Five nights later, Wei WuXian snuck into the Unclean Realm hours after the rest of his patrol had returned. Luckily, he ran into Nie HuaiSang instead of anyone important. "You need a bath, WeiXiong," the Nie offered, holding his nose. Wei WuXian just gave him a look, but trudged in the appropriate direction.

"A'Sang? Would you mind going to my room and getting my other set of robes?" The ones he was wearing were covered in slime and mud from an unfortunate encounter with a rather large lizard.

The bathing rooms were Nie HuaiSang's design, and he was justifiably proud of them. Each bathing room had six tubs surrounded by privacy screens. The roof contained a cistern full of water from a nearby river. Pipes led from the roof to the bathing tubs. A person simply needed to turn a lever and water would fill up the tub. Then the cultivator would, probably, use a heating talisman to heat the water to the desired temperature. And after the bath, a plug in the bottom would allow the water to drain out into channels set into the floor. It was very effective.

Wei WuXian was bent over the tub scrubbing slime out of his hair when his friend walked in. "I found Lan WangJi and he said he'd bring your clothing over. Give me your dirty robes and I'll burn them for you."

"You can't burn my clothes!" Wei WuXian protested. "I only have two sets!" He ducked his head under the tap to rinse the suds out. "They're washable."

Nie HuaiSang's shudder was apparent even though he was on the other side of the privacy screen. "They're disgusting. And getting holes. Let me order you some new robes."

"No." Wei WuXian might be poor, but he was not so poor that he needed to accept charity from his richer friends. When the war was over, he'd resume his head disciple duties, earn a salary again, and buy some new clothes. Until then? He'd learned how to patch clothing years ago; he could sit with the seamstresses on one of his 'in' days and sew his robes back together. He squeezed as much water from his hair as he could, wound it up on the top of his head into a knot, and started stripping.

He heard some sort of noise that sounded like a cat being strangled, and then Lan WangJi was saying, "NieGongZi, here are his robes."

"What was that noise?" Wei WuXian filled the tub part way and started scrubbing at his dirty clothing.

Outside the privacy screens, Nie HuaiSang was laughing. "A'Xian! You should have seen his face! I think he was blushing six different shades of red!"

"Oh?"

Still chortling, Nie HuaiSang continued. "The privacy screens don't work really well at night, I guess. At least not with the lamp behind you. Have you ever made a shadow drawing, A'Xian? If you'd stayed still instead of moving about to remove your robes, I could have made one of you."

Kneeling next to the tub of laundry, Wei WuXian could feel his own face heating up. Back at Lotus Pier, he was used to being seen at least partially undressed by other males. When they swam, they were bare to the waist. But he hadn't been seen completely naked by another person since he'd moved into his own rooms at fifteen. And before that, it was only Jiang Cheng. Very occasionally. Knowing that his friends had just seen him naked? Even as just a shadow on a privacy screen?

It was almost all right that A'Sang had seen him…. After all, he had seen, without the aid of a privacy screen, the other boy…. But Lan WangJi? Perfect Lan WangJi who wore so many robes to protect his modesty? And they never slipped out of place to allow an accidental peek at his collarbones. The perfect Lan WangJi had just been exposed to a shadow of the naked, vastly imperfect body of Wei WuXian…. The young man looked down at his arms. His left upper arm was riddled with scar tissue from where he had fought off, and almost lost his life to, a pack of wild dogs. There was a matching set of ridged scars on his right thigh. There were thinner lines of silvery scars, too, from before he developed his golden core, from being whipped by branches. Sometimes the whippings were from walking through the brush, but more often, the branches were held by people chasing a street rat away from their scrap heap. Looking down at his chest and firm abdomen, there were broader scars winding around his sides. The still raw looking Wen brand.

A golden core could Heal a lot. A single lash from ZiDian, for example. If you were strong, perhaps two lashes. Madame Yu never gave out only two lashes. Any inappropriate behavior worth only one or two lashes could be punished by something less permanent.

Being whipped by ZiDian was supposed to last. Its scars were meant to be a reminder to not behave like that again.

Wei WuXian was quite glad he was unable to see those reminders covering his back.

He very much hoped that they weren't visible in the shadows on the privacy screen, too.

Finally clean, Wei WuXian hung his dripping clothing up in the laundry area, then started his next mission. Nie HuaiSang was asked to find his elder brother, Lan XiChen, and Jiang Cheng while Wei WuXian went to get Wen Qing and Wen Ning. Lan WangJi was with his older brother, so he tagged along, too. They all met up in the strategy room as that was the only place he knew was permanently and consistently warded against spies. "On the first day of the patrol," he started, "we ran into part of the Wen army. There's a regiment of about a thousand cultivators headed this way." He looked at Wen Qing sadly. "They have a group of villagers with them." Wen Qing's nearly expressionless face stilled even further. "Wen Xu is nominally in charge of the regiment, however, he is not with them."

"Where are the villagers from?" Lan XiChen asked quietly.

"They are DafanWen. The army is under orders…. Once they arrive at the Unclean Realm, they are to demand the expulsion or execution of Wen Qing and her people." He looked apologetically at the young woman. "If you refuse, they are to publicly torture and execute one of the villagers every few hours." The Sect leaders looked more disturbed at this piece of information than Wen Qing did.

Wen Ning's face was white with fear. "JieJie… We can't leave them to die."

Wei WuXian shook his head. "I won't let them die. That's why I was so late coming back tonight. That and I ran into a rather nasty lizard, so I had to have a bit of a night hunt. I snuck into the Wen camp earlier and found where the villagers are being kept. They're well guarded, but on the edge of the camp, not in the middle. If we strike them at night with perhaps only twenty or thirty cultivators, we can rescue them all."

"Why would we rescue Wen dogs?" Nie MingJue's views on the Wen were well known. 'Kill them all' was his unofficial motto.

"They are innocents, NieZongZhu. Not soldiers. Not cultivators. Farmers. Villagers. It's not right to kill them when our disagreement is with Wen Ruohan," Lan XiChen reminded him.

"They are pawns," Nie MingJue retorted. "If Wen RuoHan is willing to execute his own people, why should we step in? Why should our men risk their lives for farmers? Farmers who aren't even our farmers."

Wei WuXian had no idea how to respond to the Nie Sect leader. They were cultivators; they were taught to do what is right because it is the right thing to do. Allowing innocents to die was not right.

"Dismissing the value of pawns, both your own and your enemy's, can mean you lose the game or the war, NieZongZhu." Surprisingly, this piece of advice came out of Lan WangJi's mouth.

Wei WuXian closed his gaping mouth with an audible snap. He wanted to say something silly, like 'did you use up your entire week's word allowance on that one sentence?' It wasn't time for being silly. Instead he walked over to the sand table and started blocking out the camp setup.

"What if there are soldiers hiding in with the villagers," Nie MingJue continued. "Are you proposing to invite them into the fortress to take us down from within?"

Wen Qing was studying the emerging map, but she snorted at the older man's stubbornness. "I know each and every villager. I know which are cultivators and which ones left to join the army. And which stayed behind to protect our people. If there are any plants, I'll execute them myself for you."

Lan WangJi pointed to a few places on the sand table. "Five people moving quickly can liberate the villagers."

Wei WuXian forced himself to not bounce up and down. "Getting them to safety, though. There are too many to hide. Or to take on our swords."

Lan XiChen cocked his head, envisioning his brother's plan. "Five men, yes. But here," he moved a few allied markers to the other side of the camp. Fifty men here can attack the camp. The terrain is to our advantage. A quick strike, we can take out several hundred of theirs and retreat easily. They can then circle around to cover the retreating villagers. We place two hundred men here," he placed down some more markers. "With a bit of luck, we can more than halve their regiment before morning.

Wei WuXian chose three senior Jiang disciples to go with him to rescue the villagers. He knew them well, knew their temperament, and knew that they would not indiscriminately murder a bunch of civilians no matter what other people who shared their surname or home region had done in the past. He had chosen four, but for some unknown reason, Lan WangJi insisted upon being part of the rescue team.

As a rescue, it was extremely effective. All forty-three villagers arrived, hungry and cold, at the Unclean Realm by noon the following day. As an attack on an enemy, it was even more effective. Lan XiChen's group of fifty cultivators included thirty extremely good archers. They alone accounted for several hundred dead Wen. Nie MingJue's group of two hundred mopped up what was left. There were a few who escaped the massacre and flew off, potentially to alert Wen Xu. Potentially to pretend they were also killed…. Wen Xu wasn't known for accepting bad news gracefully.

The next few days were busy ones for the allies; the Lan played Rest for the dead while the other Sects collected bodies and burned them.

Wei WuXian hid from his duties for several days in bottles of wine. The constantly drunk young man braced himself against a chimney and watched the Wen villagers start to assimilate themselves with the other asylum seekers. "A'Sang," he slurred. "Look at them." He was always talking to Nie HuaiSang, even though the person sitting with him making sure he didn't fall off the roof was rarely that heir. "There are children there." Two infants and six older children. The village at the base of Dafan mountain had started out with more than forty-three people. Several dozen were slaughtered when Wen Xu's army attacked. Another dozen or so died of their wounds along the way. And a few were killed for sport. "Why didn't I think of them earlier? So many innocent people are dead because I was thinking of the people she had here and not thinking of the ones she left behind."

"Not Wei Ying's fault."

"Of course it's my fault! Who else was supposed to remember the people at Dafan Mountain? Wen Qing and Wen Ning would have. Obviously they would have. It's not like they could go to a strategy meeting, though, and ask for their relatives to be brought here. Not when too many allies are willing to sacrifice them already. Your brother was ready to sacrifice them."

"XiongZhang did not. Wei Ying did nothing wrong."

"A'Sang…. I know you're trying to make me feel better." He slugged another bit of wine. And had to fight with 'Nie HuaiSang' to keep the jar in his possession. "Every Sect leader here is trying to keep their own people alive. That's their job. Their responsibility. None of them probably even knew about the Dafan villagers.

"What is my job? My responsibilities?" He chugged the last drops of wine, too drunk to even wipe up the dribbles running down his neck. "Jiang Cheng refused to allow me to do my duty! Madame Yu told me to protect them. Uncle Jiang told me to protect them!"

"Wei Ying is good at protecting."

Wei WuXian threw the empty jug to the ground. "Then why do I still have my Core? Jiang Cheng's was ripped away. I tried…. I tried to do my duty. I'm not dutiful enough, A'Sang…. Do you want to know a secret?" He leaned over so he was face to face with… "You're not A'Sang," he pouted.

"Nie HuaiSang had work to do."

"You always have work to do."

"Today Lan Zhan's job is to make sure Wei Ying does not fall off this roof."

"Oh. That makes sense. Do you want to know a secret?" Wei WuXian waited for the head in front of him to make some sort of affirmation before stating, "I think you have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. Too bad you're not a girl. I'd be pushing MianMian out of the way to marry you. Except if you were a girl, MianMian would not want to marry you, would she? I'd be pushing all of the other men out of the way to marry you."

"Is that the secret Wei Ying was going to tell Nie HuaiSang?"

"Of course not! A'Sang doesn't have pretty eyes like Lan Zhan has. Why would I tell him I think his eyes are pretty? If I tell him I think your eyes are pretty, he'll give me another one of those books to read. I didn't like the first one all that much."

"What book?"

"A cutsleeve book. Do you know what men can do to one another? Why would any man want to be on the receiving side is…."

"So what was the other secret?" Lan WangJi interrupted.

"Oh, that. I already told you, I was going to give Jiang Cheng my Core, right?" He sort of heard an intake of breath, but ignored it. "I found a reference to transferring Cores from one body to another. It was incomplete, but the meth… methlody."

"Methodology?"

"Yeah. Methlogy was sound. Wen Qing agreed to do the surgery. But I said, we can't tell him where the Core is coming from. So I made up this huge story about going to visit my mother's grandmaster. And how Grandmaster BaoShan was capable of giving him a new Core. I had the whole thing planned out."

"Wei Ying…."

"And then. Do you know what Wen Qing did to me? Instead of going along with my story, she made me tell Jiang Cheng the truth! And of course, he refused to take my Core. The idiot. How much good is he doing here with no Core? He can't go on patrol. And he's not experienced enough to have good opinions at strategy meetings. He's useless. Almost useless. My ShiDi is not useless, Lan Zhan. Why would you say such a thing?

"But that's not the secret. Do you want to know my secret, Lan Zhan?"

"Yes."

"The secret is…. I was scared. So scared of losing my Core. Scared of losing everything that makes me… special. I would have done it, though. It would have been my duty." They were still face to face. Wei WuXian sighed. "LanZhan… did you know your lips are pretty, too? I really, really wish you were a girl. Or maybe I should be the girl…. I'd let you take my first kiss if one of us was a girl. Not both.

"Do you suppose if two girls have sex, they're also called cutsleeves? I read a book about cutsleeves, you know. A spring book." He said those words in a giggly whisper. "The things those men do to each other? It looks so painful. I don't know why they would do such things. Do you? How would two girls have sex anyways…. They don't have any of the right body parts…."

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan spoke harshly. "Do not speak of such things."

Wei WuXian's body became limp and he slithered into a pile of loosely held together body parts on the rooftop. "If I can't talk about such things with my friends, who am I supposed to talk about such things with? Wen Qing would know how girls have sex. She knows lots of things about bodies! But it would be hugely embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as talking about sex with Lan Zhan."

There was a deep sigh. "Wei Ying is trying to talk about sex with Lan Zhan."

Wei Ying rolled onto his back and giggled. "Lan Zhan would run me through with Bichen if he knew I thought he had pretty eyes. Zing! Clash! Oof!" His hands gestured wildly, imitating the jade pulling Bichen from its sheath and stabbing his stomach with it.

"Lan Zhan thinks Wei Ying has pretty eyes, too."

"Lan Zhan would cut me right in half for talking about sex with him." Wei WuXian continued and sliced across his belly with an imaginary blade. "He's too good to be concerned with such matters. I'll bet he's never thought about what a girl looks like naked. Not like me…. I wonder what girls look like under their clothes far too often."

There was another sigh. "Lan Zhan does not wonder what girls look like naked."

"See? Lan Zhan? Why did you say you were never going to get married? I think you'd make a good husband. A good dad." Wei WuXian let his arms relax to fall against the tiles. "Are you going to be a dad? Or a father?"

"Neither. I'm not taking a wife, remember? What's the difference?"

"Uncle Jiang was a father. Sort of strict. Keeps a bit of distance between himself and his children. I want to be like my dad. Close and loving. I miss them, you know. I hardly remember them at all…. I probly miss what I pretend I 'member about them more than what I actually do 'member about them."

"Wei Ying will make a great dad."

Wei WuXian rolled over and snuggled his head into his arms. "I'll have to remember you saying that. So I can make you remind my children what a good dad I am when they're rebellious teenagers and hate me and say I'm the worst dad in the whole world."

"As drunk as you are, are you going to remember any of this conversation?"

"Prolly not. Goodnight, Lan Zhan. I think I'll sleep now."

His dreams were pleasant. In one he was floating on a cloud. And in others, being kept safe from harm. And finally, there was a young maiden with eyes as pretty as Lan Zhan's kissing him lightly.