Wen Chao reaches the fight, flanked by his own squad of guards.  This was going to just be a few cuts and welts - superficial enough - and a day of unpleasant labor.  Now, he's going to need to up the punishment and make a proper example out of them for the others.  Not that he has a problem with that.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are quite outnumbered now.  "Grab their arms and pin them already!" he shouts to the guards, waving his sword around menacingly.

This takes some effort. Lan Wangji is fast, but when someone strikes their whip over his broken leg he collapses.

Grabbing Wei Wuxian is a lot more difficult because he does not have any convenient broken limbs and he is also very... wiggly. One of the guards swears and tries to whack him over the head with his sheathed sword.

Have they forgotten his willingness to have absolutely no dignity? He throws himself on the ground and attempts to kick the striking guards legs out from under him.

There is a lot more cursing. Why is he like this!

He trips the one guard, but there are many more ready to try to stomp on him. He can dodge or trip some of these, but not all of them. Eventually someone aims another flying rope at his legs, yanking them tight, and several more jump on top of him.

They're probably going to throw him in a cell with a dog again.  Fuck.  He gives up on fighting and goes completely limp so that they have to work as hard as possible to carry him.

The guards find this highly obnoxious. They mutter angrily as they haul him up from the ground.

They hold both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian with their arms pinned and look to Wen Chao for further orders.

Jiang Cheng stands back and watches.  He hates this.  His fists clench tight as he tries to avoid joining in.  That would only get three people punished instead of two.  Jiang Cheng needs to take care of the other Lotus Pier disciples.

None of the others are helping the two of them fight either.  This is probably a good thing - Nevernight has more than enough forces lying in wait to quell the entire group of captives.  Even if their swords were with them, not being held in some unknown and distant part of the fortress, there wouldn't be hope of winning against all of the guards Nevernight has surrounded them with.  Where would they even go, weaponless in the heart of enemy territory?

He was expecting Wei Wuxian to vanish again at night.  That would have been dangerous enough.

Wen Chao is an idiot.  Jiang Cheng hopes that Wen Chao isn't enough of an idiot to actually start executions.

His opponents fully held, Wen Chao finally closes the distance and demands a whip from one of the watching guards.  Both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji receive a number of whip-strikes.  Blood is drawn.

Wen Chao shouts to the rest of the watching disciples, "Let this be a lesson to the rest of you as well.  The forces of Nevernight are superior to anything your undisciplined and savage sects can throw at us.  You have been brought here to learn how to be obedient.  I assure you that we have many different ways of teaching how to fall in line, for anyone else who is uninterested in the original lesson plan.

"Soldiers, take them to the dungeons."

The soldiers are relieved that they do not have to worry about keeping Wei Wuxian in line for the rest of the lesson; putting him in a dungeon is much better. 

Four guards split off to drag the troublemakers away. They will lead them out of sight around the pyramid, and then up to the dungeon entrance from there.

The whip hurt more than he expected. Wangji is disappointed that he was miscalibrated about that; it makes him wonder what else he underestimates. There’s blood on his lips and he feels like he might black out at any moment, but under the circumstances he is pretty composed. He didn’t scream or cry. Barely made any sound at all.

So. That’s good.

He focuses most of his attention on Wei Ying as they’re dragged off, trying to see whether he’s okay. The rest of his attention is on keeping his leg intact.

Wei Ying continues to be completely limp.  He doesn't seem to be reacting to anything in any way.  He's bleeding a little bit where one of them kicked him in the face while he was on the ground.

That is very alarming he is terrified. 

They are dragged into the dungeon and then down to the lower, more miserable level. They bring them to a pair of cells with bars in between them, so that one can see the other.

Wei Wuxian is tossed in the first one. They continue his lack of response to be a great sign and a considerable improvement, but they're not stupid enough to not still chain him up. Chains go around his wrists and neck and link him to the wall; the metal is resentful and unpleasant and stings at his spiritual energy. It's very cold.

Rope guard unties Wei Wuxian's legs to get his rope back.

Lan Wangji is staring fixedly at Wei Wuxian; the guards shove him backwards into the second cell and his leg buckles. His back smacks the stone floor.

That actually gets him to make a noise - not even especially quiet.

He drags in breath and focuses away from the pain, focuses on stay conscious. If he passes out, he won't be able to see what happens to Wei Ying. He has to keep track of Wei Ying.

The chains are quite familiar, at this point. He is grateful that this time they anchor him lower down so that he is not forced to stand.

The guards are relieved that this went so smoothly! One of them makes a rude gesture in Wei Wuxian's direction and then they all turn to go.

He remains completely limp until the guards are out of sight.  Once they're gone, he sits up and looks around.  He whispers, just loud enough that Lan Zhan can hear, "I'm fine."

He begins whistling quietly.

The whistling is a strange and pretty annoying choice, but it's not like he has any better suggestions for ways Wei Ying should spend his time.

(Silence. Silence would be better. But Wei Ying was just tortured so Wangji will be patient about this.)

He keeps whistling, focused on controlling the resentful energy the chains are covered in.

Chains: fairly resentful. They're designed for keeping cultivators tired and suppressed, not for being weapons, but enough resentful energy whispers through all the bitter metal on this floor of the dungeon that he could probably do some damage with it.

He wants the chains to detach from the walls so he can use them to attack the guards when they come down. 

The hook on the wall splinters. His chains land on the floor with a loud clank.

Concern??? "Wei Ying -"

He stops whistling.

"Lan Zhan? What's wrong?"

Possibly he should not have just started attempting demonic cultivation with Lan Zhan right there, but he doesn't want to stay in a dungeon.  Lan Zhan should understand this.

"What are you doing? Was that you?"

"Yeah? I'm breaking us out."

Maybe if he doesn't say it's demonic cultivation Lan Zhan won't guess.