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Avoiding the Wen hunters wasn’t that hard. It got even easier once the war started in earnest and Wen Ruohan and his people were suddenly busy fighting the other four great sects. Good luck to him - he’d been starting to show signs of madness already when Xue Yang had left for Yueyang, and it was probably only going to get worse.
Turned out he was absolutely right about that. Wen Ruohan went down in flames - or, well, went down to the sword of one of Jin Guangshan’s bastards, apparently, helped by a mysteriously powerful young cultivator who had suddenly skyrocketed to prominence.
Xue Yang recognized the name immediately. He tended to remember people who got in his way. Made of a point of it, actually. Then there was that talisman he’d used (still wanted to know how that worked, thanks), and his thoroughly entertaining lack of shame.
He’d pinned Wei Wuxian at the back of his mind as someone to watch for. Turned out he’d been right.
He sort of wanted to go looking for him - at least based on secondhand rumors it sounded like he was doing some very interesting things - but right now he needed to keep his head down. More or less.
At least, that was the idea.
So much, he thought, for that. You got unlucky once and ended up in a Jin dungeon waiting for them to get around to cutting off your head.
Or, he thought, looking at the man standing outside his cell, maybe not.
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Xue Yang said.
Meng Yao - no, he was a Jin now, he’d come up in the world, killing Wen Ruohan had probably helped with that - regarded him, face carefully blank. Xue Yang cocked his head to the side, knowing it’d show off the spectacular black eye he’d gotten from the Jin cultivator who’d gotten lucky. He remembered his face. He was going to keep remembering his face and if by some miracle he didn’t die, then Xue Yang was going to make sure that his own face was the last thing he ever saw.
It was a nice thought, anyway.
“My father wants to talk to you,” the man formerly known as Meng Yao said. “About the Yin Metal.”
“Me?” Xue Yang said, widening his eyes. “What would I know about a thing like that?” The man formerly known as Meng Yao did not look impressed, and Xue Yang had to laugh. “I never got to thank you for letting me out.”
His expression tightened. “I didn’t do it for you.”
“I figured it wasn’t cause we’re such good friends.”
The man formerly known as Meng Yao just looked at him for a few moments more, then said, very plainly, “you will say nothing about Qinghe.”
Xue Yang smiled at him. “What’s in it for me?”
“Depending on what you say, you might not die.”
“Compelling argument,” Xue Yang said. He braced his back against the wall and held up his bound hands. “Help me up, Meng Yao?”
“Jin Guangyao,” he said. “I’m sure you can remember it.” He turned and gestured two guards over; they hauled him to his feet what felt like more roughly than necessary. He noted their faces, too, just in case.
Jin Guangshan did like what he had to say.
Well, sort of.
He wasn’t dead, anyway, just spitting blood, a couple ribs cracked. Not bad, all things considered. They’d left his hands alone, at least so far. That was nice of them. Things’d be a lot worse if they fucked with his hands.
“Where is the Yin Metal that was in your possession,” Jin Guangshan asked, after a string of questions about who he was working for (nobody), where he’d been (avoiding capture), and what he wanted (to not be here, mostly). He didn’t ask about the Chang Clan, which figured. Nobody really cared about the Chang Clan. Even the righteous Xiao Xingchen-daozhang had taken his sweet time showing up. Ten days. He’d started to wonder if he’d gotten lost.
Xue Yang wondered, somewhere where he wasn’t checking to make sure his teeth were still all where they ought to be, what he was up to right now.
“No idea,” Xue Yang lied. “Went looking after Wen-zongzhu went down but it wasn’t where I left it. Must be someone else snatched it up.”
Jin Guangshan’s eyes gleamed. So that was what he wanted to hear, and Xue Yang had heard enough rumors to know why. If pointing him in Wei Wuxian’s direction got him off Xue Yang’s back then that was all to the good.
“I see,” he said. Xue Yang grinned at him, well aware it probably looked somewhat nightmarish with blood all over his teeth and down his chin.
“Got more questions for me?”
One of the cultivators kicked him in the stomach, saying, “show some respect, miscreant. Bow your head when speaking to Jin-zongzhu.” He successfully fought down the urge to vomit. He lifted his eyes but not his head to see formerly-Meng-Yao-now-Jin-Guangyao with his hands folded behind his back, just watching.
Bastard, Xue Yang thought in his direction. And here I thought we were friends.
“What was the nature of the service you performed for Wen Ruohan?” Jin Guangshan asked.
Why, you old lech, Xue Yang imagined saying. What are you hoping for? But he wasn’t actually looking to make things worse right now. He valued his skin a little too much for that.
“I knew a few things about the Yin Metal,” he said. “How it worked. What it could do.” He shrugged, which hurt. Jin Guangshan’s eyes sharpened with obvious greed.
“Interesting,” he said. “Of course, the Yin Metal has been destroyed.”
“You don’t necessarily need it,” Xue Yang said. “Just makes things easier.” He swallowed the blood in his mouth and said, “why, you want to learn, too? Funny way of recruiting you’ve got-”
The same cultivator who’d kicked him before did it again. Motherfucker. He turned his head slightly and, once he got his breath back, said, “I’m going to cut out your liver and shove it down your throat.”
The cultivator looked briefly surprised, and then angry. He reached for his sword but Jin Guanshan held up a hand and he stopped.
“I am interested,” he said, “to see what knowledge you might have to share, that can be used to...deal with future problems that may arise from ambitious people seeking to circumvent the righteous path.”
Oh, Xue Yang thought, almost impressed. Very nice.
“Your crimes are too egregious to pardon,” Jin Guangshan said. “But I will grant a stay of execution, provided that you are cooperative.”
Xue Yang glanced at the newly minted Jin Guangyao. His face was unreadable.
“Sounds like a shit deal,” he said. “Stuck in a box for the rest of my life? Honestly, I’d rather die.”
Jin Guangshan’s face darkened. After a moment he gestured at the cultivators in the room. “Leave us,” he said, and when Jin Guangyao moved to as well, said, “no, a-Yao, you stay.”
Once the room was empty to just the three of them - Xue Yang tested the chains holding him, just in case, but they were unfortunately solid - Jin Guangshan stood.
“I don’t make bargains,” he said. “But it might be - perhaps - if you prove useful, you could gain some privileges.” Xue Yang blinked innocently, as if he wasn’t catching the implication.
Jin Guangshan turned toward Jin Guangyao, who paused for a moment and then said, “Xue Yang. You can offer your cooperation willingly, and gain...some freedoms. Otherwise, we have other means of extracting information.”
Well, that. That was just fucking boring. Torture? Honestly.
Gain some freedoms. Gain enough freedoms and you could make your own.
“Huh,” he said. “Convincing argument.”
Jin Guangyao smiled. It showed his dimples. “I thought it might be. Do you accept, then?”
“Yeah,” Xue Yang said, after a moment. “Guess I can manage a change of owners.” He let that word be a joke. But only barely. It still tasted a little sour, but, well. Better a dog than dead, at least for now.
Jin Guangshan seemed pleased. “Good,” he said. “Though. You were not precisely loyal to your last masters, were you?”
Xue Yang gave him another grin. “Can you blame me?”
“It seems it might be useful to ensure that you remember to whom you belong.”
The fuck does that mean, Xue Yang thought, but he wasn’t about to ask.
“A-Yao,” Jin Guangshan said, “see to it.”
“Yes, fuqin,” Jin Guangyao said with a bow that Jin Guangshan barely seemed to notice, already walking away.
“That went well,” Xue Yang said, when he’d gone. Jin Guangyao just looked at him, then walked over to the doors and opened them.
“Bring the brand,” he said. “My father wants him marked.”
Oh, shit no. He jerked up snarling.
“A fucking brand?” To whom you belong. Yeah. Not even like the Wen brand of punishment. More like branding a fucking piece of livestock and his hands twisted until the skin on his wrists broke against the metal cuffs.
“The price of survival,” Jin Guangyao said calmly. Xue Yang bared his teeth at him.
“What,” he said. “Did you get one too?”
Jin Guangyao’s face went blank. He turned away.
“Get it done,” he said, and walked out.
He put up a good fight. It took two and a half of them to wrestle him to the floor - half because one got too close to his mouth right away and he took a chunk out of his arm, which stopped him pretty effectively. One pinned his shoulders, his arms behind his back crushed against the ground; the other took his ankles, though not before Xue Yang gave him a solid kick in the knee. A third ripped open the front of his robes, exposing his chest.
His fingers scrabbled at the floor. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared. Just angry.
Xue Yang almost laughed when he saw the brand. In the shape of a peony. Riches and honor. Well, they had the riches all right.
“I will kill you,” he snarled. “All of you, I’m gonna cut you to pieces one limb at a time to start, you’re going to be begging for me to kill you before I’m done-”
The one with the brand set it aside, ripped off a section of his outer robe, and made a go of stuffing it in his mouth. He almost got his fingers. Would’ve fucking bitten them off.
But not quite. He gagged on it. Blood trickled from his nose down the back of his throat.
They heated the brand while he watched. Probably figured it’d make things worse to see the metal going from iron-black to red to orange to white. Didn’t matter, though. He wasn’t scared, not of this.
The man holding the brand pressed it slowly against the skin of his chest. The sound was what he noticed first - a sort of sizzling noise. It struck Xue Yang as weirdly funny.
It wasn’t like he’d never been burned before. And that was all it felt like, at first, only then it wasn’t at first anymore and it was just searing pain that kept going, and going, and going and okay okay okay that was worse than he’d gotten before, he could smell the burnt-meat of his own flesh. How long were they going to hold it there, it only took a second, even if they wanted to make extra sure that it scarred-
But of course this was as much about the pain as anything else. The hurting. The being able to hurt him, see, I can do what I want to you. The same thing every rich and powerful person always thought right up until they came face to face with their end and realized they could die as easy as anyone else.
The rage in him burned hotter than the brand did, and he’d remember it twice as long.
Obviously he didn’t scream. Xue Yang got the impression that was sort of disappointing to his audience. He carved the face of the cultivator holding the brand into his memory and thought I am going to burn you alive, first chance I get.
Then he leaned into it and let it take over.
They bandaged him up afterwards, which was sweet of them. Gave him some medicine that left him sort of floaty-feeling and significantly less aware of the throbbing burn, and the cracked ribs, and the general battering. That was the gentry for you, Xue Yang thought dizzily. They’d fuck you up as bad as any street tough but they might stick you back together afterwards if they were feeling charitable.
Well, he was useful now. That changed things, didn’t it.
Though he probably wouldn’t be useful forever. He’d want to have an exit plan in place before then.
He pulled aside his robe and poked at the bandaging, hissing when that provoked a pulse of pain spreading out across his shoulder even through the fuzzy numbness.
“Don’t do that,” said Jin Guangyao’s voice. He glanced over at him.
“Thanks for the help,” Xue Yang said.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Jin Guangyao said, voice chilly, but he walked over. “And I am the one who mentioned to my father that you might have things to offer alive.”
“Big of you,” Xue Yang said, but he couldn’t really be mad. Not just because of the floatiness but because it wasn’t like he could expect anything else. He sort of liked Jin Guangyao, for all he was a slippery bastard. Maybe because of that.
“Don’t disappoint me,” Jin Guangyao said. Xue Yang gave him a dizzy smile.
“Wouldn’t dare,” he said. Jin Guangyao smiled very slightly, for a moment.
“It’s crude,” he said after a moment, with a glance at Xue Yang’s shoulder. “Unnecessary. If it were my choice…”
“Aww, Lianfang-zun,” Xue Yang said. “That’s sweet.” Jin Guangyao gave him a long look, but his lips twitched like he was thinking about smiling again.
“Rest,” he said. “I’ll speak to you later.”
“You will,” Xue Yang said. “The illustrious Lianfang-zun has time for me, a no-good criminal and demonic cultivator?”
“The illustrious Lianfang-zun does,” he said mildly. “The illustrious Lianfang-zun places high value on competence and skill over...personal history.” He paused for a moment, like he was waiting for Xue Yang to comment. He decided it was probably a good idea to not. “I recognize talent when I see it, and the value in seeing that it is nurtured. And rewarded.”
“Lianfang-zun,” Xue Yang said. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to recruit me? I’m already working for your father.”
“Yes,” Jin Guangyao said. “But you might consider that, functionally speaking, you will be working for me.” He glanced at Xue Yang’s shoulder again, and said, “I imagine you aren’t pleased by your treatment. There might be opportunities in the future for redress.”
Very interesting, Xue Yang thought. Very, very interesting.
“I think I like you,” Xue Yang said. Jin Guangyao’s eyebrows crept up an inch, but he smiled.
“I think perhaps that is a mixed blessing,” he said. Xue Yang laughed, a little deliriously, and closed his eyes.
“Go away,” he said. “I wanna sleep.”
“Do that,” Jin Guangyao said. “Consider what I’ve said.”
“Already did,” Xue Yang said. “I told you. I like you. Your father’s a dick. I’m all yours, Jin Guangyao.”
Jin Guangyao’s cheeks dimpled. “I look forward to working with you,” he said.
This wasn’t, Xue Yang thought, going to end well. But most things didn’t.
And it might be fun while it lasted.