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"Have you ever considered being subtle?"
Wen Ruohan glanced sidelong at that-bastard-surnamed-Nie. "Are you suggesting that I'm not subtle?" he asked, tone low and insidious, suggestive of possible violence should the answer not meet with his satisfaction – and rich with the expectation that it would not, rendering the subsequent clash inevitable.
There were times when he and the Nie sect leader were on good terms, even very good indeed, and times when they were not.
At the moment, they were most definitively not.
"I'm suggesting that you've never met the concept of subtle," that-bastard-surnamed-Nie said, having apparently not realized the current state of affairs. "You're passingly acquainted with its cousin discretion, maybe. But subtle?"
He snorted.
Like the damn pig he was.
"Maybe I don't require subtlety," Wen Ruohan said. "My Qishan Wen sect -"
"Most powerful in the world, sun in the sky above us all, all good things are yours, yes, yes, I know. Heard it all before. I'm not questioning your methods -"
He was definitely questioning.
"- I'm just curious to know if it's ever even crossed your mind to try something different. I mean, it's all a bit crude, isn’t it? All pillage and slaughter, the iron fist of tyranny, the marching army, submission or the sword…I mean, no one can doubt that it’s efficient, certainly. But one can hardly call it subtle."
Wen Ruohan scowled icily, even though most of his plans for conquest really did more or less boil down to that. "Don't pretend as if you know what subtlety is yourself. Your sect isn't exactly famous for it - rather the opposite."
That-bastard-surnamed-Nie was unmoved.
"As you're always saying, I am not my sect," he said easily. "And you're not yours. Is that a no?"
"It most certainly is not a no."
"Hm." The bastard didn't believe him. "All right, then. Whatever you say."
Wen Ruohan seethed.
He'd show him subtle, he vowed to himself. He could be subtle. He would be subtle. He'd be so damn subtle that the bastard wouldn't see the hit coming for a thousand li, and when he finally did, it'd strike him right where it hurt most. It would take away something he didn't even realize was his to lose.
Subtle. Hah!
Wen Ruohan could do subtle.
Lan Qiren received a letter.
This by itself was not terribly unusual. He was acting sect leader of a Great Sect - he received a frankly dizzying number of letters. He received letters of all sorts and shapes and sizes, though most of them contained complaints of one color or another. Well, complaints, and also bills.
He hated bills. It wasn’t even that he minded paying them, when deserved, but he still loathed them. He was good enough at mathematics, even though it was far from being his passion the way obscure musical arrangements or historical depictions of ethical debate were, but he was in no way naturally inclined towards the sort of skills required in managing the economic considerations of a sect as large as his Lan sect. Not to mention also accommodating the many subsidiary sects that expected to be able to use his sect as the lender of last resort in a crisis, no matter how inconvenient that made planning his own budget...in short, it was a nightmare.
One he was never going to wake from, it seemed, though he lived in (increasingly futile) hope.
This letter, therefore, was primarily notable in that it was not a complaint. Or a bill. Or a pressing problem Lan Qiren needed to solve. On the contrary, it contained a perfectly friendly, even mildly chatty, introduction, then a request for assistance in identifying a snippet of an unusual musical score that might or might not belong to the Lan sect, accompanied by reassurances that an answer was only needed whenever he had the time and only if he had the interest, and also including the snippet itself. It was by far the most enjoyable letter Lan Qiren had received all season, and it would have been all year if not for the very effusive thank you he'd received a few months back from one of his more troubled student's parents, deeply relieved at their son’s remarkable improvement.
Still, even compared with that, this letter was a delight.
It was also unsigned.
Please respond at your convenience using the transfer array attached to the bottom of this letter, the letter said cheerfully, as if opening an unfamiliar array inside the sect’s gate wards wasn't a recipe for trouble at minimum, disaster at maximum. Not being an idiot, Lan Qiren promptly took the array to be examined by his sect's specialists, and he was even now waiting for their reply.
There was every chance that the letter was part of some sort of plot, Lan Qiren reminded himself diligently. His interest in musical arrangements was well known, and could therefore be targeted through a well-tailored appeal. The letter could even contain some sort of poison or curse aimed at crippling him, and through him his sect; such things were not unheard of. There was no point in giving it another thought until that gating question had been resolved.
Only...he was giving it some thought.
Mostly about that music score, which itched in the back of his brain - he was pretty sure it was Lan sect in origin, although nothing out of their usual rotation of spell-songs. A private composition, perhaps, which meant thar the only way to identify it would be through a stylistic comparison with other examples -
You do not have time for this, Lan Qiren reminded himself. You are not helping until you know whether it is worthwhile to do so.
It would have been much easier if only the letter had been signed! Lan Qiren would have been more than happy to help if the requestor had been one of the smaller sects, or even a rogue cultivator with a little fame, just enough to be recognizable. To refuse to sign a name - any name - suggested either something to hide or a profound need for privacy, which one wouldn't have expected for something as measly as a few questions about music. It was suspicious!
It was music.
It was the most fun Lan Qiren had had in months, and he hadn't even started properly digging into it yet.
He liked research, liked music, liked helping people - in fact, the reason he was quite so suspicious of the letter was because it was exactly the sort of thing he liked most. At this stage in his life, Lan Qiren had long since accepted that there was no such thing as an unasked-for turn of luck, no silver lining without its accompanying cloud...
Still, it was hard to see what sort of plot could be advanced by an academic request regarding music. Maybe the requestor was simply too embarrassed to reveal their identity - one of the other musical cultivation sects, perhaps, that didn't want to admit to their ignorance. That would be quite reasonable, and under such a situation it would not be unreasonable for Lan Qiren to provide the asked-for aid. The Lan sect rules counseled prioritizing chivalry and graciousness, after all. He would be perfectly justified in diverting some of his limited time to visiting the library, perusing old volumes, even taking notes...
Lan Qiren sighed to himself.
"Teacher?"
He blinked, roused from his reverie, and found that it was a disciple, one he recognized: it was one of the apprentices to the specialists in the talismanic arts. He was holding the letter in his hands.
Lan Qiren felt an unaccustomed frisson of excitement. If the specialists had determined the letter to contain harmful substances, it would not be returned to him at all. There was still the possibility that it had been deemed to involve some sort of plot, but...
"What is the honorable masters’ conclusion?" he asked politely, trying to suppress his excitement.
"There appears to be nothing wrong with the letter, Teacher,” the disciple reported. “The transfer array at the back is a little unusual, but mostly for being so old fashioned - it was once a popular method for discrete correspondence, despite the strain and cost involved in using it. Later a method for detecting and even interfering with such messages was discovered and the use fell out of favor."
Lan Qiren hummed thoughtfully. He hadn’t heard of such a method; it must have been before his time, or something only of interest to people who studied obscure arrays and talismans. "What does it involve?"
"The array must be personally crafted by an expert that is familiar with the craft, and the sender must put in a considerable amount of spiritual energy in order to charge the array for use. Once charged, the recipient can use the array to send correspondence back to the sender until the spiritual energy in the array has been exhausted."
Lan Qiren's eyebrows arched despite himself. "The transfer is immediate?"
"Unfortunately not, Teacher. The spiritual energy travels through the air. Sending a messenger by sword, or even by horse, is likely more efficient."
"Only if you know where the recipient is," Lan Qiren said, reaching up to stroke his beard. "And of course spiritual energy is far more discreet than a messenger. I am unsurprised that it was once popular, whether for diplomatic missives or even spy-craft."
"Just so, Teacher. Unfortunately, the sect that discovered the countermeasures was Qishan Wen, so..."
Lan Qiren didn't grimace outright, though he was tempted. "Yes, I can see why the method's popularity waned."
The Wen sect had always been ambitious. There was the current Wen Ruohan, who was constantly scheming to expand his power and influence, and by historical accounts, prior generations had been no better and were quite likely worse.
Still -
"I see why the array was included," Lan Qiren said. "It serves as both a method to ensure discretion and as an offer of payment. Please inform the elders that I intend to accept, and will offer my assistance with the question in exchange for commissioning the sender for another of these arrays for my own use."
The disciple looked surprised. "What for, Teacher? If it's not secure..."
"Security matters only when the contents are confidential," Lan Qiren explained. "Such an array would be invaluable when corresponding with someone with no fixed location. For instance, disciples out on a night hunt."
Or, for another example, a rogue cultivator family constantly on the move. Lan Qiren had long maintained a correspondence with Cangse Sanren, primarily through her determined efforts, but it had by necessity been largely one-sided to date. Even if he received a letter from her from Jiangnan, by the time it arrived and his reply composed, she might already be in Henan. He was only able to gather his thoughts and wait patiently for her next visit to the Cloud Recesses, or else count on luck to have them cross paths elsewhere. This array would not improve the speed of their interchanges, but it would give Lan Qiren the chance to write back, no matter where she was when he did so, and in return she could always send something if she happened to find herself in an urgent situation far away from any post.
His mood significantly improved, Lan Qiren dismissed the disciple and carried on with the paperwork he still had to complete. Diligence came first, pleasure only later - thus were good habits formed and maintained.
But later...
Research on a matter of great interest to him, a valid excuse to spend time on it, and even the possibility of repairing an old regret and improving a friendship - really, Lan Qiren could not be more pleased with his mysterious correspondent, anonymous or not. He could even say that he'd formed a rather favorable impression of whoever it was, and perhaps even go so far as to hope this would not be the only letter they exchanged. Lan Qiren liked fellow scholars best of all, and he had painfully few friends; it would be nice to increase their number, even remotely.
He would write back with a preliminary response this evening, he decided, and take some time over the next few days to look through their library. It would not be inappropriate to show his correspondent some measure of his enthusiasm and sincerity...
Wen Ruohan felt a small twinge in his qi, signifying that a part of it had been consumed. It was not an inconsiderable amount - for a weaker cultivator, it might be exhausting, while even a stronger cultivator would notice the strain of the effort, though it wouldn't slow them down too much. For someone of Wen Ruohan’s caliber, it was of course not even worth mentioning.
Lan Qiren had already responded to his last letter, it seemed.
Smiling faintly to himself, inadvertently terrifying the majority of his lieutenants currently attending to him, Wen Ruohan dismissed his audience and rose to return to his study, where he had set the receiving array.
He had been the one to create the letter transportation array, back when he was much younger and his primary concern had been satisfying his little brother’s obsession with collecting trinkets, though one of his brothers had figured out the potential use of it for spycraft first and claimed it in his own name. Not that it did him much good – he was known to be stupid, the way the Wen clan regretfully sometimes tended to be when they weren’t ambitious or cunning enough to get themselves out of it – and so everyone had ascribed the original invention to whatever little sect he had just demolished. Wen Ruohan hadn’t very much cared back then, having not yet decided to jump into the race for the position of sect leader; later, when he decided it was time to start caring, he had simply invented a countermeasure and employed it to great effect.
As far as he could tell – and if he couldn’t, no one could – there were at the present moment in time only two such arrays currently in existence, both created by him: the one he used to contact Lan Qiren, and the one Lan Qiren used to write letters to his little rouge cultivator friend, Baoshan Sanren’s disciple.
Wen Ruohan naturally was able to read all of those as well, and of course he did. He’d found himself unexpectedly amused by her consistent teasing and Lan Qiren’s querulous and too-earnest responses. There was not a hint of romance there, as he’d initially expected to find, but there were some very funny and rather uncomplimentary asides about Jiang Fengmian that revealed an entirely unexpected layer of petty nastiness in Lan Qiren, which by itself would have made the whole business worthwhile.
Not that it wasn’t otherwise worthwhile.
Lan Qiren wrote to both of them, Cangse Sanren and (unknowingly) Wen Ruohan, but the letters he sent to Wen Ruohan were by far the more common.
In fact, Wen Ruohan had to admit that he was a little surprised at the alacrity of Lan Qiren's responses. Naturally he was well aware of how starved for company the other man was, how lonely, and indeed he had been counting on it to ensure that his plan would be a success. And it was a success, an astounding one - only a few months in, and Lao Nie was already complaining under his breath that Lan Qiren never seemed to have much time for him these days, always busy writing letters or doing research. It was only that he'd underestimated, well...
No, let him be blunt: he'd underestimated Lan Qiren’s genius.
It was not much consolation that everyone else had apparently missed it as well. Wen Ruohan had picked his first few requests quite carefully, old Lan sect tunes that had been very briefly popular decades ago, but not popular enough or in rotation long enough to be included in the sect's regular canon or even recorded in their histories. He was baiting a trap for a Lan, after all; it wouldn't do to send Lan Qiren a problem he wouldn't be able to solve. He'd figured that the examples he'd picked would last him half a year or even more.
Lan Qiren had identified them all within a month.
Moreover, he'd explained the rationale of his deductions - comparing first underlying composition styles to identify the approximate time period, then sorting the whole era by idiosyncratic musical quirks, which was insane - and even offered some helpful suggestions on improvements to solving the mostly non-existent problems Wen Ruohan had been pretending to have. He specified 'mostly' because while he had indeed been pretending at the start, Lan Qiren's proposed solutions had been so effective that he'd actually started implementing some of them in various parts of his extensive domain.
Most recently, he'd even taken to asking about real problems he was obligated as sect leader to solve, of which there were always a multitude, and in turn getting real answers. It was fantastic. He was resolving issues that his entire cadre of advisors had failed to even come up with ideas to tackle, and with remarkable swiftness. His entire sect was reconvinced all over again that he was a genius! Which of course he was, but in this instance it wasn't entirely due to him. Or rather it was, indirectly, but only in the sense that knowing how to properly utilize personnel was also a form of genius.
Lan Qiren had even somehow divined from Wen Ruohan’s manner of asking questions that his true interest was in arrays, not strictly music, and had modified his explanations accordingly, including more details regarding of the underlying spellcrafting and taking extra time to explain some of the more obscure music-only concepts. He hadn't figured out that his anonymous correspondent was Wen Ruohan, which was only reasonable, Wen Ruohan being these days more famous for his tyranny than his talent for arrays - which was actually a little annoying if he thought about it too long - but their correspondence had certainly become a great deal more fun ever since. It was nice to have his interests catered to, even interests that he had very nearly forgotten that he had.
Wen Ruohan might not have had much time for academia in the past few decades, but he had once been one of the most accomplished and recognized in his field, and like most academics, he loved his subject. He hadn't had a willing ear, as opposed to a terrified and inadvertently coerced one, for years upon years now, and in all truth he'd forgotten how enjoyable it could be to talk about cultivation simply for the sake of increasing his knowledge, rather than always considering it as a matter of power.
Not that he'd forgotten about power.
His plan to seduce Lan Qiren by proxy was working splendidly, and it wasn't as if he'd planned to start extracting secrets from the man until he'd built up at least a year or two of acquaintance. Nothing had changed there, other than the fact that Wen Ruohan was having an unexpectedly good time doing it. And solving problems for his sect in the meantime, which was always a plus - though of course he'd have to be careful there. He couldn't let the far too clever Lan Qiren have a chance to put together his recent correspondence with the Wen sect's recent successes. He would, too, given even the smallest little hint.
He was too clever not to.
Perhaps for the next set of letters Wen Ruohan would pick something a little more theoretical, more purely academic rather than practical. Maybe he could dig something up from his old notes, the ones he’d kept from back when he used to occupy his days with research and cultivation and experimenting with talismans and arrays. It'd been ages, long enough that he barely remembered it, but a little study should be enough to get him back into shape. And then he could get Lan Qiren to focus on that, which had no known connection to the Wen Ruohan of today...yes, that would do quite well.
It might even be fun.
Who would have expected that?
"I took your advice," Lao Nie said to Lan Qiren, who was just finishing pouring tea for them both.
"I wasn't aware I had given you advice," Lan Qiren said, then added, dryly, "Or that you ever listened when I did. The last time we met, we argued, did we not?"
"We did, we did," Lao Nie agreed, completely unswayed by any reasonable criticism, as was his fashion. "I'm not saying you're wrong that I've been acting a little atrociously with regard to Wen Ruohan, though I still don't plan to change anything -"
"That is functionally the same thing."
"I don't understand why you even care about him. No, don't say you don't; I don't see you getting involved in other sect leaders' relationships, do I?"
"Most sect leaders are not my friends, as you are, and they have not decided to start a liaison with the most powerful cultivator currently alive and then cheat on him – and not just once, but twice – "
"Now, we don't need to rehash all that," Lao Nie hastily interrupted. "By chance, it was to that argument which I was referring, in fact. You might recall that about halfway through you called me - what was it - it started with 'lumbering' -"
"A lumbering uncouth bull charging around a porcelain shop without the slightest sense of presence, wholly incapable of tact, discretion or subtlety?"
"...ouch. Somehow that's even worse than I remembered." Lao Nie rubbed his forehead, then shrugged it off. "Anyway, I then said I was totally capable of subtlety, and you said 'I'll believe it when I see it' -"
"To be precise, I said that you had hitherto not demonstrated any instances of such behavior to the best of my knowledge."
"Same thing. Anyway, I decided that I would try it out."
Lan Qiren frowned. "Try what out?"
"Being subtle. Anyway, I think it worked!"
"...congratulations." Lan Qiren sighed. "What exactly did you do?"
"As if I'd tell you the details-"
"You have no idea what exactly you did, do you."
"No, not as such. But it worked! Wen Ruohan is way too busy with whatever his current scheme is to be angry at me. Or angry enough to kill me, anyway; he’s still not exactly pleased."
Now it was Lan Qiren's turn to rub his temples. "Should I be worried? Or rather, should we all be concerned, given the end results of most of Wen Ruohan’s schemes?"
"You're such a pessimist." Lao Nie chuckled and picked up his teacup. "Maybe he's just picked up a hobby again...? A non-torture hobby, even. Surely he could find one of those."
Lan Qiren snorted disdainfully.
"Yeah, I don't think it's likely either," Lao Nie conceded. "I'll let you know as soon as I have some idea of what he's up to. Anyway, enough about me. Tell me more about you! Tell me about your new love interest -"
"It's not like that," Lan Qiren protested, but he had started smiling in a way that might open him up to criticism based on the Lan sect's rule against smiling foolishly. His ears had even gone a little pink! "We are only acquaintances at best, not even friends, much less that. I do not even know their name..."
"And yet you knew exactly who I was referring to, didn't you?" Lao Nie pointed out, and had the pleasure of seeing Lan Qiren blush and stutter out a half-hearted denial. "Qiren, really, even if you only get a new friend out of it, I couldn't be more pleased for you! But I'm telling you, at this point whoever it is? They’re just looking for excuses to write back."
"Nonsense. They have posed genuine problems in need of solving."
"No one has a territory with that many problems at once, Qiren, not even the Great Sects. Not even Wen Ruohan! They just want to keep talking."
Lan Qiren coughed. "Well, perhaps. It's no business of mine what their motives are, provided they do not cause harm...though I admit I have been enjoying receiving their letters. Even enjoying immensely."
"Oh, well, if it's enjoying immensely, then I suppose I can forgive you for forgetting about little old me -"
"Lao Nie!"
Lao Nie laughed. "Don't worry about it, Qiren. I really am glad for you. You should be immersing yourself in the joy of a new relationship -"
"I told you, it is not -"
"Not necessarily romantic," Lao Nie said, though if it wasn't romantic he'd eat his boots. Lan Qiren had never blushed over one of his letters, to be sure...though presumably it was the content that was the issue. Not that the contents here were standard sweettalk! What Lan Qiren found romantic in receiving an array based on a musical composition meant to clear murky water, Lao Nie had no idea, even if it was a composition of Lan Qiren's own making, based on something he’d written about one of his nephews.
Scholars. Who could understand them? Even Wen Ruohan had the same tendencies, deep down, and he'd been more warlord than scholar for as long as Lan Qiren had been alive.
Actually, sometimes Lao Nie did get a little worried about what Wen Ruohan was now cooking up. Whatever it was, it was making him smile - actually smile, rather than the usual dead eye smirks he typically favored - nearly as much as Lan Qiren was now, and knowing Wen Ruohan’s temperament, the cause could be anything from genocidal atrocity to a particularly good witticism.
If only he could figure out a way to get Wen Ruohan to fall in love with somebody! Now that would solve all their problems - including, yes, the ones he'd created for himself though some concededly less-than-wise romantic decisions. Wen Ruohan had an obsessive personality: if he fell in love, really in love, he would move heaven and earth to win his lover's favor, and that would probably distract him from all that torture and world domination and such.
Unfortunately, as far as Lao Nie could figure out, the only thing that Wen Ruohan was attracted to was power, either for himself or for his sect, and also being the first one to discover or exploit that power. Which was a hell of an ask. It wasn't as though Lao Nie could pull an underappreciated genius out from his sleeve to throw at Wen Ruohan...
Oh, well.
Whatever it was that Wen Ruohan was planning, they'd find a way to deal with it.
In the meantime, he had Lan Qiren to tease.
Such fun!