"Oh. I see."

She takes A-Ying's hand and squeezes it.

...hm. Interesting.

Well, they should get moving. Meng Yao starts shepherding everyone out of the Chang Sect manor, assigning two disciples to bind and drag along Xue Yang.

Wen Ying is very appreciative of handsqueezes. 

"Xiao Xingchen...for another disciple of Baoshan Sanren's to show up, in connection with the Yin Iron...I hope it isn't a bad omen." 

She rubs A-Ying's arm. "Xiao Xingchen seems like a very honorable person. You are also a good person, A-Ying. I don't believe that it's a bad omen of anything."

"Cangse Sanren was an honorable person too. I'm not worried that he or I will do something wrong, just...that we won't be enough." Handsqueeze. "Even though we're not alone."

"You're definitely not alone," she echoes. Squeeze squeeze. "I am here. And we have more allies than we ever had before."

"Yeah. We do." She briefly SMILES at Lan Zhan. "I love you so much, dajie. We'll definitely get through this alright." 

(Eep)

"I love you too. Very much."

They say farewell to Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, and travel quickly to the Unclean Realm. They touch down in front of the massive fortress gates, which Meng Yao proudly flicks his hand to open before leading the group inside.

Whoah, this place is so defensible. Wen Ying is impressed. 

Also slightly nervous, but she is pretty confident Nie Mingjue won't try to hurt her or Qing-jie. 

They pass a lot of people doing saber drills. 

"Our forces have recently increased," Meng Yao tells her, when he sees her looking. He speaks lightly, as though not in conversation with a potentially deadly enemy. "Sect Leader Nie strengthened the guard after receiving Wen Chao's message." 

"What? What message?"

"What did that shithead do this time?" she asks, throwing up her hands in exasperation. 

"Wen-er guniang does not know? The Wen Sect recently sent messages to many clans. All the major sects have been instructed to choose an inner heir disciple to accept indoctrination in Qishan without delay. Or..."

"Or what?"

"Or the Wen Sect will send people to collect them."

He feels reasonably confident that Wen Ying is honest in her surprise, which makes it unlikely that she and her sister have come here for that very purpose. Still, it will be up to Nie Mingjue whether they should be housed in the dungeons for the duration of their stay here, or allowed to remain at all.

"Wen Chao never gives me warning when he pulls stupid shit. Ugh, that foul little--ugh. I should have hit him harder." 

"I'm sure it was Uncle's idea."

Huaisang is still processing that he is, in fact, the inner sect heir in question. "Aaahhh, no, no way - I'll have to ask my brother..."
 

"You're probably right, but if Wen Chao were more injured he couldn't be put in charge of it. Most of the other people who possibly could are less egregiously incompetent than Wen Chao! Which, like, normally someone more competent being put in charge might not be desirable, but Wen Chao's fuck ups tend to involve people getting hurt. Ugh. --I think we're going to have to go back to do damage control. Not necessarily right this minute, but..."

"What are you going to have to ask me?" Nie Mingjue asks, emerging. 

"......nothing, Da-ge."