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Wen Zhuliu wasn’t sure when he started to suspect that something wasn’t quite right about Wen Xu. Perhaps it was when he showed little to no hesitation to purge out Wen Ruohan’s most loyal supporters after his untimely death. Or perhaps when he decided to reform the sect. Or perhaps it was when his eyes were sharp with calculation instead of cruelty.
But the exact moment when he knew, well. That was crystal clear.
Wen Chao attacked his brother with crazed eyes and a frothing mouth, and, instead of dodging, Wen Xu slapped him with enough force to hurl him down the stairs. Wen Zhuliu was carefully far enough to not be able to intervene in time, but near enough to hear the sharp crack of Wen Chao’s neck as it broke.
For a moment, utter silence.
Wen Xu slowly turned his head to look Wen Zhuliu straight in the eyes and, with a raised brow and a flat voice, said, ”Oh, no.”
Without a doubt, Wen Zhuliu knew that if he didn’t play along, he would be dead by the end of the week. And while he was many things, he wasn’t stupid. So, he inclined his head in a barely-there nod and calmly said, ”It seems that Young Master was very drunk, Sect Leader.”
A ghost of a smile rippled over Wen Xu’s lips.
He was mostly left alone after that. The majority of the Wen cultivators were deathly afraid of him, and if he was completely honest, he was more than fine with it. After all, the only reason Wen Zhuliu was a Wen and not a Zhao (or dead) was that he owed Wen Ruohan a life debt. Now that Wen Ruohan was dead, he wasn’t sure of what to do.
Should he stay?
Should he go? If so, where? Would he be welcome anywhere?
His gift (as Wen Ruohan had called it) or curse (as Wen Zhuliu himself thought about it) wasn’t widely known (yet) but there were enough people who had either witnessed or heard about it, so he couldn’t exactly claim it to be unknown. And besides, all major sect leaders knew.
To give himself more time, he decided to stay—for now. He would watch and listen and learn what he could. Perhaps clarity would come with time.
So, that’s what he did.
He performed his few tasks quietly; he trained, meditated, and studied. Now that he didn’t have to keep an eye on Wen Chao, he had more than enough time to read all the books he wanted. He practiced his calligraphy. He tried his hand on poetry and decided it wasn’t for him. He wandered the Wen library and read through all the cultivation manuals he found, and when he was done with them, he moved on to administrative guides, then farming guides.
He briefly thought about picking up baking.
He became surprisingly adept at doll-making and made a habit of anonymous donations to different orphanages around Qishan.
And all the while, he was aware of Wen Xu’s peripheral attention on him, waiting, evaluating, wondering.
In return, Wen Zhuliu wondered what his new sect leader wanted.
The good thing about Wen Zhuliu’s ability was that he didn’t exactly need to spar to be dangerous. The sad thing about it was that other cultivators were too scared to spar with him. Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise when Wen Xu marched to him one day, told him to pick up his sword, and follow him to the training field. What followed was perhaps one of the most humbling experiences of Wen Zhuliu’s life, as Wen Xu proceeded to beat him to the ground with surprising ferocity. For a moment, Wen Zhuliu thought he’d offended his sect leader somehow, but then he realized it was just frustration. He was sore and barely able to haul himself out of bed the following day but he also felt better than he’d felt in a while.
And just like that, it became a regular thing. Once a week or so, Wen Xu sparred with him, and the matches started to eventually feel more like actual sparring than suffering through a punishment. After a brief consideration, Wen Zhuliu started to go on the offensive instead of just defending, and was rewarded with a feral grin that had way too many teeth to be exactly comfortable.
”What would you like to do?” Wen Xu panted out one day, leaning against the wall, robes dark with sweat. ”It’s not that I don’t enjoy having you around but isn’t it a bit boring?”
Wen Zhuliu gave him a thoughtful look before dropping his gaze to his feet. ”I do whatever Sect Leader wishes,” he said, playing it safe.
”Not what I asked,” Wen Xu said, sharper. ”What do you want?” When Wen Zhuliu still didn’t answer, he cocked his head. ”Do you want to help Wen Qing with the school?” he asked. ”Or do you want to be, I don’t know, a fucking librarian?”
Wen Zhuliu frowned. Living a life surrounded by books could be nice… ”I don’t know,” he said slowly after a long silence. ”May I think about it?”
Wen Xu shrugged. ”Sure,” he said amiably. ”While you’re at it, how about another round?” He didn’t wait for Wen Zhuliu’s reply but attacked, going for his left side because he knew that was Wen Zhuliu’s weak spot.
All thoughts of future career plans melted away with the sparring, and Wen Zhuliu let himself think about nothing at all.
He had to give it to Wen Xu, though: the reforms he was doing were going to be advantageous for Qishan Wen. With Wen Ruohan’s plans abandoned and the remaining Elders held tightly on a leash, the sect had a chance to actually grow and evolve. The Qishan Wen Medical School was perhaps the biggest sign of a change.
Wen Zhuliu wasn’t privy to all plans but he knew the general idea of it: a hospital and a medical school with dormitories for the students—a sprawling building complex built around and partially on top of the hot springs. After his latest talk with Wen Xu, Wen Zhuliu decided to take a closer look and ask if Wen Qing had any use for him.
”Did he send you?” Wen Qing asked, giving him a narrow-eyed look. ”I already told my cousin to stay out of my way. I don’t need his opinion on things he understands nothing about.”
”No, Doctor Wen,” Wen Zhuliu said calmly. ”I wanted to ask if there was anything I could help with.”
She blinked, gave him a slow once-over, and blinked again. ”Would you be averse to some heavy lifting?”
He shook his head. ”No.”
She sent him to the High Pavilion to help with the roof beams. The next day, he was back, and she sent him to move some boulders, and the day after that, he hauled lumber. He never complained because the manual labour gave him time to think, and he liked the feeling of being useful.
After two weeks, she made him sit down and wait as she made tea.
”I have a proposition for you,” she said after he’d taken a sip. When he nearly choked on it, she hurried to add, ”Not that kind of a proposition. No. I would—” she paused and frowned. ”I’m going to be blunt, Wen Zhuliu, if that’s alright with you.”
”Please,” he said. ”I prefer bluntness.”
She nodded. ”Understood. Now. You have a rare ability that some people might call an abomination. I am not ’some people;’ I would like to study you. This would be painless and very low-effort on your part—I would need you perhaps once a week or so, otherwise you’d be free to do whatever you want.”
”Painless for who?”
”Hm?”
Wen Zhuliu swallowed. ”You said it would be painless. For who—for me? For my…targets?”
”Targets?” Wen Qing repeated with a frown. And then her eyes went wide with horror. ”Oh, fuck. No. Absolutely no, you are not going to melt anyone’s core!” She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.
”Sorry,” Wen Zhuliu said.
”Don’t apologize,” she said sharply. ”On the one hand, I can’t believe you assumed I’d ask you to do that. On the other hand, I can’t believe I didn’t start with making that clear. That was thoughtless of me, and I apologize.”
She poured them more tea and they sat in silence for a moment, she visibly gathering their thoughts and he watching her and wondering what she would say next.
”There are some conditions that produce alarming amounts of excess qi and some others that cause damage to the golden core. They are rare and often linked to curses, which makes them tricky to study. Your ability might offer insight and ideas for developing the treatment.” She paused to sip her tea. ”But I also would like to study you. How your ability works, is it possible to halt the process, is it possible to refine…” she shrugged. ”Anything, really. From a medical point of view, you are fascinating, Wen Zhuliu.”
”And from a human point of view, I’m a monster,” he said softly.
She cocked her head. ”Are you? Monsters do what they do because it’s in their nature, it’s their instinct, because they can’t help themselves, and they get pleasure from following that nature and satisfying those instincts. Do you?”
He was shaking his head even before she reached the end of her sentence. ”No. It’s—” He swallowed. ”No. I don’t.”
The handful of times he’d used his ability, he’d felt his victim’s terror and tasted their fear, and it had lived under his skin for days afterward. The first time he’d melted a cultivator’s core, he’d been violently sick and had nightmares for weeks.
”So, in my medical opinion, you’re not a monster.”
Wen Zhuliu ducked his head and clenched his jaw to keep himself from falling apart. Those words…they meant more to him than Wen Qing probably could even imagine. From the moment his ability had manifested that one fateful day in the middle of an argument, from the moment his father had learned about it, he’d been called a monster. Not to his face but behind his back, but it hardly mattered, did it? He’d grown from his early teens to adulthood with a cloak of whispers on his back and his family flinching away from him, and he’d learned that was what he deserved.
And then—
He didn’t want to think about what happened then. He was in Qishan now, with a new name and a new…well. Perhaps this could be his purpose?
A soft clink of porcelain drew him back from his dark thoughts and he raised his head to see Wen Qing by the side table, busying herself with a mortar and a pestle. She raised a brow and gave him a sideways look but said nothing. Wen Zhuliu felt unreasonably grateful for it.
Would he want to do this? To be a part of a medical study? He wasn’t sure. ”This project…would that be alright with Sect Leader Wen?” he finally asked.
”Oh, yes,” she said, quirking her mouth into a wry smile. ”We have an excellent working relationship: I tell him what I want to do and he asks how much money I need.”
It made him smile a bit, probably exactly what Wen Qing had. intended.
She paused but kept her gaze on her hands. ”Wen Zhuliu, you don’t have to decide yet,” she said quietly. ”I know it feels different to be allowed to want to do things instead of being simply told what to do. It can be scary. But it can also be rewarding.” She turned slightly to give him a look. ”Would it be helpful if I wrote out what I want to study and where I’d most likely need your help?”
”Yes,” he said. ”Please.”
She nodded. ”Then I will do so.”
While he contemplated what he wanted to do with his life, Wen Zhuliu accompanied his sect leader to more dangerous missions. They flew to Dafan to add binding layers on a Dancing Peri statue, and scouted around Mount Muxi for reasons that weren’t quite clear to Wen Zhuliu. Wen Xu seemed to know what he was doing, though, so he decided to be satisfied with that.
(When he later learned about the Xuanwu of Slaughter, he wanted to yell at him and shake him until he grew some kind of sense of self-preservation. They had no business sneaking around a mythical beast! They could’ve died! Or worse!
Later still, the beast ended up bringing the young Second Master of Lan and the Jiang First Disciple together, making Wen Xu unreasonably smug. Wen Zhuliu saw it and wondered.)
In Qishan, Wen Zhuliu continued learning new things and helping out at the Medical School building site. Wen Qing didn’t approach him again but he received a thick letter sealed with a privacy talisman that only he could open.
It took him several months to gather the courage to do so.
After an appropriately long courting period, Wen Xu married Lady Qin in a lavish ceremony followed by a feast that made Wen Ping beam. The official had turned from a sniveling coward into a competent seneschal, not that he realized it quite yet. Wen Zhuliu liked the man: he was sensible and reliable and sincerely wanted what was best for the sect. He was also good at Go and patient enough to teach Wen Zhuliu.
When Madam Wen’s pregnancy was confirmed, something changed in Wen Xu. In some ways, he reminded Wen Zhuliu about his father—except that Wen Ruohan’s ambitions had been only about himself. Wen Xu’s attention was on his family.
”Have you figured out what you want to do with your life yet?” he one day asked Wen Zhuliu. They were having a late breakfast due to Madam Wen’s nausea, the spread carefully curated to ease her stomach. This wasn’t the first time Wen Zhuliu had been invited but it wasn’t commonplace, either.
Wen Zhuliu tilted his head. ”Do you need me for something, Sect Leader?”
The tiniest bit of exasperation flickered across Wen Xu’s face. ”I have a job for you, Zhuliu,” he said. ”It is of the highest importance and would require all your attention.”
His heart sank. ”Of course, Sect Leader,” he said and inclined his head, hoping this job wouldn’t cause him too many nightmares. ”My life is yours.”
Wen Xu waved his hand. ”I’m not interested in your life but your skills and loyalty. I want you to guard my wife and keep her safe and, when our child is born, keep them safe as well.”
That…was not what Wen Zhuliu had expected.
”Husband!” Madam Wen exclaimed from her seat. ”I don’t need a minder!”
”It’s not—” Wen Xu started and then went on his knees in front of her, at which point Wen Zhuliu turned around and pretended not to be there. ”Despite the reforms I’ve made, the Wen still have a lot of enemies. I still have a lot of enemies. It would ease my mind to know you and our children will be safe.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Madam Wen let out a breath. ”Fine,” she said softly. ”For you.”
”Thank you,” Wen Xu said, and a moment later, ”Zhuliu. From now on, Madam Wen and her children are your priority. You take orders from her and only her, and if she is compromised, you refer to Wen Qing. You guard her and her children—with your life, if needed, but I’d prefer you stayed alive as well.”
Something warm and heavy settled in place in Wen Zhuliu’s chest, almost like a second core. ”And you?” he asked.
”Madam Wen and her children come first,” Wen Xy repeated. ”You keep them safe—even from me, if you have to.”
”Yes, Sect Leader!” Wen Zhuliu said and dropped into a deep bow.
The warmth in his chest spread and tingled through him.
This was a purpose he could be proud of.
Wen Qing’s experiments were not what he expected (not that he knew what to expect, really). She asked him to sit down and concentrate on circulating his spiritual energy while she examined him from head to toe. That took several days, and when she finally deemed him properly examined, he was sure she knew his body better than he did.
Next, she asked him to hold a qi-infused objects (usually pieces of jade) and trying to draw energy out of them. That resulted in several broken jade pieces, from fine dust to pieces cracked in half. It took several rounds of trial and error to find the perfect piece of rare pale pink jade that was dense enough to withstand the use.
”Interesting,” she often muttered, holding his left wrist in a delicate grip while he held the jade piece in his right hand and sucked it dry.
He never bothered to ask what she found interesting. He wasn’t sure he would like the answer.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes, apart from the total upheaval of the sect, was the slow withdrawal from the Wen-Nie border. If it were anyone else, Wen Zhuliu could’ve claimed the whole thing was forgotten but he didn’t think Wen Xu actually forgot about anything as Sect Leader Wen. But there was no grand declaration, just a gradual backing off until the troops hit the last villages still standing and were promptly used as a readily available manforce for rebuilding.
The Nie spies were probably having a field day trying to figure out what the Wen were planning.
Wen Zhuliu didn’t ask but the idea of a future without a war felt pleasing.
Madam Wen was a soft-spoken woman with a gentle smile and a wry sense of humor. She regarded Wen Zhuliu without a speck of fear in her eyes and invited him to sit next to her when she needed to take a break during her walks. As she grew heavier, she leaned on his arm and never gave any indication of knowing just what he was capable of, let alone being afraid.
”Are you very attached to your black robes, Zhuliu?” she asked one day, raising a brow at his robes.
He glanced down at his robes and then looked back at her. ”They are…what they are? I don’t have an opinion.”
”Hm,” she said. ”Would you be offended if I ordered you a new set?” She asked. ”You don’t have to accept, of course, it’s just…” she pursed her lips. ”The black is so sinister, and that’s not what you are.”
”What—” he said, then cleared his throat and tried again. ”What would you suggest, Madam?”
She smiled. ”I have some ideas! I have to confess that I’m not that fond of the bright red, either, but as it’s Qing-jie’s preferred color, I’ve learned to like it,” she said conspirationally as she searched a basket conveniently placed next to her daybed. ”I was thinking about…something like this?”
She handed him a sample of dark blue-gray fabric. It was sturdy yet soft, draping over his hand like supple leather with a subtle, barely-there pattern.
”I thought you wouldn’t be comfortable in very bright colors, at least not right away,” Madam Wen said. ”I feel like this gives a disciplined and orderly feel and a sense of calm and sophistication—just like you.”
He didn’t know what to say.
”If you don’t like it, you can just say so,” Madam Wen said gently.
His hand clenched around the fabric. ”No—I. I like it.”
She nodded, satisfied. ”Then it’s settled.”
On the day Madam Wen gave birth to a boy, Wen Zhuliu wore his new robes with a quiet pride. He kept the increasingly stressed-out Wen Xu company, and after he got emotionally drunk and tried to compose poetry in honor of his wife and newborn son, Wen Zhuliu carried him to the cot in his office, tucked him in, and set a bucket next to the cot for the morning.
Then he returned to Madam Wen.
Wen Qing glanced over her shoulder as he entered. ”Sit down,” she said, inclining her head at the daybed. ”Here.”
Wen Zhuliu sat and then froze as she turned and held out the baby.
”I—”
”Hold out your arms, Wen Zhuliu,” Wen Qing said. ”It’s your turn to hold A-Rong.”
His heart in his throat, Wen Zhuliu slowly did as he was told, willing his hands not to shake, and let out a small breath as Wen Qing carefully set the swaddled baby in his arms. The baby scrunched his nose a bit and let out a small, discontented sound.
”A bit like this—” Wen Qing said, moving his arms this way and that, until A-Rong was securely resting in the crook of Wen Zhuliu’s arm, neck properly supported, holding Wen Zhuliu’s finger in his hand with an unreasonably tight grip.
”He already knows you will be important to him,” Madam Wen said weakly from her bed. ”That’s why he’s holding on to you so tightly.”
Wen Zhuliu didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
”Get some sleep, A-Su,” Wen Qing said. ”I’ll have your fortifying tea ready when you wake up. A-Rong is perfectly safe where he is.”
”Of course he is,” Madam Wen said, her voice slurring with exhaustion. ”Zhuliu is holding him.”
Shocked, Wen Zhuliu looked up but Madam Wen was already asleep. He glanced at Wen Qing, who merely raised an amused brow before turning back to her notes.
Wen Zhuliu ducked his head and carefully, almost reverently, brushed the soft cheek with his finger. A-Rong sniffled lightly and then let out a burp.
It was the most precious thing Wen Zhuliu had ever seen.