"I will convey your regards to him; I know that Sect Leader Nie dearly appreciates you in turn. 

Please be safe, Zewu Jun."

He leaves. In the end, two Nie disciples go with him.

It would be really nice to kill all of the Wen occupying the Cloud Recesses right about now.

Sounds good. She's got some talismans she's been saving because they're too flashy to use while trying to hide. 

(Before he left she pressed two bundles of talismans into Meng Yao's hand; one is practical ones, for military purposes; the other are mostly-failures that don't have any particular real use but ought to make Wen Chao's life less pleasant.) 

They spend another four days planning, picking off guards and Wen soldiers, before they finally move. Most of them sneak in through the back hills, armed with their swords and arrows and Wei Ying's recent talismans, approaching the Wen regulatory office from the woods behind it, preparing to swarm all at once. They lie there in wait.

Then Lan Zhan walks directly up to the front gate and tears the Wen flag down.

Retaking the Cloud Recesses is not a bloodbath of the likes of when it was taken in the first place. Every Wen here, every death, is an enemy soldier and not an innocent, a bystander or someone just defending their home. 

What is left of Cloud Recesses does not burn further. The invaders are less lucky; the talismans that generate fire that burns flesh and nothing else are terrifyingly effective, and while she still hasn't hit resonant frequency of bone you really don't need that to give people a bad day that involves bleeding through the ears. People incapacitated by the sonic attacks have to be picked off by arrow or in the aftermath; she still hasn't worked out a good FoF for things like that. Groups bound tightly together and immobilized can be executed or imprisoned, that part isn't Wei Ying's lookout. 

It doesn't feel entirely real that they've succeeded, but they have. Lan Zhan feels victorious and furious, her blood cold and electric with the determination of battle. Her adrenaline still runs high, even long after the fight is over. They have won and she is angry and she would like nothing more than to storm Nightless City immediately. She will tear down those flags too, every single one.

Lan Zhan is victorious; Lan Zhan is also exhausted. 

For the first time since the burning, she walks through the wreckage of her home. She sees it still burning, in the corners of her eyes. She sees Lan bodies everywhere. She wishes there were still a real battle around her, more blades to dance between instead of thinking. She should rest her leg, now, but she would rather do sword drills until her mind goes blank.

She doesn't yet know whether her mother's house remained intact. She hasn't yet seen it.

Would Wei Ying like to go with her.

Yeah. Definitely. So much handsqueeze. 

It's intact. Mostly.

The walls are damaged, and the name sign torn down. The wood on one side is scorched, and the pretty greenery outside all trampled. The inside has presumably been ransacked.

But it's intact.

She kneels.

Wei Ying crouches next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. 

"Lan Zhan? What is this place?" 

"My mother was imprisoned here. Before she died."

??????

HUG. 

"Imprisoned?" 

"My father fell in love with a rogue cultivator. She killed his teacher, and the justice of my sect demanded her death. By marrying her, my father saved her life. By taking her to Gusu.

She did not want to go.

He built her this house, away from everyone. She was never allowed to leave."

"WOW OKAY that's terrible, I'm so sorry." Hug hug hug. 

"She never said she was unhappy."

"Why would she say that to you? It wasn't your fault, and you were her kid, she can't have wanted you to feel bad about it." 

"I loved my father for protecting her."

"Well, of course you did, you loved your mother. And parents are good at putting on a brave face for their kids. I don't know anything about what was going on, maybe she really could live with it okay, maybe she thought it was worth it, depending on why she killed that man. I just know that either way being locked away for the rest of your life is sad. And that...no matter what, I'm really glad you exist." 

Hugs. "I'm glad this place is mostly intact. It must hold a lot of memories."

Grateful hugs.

"She was not allowed to raise us. We were able to visit once a month. In my memory, she looks happy."

"--You didn't get to see your own mother more than once a month??? Wow in her position I would have escaped with my kids or died trying." 

So many hugs. 

"She should not have done that. Died trying. She would have died and I would never have known her."