17. Not According to Plan

Ying'er remained in a fitful sleep, aided by the Nie medic who seemed to know a lot about the effects of resentful energy.

While Nie Huaisang cozied up to A’Cheng, which was a convenient distraction, Yanli went into the kitchen to chop and fry her frustrations out for dinner. With Meng Yao returned and the Nie sect contingent under their roof, there were fifteen people to feed, which was a reach for the pantry. At least they had enough rice, she thought, looking in the bowl as she rinsed it.

Meng Yao slid into the kitchen quietly with the air of a penitent come to receive his punishment. She ignored him for a little while until her nerves settled.

“I moved Lao Wang into the eastern ear room,” he said quietly after a while. The ear room was small room off to the side of the main hall and was used mostly as an ad-hoc library. It was, at least in Yanli’s household, a place of honor.

“Thank you.”

He nodded and kept working.

“It has been almost seven months, A’Yao,” she said.

He flinched a little as he chopped cabbage. “Yes.”

“No letters, no word of you at all. I thought…I thought.” She stopped there, punching a ball of dough with intent.

He let out a long breath, then stopped chopping, setting the knife down and putting both hands down on the tabletop. She looked up, watching him carefully. He kept his eyes lowered.

“You were right. About my father.” Another long breath. “As I promised Mama, I presented myself to him on my birthday. He laughed, called my mother a whore, and kicked me down the steps.”

She gasped. “The steps?”

“Koi Tower.” He looked up at her with a haunted expression.

“A’Yao!” She abandoned the dough and flew around to him, holding his hands in hers. “That is hundreds of stairs!”

“Three sets of 108 steps.”

She shuddered. “No!”

He put her hands to her sides and then stepped backwards to make a deep bow. Yanli was too shocked to stop him, but she pulled him up as soon as she regained herself. “What are you doing?”

“If you and your brothers had not taken me in and helped me develop my cultivation, the fall would have likely killed me. Injured me severely, at least. Possibly damaged my brain, if not broken every bone in my body. I have you to thank for that. You saved my life, Wei Yanli, and I am forever in your debt.”

She refused to cry, absolutely refused. Instead, she drew him into a hug, and they stood there for a long time. It felt weird to be short enough to rest her head on his shoulder, but also nice. Safe.

They stood wrapped up together for a moment before A’Yao continued.

“I was still injured by it, but able to make my way to an inn. However, my father had seen enough. He knew I used some form of cultivation to brake my fall. Mama always thought that if I learned cultivation, my father would see my worth. Instead, my cultivation made him see me as a threat to him and his rightful heir, I think. Or perhaps it was Madam Jin. Either way, I was too dangerous to live. The first assassination attempt came that night.”

She shook her head, trying to deny it, clutching at him as fiercely as possible.

“I have been playing a game of chase with them ever since, back and forth across the jianghu, mostly living in the underbelly of whatever city I could disappear into. I managed to get to Mama and Sisi, and helped them escape and disappear. I had no doubt father would use them against me, since he knew they were still alive. But he does not know you and the boys even exist. I thought the safest thing I could do was stay away. I did not dare send any mail or even word by way of a trader. All I could think of was what would happen if the assassins traced me back to Yiling.” He held her tight. “So I have to ask, Yanli: were those bandits possibly working for my father?”

She thought back to everything they had said. Was it possible…?

“No, I don’t think so. It was just coincidence.”

“Hm.” He did not sound convinced, but let the matter drop. Ying’er had not left survivors, so there was no way to prove it one way or another. If they had been hired to attack her and the boys, they would know better than to keep proof of that on their person.

She pulled away, wiping her eyes and trying to smile at him. “I’m so glad you came home.” Then she thought about it, and frowned. “What changed?”

“I have no idea.” He shook his head, clearly vexed. “The men chasing me stopped about six weeks ago. I was not even sure of it at first, but I was deep in Qinghe territory by then.” He sighed. “I honestly thought I would have to keep heading straight through Qisan, and out onto the west. But eventually I figured out no one was after me anymore. I spent a whole week leaving myself open for attack, but none ever came.”

She smacked his chest. “That was for putting yourself in danger!” She huffed a little and flounced back to work on the dough, enjoying his small laughter.

“This lowly one sincerely apologizes to the honorable Miss Meng for worrying her.”

“Oh hush,” she said, smiling. “Tell me how you encountered Young Master Nie?”

“On the road. He was just walking along.” He waved the knife around in a confused manner. “No guards, no luggage.”

“Dressed like that? How did he not get attacked by bandits himself? He’s just a boy!”

“Hm, yes, that’s what he wants you to think. Watch him carefully and you’ll see a sharp mind behind all the silk and ribbons.”

She was not convinced, but did not argue.

“We got to talking, and he told me he was headed for Yunmeng to hunt down ‘the greatest master of embroidery alive, the Crane in the Mist!’” He said the last with obvious delight. Yanli looked up at him and stuck out her tongue. He broke out in laughter. “His guard caught up with us nearly six days later, but by that time we were on the edge of Yunmeng, and they are all wrapped around the young master’s little finger anyway, so did not dare stop him.”

“Why did it take so long? They were on swords—I mean, sabers, and you were walking.”

“Because innocent little Sang’er paid a fleet-footed look-alike to go in the opposite direction.”

“No!” She giggled.

“As I said, those silks and ribbons are a good distraction. I’m surprised his brother has not chained him to the wall.”

They both laughed, and continued working in silence. Even after the trauma of the last couple of days and with a bunch of bodies piled like cordwood in the yard, she felt more at peace than she had been for a while.

Given the bodies, though, she wondered where they might actually eat, as their main hall was not stately enough to hold fifteen people with the doors slid shut. Nie Huaisang, however, merrily told her that his retinue had spent the afternoon carting the dead bodies up with them on their sabers and dropping them into the Burial Mounds. She went out to see that the courtyard had been put back in order, with a few Nie raking sand over spots of blood like it was something they did every day, and two others cutting down the dead pear tree.

“They might end up as fierce corpses, but at least they will be locked out of the way. I have such great ideas!” he said, fanning himself with satisfaction. Nie Zonghui visibly restrained himself from rolling his eyes, by which Yanli took to mean it had actually been his idea.

“I doubt that. The array shredded their souls as it yanked them into the Burial Mounds. What was left of them was eaten by several hungry ghosts, I think,” Ying'er said with a shrug from where he was sitting up once more. He was groggy and grumpy, but entirely himself, which of course meant horrifying all the cultivators around him with his casual references to the power of the Burial Mounds and hungry, soul-eating ghosts.

“Did you plan that?” Nie Huaisang asked, slowly lowering his fan from his face in shock.

Ying'er rubbed the side of his nose. “Not…exactly?”

“Ying’er,” A’Yao said, pressing fingers against his temples. “What have we said about theory versus application?”

“‘Ask JieJie first’?”

“Yes!” A’Yao huffed in annoyance.

Ying'er turned his grumpiness on A’Yao with a fierce glare. “Well, you weren’t here to make sure I did that! So you can’t complain! You just went off and abandoned us!”

“Yeah!” A’Cheng chimed in.

“Right, then, let’s set up for eating,” she said, physically pushing the Nie away from that corner of the main hall to let the three of them hash out their anger and frustrations with each other. At least they had a lot of practice with it.