"Whaat?"

"The Yin Iron."

His lips twitch and his eyes widen comically. "I have no idea what you mean! I'm not a petty thief, Lan-guniang. Iron or gold, I didn't touch any of it!

"Somehow, I don't expect him to start cooperating now. Might as well just search him and have done with it." She starts patting him down. 

He smirks. 

She is Looking Away.

"Aw, Wei-guniang, don't throw away your marriageability on my account. Xiao Xingchen, you must cover your eyes!"

"Joke's on you, I don't wanna get married anyway," she says, still searching. 

Well, it's not like that ever would have happened anyway. There's nothing to be bothered about, here.

At all.

Wei Ying won't find anything on him.

She huffs, annoyed. "He doesn't have it on him. Lan Zhan, can you use your piece to figure out where his is?"

"No need. It hasn't reacted since we arrived."

"Ugh. Hmm...he must be pretty confident we won't find it, he isn't acting concerned at all. So, it's probably somewhere someone respectable wouldn't think to look...let's look around to see if it's on any of the bodies or in a privy or something." 

They look. They don't find it anywhere, despite the abundance of upsetting corpses to search through. Lan Zhan's shard of the Yin Iron continues to remain silent.

This is frustrating.

Xue Yang is incredibly frustrating. 

"Any other ideas for where it might be?"

She looks around unhappily. It has to be here somewhere. The Yin Iron was clearly used on these people before they died, and it had not yet been very long since Xue Yang slaughtered them...

Before they can finish contemplating this, some new arrivals appear at the gates.

"Wei-guniang! Jiang-xiong!" A small delegation of sect members follow Nie Huaisang into the Chang house, gazing around at the bodies in horror. 

"Ah! Nie-xiong!"

"Wei-guniang, I came as fast as I could..." He winces at all the bodies. "You... what happened here?"

She turns around to look behind them at Xue Yang still tied up in the main house. 

Nie Huaisang's companion bows to all of them. "Clan Leader Nie was worried after your safety. He sent me to meet you."

He turns and bows again to Lan Zhan specifically. "Clan Leader Nie received Clan Leader Lan's letter. Please come to Qinghe to discuss it with him."

"My brother's letter? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing significant. Please come with me, Lan-guniang; Clan Leader Nie is waiting to discuss with you."