bang! crash! the lightning flashed!! -- that's another story, nevermind, anyway!

[qingxinling]

Jiang Wanyin sweeps along the shores of the lake, glowering. This is not his beloved Lotus Pier. These waters are cold, foreign, uninviting. Clearly there's been some trap: he's been distracted by duty in this hunt, and when he followed the slight tug in his chest, he ended up getting pulled into unfamiliar territory.

No matter. He draws himself to full height, letting cool arrogance slip down his shoulders and suffuse him. Sandu is naked in one hand; Zidian crackles in the other. He can handle whatever monsters may arrive.

Comments

[qingxinling]

"Who the fuck taught you manners?" Jiang Wanyin asks, startled. Shitstain??? He'll show her shitstain!! Zidian crackles to life, lightning arcing from his fist. It doesn't approach her, though; just flows toward the ground. "That's Jiang-zongzhu to you."

[thepurpledanger]

"Oh, Jiang-zongzhu, where's your fucking clan, then?" She fists her hands on her hips. If he's going to whip a teenage girl, then she is going to cry the biggest ugliest tears until he feels like an asshole.

[qingxinling]

"In Yunmeng," Jiang Cheng snaps. "Obviously." He squints at the girl, frowning deeply. "Why are you dressed like one of my disciples?"

[thepurpledanger]

"Why are you dressed like the Amethyst Fiend? You think you're the next Purple Danger?" Gu Xiang flicks imaginary dust from her shoulder. "Pah."

[qingxinling]

Purple Danger? Amethyst Fiend? Jiang Wanyin doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. "I'm Sandu Shengshou." Clearly she'll have heard of him.

[thepurpledanger]

"Ooh, scary, you're three whole poisons. Which would you say is your main poison? Hate, greed, or being dumb as fuck?"

[qingxinling]

Jiang Wanyin takes a step back. What an unpleasant girl! She reminds him of someone, but he can't quite put his finger on it. "Can you even use your whip?" he demands, with a dismissive glance at where it's curled up at her side. "Or is it just for show?"

[thepurpledanger]

So quickly that only a trained martial artist could follow her movements, Gu Xiang has the whip unhooked, and she's lashed off the nodding seed heads of three grass stalks in a triangle around her. "What about yours?" she demands, having (she thinks) adequately proven her mettle. "Is all that lightning just for show?"

[qingxinling]

In response, Jiang Wanyin unleashes Zidian again and lashes it at a nearby bush. Lightning shoots along its length; the bush is halved and a few flames lick at the wood before dying out. "The lightning binds spiritual energy and ends possessions," he says -- a little less heatedly; the girl can use her whip.

[thepurpledanger]

"It's a spiritual weapon?" she says, a little less hostile now that he's successfully distracted her with something shiny.

[qingxinling]

"Obviously." Jiang Wanyin's tone is still harsh, but it's harsh in the way it always is; there's no special rancor to it anymore. "What else could it be?"

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang shrugs. "Something haunted, I don't know! I'm not Gu-zongzhu."

[qingxinling]

Jiang Wanyin has decided who this scamp reminds him of. His frown returns. "I wouldn't have a haunted weapon." Unlike certain former shixiong he could name.

[thepurpledanger]

"No, you'd just hit them with your lightning whip and then they'd be regular weapons," says Gu Xiang. "Do you fight a lot of ghosts? What's the worst ghost you've ever fought? Did you win?"

[qingxinling]

"Yes," says Jiang Wanyin. An opportunity presents itself to him. Crossing his arms, he says, "I saved Lan Wangji from a monster once. And a ghost." So it's editorializing, so what! He was there both times, sort of. He played pivotal roles!

[thepurpledanger]

"Wow, you saved that priest?" She's immediately impressed. Lan Wangji is tough stuff! He can do all kinds of things with qi that she doesn't even know about! "What kind of monster was it? How many moves did it take to defeat it? Did you use your whip? You have to tell me everything, uncle!"

[qingxinling]

"There was the Xuanwu of Slaughter," Jiang Wanyin says. He had been there, and he technically did run for help and then rescue Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian from the cave after they got trapped. "And there was the strongest fierce corpse you can imagine." During which, with his spiritual power locked, he'd mostly tried to protect Jin Ling and had to get rescued by fucking Wen Qionglin, the fucking Ghost General. But he'd brought Wei Wuxian's stupid fucking dizi, and if he hadn't done that, would any of them have survived? No! "I used Sandu--" he hoists his sword -- "and Zidian--" he flexes his whip -- "and cleverness while that..." Priest? As if. "...asshole just cowered helplessly from danger."

[thepurpledanger]

The lack of detail about his cool whip moves immediately has Gu Xiang on her guard. She's enough of a blowhard herself that she recognizes when someone's being a blowhard. "Fine," she says. "Whatever, you're a big hero! But there are people here who are under my protection, and if you lay so much as a finger on any of them, I'm going to snake that whip through your mouth all the way to your asshole--and then I'm going to saw it back and forth like I'm slicing clay!"

[qingxinling]

This is descriptive enough that it startles Jiang Wanyin out of his extended glower about Lan Wangji. "That's disgusting," he says, very nearly sounding approving about it.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang smirks a little, pleased with herself. "See you around, uncle! And maybe think about wearing a color someone doesn't already have dibs on!" And with that, she leaps off toward the trees. (It's closer than the mansion, and she wants a big dramatic exit.)