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[snowsparksjr]

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[secondjade]

Lan Wangji nods, and believes him. He thinks Sizhui is adapting fairly quickly too - it is the advantage of youth.

"Summoned as I must request a heavy favour."

He picks up the paper, places it in front of Jin Ling, and hands him a brush.

"Clear that I need all information possible. Events from Dafan Mountain, onward."

[snowsparksjr]

Jin Ling doesn’t find it that heavy of a favor. He wants everyone to know what he does, and he finds it maddening that Lan Wangji and Sizhui are still missing some of the important details.

So with no argument whatsoever, he picks up the brush and starts to write.

His account is highly biased and rather disjointed. Earlier events are skewed by later perspectives. Asides and opinionated commentary are frequent. He keeps remembering additional details and adding them in later. So even though his memory is good, the final results are a disorganized mess. Also his penmanship is terrible and his hands are now covered in ink.

[secondjade]

Ah. Hmm.

He takes the finished stack of paper, and starts to read through the first page, outlining Dafan mountain. As this particular part is something he also experienced, he knows that it's... well... a little biased. And the calligraphy...

He sets the stack down, then takes another stack of paper, putting it in front of himself. He copies out the first two sentences that Jin Ling wrote in a fine, delicate hand, correcting the grammar, and then puts it and the stack of paper back in front of Jin Ling.

"Again. Focus. Clear mind, absent emotion."

[snowsparksjr]

Jin Ling gives him a furious glare and puts down the brush indignantly. "Why? You wanted information. I'm giving you everything I remember, and I wrote it down for you as a favor. Why should I have to do it again? This isn't some kind of official testimony. There are only six of us here, and we're not going to remember any of this when we go home. If this isn't good enough for you, then get your information from somebody else!"

[secondjade]

He considers silencing him, but... the boy has a point. So he just carefully puts his brush down.

"Education my responsibility." His tone is even, and low, especially compared to Jin Ling's outburst. He puts his hand on the stack he was provided. "Your testimony is received. Will be fully considered. For own benefit, I task rewriting. Meditated on."

He paused, struggling to put into words what he meant, but like with Sizhui before him, he now considered it very important to actually teach Jin Ling.

"Meng Yao very adept at framing words," he settled on, finally. He had to be, to have fooled everyone for so long. "To combat lies, truth must be clear."

This is probably the most he's said to Jin Ling at one time.

[snowsparksjr]

Jin Ling continues glaring at him, breathing heavily, as Lan Wangji talks.

The basis for his temper is cut out from under him as Lan Wangji assures him that his testimony has been received and will be fully considered.

He's right about Meng Yao being adept at framing words, and Jin Ling has seen very clearly how he had used that even in a combat situation to regain control and tragically shift events.

To combat lies, truth must be clear. That's a skill he wants, to be able to cut through deception with pure clarity.

With one last sharp glare and a huff, he presses his palms together, takes a deep breath, and calms himself. Then he picks up the pen and starts again, more focused on re-creating the narrative in as clear an orderly a manner as he can.

[secondjade]

While Jin Ling writes, Wangji reads.

It's clear that it's not a full account, but he didn't expect it to be - Jin Ling, after all, could not be part of all events. He would not be privy to all that happened, and certainly not privy to Wangji's thoughts on the matter. Those truths would continue to lie in darkness, for him. But the rest...

Dafan mountain matches his own testimony, save for the fact that Jin Ling had clearly had others helping him, at the time, but he puts that up to the boy's own boastful nature rather than an attempt at deception.

His body stilled a little as he read through the description of Yi City, a piercing sorrow gutting him, even if it didn't reach his face. Xaio Xingchen and Song Lan... He'd admired them, as a young man, and then watched fate destroy them. It was difficult to read of their ultimate fate, but he was careful to try not to let that show, to Jin Ling.

He kept reading, through all of it, until he came at last to the final pages. To Guanyin Temple and the final confrontation.

He knew he was missing pieces - there were references made to meetings that the juniors weren't privy to - but it seemed pretty damning, as a whole.

Once finished, he set the papers back in front of him, and then looked up to see how Jin Ling was doing with his second copy.

"... Much missed," he murmurs lowly. He feels the lack of memory far too keenly.

[snowsparksjr]

Jin Ling looks up at the words, initially defensive because he thinks it's a critique of him leaving things out. But then he sees how Lan Zhan looks sorrowful, and he understands.

"Yeah. Now you understand why I'm so angry that none of the rest of you remember this." Remember him, specifically. Everything they went through together. Everything that Hanguang-Jun and Wei Wuxian came to mean to him.

The second version is more clear and careful, slower paced and more based on the sense description and the straightforward facts of each moment. Once his boasting is cooled and his desperation to communicate his testimony has been set aside, Jin Ling's an empathetic writer with a memory for details. Because of this, the second version changes in significant ways and contradicts the first in minor details--the accomplishments of others come into the picture more clearly, and Jin Ling even hints at his own weaknesses.

I faced off against the Ghost General when he came near Sizhui from the original versoin has become Wen Ning approached us and spoke to Sizhui, asking about his name and parentage. He called me Jin Rulan and I became very upset.

[secondjade]

"Great burden, set on you." Carrying that sort of knowledge, by one's self, not able to rely on the people they'd grown to trust...

He takes the second report and carefully reads it over, noting the details. He was right to ask Jin Ling to do it again - he's clearly thinking about it past his initial rush of emotion, now.

He says nothing while he reads, and then he sets the both copies next to each other, and raises his eyes to Jin Ling.

"Zewu-jun will be asked to give the same." He wants Jin Ling to know that he is taking this burden of memory and knowledge very seriously - nothing to be left out.

"Important matter at hand: Meng Yao."

[snowsparksjr]

Jin Ling looks down at the mention of his uncle's name.

It helps that Lan Wangji has already put him in an introspective mood and gotten him confessing, so that he doesn't put up any defenses or think about anything other than handing the matter over to someone he trusts to help him with it.

"It was easier when he was dead," he says, echoing the same words he said to his uncle over the network. "And I could simply mourn him."

His shoulders hunch inward and he hugs himself. "He raised me. I love him." His voice cracks and he begins to quiver. "I don't know if he really will try to kill me. He didn't want me dead. He had the string at my throat, but it was only to subdue the rest of you. It was only because he was desperate. But... I'm not sure. He has as much reason to kill me as he did to kill..." Swallowing, he hiccups as tears start to spill out of him. "Why would he let me live? I'm old enough. If we were home and he was alive, I could claim his place as Sect Leader. Here... I'm not so scared now that everyone knows, now that he can't just kill me to keep me quiet. But who knows what reasons he might have to want me dead, even here."

[secondjade]

His eyes lower, looking back to the pages in his hands.

"... Unable to predict further intent," he murmured lowly. "Clear will go to great lengths, in pursuit of goals, even against those loved."

He looked up again, watching Jin Ling carefully.

"Trust not recommended, in any capacity."

[snowsparksjr]

"I know that," Jin Ling says, soft and quiet.

Then, with a sharp little flare of temper. "I know that. That's why I've been so paranoid. That's why I moved in with Sizhui."

And yet he also knows and fears that his paranoia is going to falter. He misses Meng Yao, and he's already seen how persuasive he can be. Somehow, this standoff he's created will have to end. He can't spend the rest of his life sniping at Meng Yao from across the network.

He just doesn't know what the alternative is. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do next. And of the four men who he trusted to guide him, one has betrayed him, one is not present, and two have forgotten him. Sizhui is all he has left, and Jin Ling is desperately ready to falter in his careful defenses if it will give him one more protective mentor figure in his life.

[secondjade]

He lowered his eyes. Good. Sizhui would look after him. He had utter faith in him - he knew he would look out for and protect Jin Ling. So he nodded his quiet approval.

"If trouble, summon." It was something he always told his juniors, of course. They were even provided talismans to that effect. He trusted them to deal with things on their own, for the most part, but he was never far away if they needed him to step in.

"Will not be allowed to harm you."