch of doctors," Jiang Yanli says, quietly. "Wen Qing offered me healing even when it goes directly against the current political climate. I doubt she willingly supports any of Wen Ruohan's values."
"Jiang-guniang," Nie Mingjue says, as if just noticing her. That's fair. If Nie Mingjue happened to be in a room while Jiang Yanli was reuniting with her brothers, she doubted she would notice him immediately, either. The same thing tugs in her chest, that kindred ache. "I hope your journey to the Unclean Realm was easy."
"It was," Jiang Yanli says, and it's not a lie. "I thank you for hearing your brother's argument. I believe the Dafan Wen are in need of assistance, and my sect is not in a position to take them in, even though I would argue for it."
"Hmm," Nie Mingjue says, eerily reminiscent of the Lan clan. "I make no promises, but I'll consider it. I'd have to meet them first."