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Published:
2024-02-06
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2024-02-06
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2/2
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see all the colors in disguise

Summary:

“Hello, Wei Wuxian,” she said.

Wei Ying laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. I’m just A-Ying.” He’d once told Auntie Zhao that his mother and father had given him the name ‘Wuxian.’ She’d reminded him that servants did not have courtesy names, and that he shouldn’t reach too far above his station, in case someone took exception to it.

“‘Just A-Ying,’” the woman repeated.

He nodded. “Are you lost? I can lead you back.”

“Do you like helping people, A-Ying?”

“Oh, yes.”

Notes:

A quick oneshot for Amaltheia, who offered up the following prompt:

Wei Wuxian is rescued from the streets by the Jiang's but taken into the Sect as a servant. He ends up serving the talisman master and still learns to cultivate. His talisman master becomes his teacher/parent and no one except the academics of the cultivation world know this kid exists.

I hope this hits on all the right notes! Writing this was a refreshing break from a much, much longer project, and I hope you enjoy it!!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“This will be your room, A-Ying.”

Wei Ying’s eyes widened. “It’s all mine?”

Jiang-zongzhu nodded, patting his shoulder. Wei Ying nearly buckled under the weight of it. A whole room, just for him! He bet he could take six long steps across it before he touched the other wall. And there was a bed! With a pillow, even!

“It was your father’s,” Jiang-zongzhu said, “A good and loyal servant of this sect, as I know you will be as well.”

Wei Ying nodded quickly. “I will, zongzhu!”

“Good, good. Tomorrow at dawn you’ll meet with my steward and he’ll show you to the laundry.”

Wei Ying nodded eagerly. He liked doing things with his hands, and if this helped out the kind sect leader who’d retrieved him from the streets of Yiling then he would gladly pound out every stain and wash every piece of fabric in the entire world.

“The servants have already eaten dinner, but here.” He slipped a small package from his sleeve. “Sleep well.”

The baozi inside were still warm. Wei Ying cradled them in his hands and tried not to cry over them. Jiang-zongzhu left him in his room to eat in silence. Wei Ying saved one of the baozi, carefully spiriting it away into one of the pockets of his small bag while drawing out the other treasures he’d kept inside. He had a place to put them now. He gently placed his cracked rattle drum on the lowest shelf on the wall, repositioning it a few times before it looked proper.

Next came the small donkey inexpertly carved from wood. He didn’t really remember where it’d come from, though he thought he remembered a kind voice in his ear saying, ‘here, Ying-er, forgive your Baba’s clumsy hands.’

And, finally, the frayed red ribbon that he knew in his heart had once belonged to his mother. He considered tying it in his hair, but hesitated at the last moment. He’d seen servants in the houses in Yiling; none of them were as great as YunmengJiang, but they all made sure their servants did not draw more attention than their masters. The decorations in Jiang-zongzhu’s hair were very fine, but surely the red length of cloth, despite how faded and frayed, would do more to catch the eye.

With a sigh, he tied it around his donkey’s neck.

Unpacked, he slowly pulled tiny pieces off the remaining baozi and savoured each and every bite. This was his home now. A real home, warm and cozy. The sheer might of his gratitude nearly bowled him over.

“I have a son and a daughter,” Jiang-zongzhu told him on their way back to Lotus Pier. “Their mother died quite some time ago. You will not see much of them, but they are to be obeyed as I am.”

“Yes, zongzhu,” Wei Ying said.

“If you work hard, and show promise, you may eventually become manservant to my son. But first you must prove yourself worthy of it.”

Wei Ying would work harder than any servant who had ever stepped foot inside Lotus Pier, he decided. He would prove himself worthy of the honour Jiang-zongzhu had shown him by plucking him off the streets of Yiling and giving him a place to live, warm and safe.

By the end of his first week in Lotus Pier, hot water and caustic cleaning supplies sank into WEi Ying’s hands and arms, up to the elbow. Wei Ying persisted through the pain of chapped fingers. He woke up before sunrise every morning and fell asleep late at night, barely able to keep his eyes open. He slept more soundly than he ever had in Yiling, safety combined with the heavy physical exertion of the day knocking him out the moment his head hit the pillow. He had regular meals twice a day, and he charmed the kitchen aunties into sharing the occasional snack.

In short: Wei Ying was in heaven.

A year into his service, his life had filled itself with an embarrassment of riches he’d never expected. There had been days in Yiling, especially in the winter, when he’d wondered if he’d even wake up in the mornings. Who’d have thought he’d end up here? Fed and cared for. Other street urchins in Yiling would kill for this opportunity and he hoped he never forgot to be thankful.

“A-Ying,” Auntie Zhao called. He ran to her side and she dropped a heavy basket laden down with folded robes into his hands. “Take this to the girls in the north wing.”

Wei Ying nodded and hurried along Lotus Pier’s back walkways, dodging around people scuttling along the same way.

In the distance, the sound of Young Master Jiang’s dogs barking sent a shudder trembling down his back. He quickened his steps. The others didn’t mind that he went out of his way to avoid the kennels. At one point, he knew, one of the younger serving girls had caught sight of one of the bite scars littering his arms. He thought she must have shared what she’d seen, because even though he heard the dogs barking at all hours of the day, he’d yet to catch a single glimpse of them, and sometimes Auntie Zhao sent him on an errand at the far side of the sect seat with instructions to remain there until she called for him, like she’d done the day that Jiang-gongzi had gotten to choose a new pup from a litter of spiritual dogs.

They were all meant to stay well out of the way today. Jiang-zongzhu was greeting a Very Important Guest, who had travelled a long way in search for something, though Jiang-zongzhu had not shared any details. He’d come himself to the servants’ hall to let them know. Wei Ying thought for a moment that Jiang-zongzhu had looked his way specifically, but with his eyes lowered he hadn’t been sure.

He reached his destination without incident. The girls, Jinzhu and Yinzhu, had supposedly once served Jiang-zongzhu’s wife, but after her death had been reassigned to laundry just like him. Although the kitchen aunties always said that it was a servant’s right to complain—as long as they only did so well out of the hearing of their masters—he’d never heard a peep of discontent from either of them.

“Here, jiejie,” he said. “Where do you want it?”

“Just there, A-Ying,” Yinzhu said, brushing her hair out of her face with the back of her arm. He laid it down where she pointed.

“It never ends,” Jinzhu muttered.

“We could go back to Meishan,” Yinzhu said.

“And leave Jiang-guniang and Jiang-gongzi?”

“Hm. Take them with us?”

They both burst into shared laughter. A-Ying joined in for the simple joy of feeling the giggles bubbling up from his stomach to his throat, even though he didn’t quite understand the joke.

Jinzhu waved him over and straightened his hair. As expected, the red ribbon would have stood out far too much, but a day after meeting him, Jinzhu had produced a small leather cuff to keep it out of his face. She and Yinzhu took turns making sure it was constantly secured in place.

“Be proper,” Yinzhu always told him.

“Make a good impression,” Jinzhu agreed.

“Be polite.”

“Learn everything you can.”

“And that’s how I’ll eventually earn the right to serve Jiang-gongzi?” A-Ying asked.

The two of them shared a look, indecipherable even though Wei Ying liked to think he’d become pretty good at reading people. Neither of them disagreed with him.

“Have you eaten?” Jinzhu asked. Wei Ying shook his head. “Here.” She passed a wrapped mantou his way. “Go.”

“Thank you, jiejie,” he said. He was always hungry these days. Auntie Zhao said he was having his first real growth spurt, ‘and well past time, too.’ His legs hurt all the time, which she called a sign of his bones getting longer.

He quickly bowed to both of them and took off back to the main laundry. He took the quicker way back, skirting the main courtyard. He stopped for just a moment at a narrow passage between buildings to peek out. Jiang-zongzhu, his children, and his disciples had all gathered to greet their guest. Wei Ying caught a bare glimpse of pale robes lined with grey—similar to Lan robes, but sturdier and probably easier to wash he guessed—before hurrying on his way.

That night, he dreamed of the woods outside Lotus Pier. He wandered between the trees, drawn through the darkness by a flickering light somewhere up ahead. He dodged around a tree that stretched all the way into the sky and came stumbling out into a small clearing.

He’d found the source of the light; a small campfire blazed away, a regal-looking woman sitting before it.

Wei Ying dropped into a deep bow. He didn’t know her, but he suspected from her robes that she was the honoured guest he’d spotted earlier. It was very strange, though… she should probably be staying back in the guest quarters of Lotus Pier rather than out in the woods.

He studied her a moment. Her robes were simple as he’d suspected: light in colour, but relatively unadorned. A white jade guan kept her hair clipped back and out of her eyes, nearly lost among the waves of white surrounding it. Despite that, she did not look old. He guessed she was even younger than Jiang-zongzhu. Maybe she’d seen something scary and it had stolen the colour away from her.

“Hello, Wei Wuxian,” she said.

Wei Ying laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. I’m just A-Ying.” He’d once told Auntie Zhao that his mother and father had given him the name ‘Wuxian.’ She’d reminded him that servants did not have courtesy names, and that he shouldn’t reach too far above his station, in case someone took exception to it.

“‘Just A-Ying,’” the woman repeated.

He nodded. “Are you lost? I can lead you back.”

“Do you like helping people, A-Ying?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What else?”

Wei Ying scrunched his nose and tapped his chin with his finger. “I like…” He paused and gave it a moment’s thought. “Spicy noodles.”

She laughed, easy and low. It was a nice sound. It struck a memory somewhere deep inside him, though he found himself hard pressed to pinpoint where.

“This does not surprise me,” she said. “Tell me, A-Ying, what do you do here?”

“Oh, I practically run Lotus Pier,” he said, he proudly crossed his arms over his chest. “Without me, all the disciples would be running around without clothes on.” He doubled over laughing, suddenly caught up in imagining the look on a yao’s face if suddenly confronted with a hundred naked Jiang disciples.

“It sounds like you are very important,” she said. He managed to stand straight, grin still spread across his face. “But you are not a disciple yourself?”

He shook his head. “My father was a servant of Lotus Pier and I’m following in his footsteps.”

“Ah. And your mother?”

“She—” Wei Ying frowned. He used to remember more about his mother, but like the worst memories of his time living in Yiling, he struggled to recall anything specific. A laugh. A smile. Nothing more. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

This seemed to make the woman sad. “I see.” She beckoned him closer and Wei Ying moved around the fire to come and stand by her side.

He kept a decent amount of distance between them. She seemed nice, but he didn’t know her, and some lessons he’d learned from hard hands in the past stuck with him despite a year of living in soft comforts.

“Should you wish to learn, I can teach you,” she said.

Wei Ying pressed his lips together. He liked to learn. More than anything. And he’d learned everything he possibly could already about laundry. And Auntie Zhao said that it would be another year at least before he could even think about learning the trick of personally serving the son of the sect leader.

“I would love that more than anything,” he decided.

She nodded. “Then come with me.”

All at once, Wei Ying’s heart broke. He dropped his chin to his chest. “Thank you, but I can’t.” She frowned. “When Jiang-zongzhu brought me here, I promised him I’d never, ever leave.” Jiang-zongzhu had been very kind, but he’d also made it clear that Wei Ying, like his father before him, owed YunmengJiang a debt which his service alone would repay. And he’d been happier in Lotus Pier than anywhere else he remembered, really!

“‘Never’ is something no mortal can promise,” she told him.

“All the same.” He bowed again as properly as he could and hoped she wouldn’t be offended by his refusal.

“Very well. Then I shall teach you here.” She raised her hands and gestured to the dark woods around them.

His mouth dropped open. “You mean tonight?”

“Every night.” As though to emphasize her words, fire cracked through a knot on one of the burning logs, a cloud of sparks dancing up and away from it before disappearing into the night sky to join the rest of the stars overhead.

Wei Ying’s grin came upon him so quickly and so fiercely that his mouth and cheeks ached. “Oh, thank you!” He paused. “What do I call you?”

Her eyes had never quite stopped looking sad. At his question, they shuttered away all emotion and left it for the heavy weight in her voice, a choked sound through which she barely managed to wrestle her words. “You will call me Waipo.”

Wei Ying nodded.

He woke the next morning feeling well-rested despite the vividity of his dreams.

When he pulled back the covers to climb out of bed for the day, he blinked at the sight of dirt staining the sheets.

Despite the extra work it’d take him to get them clean for the day, he smiled.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“Wen Ruohan has gone too far!” Jin Guangshan declared at the front of the room.

Lan Wangji refused to allow himself to outwardly wince at the volume. At his side, Xiongzhang remained equally stone faced, doubtless thinking the same thing: that ‘too far’ should have been declared long before now. Perhaps when Wen Ruohan had attacked Cloud Recesses. Not merely because Jin Zixuan had been put at risk during the Wen Indoctrination Camp.

Xiongzhang placed a placating hand on his knee, as though Lan Wangji could not be relied upon to maintain his composure when faced with such gross misrepresentation. Lan Wangji eyed him sidelong, but Xichen kept his gaze facing forward, nodding along with the other sect leaders as they agreed with Jin Guangshan.

Lotus Pier had been the closest sect seat when Lan Wangji, Jiang Wanyin, and Jin Zixuan had finally managed to escape the cave which had concealed the False Xuanwu of Slaughter. Luo Qingyang, unwavering, had tirelessly worked to clear the entrance and dragged them out one at a time on her own, all other disciples fled in fear of being discovered. It had taken her a week to get them here, and another for them to begin to recover from their injuries. The time had served as an open invitation for every sect leader from Laoling to Qinghe to descent in order to discuss what had to be done to address the rising threat.

They all had to be thinking the same thing: that if Wen Chao hadn’t called for Lan Wangji, Jiang Wanyin, and Jin Zixuan to be punished for interrupting his ‘valiant defeat’ of the False Xuanwu of Slaughter, then LanlingJin would have nothing at all to say against his former friend and confidant.

“All a misunderstanding, easily addressed,” Jiang Fengmian insisted. “Please, Jin-xiong, calm yourself.”

“Calm…? He has offered you greater insult than any of us, Fengmian!” Jin Guangshan crowed.

In truth, the insult had been levelled at Jiang-guniang. Jiang Fengmian had done his best to broker peace by offering her to Wen Xu as a prospective bride, an arrangement which had only sated the Wen desire for power a short time before Wen Xu had apparently lost all interest and demanded his father put an end to the prospective match.

Looking at her now, calm and dignified, no one would have thought her to be nursing a broken heart. At her side, Jiang Wanyin appeared more incensed at the reminder than she did.

And yet, still, despite Jiang-guniang’s pains, Lan Wangji struggled to imagine a broken engagement a more strenuous cause for concern than the burning of his sect and death of countless Lan disciples, but perhaps that was just him.

His attention already aimed in that direction, he seemed to be the only one who noticed when Jiang-guniang leaned back to whisper something to one of the servants. The young man bowed and quickly exited the room.

“And even in this, Wen Ruohan and his sons have demonstrated their lack of honour,” Xichen finally said. Jiang-guniang conjured up a smile for him. Lan Wangji graciously ignored the ensuing flush to his brother’s ears. “Jiang-zongzhu, I know I speak for all of us when I congratulate your temperance and desire for peace, but we must acknowledge that it may not be the way forward.”

“The alternative is war, Zewu-jun,” Jiang Fengmian said.

“I am the last person to advocate violence, but the alternative is choosing to allow injustice to stand,” Xichen said. “Forgive me, Jiang-zongzhu, but I cannot condone inaction in such circumstances.”

The servant returned. Jiang-guniang and Jiang Wanyin turned towards him, sunflowers seeking out light. He dropped down behind Jiang Wanyin to whisper urgently in his ear.

Jiang Wanyin stood. “The Wen are coming,” he stated.

The air abruptly left the room and all eyes turned towards the Jiang heir.

“A-Cheng, let’s not be alarmist,” Jiang Fengmiang sighed.

“A-Die—Zongzhu,” he corrected, “I mean it. There are currently Wen forces approaching from the east.”

Uproarious shouting followed the declaration, the sound of shouting drowning out the slide of swords drawn across the room. A handful of disciples, a mix of those from every sect, escaped out the doors to take a look for themselves.

No one seemed to notice that the Jiang siblings appeared entirely unconcerned by this development. None save Lan Wangji, at any rate. He kept an eye on them, and their servant, telling himself that he was merely assessing the situation as opposed to allowing himself to be distracted by the servant’s remarkable beauty, unblemished by his simple attire and the smudge of dirt on his cheek.

Unbidden, he stood and crossed to them. Accustomed to following his lead—they had all saved one another more than once when facing the False Xuanwu, relying on one another’s judgement in tandem with their own—Jin Zixuan followed close behind him, Luo Qingyang dogging his heels.

“Wanyin,” Jin Zixuan said. “What should we know?”

Jiang Wanyin, uncharacteristically reticent, looked over his shoulder. The servant shifted nervously in place. Or perhaps… eagerly? Lan Wangji had little trouble imagining that a mediocre person might be terrified by the idea of encroaching forces, but there seemed an odd excitement hanging about the other man which made the very air vibrate in anticipation.

“Tell your people not to leave the boundaries of Lotus Pier,” Jiang Wanyin said, after a glance towards the servant resulted in a subtle nod. “If they do, pray they don’t have evil intentions.”

While Lan Wangji had no concerns on that score, Jin Zixuan appeared unsettled. He looked to Luo Qingyang, who nodded.

“I’ll go retrieve Zixun,” she muttered, then took off towards the door.

“A-Ying,” Jiang-guniang said quietly, “You’re sure your wards will hold?”

The servant, A-Ying, nodded with unshakable certainty. “As sure as the mountain,” he replied, voice as unshakable as the sentiment to which it referred.

Both Jiang-guniang and -gongzi slumped in obvious relief.

“And we can trust this… person?” Jin Zixuan asked.

Jiang Wanyin looked prepared to repay the question with violence, Zidian crackling upon his wrist as it had when he’d joined Lan Wangji in combining its strength with that of Chord Assassination. Jiang-guniang placed a hand upon his arm and his spiritual tool immediately quieted.

“It is not a well-known fact, but A-Ying is a greater genius when it comes to talisman and arrays than anyone trained by YunmengJiang,” she said. “Or by any other sects.”

“Guniang,” A-Ying whined, pleased and despairing all at once.

This, of course, led to the question as to who exactly had been the one to train him, but the sudden outcry outside cut any such conversation short.

“A-Ying,” Jiang-guniang said, “I know we’ve spoken of it before, and you’ve always refused, but if your protections keep Lotus Pier safe, then you must accept a position as a full disciple. No matter,” she insisted, over what looked like a burgeoning protest, “What our father says.”

A-Ying swallowed, apprehensive and yet pleased. “Yes, guniang.” He looked over his shoulder and a smile broke out across his face, as easy as it was lovely. “I’d better go check on things then.”

“I shall accompany you,” Lan Wangji stated.

A-Ying blinked at him, looking directly at Lan Wangji for the first time. His smile shifted into something smaller. “As Lan-er-gongzi wishes.”

Following him towards the door felt somewhat like following A-Ying towards his future. His hand tightened on Bichen, knuckles aching, as they passed through the doors together, perfectly in step.

Notes:

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