"No, never." She'd never met anyone who was so good and smart and elegant and charmed by adorable bunnies before. 

“Are you going to get engaged to Lan-guniang, Er-jie?”

"I wish. She probably wants someone who's a boy and, you know, not a Wen." 

“Maybe.”

The lantern festival marks the closing of the lecture as well as the summer.

Within a week, the leaders of other sects arrive. They come officially to collect their disciples and, much less officially, meet with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen about the Yin Iron.

The talk is...more productive than it isn't. Everyone agrees that Someone Should Do Something about the Yin Iron, and maybe the Wens, but nobody except Nie Mingjue is all that enthusiastic about doing anything proactive about the latter, although everyone agrees to be on alert for Wen misbehavior. The Lans are given blanket permission to do whatever is necessary with the Yin Iron, which is...nice? 

After having to deal with Sect Leader Jiang and Sect Leader Jin, (who are, in Nie Mingjue's words, "a spineless, conflict avoidant twit" and [swearwords redacted for lack of compliance with the rules of Cloud recesses] respectively) the two younger sect leaders/secret boyfriends/open friends retire to the Hanshi for tea and unofficial diplomacy (which, unlike its close counterpart, gossip, is not forbidden in the Cloud Recesses) and makeouts. 

Lan Xichen tells Nie Mingjue about the three probably-not-evil Wens, and Nie Mingjue is skeptical until Lan Xichen fills him in on the details, at which point he agrees that there is at least a reasonable chance that they are non-evil as opposed to good actors, and also if so he likes the balls on Wen Ying (breaking through the wards and then handing over notes on it how to prevent that! Nice!)

Then makeouts go farther and there is much less discussion. 

The next morning Nie Mingjue goes off to see if Baxia has any opinions on the Wens and Lan Xichen goes off to find his little sister and tell her she's going questing for Yin Iron apparently.  

His little sister is very glad that she gets to do something helpful. Will she be going alone?

He's sure Wen Ying would love to go with her. 

And he thinks that that's a good idea?

He wouldn't suggest letting her be the one to carry the Yin Iron, but otherwise yes. 

What about the other Wens?

The vibe he gets from the Wen siblings is that you can trust or distrust them as a group but Wen Ying is the most proactive of them; if Lan Zhan wants to ask all three of them to come she's welcome to but Wen Qing might say no, whereas he's confident that if she approaches Wen Ying alone she'll say yes. 

Lan Zhan agrees with that assessment. 

Would Brother like for her to approach Wen Ying about this mission herself?

He can if she would rather.

(He has that much mercy, at least.)

Yes Please. Going on a quest with Wen Ying is terrifying enough without having to interact with her about it.

Meanwhile, Baxia has no immediate objections to the Wens.

In that case Nie Mingjue will simply loom ominously in their general vicinity for a little while and leave. 

"Huh. So that was Nie-gongxi's brother." 

"They are quite different, aren't they? But Chifeng-zun matches the stories."

"It seemed like he... really didn't like us." It felt angrier than the usual levels of dislike they receive from Non-Wens, but maybe that's just who Chifeng-zun is as a person and not because they'd done something specifically wrong.

"Yeah, uh, according to Nie-gongxi Wen Ruohan probably murdered their dad." 

Oh no...

"Do you think he would try to convince the Lans to execute us?"

"...Probably not? Nie-gongxi also said he cares a lot about justice." 

"Mhm. He didn't seem like he wanted to murder us either, I'm just... on edge. 

Even if we are permitted to depart Cloud Recesses smoothly, we will be returning to Qishan empty handed."