52. Worst Party Ever

“Good. Now flip that piece over.”

“Ugh, that looks awful!”

“Patience. We have to keep that section out of the way. Now take these braids and twist them together—yes, like that.”

Yanli sat with her eyes closed while A’Cheng tugged at her hair.

“Oh, wait, I see what you’re doing. Hold on! Hand me that ribbon, that one, yeah. Can you put it through a hair needle? Hmmm. Now, let’s see.” There was more tugging and twisting and poking.

“My goodness, A’Cheng, you have a talent for design!” Meng Shi said admiringly. “The way you’ve coiled the ribbon through those curls is so elegant! The peach ribbon against her lovely black hair makes such a bold statement. Now, take that section and make twelve micro braids.”

Yanli sighed.

Her mother had, of course, made certain that Yanli always represented the epitome of a proper young gentry lady, but she had never been one to fuss over fashion or hair styles. Yanli had worn the same braided buns in her hair from the time she was a toddler up to the day she was thrown out of Lotus Pier. All of this time and energy on a hairstyle she would wear for a few hours at a banquet seemed excessive to her. She felt like an expensive horse being gussied up for exhibition.

“Sect Leader Wei! You are so pretty!” Liu Peng cooed from where she was holding the tray with all the grooming supplies that Meng Shi had requested as soon as Nie Huaisang had announced the victory banquet. The crow pyre had finally stopped burning, and Nie Mingjue was at the point where he could sit up for several hours—which was apparently all that his younger brother required of him for a party.

“She will be the prettiest lady in the room!” Meng Shi said proudly.

“I will probably be one of maybe three ladies in the room, Second Mother,” Yanli said with a trace of sarcasm. She could not compare to Meng Shi or Nie Popo, for vastly different reasons, and as far as she knew, none of the Nie generals were bringing their wives. She hoped they did, if only to keep the focus off of her. There were female Nie cultivators, of course, but they were disciples and would be dressed as such.

“JieJie is always the prettiest,” A’Cheng grumbled. He sounded angry, but Yanli knew that just meant he was concentrating hard, so she stayed quiet and still.

“Sect Leader Wei will be the most important lady in the room,” A’Yao said with deadly finality. Yanli glanced over at him in surprise to see him staring at her with a grin just short of vicious and a possessive gleam in his eyes that sent a wave of heat through her…regions. She looked away quickly.

“Mn,” Meng Shi hummed in smug agreement. Then she came around in front of Yanli and inspected her face. Yanli braced herself for face powder and eyeliner.

“You will not only be the most important lady in the room, but one of the few sect leaders in attendance. You must move with grace, but confidently. Do not mince your steps. You are not there to coddle their egos, as they assume most women are. No, they must pay you respect,” Meng Shi said, almost hissing the last word. “We are among friends, so this will be a good trial run for you to practice being a sect leader at a public gentry event.”

“I am a weak cultivator, and my sect consists of me and four family members,” Yanli said with a sigh as her cheeks got dusted with a soft pink-colored powder.

Meng Shi tsk’ed at her. “You cannot meet men on their own grounds. They are stronger and meaner, and do not respect any woman who isn’t their immediate family, sometimes not even then. Instead, remember that the more important a man is— the greater his ego—the more insecure he is underneath. Do not mock or tease, that will rile them up, but never hesitate to cut a fool down to size. Use your grace and your education and your keen mind to whittle their power away. They might hate you for it, but then, those are the ones who were never going to treat you as an equal, anyway.”

Yanli tried not to blink as kohl was added around her eyes, absorbing the advice that sounded not unlike things Madam Yu had said to her long ago. It was telling, she thought, that not a single man in the room disagreed with Meng Shi’s pronouncements or advice.

“Yes, Second Mother.”

Nie Huaisang had brought up a jeweler from the city and rented a whole cabinet of accessories for Yanli and her family to wear. It included beautiful silver guans with rubies and obsidian for A’Yao and the boys, and a mass of gorgeous hair pins for Yanli and Meng Shi. Everyone was resplendent in the formal outfits that Nie Huaisang had bought for them back in Caiyi, and that Yanli had decorated with peach oleander blossoms along the collars.

Somehow, Meng Shi had come out of her room decked out in similar colors. Her gown and robes, however, were distinctly Qinghe Nie in cut and style, and heavily embellished with silver embroidery and decorations of stylized beasts. (Yanli thought A’Yao was going to spit blood.)

They were all walking in together, at least. After five days of intense recovery, Wei Ying was mobile, although his scar from Zidian was still livid down his face and neck, his left hand was lightly bandaged, and his meridians a scorched mess (again). He tired quickly and was the image of the walking wounded, but he was, at least, walking.

A’Yao remained plagued with body aches and fatigue, so had spent the afternoon napping and getting a massage from one of the Nie healers to help him get through the banquet. He was also given a cane to assist when fatigue and balance became a problem, which he had sneered at but used as ordered (after Yanli and Meng Shi ganged up on him about it). The doctors had explained to Meng Shi, once she made it clear they were required to do so, that he was suffering something akin to severe arthritis, in that the natural flow of qi through his body was interrupted and it sometimes pooled toxically in his joints. They kept his core locked down as they did feverish research on how to repair it, if possible, but aside from the cane and “meditate and find inner peace,” the doctors’ advice was not particularly useful.

But, it was enough. The five of them walked over to a large hall normally used for indoor training. It had been turned into an ad hoc banquet room, the advantage being that it was elevated and had a wide, broad patio where Baxia could rest her head and keep a beady eye on her master. It was telling that most of the Nie, by and large, barely paid the massive beast as much attention as they would a horse.

They were greeted by Nie Huaisang and Nie Popo, looking more like an empress dowager than a Nie cultivator, as they were announced. It was a peculiar practice of the Nie, which Yanli had always thought unnecessarily ostentatious, and resulted in everyone already in the hall stopping to look their way when “the Yiling Wei Sect, led by Sect Leader Wei Yanli!” was shouted out to one and all.

Not “the Bastards of Yunmeng.” Not “a family of commoners from Yiling.”

A cultivation sect, however small, allied with two of the great sects of the jianghu.

She thought of how haughty and sharp her mother was in such situations (when she rarely attended them) and how blandly disinterested Jiang Fengmian had been—then decided to toss out all comparisons. She was Sect Leader Wei Yanli and had her own path to walk.

She kept her chin up smiled at everyone as she passed, tipping her head so the many dangling pins in her exuberant hairstyle jangled pleasantly in the face of all the shocked gentry and merchants who had, perhaps, expected her to walk with small steps and lowered eyes.

Once they had bowed to their host, who was sat up on a rustic throne on top of a makeshift dais and looking very grumpy about it, the event quickly became exactly like every other gentry banquet Yanli had been allowed to attend in her youth: boring, vapid, and dangerous. It turned out that all the minor sects in Qinghe and quite a few of the most prosperous merchants had been invited, so Yanli was just one of many ladies in the room, which suited her just fine. A’Yao stayed by her side, glaring at any man who tried to approach her, which made Meng Shi giggle.

There were eddies to the politics of Qinghe that she and A’Yao did not know about, but he was good enough at spotting them to keep Yanli from insulting anyone by mistake. A’Cheng and Ying’er stood behind her looking like the glorious young lordlings they were, and eventually got pulled away by some senior disciples of Nie. Yanli thought she heard something about “fire farting frogs” and decided to stop paying attention.

“Mother, did you hear—Mother?” A’Yao turned in a circle, then stopped with a growl.

Meng Shi was sitting prettily next to Nie Mingjue on the dais. The Yin Saber, fortunately, had loosened up enough to allow itself to be sheathed, warded, and propped up behind him, so he was leaning toward Meng Shi with a besotted expression on his face while she spoke softly to him, her mouth covered by a gorgeous fan that Yanli was pretty sure she had not been holding when they walked in earlier.

“Don’t they make a fine couple?” Nie Huaisang sighed extravagantly, appearing out of the crowd. “Not that you two aren’t a match! Yanli’jie, your hair is exquisite! What a daring use of ribbons! I’m sure you will be starting a new trend among the ladies.”

Meng Yao leaned in close, smiling violently and hissing like a cat. “If a betrothal contract is not on my desk by morning, I will have Nie Popo throw you off the western parapet.”

“Eeek!” Nie Huaisang leaned backwards, flapping his fan.

Yanli gently tugged A’Yao back to her side. “We look forward to beginning negotiations for the felicitous happiness between our sects,” she said with a slight—very slight—bow.

“Of course! Of course!” Nie Huaisang nodded fervently.

There was a slight commotion and a Nie guard sprinted around the side of the large room and up to the throne. Nie Huaisang immediately started muscling his way through the crowd, and Yanli followed him, pulling A’Yao with her. Tensions were still high from Wen Xu’s attack, so the chattering died down quickly. Meng Shi had stood aside when the guard approached, so Yanli went to stand next to her. She was joined immediately by A’Yao and the boys.

No one felt any better about the situation when Nie Mingjue’s face went blank with shock. He nodded, and the guard sprinted off.

“A’Jue, what is going on?” Nie Popo stepped up to the throne.

He shook his head and motioned toward the front entrance to the hall, waiting. The place had gone silent, save for the soft snoring of Baxia from the patio.

People parted way when two Nie cultivators appeared, supporting a Lan disciple who was bloody and dirty, his hair hanging greasy from an unkempt bun, struggling with a pronounced limp yet somehow walking mostly under his own power. Yanli gasped and Ying’er cried out in dismay, held back by A’Cheng’s tight grip.

When he got to the dais, the Lan shoved away the Nie who were helping him, rolled his shoulders back painfully, and bowed, his hands shaking so hard his sword rattled in its sheath.

“Gusu Lan has fallen,” Lan Qiren announced, wavering on his feet for a moment before collapsing.