Second Time Around

34. Rabbits, Part I

Cloud Recesses' wards were ridiculously easy to dismantle and rebuild when Wei WuXian was only fifteen. After the Wen attacked the GusuLan, he had supposed that what remained of the sect Elders would have demanded that the new wards be considerably stronger.

They weren't.

It was rather disappointing, actually. Did no one learn anything from the Wen? Well, that was an easy answer. The cultivation world moved smoothly from one man attempting to control everyone to the next with barely a hiccup or thought that maybe power shouldn't be held by a select few whose morality was never questioned.

Then again, no one in Cloud Recesses seemed to have learned from the fifteen year old who breached their wards, either.

Avoiding the Lan patrols was almost as easy; he just had to remember to erase his snowy footprints as he walked. The few times he knew he was seen, the Lan disciples ignored him: a white cloak with the hood pulled up over his head was sufficient to reassure them that he was merely another disciple out for a walk. Wei WuXian thought he really should have a conversation with ZeWu-Jun about the appalling security. After he was done stealing HanGuang-Jun away, though. No sense in messing up what was possibly going to be the easiest heist in his career.

He found a nice little clearing not too far from the Jingshi and set up camp inside the branches of a perfectly concealing bunch of bushes. And found, to his surprise, that the clearing was occupied with beautiful balls of fur. "Rabbits!" he cooed happily. "I could stew you right here! So yummy.... Roasted over a spit, perhaps?" The bunny he was trying to hold jumped away (in horror?). "I'm not actually going to eat you," Wei WuXian said crossly. "The smell of roasting meat would surely bring even the stupidest Lan disciple here and I am trying to be discreet." He pulled out a drawing pad from his belongings and started sketching. "I'll bet Lan Zhan knows you're here, huh? Does he feed you? I miss him, you know. All these months and not a single letter. If we were kids, I'd think that was normal. But he promised me he would write to me. So I'll bet he did and some mean person stole them and burned them." Wei WuXian looked up from the drawing. "Oh. Do you think he put anything naughty in there? Can you imagine how red that person's face would be after reading it? Lan Zhan writing a naughty love letter to the Yiling Patriarch." he whistled low. "Not that they think I'm the Yiling Patriarch now.... I suppose that's a good thing, right? I didn't mind that nickname, but I didn't really enjoy it, either. It always felt like it was supposed to be an insult.

"What do you think Lan Zhan wrote in his letters? Boring sect stuff? I suppose my letters were also rather boring. But how do you write, 'hey Lan Zhan. Have you read page sixteen yet? I think we should try that. I think you should be the one on top because your arm strength is better than mine and I'll just collapse on you and smother you.'" He smiled fondly, and a bit smugly, at the nearest rabbit sniffing at his robes. "What would you know about it anyway? I've never seen animals using their mouths on each other. How would you even do it to each other?" He tilted his head and thought about it critically. "I suppose if you were both laying on your sides you could stretch your legs out of the way and do it like that." He looked down at his lap. "Time to change the subject before this gets messy." His sketch looked pretty good, so he sent it to his love.

His love who still hadn't been able to get a rock. How hard is it to get a rock when Cloud Recesses is full of them? Unless the rumors were true and Lan Zhan really was a prisoner.

By the end of the following day, Wei WuXian was horrified to learn that, yes, Lan Zhan was indeed being held prisoner. Of course, that's not what the disciples called it; they mentioned 'forced seclusion'. But what else can it be if you aren't allowed to leave your own house?

Wei WuXian felt that he could have gotten Lan Zhan out of this predicament. He had the worst luck, though. Every time he thought it safe enough to approach the Jingshi, yet another patrol passed by or there were guards looking at the doors. It would be easy enough to knock the guards or patrols out, but he was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Unconscious people did not constitute unobtrusiveness.