"--If I or any of the other Jiang disciples are in danger I do need to know--"

"No, I'm the only Jiang disciple who came who's a pretty girl." 

"There are no non-concerning ways to interpret that sentence." 

"It's really concerning." 

"Fuck. If you die I'll never forgive you, you know that, right?"

"I know, A-Cheng. I'll be careful, I promise." 

"You'd better be." 

She nods, and writes her note, and flicks a random blank piece of paper out the window. 

A moment later, Lan Zhan bursts in through the same window. She wraps her arms around Wei Ying and pulls her close, in a very convincing violent-kidnapping manner, and drags her onto Wen Chao's sword. This is a maneuver where she cannot avoid putting weight on her broken leg, but she prepared for this and concentrates very hard and does not collapse.

They zoom out the window and away into the sunset.

Predictably this causes a lot of chaos! Some Wens take off after them. Some want to interrogate the remaining Jiang disciples. Jiang Cheng delivers his lines with a straight face and hands over the note. 

"I think we've lost the last of our pursuers," Wei Ying says, a while later, and stops thrashing in a way designed to look as much like genuine unwilling-kidnappee struggle as possible without actually making it harder for Lan Zhan to hold onto her. "I can take over for a while, if you want, and either way we can start in the direction of Qinghe now."

Lan Zhan highly appreciates this offer because she has been consciously preventing herself from fainting for the past few miles. "Mn," she affirms. The moment she tries to let go of Wei Ying, her knees buckle.

Wei Ying catches her. "Ah! Lan Zhan!" 

"Mm," she mumbles. This is intended to convey 'I'm fine,' but it doesn't do a good job.

Being caught by Wei Ying was pretty great, though, and it means she's being held again. Being held by Wei Ying is the ideal state of affairs. Quite possibly worth the broken leg.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, I've never been more glad to be a girl in my life, if I was a boy you probably couldn't stand to touch me right now," she sighs. 

She may or may not start crying. It might just be from the wind, flying through the air so fast atop a sword. It's probably that.

It is - good. It is good that Wei Ying is willing to touch her. Wei Ying doesn't care that Lan Zhan is unmarriageable because Wei Ying is a girl, and Wei Ying has no interest in marriage anyway, and - that's good. Those are good things.

She holds on to Wei Ying's shoulders and lets Wei Ying hold her up and may or may not cry into her shoulder, just a little bit.

Wei Ying holds her and steers the sword and fantasizes about all the pain and suffering and violence she's going to inflict on Wen Chao when they don't have a use for him alive anymore and pets her hair. This is slightly complicated by the wind throwing it around but never let it be said that Wei Ying is not adaptable. 

The hairpetting doesn't help the crying at all, but it does make her feel better. A lot better. No one has stroked her hair since she was a child.

Cling.

Even though Qishan and Qinghe are comparatively close together, it's still hours and hours from Nightless City to the Unclean Realm. Lan Zhan can spend that whole time being held and hairpetted if she wants.

She wants. She intermittently dozes off, which is okay, because Wei Ying is holding her and she will not fall. 

It's not enough sleep to not still be exhausted when they finally reach Qinghe, after night has fallen, but it's something. She attempts to remember how to have legs as Wei Ying angles them down towards the ground.

...How...do they get inside...without Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang with them. Hm. On the one hand, she COULD try yelling really loudly, but on the other hand, that might disturb the adorable dozy Lan Zhan on her shoulder, and that would be terrible. 

She settles for dumping Wen Chao unceremoniously on the ground and lighting a fire talisman and waving it around until someone sees. 

Being enabled to remain curled against Wei Ying's shoulder makes it a lot harder to persist in Trying To Leg, so maybe she will just... keep being adorably dozy on her shoulder after all.

And a short while later -

He doesn't know what he expected when he saw the fire talisman outside the gates, but it certainly wasn't this. Whatever this is. "Wei-guniang?"

"Hi! Stuff happened. We had to flee Nightless City. This seemed like the safest place to go. Can we hide here for a while? We brought Wen Chao, he might know something interesting about his father's plans." 

He bows. "You have an exceptional way of bringing interesting prisoners to the Unclean Realm, Wei-guniang. Sect Leader Nie will be appreciative. I must ask, has Huaisang been hurt in whatever events drove you to flee?"