Meng Yao does not forget about it.

She oversees settling the prisoner into a cell and posting his guard herself. She makes sure that their guests are being taken care of and that Huaisang is settling back in comfortably. She begins composing a letter to Zewu Jun. 

That evening, Xue Yang's arrest is celebrated with a banquet. There is plenty of alcohol, as always, and Meng Yao is quite certain that the guard captain will drink his fill. Several hours after dark, she ventures into the central courtyard and seeks him out.

He is suuuuper drunk, and in fact when she finds him he is too busy vomiting into some bushes to immediately notice her. 

Of course he is.

Meng Yao stands patiently beside him and bows. "Excuse me, Da-ge, are you well? Sect Leader Nie has requested your presence."

"'M fine," he growls, swiping the back of his wrist over his mouth. "Whasshewant?"

Repulsive as ever. "We have received word of threatening movements from Wen Ruohan. Sect Leader Nie wishes to discuss preparations."

"Fine," he mumbles, turning to follow her. 

She leads him to the throne room, all the way up to Nie Mingjue's table.

The sect leader is not present.

He frowns and looks around. "Wherisshe?"

Meng Yao sits delicately on Nie Mingjue's desk and looks up through fluttering eyelashes. "Forgive this humble servant for making you wait; someone must have called her away for a moment. But surely Da-ge can think of a way for us to spend the time?"

His eyes travel up and down her body and he steps towards her.

She shivers. Parts her lips, deliberately uncrosses her legs.

He strides towards her and grabs her breast through her clothing. "Little whore," he growls in her ear.

She whimpers and leans back over the table, spreading her legs slightly further. "Da-ge, you're so forceful..."

He says something else offensive and reaches for the ties to her dress. 

What a consistently foul person. 

Meng Yao would love to hear footsteps by now, but no matter. While he fumbles at her clothes, she can reach back and start disheveling her hair.

"Oh, but maybe we shouldn't..." (Halfhearted. It's not like this drunken lout will appreciate any nuances of her performance at the moment.)

He says something extremely offensive about her mother and the apple not falling far from the tree. 

(Is that the faint sound of footsteps? Hard to tell over this lout.)

You know what, she doesn't give a fuck anymore if those are actually footsteps, she isn't waiting any longer. Meng Yao tosses her head back and screams, high and piercing.

Then she drives her knife up into the man's stomach.

The door swings open. 

Nie Mingjue takes in the scene and sees exactly what Meng Yao intends her to. 

She is at the other woman's side in an instant, shoving the body of her subordinate off of her friend and tugging her clothing shut. 

"Sect Leader," Meng Yao sobs, peeling herself up from the desk and bowing with badly shaking arms. "I -- I'm sorry -- I have b-brought impropriety into your throne room -"

"Don't be ridiculous," Nie Mingjue says flatly. 

“I should not have gone alone with him,” she whispers.

"Meng Yao, we both know you didn't do anything wrong," she says, exasperated.

She bows her head and leans forward, just in case Nie Mingjue might feel inclined to embrace her. 

See, this is a helpful way to be a sneaky social weasel! Hug. 

Meng Yao clings, and shivers pitifully. "Though I wish this incident had been no trouble to you, I am glad Sect Leader Nie is here," she murmurs. 

Pat pat hug. "It's less trouble than finding a dead body and not walking in on a scene of clear self-defense," she points out. 

She shudders. "Sect Leader Nie... would you not have believed me?"

"I would. But he was popular with his men. They'll believe me when I say what I saw with my own eyes." The "or else" is left unsaid except by the narrowing of her eyes.

"Thank you, Sect Leader."

Pat pat hug. 

Sect Leader Nie probably wants to go back to the celebration... Meng Yao should stop imposing on her sect leader and clean up here, shouldn't she?

Sect Leader Nie rolls her eyes. "Meng Yao. You really think I could just ignore one of my subordinates doing something like that?"

"Meng Yao apologizes for making assumptions. It is only... this captain has often demeaned and mistreated me, always insulting my mother.

I imagined Sect Leader Nie must know something I did not about his merit, otherwise such behavior would never be borne. It did not occur to me that his actions had been so discreet all along. Forgive me."

She steps back in order to bow deeply, face painted with guilty sorrow.

She rubs her face with both hands. 

"Well. Now you know. Next time you assume I must know more than you about a situation, please bring it to my attention anyway before it comes to a head."

She doesn't sound recriminatory, or very guilty. Mostly just...tired. 

"Yes, Sect Leader.

Do you want me to leave?"

"I don't want you to feel obliged to be anywhere near his corpse if you don't want to, but I'm not going to chase you out."

She ducks her head and speaks quietly. "I would not like to be alone."

HUG. 

"I know that...coming from a background like yours, it would be hard to let your guard down around a politically powerful cultivator," she says after a little while. "But we aren't all the same. I'm not your father, and I'm not the person he was hiding from me." She nods at the corpse. "I won't ever penalize you for being careful around me. But I hope someday to earn your full trust."

It wouldn't be very ~in character~ in her current predicament to try to fuck Nie Mingjue tonight, but Meng Yao really wants to.

There will be time for that eventually, though. It is among her Plans. 

"I have never feared your intent," she murmurs.

Snort. "If intent was the only way to do harm," 

She shakes her head. 

Indeed. Meng Yao's plans to fuck Nie Mingjue do not actually involve trusting her.

-- they should call someone to clean up this mess and then retire for the evening. Sect Leader Nie had too much on her plate even before this happened, and should get some rest.

Nie Mingjue will take care of that. It will be...less awkward that way. But Meng Yao can bully her into promising to go to bed immediately afterwards if she tries hard and believes in herself.

Meng Yao is pretty good at believing in herself.

She does not sneak into Nie Mingjue's bed. She curls up alone under her own covers and thinks of the noise the captain made when her knife entered his gut, and smiles.

In the morning, she wakes to something of a Situation on their hands.

Such a situation. 

Meng Yao had not, previously, had any opportunity to interact with Wen Chao, but he is really not defying any negative impressions she might have of male cultivators, at all. 

This is unsurprising and unremarkable. As long as Wen Chao is not actively being a male cultivator in her direction, Meng Yao has no complaints.

She runs around coordinating soldiers and being as useful as possible, as directly in Nie Mingjue's line of sight as possible. Her mind flashes to Xue Yang - perhaps he's worth setting loose, honestly, if this is the kind of trouble his imprisonment will bring the Unclean Realm - but that isn't a sensible priority in the chaos of battle.

Making sure that their other guests are awake and being useful, however, is. Meng Yao sends a guard running to check.

The guests are, as it transpires:

A) Super awake

B) Super useful

B1) Super kickass

B2) Super diverting Wen Chao and his objectionable male cultivator behavior. 

The wonders of what being raised as the heir and first disciple of a major sect can do for you.

Great. In that case, Meng Yao can keep her attention focused on Huaisang and Mingjue from the sidelines.

Oh look, Nie Mingjue appears to have gotten into a duel with the Core-Melting Hand. 

Oh shit. Since she still doesn't have a cultivator sword, Meng Yao can't do much more than Hover Supportively. Her stomach clenches whenever the Core-Melting Hand lunges forward.

Nie Mingjue ultimately manages to drive him off with some significant but not Definitely Permanently Debilitating injuries, at which point he regroups with Wen Chao outside the walls and Wen Chao leers at the guests some more and yells some very concerning stuff about Cloud Recesses before fleeing with his tail between his legs. 

Oh no.

The moment Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying depart to deal with their own concerns, Meng Yao bids Sect Leader Nie for permission to check on Zewu Jun their Lan allies.

Nie Mingjue is not even slightly fooled but fortunately she is ALSO extremely worried about Zewu-jun and seems to find this quality mirrored in Meng Yao a positive rather than a negative. Meng Yao can absolutely have Nie Mingjue's blessing to go on this mission.