Chapter Text
For the oldest FTL hub in existence, Jianghu Station was in surprisingly good repair. Its status as the location of the first faster-than-light experiments conducted outside safe sub-light distances had led the Five Families to transform it into a heritage site, which meant it had to be at least functional enough to uphold their collective legacy when tourists came to call. But Jianghu Station had also grown into a medium-sized city in its own right, with a research university, a handful of factories, an asteroid mining operational base, local offices for many of the quadrant’s leading firms, and—supposedly—its own thriving music scene.
The transition from barebones research site to somewhere one might intentionally choose to raise children had begun about 75 years ago, when the Five Families had constructed a new habitat ring around the outside of the original ring structure of the station. Each Family had taken ownership of one-fifth of the habitat ring, setting down shared rules for how the new residential area should be governed and maintained.
Piece by piece, the new residential units had been sold off. Most of them. But the Five Families still retained some of their original holdings. The Lan family, for instance, owned the property on which the university had been built, as well as many of the units set aside for graduate students and professors to rent.
There were also several units set aside for members of the main family, should they choose to remain in residence on the station. That was where Lan Wangji was headed now.
His uncle expected him to remain here long enough to do a thorough inspection of the Lan properties, to liaise with the on-site property managers, and to report on the status of the university itself, as it was a satellite campus of the original Lan University back home. Uncle of course had a close relationship with the administrators of Lan University Jianghu, but, he had told Lan Wangji, it was best to gather information from multiple sources.
(Lan Wangji was also here to consult with an expert in guqin score reconstruction, which was the one part of this trip he was actually looking forward to.)
His first impression as he stepped out of the shuttleport and into the large space just outside was NOISE. His fellow shuttle passengers streamed past him, dispersing into the bright, crowded space to be swallowed up in moments.
A neon sign obviously meant to be seen by those arriving from the shuttleport declared the area “DOCKMARKET.” Stalls and stands pressed close to each other, offering street food, produce, tourist tchotchkes, clothes, shoes, toys, glassware, and other less-identifiable crafts. At least one stall was definitely selling sex toys, going by the way all their wares were wrapped in discreet brown paper that nevertheless disguised nothing about the shape of the object inside.
After the first burst of overwhelmed confusion, Lan Wangji made out a second, smaller neon sign further in, this one promising “TRAM” with a large arrow. He’d already become disoriented. The arrow must point toward the outer ring, which meant the shuttleport was oriented such that its doors pointed out along the circumference of the inner ring, rather than pointing out in the radial direction of the path he assumed the shuttle had taken from the central docking spire. Did the shuttle have to move in a spiral direction to match speed with the spinning rings? Was there some kind of poetic metaphor here, about how moving sideways was sometimes a more direct path to progress than forging straight ahead?
He shook his head slightly. It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t be returning to the docking spire until he left the station again. All that mattered was getting on the tram and making his way to the Lan Sector.
He was striding purposefully in the direction indicated by the TRAM sign when something small and warm collided with his leg.
He looked down. It was a young child, maybe three or four, shaking with quiet sobs and clinging to Lan Wangji’s leg with all its might.
Lan Wangji froze. He had no idea what to do in this situation. The child was not his—was he allowed to touch it?
“There, there, little one,” he said lamely. “Are you—are you alright?”
The child began to wail like a siren. The two of them were now attracting judgmental looks from passers-by. Whose child was this? Was there a station authority to whom it could be delivered?
“A-Yuan!” said a bright, sharp voice, very close by. The child’s wail stuttered.
Lan Wangji whipped his head around toward the noise. A young man, younger than Lan Wangji by a few years or so, stood a few paces away with his hands on his hips, looking as if he were trying not to smile.
“Is he yours?” Lan Wangji demanded of the man.
The young man took a step closer. “He’s my clone,” he said, now smiling broadly. “A test run before I launch the rest of my clone army. Can’t you see the resemblance?”
He reached down and detached the child from Lan Wangji’s leg and held its wet, snot-covered face up next to his own.
They looked absolutely nothing alike. But the child reached for the young man anyway, whining, “Xian-gege, Xian-gegeeeee,” before burying his face in the young man’s neck.
A quiet conversation ensued, one Lan Wangji could barely hear over the roar of the crowd going about their shopping.
“What happened, buddy?”
“There was spinners.”
“Uh huh, and did you go to see the spinners?”
“Yeah. Then you weren’t there.”
“You walked away from me and couldn’t find me again, huh? I couldn’t find you either, because you’re so little, I’m sorry. You’re just going to have to stick with me until you get big and tall, okay?”
The child hid his face again and mumbled something, and the young man rubbed his back soothingly.
Lan Wangji was not impressed by this obvious lack of regard for child safety. He said flatly, “Station conduct rules dictate that children must be kept under close supervision in all areas adjacent to docking facilities. The rules further specify that children under eight must be in contact with their guardian at all times.”
The man raised one eyebrow at him, then lowered it and raised the other. (Lan Wangji had never seen anyone do that in real life before.) “New here, huh?” He looked Lan Wangji up and down and all the way back up again, his gaze every bit as judgmental as Uncle’s, though Uncle had never made Lan Wangji’s insides squirm quite like this.
Still making eye contact with Lan Wangji, the man said to his young charge, “A-Yuan, why did you try to kidnap this big gege’s leg, huh?”
A-Yuan resurfaced to say, “Cuz he’s from my book!”
“Your book?” The young man’s face crumpled into a pout of confusion, then cleared so abruptly it was like noon at midnight. “Oh, right, he’s got this book about the Five Families and the invention of the inversion drive.”
A-Yuan began to sing in a warbling, childish voice: “Lans the dive and Nie the me-tal, Jiang the pow-er to the pe-dal, Jin the gold to foo’ the bill, Wen the fac-a-ree to fill!”
“Yeah! That’s right, little buddy! Lans the drive.” The man hoisted the boy up further in his arms and made a trilled R sound, rolling his tongue around his mouth expertly. To Lan Wangji, he added, “In his book, the Lans are all in those crazy mourning robes you’re wearing. Guess that’s why he thought he recognized you.”
“Travel robes,” Lan Wangji could not stop himself from saying. “They are engineered to provide insulation in the event of decompression.”
“Smart.” The man nodded his acknowledgement. “Don’t see why they have to be white, though.”
“Highly visible for search and rescue.”
The man’s eyebrows went up. “Ooh, morbid. Cool.”
This flippancy was insupportable. Lan Wangji glared at the man harder. “To answer your question: yes.”
“Huh?”
“I am new here.”
And with that, he walked off toward the tram terminal, schooling himself not to look back at the messy, irreverent man and the incredulous smile blooming across his expressive face.
—------
Lan Wangji was met at the entrance of his residential unit by one of the Lan’s property managers, an impeccably dressed man named Su She.
Their only prior interaction had been an exchange of net letters regarding Lan Wangji’s expected arrival time and the length of his anticipated stay, but Su She gushed about meeting Lan Wangji as if they had been faithful net correspondents for years, shaking Lan Wangji’s hand in both of his in an overly-familiar way that made Lan Wangji’s skin crawl. Su She was an attractive man, and in other circumstances Lan Wangji might have even considered him as a partner, but something about his smile did not reach his eyes.
Su She spoke of the Lan properties he managed as if he owned them. Lan Wangji thought it was probably because he was hoping to make Lan Wangji think of him as an extension of the Lan family, fully committed to represent their interests, but the performance missed the mark. The man mostly just sounded like he had delusions of grandeur.
Was every person on this station going to be a boor? So far Lan Wangji was two for two (if one didn’t count A-Yuan, which Lan Wangji did not.)
At least the residential unit was clean and well-appointed, with a small meditation garden and a large window equipped to provide UV light, should the resident desire some Vitamin D.
The Lan Sector itself had also proved to be clean, quiet, and dotted with greenspace parks. Su She complained of noisy students, but the undergraduate housing was attached to the university campus and managed by someone else entirely. Only time would tell if the graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and so on were a genuine menace or if Su She was as much of a blowhard as he appeared.
When his luggage arrived from the shuttleport, Lan Wangji did not hesitate to make his excuses to Su She and retreat into his new unit to begin unpacking. The two of them would likely have to spend a great deal of time interacting during Lan Wangji’s stay due to Lan Wangji’s purpose here; no point in suffering through the man’s company more than absolutely necessary.
There was no need for them to be friends. As long as the man was competent at his job, that would be enough.
—------
Lan Wangji had carefully reviewed both the Jianghu Station Ordinances and the Jianghu Station Residential Property Owners Assocation Covenant, Conditions, & Restrictions. He always carefully reviewed the ordinances and statutes that governed whatever place he lived, and it still confused and frustrated him that so many others did not. Didn’t it make them anxious, wandering through life not knowing the rules?
He had noticed in the JSRPOA Covenant that the Board of the JSRPOA met once a month. Coincidentally, their monthly meeting fell only a day after he arrived, and the meeting place was within walking distance from his unit, just over the ringbridge to the University sector.
Without any other pressing engagements, he made his way to the Board meeting.
The meeting was held in a small lecture hall with stadium seating. Where a speaker’s lectern would normally be, there was a long table with five chairs at evenly-spaced intervals, though only four were filled. Behind the four seated people—the board members, Lan Wangji presumed—was a large projector screen displaying the meeting agenda, as well as an inset video feed from a camera near the table.
Lan Wangji took a seat near the front of the lecture hall, as was his habit. The hall was at least half full and still filling, though it was clear few found the front seats desirable, as it was filling from back to front.
Putting aside his years of exasperation with people’s apparent desire to avoid participating in events they had voluntarily chosen to attend, Lan Wangji turned his attention back to the Board. On the left was a man a bit older than Lan Xichen, probably in his early thirties. He was broad-chested, with beetled brows and a perpetual sneer that looked incongruous on an otherwise blandly handsome face. In front of him on the table was a stand-up label that read Jin Zixun, Jin Sector.
To the right of Jin Zixun was a thin middle-aged man with a thin mustache, a sharp jawline, watery eyes, and slightly sunken cheekbones. He wore a friendly, patronizing smile, though Lan Wangji thought he also looked anxious. The card in front of him read Qin Cangye, Nie Sector.
In the middle of the table was the empty chair. There was a card there, but someone had stuck a piece of colorful tape over the name so that it simply read Lan Sector.
Lan Wangji squinted. Did that tape have little rabbits on it?
On the right of the empty chair was a plump middle-aged woman with a wide, soft, friendly face, somewhat older than Qin Cangye. Deep smile and laugh lines framed her mouth and eyes. Her hair was swirled skillfully into a loose bun and secured with several practical hair sticks. The card in front of her said Chen Yuying, Jiang Sector. She was talking to the Board member on the far side of the table, who—
Lan Wangji blinked. Then he blinked again.
Assuming his eyes were working properly, the Board member on the far right of the table was the young man he had run into in Dockmarket yesterday. He had the same expressive face, the same large dark eyes, and the same high ponytail, although this time it was mercifully not decorated with a child’s excretions. The card in front of him said Wei Wuxian, Wen Sector.
His clothes were neater today, Lan Wangji noted—more professional. But how could someone with so little regard for station rules be on the Board responsible for enforcing the Residential Covenant?
Qin Cangye called the meeting to order. The time was noted. Each Sector was asked to state for the record who was representing it. It seemed like a ritual that would hold little weight, normally, but when Qin Cangye called out, “Who represents the Lan Sector?” and there was no answer, an unhappy murmur rippled across the hall. Someone behind Lan Wangji muttered “Tactless.”
Qin Cangye coughed awkwardly. “Right, right. My apologies, everyone, it was just…habit. Mo-taitai was, ah, taken from us, so suddenly, that…Well.” He coughed again. “Who represents the Jiang Sector?”
With his roll call complete, Qin Cangye announced an open forum for the property owners in the audience, both in the hall itself and watching on the net. There were several maintenance requests that really should have been netted rather than wasting meeting time, an inquiry about the next scheduled insulation upgrade, and an obviously pointless request that something be done about the noise of the construction project in Jiang Sector South 7B.
The final owner comment was the first to draw any words out of Wei Wuxian since he’d given his name in the roll call.
“No, Qiu-xiansheng, it would not be cheaper to set the temperature of the residential ring lower,” he said. He was smiling, but from Lan Wangji’s vantage point in the front of the auditorium it was clear the smile was hiding gritted teeth. “I’ve explained this to you before, do you remember? It’s very different from how heat works on a planet.”
“I just don’t see why,” said a middle-aged man crossly, “we’re wasting so much money heating the whole residential ring over 20 degrees Celsius in the middle of a perpetual winter! Space is cold, dammit!”
He gestured meaningfully in a direction Lan Wangji assumed was meant to represent ‘space’, thought of course they were surrounded by the void of space in every direction.
“Space is empty,” said Wei Wuxian patiently. He had slipped into what Lan Wangji, a dyed-in-the-wool academic from a family of academics, recognized instantly as teacher voice. “If an object in space isn’t facing the sun, it’s freezing, yes, but on the side facing the sun, it’s boiling. Most of all, though, heat simply doesn’t transfer through space the way it does on a planet with an atmosphere. On a planet, heat can move through the molecules in the air, but in space, there is no air, and not very many atoms, right? We on the station generate a lot of heat in the process of making our own energy and moving energy around. And we spend even more energy trying to get rid of excess heat, because we have to make a way for the heat to transfer out into space even though there aren’t very many atoms out there. We have to build a special little road for the heat to follow, out of liquid metal we control with fancy magnets and—well let’s not get into all of that. The point is, if there’s no road for the heat to go down, all the heat just stays right here on the station and we get warmer and warmer and start to cook ourselves. It costs a lot of money to keep making a nice road for all our excess heat. Do you understand, Qiu-xiansheng?”
“That just doesn’t make any sense!” insisted Qiu-xiansheng. “Space is cold!”
“Okay. Okay,” said Wei Wuxian, squinching his eyes shut and rubbing his temples. His eyebrows stretched as high as they could go, then crumpled, then finally relaxed as he opened his eyes. “Let’s try this. If we lower the temperature in the residential ring by one degree, everyone’s dues will go up by 30%. Does that answer your question?”
There were outraged murmurs across the hall.
“So let’s not keep demanding we lower the ambient residential temperature because it ‘saves money’,” Wei Wuxian finished wearily, making little quotes with his fingers. “Yeah? Yeah.”
Reluctantly, Lan Wangji adjusted his respect for this Wei Wuxian upwards a single notch. He may not be aware of all the rules on Jianghu Station, but he clearly did have an understanding of the mechanical rules governing its continued existence, which was more than Lan Wangji could say of most.
The owners’ open forum ended and the actual agenda began. As Lan Wangji had anticipated, it was a series of routine approvals for maintenance funding. He did, however, begin to get a sense of the Board’s dynamic.
Jin Zixun was always sceptical of the cost of repairs or agricultural maintenance. He demanded an explanation for every line item, and sometimes managed to convince the others, typically Qin Cangye, that a given bill should be sent back to the vendor until a better explanation was provided. He was needlessly aggressive about it, but Lan Wangji thought it was an understandable impulse; they were responsible for spending the collective dues of thousands of people, and should never let expenses be paid without appropriate oversight.
Qin Cangye clearly prided himself on being the “adult in the room”, offering reasonable platitudes and generic aphorisms like it was his job. However, he still looked to Jin Zixun for guidance an inordinate amount of the time, looking especially nervous every time he had to approve any bill over a certain amount.
Chen Yuying loved adding color commentary to her votes, and especially seemed to love complaining about the Stationkeepers, who took in property taxes and business taxes and sales taxes and were responsible for enforcing quadrant law as well as passing local ordinances and issuing licenses. But she nearly always voted the same way as Wei Wuxian, and seemed to look to him for guidance the same way Qin Cangye looked to Jin Zixun for approval.
Wei Wuxian invariably asserted that he had looked over the expense ahead of time and that he could confirm it was an appropriate use of funds. He always started out civil, but the dislike and disdain on his expressive face whenever Jin Zixun tried to push back on an “appropriate use of funds” was very evident, and very quickly he would be baited into making snide remarks and personal attacks.
With only four members, the votes were often deadlocked, even over entirely petty things like not knowing why an arborist had suggested one species of tree as a replacement for a dead specimen of a different species. According to Qin Cangye, every tied vote had to be put off “until after the election.”
It was only at the final agenda item that Lan Wangji got a proper taste of JSRPOA politics.
“And now, without further ado, we come to the issue of renter-operated in-home daycare,” said Qin Cangye. “We’ve had several complaints brought to us over the past few months, and Jin-xiansheng was kind enough to put together a formal proposal to ban the practice for renters, though unfortunately it remains protected by quadrant law for owners. We would have voted on it last meeting, but with Mo-taitai’s untimely passing, the meeting was canceled.” He squinted down at his terminal. “A procedural objection has been raised against the proposal, under Restriction 1025B(2)(c), which states that—and I quote—‘policy proposals that will disproportionately restrict otherwise lawful business activity in one sector over another must be accompanied by an impact study in order to ensure the affected sectors receive adequate compensation as laid out in restriction 1025B(1).’”
Qin Cangye and Jin Zixun both frowned. Chen Yuying looked curious; Wei Wuxian looked unbothered.
Lan Wangji’s lips thinned. He was already against childcare as a business activity—childcare should be publicly funded, not optimized for maximum profit!—and the idea of people running unregulated operations out of their homes, without proper facilities or oversight, was deeply unsettling. Judging by the expressions on the Board member’s faces, this move was yet more evidence of Wei Wuxian’s callous disregard for child safety.
He stood up.
“Excuse me,” he said in a loud, clear voice. “I believe I can offer insight on Restriction 1025B(2)(c).”
Qin Cangye blinked at him. “The floor is yours, Xiansheng…?”
“Lan Wangji,” Lan Wangji said in response to the implied question.
Qin Cangye, Jin Zixun, and Wei Wuxian all did a double take, clearly recognizing the name.
“Restriction 1025B(2)(c) is mediated by 1025B(2)(c)(i),” Lan Wangji explained, “which states that the economic impact study requirement is not triggered if the policy in question is related to a health and safety hazard, which in this case—”
“They’re saying the daycares are a noise and traffic congestion problem, that’s not a—” Wei Wuxian broke in, but Lan Wangji barreled on undeterred.
“Which in this case,” he continued, “it clearly is, as all matters of childcare outside of advertising are defined as a health and safety issue in Condition 112A, ‘Health and Safety Defined.’ Thus, the procedural objection is inapplicable.”
He sat down.
Wei Wuxian was very red. “That’s—” he said. “That’s not—you can’t just—”
Jin Zixun made a smug little ‘hmmp’ noise. “It’s about time someone got the better of you and all your sneaky little procedural rules, tying up our meetings in red tape because you know you’ll never have the votes.”
Lan Wangji took a deep breath to settle himself. It was a good thing he’d been here, if this was Wei Wuxian’s typical modus operandi. Spending the Association’s money thoughtlessly while trying to preserve his own profits at the direct cost of children’s safety—
Jin Zixun’s disdainful voice cut across his thoughts. “You and all your bleeding-heart pet causes, with absolutely zero concern for anyone’s property values! If you’d just accept that we ought to be running this place like a profitable business—”
Wei Wuxian snorted. “No thank you, I don’t think running this nonprofit like your idea of a proper business would be in accordance with my fiduciary duty to the good people of this lovely station. You’re damn lucky you own enough property to fall back on landlording, after all the startups you’ve crashed. Profitable? What would you know about profitable, other than that it makes you angry when public services have the temerity to cost money?”
There was a hint of a wounded snarl in his voice.
Oh no.
Lan Wangji had, perhaps, been reading this all wrong.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Qin Cangye soothingly. “Now’s not the time. I doubt we’ll be breaking deadlock on this tonight. Let’s just reschedule this vote until after the election, yes? I believe—yes, that’s the last item on the agenda, so we can consider this meeting adjourned! Good night, all!” He chuckled nervously.
Glaring daggers at each other, Jin Zixun and Wei Wuxian began to pack away their belongings.
Wei Wuxian packed at top speed, hopped off the stage, and darted out of the auditorium with nothing more than a quick nod to his Jiang sect ally; Jin Zixun took the stairs at a more dignified pace. He advanced toward Lan Wangji as Lan Wangji sat frozen, unable to move.
“Lan Wangji,” said Jin Zixun, extending a hand in Lan Wangji’s direction.
As if on autopilot, Lan Wangji rose and shook it, matching Jin Zixun’s excessive grip strength out of sheer self-defense.
“A pleasure to have you in the meeting. Excellent contribution,” Jin Zixun told him. Where Su She’s smile had not reached his eyes, Jin Zixun’s oily smile perfectly rounded out the rest of his self-satisfied expression. He had identified Lan Wangji as an ally, and was only too pleased to recruit him as an asset.
‘Recruit’ turned out to be rather more literal than Lan Wangji had anticipated, as the next thing out of Jin Zixun’s mouth was, “The Lan Sector needs to field a better class of candidate for the election. That little snake Su She is running, but I can’t stand the man—always trying to claw his way into the Five Families at every opportunity. You, though, you’re main branch stock, and you understand the way things are supposed to be done around here. We could use a man like you on the Board. What do you say?”
Su She on the Board did, admittedly, sound like a nightmare.
“Thank you. I’m willing to run,” Lan Wangji said, and just like that, his fate was sealed.