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Jin Guangyao has his instructions.
They are clear, well-planned, and sensible. They are entirely possible to follow to the letter. He is unlikely to ever forget them, or even for them to fade into the background commentary of his ceaseless thinking. Planning. Plotting.
He is a dutiful son.
He is a dutiful son .
He is loyal. He is filial. He is careful. He is discreet.
He is also despised. Abused. Exhausted.
“Jin Guangyao?” Nie Mingjue barks, brows a harsh line of disapproval, hair down and loose around his broad shoulders, still wavy from his braids. Jin Guangyao looks up, up, up at him, backlit by the lanterns in his office despite the late hour, and he sees it the moment Nie Mingjue understands what he’s looking at. “A-Yao!” He says next, that forbidden name on his lips, and despite knowing that he’s delivering himself to death’s door, Jin Guangyao can do nothing but sway forward to collapse into arms that are most likely no safer than the hell he’s left behind (but he has to try ).
“Chifeng-Zun,” he mumbles through swollen, bloodied lips, burning with splits and bites from knuckles, from his teeth. “I want to come home.”
The last thing he hears before he loses his blood-slippery grip on his consciousness is Nie Mingjue barking, “ Someone go get the doctor!! ” in the way he used to shout across entire battlefields.
“How badly off is he, Da-ge?” Nie Huaisang murmurs near at hand. Jin Guangyao doesn’t stir, gives no indication at all that he’s awake, that he’s listening. Nie Mingjue will never drop his guard around him again, of that much he’s certain, but perhaps while seemingly deeply unconscious he’ll at least be civil.
“Nearly died,” Nie Mingjue grunts, his frown perfectly audible. “I don’t know what did it to him, but I didn’t think he went out on nighthunts, and there hasn’t been a Jin hunting party near here in months anyway.”
Ah Nie Mingjue. So willfully obtuse when he wants to be.
“You think this is from a nighthunt?” Nie Huaisang asks, and if Jin Guangyao were weaker he might consider cracking a smile at the deep disbelief in his tone.
“I don’t know. Won’t know until he wakes up and tells us, not that he’ll ever tell us the truth anyway. Better to just get him patched up and send him on his way again as quickly as possible.”
Ah. Jin Guangyao isn’t exactly surprised to learn that the rejection still burns hot and shameful in his chest, but he’s certainly dismayed by the realization anyway.
He stays still as Nie Huaisang drifts closer on near-silent feet, and then there’s the whisper of cloth against cloth and a gentle touch on his temple, a knuckle smoothing some flyaway hairs back from his face. “I don’t think it happened on a nighthunt,” Nie Huaisang confesses, and it takes a shocking amount of willpower not to lean into his soft touch like a cat. No one’s touched him softly, familiarly in so long , he’s nearly forgotten how it feels. “I think it was his family.”
“That’s a very bold accusation to make, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue counters immediately, as anyone would. It’s a delicate issue, after all. Jin Guangyao has been recognized, legitimized. He is his household’s problem to deal with now, any outside criticism or intervention would be highly controversial at best, disastrous at worst. And all because he’s too weak to handle any more broken bones, any more backhanded slaps that leave his cheek stinging for days, any more delicate little carvings with his father’s favorite paring knife into hidden patches of his skin to remind him who owns him.
“It’s only bold because no one dares go against Jin Guangshan to say it,” Nie Huaisang retorts with more spine than he usually ever shows around his brother. “A lot of these bruises are days or weeks old, Da-ge! And look at these scars -“
“Close his robe!” Nie Mingjue snaps. “Have some decency, Huaisang, he isn’t one of your drawing models.”
“Da-ge did you even look at him?” Nie Huaisang demands, gaining steam. “There are words carved into his skin! What standard beast or ghoul do you know of that would do that ?”
“Who’s to say he didn’t do that to himself?” Nie Mingjue retorts. “We won’t know anything for sure until he wakes up, and as soon as he starts lying we’ll know he’s recovered enough to be shipped back to Jin Guangshan. End of story. Now get out of here, I’ll have someone let you know when he wakes up and he’s ready for visitors.”
Nie Huaisang lingers for an extra moment or two, still petting his hair, and then he withdraws with a sigh. He stops long enough at the door to say a soft, “I’m disappointed in you, Da-ge,” that shocks Jin Guangyao down to his core, but Nie Mingjue doesn’t audibly react so he has no idea how he takes it.
All he can do is lie there and desperately wish for unconsciousness or perhaps a true coma to claim him again and protect him from Nie Mingjue’s desire to get rid of him as quickly as possible.
Silence descends again save for Jin Guangyao’s steady breathing and the occasional rustle of fabric from where Nie Mingjue is seated a polite distance away. Were the circumstances different, Jim Guangyao would be flattered that a Sect Leader apparently has time to spare being his nursemaid. As it is, however, he’s finding it hard not to feel like a prisoner being kept under the strictest watch imaginable.
Though even with the threat of Nie Mingjue so close at hand, Jin Guangyao still manages to fall asleep again. No matter his faults, Nie Mingjue has such a staunch belief in justice and right and wrong - Jin Guangyao is reasonably sure that hurting someone who is unconscious and defenseless would be unacceptable to him no matter how badly he wishes to get rid of him. It’s more than can be said for his father’s spies in Jinlintai, so he sleeps.
And he sleeps.
He wakes when the doctor comes to check his bandages and give him a dose of restorative medicine. He isn’t sure if Nie Mingjue is in the room or not when he does so, and he’s asleep again before the doctor leaves his line of sight clear enough to know. He hasn’t been hurt yet, at least, so he sleeps some more and hopes that his luck will hold.
Eventually, though, he has to wake. He opens his eyes to stare up at the ceiling overhead, and he blinks slowly, owlishly, feeling sluggish and ungainly even without attempting to move. He blinks a few more times and then flinches when a hand suddenly enters his vision, the movement setting his whole body throbbing though he refuses to show that particular weakness. He would have been dead long before now if he were the type to shrink from a bit of pain.
“Hold still,” Nie Mingjue grouses from far too close at hand. “I’m checking your temperature.”
Jin Guangyao goes obediently still and tries valiantly not to think about the fact that the last person to touch his cheek was Madam Jin, and that she had done so to slap him so hard he’d worried his eye or his teeth would become dislodged. He’d worn the bruises from her heavy gold rings for a week and a half. No one had said a word.
Nie Mingjue rests the backs of his knuckles against his cheek and Jin Guangyao averts his gaze automatically, unwilling to look at Nie Mingjue and see precisely how unhappy he is to be touching him again, after all this time.
“Give me your wrist,” he demands next and Jin Guangyao obediently holds one hand out towards him for Nie Mingjue to press his fingertips just a little too hard into the divot between his tendons. His fingers twitch without his conscious permission, and he forces his hand to go completely lax.
“Thank you for ensuring I was given medical aid,” Jin Guangyao finally manages to rasp, usual honey-smooth voice roughened by who knows how long without anything to wet his throat. “I apologize for appearing unannounced-“
“Shut up,” Nie Mingjue barks and Jin Guangyao obliges. That’s always been the best course of action where Nie Mingjue is concerned, and now is certainly not the time to try to push his luck any further than he already has. Nie Mingjue finally releases his wrist and Jin Guangyao can’t quite resist the urge to pull his sleeve down as far as it can go, hoping to hide…well, he supposes there’s nothing really specific to hide except any part of himself that he can. Nie Mingjue presses a full cup of water into his upturned palm a moment later, and Jin Guangyao murmurs a quiet, “Thank you,” as he raises it to his lips to sip at politely. He wants to down the whole thing in one gulp. He wants to demand more, or perhaps take the entire jug of water off the table and drink straight from it. He wants to be impolite. He wants to be greedy .
He sips at it demurely until it’s gone, and Nie Mingjue wordlessly takes it from him to fill again, to press it back into his waiting hand to let him keep drinking.
“I’ve sent a letter to Lanling,” Nie Mingjue announces into the silence and Jin Guangyao feels himself go first pale and then green, the blood draining from his face and nausea roiling thick and viscous in his stomach.
“My father will be pleased to see me returned safely,” he manages to choke. A lie. A damning lie that he can’t stop himself from telling, as if it might make returning there anything less than a genuine death sentence. Perhaps it’s not a lie after all - he doesn’t doubt that Jin Guangshan would like to finish what he started.
“A Jin disciple came looking for you, so I sent him back with a letter to Jin Guangshan telling him that I haven’t seen you.”
Jin Guangyao whips his head around to look at Nie Mingjue straight on - his wide eyes wetter than they should probably be - and he hunts for any sign at all that he’s lying.
Except Nie Mingjue doesn’t lie. Detests it and anyone who does it. But is apparently willing to do so to Jin Guangshan to..protect… him . “You-“ There’s no good way to finish that sentence. Jin Guangyao stares for a moment longer before he drops the empty cup to the bed and leans forward to bury his face in his hands, unwilling to let Nie Mingjue see more emotion crossing his features, lest he think it’s some new way to manipulate him.
Nie Mingjue gives him a few moments of silence before he breaks it again with a blunt, “Who carved ‘bastard’ on your chest?”
Jin Guangyao drops one hand from his face to clutch his robe tighter around himself, fingers gripping hard enough to wrinkle the thin silk but he doesn’t care. If Nie Mingjue had seen that much of him then how much more had he seen? How thoroughly does he understand that Jin Guangyao has been tortured by his entire family since he arrived in Jinlintai?
“Who burned your arms?” Nie Mingjue asks next, voice still harsh. “Who broke your ribs? Who knocked your teeth loose? Why didn’t you say something ?!”
“What is there to say?” Jin Guangyao asks rather than list the culprits for his most visible injuries. “I am the unwanted, inconvenient, but ultimately useful bastard son of the most powerful man in the cultivation world. He legitimized me, gave me a place when none was left. He and his proper family can do what they please with me in their own house.”
Ahh that came out far too bitter, he can taste it the second the words leave his lips. He lays down again and turns his head to face Nie Mingjue, who looks like he’s (unsuccessfully) trying to hold back a fresh outburst. Jin Guangyao counts slowly to five in his head, and then -
“ I gave you a place!” Nie Mingjue erupts, and there it is, the anger he’s been waiting for. “You worked for it, you earned it, and you just turned your back on everything I gave you for, what ? Petty revenge?!”
Jin Guangyao can think of a dozen ways to defend himself without even trying, but he knows that not a single one of them will satisfy this image of him that Nie Mingjue insists on deluding himself with. So instead, he simply studies his hands in his lap and says nothing, fingers clenched tightly around the imagined circumference of Jin Guangshan’s neck.
Nie Mingjue makes a noise in the back of his throat that can only be disgust and jerks to his feet. He slams the door shut on his way out, and despite expecting it Jin Guangyao still can’t help but flinch. He stays there for a long time, just staring at his hands and trying to make sense of what will happen from now on. It’s highly unlikely at this point that he’ll be allowed to stay, that much is painfully obvious. But if he returns to Jinlintai now the abuses will only worsen, and he knows he can survive many things that would destroy those less than him, but..he can’t survive all of Jinlintai actively plotting his murder, sanctioned by the most powerful man in the world. He’ll have to disappear again, slip off the face of the earth and eke out a moderately comfortable life doing something menial before he can find anything in the Great Sects again. If he can. It’s everything he’d hoped to avoid, but one doesn’t survive as long as he has without knowing when to cut his losses and start over.
“A-Yao?” Nie Huaisang calls softly from the doorway a few hours later. Meng Yao forces his eyes and his head to lift and he has to blink and clear his eyes when he catches sight of the deep concern etched in Nie Huaisang’s handsome face, so much like his brother’s. He musters up one of his usual smiles, though today it makes his cheeks tremble and his lips don’t fit into the proper shape at all.
“Hello Huaisang,” he greets with a little wave for him to come inside. He doesn’t, he lingers at the door staring at him with wide eyes. Ah. Of course. Nie Mingjue had probably forbidden him from coming any closer. “What is it? I'm sorry Nie-Zongzhu left here angry - I hope he is directing it appropriately?”
“He’s in the training yard,” Nie Huaisang supplies, and Jin Guangyao barely refrains from rolling his eyes. It’s honestly the worst response to anger that Nie Mingjue could have, going out to train with Baxia who will only stoke that anger higher and hotter until they’re both burning each other alive with it. But his gentle attempts to express his concern before his banishment once he’d learned the secret of the Nie sabers had fallen on deaf ears, and he certainly doesn’t have a leg to stand on now . There’s nothing he can do.
“Would you like to come in? I apologize there isn’t anything to eat or drink I could offer you-“
“Stop,” Nie Huaisang practically begs and Jin Guangyao blinks in surprise.
“Huaisang?”
“Stop trying to act like everything is normal. Nothing about this is normal. I’m sending for Er-ge okay? He’ll know how to fix it.”
“Huaisang, wait -“
He’s gone in an instant, hurried footsteps echoing down the hall, and Jin Guangyao closes his eyes against the fresh wave of nausea that unfurls in his stomach at the thought of Lan Xichen seeing him like this. Lan Xichen, who believes the best of everybody. Who enjoys his delusions that the world is ultimately kind and fair, that it rewards hard work appropriately. Who will worry because of something Jin Guangyao has done. No, such a crime is absolutely unacceptable.
He does some quick calculations to determine how long he has before Lan Xichen arrives, and he decides there’s no time to waste. Even should he be delayed by sect business before he can leave, Lan Xichen travels quickly, and Jin Guangyao needs to be far away before he arrives. Accommodating for the fact that he will no doubt be forced to move slowly, and the speed at which Nie Huaisang’s messenger birds from Gusu are capable of flying, he must leave sooner rather than later.
Thus decided, Jin Guangyao forces himself to action. He pushes the covers off with some effort and stands slowly, carefully. He’s aware of his own limitations after a beating, and though he’s never been physically beaten quite so badly as this, it’s certainly been close to it. The stone stairs of Jinlintai are many and unforgiving, after all.
He dresses carefully in his own robes, which have thankfully been laundered though he can still see faint traces of blood in a few spots. It’s no matter - he’ll have to shed the Jin colors as soon as possible to avoid suspicion or capture anyway. It’s just to get him out of the Unclean Realm and on his way to…well, elsewhere at least. He’ll figure out exactly where once he’s out and thinking clearly enough to execute any of his numerous escape plans.
The hallway is mercifully empty when he reaches it, but he’s moving even more slowly than he had anticipated. He leans heavily on the wall for support as he goes, one agonizing step at a time, and it’s only the thought of causing Lan Xichen distress that keeps him putting one foot in front of the other.
He has to get away. He can’t be found like this, can’t be seen. If they see, they’ll pounce. If he’s weak, he’s easy prey, and he hasn’t made it this far in the world only to be picked off like a lame deer. He keeps going, fuelled by a self-preservation instinct too deeply ingrained to be fully articulated. The halls are still empty when he turns a corner, and so he drags himself towards the next, consciousness trying valiantly to slip through his fingers with each step.
“Guangyao?” a too-familiar voice calls from behind him, and he doesn’t try to turn around. He won’t be able to stay upright if he does - the hallway is already tilting dangerously to the side as it is - and he can’t afford to slow down anyway. He’s already so slow - Nie Mingjue catches up with him in seconds. Jin Guangyao pays him no mind, instead continuing on his way one trembling, shuffling step at a time. He’s no match for Nie Mingjue should he try to actually detain him, but so long as the man keeps his hands to himself Jin Guangyao thinks he’ll be able to make it out.
Maybe.
His vision dims further and his knees buckle, and all he can think is, Well. Maybe not.
“Why did you come here?” Nie Mingjue asks, voice low. Jin Guangyao isn’t sure who he’s talking to - perhaps Lan Xichen has arrived. Perhaps Nie Huaisang didn’t tell his brother he was sending for him. Perhaps Jin Guangyao has failed again, and he’ll upset Lan Xichen with his very presence that has always seemed to be welcomed before. He doesn’t want to think about it.
“Meng Yao,” Nie Mingjue says next, still low and soft, and in the traitorous depths of his stupid heart, Jin Guangyao thrills to hear his mother’s name on someone’s lips. ‘Jin Guangyao’ is an image, a persona. He was Meng Yao for so long. He was Meng Yao when Nie Mingjue took him in, and when he drove him back out. He was Meng Yao when Lan Xichen held him at night in an attic room in a brothel on the run from the Wens, the two of them huddling together first out of necessity and then out of desire. He was Meng Yao at Wen Ruohan’s right hand, and Meng Yao when his father finally looked at him again and acknowledged his existence, his attention a double-edged blade pressed to his neck.
‘Jin Guangyao’ is a slap in the face, doubly so considering it’s so close to what he’s longed for his entire life. ‘Meng Yao’ is the core of him, that young boy with a mother who loved him and a future stuffed full of her dreams for him that all seemed so attainable when laid out for him before he went to sleep each night.
“Meng Yao, why here ? Why did you come here , of all places?”
“Coming home,” Jin Guangyao mumbles deliriously, words clumsy on his tongue. “Nowhere else is home.”
“This isn’t your home either.” Nie Mingjue’s voice is harsh and ragged at the edges, distinctly frayed. Jin Guangyao doesn’t regret the pain he’s causing his sworn brother. Nie Mingjue has hurt him plenty, after all, and this particular agony is his own making. “Not anymore.”
“I was leaving,” Jin Guangyao protests. He wants to open his eyes but he can’t find them. He turns his head away from where he thinks Nie Mingjue is sitting vigil at his bedside. “Throw me out again to die if I can’t ever call this place home again.” Jin Guangyao finally finds his eyes just in time to open them and see the wrecked expression on Nie Mingjue’s ever-so-expressive face. “One of the strokes for ‘bastard’ on my chest is the scar from the blow I took for you. My father found that funny,” he says to drive the knife in harder. He can practically feel Nie Mingjue’s ribs grinding under his hands, skin turning wet and slick with blood as he gasps for a breath through his drowning lung. Nie Mingjue watches him with wide-eyed disgust.
“I’m tired,” Jin Guangyao announces - a simple declaration that would leave him an easy target in Jinlintai. Exhaustion is for the weak. He only grows tired because his core isn’t strong enough to support the demands of his work. He’s a humiliation to the Jin name. He must work harder, longer, and smarter to avoid the shame of his birth. To avoid another trip down the long, long stairs of his father’s tower.
Here, in Qinghe, Nie Mingjue simply watches him close his eyes and Jin Guangyao knows nothing else until morning.
—
“Jin Guangshan is looking everywhere for you.”
Jin Guangyao grits his teeth against the panic such a declaration instantly sends rocking through him. Once, he would have been thrilled to hear that his father noticed his absence, was expending resources to find him. He’d believed it for a long time as a boy, had thought himself wanted but simply too small for someone so important to find, even with an entire army and unimaginable wealth at his disposal.
“Da-ge keeps sending the Jin disciples away, but he won’t be able to scare them off forever,” Nie Huaisang continues as he finishes painting a branch on his fan. He blows on it for a moment to help the ink dry quicker. “So I guess it’s time to figure out if you’re staying or going, so we can know what we’re going to do.”
“That decision is entirely up to your brother.” What a fool Jin Guangyao had once been, he thinks, to have believed a man like Jin Guangshan would ever take an interest in him as anything other than a pawn, to be used and disposed of at the best and earliest opportunity.
“Eh? But-!”
“He is still the Sect Leader and commander of Bujing Shi,” Jin Guangyao continues, flat and emotionless. He already knows what the answer will be, and being upset about it will change nothing. “It’s his decision what to do with me.” My life has always belonged to him, whether I wanted to admit it or not, he doesn’t say, but it sits heavily in his chest, on the back of his tongue anyway.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Nie Mingjue barks from the doorway. Jin Guangyao barely manages not to flinch at the unexpected intrusion. “Go back home. I don’t have time to keep fighting off Jin Guangshan like this, and you’re nearly healed up anyway, it’s been a week and a half. Just go.”
Jin Guangyao can feel the blood draining from his face even as he paints on a smile and nods to show he’s heard.
Get out of my sight , he hears in the easy dismissal. Go die somewhere I won’t have to watch.
For the first time in his life, Jin Guangyao wonders if dying might actually be better in the long run. He’s asked twice to die by Nie Mingjue’s hand, and both times he’s been denied, but relief had always followed the disappointment before. He won’t ask a third time now, for the first powerful man to see his worth to be the only one with the privilege of taking it all away from him. He’ll just do as he asks and go back to his death at another’s hands.
“San-ge, no !” Nie Huaisang protests through tears. Jin Guangyao turns a sad smile on him, of the same sort he’d worn the first time he’d been forced from the Unclean Realm. It doesn’t sit right on his lips and his vision is swimming with unshed tears, and it’s a distinct relief when Nie Mingjue drags his little brother from the room.
His hands tremble as he dresses once again into the clothes he’d arrived in, set neatly aside for him after his escape attempt. He does his best to tie all his layers in such a way that the blood stains aren’t quite so obvious. He sits at the dressing table near the window and slowly braids the top sections of his hair. He twists them all together into a pile at the back of his head and has to close his eyes against his reflection in the mirror. He wishes desperately that he could go back to the days he’d spent working under Nie Mingjue, before the path he’d taken had led him so far away and yet so painfully close to everything Meng Shi had dreamt for him.
It’s no use wishing for the past. He takes a deep breath in and lowers his gaze to his hat resting in front of him on the table. Getting dressed again in his Jin gold is a methodical process, mechanical enough that he doesn’t really have to think about anything that’s coming next. It’s easier to categorize how he feels - there’s still a pull in his ribs when he raises his arms, and by the time he’d finished braiding his hair his arms had been trembling with fatigue. He still feels a little woozy if he moves too quickly, though the bedrest and regular meals have done a lot to help reduce even his usual baseline of dizziness that can strike him at odd moments.
But now, with only his seneschal’s hat left on the table in front of him, he can’t ignore it any longer. He’s going back to Jinlintai, and Jin Guangshan is going to kill him. He has plans to kill Jin Guangshan, of course - of course - but they won’t be ready for some time yet; it’ll be far too suspicious now, especially with Nie Mingjue still watching him so closely. He doesn’t want to kill Nie Mingjue, not really, but he can’t deny that it’ll be so much easier to achieve his goals once his sworn brother gives into the inevitable. Everyone knows that Nie Sect Leaders die criminally young, even in times of peace, and Nie Mingjue has not had a peaceful life. Hell, they’d met out on the front. Jin Guangyao knows that his orders from Jin Guangshan are only intended to hasten the process that’s already begun, not to murder a man who would otherwise live on well into old age.
But he doesn’t want to, and it’s taking him so long to devise a way to accomplish it that he knows Jin Guangshan suspects as much. And because he’s failed - because he’s run away, because he’s lost face for the Jin Sect, because he’s compromised Jin Guangshan’s position at the top of the world - he won’t be worth keeping. He fights down the choking desire to hide in a cupboard like a child and pray that Nie Mingjue’s anger will pass and he’ll…forget about Jin Guangyao long enough for him to just. Stay.
Jin Guangyao covers his braids with the gauze hat and gets up without taking a final glance at himself in the mirror, unwilling to see himself in his father’s uniform. He leaves without fanfare. It only takes him a moment to orient himself within the labyrinthine interior of the Unclean Realm, and another to decide which route to take to the gates.
The people he passes react to his presence in their own ways, some people hurrying on with their business after a quick glance or maybe a double take. Some stop in their tracks to watch him go. No one who sees him says a word to him, derisive or otherwise, and so he passes through the fortress that used to be his home without pausing.
“Do you know why I agreed to swear brotherhood with you?”
Nie Mingjue is standing alone in front of the closed and barred gates, the only person in the receiving courtyard that sits just inside the walls. Jin Guangyao stops a safe distance away and subtly checks for Baxia on Nie Mingjue’s back, but he seems unarmed.
“I have been under the assumption that Er-ge insisted on it in an attempt to force us to repair our relationship.”
“I know that’s what he wants, but that’s not why I agreed.”
“Alright. Why, then?”
“I wanted to help you.”
That…is very far from anything else Jin Guangyao might have anticipated.
“Help me.”
Nie Mingjue nods and if it were anyone else in the world Jin Guangyao would think it could be some sort of joke. A cruel one, perhaps, or a bad one, but a joke nonetheless. But Nie Mingjue’s sense of humor is buried under so many layers of duty and righteousness that it’s nearly impossible to find. There’s no way that he would be making a joke now of all times, especially not about something that seems to, weirdly, tie into his too-rigid sense of morality.
“I didn’t think it would mean this ,” Nie Mingjue allows when Jin Guangyao is still too floored to even begin to try figuring out how to ask what he needs to know. “I thought it would be like…Never mind. It’s not , so it doesn’t matter. But I can still do something like what I intended much more easily if you’re here and not in Lanling.”
Something dangerous and fragile floods Jin Guangyao’s entire body with a burst of anxious energy, his hands and knees trembling with it, the cruel exhilaration of relief extended at the final hopeless moment.
“What did you intend?”
“It’s - you’ve lost your way! And I refuse to accept the idea that you’ve been lying to me the entire time I’ve known you, no one can lie so consistently, not even you. I can help bring you back.”
Jin Guangyao has to blink a few times as he tries to parse through whatever it is Nie Mingjue is too worked up to say outright. Of course with Nie Mingjue - between the two of them, specifically, with their fraught history - there’s only one thing this can truly be about.
Damn this man and his morals! Jin Guangyao fights down a flash of anger that burns hot through his chest. Nie Mingjue doesn’t understand a single fucking thing about why he’s done the things that he’s done, he has all the privilege of rank and birth and strength on his side - he doesn’t understand , and it’s remarkably unlikely that he ever will. This is a man who can cut down massive swathes of human life on a battlefield without batting an eye, and yet Jin Guangyao kills a mere handful of men and somehow he’s the one who needs help finding the righteous path again?!
Still. Anything is better than returning to Jin Guangshan. If Nie Mingjue wants to lecture him then he can. If Nie Mingjue wants to force him to study treatises on the sanctity of human life then he will gladly do so (and take extensive notes with which to shame Nie Mingjue into admitting his own wrongdoings as well). Jin Guangyao is a man who can, if nothing else, make decisions quickly when backed into a corner, and compared with previous experiences in his life at least this time there’s at least one solution on offer that isn’t utter misery or outright dangerous.
“What are you proposing, Da-ge? By your own admission, you cannot continue lying to my father as to my whereabouts, but if my presence here is made public knowledge I can guarantee there will be consequences.”
Nie Mingjue sighs gustily and Jin Guangyao privately thinks he’s nothing much more than a warhorse. A giant, muscular, blustering thing all built and trained for killing but not much else. He has all the elegance of one as well, beautiful when at a standstill but in practice simply too much brute force to ever be completely graceful. During the war, Nie Mingjue’s favorite horse used to sigh just like that, gusty and fully-bodied, anytime someone other than Nie Mingjue attempted to saddle him. Naturally he keeps the comparison to himself.
“You have brought me nothing but trouble,” Nie Mingjue mutters just loudly enough for him to hear. Then, at a more normal volume, “Why were you leaving, before? When I found you? Did Jin Guangshan plant spies you needed to speak with?”
Jin Guangyao smiles a brittle thing through the urge to roll his eyes at Nie Mingjue’s paranoia. “Nie Huaisang said he was going to contact Er-ge about my…situation, and my presence here. I did not wish to be here when he arrives, if he arrives, as I cannot bear the thought of upsetting him. I thought perhaps if I began traveling immediately I would..be able to escape and find somewhere to hide from everyone who is looking for me.”
“And yet when you came here you weren’t worried about upsetting me ?”
There’s an entire book’s worth of ways to answer that question. He could say that he knows his very existence upsets him, so what difference does it make? He could cry that Nie Mingjue hurt him first, disappointed him first, that none of this would have happened at all if he’d just tried to see things from Jin Guangyao’s perspective. He could remind him, quietly, intimately, that they’ve already seen each other at their best and at their worst, so why wouldn’t he run to Nie Mingjue when his life is on the line?
He could, but he won’t.
“No. I wasn’t.”
Nie Mingjue sighs again, long and slow through his nose, and Jin Guangyao wonders if their thoughts are on the same track. He approaches Jin Guangyao slowly, crossing the courtyard away from the closed gate, and by the time he’s in front of Jin Guangyao properly he looks…marginally calmer.
“Fine, follow me. Quickly, there’s not much time.”
Jin Guangyao doesn’t have time to respond - not that he’s sure how he would - before Nie Mingjue steps around him to stride back into the fortress proper. The corridor is quiet, but when they’re halfway down it a man steps out of one of the entrances to the throne room to intercept them.
Nie Mingjue instructs, “Gather up a team of ten of the most loyal senior cultivators and take them with you to the front gate. Tell the Jin delegation that you’re part of a search party we will send out to help them search for Jin Guangyao on the condition that they’ll leave us alone from now on no matter what they find - or don’t.”
The man - Jin Guangyao is fairly sure that he’s Nie Mingjue’s new right-hand - glances once at him half-hidden behind Nie Mingjue’s shoulder and then nods, expression unchanged.
“Wait -” Nie Mingjue turns to look down at him and Jin Guangyao meets his gaze levelly. “Give Zonghui your hat and your outer robe. He can plant them somewhere on the way to make it look like you died on the run.”
Jin Guangyao inhales sharply as the realization that this is actually happening slams home. Nie Mingjue is genuinely, truly going to lie for him. He’s going to ask his people to lie for him. He’s going to protect him. Let him come back. Despite knowing what’s waiting for him in Lanling, Jin Guangyao can’t help but find it…bittersweet. More bitter than sweet, if he’s honest. He’s done everything in his power to be worthy of his father’s favor, and all of it has come to this. Running away in fear, plotting his own (fake) death to escape his father’s vicious clutches, submitting himself to Nie Mingjue’s whims again instead of claiming the authority he deserves.
Jin Guangyao reaches up to loosen the tie of his hat with trembling fingers and finds he can’t meet either man’s eyes as he lifts the gauze free and reveals his hairstyle underneath. He ignores both of their quiet gasps as he stretches his hand out and bows ever so slightly to offer the hat to Nie Zonghui, a small part of him tearing loose and floating free when the man takes it from him without hesitation. That hat, more than anything else he can think of, is the symbol of his servitude to his father. Passing it over, relinquishing it for good, feels like it should happen at a more important moment than this, hurrying to hide so his father’s men can be led away, so he can be safe.
He unfastens the closure of his outer robe next and undoes the sash around his waist, shrugging out of the stiff golden silk to hand that over as well, the blood stains on it faint enough from being laundered that Nie Zonghui will likely have to find some way to stain it afresh to make their story plausible. His hands linger on the fabric for just a moment too long, fingers clenched in the embroidered peony on the chest placket.
In the end, the symbol and everything it represents has brought him nothing but pain.
He releases it with a huff and steps back with another little bow, his eyes still trained on the floor.
“Leave quickly, don’t let them find anything for five days at least,” Nie Mingjue tells him after a moment of silence. “If you see Huaisang send him to my rooms, and tell him to bring a spare set of robes.”
“Yes, Zongzhu.” Nie Zonghui whisks the hat and outer robe into a qiankun pouch and then he’s off. Jin Guangyao turns to watch his retreat until he rounds the corner out of sight, Jin Guangyao’s life in his hands.
“We’ll have to change your name again,” Nie Mingjue says. He continues on in the direction they’d been going before, and Jin Guangyao follows in his wake feeling dazed and unsteady. “Do you want to go back to Meng Yao?”
“Are you intending to hide me forever? My father will see me eventually,” Jin Guangyao can’t help but protest. “There’s more to faking a death than bloodying my clothes in the wilderness and changing my name!”
“If you don’t want to be Meng Yao again I can come up with something for you,” Nie Mingjue continues as if he hadn’t heard him at all. “How about Nie Ziyao?”
Jin Guangyao stops in his tracks.
“ What ?”
Nie Mingjue stops as well, sighs, turns back to him with a look of grim determination on his face as he approaches.
“I don’t trust you. I won’t . But I swore an oath of brotherhood to help you and protect you. I can’t do that if you’re dead in Jinlintai. You still wear your inner family braids-” Jin Guangyao reaches up quickly to pat at the same configuration of braids he’d worn so long ago when he’d been under Nie Mingjue’s command. He hadn’t realized even then that they were inner family braids, he’d just thought they were…tradition. “You have to stay in my sight if I’m going to help you, but I can’t have you in a visible position like you used to have because like you said, Jin Guangshan or someone else who shouldn’t see you inevitably will. So - a cousin? A second cousin? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be logged in the registers as a family member who’s come to stay here and train. The rest…we’ll figure it out. So - new name?”
Nie Mingjue doesn’t look particularly happy about the arrangement, but Jin Guangyao can also spot the stubborn set to his jaw, the determination in his eyes to follow through on this utterly insane decision he’s made. And maybe it’s because Nie Mingjue looks far less than thrilled about it that, after a moment more of thought, Jin Guangyao nods and releases some of the tension he’s been holding in his shoulders.
“Yes, alright. If you’re certain.”
Nie Mingjue just grunts in response and continues on his way down the corridor towards the next courtyard, and Jin Guangyao follows after him on numb legs. He lets Nie Huaisang bully him into a set of his robes when they arrive in Nie Mingjue’s quarters. He stares at himself in the mirror, swathed in deep Nie gray shot through with glimmering silver, and he stares at the silver beads Nie Huaisang threaded into his braids, and he can’t help but think in a small corner of his mind that it all suits him far better than Jin gold ever did.