Backlash Part 1

Chapter 152: Silence in the Flame Palace

Wen Qing likes order. She likes having a plan and a few ideas of how to address potential complications. This has helped her a lot growing up. Especially when she had to try and navigate Qishan and the life threatening politics it contained. Wen Qing can adapt. She would not be half as good of a doctor if she could not. So while she can improvise, she still prefers being prepared with a well thought out plan.

Wen Qing wanted to have a perfect ironed out plan for getting Nie Mingjue out of the Flame Palace. She had spent hours, days, devoted to coming up with a perfect plan. She had a list of problems to solve and had been working on ideas to circumvent them with mixed success. It was with no small amount of consideration when she decided to abandon her attempts and rush into action.

Meng Yao had left Qishan. He had been ordered to accompany Wen Rouhan out of Nightless City. Wen Qing did not know why and she didn't care. What she cared about was the knowledge that for two days the Flame Palace would not have its Principle Torturer. Wen Qing could not pass up this opportunity.

Meng Yao was absolutely obsessed with Nie Mingjue and this was one of the barriers Wen Qing could not think of a good way around. He visited Nie Mingjue frequently, from what Wen Qing had been able to glean. Not always to do anything particularly active. Active torture, 'conversations', with such an important prisoner were almost exclusively conducted with a healer present. Since Wen Qing was the best, that healer was usually her. Meng Yao visited Nie Mingjue a lot more than what Wen Qing was present for.

Wen Qing was not certain why, or what Meng Yao could be doing. Interrogation seemed unlikely without active torture. Gloating was a possibility. Some chatty Flame Palace cultivators were happy to mock Nie Mingjue's state and gloat over getting to be present for any of his stay. From what Wen Qing was able to translate between their boasting Meng Yao seemed to just enjoy seeing Nie Mingjue weak and humiliated.

The first thing Wen Qing did was send a message to Lan Xichen. She needed to act fast, but she needed Lan Xichen and his allies to act fast as well. Wen Qing had a strategy to get Nie Mingjue to Dafan, but without help ready to receive him this would ultimately fail. Wen Qing could tell them the layout of Dafan. The position of troops there. She could tell them how long she expected it to take to get Nie Mingjue to Dafan. She could tell them she expected more troops to arrive shortly after. She couldn't make the allied cultivators get there in time. She had to trust Lan Xichen to do that part.

Wen Qing wrote out as much detail as she could. She even drew a map. Then she went to find her didi. She did not ask Lan Xichen if this was feasible on his end, or for suggestions about timing. Meng Yao rarely ever left Qishan. They didn't have the luxury to wait and hope for another convenient absence. This either worked now or it didn't work at all.

Meng Yao was enough of a control freak that no active torture would be conducted while he was gone. Wen Qing considered this a blessing. The Flame Palace cultivators would treat it like a vacation. The number of cultivators in the Flame Palace would be at a minimum. With Meng Yao unable to oversee them, those who did remain might slack in their duties.

Wen Qing made herself scarce as her didi brought alcohol to the guards of the Flame Palace. Not being there to watch over Wen Qionglin made her skin itch, but Wen Qing held herself back. Wen Qionglin was not intimidating. He was the sort of person people forgot about. That was exactly what they needed right now. If Wen Qing was present the cultivators might be too nervous about being caught drinking amidst their duties. Wen Qionglin was non-threatening in a way that Wen Qing was not.

Wen Qing waited until her didi came to fetch her. Most of Nightless City was continuing on like everything was normal. Honestly, seeing some cultivators get drunk while their supervisor was away was a pretty normal affair. Wen Qing hoped to complete this entire ordeal with no one outside of the Flame Palace even blinking.

Wen Qing was not sure when she last felt so restless. She busied herself by gathering everything she needed and writing a few more meaningless entries in plain ink into the book she used to communicate with Lan Xichen. It was not necessary to have many fake entries written in it. A few were enough to provide camouflage. Adding a few more did give her something to do while she waited for the drugged wine to make its rounds through the cultivators still stationed at the Flame Palace.

Drugging the wine had actually been Wen Qionglin's idea. Wen Qing was not certain how she felt about that. Somewhere between disapproving and proud. She did recommend a different addition than what he had thought of. He had wanted to promptly knock all the cultivators out. However, unless they wanted to knock out all of Nightless City, Wen Qing felt that was a bit too suspicious.

Wen Qing opted for a different approach. Something a bit more in line with inebriation. After all, if the cultivators seemed black out drunk and didn't remember too well what happened when they were drinking... Well, who was to say whether they actually consumed enough alcohol to have that effect? How many of them would want to admit to becoming so drunk they forgot everything they did. There was no need for anyone to think the symptoms were caused by more than just alcohol.

Wen Qing breathed a sigh of relief when she could finally walk into the Flame Palace. The guards were laughing happily, appearing to have the best of times. Their speech was so slurred that Wen Qing could not decipher what they were saying. However, since they were about as distractable as Jin Guangshan in a brothel, figuring out what they were saying did not seem to be all that important. Wen Qing walked right past the guards and they didn't do much more than grin stupidly at her before they started swaying and laughing once more.

Wen Qionglin had spent several hours delivering alcohol around the Flame Palace. He carried a tray with cups and a few more jars. If anyone was still sober enough to question his presence, they would easily understand he was still here offering libations. Wen Qing still hated the idea of leaving him in the hallway alone while she entered the room where Nie Mingjue was being kept.

The door closing behind Wen Qing felt ominous. Wen Qing had always hated the Flame Palace. Ending up here, or worse having her didi end up here, had been a threat that haunted her footsteps for years. It had been the boogeyman that scared a very young Wen Qing who had been a little too obstinate for Wen Rouhan's tastes following her father's death. Wen Rouhan never said the words, 'behave or I will lock your didi in the Flame Palace.' He never explicitly said, 'I will have him tortured every time you step out of line.' The message had been just as clear as if he had said those words out loud.

Wen Qing let the unusual quiet of the Flame Palace settled around her. For once no one was being actively tortured. Any quiet whimpers of prolonged suffering were too muffled to carry through the hallways. For some reason a silent Flame Palace felt more terrifying than when Wen Qing could hear all of the screams.