There was very little torture in the Nie Sect dungeons, and no neglect. Prisoners were given a blanket and a bit of straw to lay on, two bland meals a day, and--once a week--a bucket and a grimy cake of soap. The dungeons were dry and mostly free of pests, and though the temperature was not comfortable, it was insulated enough by the rock walls so that it was merely chilly year round.
Three weeks ago, Wang Lingjiao had been left in Nie Sect custody. Two weeks ago, the sun had been shot down. Since then, the remainders of the sect had been gathered up and the sect leaders had been busying themselves with courtesy and politics, while Nie Huaisang went on quietly maintaining the bureaucratic affairs of Qinghe in his brother's absence.
No one had come to ask for Wang Lingjiao. Nie Huaisang suspected that she'd been completely forgotten. The other members of the Wen Sect had been killed or conscripted into labor, from what Huaisang understood of the situation, and it would be reasonable enough for him to turn her over, but... to what authority, really? Jin Guangshan kept making power plays, but there was no real reason why the Jin Sect alone should be the arbiters of justice. Wang Lingjiao was in the custody of a major sect and could reasonably be subject to their justice. She'd wronged the Jiang Sect most, and it was possible that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian would find some solace in her harsh execution, but they were busy with grief and reconstruction. Huaisang saw little benefit in reopening that particular wound. And yet, if the Nie Sect kept her and did not kill her, Huaisang had no idea at all what he would do with her.
He had no plan, and yet he loathed the principle of leaving people to languish indefinitely in a dungeon. If no purpose could be found for her, then he'd bring her existence back to the attention of his brother, and she could be executed or maimed and exiled as he saw fit.
It was early for Wang Lingjiao's weekly bucket and soap, and those were usually brought at mealtime. Today, however, the hatch in her door was opened and a Nie Sect retainer pushed through a bucket, soap, and ... then a clean bundle of clothing. There was not a word of explanation provided, no matter how she might ask. Discipline was unyielding in the Nie Sect. Wang Lingjiao would have found no guards at all able to be swayed by pleas, promises, threats, melodramatics, or even performances of weakness or injury.
The clothing was plain, gray, drab clothing, the apparel of the lowest of Nie Sect servants. Once an hour after the initial delivery, the hatch would open again. Whenever she was found to be wearing the new clothing--whether at once or after a matter of hours--the door would open, and she would be escorted up into the sunlit halls of Qinghe. There was still no explanation, no fanfare, only the escort of unyielding guards. If she chose to fight and quarrel, she would be dragged back to her cell, and the whole procedure would begin again after another week of silence.
Only once Wang Lingjiao would walk in relative cooperation between her guards would she be brought to a quiet reception hall. There was no pageantry on the halls, no court or ministers in attendance. It was an empty room whose entire purpose was to be purposeless. Matters conducted here had none of the authority of the great hall, the Sect Leader's study, the bureaucratic offices. It was an anonymous parlor, just a little dusty. At the far end, easy to overlook, was a young man curled up in a chair, looking all the younger for the way that he lounged with one leg up over the arm of the chair and the other tucked beneath him. He had a book open in his lap, and looked for all the world like an underclerk sneaking away from duties or studies in order to hide in a room where he would be unlikely to be noticed. The only thing to tell the lie of this was the way that the guards stopped at the entrance to the room, leaving her to choose her own course of approach to the young man with his book. He didn't even seem to have noticed that anyone had entered.
Ever since she first came to the Nightless City, Wang Lingjiao’s life had been one of success after success. Making maid of Wen Chao’s wife had been a great success for a girl of her standing and becoming his mistress had been the greatest height she could dream of, lifting her high above all other servants. Her family had been allowed to form their own sect thanks to her connections and if that wasn’t far more than all these other people who sneered at her for being a mistress could say for themselves and their pathetic little selves and their pathetic little lives.
Deep down, she had always known that Wen Chao would eventually tire of her as he had tired of all his previous mistresses and she had been vicious in her fight to keep the status she had fought so hard for, but even in her glummest moments, she had never thought it would end like this. It was such a letdown after everything her life had been. She didn’t even get a noteworthy death, nothing to ensure her name would be remembered, and she certainly didn’t get to walk away with wealth and privileges as you might if you were clever during your time as mistress.
She still remembered the day she had been taken prisoner; she had expected to be killed on the spot but inside she had been carted off to Qinghe to die of boredom in the most uninteresting cell she had ever seen. It figured the Qishan Nie would be too terribly boring even to make interesting jailers. She had spent days upon days yelling until her throat was hoarse, shouting obscenities and offering bribes, making empty promises and at one point, begging to be tortured simply because she didn’t think it could hurt more than the utter indifference with which she was treated.
On the day Wang Lingjiao first moved to Nightless City, she had promised herself she would become someone who mattered and now, as she slowly rotted away in her pathetic cell, she found herself right back where she had started out.
She cried. There were angry tears and sad tears, and a whole lot of self-pitying tears.
For a while, she remained convinced Qishan Wen would win the war; she spent some very fine days ranting and raving at her jailers about all the gruesome things she would see done to them once she was free and they locked away. They still didn’t react and eventually, she had to admit to herself that there was only one explanation why the Unclean Realm never fell, and didn’t even seem embattled at all.
When the clothes first appeared, it only took her a few hours of furious complaints until she gave in and changed. It took her three more weeks to actually make it to the parlor. The first week she tried to escape, the second week she threw a tantrum when her demand for explanations weren’t heeded and the third… well, the first was some of column A and some of column B, really.
On the day she finally made it to the parlor, she stopped barely having crossed the threshold, utterly outraged by the sight of the nothing for which she had been forced through so much trouble. The man curled up in the chair barely held her attention at all, his surroundings and his own demeanor all spoke of him being someone unimportant and thus, he was clearly beneath her notice. A terrible imposition on her valuable time, really.
“That’s it?!” she demanded, her voice shrill and demanding with outrage even by her standards. “You force me into these ugly rags your Sect calls clothes and then I’m sent to talk to a servant?” It had to be a servant, she figured, nobody respectable would hold court in such a drab room that didn’t even speak of his importance.
She stepped further into the room, head held high with the same arrogance she had been known for among the Qishan Wen. They could force her into ugly servant’s clothes and throw her away in the deepest cell but she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of acting the part. You had to constantly remind people you were important, it was the only way to be treated as important.
“You, boy!” she said, snapping her fingers. “I’m talking to you!”
Huaisang lifted his head in innocent confusion as Wang Lingjiao spoke to him as though she was still a high-ranking mistress. That month and a half in the dungeon clearly hadn't made much of an impact on her attitude. He shut his book, slipping it into his sleeve and replacing it with his fan, which he opened between them as a courteous defensive wall. "Me?"
It was no surprise that she didn't recognize him. They'd been in the same location more than once, but they'd never had a reason to interact.
He sat up straight, eyes wide and scared under the force of her temper, hiding behind his fan. "Ah, Wang Lingjiao..." he started, gentle and pacifying, lowering his fan just enough to give her a pleading, placating look.
In all fairness, she should have recognized him - but Wang Lingjiao had never been in the habit of paying attention she thought beneath her notice, not when she sneered at the hapless heirs while gloating at Wen Chao's side, and certainly not now that she believed herself to be talking to a servant. The thought that anyone of importance could be content to receive guests as important as her in such humble surroundings was preposterous anyway.
She sniffed and straightened, taking heart from how frightened he appeared. As he should. "Well, at least one of you brutes knows when he's in the company of his betters!" she exclaimed and shot the guards a withering look. Then she forced herself to gather her thoughts, she did have something more important to do here than complain, this being her first opportunity to speak to anyone at all.
"I demand an audience with Sect Leader Nie." Her chin rose, fake as her courage may have been. "I expect to discuss the terms of my release."
Huaisang continued hiding behind his fan, wide-eyed, as she fumed and made her demands.
"But he's not here," Huaisang said, all blinking innocence, as though her demand might have been something to consider if Nie Mingjue were here, as if the reason for her confusion is a total mystery to him. "He's in Jinlin Tai, at a conference."
Cowering in his chair, Huaisang shyly shut his fan and lowered it most of the way toward his lap. "What terms did you have in mind?"
He gazed up at her, earnest, as though she possessed all the information and explanations to be had in this situation and he only existed to accommodate.
"So you're telling me that you had me dragged out of my cell and paraded through the Unclean Realm for nothing but a chat with a lackey?!" she blurted out, aghast. Well, at least this servant acknowledged her innate superiority. That was something. Not much, but more than she had gotten from anyone else here.
She took to pacing, her head held high and posture proud as if she didn't mostly want to use the opportunity to stretch her legs after having been locked up in her dreadfully small cell for far too long.
"I'm going to be released at once, of course," she went on. A matter of course. "And I wish to be returned to my sect, the Yingchuan Wang." Her throat clenched with dismay. If her sect still existed. They would have fought for the Wen, if the Wen were defeated...
Huaisang doesn't correct her calling him a lackey. He doesn't want to be impolite by interrupting her or implying her ignorance of the situation, after all!
Watching as she paces, Huaisang continues to regard her with an intimidated and slightly worried gaze, obviously invested in pacifying her as much as possible.
"O-oh," he says, brow furrowing in confusion. He shakes his head, gazing at her as though she is surely going to explain the obvious practicalities of this which he has misunderstood. "But I don't think there is a Yingchuan Wang sect any longer. All of the sects allied with the Qishan Wen sect have been dissolved. The Jin Sect is overseeing most of the administration involved in annexing and redistricting the Wen lands. I could send you to them, if you'd like, and it's possible they could reconnect you with any of your family members who weren't executed for their involvement."
He blinks his eyes with earnest innocence, as if he's hoping that this offer will meet with her approval.
The quick, demanding pace of her steps falters and for a moment she looks simply stricken. She had known that would be her family's fate, of course, but to know it deep down and have it confirmed are still two very different things. There had been at least a glimmer of hope that her father would be clever and sneaky enough to escape the inevitable.
Her face shutters again within seconds, the unpleasant sneer returning with twice the force. "Well, then," she begins, her voice wavering only a little. She lifts her chin higher to buy herself time while she realizes she is actually all out of words. "Don't be ridiculous!" she snaps. "I'm not going to concern myself with the Jin, they are brutes who can't be trusted to select a hat that matches their robes!"
If there are any survivors, though... But she won't be able to do anything for the surviving Wang while she is just another captive among many in the hands of the Jin. Here in the Unclean Realm, at least, she is treated well, so she must be a valuable prisoner to them. If they have cells to spare they clearly didn't get many captives.
She turns back to the clerk or servant or whatever the fluff-brained thing may be, turning a demanding look on him. "Well. Don't you have a better offer for me?"
While she storms and grieves, Huaisang just watches. It is interesting to see her bluster, while Huaisang knows that there is nothing she can do. No allies, no options. Huaisang is the only lifeline she has, but he doesn't intend to point that out or lord it over her. She can figure it out in her own time and then reach for it when she's ready.
Huaisang shakes his head, very apologetic about how tragically he has failed her in this matter. "No, I don't have any idea what we should do with you. It's all so very confusing, and I'm not sure anyone even remembers you were put into Nie custody. I brought you out to ask what you thought we should do."
Nodding earnestly, he looks up at her, hopeful for her insightful guidance.
"I... I..." She snaps her mouth shut, lips twisting into a pout which might once have been pretty enough to charm Wen Chao, but now she really doesn't have it in her to flatter anyone or play at being charming, so she just ends up looking like she has bitten into something sour.
She's supposed to suggest something and that should be good, that should give her power, but she doesn't have anything left to negotiate with. She's never much enjoyed bartering when she is in the beggar's position.
"I don't suppose you could let me go?" she asks, half scornfully. No, of course they won't but she's got to try. "I'm no good to you in your dungeons, I'm just costing you food and time."
"Oh, I don't know." Huaisang gives it some thought, furrowing his brow and biting into his lower lip as if he's genuinely perplexed by this difficult request. "During the campaign, I was told you were entrusted into Nie Sect custody. I might get in trouble if I let you go. But I guess since no one's asked for you by now, they probably won't remember unless you get caught. If you wear the Nie Sect servant robes, that might keep you hidden a little longer."
He chews on his lower lip a bit more, looking distressed about this possibility. "I can't do anything to protect you once you leave my custody. But if you're sure..." He nods, willing to grant any request that's reasonably within his power. He just doesn't think she's actually going to want this once she thinks for a moment and realizes that she'll be a woman alone without money or allies, due to be tortured to death if her enemies catch her. Huaisang may know very little of the world of the common folk, but he knows enough to be certain that her only hope is to find work as a farm laborer or a prostitute, and then to remain unrecognized for the rest of her life. "The guards will show you out of the palace."
He gestures to one of the guards to proceed with setting her free. "Farewell. Good luck!"
Waving cheerfully, he waits for her to leave. If she does, he'll quietly inform the guards that if she returns again and requests an audience with him, it may be granted. He doesn't think it will take long for her to realize the error of her request.
Wait? What? She hadn't expected to be basically kicked out and honestly, this only confirms that this Nie retainer must be the height of incompetence. That's what happens if you give inferior people any kind of power.
Before she knows it, she finds herself standing outside the walls of the Uncleam Realm, with the gates slamming shut behind her. She is still wearing the Nie servant robes but they are all she has to her name, she doesn't even have so much as any robes to change, never mind money.
Pretending to be a Nie servant on her way to run errands, she does manage to sweet-talk a merchant into taking her to the closest town on his cart but then she is on her own again, unable to pay for lodgings or even so much as a meal.
In the days and weeks to follow, this new life is proving a very unpleasant affair for Wang Lingjiao. She had worked as a servant before but being the servant to Wen Chao's wife was quite different from being penniless and alone deep in Qinghe Nie territory, without the money to travel anywhere else - not that there is anyplace safer or more welcoming for a former Wen minion. People aren't kind to the destitute and she has grown used to being waited on, to having soft hands and a back which doesn't ache from hard physical labor. Life may be easier in a brothel but also more dangerous than on the farms she only ever works on for a short time until they realize she knows nothing about farm work. Working in a brothel so close to Qinghe Nie headquarters, she would sooner or later be serving cultivators who recognize her from her old life.
It takes about three weeks for her to be back at the gates to the Unclean Realm, demanding an audience with the incompetent retainer who had released her.
"Very well," is the first thing she says as she walks into the room, wearing robes much drabber and worn than the ones she had left in, "you had your fun. Now tell me what you want from me."
Huaisang is a little bit surprised when she goes, and when she doesn't return again for days, but then he forgets about her. Not as clever as he'd hoped. He wonders for the first week what she's doing and what opportunities she'd chosen. Then he accepts that she must have found something that met her standards, and he forgets her.
By the time she returns, the whole escapade has been mostly forgotten. The guards at the gate are perplexed by her demands. Who is she? What retainer? Her own name gets her nowhere, but a description of the bureaucrat who released her is recognized quickly enough, and she's taken to a room to wait.
Hours pass before she's finally fetched again and led to a room in the upper palace, luxurious spaces reserved for the Nie Clan family members, two levels above the bureaucratic halls where she'd been received before.
This time, Huaisang is looking far more casually luxurious, settled on a porch that looks out across the mountaintops of Qinghe. A couple of pretty birds hop in cages in the room just inside the porch, and there's a sense of peaceful luxury in the space. Kneeling at a table on the porch laid with tea and pastries, Huaisang is dressed today in expensive but comfortable silk robes, a mere three layers of silk instead of his usual five. He doesn't look up from the view as Wang Lingjiao enters, but there is a second cushion set on the far side of the table.
As she was taken higher and higher, she had believed for a while that this time she would actually be getting the audience with someone important she had been wanting all along. This, she realizes soon, are the quarters of the sect and clan's leadership, nobody else would be living in such lavish surroundings.
And right here, in the middle of all that luxury and looking like someone who fits right in, is the incompetent servant she had spoken to last time.
She comes to a sudden full stop and gapes at him, mouth opening and closing several time before she remembers her voice at all and blurts out an indignant, "You!!" Well. That isn't very impressive, right. She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin and stalks towards him. "How dare you deceive me! Who do you think you are?!"
Huaisang looks up with wide-eyed concern the moment she stalks over to him, and his fan whirls open so that he can flutter it defensively. "Wang Lingjiao," he says, brow furrowed in a sympathetic pout. "I am Nie Huaisang. What have I done to deceive you?"
Confused and worried, he gazes up at her with the same helpless bewilderment he used before. He's done everything he can to accommodate her requests. It's not his fault that she makes stupid requests, and he's not about to tell her what's what. He'll just do his best to enable her to figure it out on her own, and hope she doesn't cause too much trouble along the way.
"Nie Huai... Nie..." Her mouth opens and closes several times, with nothing but strangled noises coming out as she realizes how very much she has been played. Everyone must have known and eagerly played along and... Humiliation burns through her, yet she bites down her tongue, seething quietly. Wen-gongzi would play games with people, too. You could be pushy, but not too annoying to be more trouble than you'd be worth.
And she doesn't want to be too much trouble to someone like Nie Huaisang. He is her chance to get back her life.
"Nie-gongzi!" she simpers, bowing low with great flourish and ultimately, little actual grace. A lot of fake enthusiasm, though. "It is too much honor of you to receive me! Too much honor!"
He's perfectly capable of using graceful formality, and he could use it now to rein her in and slap her into shape, if he wanted. Formality is one of his best tools. Instead, he discards it entirely. The levels of formality between the heir of a clan and a clanless prisoner are far too many, and Huaisang doesn't want to relegate her to being a lump in the dungeons or a resentful lower maidservant. In those cases, she's just a drain on the clan, an uncooperative maidservant likely to be more of a burden than anything. Better if he can get her to cooperate and to choose her own fate so that then she'll be willing to expend energy in pursuing that fate.
"Would you like some tea?" he gestures clumsily at the table in front of him, pleasantly laid with pastries and tea. The tea is cooling, but he's not going to have it refreshed just for her. If she wants it still hot, she'd better hurry up with cooperating.
She has to actively keep herself from sniffing a little, haughtiness is what you default to when you are out of your depth. But not so much anymore in this new life. In this life, more caution than she showed before has served her reasonably well. Well enough, at least, that she is getting invited to have tea with Nie Huaisang. Once, she would have scoffed at that, too.
"Nie-gongzi is far too generous!" Now she bows again, empty words of flattery and gratitude falling from her lips still as she situates herself and pours herself some lukewarm tea, then, on second thought, remembering to pour tea for him as well.
The pastries are calling to her empty stomach but she still has some pride left so she sticks to her tea for now, not wanting to be seen eating like a starving beggar. No, she is no beggar. Just... unfortunately out of funds. And options. And friends. And a whole lot of other things.
"You are such a kind young man, I never realized!"
"That's very nice of you to say." Huaisang blushes and flutters his fan, acting very shy and uncertain. At least she's sitting and cooperating now, with a slightly better sense of her position in this situation. Huaisang just still isn't sure what he's going to do with her. "I didn't want you stuck down there in the dungeons. It seems very unpleasant."
Giving her a hopeful little smile, he taps his fan lightly against his lips. "I didn't think I'd see you again so soon! What brings you back to Qinghe?"
"Oh, I..." It takes all she has to keep the scowl from her face, or keep from snatching his fan and slapping him with it. What impertinence to play her so, to make her dance for him... But she is in no position to refuse, right? Right.
So she keeps smiling her best simpering smile and coos, "Oh, I couldn't stand not seeing Nie-gongzi again, and thanking him for his generosity and his trust in releasing me! The villagers have been very welcoming." Disgusting peasants who make you work your hands to the bone for some watery soup and a bed in the stables. What a vile people, just as vile as their leaders. She widens the smile, turning it a notch more subservient. "I was hoping I could pay my debt to Nie-gongzi, if I'm permitted."
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Usefulness; for dis_arming
Three weeks ago, Wang Lingjiao had been left in Nie Sect custody. Two weeks ago, the sun had been shot down. Since then, the remainders of the sect had been gathered up and the sect leaders had been busying themselves with courtesy and politics, while Nie Huaisang went on quietly maintaining the bureaucratic affairs of Qinghe in his brother's absence.
No one had come to ask for Wang Lingjiao. Nie Huaisang suspected that she'd been completely forgotten. The other members of the Wen Sect had been killed or conscripted into labor, from what Huaisang understood of the situation, and it would be reasonable enough for him to turn her over, but... to what authority, really? Jin Guangshan kept making power plays, but there was no real reason why the Jin Sect alone should be the arbiters of justice. Wang Lingjiao was in the custody of a major sect and could reasonably be subject to their justice. She'd wronged the Jiang Sect most, and it was possible that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian would find some solace in her harsh execution, but they were busy with grief and reconstruction. Huaisang saw little benefit in reopening that particular wound. And yet, if the Nie Sect kept her and did not kill her, Huaisang had no idea at all what he would do with her.
He had no plan, and yet he loathed the principle of leaving people to languish indefinitely in a dungeon. If no purpose could be found for her, then he'd bring her existence back to the attention of his brother, and she could be executed or maimed and exiled as he saw fit.
It was early for Wang Lingjiao's weekly bucket and soap, and those were usually brought at mealtime. Today, however, the hatch in her door was opened and a Nie Sect retainer pushed through a bucket, soap, and ... then a clean bundle of clothing. There was not a word of explanation provided, no matter how she might ask. Discipline was unyielding in the Nie Sect. Wang Lingjiao would have found no guards at all able to be swayed by pleas, promises, threats, melodramatics, or even performances of weakness or injury.
The clothing was plain, gray, drab clothing, the apparel of the lowest of Nie Sect servants. Once an hour after the initial delivery, the hatch would open again. Whenever she was found to be wearing the new clothing--whether at once or after a matter of hours--the door would open, and she would be escorted up into the sunlit halls of Qinghe. There was still no explanation, no fanfare, only the escort of unyielding guards. If she chose to fight and quarrel, she would be dragged back to her cell, and the whole procedure would begin again after another week of silence.
Only once Wang Lingjiao would walk in relative cooperation between her guards would she be brought to a quiet reception hall. There was no pageantry on the halls, no court or ministers in attendance. It was an empty room whose entire purpose was to be purposeless. Matters conducted here had none of the authority of the great hall, the Sect Leader's study, the bureaucratic offices. It was an anonymous parlor, just a little dusty. At the far end, easy to overlook, was a young man curled up in a chair, looking all the younger for the way that he lounged with one leg up over the arm of the chair and the other tucked beneath him. He had a book open in his lap, and looked for all the world like an underclerk sneaking away from duties or studies in order to hide in a room where he would be unlikely to be noticed. The only thing to tell the lie of this was the way that the guards stopped at the entrance to the room, leaving her to choose her own course of approach to the young man with his book. He didn't even seem to have noticed that anyone had entered.
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Deep down, she had always known that Wen Chao would eventually tire of her as he had tired of all his previous mistresses and she had been vicious in her fight to keep the status she had fought so hard for, but even in her glummest moments, she had never thought it would end like this. It was such a letdown after everything her life had been. She didn’t even get a noteworthy death, nothing to ensure her name would be remembered, and she certainly didn’t get to walk away with wealth and privileges as you might if you were clever during your time as mistress.
She still remembered the day she had been taken prisoner; she had expected to be killed on the spot but inside she had been carted off to Qinghe to die of boredom in the most uninteresting cell she had ever seen. It figured the Qishan Nie would be too terribly boring even to make interesting jailers. She had spent days upon days yelling until her throat was hoarse, shouting obscenities and offering bribes, making empty promises and at one point, begging to be tortured simply because she didn’t think it could hurt more than the utter indifference with which she was treated.
On the day Wang Lingjiao first moved to Nightless City, she had promised herself she would become someone who mattered and now, as she slowly rotted away in her pathetic cell, she found herself right back where she had started out.
She cried. There were angry tears and sad tears, and a whole lot of self-pitying tears.
For a while, she remained convinced Qishan Wen would win the war; she spent some very fine days ranting and raving at her jailers about all the gruesome things she would see done to them once she was free and they locked away. They still didn’t react and eventually, she had to admit to herself that there was only one explanation why the Unclean Realm never fell, and didn’t even seem embattled at all.
When the clothes first appeared, it only took her a few hours of furious complaints until she gave in and changed. It took her three more weeks to actually make it to the parlor. The first week she tried to escape, the second week she threw a tantrum when her demand for explanations weren’t heeded and the third… well, the first was some of column A and some of column B, really.
On the day she finally made it to the parlor, she stopped barely having crossed the threshold, utterly outraged by the sight of the nothing for which she had been forced through so much trouble. The man curled up in the chair barely held her attention at all, his surroundings and his own demeanor all spoke of him being someone unimportant and thus, he was clearly beneath her notice. A terrible imposition on her valuable time, really.
“That’s it?!” she demanded, her voice shrill and demanding with outrage even by her standards. “You force me into these ugly rags your Sect calls clothes and then I’m sent to talk to a servant?” It had to be a servant, she figured, nobody respectable would hold court in such a drab room that didn’t even speak of his importance.
She stepped further into the room, head held high with the same arrogance she had been known for among the Qishan Wen. They could force her into ugly servant’s clothes and throw her away in the deepest cell but she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of acting the part. You had to constantly remind people you were important, it was the only way to be treated as important.
“You, boy!” she said, snapping her fingers. “I’m talking to you!”
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It was no surprise that she didn't recognize him. They'd been in the same location more than once, but they'd never had a reason to interact.
He sat up straight, eyes wide and scared under the force of her temper, hiding behind his fan. "Ah, Wang Lingjiao..." he started, gentle and pacifying, lowering his fan just enough to give her a pleading, placating look.
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She sniffed and straightened, taking heart from how frightened he appeared. As he should. "Well, at least one of you brutes knows when he's in the company of his betters!" she exclaimed and shot the guards a withering look. Then she forced herself to gather her thoughts, she did have something more important to do here than complain, this being her first opportunity to speak to anyone at all.
"I demand an audience with Sect Leader Nie." Her chin rose, fake as her courage may have been. "I expect to discuss the terms of my release."
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"But he's not here," Huaisang said, all blinking innocence, as though her demand might have been something to consider if Nie Mingjue were here, as if the reason for her confusion is a total mystery to him. "He's in Jinlin Tai, at a conference."
Cowering in his chair, Huaisang shyly shut his fan and lowered it most of the way toward his lap. "What terms did you have in mind?"
He gazed up at her, earnest, as though she possessed all the information and explanations to be had in this situation and he only existed to accommodate.
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She took to pacing, her head held high and posture proud as if she didn't mostly want to use the opportunity to stretch her legs after having been locked up in her dreadfully small cell for far too long.
"I'm going to be released at once, of course," she went on. A matter of course. "And I wish to be returned to my sect, the Yingchuan Wang." Her throat clenched with dismay. If her sect still existed. They would have fought for the Wen, if the Wen were defeated...
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Watching as she paces, Huaisang continues to regard her with an intimidated and slightly worried gaze, obviously invested in pacifying her as much as possible.
"O-oh," he says, brow furrowing in confusion. He shakes his head, gazing at her as though she is surely going to explain the obvious practicalities of this which he has misunderstood. "But I don't think there is a Yingchuan Wang sect any longer. All of the sects allied with the Qishan Wen sect have been dissolved. The Jin Sect is overseeing most of the administration involved in annexing and redistricting the Wen lands. I could send you to them, if you'd like, and it's possible they could reconnect you with any of your family members who weren't executed for their involvement."
He blinks his eyes with earnest innocence, as if he's hoping that this offer will meet with her approval.
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Her face shutters again within seconds, the unpleasant sneer returning with twice the force. "Well, then," she begins, her voice wavering only a little. She lifts her chin higher to buy herself time while she realizes she is actually all out of words. "Don't be ridiculous!" she snaps. "I'm not going to concern myself with the Jin, they are brutes who can't be trusted to select a hat that matches their robes!"
If there are any survivors, though... But she won't be able to do anything for the surviving Wang while she is just another captive among many in the hands of the Jin. Here in the Unclean Realm, at least, she is treated well, so she must be a valuable prisoner to them. If they have cells to spare they clearly didn't get many captives.
She turns back to the clerk or servant or whatever the fluff-brained thing may be, turning a demanding look on him. "Well. Don't you have a better offer for me?"
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Huaisang shakes his head, very apologetic about how tragically he has failed her in this matter. "No, I don't have any idea what we should do with you. It's all so very confusing, and I'm not sure anyone even remembers you were put into Nie custody. I brought you out to ask what you thought we should do."
Nodding earnestly, he looks up at her, hopeful for her insightful guidance.
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She's supposed to suggest something and that should be good, that should give her power, but she doesn't have anything left to negotiate with. She's never much enjoyed bartering when she is in the beggar's position.
"I don't suppose you could let me go?" she asks, half scornfully. No, of course they won't but she's got to try. "I'm no good to you in your dungeons, I'm just costing you food and time."
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He chews on his lower lip a bit more, looking distressed about this possibility. "I can't do anything to protect you once you leave my custody. But if you're sure..." He nods, willing to grant any request that's reasonably within his power. He just doesn't think she's actually going to want this once she thinks for a moment and realizes that she'll be a woman alone without money or allies, due to be tortured to death if her enemies catch her. Huaisang may know very little of the world of the common folk, but he knows enough to be certain that her only hope is to find work as a farm laborer or a prostitute, and then to remain unrecognized for the rest of her life. "The guards will show you out of the palace."
He gestures to one of the guards to proceed with setting her free. "Farewell. Good luck!"
Waving cheerfully, he waits for her to leave. If she does, he'll quietly inform the guards that if she returns again and requests an audience with him, it may be granted. He doesn't think it will take long for her to realize the error of her request.
ahahahaha I love him
Before she knows it, she finds herself standing outside the walls of the Uncleam Realm, with the gates slamming shut behind her. She is still wearing the Nie servant robes but they are all she has to her name, she doesn't even have so much as any robes to change, never mind money.
Pretending to be a Nie servant on her way to run errands, she does manage to sweet-talk a merchant into taking her to the closest town on his cart but then she is on her own again, unable to pay for lodgings or even so much as a meal.
In the days and weeks to follow, this new life is proving a very unpleasant affair for Wang Lingjiao. She had worked as a servant before but being the servant to Wen Chao's wife was quite different from being penniless and alone deep in Qinghe Nie territory, without the money to travel anywhere else - not that there is anyplace safer or more welcoming for a former Wen minion. People aren't kind to the destitute and she has grown used to being waited on, to having soft hands and a back which doesn't ache from hard physical labor. Life may be easier in a brothel but also more dangerous than on the farms she only ever works on for a short time until they realize she knows nothing about farm work. Working in a brothel so close to Qinghe Nie headquarters, she would sooner or later be serving cultivators who recognize her from her old life.
It takes about three weeks for her to be back at the gates to the Unclean Realm, demanding an audience with the incompetent retainer who had released her.
"Very well," is the first thing she says as she walks into the room, wearing robes much drabber and worn than the ones she had left in, "you had your fun. Now tell me what you want from me."
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By the time she returns, the whole escapade has been mostly forgotten. The guards at the gate are perplexed by her demands. Who is she? What retainer? Her own name gets her nowhere, but a description of the bureaucrat who released her is recognized quickly enough, and she's taken to a room to wait.
Hours pass before she's finally fetched again and led to a room in the upper palace, luxurious spaces reserved for the Nie Clan family members, two levels above the bureaucratic halls where she'd been received before.
This time, Huaisang is looking far more casually luxurious, settled on a porch that looks out across the mountaintops of Qinghe. A couple of pretty birds hop in cages in the room just inside the porch, and there's a sense of peaceful luxury in the space. Kneeling at a table on the porch laid with tea and pastries, Huaisang is dressed today in expensive but comfortable silk robes, a mere three layers of silk instead of his usual five. He doesn't look up from the view as Wang Lingjiao enters, but there is a second cushion set on the far side of the table.
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And right here, in the middle of all that luxury and looking like someone who fits right in, is the incompetent servant she had spoken to last time.
She comes to a sudden full stop and gapes at him, mouth opening and closing several time before she remembers her voice at all and blurts out an indignant, "You!!" Well. That isn't very impressive, right. She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin and stalks towards him. "How dare you deceive me! Who do you think you are?!"
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Confused and worried, he gazes up at her with the same helpless bewilderment he used before. He's done everything he can to accommodate her requests. It's not his fault that she makes stupid requests, and he's not about to tell her what's what. He'll just do his best to enable her to figure it out on her own, and hope she doesn't cause too much trouble along the way.
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And she doesn't want to be too much trouble to someone like Nie Huaisang. He is her chance to get back her life.
"Nie-gongzi!" she simpers, bowing low with great flourish and ultimately, little actual grace. A lot of fake enthusiasm, though. "It is too much honor of you to receive me! Too much honor!"
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He's perfectly capable of using graceful formality, and he could use it now to rein her in and slap her into shape, if he wanted. Formality is one of his best tools. Instead, he discards it entirely. The levels of formality between the heir of a clan and a clanless prisoner are far too many, and Huaisang doesn't want to relegate her to being a lump in the dungeons or a resentful lower maidservant. In those cases, she's just a drain on the clan, an uncooperative maidservant likely to be more of a burden than anything. Better if he can get her to cooperate and to choose her own fate so that then she'll be willing to expend energy in pursuing that fate.
"Would you like some tea?" he gestures clumsily at the table in front of him, pleasantly laid with pastries and tea. The tea is cooling, but he's not going to have it refreshed just for her. If she wants it still hot, she'd better hurry up with cooperating.
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"Nie-gongzi is far too generous!" Now she bows again, empty words of flattery and gratitude falling from her lips still as she situates herself and pours herself some lukewarm tea, then, on second thought, remembering to pour tea for him as well.
The pastries are calling to her empty stomach but she still has some pride left so she sticks to her tea for now, not wanting to be seen eating like a starving beggar. No, she is no beggar. Just... unfortunately out of funds. And options. And friends. And a whole lot of other things.
"You are such a kind young man, I never realized!"
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Giving her a hopeful little smile, he taps his fan lightly against his lips. "I didn't think I'd see you again so soon! What brings you back to Qinghe?"
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So she keeps smiling her best simpering smile and coos, "Oh, I couldn't stand not seeing Nie-gongzi again, and thanking him for his generosity and his trust in releasing me! The villagers have been very welcoming." Disgusting peasants who make you work your hands to the bone for some watery soup and a bed in the stables. What a vile people, just as vile as their leaders. She widens the smile, turning it a notch more subservient. "I was hoping I could pay my debt to Nie-gongzi, if I'm permitted."