Chapter Text
With the late-summer sun slowly sliding into the lake to stain it a bloody red, Wei Wuxian was only two jars of wine in when Mianmian plopped down beside him. He hadn’t heard her jump up to his rooftop, but as soon as he realized who had joined him, he transitioned his instinctive grab towards Chenqing into a lazy twirl of the ghost flute. He hoped his old friend hadn’t noticed him startle – with the benefit of his golden core, he surely would have noticed her footsteps much earlier, regardless of how deep he was in thought. He scrambled to sort himself into a sociable mood and slapped a quick smile onto his face.
“Mianmian! What brings you out to Lotus Pier? Did you finally get fed up with the Peacock’s terrible taste in fancy floral incense? Choke on a gold ornament that fell off his robes? Come, come, share a jar with me!” Wei Wuxian held out one of the many jars of wine scattered about him on the flat roof section.
Mianmian grabbed it and looked around a few moments – right, most people would want a cup to drink out of – before taking a delicate sip directly from the jar. “Mm, is it made locally? I’m here to visit with you, Wei-gongzi.” She gracefully ignored his jabs at her sect’s heir.
“Yes, yes, it’s a lotus wine, I helped out with the development. Isn’t it tasty? I don’t think I could ever get enough of it. I can’t believe you came all the way out here just to see little old me, you must like me more than you let on, Mianmian!” Wei Wuxian took a decidedly less-than-graceful swig from his own jar, using his dark sleeve to wipe off a dribble down his chin.
“Wei-gongzi, I know you have a high tolerance, but this is more than enough for anyone. You’re lucky I’m here to share with you, or you’d be drinking yourself into a stupor.” Mianmian waved an arm at the sloppy collection of jars and raised an eyebrow.
Wei Wuxian shifted uncomfortably and raced to change the subject, saying, “Huh, you said you came out to visit me, not on any official business? I’m surprised Jin-zongzhu let you take time away from your responsibilities. Or did you tag along with a larger group?”
“Not at all, Jin-zongzhu encouraged me to visit. He said, ‘Ah, Luo-guniang, my son tells me that Wei Wuxian protected you in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter. You should pay your respects to him, show your gratitude, you know, as a woman does.’” Wei Wuxian blushed and looked away from Miamian’s pretty face. Was she really suggesting…that? Even though Jin Guangshan was many, many li away, Wei Wuxian felt the urge to dip into a river and wash a feeling much slimier than lake algae off his entire body.
Before he could think of anything to say, she continued, “I don’t think keeping you from drinking alone is precisely what Jin-zongzhu meant by ‘showing gratitude,’ but I’m happy to take the excuse to travel. Oh, and I have an herb pack for you – mix these into a tea before bed, they’ll help with nightmares better than all this wine. I know a lot of us have had trouble sleeping since the war.”
Reassured that Mianmian didn’t really think she had to pay a debt with those kinds of favors, Wei Wuxian decided to lighten the mood by flirting a little. He winked and brushed his fingers lightly against hers as he accepted the herbs, quipping, “How could I not sleep well going to bed with my head full of thoughts of the lovely lady who gifted me this tea! Thank you, Miamian, you know so much about herbs. Truly, I think your medicine saved Lan Zhan and me when we were trapped in the cave, so if anyone owes gratitude, it should be me. What can I do for you, just say the word – more wine? A tour of Lotus Pier? Oh, you really should try lotus seeds fresh from the pod, they’re better that way. And the early ones are just ripening now, so it’s the perfect time.”
Wei Wuxian spent the next few days dragging Mianmian around the docks and street vendors, teasing to get her to taste the Yunmeng spices and to beat the heat by practicing her swimming. Keeping occupied with a guest and occasionally using her as a buffer for Jiang Cheng’s lectures made the days seem to fly by. But soon she had to return to Lanling, so it was back to ducking duty for Wei Wuxian. Without his golden core, there wasn’t much he could do to help Jiang Cheng and Shijie rebuild Lotus Pier or train the new recruits. So although Mianmian’s herbs did help with the nightmares, Wei Wuxian still spent much of the day drinking to dull his waking hours, with a few ghost girls for company. Spending time with the ghost girls was safer than goofing off with the shidis and shimeis, the ghosts would never ask him to help with tasks that should be easy for him but were now impossible.
So as he slipped back into his usual haunts, Wei Wuxian didn’t think much on Mianmian’s visit until a larger Jin delegation of two senior disciples and ten nobodies from Wei Wuxian’s generation came only a couple weeks later. Wei Wuxian didn’t recognize any of them and was frankly surprised that the Jin had so many female disciples, given that all ten of the younger ones were women. Officially, they had come to discuss trade deals with Jiang Cheng. However, Jiang Cheng complained vociferously about the two pompous blowhards who wasted his time talking in circles every day, and the other ten just seemed to wander with nothing to do. The gaggle of girls managed to find Wei Wuxian no matter where he went, and he found himself thinking back to that first conversation with Mianmian as he wondered what Jin Guangshan was really trying to accomplish with this delegation.
Perhaps they were spying on him to learn about his ghost cultivation. All of them seemed charmed and encouraging when he entertained them with ghost tricks, which was suspicious given that most young women would find ghosts unnerving. And Ma-guniang kept asking him to play Chengqing for her. Didn’t she know it was a dangerous weapon full of resentment? But if they were trying to learn the secrets to his cultivation, they weren’t trying very hard. He had a few trusted spirits watching the Jin disciples at all times, and none of the women had attempted to practice using resentful energy in any way. None of them had tried to look at his notebooks or snoop around his room, either, but he added some privacy talismans and wards to his quarters just in case.
If they were spies, surely they would be more subtle? Wei Wuxian normally had fun flirting with young maidens, but these women didn’t follow the lighthearted dance of give-and-take he was used to. When he gave in to Ma-guniang’s requests and played a jaunty tune on Chenqing, she angled far too close to his face and tucked his hair back, her warm fingers tracing over the tip of his ear and lingering on the skin. While he was still playing, she leaned in so close that her lips brushed against his ear and whispered, “Wei-gongzi, your tongue and fingers are clever on your instrument, I wonder what else they could do?” After that, he brought the song to an end with the next verse and very manfully fled to the safety of the locked door of his own room.
Wei Wuxian wasn’t a fuddy-duddy like Lan Zhan, but he did want his first kiss to mean something. He hardly knew any of these girls, and they were Jin disciples, too. Mianmian was a special case, but most Jin disciples were too snooty to be fun friends. Certainly Jin-er-guniang was no exception. She didn’t want to share wine unless she had a clean cup to put her elegantly-painted lips on, and yet she ducked in to kiss him with no warning. Fortunately, he was able to turn his head so she only bussed his cheek, but she still left a pink mark from her lip paint on his skin. Lan Zhan happened to be visiting that evening and immediately stood up and left the tavern when he saw such shameless behavior. Wei Wuxian had worked hard to lure him in by pelting him with flowers and compliments, and he was sad to see that effort wasted as his stuffy friend left more than a shichen before Lan bedtime.
Zhang-guniang was also no exception to the typical Jin haughtiness. Ku-ayi, a friend who worked as a server in the Rowboat’s Rest inn, accidentally spilled soup on Zhang-guniang’s shiny gold robes, and then Zhang-guniang shrieked that she needed a replacement robe right away. Poor Ku-ayi offered her own spare robes from upstairs, but Zhang-guniang retorted that she couldn’t possibly wear such rough peasant garb. Instead, she tried to take off Wei Wuxian’s outer robe as a replacement. If she had waited a few moments (maybe more than a few moments, he didn’t like that she yelled at Ku-ayi), he might have chivalrously donated his robe of his own accord, but he was too thin-faced to have a girl undoing the ties on his robes, and in public! Zhang-guniang’s too-soft hands (didn’t she have any sword calluses?) stroked his waist and chest, and she was starting to reach further down his body. Just before she touched anything sensitive, he managed to scoot away from her grasping hands and suggest that it might be time to turn in for the evening, so Zhang-guniang could go back to her own guest room and change into her own fresh robes.
For three weeks, the Jins hounded him everywhere he went, and he had to be quick on his feet to extricate himself from some sticky situations. He took to joining Shijie in the kitchens during the day, even though she didn’t trust him to help with anything other than cutting up vegetables, and in the evenings he tried to cling to her as well so the Jin girls couldn’t corner him alone. When Shijie asked what had him so interested in the kitchens of late, he whined, “Shiiijieee, can’t it just be that your Xianxian wants to spend time with his favorite person in the whole world?” She didn’t press the issue, and when the Jin disciples tried to get too close, she warded them off with an arm around his shoulders, because she was perfect. Shijie would keep him safe.