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."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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?!"
no subject
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.
no subject
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!"
no subject
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.
no subject
"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!"
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."