“His action was no miracle cure to what had ailed us, but without it, nobody could’ve healed the wounds.”
Ye Xiyang’s tone was light still, but his words were serious. “I admit to having been amused at the start; I found it funny that the wulin could end up like this just because of one man’s actions. And it was a man I did not expect to cause such a wave, too. Having had the time to think it more, though, I understand. Both what you’d done, and what you’d done leading up to it. Something foul had run in the rivers of the wulin. Though you had brought it to light, it’s the responsibility of the wulin to clean their own waters.
“But I admit to having changed my opinions on the matter after having met you. Though initially I respected you for your boldness, now I admire you for your perseverance.”
Wan Yu understood now why Ye Xiyang would change so drastically after that fireside conversation. Turned out, being heard and understood was such a… dangerously addictive feeling.
Before he could find his words, though, he heard a set of knocks. Ye Xiyang, upon hearing it, said, “Well, it’s time for a meal now. Let’s continue there.”
They left the inner study and returned to the main room, where a familiar large table was brought in. Servants came in with trays of food in their hands, wave after wave; this was running counter to Wan Yu’s impression that Frozen Dragon Sect was an austere community. Then again, that word ought to have scrambled out of the window the second Wan Yu laid eyes on the clothes Ye Xiyang and Ru Ge wore— they each must’ve cost a small fortune. Ye Xiyang gestured at him to sit, and a servant came over to move the chair back for him. Wan Yu sat down feeling like he’d just eaten worms.
Ye Xiyang must’ve known, too. He could see it in his eyes.
There were far more dishes on the table than Immortal Master Ning Shan’s collection on Wan Yu’s pockets. Not knowing where to start or if he even ought to, Wan Yu sat there as Ye Xiyang smiled, nodding at someone bringing in a pot of tea.
“Why are you so nervous now?” Ye Xiyang said, smile halfway a smirk. Clacks of ceramic on the table; the cups were somewhat tall and sounded heavy, seemingly designed to retain heat for as long as possible. At last, this stream of people stopped, and they were left with the spread of meal on the table. Wan Yu was fairly certain, though, that there were guards here. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they were in hiding, like that guard in the study. “We’ve shared many a meal, haven’t we?”
Oh, this conversation was going straight to the sect’s elders, Wan Yu bet. “What, do you intend to repay my kindness then or are you trying to exact revenge here?”
In turn, Ye Xiyang picked up the shared chopsticks and clipped some of the dishes onto his bowl. “The spring festival is approaching, and the dishes served are intended to encompass all five flavors so that people wouldn’t overindulge in just one. Though the dishes from this mountain are often sweet in nature, you should also try the others. Here, try this.”
Wan Yu wanted to kill this man. What were you doing to his reputation in this sect! He shouldn’t have one!
Nowhere was it mentioned that Ye Xiyang was the kind of demonic faction perverse lunatic who would serve food to others; instead, given the solemn seriousness with which this sect viewed their Supreme Leader, people here would think of him as… most honored guest. Typically Wan Yu would enjoy the mischief of a good act, but here, in this place, he felt like it would birth more trouble than it was worth— if rumors about this supposed amicable relationship spread, he could be screwed.
Ye Xiyang seemed to notice his thoughts. "You're thinking too much. What happens here stays here; my personal guards are not chattering warblers. Though these dishes are kept warm by the embers, I do suggest you don't dally too much— the soup will cool sooner than later. It'd be a sad waste of coal."
“How rich, coming from you,” Wan Yu muttered under his breath. Regardless of his grumbling, they both settled down to eat.
____
The meal was delicious. Especially after weeks and months eating what was available on the road, it was beyond a reprieve— it was a gift from above. But even so, Quan Su stared out into the gardens with a sense of tense boredom, wondering when she'd be free from this.
When Ye Xiyang said to take her to the gardens, Quan Su thought she'd be, in essence, even if unintentionally, left out to die of exposure. The chill of this mountain was like a drill, and it stung her to the bones. But it turned out that the aforementioned garden was another section of the compound, complete with an array of decorated rooms, and the courtyard was full of spring green seen nowhere else in this general region. Here, the cold seemed to be held back at the door, leaving space for warmth to settle. It was nowhere near the warmth of a southern spring, but admirable nonetheless; it felt like a spring. Some exotic flowers crept up the trunk of an exotic tree, blooming in exotic shades. On any other occasion, Quan Su might be able to muster up some curiosity, but right now she was just apprehensive.
Her appetite was alive and well, but there was no joy to this food.
“The young miss, is the food not to your liking?” the young woman who served the food said. Quan Su frowned in discomfort.
“It’s fine,” she mumbled.
The servant lady opened her mouth to say something, but she closed it without a word. Before long, they both caught the sound of multiple footsteps approaching. The servant went out to check, but what came back was bad news: Shi Ze. He was the bad news.
That wasn’t entirely fair. Quan Su had a good impression of him, but in the end he was affiliated with this sect, and she couldn’t ascertain the level of danger Frozen Dragon Sect might bring to Wan Yu in the future. Right now, it seemed that Ye Xiyang didn’t have any enmity towards him. But what about later? The thing she hated the most was having hope, because there was always the possibility of being let down. She had already staked it on trusting Wan Yu; she had no more left for anyone else.
Quan Su liked safe bets. He was not one.
Shi Ze was dressed in black; not much different from what he was wearing back then, but under the sunlight, it did have a degree more dignity than usually associated with him. The fact that they weren’t in the rain anymore helped. He looked less like a giant drenched rat. "Hey, Xiao Su, what brought you and Wan-gege here?"
She shrugged. "Dunno."
“I thought we weren’t gonna see you guys ever again,” he sighed. “Supreme Leader made it sound like we’ve cut all ties. I don’t really see why. Are you enjoying your meal?”
That’s because he didn’t imagine Gege would contact him… What was he thinking, anyway? But she didn’t voice that. She didn’t know why either, after all. “It’s fine.”
That made him frown. “Just fine?” As if offended, he turned to look at the servant, who now looked uncomfortable. “Do you not like fish? We have lamb and chicken too, which one do you like more, just tell me.”
Eyebrows furrowing in growing frustration, Quan Su’s words grew clipped. “It’s fine.”
Shi Ze huffed. Walking over to the edge of the raised hallway platform, he squatted, facing the gardens. “Fine. Why are you so annoyed now?”
As she chewed on her food, she also chewed on her words. Quan Su couldn’t read, had no education, but that didn’t mean she had no brains. The first thing she wanted to say was, of course, that Ye Xiyang was the one who started this— it was something he did that made Wan Yu like this. She understood, though, that this wasn’t something she shouldn’t disclose. First was that she doubted Shi Ze understood the nuances of anything, frankly. If she said something here and he couldn’t see her perspective and get angry? If what she said got brought over to someone high up in Frozen Dragon Sect because this servant was, if not by orders then by allegiance, compelled to report it? So she said, “Because Gege dragged me all the way here.”
“Aah.”
And just like that, the two of them were silent as they stared at the plants in the garden.
____
As they slowly grew full, the meal became less of a focus and their interest returned back to the dropped talk. “That can’t be all you came for,” Ye Xiyang said. “Unless, of course, my reassurances bring you peace of mind, to which I can only be grateful.”
Wan Yu, “......”
Yeah, he wasn’t gonna touch that one. Growing serious again, Wan Yu put down his chopsticks and, as if incognizant of their current activities, pulled out Silvergrass. Sheathed, still, but he placed it in front of him, on the table, in the gaps between the plates. No sounds from outside; guards weren’t alerted. Ye Xiyang looked intrigued. It said two things Wan Yu wasn’t sure how he felt about.
“Ah? You want to negotiate something?”
“One thing,” Wan Yu said. “If something happens to me. You can have Silvergrass. The only thing in return is that you get Xiao Su to my sister.”
Ye Xiyang raised an eyebrow. “Yun Zisu?”
“I have an adoptive elder sister and mother at the foot of the mountain I grew up in.” Wan Yu reached forward to unsheathe part of Silvergrass, checking it. It did not budge. Frowning, he tried again, but it still wouldn't come out. In the end, he let go. "With your stalking skills, I'm sure you'll find that out in no time."
Ye Xiyang reached out for Silvergrass, too, a glint of fascination in his eyes. When his fingertips touched the wooden scabbard, Silvergrass moved away ever so slightly. "Its spirit is formed already?"
Wan Yu's eyebrows rose. "Is that surprise I see?"
"Your Silvergrass refused to come out of its sheath when it was in my possession," Ye Xiyang explained. He retracted his hand, though not his gaze. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't know it was further along than just that."
It wasn't strange for personal swords to display signs of its forming spirit; within a decade, for example, many would only function for its owner. Swing it all you want, but if you weren’t its owner, it would be nothing more than a normal iron sword, if not an outright deadweight. But for a sword to express a will of its own, even if it was in the form of a refusal to its master, that tended to be in the realm of half a century, give or take a decade or two. Traditionally, sword spirits form in a hundred years. Silvergrass was at most two decades old.
"It wasn't, at least not as far as I remember," Wan Yu admitted. "It's never been a picky sword. I don't know why it's throwing a tantrum now."
Ye Xiyang mulled it over as he finished the rice in his bowl. As he chewed, though, he thought he had a reasonable hypothesis. "It's possible that this formed because of your stunt."
Wan Yu raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Swords don't tend to like killing its own master," Ye Xiyang said. "It’s not too different from how big tragedies can mature a person quickly. It’s a guess, though. It can be looked into, if you'd like. We have cultivation scholars. I'm sure they'd be happy to have a reason to dive into the records."
"I don't have time for that. If you want to do that, wait for my death and do what you're supposed to do and you'll have free access to Silvergrass."
The sword knocked against the sides of multiple plates.
This time, Ye Xiyang chuckled. Reaching out, he put the knocked-around plates back to their original spots. "You've always been a bully, but I think bullying a sword is a bit much. Actually, I was about to offer a trade. If you accept it, I will help, ah, spirit away anyone related to you on the event of your death."
Wan Yu's lips thinned. "What is it?"
"You're pursuing the matter of the pearl, right?"
"Yes."
"Keep me informed, that will be my condition."
"What for?"
"What you did in that lifetime, it destabilized the wulin, and you know what happens then. Though there is definite value in that, it also meant the check between the two factions was essentially gone. You created a whole lot of work for me back then; the demonic faction sects all grew so bold, the mess rippled across the Central Plains. It's not ideal." Ye Xiyang took a sip of his tea. "What I intend to do now is, if you're proceeding with this, I'd like to destabilize the demonic faction alongside the wulin."
Silence, then Wan Yu let out a bark of a laugh. "Why, you're even more of a traitor to your faction than I am!"
Ye Xiyang smiled. "This designation of Frozen Dragon Sect has never served us. This sect of ours preferred to be outside of those faction matters— we want to be left alone. Being part of the demonic faction is taxing; their preferred method of keeping boundaries is violence. Our sect has always been fairly small. Injuries and death are a bigger problem than what it'd be in a sect like Demonic Harmony."
"You don't take outsiders in," Wan Yu mused.
"Only by marriage, we do."
"That'd limit your pool of seedlings all right." Wan Yu sighed. With tiredness in his bones, he reached out to put Silvergrass back. "I accept. But with the caveat that, so long as I feel like it, I can sever contact."
"Let's implement this in milestones," Ye Xiyang offered. "Consider this instead. Take the post-death matter as goodwill for our cooperation. Instead, let's trade information. For what you can give in regards to your movement in the wulin, I will exchange information I can gather regarding your pearl and relevant details."
That made Wan Yu think. It would be beyond helpful. Ye Xiyang had, after all, said he had cultivation scholars in the sect— those were unheard-of in the general cultivation circles, but someone had to preserve texts, dig into history, and manage minutiae even in this field. They were almost exclusively part of sects, often serving as librarians as well. While his shifu had passed down a library to Wan Yu, hidden in a secret dimension tucked away in that house of theirs, Wan Yu didn’t exactly have the sort of patience to go through them. More importantly, a number of texts were so old they were easily misinterpreted or nigh-unreadable.
“We’ll test this out,” Wan Yu said. “I agree to this. Do we have a deal?”
Ye Xiyang smiled. “We’ll draft the agreement after this, and have it sealed with blood. That sounds good?”
“Mm.”
What a life he lived now, Wan Yu mused. He was probably unrecognizable to his shifu now… His shifu was probably disappointed. Likely because of what Wan Yu was doing now, sure, but he thought that maybe part of the disappointment would be out of… how much Wan Yu had changed. That straightforward child was gone… Perhaps it was just him projecting. Sometimes, when Wan Yu looked back, he felt like he was grieving for someone lost. Except it was for himself: for the person he used to be, for the happier person he could’ve been. And very easily, these thoughts spiralled out of control: he grieved for the nephew he never got to see grow up, for Auntie Wang’s child who’d never remember Wan Yu used to take him out on night walks, for Xiao Mian who probably had already gotten married. And what would be left of him? Marred memories of less complicated days for Yun Zisu, maybe— the years their conversations seemed to feel nuanced when in fact it lacked the distinct bitterness of reality. Even that would’ve been soured, given what happened after. A sense of resignation for his jiejie? From the beginning, she already knew he would leave; he was her brother, but only until he was old enough to be taken away.
Or maybe his shifu fully expected this to happen. Maybe the real meaning of growing up was numbing your tongue until nothing that transpired on this red dust would leave an aftertaste.
Wan Yu let out an imperceptible sigh.
“If you don’t like the tea, speak up now. Someone will bring in some warming ginger drink if you do.”
Ye Xiyang’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “What? Oh. Sure, that’d be better.”
It wasn’t that Wan Yu didn’t like tea. But ginger something drinks sounded nicer in this weather. While he wasn’t at risk of freezing thanks to his cultivation, he was still pretty cold. “Xiao Su probably, too,” he added.
“She already had that,” Ye Xiyang said, tapping the table. “Before you ask, no, she’s not out in the freezing cold.”
Maybe the tap was magic or something, but it was audible to someone outside, and servants came in soon after to take away the dishes. A lot of them were largely untouched— truly, a waste of good damn food. After a quiet word from Ye Xiyang, someone later came in with the aforementioned drink, too, along with a plate of smaller snacks. Wan Yu had no idea what Ye Xiyang perceived his stomach as, but he suspected it was a material far more elastic than whatever constituted a human stomach.
Ye Xiyang might’ve caught his gaze. “It’s because snacks are made for the spring festival,” he explained. “It’s not my fault.”
Wan Yu, “......” What kind of sect leader are you, waiving responsibility over something as minute as snacks being served? Coward.
“I’m here at the same month as back then, aren’t I?” he asked as he picked up the hot cup of milky ginger drink. He could smell other spices from a sniff— they must’ve spent a lot of money procuring ingredients for this drink alone. “Was there less fanfare then or was it because I was a hostage?”
“It was because we hardly had the manpower to expend on making snacks and decorate the hallways,” Ye Xiyang answered. “News of your capture was a big break for many factions, but given that it was us who had you, we couldn’t exactly rest.”
Sighing, Wan Yu put down his cup. All his appetite was lost. “I’m a harbinger of ill, I know.”
“Ah, since when are you so easily disheartened?” The amusement in Ye Xiyang’s voice was superficial, unlike the past few times he’d smiled. “It is what it is. In any case, you have the chance to redo all of it, so why get so hung up on the past?”
Oh, he was going there, huh?
"Shi Ze was the one who kicked me, wasn't he?" Wan Yu mused, leaning forward. With both hands on the cup he looked almost childish, but his tone of seeking vengeance for the slightest of slights definitely was. "Shouldn't have helped that kid."
"I'm sure he'd give you an apology, if you ask for one," Ye Xiyang said, lips twitching. Wan Yu tch-ed.
"What's the point of an apology with no change in conscience? I don't want it."
"Fair enough," Ye Xiyang said, hiding a smile behind his cup.
That Shi Ze grew up to be such a cold person was yet another reminder of change, though. It made Wan Yu wonder what kind of person current Ye Xiyang was. It probably wasn’t this man in front of him. How much had 17 years changed Ye Xiyang? Was it as much as 17 years had changed Wan Yu?
They fell into a moment of companionable silence. Wan Yu’s appetite returned to him, and he took more deliberate sips of his drink now, appreciating its taste. The snacks laid out also had the soft, bright colors of spring; though he only ate two, the colors were appealing enough to keep drawing his eyes to it. It wasn’t fair, really. Wan Yu wasn’t that big of a sweet-tooth— he just always found them appealing, though after one or two bites he often had to call it a day. Maybe it was because he didn’t come across them often. In the months he stayed at Qunan he was saving up for this trip, and these kinds of cakes would put a definite dent on that fund.
Ye Xiyang rose. “All right then, let’s go to the study and get the agreement written out.” Then, after some consideration, “Bring the plates. Clearly you still want to eat.”
Wan Yu finished the rest of his cup as he rose too. Picking up the plates because he was shameless, he said as he followed him back to the study, “Shut your mouth. I’m scrawny, I can eat whatever I want if I want to.”
Outside, he heard a muffled cough.
“Oh. Turns out your folk can catch a cold, too,” Wan Yu commented. Ye Xiyang shot him an exasperated glance as he stood to the side, nodding at him to enter the side hallway first.
“Yes, especially if you keep giving them a reason to wheeze.”
The door closed behind them, then the curtains. If the two guards outside of the front doors gave any further reactions, well, it was lost to the boundaries between.
