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isabilightwood · 4 years ago

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THE PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY - CHAPTER 9

Or, Sacrifice Summon! Jiang Yanli is here to make things right, be the ultimate big sister (step 1: bring back her dead brother), and maybe steal the Peacock throne in the process

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The trees shivered under an unnatural fog. Yet the sky above was clear, save for the eerie crimson light of the stars. Every gust of wind against the leaves was a howling moan, every rustle of the undergrowth a giant spider yao gathering itself to lunge. Jin Tianyu wanted to go home. He was going to be an accountant under the Chief Cultivator and help him change the world. Important things. Not like stupid night hunting.

He didn’t need night hunting experience to do math.

But his instructors disagreed. Even Madam Jin had shaken her head when he asked for an exemption, and explained that he needed to be able to defend himself. He’d already delayed too much by avoiding night hunting until he was eighteen, two years away from his coming of age. But what could he ever need to defend himself from in Koi Tower, save the cheek-pinching fingers of elderly relatives?

And if he had to go night hunting, why did it have to be with Fan Caining? If only their regular blademaster or even Madam Jin herself ran these things. Then he would feel safe and protected, and not like his class’ ostensible teacher, appointed to ensure the group made it back in one piece, would turn tail and flee should they run into anything more dangerous than a single ghost.

Which they would. Besides their target, a guai formed from a carpenter’s worktable that had become animated, killed its owner, and run off into the woods, there had been reports of multiple yao formed from clouded leopards in these woods.

Not to mention the giant spiders. Jin Tianyu had had one on the ceiling of his room last night, and his roommate had refused to take care of it for him, right before rolling over and going right to sleep! He’d been forced to suffer through chasing it away with a broom by himself, whimpering all the while. And that was without the massive growth spurt resentful energy gave them.

Fan Caining suddenly swept his sword through the undergrowth, clearing out an ordinary pack of rodents. As he did so, something growled in the woods up ahead.

“That should draw something out.” He informed the group, though they’d been taught in class that the best way to draw out a dangerous guai or yao was to choose a battleground by scouting during the day, and using a lure flag with a limited distance to reduce the risk of attracting anything else.

How a bunch of rodents would draw out a murderous worktable, Jin Tianyu did not know. But it might bring out those leopards!

The senior disciple had a build that seemed to be made of squares, which also described his personality. Flat and boring, with a few pointy spots that made him dangerous to cross. Jin Tianyu had learned that the hard way when he suggested they might, possibly want to scout beforehand, and Fan Caining hit him hard across the back with the flat of his sword. The bruise had yet to fade.

Sure enough, a leopard yao with glowing red eyes pounced on his slightly older cousin as they entered the next clearing. She shrieked and whacked at it with her sheathed sword while Jin Tianyu and everyone else gaped. Even Fan Caining.

As his tangjie managed to get her sword between herself and the leopard, Jin Tianyu shook off his shock and drew his sword. He held it in front of himself like a spear and charged, yelling. Sword pierced flesh with sickening squelch.

He’d screwed his eyes shut to avoid looking, he realized, and opened them. The leopard was dead alright, and his tangjie alive if covered in the leopard’s blood. But it seemed Fan Caining had recovered at the same time he did. Either Jin Tianyu stabbing its gut or it’s beheading could have done it in.

“Thanks.” Tangjie said, as she used his limp arm to pull herself up. “I was starting to think no one would step in.”

The dozen other junior disciples looked sheepish.

“Of course,” Fan Caining drew himself up prouder than any peacock in the Koi Tower gardens, though she hadn’t addressed him.

The groaning noise sounded again, this time cut off with a wail.

Fan Caining waved him and the other junior disciples ahead as though nothing was wrong. Jin Tianyu cursed his luck for the thousandth time.

It was one of the outer disciples who first stepped in a trap. They tried to take another step, and found themselves immobilized at the edge of the clearing. Tangjie took a step forward and found herself shot up into the branches of the tree above. “I can’t — my hands are stuck to the branch!” She called down, in a panic.

Several other disciples moved to help, but found themselves in the same situation. Jin Tianyu’s limbs felt heavy, and he stood there dumb and immobile.

The groaning noise came again, but cut off in a laugh that could only come from a person.

Lilting laughter that sounded like his worst nightmare echoed through the clearing. Looking around, Jin Tianyu spotted a man dressed in black and silver reclining casually on a tree branch. Beautiful, in the way of jagged glass, only sharper. Like he would not only cut anything that got too close, but shred it into thin, unidentifiable slivers.

If I was better at verse, I could be a poet, and leave cultivation behind forever. Jin Tianyu thought absently.

The man looked familiar somehow, like he might have crossed paths with Jin Tianyu in passing. Except that Jin Tianyu had never left Lanling City before.

Fog rolled into the clearing, but only below the tree line, leaving the man clear and untouched above.

Jin Tianyu coughed. No, not fog. Powder.

Fan Caining stood in the center of the clearing, his sword shaking as he pointed it up towards the man. “Xue Yang? But you’re supposed to be —”

“Dead?” Xue Yang’s teeth shone white, bared in a threat, not a smile. “Yes, you did try very hard to make that happen. Too bad for you, I’m too crazy to die. Lucky for me, none of your friends are here this time to save you. Only a few tasty little children.”

To his surprise, Fan Caining did not try to run. Instead, he jumped up into the trees. “I can take you on my own, you weak little maniac.”

Xue Yang only laughed as he attacked.

Xue Yang. Jin Tianyu knew why he recognized him now. That was the former disciple brought in by the former sect leader, cast out by the current Chief Cultivator. The murderer of the Chang Clan.

He’d called them tasty.

Screw Fan Caining. They needed to get out of there.

Jin Tianyu tried to give himself leverage to get to his cousin by pushing against a tree, and found himself entirely turned around, no longer in the clearing.

He turned, and the trees seemed to spin around him. They continued to spin no matter how long he tried to stand still, stumbling, until finally he hit something solid and rough. A tree. He slid down it. Seated, his vision felt a little clearer.

He soon wished it wasn’t.

Something dropped from the tree to dangle in above Jin Tianyu. He dared to peak, and immediately regretted it.

The slack, inverted features of Fan Caining stared back, his eyes bulging from his head, tongue swollen and hanging from blue-tinged lips.

Jin Tianyu screamed.

He woke to Tangjie slapping his cheeks. “Tianyu! Tianyu, wake up!”

“What… what happened?” Jin Tianyu said groggily, as his memory began to return. He sat up straight. “Xue Yang!”

“He left, but I think there was something in that fog. You inhale the most of it, but all of us breathed in a little.” She explained. “We need to hurry back to the inn. The rest of the group has Cai-qianbei’s body. Come on, we need to go.”

She slung his arm around her neck, but as he stood, the vertigo returned in full force.

Somehow, they made it back to the inn, but he didn’t remember it.

A young man rose from a table, then he was doubled and tripled and on again. He wore gray, with a boar on his shoulder. That meant Nie. Jin Tianyu remembered that.

“Did the lot of you run all the way back here like that?”

“What?” Jin Tianyu asked, and the next thing he knew, the Nie disciple was keeping him upright by the elbow, taking his weight from Tangjie so she could collapse in a chair.

Jin Tianyu stared up into the Nie disciple’s face, at the angles of his defined cheekbones and jaw, with just the right amount of softness. Very symmetrical. He could do math with that face.

Pretty. He thought.

“Thank you.” The Nie disciple flashed him a smile that made him want to faint all over again. “You’ve got corpse poisoning. Let’s get some congee in you, now.”

He was seated and a bowl of congee appeared in front of him out of nowhere, as though it had already been prepared. Even though it was evening, and he didn’t think enough time had passed to make it.

Jin Tianyu couldn’t be sure, though. He was too busy floating, the only thing anchoring him to his body the burning pain on his tongue.

That faded as he forced down more of the bowl, and he realized it was chili. He could see the flakes reddening his bowl. Tangjie, who loved chili, had scarfed it down with no problem. Jin Tianyu tried to put down the bowl.

“No, no, you have to eat the whole thing for it to work.” The Nie disciple —who was even prettier now that his head was clearer — shoved the bowl back into his hands. “That was corpse powder you were poisoned with. You’ll die.”

Jin Tianyu shoveled the rest into his mouth.

The Nie disciple was tall. Very tall, as was the case for every Nie he’d seen with the sole exception of their current sect leader, but surprisingly thin, like he didn’t spend all his spare time building up the muscles the Nie were well known for. The hair braided up into his guan was lopsided, like he’d done it up without looking in a mirror. But even under the influence of the corpse powder, Jin Tianyu had been correct. His face was perfectly symmetrical, without a single blemish or pore to be found. It would have looked unnatural, were his perfect face not so expressive. His brows arched and lips pursed sternly, but giving the impression that he was laughing.

“Now, would you mind telling me what happened?” His beautiful savior asked.

Speaking over each other, Jin Tianyu and the other disciples hurried to do so. But by the next morning, when they gathered to leave for Koi Tower, their savior was gone.

In Nie robes and a face that did not belong to him, Wei Wuxian did not receive a second glance until he first set foot in the Unclean realm. Once there, he constantly felt eyes boring into his back, but when he glanced over, he’d find disciples hard at work on their forms or their noses buried deep in texts. Which only went to prove their curiosity.

Even with Nie Huaisang for a sect leader, it wasn’t every day that a stranger was brought into the sect and handed a high-ranking position. But the Nie Sect had few elders, and those they had were aged and gray because with saber cultivation, it was the weak who survived the longest. It seemed the Nie elders were retired in truth, pursuing hobbies like needlework and whittling and nagging their grandchildren to eat more.

By the time Wei Wuxian arrived in the Unclean Realm, Nie Mingjue’s body had been hidden away, though not yet buried, for reasons known only to Nie Huaisang. No one said anything about that, either.

“And since I’m the weakest of the lot, I’ll live to be a hundred,” Nie Huaisang completed explaining his free reign to lead his sect however he chose, unparalleled by any other sect even a single generation past its founding as they approached the gates to the Unclean Realm.

Right before dropping a bomb on his head in the form of unwarranted and unwanted respectability. “My closest sect siblings know my motives if not my plans, so no one will oppose appointing you to the vacant position of fourth disciple.”

“What?” Wei Wuxian sputtered, tempted to check if Nie Huaisang was running a fever. “What happened to the last fourth disciple?”

Nie Huaisang snapped his fan closed, and opened it again, staring off into the distance.

Touchy subject. Understood. “Forget I asked.”

“Let’s just say Jin Guangyao owes the Nie Clan more than one life.” Nie Huaisang said, before dragging him through the gates and launching into a series of dramatic introductions that left his head spinning.

Apparently he was going by Nie Wang, courtesy Xiaomeng now.

Wei Wuxian had not been consulted on this. Walking around with everyone thinking his name was hope felt precisely in line with Nie Huaisang’s sense of humor.

True to form, Nie Huaisang did not deign to explain until he wanted something. Despite copious amounts of pleading, Wei Wuxian was forced to wait through a restless night of nightmares and a morning while his apparent new sect leader caught up on work to get his answers.

Finally, Nie Huaisang summoned him around lunch time. He was set up in a pavilion in the garden, with a mountain of paperwork. The garden had been designed by someone with an eye for showcasing Qinghe’s foliage. A lotus pond surrounded the pavilion, and though its cultivated beauty was no match for the wildness of Yunmeng’s lakes, the carefully selected flowers staggered through the surrounding paths were like hidden gems, each intended to stand on its own.

There were birds as well, goldfinches and many others kept there not by cages, but by the feeders full of seeds spread throughout.

“So,” Wei Wuxian said as he sprawled on a bench across the table from Nie Huaisang, who did not look up from his work to greet him. “I thought I was going to be a rogue cultivator. But apparently you had other ideas.”

“If you’re going to pull this off, the easiest way to wander around without notice is as one of my disciples. As a rogue cultivator, you might gather some recognition, get invited along to visit sects and so on. As one of mine, well, there are Nie disciples everywhere.” It was deeply disconcerting to watch Nie Huaisang take something seriously. And he was serious about that paperwork, not even looking up to speak. “They get bored of me, and travel.”

“They’re spies, aren’t they?”

He lifted his brush from a page with a flourish, and pinned it off to the side under a weight to dry, immediately moving onto the next one. “Are you saying I’m not irritating enough to make people need a break? I must have an ulterior motive? I’ll have to try harder.”

“Oh, you’re very irritating. They’re just extremely loyal.”

“After the Sunshot campaign and the losses we had during Dage’s decline, both to desertion and other causes. And then the prospect of me. Well, anyone who’s left is basically family.”

He gestured at Nie Xiaodan, at that moment crossing the bridge towards the pavilion.

Nie Xiaodan patted him on the head as she passed by. “Don’t forget to order lunch, Zongzhu.” She said, and returned to discussing a night hunt with her companion. It seemed she had come for that reminder only.

Nie Huaisang beamed.

“Fine, I’ll pretend to be your disciple.” Wei Wuxian wanted to pretend he’d been given a choice.

“Excellent! We can get you a saber easily enough.”

Uh. He had told him what Wen Qing said about his core, right? Wei Wuxian was often terrible at remembering tasks, but he distinctly recalled completing that one. “I’m banned from resentful energy, doctor’s orders.”

“Our smiths can make sabers without binding an animal spirit, you know. They do make other things.”

Wei Wuxian was summarily introduced to the blacksmiths, a married couple who looked him up and down intently and promptly got into an argument over the saber’s design. When he looked around for Nie Huaisang, the sneaky little spymaster was missing, because of course he was.

Attempts at interrupting failed to distract the couple from their debate over the pattern to be inscribed on the hilt, so Wei Wuxian settled against the wall to wait, and inadvertently took a nap.

He was prodded awake with the end of a (thankfully) unheated poker. “Infuse this with your energy,” The smith holding the poker growled, pointing towards a red-hot block of iron. Wei Wuxian did as requested, feeling only a slight protest from Xue Yang’s — his core.

Then, all he had to do was wait.

During the week it took for his new saber to be prepared, Wei Wuxian was not idle.

If he was going to imitate Xue Yang with no demonic cultivation and an extremely temperamental sword, Wei Wuxian needed tricks. Wen Qing had told him to invent something. But, Wei Wuxian thought, how better to create the illusion of evil tricks than to use something that actually existed.

He had drawn one idea from the stage. Why not the methods for a few more?

Within a day of verbalizing his plan, Wei Wuxian drowned under a sea of texts pulled from the shelves of the Nie library and from the private records of Qinghe’s theater and dance troops. Thanks to Nie Huaisang’s generous patronage, Wei Wuxian had been able to request manuals on the techniques in common between troops, rather than their family secrets. The tricks to raising and lowering a curtain on an improvised stage and to building a smoke bomb in a desired hue for a start.

The combination of practical optical illusions and talismans seemed particularly promising.

The smoke bombs were the easiest, simply a matter of mixing powders together in a casing and setting them on fire. Fun for him, but since he managed to irritate someone no matter where he set them off, Wei Wuxian moved on.

Combining his binding talisman and a sticking talisman, he stuck a disciple to the roof of the library.

(A volunteer, since it wasn’t as though Jiang Cheng was there. Or speaking to him.)

The force holding him in place was a standard talisman, nothing Wei Wuxian had invented, but the disciple struggled against it like he’d never learned how to counter it. Which he probably hadn’t, given how little thought most cultivators gave them beyond wards and the ubiquitous ones for keeping tea warm or sending brief messages.

Which was precisely why Wei Wuxian might just pull this off.

He thought about pulleys and spirit nets, and the next day, he inscribed the talismans within a pressure-triggered array, and sent himself flying upwards. Followed by a plethora of curious volunteers.

What had he expected, though? The Nie were a sect full of adrenaline junkies. Even the first disciple came around for a turn. After that, Wei Wuxian found himself with company and conversation at every meal.

Even so, he never forgot he was wearing a mask. Every night after a long day of study, the mask weighed heavy on his face, leaving him with a headache. He found it easier to ward his door, than keep it on while he slept. Then, and only then, was it safe to be himself.

Many of the most useful tricks required more practice, such as projecting sounds so they seemed to come from a different source. Wei Wuxian practiced each, over and over again, until he felt he had it. And then put on a demonstration.

When he could pull off a trick successfully in front of the little Nie Disciples, he knew he had managed it. If he still couldn’t fool Nie Huaisang, well, Huaisang was Huaisang.

He couldn’t be held to mortal standards.

That left one more problem, perhaps the most challenging.

Along with the skin mask, Xue Yang’s bag had contained: two changes of clothes, a small pouch of silver, a large coil of rope, and several heavy bags full of corpse powder.

Obviously, Wei Wuxian wasn’t actually going to use corpse powder on anyone. That could get messy fast, if anyone else was around, with no guarantee he’d be able to serve the antidote in time. Yet it seemed like corpse powder was a common part of Xue Yang’s modus operandi.

If he didn’t use it, would Jin Guangyao suspect something was off? There was no way of telling.

The problem niggled at the back of his mind all week long, whether he was becoming one with the library or getting caught in his own rope trap. But he got no closer to finding a solution.

Until finally, during breakfast on the day Wei Wuxian was to receive his saber, he sat staring into his congee, stirring it absently.

And had a brilliant idea.

Somehow, having a potential solution took the edge off his nerves, and he was able to hold Yuanzheng for the first time while only making a bit of a fool of himself. To his relief, it didn’t feel like Suibian, though the long, thin saber was also designed for agility rather than power.

Yuanzheng

did feel like a weapon he could use, not the dead, draining weight Suibian had become or the repulsion of Jiangzai. Like it might become an extension of his arm in time, with Suibian and Chenqing out of reach. Wei Wuxian teared up a little, as he went through a series of exercises for the first time in years, and did not pass out.

For the first time, his resurrection really felt like a second chance. The beginning of the long journey he’d named his saber for, with a slim chance that light in the distance was the end of the tunnel. With family and zhiji waiting on the other end.

He had better make it count.

From the privacy of his own room that night, he pulled out his Distance Speaking Stone, and called up Wen Qing. “Hey, disorienting powder can be cleared from the system with congee like corpse powder, right?”

With construction on watchtowers set to begin in several sects, there was little for Jiang Yanli to do on the project but wait. Yet she couldn’t remain idle with only her sect responsibilities and A-Ling to occupy her time. Not if she intended to make herself — or rather, Qin Su — a credible power in her own right, someone who had a chance of being believed when it came time to reveal Jin Guangyao’s crimes.

She needed a new project. Something Jin Guangyao had yet to present a plan for, something Qin Su would get all the credit for.

Word arrived that a Jin disciple had been murdered by Xue Yang, the juniors he had been escorting barely escaping with their lives. The pair of Jin cousins with the rare tea feud (under a temporary ceasefire in favor of vengeance against the Chief Cultivator for the allowance cut, so far consisting of attempts to convince the servants to put laxatives in his tea, which the servants would not do, out of a desire to remain among the living) fainted dead away at the news.

Jiang Yanli, already aware of this through her brother, attempted to look appropriately horrified.

Jin Guangyao paled, and for a moment, lost his composure. Ice in his eyes and steel in the set of his jaw, there and gone again in a blink. Mask back into place but still off balance, he cut off the junior disciples’ explanation of their rescue from corpse powder mid sentence. He immediately sent off three teams of disciples to track down Xue Yang and bring back his body.

“I thought Xiandu always heard all explanations to the end.” A messenger from Fengyang Hua whispered to a group consisting of the wards from Lieshan Du, Zhai Xia, and Mo Xuanyu’s ever-present suitors.

Not always, rumor would now say. Even Xiandu is afraid of something.

Even with fear in the air over the return of Xue Yang — for everyone had a horror story to tell of his time in Koi Tower, mostly to do with dismembered animals in places that were decidedly not the kitchen — Jiang Yanli found she had finally settled into her role.

One day, the paperwork ran out, and Jiang Yanli found herself with an afternoon free. A novel experience, since her return. It was a perfect opportunity to brainstorm her next step.

If only she could dredge up the barest hint of an idea. But her mind felt like a dried-up creek in a drought.

“I was thinking of going to the tailor in the city, Xiao-Heng is growing like a demon and needs more new clothes. Would you like to come with me?”

I bet we’re not thinking of anything because we’re trying too hard. Qin Su said.

As much as Jiang Yanli hated to admit it, she had a point. A-Xian always said that he had his best ideas the moment he stopped trying to force a solution. The difficulty lay in not thinking about it.

I have a solution for that. My beloved nephew is quite the attention hog.

“A-Ling’s robes have been looking rather short.” She said aloud.

Qi Juan beamed, and began tucking her son in his sling. He was soon to outgrow it, and had just reached the troublesome learning to crawl stage.

Kidnapping her son from his lessons was a thrill, though it was the work of a moment. The sour-faced calligraphy instructor dismissed A-Ling with visible relief, and the reminder that A-Ling was still expected to produce ten copies of poems at the next class. Without blotches of ink covering half the page, or brush strokes of uneven width.

A-Ling stuck out his tongue behind the instructor’s back, and ran to grab her hand, already chattering about how he wanted to bring back sticks of tanghulu for the entire class.

“My sweet, grumpy boy,” She ruffled his hair, and he scowled, attempting to push it back into place, but only displacing his top knot further. Just like his jiujiu.

The main streets of Lanling were cleaner than she remembered from six years ago. The shops lining the main street had all recently been given a fresh coat of paint, proprietors and customers alike looking healthier and more prosperous. Jin Guangyao had reformed the city’s taxes, on the basis that letting the common people keep more of their earnings now would bring the sect more profit in the long term. More than one person recognized her as Madam Jin, and called out a respectful greeting with a smile. At least on a surface level, his plan had begun to work.

There were fewer brothels now as well, reduced by half. The madams who had refused to start allowing their workers to pay off their contracts had been driven out of business or died in mysterious fires. (In some cases, but not all, the workers mysteriously escaped unscathed.) As A-Ling towed her along to a hawker with a tower of tanghulu, she passed an empty lot with the blackened foundations still visible. The buildings next to it were under repair, one of which seemed to have sustained considerable damage to the living quarters on the second floor.

As she looked around more closely, she saw an emaciated old man begging from the entrance of an alley, a woman in what had once been a set of fine performance robes soliciting passerby, and scruffy children lurking in dark corners.

Despite Jin Guangyao’s claims of working towards progress, there were still street children in Lanling.

Making a home for the orphans of Lanling had been a project dear to A-Xuan’s heart, in the last months of his life. Impending fatherhood had made him more perceptive in many ways, more so even than the changes he underwent during the Sunshot campaign. But when she was preganant, her husband had taken her by the arms and informed her with great distress that there are children in the streets, Yanli! Children!

Jiang Yanli had thought better late than never and helped him come up with a plan. She had her own reasons to take an interest in the care of orphans and poor children, after all.

Jin Guangshan had probably signed the funding out of the budget on an advisor’s word, not having been informed how his son and daughter-in-law were spending the clan’s funds in the first place.

Jin Guangyao would not have gotten rid of such a program, she thought, as she fished a coin so her son could get as sticky with sugar as his little heart desired.

Qin Su did not quite agree. No, he would have replaced it with something similar, that he could claim the credit for.

True. But he hadn’t — which meant there was room for Jiang Yanli to fill the gap.

After a moment of thought, she purchased a second stick, and handed it to Qi Juan.

“You looked like you could use it.” She told her.

Qi Juan bit down delicately on the candy-coated hawthorn, but couldn’t avoid the satisfying crunch. And laughed, as parts of the coating cracked, and fell from her lips. “All right. I haven’t had something like this since… before the Sunshot Campaign, probably. Certainly not since my family came up in the world and married me off. You look like you could use one too.”

“Do I?” Jiang Yanli had often thought that helping others feel better was its own reward.

It would make me feel better to taste something sweet. Qin Su said in a blatant attempt to get Jiang Yanli to treat herself. Sweet-sweet though, not hawthorn berries.

I think that stall might be selling lotus mooncakes.” Though the mid-autumn festival had already past, there was never a wrong time for a mooncake.

It was a mistake to mention heaven’s favorite root in front of Jin Ling. “Lotus!” He shouted. “Pleasepleaseplease mooncake mooncake!” And would not let up until she bought him one, in addition to three for herself.

“That’s more than enough sugar for one day, young man.” She informed him as she took a bite of her own mooncake, wrapping the others in a cloth for later.

A-Ling grinned toothily up at her, mooncake leaking lotus paste in one hand, half eaten tanghulu in the other, and the glint of sugar all over his cheeks.

Perhaps she should have insisted he wait until after their errand for his treats, but Jiang Yanli did not possess the earned resistance to his adorable whims of a mother who had gotten to see her child grow. Who could blame her, if she spoiled him a little? “Do you think the tailor will still let us in the shop?”

“It’s not so bad,” Qi Juan said, just as A-Ling smushed the rest of the mooncake in his hand, and shoved it in his face. She grimaced. “I’m certain Tailor Ke has seen worse.”

Indeed, Tailor Ke, a woman who knew her way around hanfu, if the way the one she was wearing flattered her extensive curves meant anything, did not blink an eye. “If you could wipe off the young master’s hands, please, Jin-furen?”

Jiang Yanli took the offered wet handkerchief, and wiped the stickiness off of a protesting A-Ling. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to damage any of your lovely merchandise.”

Sadly, the more vibrant fabrics could not be chosen for A-Ling, who would be consigned to golden peacocks and peonies on off-white for as long as he lived. As a married-in spouse, however, Jiang Yanli had more leeway with under robes. The pale pink of Laoling Qin tempered the gold, making it almost palatable.

Qi Juan freely admired a swatch of vivid green fabric, in precisely the right shade for her natal sect. A daring choice, if it was for her son. Perhaps a sign that Qi Juan would be receptive to opposing her husband.

Tailor Ke bustled around, assembling the appropriate silks in Jin colors for Jiang Yanli’s inspection herself.

“Have you been short handed lately?” She asked as ideas for how, exactly, she would go about outdoing Jin Guangyao in reform measures began to coalesce in her mind.

“Have I ever! There’s all this new demand for clothing and not enough suitable apprentices to go around! Everyone’s looking, not just me.” She dropped a stack of fabrics on the table with a grunt. “Jin-gongzi’s order will take priority, of course.”

She shook her head. Naturally an order from the sect leader’s wife would be prioritized, but there was no need. “Please put Bei-gongzi’s order ahead of mine. A-Ling can get a bit more use out of his robes, but Bei-gongzi won’t fit into his if he grows anymore. And only the peony for embroidery. If it’s any more elaborate, A-Ling will inevitably ruin the robes the first time he wears them.”

“Yes, Jin-furen.” Tailor Ke agreed. “It won’t take more than a week, all told. Kid’s clothes work up fast.”

“And wear out faster.” She sighed as A-Ling chose that moment to snag his sleeve on a nail. “What are you looking for, in an apprentice?”

Many craftspeople would have been hesitant to answer, but Tailor Ke was happy to babble on as she began to drape fabrics over A-Ling’s shoulders, critiquing and sorting them to find the least aesthetically terrible combinations. “Oh, someone who’s quick with their hands, with some basic sewing and embroidery skills. I don’t have time to teach basics, but the rest can come along in time. Someone to do the books for me would also be a dream. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, though fortunately I can still stitch a straight seam without looking.”

That seemed like simple enough requirements, easily fulfilled with a little education. Though orphans were pulled of the street from time to time, it was usually for menial positions they would lose the moment something went wrong. Or if they were very lucky, to take care of an old, childless widow. Re-instituting A-Xuan’s program and improving upon it — that could be a very real way to distinguish Qin Su in the eyes of not only the Jin Sect, but the cultivation world.

The children could not only learn skills to help find employment, but be tested for cultivation potential.

The sects were always complaining about how difficult it was to recruit new talent. Executed properly, Jiang Yanli could make Qin Su look not only kind-hearted, but clever, reputable, and forward thinking, with the best interests of the sect she had married into at heart.

Even if the actual Qin Su fantasized about burning down Koi Tower on a regular basis.

Hey.

What? It was true.

Qin Su huffed. A semi-regular basis, maybe. And I would never actually. I wouldn’t actually ruin the whole of Lanling’s economy or put the servants and juniors out of house and home.

My apologies then. She suppressed a laugh.

Would there really be enough apprenticeships to go around, though? Qin Su sent numbers bouncing around her mind as she attempted the mental math, but got lost without paper.

Perhaps not. But larger farms could use workers, manors could use servants, and affordable bookkeepers were always in short supply. It could, at least, give them a better start.

“Shenshen look! I’m all twirly!” A-Ling giggled as he spun, the silk draped over him spinning out and threatening to knock over the tailor’s basket of supplies. Jiang Yanli tried not to smile, knowing she would need to scold him later, and prepared to pay for the entire bolt.

“We should discuss the problem with your sword.” Wen Qing said one night through the softly glowing Distance Speaking Stone. A-Xian had popped in earlier, briefly, but he was busy following the second of the Jin disciples on Xue Yang’s list, learning the habits of the group they were part of before he could lead them into a trap.

Jiang Yanli stared into her evening tea. “Must we?”

“Wei Wuxian isn’t having trouble with his new saber. The problem must be that Chunsheng doesn’t fully recognize you as Qin Su.”

“I can’t just get rid of her sword.” That wasn’t done.

<We are not getting rid of Chunsheng.> Qin Su said from inside her paperman. She’d been bent over a copy of some of A-Xian’s notes, researching something she had yet to explain.

“You’re basically unprotected. What if something —” Wen Qing cut herself off, surprisingly panicked.

Replacing a sword would garner more attention than A-Xian had in refusing to carry Suibian around. Whether they would somehow determine the truth or spread rumors about a disastrous fallout with the Qin clan, everyone would know something was off.

Still, it was sweet of her to worry. “Any sword is more protection than I had in my last life, Wen Qing.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” She sounded so forlorn that Jiang Yanli ached with the desire to fall into her arms and rub circles into her back until she slept, and even after. “But I worry.”

So did she, far too often. There was no end to worrying, it seemed. Not even after death. “Does A-Xian have any ideas about the talisman keeping you trapped?”

Wen Qing hesitated. “I haven’t let him look at it yet.”

“A-Qing!” A slip of the tongue, in her shock.

Wen Qing’s breath caught. “I’m not letting him put my life before his again. When we’re closer —”

“Last time you put his life before yours, he died anyways.” Jiang Yanli snapped. And sighed. “I’m sorry, that was unfair. It’s just — if you’re allowed to worry for me, I get to worry for you.”

“A little longer. Then I’ll speak to him.”

She could tell that was the best she was going to get. “If you don’t, I’ll tell him myself.”

Jiang Yanli was tired of watching the people she cared about tear themselves apart. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

Wen Qing let out a shaky, hiccupping laugh. “That seems fair.”

#the untamed #cq #wangxian #yanqing #qin su #the sacrifice summon! JYL fic #where the summoner (qin su) sticks around #this time featuring wwx traumatizing some teenagers #being subject to the whims of nhs #and jyl spending an afternoon with jin ling

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joeblrblog-blog · 6 years ago

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My First Personal Project

Recovery is an idea i’ve had for quite some time, so when I got a brief that actually give me an excuse to do it... I was extremely pleased, we had to pick a subject that the personal project would focus on, after looking into a magazine design, poster and. The idea behind recovery is a chain of hotels that offer more than just a bed. They get supplied with a ‘booth’ that they can pick and personalise based on a survey that they will be supplied, if they choose a standard room it will be cheaper but less personal to them. The whole aim for ‘Recovery’ is to lower the rate of depression and stress from people, this is a place that allows people to just go into and relax... forget about what is going on in their life and actually take a brake for once.

PROCESS:

After looking at the brief i’m going to layout my plan then try and stick to it accordingly, this will help in production and the end result in to what my final piece will be.

FONT

BRAND NAME

LOGO

BREIF

RESEARCH (In the brief)

BUSINESS CARDS

MERCHINDICE

DRINK LABEL (water)

POSTER

INTERACTIVE POSTER?

When creating the name of the business i decided it should be slick and impactful to show its professionalism, when creating this i was looking into what design i should base it off, through my research there wasn't a lot of brands and branches that had designs that resinated with the creative process i had in my head, for example I looked at Premier-in, trivago and Hilton Hotels and none of the layouts on the website or even the images matched what I believe is classes as ‘relaxing’, so I just made it from scratch to create my own unique brand name:

When i was starting the design i was looking at fonts like Serif and Typewriter (the two most common fonts) but i didn’t like how they looked in composition, so i typed up ‘Recovery’ and went down the fonts until I found one that i belive went well:

Logo

Then I started to look into how I could alter the name to make it look particularly different in the industry i am trying to get into, i started to play around with the ‘o’ in the letters because i tried to make it into an eye ball or even a moon to symbolise the dark inside you you are trying to relinquish:

Then after looking at the logo it didn’t look as uniform as i wanted it, i then playing around with the ‘v’ to look into making a recognisable logo design:

This design I made really appealed to me because of the concept I had behind it, i wanted to ‘v’ to be a metaphor for the before and after you leave recovery... you become a bigger person and a more improved individual.

I then came up with my final design, its simple but impactful towards the direction i want to go with the company. I designed this one with the idea of direction in my head:

I have finally found my professional approach for a name, the design based around the font and the edit really appealed to me more amongst the rest. I had an idea for when it gets made one day it will look a little like this:

As you can see the arrows are pointing towards the doors to almost say “everyone is welcome”.

Brief

Now that the font and brand name was done i could focus on the brief, this is a good opportunity to see what the foundation of my idea is going to look like and lyrically sound like:

The first thing I wanted to focus on was the design, I made sure to keep the colour and the accent colours minimal so they only highlight what is important, I think focusing on the overall design first was very important, this allowed the viewer to look at the stats easily and navigate through my brief easily.

I then wanted to look into who I wanted my target audience to be, so i looked into mental heath in the uk and what age was being effected by mental conditions the most, i found out that the NHS want to aim to help ages 17-30 because this is that age group who is going to grow up and define who we all are as a composite society.

Next i actually found out if a person approached the NHS with mental health problems they won’t actually get a lot of help, they will refer them to psychiatrists or get them medication. With ‘Recovery’ YOU can now get the attention we’re offering.

I then displayed a graph showing how low the percentage is for the people actually receiving common mental health problems in the UK, the more it’s increasing the more people are getting treated by no-one is doing nothing to actually slow down the percentage of growth. I believe that if there’re places people can go to actually take a brake and get the right attention if needs be.

Business card

My initial ideas for my business card design was to keep it VERY minimalistic.

This was my first initial design, I made sure to keep the colour scheme grey (#e1e1e1) white (#ffffff) and black (#000000).

Halfway through this design I realised that I didn’t actually liked the look of it, I was thinking for a while how I could edit it accordingly to the targeted audience. Then i realised that i had to change the whole design itself because i’m the target audience and it didn’t attract to me at all...

I wanted to make the ‘v’s’ in the name the logo, i think this will look good applied to an app or even a website in the future. I was thinking about logo designs since making the business name (remember the moon in the ‘o’ before) so i can apply the link within the name of the business with the desired logo.

I put the font in photoshop and deleted the surrounding text to leave me with the actual desired logo. Then I applied it to the business card:

I kept the same layout but then as you can see I changed the background to a marble effect, I then made sure to keep the circle design to represent the recovery process and to keep consistency throughout the design. I then chose the slogan: ‘allow us to align your mind’. I chose this slogan because it simplifies what we do quickly so people get a quick idea on to what ‘recovery’ is.

Merchandise

After looking at the logo and the overall design i wanted to make to do more with design, so I was looking into making merchandise for the company not only for extra profit but for the main reason... people are going to stay here for long periods of time, so... you would want to make them feel more confutable in their stay.

I made these designs on a website called ‘RedBubble’. This website allows you to design products from t-shirt to even a coffee cup, as long as your design matches the product layout then you can print on any of their designs.

Personally I liked the tee design better because of how clean it looks. The logo and the background design resinate really well with each-other.

Drink Label Design

I thought: “If i’m making these products i might as well make my own water to really show the recovery process”. I know the more i imagine myself actually there and fully embrace the idea of this idea then the more it visually appears creatively. I’m making all of these products for a reason, i’m not just making them on a whim... I thought when i was designing, if i was a customer in ‘recovery’ and i’m trying to escape or accept what is going on in the real world then i would like to know that i am in a safe place... that i’m in recovery.

This is a simple but effective design, It measurements are to match a coke bottle template.

CHANGE OF THOUGHT

I had it in my head for a while now on to what I was going to make/ present for my final piece. I started to make a poster, i found out through the process that it wasn’t representing the feeling I wanted to impact for the viewer. I wanted to make something that would give the audience the sense of relief before they even found out more about their ‘Recovery’.

I wanted to make an animated poster to further show a relief animation (fade). Then realised i didnt have the software to do so, i didn’t really want to just settle for that eaither. I decided to make a website. Legibly. Professionally.

I had to get some guidance, I asked my brother (a past website designer) on to how i would go about making a website.

Step 1

What i had to do first was to buy the domain so that no one else could take the website name. So i looked online and came across a website called: https://www.ionos.co.uk/.

Step 2

After I bought the domain I could then upload the word-press software onto the domain link... (this took some time). After it was uploaded I then had access to something called ‘Divi’ builder.

Step 3

I had to make a ‘private’ page. What this means is that it is password protected so not just anyone can access the website and mess around with it.

Step 4

There are three Columns...The first is called “standard section” this is what you see below. The more expensive software you buy the more complex the designs can get BUT what these are are templates which you then design a stage further.

Step 5

These are the option you have, you then input the content on to what you desire. Before that though, I had to think about what I actually want the website to look like so i came up with some overall sketches:

I loved how the ‘R’ words worked so well in an harmony with each-other. From this idea i wanted to assign the name of the word to what the page will be about, for example`; Revive > Tell you about Recovvery. Refine > tell you about the add ons then you refine it down to your preferance. Recon is the map and reserve is then booking a room.

When i write things down on paper it makes me start to realise what directions i can go with this website. The designs i was marking up was never going to apply when i actually make it. When i do make it though, i will have that design concept in my head so i can then create my work more fluidly.

After making my sketches i thought of a great idea... My Project is based around ‘Recovery’ and how you go through this journey of finding yourself and relief, so, why don’t i create a website that takes you through its journey so by the time you get the the end of the website you understand the feeling and the purpose on to what ‘recovery’ is trying to achieve.

Step 6

Create!

Now i know what my website wanted to look like now all i had to do was pick the layout i wanted and fill in the content.

Obviously it wasn’t as easy as the steps show. What i was doing was teaching myself how to make a website from scratch. There was a lot of video tutorials and blood sweat and a lot of tears but I eventually FINISHED !!

You can Visit the website yourself at: http://www.sassaw.com/recovery/

or you can watch the video in my next blog :)

PASSWORD TO OPEN THE WEBSITE IS: ‘openup’ one word, no caps.

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