"Uncle does not trust you and I trust you even less, Xue Yang. Hand it over."

"Xue Yang, you are even more of an unfettered chaos beast than I am, and we cannot afford to assume that this isn't when you finally slip the leash. Also it really isn't promising that, uh, you weren't in Qishan a week ago. Like Qing-jie said you were supposed to be." 

"Are you going to kill me?"

"We need to search him."

"Right."

She kneels on his sternum and starts patting him down. 

She won't find anything. He winks up at Lan-guniang.

She turns him over, presses his face into the dirt with her knee on the back of his head, and searches his back too. 

Nothing there either. Xue Yang laughs into the dirt.

"Xue Yang! You--"

Pause. 

"What's going on?"

He perks up immediately, despite still having a knee pressed to his skull. "Xiao Xingchen~ you finally caught up to me! What took you so long?"

"Er, you seem to have caught him? That's good? --My name is Xiao Xingchen and I've been chasing this miscreant for some time." 

"The miscreant is liable to claim that he and I are friends. He is lying." 

"Don't worry, I know better than to trust anything he says." 

“Xiao Xingchen?” Lan Zhan bows. “It is an honor to meet you. What should be done with him?”

"He needs to be brought to justice. Are you here to apprehend him for..." he gazes around with unease and sorrow, "...this?"

"Iiiiish? We were sort of sent on a fetch quest by a sect leader, and then...he happened. Should we just kill him? At this point I suspect we should just kill him." 

"It would be preferable if he could stand trial for his crimes, but..."

“Where would you have him stand trial?”

"Somewhere jurisdictionally appropriate?"

"Bad idea. Most of his crimes--well, at least the ones I know of--took place in Qishan, and the current Wen sect leader is, uh...not big on justice. Or, uh, anything except his own power." 

"This kind of thing is exactly why I've avoided getting entangled with any major sect." 

"Good plan if you can make it work!" 

"Perhaps we should restrain him more thoroughly. Your knees will tire eventually." 

"Mm, point." 

She shifts her weight minutely--