"I tried to stop him. I could have tried harder; they weren't physically holding me back. I put my duties as sect leader above A-Zhan's well being and I've regretted it ever since. I won't let anything like that happen ever again." 

He sounds half determined and half ashamed. 

Yes. Nothing like that is ever going to fucking happen again.

She should really stop trying to picture what sort of punishments aren't going to happen to A-Zhan, and what A-Huan isn't going to have to watch. It isn't going to matter. 

"Is his lover someone we should also be trying to intervene?"

"Well. Yes, but not that you didn't already know about. There are a lot of people whose parents die. There's a reason Cangse-sanren and Wei Changze were second on my list of interferences after Meng Shi and her son." 

-- she laughs. "Really? Baby Wei Ying?" That's CUTE oh no.

"In the original timeline they didn't meet until they were fifteen! Significantly less baby!" 

"Okay, one, that is adorable, two, Jin Guangshan set a lynch mob on my baby? Meng-guniang, I have a solution to your problem of what to tell A-Yao. You don't have to explain that he isn't coming for you because he's evil, you can just tell him it's because he's dead." 

She glances nervously at Sun-guniang. "With respect, is that... safe, my lady?"

"If we are careful to do it without being seen, I don't think anyone will assume it was any of us the way they would assume it was me with my husband. The task itself would be difficult and dangerous, of course, but. It might be worth doing."

"It wouldn't be hard at all. I'd discreetly communicate that I wanted to sleep with him, don't let anybody know lest your wife find out etcetera, meet me at thus and such place and time, and then instead of fucking him, I'd stab him. They'd find the body there and think it was an offended husband." 

"-- okay, that's a very good plan. It still isn't not dangerous. Are you planning to do this right away?"

"Yes. Meng-guniang can dress up in my clothes and vaguely pretend to be a cultivator so that if anyone asks where I was the various villagers can say 'yes, a lady matching that description was right here when it happened,' that won't work as well if we've all been traveling together long enough that the fact that there are only two women in the group is noticeable." 

"Meng-guniang, are you willing to do that? We won't make you. It's understandable if you find this distressing."

"I... do not find the idea of his death more upsetting than the idea of who he truly is. If he is truly a danger and will continue to be one, it would be remiss of this one not to assist you."

She does feel sad about it, she thinks, but it feels like a large part of the sadness is the grief over who she thought he was. She can't tell if she still loves him. She doesn't want to. And she isn't used to killing as a path of action and it scares her, but these cultivator women are much more experienced than she is in such matters. It makes the most sense to trust their judgement.

The idea of pretending to be a cultivator is separately intimidating, but she's been intimidated by plenty of things before and still done them.

"He is very much a danger. I could write a whole treatise on the way Jin Guangshan has hurt and killed people, already and in the future that would have been. I don't know how much visible damage he would do, if he were left alone but the Wen situation was taken care of, but--he wouldn't stop using women and discarding them."

"I can't bring my children to Lanling."

She wants to help. The Lihua that Cangse-sanren knew seven years ago would be uncomplicatedly eager to help, excited to play a part in bringing Jin Guangshan down. The current Lihua feels like a nervous shadow of herself, and she knows that and she hates it but self awareness doesn't change the fact that she is unwilling. Unable.

"No, no, of course not, this'll work best if everyone but me is no nearer or farther from Lanling than they would be if that sack of wasted flesh hadn't been put down. Besides, Jin Guangshan would hand you and the kids over without batting an eye, just to make the Lan sect owe him a favor. Just help watch Wei Ying, alright? He can be kind of a handful." 

Yes she's very aware that Jin Guangshan would do that that's exactly why she would never EVER fucking go near -- 

Deep breath. She wasn't threatened and Cangse agrees with her, there is no justification for being so suddenly on edge. Lihua dips her head. "He seems lovely. I'll do my best."

"He is. He's my little baby A-Ying and I love him so much, you don't realize you can love someone that much until it happens. The Lan sect is lucky it was you and not me, when whatever it was happened; if they had sent someone to take my baby from me they wouldn't have gotten them back alive." 

Wei Changze puts a comforting arm around her shoulders. She leans into it. 

Does Cangse think she didn't try -- 

-- with A-Huan she had still been bleeding, she had passed out from the pain of trying to fight them, does Cangse think she had just invited them to -- 

And probably Cangse-sanren wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place, would she, wouldn't have gotten captured, because she would simply decline to let that happen.

It -- isn't worth being upset about. Cangse wasn't trying to insult her, and anyway Lihua had failed to keep her children, and.

"Mm," she manages. "I am going to check on A-Zhan."

"Good plan," she says, snuggling up against her husband who she married on purpose because she wanted him and who would never try to lock her up even a little bit. "I'm really glad you got out." 

"Mm." Yes it's very good time to leave this conversation now. 

How are the babies doing?

The babies are sprawled on the floor, lots of different tops spinning at once. Every time one of the tops stops, one of the babies reaches out and grabs it and sets it spinning again or, if the baby who grabbed it is Wei Ying, possibly handing it to A-Zhan and encouraging him to practice. 

"Mommy says you have to practice to get good at things. She says when I'm older I'll have to practice with a sword lots and lots before I'm any good at it. Mommy says when she was learning how to fly, one time she tried to go too high right away and fell off her sword and into a tree." 

Spin spin. He isn't very good at it yet but he can get the top to spin at least once before falling over. "Were there birds?"