"I could have helped! Maybe none of this would have happened at all." 

Lan Zhan scrubs too hard and a shallow wound reopens, a wisp of blood swirling up through the water. She stops.

"They were going to kill everyone. You could not have helped."

"Okay. Um, I told Jiang Cheng we'd found something horrible, I told Meng Yao and Sect Leader Nie you'd been a prisoner but not, uh, what that entailed, I didn't think you'd want anyone to know."

"Mm.

I do not want you to know. I hate - "

She looks away, her stomach twisting.

"Lan Zhan, you can't think I'd look at you any differently because of this, can you? I would never! You just need things right now. I--I spent some time on the street between my parents dying and Uncle Jiang finding me, and I got hurt really badly by some dogs and now I'm terrified of them. And you don't see me any differently because you know that, right? I can make sure no man ever lays a hand on you again if you want and you can chase dogs away from me but you're still Lan Zhan and I'm still Wei Ying, okay?"

Oh.

"Mm," she says, and then she leans out of the bath to rest her head back on Wei Ying's shoulder.

Slowly, cautiously, she wraps her arm around Lan Zhan's shoulders.

She only pulls away when she notices herself on the verge of falling asleep again. Goes back to quietly washing herself.

"You talked to Sect Leader Nie.

Had he - heard anything?"

"About your sect? No."

"I'm sorry."

"Brother... is missing."

"Okay, well, knowing the Wens, if they had him they would immediately and loudly brag about it, so..."

If he were alive and well, he would've told Nie Mingjue.

Wei Ying, not being privy to this thought, is left to resort to awkward shoulder-patting.

She finishes bathing. Is there anything other than Wen guard clothes that she could change back into?

They provided a set of spare robes when they prepared the bath, or she could borrow something from Wei Ying, who hadn't bothered unpacking her sleeves before rescuing Lan Zhan and so actually has a bunch of her stuff with her.

She'll take the spare robes for now. Dressing goes a lot more smoothly than undressing, and soon she's ready to see the healer.

The healer tsks and puts her leg in a splint and gives her topical medicine for the bruises and oral medicine to speed the healing bone. 

Lan Zhan thanks her. She parts her robes in the appropriate places to facilitate bruise treatments, in the process revealing a few wounds that could probably use some bandaging. 

She does not look at Wei Ying. 

The healer bandages the wounds that come to her attention. Wei Ying rests a hand on Lan Zhan's shoulder comfortingly and ponders whether it would be better to remove Wen Chao's cock in little pieces, or all in one piece and then beat him with it. 

Lan Zhan thanks the healer for her work when she finishes.

"I didn't know your leg was broken when I suggested flying off like that," she says when the healer is gone. 

"I know. It was a good plan."

"Well, it worked. I just wish you hadn't had to carry your own weight on the sword that long."