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A Gentle Guiding Hand: Chapter 1 [MDZS]
Title: A Gentle Guiding Hand
Fandom: The Untamed | Modao Zushi
Pairing/Characters: Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying & Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng / Lan Huan, Lan Huan & Lan Zhan, background Wei Ying / Lan Zhan, background Jiang Yanli / Jin Zixuan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings:
Word Count: ~2k | Ch. 1 / 3 | Chapter Directory
Summary: It doesn’t take long for the two boys to understand the solution: if Jiang Yanli were the sect heir, no one would ever try to make her leave.
Notes: A nobody dies / everybody lives pre-canon divergent fix-it fic played on 3x speed.
Somehow, it wasn't until Jiang Cheng was nearly seven years old, listening to his older sister explain to a bewildered Wei Ying what it meant that she was betrothed, that he really understood. Jiang Yanli had been engaged to the Jin sect heir for Jiang Cheng's entire life. It was a fact of the world, like the colours worn by their sect and the scent of the lotuses rising from the water in the summer heat. So Jiang Cheng had always known that Jiang Yanli was engaged, but he hadn't understood—no one had explained that—
"You're leaving?" Jiang Cheng wasn’t a baby—he didn’t start crying or anything—but he scrubbed at his face in case his watery eyes were mistaken for tears instead of anger. “You can’t leave! You’re from Lotus Pier! You belong here!” With us, he didn’t say.
“Yeah, with us!” Wei Ying added, and Jiang Cheng felt a rush of gratitude to him for saying the words that Jiang Cheng couldn’t. “I bet Koi Tower isn’t anywhere near as good!”
Jiang Yanli, who despite her relentless optimism was also as scrupulously honest as a Lan, hesitated. “It’s certainly very different,” she demurred. “But,” she rallied herself, “I’m sure I’ll grow to love it as well.”
Jiang Cheng wasn’t satisfied with this response, and from the mulish expression on Wei Ying’s face, neither was he, but Jiang Yanli simply patted their heads, smiling. “I won’t be marrying and making my home in Koi Tower for many, many years yet,” she told them. “And when I do, you’ll both be grown men, big and strong with your own adult duties. You won’t need your big sister then.”
“That’s not true!”
“We’ll always need shijie!”
But Jiang Yanli then revealed another clever game, and of course Jiang Cheng couldn’t let Wei Ying win, and so the matter was dropped for the moment.
It was not, however, forgotten.
One of the nice things about Wei Ying coming to live with them—and there were many nice things, and also many not-nice things, but his sister had admonished him to focus on the positive, so he tried—was that now, sometimes, his father would stop by their room in the evening to wish them goodnight. He’d never done that before, not that Jiang Cheng could remember, and it felt warm, even if Wei Ying got more head pats than Jiang Cheng did—and he did get more. Jiang Cheng counted.
On this night, Jiang Cheng was on Wei Ying’s bed, swatting him with a cushion while Wei Ying giggled and tried to use the sheets to trap him, when they heard a sigh that cut through their shouting and laughter in a way that the door sliding open hadn’t.
“A-Cheng, go to your own bed,” said Jiang Fengmian. There was nothing harsh or cutting about his tone of voice, not like there would have been if they had been caught by his mother instead, but Jiang Cheng felt his face redden in shame anyway, and he hurriedly climbed out of the tangle of sheets and dove into his own bed.
Wei Ying didn’t seem to feel any sense of admonishment, real or imagined. “Uncle Jiang! Are you finished with your meetings?”
“For tonight, thankfully,” said Jiang Cheng’s father, coming over to fix Wei Ying’s sheets and tuck him more properly into bed. Jiang Cheng burrowed more deeply into his own sheets. It was fine that his father didn’t tuck him in, because he was big and could do it himself. “Tomorrow there will be a whole new wave of meetings, as we’ll be hosting a delegation from the Jin sect.”
Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng exchanged a heavy glance. The Jin sect, who would be coming to steal their sister!
“Uncle Jiang,” said Wei Ying suddenly. “Why did Madam Yu marry into the Jiang sect?”
Jiang Fengmian looked slightly panicked at the question. Maybe he wasn’t too pleased about losing Jiang Yanli, either! “Well, I… That is to say, as one gets older, we start to feel the need for a special kind of companionship, and—”
“I know that,” interrupted Wei Ying dismissively. Jiang Fengmian looked even more panicked by this assertion, but Wei Ying continued. “I mean, why didn’t you marry into the Yu sect? Is it because Yunmeng is better than Meishan?”
Jiang Fengmian coughed. “No, no, Meishan is very impressive and beautiful, just like the people who inhabit it. Perhaps someday you’ll be able to see it.” He sighed, absently reaching out a hand to stroke through Wei Ying’s hair comfortingly.
“So why?” asked Wei Ying, not to be deterred.
Jiang Fengmian hesitated. “Well, I was the sect heir,” he said finally. “I couldn’t exactly marry out of the sect, now could I?” he smiled crookedly.
Wei Ying looked over at Jiang Cheng and widened his eyes meaningfully. Jiang Cheng nodded back firmly to show that he understood.
“Why all these questions?” asked Jiang Fengmian.
Wei Ying would need to learn how to hide that shifty-eyed look at some point. “No reason!” he said, ducking his head under the blankets.
Jiang Fengmian chuckled and stood up from where he’d been perched on Wei Ying’s bed. “Good night, then. I expect you’ll both go to sleep when I leave, with no more roughhousing?”
The two chorused their agreement, and Jiang Cheng closed his eyes as Jiang Fengmian moved away from Wei Ying’s bed, assuming that he was leaving and that he had missed his chance for head pats.
But then he felt the blankets tugged a little so that they settled more smoothly around him, and a large hand stroked through his hair briefly before vanishing. By the time Jiang Cheng opened his eyes, Jiang Fengmian was gone.
When Jin Guangshan was finally able to step out of his carriage after the long journey to Lotus Pier, he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the heavy smell of water that permeated the air. As he made his way to the gates, he was barely able to hide a sneer at the simple embellishments and meager jewels. You’d think this was the home of Lans.
When he and his entourage had been directed into the audience room and announced, the family who greeted him was similarly unadorned. Oh, Jin Guangshan recognized the quality of the materials in their garments, and the embroidery was no doubt exquisitely done, but it was so understated. The only eye-catching one in the group was, as usual, the feisty Yu Ziyuan, and it certainly wasn’t her clothes or jewelry that drew his eyes.
The introductory greetings were long, but despite his fatigue from his trip, he had no intention of shortening his own speech, which was the only enjoyable part of this whole mess, and indeed he was proud to note that he spoke at least three times as long as anyone else. He would have spoken longer, but during a brief pause to gather his breath, Jiang Fengmian interrupted to thank him for his kind words, and immediately moved on to invite Jin Guangshan and his immediate family to a private luncheon.
“No doubt that Sect Leader Jin won’t mind the lack of formality, given that we’re all of a family, in our way,” said Jiang Fengmian, giving a smile that Jin Guangshan could not bring himself to return for several frozen moments.
The sheer audacity! Jin Guangshan was the sect leader of the richest, and therefore the greatest, sect in the jianghu! These peasants should be celebrating at the honour of providing him with feasts and entertainments. How dare they subject him to what amounted to a picnic?
But Madam Jin was quick to accept, smiling at Yu Ziyuan, who smiled back, though she had few enough smiles to spare for anyone who wasn’t her sworn sister.
They all retreated to a private courtyard where tables and refreshments had been set out. Banal and dull!
It was mortifying to think that he was tying himself to this family, who barely amounted to a great sect, hardly better than those butchers who dared to call themselves cultivators. He’d heard that Wen Ruohan had a very pretty little niece who was just about Jin Zixuan’s age, or near enough, and she would no doubt be vastly superior to this little country bumpkin his wife had insisted upon.
“Sect Leader Jin?” asked a high voice. Not a woman’s voice, disappointingly. No, this voice belonged to the little bastard “son of his friends” that Jiang Fengmian had taken in. Normally, Jin Guangshan would have made it very clear that he was not to be addressed by a child, never mind one of such a low rank, and he would have made that clear with his whip. But he happened to catch Yu Ziyuan’s furious expression out of the corner of his eye, and that was enough for him to smile at the boy encouragingly.
“I’m very sorry,” the little boy said, informal to the point of death-earning rudeness, and when Jiang Fengmian’s hand gestures didn’t work, Yu Ziyuan stood up to retrieve the child herself. What a barn these people lived in. “But my shijie can’t marry into the Jin sect, because she’s the sect heir. So Young Master Jin will have to marry into the Jiang sect instead.”
At his words, Yu Ziyuan froze in her trek around the table, then abruptly sped up, her face a foreboding mask of fury. She snapped, “A-Li is not the sect heir, as you well know—a-Cheng is. And weren’t you only permitted to join this meal under the condition that you not speak?”
Yu Ziyuan snatched up the boy and handed him off to a servant. “See that Wei Ying finds his way back to his rooms and stays there,” she said.
What an absurd and hilarious drama. The mere idea of a man marrying into a woman’s sect, as though she could lead a sect anywhere but to destruction. He imagined his own wife or Yu Ziyuan at the helm of a sect without the calm and logical influence of a man there to command them, and he shuddered at the thought.
Though—
The young maiden Jiang Yanli was nothing like her mother or her mother’s sworn sister. Even now, she sat placidly and obediently, her eyes downcast. A pity she was so plain, really. But a girl like that in charge of a sect? She’d not only have no idea what to do, she also wouldn’t have the temperament to pretend she knew better, not like her mother. She’d turn to the men in her life—and as a sect leader, that would mean her own father would be gone, so she’d have no one to turn to but her husband and her doting father-in-law. In fact, if his son married into the Jiang sect, wouldn’t that be the same thing as the Jin taking over the sect? Perhaps it would be embarrassing from a reputation standpoint, but no one would look at Jiang Yanli and ever think that she, and not his strong and talented son, was really in charge of Lotus Pier.
“Is she not the sect heir?” asked Jin Guangshan, feigning surprise. “I had understood that my son would be marrying your oldest child. Is your oldest child not the heir? I’m afraid that I cannot approve my son marrying into your sect unless he marries the sect heir.”
Yu Ziyuan and Madam Jin were staring at Jin Guangshan as though he’d lost his mind, but Jiang Fengmian looked at Jin Guangshan, looked at his daughter and then his son, and then nodded agreeably. “Of course,” he said. “A-Li will be the sect heir, and Young Master Jin will marry into the Yunmeng Jiang.”
Jin Guangshan smiled smugly. What an idiot.
“What an idiot,” Jiang Fengmian marvelled.
“Of course he’s an idiot,” snapped Yu Ziyuan, who had followed him to his rooms after the long and unexpected round of negotiations. She closed the door behind her with a flick of her wrist, and Jiang Fengmian took a moment to admire the efficiency of the movement. “He’s always been an idiot. But what were you thinking?”
“A-Li has a temperament that would allow her to find happiness anywhere,” mused Jiang Fengmian. “Even in poverty, even in hell, even in Koi Tower. But why make it so difficult for her? She would be happiest here, and now here she will remain. And all because Jin Guangshan, in his unending terrible assessments of character, believes she’s of a disposition to bend to others’ wishes. As though she weren’t the most stubborn of us all!”
“Did it ever occur to you to ask her what she wants? And what about your son, from whom you’ve just snatched his birthright?”
“If it’s his sister who benefits from his loss, why would he mind?”
“Can you really be this stupid, Fengmian? I—”
There was a soft knock at the door, and Yu Ziyuan opened it to find the three children outside. Her lips curled down, but she said, “Well? Come in, then.”
Jiang Yanli picked up the hands of Wei Ying and her brother and led them inside. She and Jiang Cheng hadn’t been permitted to stay through the full meeting, and no doubt she had questions about her future.
“Father, Mother,” she said, saluting them quite properly. Jiang Fengmian nodded in approval, noting the way the two little boys followed her lead. “What has been decided?”
On the surface, Jiang Yanli was gentle to the point of indolence. Her accomplishments in cultivation were disappointing, and though her scholarly work was very adequate for her station, she would never be the star of her generation in those pursuits, either, and her total indifference in this caused many to suspect her to be somewhat dull. No doubt, few outsiders would believe her to be up to the task of running a great sect.
And yet, the reality was that laziness and ignorance were not sins that anyone who knew her well could accuse her off—she worked tirelessly, supporting the administrative tasks of the sect, even at her age, and even her relaxation was productive, as she always seemed to be cooking or sewing during her leisure time. She would require a more targeted education, true, and they would need to work on her cultivation in particular, but she would make a brilliant sect leader some day, and one whom neither Jin Zixuan nor his father would manage to sway.
Jiang Fengmian smiled at his daughter. “You are the heir to the Jiang sect. We’ll make the announcement as soon as the Jins leave, and we’ll adjust your training accordingly. And someday, you will be the sect leader.”
“And she’ll stay here? She won’t leave when she gets married?” asked Wei Ying anxiously.
“She’ll stay here.” Jiang Fengmian looked at his daughter closely. “Do you agree?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, searching her heart. She looked down at the little boys, pausing for a long moment on Jiang Cheng, who was looking up at her adoringly. When she returned her gaze to Jiang Fengmian, the steel in her eyes was visible past her mild expression. “I agree.”
Fandom: The Untamed | Modao Zushi
Pairing/Characters: Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying & Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng / Lan Huan, Lan Huan & Lan Zhan, background Wei Ying / Lan Zhan, background Jiang Yanli / Jin Zixuan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings:
Word Count: ~2k | Ch. 1 / 3 | Chapter Directory
Summary: It doesn’t take long for the two boys to understand the solution: if Jiang Yanli were the sect heir, no one would ever try to make her leave.
Notes: A nobody dies / everybody lives pre-canon divergent fix-it fic played on 3x speed.
Somehow, it wasn't until Jiang Cheng was nearly seven years old, listening to his older sister explain to a bewildered Wei Ying what it meant that she was betrothed, that he really understood. Jiang Yanli had been engaged to the Jin sect heir for Jiang Cheng's entire life. It was a fact of the world, like the colours worn by their sect and the scent of the lotuses rising from the water in the summer heat. So Jiang Cheng had always known that Jiang Yanli was engaged, but he hadn't understood—no one had explained that—
"You're leaving?" Jiang Cheng wasn’t a baby—he didn’t start crying or anything—but he scrubbed at his face in case his watery eyes were mistaken for tears instead of anger. “You can’t leave! You’re from Lotus Pier! You belong here!” With us, he didn’t say.
“Yeah, with us!” Wei Ying added, and Jiang Cheng felt a rush of gratitude to him for saying the words that Jiang Cheng couldn’t. “I bet Koi Tower isn’t anywhere near as good!”
Jiang Yanli, who despite her relentless optimism was also as scrupulously honest as a Lan, hesitated. “It’s certainly very different,” she demurred. “But,” she rallied herself, “I’m sure I’ll grow to love it as well.”
Jiang Cheng wasn’t satisfied with this response, and from the mulish expression on Wei Ying’s face, neither was he, but Jiang Yanli simply patted their heads, smiling. “I won’t be marrying and making my home in Koi Tower for many, many years yet,” she told them. “And when I do, you’ll both be grown men, big and strong with your own adult duties. You won’t need your big sister then.”
“That’s not true!”
“We’ll always need shijie!”
But Jiang Yanli then revealed another clever game, and of course Jiang Cheng couldn’t let Wei Ying win, and so the matter was dropped for the moment.
It was not, however, forgotten.
One of the nice things about Wei Ying coming to live with them—and there were many nice things, and also many not-nice things, but his sister had admonished him to focus on the positive, so he tried—was that now, sometimes, his father would stop by their room in the evening to wish them goodnight. He’d never done that before, not that Jiang Cheng could remember, and it felt warm, even if Wei Ying got more head pats than Jiang Cheng did—and he did get more. Jiang Cheng counted.
On this night, Jiang Cheng was on Wei Ying’s bed, swatting him with a cushion while Wei Ying giggled and tried to use the sheets to trap him, when they heard a sigh that cut through their shouting and laughter in a way that the door sliding open hadn’t.
“A-Cheng, go to your own bed,” said Jiang Fengmian. There was nothing harsh or cutting about his tone of voice, not like there would have been if they had been caught by his mother instead, but Jiang Cheng felt his face redden in shame anyway, and he hurriedly climbed out of the tangle of sheets and dove into his own bed.
Wei Ying didn’t seem to feel any sense of admonishment, real or imagined. “Uncle Jiang! Are you finished with your meetings?”
“For tonight, thankfully,” said Jiang Cheng’s father, coming over to fix Wei Ying’s sheets and tuck him more properly into bed. Jiang Cheng burrowed more deeply into his own sheets. It was fine that his father didn’t tuck him in, because he was big and could do it himself. “Tomorrow there will be a whole new wave of meetings, as we’ll be hosting a delegation from the Jin sect.”
Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng exchanged a heavy glance. The Jin sect, who would be coming to steal their sister!
“Uncle Jiang,” said Wei Ying suddenly. “Why did Madam Yu marry into the Jiang sect?”
Jiang Fengmian looked slightly panicked at the question. Maybe he wasn’t too pleased about losing Jiang Yanli, either! “Well, I… That is to say, as one gets older, we start to feel the need for a special kind of companionship, and—”
“I know that,” interrupted Wei Ying dismissively. Jiang Fengmian looked even more panicked by this assertion, but Wei Ying continued. “I mean, why didn’t you marry into the Yu sect? Is it because Yunmeng is better than Meishan?”
Jiang Fengmian coughed. “No, no, Meishan is very impressive and beautiful, just like the people who inhabit it. Perhaps someday you’ll be able to see it.” He sighed, absently reaching out a hand to stroke through Wei Ying’s hair comfortingly.
“So why?” asked Wei Ying, not to be deterred.
Jiang Fengmian hesitated. “Well, I was the sect heir,” he said finally. “I couldn’t exactly marry out of the sect, now could I?” he smiled crookedly.
Wei Ying looked over at Jiang Cheng and widened his eyes meaningfully. Jiang Cheng nodded back firmly to show that he understood.
“Why all these questions?” asked Jiang Fengmian.
Wei Ying would need to learn how to hide that shifty-eyed look at some point. “No reason!” he said, ducking his head under the blankets.
Jiang Fengmian chuckled and stood up from where he’d been perched on Wei Ying’s bed. “Good night, then. I expect you’ll both go to sleep when I leave, with no more roughhousing?”
The two chorused their agreement, and Jiang Cheng closed his eyes as Jiang Fengmian moved away from Wei Ying’s bed, assuming that he was leaving and that he had missed his chance for head pats.
But then he felt the blankets tugged a little so that they settled more smoothly around him, and a large hand stroked through his hair briefly before vanishing. By the time Jiang Cheng opened his eyes, Jiang Fengmian was gone.
When Jin Guangshan was finally able to step out of his carriage after the long journey to Lotus Pier, he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the heavy smell of water that permeated the air. As he made his way to the gates, he was barely able to hide a sneer at the simple embellishments and meager jewels. You’d think this was the home of Lans.
When he and his entourage had been directed into the audience room and announced, the family who greeted him was similarly unadorned. Oh, Jin Guangshan recognized the quality of the materials in their garments, and the embroidery was no doubt exquisitely done, but it was so understated. The only eye-catching one in the group was, as usual, the feisty Yu Ziyuan, and it certainly wasn’t her clothes or jewelry that drew his eyes.
The introductory greetings were long, but despite his fatigue from his trip, he had no intention of shortening his own speech, which was the only enjoyable part of this whole mess, and indeed he was proud to note that he spoke at least three times as long as anyone else. He would have spoken longer, but during a brief pause to gather his breath, Jiang Fengmian interrupted to thank him for his kind words, and immediately moved on to invite Jin Guangshan and his immediate family to a private luncheon.
“No doubt that Sect Leader Jin won’t mind the lack of formality, given that we’re all of a family, in our way,” said Jiang Fengmian, giving a smile that Jin Guangshan could not bring himself to return for several frozen moments.
The sheer audacity! Jin Guangshan was the sect leader of the richest, and therefore the greatest, sect in the jianghu! These peasants should be celebrating at the honour of providing him with feasts and entertainments. How dare they subject him to what amounted to a picnic?
But Madam Jin was quick to accept, smiling at Yu Ziyuan, who smiled back, though she had few enough smiles to spare for anyone who wasn’t her sworn sister.
They all retreated to a private courtyard where tables and refreshments had been set out. Banal and dull!
It was mortifying to think that he was tying himself to this family, who barely amounted to a great sect, hardly better than those butchers who dared to call themselves cultivators. He’d heard that Wen Ruohan had a very pretty little niece who was just about Jin Zixuan’s age, or near enough, and she would no doubt be vastly superior to this little country bumpkin his wife had insisted upon.
“Sect Leader Jin?” asked a high voice. Not a woman’s voice, disappointingly. No, this voice belonged to the little bastard “son of his friends” that Jiang Fengmian had taken in. Normally, Jin Guangshan would have made it very clear that he was not to be addressed by a child, never mind one of such a low rank, and he would have made that clear with his whip. But he happened to catch Yu Ziyuan’s furious expression out of the corner of his eye, and that was enough for him to smile at the boy encouragingly.
“I’m very sorry,” the little boy said, informal to the point of death-earning rudeness, and when Jiang Fengmian’s hand gestures didn’t work, Yu Ziyuan stood up to retrieve the child herself. What a barn these people lived in. “But my shijie can’t marry into the Jin sect, because she’s the sect heir. So Young Master Jin will have to marry into the Jiang sect instead.”
At his words, Yu Ziyuan froze in her trek around the table, then abruptly sped up, her face a foreboding mask of fury. She snapped, “A-Li is not the sect heir, as you well know—a-Cheng is. And weren’t you only permitted to join this meal under the condition that you not speak?”
Yu Ziyuan snatched up the boy and handed him off to a servant. “See that Wei Ying finds his way back to his rooms and stays there,” she said.
What an absurd and hilarious drama. The mere idea of a man marrying into a woman’s sect, as though she could lead a sect anywhere but to destruction. He imagined his own wife or Yu Ziyuan at the helm of a sect without the calm and logical influence of a man there to command them, and he shuddered at the thought.
Though—
The young maiden Jiang Yanli was nothing like her mother or her mother’s sworn sister. Even now, she sat placidly and obediently, her eyes downcast. A pity she was so plain, really. But a girl like that in charge of a sect? She’d not only have no idea what to do, she also wouldn’t have the temperament to pretend she knew better, not like her mother. She’d turn to the men in her life—and as a sect leader, that would mean her own father would be gone, so she’d have no one to turn to but her husband and her doting father-in-law. In fact, if his son married into the Jiang sect, wouldn’t that be the same thing as the Jin taking over the sect? Perhaps it would be embarrassing from a reputation standpoint, but no one would look at Jiang Yanli and ever think that she, and not his strong and talented son, was really in charge of Lotus Pier.
“Is she not the sect heir?” asked Jin Guangshan, feigning surprise. “I had understood that my son would be marrying your oldest child. Is your oldest child not the heir? I’m afraid that I cannot approve my son marrying into your sect unless he marries the sect heir.”
Yu Ziyuan and Madam Jin were staring at Jin Guangshan as though he’d lost his mind, but Jiang Fengmian looked at Jin Guangshan, looked at his daughter and then his son, and then nodded agreeably. “Of course,” he said. “A-Li will be the sect heir, and Young Master Jin will marry into the Yunmeng Jiang.”
Jin Guangshan smiled smugly. What an idiot.
“What an idiot,” Jiang Fengmian marvelled.
“Of course he’s an idiot,” snapped Yu Ziyuan, who had followed him to his rooms after the long and unexpected round of negotiations. She closed the door behind her with a flick of her wrist, and Jiang Fengmian took a moment to admire the efficiency of the movement. “He’s always been an idiot. But what were you thinking?”
“A-Li has a temperament that would allow her to find happiness anywhere,” mused Jiang Fengmian. “Even in poverty, even in hell, even in Koi Tower. But why make it so difficult for her? She would be happiest here, and now here she will remain. And all because Jin Guangshan, in his unending terrible assessments of character, believes she’s of a disposition to bend to others’ wishes. As though she weren’t the most stubborn of us all!”
“Did it ever occur to you to ask her what she wants? And what about your son, from whom you’ve just snatched his birthright?”
“If it’s his sister who benefits from his loss, why would he mind?”
“Can you really be this stupid, Fengmian? I—”
There was a soft knock at the door, and Yu Ziyuan opened it to find the three children outside. Her lips curled down, but she said, “Well? Come in, then.”
Jiang Yanli picked up the hands of Wei Ying and her brother and led them inside. She and Jiang Cheng hadn’t been permitted to stay through the full meeting, and no doubt she had questions about her future.
“Father, Mother,” she said, saluting them quite properly. Jiang Fengmian nodded in approval, noting the way the two little boys followed her lead. “What has been decided?”
On the surface, Jiang Yanli was gentle to the point of indolence. Her accomplishments in cultivation were disappointing, and though her scholarly work was very adequate for her station, she would never be the star of her generation in those pursuits, either, and her total indifference in this caused many to suspect her to be somewhat dull. No doubt, few outsiders would believe her to be up to the task of running a great sect.
And yet, the reality was that laziness and ignorance were not sins that anyone who knew her well could accuse her off—she worked tirelessly, supporting the administrative tasks of the sect, even at her age, and even her relaxation was productive, as she always seemed to be cooking or sewing during her leisure time. She would require a more targeted education, true, and they would need to work on her cultivation in particular, but she would make a brilliant sect leader some day, and one whom neither Jin Zixuan nor his father would manage to sway.
Jiang Fengmian smiled at his daughter. “You are the heir to the Jiang sect. We’ll make the announcement as soon as the Jins leave, and we’ll adjust your training accordingly. And someday, you will be the sect leader.”
“And she’ll stay here? She won’t leave when she gets married?” asked Wei Ying anxiously.
“She’ll stay here.” Jiang Fengmian looked at his daughter closely. “Do you agree?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, searching her heart. She looked down at the little boys, pausing for a long moment on Jiang Cheng, who was looking up at her adoringly. When she returned her gaze to Jiang Fengmian, the steel in her eyes was visible past her mild expression. “I agree.”