Sharp sword: farther away from him. He likes this trait in sharp swords.

That's a very broad question! He's just going to go with how his Jiang Cheng likes his reports until told otherwise. (...Nothing like giving an account while tied up with Zidian and held at swordpoint to make one appreciate more usual ways of giving account, like on his knees with his hand stinging!) His Jiang Cheng likes his reports concise so he can ask more if and where he wants; does not like being rambled at. 

"I think we have more technology sir, and you have power use we don't." Is he supposed to mention all the etiquette and dom-befitting-actions stuff? Nope he is so absolutely not touching the second one. "Etiquette's different sometimes.

Different events happened? Here than where I'm from, sir, I don't know about the other way yet."

(More things he should have thought of earlier: if he suspected him of, for instance, doing something to the right Wei Wuxian, other Jiang Cheng would probably not be polite about not reading his notes! He doesn't think he wrote anything terrible? Just going to have to hope he didn't doodle 'prison breaks are awesome' while falling asleep or something like that.)

(Wei Wuxian's notes are in fact devoid of celebrations of prison breaks. Assuming Jiang Cheng can make out Wei Wuxian's personal-notes handwriting, he can read what very much looks like someone who has no idea how talismans or any cultivation demonic or otherwise works (but does seem to have some ideas about how something not completely dissimilar is expected to work) attempting to figure it out entirely from local Wei Wuxian's notes and the contents of this bedroom. There are some doodles in the margins - Wei Wuxian in more weird robes riding a sword (not even slightly in a manner anyone actually rides swords), a sketched figure Jiang Cheng won't recognize saying 'you're a genius Wei Wuxian'. Some scratchpaper level math, including notation he may not recognize.

From notes to doodles, modulo the different writing implement, everything looks exactly as though it could have been made in his Wei Wuxian's hand.)

"Was one of the differences you getting taken in by the Lan instead?" Jiang Cheng says without thinking, tone irritated and insulting, not looking up from the notes.  The phrasing reminds him of Lan Wangji, on the rare occasions that man spoke at all. 

Jiang Cheng knows that to speak concisely and with as few words as possible is elegant, but it isn't Wei Wuxian.  Jiang Cheng has seen Wei Wuxian in worse situations than merely tied up and held at sword-point, talking everyone's ears off and making grand sweeping gestures all the while.  Not that Jiang Cheng condones that behavior, nor does he want to give the other Wei Wuxian lessons on how to pretend to be Wei Wuxian, so he shouldn't say anything more.

He is more than capable of reading Wei Wuxian's messiest and most casual handwriting, he's just in the habit of complaining about it anyway.  His eyes linger on the assumptions about magic.  With real Wei Wuxian possibly being okay, he focuses on the fact that these are Yunmeng Jiang techniques.  Alternate universe Wei Wuxian or not, this person is not a member of the Jiang sect!  Given that he did so only when Jiang Cheng personally set him into a room containing the notes and all but ordered him to go through them, he can't say anything about that, either. 

Given that the notes aren't, say, attempts to master Wei Wuxian's handwriting, or fake repeated lines that some kind of mimicry monster could produce, this narrows down the possibilities.  And the conclusions about talismans are, he will grudgingly admit in his head, brilliant on the level that only Wei Wuxian makes even if some of the base assumptions are off.  Jiang Cheng takes far better notes and would not be able to make connections like this with them.  When he needs a second hand to adjust the papers, he puts away Sandu.  Zidian alone is enough.

"You think you can walk in here, read about our proprietary techniques, then provide so little information of your own?  I wanted an explanation, and that was at best the table of contents for one.  Start with the different events."  With one of them tied up, etiquette is out the window already.

?? If he had his hands free, he could check his forehead to make sure he hasn’t suddenly materialized a ribbon, but he’s pretty sure he hasn’t! (And he saw that picture of Lan Zhan so it’s not that Lans here actually all wear music camp uniforms.) He’s already mentioned shijie!

“No, sir. House Jiang took me in, sir.”

(He cannot even slightly pull off what Lan Zhan does. And can mostly only pull off submissive eloquence if he’s either doing locutions or quoting something.)

How was he supposed to know there were proprietary techniques! He knows the answer to that is going to be ‘do not in your self-willfulness conceal things from and lie to your (alternate universe) dominant, and also don’t impersonate his brother.’ Well he’s definitely not getting away with it at this point and couldn’t have really thought he would for any length of time; it probably doesn’t really matter what ‘it’ exactly he’ll be getting his beating(s) for. (He’s really working up a collection here! They wouldn’t have so many to get through if other Jiang Cheng had just punished him last night!)

“Sorry, sir.” Hey, great, he got a more specific question! Telling you what they do want when they tell you off; always great when doms remember that part. (Not knowing what he was supposed to be doing is not usually his problem, but it is totally his problem now! One of his problems.)

“…I didn’t break anyone out of prison, sir, and I live with House Jiang. And I didn’t invent anything with power use, sir.” Yet! But he is getting on that one! Other him didn’t even have the benefit of two worlds’ power systems so he’s really got some catching up to do here! If he’s about to be spending a lot of time at walls or whatever it is they do here, he is spending all that time (…that he isn’t spending being whacked for being terrible at standing at walls) on power analysis. (Maybe he should apologize to his recitation tutors. Though it’s not like they were thinking of alternate universes when they told him to memorize boring things he could look up in a book!)

Jiang Cheng takes a seat at the desk looking closed off and formal, shifting his arms so his sleeves fall symmetrically and straight.  His guest can remain tied up for the moment.  Other Wei Wuxian might still be a threat and there's no way of arranging him into a sitting position without untying him that wouldn't involve a lot of awkward limb wrangling and fabric getting caught under them in the attempt, even if Zidian is smarter than a mundane rope.  Besides, there is something upsetting about Wei Wuxian reacting to Jiang Cheng like he's his mother - someone to be avoided rather than talked into following his schemes.  There's a petulant part of him feeling momentarily smug about making Wei Wuxian lounge rather than kneel.

He hadn't been serious when asking if he was of Gusu Lan and is thrown off to have had it taken as a legitimate question to be answered. 

With only a list of things that haven't happened, it sounds like a past Wei Wuxian somehow sent to the future.  That wouldn't explain having more technology or different etiquette, though.  How long ago would things have had to diverge before those would change noticeably?

"You mentioned power usage being different.  What differences have you seen so far?"  Just because he's skimmed through Other Wei Wuxian's notes doesn't mean he can glean the differences through the underlying assumptions.  Wei Wuxian could have, but Jiang Cheng is not as smart as Wei Wuxian.

That's familiar enough to be almost homey!

...He's not getting let out for a while, is he. He attempts to wiggle himself into a somewhat more comfortable position, ideally not-annoyingly enough that he doesn't get too told off for it. 

Being tied up where the dom’s decided you’re gonna be is pretty much the same idea as kneeling really! It’s not like he’s being dragged struggling. Wei Wuxian is not feeling very lounge-y right now, but not in a way that would be improved by kneeling. (Mostly it's Zidian. And he's going to guess that the 'remember I have this horrible lightning whip' is totally intentional.)

He can absolutely answer that question! Where he's from, people can't jump twelve feet, and they don't have single use paper artifacts or whatever that was, and they don't have writing symbolic instructions for power effects. And they don't have the energy given off by the dead thing. And, would other Jiang Cheng like a bunch of technical descriptions and theorizing about power qualities and attributes and flow, about half in jargon only some of which he's ever heard before and half in enthusiastic informal metaphor? Because he's about to get that! Zidian is going to need to do slightly more work than previously as Wei Wuxian forgets his position and attempts to gesture before being preempted again.

Jiang Cheng utterly fails to understand the jargon.  Knowing he can't get much out of the technical terms, Jiang Cheng stops focusing on the words and instead listens to the rhythm of Wei Wuxian's voice.  It's so familiar, though he hasn't heard his Wei Wuxian speak like it in so long.

Zidian's hum gets louder when pushed against too hard.  That's the only response Wei Wuxian's squirming gets from either the whip or its master.

Putting the existence of resentful energy in a list with jumping and talismans is strange.  His mind keeps coming back to it.  "Do you mean that you don't have methods to use resentful energy, or that it doesn't exist?"  Because the phrasing seemed to imply the latter, but that is impossible. 

He jumps a bit at the first louder hum. Zidian: apparently now deputized to tell him off for not keeping still! …He can’t deny that that is very practical and a nice and friendly way to use Zidian (as they go), really. He thinks he still kind of prefers Jiang Cheng doing it himself. But he’s gotten the message thank you sir, sir’s lightning whip! He will try to keep his squirming to below causing-louder-humming levels. (He will not necessarily always succeed in this, but louder humming will be promptly followed by (at least temporary) cessations of squirming - also the only sign of any of this thought process that Jiang Cheng might notice.)

If resentful energy is that energy given off by the dead/unburied that it isn’t a good idea to touch directly or something like that then nope they don’t have that at all.

After hearing him ramble about cultivation theory for a while Jiang Cheng is convinced that this is in fact a Wei Wuxian.  He doesn't call Zidian back to his hand yet since Wei Wuxian seems to be normal gesturing and not attempting to escape.  Wei Wuxian will get him back later, no doubt, but he wants to get through the conversation first before it gets derailed. 

(The increased noise is merely a side effect of Zidian automatically reacting to the movement by putting more energy into its coils so it can thwart a possible upcoming escape attempt.  That it acts as a warning to the wielder that the captive might be trying something, or the captive that they're moving too much, is a bonus.)

"How?  If resentful energy doesn't exist what would cause your undead to rise and attack, or create monsters?" 

Not to mention what this would mean for normal spiritual energy, but he isn't feeling confident enough about his knowledge of the underlying theory to try guessing.  He wishes he understood what other Wei Wuxian had been saying earlier in his theories, and then he'd already know the differences.  His Wei Wuxian should be here to do this!  Understanding cultivation like this was Wei Wuxian's job.

He is not attempting to escape! That is not one of the ways of making things way worse on himself he generally engages in, and that instead of household members who’d drag him back to his brother and then police who’d drag him back to his brother there’d be household members who’d super better not see him and then people who want to execute him and also apparently undead and monsters, is not making it sound like a better idea!

…They also don’t have those things! Either of them!

(…Is that why everyone has/is supposed to have swords? Well, hooray that they’re doing the version where dominants and submissives get to have the swords. He wonders belatedly why other him got personally opposed to having one. Though if resentful energy is what makes undead and monsters, and other him plays resentful-energy-controlling flute music, that sounds like it should work perfectly well! And also sounds really awesome. He wants to learn the magic flute music. (Benefits of magic flute music: he can already play the flute, which is much more than he has with respect to swords!))

That does neatly solve the issue, but now he feels stupid for having made a guess and not been right.  He draws back slightly, shifts back to proper posture from where he'd begun shifting to something more relaxed.

"What does the Jiang sect do to earn money in your world?" Jiang Cheng asks.  For clarity he adds, "In this world, cultivation sects are paid to stop supernatural problems like monsters or curses."

Jiang Cheng can't imagine that any Jiang Cheng could be anything but a cultivator, but cultivation alone isn't a service that anyone is going to pay them to do.  Not unless cultivators are all street performers in the other world?  Which seems unlikely, and given how he's already feeling embarrassed he isn't going to try guessing any more.  He's just going to ask questions, get answers, then try to figure out what to do with them. 

He has no idea what he did this time! Or didn’t do. This is the problem with interuniverse doms.

Right, sect, they have disciples here because they’re a sect. His brain puts together the (guess at) the picture of the world - sects teach their disciples ‘cultivation’/the local power use, and then then the sects use that to solve power-type problems and that’s what they get paid for. (Alternate universe partial matching is weird.)

“- House Jiang’s not a sect in my world, sir.”

He is so not the submissive for this question.

They - own stuff, and have and invest in business interests, and sponsor people with Gifts and power use capacities, and more owning and investing and sponsoring... (And he hopes other Jiang Cheng is not about to ask him for a detailed financial report because he does not even slightly have one.) (He can give a very detailed account of a random assortment of things he happened to be around, do work for, read about, listen to someone talk about, or be yelled at for disrupting, but he is guessing other Jiang Cheng is not looking for one of those).

Jiang Cheng would very much like to know more about other universe Jiang Cheng's business!  Judging from the tone Other Wei Wuxian used, he isn't going to be any better than Jiang Cheng's Wei Wuxian at explaining the details.  It isn't likely to be important.  Not unless one or both of the Wei Wuxian find a way to teleport between worlds on purpose, after which he can just ask the other Jiang Cheng himself.

He is momentarily distracted by the horrifying thought that there are two Wei Wuxians.  One is already more than he can keep in line!  Not that his Wei Wuxian wants anything to do with him, and is officially not Jiang Cheng's problem (even though he will also always be Jiang Cheng's problem whether either of them likes it or not).  This Wei Wuxian seems more tractable.  (Why?  What did he do wrong, to make Wei Wuxian run away?  Is the other Jiang Cheng a better brother than him?)

So, other Jiang Cheng makes money by lending it and getting it back, either with interest or in something worth more than they paid.  That level of explanation will have to do for now.

"What are Gifts and power use capacities?  So far everything you've mentioned is about what your world can't do." 

Now he knows more things this world doesn’t have. At least about Gifts; it’d be pretty hard to have Gifts and not know about it. Is power use capacities the kind of thing it makes sense at all not to have? No yeah sure he can see it (can see all sorts possibilities and he bets he hasn’t thought of all of them!) But also could be it’s just the concept they don’t have (yet). (He can’t remember how exactly the history went in his world.)

- so you know how sometimes power pools in stuff, and 

(no Wei Ying that was not the question right now!)

Ah, sorry sir. Gifts are when someone can do basically one specific power-enabled thing, and they don’t have to learn it or work on it it’s just something they can do. The part of his world House Jiang is in has less of that than some other places but they still have some. Sometimes they’re really straightforward like ‘healing better than other people’ or ‘breathing under water’ and sometimes they’re kind of weird.

In his world there’s some power uses that anyone can learn if they can get through all the learning, and there are some that only some people can learn no matter what anyone else tries to do about it. Power use capacity is what they call the ‘can’ part even if someone hasn’t actually done it yet.

People with unique powers...

The memory of a hand reaching out towards him flashes through his head.  Intense tearing pain, sudden weakness and emptiness that feels like a black pit capable of pulling him in where he could never get out. 

Jiang Cheng covers for his momentary loss of composure by checking the door.  It was still slightly open since he hadn't expected to take more than a minute when he'd entered.  He shuts and locks it.  It's fine.  Wen Zhuliu is dead, and Jiang Cheng isn't thinking about him at all.  Obviously he doesn't think anything dangerous could come through a door in the heart of Lotus Pier right now.  Jiang Cheng is paying attention to the present, and to dangers that exist in the present.  Like his disciples wondering where he is and showing up and thinking that the Yiling Patriarch is in Lotus Pier.  That's worth keeping the door shut to avoid. 

He still has to respond.  Right.

"There are people with skills no one else has, but that has more to do with techniques being kept secret."  At least so far as Jiang Cheng knows.  With the Zhao sect long gone and the looted libraries of Nightless City providing no information, the mystery of Wen Zhuliu's powers is unlikely to be solved.  "Non-cultivators never have anything like Gifts and there's no reason to assume cultivators are different."

"Assuming that the cultivator's golden core is strong enough and isn't malformed they're able to learn any technique.  As well as anyone with hands can learn a musical instrument, at least.  Talent and competence varies."

Jiang Cheng knows that he should be thinking of further questions but is still feeling a bit thrown-off by his memories.  He lapses into silence expecting Wei Wuxian to think of some brilliant insight and start chattering about it.

He has another ‘what did he say’, this time in a completely different way, because that’s Jiang Cheng’s ‘having a personal encounter with the fact that deciding to just not be distressed by pretty awful stuff doesn’t really work’ reaction (not the kind of reaction most anyone would notice, but Wei Wuxian gets to be a different sort of exception here) and covering for it, and Wei Wuxian does not know how talking about Gifts and power use capacities that don’t even exist here would cause that.

He’s just going to guess the usual previous owners of the horrible lighting whip and the title Master Jiang were involved here, because that’s usually it. Maybe there was something about learning the local power uses.

Unfortunately, the only thing Jiang Cheng dislikes worse than having a break in composure is his submissive brother seeing him having a break in composure. No reason to think this one is different about that, or that it’ll help much that he’s not the right universe’s submissive brother. So the best thing to do is going to be the same thing, which is pretend he didn’t notice.

He casts around for a way to pretend he didn't notice and comes up with a very genuine one. "What's a golden core, sir?"

...Does he have asking-questions allowances? He doesn't does he. (Though other Jiang Cheng is telling him things now, which is nice!) "Sorry, sir. Can I ask, sir."

New alternate universe rule, he should get to borrow other him’s allowed-to-ask-questions. Though maybe other him doesn’t have that standing anymore, because prison break. Or maybe he didn’t to begin with, if other Jiang Cheng had different priorities on ‘telling him he can ask stuff every time is annoying’ and so is dealing with him forgetting that part about half the time. 

Well, his goal here was pretending-not-to-notice, so, probably he still has that covered.

"Their existence isn't a secret," he says, tone sharp because Wei Wuxian is not being helpful.  Jiang Cheng knows more about golden cores than just that they could be destroyed but that keeps rising to the top of his mind and there's no distraction to bury it under.  He gives in to the impulse to focus energy in his hands to prove to himself that he can.  It's still there.  The result is a bit of purple light.

"A spiritual organ formed through meditation and specific exercises, capable of creating and storing large amounts of spiritual energy as well as letting us see the energy."  His voice feels flat as he recites that, and he wonders if it sounds wrong too.

"Tell me more about what your world has."

Sharp tone is not surprising here, however well he might have done pretending-not-to-notice! ?? at the contents - he’s glad this one’s not a secret, but if other Jiang Cheng is implying he should have gotten that information elsewhere and not be bothering him with the question, then he would like to point out that he is tied up on the bed and previously was told not to leave the room! (He totally does not point this out, go him.) “Sorry, sir, thank you, sir.”

Unhelpfully for himself, Wei Wuxian has one association with purple light at Jiang Cheng’s hands. He tenses into a flinch - no that doesn’t make sense, other Jiang Cheng cannot be calling up Zidian he is literally tied up with Zidian right now. His heart should stop doing unhelpful things. Also that must be a local power use thing ooh what’s other Jiang Cheng doing. (…Could they do reprimands or even punishment with power use here? He’ll take some reprimands to see that!! Unless it’s like Zidian he doesn’t want any more of those (stop that his heart rate!) But, alternate universe power! …Well other Jiang Cheng does not seem to be doing anything to him with the purple light right now.)

Ooh, see the energy, that’s so cool he wants that! …He puts what other Jiang Cheng just said together with what other Jiang Cheng had said right before that. No, that can’t be right. Can that be right? No other Jiang Cheng had definitely said that if someone who did the golden core thing’s golden core is strong enough they can learn any technique. 

?!?!!!!! Holy shit, unification convergence, holy shit 

“You have the unification convergence?! 
- sir”

- no Wei Ying, other Jiang Cheng doesn’t like this topic right now and you just got a direct order about what to talk about! “Sorry sir sorry sir!” But, but, unification convergence!!!! Shut up Wei Ying!! Do you want to talk about ?!possibly unification convergence?! to specifically other Jiang Cheng specifically right now or do you want more chances of finding things out and to spend more time on alternative universe power and less time at walls, because you only get one of those! He wants to talk about possibly unification convergence!!

“Sorry, sir.”

…This sounds like a great time to tell other Jiang Cheng about electricity. Electricity 101! Lightning! No don’t think more about Zidian Technology! Their world has a lot of technology using electricity! 

Jiang Cheng doesn't know what 'unification convergence' means or why other Wei Wuxian is so surprised about it.  Given the context it sounds like what they call golden cores?  Whatever it is, it can wait for now.  He lets the purple light fade, takes a deep breath, and forces his own heartbeat to slow.

Listening to Wei Wuxian talk about electricity is the perfect distraction.  Without conscious thought his posture slowly shifts from defensive, to formal, to what it was the night before.  Being the wielder of Zidian has lead Jiang Cheng to take an interest in electricity even though such constructs don't behave the same way as normal electrical arcs.  ...Speaking of which, he belatedly wills Zidian back to his hand.

Aw, he doesn’t usually get to be this successful. It’s nice?, to make his brother feel better, sometimes, at least a little, rather than the opposite. Or his alternate universe brother.

Wei Wuxian looks down at himself when he feels Zidian move. On one hand he very supports this development; not being tied up with a horrible lightning whip, he is such a big fan of that. (Aw, is he getting acknowledged for helpful behavior/is other Jiang Cheng being nice to him.) On the other hand, he was just having that thought about the mutual exclusiveness of being tied up with Zidian, and the way more obvious uses of Zidian.

…Get yourself together Wei Ying. Other Jiang Cheng is… probably not going to hit him with Zidian while he’s interrogating him, right? (He’s being really cooperative!). Ah, other Jiang Cheng probably wants to be able to reprimand him when he runs his mouth without all the blankets in the way.

Ah, well, can’t keep lying in the bed when he’s not tied up there. He shouldn’t keep the blankets should he. But it’s cold! He does keep the robes but shakes off the blankets, climbs out of the bed to kneel down on the floor. Tries to get some not super obtrusive stretches in there as he goes. (He’d totally thought about just stopping and stretching - he’ll be even worse at kneeling still without that, it’s helpful, really! And the problem with asking for permission is that doing stuff after getting a no is definitely worse than doing stuff without asking. But right now is feeling like not the time actually.)

Kneeling!

Other Wei Wuxian is kneeling again. ...He is technically captured for impersonating Wei Wuxian so kneeling is not incorrect here.  Trying to figure out where this Wei Wuxian fits into Jiang Cheng's categories of people is even harder than local abandoned-him-to-go-live-in-a-graveyard Wei Wuxian, but if it had been other-universe A-jie who had landed in Lotus Pier she would be family for all that she also left the sect.

Jiang Cheng straightens his already straight robes.  A cultivation sect leader can't run away from conversations about magic, and he was genuinely curious about where the previous topic had been heading.  Time to bridge the gap between the two topics and get back on track.  "Are power uses and technology closely linked in your world?"

…He’s not sure he understood that question. But he has noticed that this Jiang Cheng hasn’t yet told him off for talking more and has told him off for talking less.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure I understand the question, sir.” But he’ll continue -

Modern technology was really good for power use research and increase and furthering and all that, right, so there’s way more stuff getting figured out per unit time than there ever used to be, and some of it does things with technology, like people who figure out why machinery’s not working or do chemical detection. …Does chemical detection count there he’s not sure. Because on one hand -

(No Wei Ying that is how you do get yourself told off for talking more!)

Sorry sir - but there was still thousands of years and then some before modern technology which is way longer, and everyone’s sure there are a lot of lost techniques but there are also a lot of not lost techniques, and obviously no one figuring them out had modern technology around. And some techniques turned out to have new applications actually, like detecting when water’s unsafe, and some things still just do whatever they always did.

Though there’s this really cool thing he read about, where you’d think a bunch of techniques would be less useful now because technology, but actually in the past mostly just rich people could have the stuff they made, so that wasn’t that much by numbers, and now by numbers mostly people use the technology produced version, but the power use version is still useful in specific niches and the niches are often not smaller, since also there’s more people now.

Like mostly only rich people had heating artifacts, and now almost no one uses heating artifacts for regular heating, but heating artifacts don’t need a power source and don’t malfunction for the same reasons, so they’re really useful for someone going off grid for a while or being backup in ‘without heat you’re going to freeze to death’ situations.

(…thaaat may have gone a bit too far on the talking. Ah well, what’s a conversation with doms without a reprimand or a few!)

Jiang Cheng didn't understand his question either.  He knows so little about the other world that he doesn't even know what would be useful to ask and is essentially throwing low-level light talismans into a vast darkness in the hopes that they'll somehow help give him the shape of it.  If nothing else, he is at least getting a lot of information for it even if he doesn't know which parts are potentially important and which are Wei Wuxian rambling.

The mention of heating does remind him that the room is cold and other Wei Wuxian is currently wearing far too many robes.  Also, that the Jiang Sect are rich and use their own form of magic for heating.  He goes to open the small trap door and twist the piece of stone that completes the built-in array.  It won't make an immediate difference, but the floor will slowly start warming over the next few minutes. 

"Is knowledge and practice of power use common among the population?  In the lands I'm familiar with, cultivators are around one in a thousand.  ...Less than that, after the war," he amends, though he doesn't have a number for it.

No reprimand seems to be forthcoming. Other Jiang Cheng doesn’t even look more annoyed. …Man other Jiang Cheng is being kind of weirdly patient with him. With him, he was not so kind of patient when he thought Wei Wuxian was other him. Is that more different what-befits-a-dom in this world? (It’s probably also the prison break.)

Or other Jiang Cheng is just saving it for later some more. (He is not going to be having a good later.) If it’s the second one he has to say he likes the way he’s used to better.

He follows other Jiang Cheng’s movements when he gets up, starts up a bit and cranes his head when other Jiang Cheng stops by the trap door and opens it. - Oh, other Jiang Cheng is turning the artifact lightswitch! what’sitdo what’sitdo was he right.

Wei Wuxian knows perfectly well what he’s supposed to do here, which is to stay kneeling where he is, and bite down on his ‘can I see, sir’ unless he’d really like to get other Jiang Cheng more fed up with him after all, and keep answering questions when he gets asked them until he’s told to do something else. There are some pretty good arguments in favor of doing that, like ‘not getting other Jiang Cheng really annoyed’ and ‘not getting himself into more trouble than he’s already in’ and ‘he can poke at the giant artifact again later, or in some other room some other time, or get other him to show him all the giant artifacts, at a time that is not ‘right now when he is in front of other Jiang Cheng getting interrogated’’.

There are some arguments against, like, ‘but later is all the way over then’ and ‘he doesn’t even know what’s going to happen later, maybe other Jiang Cheng will put him in a different room (for instance, with a door that locks) without any giant artifacts with artifact lightswitches under the floor, or chain him to the bed, and not want to let him see other him any time soon’.

But that’s not even the thing really. The thing is that other Jiang Cheng is kind of being weirdly patient with him, maybe, and he doesn’t know why and doesn’t have an alternate universe set of habit intuitions for where all the lines are. And other Jiang Cheng just still won’t say anything at all about what he’s got coming. And at some point it’s stressful on a submissive, okay. It’s not like he thinks he’s got a good chance of getting through this without getting himself in more trouble, so might as well do it for something he wants to do? (Fuck around and find out).

Which is all to say that while Jiang Cheng is turning the stone, Wei Wuxian bounces up to his feet (ow? - right, ankle) and dashes over to kneel back down by the trap door (he is careful to stay out of other Jiang Cheng’s personal space), hand pressed down against the floor. “Can I see, sir?” (He’s not expecting anything like a yes, to say the least, but that’s what the hand’s for).

…It occurs to to him kind of belatedly (on that topic of pretty good arguments) that the really obvious thing for other Jiang Cheng to do here is to tie him back up with Zidian again, and maybe not have Zidian be as nice this time. Maybe it would have been a better idea to provoke other Jiang Cheng in way that didn’t involve jumping across the room. - But he’s here now, so, he’ll just try to push that over to ‘why make it worse for himself by thinking about it first’.

"There's nothing to see."  He rolls his eyes as his body moves without conscious thought to make room for Wei Wuxian, though this might not be obvious as the amount it moves is what his Wei Wuxian would have taken by leaning on Jiang Cheng's shoulder without regards to personal space - focused more on securing his balance so that a sudden weight won't topple him into the wall than actually moving.

Jiang Cheng really should have seen that question coming.

"It's a heating array."  It is the simplest and most basic array known to the cultivation world.  This at least means that it isn't a Jiang Sect secret.  "Given how much like my Wei Wuxian you are you will no doubt start poking at it as soon as I leave.  Don't waste my time doing it while I'm still here.  We need to get back to discussing-" he pauses.  His own question that Wei Wuxian ignored was also not very practical, was it.

"-Anything important that needs to be handled this morning."