When Wei Ying gets the door open and approaches, Wangji kicks him hard in the chest. Not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to force him back. "Go away."

(Wangji can neither kick nor support his weight with the broken leg, so this maneuver requires hanging his weight from his battered wrists. Blood trickles sluggishly down his arms.)

He doesn't need to re-enter kicking range to do this.  He tries the first of his slicing talismans on the chains, though he doesn't expect it to work, when he hasn't even tried to do anything about the resentful energy yet.  Still, if he can avoid using demonic cultivation this early, that's better.

"Have I ever been that easy to talk out of something?"

Seriously, he's been pestering this man since the first evening of the Lan lecture, has Lan Zhan forgotten who he's dealing with.

Slicing talisman indeed does not work. The chains shiver and then burn colder as the magic dissipates. 

"Wei Ying, stop. My clan - they will kill the survivors you must stop."

"Fine."

It would hurt Lan Zhan too much to lose the rest of the Lan clan.  He should have fought Wen Chao instead. 

"The Wen clan will not get away with their crimes.". 

He says this with much certainty, even for Wei Wuxian.

Deep breath. "Wei Ying, how did you get here? You must leave."

"I walked in.  After making a diversion.  You're right, though, I should probably leave.  The situation up there is probably pretty interesting by now!"

Maybe even interesting enough for him to slip out unnoticed in the chaos.

He turns and begins to leave, taking a moment to put the bars back how they were.

C o n c e r n.

But relief, so much relief. This might be the first time Wei Ying has ever listened to him about not doing a thing. "Be careful."

He is being very careful, really!

"Don't worry about me."

He walks back up to the next level to see what's happening there.

There's some commotion, scuffling at the foot of the stairs and half inside one of the cells. Most of the noise seems to be coming from the floor above, though. There's a lot of yelling and banging coming from the floor above. It smells like smoke.

He finds an empty cell to hide in the back of and sends a paperman to check out the floor above.

There's a lot of fighting, and a lot of confused and/or drunk soldiers running around trying to figure out where the fighting is coming from, and also something in one of the rooms seems to be on fire. There are bodies on the ground, both guards and prisoners, some of them still breathing. Judging from the number of people visible, it looks like at half or more of the prisoners succeeded in at least making it out of the building

Wow he successfully caused them so much trouble.  Where's the nearest dead guard, can he get to them and steal some of their stuff so that he looks plausibly like another confused guard and leave?

He can! He will be noticed, but other guards are preoccupied with the prisoners that are actively attacking and will not waste time trying to stab him. He can slip out through the commotion.

He takes the guards armor and slips out.  He heads away from the visitors rooms, then removes everything he stole from the guard and begins making his way carefully back towards the house he's supposed to be in right now.

Everything is very peaceful over here. The guards outside his house are turned towards the white fortress, squinting up at it. They heard some of the commotion.

He sneaks around behind the houses like he did before, and slips in through the window.  Once inside, he heads to bed, hoping Jiang Cheng didn't wake up and notice his absence.

Jiang Cheng has definitely noticed his absence.  He is sitting on his own bed with his arms crossed, and immediately walks towards Wei Wuxian as soon as he's inside.  

"What were you doing?  We haven't even been here a full day yet and you're already getting into trouble!" He keeps his voice to a whisper, not wanting to attract attention.  

"I was just going for a walk! No one even noticed me!"

Neither of these things are true.  He's pretty sure he wasn't recognized though.

"Go to bed," he says flatly, arms still crossed.  It was one thing to get into mischief when they were in Cloud Recesses.  If he's caught here he's going to wind up hurt.

"I was already going to bed!"

He sleeps peacefully until awoken in the morning.

Morning arrives with some loud knocking!

The guards knock on the door until a Jiang disciple answers. They announce that all the disciples have half an hour to report to the plaza below the White Flame Fortress for Indoctrination. When asked, the guards clarify that the White Flame Fortress is the white pyramid building.

Jiang Cheng will make sure all of the other Jiang disciples are up and have plenty of time to get ready.  They can form into nice orderly rows that won't cause anyone to get into trouble with their Wen captors.

Wei Wuxian cooperates with the nice orderly rows.  He remembers to grab Suibian this time.

The guards will lead them to the White Flame Fortress plaza. The Jin Clan delegation is already assembled in neat rows behind Jin Zixuan. The Nie Clan have yet to arrive. There is no sign of Lan Wangji, of course.