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From the base of the stairs, the summit of Sisheng Peak was little more than a shadow wreathed in mist, and Xue Meng stood out in a bright patch of blue and silver on the bottom steps.
Sect Leader Xue was still the same Xue Meng, under the fur-lined outer robe with a ruff like a snow leopard’s and expensive layers of rich blue silk, and he was clearly on his last nerve. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “Someone’s spreading rumours about the real reason for today’s banquet, so if you hear anything ridiculous, assume it's a lie.”
Mo Ran kept his eyes forward while he made an exaggerated bow. “Greetings to Sect Leader Xue on this auspicious day.” Then, because he was only human, he gave in to the urge to tease. “Mengmeng, did you send us the wrong invite? Is there something we should know?”
“Ha, ha. Laugh it up, you dog. At least it’s you and not that asshole. It would have been a nightmare to explain this to him,” Xue Meng groused, looking down his nose at Mo Ran’s dimpled grin, which shouldn't be possible– except Xue Meng was the type to worry about the sort of thing like a few inches of difference in height, and had deliberately chosen to stand three steps from the bottom. “Mo Weiyu, I’m not letting you up the mountain until I get it through at least one person’s thick skull that today’s banquet is a celebration of the friendship and exchange of teachings between three cultivation sects. There’s nothing to consummate. No one is getting married, or betrothed, or whatever the hell else.”
“No marriage, no betrothal, or whatever the hell else,” Mo Ran echoed, fighting for his life to keep a straight face. Ahh, Mengmeng. Mo Ran hoped Wanning was in a betting mood; either someone was having fun at Xue Meng’s expense, in which case his money was on Taxue Palace’s newly minted sect leaders, or someone had misunderstood the process of picking a lucky date for the celebration, which pointed to Xue Meng's young disciple.
Chu Wanning wisely chose that moment to intervene, stepping onto the path at Mo Ran’s side and parting the veil of his weimao to reveal his face. All of Xue Meng’s annoyance melted into pure fondness, like he’d never been upset in the first place. “Shizun! I wasn’t sure…”
“We thank Sect Leader Xue for the invitation.” Wanning’s face was composed, eyes fixed on Xue Meng, but Mo Ran heard the warning to behave in his tone. “Which clearly stated that the purpose of today’s banquet is to celebrate the exchange of disciples between Taxue palace, Guyueye, and Sisheng Peak.”
Xue Meng cut his eyes at Mo Ran. “See, ge, I knew Shizun would understand. At least one of you read the damn invitation.”
Oh, Mo Ran understood. He understood he’d made a lifelong nemesis of at least one Mei Hanxue the first time Xue Meng had drunkenly called Mo Ran his gege in their company. If he hadn’t figured it out yet, that was his problem.
Xue Meng stepped aside in a sweep of blue robes, gesturing for Chu Wanning to follow. “I’ll walk with you, Shizun. I guess you can come too, as long as you behave,” he muttered to Mo Ran, like he and Mo Ran hadn’t met up several times in the past month to discuss this day, both determined to make Chu Wanning’s visit comfortable.
They mounted the steps together, a disciple on each side of Chu Wanning, except for the times where Xue Meng got caught up in his rambling and walked a little faster.
Xue Meng kept up the lion’s share of the conversation. He rambled on about the cultivation symposium planned for the following week, with guests from the remaining sects set to arrive in the days following the banquet; about the elders and students they knew and new recruits they would meet today; how the first (unofficial) group of guest disciples from Taxue Palace and Guyueye had balked when asked to mend fences and purge minor hauntings for a pittance of what their own sects would charge, so Xue Meng had sent them off on tasks meant to humble them, from mucking stables for the local innkeep to harvesting cabbages, for no charge. There would never be a repeat of that ill-fated ghost year under Xue Meng's watch.
Eventually, like the thought had dug into his mind like a burr, he circled back to the rumours. Do these look like wedding robes? Do these gossipmongers think I don't know my own damn business? Who has time for that shit, anyway! The next fool to congratulate me on finally consummating my union – what union! – is getting a one-way ticket to the afterlife over the railing of Naihe bridge!
Chu Wanning had gone quiet, but this silence had a different quality from the first thousand steps, when he’d been unable to fit in a word edgewise against Xue Meng’s chatter but had been clearly paying attention. Mo Ran traced his fingers down Chu Wanning’s sleeve, finding and tracing the skin of his bare wrist, slowly threading their fingers and pressing their palms together. Aside from the slight quickening of Wanning’s pulse under his fingers, there was no outward sign that his thoughts had wandered.
Mo Ran thought the motion was subtle, but Xue Meng whipped his head to the side, like a young mistress scandalized by the sheer impropriety of holding hands in public. Mo Ran took pity on him and bit his tongue.
Chu Wanning sighed, squeezed Mo Ran’s palm in warning, and the tense moment passed.
They had walked these same steps hundreds of times between the three of them: returning from the town below the mountain or departing on adventures and exorcisms, dragging themselves battered and bloody to the summit or the foothills, in times of celebration and in agony and all of the ordinary days in between.
Wanning was the one to insist on climbing to the peak, though returning to a place that was home but not home, deeply nostalgic but deeply changed, was daunting.
Today was a happy day, though, and Xue Meng’s enthusiasm buoyed them along.
The rise and fall of voices reached them in the last few hundred steps. One of the twins waited at the top of the stairs with Xue Meng’s first disciple, a mischievous boy who wore his Shizun's outfit in miniature, down to the fine details and lion-mouthed pauldron. The boy hopped from foot to foot, impatient, while Mei Hanxue stood still as a cliff face, impeccably polite with his greeting bow and welcome.
Xue Meng breezed past him, and Mei Hanxue fell into step, scolding in a low voice. “Ziming, when an hour is appointed and the guests have been informed, it is poor etiquette for one of the central parties to disappear.”
“It’s my banquet,” Xue Meng argued, smiling like nothing could touch his good mood. The physical resemblance might not be there, but that smile reminded Mo Ran – painfully, fondly, tinged in the nostalgia that coloured all of his memories of Sisheng Peak – of Xue Zhengyong. “It’s fine. It’s not like we were going to start without our honoured guests.”
Mei Hanxue the younger wandered among the crowd gathered outside of Mengpo Hall, making polite conversation, with a small girl never more than a few steps behind. This was the second disciple Xue Meng had mentioned in his latest letter: one of the Taxue Palace juniors who would learn sword arts from Sect Leader Xue, while a handful of Sisheng Peak disciples would depart after the symposium to learn musical cultivation techniques in Kunlun. Her robes were a match to Xue Meng’s, like her shixiong's.
Somewhere on the peak, Mo Ran knew there was a third disciple – a guest student from Guyueye who would have arrived this morning with the rest of his sect, and would be responsible for expanding the herbal medicine garden and assisting the Tanlang elder, when he wasn’t training in sword forms with Sect Leader Xue. Xue Meng would grumble about how it hadn't been his idea to include Guyueye, if asked, but it was a start.
Another bet for the pool: would this third disciple also have a matching uniform? Oh, and a third: would Xue Meng toss him off the mountain if Mo Ran pointed out how cute that was?
Xue Meng made an abrupt turn away from the gathered crowd, stepping aside to let them join the other guests. “We’re starting with speeches,” he said, fidgeting with his outer robe and shooting dark looks in the direction of Jiang Xi. “Ugh. Guess we need to get ready. I'll see you soon.”
Wanning lingered at the edge of the crowd, watching Xue Meng until he disappeared from sight, and still he was wary to approach the crowd. He wasn't one for small talk, especially when the small talk was bound to be awkward.
Everything had been negotiated down to the finest detail: the guest list was curated to weed out any troublemakers and avoid bringing up bad memories or associations, and any thorny discussions were scheduled for long after Mo Ran and Chu Wanning’s planned departure. This was, as far as could be controlled, a day to celebrate and be among friends and acquaintances, to witness the results of Xue Meng's hard work.
Mo Ran decided to ease Chu Wanning into it with a bit of fun. "Hey," he whispered, leaning in close and squeezing Chu Wanning's palm with his own. A reminder: I'm here. “Wanna make a bet?”