Chapter Text
Wen Qing woke with a start, which confused her, because the last time she had checked, dead people didn’t wake up. She cast back in her memory. They had surrendered themselves at Koi Tower. There had been a lot of pomp and ceremony about how the evil Wens would be exterminated at last, and she had stood through all of it with quiet dignity. A lot of that, she thought, was just because she was exhausted. They had fought so hard, for so long. There was some relief in it finally being over.
But it wasn’t over. As they had been led away, she and Wen Ning had been separated from the others. That hadn’t surprised her. She was sure the Jin would make a spectacle out of their execution, whereas the others could be done more quietly, with less fuss. She took one last look at her family over her shoulder, before continuing on her way.
Then she was separated from Wen Ning, as well, and she did protest a little at that despite knowing it made sense. Wen Ning could not simply be hanged in the public square. His execution would need a skilled cultivator to take part. Even so, she tried to follow him, and then someone used a bamboo tube to blow some powder into her face, and that was the last thing she remembered.
Now she was waking up, so she assumed she was alive. She looked around and found that she was in a small room that seemed to have been stripped bare of most furnishings. There was the bed she was in, and a side table that had a set of robes in Jin gold that looked like they would fit her. Another table with a wooden chair, by a fireplace that had been swept bare and had no wood next to it.
The door was a solid, dark wood, and would not budge when she tried to open it. The windows had bars on them, so it was some sort of prison. She walked over and looked out, and saw gray stone and fog and not much else. Somewhere in the mountains, probably. She saw nothing familiar.
Where was she? What was going on?
With nothing else to do, she washed up and changed into the clean clothes, as much as she hated wearing Jin gold. She combed her hair with her fingers the best she could and left it down around her face for lack of a better option. Her stomach growled, and she sighed in exasperation at the human body’s petulant resilience in the face of utter disaster. She drank some water in the hopes of staving off the hunger. How long had it been? She was somewhat used to deprivation by now; to be this hungry, she felt it had probably been at least twenty-four hours.
Barely ten minutes later, there was a ‘thunk’ from the direction of the door. She realized that there was a small window in the bottom, which someone had opened and used to push through a tray of food. It was hardly a feast, just some rice and dumplings, but still better than the dry bread she had expected. Despite her misgivings, she ate hungrily.
Why were they feeding her? Certainly not because they intended to execute her. The question plagued her as the day dragged by. She examined every square inch of the cell, running her fingers along the baseboards, wiggling the bars in the window. It was solid, but that didn’t surprise her. The doors and windows were reinforced with spiritual power, and her own was not enough to break through it. She checked her clothes but they had been thoroughly searched; even the needles she kept sewn into the cuffs of her sleeves were gone.
Another meal was brought.
The room began to dim as the sun set, lost somewhere in that rolling fog.
She meditated and prayed for the safety of her family. If she was not dead, it was possible they might not be dead either. There were reasons to keep her alive, although she was not sure which one was the reason. There would be reasons to keep them alive, too.
She slept.
The sun rose. The fog was gone and she could see more of her surroundings. The prison seemed tucked away in a valley, sandwiched by gray stone on both sides. There was nowhere like this in Lanling; of that she was certain. Other than that, she could not say where she was.
Another meal was brought, along with a fresh set of clean robes. The man outside the door spoke for the first time, telling her to pass the dirty dishes and clothes from the day before out to him, so she did. She asked where she was, but he didn’t answer.
She meditated and prayed for the safety of her family.
Another meal was brought.
The sun set.
She slept.
The sun rose.
Another meal was brought, along with a fresh set of clean robes. She passed the dirty dishes and clothes to the man outside and again asked where she was. Again, he didn’t answer.
An hour later, the door opened. Wen Qing was sitting on the bed, meditating, and she jolted to her feet as a cool breeze swept through the cell. The man who walked in was familiar to her, but she couldn’t immediately place him. He was dressed in gold robes and was wearing a black gauze cap.
“Where am I?” she demanded. “Where is A-Ning?”
“Wen Qionglin is tucked away somewhere safe and sound, just like you are,” the man said, with a smile. “It’s lovely to see you again, Wen-guniang.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “We’ve met before?”
“It was a long time ago,” he said, “and I was probably quite different back then.” He took off the hat and set it aside. “I would have been in the black and red of the Wen sect.”
Her eyes widened slightly. Of course, how could she forget such a person? In the short period of time between his arrival in Nightless City and her departure for Yiling, he had risen through four ranks and straight into Wen Ruohan’s confidence. “Meng Yao.”
“It’s Jin Guangyao, now,” he said, bowing to her. “My father legitimized me due to my role in the Sunshot Campaign.”
“I heard,” she said. “You went from serving one tyrant to another.”
“That’s quite true.” Jin Guangyao set down a basket on the table and withdrew a pot of tea and two cups. He poured her one and gestured for her to sit down. “It’s cold, I’m afraid. You’ll have to prove you can be trusted before you can have firewood.”
“Where am I?” Wen Qing asked, ignoring the comment’s long-term implications for the moment.
“You’re in a little valley of unclaimed land about halfway between Qinghe and Qishan,” he said. “I hope the accommodations suit. Once you’ve proven you’ll be compliant, I’ll get you whatever you want, within reason.”
Wen Qing studied him over the rim of her cup. “I assume you’re keeping me alive as leverage against Wei Wuxian.”
Jin Guangyao shook his head. “Wei Wuxian is dead.”
The words hit Wen Qing in the gut like a pile of bricks. Her breath caught in her throat and her hands curled into fists. “How?” she choked out.
“He attacked a gathering of cultivators who were celebrating the death of the last of the Qishan Wen,” Jin Guangyao said. “Summoned up an army of the dead and killed over a thousand people. But in the end, he could not claim victory.”
Wen Qing couldn’t breathe. A sob tore through her despite her efforts to hold it back in front of this terrible man. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They had willingly walked into death to protect him. To save him. But in the end it hadn’t been enough. Maybe there had never been a way to save him at all. Her family was gone, she and her brother were captives, and Wei Wuxian was still dead.
Jin Guangyao offered her a handkerchief. She turned away from him and used the sheets on her bed, instead, trying to muffle the worst of the tears.
For long minutes that felt like hours, she could only try to breathe through the agony, as sob after sob escaped her.
To his credit, Jin Guangyao let her cry. He did not make any attempt to calm her, or grow impatient with her. He merely sat in silence, drinking his tea, clearly willing to sit and wait for as long as it took.
Finally, the worst of it passed. Wen Qing took several trembling breaths. She washed her face and then sat back down at the table. She did not apologize, and only said, “Why am I here?”
Jin Guangyao studied her for a moment. “A month ago,” he finally said, “my father’s wife struck me in the wrist with a fire poker. Even though so much time has passed, it still causes me pain when I use it, and sometimes there’s a bit of a clicking noise to it.”
Wen Qing stared at him. “You want me to be your doctor.”
“Is there someone more qualified?” he asked, and smiled, the damnable man.
“Generally speaking,” she said, “it’s a terrible idea to make a prisoner your doctor. What if you get sick and ask me for medicine? I could poison you.”
“I’m not asking you for medicine,” he said. “I’m asking you to look at my wrist and tell me what the problem is.”
Wen Qing studied him harder. “Surely Koi Tower has qualified doctors.”
“Oh, surely. But my father’s wife has forbidden them from treating me, and even if they would, I don’t want to betray any weaknesses to those around me. Koi Tower is a vicious place - much like Nightless City, to be honest. As you said, I traded one tyrant for another. And if you could stomach treating Wen Ruohan while he committed atrocities left and right, I’m sure you can stomach treating me.”
“I could,” she said, “but why should I? Why should I do anything you say?”
“I did mention I have your brother tucked away.”
“Yes,” she allowed, “but I don’t believe that has anything to do with me. I’m sure it has far more to do with your desire to understand how Wei Wuxian created him, and how you can use him.”
“That’s true,” he said, “but then there is the little boy.”
Wen Qing’s stomach tightened and her head whipped up. “A-Yuan? A-Yuan is alive?”
“It seems Hanguang-Jun picked him up from the Burial Mounds and brought him to Cloud Recesses,” Jin Guangyao said. “Er-ge says he is ill, but expected to recover. They are going to keep him safe there . . . but accidents happen.”
Wen Qing felt nauseous. “Set your arm on the table.”
Jin Guangyao did so, drawing the sleeve back so she could examine it. She placed two fingers against it, letting her spiritual power flow into Jin Guangyao’s wrist.
“There is a hairline fracture at the base of the joint,” she said. “It has never healed properly. It is easily fixed if I have my acupuncture needles.”
“I thought you might need them.” Jin Guangyao reached into the basket and placed a leather toolkit on the table.
Wen Qing withdrew a set of needles. “This will take about an hour.”
“I’m in no rush,” he replied.
With that, Wen Qing devoted herself to her work. As much as she loathed this man, he was correct; she had treated far worse people than him. And in a strange way, it felt good to get back to what she was best at. She had healed small hurts in the Burial Mounds, but she had never really been needed the same way.
After about ten minutes of silence, it occurred to her that this was a good time to get some information. Jin Guangyao was her jailer, that much was clear. He was the only person she would see on a regular basis. Everything in her future now depended on her relationship with him. “Your father’s wife dislikes you?”
“Intensely,” he said.
“Presumably because you’re a result of her husband’s infidelity?”
“One would assume.”
He was cautious, she thought. He knew what she was doing.
This would be a long game. A game of each of them trusting the other with small pieces of information, with the healing of hurts from her to him and the giving of gifts from him to her. He would make it seem like he wasn’t so bad. Give her what she needed to be comfortable in this prison. Gain her sympathy by showing her the injuries he received from the people around him. Manipulate her into thinking his kindness meant something.
It didn’t, and she vowed she would never forget that.
“I would like some books,” she said. “The more the better. I’m not picky as to which kind. Calligraphy supplies. Clothes that are not in the horrible gold of my enemies. Tea - good tea, don’t give me sawdust from a street vendor. Of course I will also need a tea set, and wood to build a fire.”
Jin Guangyao was amused. “Do you promise not to burn the house down?”
“I have no interest in dying here,” she said, “and I know you would not have your men save me.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Anything else?”
“I want to see my brother.”
“Ah,” he said. “No, I’m afraid that won’t be happening. We barely have him suppressed as it is.”
Wen Qing had known he wasn’t going to agree, but that was the point. Ask for something he would grant, so he could look benevolent. Ask for something he wouldn’t, so he could make it clear who was in charge. The rules of the game had been established.
She finished healing his wrist in silence. When she was done, he pulled his arm back and rotated the joint, then nodded. “It feels much better,” he said, taking the needles from her and tucking the toolkit away. “Thank you, Wen-guniang.”
“You are not welcome,” she replied.
“No, I suppose I’m not,” he said, and with that, he turned and left.
~ ~ ~ ~
Jin Guangyao was good to his word, not that Wen Qing had really thought he wouldn’t be. The next day, two men arrived at the prison. She stood back while they carried in boxes of supplies. There were two boxes of books, one of calligraphy materials, three of clothing, and one of tea. He had also included some things she hadn’t asked for. They brought in a small tub that would be just large enough to wash herself in, along with soap and a comb. There were two pairs of shoes and some things to tie back her hair with, although nothing sharp. In addition to the tea set, there were some other dishes and a pair of chopsticks, so she would no longer have to eat with her hands.
The signal was clear. If she behaved herself and did as she was told, she would be treated well, even better than she might expect or ask for.
It interested her that Jin Guangyao did not seem worried that she might kill herself. Even before she had been given these supplies, she could have done it - there was room in the cell to hang herself. He was banking on her will to live - or perhaps just figured he could not stop her if she were determined, so there was no point in worrying about it. He probably figured, correctly, that as long as Wen Ning was alive - or what passed for alive, for him - she would not end her own life.
Eight days after the supplies arrived, Jin Guangyao arrived for another visit. He had a basket with some food in it, better than what she got for her meals.
“What brings you here today, Jin Guangyao?” Wen Qing asked, her voice more than a trifle sarcastic.
He didn’t react to her tone. “My hand.” He sat down at the table and swept the sleeve back to reveal a nasty-looking burn.
She examined it carefully. “Scalding water?” she asked, and he nodded. “I cannot treat this with what I have here.”
“I didn’t figure you could. Tell me what you need and I’ll go and get it.”
“You might want to write it down,” she said.
Jin Guangyao shook his head. “I’ll remember.”
Since it was his hand and his treatment, Wen Qing shrugged and began to list off what she needed, including the precise amounts. For now, she would be honest. Later, months or years from now, once he trusted her, she would be able to fudge the numbers and keep things stored. But that would come later.
He came back with exactly what she asked for, down to the gram. She mixed the salve and told him to apply it three times a day. “How is A-Yuan? Is he recovering?”
“Yes, er-ge says he’s feeling fine now, although he apparently has little memory of the Burial Mounds,” Jin Guangyao said. “Which might be for the best.”
Wen Qing nodded. “Hanguang-Jun is taking care of him?” She could relax if that were the case. She was not one hundred percent sure of how Lan Wangji had felt about Wei Wuxian, but he would take good care of a child.
“At the moment, er-ge and the Lan sect elders are taking care of him,” Jin Guangyao said. “Hanguang-Jun was most upset by Wei Wuxian’s death. He got in a fight with a group of cultivators who had gone to the Burial Mounds to ransack it, and injured thirty-three of them. In response, the Lan sect elders sentenced him to thirty-three lashes.”
Wen Qing couldn’t help but gasp. “That will take years to recover from.”
“Yes. He was also sentenced to three years of seclusion and repentance, by which time the physical injuries will have healed.”
Feeling tears sting at her eyes, Wen Qing turned away. “How awful.”
“Do you think so? Er-ge said the seclusion was something Hanguang-Jun welcomed.”
Wen Qing supposed that was true. Lan Wangji would appreciate the opportunity to get away from the world that had destroyed Wei Wuxian with its injustice and its cruelty. “May I prepare something for you to take to him? That will help heal the wounds?”
Jin Guangyao shook his head. “He is not allowed to receive any treatment.”
She had doubted he would agree, so she didn’t respond. He thanked her for the salve and then left her alone.
~ ~ ~ ~
Jin Guangyao had instructed her to tell the guard if there was anything she needed, so two days later, she accepted the meal at the door and said, “I need supplies for my monthly cycle.”
“Men don’t handle such things,” he said, scoffing.
“Then find a woman to guard me. I don’t care. Jin Guangyao told me to tell you if I needed something and this is something that I need. Within the next three days.”
The guard shut the door window in her face. She hoped that her invocation of Jin Guangyao would get her what she needed; otherwise he was going to get an earful from her the next time he showed up.
That turned out to be the next day. He brought a basket not only with the needed supplies, enough to last six months, but also with some new sweets and a tea that would soothe any cramps she had. She looked at it suspiciously. “How did you know to buy this?”
Jin Guangyao was smiling. “I grew up in a brothel, Wen-guniang. Shame on me if I don’t know what a woman will need during her cycle.”
Wen Qing closed the basket. “You’ll make an excellent husband someday, I suppose.”
“Hopefully someday soon,” he said. “The salve is working extremely well. Better than anything I’ve ever had for an injury before. You’re quite talented.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
Amused, Jin Guangyao said, “Fair enough.”
“Was there something else you wanted?” Wen Qing asked. She didn’t want to let him think they were friends. Not yet, possibly not ever. If this was going to work, it would have to happen slowly. Let him think that he had worn her down, that he had truly won her gratitude and affection. For now, she could be as bitchy as she wanted to be.
“I’d like you to look at something and tell me what it means.” Jin Guangyao withdrew a scroll from one of his spirit pouches.
Wen Qing recognized the messy calligraphy instantly, and tears sprang to her eyes. It was one of Wei Wuxian’s experiments. “You’re trying to replicate Wei Wuxian’s work?”
“I’m trying to understand Wei Wuxian’s work,” Jin Guangyao said. “But this - he speaks of the results that will come from this talisman quite matter-of-factly, but when I use it, nothing happens.”
For a long moment, Wen Qing stared down at the scroll. “I can’t help you, Jin Guangyao.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Both.”
He studied her, then swept the scroll off the table, rolled it up, and deposited back into his spirit pouch. “Some other time, perhaps.”
“I want to see my brother.”
“Is that you offering to interpret the scroll if I allow it?”
“No. It’s a statement of fact.”
Jin Guangyao smiled gently. “Well, here is another, Wen-guniang. You will not be seeing your brother any time soon. It’s not a bargaining chip, I’m afraid. When, and only when, we have him suppressed enough that it might be safe, I will let you know. And then, perhaps there will be something I need from you, and we can discuss it further.”
“You are a loathsome little man,” she told him.
“I have been called worse,” he said, and closed the door behind him.
~ ~ ~ ~
Over the next few months, Wen Qing settled into a routine, or something close to it. The guards outside rarely spoke to her. Once a week, they came in for her dirty laundry, and came back with it clean a few hours later. She did the dishes herself and gave them back washed. If she asked them for more books, fresh ink, or a specific kind of tea, it was always delivered the next day.
Jin Guangyao’s visits were unpredictable. Sometimes she would go two weeks without seeing him; other times he would come three days in a row. Every time he arrived, he brought her some food, and he seemed to pay attention to what she liked and what she didn’t. If she took a few polite bites of something and then put it aside, she never saw it on her table again.
Although most of the times he visited, he came with some fresh injury, sometimes he brought scraps of Wei Wuxian’s work and asked her to explain them. She always refused. Every visit, she asked about her brother, and he reminded her that he would let her know when a visit might be possible. Every visit, she asked after A-Yuan, and was told he was doing well at Cloud Recesses.
As she had expected he would, Jin Guangyao tried to strike up at least something of a friendship with her. On his first visit without injury, he brought a weiqi set and asked her if she knew how to play. She did, so they sat down to a game together. Although she hated him intensely, the change of pace from reading and meditating was a relief.
While they played, he spoke a little about life in Koi Tower, his fraught relationship with his father and Madam Jin, the work he was doing for the Lanling Jin, the lovely young woman he was courting. She knew he was gauging her reactions carefully, and showed disinterest in everything except when he spoke of his nephew. She had known Jin Zixuan was dead, but to hear that Jiang Yanli had died was another dagger to the gut. No wonder Wei Wuxian had given up. She hoped he could find peace in the afterlife.
At the moment, Madam Jin was mainly caring for the baby, and Jin Guangyao was clearly bitterly jealous, watching the way she cooed and coddled over him. Wen Qing couldn’t really blame him for that.
He was an interesting person, she found. She found herself more sympathetic than she had at first expected. Jin Guangyao truly had been treated poorly by many people for most of his life, and clearly felt that he had only done what was necessary to secure his position at Koi Tower and keep from falling back into the gutter.
That was the point, she knew. His goal was to make her sympathize with him. To make her feel like his actions were justified. He would give her these little pieces of information and never tell her anything that might make her less sympathetic. He was her only source of information, and she could not trust that everything he said was true.
She could not let it work, yet at the same time, it was vital that she let him think that it was working.
So after three months of visits, she softened herself, just slightly. When Jin Guangyao spoke of his nephew, she told him a fond memory of Wen Yuan as a baby. When Jin Guangyao arrived with horrible bruises, she winced and remarked on how cruel Madam Jin was to him.
His ego and his arrogance was his biggest weakness. If this worked, when it worked, it would be because he believed himself more clever and more perceptive than she was. He would believe he had worn her down because he was smarter than she was and she had succumbed to his manipulation.
It was the strangest combination of a superiority complex and rock bottom self-esteem she would have said she had ever seen, if she had not known Wei Wuxian.
But the facts, the facts that she needed to know about the outside world before she could plan anything long-term, came not in what he said, but in what he didn’t say.
During the fourth month, he arrived without his usual basket of things, but immediately apologized for it. “I’m afraid I can’t really use my left arm right now,” he said. “My shoulder is - well, there’s a problem.”
“Please sit,” Wen Qing said. She had started using ‘please’ with her directives about a month earlier. She noticed that he wasn’t wearing an outer robe over his hanfu, which was very unusual for him. The shoulder must have been giving him a fair amount of trouble. “Take off your hanfu.”
He did so, although he could not hold back a slight grimace of pain. She sat down beside him and pulled back his inner robe enough so she could rest the tips of her fingers against his bare skin. As always, he sat very still while she did this. She thought he did not much like to be touched, although it was a bit difficult to assess, given that he was always in pain when he came to her.
“There is a tear in one of the ligaments of your shoulder joint,” she told him. “What happened?”
“A fall,” he said.
Whatever happened must have been bad, she thought. Normally he told her the details of how the injury had occurred, in his way of seeking to gain her sympathy. “Are you having weakness in your arm as well as pain?”
“Yes. And I can’t lift it over my head very well. I had to leave my hair down.”
“My needles, please,” she said. He handed her the leather kit, and she withdrew the first needle. His body relaxed slightly as she began channeling spiritual power into the injury. “It must be very painful,” she said, keeping her voice soft. He didn’t respond to her, so she focused on what she was doing. “You’ll need medicine as well. To help with the pain and ease the inflammation. I will give you a list of some exercises that will help rebuild the strength and range of motion in the joint. But for three days after treatment, you will need to keep it in a sling to avoid re-tearing the ligament.”
This made him stir. “That won’t be possible,” he said. “As I’ve told you, Jin-furen does not allow me to receive medical care at Koi Tower. She doesn’t know I have my own doctor. If she sees the arm in a sling, she will know I saw someone.”
“I understand that,” Wen Qing said, “but this is a serious injury and it must be taken seriously. Can your father not intervene on your behalf?”
“Not in this instance.”
Wen Qing found that extremely interesting. She had wondered for some time if anyone else in the Jin sect knew she was still alive. Jin Guangyao did not seem to have any long-term plans for her, beyond using her medical skill and hopefully someday her knowledge of Wei Wuxian’s work. The former would not interest Jin Guangshan, but the latter definitely would.
But if Jin Guangshan could not intervene in this situation, then it was likely he didn’t know Wen Qing had survived. Jin Guangyao’s reasons for keeping her prisoner were entirely his own, and that meant that he probably had plans to remove his father, at some point or another.
On a personal level, of course that made sense. His father had ignored him as a child, abused him when he had asked for a place in the Jin sect, and then used and marginalized him for the years after his legitimization. For Jin Guangyao to hate his father and wish him dead was nothing surprising.
Still, the knowledge was good to have. If she could prove Jin Guangyao’s intentions and somehow bring it to Jin Guangshan, that would be one way of dealing with the problem. Presuming that Jin Guangshan lived long enough for that to happen, which did not at all seem likely.
After thinking all this over, Wen Qing said, “Jin Guangyao. You understand that your personal well-being means nothing to me, yes?”
With a faint smile, Jin Guangyao said, “Yes, Wen-guniang, I am well aware.”
“Then I will say only this. The injury is serious. I can fix it once. But if it is not properly cared for, it will continue to cause problems. It will cause continued pain and weakness, and within as few as five years, you could lose use of your arm entirely. It is vital that it is allowed to heal correctly, and that means a minimum of three days with your arm in a sling so the injury is not aggravated. Do what you will with this information.”
Jin Guangyao sighed. “Three days minimum? How many recommended?”
“Seven.”
“Very well. Do you recall when you threatened to poison me?”
“It was not a threat. It was a statement of what I would be capable of.” Despite her response, Wen Qing was curious, and could not help but follow up with, “Is that relevant?”
“Yes, because I’m going to ask you to. If I’m ill, I can stay in my chambers undisturbed, and nobody will notice that I have my arm bound in a sling. But unless I have real symptoms, they will accuse me of malingering.”
Now it was Wen Qing who sighed. “Your family makes things very difficult on me, are you aware of that? I am trying to be the best physician I can, and they are constantly injuring you, and now you ask me to specifically make you sick, which I might point out is the opposite of what I’m supposed to do.”
Amused, Jin Guangyao said, “Yes, they don’t particularly make things easy on me, either.”
“If I give you something to make you vomit, the action will strain your shoulder. If I give you something to make you cough, the action will strain your shoulder. If I give you something to make you feverish, the medication you need to combat the inflammation in your shoulder will counter it. Can you not simply tell your father that Jin-furen injured your arm and it needs to be rested?”
“He would expect me to carry out my duties one-armed, believe me.”
Unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice, Wen Qing said, “Well, I could amputate, but that seems a bit extreme for a torn ligament.”
Jin Guangyao didn’t respond to her pointed remark, instead asking, “Which is more important? Having the arm in a sling, or the medication to reduce inflammation?”
Wen Qing sighed. “The former. But you’ll be in a lot of pain without it.”
“That’s fine.”
“Fever it is, then,” she said, resolving to make him feel absolutely wretched. She gave him the list of ingredients she would need, and once she was done with the acupuncture, he went to get them. She fashioned the sling for him, then mixed the medication and told him how much to take and how often. “But don’t blame me for the fact that you’ll feel awful. This is what you asked for.”
“It’s fine, Wen-guniang. As always, I appreciate your assistance.”
“I want to see my brother.”
Jin Guangyao’s smile didn’t fade. “Not yet.”
~ ~ ~ ~