"Let me start with the basics lest I make any assumptions I shouldn't," the elder woman said frankly, pulling out a slate and chalk to mark with. "Is his name really Wu Ling or should I be calling him something else?"
"His name is Wu Ling," Su Xiang said, sitting uncomfortably both with the pain in her side and the manner in which the instructor was asking questions. "Is this an inquisition?"
"What? No!" Huang Yeyan said, startled by the question. "Wait, I think I need to make some things plain," she said, setting down the slate and chalk. She'd grabbed them out of a Scholar's habit to take meticulous notes about anything important but it wasn't until Su Xiang said something that she realized how the gesture could be misunderstood. "I, that is, we, all of us, understand just how much of a risk your brother took to protect us," she began.
"This whole trip was very carefully planned to reach a place outside of the known ranges of any greater spirit beasts. We expected that strange mutations might occur in the Silver Moon Foxes or the other minor beasts around this lake but we expected that two Brawlers from the Shining Blade Hall would be sufficient for the threats we expected. You and Aesthete Wu have protected us from far worse than what we planned for on this trip and neither of you considered running away for even a moment," she praised.
"I respect that, and I don't want to bring harm to your brother after what he's done for us. What you've both done," she finished, gazing into the younger woman's sapphire eyes and hoping her sincerity came through.
"Okay," Su Xiang said, relaxing slightly. "As long as it isn't an inquisition then I'll answer what I can."
"Thank you," the alchemist said, suppressing her desire to pick the slate back up and forging ahead with the questions that had troubled her since she discovered the truth. "It's clear to me that this isn't something your brother did just for this mission. By all accounts, speaking with Initiate Liang Xuanji, he studied at a women's academy for at least two years before awakening. Is he attempting to find a body-altering elixir to remold himself into a true woman?"
Shapeshifting elixirs were rare and powerful things that usually only lasted for a number of hours. There were pills that could be made that would have a greater effect, but when Alchemist Huang tried to imagine an elixir or pill that could allow a person to permanently change their body, the costs and complexity felt staggering. If Aesthete Wu needed such a pill in order to live a complete life, the challenges in obtaining it would be overwhelming to the average person, but seeing the injuries the young Artists had sustained to protect everyone, she imagined that such a person wouldn't give up simply because the difficulty was high.
"No, that's not it at all!" Su Xiang said with an overly vigorous shake of her head. "If it wasn't for the fact that he really needs the Lunar Eclipse Lotus Blossom to cure his mother, he'd never have agreed to come along like this."
"So he only dressed up to attend Pure Virtue Musician's Hall? Why would he do that?" Huang Yeyan asked, trying to make sense of the strange young man laid out on the bed beside her.
"It's a long story," Su Xiang said, trying to decide how much of his story to tell. In so many ways, she'd never really considered what would happen if he got hurt while they were on this mission. It sounded like a simple way to get something he desperately needed for his mother. He'd hidden so well for so long that she hadn't understood why it took her half a day to convince him to come out on a sect mission dressed up the same way he had done before just to go to school.
Now, however, she was starting to realize just how great of a risk he'd taken to come on this mission in disguise. Huang Yeyan was being kind about everything but she could just as easily kill him for what he'd done. Wounded and unconscious, he was completely at the other woman's mercy. This was her fault and she had to figure out what to say so things didn't get any worse for Wu Ling.
"We grew up together in the Shining Blade Hall," she finally managed to say. "When he was seven, his father did something that offended another sect… I never was very clear on the details, but the Shining Blade Hall threw him and his mother out. His mother went back to work as a courtesan and she hid Wu Ling as her daughter. Things were like that for him for almost another seven years until his mother was crippled in some kind of internal struggle and they were tossed out again," she explained, trying to be brief because the details she'd gotten from Wu Ling had contained so much more that she didn't want the other woman to know or think about. "He borrowed her outfits to play zither at tea houses or anything else he could do to earn enough money to take care of her."
"So he isn't really trying to live this way," Huang Yeyan said, staring at his soft features and trying to imagine a world where he'd grown up as an elegant young master instead of being forced into one method of hiding or another. Perhaps he'd have led a happier life but she doubted he'd have become so extraordinary without the extraordinary circumstances and challenges he'd faced. Certainly, she'd never have met him in such a world.
Gently, Huang Yeyan reached up to stroke Hou's feathers as the bird watched over his master from her shoulder. "You have a pretty amazing master, Little Hou," she said. "Not many people could live a life like his. Is that why he refused to run away when the bear attacked?" Alchemist Huang asked, returning her attention to Su Xiang. "Was it because he wouldn't give up on earning the Lunar Eclipse Lotus Blossom for his mother?"
"Maybe that's part of it," Su Xiang acknowledged. "But I don't think he knows how to let go and fail. He's… sharper than he was when we were children," she continued sadly. "I think he's lost so many things that he fights really hard for everything else."
"Are you really just his sworn sister? The way you speak about him, it's almost like you're a lover worried about her man," the alchemist said, watching the younger woman closely for her reaction.
"No, it's not like that," Su Xiang said, shaking her head gently. "He's the only one who understands me, one of the only people who really trusts me… He's my best friend, my sworn brother, my chosen family," she rambled. "Maybe in the future, it'll be different but right now, we just found each other again after ten years apart. I just don't want to be pulled apart again."
"I see," Huang Yeyan said, pulling her gaze away from the broken beauty and returning it to Su Xiang. "I've been trying to think this whole time, 'Has Wu Ling ever taken advantage of us?' He's never once approached the places we bathed. He's never once intruded into another carriage when he shouldn't. Instead, he warned me when he noticed enemies I'd never even considered. He eliminated two-thirds of the men who would have assaulted us without even fighting them. In the end, he stood against a monster that whole groups of men would attempt to hunt and he brought it down alone because you had to go keep us safe from even more monsters," she concluded, her voice trailing off as though she had an important decision to make.
"Return to your tent and bring back a change of clothes for your sworn sister," the alchemist said at last, placing additional weight on the word 'sister.' "You should bring a change for yourself as well. I'll arrange a bed for you next to him, you probably want to be close when sleeping beauty finally wakes up. I'll tell the camp to leave us alone and that you're both sleeping in my tent tonight so I can mind your injuries. I won't tell anyone about him," she promised. "But I won't just forget about him either. I hope, after all this, that I can see him when he's not hiding his real self."