"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING," she yells when it has become apparent that Lan Zhan has noticed her presence. Her arm is still in front of her eyes. 

"How did you break the wards? Announce your purpose!" She yanks her inner robes on (and does not announce this development, because if Wen Ying ever looks at her again in any amount of clothing Lan Zhan is going to explode).

"I was going for a walk! You guys's wards are interesting! There isn't actually a rule against it! I have more notes!" she yells, still covering her eyes but fumbling in her sleeve with the other hand to produce and hold out the notes. 

"I have dressed," she snaps, before Wen Ying can do something like drop the notes into the water. She yanks her robes tight and glowers at Wen Ying. 

"The wards are there for a reason. You should understand the spirit of the rules and not create disorder. What did you design your walk to accomplish?"

She lowers her arm and opens her eyes but looks down at her feet. 

"I didn't. Design it, I mean. I was wandering around and I found the wards and I wondered if I could get through them and it wasn't against the rules and I was curious and they were interesting and I--I had no idea they would be hiding bathing people but you're right, I have no excuse, wards are obviously meant to hide something." 

She steps forward, ankle-deep in the water to hand over the notes. 

Lan Zhan slowly reaches out to accept them, eyes narrowed. "What did you design your presence at Cloud Recesses to accomplish?"

--Lying is against the rules and she promised to obey the rules--

"I didn't design that, Sect Leader Wen did."

She throws up her hands.

"I just wanted to get out of Qishan for a while and also maybe cement Sect Leader Wen's trust in me some more so when I overthrew him later he wouldn't see it coming. That's what I wanted to accomplish." 

"Overthrow him?"

"The man's an evil megalomaniac! Someone's going to take him down, and I'm a genius who he mostly trusts, I can do it sooner and cleaner than anyone else." 

(She knows she's a genius oh no that's hot.) 

"You are trying to win my trust," Lan Zhan accuses.

"No? Obviously you shouldn't trust me?"

"Why tell me that? Any of this?"

"Because I hate it when people I respect look at me like I'm lower than dirt for good reasons! It makes me feel like I--" 

She breaks off and looks away. 

"Also, you asked me a direct question and lying is against the rules and I promised to follow the rules." 

"I," she starts. She sounds unsteady; she doesn't like it. Doesn't like trying to speak when she's this - destabilized. Lan Zhan feels very destabilized. There are -- too many feelings, about everything Wen Ying just said (she promised to keep the rules, that mattered to her, she meant it) but one of the feelings is -- something like pain, that Wen Ying could think that Lan Zhan doesn't know that she is the most terrifyingly brilliant person in the world, that Lan Zhan could think of her like dirt. This must be fixed right away, even if words are difficult.

"I - do not think. That you are --"

-- and then without warning something yanks her beneath the water and she vanishes from sight, sword and ward-breaking notes and all.

Alarmed: "Lan Zhan!?"

Wen Ying has approximately twenty seconds to evaluate Lan Zhan's alarming disappearance before something sharply pulls her ankles and she finds herself underwater as well.

-- and then not. Wen Ying tumbles downward in a rush of splashing water that deposits her in what appears to be a large, frigid cave. Lan Zhan is already standing there, breathing heavily and blinking water out of her eyes.

She splutters and rights herself enough to at least be supine and stares around. 

"Lan Zha--Lan-guniang," she corrects herself, "do you have any idea what just happened?"

She shakes her head, distracted, gazing around in wonder at the cave before them.

Lan Zhan wades forward through waist-deep icewater, eyes wide. In the center of the domed cave rises a broad plinth of white rock, and upon it -- what looks like a guqin.