Chapter Text
Jin Ling’s first memories were not of his parents. He can’t recall their faces at all; the only connection to them he had was his father’s sword and his mother’s features, or so he’d been told. No, his first memories were of his uncle.
A sunny day, a boat, and JiuJiu, smiling at him as he splashed the water every time he saw a fish. Sometimes, Jin Ling tried to remember what that smile looked like, because as he grew older, smiles from his uncle became rarer things. Except, in the presence of one person.
Sect Leader Huaisang was a face Jin Ling was familiar with. When he was younger, he would often be taken with either of his uncles to discussion conferences. He wasn’t made to sit through them when he was younger, but often he would still be present for the large shared meals. Jin Ling liked it because he hated being left out of anything.
Sect Leader Nie was always kind to him, but he was kind to everyone. He would always sit close by the Jiang Sect, and because of this, near his uncle. Jin Ling often found himself wandering to the Sect Leader when he was around. He always had time for the young child, even when others did not.
He delighted in how the sect leader would call his uncle ‘Jiang-xiong’, would greet him affectionately. It was novel, really, seeing another treat his uncle so familiarly. Most people were afraid of him, and most others respected his station too much to treat him as a friend. Nie Huaisang never seemed bothered by his uncle’s poor social skills. It made Jin Ling wish for a friendship like it, or any friendship.
One memorable summer, he remembered being in Qinghe for a conference with his uncles. Jiang, Jin, and Lan clans were arguing about something he couldn’t remember, but it left him alone in the gardens with Sect Leader Nie.
They spent the time watching birds flutter through the growing trees and well-tended shrubbery. Sect Leader Nie seemed to know every bird’s name and Jin Ling had delighted in learning them all.
His uncle had come by, nearly late in the evening, and had stared at the two of them for some time before that smile crossed his face. Jin Ling remembers it vividly. He holds each of his uncle’s smiles close to his heart, though he would tell no one.
This one was a slow, infectious thing. It started in the corners of his mouth, grew to encompass his nose and eyes. That was how Jin Ling knew it wasn’t forced. His uncle’s ‘pleasantry smiles’ never reached past his lips. This though, it made Jin Ling feel safe. At the time, he had thought it was simply because he was there to bring Jin Ling to bed, but future experience would teach him otherwise.
It was often difficult, growing up, splitting his time between Yunmeng and Lanling. He spent most of his childhood in Yunmeng, and truth be told, his times in Lanling didn’t feel as he thought they should. Lanling was where his father grew up, where his father learned and honed his cultivation, where his parents married, where he was born. It didn’t feel like home as it should, and it made Jin Ling angry.
Once, when Jin Ling was around maybe 12, he had come to Lanling to stay with Little Uncle. Jin Ling was angry with JiuJiu, and he took it out how he always did; he went to Lanling. Little Uncle was always kind to him, gave him nice things, taught him, but most of his time was spent away from his nephew.
He had been practicing his archery for hours, nearly destroying a dozen targets as he vented his anger, when a voice interrupted him.
“Young Master Jin is very talented with a bow.”
He had turned to see the Nie Sect Leader behind him, watching him from behind his fan.
He puffed out his chest and jutted out his chin. “Of course I am, I’m the best.”
“Of course,” Nie Huaisang said, tilting his head slightly. “I do wonder though, is there something else you’re shooting at, rather than just the targets?”
Jin Ling looked at the torn and tattered targets laying around the range. “It’s just practice.”
Nie Huaisang snapped his fan shut and tapped it against his chin. “I guess I’m mistaken, I truly don’t know what came over me. I just thought maybe you learned some of your uncle’s bad habits.”
”What do you mean?” Jin Ling asked, curious about his uncle from another’s perspective.
Nie Huaisang smiled. “Jiang-xiong has a habit of not talking when something is bothering him. Though, I’m told I do too much of that, so who can be sure which is right!” He chuckled.
Jin Ling looked down at his feet. “I’m angry,” He said, surprising himself with his words. “I’m angry at JiuJiu.”
“Oh?” Nie Huaisang sat down on a rock close by and tapped it with his hand.
Jin Ling hesitantly sat down, if only for the nostalgia of days when the older man would tell him stories and recount all sorts of facts he never knew existed about birds and flowers and paint.
“He doesn’t think I’m ready for night hunts with him, which is ridiculous, because I’ve been on night hunts with him, just not the important ones! I want to show him I can, that my core is already brighter than his was at his age, but he…he got angry about that and forced me on washing duty. So, I came here instead.”
Nie Huaisang listened with an intent that few had shown him over the years; most of his complaints were met with platitudes or strict revisions. He hadn’t had many people just…listen to him.
“I see. And do you feel better, now that you’ve run from your uncle?”
“No. I don’t feel any different.” Jin Ling kicked the dirt a bit.
“I know your uncle isn’t good at talking, but perhaps you could tell him that you feel like you’re being held back?”
Jin Ling gave the Sect Leader a scandalized look. Nie Huaisang nodded in a sad but understanding way.
“I didn’t think that would be an option. Tell you what, I’ll tell you my trick for getting what I want, okay?”
Jin Ling shuffled a little closer and Nie Huaisang brought his hand to his mouth, as if telling him a world-ending secret.
“Compliment and apologize. I know, it sounds simple, but paying attention to what people like is important. Tell your uncle you know you crossed a line, that he’s the more powerful cultivator and your guardian. You’ll be surprised what that might get you out of.”
Jin Ling frowned, skeptically, but Nie Huaisang patted him on the head with a smile.
“Huaisang, there you are, I thought you wanted help with the trade issues?” Little Uncle whisked the other man away soon after.
Nie Huaisang came more often to Lanling as the years progressed, and for some reason seemed to like Jin Ling’s lunatic of an uncle, Mo Xuanyu. As Jin Ling was taught more and more of the cultivation world, more of the duties of Sect Leaders and Clan Leaders, he started to question how someone like Nie Huaisang was on the same level as either of his uncles or Zewu-Jun.
More and more as he grew older, he heard rumors and overheard whispers about the Nie Sect Leader. People called him useless, called him stupid, said he was weaker in cultivation than anyone. The whispers about why he enjoyed Mo Xuanyu’s company. The more Jin Ling learned, the more he was confused as to why his uncle liked him, why his other uncle took so much care to help him.
One night, he was back early from Lanling and went to find his uncle in Yunmeng. Jin Ling had looked in the main hall, the ancestral hall, the training grounds, even his uncle’s room, but hadn’t found him anywhere. He wandered the piers as he often did when he was bored, since non of his uncle’s cultivators could tell him where the Sect Leader was.
He came across a pagoda, painstakingly rebuilt from when the Wen’s had attacked. JiuJiu had told Jin Ling it was where his grandparents would come to talk, or to fight. Now though, instead of JiuJiu’s parents, it was JiuJiu and another cultivator. Jin Ling hid himself to be able to overhear.
“You can’t just say things like that,” His uncle grunted out.
Jin Ling peaked around the greenery he was hiding behind to try to see better who he was talking to.
“And what am I to do? Hold it inside until the weight of it crushes my heart?”
Jin Ling couldn’t see the face of the cultivator speaking with his uncle, but he knew the deep tones and familiar way of speaking enough to know it was Nie Huaisang.
“Ah-Jun-”
“No, no sweet names, Jiang Cheng. You don’t believe me and that’s fine. I will keep it to myself. I need to return to Qinghe anyway.”
Sweet names? Jin Ling was confused. He had never heard his uncle address anyone ‘sweetly’. Perhaps this was just how deep their friendship ran? He knew they knew each other from before the war, and such a lifelong friendship was normal to be familiar. Little Uncle and Zewu-Jun were much the same.
“Are you returning just because I didn’t immediately say it back?”
“No, I do have a sect to run, if you remember.”
“I don’t know,” Jiang Cheng mockingly
“Well now I’m leaving precisely because of that comment. Try not to insult the next woman who the matchmaker brings.”
“Huaisang-“
“Good-bye, Sect Leader Jiang.”
Jin Ling watched as Sect Leader Nie gracefully glided down the pier. His uncle stood in the same place for a few minutes and Jin Ling was afraid to breathe or move for fear of his uncle seeing him and taking out the barely concealed anger on him.
Jin Ling thought about the exchange for days afterwards, though he knew none of it was his business. The way Sect Leader Nie had spoken so confidently and precise…it was a stark contrast from how Jin Ling usually saw the man act. He had tried to reconcile the man on that pier with the man he had seen fall weeping into his other’s uncle’s arms at the slightest inconvenience.
Was there really anything special about being a Sect Leader? Jin Ling had always thought so, had hoped to be his own Sect’s Leader someday. He wanted to follow in his in his uncles’ footsteps, lead the Clan like his father was never able to do, but Nie Huaisang made him start to question why.