(Oh no her disheveled hair is cute oh no Oh No panic)

"Are you ready?"

"Yep. A-NING! QING-JIE! LAN ZHAN'S HERE!" 

"We're right here A-Ying, you don't need to shout!" calls a voice from the next room.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning appear in the doorway behind her, both more neatly presented. "Lan-guniang, good morning. We are ready."

Nod.

She waits for them to step out of the guest house before turning and leading the way through Cloud Recesses to its gates.

And when they pass through the gates Wen Ying grins and rolls her shoulders and does a cartwheel and yells whatever the ancient Chinese equivalent of "OLLY-OLLY-ENFREE!" is. 

"No more rules," she says, bouncing on her toes and grinning at Lan Zhan. "I tell you, it's a lot less obnoxious to have to obey way too many rules than to have to step lightly around Wen Ruohan's idiot ego but it was still starting to chafe." 

"Remain decent."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to take off my clothes, Lan Zhan. But I do want to stop in town before we leave Gusu entirely, I have heard amazing things about the local Emperor's Smile liquor and it's not like I could try it before now." 

Lan Zhan is too busy not reacting to the notion of Wen Ying taking of her clothes to object to this plan.

"Which town are we passing through? Where are we going?"

Focus. "Pass through Caiyi Town. Acquire a boat. The Yin Iron wants to travel Southwest."

"--Wants to? Wants like how. Should we be giving that thing things that it wants." 

"Wanting to reconnect with its other parts. Our shard responded to movement in that direction."

"Oh. Okay, that makes sense. Just--wanting to be careful." She shivers. 

Nod. It's good to be careful, although Lan Zhan is indignant that Wen Ying thinks she would just allow the Yin Iron to compel her towards its bidding.

It not a very long walk downhill from Cloud Recesses to Caiyi Town. As they move through the cheery town streets towards Biling Lake, they will pass many vendors selling food, trinkets, and alcohol.

Wen Ying finds a shop selling Emperor's Smile and disappears inside, coming back out a few minutes later with whatever she purchased stowed discreetly in her sleeves. 

Lan Zhan is occupied with purchasing a boat. They can all file onto it, no questions asked about the contents of anyone's sleeves.

Wen Ying immediately occupies herself trailing her fingertips in the water and admiring the fish and water plants. 

"Gusu is truly beautiful," she sighs. 

"I think that the fish are cute! Do you like the fish, Ying-jie?"

"They're so cute!!! The bunnies inside the cave were even cuter, though." 

"Am I ever going to get to see the bunnies too?"

"Hey Lan Zhan when this is all over can we show A-Ning the bunnies???"

"Yes."

"Oh, th- thank you, Lan-guniang! Qishan doesn't have any bunnies."

Nod.

"Next time I won't promise to follow all the rules and then I won't have to worry about the bunnies counting as pets. Jiang Cheng couldn't bring his dogs, he was sad about it."