Chapter Text
Early summer sun glints on the surface of the water as Wen Qing steps off the boat. Dragonflies hum and fish splash in the distance. Fisherfolk arise early, but the true noise and bustle of Lotus Pier has yet to disturb the peace of the river, or the lake it feeds. By midday, this place will be alive with the strokes of oars and the singing of songs Wen Qing is still just beginning to know. Her clinic in Yunping is too far into town to hear the fisherfolk at work. She also has yet to learn the trick anyone raised in Yunmeng knows: how to scent fresh water on the breeze, and navigate to the river by nose.
Still, she's learned a few things in the past year and a half. Wen Qing walks down the dock, calculating seasonal supplies to buy. People out working on the river will need creams to prevent sunburn and insect bites, and salves for both if they fail to take preventative measures. The people growing up in this climate know plenty of remedies for dehydration, but she likes to keep some ready-made for emergencies.
Next week, she will travel to Lanling to demonstrate chest compressions for expelling water from the lungs. Ostensibly, that is why she is in Lotus Pier now, albeit a day before her scheduled lecture for Yunmeng Jiang.
"Wen-daifu! Come smell these herbs!"
The vendors of Lotus Pier are shameless opportunists. They were among the first to warm to her, once they realized how many supplies a new clinic required. Wen Qing buys a handful of herbs she doesn't need. The herbs do smell fresh, and she can probably find something to do with them later today. She proceeds to the end of the dock, listening to snatches of conversation as she passes.
"...petition him tomorrow! He'll be in a good mood..."
"...going to be a storm this afternoon, I feel it in my bones..."
"...arrived early! I wonder if she and Sect Leader will finally--shh, she's looking!"
She finds a use for the herbs after all, as she buries her face in them to hide a laugh. The people of Lotus Pier still aren't sure what to make of her, this doctor who bears the name Wen, but they are united in their desire to see Sect Leader Jiang married at long last. For this, they are willing to overlook certain defects. No doubt her months spent building a clinic and brewing medicines help, too.
The two fresh-faced disciples tasked with guarding the doors to Lotus Pier proper fall into deep bows at the sight of her. "Wen-daifu! Welcome!" One of them has the presence of mind to scribble on a talisman. In a burst of violet light Wei Wuxian insisted was a necessary modification, a small paper man streaks towards wherever, presumably, Jiang Wanyin is working. How like him to start work at this time of day.
"Sect Leader is in the private pavilion out on the lake," squeaks the slightly less overawed disciple. He falls into a bow again, bangs flopping into his eyes like the ears on a puppy.
"Thank you, I know my way." Wen Qing sweeps past them, the slight smile on her lips all she'll allow herself anywhere so public. The people of Lotus Pier have drawn some accurate conclusions about her relationship with Jiang Wanyin, but there's no reason to put those conclusions on display.
The heat is already climbing, and she's grateful that Jiang Wanyin chose to set up work so far out on the water today. Lotus Pier is built to welcome the cool breezes off the lake, but even so, his office is always stifling by midday. Wen Qing does not run down the long walkways. If she walks at a more rapid pace than her norm, that's her own prerogative.
Wen Qing's heart lifts at the familiar figure rising from the table to greet her--lifts, and floats away on the current of her happiness. The smudge of ink on the underside of Jiang Wanyin's jaw, the damply curling tendrils of hair that meant he went for a swim early this morning, the crooked smile that snags her heart like a hook, and reels it in, and in, and in. She draws his face to hers, catching him like he's caught her, and kisses him good morning.
Of course she intends to marry Jiang Wanyin someday. The jianghu will always be the jianghu, full of hypocrisies and political machinations. As the wife of a sect leader, Wen Qing will have to interact with both. But being Jiang Wanyin's wife will mean as many moments together as there are droplets of water in a lake. With every visit to Lotus Pier, it is harder to leave, as she correctly surmised after her first. Yunmeng Jiang's chief doctor plans to retire in a few years--perhaps then. Perhaps sooner.
The people of Yunmeng Jiang can't fathom the delay, even with all the work that accompanied building and running a clinic in a separate city. After several veiled allusions in earlier letters, Ma-daifu now says in every correspondence that he hopes to attend her wedding soon. And of course Wei Wuxian doesn't understand at all. He married his Lan Wangji on the soonest auspicious date, and the wedding was all the jianghu talked about for months. Even A-Ning, who questions her decisions rarely and her personal decisions even less, has asked whether she plans to live in Yunping forever. For A-Ning, that's as direct as jabbing a finger in her face and asking about her intentions.
What she's never been able to convey, and what no one else but Jiang Wanyin understands, is this sense of time. Of weightless possibility, of the future stretching ahead, as broad and bright as the river. For the first time since she was a young girl, Wen Qing's life is her own. She has time enough to practice medicine, and to drink tea with her family, and let the man she loves teach her how to swim.
"How's the clinic doing?" Jiang Wanyin asks, once they've greeted each other properly.
"Adequately," Wen Qing says, because she's terribly, terribly pleased with everything. A-Ning and Sizhui returned after a few months of travel to assist her, and are now content to run the clinic when Wen Qing is away.
A-Qing also turned up at the clinic shortly after it opened, recovered from her emergency surgery and determined to learn medicine. She is still in the earliest stage of her apprenticeship, but she's learned how to mix medicines based on the system of identifying knots A-Ning devised for the ingredient labels. She's also mischievous and clever and loyal, and reminds Wen Qing almost painfully of Wei Wuxian at times. When her apprenticeship is finished, she and A-Ning will be more than capable of running the Yunping clinic themselves. Sizhui, too, if he wishes.
Due to Sizhui's presence, Wen Qing is frequently troubled by junior cultivators. They're boisterous and prone to playful bickering--and their love for Sizhui is unchanged, even though Sizhui has begun to entertain the idea of using his Wen surname again. The juniors also understand A-Qing's signing better than Wen Qing does. (A-Ning, however, is the best at signing out of all of them.) In spite of Wen Qing's history, or perhaps because of it, these children-no-longer-children give her hope for a peaceful future.
Jiang Wanyin smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Good."
Wen Qing helps herself to the fresh buns and a cup of still-warm tea while Jiang Wanyin answers the small mountain of correspondence on the table. Hunger and thirst satisfied, she tucks herself against Jiang Wanyin's side and reviews Sizhui's notes on the clinic's patients. He is both observant and meticulous, and Wen Qing makes a mental note to write to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian about his progress. (Sizhui has not returned to Cloud Recesses since Guanyin Temple. She assumes he will on his own time; he is a loving and dutiful boy. In the meantime, he sees Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian when they visit Yunmeng.)
Eventually, the sweat trickling down her back becomes unbearable. Wen Qing puts away the documents and asks, "How do you feel about giving me another swimming lesson?"
He grins at her. "Sounds like urgent sect business."
As a true native of Yunmeng, Jiang Wanyin is in the water first, his writing supplies packed away and his robes neatly folded on the table, while Wen Qing is still removing her outer layer. Treading water, he watches her disrobing with frank interest. Wen Qing makes a face at him in response.
"Sorry," Jiang Wanyin says. He does not sound sorry at all.
"Someone should dunk your head."
"Someone is going to have to improve her swimming speed before she can catch me." With that, Jiang Wanyin disappears underwater.
"Showoff," Wen Qing calls when Jiang Wanyin finally comes up for air, already a considerable distance from the pavilion. She's had ample time to learn just how skilled a swimmer Jiang Wanyin is since his underwater battle with Yang Yuxin's fierce corpses. (She once confessed to feeling ridiculous for ever panicking like that, but he just gave her a serious look and said, "Even experienced swimmers can drown." Sect Leader Jiang is famously exacting when it comes to water safety.)
She folds the last of her clothing so that it won't be hopelessly wrinkled when it's time to dress again. That would certainly cause some conversation in Lotus Pier. Besides, she's a representative of the Dafan Wen wherever she goes. She wears more red these days. Sect Leader Nie was right when he told her that the jianghu needs to remember that the name Wen means more than chaos and death.
Wen Qing hasn't seen Sect Leader Nie since Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's wedding, where she avoided him as much as possible. He knows too much about too many people, herself included. If he noticed her avoiding him--and he surely did--he made no remark on it, and toasted the happy couple long into the night.
Jiang Wanyin pops to the surface again, much closer. "What's taking you so long?"
"I was thinking about how infinitely patient the love of my life is," she says, and kicks water at his face. It catches him off-guard, despite a childhood spent with Wei Wuxian, and he sputters out a generous mouthful of lake water.
"Terrible," he says when he recovers, but he smiles as he does so, that soft expression he reserves for only her.
"You are patient. When it matters," she replies, because that particular smile does things to her, like bring out an aching tenderness she never knew she was capable of. The promise of seeing that smile every day--perhaps she'll bring up the subject of wedding dates later tonight. She has time, more time than she ever thought that she would see in this lifetime. Her ancestors would want her to use it joyfully and well.
Wen Qing looks down at Jiang Wanyin in the water, a smile of her own on her lips, and dives in.