Wen RuoHan's Heir

7. Year 6: Koi Tower

Obtaining the rank of senior disciple meant more than just the freedom of being able to go on unsupervised nighthunts. Or nighthunts where she was the supervisor. Being in charge of the juniors just learning how to use their skills outside of the safe haven of Lotus Pier was a heady responsibility.

Senior disciples were also responsible for teaching the younglings to swim, and for throwing them into the rivers and lakes. Neither activity was something she was fond of, so being the perpetrator felt more than a bit hypocritical. But bad things could, and did, happen around water; just the summer before a thirty something year old disciple was drowned by a water ghoul and only days later, a ten year old, playing alone at the river's edge, slipped on a rock, smashed his head on yet another rock, and drowned.

Being a senior disciple also meant she was dragged to more discussion conferences. The four major sect leaders met at least once per season, twice when the LanlingJin had their way. More conferences for just the Yunmeng clans were held almost every month. Xie An found discussion conferences interesting. The way the minor clans twisted for inclusion, for status. The way QingheNie stubbornly resisted all calls for collaboration. The way the GusuLan tried to smooth over disputes both large and small. The way YunmengJiang bluffed their way through everything. The way the LanlingJin were unsatisfied with the level of power they held, how they attempted to grab more each time.

All the sect and clan leaders had held an issue with Wen RuoHan seizing power. Most of those clans' issues was the 'seizing power' part of that statement. Jin GuangShan apparently had an issue only with the 'Wen RuoHan' part; the title of chief cultivator seemed to be a stepping stone to something greater.

Privately, Xie An wondered why these sect and clan leaders so easily believed that Wei WuXian was planning on usurping the Son of Heaven's position without the minutest piece of evidence and yet blithely ignored all the evidence of Jin GuangShan slowly exerting more control over the sects with each passing season.

The discussion conferences were good in that way, then. The political theory she had learned at her mother's side before the war was untested and outdated. Seeing it up close and personal, from the position of Jiang WanYin's guard was beneficial to her future as a sect leader. She'd learn the intricacies of the political dances from the shadows, so she'd be ready right away once she regained her position.

In another way, the discussion conferences were horrid. In the breaks between sessions, the sect leaders gathered in small groups to chit-chat, and she was rarely kept close enough to Jiang ZongZhu to hear those conversations. Then there were the side moments, where politics were set aside, and the guests simply mingled and flirted and made personal alliances.

Personal alliances indeed. Jiang ZongZhu had found a quiet garden in Koi Tower to read his personal correspondence from Lotus Pier. Instead of quiet, though, he found himself surrounded by beautiful birds and butterflies, all dressed in exquisite silks with their hair in elaborate braids and sparkling hair pieces, and who tittered gently, mouths hidden behind soft hands or beautifully painted fans. Why they vied for the attention of the foul mouthed sect leader, Xie An didn't know. After all, if they won the prize they were seeking, they'd actually have to live with him. Bed him. Sit at the same table as him for meals. Jiang ZongZhu was a decent sect leader. But as a husband?

Then again, these same birds and butterflies fluttered their wings around the Nie sect leader, too, hoping to become his wife. Nie ZongZhu was even less personable than the Jiang sect leader.

Xie An left Jiang WanYin to the tender mercies of the women flirting with him and went looking for a bit of solitude herself. This part of the discussion conference was humiliating.

Men looked appraisingly at women. Women openly appraised right back. It was an intricate dance of flirtation, looks, alliances, and property, and Xie An was firmly glued to the side of the dance floor. Dressed in the sect uniform from head to feet, she had no plumage to show off. As an orphan, she had no family backing her up, no dowry to offer. As Jiang WanYin's guard, she was supposed to be invisible.