#jgy's hoarding problem tellfic

[ceescedasticity]

Jin Guangyao’s Hoarding Problem, version 2, part 1

Okay I’m still not writing this PROPERLY.

Canon notes: This is mostly but not entirely CQL-canon. If I write it through to the end, it will probably turn out better than canon for JGY, but not what you’d call WELL.

***

Jin Guangyao has a lot on his plate: scheming for the Jin Sect’s advancement and Jin Guangshan's elevation to Chief Cultivator; scheming for his personal advancement within the Jin Sect; trying to get Qin Cangye to let him marry his daughter; trying to juggle his sworn brothers; dealing with the tragic death of his half-brother; dealing with the weird thirteen-year-old half-brother that's been dropped on him in some sort of power play; managing the whole Yiling Laozu… thing. There's a lot. He didn't particularly want more. Really.

So Xue Yang — all right, technically Xue Yang is his fault, in that he went and found Xue Yang and brought him back, but his father wanted someone who could do demonic cultivation for them, and that basically meant Xue Yang. The demonic cultivation (n.b.: demonic cultivation may involve any or all of animated corpses, murderous ghosts, and visible resentful energy!) was Jin Guangshan's idea, so Xue Yang is his fault. The whole demonic cultivation… workshop in a subsidiary Jin property near Jinlintai is also Jin Guangshan's fault.

(…This "workshop" needs a name. Wiktionary tells me that "dizang" (地藏) can be a literary term for cellar or basement. The workshop is not completely underground, but it partially is; plus, the word is also the name of a bodhisattva and the irony appeals to me. Hopefully this is not a terrible mistake, but: let's call it the Dizang.)

The Ghost General being chained up in a cell rather than being destroyed was… mostly Jin Guangyao's idea, actually. Jin Guangshan wanted to destroy the thing that killed his precious son, but he accepted that having an example fierce corpse — an example conscious fierce corpse — could only help their research. He also salivates at the idea of being able to control him.

Jin Guangyao floated the idea of also keeping Wen Qing, who after all was an unmatched physician…? Jin Guangshan blew him off. Who cared about a stupid Wen bitch, probably the Yiling Laozu's whore… he hopes she screams when she's burned.

The heavily bruised woman in Wen Qing's clothing does scream. She doesn't say she's not Wen Qing, because at least this way she doesn't have to go back to Xue Yang. None of the Jin cultivators assisting at the execution notice a thing, because they are all stupid.

Jin Guangyao doesn't know Wen Qing, but he knows of her, from his time in Qishan, and Xue Yang has met her and contribute a little more information. Wen Qing isn't afraid to get her hands literally dirty, but metaphorically — she doesn't like it. But she would do anything to keep her brother safe. Wen Ruohan kept her on a leash for years. It's doable. He can just keep her shut away in the Dizang, and no one will know.

He wants her to cooperate, not try to escape, treat anyone he brings to her for treatment, and prepare medicinal compounds upon request. In exchange, she gets to live, she'll be decently treated, Wen Ning gets a break from being a research subject to come see her at least once a month, and Wen Ning will be used only as a research subject — they won't use him to kill anyone.

She agrees.

Wen Ning gets his attention, when he's being escorted away after the first visit, and says that if his sister is given any victims to patch up and send back for more, he will end the deal himself, by killing everyone involved if necessary. He's… probably bluffing? Jin Guangyao really wasn't expecting conditions from that corner but agrees, sort of — any such patients will be negotiated for separately.

Then he has to go, cause there's a pledge conference he has to get to.

Jin Guangyao's reasons for having Su Minshan use a teleporting talisman to take Jiang Yanli to Wen Qing may include, but are not limited to, the following:

He actually kind of likes her, as much as he likes anyone in Jinlintai. She's always respectful to him. Her kindness reminds him a little of Lan Xichen.

If her life is saved because Jin Guangyao's man took her to Jin Guangyao's personal physician, then Yunmeng Jiang will owe Lanling Jin and Jiang Wanyin will owe Jin Guangyao. Granted Jiang Wanyin wasn't a whole lot of help to the last people he owed a massive debt to, but Jin Guangyao is a lot more willing to aggressively hold it over his head than Wen Qing and Wen Ning were.

Having Wen Qing's first patient be someone she would like to save, who is not a prisoner, may help… start slow. Ease into things.

If Jiang Yanli dies, Jiang Wanyin is going to become intolerable, and Jin Guangshan will probably push dealing with him off on Jin Guangyao.

So that happens.

Su Minshan is not otherwise occupied with a second flute. Wei Wuxian is running on too much resentment and not enough sleep, his own grief and guilt and fury tangled up with all the feelings he's been around — from the Burial Mounds, from the history of Nightless City, from the live people right there. He was at least half out of his mind when he arrived and it only got worse from there, and things… happened, and the corpses weren't listening to him anymore. He did try to stop it, when Jiang Yanli asked him to. He couldn't, but not because of outside interference. He just couldn't. And he's vaguely aware that Jiang Yanli might not be dead, that someone was yelling about a doctor, but she looked pretty dead and it was his fault and everyone wants the goddamn Seal and they're killing each other over it and he ruins everything he touches and there's nothing left, nothing, and Jiang Cheng is telling him to go to hell—

He falls.

The bloodbath grinds to a halt, slower than it should have with one primary driver. A lot of people are dead; a lot of people are still alive; many of them are even ready for action.

In another universe, Jiang Sect might have elbowed its way into taking the lead in the hunt for the Yiling Laozu's body. Jiang Cheng would have found Chenqing (and maybe something more, that he discreetly buried and never spoke of). In this universe, either someone stole Jiang Yanli's body or else — and he doesn't even want to let himself hope but he can't not — she is alive and he doesn't know where she is. Neither of these scenarios is acceptable. Finding her body (don't hope for more, don't hope for more) is the highest priority. Jiang Sect mostly clears out.

Much of the available members of Jin Sect take off for the Burial Mounds for plunder and wiping out the remaining Wens! [Who did not turn themselves in with Wen Qing and Wen Ning, that was stupid.] It really wouldn't do to have anyone else get the loot and/or have everyone realize the Wens are noncombatants. (The Jin know perfectly well they're noncombatants.) They aren't alone — there are a number of tagalongs from sects great and small — but it's mainly Jins. This is roughly as it is in the usual universe.

Lan Sect is abruptly preoccupied with internal issues, which internal issues are also taking off for the Burial Mounds, also as in the usual universe.

Nie Sect gets left with more than its share of cleanup, most likely also as in the usual universe.

Jin Guangyao, who as we recall rose to a position of significant trust in Wen Ruohan's Nightless City, takes a shortcut down to the bottom of the cliff (which is not actually lava that is very unsafe). Just to look, before he follows to the Burial Mounds to make sure they don't miss anything important in the looting.

He isn't expecting to to find Wei Wuxian somehow still alive. Just barely.

The logical thing to do would be to finish him, or summon everyone and let the careless handling kill him in minutes. Everyone wants him dead, he's clearly dying, simple enough.

Except…

Wei Wuxian is insane, and has been at least since he walked away from power and privilege to go camp in a mass grave with a pathetic bunch of fugitives. Probably longer. But there's no denying he's brilliant. No one every cultivated with resentment without Yin Iron before him, at least not at such a scale. And it's not like he's dangerous in this condition. And would anyone really be surprised not to the find a body? Maybe he turned into evil smoke and floated away. So maybe…

He has to wait for Su Minshan to get back, because trying to move Wei Wuxian in any normal way would probably kill him straight out.

Wen Qing gets about an hour break between healing Jiang Yanli to the point where Su Minshan can safely take her back to the normal Jin healers and Jin Guangyao and Su Minshan teleporting in with 90% dead Wei Wuxian.

(If he's here, no one is protecting the Burial Mounds. It was all for nothing.)

She thinks it might be kinder to let him die. She seriously thinks about letting him die. But she can't bring herself to do it.

There's only so much she can do, of course, in the absence of a golden core. But she can keep him alive, for the moment.

When he's stable — for the moment — Jin Guangyao comments that she wasn't surprised by the lack of a golden core.

Wen Qing says of course she wasn't, she was his doctor in the Burial Mounds for a year.

Jin Guangyao says that he was surprised, because he'd read Wen Zhuliu's reports and he never said anything about destroying Wei Wuxian's core — just Jiang Wanyin's. (He's lying. He noticed the oddity of Jiang Wanyin's non-missing core almost immediately after the war, and while at first he suspected Wen Zhuliu must have lied for once in his life, Wei Wuxian's non-use of spiritual energy led him to suspect something close to the truth. He wasn't sure Wen Qing was involved until just now, but that's not a surprise either.)

He says he knows she did it. (He's not lying. Wen Qing schools her expressions well, she had to in order to survive Wen Ruohan's Qishan, but Jin Guangyao is on another level.)

Wen Qing says it doesn't matter, it doesn't work without a voluntary donor, so it's of extremely limited utility. (This is not technically a lie, as it has definitely never been done without a voluntary donor. And it might be true in general.)

He lets it go, for the moment.

Wei Wuxian is slow to wake, and not in a very good place once he does. It's a relief and a comfort to know that Jiang Yanli is alive, and Wen Qing is alive, and Wen Ning is no less alive than before.

But with Wei Wuxian out of the way the Jins are going to kill everyone in the Burial Mounds and all of them know it.

Practically speaking it doesn't make much difference — the sects were going to attack the Burial Mounds one way or another, and Wei Wuxian was in no condition to defend anything. But dying trying to defend them would have been better than dying for nothing and abandoning them.

Wen Qing mostly doesn't blame him, because it doesn't make much difference and she knew he wasn't going to be making many rational decisions. But she tells him the best thing he can do to try to make up for it is not abandon her and A-Ning now.

He lives.

That doesn't mean he's well enough to reconstruct the Stygian Tiger Seal, or interpret any of his notes, or even talk to you, Xue Yang, does Jin Guangyao know you're here?

Xue Yang is eminently unsuitable for delivering supplies to a sickroom, and Su Minshan has a sect he's supposed to be running and can't be lurking around Lanling all the time. So, Jin Guangyao conscripts Mo Xuanyu, weird thirteen-year-old, who is desperate for any scrap of attention and approval and becomes instantly devoted to him, and who no one is going to miss anywhere else.

(If Jin Guangyao had waited a little longer to pull Mo Xuanyu into his orbit, this wouldn't have been the case — Jiang Yanli would have taken him under her wing. But right now she's isolated, still both convalescing and mourning, and Madam Jin keeps Mo Xuanyu well away from her.) (Mo Xuanyu considers Madam Jin's treatment of him completely normal, incidentally.)

And for a little while we have a status quo.

[ceescedasticity]

Jin Guangyao’s Hoarding Problem, part 3

Time passes.

The reconstructed Stygian Tiger Seal doesn't… not work. So far. That Xue Yang can tell. It controls all the experimental fierce corpses just fine. (He thinks it does, anyway. Wen Ning is experiencing the commands more as loud suggestions. He doesn't let on. Xue Yang isn't expecting deception from that direction and hasn't realized.) Xue Yang is guessing that trying to use it directly on live, normal people — use it to create puppets — might not work so well, and might even turn out to be trapped.

It's been brought out for a few demonstrations for Jin Guangshan, but the first real use of the reconstructed Seal is in wrestling the not-quite-corpse of Nie Mingjue (and accompanying saber) into the Dizang.

Apparently whatever Nie Mingjue is, he isn't normal enough to trip whatever Wei Wuxian's done to the Seal. Which could mean he's dead — certainly everyone was expecting the qi deviation to kill him — but he does… seem to be breathing. A bit warmer than you'd expect for a corpse. Is he still alive?

Okay it doesn't actually matter but now Xue Yang has to know. Su Minshan, go get Wen Qing. Fine, Xue Yang will get Wen Qing, but don't think he'll forget you looked at him like that.

What the fuck, says Wen Qing.

Is he alive or dead? Xue Yang wants to know.

You're kidnapping Sect Leaders now?

Su Minshan: No, he's… everyone's going to think… he's definitely… shut up, Wen-dog.

Xue Yang: So is he alive or not?

Even with the Seal, Wen Ning has to be brought in to hold Nie Mingjue still enough for Wen Qing to examine him. Her eventual verdict is that he should be dead, the qi deviation was just about to kill him, but it was interrupted — everything was interrupted — when he was saturated by resentful energy, effectively turned into a puppet, by… his saber? She thinks? She's never examined a non-Yin-Iron-related puppet, but…

Xue Yang is delighted by this, and tries to use Baxia to command Nie Mingjue. Baxia does not yet have the strength which would, in another timeline, enable her (and several dismembered body parts) to rampage across the countryside, but given the infusion of resentful energy from Xue Yang's command attempt, she is strong enough to take a good stab (ha ha) at killing everyone in the building.

*ominous remix of Yakety Sax*

Baxia is most interested in killing Xue Yang, understandably, and second most interested in Wen Ning, which is fair since he's a fierce corpse and all. However she's targeting both Wen Qing and Mo Xuanyu more than Su Minshan, which is very rude and prejudicial.

Su Minshan has to go get Wei Wuxian to restrain the saber, which Wei Wuxian cooperates with without any pushing because it's threatening Wen Qing. (And Mo Xuanyu. Worrying about Mo Xuanyu's well-being is stupid, he's a jailor not a prisoner, but… and Mo Xuanyu.)

(Personally Su Minshan is of the opinion Xue Yang probably could get it under control himself if he took this whole thing more seriously, but he's smart enough not to say that in Xue Yang's hearing.)

It's a couple of days before Jin Guangyao manages to get away from Jinlintai to visit the Dizang. (Probably a little sooner than it would be, in another timeline. Nie Huaisang, at this point, hasn't come to any realizations, and is not deliberately making things difficult, he's just almost out of his head with grief and fear and confusion; in other timelines Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen would be the only people who could deal with him, but in this one Jiang Yanli can calm him down actually better than either of them can, and Nie Zonghui arrives from Qinghe soon enough.) (See, people being alive can have all sorts of unexpected benefits!)

(He Lei, towed after Jin Guangyao like luggage, latches on to He Zhi and doesn't let go for over an hour. She still can't find her words to explain and isn't sure they'd understand anyway, but she wants to appreciate that her big brother hasn't left her.)

Jin Guangyao is presented with Nie Mingjue (tied down, covered in talismans, and still somehow breathing), Baxia (covered in talismans and locked in a box covered in more talismans, and still rattling), and a not inconsiderable amount of property damage from the rampaging saber. (Wen Qing's medicines stock will also have to be replenished.) Su Minshan attempts to throw Xue Yang under the bus without looking like that's what he's doing. Xue Yang looks at Su Minshan like he's just had a fantastic idea. Jin Guangyao sends Su Minshan home for now.

It would, of course, be very easy to finish Nie Mingjue off.

He should be dead already.

One could argue that finishing him off — ending his suffering — would be the moral thing to do, if the alternative is leaving him as a quasi-puppet.

Well, that's not something Jin Guangyao feels any need for. Nie Mingjue wouldn't believe compassion from him so he definitely won't get any.

Not killing him wouldn't be a very good idea, though. After all Jin Guangyao already told Jin Guangshan that Chifeng-zun was dead— Or no, actually, he said Chifeng-zun suffered a fatal qi deviation. Which is true! It's just an ongoing fatal qi deviation.

But is there any benefit to leaving him alive? Apart from satisfying academic curiosity about how this state is going to develop and how long it will take to actually kill him?

There isn't, really. But… Jin Guangyao is in the habit, now, of stashing people in the Dizang. It seems unremarkable. Why do something he can't undo when he can just set up a well-warded cell in the subbasement and… see what happens?

The cell is constructed, and Wei Wuxian invents new talismans to discourage Baxia from trying to bludgeon passersby with the box she's sealed in, and Jin Guangyao turns his attention to matters outside the Dizang. Surely Jin Guangshan has to grant him leave to marry now. He just has to bring Qin Cangye around…

(Elsewhere, Nie Huaisang has realized some things, and the Head-shaker is taking shape. Not quite the same, though. Everyone knows Sect Leader Nie is completely useless, and reliant on Zewu-jun and Lianfang-zun in intersect matters — but when it comes to Qinghe's internal affairs, he hands it all off to his competent deputy Nie Zonghui and it gets done.) (He would be willing to sacrifice Qinghe Nie's reputation for his camouflage, but it's a relief not to have to. He's not sure what he'd do without Zonghui there to confide in and work with. Manage somehow, he supposes — this is important.)

Back in the Dizang, Wen Qing was, fine, a little intrigued by Nie Mingjue's condition. She saw resentful energy effectively maintaining living tissue before, in Wei Wuxian, but she'd assumed that was because he had some level of control over it; she's observed it a little in puppets, but those are generally people that were alive. Here, tissue that shouldn't be able to stay alive is doing so.

So: if she were able to reactivate some of Wen Ning's dead nerves, would the energy animating him keep them functioning? Enough to taste or smell, maybe? What about the lacrimal glands? There's no reason he shouldn't be able to cry, if he wants, given a few repairs.

When Xue Yang finds out what she's theorizing he suggests — no, insists — she try out some of her ideas on his non-conscious fierce corpses, to get the research going. Why? Because Xue Yang is really into the idea of a fierce corpse that can cry, that's why.

(Mo Xuanyu, meanwhile, is almost sixteen and old enough to start getting an inappropriate crush on Jin Guangyao. He definitely admires Jin Guangyao and looks up to him and is grateful to him and would argue to anyone that Lianfang-zun is the most admirable person he knows of, but. Well. Wei Wuxian is just really cool, that's all.) (Also Xue Yang is hot, but even Mo Xuanyu realizes that's a bad idea.)

[ceescedasticity]

Jin Guangyao’s Hoarding Problem, part 4

part 1, part 2, part 3

Jin Guangyao is having a really good week, and then suddenly he is having a really bad week.

This is mostly his father's fault. But he does feel that Madam Qin really could have chosen to share this information literally any time earlier in the courtship. Even if it was after Qin Su was pregnant, more time might have enabled him to come up with something! Even if she weren't pregnant calling off the wedding this late would be a significant scandal — what was Madam Qin thinking? Probably she wasn't thinking. No one around him ever thinks.

(He's not exactly thinking his clearest, either, but he doesn't realize that.)

He wants to get out of it. (The marriage still has its good points, if the secret can be guaranteed — but I don't think he would want a marriage which could only produce children who 'had to die'.)

(He could order Wen Qing to prepare an abortifacient, but then, he could in theory procure an abortifacient in any timeline. Honestly I wouldn't even be surprised if Madam Jin quietly keeps a stock on hand in case any of the household staff has a problem. And it seems like something Meng Yao ought to know about, doesn't it? But perhaps Meng Shi insisted he shouldn't pay attention to such filthy things, and he knows no more than most young gentlemen. Still, he could get his hands on one somehow — doing so discreetly is a challenge but not an insurmountable one. The trouble is that without Qin Su's forewarned cooperation, any termination of the pregnancy will be obviously a failed pregnancy, and marrying her is still the only honorable thing, but now with an added taint of sin for premarital sex and the shame of failing to cover it up, he can hear the remarks about his mother already.)

(He could have Qin Su non-fatally poisoned — enough to make her very sick and put off the wedding. But medical examination might reveal the pregnancy, and too long a delay definitely would.) (If he were willing to entertain the idea of telling Qin Su, this would be a good way to buy time to talk. There are so many more possibilities when she's not one of the people who has to be lied to.)

(He could have Qin Su fatally poisoned, and make sure no postmortem exam found the pregnancy, or at least that no one talked about it. But he doesn't have a scapegoat set up for a murder, and Madam Qin might suspect him.) (He also doesn't want to kill her, but that's not what deters him.)

(He could have Qin Su kidnapped, into the Dizang or elsewhere. But he doesn't have a scapegoat ready for that, either, and that still doesn't fix the pregnancy.)

(Now, if he could have her kidnapped, terminate the pregnancy, somehow alter her memory so she doesn't remember there ever was a pregnancy, somehow alter her memory so she doesn't remember the kidnapping, 'rescue' her, give the impression she's temporarily lost her wits from the experience and has probably also been ruined, well, the only compassionate thing is to cancel the wedding, cancel the engagement, send her home to her parents, terrible tragedy, maybe someday she can find happiness elsewhere. If he had a way to alter memories that quickly and precisely he might go with this despite the lack of prepared scapegoat.)

He decides the best option is to go through with the wedding and… deal with it later. Somehow.

(Highlights/"highlights" of the wedding celebrations include, but are not limited to:

It is Jiang Yanli's first major social event since her mourning period concluded. She spends most of her time trying to get Jiang Cheng to stay still long enough for her to talk to him. She's not mad at him!

Lan Xichen averts a disaster when he overhears and shuts down some speculation on whether Jiang Yanli will marry again — she'd have to come with a pretty hefty dowry, what with the health problems and so-so looks and rumored madness — before Jiang Wanyin hears any of it.

Nie Huaisang gets blackout drunk and throws up in the banquet hall, but not before laying the groundwork for five different problems with minor sects he can beg San-ge and Er-ge to help him with.

Su Minshan is totally unaware that Jin Guangyao's good week has become a terrible week and cries tears of joy at his benefactor's good fortune.

Sect Leader Yao gets tipsy and attempts to tell a bawdy story. It does not work very well.

Jin Ling is prevented from inviting himself to the banquet and throws a screaming tantrum not quite out of hearing.

Jin Guangshan comments on Qin Su's hips.

Jin Guangshan offers a minor Sect Leader's daughter jewelry to meet him in an inn in Lanling.

After both of the above incidents Madam Jin glares daggers at Jin Guangyao for some reason.

In fact Madam Jin glares daggers at Jin Guangyao the entire time.

Using the rebuilt Seal, Xue Yang sneaks into Jinlintai proper and steals an entire dessert course out of the kitchen.

On the plus side, he doesn't kill anyone and isn't spotted.

Congratulations!)

(Jiang Yanli eventually corners Jiang Cheng and tells him she isn't mad at him, and he's doing a wonderful job, and as soon as she can get the idea past the Jins she wants to take Jin Ling to Lotus Pier for at least a few months. Jiang Cheng is dubious about the first two assertions but can at least appreciate the third.)

Back in the Dizang it's been convenient that courtship and wedding preparations have occupied so much of Jin Guangyao's attention, because the preliminary results of the 'crying' research have been slightly more disruptive/strange than anticipated. It turns out that it is indeed possible to manually activate the tear glands of a fierce corpse, either by acupuncture needles or by talisman. After this, they will stream for four to six hours no matter what anyone does, which also gives them runny noses. After that, though, their eyes will water when they didn't before. When Wen Ning went through the procedure, he found that he could get tears triggered by emotions. He also discovered that crying gives him a dry mouth — the initial four-hour rain of tears gave him such a dry mouth he couldn't speak for a while.

This spun into everyone getting pulled into a study of 'how do fierce corpses regulate their moisture levels'. Water ghouls don't get waterlogged and fall to pieces. Fierce corpses in deserts don't desiccate and fall to pieces. They must regulate somehow. Missing moisture has to come from somewhere, and extra moisture has to go somewhere, and no one has ever looked into how before. It's disgusting. Xue Yang's never had so much non-homicidal fun in his life. (Well, a little homicidal, since he made the corpses, but not currently actively homicidal.)

Besides Xue Yang, all of this has been productive for Wen Qing and Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian is reluctantly fascinated, and Mo Xuanyu is non-reluctantly fascinated. He Zhi and He Jian are not having such a a good time, because all the fierce corpses besides Wen Ning are, you know, their relatives. Mo Xuanyu tries to help by suggesting Xue Yang can swap out the active experimental corpses with some that used to be whichever relatives they hated? There aren't any?! This leads to a discussion of Mo Xuanyu's maternal relatives. Xue Yang offers to kill them if the opportunity arises. Mo Xuanyu doesn't say no.

As soon as Jin Guangyao can get away for a day or two without anyone noticing — some nominal discreet inspection tour — he comes back to the Dizang and brushes off Mo Xuanyu's attempt to present his report on everything that's gone on while Jin Guangyao was busy with courtship and wedding (he doesn't want to think about courtships or weddings). He just goes and orders Wen Qing to invent a poison that can be administered either slowly or in parts, which will make the victim insane with lust and ultimately cause dramatic heart failure, preferably during sexual intercourse.

Wen Qing doesn't ask what his father did to finally push him over the edge, but it's a struggle. She does point out those are extremely specific requirements and she's not an herbalist. She will try if ordered to, but…

Hmmm. Yes. Good point. Perhaps what we want here is a curse. Yiling Laozu, design me a curse.

Wei Wuxian: What? I don't do curses, that was a false accusation—

Wei Wuxian's internal monologue: 'Mad with lust' curses exist, demons hit commoners with them all the time. I don't know the mechanics — well, I have a few ideas how it might work now that I think about it — I don't know how they work, though. A curse to kill someone the next time they have sex should be fairly straightforward, would be more straightforward if I'd gotten around to having sex, not bringing that up. No, I'm not bringing any of this up, I'm going to try to get out of helping Jin Guangyao murder someone. Even if it is probably his father, who deserves it. No. Besides, getting any of this to work on someone with high cultivation would be a challenge— PROBLEM! Would be a problem.

Jin Guangyao leaves him to think about that — for now — and goes down to the cell in the subbasement to (a) look at practically-a-puppet Nie Mingjue and feel smug about his own triumph and superiority, and (b) fantasize about using Nie Mingjue to kill Jin Guangshan.

He sends a message to Qin Su saying he's been injured, but please don't tell anyone, he doesn't want to show weakness. When he gets back, he claims the injury rendered him incapable of sex — but she can't tell anyone, she can't, he'll be ruined. Qin Su is dismayed, but vows she will keep the secret and considers him no less her husband for not being able to fulfill that duty. And at least they have the one child on the way! What a blessing.

Yes. A blessing.

(Qin Su keeps her word and doesn't tell anyone about the 'injury'. She does tell Jiang Yanli, in confidence, that her marriage isn't quite turning out as she expected it to.)

(Meanwhile Madam Jin has nothing against Qin Su personally, but is very determined that everyone remember Jin Guangyao's wife is not on the same level as other Madams Jin. Jiang Yanli does her best to mitigate it, but she still isn't taken as seriously as she should be. When it becomes known Qin Su is pregnant Madam Jin's attitude sours further.)

(Jiang Yanli is privately of the opinion that Qin Su is welcome to be preeminent Madam Jin; she just wants to go back to Yunmeng for good and have A-Ling adopted as a Jiang. Sadly that definitely won't happen unless Jin Guangshan and Madam Jin are both dead.) (Not that she'd be so unfilial as to hope for that.) (Much.)

(Madam Qin dies, somewhere in here. Jin Guangyao is nothing but relieved.) (Did he have something to do with it, besides causing distress by going ahead with the marriage? We may never know.)

Jin Guangyao introduces He Lei to Qin Su, although obviously not under that name. A-Lei is the mute half-wit sister of a loyal servant of his, he says; the man is often away on business so Jin Guangyao promised to find his sister safe and honorable employment — a touching story.

Qin Su promises to be kind to poor half-wit mute A-Lei, and is very patient with her inexperience as a lady's maid and shy nervousness.

Madam Jin not so much. Despite Qin Su's poor taste in husbands, she is still a gentlewoman and deserves better servants than a mangy stray that son of a prostitute brought in, probably out of a brothel.

Jiang Yanli has to try to mitigate this, too. She also makes a few suggestions about ways A-Lei could communicate without speaking — pointing to pictures, perhaps? Hand gestures? Pantomime isn't very dignified, but they ought to let A-Lei express herself…

He Lei runs away from any such suggestions. She's not willing to 'speak' when Jin Guangyao doesn't want her to and jeopardize her siblings.

Jiang Yanli is disappointed, but respects her shyness.

(Nie Huaisang is not going to respect her shyness, especially when he's mostly sure he's seen her among Jinlintai's servants some time before her official appearance, but for the moment he's biding his time.)

He Lei goes to extreme lengths to avoid Jin Guangshan.

Meanwhile Xue Yang hears that Wen Qing is going to see if she can do anything for Wen Ning's sense of taste, next, and "helps" by providing a half-dozen fresh tongues for her to dissect.

(Wei Wuxian's internal monologue: —just mathematically there have to be at least a few resentful ghosts who have it out for Jin Guangshan with sex-related grievances. Now if you could both locate them, and then use their motivation to direct enough other ghosts to overcome Jin Guangshan's level of cultivation… Well, I could, if I had Chenqing and the Seal. Not sure how you'd package it as a curse— Not that I'm trying to package it as a curse this is idle speculation!)

[ceescedasticity]

Jin Guangyao’s hoarding problem, version 2, part 2

This isn’t so much “not a fic” as a “tell-don’t-show” fic. Not sure there’s a word for that.

(This next section starts out very dark, but just remember: in a more canon timeline, every one of these add-ins died in agony!)

Tingshan He (per novel canon) is a minor sect; its leader He Su speaks against Jin Guangshan's appointment as Chief Cultivator, and for some reason the appropriate response to this is considered to be arresting the entire sixty- or seventy-person on fabricated charges of conspiring to kill Jin Guangshan and giving them to Xue Yang to be turned into animated corpses. (What the hell.) He Su tries to negotiate for mercy for the elders and children; when none is forthcoming, he calls Jin Guangyao That One Insult, and then Xue Yang cuts his tongue out and throws him in a cage of corpses in front of his screaming family. Jin Guangyao in canon is like "…I'll leave you to it," and goes back to one of his innumerable other tasks. May or may not be the same tongue Xue Yang serves later.

(Also, novel-verse, and I am still not over this, this is before Xue Yang wipes out Yueyang Chang. He's still the person who was willing to kill dozens of people over a finger, but we'll never know if he would have actually done it without this example of 'respond to insult by eradicating sect'. Anyway. This is drama-verse Xue Yang, who found his influences and made his choices a long time ago.)

Here, Jin Guangyao goes to put up some silencing talismans between this outer part of the Dizang and the inner part where his high-value prisoners are. He doesn't want to subject Wen Qing to listening to all that — he might someday, if he needs to prove a point, but that's all the more reason not to do it randomly. Besides, Wei Wuxian can't even sit up but he might still come up with something stupid to do if he heard too much screaming, since apparently he's so very concerned about random collateral damage.

He has a thought. He comes back. He tells Xue Yang to hold off on killing any of them for a bit, he wants to do a finer check.

Jin Guangyao picks out a few members of Tingshan He.

He Lei is a cousin of He Su's, and currently the youngest surviving disciple at ten. Hasn't spoken since her parents died in front of her.

He Jian is her older sister. She is twelve. Has a Jin brand on her cheek; missed her parents' deaths while passed out.

He Zhi is their older brother. He is fourteen. He doesn't have a functional tongue anymore. Was technically present when his parents died, but very distracted; also got his face clawed up a bit.

He Gangfen is in his sixties, and has been responsible for training Tingshan He's beginner disciples almost since there has been a Tingshan He. He sees almost all of them killed horribly before Jin Guangyao makes him an offer.

He can save these last three disciples. All he has to do is — voluntarily — give up his golden core. —And convince Wen Qing to do the surgery.

Wei Wuxian's agreement isn't necessary, obviously.

It's not a pleasant conversation.

He Gangfen is so far past caring about Wens or the Yiling Laozu it doesn't even come up. Wen Qing points out there is absolutely nothing guaranteeing Jin Guangyao will keep the kids alive past the surgery — that "saving" them might even mean killing them quickly. He Gangfen says there's everything guaranteeing they'll die horribly now if he refuses, so please. Please.

Wei Wuxian, who has been staring at the ceiling trying to pretend this conversation isn't happening across the room, has a moment of insight and blurts out his conclusion. There is something — not a guarantee, but there is a benefit for Jin Guangyao in letting the children live.

Because what's he going to do as is, if Wei Wuxian or Wen Qing start outright defying him? Kill them? Oh no. Terrible. Hurt Jiang Yanli and deal with Jiang Cheng's reaction? Maybe threaten to do experiments on Wen Ning oh wait. The children would be accessible, disposable hostages.

Which is better than what He Gangfen was hoping for honestly, that might even be long-term, so please.

Being in this situation with accessible, disposable hostages is not remotely appealing, but. But.

Wei Wuxian tells Wen Qing he won't ask her to do this but if she wants his consent she has it.

The surgery is a success.

(Jin Guangyao is polite enough to remove He Gangfen from Wen Qing's workroom before administering the coup de grace. He Gangfen thanks Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian first.)

The kids… well. Jin Guangyao had more criteria than just age — that was important, but he wouldn't have gone through with the idea if they hadn't met other requirements.

Not too proud to beg.

Not already trying to swear revenge.

Naive enough not to be instantly suspicious when he asked them if they'd like a chance to save their little/big brother/sister. (They don't know about He Gangfen, much less about their broader purpose as hostages. They think he couldn't come up with any easier way of obtaining menial servants for the Dizang.)

Not more scared of Wen Ning than Xue Yang. (You have to be an idiot to be more scared of Wen Ning than Xue Yang, but a number of people still manage it. Shocking.)

It doesn't hurt that the oldest one, the boy, can't talk.

The older two for sure should be able to remember Sunshot, and all of them should know the blood-curdling stories of the Yiling Laozu (they had better, Jin Sect spent money making sure those stories grew), but exposure to Xue Yang makes even that less frightening. They're cautious, and Wen Qing in particular is trying not to let them close, but — connection is happening.

All according to plan.

(There is something Jin Guangyao has not planned for: Do you know who's not very scary at all even without Xue Yang for comparison? Who is also a prisoner of the inner Dizang, inasmuch as he's hardly ever allowed to leave, at least? Who is also doing a lot of menial chores, and who might end up providing guidance for someone else doing them? Who never had much power to act with cruelty or kindess, before, and who's seen a lot more cruelty than kindness, but who lately has spent a lot of time listening to Wen Qing and Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian? Who certainly wouldn't say no to a boy almost his age respecting him and wanting to spend time in his company?)

(Mo Xuanyu, that's who.)

Wei Wuxian meanwhile is experiencing mixed feelings about his new previously-owned golden core. He feels better. He feels much better. He can tell he'll feel better yet when he's healed more, which is happening, now. He also— Well, he's hoping even more that Jiang Cheng never finds out about the transfer, now, and he wouldn't have thought that was possible. It feels less strange and more his every day, but when he thinks about it— Well. It's upsetting.

So he hopes Jiang Cheng never finds out. He hopes Jiang Cheng can forget him, now. Maybe Jiang Cheng can be happy now. He knows that last one's a long shot, but he can hope.

(Jiang Cheng is… well, he'd not worse off than the usual universe, exactly. Jiang Yanli is alive! Just — he had to face her, with everyone saying he's the one who killed Wei Wuxian and he sort of was, and with his having left her lying there when she wasn't actually dead, and she didn't say anything that sounds like a recrimination but what must she be thinking. She must be so disappointed in him, she's just too kind to say anything. And he doesn't have the distraction of obsessing over Jin Ling, since Jin Ling is still with his mother.)

(As for Jiang Yanli… Jin Guangyao is not, in fact, trying to ensure she's seen as fragile and mad with grief, and not taken seriously, and that she's afraid to push back too much because they might take Jin Ling away, or Jiang Cheng might overreach trying to back her up. She's not on Jin Guangyao's agenda at all at the moment. It's just that very few people in Jinlintai have ever taken her very seriously, least of all the Sect Leader, and 'mad with grief' seems like a reasonable explanation for her turning up in Nightless City so most people are believing it with no extra effort necessary, and Madam Jin thinks she's terribly fragile and wants to protect her, and of course Jin Ling's welfare is everyone's highest priority so if it would be better for him to be elsewhere, well, that's an option. And Jiang Cheng would back her up in a heartbeat, of course he would, but Jiang Cheng is… well, Jiang Yanli thinks he's at least as mad with grief as she is, and she's not sure he'd be careful enough, if it came to any kind of confrontation.)

(Jin Guangyao is, really and genuinely, uninvolved with the incident wherein a Jin disciple attempts to treat Jiang Yanli's 'madness' with musical cultivation and succeeds only in causing heart palpitations. Well, he's involved inasmuch as the disciple's musical cultivation was based almost entirely on spying on Jin Guangyao, but he's unaware of that until the situation blows up. Happily everything is blamed on the disciple's lack of skill and hubris for attempting such a delicate feat as musical cultivation with no proper training. Since it's not like even the adulterated music is supposed to cause heart palpitations, it probably was lack of skill. And it's very embarrassing for Madam Jin, who decided to let an amateur try rather than ask Jin Guangyao, who would have been happy to help.)

(The most important consequence of that incident is how the cultivation world spends a while gossiping about the complexity and difficulty and potential dangers of musical cultivation, so a few months later, when Jin Guangyao proposes Nie Huaisang could play a little of the Song of Clarity, and Nie Huaisang says he's flattered by San-ge's confidence but he's much too poor a student for that. The trip to the Blade Hall doesn't go smoothly by any stretch of the imagination, but as many disciples come back as don't and they do get the sealing done, so… as well as could be expected, maybe.)

(It doesn't make much of a difference in the timeline of Nie Mingjue's decline. It makes a bigger difference in Nie Huaisang's emotional stability and interpersonal support network.)

(Back to the Dizang.)

As anticipated, as soon as Wei Wuxian is well enough to move around/work, he's ordered to work on reconstructing the Stygian Tiger Seal. As a safety precaution, any time Wei Wuxian has his hands on the half-Seal, at least one the Hes will be moved to some unknown location — usually He Lei, as He Jian and He Zhi both have enough facial scarring that people would be likely to take note of them, but He Lei doesn't even talk so Jin Guangyao can just leave her with the scullery drudges for a day or so, or even send her to Moling. So, using the half-Seal to immediately blast out isn't an option. Refusing isn't an option.

But that's okay, though. Wei Wuxian has a plan. He is going to reconstruct the Seal — with safety features this time. No one said not to do that. The whole process is so intuitive and hard to pin down not even Xue Yang can really tell what he's doing. And he is still depressed and mad about the whole situation so that shouldn't give anything away.

(Xue Yang suspects he's up to something of the sort… but telling Jin Guangyao would spoil the game. And CQL-verse he doesn't have any pressing revenge to get to at this point; might as well do some fun adversarial collaboration! In between sneaking out and making trouble just to keep anyone from getting complacent.)

Wen Qing doesn't have anything much to do at the moment. She decides to see if she can get Wen Ning a little more movement back in his facial muscles. If he can move all his fingers, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to move his face.

Mo Xuanyu sneaks a bunch of bamboo slips out of the supplies of the disciples guarding the outer Dizang so He Zhi has something to write notes on.

Jin Guangyao is only getting busier, really.

***

(Up next are Nie Mingjue’s last breakdown and JGY’s marriage, but I still can’t decide on the order.)

[ceescedasticity]

This is the Jin Guangyao's Hoarding problem not-EXACTLY-a-fic on AO3.