Right, yes, accepting the tribute. Is what he's doing. Xichen is an elegant and capable politician even in the face of eyes like that. He will absolutely continue accepting the tribute with only minimal hand-touching, this is very professional.

Very professional. This is the best interaction Meng Yao has had with anyone in at least the past year.

Nie Huaisang is doing his best to not pay attention to those two making eyes at each other next to him.  He's pretty sure he hadn't noticed it the first time.  This early and they were already doing it?

Lan Xichen is a good man, and hardly the only person to be swayed by Jin Guangyao's charms.  Hopefully Lan Xichen won't take it too badly when Jin Guangyao is taken down.  It's that or he'll inevitably get killed by one of Jin Guangyao's plots for power.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile to try and drive a wedge in right away, and remove his closest supporter?  Or maybe try to convince them to get closer - try and convince Meng Yao to instead stay at Cloud Recesses, and hope that the Unclean Realm and Da-ge were out of range of whatever Meng Yao wound up doing.  He'll have to think on it.  

Xichen returns to the dais with their tribute, and Nie Huaisang and Meng Yao are allowed to return to their seats.

It is announced that the Jiang Clan of Yumeng will now salute.

He heads to the center of the room.

"I am Jiang Cheng from the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng," he recites, beginning his hastily-memorized speech.  

In a shocking turn of events, he is about to be rudely interrupted.

Wen Chao strides into the Lan Clan Mansion with all his soldiers lined up behind him. His eyes glance over Jiang Cheng without recognition as he waits aggressively for the disciple to get out of his way, walking right up to him. Wen Chao sneers something about how difficult it was to get in through the gate. The two younger Wens behind him look much less enthusiastic.

Here she is. Very alive, very unenthused. One of her hands is anxiously tight around Wen Ning's arm beside her.

Here he is at her side. He's a lot of things right now, but certainly none of them are enthused.

Alive, is one of the things, although he should be dead, was just dead, dead and - something else, something blanker and colder and more painful than it had been while he was only dead - but apparently he's not. Somehow he's back in the Cloud Recesses with his sister beside him.

When Wen Ning stumbled and collapsed to the side of the road on their march to Gusu, shuddering and clutching his head, Wen Qing was very concerned. She did not seem to share his sense that he ought to be dead, or that either of them had just been prisoners, or that any other number of jumbled events had come to pass. 

Wen Ning is in his old body, a body that is fifteen and weak and doesn't yet know how to be angry. All the fear-rage-anguish-pain that has been unlocked within him since his death, such a significant piece of him since his death; that's all crammed inside this child-body that only knows how to repress and redirect and shy away from those feelings. It hurts. It feels like maybe he'll crack open.

With enough concentration (ow) (and he had never considered concentration his strength, particularly) he can pay attention to the people and places around him, the things that are happening. The things that are happening have already happened.

Wen Ning does not know what is going on and his only guess is that this is what they were trying to do when they drilled into his skull and everything went flat-cold-blank. He doesn't know why anyone would try to do this with him.

Jiang Cheng is shocked, though not for the reason everyone else is.  So he does have some manner of foreknowledge.  

He steps aside, the better to watch them.  Wen Qing, and the not-yet Ghost General.  

Nie Huaisang watches, saying nothing.  They're going to be pulling out swords soon, he knows, so he'll just prepare to stand back and out of any errant slashes.  

Even knowing that this was coming, it's an unpleasant shock to see them.

Those soldiers storming into Wangji's home. the home that they burned. Here they are, strutting among the disciples that they slaughtered - are going to slaughter - will slaughter unless Wangji prevents it, somehow - and Wangji sees the building in flames around them as they march, smells the blood and ash -

His hands tremble. He's unfocused. Wangji can't allow that; he can't defend Wei Ying or his brother or anyone if he's wavering like a child. He makes himself stop and tries to breathe. Tears his gaze away from the horrible Wen uniform and tries to refocus on faces.

Wen Chao is here, smug and arrogant as always, speaking rudely to Wangji's brother. Wangji had wanted to attack him the first time this happened, he remembers. He had started forwards, but stopped himself and looked to his brother. Xichen had signaled for him to stand down.

The urge to strike Wen Chao down now rages stronger tenfold. He can't. Wen Chao needs to die immediately but he can't kill him yet, unprepared to contend with the wrath of Wen Ruohan that would immediately crash down on his home.

Wen Qing is here, and Wen Ning. It's strange to see them again, and it hurts in a slightly different way. They both look young. They'd still been young, the last time he saw them. They had been young when he'd visited them in the Burial Mounds, when Wei Ying had looked at Wangji and begged him with his eyes to stay, and Lan Wangji had walked away from all of them. Left all of them to die.

Wangji focuses on breathing.

Wen Chao spends this time clarifying that he and his little army have come to escort Wen Qing and Wen Ning to Cloud Recesses, though not for any evident purpose.

"- besides, the Wen Clan is always teaching others. Surely we don't need your... lecture."

"In that case, why did Young Master Wen come here?"

That voice is -

He hadn't expected to ever see Young Master Wei again. Wei Wuxian looks so healthy and young and carefree: just... a happy child. Wen Ning doesn't remember noticing that when he first met him here, or thinking of Wei Wuxian as a child. He remembers being anxious and scared that anyone was talking back to Wen Chao, and wishing that the Young Master would stop and apologize before anything happened.

Now, Wen Ning sort of wants Wei Wuxian to keep talking. His voice is very grounding.

He does not want Wei Wuxian to keep talking!!! Because Wei Ying is provoking Wen Chao and one day Wen Chao is going to destroy him and Lan Wangji never found out how, he doesn't know how to prevent it - and too many people who need to be stabbed are currently unstabbed and this is all VERY BAD

"Perhaps they've come to learn how to tell time."

... strange, he doesn't remember Jiang Wanyin saying that. Nor anything similarly inflammatory. But it has been a long time. 

Wei Wuxian is surprised but delighted at Jiang Cheng's participation!! He must be feeling better; here they are working as a team already. Wei Wuxian laughs.

"And who the fuck are these pissants?"

"I'm not a pissant! I'm Wei Wuxian. Of the Yumeng Jiang Clan. You're late to the ceremony, you know; my brother, Jiang Cheng, was just in the middle of saluting. How could you come in shouting and yelling like a child? Is that what the Wen Clan teaches others?"

Very quickly a large number of blades are indeed being drawn, Wen Soldiers pouring into the room.

The disciples all draw their swords to face them.

Meng Yao does not have a sword. He moves quickly to stand in front of Nie Huaisang all the same. He might not be as much protection to Huaisang as an actual cultivator, but he's certainly more protection than Huaisang himself.

His sword is drawn, too!  Even if he won't be able to fight, he's not turning down an opportunity to posture angrily at Wen Chao.