37. Ladies Who Lunch

Nie Popo asked Meng Shi a few more questions, but nothing urgent came of it. Meng Shi had been undercover, serving as Madam Jiang’s maid servant, since her son had rescued her nearly a year ago (she did not specify where she had been rescued from, and Nie Popo did not ask), and had simply been at the right place at the right time to help Madam Jiang escape when the Wen attacked. Everyone knew there were a lot of holes in the story, but Nie Popo looked tired of the rigmarole and did not question her further.

Eventually they were also dismissed and Yanli gratefully took Meng Shi’s arm in hers as they retreated to their guest house. They entered to find their breakfast cleared away, but Liu Peng bowed respectfully and asked if “Sect Leader Wei and Madam Meng would like some refreshing tea?”

The three of them settled in the garden, and Yanli was getting ready to tell Meng Shi exactly what had been going on with them, but before sitting down, Meng Shi bowed deeply.

“Second Mother! Please, don’t! We are family, are we not?” Yanli tried to pull her up from her bow, while A’Cheng stood by the table, looking confused.

“Yes, and for that, this lowly one thanks Sect Leader Wei.”

“Oh, please—”

“You lived up to an agreement that you could have easily thrown over. Once you had my son away from Yunping, it was only your honor that kept you from disposing of him.” She finally stood up at Yanli’s urging.

“I gave you my oath,” Yanli said simply, slightly appalled by the use of ‘disposed’ and its implications.

“I have much cause not to trust the word of gentry.” Meng Shi smiled, the bitterness clear in the tight line of her lips.

“I cannot argue that, but I would remind you that we are family, Mother.”

A’Cheng took this moment to bow to Meng Shi. “Your name protected us, as other names did not.”

She smiled at him, a motherly expression that made A’Cheng flush like a little boy.

“Although I see you have moved on to another name, again?” She said with a sparkle in her eye.

Yanli groaned. “Yes! But I swear to you, this one is actually mine. You will find, though, that the name ‘Meng’ is highly respected in Yiling,” she offered.

“Hm.” She pulled a bag from her sleeves, and opened it, peering inside. She grabbed something and took it out, a simple, small box no bigger than her palm. “Then, as family, I have something to return to you, Wei Yanli, daughter of the Violet Spider.”

Curious, Yanli took the box and opened it, then nearly dropped it. Quietly cradled in a nest of dark blue silk, otherwise inert but still radiating spiritual power, was Zidian.

“JieJie?” A’Cheng asked, worried.

“Oh. Oh, Meng Shi. Mother.” She held the box and tears flowed down her face. She wasn’t sure who she meant, her birth mother or the mother who claimed her. Possibly both.

A’Cheng was behind her in an instant, staring over her shoulder (when did he get that tall?) to look inside the box. He seemed frozen in place.

Yanli pulled the hand chain from the box. It thrummed with power—too much power for her to wield with her soft golden core. But she had always known that.

She turned and took A’Cheng’s hand. He almost pulled away, but she held firm, and as soon as the ring was on his finger the rest of the piece came alive, slithering into place on his wrist, the enameled gold and amethyst jewels sparkling in the sunlight. He stared at it with his mouth ajar, minutely shaking his head as if in denial.

Yanli took his face in her hands. “Mother would want you to wear it. To use it. It is your birthright, as the son of the Violet Spider.”

He shook his head again. “It should be yours.”

“We both know why that cannot be.” She rested their foreheads together before taking a deep breath and stepping back, dropping her hands to her side. A’Cheng realized that something was about to happen, so he stood up straight, although he cradled the hand wearing Zidian with his other hand, as if afraid to drop it somehow. Yanli cleared her through, fighting off tears.

“Wei Cheng of the Yiling Wei sect, son of the Violet Spider and Wei Changze, my heir and head disciple, I charge you to command Zidian in the protection of your sect, your family, and innocent lives wherever you find them. May this weapon be a sign of your loyalty to your sect and clan, and may the gifting of it to you be a sign of our respect and loyalty to you. Do you accept?”

He squared his shoulders and brought his hands up in salute. “This Wei Cheng is honored by this duty! This one will endeavor to protect Yiling Wei to his dying day, Sect Leader Wei!”

“Then go forth! …and, uhm, maybe practice with it first?”

They both looked warily at the deadly weapon sitting innocently on his hand.

“I’m going to go see if Song Daoren can help,” A’Cheng announced.

“Yes, yes, that is a good idea.”

He gave them quick goodbyes and then jogged out, holding his arm in front of him.

“You stole that from Lotus Pier,” Yanli said to Meng Shi with a grin.

She gave her the exact same prissy expression A’Yao did when he refused to admit he was wrong about something. “I liberated it.”

“I am not certain Sect Leader Jiang would agree.” Yanli motioned for them to sit down.

“He is a smart man, but weak hearted and proud, which is always a dangerous combination. I suspect your mother kept him from his more foolish impulses.” She sighed, her opinion of him clear in the minute shake of her head. Yanli had to admit she was a little jealous of her elegant and effortlessly sophisticated mien.

“Poking around his correspondence, I discovered that Meishan Yu have been pestering him to return the weapon of the Violet Spider for years. He has kept it like a war prize, despite the fact that neither he nor any of his disciples can use it.”

The term ‘liberated’ suddenly sounded very, very accurate.

“It was a risk for you to take it.”

Meng Shi smiled, short of kind and edging into sharp. “Did my son ever tell you that he rescued me?”

“Yes, of course. We do not keep secrets from each other—but he did not provide details. He feared the long reach of Jin Guangshan, and spent many months on the run, risking his life to keep us all safe. I trust his judgment implicitly, and believe that if he thought I needed to know the details, he would have told me.”

Her smile turned fond. “I suspect it was more due to his modesty. It was quite an adventure, and I will make him tell you the tale one day. There I was in my room when another strange spider dropped out of the rafters!”

Yanli laughed, remembering Ying’er doing the same thing so many years ago. Meng Shi nodded. Such a refined woman never grinned but anyone could see that she wanted to.

“My son appeared out of thin air, a full-fledged cultivator, nearly a grown man, confident in himself in ways I never expected to live to see. I knew the reason for that was the frightened but determined young woman I met by chance at the Dragonfly Shoal. What risk was it to steal a trinket that was hers by right, compared to the risk she took on my son?”

Yanli wiped at her eyes. “Second Mother,” she said, her voice wobbly. She did not even know what she wanted to say. Meng Shi took her hands in hers.

“Sect Leader Jiang did not deserve you.”

Yanli took a deep breath, squeezing her fingers.

“Enough of worthless men!” She let go of Yanli’s hands and sat back. “Let us talk of my son…my sons. Tell me what has happened! How did you get to Gusu and then Qinghe?”

It was, as promised, a very long story, during which Meng Shi alternated between looking politely concerned to utterly horrified, and occasionally baffled. At the end of it, though, she asked the one question Yanli did not expect.

“Do you approve of the betrothal between Ying’er and that Lan boy?”

“Do I…what?”

“You are his elder sister, and sect leader. It is your right to terminate it, no matter the circumstances. That would be true even if he were a maiden with child.”

Yanli fought down a blush, but shook her head. “Ying’er is ecstatically happy with the match, and Lan Wangji is one of the finest young gentlemen of our generation. I cannot think of why I would disapprove.”

Meng Shi pursed her lips. “He is a Lan, though.”

“Yes, he is.” Yanli nodded in confusion. Meng Shi was acting like that was the worst thing about him.

“Lan have…a reputation.”

Yanli sorted through that statement for a moment. “Oh. Yes, I see. It is true that the Lan are hidebound and very strict, but I fully intend to have Lan Wangji marry in, as I cannot possibly lose any of my disciples at this point. I’m sure Grandmaster Lan will be displeased by that, and I don’t have much room to negotiate, but on the other hand, I do have Wei Ying, and Lan Wangji will follow him to the ends of the earth, I suspect.”

Meng Shi looked at her as if she had grown a third head. “You don’t know, do you? Your other mother never told you?” She frowned. “I suppose not, if you were not betrothed to one of them yourself.”

“This one is very confused by this conversation,” Yanli finally admitted after they had stared at each other for a while.

“The Lan are well known in the brothels. We never got many at…at my old workplace, but word gets around, in ways that would surprise most gentry men. They believe their money buys discretion along with our bodies and time.” She sighed heavily and sipped her tea for a moment. Yanli was too shocked by that news to say anything.

“They can be…shall we say, focused. When a Lan sets his eyes on a prize, he will die before letting it go. Occasionally, this has led to good luck for some girls, who end up getting bought out and married in. Other times, it has led to obsessive madness and unfortunate ends.” She peered at Yanli. “Grandmaster Lan did not tell you about the former Madam Lan, did he?”

An unpleasant chill ran down her spine. “I know only that she died a long time ago. Of a wasting illness, I think.”

“Yes, that is certainly the story the Lan want known. The truth is far murkier. I should say, the story is far murkier—no one but the dead woman herself could know the truth. You are aware that Sect Leader Lan is in permanent seclusion. Allow me to tell you what I’ve heard about why, from people who are in a place to know.”

It was a dreadful tale, one filled with mystery and tragedy. Meng Shi shared all the different speculations about it, from gentry tales of a wanton woman seducing a righteous man to the belief of many sisters in the brothels around Caiyi that Madam Lan had killed in self defense and been imprisoned for it by an obsessed stalker.

By the end of it, Yanli felt sick to her stomach. The incredibly spur-of-the-moment betrothal had seemed romantic, from one angle. Now, looking at it from another, she was horrified.

“I have to believe that Ying’er would at least tell me if he felt trapped,” she said, more to convince herself than anything.

“Perhaps. I do not know him as well as you do, obviously. But I will keep an eye on this young Lan he brings with him, I promise you,” she said with the air of a woman deciding how to butcher a pig.

Yanli nodded with a sense of relief she had not experienced in a long time. It was a weird feeling to know that an adult was at her back. She was nineteen and by all rights a full grown member of society, but she had spent the past four years trying to juggle her trauma, her grief, her brothers, and Meng Yao while hiding in the heart of the jianghu.

For all that her mother had been strong and taught her a lot about cultivation and running a household, Yanli had never thought that Yu Ziyuan ever supported her further than required by their roles: the madam of Lotus Pier and her daughter, the Young Mistress Jiang. As a person, Yanli felt like she had been left adrift since she was born.

She smiled gratefully at the woman she would formally claim as her mother, if she could.