#venusdebotticelli

“So,” she said as they walked through the garden. “What did you do in a past life to deserve this?”

He sniggered, then tried to stop. Levity wasn’t disallowed, to be precise, but it wasn’t really encouraged, either.

“It’s bad for you to restrain laughter,” Wen Qing said. “Venting of emotions is a key part of maintaining a stable mind and a healthy body. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“You’re seven.”

“Says the eight-year-old. And anyway, I’m going to be a doctor. I’ve already started reading books and taking lessons. Just you wait!”

-

“Xichen,” Lan Xichen’s uncle said. “Show Mistress Wen around.”

“How’s the doctor thing coming?” he asked her as they walked along the pier by the river. “Still taking lessons?”

“Yes, of course,” Wen Qing said, and made a face. “I live in the Nightless City now, you know. Not just visiting sometimes – Sect Leader Wen insisted, saying it was a better place to develop my talent.”

She sounded wistful. Maybe even regretful.

“Sect Leader Wen probably wants you to be a good role model to his sons,” Lan Xichen said.

“You mean Greed and Malice?”

“Malice and Greed, I’d say,” Lan Xichen said. “Wen Xu is older, after all.”

“I thought your sect had rules about talking behind other people’s backs,” Wen Qing said, but she was smiling again, as he’d hoped.

“There’s an exception if it’s both true and helpful to know,” he said. “You have to be able to prepare yourself for dealing with people, after all. I think you’ll be a wonderful doctor.”

“I hope so,” she said, and looked a little downcast. “I can’t even heal my own little brother.”

“Neither can I,” Lan Xichen said, thinking of Lan Wangji’s grief – his silence and solemnity, so uncharacteristic for his age. He had never quite recovered from their mother’s death. “Maybe we’re just too young.”

“I’m going to grow up as fast as I can, then,” Wen Qing said. “Race you there?”

-

“Xichen,” Lan Xichen’s uncle said. “Show Doctor Wen around.”

“Congratulations,” he said to her as they walked through the crowded streets. “I understand that your paper on the development of the golden core in early stages was extremely well received.”

“It was,” Wen Qing said, looking pleased. “It’s a difficult area of study, but I wanted the reception it would get – there aren’t that many women practicing as doctors, you know, so we have to try harder.”

“I would think the opposite would be true, with novelty acting as a draw..?”

“Novelty is novelty, but with doctors people want to feel reassured. They don’t want something new.”

“I suppose that’s fair.”

They walked in a comfortable silence for a while, browsing through the stalls in search of presents for their younger brothers. Lan Xichen occasionally wished he had Nie Huaisang as a younger sibling – so easy to shop for – and when he mentioned it to Wen Qing she laughed and agreed.

Sometimes, nothing more needed to be said.

-

“Xichen,” Lan Xichen’s uncle said. “Show Lady Wen around.”

“I heard you’re going to be competing in the archery competition later,” she said as they walked along the edges of the competition grounds, a dirt path that twined through the foothills of a desolate mountain chasm.

“I am,” he said. “I’m still counted as part of the younger generation since my uncle is acting as sect leader.”

“But soon it will be you,” she said, and her gaze was fixed firmly in front of her, not looking at him at all.

It surprised him how much he missed it – her frankness, her cheer, her solemnity, her pleasant silence.

She reached out abruptly and he stopped, looking at her.

“You should hide some of your family’s books,” she said, still not looking at him. “Whatever you can, and quickly. Just in case.”

And then she started walking again, the same casual stroll, and it was as if she had never said anything at all.

Lan Xichen added bravery to the list of her qualities and followed.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, thinking of the trouble it would cause with the Lan sect elders. Thinking of the trouble something like this – a warning – could cost her. “In the meantime, tell me about your planned course of study in Yiling. Are you focusing on any particular type of medicine this time?”

Wen Qing looked at him then, and her eyes were grateful.

“Actually,” she said, “I was thinking of designing my course around whatever illness were most prevalent in the region –”

-

“Xichen,” Lan Xichen’s uncle said. “Take charge of the prisoners.”

Lan Xichen very nearly handed off the work to Meng Yao – no, he was Jin Guangyao now, and he ought to remember that. He was tired after that final battle, after all the work they’d done, the losses they’d suffered, and he knew Jin Guangyao would do the work efficiently and well the way he always did. Anyway, the Jin sect was less damaged than they were, and could afford it, and Jin Guangyao wanted the opportunity to do something well to show his father his merits.

But then by happenstance he’d seen Wen Ning’s face in the crowd and realized that he couldn’t.

Jin Guangyao had been disappointed, but Lan Xichen had insisted, and as one of the heroes of the war Jin Guangshan couldn’t exactly refuse him. In the end, the Wen sect remnants came under the control of the Lan sect.

He set up the new village they would reside in himself – fenced in, but on good land, ready for growth – and soon enough other Wens came drifting out of the darkness to take shelter with their remaining kinsmen, just as he’d hoped.

“Any chance you can show me around?” Wen Qing asked, and Lan Xichen turned to face her with a widening smile. She looked tired and was too thin, the marks of the imprisonment that Jiang Cheng had reported on not yet faded, and yet he had never been happier to see her. “If you’re not too busy, Sect Leader.”

-