Chapter 90: Waking and Sleeping

Wen Ning fell silent at once. In the sound of the oar working the water, Wei Wuxian opened his eyes, his head splitting with pain.

He was leaning his whole weight against Lan Wangji, and finding that the place he lay in was no longer Lotus Pier, he could make no sense of his circumstances for a good while, until his gaze fell upon Lan Wangji's left hand, the sleeve flecked with blood as though a spray of plum blossom had fallen across snow, and only then did he remember what had happened before he fainted with rage, his face passing through a change of expression too wretched to look upon as he bolted upright. Lan Wangji came to steady him, but Wei Wuxian's ears still rang and a clot of bloody air stoppered his chest, and he was wretched with it.

Afraid he would cough up another mouthful of blood onto Lan Wangji, who by nature loved cleanliness, he waved his hand again and again, turned aside, and gripping the gunwale held it in for a time. Lan Wangji knew how hard this moment was for him, and silently asked nothing at all, laying one hand against his back and sending a gentle, fine thread of spiritual flow into his body.

Only when he had ridden out that taste of rust at his throat did Wei Wuxian turn back and ask Lan Wangji to withdraw his hand. He sat still a moment, then at last ventured to speak. 'Hanguang-jun, how did we get out?'

Wen Ning's face tightened on the instant, and he stilled the oar. True to his word, Lan Wangji breathed not a syllable of what Wen Ning had let slip, yet neither did he lie or invent some tale; he said only, simply, 'There was a fight.'

Wei Wuxian freed a hand and kneaded the place over his heart, as if to rub away the knotted air pent in his chest, and after a while he let out a breath, like a man who must speak or burst. 'I knew Jiang Cheng wouldn't let us go so easily. That cursed brat... it's beyond all reason!'

Lan Wangji's brows drew tight, and he said low, 'Don't speak of him.'

Hearing the ill humour in his tone, Wei Wuxian started faintly, then said at once, 'All right. I won't speak of him.'

After a moment's weighing, he added, 'About that. Hanguang-jun, don't take to heart the things he said.'

Lan Wangji said, 'Which thing.'

Wei Wuxian's eyelid twitched. 'Every one of them. That brat's been like this since he was small; the moment he loses his temper he speaks with no thought for his words, hits where it stings most, and throws bearing and breeding to the wind. As long as it'll make a man smart, there's no foul nonsense he won't fling. All these years and not a hair of improvement. You mustn't lay it to heart at all.'

As he spoke he kept a quiet watch on Lan Wangji's expression, and slowly his heart sank.

Wei Wuxian had supposed, or rather had hoped, that Lan Wangji would pay those words no mind; but against all expectation, Lan Wangji's face was not at all easy, and he did not offer so much as a single 'Mn.'

It seemed that over Jiang Cheng's vicious words just now Lan Wangji was even more displeased than he had foreseen. Perhaps he simply disliked the man Jiang Cheng was, or perhaps... he could not in the least abide being upbraided as 'lacking restraint,' 'without shame,' a 'disorderly sort.' After all, the Gusu Lan Clan was a house of name whose family precept was 'refinement and rectitude,' and Hanguang-jun himself had never once been tangled up with words like those.

And though over these days of travelling he had come to feel that Lan Wangji thought rather much of him, held him as something apart, he dared not in the end guess just how much that regard weighed, nor whether that being apart was truly the kind of apart he imagined. Wei Wuxian had never thought confidence a fault, and had often grown proud and reckless on it; the world told that the Yiling Patriarch sported among the flowers, fragrant with peach-blush dalliance, yet in truth he had never known this flustered, fumbling state of heart. He had once thought Lan Wangji a man easy to read, but now he could not fathom him, and dreaded that it was he alone running off into fancy, his wishful thinking, his confidence run past its bounds.

Lan Wangji kept his silence. Wei Wuxian had meant to bluff his way past with the clowning he was best at, but feared a forced jest would only sink them into awkwardness, and after stalling a moment he said abruptly, 'Where is it we're headed?'

The turn of subject was stiff, yet Lan Wangji obligingly took it up. 'Where do you want to go.'

Wei Wuxian rubbed the back of his head. 'There's no knowing yet whether Zewu-jun is safe, nor what that lot mean to do. We might as well first go to Lanling—' Then a thing came to him, and he said, 'No. Not Lanling first. Yunping City.'

Lan Wangji said, 'Yunping City?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Yes. The Yunping City in Yunmeng. I told you of it, didn't I? Back at Koi Tower, in the hidden room of Fangfei Hall, I saw my own manuscript, and lying together with it was a deed of house and land for a place in Yunping City. The Lanling Jin Clan is rich and mighty; unless there were some hidden reason behind it, Jin Guangyao wouldn't have taken such care to keep that deed. Perhaps there's something to be found there.'

Lan Wangji inclined his head. Just then Wen Ning said, 'Young Master, is that Yunping City the way we're heading?'

Wei Wuxian. 'What?!'

He and Lan Wangji were both seated with their backs to the stern, and so neither had seen Wen Ning all this while. The sudden voice from behind so startled him that his scalp prickled and he rolled clean over on the spot, then turned round and said in dread, 'How are you here?!'

Wen Ning lifted his face and said blankly, 'Me? I've been here the whole time.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Then why not say something?'

Wen Ning said, 'I saw you and Hanguang-jun were talking, Young Master, so I didn't...'

Wei Wuxian said, 'You could at least have made a sound??'

Wen Ning raised the oar in his hands and protested, 'Young Master, I've been rowing all along, making a sound the whole time. Didn't you hear it?'

'...' Wei Wuxian waved a hand. 'Wasn't paying attention. Never mind, never mind. Stop rowing. The current runs fast through here at night; we'll go quick enough without it.'

He had grown up in Yunmeng, churning these waters end over end since he was small, and knew them by heart, as was only natural. At his word Wen Ning answered yes, set down the oar, and sat stiffly at the stern, still a good six feet from the two of them. They had reached Lotus Pier in the hour of the Tiger, and after all that upheaval the sky now paled toward dawn, blue washed through with white, the mountains and waters of either bank coming at last into outline.

After a look round at his surroundings, Wei Wuxian said suddenly, 'I'm hungry.'

Lan Wangji raised his eyes. Of course Wei Wuxian was not the least bit hungry; only a little while ago he had eaten three flatcakes at the small stall outside the gates of Lotus Pier. But Lan Wangji had eaten only one. And that was the only thing he had eaten in close on two days. Wei Wuxian kept the matter in mind, and seeing the road ahead empty of dwellings and hope, feared they would have to follow the water a long stretch yet before they met a town where they could rest and eat.

Lan Wangji mused, 'Put in to shore?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'There's no one much along the banks hereabouts, but I know a place we can go.'

Wen Ning hastily took up the oar and rowed toward where he pointed. Before long the ferry turned into a branching stream, and after a further stretch slipped into a lake of lotus.

The lotus leaves rose and dipped across the water, standing tall and slender as canopies. The narrow ferry broke through the crowding, jostling stems and rowed on into the depths of the pond; seen from above, where the boat passed it set a thread of jade leaves swaying. Threading among the shaded green parasols, parting one broad lotus leaf, he caught sight all at once of one plump, full seedpod after another hidden beneath, and the feeling of that instant was as though he had suddenly happened on a small hoard of treasure. Wei Wuxian was reaching out with a smile to pluck one when Lan Wangji said suddenly, 'Wei Ying.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What is it?'

Lan Wangji said, 'This lotus pond may have an owner.'

Wei Wuxian's face was the picture of a clear conscience. 'Of course it doesn't.'

Of course it did. From the time Wei Wuxian was eleven he had often filched seedpods and water-caltrops from the lakes of Yunmeng. He had washed his hands of the trade years ago, but with provisions needed now to carry on the road, he had no choice but to come out of retirement.

Lan Wangji said mildly, 'I have heard the lotus ponds in these parts all belong to someone.'

'...' Wei Wuxian said, 'Hahahahaha, is that so, what a pity. The things you've heard of, so many of them; I'd never heard a word. Well then, let's be off.'

Caught out, he could hardly bring himself to ask Lan Wangji to share in such mischief; the dignified Hanguang-jun stealing another man's seedpods to eat sounded, however one put it, unseemly. He was sheepishly reaching for the oar when Lan Wangji raised a hand and, leading the way, plucked a seedpod down himself.

He held the seedpod out to Wei Wuxian and said, 'Not to be done again.'