Lasting Esteem

It started in the Unclean Realm, at the martial arts conference the Nie hosted the year A-Cheng turned fourteen. The old Nie-zongzhu had finally succumbed to his hunting injuries and the new one was clearly scrambling to show the rest of the Great Clans that he was strong and in control: hence the frankly overblown grandeur and pageantry of the events. Hence, also, the facial hair he wasn’t quite mature enough to carry off.

Nie-zongzhu had been impressed by Jinzhu and Yinzhu’s display of whip techniques—she presumed. Even as Yu Ziyuan watched their performance with a critical eye, she was aware of its reception around the great hall, hung with banners that gleamed like quicksilver and wet slate. No one in the cultivation world could fail to be impressed by her handmaidens’ speed and skill. What really stood out, though, was the expression of naked awe on the face of young Nie-er-gongzi as he tracked them with his wide-open eyes.

She wasn’t surprised when, during that night’s banquet, Nie-zongzhu and his brother approached the Jiang delegation. After exchanging a few formal words with Fengmian, the young clan leader said, “Yu-furen. My didi, Nie Huaisang, would like to express his admiration of your maids’ martial demonstration today.”

The delicate-looking junior at his side practically hummed with excitement, pulling something out from his wide sleeve—it was a scroll. He had actually written a poem in praise of Jinzhu and Yinzhu’s grace, their deadly accuracy with their weapons. As he read it out to them, flushing to the roots of his hair, Yu Ziyuan found her gaze resting upon the older brother. Tall, broad-shouldered for his age, but still dwarfed by the ceremonial robes that must have belonged to his father, he didn’t seem embarrassed by this artistic intrusion into the evening.

Their eyes met over Nie-er-gongzi’s head, and Nie-zongzhu neither flinched away from the Violet Spider’s gaze nor returned it with an arrogant challenge. He was making a better showing than she had expected of him.

After that first meeting, letters began to arrive regularly at Lotus Pier—not from Nie-zongzhu, but from his brother, addressed to A-Cheng.

“Write back to him promptly,” she told A-Cheng. “The Nie will be a valuable ally when you are Jiang-zongzhu. You should cultivate this relationship.”

A-Cheng dutifully sat at his writing desk the evening after each letter from Nie-gongzi came. She was less pleased when she noticed Wei Wuxian’s name added alongside A-Cheng’s as a recipient.

“Nie-er-gongzi will be a valuable connection when A-Xian is Jiang Head Disciple,” Fengmian told her—despite the fact that she hadn’t said a word against it out loud—and Yu Ziyuan curled her lip and swept back to her own part of the estate, Jinzhu and Yinzhu at her heels.

When the boy came to visit Lotus Pier, A-Cheng having negotiated an extended stay with promises that he would not only keep up his training but even put in extra time, so long as his friend could visit, Yu Ziyuan expected trouble. She was positively surprised, by her son’s behaviour at least. Wei Wuxian, who took any opportunity to cause mischief, was of course even worse than usual with a new companion. As for Nie-er-gongzi, although he must have made similar promises to his brother before leaving the Unclean Realm, he seemed to spend his days at Lotus Pier doing nothing but spreading his painting tools around the place, falling into the water fully dressed, and trailing moonstruck after her maids.

Losing her patience one day, she told Yinzhu that she might as well give him what he apparently wanted: a shichen’s training, basic instruction with the whip and the steel fan. She’d expected the soft little scholar to wilt and make his excuses. Instead, he took to the weapons as if they’d been designed expressly for him. At the end of the shichen, he begged to be allowed to continue learning from Yinzhu and her shijie, and Yu Ziyuan agreed, at least for now.

“I can’t wait to write to da-ge and tell him all about my lessons here!” Nie Huaisang chirped over dinner.

“Will he really be happy if you’re neglecting your sabre practice?” A-Cheng asked, prompting the boy to rave, once again, about his brother: Nie-zongzhu was sure to be happy just as long as Nie Huaisang was doing his best, Nie-zongzhu was stern but fair-minded, the bravest and the cleverest of their clan, and so on.

As he digressed into a description of the latest night-hunts Nie-zongzhu had led, Yu Ziyuan wondered if such a clan leader could really be satisfied with a younger brother so martially dismal. Some time had passed since she’d seen him last. She wondered how he’d grown into his role, and into those heavy robes. Nie sabre cultivation built strong arms and thighs, she remembered. He’d had the hands of a warrior already, when she’d met him before, and the shrewd, flashing eyes of a leader…

Yu Ziyuan realised that she was blushing. The conversation had moved on without her. Lucky, for once, that no one else at the table was paying her any attention.

The next conference at the Unclean Realm was a matter of urgency. The summons to all the major clan leaders, excepting Wen-zongzhu, and not a few of the minor ones, had arrived in the hands of a Nie disciple wind-burned from how quickly he had ridden his sword to Yunmeng. What was decided at this conference would shape the future of the cultivation world for years to come.

Nonetheless, Fengmian dithered.

There was a yao out near Yunping that had escaped the last two groups of Jiang disciples he had sent out to catch it; the lotus-seed harvest was about to start; with A-Cheng and Wei Wuxian away at Gusu, he had fewer hands to share the work with… all in all, it was a difficult time to leave Yunmeng.

“Preposterous,” she snapped at him. “What kind of behaviour is this for a clan leader? Your father would have been ashamed to speak this way.” Before he could reply, she added, “If Jiang-zongzhu is too ‘busy’ to attend the conference, why not let me go to represent the Jiang Clan?”

She’d expected to embarrass him into doing his duty. Everyone knew that though Yu Ziyuan might be the mistress of Lotus Pier, she occupied her own set of rooms there and night-hunted with her own handmaidens rather than accompanying the Jiang disciples. Sending her as a representative of his clan, wouldn’t Fengmian be humiliated?

Instead, he told her, “I didn’t want to burden you, my lady, but if you would do me this favour, I’d be grateful.”

She had no response ready. To her startled and silent face, Fengmian said, “Who but Third Lady Yu could speak for the Jiang Clan as well as its leader?”

There was something tender in his expression that she didn’t know what to do with. “It’s settled, then,” she said, and rose to leave.

From the very beginning of the discussion at the Unclean Realm, Nie-zongzhu commanded the attention of the gathered clan leaders and elders. He held an air of authority quite independent of his carved throne on the dais of the great hall, or the heavy sabre that rested beside him in its stand. Yu Ziyuan saw with approval how he prevented the minor clan leaders from bringing up the same age-old squabbles as at every discussion conference, which were only distractions from the real danger they were here to address: the growing ambitions of Wen Ruohan and his clan. She noticed, too, how pathetic Jin-zongzhu looked beside this young clan leader, for all his gold robes and glamour, and felt pity for her sworn sister.

It didn’t take long for all assembled to agree that they must do something about the Wen Clan, but exactly what actions would be effective, and what would even be possible, proved harder to pin down. Time was of the essence. Fengmian wasn’t the only clan leader who’d sent a delegate in his place, and those who had come in person all had other claims on their time in their own regions.

On the third evening, they hadn’t paused their debates over dinner. Nie servants in muted grey uniforms carried in refreshments and collected the dishes afterwards, with no break in the heated talk in between—save for the Lan group, of course, who ate silently but without their usual serenity. The long day was worth it: at last, agreements were made that seemed to satisfy all the clans who had attended.

The moon had risen over the mountain ranges by the time Yu Ziyuan led her maids towards their alotted guest rooms. She had brought a couple of senior Jiang disciples with her, but—presumably since they were male—their rooms were a little distance from hers. That meant that, when Nie-zongzhu caught up with her, the stone-tiled gallery was otherwise empty.

“Nie-zongzhu,” she greeted him evenly, cupping her hand in a salute to a respected equal. This close, she had to tilt her head upwards to meet his eye, but that would not stop her. His features were boldly drawn, his gaze keen in the flickering lamp light around them. The moustache suited him a lot better now than it had done, she noted.

“Yu-furen.” He returned the gesture. She thought she saw him smile; he hadn’t done so often in the last few days. “I am honoured that you’ve joined us, and grateful for the Yunmeng Jiang Clan’s support in these matters.”

“The Jiang Clan considers itself a firm ally of the Qinghe Nie,” she said, “as does the Meishan Yu, of course.”

“I wanted to offer you a more personal thanks, as well,” he said, “for your generosity towards my didi, in allowing him to be taught by your maids.”

“It was nothing,” she said. There was an unaccustomed feeling in her face: Yu Ziyuan was smiling too. “I hope Nie-er-gongzi is well.”

“His cultivation has increased greatly since he began learning fan and whip techniques. Even his sabre cultivation.” Nie-zongzhu looked away for a moment, towards the hanging blinds that obsured their view of the moon and stars in the crisp night sky. “My brother is deeply important to me,” he continued. “Those who are generous towards him win my lasting esteem.”

“I am glad to have it,” she said. “I have long admired Nie-zongzhu myself.”

Yu Ziyuan threw a glance behind her. Jinzhu and Yinzhu, understanding her at once, stepped backwards and took up their places, one at either side of the entrance to their rooms.

With a half-turn, opening up the path to her doorway, she asked him, “Shall we?”

“Yes,” he said, and followed her.