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( the hesitation is noted, an uncomfortable sort of stillness to jiang wanyin's posture - as though all of this is something he's putting himself through despite having decided to check in on xingchen in the first place. )

It isn't, ( he assures, and this is normally where he would stand to go put on a pot of tea, but he doesn't. instead he pauses for a moment, and - ) If you would rather not linger here, I understand. You meant to check in on me, and you see now that I'm alive and well. ( jiang wanyin is a welcome guest, but xingchen would rather he not stay out of any sense of obligation. )

No. [ It's curt and maybe not the best way to go about convincing Xiao Xingchen that he does want to be here but at least he can't see the frustrated scowl on his face. ] I didn't come all the way to Bavan just to leave right away. A message would have sufficed.

[ Only that actually isn't quite right since he had been worried he wouldn’t tell him the truth. He would have come to check on him anyway. They may not have known another well at home but here this daozhang who refuses to be called one is the only tie to the life Jiang Cheng should be living.

He huffs. ] Let's just have tea. I... am not the best company lately.

( it's true, a message would have sufficed. xingchen honestly just doesn't know jiang wanyin well enough yet to confidently guess at why he does what he does. in this case, he doesn't know him well enough to know quite how responsible the man feels for the first other person who comes from his world, and he doesn't know how far out of the way that sense of responsibility might drag him.

but the offered out is declined, and at the very least xingchen has to take his ally's words at face value. he smiles, perhaps a bit too warmly for the semi-formal distance jiang wanyin would prefer to maintain. ) You're fine company, ( he says, moving to stand now as he tacks on a dry, ) Certainly better than I left behind. ( and he's stepping smoothly around the table, heading for the so-called kitchen area to set about putting water on to boil. (he's careful to grab one billowing sleeve as the other hand reaches to toggle the stove knob - a lesson he nearly learned the hard way in recent days.)

as he steps back from the stove again, his voice raises just enough to be sure that he's heard across the distance. ) If what I say makes any difference, know that you don't need to worry about the quality of your company. So long as you'd like company at all, you'll have it. ( it's perhaps as casual as such words could be, 'gaze' still on the pot on the stove so as to take a bit of the pressure off in that sense as well. )

[ Jiang Cheng watches him work at the stove, taking in how well he has learned to handle himself already. Maybe it's nothing special to him, being used to being blind, but to Jiang Cheng who has struggled to adjust to this new world even with seeing eyes, it's pretty impressive how Xiao Xingchen is mastering it while unable to even see this new world he has found himself in. ]

Thank you, you're very kind [ is all he has to say in response to the reassurance about the quality of his company, though he is still thinking about what he had said about the company he had left behind. Xue Yang, or speaking of the cultivation world in general? Well, it probably doesn't matter, it's not like Jiang Cheng can ask too many questions about either. ]

Is there truly nothing you need? [ He pauses, considering how this might come across as patronizing in light of his blindness and self-sufficiency and adds, ] You may be a rogue cultivator, but you are still a respected cultivator of our world. It is my duty as leader of a great sect. [ Not quite sure what is his duty as leader of a great sect here, though, so he's leaving that one for Xiao Xingchen to fill in the blanks. ]

( he had indeed been speaking of xue yang, and in retrospect feels a bit bad that his statement indirectly cast aspersions on a-qing as well. she was wonderful company, and honestly, so too had xue yang been for years. it's difficult, in his head, to see the person he fought with at the end as the person he lived alongside all that time. as if xue yang arrived all of a sudden and killed his nameless companion just like he did with baixue temple.

it's complicated. xingchen has discovered by now that no amount of trying to set it to order in his head ever actually manages to do so, so he has fallen back into trying not to dwell on it.

the question doesn't come across as patronizing so much as perhaps unnecessarily worried, which he takes no particular offense to. ) I appreciate your concern, but I'm managing well enough. All that remains is to learn more about this place - I thought I might venture about like you have, once my change begins and I know if I'm fit for travel. ( that's another thing he has achieved, the ability to discuss such things relatively casually rather than with the dawning dread that first beset him when he learned of his inevitable fate. )

[ Honestly, Jiang Cheng has to admire the ease with which Xiao Xingchen is able to speak of his changes, when he had spent his first month in frantic denial ~~and obsessive care for his baby lizard~~. He, on the other hand, faces the reality that is ahead of him with what seems to be unflinching acceptance, even accomodating it already in his plans. Maybe the change would be kinder to someone not hiding from it. ]

I was very sick during my first fog but from what I hear, that is unusual. I think you will enjoy traveling. There is so much to see and explore, there are so many ruins and the cultures of the locals are very different from our own. You should visit Rota, the people there are friendly towards monsters as long as they are friendly in turn. [ He goes quiet for a moment, head bowed. ] And when you are out there, traveling, it feels almost like just another night hunt.

( in truth, the ease is likely quite short-lived - but right now he finds himself in a unique situation, in which he has an unprecedented number of dire things to fixate on but an even greater-than-normal need to regain his mental-emotional balance and stability. and since he spends the vast majority of his hours in this new world by himself, he has had time to systematically examine each of those things, to consider whether thinking about them is helpful (conducive to problem-solving, for example) or just serves to destabilize him further.

most often, it's the latter. his death and its impermanence is the latter. xue yang is the latter. what xingchen has done is also the latter, but he refuses to let himself hide from what he has done under the guise of practicality, so that one remains. but hiding from the inevitability of his shift into some unknown beast? it seems to him like attempting to cross a river by half-broken boat rather than simply learning to swim. it might be fine for now, but one day it would capsize and xingchen would drown - and as both a diligent man and one who has already drowned once in such a way, he refuses to put himself at risk of such a thing again.

the description of the land around them is, perhaps, one of the most positive things he has heard jiang wanyin say of this place, and it brings a quiet smile back to xingchen's lips. ) That sounds wonderfully refreshing, after spending time in a city such as this.

It is. [ His voice has softened, as has his face, and even Jiang Cheng’s taut body language has relaxed somewhat. He leans against the counter right next to the stove, arms crossed over his chest while he watches Xiao Xingchen prepare the tea. ]

We've been learning a lot about the land and the people. There is also a lot I have recently learned from my contacts, who stand against the Fog God. We will have to talk about that. [ Things like the fact the Day and Night God the locals worship seem to have been as tangible a presence once as the Fog God is now, and might still be around even if just a lingering presence clinging to the mortal world. That they will be human again if they leave this place, though that's something he doesn't believe or trust yet. But right now... ]

The hunger is easier to control when I'm not around so many people.

( the softening of jiang wanyin's voice is a hard-won feat, and it pleases xingchen more than his expression lets on. instead, he appears for all intents and purposes to turn back to the tea as if checking on it, a reflex held over from when he could see such a thing.

in turn, he hears jiang wanyin stand, hears him cross the distance into the kitchen area and (by the sounds of it) lean against the counter just next to the stove. xingchen's weight shifts subtly onto his other foot, but it's less a distancing movement than a thoughtless and inexplicably domestic sort of welcome - as if he's making room for the man's arrival. he only belatedly notices he's done it, silly and senseless as it was, and he's glad for an actual substantial topic of conversation at hand to turn his attention to. )

Have you thought about keeping a record of what you've learned? ( no, that doesn't answer any part of what was said directly, but he'll get back to that. ) Ink and paper - the gods can't read that, can they?

I did think about it, vaguely. [ In that way of thinking how useful it would be, but he had never really thought about going ahead with it or even the logistics of it. ] It would be useful to have written records. While messages on the network can be looked up again, that's hardly practical after a while. And I know I'm starting to mix up what I was told. [ He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. ] There is just so much which makes no sense at the time you are told of it and is hard to keep straight who told you what, and how trustworthy the source is.

[ As a sect leader, parsing information has always been part of his job but it's different here, where he lacks even the most basic context for what he is told, and all he gets are incomprehensible scraps of information dropped in passing. Often at times of high emotion, too. ]

By all I know it's correct that the gods only have access to our computers, though I would have to ask Majima Goro or Tsukikage to make sure. Ink and paper would certainly be safer, at least.

Edited 2020-08-23 13:43 (UTC)

( oh, xingchen can certainly relate to receiving senseless information and only later receiving the context that would have parsed it properly. he himself has only understood about half of what he's learned, in part because much of it came at a particularly troubling moment in his life (or potentially afterlife, as he thought at the time), and he absolutely could have benefited from writing it down and coming back to it later. )

I'd thought I might take up such record-keeping myself, if only to keep the details clear in my mind. If you'd like, I could certainly record what you've learned as well. It would be an effective way to keep me apprised, if it's not too presumptuous to assume you'd prefer that I be.

Of course I want to keep you informed. [ Curt, again, but firm. Xiao Xingchen is the first one from his world to join him here, the first cultivator, and even if he didn't genuinely like the man he would still consider him a natural ally. That he does like him promises the cooperation might even be pleasant. All the better. That it is a fellow cultivator keeping records will make it easier, too, they can communicate in a common language, no confusion about terms or backgrounds. ]

I would appreciate it if you could keep records for us. Available to others who are on our side, too, and maybe they too would contribute. Most of what I have learned I have only learned by chance, when I asked about an off-hand mention. The ones who have been here for long don't consider that we don't know as much as they do.

( as the earliest sounds of boiling begin to rumble within the kettle, jiang wanyin explains what he'd like such a record to accomplish, earning a considering brow-knit from xingchen. )

Is there a simple means by which to copy such records and make them available to the others, or would it be done by hand? ( he's not entirely sure quite how many allies they have, but the latter sounds like quite an undertaking.

meanwhile the kettle begins to whistle, and he once again grabs his sleeve to reach out over the stove and turn off the burner, swapping the kettle to a cool one before collecting a couple of the hand-bagged teas most similar to that which was served in their homeland and depositing them in the kettle. )

[ Well, thing is that he hadn't thought that far, so he hesitates and remains silent while he mulls over that, just watching Xiao Xingchen work on preparing their tea. ]

I don't think copies would be much help, since they would have to be kept updated along with the original. And it would be far too much work. I also don't think there is a list or any kind of formalized alliance of those who stand against the Fog... at least not anymore. No, I think it might be easier if you keep the records, and permitted others to read them, in exchange for contributing their own information.

( xingchen listens, nodding thoughtfully. he's not entirely positive of the practicality of having to hunt him down just to consult the records, but he can understand the reasoning. )

In exchange? ( that part did catch particular attention, because - ) And what if they have no information to share? ( this is, perhaps, the same subtle debate he has had with many a cultivator in the past - does a person not deserve protection just because they can't pay for a cultivator's services? does a person not deserve to know of their situation even if they have no insight to contribute? )

They must have something to share [ he counters briskly, not particularly interested in lingering on this point. He can see where Xiao Xingchen is going and that's alright for a daozhang but it's not how a sect leader can afford to think. Sects provide a service and they expect to get paid for it. ] I suppose it's different if they actively contribute to our cause but if it's just idle curiosity they should give something in return. It's only fair.

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