Chapter Text
Lan Wangji has had a hard week. The Wens are upset about something and are taking that out on everyone else in the city. His informants haven’t found what the problem is yet, and the Lans are taking a hit on the streets as well as higher up.
He’s just finished working someone over and gotten a shred of information; someone from the Wen family has gone missing.
Escaped.
It’s not enough info; nothing about who’s gone or why – or what they’ve taken with them. But it’s a place to start, so while he cleans his hands, he tells his aide where to search. Then, Lan Wangji goes out onto the balcony and leans against the balustrade.
He hates this part of the job, always has. His brother can’t do it, and his uncle’s too old now, so it’s all on him. He lets his head fall and closes his eyes, hiding behind his long hair. The night air is soft, the city sounds are welcoming and cheerful.
Except the sounds of a scuffle and bitten off curses just below his balcony. With narrowed eyes, Lan Wangji peers over the edge, seeing a tall man shoving away a heavy set man in a dark purple jacket.
“For someone who kicked me out, you’re being weirdly clingy, Chengcheng.”
“You’re a fucking traitor,” the man in purple snarls, “and I have every right to drag you home so mother can teach you a lesson.”
The other man – the traitor? – does something twisty with his hands and Chengcheng’s face is pressed hard to the brick wall.
“You know you can’t beat me,” he says, just loud enough for Lan Wangji to hear. “Stop trying. I’m never going back.”
He throws Chengcheng to the ground, kicks him once for good measure, and strides out of the alley, unaware of the gold eyes that follow him.
They snap back to Chengcheng as he rises, wiping blood off his mouth.
“I’ll get you back for this, Wei Wuxian,” he mutters.
As he follows whoever Wei Wuxian is to the head of the alley, Lan Wangji sees his face. It’s Jiang Wanyin, the heir to the Jiang family.
If someone has left the Jiang at the same time as people have escaped the Wen, something big is changing in the city. Lan Wangji feels a chill run down his spine and goes back inside.
He has work to do.
***
Wei Wuxian trots down the street, keeping an eye behind himself to make sure Jiang Cheng isn’t following him. He doesn’t want to have to deal with him again… especially not today. He clambers up the side of a building and over the roof, pausing to check again for followers.
Then across another roof, down into the narrow alley beyond, and after taking four turns and diving down a set of tiny stairs, he slips through a hidden thin gap between two buildings to what appears to be a dead-end.
Two buildings lean together against a crumbling brick wall. Wei Wuxian checks again up and down the alley, then runs a hand down a set of ‘bricks’ to open a door barely wide enough to slip through, closing it tightly behind himself.
A quiet whistle greets him in the open space between the three-storied buildings leaning over almost enough for their roofs to touch. Enough sky shows through the gaps to make the ground warm and comfortable during the day. Right now, only moonlight fills the space.
Four small children gallop into Wei Wuxian crouches down and holds his arms out. “Baobei,” he cries, grinning as all four kids cling to him. One climbs clumsily onto his knee and holds a hand out.
“Did you bring me candy?”
Wei Wuxian laughs. “What if I didn’t, a-Mei?”
A-Mei’s face screws up, but the little boy next to her just bounces on his toes. “Ying-gege always brings candy,” he says confidently.
Wei Wuxian falls backward onto his butt. “How did you know?” He starts to rummage in his hoodie pockets.
“A-Mei, a-Tong, where are you?”
An older woman bursts into the courtyard, and skids to a halt, hand pressed to her chest. “Wei Wuxian, you know it’s past their bedtime. Don’t give them sugar now.”
Wei Wuxian gives the kids a sheepish look. “Okay, you heard your ayi. Bedtime now, candy in the morning.”
She shoots him an exasperated look, but shakes her head and herds the children back inside. “Wen Qing is waiting for you in the house.” As her door shuts, Wei Wuxian rubs his face and stands up.
“Might as well face the music,” he sighs, and goes through into a different building.
***
“Are you certain it was Jiang Wanyin?” Lan Xichen sounds uncertain.
Lan Wangji tries to keep his annoyance to himself, but Lan Qiren notices and asks, “Why do you doubt it?”
Lan Xichen lifts a hand. “I don’t doubt you, of course. I was thinking of asking my friend, the one I told you about, Jin Guangshan’s newfound son? if he can find out anything for us.”
Lan Wangji stiffens. “No. We will not be going outside our own organization for this. Not yet.”
Lan Xichen looks upset, and Lan Wangji tries to smooth things over. “Until we know more, we cannot reveal anything about our sources.” He ignores the fact that he is the current source, for at least part of this info.
Lan Qiren leans forward. “We will continue to look into this. Lan Xichen, you spent some time with Nie Mingjue recently. Does he have anything new for us?”
After the meeting, Lan Qiren catches Lan Wangji’s eye and leads him to Lan Qiren’s private office. “What was that about? You’re not usually bothered by your brother’s methods.”
Lan Wangji purses his lips. “I do not trust Jin Guangshan’s son. I encountered him before he was legitimized and I do not believe that he will keep any information gained from conversations or questioning confidential.”
He shifts on his feet. “Jin Guangyao worked for both the Nie and, we suspect, the Wen, before his father took official notice of him.” He allows his belief of what Jin Guangshan might have seen in his ‘new’ son to show on his face.
Lan Qiren drums his fingers on his desk. “Best to keep him from becoming too familiar with our own organization.” He pulls a notepad close and picks up a calligraphy brush, a trick he’d taught his nephews as a way to prevent others from copying his notes later. “Do you think I should warn Lan Xichen?”
Lan Wangji tilts his head. “Not yet, but I do think we should increase surveillance of the Jin. And Jiang.” He ignores Lan Qiren’s eyebrows rising.
Lan Wangji can’t do anything about the Wen right now; he has feelers out and his informants will tell him when they find something. But he can do something about the Jiang.
As he sits at the table across from Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Wanyin, three days later, he remembers why he hates dealing with the Jiang. They might be excellent at importing foreign goods but they are, personally, incredibly frustrating.
He doesn’t understand how they don’t find it exhausting to be that angry all the time.
***
Wei Wuxian slinks into Wen Qing's flat and grins at her, but it cuts no ice.
"What now?" she asks.
He shifts on his feet, then says, "I think it's leaking. At her look of horror, he says quickly, "Not here, I've got everything blocked here. But when I was out—"
She yanks down the back of his shirt. "Fuck."
"What? It doesn't hurt." He twists his head, trying to look at his own back, but she stops him, running a gentle finger over the bruise rising on his collarbone.
"This doesn't hurt?" Her voice is cold. "He found you again?"
"It's just a little sore, Wen Qing, it's nothing."
She steps back. "Take off your shirt."
He waggles his eyebrows, then sags. "Fine, but this isn't the important thing." As she spreads arnica over the bruises, he sucks in a deep breath. "I wasn't anywhere he should have been, but he found me."
She purses her lips. "Where were you?"
"Lan territory."
He shrugs back into his shirt, controlling his shiver. She hated knowing that he couldn't get warm anymore.
"Could he have had a meeting?"
He eyes her. "With the Lan? Old Man Lan wouldn't touch the Jiang with a ten foot pole." He rubs his face. "No, he was there for me."
She puts a careful hand on his arm. "We won't figure this out tonight. Ayi kept dinner for you. Then go to bed." At his expression, she closed her eyes. "Go to sleep. You can't help us if you can't function."
He clenches his jaw against the rush of guilt, but she sees it.
"Stop it. You saved us. We're nearly done."
He leans into her for a second, then stands up.
"Just a couple more things and then we can escape all of this to become subsistence farmers!" He cocks a hip. "I always wanted to sell turnips in a village market. All the grannies will buy from me."
***
Well, thinks Lan Wangji. That was unproductive. He slides into the driver’s seat of his car and pulls away from the Lotus Pier parking area. The Jiang hid their illicit dealings under cover of their legal import/export business, and their showroom was extravagant and glittery.
He deliberately doesn’t think about anything but his driving until he gets back to his office and shuts the door.
Then he sits down and writes out detailed notes for the meeting before setting the whole thing aside and dealing with the regular chaos of his own family’s business. By the end of the day, several things stick out.
The Jins are probably helping the Wen – they are definitely looking for whatever the Wen had lost. Lan Wangji would bet, regardless of his uncle’s old-fashioned ‘rules’, that if the Jin found whatever it was without the Wen noticing, it would disappear behind the Jin’s walls.
The Jiang are playing catch up, but there had recently been some internal split or disturbance. The main family were tenser than usual, and Jiang Wanyin had been nearly apoplectic from the beginning to end of the meeting, for no apparent reason. Even Yu Ziyuan seemed slightly uncomfortable with his temper.
The Wen are looking in unexpected places. Whatever – or whoever – they’ve lost, they don’t think it’s left the city. Which means that Lan Wangji might be able, if he’s quick and lucky, to find out what the lost thing is.
He can’t figure it out here at his desk, and he’s exhausted from the day, so he heads for home. On the way, he decides he doesn’t want to deal with cooking, so he has his aide place a delivery order for him from the French restaurant he prefers. They’re always fast and delicious.
The delivery person will meet him at the gate to Cloud Recesses, so he slows down a bit and enjoys the way driving on the busy road keeps his mind engaged, but distracts him from brooding over work questions.
When he pulls up at the gate, the security guard is laughing with a tall stranger. The man is lean-sitting on a small motorcycle and gesticulating wildly as he talks to the guard. When he turns away from Lan Wangji, for a second it looks like he’s got a metal pin under his hair, near his neck.
His hair is long and tied up in a messy bun, his eyes are striking in the bright glow from the security kiosk, and Lan Wangji’s dinner is probably in one of the saddlebags at the back of the vehicle. The security guard says something and the delivery man turns to Lan Wangji.
The stranger stands up and pulls out the large insulated bag the restaurant uses for their more important delivery clients. His smile as he approaches the car is warm and friendly.
“Hey, I’m from Paulette’s. This must be your dinner. It smells amazing.”
***
Wei Wuxian hands over the bag of food, trying not to stare. He hadn’t expected his side gig to bring him to Lan Wangji. Is this where he lived? He sends a friendly wave to the guard, who’d been unexpectedly chill about Wei Wuxian having to wait.
He’d also been unexpectedly chatty, which Wei Wuxian thought was odd. He’d expected someone working security for the Lan to be more, well, security conscious. Maybe he didn’t think what he’d said was informative, but as Wei Wuxian drove off, he went over the things the guard had said.
Lan Wangji – and the other Lan family members who lived here – mostly kept to themselves. (This wasn’t news; the Lan were notoriously private.) But they did have several outside services: gardening, cleaning, and for the guard called ‘the bunkhouse’, cooking.
Wei Wuxian wonders who lives in ‘the bunkhouse’. He doesn’t bother to spend much time thinking about it while he’s working. Paulette’s keeps him hopping; they’re a popular restaurant for delivery. He is the only one of them who could get any work in public, and they need him to not get fired.
Paulette’s are also extremely generous with leftover food after they close, so he can bring home enough to feed nearly everyone when he’s working.
At a-Yuan’s complaint that he wants bao instead of eggplant provencal, Wei Wuxian snorts. “Should I get a job delivering for a bao place?” he asks, and grins when the little boy nods enthusiastically. “I’ll look into that.”
After all the kids are in bed, Wei Wuxian tells Wen Qing and Wen Ning everything he’d learned from the guard. One clear thing is that Lan Wangji’s been working on something. The guard had been very forthcoming about the fact that Lan Wangji’s schedule is usually very regular, but he’s been coming home late for a couple weeks.
“Do… do you think he’s in-involved?” Wen Ning’s voice is soft and worried.
Wei Wuxian pokes his teacup, making it spin slightly. “I don’t think the Lans would get involved with the…” He gestures at the back of his neck and Wen Ning grimaces. “But I did hear, before, uh. Before things changed that his brother’s been getting friendly with the new Jin peacock. Peacocklet?”
Wen Qing crosses her arms. “That’s… not great. If we have to deal with the Lan as well as the others, we might be really screwed.”
Wei Wuxian squeezes her shoulder. “We’re nearly ready to get the last of the stuff we need from inside. Then you can all get out and I can bring it to the police.”