It varies depending on the situation. She and her siblings have had tutors since their parents died and Wen Ruohan took them in. Disappointing their tutors never seemed...safe. At least in Gusu or Qinghe you know that any unpleasant consequences to failure have your ultimate well-being in mind. 

Insofar as being a good swordsman is actually good for your well-being, sure.

He's heard that Wen Ruohan is really scary! Is he worse than Lan Qiren? Uh, ah - no disrespect towards Grand Master Lan intended. Of course.

"I'm pretty sure even if I show lots of blatant disrespect the worst Lan Qiren would do is have me beaten, not throw me in a lava pit. Or, like, off a cliff? Whatever the equivalent of lava pits would be here. Or, like, things that are slower or worse than falling off a cliff or into a pit with lava at the bottom without your sword." 

That all sounds REALLY HORRIBLE, Huaisang flutters his hands about it! "Do- does anyone really get thrown in a lava pit? That sounds like it would be dangerous for -- I mean, everyone involved."

"I mean, there's like, walkways over them and stuff, you're not gonna end up in a lava pit without someone putting you there on purpose," she assures him. "They're mostly for people who have to report their own failures in person and the failures are bigger than their position within the sect, or for murders of people who are high enough in rank that you don't wanna get caught with their blood on your hands."

"How often do important people get murdered??"

"...Define important?"

"Ahh, important enough that murdering them would get you thrown into lava?"

"Well, that depends on who's doing the murdering! And it's sort of hard to tell the difference between lavamurder and other kinds of murder that also don't end up with anyone identifying the body for whatever reason and just running away and not getting caught, you know?" 

"Wow, Wen-er guniang. If there are these many categories of murder that you need to pin down to figure out the right number of important murders, it sounds like -- that sounds like a lot, a lot of murder? In general?" He shudders.

"Granny says there used to be a lot less murder but Wen Ruohan sucks. Which, can confirm the bit about Wen Ruohan sucking, so I guess it's nice to know that previous Wen Sect Leaders have sucked less." 

"That does sound nice! Maybe that means there will be nicer ones in a little bit. Oh - oh no, but Wen Ruohan is going to be Sect Leader for a while, isn't he?" He drops his voice to a whisper. "I heard that Wen Ruohan's really powerful."

"He is, but he's also, like, nuts, so who knows." 

"Hmmm." Nie Huaisang certainly doesn't know! It would probably be a good thing if someone ever figured that out, though.

Ooo, look at that bird over there. Here are some facts about that kind of bird!

Ooh, bird facts. 

It's a nice way to spend their afternoon! And he does even learn some things for class, despite not being particular worried about that.

Lan Zhan doesn't care at all that Nie Huaisang and Wen Ying are spending all this time together today. She barely even notices. And to the extent that she does notice, she's actually definitely glad to see that Wen Ying is doing something other than sabotaging her home. Nothing but good news to be found here.

Even though Nie Huaisang isn't smart or self-disciplined enough to keep up with Wen Ying, let alone rival her, and Lan Zhan has no idea what Wen Ying would even see in him when she is so much brighter than him and also than everyone else here and actually the only person who performed as well as her in class today and answered as many questions correctly was Lan Zhan and so clearly she's a much more fitting and interesting person for Wen Ying to spend time with -- not that she wants to spend time with Wen Ying, but just, if Wen Ying insists on being here and spending time around anyone it should at least be someone with basic competence--

These are uncharitable thoughts. While there is nothing wrong with honest evaluations of a person's academic merit, the Lan sect rules forbid contempt.

The Lan sect rules also forbid pride. Many people assume that Lan Zhan is ever prideful and haughty, but she actually finds the emotion unfamiliar and unpleasant and shameful. She kneels in the courtyard for an hour in penance. The punishment fails to banish either jealousy or Wen Ying from her mind.

The next day after another class in which Wen Ying continues to ace every gotcha question thrown at her and fidget only a small rules-abiding amount, she ends up hanging out with Jiang Yanli. Jiang Yanli is from Yunmeng, which is very exciting because people in Yunmeng have ever heard of spicy food and Jiang Yanli likes to cook. 

Jiang Yanli's problems are a lot less actually dangerous than Wen Ying's, but she does have some. Like her fiance who prefers to pretend she doesn't exist. Wen Ying drags her off to go scoop up a girl from the Jin sect to interrogate about said fiance. 

Jin sect girl very cheerfully bubbles away about said fiance! He's really shy about the engagement, it's honestly adorable. He's sort of bad at talking in general, even though he's a really good disciple actually! And she thinks he's a good person. He's just -- sort of a little bad at not being obnoxious to people sometimes! She doesn't think he's doing it on purpose!

Actually Mianmian thinks, in a conspiratorial whisper, that Jin Zixuan is a lot nicer than either of his parents. His parents are just a lot better at the outside part of being nice to people, but she thinks he's better at the inside part! He does actually like Jiang Yanli. At least, Mianmian assumes he does? I mean, look at Jiang Yanli. The odds of anyone not wanting to be engaged to her appear incredibly small. Also he was all flustered when they ran into each other in Caiyi Town, she could tell, it was pretty cute.

"Oh. That's good. I thought he was--well, I didn't know, really, it was sort of hard to tell. There was a lot of room for hope but also for fear." 

"I really do think he likes you, Jiang-guniang! I think maybe it will just take him a while to remember that words are a thing you can use to express your feelings to other people instead of, uh, just bossing them around."

"Oh no. Well, I can be patient, it's not like I'm in a hurry to get married or anything." 

"Everything you say makes me concerned about Sect Leader Jin. Not that I have room to talk." 

"Sect Leader Jin isn't - a bad person, really, I think? He's a really good sect leader and he's made a lot of people prosperous and happy. Having a sect leader who can do that is pretty important, I think, in general. But he's -- just -- also. You know. A Way. I think you'll still be happy living in Lanling, Jiang-guniang, it's nice there!"

"That's good..."