#instead you get WRH at his most insane (pre Lao Nie's death) and LQR at his most grumpy

[robininthelabyrinth]

Extra for Tedious Joys: Lan Qiren, still not well after Cangse Sanren death, goes to Qishan for the "conference" instead of Lao Nie. After few hours of Wen Ruohan in his worst mood and Wen Xu and Wen Chao emulating their father, he went 'is anyone gonna teach this kids?' and didn't wait for an answer

Relentless - ao3 (chapter 1)

“Why are we even here?” Wen Xu groused.

“Yeah! That’s right! Why are we here?” Wen Chao immediately chimed, very obviously taking his cues from his elder brother – much to the latter’s irritation, judging by his immediate scowl.

Lan Qiren knew that he needed to pick his next words very carefully. With recalcitrant students, a teacher only had a few opportunities to really connect with them. If he allowed them to dismiss him or categorize him as an enemy at this early stage, it would be an incredibly uphill battle to gain enough respect in order to teach them anything, and in this case, given the strength of their background and the fact that this little teaching session was both likely to be short and definitely completely unauthorized, it would quite possibly make it completely impossible to ever get through to them.

“You are here,” Lan Qiren said solemnly, each word slow and thoughtful, “because your father is an ass.”

Complete silence.

As he’d hoped. Taking advantage of their shock, Lan Qiren flicked his sleeves back and sat down at the front of the small room he’d found – not quite a classroom, more like a windowless closet, but it had desks and a seat he could pull to the front, anyway, and that would do the trick in a pinch.

“I am not asking you to bow to me as your teacher,” he said flatly. “Sect Leader Wen would undoubtedly not permit it, and, regardless, I do not take on students that do not go through the proper process. However, it offends me on a fundamental level that you have reached your present ages without having mastered the most basics of requirements of a scholar, so I am going to instruct you on those basics today.”

Also, it would serve very well as an excuse to get Lan Qiren out of that awful party.

What in the world had possessed him to insist on going to Sect Leader Wen’s little gathering in Lao Nie’s place to convey the other man's regrets for not attending, especially when he was still not at his full strength following his past illness? He wasn’t the one that Wen Ruohan wanted to see here – and the man had made no effort to hide that obvious fact, either.

Lan Qiren might have been able to grit his teeth and bear it, only he’d seen the two Wen boys acting as if their father’s wretched behavior was an appropriate role model, had heard them trying to boast to their lackeys and getting basic facts completely wrong, and, well…here they were.

Whether they should be here or not was a different matter, but they were here.

“…can he say that?” Wen Chao asked his brother in an undertone, sounding shocked and appalled. Wen Xu still looked dazed as if he’d been struck on the head; they were both very clearly still fixated on his initial statement. “About Father? He can’t say that, right?”

“I – I don’t – ”

“As you know, I am the acting Sect Leader Lan,” Lan Qiren interjected smoothly. “I am your father’s peer and equal –”

Well, as much as anyone was. Technically, he was, anyway, even if the Lan sect was no match for the Wen in martial prowess or wealth or dominion over others, and he himself nowhere near a match for a cultivation monster like Wen Ruohan.

Lan Qiren also didn’t actually care about his rank, of course, technically or otherwise. If he’d had his way, his brother would still be sect leader rather than trapped in an unending seclusion of his own making and he’d be wandering the world and its many wonders, a sword at his side and a guqin on his back, instead of being stuck as an acting sect leader that no one inside the sect really respected, who desperately pursued his hobby of teaching students from outside their sect as the only thing that would make him not go completely mad.

But this wasn’t about him: the Wen sect cared immensely about rank and status. Every friend the Wen boys possessed had been carefully vetted to be of appropriately high status, and even the parties held at the Nightless City were divided up in such a way that the lowest ranking sect leaders could only mingle outside, yearning to get invited into the inner circles and becoming increasingly willing to do anything to get there.

If rank was what it took to make a connection here, he would use it.

“– but in the interest of letting this lesson flow in a smooth manner, you may refer to me as Teacher Lan, or simply ‘Teacher’ if you prefer. Wen Xu!”

Wen Xu startled and sat up straight, blinking owlishly at him.

“How do you differentiate between yao, mo, gui and guai?”

“Uh,” he said, blinking rapidly. It was an easy question, and one Lan Qiren liked to start off questioning with, since most people knew it even when they weren’t exceptionally good students. People liked to answer questions when they knew the answer, and would do so even if they didn’t actually need to. “That is – yao are formed out of living non-humans, while mo are formed…”

Lan Qiren kept up the rhythm for a while, question and answer. Every time Wen Xu got something wrong, he would correct him, then turn and fire off some questions at Wen Chao – even easier ones, of course, given the difference in age between them, but still ones he should know. Any time Wen Chao erred, he’d turn back to Wen Xu, leaving neither of them time to be smug at the other’s missteps.

It was fairly evident that the two of them had no natural fellow-feeling as brothers, likely due to having been played against each other for years on end. Lan Qiren wasn’t sure if it was Wen Ruohan who’d done it deliberately for whatever reason or if it was simply their mothers’ instigation, but that sort of ridiculous internal politics had no room in their current cultivation world. Wen Ruohan wasn’t actually an emperor, after all; in the end, they would both represent the Wen sect against the other sects, and they were better off as a united front, with a bond the rest of the sects wouldn’t be able to undermine. Even if they couldn’t be expected to be as close as his own nephews, who were blood brothers, then it was still far better that they follow the example of Lao Nie’s boys, who were half-siblings as well but utterly devoted to one other.

Of course, that wasn’t something he could fix over the course of a single afternoon. But that didn’t mean there was any reason to allow them to misbehave while under his watch.

Once he’d finished the initial examination, Lan Qiren moved on to more practical exercises. Wen Chao was miserably behind in basically everything, up to and including literacy, while Wen Xu was very good in some areas and absolutely useless in others, completely unbalanced. Mindful of the fact that they had no real reason to respect him or listen to him, Lan Qiren opted for a more unorthodox method that had served him well in the past with some of the more rambunctious of his students: he set up a weiqi board and permitted them to make a move for every complete scripture they were able to produce, Wen Xu remembering and reciting while Wen Chao painstakingly wrote it out.

Weiqi had never been Lan Qiren’s strength, although he had mastered it the way all gentlemen must and even enjoyed it in the cheerfully blundering way that most amateurs had, and it came as little surprise that with the two of them together they were very nearly able to prevent a complete trouncing.

“Three moves,” Wen Xu muttered almost feverishly when they finished the first game. “I could have – if I’d only had three more moves –”

“You may have as many moves as you like, provided you complete the work,” Lan Qiren said. He himself was also writing out the scriptures, then pondering and taking his moves; it was only fair for him to be under the same burden as them, although of course he actually knew all the things he was writing out and thereby took less time. “I did not actually set a rule that we needed to take turns.”

“…are you saying I could’ve taken multiple turns if we’d finished faster?”

Lan Qiren hummed in assent.

“Another game!” Wen Xu demanded, then turned to Wen Chao. “And you, write faster!”

“If there are errors in either the writing or the content, the move is invalidated,” Lan Qiren said mildly. “You are welcome to encourage him to maximize speed, but you may regret it.”

Wen Xu took the bait he’d left out there and moved over to helping his brother with his writing, supervising to reduce errors while wracking his brain to think of more sentences (ideally, short ones) that would meet Lan Qiren’s criteria for what was necessary to make a move. Wen Chao was practically vibrating from excitement the entire time. It was plainly obvious that he idolized his brother and took him as his guide in all things, even as he pretended to disdain and fear him the way someone had clearly told him he should – he was too young for that sort of thing to have actually sunk in, thankfully, like a dog that hadn’t quite been kicked enough times to stay away. The important part, though, was that he actually listened when Wen Xu instructed him, and tried his best to write the words out correctly.

He didn’t always succeed, but he was sincerely trying, as he very rarely did.

“Hm,” Lan Qiren said, examining one effort that had left them both red-faced – it was wrong, but consistently so. “I’ll accept it.”

“He misspelled half the words. As always!” Wen Xu hissed, clearly hideously embarrassed, and Wen Chao turned his face away in shame.

“Only if you don’t account for his visual imbalance,” Lan Qiren said, and they both turned to stare at him. “If you do, it’s fine, and thereby qualifies.”

“Visual imbalance? What’s that?”

“I’m not a doctor, I don’t know the details even if I can recognize it when I see it. To my understanding, it’s something to do with a blockage in the meridians that circulate qi to the eyes…the words move around on the page, is that it?” he asked Wen Chao, who looked stunned but slowly nodded. “The first time you look, the strokes are in the wrong place – even if you read it several times, it never accords? You have to squint at the words and use all your focus before you can clear up the issue, and even that doesn’t always work?”

Another nod.

“And this problem doesn’t arise when it comes to mathematics?”

He shook his head, confirming Lan Qiren’s suspicion.

“It’s not uncommon. In many cases, it becomes less serious as you age and your cultivation increases; the key is making sure that you don’t learn the wrong characters in your youth.” As Wen Chao very clearly had. “Are you going to make your move?”

Wen Xu immediately spun to focus on the weiqi board, but Wen Chao was still staring at Lan Qiren, open-mouthed with shock.

He glanced briefly at his brother, who was muttering to himself as he pondered strategies, then leaned forward and grabbed at Lan Qiren’s sleeve, tugging it. “Are you sure it’s because of that?” he asked in a pitched whisper. “Isn’t it just because I’m stupid?”

“You’re badly educated, not stupid,” Lan Qiren told him sternly. “You’re a very clever little boy and you know it, which is why it frustrates you so much to get chastised for failing to perform basic scholastic tasks. That, in turn, thereby renders you uninterested in them. That is a completely logical response, nothing to do with stupidity.”

Wen Chao seemed shaken by this direct attack.

“If you want to avoid such chastisement, there are methods to help compensate for your imbalance, as well as a sort of resin you can chew to help settle your restlessness as you study; quite a few of my students have benefited from it in the past,” Lan Qiren added. “I will leave you a note that you can pass along to your teacher, whoever they are, and with any luck that will assist you in the future.”

It would be best if Wen Ruohan could be convinced to send the boys to him, he thought to himself. Unfortunately, it seemed highly unlikely, even given his reputation of being a teacher capable of turning even the most useless trash into a proper gentleman. After all, sending them to him would still involve admitting that there was something the Wen sect couldn’t provide, and therefore it was likely to be deemed unacceptable as an affront to Wen Ruohan’s ridiculously overweening pride.  

Lan Qiren thought it was rather ridiculous, all told. Sending children to him wouldn’t admit anything other than convenience – of course, in his opinion, he wasn’t actually anything special as a teacher. His reputation had been obtained wholly by accident; he had merely been more desperate than most to get students for himself, and willing to accept anyone he could get to come. Like most sects these days, Lan sect children were traditionally taught by a wide variety of teachers rather than each one having a single shizun to follow, leaving him with little to do in most cases – anyway, even if they used the old approach, the only children he’d ever actually accept as personal disciples were his nephews – and so he’d cast his net out to the other sects instead. Naturally those other sects did not want to allow an outsider to teach their children, but most of them had a few ‘problem children’, as they were often termed, and those they were willing to send to him out of sheer frustration. For those children, Lan Qiren exercised the utmost limits of his patience and ingenuity, and he’d managed to do well with any number of them…and somehow somewhere along the line it had turned into a reputation that he thought was rather overblown.

The only use of such a reputation was in getting him access to even more students, including those of the type he favored most, the obedient ones that wanted to learn. Unfortunately, it also meant his services as a teacher were now considered desirable, even fashionable, and suddenly his classes were full not only of students that needed instruction but those that would barely condescend to it. Lan Qiren had a great deal less patience for those ‘genius’ students who fancied themselves too good for his lessons and instead sought to disrupt them at every instance, clowning around and harming the education of others simply because they themselves didn’t require it – there was a wide gulf between the arrogance of people like Wen Xu, who desperately needed the help but had too much pride to admit to it, and some of the jackass ‘prodigies’ he’d been forced to accept as the price of getting some of the students he actually wanted.

The frustrating thing was, a little bit of one-on-one tutoring would help these two boys so much…maybe, despite it all, it was worth trying to speak to Wen Ruohan directly, to at least try to point him in the right direction. As a rule, Lan Qiren tried to avoid conversing with Wen Ruohan as much as possible, insofar as it was possible given their respective roles as sect leaders of Great Sects – the other man was slick and cunning and too often cruel, and he didn’t think very much of Lan Qiren.

That was because of Lao Nie, though it wasn’t really the man’s fault, or even Lan Qiren’s. It was simply that Lao Nie was charming and charismatic, magnetic enough to overcome even Wen Ruohan’s usual disdain of all people not surnamed Wen, only he didn’t respond to Wen Ruohan’s begrudging grant of favor by dropping all his other friends and spending all his time paying court to Wen Ruohan the way the other man clearly thought he ought to be doing. Lan Qiren was one of Lao Nie’s friends, their sects long-standing allies, and that fact clearly rubbed Wen Ruohan the wrong way.

It had only been a few years ago that Lao Nie had even sent his own son and heir to join Lan Qiren’s classes – Nie Mingjue was a charming boy, a genius but not irritating with it, and it had been a pleasure to teach him. It had been Lao Nie’s well-meant attempt to encourage Lan Qiren’s teaching efforts, but it had immediately been misinterpreted in flagrant ways all over the cultivation world, including by people who took relish in suggesting that it was evidence of a more personal connection between the two sect leaders. This scurrilous rumor (wholly baseless) was of course ridiculous, but it would probably have been far less of a problem if Lao Nie were not also, as Lan Qiren suspected, in the midst of his own clandestine affair with Wen Ruohan.

Lao Nie had such bad taste.

Really, given the rumors and misunderstandings and his rather infamous possessiveness, it was no real surprise that Wen Ruohan couldn’t stand Lan Qiren, but Lan Qiren couldn’t help but wish the man could be a little more mature about it. Sure, he wasn’t quite as insufferable as Jin Guangshan, who continued to compare Lan Qiren to his brother despite it having been oven ten years since Lan Qiren had assumed the role, but Wen Ruohan was far better at finding all of Lan Qiren’s sore spots to press on. All those little jibes about his lack of experience and indifferent reputation for night-hunting…

“Let us shift over to traditional lessons,” he said, seeing that the second game had ended in a hard-fought tie that made Wen Xu preen with pride like a crow on the verge of mating season. “Wen Xu, since you have been criticizing your brother’s handwriting, let us see a demonstration of your own.”

He froze. “Uh…”

Lan Qiren opted to start again with some easier elements. It was clear that Wen Xu greatly valued being right, or rather that he valued being validated, and it was equally clear he didn’t especially care if he actually was right as long as he could win praise. Lan Qiren’s praise was sparingly given, and only when deserved; he made that very clear, and made Wen Xu work for it while Wen Chao focused on his own assignment, which was to learn a calligraphy style that was more easily readable for imbalanced eyes.

If only he had more than a single afternoon…!

He sighed, regretful. The boys weren’t actually all that bad as students, really, and certainly not as bad as he’d initially feared. All it took was gaining their respect, however temporarily – the trick of knocking them off balance with crudeness was really only effective in the short-term – and they were willing to try their best, and that was all he really asked.

He noted Wen Chao stifling a yawn, his third, and regretfully decided that it was time to draw the teaching session to a close. He’d probably kept them for too long, anyway; the party might even now be winding down, and it was essential that he slip back in amongst the crowd unnoticed.

“Let me see where you are,” he ordered, and examined what they brought him. “Wen Xu, this essay is persuasive and well-organized. Wen Chao, you’ve made greater strides in learning the new style than I would have expected. You have both done well.”

Both boys looked taken aback for a moment, then glowed with pride.

“That will be all for today,” Lan Qiren continued. “I will write assessments for you later, since we will not be continuing your lessons further –”

“Why not?”

Lan Qiren froze in place, and felt a sudden sympathy to Wen Xu for all the times he’d put him on the spot earlier.

That low voice, amused and smooth as the silk used to hang empresses, was most definitely not one of the boys. Wen Ruohan himself was standing at the door, watching them with that faint smirk that always danced on his lips, making him look three times as dangerous a predator as any of the targets in the organized night-hunts set up by the sects for entertainment.

And right now, his gaze was fixed very firmly on Lan Qiren.

At that point, Lan Qiren very abruptly realized that not only did he very much did not have permission for this little impulsive foray into tutoring, but also that taking two boys under the age of adulthood away from the supervision of their assigned minders, however useless, and keeping them with him for an entire afternoon could be willfully misinterpreted as kidnapping if one were inclined to make trouble.

Such as, say, Wen Ruohan often was.

“Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said politely, keeping his dignity and rising to his feet even as both Wen Xu and Wen Chao turned and ran over to their father at once, each one crowing loudly about their achievements. Wen Xu kept trying to tell him about the fact that he’d nearly beaten Lan Qiren at weiqi even with one hand tied behind his back – metaphorically, of course, he was referring to Wen Chao’s writing speed – while Wen Chao kept hanging off of his father’s sleeve and telling him that he wasn’t stupid, that he’d managed nearly a whole page of words without getting tired, that he’d managed to be helpful…

“Enough,” Wen Ruohan said, and they both fell silent, pulling away to stand properly at attention in front of him. He surveyed them thoughtfully. “Teacher Lan said you did well?”

They both nodded and looked at him hopefully.

“Then you have done well.”

Both boys looked as overjoyed as if the day had suddenly been declared both their birthdays and also the New Year.

“Dismissed,” Wen Ruohan added, and turned his gaze to Lan Qiren as the boys both dashed out of the room with skips in their steps.

Lan Qiren had by now arranged his sleeves such that his hands were linked together in a formal posture.

“I overstepped my boundaries,” he said, admitting his fault openly – although not quite going the extra step of asking for forgiveness. It was not wise to show weakness in front of a tiger, even if it already knew. “I hope I have not troubled you in doing so.”

“Oh, you overstepped,” Wen Ruohan said, voice light and mocking. “Is that what we call it now, when you whisk my boys out of my sight to some hidden room where no one can see what you’re up to?”

Lan Qiren suppressed a sigh: of course Wen Ruohan immediately went there.

“I meant no harm,” he said, then added, “Sect Leader Wen,” hoping that the title would serve as a reminder of their equivalent status.

“No, indeed, or else I would have found you doing something very different than teaching them,” Wen Ruohan said dryly, still sounding amused, and Lan Qiren suppressed a wince. “What was that A-Chao was saying about – an imbalance, was it?”

Lan Qiren blinked, taken aback. He’d been bracing himself to hear a list of whatever benefits Wen Ruohan saw fit to try to extract over his misstep – that was how their interactions usually went, with Lan Qiren at his most proper and Wen Ruohan looking for any little bit of leverage he could, knowing as he did how unsteady and uncertain Lan Qiren’s foundation in his own sect was. He was always pushing and pulling at every weakness he could find, always scheming for benefits or something he could use to his sect’s advantage.

Lan Qiren hadn’t expected him to focus on…on, well, being a student’s parent.

Perhaps there was some hope.

For the children, at least. Lan Qiren was sure Wen Ruohan would go back to the politics of it all later, after his initial concerns had been assuaged.

“The doctors in my sect don’t have a proper name for it, but I’m given to understand that it functions as a burden to the eyes, in particular when one attempts to read. Accordingly I have chosen to call it a ‘visual imbalance’,” Lan Qiren explained, glad for the opportunity to speak on the subject. “The official theory for the cause is a blocked or impeded meridian of some sort or another. It is uncommon, although not rare, in children; for some, it resolves itself in adolescence, while for others it persists. I have seen it in quite a number of my students – it is often mistaken for stupidity or willful misconduct, as their eyesight is generally fine when it comes to other aspects of their lives, such as swordplay. In many cases, they’re even simultaneously capable of reading numbers for the purposes of mathematics or other things that do not involve words…”

“And you believe A-Chao has this imbalance?”

“Yes, I do. His ability to do sums by far outstrips his literacy, which is unusual in his age group. Furthermore, I had him practice his writing and you can see he’s learned a few of the characters incorrectly, such that he repeatedly makes the same mistake…”

Wen Ruohan was smiling at him. Not a real smile, his eyes remained as dead as always, but an unnervingly thoughtful one – the sheer degree of focus and intensity was almost palpable. It made Lan Qiren remember with whom he was speaking, and the dangers thereof. He trailed off and cleared his throat, adding, “I’m sure his teacher has said similar things to you already.”

“He has not,” Wen Ruohan said, still smiling. “Something I will undoubtedly need to mention when I next speak with him. Perhaps he was too scared of me to say anything.”

That was – not unlikely.

“In fact, I find myself encountering that problem a great deal as of late.” Wen Ruohan shook his head in mock sadness. “When one becomes as powerful as I have become, it seems that many of those around me choose to prioritize what they believe I wish to hear over the truth. A truly regretful state of affairs.”

“Perhaps it would happen less often if you didn’t throw the messengers into your Fire Palace whenever they gave you bad news,” Lan Qiren said, voice acidic. He’d seen it happen earlier that very day – the foolish man who’d said something about the new saber Wen Ruohan had been gifted being not as impressive as Lao Nie’s had been dragged out of the main hall by force. It was quite obvious that the man had just been starting trouble to begin with, but Wen Ruohan���s rage had only grown more and more as time went on and he dwelled on the taunt further and further, and it had ultimately peaked when Lao Nie had failed to answer his summons to bring his Jiwei to compare as he had demanded. In the end, absent anyone else to rage against, he had turned his anger onto his unfortunate subordinate…

“Are you criticizing me, Teacher Lan?” Wen Ruohan still seemed amused.

“Merely offering friendly advice,” Lan Qiren said coldly. He didn’t know what to make of Wen Ruohan’s choice to address him as teacher rather than sect leader. It was now the second time he had done so, both today and ever, and his usual emphasis on the title seemed to signify that he meant something by it.

Lan Qiren wished, not for the first time, that he was a little better at understanding people. Perhaps, if he was, he might understand what the implication was. As it was, if Wen Ruohan thought he was successfully conveying something, he was very wrong.

“You’re very good at that,” Wen Ruohan said, and Lan Qiren arched his eyebrows. “Teaching, not advice. I’d heard stories of your – shall we say, your prowess in that field, and I must admit I’d doubted it.”

Wen Ruohan was definitely going somewhere with this.

“I appreciate the compliment,” Lan Qiren said cautiously.

“Oh, no need to be so modest,” Wen Ruohan said, stepping forward and – of all things – reaching out to straighten the lapels of Lan Qiren’s robes, as if he were some sort of servant and Lan Qiren the master. He somehow managed to make the gesture terrifying. “They say you can work miracles, don’t they? Turning even a waste into a gentleman. And for my part, I’ve found myself rather the expert on the subject of teachers, adequate or otherwise. You see, I’ve gone through quite a number of teachers for my boys these past few months – either they quit in frustration or I have to get rid of them…inadequate, one and all.”

He didn’t lift his hands from Lan Qiren’s chest, and the weight of them burned warm.

“…do you want to send your sons to study at the Cloud Recesses next year?” Lan Qiren hazarded a guess. It seemed implausible, but not outside the bounds of possibility. “We accept outsiders –”

“Let us not be imprecise. You accept outsiders as students, not your sect. The Lan sect’s devotion to its rules is famous, but previous generations have only allowed observers to attend lectures sparingly – as rare as a discussion conference.”

“That is correct,” Lan Qiren said, because it was. Even if he were inclined to argue the point, which he wasn’t, it wasn’t like he could come up with anything that would serve to counter Wen Ruohan, who had been there to see a number of those previous generations personally. “But what does it matter?”

Wen Ruohan’s smile broadened. “It matters quite a lot, as it happens. You see, I’ve decided that I want you to be my sons’ teacher.”

Lan Qiren blinked, surprised but not displeased. “We can make arrangements for them to stay at the Cloud Recesses during the summer months, then,” he said, then frowned when Wen Ruohan shook his head in the negative. “Summer is traditional for guest disciples, but if you have need of them during those months, I am certain an exception can be made. What season can you spare them best?”

“None at all, of course,” Wen Ruohan said. “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. I don’t intend to send my boys to Gusu.”

“Then – how –”

“My dear Teacher Lan, don’t be obtuse! You will come here, instead.”

“You are the one being obtuse,” Lan Qiren said, his heart racing inexplicably. He stepped back, trying to get away from Wen Ruohan’s hands, but Wen Ruohan stepped forward at the same moment, keeping the distance between them – too close for his comfort already – the same, and now Lan Qiren was pressed back against a wall. “Sect Leader Wen, I taught your sons for a single afternoon as a means of passing the time. Even if I were to stay an additional week on top of the days I’ve already spent here for your party, which is already more time than I can spare, that would still not be enough time to implement an adequate course of education. Your sons require a full-time teacher for at least a season if you are to see any impact.”

Wen Ruohan nodded agreeably. “That makes sense.”

“Then you see, it is impossible –”

“I dislike having to repeat myself,” Wen Ruohan said, and his hands suddenly tightened, moving forward and pulling Lan Qiren towards him by the lapels until their faces were right next to each other. He was still smiling. “Allow me to make myself clear. You are going to be my boys’ teacher, and you are going to do it from here. That means that you, dear Teacher Lan, will be staying in my Nightless City for as long as it takes for their education to meet my satisfaction.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lan Qiren snapped. “I’m the Lan sect’s sect leader –”

“No,” Wen Ruohan said. “You are the acting sect leader.”

“What difference does it make?!”

Wen Ruohan laughed, sharp and not altogether sane.

“All the difference in the world, of course,” he said, and the smile on his face spread in a way that twisted his face like a vicious grimace. “Where there’s one substitute, there can be another. If you died, your brother would still be in seclusion – there must be someone waiting to take your place. And if that’s the case…tell me, Lan Qiren. Whatever price your sect elders decide to ask from me for you, do you really think my Wen sect can’t pay?”

Lan Qiren’s heart froze in his chest.

Wen Ruohan couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t mean to ask Lan Qiren’s sect to – to, what, sell him for benefits –

“Do you really think,” Wen Ruohan whispered, his voice flowing straight into Lan Qiren’s ear, “that your brother, the great Qingheng-jun, would refuse to ratify such an arrangement…?”

Lan Qiren’s brother had never liked him. And it was true, in fact, that he was only in seclusion, not dead – if necessary, the sect elders could go to him and petition that he override Lan Qiren’s decisions, the real sect leader always outweighing the acting one. That they didn’t, in the usual run of things, was simply the Lan sect respecting his seclusion, not the necessary state of affairs; if they got it in their minds to ask, he was perfectly capable of responding. If Wen Ruohan sweetened his offer enough, they might very well choose to go to him and accept the offer, and never mind what Lan Qiren wanted.

After all, if the sect decided something, it was his duty to accept and obey.

Lan Qiren gritted his teeth.

“You may be able to offer enough to my sect for them to wish to sell me to you, Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said, and hated that he even had to make the admission, wishing that he could believe even through willful self-deceit that Wen Ruohan’s mad scheme would never work when he knew that it could. “But that is insufficient. Talent itself cannot be forced. Bring me here against my will, and who is to say whether I will consent to teach? I could just as easily cut my own throat – and I would.”

Wen Ruohan stared at him, smile fading, and Lan Qiren glared back, trying to make clear exactly how serious he was being. He liked the Wen boys, in the same way he liked any of his students, prospective or otherwise, who were willing to learn. He liked them enough to try to teach them spontaneously, but that didn’t change what he would do – what he would have to do, because a bluff wouldn’t work on Wen Ruohan. He had to mean what he said, no matter how dire the threat, for it to work.

And it had to work. Back home he had his two nephews, Xichen and little Wangji, and if he were taken away from them, who would they have left to defend them? He Kexin had died, and Lan Wangji had only just barely started talking again after the enormity of that loss – Lan Xichen had taken it better, being older, but he, too, had suffered. If they were to lose Lan Qiren as well…

If his Lan sect sold him to Wen Ruohan, he couldn’t come back from that. He’d have lost all face forever, and the sect would have no need of him in the future, not even once Wen Ruohan tired of playing games with his life; if he slunk back to them after it was all done, it would be as an object of pity and nothing more. And while he was gone, the Lan sect elders left behind would grind his nephews down into the shapes they wanted them to be, leaving them nothing of their own. They would not think to leaven sternness with love, harshness with joy, and they would genuinely think they were doing them a favor in the process…and then the returning Lan Qiren would have to see what had been wrought in his absence.

No – if the choice were between death now and having to live to see something like that happen, helpless to stop it, he would rather use his blood to show the world the Great Sects’ hypocrisy.

“I see,” Wen Ruohan said, seeming to understand that Lan Qiren was sincere. “How interesting.”

For a moment, Lan Qiren thought that it had worked – that Wen Ruohan had been deterred, that he’d drop the matter, that he wouldn’t push them both to the end of no return. Lan Qiren was Lao Nie’s friend, and Wen Ruohan liked Lao Nie, at least most of the time, so surely even if he had no regard for Lan Qiren’s life in its own right, then perhaps for Lao Nie’s sake…?

And then Wen Ruohan’s insane smile returned in full force.

“Let no one say that I am not relentless,” he said, and he sounded actually cheerful, which was a tone Lan Qiren had never heard from him before. “You’re a far more interesting challenge than I thought, Teacher Lan. I see I will need to take particular care to make sure you don’t do anything rash before I settle matters to my satisfaction.”

Before Lan Qiren could even finish comprehending his words, Wen Ruohan’s hands had moved up from Lan Qiren’s lapels to his throat, pressing down and cutting off his air in a single gesture – Lan Qiren frantically tried to summon his qi, his fingers twitching for want of his sword or some musical instrument, his voice already gone, his vision starting to go black –

He felt more than saw the array activate behind his back.

Wen Ruohan was an array master the likes of which had already faded out of the cultivation world, and even among those ancient masters he was said to have been exceptional. Despite this, it was said to have been decades since he had bothered to actually use one himself where another living person could see – most of the time, he only commanded others to do the work for him. It was even rumored that once, when confronted by an entire army, he hadn’t bothered with an array at all, but rather merely used his extraordinary cultivation to twist his fingers and manipulate force itself, using spiritual energy to bend space and light to create a horrible sucking whirlwind that would rip apart all things before him from the inside out.

This array was at least not that.

Lan Qiren felt a pull, yanking him backwards, and then he was falling through the wall, stumbling into an empty room that had no doors or windows or even a single light.

“Just stay put for now, Teacher Lan, and don’t do anything unwise. Don’t your rules say ‘Don’t act impulsively’…?” Wen Ruohan’s voice echoed into the air around him. “I’ll be back to speak with you very soon…”

And then his voice was gone.

Lan Qiren traced a talisman for light into the air and looked around.

No doors or windows, as he’d suspected, but not completely empty: there was a bed, a desk, and the necessary area to relieve himself. There were also a few sets of manacles casually tossed around – some hanging on the wall, some on the bed – and scratches on the wall that upon a second look appeared to be words, presumably the scribblings of the room’s former occupant.

Lan Qiren did not see any way out.

“This,” he said to himself, wishing he hadn't so deeply ingrained his sect's custom against profanity, “is going to be a problem.”