A Ghost of Snow

7. Intrusive Thoughts

As soon as the words left Lan Qiren's mouth, Baixue knelt in front of him, her sword unsheathed and stabbed in the ground, her hands held together in a respectful gesture and her head bent down. It was like she had surrendered to him. Lan Qiren knew from her earlier actions that she wouldn't disarm herself, bow down and surrender to just anybody, which led him to the conclusion that she somehow knew him.

Before he could contemplate any further, she had pulled out a scroll offering it to him. Her piercing blue eyes met his and she spoke in a monotone,"Grandmaster Lan, please accept Baixue's respects, my master said to hand this over to you."

"Who is your master?", this time it was Wei Wuxian who spoke.

"Baoshan Sanren.", now Lan Qiren wanted to hit his head. He had already met one of her disciples and it wasn't the best of his experiences, how did the immortal even know of him. He was pretty sure that once her disciples left the mountain, they couldn't go back. So it was unlikely that Wei Wuxian's mother had mentioned him to her and if she had, it couldn't have been anything good, both of them despised each other equally.

However, at the mention of his grandmaster, Lan Qiren looked at Wei Wuxian whose face had fallen once again. Lan Qiren could tell that he was trying really hard to keep up his smile, which left him wondering whether Wei Wuxian had ever truly smiled or was he just used to it.

"Wei Ying", Lan Wangji had called really softly, it wasn't much different from how he usually spoke, but Lan Qiren could hear the underlying concern and as he looked at Wei Wuxian, he could tell that the boy had understood too.

"Lan Zhan", Wei Wuxian had reassured him in an equally soft voice. It left Lan Qiren wondering how he had missed the way the two of them communicated so effortlessly. Had he been too harsh on Wangji, punishing him to kneel, when he visited Wei Wuxian in the Burial Mounds a few months ago. But hadn't everything that Wangji said about the establishment in the Burial Mounds turned out to be true, there indeed was a toddler with them and all of them were old and weak.

Had he been so blinded by his sect's rules and his hatred for Wei Wuxian's mother, that he had easily ignored his nephew's pleas to at least investigate what was going on inside Wei Wuxian's little village.

He would dwell on it later, right now, he needed to focus on the problem at hand that was this young girl. "Please stand up", he tried to sound a little softer since she was still young but it came out just the same as usual, and he could hear a giggle coming from Wei Wuxian. Lan Qiren wanted to yell at him to shut up but instead settled for glaring. He then diverted his attention to Baixue and took the scroll from her.

Before this girl only three of Baoshan's disciples had descended the mountain, Yanling Daoren, Cangse Sanren (Wei Wuxian's mother) and Xiao Xingchen. All of them had become quite famous in only a little while after entering the cultivation world but one could say that it had not ended well for any of them. Two of them died young, and one had gone missing recently. No one even knew if she had more disciples or these were the only ones.

This young lady was the fourth of Baoshan's disciples who had shown up in the cultivation world. It hadn't even been an hour since she showed up and he was sure that news of her appearance was spreading like wildfire.

Lan Qiren was quite agitated by the fact that the immortal cultivator had chosen to address him. Then again, who else was even there to choose from, Jin Guangshan? Winning againt Sect Leader Jin wasn't really something to be proud of.

Lan Qiren sighed, what could an immortal possibly want from him? If he was to be honest, he did not want to deal with any of this. A big part of his brain wanted to follow the footsteps of Baoshan Sanren, leave the cultivation world and go into seclusion. But he couldn't possibly do that now could he? Was it too late to do that? Would it be OK if he took off now?

He sighed again, he was too old for this.